[Rarebooks] fa: BISHOP OF WORCESTER'S VINDICATION OF HIMSELF from MR. BAXTER'S CALUMNY - 1662

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other antiquarian theology and religion, auctions ending MONDAY, July 8. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ne3qqmu

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[George Morley, bishop of Worcester:] The Bishop of Worcester’s Letter to a Friend for Vindication of Himself from Mr. Baxter’s Calumny. London: Printed by R. Norton for Timothy Garthwait at the Little North-door of St. Pauls Church, 1662. First or early printing (three variants were published in the same year). Small 4to (19 cm); stitch-bound; [6], 45, [1] pp. (lacking the terminal errata leaf). Wing M2790; ESTC R227414.

George Morley (1597-1684) was a Royalist clergyman who followed the Stuarts into exile at the Hague. With the Restoration he was made Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Worcester. One account of his life notes, "his works are few and chiefly polemical," the present title being an example. In it, Morley responds to The Mischiefs of Self-Ignorance, and the Benefits of Self-Acquaintance, a pamphlet by Richard Baxter, the Dissenting minister and theologian whom the bishop had banned from preaching in the diocese of Worcester. Such controversy was nothing new to Baxter, an idealist whose philosophy of religious toleration got him into trouble with more doctrinaire theologians of all stripes; he had run afoul of Oliver Cromwell during the Protectorate. (See our other auctions this week for an earlier work by Baxter.)

Stitched binding fragile but still holding; browning to the title-page which has a modern ink numeral in the margin and an early/original owner's signature and notation of the price ("pr: 6d"); first three leaves with small chips from the upper corner; text block trimmed a bit close at the bottom, clipping the catch-word on one page, otherwise not affecting the text; some dust-soiling to the edges, intermittent damp-stain to the bottom corner, a few stray spots; else clean and sound.