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Close Reading Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
by Jonathan Edwards
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards 1741.jpg

"Sinners in the Easily of an Angry God, A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th 1741."
Country British Colonies
Language English
Genre(southward) Sermon
Publication date 8 July 1741
Text Sinners in the Hands of an Aroused God at Wikisource

"Sinners in the Easily of an Angry God" is a sermon written by the American theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts, to profound result,[1] and once more on July viii, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. The preaching of this sermon was the goad for the First Corking Awakening.[2] Similar Edwards' other works, it combines vivid imagery of Hell with observations of the globe and citations of Biblical scripture. Information technology is Edwards' nigh famous written piece of work, is a fitting representation of his preaching style,[3] and is widely studied by Christians and historians, providing a glimpse into the theology of the Outset Great Awakening of c.  1730–1755.

This was a highly influential sermon of the Keen Awakening, emphasizing God'due south wrath upon unbelievers subsequently death to a very real, horrific, and fiery Hell. [4] The underlying betoken is that God has given humans a chance to confess their sins. It is the mere volition of God, according to Edwards, that keeps wicked men from beingness overtaken past the devil and his demons and bandage into the furnace of hell - "like greedy hungry lions, that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the nowadays kept back [past God's hand]." Mankind'southward own attempts to avert falling into the "bottomless gulf" due to the overwhelming "weight and pressure level towards hell" are bereft as "a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock". This deed of grace from God has given humans a take chances to believe and trust in Christ.[5] Edwards provides much varied and bright imagery to illustrate this main theme throughout.

Doctrine [edit]

Most of the sermon'southward text consists of ten "considerations":

  1. God may cast wicked men into Hell at whatsoever given moment.
  2. The wicked deserve to be cast into Hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the wicked at any moment.
  3. The wicked, at this moment, suffer under God'southward condemnation to Hell.
  4. The wicked, on earth—at this very moment—endure a sample of the torments of Hell. The wicked must not call back, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in whose hand the wicked now reside) is non—at this very moment—as angry with them as he is with those he is now tormenting in Hell, and who—at this very moment—feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.
  5. At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands prepare to fall upon the wicked and seize them every bit his own.
  6. If information technology were not for God's restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.
  7. Merely because in that location are not visible means of death before them at any given moment, the wicked should not feel secure.
  8. Simply because information technology is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may intendance for them, men should non recollect themselves safe from God's wrath.
  9. All that wicked men may do to relieve themselves from Hell'due south pains shall beget them nix if they go on to reject Christ.
  10. God has never promised to save mankind from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.

Purpose [edit]

One church in Enfield, Connecticut, had been largely unaffected during the First Great Awakening of New England. Edwards was invited by the pastor of the church to preach to them. Edwards's aim was to teach his listeners most the horrors of Hell, the dangers of sin, and the terrors of beingness lost. Edwards described the position of those who do not follow Christ's urgent telephone call to receive forgiveness. Edwards scholar John E. Smith notes that despite the apparent pessimism of the notion of an aroused God, that pessimism is "overcome by the comforting hope of salvation through a triumphant, loving savior." Whenever Edwards preached terror, information technology was function of a larger campaign to plow sinners from their disastrous path and to the rightful object of their affections, Jesus Christ."[vi]

Application [edit]

In the final section of "Sinners in the Hands of an Aroused God," Edwards shows that his theological argument holds throughout scripture and biblical history. He invokes stories and examples throughout the whole Bible. Edwards ends the sermon with one concluding entreatment: "Therefore let anybody that is out of Christ, now awake and wing from the wrath to come." Co-ordinate to Edwards, only past returning to Christ tin can ane escape the stark fate he outlines.

Effect and legacy [edit]

Edwards was interrupted many times during the sermon by people moaning and crying out, "What shall I do to be saved?".[ commendation needed ] Although the sermon has received criticism, Edwards' words have endured and are still read to this day. Edwards' sermon continues to be the leading example of a First Nifty Enkindling sermon and is still used in religious and academic studies.[7]

