A speaker's
credibility, or ethos, is important when the aim of the speech or sermon is to persuade.
Edwards delivered the sermon "" to a congregation in Enfield, CT as a visiting
minister--and one with a formidable reputation. Edwards was a theologian, which means that he
studied religion as an academic discipline. He began studying at Yale in 1716 when he was just
twelve years old, and besides religion, he was interested in natural philosophy. By all
accounts, his intellect was tremendous.
Edwards began preaching in 1727 as an
assistant to his grandfather, and then took over the congregation at Northampton, Massachusetts
when his grandfather died in 1729. By the time he gave the famous sermon in the midst of the
Great Awakening in 1741, Edwards had been studying religion for twenty-five years and was in
demand as a sometimes controversial but highly regarded Reform Congregationalist
minister.
It is reasonable to assume that a minister with a lesser pedigree
might not have been able to pull off a sermon as severe as "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God." Edwards went on at length about God's wrath, the horrors of Hell, and how
dangerous complacency was when it came to one's eternal afterlife.
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