A fire and
brimstone preacher,embodies
the sanctimonious Puritan preacher who counts himself among the
"elect." In
his sermon, he essays to awaken and persuade those people in the
congregation
who have not been "born again"; that is, they have not accepted Jesus
Christ
as their savior. Influenced by the English philosopher John Locke, who held
that
everything that people know comes from experience with understanding and
feeling as two distinct
kinds of knowledge, Edwards's sermon incorporates
both elements into his sermon as he uses fear
as the motivator to bring his
congregation to understand the precariousness of their situation
by actually
feeling the horror of their sinful states.
As a Puritan,
Edwards
did not believe that good deeds were necessarily rewarded. Instead,
Puritans such as Edwards
believed that it was difficult to know if one were
among the elect or the damned, so it was
necessary to behave in as exemplary
a manner as possible. Edwards's sermon directs people to
behave for fear of
the fires of hell. It is only divine mercy that does not
release its hold; "it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds
you
up."
If God should withdraw His hold,
Edwards tells his
listeners, there would be nothing to keep a person from
falling into the fiery pit of hell.
People's
righteousness, would have no more influence to
uphold you and keep
you out of hell, than a sider's web would have to stop a fallen
rock...."
There is nothing to prevent
the
"floods of God's vengeance" against sinners but the "mere
pleasure
of God that holds the waters back" that would drown
sinners.
With other metaphors, such as "the bow of God's
wrath is bent," and the
sinners as spiders held over fire, Edwards further
contends that it is only the mercy of God
that prevents people's damnation to
the fires of hell. They "hang by a slender
thread," and they must live an
exemplary life so that they will not be condemned, but will
be spared by "the
mere pleasure" of God's divine mercy.
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