The Eternal and Intrinsick Reasons of Good and Evil. A Sermon Preach'd at the Commencement at Cambridge, on Sunday the 2d Day of July, 1699.

Cambridge: Printed at the University Press for Edmund Jeffery, 1699. Hardcover. Vg+. Small 4to. 31 pgs. Modern binding of quarter leather and marbled paper over boards in excellent condition. Pages are lightly age toned with occasional foxing. Last page has a small piece missing top left, affecting several words in the text and has been professionally repaired with Japanese paper. (see photos) John Edwards (1637-1716) took charge of Trinity Church, Cambridge, in 1664,where his preaching, plain, practical, and temperate attracted much notice, and he won the good opinion of his parishioners through his visitations among the sick of his parish. A few years later, having taken the degree of B.D., he was chosen lecturer of Bury St. Edmunds, but retained the office only twelve months, preferring college life. His position, however, at St. John's became untenable on account of his Calvinistic views, and as he met with no sympathy from the master he resigned his fellowship and entered Trinity Hall as a fellow commoner, performing the regular exercises in civil law. But the parishioners of St. Sepulchre's, Cambridge, had invited him to be their minister, and he resumed his clerical functions. He was presented (1683) to the vicarage of St. Peter's, Colchester, a benefice which he retained some three years until declining health and waning popularity induced him to seek retirement in a Cambridgeshire village, and to make the press, rather than the pulpit the means of diffusing his opinions. In 1697 he was once more in Cambridge, driven there, it would seem, by his need of books, and busy with his pen. In 1699 he took the degree of D.D., and until his death, devoted himself to study and to the publication of theological works. (Dictionary of National Biography, vol.17)