Rhetorical Analysis Of Jonathan Edwards 'Great Awakening'

O-occasion for the writing (think “exigence” –time/place/situation): During this time, the Puritans had been moving away from England due to persecution for their beliefs. They sought religious freedom and had migrated to North America. Jonathon Edwards, a Calvinist as well as a Yale minister, had believed that people had become too involved with worldly matters and wealth as opposed to the religious principles of John Calvin. He had become passionate about the topic of predestination, and when confronted with the notion that good deeds may save a soul, he protested with such conviction that he had become one of the factors that had sparked the Great Awakening.

A-audience the writing is directed toward: The writing in this sermon is directed towards Edwards’ fellow puritans. Edwards seems to have a very strong bias when discussing people of other religions/lack thereof (“He that believith not is

condemned already.”). He also utilizes bold claims to support his argument, which mainly relies on the appeal of pathos. Consequently, this would make it a largely ineffective argument when used against agnostics or skeptics, of whom would gravitate closer to the use of logos in an argument. He also berates others for not having a strong enough belief in God, as well as their lack of distress over their sins and their resulting seemingly inevitable descent into Hell. He makes an effort to bring the reader to convert their beliefs to a sort of Calvinism.
P-purpose/reason for writing: The writer’s (Jonathan Edwards) purpose in conceiving this sermon is to evoke a feeling of fear in other puritans through the use of widespread appeal to pathos throughout his work.

In the sermon, he attempts to incite religious fervor among the people living in New England by telling them all that they had sinned, which he may have believed would cause them to repent and turn back to God. He consistently evokes images of pain and suffering in the reader, as demonstrated when Edwards argues that “The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you…,” he later adds “…and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.” He makes an endeavor to diminish skepticism in the reader earlier in the verse, expressing

that

S-speaker’s characteristics/attitudes/views: In the sermon, it becomes evident that Edwards has a strong belief in predisposition, especially when he articulates how “They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them; so that they are bound over already to hell.”

2). The primary topic of his sermon is that men are predisposed to commit sin and a chosen few are allowed to go to heaven. No good deeds can save a man from his “righteous judgement.” Some of the sub-topics addressed in this sermon are also that of God’s wrath (“I will tread them in mine anger , and will trample them in my fury , and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.”), and the fact that God has no compassion for sinners. (“That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength… He will have no compassion upon you.”).

3B). In the sermon, there is a similar abundant use of metaphors as there is in the bible itself.

4).The tone of the overall piece is simply bitter and harsh, taking advantage of the use of pathos to aim to invoke a feeling of fear in the reader. However, this is ineffective due to the fact that the amount of pathos in the sermon is copious, whereas the amount of logical appeal in the work is scarce. This is exemplified when he