Preview

None

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
295 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
None
Amanda Sanchez
Mr. Murchie
AP English Lang. Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan pastor who gave a sermon about how all unconverted men would go to hell because they are going against God. This sermon was meant for his congregation. His purpose in preaching this sermon was to persuade people to be pure Puritans. He persuades his congregation by talking about how God is the master of everything they do and being an unconverted Puritan would send them to hell, which is why Puritans must convert. Edwards’ main point throughout his sermon is that people must be devoted Puritans because anyone who strays off the path of God will be seen as un-pure in the eyes of God and will go straight to hell. In his sermon Edwards uses different types of figurative language in order to persuade his congregation. One thing he is really big on is his use of metaphors. “Uncovered men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen.” This is one of the metaphors he uses and it’s powerful because it goes along with what he is trying to say, unconverted Puritans will burn in hell. This is also a form of ethos because it’s a form of persuasion. By saying this, it gets his congregation listening to everything he wants them to do because none of them want to end up in hell. This metaphor uses pathos because it gives off a certain type of emotion that can be classified as fear. This sermon makes people who listen to it be afraid of what might happen to them if they don’t listen to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Jonathan Edwards, a famous preacher in pre-colonial times, composed a sermon that was driven to alert and inject neo Puritanical fear into an eighteenth century congregation. This Bible based and serious audience sought after religious instruction and enlightenment. Through the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards offers a very harsh interpretation to humankind. Edwards utilizes various rhetorical techniques to evoke an emotional response in his audience and to persuade the members of his congregation that their wicked actions will awaken a very ruthless and merciless God.…

    • 2220 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the sermon, Edwards' use of imagery gives the audience an image of God holding the sinners over the pits of hell, their fates decided upon God's will. Edward repeats 'wrath' numerous times to emphasize God's power. Edwards also uses metaphors to compare God and humans to numerous things, "Peole who think they can escape Hell on their own have as little chance of doing so as a spider's web has of stopping a falling rock." In this case, Edwards compares the chance of escape from God's wrath to a spider's ability to stop a falling rock. Edwards use of metaphors create another scene to allow the audience to get a visual thought through his words. Edward creates an idea that we humans are just mere puppets that God has control over for his amusement, "...it is only the power…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” from the 1740’s, The American minister Jonathan Edwards, uses similes and metaphors to intimidate and manipulate the hearts of his puritan listeners. He uses a metaphor to dramatize human weakness. He states the human has as much chance of keeping out of hell " as a spider's web would have to stop a fallen rock." Meaning that the sinners will be presumably going to hell if they don’t do something about it. Another metaphor reads, “ The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and might is its course, when once it is let loose .”, meaning that all the sins throughout the time have built up and eventually the damn will break and Gods wrath will be let loose upon the sinners of the world. What the sinners depended on peace and safety but to the angry god, “peace and safety were nothing but thin and empty shadows.” Edwards states, “ you have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.” The sinners have taken advantage of God, used him, manipulated him, but they are the ones that need him the most and they expect him to help them not enter the “wide and bottomless pit, full of fire and wrath.” “God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart and strains the bow, and it’s nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment away from being made drunk with your blood.” Edwards is saying that God would string a bow and point it at your heart to know he means commerce, and he is willing to stick that arrow up your heart just so you would know your lesson. Therefore, Edwards uses many similes and metaphors to…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ uses many literary devices that persuades his audience that all sinners deserve to be dropped into hell and it is all under God’s control. He uses similes and metaphors to make a comparison of God’s anger to the sinner’s punishments. Repetition is another method he uses in his sermon.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the Great Awaking on July 8, 1741 a minister named Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon of warning to all sinners called “Sinner in the Hand of an Angry God”. Edwards’s sermon brought people of all kinds to tears and to collapse in dread. In Edwards’s sermon he preaches the greats fear of all sinners, full of hellish metaphors, loaded diction, and vivid imagery to scare all sinners into being reborn.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    After reading this story sometimes you have to sit back and imagine the audiences’ minds after receiving this information. You wonder how fast the mind processes all of the negative comments and stories. In the second paragraph of the sermon Jonathan Edwards says “God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    none

    • 2449 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The patient is a 36 year old male who came to the hospital because of an episode of hematemesis. The patient stated that for the past few days he had had anorexia and epigastric pain, which was worse if he tried to eat. An NG tube was placed and drained a small amount of bright red blood, as well as some coffee-ground material. Hemoccult test showed dark, tarry stool and positive for occult blood. The patient is a 21 year old male who presented with a history of sudden onset of abdominal pain, first generalized, and then localizing to the RLQ. The pain was accompanied with anorexia and nausea. It has become increasingly more severe over the past 3 hours so that the patient now cannot walk. He had one episode of vomiting, and has a low-grade fever of 100. On examination the patient was in acute distress due to pain. Palpation of the abdomen showed generalized tenderness with marked pain in the RLQ and rebound pain. STAT CBC showed leukocytosis of 21,000. Abdominal ultrasound was ordered.…

