When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The passage from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" selected to compare and contrast with the introduction of the Declaration of Independence:

The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment. The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.

When the two passages are compared, many similarities can be discovered. Each passage

Both of these passages are strong, but in very different ways. The tone, the diction is completely different from the other, and yet they are so powerful the way that both were written, the documents almost forced the reader to agree with the side the writer had taken. The sermon did this by scaring the reader so badly he changes his ways. The Declaration did this by respectfully indicating that they want their independence. Although the methods are completely different, the product is the same: the writers made it so that the reader agreed with them.

Each passage uses its tone wisely; the sermon wants to instill fear into its readers so that the readers will change their life so they will not go to hell. If the sermon had been more respectful, like the Declaration, the readers would not have a good reason, fear, to quickly change their ways and would thus "go to hell." The Declaration uses a tone that is respectful to indicate that "we don't want to be a part of Britain anymore, please respect that." If the Declaration had used a fearful tone like the sermon, no one would have taken the Declaration seriously because the writers did not respect the readers and the readers would not have respected the writers or their cause.

Another difference, obviously, is the aims and effects that both pieces want to occur. The Declaration was written so that the 13 American colonies could break off from Britain and create a sovereign nation. The sermon on the other hand wanted people to change their sinful ways before God gets angry with them and removes His hand from under them. This difference, however, is really not that significant, as it is very hard to find two related pieces that use completely di

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Approximate Word count = 1149
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)