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The God that holds you over the pit of hell,
much as one holds a spider... 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. – Jonathan Edwards
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1322768]
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Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God
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Author
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Language
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English
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Genre
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Publication date
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8 July 1741
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Text
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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God at Wikisource
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"Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God" is a sermon written by British
Colonial Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own
congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts to unknown
effect, and again on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. Like Edwards' other
works, it combines vivid imagery of Hell with observations of the world and
citations of the scripture.
It is Edwards' most famous written work, is a fitting representation of his
preaching style, and is widely studied by Christians
and historians, providing a glimpse into the theology of the Great Awakening of c. 1730–1755.
This
is a typical sermon of the Great Awakening, emphasizing the belief that Hell is
a real place. Edwards hoped that the imagery and language of his sermon would
awaken audiences to the horrific reality that he believed awaited them should
they continue life without devotion to Christ. The underlying point is that God
has given humanity a chance to rectify their sins. Edwards says that it is the
will of God that keeps wicked men from the depths of Hell. This act of
restraint has given humanity a chance to mend their ways and return to Christ.
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_kp-MAU7U]
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Doctrine
"There is nothing that
keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."
Most of the sermon's text
consists of ten "considerations":
- God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment.
- The Wicked deserve to be cast into hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the Wicked at any moment.
- The Wicked, at this moment, suffer under God's condemnation to Hell.
- The Wicked, on earth - at this very moment - suffer a sample of the torments of Hell. The Wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in Whose hand the Wicked now reside) is not - at this very moment - as angry with them as He is with those miserable creatures He is now tormenting in hell, and who - at this very moment - do feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath.
- At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the Wicked and seize them as his own.
- If it 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.
- Simply because there are not visible means of death before them at any given moment, the Wicked should not feel secure.
- Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God's wrath.
- All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell's pains shall afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.
- God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.
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"Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God, A
Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8, 1741," by Rev. Jonathan Edwards,
Printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, Boston, 1741. Image courtesy of the
Library of Congress, and the Rare Books Division, the New York Public Library.
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Purpose
One
church in Enfield, Connecticut had been largely unaffected during the 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 about the horrors
of hell, the dangers of sin and the terrors of being lost. Edwards described
the shaky position of those who do not follow Christ's urgent call to receive
forgiveness.
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Three clips from "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg9YgkoJgIc]
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Application
In
the final section of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards
shows his theological argument throughout scripture and biblical history.
Invoking stories and examples throughout the whole Bible. Edwards ends
the sermon with one final appeal, "Therefore let everyone that is out of
Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come." According to Edwards,
only by returning to Christ can one escape the stark fate he outlines.
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The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready,
the furnace is now hot, ready to receive the wicked: the flames do now rage and
glow. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one
holds a spider or some loathsome insect, abhors you and is dreadfully
provoked...He will trample them beneath His feet with inexpressible fierceness;
He will crush their blood out, and will make it fly, so that it will sprinkle
His garment and stain all His raiment. – Jonathan Edwards
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1319119]
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Effect and legacy
Jonathan
Edwards was interrupted many times before finishing the sermon by people
moaning and crying out, "What shall I do to be saved?" 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 Great
Awakening sermon and is still used in religious and academic studies.
Over
the last sixty years, a number of critical perspectives were used to analyse
the sermon.
The first comprehensive academic analysis of "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God" was published by Edwin Cady in 1949, who comments on the
imagery of the sermon and distinguishes between the "cliché" and
"fresh" figurative images, stressing how the former 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". Rosemary Hearn argues that it is the
logical structure of the sermon that constitutes its most important persuasive
element. Lemay looks into the changes in the syntactic categories, like
grammatical tenses, in the text of the sermon. Lukasik stresses how in the
sermon Edwards appropriates Newtonian physics, especially the image of the
gravitational pull that would relentlessly bring the sinners down. Gallagher
focuses on the "beat" of the sermon, and on how the consecutive
structural elements of the sermon serve different persuasive aims. Choiński
suggests that the rhetorical success of the sermon consists in the use of the
"deictic shift" that transported the hearers mentally into the
figurative images of hell
<ref>{{citation|last=Choiński|first=Michał|title=A Cognitive Approach to
the Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards's Sermons|journal=Theologica
Wratislaviensia|volume=VII|u
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"There is no other
reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose this
morning but that God's hand has held you up." - Jonathan Edwards
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See
also
- Calvinism
- Religious Affections
- A Faithful Narrative
- Freedom of the Will
- American philosophy
- Puritans
- Redemption
- The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God
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