Edwards
believed that people were inherently sinful, and that it would be entirely just for God to cast
all of their souls into hell. The only reason why he chooses to save some people is out of his
mercy, through which he gives them grace. Rightfully condemned, he says, "all that
preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance
of an incensed God." Edwards emphasizes this point throughout his sermon using terrifying ,
comparing people, or "sinners" to insects held over a fire by a hand ready to release
them at any moment. True to thefrom Deuteronomy that serves as the inspiration for his sermon,
"Their feet shall slide in due time," Edwards portrays impending damnation as
immediate, sudden, and unavoidable to those who do not seek God's mercy by turning to Jesus
Christ:
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in:
it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit...that you are held over in the hand
of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you... You hang by a slender
thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it,
and burn it asunder...
God's mercy was completely
unwarranted by anything people did, but by throwing themselves at his feet, so to speak, people
could make themselves more worthy of grace. Indeed, those who did not accept Jesus would be
destroyed. This message was intended to awaken the spirituality of people who Edwards viewed as
lapsed and complacent. By emphasizing their precariousness, and humans' total dependence on
divine mercy for salvation, he hoped to encourage a new spirit of religious
zeal.
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