- In "The Starving Time," you read about
how the first colonists persevered when
they first arrived in North America. How
did colonists also persevere during the
American Revolution?

edwards uses the phrase "o who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! " in order to illustrate that this type of suffering is unimaginable. the word "express" denoted that the state of a suffering soul is required to be described by any person, but it would not happen because no one can imagine how this suffering is felt.  

-show what might happen if the reader disobeys edwards is not correct because this is described trhough the text, not by the phrase used.

-describe what endless suffering looks and feels like is not correct because this description might be the porpuse of the excerpt provided, not the porpuse of using the phrase during the writting.

-prove that few people have survived limitless suffering is not correct because it is implied that the soul of a person is already suffering and doesn't have any way to escape.

answer :

the following two parts of the given excerpt from "beowulf" denote the importance of kinship and lineage :

1. hither to come; of (kinsmen's approval,

  word-leave of warriors), i ween that ye surely

2. (nothing have known. never a greater one

    of earls o’er the earth have i had a sight of)

b and d are your answers