Why does edwards claim that nonbelievers are akin to spiders in "sinners in the hands of an angry god"?
". . and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock."
i. spiders are considered to be errors of god’s creation.
ii. spiders are powerless should a rock fall on them.
iii. spiders are considered the lowest form of life and thus expendable.

II. Spiders are powerless should a rock fall on them.

Edwards uses this comparison of non-believers to a spider to show that should God decide to send someone to hell, he or she does not have the power to stop it. Even if the non-believer felt assured and arrogant about it, he would still not have the ability to keep himself out of Hell. Option I is incorrect because Puritans, like Edwards, did not believe that any of God's creations were a mistake. Option III is also incorrect because the purpose is not to show the expendable nature of the spider, but rather the almighty power of God.

- "a nonrestrictive clause functions as a modifier to a noun (that is an object, person or concept). these clauses can be described by the following three options: it is set off by comas, it contains a subject and a verbs and it adds nonessential information to the sentence.

for example, in "here is bill gates, who confounded microsoft software company" we can identify "who confounded microsoft software company" as a nonrestrictive clause modifying the noun bill gates. this clause can be describes as a nonrestrictive clause because it is separated by a comma, it adds nonessential information to identify who bill gates is and it must contain both a subject (who) and a verb (confounded)."

chapter i -- paris: september, 1792

a surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

during the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that france had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

hope this answer you: )!