1624 Sermons of Henry Smith Five Works in One Volume

The sermons of Master Henry Smith, gathered into one volume. Printed according to his corrected copies in his life time. Wherevnto is added Gods arrow against atheists.

Description

A sammelband of five works consisting of sermons of Henry Smith. Together, these tracts represent a substantial portion of Smith’s printed sermons and devotional treatises, as issued in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Typically found as slim quartos or octavos, often heavily read, such pieces were prized for their practical divinity—sermons on repentance, charity, obedience, and preparation for death, marked by vigorous rhetoric and pastoral urgency. Their survival together in a single volume suggests early recognition of Smith’s popularity and theological importance, preserving in one binding the fervent voice of a preacher whose works were widely disseminated but infrequently retained in collected form.

Collation

A-Z^8, Aa-Oo^8; A-C^8, D^4; A-F^8, G^4; A-H^8, I^4; A-G^8, H^4, I^2. Complete.  

Binding

Bound in nineteenth century brown divinity calf. Boards paneled in blind rules with concentric frames and blind stamps. Spine with five raised bands, blind stamps to compartments, and a black gilt-lined morocco label with the words “Smith’s Sermons” lettered in gilt, date to foot. Marbled endpapers. All edges red.

Condition

First title with a few ink scribbles; occasional staining and infrequent neat marginalia; final three quires with upper marginal repairs; clean and bright throughout.

Note

Henry Smith, often styled “the Silver-Tongued Preacher,” was among the most renowned Protestant divines of the Elizabethan Church. A contemporary of figures such as John Foxe and active during the height of Elizabethan religious settlement, Smith combined conformist allegiance to the Church of England with a warmly experimental, almost Puritan earnestness that made his sermons accessible to a broad godly readership. His preaching at St. Clement Danes drew large crowds, and his published sermons circulated widely, shaping English devotional prose in the generation preceding the King James Bible. Coveted in the period and frequently reprinted, Smith’s works represent a formative strand of practical Reformation theology in England.

References

ESTC S95228 with S117524 and S117431 and S117543 and S117539.