 The trustees of the College of New Jersey invited Edwards to become its third president in 1753. In his reply Edwards gave a number of reasons why he hesitated to accept their offer. Among these was the fear that doing so would interfere with the completion of “a great work” which he had long contemplated “which I call a History of the Work of Redemption, a body of divinity in an entire new method, being thrown into the form of an history; considering the affair of Christian theology, as the whole of it, in each part, stands in reference to the great work of redemption by Jesus Christ…” (Edwards 1957–, vol. 16, 727f). Although Edwards' project was aborted by his untimely death, it would undoubtedly have been based on a sermon series delivered in 1739 which traces the work of redemption “from the fall of man to the end of the world.” The proposed history would have been the culmination of the project begun in True Virtue and End of Creation. For creation and providence are subordinate to a redemption which is itself subordinate only to God's glory. The history of redemption is “the summum and ultimum of all the divine operations and decrees,” the manifestation of God's internal glory in time (Edwards 1957–, vol. 16, 728). Edwards' History would also have provided a fitting climax to his intellectual career as a whole. For it is in his work of redemption that God's sovereignty, holiness, and splendor are most fully displayed. 