Jonathan Edwards Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God
In Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", the usage of rhetoric and figurative language is used to illustrate its arguments and to help persuade its audience. In the sermon, Edwards attempts to warn his audience against living a life of sin or risk suffering the wrath of God.
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
of suffering to that of a furnace in a metaphor. To further emphasize the degree of commiting sins, Edwards goes into detail how a sinner would hang by a "slender thread" set fire by the "flames of divine wrath", signifying how a sinner would render himself vulnerable to God's judgment.
The tone of voice and style in Edward's sermon evokes an atmosphere of fear. The narrative seems to indirectly address a common sinner, and expresses pity for that sinner for all the suffering he had set up for himself, with the opening words: "O Sinner!". This imaginary sinner is used as a symbol that represents what any person (the people in his audience) could become. By describing the suffering this sinner would have to go through, Edwards makes sure to discourage his audience from commiting sins so they could save themselves from enduring what this sinner would.
Edwards also achieves this by comparing God's anger to that of human kings and princes, stating how little the wrath of a common man is compared to the "wrath of the infinite God" to highlight the immensity of anger a sinner would provoke. Edwards uses metaphors in his comparison, stating that while a king would be like a "roaring lion" who was feared, they were "feeble, despicable worms" and "grasshoppers" compared to the "almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth".
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
of suffering to that of a furnace in a metaphor. To further emphasize the degree of commiting sins, Edwards goes into detail how a sinner would hang by a "slender thread" set fire by the "flames of divine wrath", signifying how a sinner would render himself vulnerable to God's judgment.
The tone of voice and style in Edward's sermon evokes an atmosphere of fear. The narrative seems to indirectly address a common sinner, and expresses pity for that sinner for all the suffering he had set up for himself, with the opening words: "O Sinner!". This imaginary sinner is used as a symbol that represents what any person (the people in his audience) could become. By describing the suffering this sinner would have to go through, Edwards makes sure to discourage his audience from commiting sins so they could save themselves from enduring what this sinner would.
Edwards also achieves this by comparing God's anger to that of human kings and princes, stating how little the wrath of a common man is compared to the "wrath of the infinite God" to highlight the immensity of anger a sinner would provoke. Edwards uses metaphors in his comparison, stating that while a king would be like a "roaring lion" who was feared, they were "feeble, despicable worms" and "grasshoppers" compared to the "almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth".