This bound group of around 20 sermons (330 pages) by Reverend Jonathan Parsons pertains to numerous religious topics, often related to redemption, salvation, judgment, the afterlife, and hell. Other topics concern faithfulness, the "reasonableness of religion," and faith. Some are part of numbered series. The entry on pages 65-67 is a postmortem sermon for John Kimbal, and the entry on pages 245-260 is a Thanksgiving Day sermon. Parsons delivered most of the sermons in Lyme, Connecticut, and present-day Newburyport, Massachusetts, between the 1730s and 1750s.
Jonathan Parsons was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on November 30, 1705, the son of Ebenezer Parsons and Margaret Marshfield. After graduating from Yale College in 1729, he briefly studied theology at Yale. In 1730, he became pastor of the First [Congregational] Church in Lyme, Connecticut, where he remained until 1746, when he became pastor of a new Presbyterian church in what is now Newburyport, Massachusetts. His church at Newburyport later became one of the largest congregations in North America. Parsons married Phebe Griswold (d. 1770), sister of Connecticut Governor Matthew Griswold, on December 14, 1731, and they had 13 children, including Samuel Holden Parsons, who later became a major general during the Revolutionary War and was one of the first judges of the Northwest Territory. After the death of his first wife, Parsons married Lydia Clarkson (d. 1778), widow of Andrew Clarkson, in October 1771. Jonathan Parsons died on July 19, 1776.
