John Edwards

Johnathan Edwards and His Use of Sensory Perception

Johnathan Edwards was a man that developed a very skillful and effective way of persuading sinners to repent. This can easily be observed in his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Throughout the sermon, he uses descriptive language and paints vivid pictures in order to get his message across to the congregation. Johnathan Edwards used sensory perception to emphasize God's strength and greatness of his wrath, as well as to strike the fear and horrors of hell into those listening to him speak.

The ability of Edwards to create such a powerful vision of God was essential to his cause of getting sinners to repent. In building God up to be of the highest power and greatest strength, he leaves no doubt in the mind of the people of God's authority over their fate. According to the Heath Anthology of American Literature, in his sermon, Edwards says, "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 or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus it is for God, when he pleases to cast His enemies to hell." (pg.667) Relating the image of a person stepping on a worm to God letting his enemies fall down into hell creates a picture to the listeners of how incredibly helpless they are when it comes to God's power over them. God holds sinners dangling over hell and could drop them with as little effort as it takes to cut a small piece of thread. Each congregation member probably had a vivid picture in their minds of themselves as they hovered above hell, held above the flames only by a thin rope that could break at any moment. He emphasizes how great God's wrath is when says, "If God should only withdraw His hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it." (671-672) In other words, he is saying that if God was displeasured, he could let the rising flood water go in such a way that the sinners would be helpless. God is so powerful that if you anger Him, there is nothing you can do to stand against or challenge Him in any way. Edwards continues to create a sense of God's greatness and powerful wrath when he refers to it as a "black cloud",