1830 THADDEUS MASON HARRIS. 128pp of Unpublished Sermons on Revivalist Controversy, etc.,

An exceptional group of 128pp of unpublished manuscript sermons written by influential Dorchester, MA minister, Thaddeus Mason Harris [1768-1842].

Born in 1768, his father was killed fighting for American Independence when Thaddeus was just a boy. He graduated Harvard at 19 years old, and was offered the position of Secretary to George Washington, but was forced to refuse because he contracted small pox. He was instead brought on as librarian at Harvard University before accepting a call to the First Parish Church of Dorchester [1793] where he remained until his retirement in 1836.

One of the founding members of the American Antiquarian Society and for many years its secretary, hisghost was reputed to have been often spotted late at night in the Boston Athenaeum. Nathaniel Hawthorne was apparently one who saw the apparition and later published an account of the sighting. 

A Unitarian, and a leading person among them, these sermons are far from average sermonic fare. Most of the sermons date from the late 1820's and into the 1830's. By then, well into his 60's, he seems himself as at war with the narrowing and fundamentalizing work of those involved in and influenced by the Second Great Awakening.

For instance:

The churches in the colony had no rest as long as Mrs Hutchinson [Anne Hutchinson] continued to hold her * & propagate her antinomianism,  fanatic opinions. At length she was removed with her family to Rhode Island & the churches, cultivating a spirit of charity had rest for a considerable time. The fire of this period had not long then burnt out before, in a second period of our history, came Whitfield, with his unnerving rantings, as an infallible guide by the Spirit of the Lord, & by his wild fire, kindled a blaze which took a considerable part of an age to control and extinguish. Not far from 20 years ago the Panoplist, a belligerent paper in Boston, whose editors assuming to be exclusively right, doomed as hereticks who aught to be punished by exclusion all the liberal preachers & churches in all New England. After that paper had ceased, the Recorder, with all the preachers who assume to be orthodox, joining the denouncing cry, have, as is but too evident, armed church against church, brother against brother, & the daughter against her mother, insomuch that in various parts of our country a man's foes are not only those of his own community, but of those of his own household. Considering then how much enmity & hatred those questions about endless genealogies & fables ahve created & ministered, was it not necessary that Timothy should charge those to whom he taught the peaceful teachings of the Gospel, etc., 

John 2.46. Jesus Saw Nathaniel coming to him & saith of him, behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. 12pp

Psalm 145.26. Thou openest thy hands & satisfieth the desire of every living thing. 14pp.

Psalm 73.25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? & who then is now upon earth that I desire beside thee? 12pp

2 Timothy 2.22. Flee youthful lusts. 12pp. 

Fascinating sermon in which America is cast as the "youth" and the lusts of a young, prosperous nation are warned against. Apparently preached on the 4th of July.

Luke 8.24. And they came to him & awake him, saying - Master, we perish. Then he arose & rebuked the wind & the raging of the water, & they ceased & there was a calm. 13pp

1 Timothy 2.3 & 4. I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some, that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables & endless genealogies which minister questions rather than Godly edifying, which is in faith. 12pp

Romans 2.14. I am debtor both to the Greeks & to the barbarians, to the wise & the unwise, to the learned & the unlearned. 3pp.

Job 5.26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age. 27pp. 

Preached at the funeral of a 96 year old in 1826.

Ecclesiastes 6.12. Who knoweth which is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow. 11pp.

Mark 12.31. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  12pp. 

A good + set, bound in individual wraps, shaken with light foxing and handled pages. Each sermon complete.