Puritan Writing Vs Transcendentalist Writing

The Puritans see God as mysteriously involved in the acts of the universe, whereas the transcendentalists think God is connected to mankind through nature and intuition. The outlook on Puritan writing is that their style tends to be plain and introspective. Transcendentalist writing shows how nature and feelings are triumphant over logic and rationality. In contrast to the plain style of Puritan writing, Jonathan Edwards frequently strikes his audience with powerful words in his literature. He exemplifies this style in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" but still shows the lowliness of human beings in relation to God's power, another Puritan trait. In transcendentalist writing, the spiritual and ideal worlds are revealed through the physical
Obviously, Edwards uses the water held behind a dam as a symbol. The dam represents God's "hand," and the water is His wrath. Comparing this, Edwards tries to explain that the longer the water is held back, the more force it will have when the dam will no longer support it; the longer God puts off judgment of man's sin, the more powerful His punishment. The sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a great example of the Puritan belief of society. A man is ether part of the elect, basically chosen to go to heaven, or of the damned that are sent to hell at God's force.

On the softer side of God's presence, Transcendentalism takes place. Their view is that intuition and nature as a whole is more powerful than intellect. In Emerson's "Nature," there is a strong sense of God being present through the wilderness and the natural way of
When he tells about how the wind, sun, rain, and plant, and how each work together in a cycle to support nature, he is comparing their jobs to God "nourishing" man. Emerson is also trying to say that without nature and its course, man would not survive. The Transcendentalists believe that the physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual and ideal world; an apparent example is that "nature always wears the colors of the spirit," (Emerson, Chapter: Nature). Emerson considers God to be present within physical properties of nature, in this case, color. The use of the word "always" suggests that God and the spiritual world are visible through nature to man no matter the condition. Conversely, do these relations of God and nature apply in any way to man? When a man is described as "a particle of God," (Emerson, Ch: Nature), he is a piece of God and the spiritual world. There is a connection between man and nature because of God's visibility through the environment. Ideally, the Transcendentalists show that man is not only a part of God, but also in