1760 JOHN STEVENS. Sermon Preached Upon the Execution of a Coachman, George Whitefield Present + 20,000 Listeners!

Very rare sermon by friend of George Whitefield, John Stevens, preached upon the public execution of Methodist Coachman, Robert Tilling. 

Tilling had been among the Church of England, but converted to Christ under the Methodists it seems while at Newgate Prison, a regular place of their ministry to the incarcerated and condemned. Tilling it seems won the hearts of both George Whitefield and John Wesley.

He served as a Coachman to wealthy London merchant, Samuel Lloyd Esq. Apparently Mr. Tilling, keen to impress a young woman of greater means that he had a significant sum saved from his ten years of service. She agreed to marry him upon that claim. He attempted to rob his boss in an effort to raise the funds he had lied about. This was his proclamation in court; he made no excuse but love. 

The courts were unmoved either by the testimonies of his character otherwise or by his simple, rather quaint explanation. They sentenced him to death by hanging. Such was the interest in this story of this newly pious Methodist coachman, mad with love, that 20,000 people showed up for his execution and funeral, where George Whitefield [the execution] and John Stevens [the funeral; Whitefield's correspondent and friend] preached. 

Very scarce execution sermon and a fascinating back story.

Stevens, John. Christ made Sin for His People, and They made the Righteousness of God in Him: Explained in a Sermon Occasioned by the Remarkable Conversion and Repentance of Robert Tilling, Late Coachman to Samuel Lloyd Esq; Who was Executed at Tyburn, April 28, 1760. Preached at Devon-shire Square, May 4, 1760. London. George Keith. 1760. 40pp.

Good +; clean and generally crisp; removed from an earlier sammelband. Textually complete.