Jonathan Edwards’s "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

Question 5 • (J. Blaum) 0231 10th Grade English 1st 9 Weeks 26-27

Which quotation from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" uses a rhetorical device to show that people have a fragile hold on life?

Answer

Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth; yea, doubtless with many that are now in this congregation . . . than he is with many of those that are now in the flames of hell.

[T]he pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow.

Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they won't bear their weight, and these places are not seen.

God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell.

Explanation

Choice C uses a metaphor: unconverted people are described as walking over hell on a rotten covering with unseen weak spots. This image suggests their hold on life is fragile because the covering could give way at any moment. The other quotations emphasize God’s anger or the fires of hell, rather than depicting how precarious people’s lives are.

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