Since the 1950s, a number of critical perspectives were used to analyze the sermon.[8] The first comprehensive academic analysis of "Sinners in the Hands of an Aroused God" was published by Edwin Cady in 1949,[nine] who comments on the imagery of the sermon and distinguishes between the "cliché" and "fresh" figurative images, stressing how the old related to the colonial life. Lee Stuart questions that the message of the sermon was solely negative and attributes its success to the final passages in which the sinners are actually "comforted".[10] Rosemary Hearn argues that information technology is the logical structure of the sermon that constitutes its most important persuasive chemical element.[11] Lemay looks into the changes in the syntactic categories, similar grammatical tenses, in the text of the sermon.[12] Lukasik stresses how in the sermon Edwards appropriates Newtonian physics, peculiarly the image of the gravitational pull that would relentlessly bring the sinners down.[thirteen] Gallagher focuses on the "beat" of the sermon, and on how the sequent structural elements of the sermon serve different persuasive aims.[14] Choiński suggests that the rhetorical success of the sermon consists in the employ of the "deictic shift" that transported the hearers mentally into the figurative images of hell.[15]

Ironically, Jonathan Edwards wrote and spoke a great deal on heaven and angels, writes John Gerstner in Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell, 1998,[16] and those themes are less remembered, namely "Heaven is a World of Dear".[17]

See also [edit]

  • Calvinism
  • Religious Affections
  • A True-blue Narrative
  • Freedom of the Will
  • American philosophy
  • Puritans
  • Redemption
  • The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners
  • Great Awakening, more often than not, the term used for iii or four distinct periods of religious revival in American Christian history

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ Stout 2006, p. 139
  2. ^ Crocco 2006, p. 303; Marsden 2004, p. 219f
  3. ^ Wilson, pp. 29–30
  4. ^ Marsden 2004, p. 221
  5. ^ Marsden 2004, p. 222
  6. ^ Smith, John E. (1995). A Jonathan Edwards Reader. Yale University Press. p. xvii.
  7. ^ Ostling 2003
  8. ^ Choiński 2016
  9. ^ Edwin H. Cady, 1949, The Artistry of Jonathan Edwards, New England Quarterly 22(i), 61-72| https://www.jstor.org/stable/361536
  10. ^ Robert Stuart Lee, 1976, Jonathan Edwards at Enfield: "And Oh the Cheerfulness and Pleasantness", American Language 48/1, 46-59.
  11. ^ Rosemary Hearn, Form every bit Argument in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1985, College Language Association Journal 28, 452-459.
  12. ^ Leo J. Lemay, Rhetorical Strategies in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancester Country [in:] Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards and the Representation of American Culture (ed. Barbara B. Oberg, Harry S. Stout), New York: Oxford University Press, 186-204.
  13. ^ Christopher F. Lukasik, 2000, Feeling the Force of Certainty: The Divine Scientific discipline, Newtonianism, and Jonathan Edwards'south Sinners in the Hands of an Aroused God, The New England Quarterly 73(2), 222-245. https://www.jstor.org/stable/366801
  14. ^ Gallagher, Edward, "Sinners in the Hands of an Agry God: Some Unfinished Business", The New England Quarterly, 73 (two), retrieved 2013-01-04
  15. ^ Choiński, Michał, "A Cognitive Approach to the Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards's Sermons" (PDF), Theologica Wratislaviensia, VII , retrieved 2013-01-04
  16. ^ John Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell
  17. ^ "Heaven, a World of Love -- Jonathan Edwards".

References [edit]

  • Choiński, Michał (25 April 2016), Rhetoric of the Revival: The Linguistic communication of the Great Awakening, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ISBN978-3-525-56023-5 , retrieved 2016-07-04
  • Conforti, Joseph (1995), Jonathan Edwards, Religious Tradition, & American Culture, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ISBN978-0-8078-4535-6 , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Crocco, Stephen (20 November 2006), "Edwards's Intellectual Legacy", in Stein, Stephen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 300–324, ISBN978-0-521-61805-two , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Hart, Darryl; Lucas, Sean; Nichols, Stephen (1 Baronial 2003), The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Grand Rapids: Bakery Academic, ISBN978-0-8010-2622-5 , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Kimnach, Wilson; Maskell, Caleb; Minkema, Kenneth (23 March 2010), Jonathan Edwards'south Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN978-0-300-14038-v , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Marsden, George (1 August 2004), Jonathan Edwards, New Haven: Yale University Printing, ISBN978-0-300-10596-4 , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Ostling, Richard (four October 2003), "Theologian Still Relevant After 300 Years", Times Daily, Associated Press, retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Stout, Harry (xx November 2006), "Edwards every bit Revivalist", in Stein, Stephen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 125–143, ISBN978-0-521-61805-2 , retrieved 2013-01-04
  • Wilson, John, "A History of the Work of Redemption", WJE Online, ix , retrieved 2013-01-04

External links [edit]

  • Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, with Bible verses quoted from modern verses
  • Sinners in the Easily of an Aroused God, from DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

millerbeirate.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God

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