Republic of the Philippines

University of Eastern Philippines

Laoang Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education 3

Major 13 (Survey of English & American Literature)
1st Semester, SY 2022 – 2023
Module 7 American Colonial Period and Puritan Literature
Overview of the Module:
This module discusses the Colonial Period of America & the Puritan Literature. It helps
students to understand cultural heritage, the customs and traditions developed by the colonists,
Native Americans, and Africans during this time which are still very much a part of modern
America and discover events that shaped America.
Likewise, this module also talks Puritan’s literature which undertook a goal of honoring
God and the Bible through their work. It will give students awareness as regards lasting
contributions to American literature like investing American with a mythology of its own, how
Puritan attitudes and ethics continued to exert an influence on American society, made a virtue
of qualities for economic success-self-reliance, frugality, industry, and energy and modern social
and economic life.
Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, the students should be able to:
a. Describe the major historical and cultural developments of colonial America; explain key
concepts;
b. Describe the major conventions, tropes, and themes of Puritan and early American
literature; identify and discuss those features with regard to individual works.

Learning Activities:
American Colonial Period (1650-1750)
European nations came to the Americas to increase their wealth and broaden their
influence over world affairs. The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the New
World and the first to settle in what is now the United States.
By 1650, however, England had established a dominant presence on the Atlantic coast.
The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Many of the people who settled in
the New World came to escape religious persecution. The Pilgrims, founders of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, arrived in 1620. In both Virginia and Massachusetts, the colonists flourished
with some assistance from Native Americans. New World grains such as corn kept the colonists
from starving while, in Virginia, tobacco provided a valuable cash crop. By the early 1700s
enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population. By 1770, more
than 2 million people lived and worked in Great Britain's 13 North American colonies.
Puritanism
Early in the 17th century some Puritan groups separated from the Church of England.
Among these were the Pilgrims, who in 1620 founded Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, under
the auspices of the Massachusetts Bay Company, the first major Puritan migration to New
England took place. The Puritans brought strong religious impulses to bear in all colonies north
of Virginia, but New England was their stronghold, and the Congregationalist churches
established there were able to perpetuate their viewpoint about a Christian society for more than
200 years.
Richard Mather and John Cotton provided clerical leadership in the dominant Puritan
colony planted on Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Hooker was an example of those who settled
new areas farther west according to traditional Puritan standards. Even though he broke with
the authorities of the Massachusetts colony over questions of religious freedom, Roger Williams
was also a true Puritan in his zeal for personal godliness and doctrinal correctness. Most of
these men held ideas in the mainstream of Calvinistic thought. In addition to believing in the
absolute sovereignty of God, the total depravity of man, and the complete dependence of
human beings on divine grace for salvation, they stressed the importance of personal religious
experience. These Puritans insisted that they, as God's elect, had the duty to direct national
affairs according to God's will as revealed in the Bible. This union of church and state to form a
holy commonwealth gave Puritanism direct and exclusive control over most colonial activity until
commercial and political changes forced them to relinquish it at the end of the 17th century.
During the whole colonial period Puritanism had direct impact on both religious thought
and cultural patterns in America. In the 19th century its influence was indirect, but it can still be
seen at work stressing the importance of education in religious leadership and demanding that
religious motivations be tested by applying them to practical situations.
Jamestown 1607
In June of 1606, King James I granted a charter to a group of London entrepreneurs, the
Virginia Company, to establish a satellite English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North
America. By December, 104 settlers sailed from London instructed to settle Virginia, find gold,
and seek a water route to the Orient. Some traditional scholars of early Jamestown history
believe that those pioneers could not have been more ill-suited for the task. Because Captain
John Smith identified about half of the group as "gentlemen," it was logical, indeed, for
historians to assume that these gentry knew nothing of or thought it beneath their station to
tame a wilderness. Recent historical and archaeological research at the site of Jamestown
suggest that at least some of the gentlemen, and certainly many of the artisans, craftsmen, and
laborers who accompanied them, all made every effort to make the colony succeed.
