RELIGION IS THE LIFE OF GOD'S PEOPLE: A SERMON PREACH'D AT BOSTON in the Presence of His Excellency William Shirley, Esq; Governour and Commander in chief in and over His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England; and the Honourable His Majesty's Council, and the Honourable House of Representatives, of the Province aforesaid, May 25th. 1743.
Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1743. Hard Cover. Very Good binding. Item #6433
Octavo. [2], 43, [1 (blank)] pp. First edition of this colonial imprint. Bound in modern cloth over boards with a neat morocco title label on the spine. Very little wear to the binding. Lacking half title; tideline to the bottom corner of the title page; rubber stamp of a now defunct library on the verso of the title and the recto of the final leaf; light and occasional spotting with some heavier soiling to the verso of the final leaf.
A noteworthy sermon preached by Congregationalist minister and pastor of the Second Church in Scituate in the General Court of the Massachusetts-Bay before the House of Representatives and the governor of the province. In 1743 the First Great Awakening was in full blossom and this sermon reflects the Congregationalist denunciation of the dogmatic shift of the movement. A significant phrase in the sermon, "the true Christian Religion hath no other Object of religious Worship than the one only living and true God; who is one in Essence, and three in Relations" (p. 8). This formulation in reaction to the Great Awakening characterizes the beginning of the Unitarian movement in the United States, a movement which now seems very far indeed from anything this preacher would have foreseen. A fascinating item in the history of religious thought. Evans 5173; Sabin 22006.
Price: $850.00