How does John Edwards use syntax and diction in his sermon?

SYNTAX: Sentence structures
are typically long. He particularly uses periodic
sentences. These sentences build and build not getting to a main point until the end of
the sentence. This allows Edwards to add detail building the fear of the people with
each phrase or clause. This sentence exemplifies the concept of a periodic
sentence:

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Thus all of you that never had the great change
of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all of you that were
never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a new
state, and never experienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry
God.

He also uses
polysyndeton sentences. These employ the use of several
conjunctions for the purpose of emphasis:

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The bow of God's wrath is bent,
and the arrow made ready on the
string, and justice points the arrow
at your heart, and strains the bow,
and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and
that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at
all, that keeps the arrow one second from being made drunk with your
blood.

DICTION:
Edwards' purposefully uses language to paint word pictures of the relationship between
God and man. He positions God in His anger holding man over a pit of flames as man
dangles uncontrollably hoping God will not release His grasp of man. The words he uses
to demonstrate the connection between God and man include a spider's web, and a hanging
thread; both of these are easily broken. Continued language puts God in a position of
great power and man in a position of hopelessness. He uses the imagery of flames and
fire coupled with the thought of a bottomless pit, and the metaphors of God's wrath
being an arrow ready to strike and a storm ready to descend. All of these negative
connotations to the relationship between God and man heap the guilt on Edwards' audience
and earn him a spot among the best at delivering "fire and brimstone" sermons. However,
by the end (after sitting through 38 minutes of language suggesting that man will burn
in hell forever) he offers the hope of God's salvation which only comes through belief
in Christ.