On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island to
establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James River, 60 miles from the mouth
of the Chesapeake Bay. By one account, they landed there because the deep water channel let
their ships ride close to shore; close enough to moor them to the trees. Recent discovery of the
exact location of the first settlement and its fort indicates that the actual settlement site was in a
more secure place, away from the channel, where Spanish ships could not fire point blank into
the fort. Almost immediately after landing, the colonists were under attack from what amounted
to the on-again off-again enemy, the Algonquian natives. As a result, in a little over a month's
time, the newcomers managed to "beare and plant palisadoes" enough to build a wooden fort.
Three contemporary accounts and a sketch of the fort agree that its wooden palisaded walls
formed a triangle around a storehouse, church, and a number of houses.
Captain John Smith
Captain John Smith (January 1580 – 21 June 1631) Admiral of New England was an
English soldier, explorer, and author. He was considered to have played a important part in the
establishment of the first permanent English settlement in North America. He was a leader of
the Virginia Colony (based at Jamestown) between September 1608 and August 1609, and led
an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay.
 Smith's books and maps are extremely important in the further colonization of the New
World. He gave the name New England to that region and encouraged people to migrate with
the comment, "Here every man may be master and owner of his owned labor and land...If he
have nothing but his hands, he may...by industries quickly grow rich."
Plymouth Plantation
Plymouth Colony (sometimes New Plymouth, or Plymouth Bay Colony) was an English
colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth
Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John
Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town of
Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern
portion of the modern state of Massachusetts.
Founded by a group of Separatists and Puritans, who together later came to be known
as the Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony was, along with Jamestown, Virginia, one of the earliest
successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America and the first sizable
permanent English settlement in the New England region. Aided by Squanto, a Native American
of the Patuxet people, the colony was able to establish a treaty with Chief Massasoit which
helped to ensure the colony's success. It played a central role in King Philip's War, one of the
earliest of theIndian Wars. Ultimately, the colony was merged with the Massachusetts Bay
Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Despite the colony's relatively short history, Plymouth holds a special role in American
history. Rather than being entrepreneurs like many of the settlers of Jamestown, a significant
proportion of the citizens of Plymouth were fleeing religious persecution and searching for a
place to worship as they saw fit. The social and legal systems of the colony became closely tied
to their religious beliefs, as well as English custom. Many of the people and events surrounding
Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the North American tradition
known as Thanksgiving and the monument known as Plymouth Rock.
William Bradford
William Bradford (March 19, 1590 – May 9, 1657) was an English Separatist leader of
settlers at Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. He served as governor for over 30 years after
the previous governor, John Carver died. His journal (1620–1647) was published as Of
Plymouth Plantation. Bradford is credited as the first civil authority to designate what popular
American culture now views as Thanksgiving in the United States.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration may refer to the Winthrop Fleet of 1630; wherein 1,000 passengers
migrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in eleven ships. It may also refer more
generally to the Puritan migration of approximately 70,000 refugees from England to what is
now the Northeastern United States, the Chesapeake Bay area, and the Caribbean during the
1630s.
Many Puritans immigrated to North America in the 1620-1640s because they believed
that the Church of England was beyond reform. However, most Puritans in both England and
New England were non-separatists. They continued to profess their allegiance to the Church of
England despite their dissent from Church leadership and practices.
Most of the Puritans who emigrated settled in the New England area. However, the
Great Migration of Puritans was relatively short-lived and not as large as is often believed. It
began in earnest in 1629 with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and ended in 1642
with the start of the English Civil War when King Charles I effectively shut off emigration to the
colonies. From 1629 through 1643 approximately 21,000 Puritans emigrated to New England.
This is

actually, far less than the number of British citizens who emigrated to Ireland, Canada, and the
Caribbean during this time.
Puritan Plain Style
The plain style is the simplest of the three classical forms of style. In choosing the plain
style, Puritan writers eschewed features common to the rhetoric of the day; they declined to
stuff their sermons with the rhetorical flourishes and learned quotations of the metaphysical
style of sermon, believing that to be the province of Archbishop Laud and his followers. The
Puritan sermon traditionally comprised three parts: doctrine, reasons, and uses.
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England, in the year 1612, daughter of
Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke; Dudley, who had been a leader of volunteer soldiers in the
English Reformation and Elizabethan Settlement, was then a steward to the Earl of Lincoln;
Dorothy was a gentlewoman of noble heritage and she was also well educated.
