Jonathan Edwards Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In the House of the Lord, a man appears to be walking down the aisle to arrive at the pulpit to serve as the connoisseur of the Bible. He wears a long black trench coat and sets down his notes on the podium. He stares out onto his followers and beings reading in a monotone voice. Although people should be uninterested in this man, he captures their attention. He entrances his audience. He goes by the name of Jonathan Edwards. Throughout “How to Know if You’re a Real Christian” and “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners” Edwards builds his credibility through these two sermons with using scriptures from the Bible, an explanation of salvation, and successfully employing emotional appeals. However, towards the end of his sermons, his attempts to appeal to the reader’s emotions are minimized by his recurrent use of the religious concepts of grace and faith …show more content…
In this sermon, Edwards asks “How do you know if you belong to God?” (puritansermons.com) and his followers can make up their own beliefs about how that is determined. However, through his rhetoric Edwards can persuade their thoughts to shift. He does this in this sermon by using the story of the “apostle James” (puritansermons.com). This helps to bring the sermon to a more realistic level. By incorporating biblical characters and explaining their roles in the Bible, Edwards ventriloquizes his ideas into the mouth of the “apostle James”(puritansermons.com). Edwards writes,
However, James is clear that although this belief a good thing, it is definitely not proof that a person is saved. What he means is this: "You say you are a Christian and you are in God 's favor. You think God will let you into heaven, and the proof of it is, you believe in God. But that is no evidence at all, because the demons also believe, and they are sure to be punished in hell."