Christopher Hays, in The Widening of God’s Mercy (co-authored with his father, Richard Hays), judges that Jonathan Edwards seems to have paid little attention to God’s love for humankind.  He portrays God, rather, as resplendent in glory, having no need of us, his unworthy subjects.

Not surprising, then, that Edwards, in his (in)famous sermon on ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’, writes threateningly of impending doom for unrepentant sinners:

‘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; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.