Student Question
Which metaphors and similes in the sermon were most persuasive?
Quick answer:
Jonathan Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," uses vivid metaphors and similes to convey God's omnipotence and man's sinfulness. Persuasive imagery includes comparing sinners to a loathsome insect held over fire, emphasizing God's power and disgust towards sin. The simile "ten thousand times more abominable" intensifies this view. Metaphors like "a great furnace of wrath" and "lake of burning brimstone" evoke fear of God's wrath. Edwards highlights personal responsibility for sin, enhancing his message's impact.
Figurative language abounds in Jonathan Edwards’s famous 18th century sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. As a Puritan minister, Edwards was mostly concerned with salvation, and this sermon specifically concerns itself mainly with man’s personal responsibility for sin and with God’s response to it. Through the use of a number of literary devices such as allusion, personification, and metaphor, Edwards makes his message clear.
Edwards’s perspective of God is perhaps most evident in the simile , "The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire…" Here Edwards suggests God’s omnipotence and man’s smallness in comparison. The choice of spider, though, along with the idea man could also be any such "loathsome insect" suggests not only smallness for man, but a more vivid depiction of actual disgust. Sin makes...
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man disgusting, according to Edwards, and worthy of God’s wrath. Edwards extends the comparison by saying, "…you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours." With this simile, Edwards gives man another basis for comparison. God finds the sinner as vile as the sinner views the devil.
The power of God’s wrath can be noted in the metaphor, "it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath…" Edwards appeals to fear with this image, as God’s wrath is so great that it is immeasurable to man. Making a reference to hell itself, Edwards says, "That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you." He is emphasizing the painful and eternal consequence of sin with the metaphor the "lake of burning brimstone."
In another lasting image from the sermon, Edwards lays the responsibility for God’s wrath on man himself by stating, "Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead." It is sin that makes man fall like lead in this simile, straight into the burning lake. Instead of leaving the reader with an image of a maniacally vengeful God, he leaves the reader with the understanding that it is sin that hastens God’s wrath and vengeance. By appealing to fear, Edwards's utilization of metaphor and simile throughout the sermon is persuasive.