At the age of 16, Anne was married to Simon Bradstreet, a 25-year-old assistant in the
Massachusetts Bay Company and the son of a Puritan minister, who had been in the care of the
Dudleys since the death of his father.
Anne and her family emigrated to America in 1630 on the Arabella, one of the first ships
to bring Puritans to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. The journey was
difficult; many perished during the three-month journey, unable to cope with the harsh climate
and poor living conditions, as sea squalls rocked the vessel, and scurvy brought on by
malnutrition claimed their lives. Anne, who was a well-educated girl, tutored in history, several
languages and literature, was ill prepared for such rigorous travel, and would find the journey
very difficult. She is credited as being the first American poet.
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a period of great revivalism that spread throughout the
colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. It deemphasized the importance of church doctrine and
instead put a greater importance on the individual and their spiritual experience.
The Great Awakening arose at a time when man in Europe and the American colonies
were questioning the role of the individual in religion and society. It began at the same time as
the Enlightenment which emphasized logic and reason and stressed the power of the individual
to understand the universe based on scientific laws. Similarly, individuals grew to rely more on a
personal approach to salvation than church dogma and doctrine.
Following are significant facts to remember about the Great Awakening:
It pushed individual religious experience over established church doctrine, thereby
decreasing the importance and weight of the clergy and the church in many instances.
New denominations arose or grew in numbers as a result of the emphasis on individual
faith and salvation.
 It unified the American colonies as it spread through numerous preachers and revivals.
This unification was greater than had ever been achieved previously in the colonies.
Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards was a key American revivalist during the Great Awakening who
preached for close to ten years in New England. He emphasized a personal approach to
religion. He also bucked the puritan tradition and called for unity amongst all Christians as
opposed to intolerance. His most famous sermon was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,"
delivered in 1741. In this sermon he explained that salvation was a direct result from God and
could not be attained by human works as the Puritans preached.
Edward Taylor
Edward Taylor was born in Leicestershire, England in 1642. He originally worked as a
school teacher, but later left England for the United States. He studied divinity at Harvard and
then became a minister in Massachusetts.
The son of a non-Conformist yeoman farmer, Taylor was born in 1642 at Sketchley,
Leicestershire, England. Following restoration of the monarchy and the Act of Uniformity under
Charles II, which cost Taylor his teaching position, he emigrated in 1668 to the Massachusetts
Bay Colony in America.
The Age of Reason (1700-1800)
The Age of Reason was an eighteenth-century movement which followed hard after the
mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages. The Age of Reason represented a
genesis in the way man viewed himself, the pursuit of knowledge, and the universe. In this time
period, man’s previously held concepts of conduct and thought could now be challenged
verbally and in written form; fears of being labeled a heretic or being burned at the stake were
done away with. This was the beginning of an open society where individuals were free to
pursue individual happiness and liberty. Politically and socially, the imperial concepts of the
medieval world were abandoned. The Age of Reason included the shorter time period described
as the Age of Enlightenment; during this time great changes occurred in scientific thought and
exploration. New ideas filled the horizon and man was eager to explore these ideas, freely.
Age of Reason – Reason, Rationality and Enlightenment
The Age of Reason brought about a great change in the tale of man’s sojourn on earth.
Reason, rationality and enlightenment became the new ‘gods.’ For the previous seventeen
hundred years the perfection of man was only to be obtained through grace after death. The
Protestant revolt to the Catholic Church and subsequent ‘holy wars’ had done nothing to change
the accepted underlying beliefs of society: revelation was the source of ultimate truth and could
only be received as a communication from God. This was the basis of Christianity. Now, in this
new age, man felt obligated to follow his own intellect, not ‘revealed’ truth. Earth and emphasis
on nature became the new dogma; miracles, prophecy, and religious rites were mere
superstitions. Reason, philosophically, is defined as the ability to form and operate upon
concepts in abstraction, narrowing information to its bare content, without emotion. Rationality
carries the dual implication of ordered inference and comprehension along with understanding
and explanation. Enlightenment is more or less the application of reason and rationality to
previously held beliefs resulting in broader, clearer thinking.
