Sermons Upon the Following Subjects, viz. On Hearing the Word: On Receiving it with Meekness: On Renouncing Gross Immoralities; On the Necessity of Obeying the Gospels: On Being Found in Christ: On Justification by Faith: On the Nature, Principle and Extent, of Evangelical Obedience: On the Deceitfulness of the Heart, and God’s Knowledge thereof: On the Shortness and Vanity of Human Life: And On the Ture Value, Use and End of Life; together with the Conduciveness of Religion to Prolong, and Make it Happy.
Boston: Printed by Richard Graper, 1755. Item #1081 8vo. 205 x 133 mm., [8 x 5 ¼ inches]. [2], iv, [2] 510, [2] pp. Bound in contemporary mottled sheep, raised bands and red title label on spine; binding rubbed at joints, edge of label missing, text block browned at fore edge and a bit of spotting throughout; front free endpaper detached but present. Contemporary signatures on S. Higginson and John Higginson on title-page. Stamped “Ex Libris Wilson H. Kimnach” on front pastedown. An attractive copy in an original American binding. First edition. Jonathan Mayhew’s (1720-1766) was born on Martha’s Vineyard and educated at Harvard where he received his degree in divinity in 1744. He was made pastor of the Old West Church in Boston in 1747, three years after graduation at the age of 27 years. His Sermons on the Following Subjects are some of his earliest theological essays and they clearly placed him in opposition to the Congregational establishment as they suggested the Unity of God and salvation through character and good works. By the 1760’s Mayhew was at odds with the pietistic wing of the Congregational Church, and he was even in a controversy with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the establishment of Anglican bishops in the major cities of the Colonies. His opposition to Anglican control evolved into a wholesale endorsement of political independence and his sermons during the last years of life reflected both this theological and political transformation. He died at the age of 46, “overtaxed, in the beauty of unblemished manhood, consumed by his fiery zeal.” Evans, American Bibliography, 7488. ESTC W29392. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. IV, pp. 275-6. JT/DSC* (1081)
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