Sermons That “Cut Like a Sword”: Samuel Blair’s Rhetoric During the Great Awakening

Abstract

The article examines the style of Samuel Blair, a revival preacher of the Great Awakening who has often been omitted in the studies on the colonial pulpit tradition. Two texts by Blair, a sermon (A Perswasive to Repentance, 1743) and a revival account (A Short and Faithful Narrative, 1744) are studied rhetorically and presented as representative of the “rhetoric of the revival,” a particular mode of preaching in which the speaker employs a wide array of rhetorical patterns, biblical innuendos and communicative strategies aimed at eliciting emotional responses.