| Assignment
Read the following passage from "Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God." Questions 1-4 are based on your analysis of this passage.
"Consider the fearful danger you are in; it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in Hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you.... The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor."
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Explain the mood of this passage.
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Using specific examples, give one example of a metaphor, one example of a simile, and one example of an allusion that Edwards uses in this passage from the sermon to elicit this particular mood.
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Metaphor: A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without the use of like or as. For example: In the sermon the metaphor of loathsome insects describes sinners. The congregation's righteousness is compared to a spider's web. God is compared to an archer. What metaphor is used for Hell in the italicized passage?
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Simile: A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using like or as. For example: "The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present." What similes are used in the italicized passage?
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Allusion: An allusion is a reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture. Puritan writing makes allusions or references to specific passages from the Bible. As you read the sermon, locate the allusions to biblical verses and figures.
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What specific words (minimum of three) does he choose to make his tone clear?
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What images (pictures in the listeners' mind) does Edwards use in the passage to make his tone clear? What effect do those images have on establishing the tone of the piece?
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In the last two paragraphs of the sermon (refer to the Investigate page of this lesson) Edwards talks about an "extraordinary opportunity" his congregation has. What is this opportunity? How does his sermon persuade the congregation to take advantage of this opportunity?
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