Autograph manuscript, being notes for sermons.
Wilbraham, Mass: [1763 to ca. 1774].
Together, 52pp. Written in ink in a small neat hand. Item #366024
Attribution to Merrick is based on comparison to sermon notes in the Finley letters at Ohio Weslyan University (https://digitalcommons.owu.edu/finley-letters/829/). In addition, the verso of the final manuscript includes the following note: "Simeon Chaffe and his wife Desires the Prayers of this Congregation to God for them that God would Sanctify his holy hand in takeing away one of there Children by death. They also Desire our Prayers for one of their children being Dangerously Sick..." Simeon Chaffee and his wife Love (m. 1765), or Wilbraham, Mass., lost two children, in circa 1774 (See Chaffee, The Chaffee Genealogy, 709 and 710).
Merrick (1711-1776), graduated Yale in 1741 and served as the pastor of the First Congregational Church at Wilbraham from 1741 until his death in 1776. The manuscripts comprise four separate fascicules of various lengths, three dated (1763, 4pp, on a verse from Proverbs; 1764, 28pp, on a verse from Mattthew; 1766, 16pp., on a verse from Phillipians). The final 2-page manuscript, dated circa 1774, is quite interesting, being notes for what appears to be a Revolutionary war related sermon on the differences between the right of killing and enslaving in regard to individuals and the government in times of war, quoting Montesquieu and on the Hebrew root of the word giants from Genesis 6:4.
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