Jonathan Edwards was a man aiming to try and ultimately scare the Puritan people. He instilled fear into the hearts of many of them and anger into others. He preached of both things that were anger the Puritans, and those that would make them wonder and inquisitive about things. He mainly applied to ethos, I believe, and used many different facts and resources to support that. I’ll explain some of that to you in this essay.
First of all, he quoted the Bible many times throughout this sermon. He used excerpts from the Bible such as Psalms 73: 18, 19 which states, “ Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!” He also uses verses such as Luke 13:7, Luke 11:12, and Isaiah 62:20. These all are ways of Edwards describing what he think God has planned for those who are condemned. These may strike fear into the eyes of different people.
Also, Edwards somewhat contradicted the belief of “predestination,” which is the belief that you are chosen by God at birth whether or not you are going to go to heaven or hell. The ones selected are called “elect.” Elect never included women and if you were elect you would be guaranteed to go to heaven no matter how you lived your life. That is what Puritans believed and by Edwards stating almost the opposite of that, he may have aroused people’s interest as well as upsetting and/or angering others. He stated “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God,” basically saying “if God likes you.” Doing this was a good was to effect people’s pathos in the audience.
He explains how people are subject to “fall on the slippery slopes into the eternal depths of darkness.” This means that how you live your life does affect your spiritual afterlife. That may have upset some Puritans because according to predestination how you lived your life was redundant. Edwards expresses that there may be appoint where you’ve lost your chance and God “gives up hope” on you. I think this means that there is a so-called “point of no return” which is where you’ve done so many bad things that there is no way that you could possibly redeem yourself in the eyes on God. That also may have touched on some pathos of the audience by explaining the future that may be held in front of them.
Jonathan Edwards appealed to many, many ethos in this sermon by using such credible sources as the Bible and sometimes even God himself. This helps give him credibility in the eyes on the audience while also proving his point. It touches on what he is trying to prove and instill into the Puritan’s mind. Many of them thought of God as being the almighty being that he spiritually was. To me this was a good move by Edwards to get these people thinking about their lives and the possible consequences of it. By using such sources and ways of getting the point across that he knew what he was talking about was good because it made him look educated on the topic and also may have helped convince some people if they were on the edge about it.
All in all, Edwards gave a good sermon. He explained everything he wanted to with good sources, which helped a lot. He also touched on some people’s emotion side (pathos) by explain what might possibly happen to people who do not live their lives the way that God intended them to in their time on Earth. Also, he somewhat gave a counterargument to what he was stating which allowed the audience to know that he did know what he was talking about and both sides of the situation. This may have upset some while also enticing others. In the end it was a good job the Edwards, convincing in his words and credibility and good with touching on the certain parts on the human mind where major conflicts may occur.
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