THE FELICITY OF THE TIMES. A SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST-CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE, ON THURSDAY, 21 AUGUST, MDCCLXIII. BEING A DAY OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE GENERAL PEACE.
Boston: Printed by Green and Russell, 1763. 4to. [2], viii, 26 pp, as issued. Printed on thick paper, with a clean and bright text. ESTC and AAS call for an errata leaf after page viii, but not present here. Whether this copy was part of an early run, issued without the errata, is a question we are unable to answer. "American Antiquarian Society copy errata slip mounted on fly leaf at end" [AAS description]. Bound in institutional cloth with old bookplate of St. Marks Library. A few blank margin markings, Very Good.
"Very rare. Mentioned by Evans, but no copy located by him. It is dedicated to William Shirley. Governour of the Bahamas Islands, and Lieutenant-General of His Majesty's Army" [Auction, American Art Association, February 1917]. Shirley had been governor of Massachusetts in the 1740s and, says Apthorp, has "always consulted the safety and promoted the welfare of His Majesty's American dominions," including "the pure Establishment of the Church of England." Apthorp was the Cambridge, Massachusetts, missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, whose goal was the establishment in America of the Anglican Church. The increasing unpopularity of his mission was the reason he permanently left the New World, sailing to England in 1764.
Apthorp's Sermon is "principally fixed on the blessing of the Peace," thus concluding England's successful War with France. America "will for ages admit of vast numbers of settlers from all the protestant countries of Europe; to cultivate in security our fertile lands, to enrich themselves by arts and industry, and to enjoy the freedom of our government and purity of religion."
Conversion of the Southern Indians-- "Savages always in arms or hunting or pillage, never fixed to any residence" -- is an urgent project. Indeed, God has plans for America "to be the refuge and asylum of Truth and Liberty: by its influence and example to free the western world from Error and Superstition."
Evans 9329. Sabin 1855. ESTC W12123. Item #42066
Price: $2,500.00