Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

The concluding paragraph of the proofs section of the sermon is a classic example of the rhetorical device of accumulatio, the forceful, concise summary of an argument. Edwards recaps the 10 “reasons” or proofs that support his doctrine in a single-sentence precis that is meant to overwhelm the listener with its rapid thought and inexorable logic. The passage combines accumulatio with amplification, parataxis, hypotaxis, parallelism, polysyndeton, and asyndeton, among other devices, for maximum rhetorical effect:

So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, His anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of His wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them.