One can easily imagine a Native American being both appalled and confused by the God described in this sermon. In it, Edwards pictures a God who hates his human creatures. Edwards states:

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 ... you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

This is a frightening God. To make matters worse, he wants to send humans to eternal suffering in a pit of fire and brimstone that Edwards says is right below our feet, though we cannot see it. Edwards emphasizes that we humans deserve this wrath because of our many failings.

The Native American might wonder why on earth any people would want to worship such an angry God—and one that hates them. Many Native American religions, like most primal religious systems, did not see the Earth as fearful place or themselves as hated. Many Native Americans saw benign gods in the natural world who would protect them as long as they lived in harmony with these gods and with nature.

A Native American might also perceive the sermon as directed at whites in particular because they had violated the laws of nature in a high-handed way while settling America, bringing death and disease to the continent and appropriating common lands. They might therefore wonder that the colonists rejected living as the Natives did, as that, they might think, might help appease the wrath of their angry God.