1724 JONATHAN EDWARDS / TIMOTHY EDWARDS. Sermon on the Greatness of the Gospel Ministry

What a wonderful piece of unpublished Church history, passed down by direct descent through the family of Jonathan Edwards. The present is a 24pp hand-stitched manuscript entirely in the hand of the father of Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Edwards.  Among the many significant features of the document, perhaps most strikingly is that the sermons appears to have been preached somewhere between 1720 and 1723; this would have been the period either of Jonathan's time at Yale or immediately after Jonathan Edwards graduated from seminary and was a pulpit supply pastor for 8 months in New York City only to return to live at home, unemployed and without much prospect of a position. During this period, Jonathan has been described as serious, overly-studious, and socially inept. His experience in the New York ministry was mingled, to say the least.  It is tempting indeed to think that his father preached this sermon on the dignity, majesty, benefit, and privilege of the Christian ministry specificall