Puritan America

by Gnga Cristina

I will try to analyze this piece from Jonathan Edwards sermon Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God and try to explain the Puritan background that is
present in this piece.
The piece starts with God not wanting to cast wicked men into hell ensuring
us that God is not violent, he does not seek punishment for those who sin. The
following fragments represents humans who are weak in the face of God and no
man can stand in his way or escape his punishment. In the next line we can see
how powerful the Puritan God is by saying that he can send the non-believers to
hell with ease. The author explains that God can also do what a powerful man (a
prince) cannot and that God can also crush his enemies like worms which offers
the idea that the Puritans knew that with God at their side no enemy would stand
against them. The author started to describe God as a righteous one but by the end
of the piece his God turns into a powerful entity that not only inspires faith into the
Puritans but he also represents their symbol for the ultimate power.
The Puritans represent Gods chosen ones to carry out his will and they will
confront every sinner and try to transform each and every one into Puritans, be it
verbally or physically through tortures making an example of them, of Gods
wrath. Jonathan Edwards sees humans as sinners and so does God and he is angry
and wrathful because of that. The sermon is there to inform, to propagate and to
remind that humans are weak and sinful and that an angry God is the best solution.
Fear is the key and thats what Jonathan Edwards achieved among the listeners and
readers while writing this sermon. Because they are Gods chosen ones, they have
to make their God happy and to do so they will spread their beliefs and they will
try to act as good as possible, they will try to be a new breed of humans
(ideologically speaking) and make their existence a living proof of God and
Puritanism.

In the end, the author suggests that we should not be against God (ideologically
speaking) because we will be crushed and forgotten. The modern America is the
result of the old America with its roots being represented by Puritanism.