A DEFENCE OF THE OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARTER AND CONDUCT OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS, AGAINST AN ANONYMOUS PAMPHLET FALSLY [sic] INTITLED, A CANDID EXAMINATION OF DR. MAYHEW'S OBSERVATIONS, &c. AND ALSO AGAINST THE LETTER TO A FRIEND ANNEXED THERETO, SAID TO CONTAIN A SHORT VINDICATION OF SAID SOCIETY. BY ONE OF ITS MEMBERS. BY JONATHAN MAYHEW, D.D. PASTOR OF THE WEST CHURCH IN BOSTON.
Mayhew, Jonathan:

Boston. 1763. 144pp. Dbd. Near fine. In a half morocco and cloth box. This work recapitulates and extends Jonathan Mayhew's 1763 argument with the Church of England's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. John Adams later wrote the following about Mayhew and the controversy: "To draw the character of Mayhew, would be to transcribe a dozen volumes. This transcendent genius threw all the weight of his great fame into the scale of his country in 1761, and maintained it there with zeal and ardor till his death, in 1766. In 1763 appeared the controversy between him and Mr. Apthorp, Mr. Caner, Dr. Johnson, and Archbishop Secker, on the charter and conduct of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts...If any gentleman supposes this controversy to be nothing to the present purpose, he is grossly mistaken. It spread an universal alarm against the authority of Parliament. It excited a general and just apprehension, that bishops, and dioceses, and churches, and priests, and tithes, were to be imposed on us by Parliament. It was known that neither king, nor ministry, nor archbishops, could appoint bishops in America, without an act of Parliament; and if Parliament could tax us, they could establish the Church of England, with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies, and tithes, and prohibit all other churches, as conventicles and schism shops." Rare; no copy appears in auction records since 1974. EVANS 9442. SABIN 47130. John Adams, "The Meaning of the American Revolution" in NILES' WEEKLY REGISTER, March 7, 1818.

(Item ID: WRCAM35190) $2,500.00