Jonathan Edwards Rhetorical Analysis

A religious revival swept through America during the 1730s, particularly in Puritan New England. Religious fervor, the reason the colonists moved to the Americas so they could get away from the religiously oppressive king, had been on the decline for some time, and after the Salem Witch trials, religion was viewed as being somewhat oppressive. Powerful sermons were used to convert people back to being astutely religious. Jonathan Edwards was a particularly influential speaker at time. He was known for his condemnation of non-followers of Christ, and was a very influential speaker at the time. In his sermon, Edwards condemns sinners and calls for them to repent so that they may be saved from the wrath of an angry God. Edwards makes this argument

through the use of metaphor, vivid imagery, and a strong use of language.
Edwards uses metaphors as a way to make the sermon more relatable to the congregation he is preaching to, while also getting his message across.

He says "Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell, and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf; and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you, and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock". By comparing humans to spiders, Edwards comments both on the frailty of human nature, and the human dependence on God, whom he believes to be unmerciful and wrathful. Humanity's dependence on God being merciful is a trend throughout the sermon. Another metaphor Edwards makes is that "The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present: they increase more until more and more and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given". In other words, God's wrath has been slowly building, and as more and more of man's sins accumulate, so does his wrath. Eventually, his wrath will overflow and burst out, leaving the sinners at the mercy of a very vengeful God. Here, Edwards makes an appeal to the heart, hoping members of the congregation will be influenced by his descriptions of what is in store for them as he describes humanity's weakness and their

need to repent.
A recurring metaphor that Edwards uses is that of the slippery slope. He says, "their foot shall slide in due time." This means that once someone sins they can fall into a routine where they continually sin more and more. Once a person has weakened their will, and has done themselves moral harm by sinning, it becomes easier and easier to sin because this person has become desensitized to sinning and doing morally wrong. If someone puts themselves at risk by choosing to sin, they not only do themselves harm by sinning at that moment, but they also do themselves harm by weakening their moral will, causing them to sin more, causing them to test God's mercy over and over again.
One of Edward's most useful tactics is the imagery, which he uses to convince the people of his fearful image. He describes the punishment that awaits sinners after they have faced the judgment of God, which would be Hell. He describes the fiery oven and the flood of God's vengeance. Similar to the metaphor of the spider, Edwards uses a second insect image to relate God's relationship with humans. The image of a loathsome insect, which disgusts humans, is related to God's view of humans; Edwards believes that God is disgusted by human in the same way that humans are disgusted by an insect. Furthering the insect image, Edwards describes a scene in which God is holding us over an oven similar to how a human would decide to kill or not kill a spider. God is able to cut the thread that is preventing us from burning in hell at any time, and it is only through his mercy that we are able to be saved. If God chose to cut the thread, we would have no way to save ourselves and are entirely dependent on the grace of God.
Another image Edwards uses is storm clouds that are hanging over our head. "There are the black Clouds ofGod's Wrath now hanging directly over your Heads, full of the dreadful Storm, and big with Thunder; and were it not for the restraining Hand of God it would immediately burst forth upon you." This is another analogy for Edwards' point that we are constantly at the mercy of God. In this example, the audience is threatened with storm clouds about to burst open above them, making them defenseless against thunder and lightning. Edwards claims that it is only because God wills the storm clouds to be restrained that we are not faced with their might. This is an especially good example to use for the congregation, because while some other metaphors may be more lofty, the threat of weather and an uncertain climate is something that Puritans would have been able to easily understand, especially since most of the audience were farmers and were very susceptible to storms and their unpredictability.
Edward invokes the use of pathos through strong imagery in this sermon to put fear into the audience so that they will return to piety.

Edwards plays on the pathos of the crowd making them feel anxiety, fear, and nervousness about being sent to hell and makes them scared of what God could do if they make Him angry. Edwards main point here is that God is just barely holding back his wrath and if the people of New England did not repent and go back to living a pious lifestyle then a Noah's Ark type event could happen soon. Edwards also uses his ethos to make his sermon more effective since Edwards was a well known and respected preacher from his time, meaning he would be an authority figure on the subject. Edwards came from a long line of preachers and was respected and known in the community around him. Along with his use of ethos and pathos Edwards does employ logos. The logos he uses is that one will go to Hell if they don't do good things and are bad people. Normally a person is able to deduce this without being told so, but Edwards spins it in a way to put the most fear into the

audience.
Edwards' Sermon was one that used many literary tools to get across his point. During a time of religious unrest he delivered this speech to get the people back to living a holy lifestyle and to solidify the group that he already had. Edwards was an influential person at the time and was able to draw on ethos, pathos, and logo to convince the masses of what he was saying. Edwards' final point is that we as humans have made God very angry and if we continue to make him angry he will release his wrath because currently he is just holding back the anger and saving us.