An Angry God Figurative Language

Words: 977
Pages: 4

Throughout the 1600s, religion was strictly governed in churches. People were tricked and manipulated into following certain “rules”. Figurative language was used in speeches to intimidate the audience into following the speaker’s guidelines. The sermon was strategically written to morph people into daily church-goers. In, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Edwards is able to effectively control the audience's beliefs with the use of tone, repetition, and imagery.
In the sermon, Edwards had powerful, differentiating tones. Edwards first uses an intimidating tone, to show the audience that he should be obeyed. For example, when he says, “There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery”(Edwards 1). Here he is setting a powerful,
…show more content…
Throughout the sermon he repeats words and phrases to get to the audience, in hoping they will be forced and frightened into going to church every day. Although it is a word expected to be repeated throughout, Edwards uses “God” very often. Not sounding significant it much rather is for he is almost personifying God’s reputation with specific beliefs, which may be conflicting to some people's opinions. Some examples of this are when he says: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell”, “an angry God”, and “Almighty God”(Edwards 1). He is giving “God” all these different titles, which all relate back to forcing the audience to be frightened into coming to church. Not once does he say, “the forgiving God” or “the kind and graceful God”. He is making “God” into a an almighty and angry ruler. Edwards also repeats the word “wrath” a few times, which is talking about God’s anger and frustration with the people. There are different phrases throughout the sermon concerning God’s wrath, one of which is, “The wrath of God burns against them..”(Edwards 1). In this example Edwards is explaining the the wrath of God constantly burns against the sinners, and that it is a fire that is constantly growing, waiting to devour the wrong-doers. Through the use of repetition of these words and phrases he is able to give more opinionated reasoning for why the audience will suffer if they do not go to church every