 The Age of Reason saw the introduction of the Scientific Revolution and various
progressions of new schools of thought. Dualism advocated by Descartes taught that God
(mind) and man (nature) were distinct. Baruch Spinoza introduced the idea of pantheism,
namely, God and the universe are one and further that, “God was a substance consisting of
infinite attributes.” Believers in Deism, described as the religion of reason rejected Christianity
as a body of

revelation, mysterious and incomprehensible. God’s revelation, believed Deists, was simple,
logical and clear-cut, a natural religion which always existed.
Rhetoric: Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or
writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations.
As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central
role in the Western tradition. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a
counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it "the faculty of observing in any given case the
available means of persuasion." Rhetorics typically provide heuristics for understanding,
discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three
persuasive audience appeals, logos, pathos, and ethos.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers
of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist,
politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and
diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of
physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod,
bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the
first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania.
Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable
campaigning for colonial unity; as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies,
then as the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American
nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical
and democratic values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing
institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and
tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a
Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the
Enlightenment without its heat." To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most
accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society
America would become."
Patrick Henry
Born on May 29, 1736 in Studley, Virginia, Patrick Henry was an American Revolution-
era orator best known for his quote "Give me liberty or give me death." Henry was an influential
leader in the radical opposition to the British government, but only accepted the new federal
government after the passage of the Bill of Rights, for which he was in great measure
responsible.
Thomas Paine
 Thomas Paine was born in England in 1737, to a Quaker father and an Anglican mother.
Paine received little formal education, but did learn to read, write and perform arithmetic. At the
age of 13, he began working with his father as a corset maker, and he later worked as an officer
of the excise, hunting smugglers, and collecting liquor and tobacco taxes. He did not excel at
this job, nor at any other early job, and his life in England was, in fact, marked by repeated
failures.
To compound his professional hardships, around 1760, Paine's wife and child both died
in childbirth, and his business, that of making corsets, went under. In the summer of 1772,
Paine

published "The Case of the Officers of Excise," a 21-page article in defense of higher pay for
excise officers. It was his first political work, and he spent that winter in London, handing out the
4,000 copies of the article to members of Parliament and other citizens. In spring of 1774, Paine
was fired from the excise office, and began to see his outlook as bleak. Luckily, he soon met
Benjamin Franklin, who advised him to move to America and provided him with letters of
introduction to the newly formed nation.
Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774, taking up his first regular
employment—helping to edit the Pennsylvania Magazine—in January 1775. At this time, Paine
began writing in earnest, publishing several articles, anonymously or under pseudonyms. One
of his early articles was a scathing condemnation of the African slave trade, called "African
Slavery in America," which he signed under the name "Justice and Humanity." Paine's
propagandist ideas were just coming together, and he couldn't have arrived in America at a
better time to advance his general views and thoughts on revolution and injustice.
Paine had arrived in America as the conflict between the colonists and England had
reached a fever pitch, although events had not yet become violent. Within five months of
Paine's arrival, however, the precipitating event to his most famous work would occur. After the
battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775), which were the first military engagements of
the American Revolutionary War, Paine argued that America should not simply revolt against
taxation, but demand independence from Great Britain entirely. He expanded this idea in a 50-
page pamphlet called "Common Sense," which was printed on January 10, 1776.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was born at Shadwell in what is now Albemarle County, Va., on Apr. 13, 1743.
He treated his pedigree lightly, but his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, came from one of the
first families of Virginia; his father, Peter Jefferson, was a well-to-do landowner, although not in
the class of the wealthiest planters. Jefferson attended (1760-62) the College of William and
Mary and then studied law with George WYTHE. In 1769 he began six years of service as a
representative in the Virginia House of Burgess. The following year he began building Monticello
on land inherited from his father. The mansion, which he designed in every detail, took years to
complete, but part of it was ready for occupancy when he married Martha Wayles Skelton on
Jan. 1, 1772. They had six children, two of whom survived into adulthood:
Jefferson's reputation began to reach beyond Virginia in 1774, when he wrote a political
pamphlet, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. Arguing on the basis of natural
rights theory, Jefferson claimed that colonial allegiance to the king was voluntary. "The God who
gave us life," he wrote, "gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but
cannot disjoin them."
