Compare and Contrast Essay In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” Mr. Hooper states, ‘... this veil is a type and a symbol...’and he also says, ‘and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?’. In the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” it says that “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, not any Thing to take hold of: there is nothing between you and Hell but the Air…”. Both Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Nathaniel Hawthorne in his short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” deal with how sins affect you in life by using imagery, descriptive language, and symbols, but they do so in different ways. In Jonathan Edwards sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, He uses imagery and descriptive and fierce language to explain the effects of sin. Edwards uses a stricter and more straight up approach at speaking to his audience.
Rev Parris is not so much worried for the children as he is for himself. Rev Parris is a very strict Christian man, he is smart and fearful of the Salem people. Rev Parris requests the deed to the house as he believes the people of Salem might take it from him, he makes clear how he feel persecuted when he and Proctor are arguing. Abigail, his niece, is clearly the leader of the children and controls them through intimidation. In what ways does she exert her power over them?
In the story, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a homily from a Puritan minister, named Jonathan Edwards, the symbol of God’s Wrath is broken down and reformed into a thousand different facets. From an arrow drawn and ready, to malicious waters kept at bay by inches, one thing is clear: the sinner has no power to control their destiny; they are in the hands, literally, of a ruthlessly enraged puppet-master. Imagine the entire state of aforementioned sinner; bound and gagged, like cattle on a meant hook, agonizing over the final seconds before slaughter. The sinner is a doll, with limbs attached by string to a wooden cross; it is a situation flooding with irony. Imagine living an eternity filled with strangers with ugly faces.
He did not tell the people about his sin like Hester Prynne's was told. This sin made it unable for him to preach and bring a good change into people's lives because he was impure. People looked at him with great trust and saw him as a man of god but he betrayed that trust by giving into his feeling of lust for a short period of time. He is a impure minister of hidden dark secret which is against the rules of god, religion, society, and being a man of faith. The Scarlett Letter delivers a messege into our lives and teaches us an important rule in life.
As in Sinners the author uses strong metaphors describing hell and its eternal misery. Puritans believed in obeying the law of God. Any sign of the devil and they would judge you and betray you. As in the Crucible , a lady got angry with a man’s goat and cursed everyone to hell. They then took her to court.
Puritan by nature, he followed a moral code of life well intertwined within the Ten Commandments. Though he was religious, proctor was not without his faults, one being his expressed distaste toward those who did not follow his own law, such as reverend Parris. His distrust and hate toward reverend parris stems from his own idea that such a man could simply not be a holy one. His mood toward Parris came from such actions like the preaching toward golden candles, and how Parris was a self absorbed minister, and the third minister in the town in 7 years. “There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning!” (pg 30) Parris tried to defend himself with such passionate and heartfelt comments but Proctor would have none of it.
All people are born sinners. Natural men must be reborn to be saved; “…hell is waiting for them…” (Edwards 46). These views are that of Jonathan Edwards in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards belonged to a religion that was lingering and was close to disappearing due to the growing numbers of Christians, so he used figurative language and imagery in order to scare people back into the Puritan way of life. “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downward with great weight and pressure toward hell.” (Edwards 47).
For Edwards this included his view on religion. He believed that “There is nothing between you and Hell but the air; it is only the power and the mere pleasure of God that holds you up.” (41) He wanted to convince to repent, to be reborn in Christ. Last but not least, he wanted to save sinners from a decent into Hell’s fury. The moral of his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was therefore that if sin is committed, a persons tie with God is broken and they will fall into the hands of Hell. Edward’s diction and tone gives his listeners and readers an eerie feeling, a fear for sin, and an awakening for the wrath of God about to come.
Oscar Cruz Jr. Cruz 1 BG Guttierez ENGL 2327 23 February, 2012 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God In the story Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in holds a sermon on how your life should be led to with several techniques he tries to grab your attention with his grace and how you would go to heaven. Not everybody believes in god but in my point of view I believe that with the will of the lord everything is possible. Jonathan Edwards throughout the readings tried to scare the readers on how god can do things to people or grasp their life in any part of their time. It shouldn’t be understood in that way because in the bible I reads that god will come for you at the time he is ready. There is no need to be scared to go to heaven because heaven is a better and more peaceful place.
Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography, and Patrick Henry’s “The Speech in the Virginia Convention” each portray and increasing role for man in his own life.’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, written by Jonathan Edwards, is a sermon about how God is angry with mankind. At the beginning Edwards explains how God has control over everything and how God is able to strike us down to hell in a blink of an eye. At the end, however, Edwards explains that man has the choice to commit themselves to God or be struck down to Hell. Edwards says, “And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners” (106). Edwards is trying to tell the people of his church that God has given them the choice to commit themselves to God and get away from God’s wrath that is coming for all the sinners of world.