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Jonathan Edwards's
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
Highlights:
► As your text says, a "Great Awakening" of religious fervor swept the
Middle Colonies around 1740 and lasted a decade. Quite unintentionally, Edwards' preaching
began this movement; another minister, George Whitefield, from England, was prominent in
it, too. Phillis Wheatley wrote a poem commemorating Whitefield's death in 1770 (see that
poem and the footnotes for it for more details about the Great Awakening). The objective
of the preachers was evangelistic, to "revive" or "awaken"
parishioners from their religious lethargy. Accordingly, the sermons featured elements
which produced great demonstrations of emotions by the listeners, who were to "get
outside themselves" and rid themselves of their sins. Similar events are known as
"revival" meetings now.
► I said "unintentionally" above because ostensibly, Edwards did not play up
to this emotionalism in and of itself, which he saw as superficial and false. In fact, he
prided himself on his logicality and reason, though he did not think he was coldly
logical. Indeed, he maintained that the "affections" (emotions) were validly a
part of worship, so that both "head" and "heart" were involved.
► The people Edwards was directing his sermon at were "unregenerate,"
"unconverted," in a "natural" state, not "born again." We've
see these terms used before. The people in this condition were estranged and separated
from God by their sins. They needed to gain God's grace, which was not easy since no
amount of good works could assure them of salvation. Yet, after impressing upon them their
dire condition and how close they were to destruction, he urged them to take this
"extraordinary opportunity" and accept Christ's offer of mercy.
► These people were not Indians (pagans), Quakers, Anglicans or Catholics.
(Those people were really outsiders.) They were
the members of his "flock," his congregation at Enfield, Connecticut. However,
they had gained church membership sort of by the back door (quite literally, they were "grandfathered" in). Here's how
that worked. These people had not
had a personal experience of conversion which they could demonstrate publicly in front of the
other church members. That was how it had to be done--that was proof that
they had
been "elected" by God for salvation, that they had become "saints"
(they were called "visible saints" because they were still alive;
church members who had died were called "invisible saints").
Instead, the people Edwards was addressing had gotten into church membership through a kind of
inheritance. They were the descendants of people who had also not had a personal experience
of conversion, so they were several generations away from people who had actually had such
experiences-- the first generation of Puritans who were the only
"true" Puritans. This "grandfathering" had come back a
century earlier, in 1648, when a special piece of legislation within the church had been passed,
a compromise called The Half-Way Covenant. It allowed the
children of those first-generation true Puritans to become church members.
Then, that famous Covenant had been
extended to allow the children of those children to get in, too, and then their
children, on down to Edwards's congregation.
► From Edwards's standpoint, then, the people he was addressing were not "elected"
converts and therefore not really legitimate church members. Worse yet, because they had gotten in to
church membership so easily, he thought that they had become complacent and weren't looking to their piety
carefully enough. They needed to be "shaken up," "awakened" so that
they could save themselves before it was too late.
► You wonder why the church allowed this compromise Covenant back in 1648?
The answer is very revealing about how strict and demanding the first generation
of Puritans were in the New World. They required that anybody accepted into the
Church have a personal direct experience with God in which God shows his
pleasure with them, and then that they publicly demonstrate this acceptance by
God to the members of the Church. Anyone who didn't have that experience or
couldn't demonstrate it to the Church members wasn't allowed into the
Church. That was hugely important in the 1620s and 1630s in New England,
because the Church was the only thing in town. A person would suffer was
tormenting moral and social ostracism otherwise. You'd derided and shunned by
others. And you would agree with them, because you would think yourself to be a
terribly wicked person, hopelessly lost to the everlasting punishment of hell.
So in that first generation everyone was determined to do the necessary things
to became members, and nearly everyone they did. But their children weren't as
convinced that that was the only way to gain salvation. Many of them weren't as
determined, and many of them didn't meet the requirements. This caused a big
problem for the church, for if they held to the high standards of the first
generation the church would pretty soon have no members and would cease to
exist. Church leaders couldn't let that happen, so in 1648 they agreed to allow
the children of the true Puritans into the church. Gradually, the
requirements were lessened, on down to Edwards's day. In a way, then
Edwards was a kind of throwback to the first generation of Puritans because he
wanted his parishioners to be really pious, the way the first Puritans had been.
Questions:
1. Despite his claim about his rationality and his logicality, Edwards's "Sinners..." is surely loaded with
language that can only be said to be intended to excite the emotions. Working your way
through the sermon, what images (mental pictures) and imagery (words used to suggest
particular features in the pictures) can you identify which seem to be "scare
tactics" and which contribute to emotionalism?
2. On the other hand, there is clear evidence that Edwards's sermon does appeal to
reason and logic, too, not just emotion. What elements of logic can you see in the sermon.
3. How do these two modes--logic and heightened emotionalism--work together? Do you
think they conflict with one another, or do they reinforce each other?
4. Like other Puritan divines, Edwards refers very often to Scripture (mainly Old
Testament). What role does his use of Scripture play in the matter of logic versus emotion?
5. Clearly, God is on one side and humans (at least unregenerate, "natural"
humans) are on the other; they are separated. This leads to two matters to
consider:
A. The humans are of course responsible for this condition. Then what keeps God from
"withdraw[ing] his hand" and just letting these bad people to go to
hell? How do people "delude" and
"flatter" themselves? What images are used to depict humans in this terrifying
and terrible condition?
B. What attributes does God have (you should be able to name at least five spread
throughout the sermon)? Is God anthropomorphic? What images, alone
or in combination, are used to describe
God's wrath? Judging from these images and attributes, how would you
characterize this God?
6. Can you identify other Puritan ministers who also spoke about
"unregenerate" people?
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