Jonathan edwards sinners in the hands of an angry god. Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Flashcards 2022-12-20
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Jonathan Edwards was a prominent theologian and preacher in the early colonial period of American history. One of his most famous sermons, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," was delivered in the summer of 1741 and quickly became a sensation, spreading throughout the colonies and beyond. The sermon, which was based on the biblical passage Deuteronomy 32:35, is a powerful and frightening portrayal of the wrath of God and the desperate plight of sinners.
In the sermon, Edwards paints a vivid picture of God's wrath as a fierce, consuming fire that is ready to consume and destroy sinners at any moment. He describes the sinner as being held in God's hands "as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect," and warns that the slightest movement or resistance on the part of the sinner could bring down the full force of God's anger upon them.
Edwards argues that sinners deserve nothing less than eternal damnation, and that they are only spared from this fate by the sheer mercy and grace of God. He urges his listeners to repent and turn to God, warning them that if they do not, they will be "cast into the fire prepared for the Devil and his angels" and suffer for all eternity.
One of the most striking aspects of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is the sense of urgency that Edwards conveys. He urges his listeners to turn to God immediately, warning them that their time is running out and that they must repent before it is too late. This sense of urgency is heightened by Edwards' vivid and powerful language, which is designed to shock and disturb his listeners and drive home the gravity of their situation.
Despite its fearsome message, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was widely embraced by Edwards' contemporaries and became one of the most widely circulated sermons in colonial America. It remains a powerful and influential work to this day, and continues to be studied and debated by theologians and religious scholars. In conclusion, Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a powerful and enduring testament to the fierce and unforgiving nature of God's wrath and the desperate plight of sinners. It is a sermon that has left a lasting mark on the religious landscape of America and beyond, and continues to inspire and challenge readers to this day.
Jonathan Edwards: Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God
Located at: Project: Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, sourced from GALILEO Open Learning Materials. The people were limited to a small amount of intellectual knowledge on religion. During this time, many different preachers and religious speakers went around and gave speeches to the people. There is this clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference between the wise and politic men of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. That they were always exposed to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. Edwards himself tried to tamp down these shifts with such works as A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God 1737 , a work seeking to balance emotionalism and mindfulness, and his A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections 1746 , a work that distinguished genuine from false religious experiences.
Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Quiz Flashcards
The fierceness of Jehovah! The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. He will not only hate you, but he will have you in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets. To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, 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. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. He then served as missionary to the Housatonnuck Indians in Stockbridge.
Analysis of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Essay Example
We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. At the heart of his faith was the confidence that for the sake of Jesus, God was his loving heavenly Father. He believes that if a person was to fell, it would be because God wanted him or her to may be because of their wickedness. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards
Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! While the second Meetinghouse no longer exists, its location is marked by an engraved stone on the west side of Route 5 Enfield Street , just a few feet south of the intersection with Post Office Road. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. And whose heart can endure? The sermon, even when read silently, is effective in projecting a specific interpretation of the wrathful nature of God and the sinful nature of man. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity.
This Day in History: Jonathan Edwards Preaches “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
O my cursed foolishness! 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 easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What does this excerpt suggest about Edwards's opinion of society? This philosophical treatise encouraged empiricism, experience, and sensation. A group of ministers entered the meeting house at Enfield where the sermon was to be preached. Application The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life Yale, 2003 , 218. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others.
Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. But what is even more important to understand is that the place where Edwards preached the sermon was, up until the moment when Edwards preached, distinctly resistant to the revival.
Jonathan Edwards and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
During colonial times, their lives were so miserable, that having a scapegoat or someone to blame for all their troubles was actually somewhat comforting. You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. How do you know? They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them.
Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them. Oh who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discem them. But it is not so with God. Will you be content to be the children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and happy children of the King of kings? Edwards uses the phrase "Oh who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel that has found means 2.
Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Flashcards
So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. Edwards speaks of a wrathfull God, a God who by Puritan standards is considered forgiving for not letting all of humanity fall into the deepest pits of hell. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD by Jonathan Edwards -Their foot shall slide in due time- Deut.
When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so fastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. As minister, Edwards sought to bring his congregation to an understanding of the Puritan faith that involved a physical as well as metaphysical experience of faith. You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness. Which word has a similar connotation to the word "swallow" in this excerpt? 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, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. The same is expressed, Psalm lxxiii. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.
