Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church history.

On this episode, we are looking at Jonathan Edwards' first published sermon.

He preached this sermon on July 8, 1731.

He was 27 years old, and a month and a week later it was published in Boston on August 17, 1731.

The two ministers in Boston who were responsible for it getting published, Thomas Prince and William Cooper,

wrote a little preface what they called an advertisement to the reader, respecting the first sermon.

And Thomas Prince ended up being a longtime friend and supporter of Jonathan Edwards.

Thomas Prince was born in 1887.

He died in 1758, the same year that Jonathan Edwards died and spent most of those years as a minister in Boston.

The other was William Cooper.

He was born in 1694.

He died in 1743. And as we've said, another Boston pastor. They write in their

advertisement, first sentence, it was with no small difficulty that the author's youth and modesty were

prevailed on to let him appear a preacher in our public lecture and afterwards

to give us a copy of his discourse at the desire of diverse ministers and others who heard it.

Now, let's explain what's going on here.

It was very typical in Puritan days that when a minister would get near the

end of his career, they would publish one of his sermons. And it was a way to honor a minister

and then these sermons, they'd be printed up, usually in Boston, and they'd be circulated around New

England, et cetera. It was very unusual for a young minister to have a sermon published. And so we find out that Edwards' youth

at 27 years of age and his modesty, his humility, were needing to be prevailed upon for him,

first of all, to give the public lecture and then to have it published.

...