Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is Edwards's most famous sermon. The kind, however, was by no means exceptional in Edwards's preaching, particularly at this period. Believing as he did that the decisions of men in this life were fraught with the most momentous issues to all eternity, he held it his bounden duty to present these issues before them in the liveliest manner possible. The God that holds you ... drop down into hell. This is probably the best remembered paragraph in this all too well remembered sermon. Jonathan Edwards was born October 5, 1703, in what is now South Windsor, Conn., a part of the parish then known as "Windsor Farmes." His father, the Rev. Timothy Edwards, the minister of the parish, a Harvard graduate, was reputed a man of superior ability and polished manners, a lover of learning as well as of religion; in addition to his pastoral duties, he fitted young men for college, and his liberal views of education appear in the fact that he made his daughters pursue the same studies these youths did. A tall, spare man, with high, broad forehead, clear piercing eyes, prominent nose, thin, set lips and a rather weak chin, his whole appearance suggested the perspicacity of intellect and the integrity, refinement, and benevolence of character of one possessing little physical energy, little suited to practical affairs, but intensely alive in the spirit, intensely absorbed in the contemplation of things invisible and eternal. The two qualities, indeed, for which he is most distinguished are spirituality and intellectuality. Spiritual-mindedness was the very core and essence of his being. Religion was his element. God was to him absolute Reality; His will and His thoughts alone constituted the ultimate truth and meaning of things. Nor was this with Edwards a mere philosophical speculation; it was the high region in which he drew vital breath, the solid ground on which he walked. He walked with God. He has been called the "Saint of New England." Like other saints, he too has on occasion his ecstasies.