Activity 1. Answer the questions below. 10 points
1. The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the New World and the first to
settle in what is now the United States. What is the purpose of their exploration? Was it
similar to their exploration in the Philippines? Why or why not? (5 points)
2. What are the American philosophies which are stressed by Benjamin Franklin during the
colonial period? (5 points)
The Puritans Colonize New England

During the period from 1620 to 1640, large numbers of English people migrated to that
part of America now known as New England. These emigrants were not impelled by hope of
wealth, or ease, or pleasure. They were called Puritans because they wished to purify the
Church of England from what seemed to them great abuses; and the purpose of these men in
emigrating to America was to lay the foundations of a state built upon their religious principles.
These people came for an intangible something--liberty of conscience, a fuller life of the spirit--
which has never commanded a price on any stock exchange in the world.
These Puritans had been more than one century in the making. We hear of them in the
time of Wycliffe (1324-1384). Henry VIII formed the Church of England in 1534. Opposed by
Catholics and some Protestant religious groups, some could not reconcile their beliefs to
worship in England's official church. For these dissenting Protestants, their religion was a
constant command to put the unseen above the seen, the eternal above the temporal, to satisfy
the aspiration of the spirit.
Professor Tyler says: "New England has perhaps never quite appreciated its great
obligations to Archbishop Laud. It was his overmastering hate of nonconformity, it was the
vigilance and vigor and consecrated cruelty with which he scoured his own diocese and
afterward all England, and hunted down and hunted out the ministers who were committing the
unpardonable sin of dissent, that conferred upon the principal colonies of New England their
ablest and noblest men."
It should be noted that the Puritan colonization of New England took place in a
comparatively brief space of time, during the twenty years from 1620 to 1640. Until 1640
persecution drove the Puritans to New England in multitudes, but in that year they suddenly
stopped coming. "During the one hundred and twenty-five years following that date, more
persons, it is supposed, went back from the New to the Old England than came from the Old
England to the New," says Professor Tyler. The year 1640 marks the assembling of the Long
Parliament, which finally brought to the block both Archbishop Laud (1645) and King Charles I
(1649), and chose the great Puritan, Oliver Cromwell, to lead the Commonwealth.
Colonial Non-Fiction Prose and Essays
The Colonial Period covers the history of colonization of America. In 1607 the first
European nations settled in America to increase their wealth and lifestyle. Spanish were the first
to explore the “new world”. They settled in what is now the United States. After them came the
English, who settled in present day Virginia. Groups of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans,
Scots, Irishmen, Dutchmen, Swedes, and many others crossed the Atlantic to come to America,
and soon there were settlements all around the land. This is known as the “beginning” of
America, and it is also the beginning of the first literary period, the Colonial Period. During this
period the first literature pieces arouse in America. The Colonial Period lasted until 1776, the
year of the American declaration of independence.
 Colonial literature in America was often in the form of nonfiction prose. Literary works
were mostly letters, journals, autobiographies, sermons and memoirs and they were written
mainly by English authors. The relationship between humans and nature, will and work and also
the differences between European and Native American cultures were central themes. During
the Colonial period some ideologies were obtained, such as Puritanism, which affected the
literature.
Although the literature was mostly non-fiction, with journals and letters, some writers
also wrote more spiritual and emotional texts. The poets Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop
wrote about their spiritual feelings and quests. Bradstreet wrote very personal poems and a
personal journal. Some of her most famous poems are “A Letter to Her Husband”, “A Dialogue
Between

the Old English and the New” and “Another”. John Winthrop wrote a famous public sermon and
an intimate journal. Jonathan Edwards and Phillis Wheatley reflected on their faith in their
poems and journals. Other writers, including Benjamin Franklin, wrote more public literature to
entertain people or to bring forth their political ideas and aims.
Writers from the Colonial Period are not as popular as some authors from other literary
movements may be. Colonial literature focused on topics, which were to some extent outdated
for Europeans. (In Europe the Age of Enlightenment was going on.) Being “outdated” and so far
away from Europe at the time are possibly the reasons why works from the Colonial literary
period are not so popular as classics on a worldwide scale. Still the literature from the Colonial
Period is a very important part of the American history of literature, as it is the very beginning.
