Rowland Hill

Rowland Hill preached Christ Crucified, the Sum and Substance of the Scriptures for the opening of Surrey Chapel on Whitsunday, 8 June 1783. Hill was an English evangelical minister, and the sermon reflects the direct public style associated with his long preaching career. A nineteenth-century biography explains that he prepared a substantial outline for the occasion, while a listener also made a shorthand record of the delivery. Hill used those two sources to compile the published text after congregants asked to see it in print. The sermon develops its central claim through Christian teachings on Christ's divinity, incarnation, atonement, exaltation, and the comfort of the church. The Folger catalogue records the first edition as a thirty-page London pamphlet sold by several booksellers and at the Surrey Chapel vestry, preserving both its date and its original occasion.