1722 EDMUND MASSEY. Sermon against the Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation. Scarce on Vaccinations!

Exceptionally scarce with no recent examples at auction or offered on the private market. This is the earliest work for sale on inoculation on the market. The irony is, and this of course will be interpreted differently depending on the perspective, that the arguments, here couched as "danger" and "sin," or it doesn't work and it's evil, sound more than reminiscent. Update the language, change a few terms and names, and it could be published today with no one the wiser of its origin. We do not change, I'm afraid.

He argues, "The confessed miscarriages [inefficacy leading to sickness or death] in this new Method [inoculation] are more than have happened in the ordinary way; and if this be our case now, how much worse if it needs prove, if God for our Presumption and contemptuous Distrust of his good Providence, should suffer this Delusion to gain ground, and these Physicians of no Value, these Forgers of Lies, to obtain and grow into Credit among us: Such I fear they [the pro-inoculators] may be accounted, who so confidently tell us what is impossible for them to know; namely, that they who undergo their experiment are for ever thereby secured from any future Danger and Infection. This is a bold assertion indeed, and if such experiment were lawful and consistent with the rules of Christian Practice, I could wish to God it were true also: But if neither of these be the case, if the two Requisites, Prevention and Lawfulness, be wanting, I believe I may venture to affirm, that the most learned and judicious among the Professors of Physick will never give into so destructive a Scheme.

And I hope that time is coming, that these Venfeci, these spreaders of infection, will be distinguished from those of the faculty, who deserve honour, and not permitted to mingle with them, as the Devil among the Sons of God, lest like the Disease-giving Practitioner, the Harlot whom Solomon describes, they entice us, till a dart strike through our liver, and we haste to their snare, not knowing that it is for our life. 

Besides, I cannot apprehend how it conduces to the Preservation of Mankind to force a dangerous Distemper upon them [the people], which possibly may never happen unto them, and if it should, may probably be attended with very little, if any inconvenience; and as before has been hinted, is no security against future contagion. This is unequally to stake a Substance against a Shadow, to make Men run into a real Danger, lest they shou'd happen to fall into an accidental One . . . "

No other examples on the market. 

Massey, Edmund. A Sermon Against the Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation. Preach'd at St. Andrew's Holborn, On Sunday, July the 8th, 1722. Second Edition. London. William Meadows, at the Angel in Cornhill. 1722. 30pp + publishers single sheet catalogue.

Removed from a sammelband with remains on spine, crisp and clean generally. Tender.