Jonathan Edwards' contribution to Literature

A detailed Summary of Jonathan Edwards' contribution to Literature

Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703 in Connecticut. At the age of thirteen after being educated in his home, Edwards attended Yale. During his education Edwards re-discovered his religion. He continued his religious pursuit after graduation in New York City as a minister in a Presbyterian church. In 1727 Edwards served under his grandfather Solomon Stoddard who was the chief minister of the church of Northampton, Massachusetts. Two years later Stoddard died and Edwards replaced his grandfather. He remained the church's chief minister for over twenty years. Edwards was known for his intense, emotion-stirring sermons throughout the colonies. He did not mean to cause such frenzy among the congregation; he meant to show them the path to glory. Being considered the country's first genius, Edwards had a command of the English language seldom seen at or since his time. His sermons reached into the listener's mind and touched the actual senses. His choice of words caused much imagery, thought, contemplation, and especially fear among those who read or heard his works. This ability to use simile, metaphor, as well as other descriptive narrative to cause such emotional and sensory feeling was Jonathan Edwards' most significant con

Edwards' also used his sermons to affect the listener's sense of hearing or sound. His narratives were full of rich descriptions of sounds. When explaining what a person who has died and gone to hell would say,

Another sense Edwards draws upon from his listener is the sense of touch. Touch plays an active role in everyone's life. Whereas some my not consider it as important as the other senses, it is very important to everyone and Edwards knows this. He uses the sense of touch to convey a message of importance and urgency of a particular situation: "The wrath of God burns against them...the furnace is now hot...the flames do now rage and glow." (285). Edwards uses the idea of fire throughout his sermons. This usage is always paralleled with hell and sin: "...if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven or a furnace of fire and brimstone." (286). Another view of hell in man is explained as, "the flames gather and flash about them, and...the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out" (288). Yet again he pleads with the heathen to think about his situation in life and to remember, "...it is a great furnace of wrath...you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it..." (290). Even if a healthy person died and was let go by God, "Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell..." (288). God was also described as a very heavy chap: "...He will only tread you under foot; and though He will know that you cannot bear the weight of the omnipotence treading upon you, He will not regard that, but He will crush you under His feet without mercy..." (292). Constantly Edwards writes of fire. We associate heat with fire. Edwards associates heat with fire as well but also thought the, "...extraordinary power of the heat of lightning is an intimation of the exceeding power and terribleness of the wrath of God." (296).

"...we doubtless should hear one and another reply, 'No, I never intended to come here; I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself; I thought my scheme good...death outwitted me; God's wrath was too quick for me; O my cursed foolishness!'" (287).

It is clearly evident that Edwards' use of wording to affect the listener or reader's five senses was not only intentional, but successful as well. Through his usage of descriptive terms he was able to make his listeners s

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jonathan Edwards', Constantly Edwards, Massachusetts Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards, York City, Solomon Stoddard, wrath god, god's wrath, dreadful storm thunder, loud voice, god mercy, black clouds, trying convey, chief minister, storm thunder, taste smell, dreadful storm,

Approximate Word count = 1685
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People