Theme Of Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

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When writing, authors tend to use appeals that help them, especially when trying to persuade an audience. Writers use: pathos, ethos, and logos to convince a reader. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Is a sermon given by Jonathan Revered Edwards in the 1700s which he tries to sway his audience to convert themselves and follow Jesus Christ.People still continue to study this sermon because of the intensity and richness of ethical appeals throughout. Edwards explains that unconverted men who continue to sin against God are insulting and will soon face the depths of hell. Edwards uses these appeals to relate and scare his audience into believing.
Pathos is “the appeal to the audience’s emotions…evokes anger, laughter, sadness, fear, joy,
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Ethos “appeals to the audiences trust by establishing his credibility or trustworthiness as a writer or speaker.” (“Using” 13). One example of ethos from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is” Edwards says, “For who knows the power of God’s anger?” (43). This evidence portrays ethical appeal because it is an allusion from the Bible. This allusion creates credibility for Edwards because he is a preacher, and he is reading scriptures from the Bible that he normally preaches from to support the purpose of his sermon, and shows that he is knowledgeable on the subject. Next Edwards compares us to a helpless worm crawling on the ground when he says, “we find it so easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread anything hangs by; thus is as easy it is for God when he pleases to cast his enemies down to hell.”(Edwards 40). Edwards uses this to empower God and explain how easy it is for God at any moment to do away with his enemies and send them to Hell. This is ethos because as a preacher Edwards is expected to give power to God. Lastly,Edwards uses a rhetorical question to sway his audience. He quotes “who has loved them and washed them of their sins in his own blood.” (44). This is also ethos because he is answering a question that would be expected of him to answer because he is a preacher. Those are the examples of ethos from the sermon “sinners in the hands of an angry