Edwards
delivered his famous sermon during a revival movement intended to reinvigorate church attendance
and bring more converts into the faith. He recognized that people were drifting away from church
and relegating their faith to the background of their lives. The entire sermon is designed to
shock listeners and instill a sense of urgency in their return to religion.
Edwards likely believed that Hell was an abstract notion to many of his listeners, and
so he loaded the sermon with horrifying senseto try to convince the congregation that Hell was a
concrete place of eternal tortures. To reach people who had become complacent about eternity, he
spoke very directly:
You probably are not sensible of
this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other
things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means
you use for your own preservation.
His words are meant to
remind people that though they might be enjoying robust health and crediting themselves for
their preservation, they are forgetting, at their own peril, that it is God who is responsible
for their condition in both life and the afterlife.
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