A Calvinist
pastor who believed in the innate depravity of man, Edwards held with the concept that
Christians had to be "born again" embracing Christ as their Savior in order to be
saved from the fires of hell. Therefore, in his sermon, Edwards hoped to elicit from his
congregation the fear of God so that they would repent and strive to live better lives as
Christians.
However, he generated such frightening images and used such
extreme metaphors of a wrathful and retributive
God that many in his church screamed out and
fainted, while others ran from the building. For example, Edwards sermonizes,
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 angry God without any promise or obligation at all, that
keeps the arrow one moment from being drunk with your blood.
Since the Calvinists had rejected the concept of God's grace as attainable through good
works and acts, there was nothing that people could do to gain favor in the eyes of God other
than avoiding wrongful acts. Thus, there was a severe stress put upon the Christian and little
graciousness given to God. Edward's theology was one directed solely by "Fear of the
Lord" rather than one based upon God's love and mercy. For Edwards, God holds
"abominable" humanity over the pit of hell and if man sins, he can easily be punished
by the breakage of the gossamer thread that holds him above the fiery pits of Hell.
(This overriding concept of a punitive theology is criticized by Nathaniel Hawthorne
as it is symbolized in the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter as it is
contrasted with the nearby blooming red rose bush, symbolic of love; shortly thereafter, Hester
Prynne, who wears the scarlet A in punishment and is publicly humiliated
before the Calvinistic Puritans, who condemn her is derogatory terms, while Hawthorne compares
Hester and her baby to a "Papist" image of the Madonna and
child.)
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