Wendy Reynoso

Ms. Alcaraz

English 2 p.2

13 September 2017

Fear

Thesis: In “Sinners in the hands of God” by Johnathan Edwards, Edward uses fear to

control the congregation. He knows that being sent to hell will influence people to feel fear

towards god and hell.

If people fear something, you can influence their emotions by making them rely on the

thing that can possibly prevent that fear. Edward believes that “And there is no other reason to be

given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand

has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you

have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of

attending his solemn worship”(Edward para.8) .In other words Edward argues that the only

reason why they wake up to live another day is because of god’s will to spare them. By insisting

that god can let them go into the pit of hell at any moment, he introduces fear into people who

have and have not done any wrong. The fear that this quote inflicts in its readers can influence

his readers into believing in god. Edward wanted to emphasize the idea of relying on god

because he believed that god is their only way to not be condemned into hell for the rest of their

lives. This is another way of showing that fear is present in this text to impact the reader to feel

as if they owed god their life. He introduces the idea that they are the sinful people who do not

deserve anything better but to be sent to hell. This leads me to believe that the author knows how
to influence people into feeling what he wants them to feel by using fear. Fear is incorporated

into Edward's statement which can give him the capacity to impact people's beliefs and ideas. By

insisting that god has saved them from falling into hell, he delivers the idea of being appreciative

towards god. The author knows that his readers will be unsettled by the idea of being thrown into

hell and suggest that you must be thankful towards god in order to not follow that fate. By

making them panic and question their actions he implements fear, and a punishment makes it is

clear that he believes being sent to hell is justifiable because of their sins. People fear the idea of

being abandoned by god into hell so to try to prevent that, they rely on him to spare their life.

Ensuring someone that they have little to no hope of escaping their fate of being sent to

hell can inflict fear. Edward points out that “You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of

divine wrath flashing about it, and reading 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 one moment”(Edward para.9). What Edward really means is

that being cast to hell is inevitable and not even god can release them from their tragic end.

Edward explains how there is no way out of being sent to hell, that alone can cause panic in his

readers minds. He mentions that the only thing that prevents them from falling into hell is very

thin and will not withstand their weight for long. The thought of being let go into hell and being

consumed by fire will make people fear hell, even more so if that fate is out of their reach to

control. Edward describes god as not being able to save you no matter what you did or what you

will do to please him, this can compel people to try as hard as they can to do so by believing in

him. The author is trying to fright the readers because he knows there is so much horror into
knowing that they will one day be obligated to go to hell. By stating that this action is

unavoidable he makes god look extremely powerful and in control of every life, which can gain

followers. This can also influence the readers to try to do whatever they can to prevent being

sent to hell in fear that they will be condemned and their attempt to change their fate will be of

no use. People fear not being able to change god's mind if he decides to send them to burn in

hell.

Knowing that a much more powerful force can get rid of you whenever it pleases will

inflict fear into you. Edward argues that “The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made

ready on the String. And justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is

nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or

obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your

blood”(Edward para.7). In other words, Edward states that god has no accountability on having

to spare their life because of their sinful ways. Edward states that God has no obligation to not

kill them and yet God spares their life a little longer. The mention of blood and the possibility of

being shot in the heart by an arrow is solely to inflict worry into his reader's. Understanding the

possibility of being hurt by God, his readers will want to obey and believe in God. He mentions a

bow and how God's wrath is pulling the string to release the arrow towards their heart, this leads

me to believe that he used a weapon as a reference to a threat which can strike fear. The bow can

also have something to do with the space between God and his people, if he chooses to kill you

then it will be from far away. Far from the sinful people that he decides to give a second chance

to. Know that God can be identified as powerful and holy, it can scare people because now they

are aware of a stronger been who can hurt them or save them. When Edward says that God has
no obligation to shoot them, he was trying to gain remorse from his readers and make them feel

careless about their wrongdoings. Edward uses the fear of being shot down to introduce the idea

that God's punishment towards them is justifiable because of the sins they have committed in the

past. Since Edward does not want God to be seen as heartless, negligent, or insensitive, he says

that it is a pleasure to not hurt people. The passage does not only include the fear of being

punished, but the guilt of possibly insulting God.