Often in sermons ministers persuade their audience to behave in a spiritual or moral fashion. Such is the case in Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" where he big time wanted to impact his audience by appealing to the fears , pity and vanity.Edward had a Tremendous impact on his puritan audience because of his angry tone, vivid imagery and use of expressive figurative language. In" Sinners in the hands of an an angry God" Edward (the author) uses a large sum of figurative language. Metaphor is one type of figurative language he uses to compare too or more things. In paragraph 1 line 1-3 he uses extended metaphor to compare the ease of God's …show more content…
destruction of sinners to that of killing insects . Also he uses personification, an example of that would be in paragraph 6 line 5 which states "...that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood." he gives the arrow human quality,as a type of animal that drinks blood and a human that get drunk on alcohol but instead of alcohol its blood to open his audience eyes of all that can happen if they sin. Edward's use of expressive figurative language emphasis his point to the puritan article. Furthermore, in Edward's sermon he uses an angry tone towards his audience. his tone will not only get his point across but also make the sinners want to do the right thing by changing their ways and not anger God. In paragraph 4 line 5-9 it shows the anger that the lord has towards sinners and the consequences of them doing wrong towards him.There is nothing that can make the lord not execute a sinner at any given moment.Edwards angry tone is very expressive showing the vanity of sinners to the puritan audience and not end up in that category . Additionally, in Edwards sermon he uses very vivid imagery.He uses descriptive details of how hell is ;so sinners would do right before God if they don’t want their life life to end a certain way shown in( paragraph 4 line 1-3).
Also he goes into details of how powerful gods anger is. another vivid imagery example is in paragraph 5 lines 7-8 as he states "The devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about no means within reach that can be any security for them." He says this so that the sinners in his audience can have a vivid image in their minds of what happens when they sin also to put fear into their souls. Edward use very vivid imagery in his sermon to make a clearer image for the puritan audience . In conclusion, Edward's sermon had a tremendous impact on his puritan audience because of his vexed tone, vivid imagery,and use of figurative language.Those characteristics he used to put fear into his audience so they that they will do right by God and not sin against him. Those who use to sin against God in the audience will not do it anymore if they don't want to end in the wrath of an angry
God.