    • 2449 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As once a founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin once stated, “do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.” Though this quote might have been years later than 1741 during the time of the Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards gave the inspiring speech “Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God” to puritans who left the church and left Edwards feeling that puritanism was in danger. He uses fear as a tactic to get the unfaithful puritans to rededicate their lives to God and gives them hope to repent for the mistakes they have made. Edwards uses frightful imagery, and violent then hopeful metaphors to get puritans who strayed away from strict religion to come back and have a second chance at a pure life.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering” (Edwards, Jonathan). The Puritans of early America were constantly reminded of the consequences of sinning. They were told that sinning would lead them directly to hell where they would rot. Jonathan Edwards was a very dynamic preacher of his time and his mission was to convert and persuade his audience of sinners. He ensured this through his authoritative sermons with “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” being one of his most famous sermons. In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards uses several rhetorical devices that contribute to the effectiveness of his sermon. Jonathan Edwards’s sermon portrayed Puritans as sinners of their religion through the use of rhetorical…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jonathan Edwards once gave a sermon titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. As a priest it was his duty to persuade his congregation to live a just life free of sins. It was his responsibility to strengthen his congregation’s belief in God and to always guide them down the righteous path. These ideas eventually served as the foundation/ purpose for delivering this speech to the public. In his speech he focuses on the ideas of hell, predetermined destinies, and an angry god. He constantly repeats these topics throughout his speech while incorporating very powerful and dark diction and imagery. His word choice and imagery truly has an impact on the audience. It manipulates the reader’s /listener’s subconscious and leaves them terrified of what future lay ahead for them if they continue to live an immoral life. For example, in paragraph two, sentence four, he states “There is a dreadful glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.” From this sentence alone you are given the impression that the author has a very angry, ominous, condescending, indignant, judgmental, and pessimistic tone. He does all this in an effort to show that God is a very powerful, all knowing being that has control of all aspects of life and death. Although he is understanding and watches over his followers, he has an inescapable grasp and is capable of showing no mercy to sinners. I personally like this piece because it truly persuades the reader/listener to second guess their every move in order to follow the path to virtuousness. I also really enjoyed their powerful use of imagery because with every phrase they used my mind was capable of conjuring up dark images of God’s almighty power and wrath as well as the fiery pit of hell. After closely analyzing this speech and the time…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards, with a contemptuous attitude, attempts to provoke a religious revival in the Puritan communities of colonial America using the very powerful motivator of fear. He instills, very literally, the fear of God within the hearts of unconverted people within the church. Edwards renders his audience emotionally unstable with the terrifying body of his sermon, it allows his conclusion of salvation to be the solution of the entire unconverted congregation.…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He believed that if he could convince enough people that the church is the only way to receive the “grace of god” that it would lead to a mass movement; if enough people went that the rest would follow in their footsteps. Edwards tries to persuade people to return to church by stating that those who attend are happy, “To see so many others feasting, while you are pinning and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit!” (Sinners 1). This method proved to be effective because people returned to the church, they feared for the outcome of their life and sought forgiveness just as their neighbors did. Jonathan Edwards’s beliefs and ideas began to affect people’s everyday lives and restore the church to its former…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edwards used very vivid and terrifying imagery to convey his message to his listeners. His description of hell would have surely frightened and disturbed his audience, to the point where they could not help but listen. Edwards wanted these descriptions of a place where “the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot” to motivate his congregation to accept God and turn away from their wicked ways. Whereas many modern-day preachers would use a more cautious approach to communicating to the audience about the afterlife, Edwards was not afraid to approach this sensitive subject through his use of…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jonathan Edwards Speech

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    These evils would engulf the world if set free without any limitations. By exclaiming that” indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw His hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, then the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.” (1). Jonathan Edwards points out the pious behaviors practiced solely in public, but not behind closed doors which do not lead to salvation. This is the understanding of a man who considers himself the shining beacon of example in following and submitting to God. He appears to see completely through the false followers, but by his own admission God is merciful and holds people in his palm. To convince the new comers and proven members of the flock the author is not afraid to describe the creator as a merciful being, but at the same time full of vengeance. While alive, there is the opportunity to be born anew, but death is looming and people don’t know the time or the day. Therefore in the moment when God does not hold people on his palm anymore they might a undoubtedly will fall into the fiery pits of…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the way Edwards convinces people is by using imagery. He emphasizes the fierceness of God to stir fear in his audience and describes in detail the horrible consequences they would have to endure. His passages describe in detail how a sinner would've damned himself to suffer a "furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit" and would be "held over in the hand" of the God whose wrath they had provoked. In other words, he compares the sinner's pain…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays