Eric Bolanos

Mr Choi

Contemporary Composition

04 October 2019

Why am I religious?
The Arbella, a ship of opportunities, hope, and religious freedom where the Puritans were

forced to flee to the “New World” and leave England because they were being persecuted for

their religious beliefs. On this ship were many people including John Winthrop who was a

Puritan lawyer. He delivered his famous speech, “A City Upon a Hill” which had plenty of

rhetorical devices and is filled with imagery and extended analogies. John Winthrop delivered

his speech in a gentle and persuasive approach using rhetorical devices. On the other hand we

have Johnathan Edwards who used a discrete approach but had the same intentions as Winthrop

which was to persuade the congregation to have faith in God and worship Him.

The difference was that Edwards used a harsh tone in his sermon “Sinners in The Hands

Of an Angry God” which was used against the congregation into worshiping God and that he

would punish them if they sinned which scared them and made them fear God and made them

want to go to church by using this demonic imagery, “The bow of Quotes wrath is bent, and the

arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the arrow at your heart,and strains the bow,

and it is nothing more than the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God”.This quote uses

“the arrows” as an extended analogy by saying “the arrows” it means the price for your sin and

hell because that’s what people are scared of, and how justice is bent towards your heart as in if

someone sins it is justice for them to die.This is nothing but mere pleasure to God because God
is seen in this sermon as mean and scary, which is why people should obey him and not

sin​.​There is no promise at all if you sin the arrows are there to punish. The way Winthrop

approached the Puritans was by using ethos and things that can relate to them and motivate them.

Just look at the way he approached them by presenting this speech. “Now the onely way to

avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah”.

The tone he uses is very light and gives them hope to do good in the New World. He is also

using ethos because he refers to Micah who is a biblical figure, the bible was a trusted source to

the Puritans so they listened to Winthrop's words.

Because of Winthrop’s persuasive skills because he was a lawyer he had plentiful skill in

using persuasion to persuade the Puritans into follow the faith of God which was to follow his

ways which were not to be selfish . For example Winthrop implies that the Puritans should not be

greedful towards others and share their superfluities or their leftover luxuries that they have

excess of by stating “Wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine

each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities,

for the supply of others necessities[...]” by saying we must knitt together he brings the Puritans

together and makes them a whole community that needs to work together and provide one

another with brotherly affection. One of the teachings of God was that He was pleased by the act

of sharing as it says in Hebrew:3:16 “​Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for

such sacrifices are pleasing to God”. Winthrop uses the act of abridging the Puritans superfluities

to supply others necessities. On the other hand Edwards used a fear of punishment for sin

against the congregation and his credibility of being a church minister to spark some belief into

the congregation. Edwards implies miserable death for sin ​‘‘Tis everlasting wrath. It would be
dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of almighty god one moment; but you must suffer it

to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery” this implying ​that if they

sin they’ll be deemed by God’s wrath which is to be sent to hell for eternity by God and be

miserable and pay for their actions. Edwards surely got parts of his sermon from the bible but

just stretched it to strike fear into the congregation he hinted some of the lines from “Colossians

3:25”. “ For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no

partiality.”​ ​You can see many references to the bible in both the sermon and the speech that were

delivered which is ethos.

Winthrop and Edwards used different strategies to convince religious groups to believe in

God for example Winthrop implied that the Puritans should live by God and spread His religion

and the doubters of God as He would bless their “City Upon a Hill” by stating ​“Wee shall be

made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake

evil of the wayes of God and all professours for Gods sake[...].”Bringing up God and the bible or

anything that has to do with religion is a form of ethos because the bible was a trusted source and

people actually lived by the bible. The difference between Edwards and Winthrop was that a

huge rhetorical device that Edwards used was imagery, but not just any imagery, it was imagery

that strikes fear into the congregation by mentioning death and fire and blood, for example

Edwards implied a harsh punishment from God if one did not abide by Him by saying “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..”.

That was the difference between Winthrop and Edwards, Winthrop’s allocution had a lot to do

with the bible while Edwards’s approach had more to do with fear and imagery.
The imagery that Edwards used was the main reason why is allocution was so successful for

example Edwards implied that God punished all sinners over a pit of fire and God held the

natural men in the palm of his hand.“So that this 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”.

Edwards mean when he says “sentenced to it” he is referring to the consequences of sinning

which is to be held over a fiery pit of flames. While Edwards used fear, Winthrop used God as

motivation and made God look like someone you can look up to and trust. God helps the Puritans

ressit the enemies because they pray for glory. He also means God will bless their “City Upon a

Hill” as he did for england, but that's only if they praise God by saying that “Israell is among us,

when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a

prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New

England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill[...].”If this were

Edwards he would say that God will punish all that did not praise Him and curse the whole city.

That method would work just as well because it strikes fear into the Puritans.

“Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies,

when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord

make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a

Hill[...].”

Johnathan Edwards and John Winthrop, both notable for their cogent allocutions

presented in front of religious groups that influenced the way they sought their faiths. Both
successfully persuading the religious group, while they both succeeded, they both took a

different approach. Winthrop used a calm tone to persuade the Puritans to have faith in God and

live by His teachings like sharing superfluities with people that need it. The Puritans were

migrating from England to the New World, and I think that the way they successfully colonized

in the New World was because they had faith in God which was someone that gave them hope

and something to look forward to because Winthrop told the Puritans if the worship God, God

would bless their colony or their “City Upon a Hill”. Like I said before Johnathan Edwards was

notable for his cogent allocution “Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God” in which he used

many rhetorical devices and strategies that are still used today. For example, an Anti Nicotine

commercial will use fear against the viewers to stop or prevent them from using nicotine by

implying a consequence like showing a nicotine user losing his teeth, this scares people. It’s the

same strategy just a different time.