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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
This sermon was written and delivered in colonial America, specifically in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The 13 colonies were still under English rule at this time, and they were populated by people who considered themselves Englishmen. However, with the heart of the English empire an ocean away, colonial Americans were well on their way to forming unique ideologies.
By the time Edwards gave this sermon, a mixture of Protestant denominations coexisted in the 13 colonies. After decades of increasing atheism and religious apathy as a result of the Enlightenment, many people were eager to rediscover a meaningful connection to God and Christian theology. During a period now known as the First Great Awakening, revivals reignited religious fervor across America and Europe. The ideas circulated during these revivals, especially the stress on a personal relationship to God and individual conversion even for those already in the church, would eventually shape evangelical Christianity as it is known today.
Itinerant preachers such as Edwards spread evangelical Christianity to dozens of communities. A prominent characteristic of the theology preached during the First Great Awakening is its insistence on a close, personal relationship with God through Jesus. In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," for instance, Edwards calls Jesus the "Mediator" because Jesus often either implicitly or explicitly stands between the sinner and God's wrath. Edwards repeatedly asks the congregation why they would ignore Jesus's sacrifice on the cross when acceptance of Him would save their souls.
For some Christian bodies, such as Catholicism, a person who is already a member of the church (through infant baptism, for instance) cannot convert again; it defeats the purpose of baptism, which is an indelible, once-in-a-lifetime commitment to God. But for evangelicals, even those already in the church can and should recommit to God and Jesus, not taking mere membership as proof of one's salvation. First they would need to recognize and repent of their sins, and then they would have to wait for the Holy Spirit to move them to new faith in God. Prayer, Bible reading, and good deeds might move the Holy Spirit to act sooner, but those things alone are not sufficient to save someone from hell. Only a moment of strong spiritual conviction could demonstrate that the believer had truly accepted Christ into his or her heart. This pattern of heavy guilt followed by sudden spiritual emotion is apparent in Edwards's sermon; he focuses so heavily on guilt and sin because, in his belief, recognizing one's own sins was a crucial precondition to being "saved."
Related Themes:
