Mauro Espinosa S.

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Scott Gibson

6th, September 2016

Do Puritan Sinners Truly deserve Gods Grace?

By reading this sermon, it is clear how immense the power of religion in the

eighth century was. There was no chance to commit mistakes or sins because no one

was safe from the wrath of God. However, this sermon plants a question: why Jonathan

Edwards delivered it in such cruel and explicit way? Did something happened in the

community that motivated preacher Edwards to deliver it? Well, I think despite the

existence or not of such tremendous sins committed by the puritan community,

everyone is worthy of Gods grace, if they are willing to receive it.

Firstly, remember that these puritans are the first outsiders who established

permanently in America. There is a vast land from them to explore, so I think they were

concerned about their general stability in New England. In that way, they could be

tempted to commit a sin. One clear example of this might be that the puritans could

have given more importance to material and economic things than to pray for Gods

grace in order to have a dignified life in the new world. As a result, preacher Edwards

condemned that behaviour by giving this sermon. Nonetheless, in the last part of this it

is mentioned that [] everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath

to come [.] Let everyone fly out of Sodom. Haste and escape for your lives look not

behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed (Edwards 57).
 As you can see, there could be grace, there could be forgiveness. Preacher

Edwards might be hard with his comparisons and descriptions of hell, but above it there

is Gods grace that could envelop everyone that has lost the path. At the same time, I

think it was good for everyone to be part of grace because it could be the easiest way to

build a stable and peaceful community in the new world.

 Works Cited

Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God American Literature

Compendium, 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Thomas Gibson. Quito: Universidad San

Francisco de Quito, 2016. 48-57.