What images and figure of speech might have helped Edward's listeners to feel the peril of their sinful condition?

uses many
vivid images to make and reinforce his point to the members of his congregation.  Perhaps the
most powerful image is the extendedof God holding the sinner over the pit of hell.  €¦there is
nothing between you and Hell but the air;  it is only power and mere pleasure of God that holds
you up.  This image would have been even more powerful in Edwards time than it is today, as
Puritan worshippers were regularly exposed to the idea of a fiery hell.

Edwards also uses the idea of sin (wickedness) making a sinner as heavy as lead.  He
describes the sin weighing down the sinner to the point that if God should let go, you would
immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf.  Furthermore, he says
the best efforts of the sinner to stay out of hell once God decided to let go would be no more
effective than a spiders web would have to stop a falling rock.

Edwards
also uses similes and metaphors to draw a clear picture in the mind of his listener.  One of
these images is the black clouds of Gods wrath now hanging directly over your heads.  His
comparison of Gods anger to a storm is a particularly effective image, as is the image of the
destruction of the sinner to a whirlwind: €¦and you would be like the chaff of the summer
threshing floor.  Edwards listeners, members of an agricultural society, certainly relate to the
ideas of weather and the parts of the grain that are not useful. 

Two other
important images are the wrath of God being compared to damned waters: €¦the waters are
constantly rising€¦there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the water back  and
the Bow of Gods wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string€¦  Edwards images are
not only powerful, but they are also everyday images with which every member of his congregation
would have had experienc