The extreme and brutal descriptions of God’s wrath, then, can be seen as a device that Edwards uses to underscore the benevolence and necessity of Christ and his covenant of grace.
Edwards also claims that God, in order to demonstrate his wrath and power, would torture sinners in front of “all the inhabitants of heaven,” making their misery at the hands of his unbearable punishments a spectacle for all.
Wrath, Mercy, and Grace Quotes in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Below you will find the important quotes in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God related to the theme of Wrath, Mercy, and Grace. Part 1 Quotes. There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the meer pleasure of God.
Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, that has found means to fortify himself , and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defence from the power of God.
Of those who have converted to Christ, Edwards writes: “many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in an happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him that has loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.”.
Throughout the sermon, Edwards emphasizes that God loathes all human beings because they are not worthy of him, he’s angry with them for failing him, and he owes them no mercy. This attitude can be summed up by the notion that God’s primary characteristic is his wrath. Edwards expresses this colorfully in several instances, ...
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Secrecy appears in each chapter of Spies. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
Below you will find the important quotes in Spies related to the theme of Secrecy.
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Throughout the novel, Steinbeck constantly emphasizes self-interest and altruism as equal and opposite powers, evenly matched in their conflict with each other. In Chapters 13 and 15, for example, Steinbeck presents both greed and generosity as self-perpetuating, following cyclical dynamics.
Steinbeck makes a clear connection in his novel between dignity and rage. As long as people maintain a sense of injustice—a sense of anger against those who seek to undercut their pride in themselves—they will never lose their dignity. This notion receives particular reinforcement in Steinbeck’s images of the festering grapes of wrath (Chapter 25), and in the last of the short, expository chapters (Chapter 29), in which the worker women, watching their husbands and brothers and sons, know that these men will remain strong “as long as fear [can] turn to wrath.” The women’s certainty is based on their understanding that the men’s wrath bespeaks their healthy sense of self-respect.
At every turn, Steinbeck seems intent on showing their dignity and honor; he emphasizes the importance of maintaining self-respect in order to survive spiritually. Nowhere is this more evident than at the end of the novel. The Joads have suffered incomparable losses: Noah, Connie, and Tom have left the family; Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn baby; the family possesses neither food nor promise of work. Yet it is at this moment (Chapter 30) that the family manages to rise above hardship to perform an act of unsurpassed kindness and generosity for the starving man, showing that the Joads have not lost their sense of the value of human life.