The Puritan Prayer In Jonathan Edwards's The Great Awakening

708 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The great awakening

The Great Awakening of the eighteenth century was mainly a time of Puritan revival in the young English colonies of North America. Many preachers, or circuit riders, traveled around giving long sermons to engage listeners and persuade them to a life of faithful and committed relationship with God. Jonathan Edwards, a respected circuit rider of the time, used the method of terror to persuade his audiences by giving examples of their impending doom in the afterlife. Edwards persuasion as a speaker was supported by his use of multiple rhetorical elements such as the rhetorical appeals, imagery, symbolism, and thematic discussion. Jonathan Edwards supports his claim of destruction throughout his sermon through his usage of ethos, pathos, and …show more content…

The "pit of fire" is repeated many times as a source of terror for the audience due to the choice of diction. As human instinct goes, a pit of flames is a horrific image to have in our minds, especially if it envisions ourselves inside of it. Edwards uses this because he understands the emotional effect it will have on the audience and that it will persuade them to become better in order to avoid such a heinous life ending. This imagery doubles as a symbol for hell, which to Puritans is where those who have been punished by the Almighty God are sent. Edwards describes hell as such a horrific, painful, hideous, gory, and gruesome place that his audience is almost forced to pursue the ideas of Edwards due to their desperate attempt to avoid this fate. Throughout the sermon, Edwards utilized the rhetorical strategies of rhetorical appeals, imagery, and symbolism to support his statement on the fate of sinners. The audience of Edwards was emotionally moved by his exemplification usage on the descriptions of afterlife punishment and were pushed toward the "purity" in their lifestyle. The Great Awakening was a time of enlightenment that was due to many rhetorically supported preachers who spoke to connect their audiences to the themes of their

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Patrick Henry's Speech in the Virginia Convention: Who Made the Best Argument?

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    Edwards does however lighten the tone at the conclusion of the sermon by explaining how the people c...

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, he preached about a stricter Calvinist theology of Puritanism. Edwards delivered it at the Massachusetts congregation on July 8, 1741. He blatantly uses rhetorical strategies to instill fear into his audience if they are to continue to not be active Puritans in religion. Edwards uses polysyndeton, harsh diction and tone, and the appeal to emotion along with the use of semicolons to develop his message.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Strategies in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

    1373 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edwards applied masses of descriptive imagery in his sermon to persuade the Puritans back to their congregation. For example, he gave fear to the Puritans through this quote, “We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth, so it is easy for us to cut a singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by, thus easy is it for God when he pleases to cast his enemies down to hell…” (pg. 153) In this quotation, he utilized vivid imagery because he wanted the Puritans to visibly imagine what he was saying through his sermon, on how angry God is with them, which made them convert back to Puritanism. Through the use of vivid imagery such as “crush a w...

    Read More

  • The Great Awakening: George Washington Vs. Jonathon Edwards

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edwards died roughly 20 years before the American Revolution, which means he was a British subject at birth and death. Edwards believed that religion is tied to nations and empires, and that revivals were necessary in history. Edwards’ belief in revivals began what is known as The Great Awakening. Edwards’ purpose in ministry was the preaching that God is sovereign, but also loving towards his creation. Since God is sovereign, Edwards claimed that God worked through revolutions and wars to bring the message of the gospel (Marsden, Jonathon Edwards, 4, 9, 197). Edwards’ most known sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was preached to revive the demoralized congregations. The congregations of New England had low memberships within different churches, and competition from denominational pluralism was stagnant (Lukasik, 231). Getting the colonists to return back to God was the mission and purpose of The Great Awakening. Through this, Edwards hoped that this movement will foster a great increase in learning about God (Marsden, Jonathon Edwards,

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast William Bradford And Jonathan Edwards

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    Starting in his younger years, Edwards struggled with accepting the Calvinist sovereignty of God. Various circumstances throughout Edward’s own personal life led to him later believing in the sovereignty of God. Jonathan Edwards is known greatly as a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. Fleeing from his grandfather’s original perspective by not continuing his practice of open communion, there was a struggle to maintain that relationship. Edward’s believed that physical objects are only collections of sensible ideas, which gives good reasoning for his strong religious belief system.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Rhetorical Analysis “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards uses imagery and symbolism to persuade the audience to become more devout Christians by channeling fear and emphasizing religious values. Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan minister who preached during the time of the Great Awakening in America. During this period of religious revival, Edwards wanted people to return to the devout ways of the early Puritans in America. The spirit of the revival led Edwards to believe that sinners would enter hell. Edwards’ sermon was primarily addressed to sinners for the purpose of alerting them about their sins and inspiring them to take action to become more devoted to God.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting the Beliefs of Jonathon Edward and Anne Bradstreet