While studying the Colonial Period of American literature, we found out something quite
exciting! The Disney movie "Pocahontas" is actually based on the finding and colonizing of
America. In the movie, English men sail to Virginia (this actually happened!) in search of gold. In
addition, an English character in the movie is named Captain Smith, who was actually there!
Pretty cool! Here's a clip of the movie.
Activity 2. Answer the questions below. (20 points)
1. Why is it that literature during the colonial time was not popular yet it is still very
important? (2 points)
2. What was the motive of Puritan in their exodus to America? (3 points)
3. Essay is an example of nonfiction literature. Write a 2-paragraph essay about the
relationship between humans and nature. (10 points)
4. Explain the following lines (5 points)
Things done that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice
Summary: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is a sermon written by Jonathan Edwards, pastor
of the Congregational church of Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1741, during the period of the
First Great Awakening. Edwards delivered the sermon to remarkable effect on July 8, 1741, in
Enfield, Connecticut, during a revival tour, and it was published shortly thereafter in Boston.
Though its hellfire-and-brimstone style is not typical of Edwards’s work, it quickly became his
best-known publication and during the succeeding centuries came to epitomize the Calvinist
fixation on sin and damnation of the early New England Puritans. Sinners is the most famous
text from the period of the Great Awakening, the religious revival movement that occurred in the
British colonies in North America from Maine to Georgia in the 1740s and in which Edwards
played an influential role as preacher and apologist. Sinners has been anthologized
innumerable times and is considered by many the greatest sermon in American literature. The
citations in this guide are from the Library of America edition in Jonathan Edwards: Writings
from the Great Awakening, ed. Philip F. Gura.
Sinners follows the typical four-part structure of most Puritan sermons: biblical text,
doctrine, proof, and application. The sermon begins with a scriptural epigraph, which Edwards
explicates to arrive at the sermon’s doctrine. Edwards’s text is a verse from Deuteronomy (xxxii.
35), “Their foot shall slide in due time.” Explaining that the verse refers to the “wicked
unbelieving Israelites” (625) who broke the Mosaic laws, Edwards identifies four implications of
the text: The

sinful Israelites were always exposed to destruction—in fact, sudden, unexpected destruction;
the wicked are liable to fall of themselves; and the sole reason they haven’t been destroyed
already is that God’s appointed time has not yet come. Edwards synthesizes these points in
an“Observation,” which provides the sermon’s doctrine: “There is nothing that keeps wicked
men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God” (626).
In the next section of the sermon, Edwards demonstrates the truth of this proposition in
10 enumerated proofs, or “Considerations”:
1. God is all-powerful; he can destroy the sinner as effortlessly as a human being can
crush a worm or cut a spider’s silken thread.
2. The wicked deserve damnation; divine justice calls out for the sinner to be cast into
hell.
3. The wicked, moreover, have already been condemned by God’s righteous justice;
their proper place is hell.
4. They are objects of the same divine wrath that the damned already suffer in hell; in
fact, God is angrier with many alive than those already enduring the flames of eternal torment.
5. Satan stands ready to seize the wicked as soon as God permits him; hell opens its
maw to receive sinners, and demons gather like hungry lions to devour them.
6. Within the souls of wicked men are hellish principles that would burst into hellfire and
consume them if God did not temporarily prevent it. Man’s corruption is boundless in its fury and
would incinerate his soul without God’s restraint.
7. Even if no means of death are visible, this should not give comfort to the wicked. The
natural means of death are innumerable and usually unseen; God does not need a miracle to
destroy those whose wickedness offends Him.
8. Prudence and care cannot protect human beings from the wrath of God; their wisdom
avails no security.
9. Humans, assuming their cleverness will enable them to escape damnation, delude
themselves as to their eternal prospects. If we could hear a miserable sinner bewailing his fate
in hell, he would lament that death came suddenly and unseen, like a thief outwitting him, and
he would ruefully curse his own foolishness.
 10. God has never promised to keep sinful (or “natural”) man out of hell for one moment.
The only promise of salvation is that secured by Christ’s sacrifice, known as the covenant of
grace, which applies only to the faithful who accept Christ as Savior and are reborn within Him.
