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God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the bigger part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that will be as it was on that great outpouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days, the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded.
Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741
'Tis not unlikely that this work of God's Spirit, that is so extraordinary and wonderful, is the dawning, or at least a prelude, of that glorious work of God, so often foretold in Scripture, which in the progress and issue of it, shall renew the world of mankind.
Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, 1742
The anniversary of Jonathan Edwards's birth in 2003 offered an appropriate occasion to examine the ideological context of his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached at Enfield on July 18,1741, at the peak of the Great Awakening.1 No single utterance in American religious history caused such great fear and trembling and none captured the imagination of so many generations as this sermon. The reason is not hard to find. Through a series of horrifying images and terrible visions regarding the miserable condition of sinners, Edwards depicted their existential state as dangling over "the pit of hell." The "wrath of God burns against them, their damnation don't slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow . . . and the pit hath opened her mouth under them." The life of an unconverted person is like that of a small, helpless spider hanging with all the power of his weak muscles to a tiny cord over a consuming fire while God makes ready to unleash his terrible wrath. Since their condition depends on the arbitrary, sovereign will of an angry God, sinners are constantly under threat of facing "the fierceness" of God's "wrath." They have no alternative but to await "the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God," or "hell's wide gaping mouth open." In...