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    Edwards, who also had Puritan beliefs, was a philosopher and theologian and his way of thinking was more in-depth and complex. He used repetition to drive his sermons home and convinced his congregations of the evils and wickedness of hell through the use of intense analogies. His “fire and brimstone” way of preaching frightened people and made them feel a deep need for salvation. Edwards believed that all humans were natural sinners and God was eagerly awaiting to judge them. He wrote "their foot shall slide in due time" meaning that mankind was full of inevitable sinners.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Pathos In Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    He speaks with some allusions and phrases that show the audience that he is well educated in the subject that he is speaking on. He says that, "Who knows the power of God 's anger" (Edwards 43)? This is an allusion from Psalm 90:11 in the bible and he just assumes that his readers are aware of what he is referring to when he says this. Since Edwards was a respected preacher of that time the sermon meant more to the people because of his qualifications and his experience ("Using" 14). Also throughout his sermon he refers to a happening of that time which was known as the great awakening. When speaking of this Edwards stated "Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were lately in the same condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them" (Edwards 44). He told them about the others who have already came and been converted to Christianity and hopes that showing them the others that have came they would also change their ways and be converted. Also, this being the time of the great awakening he wants the unconverted of his congregation to become a part of it and referencing to this event helps contribute to their

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Enlightenment And Great Awakening

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    People of all groups, social status, and gender realized that they all had voice and they can speak out through their emotional feels of religion. Johnathan Edwards was the first one to initiate this new level of religion tolerance and he states that, “Our people do not so much need to have their heads filled than, as much as have their hearts touched.” Johnathan Edwards first preach led to more individuals to come together and listen. Than after that individual got a sense that you do not need to be a preacher to preach nor you do not need to preach in a church, you can preach wherever you want to. For the first time, you have different people coming together to preach the gospel. You had African American preaching on the roads, Indian preachers preaching and you had women who began to preach. The Great Awakening challenged individuals to find what church meets their needs spiritually and it also let them know about optional choices instead of one. The Great Awakening helped the American colonies come together in growth of a democratic

    Read More

  • Overview of the Second Great Awakening

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Second Great Awakening swept through the United States during the end of the 18th Century. Charles Grandson Finney was one of the major reasons the Second Great Awakening was such a success. Finney and his contemporaries rejected the Calvinistic belief that one was predetermined by go God to go to heaven or hell, and rather preached to people that they need to seek salvation from God themselves, which will eventually improve society has a whole. Finney would preach at Revivals, which were emotional religious meetings constructed to awaken the religious faith of people. These meetings were very emotional and lasted upwards of five days. Revivalism had swept through most of the United States by the beginning of the 19th Century. One of the most profound revivals took place in New York. After the great revival in New York Charles Finney was known ...

    Read More

  • The Great Awakening and the American Revolution

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the early 1700's spiritual revivalism spread rapidly through the colonies. This led to colonists changing their beliefs on religion. The great awakening was the level to which the revivalism spread through the colonists. Even with this, there was still religious revivalism in the colonies. One major reason for the Great Awakening was that it was not too long before the revolution. The great awakening is reason to believe that William G Mcloughlin's opinion and this shows that there was a cause to the American Revolution.

    Read More

  • The Second Great Awakening

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    In essence, the Great Awakening was a religious awakening. It started in the South. Tent camps were set up that revolve around high spirited meetings that would last for days. These camp meetings were highly emotional and multitudes of people were filled with the Spirit of God. These meeting, were sponsored mainly by Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterians, and met social needs as well as spiritual needs on the frontier. Since it was hard for the Baptist and Methodist to sustain local churches, they solved the problem by recruiting the non educated to spread the word of God to their neighbors. The camp meetings eventually favored "protracted meetings" in local churches.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast John Winthrop And Edwards

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though Winthrop and Edwards were two similar authors they were writing for two completely different reasons. Edwards was writing his sermon close to a hundred years after Winthrop, in a time called the Great Awakening. Edwards’s sermon was designed using scare tactics to bring people back to the church; while, Winthrop was working to keep everyone in a “group.” According to William Cain, Alice McDermott, Lance Newman, and Hilary Wyss, editors of “American Literature Volume One,” “he [Winthrop] believed that the English church could be reformed from within, cleansed of its “Catholic” doctrinal traces and elements of ritual” (102). Winthrop was giving his sermon aboard the ship to the new world and has belief that he can purify the English church. On the other side, Edwards is writing after the church has been “purified;” thus, a different means of communication is required to bring people back to the church. William Cain, Alice McDermott, Lance Newman, and Hilary Wyss, editors of “American Literature Volume One,” said, “Edwards witnessed a great revival of religion known as the “Great Awakening,” which he documented in several of his writings” (264). The quote says that Edwards is writing in a time period that required s method that would bring people back to the church. All in all, the time period of Winthrop and Edwards’s sermons play a major role in the content of the

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis: Dante's Inferno

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.

    Read More

  • The Beliefs of Locke and Newton, Inspired Jonathan Edwards

    1493 Words  | 3 Pages

    An important point which Edwards writes in his sermon is his belief that when man is truly following the path of God, he will reach a sense morality that has beauty. In the sermon, Edwards writes, "And if we consider the…moral excellency, the same will appear…God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent" (14). He is referring to the Puritanistic ideal that God is everything that is good and right. Therefore, God is the most moralistic entity in existence and striving for a godly life will eventually lead to one's own moral beauty. Although John Locke's ideas of morality are more political, they are passionate ideas, much like Edwards's ideas. John Griffith, commentating on Edwards's The Nature of True Virtue, states, "Edwards begins by accepting Hutcheson's proposition that virtue is moral beauty. Beauty, he says, is always a harmony, or 'consent and agreement'" (2576). Griffith is stating, like I previously stated, that Edwards predominantly focused on the moral aspect of his beliefs.

    Read More

More about The Puritan Prayer In Jonathan Edwards's The Great Awakening

Open Document