Jonathan Edwards Figurative Language Analysis

Words: 875
Pages: 4
Open Document
Jonathan Edwards uses figurative language to reveal God is all powerful. Edwards compares man to a worm, showing how weak people are compared to God. In Edwards’ view people are pathetic creatures and are always at the mercy of God. Edwards associates the correlation between men and God by reminding his listeners how it is, “easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth” (210) and how it is much the same for God when he views people. When Edwards compares humans with worms he stresses the degree of God’s mercy, as well as encouraging his churchgoers to aim to be greater and more worthy in the view of God. Edwards wants the audience to know they are no better than insects to God. This reminds everyone that all …show more content…
Another discussion of God’s power is Edwards preaching to the congregation that they have “nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of “ (214), but it is the “mere pleasure of God that holds you up” (214) and stops man from being annihilated. This sermon explains it is the “the mere will of God” that stops sinners from being consumed in eternal destruction “at any moment” (212). This confirms the doctrine of the sermon that “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of Hell, but the mere pleasure of God” (210). The personification of God’s hand reveals God’s power over man. The addressing of man walking on God’s thin hand, which is all that holds the man above the fiery lakes of Hell, shows God’s power over man. Another use of the hand analogy is “the hand of arbitrary mercy” that holds the sharp edge of equity from man’s head. God’s hand holds back the floodgate and “if God should only withdraw His hand from the floodgate” then man would be consumed by “the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God” (215). God’s hand revealing power over man is also mentioned about the serpent hungry for them and “if God should withdraw his Hand, by which they are restrained” (211) then “hell would open its mouth” to
Show More

Related Documents: Jonathan Edwards Figurative Language Analysis

Summary Of First Great Awakening By Jonathan Edwards

repent and fall into his favor. This is something that Edwards was deliberate in constructing. I think that to be in fear of God and to immediately strive to be in his favor becomes the theme of the sermon. Edwards aims his message at those who fail to believe and those who are actively participating in spiritual transgressions. There is little in the sermon that is intended to reassure those who are following the path. In fact, Edwards' hope seems to be to strike fear in all of his listeners…

Words 259 - Pages 2

Mr Barnaby Bax Essay

contemporaries were the principal players in a period of literary experimentation that reinvented the possibilities of literature. The playhouse was a new cultural venue in Shakespeare's time, and the language itself was a rapidly evolving medium to which drama gave voice. Building upon study of the language of Shakespeare and the conditions of the Elizabethan playhouse, this course examines the ways in which the theatre imagined and debated key issues of the period. What was the place of Shakespeare's…

Words 9832 - Pages 40