A very scarce item indeed, a separately published sermon preached by Edward Irving in an outdoor service [which were prescribed] in Clerkenwell during the 1832 Cholera Epidemic in England.
Irving tells of one of his parishioners who was deeply afflicted with "the cholera," and called for Irving to come. He read part of a letter from the parishioner's friend:
He [Mr. Irving] went to him, and found him in great agony. There was with me [said Mr. Irving], one of the members of my church who speaks by the Holy Ghost, and she told him it was a chastening sent from the Lord in order that he might glorify the name of Christ in believing; calling on him to believe in Christ, who had abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel; that the life of God entering in might put forth death and disease.
The man was subsequently reported to have been healed. Irving then recounts his own bout with the sickness, and how he preached while in its grip and was healed in the process. He lays out a theological approach to sickness, i.e. that it may be the "wolf that drives the sheep to its shepherd," but that ultimately, Jesus heals the infirmities of his people, often miraculously, through the laying on of hands by the elders, etc.,
We have been actively buying and selling Irving material for decades and do not recall coming across this particular imprint. We knew of its existence, but have never seen one on the market. Held apparently only at Harvard, Trinity [Dublin], and Oxford.
Irving, E. The Christian's Cure for the Cholera. Open Air Service, At the Back of the Coldbath-Fields Prison, Clerkenwell, on Wednesday Evening July 18, 1832. London. Published by W. Harding. 1832. 7pp.
Good+. Textually crisp and clean, with two horizontal creases from being folded at some point.