Prayers and good works can avail nothing regarding salvation; only submission to Christ can
save human beings from damnation.
Edwards concludes the proof section of the sermon with a single, forceful sentence that
summarizes point by point the 10 claims he has made in support of his doctrine.
Shifting to the “Application,” Edwards explains the use of the doctrine for his listeners’
spiritual benefit. His exposition of the sinner’s perilous plight is meant to awaken the
unconverted in the congregation before the opportunity for redemption has passed. Addressing
his audience directly, he says that the case he has made applies to each of them who are
outside of Christ. Though they don’t realize it, they are suspended precipitously over the flames
of God’s wrath, as if in midair, with no support but the mere pleasure of God holding them up.
Edwards graphically

depicts God’s anger and the hateful sinfulness of his listeners in a series of rapid images:
Wickedness is like a leaden weight dragging the unregenerate toward hell but for God’s support;
the earth and sun recoil from the odious presence of the wicked within His creation; the wrath of
God is like black thunderclouds threatening to wreak havoc on the sinner, or like dammed
floodwaters continually increasing and yearning for release. Like unseen arrows, God’s
vengeance will strike down the unsuspecting sinner in broad day. Edwards implores the listener
to consider his utter helplessness and offensiveness to God; like a spider or insect, he is held
over the pit of hell by God, solely dependent on His forbearance to escape destruction at each
instant. Nothing in the sinner’s power can provide the slightest degree of security. Good health,
benevolent intentions, and affectations of holiness are worthless; only the conversion of the
heart by being reborn in Christ can atone for sinfulness and lead to salvation.
Edwards develops four points about God’s anger toward the wicked for his audience to
contemplate: (1) The wrath to which they are exposed is that of the infinite God, unimaginable in
His majesty and power; (2) God’s wrath is inconceivably fierce and will be executed upon
sinners without any pity; (3) God will make their suffering a spectacle to show the universe the
full terror of His wrath; (4) God’s wrath is everlasting; the sinner’s punishment, therefore, is
infinite and unimaginable in its misery. It is wondrous that many now sitting in the church stalls
have not already been cast into hell, considering the wickedness of their hearts; many may be
there before the end of the year, if not by tomorrow morning.
The sermon concludes with Edwards’s urgent appeal that his listeners take advantage of
the extraordinary opportunity now afforded them of coming to Christ. A day of mercy is at hand,
and many are flocking into the kingdom of God from the surrounding towns, even Suffield,
Enfield’s neighbor. Edwards addresses the town’s elderly, young adults, and children in turn,
urging each group not to neglect the precious season of redemption. This day is one of favor
and forgiveness for some but will be remembered as a day of remarkable vengeance by others.
God’s spirit is now pouring out over the land, as it did during the time of Christ’s apostles, and
He is hastily gathering in those who will be saved. Those who reject the gift of grace will be
blinded and cut down, like a tree that refuses to bring forth good fruit. The sermon closes with
an admonition recalling the faithful Hebrews who fled Sodom when God turned against its
wicked inhabitants: “Haste and escape for your Lives, look not behind you, escape to the
Mountain, least you be consumed” .
Activity 3. Comprehension Check. (15 points)
1. What was the author trying to tell us in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? (3 points)
2. Explain to err is human to forgive is divine. (3 points)
3. Why is it that when one experienced suffering, it is only the time where s/he remembers
God? (2 points)
4. What does this line “Their foot shall slide in due time”, mean? (3points)
5. Select 2 of Edwards propositions and explain each. (2 points each)
End of Module 7
References:
https://sites.google.com/site/usingliteraturetodream/home/literary-periods-in-chronological-
order/native-american-literature-undetermined-1650/the-colonial-period-1650-1800
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/American_Literature/Colonial_Period_(1620s-1776)

http://ressun13ib-literatureblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/colonial-iida-jasmin-ella.html
https://www.supersummary.com/sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/summary/
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-
d&q=importance+of+studying+American+Colonial+Period+
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=importance+of+studying+puritan+literature
Dr. Luisito P. Muncada,, JD
Course Professor
Disclaimer: Learning activities in this module were culled out from the internet for instructional purposes
only.