Repetition In Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

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is Johanthan Edwards's most famous sermon delivered in a Puritan effort to awaken and persuade
those in the congregation who had not been "born again"; that is, they had not
accepted Christ as their savior.  Edwards's sermon had such a powerful effect upon the
congregation that there was much shrieking and swooning.  In fact, several times he was forced
to ask his audience for quiet.

This sermon stands as a powerful example of
rhetorical language, employing , , and repetition with very strong emotional appeal.  He begins
by telling the congregation that the devil is waiting for them with hell gaping so that flames
can engulf them.  Here are other examples:

emotional
language

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, ....

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds
a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, adhors you, and is dreaduflly provoked; His
wrath toward ou burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into
the fire; ...you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful
venomous serpent is in ours.

O sinner!  Consider the fearful danger you are
in:  It is a great furnace of wrath...that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose
wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in
hell....

repetition

There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the
wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have
nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of; there is
nothing between you and hell but the air....

There is
frequent use of the phrase "the mere pleasure of God ...."

...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....