The Great Awakening was a schism between two sides, the Old Side and the New Side. The Old side insisted on following the strict teachings of Westminster, where as the New Side believed it was all about the experience of redeeming grace. Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in  Northampton, sermons preached on the need for an experience of conviction of sin and of divine forgiveness.(pg.288) Edwards invited George Whitefield to preach at his church, where Edwards was thought to have wept during Whitefield’s message. This evoked many other traditions, such as Anglicans, Presbyterians and Congregationalist, to change the way they preached. The new way caused people to feel a need to weep for repentance, shout for joy and even faint because of the overwhelming presence. Other people saw these acts as undermining the seriousness that worship is supposed to be and thought that the leaders were more focused on emotion rather than study and devotion. The Awakening eventually become more favorable to the Baptists and Methodists ways. Infant baptism was no longer seen as probable and was rejected from the church. Instead new ideas of human rights and government began to surface among the people. 

In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards explains that they are all sinners and will be judged by God in unpleasant and painful ways. Edwards believes that men think they know how to avoid perishing in hell and they will be okay by themselves, without God.He describes people as wicked and already lost to sin because it is in the world. God is under no limiting force when punishing those who have sinned.  Each metaphor used by Edwards reflects how horrible sinners are in the eyes of God. Edwards considerers that there is no room for pride in the eyes of God, that they must be transformed completely through the awakening. Edwards explains that Jesus stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to sinners, pleading with those who are doomed to convert, to accept the saving grace of Him.

Edwards compares the sinner to a spider about to be thrown into a fire in order to highlight the repulsiveness of sin and the danger that the sinner is in. This metaphor gives an image that a sinner, weighed down by sin, has no more chance of avoiding hell than a spider’s web has of stopping a rock. Another vivid rhetoric is “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked…” This quotes intended effect was to show fear and timidness, Edwards goal was to make the congregation feel insignificant, which would ultimately lead them to change their life through the acceptance of God