A fine example of earnest preaching and the commissioning of a Gospel minister in the wake of the Great Awakening.

Abner Bayley [1716-1798] was settled at Salem, New-Hampshire in 1740, immediately the throes of the Great Awakening. Bayley was an earnest evangelical, but his diary reveals him to have been deeply concerned about the "cult of personality" at play in the Awakening, viz., the popularity of individual traveling preachers like George Whitefield, the Tennents, and James Davenport. This, he felt, diminished the ongoing work of formation in the local church. 

His feelings from the 1740's are still evident in the commissioning sermon. Preach Christ . . . not yourself. Perhaps an abiding word for our time.

John Page, the sermons chief recipient, by all accounts was a faithful minister at Hawke in New-Hampshire until his death of small-pox in 1782. The story is moving. The pox was ravaging his small community. The young daughter of an afflicted family came in the middle of winter to their home to ask for firewood to warm her dying parents. Knowing the risks, that she was likely infected, he invited her in, provided her care and wood. He was infected. Wanting to protect his own family, he moved to a small isolated cabin in the woods where he died alone. 

This copy gifted by and inscribed by Page to his friend and fellow New-Hampshire minister, Gyles Merrill [1739-1801]. Merrill was minister at Plaistow for 47 years. His Revolutionary War sermon manuscripts are preserved at Syracuse University. 

Rare. No copies in the auction record and none on the market at the time of cataloguing. Evans #103777. Imprints from Daniel Fowle's New-Hampshire presses also quite desirable. 

Bayley, Abner. Pastor of the Church in Salem, New-Hampshire. The Duty of Ministers, to Preach not Themselves, but Jesus Christ, Exhibited. A Sermon Preached December 21st, 1763. At the Ordination of the Reverend Mr. John Page, to the Pastoral Care of the Church at Hawke in Kingston, in the Province of New-Hampshire. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 1764. 23pp.

A finely preserved copy with half title, title, textually clean, original side-sewing, and a lovely association copy. Some light handling, but exceptional otherwise.