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Figurative Language In The Sinners Of An Angry God

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Often in sermons pastors persuade their audience to behave in a spiritual or moral fashion. Such is the case in "the sinners of an angry god" by Edwards, Jonathan where he educate the sinners that god can destroy sinners with ease if they do not repent. Edwards wanted to impact his audience by appealing to their fears, pity, and vanity. Edwards had a tremendous impact on his puritan audience because of his use of cautionary tone, clear imagery, and symbolic figurative language. To begin, the tone of the story is cautionary. The reason I chose cautionary is because the author is saying god is trying to send us sinners a message. For example, "thus easy is it for god when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell…"(para 1/last line).what this example is saying is that god can send you to hell easy and when he pleases. So you been warned. So this …show more content…
I chose symbolic for figurative language because god is trying to send us a message with that. For example, "god that hold you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one holds a spider…"(para 7/ line 1). This shows that god holds you or is in control of your life and he tries you like a loathsome insect. So this is the tremendous impact that Edwards had on his puritan audience of the use of symbolic figurative language.
In essence, it is clear that Edwards tremendous impact of the use of cautionary tone, use of clear imagery, and the use of symbolic figurative language was very good. Edwards appeal to fear was "showing god's power to shut sinners down." This shows what god can do. His second appeal was vanity" because god is giving the sinners a second chance, so the sinners feel happy and singing and rejoicing. This shows the god is a forgiving god. And last is a pity "because god watched us commit so many sins but keeps us alive." This shows us he is a merciful

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