A Sermon Delivered by Thomas Prince, M. A. on Wensday, October 1, 1718. At His Ordination, to the Pastoral Charge of the South Church in Boston, N. E. in Conjunction with the Reverend Mr. Joseph Sewall. Together with The Charge, by the Reverend Increase Mather, D. D. and a Copy of What was Said at Giving the Right Hand of Fellowship: By the Reverend Cotton Mather, D. D. To which is Added, A Discourse of the Validity of Ordination by the Hands of Presbyters, Previous to Mr. Sewall's on September 16, 1713. By the Late Reverend and Learned Mr. Ebenezer Pemberton, Pastor of the Same Church

Boston: Printed by J[ames] Franklin for S[amuel] Gerrish, and Sold at his Shop near the Old Meeting House, 1718. 8vo. (7 x 4 1/4 inches). First edition. A-K4 L2 A-B4 C2. [8] [1]-76 [4] [1]-15 [1]. 104 pp. Title, Dedication to the South Church in Boston by Prince, An Ordination-Sermon by Prince, The Charge by Increase Mather, The Fellowship of the Churches by Cotton Mather, A Discourse Title Page, Preface by Ben J. Colman, A Discourse to Prove that Ordination by the Hands of Presbitery is Valid and Regular According to Divine Institution by Ebenezer Pemberton. Woodblock printer's ornaments and historiated initials. Modern blue half morocco over blue cloth boards, spine gilt-lettered direct

One of the first two books printed during a twelve-year-old Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship at his brother's printing shop.

In 1717, a 20-year-old James Franklin (1697-1735), the printer of the present book, returned to the British Province of Massachusetts Bay after having spent several years in London learning the trade of printing. James Franklin brought back to the fledgling town of Boston a common printing press and printer's type, and opened his own shop on Queen Street. He found cheap labor in the form of his twelve-year-old brother, Benjamin, who began a nine-year term in 1718 with his elder brother as a printer's apprentice. It was an arrangement that only lasted five years before Benjamin struck out for Philadelphia. The present work is one of the first two books to carry the J. Franklin imprint, the other being a re-printing of Theophilus Dorrington's A Familiar Guide to the Right and Profitable Receiving of the Lord's Supper (1718). It has not been conclusively determine which of these two titles was published first, though the current work had to have been printed after November 10, 1718, as that is the date of Benjamin Colman's preface to Ebenezer Pemberton's "Discourse." As no definitive order is known, the present work must share with the Dorrington reprint the honor of being the first book publication during Benjamin Franklin's printing apprenticeship. It is then the first original, non-reprinted book to be published by James Franklin, with the help of his apprentice. A 1946 Goodspeed auction record asserts it was young Benjamin who set the type. If so, it would have been he who set the exuberant woodcut printer's ornaments, headpieces, and historiated initials seen in this example. The Pemberton lecture dates from 1713, and though it has a separate title, pagination, and signature sequence, it is called for in the book's general title, and has Colman's preface from 1718 introducing it. This book should only be considered complete with its inclusion. This is a commemorative work to mark the occasion of Thomas Prince, then newly returned to Boston from Madeira, becoming an ordained pastor at Boston's venerable Old South Church. The South Church was then under the leadership of Joseph Sewall, famously immortalized in a panegyric by Phillis Wheatley, who would be his parishioner some decades after this publication. Prince himself is of note, having published widely, especially on the history of New England, and as a bibliophile: he owned both the Bay Psalm Book and the Eliot Indian Bible. This is one of his first publications. Prince's sermon, which is richly footnoted in the publication, is joined by "The Charge" given by Increase Mather at Prince's ordination, and Increase's son, Cotton Mather's, "The Fellowship of the Churches." Increase Mather had been the president of Harvard, and Cotton Mather an vocal advocate of smallpox inoculation. Both were fundamental to religious life in Colonial America and were members of Boston's elite.

Americana Library of Laird U. Park, Jr. (2000). Campbell X1b. Dexter, Congregationalism 2743. ESTC W3071. Evans 1996. Holmes, Cotton Mather 332; Increase Mather 23. Sabin 65613. Stevens, Bibliotheca Americana 1795. Streeter sale II, 668.