An Essay on the Church

Gloucester: Printed by R. Raikes for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1787. Wraps. Very good overall. With an interesting, possibly Colonial bookplate of John Moore, with the motto "Nihil utile quod non honestum". A bookplate of this description appears in "Loan Exhibition of Colonial Book-plates", National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York. 1908. Page 24, (no.) 225. It has a central heraldic shield with ten crosses on it, surmounted by a cockerel, with a man playing a horn on the left and a bare-breasted woman seated on the right reading a book held by a cherub. Greenery and flowers surround them. The motto appears in a small banner above the name of John Moore at the bottom of the bookplate.

There were several important men named John Moore in the American Colonies; the immigrant John Moore Hon. Esq (1659 England-1732 Philadelphia) who was Attorney General of Pennsylvania; his son Colonel John Moore (1686 South Carolina - 1749 New York City), a soldier, NY merchant and Tory who established an estate called Moore's Folly on 2000 acres on the present site of West Point; also the son of Col. John named John (1719-1749?) who possibly died without issue in Jamaica (Find-a-Grave). Col. John's estate on the Hudson was bequeathed to his son Stephen Moore (1734 NYC -1799 NC), who sold the land to the American government sometime after 1790. However, the book is dated 1787, much later than these gentlemen, so the connection is unknown.

The author, also known as William Jones of Nayland (1726 - 1800) examines Dissenters to the Church of England, and concludes with a dire warning that religious dissent leads to the end of empire and trouble at home: "if the Church of England had but obtained that timely support in the colonies, for which it had so often petitioned, the American rebellion had never happened: and if this government shall be as remiss toward itself, in the mother country, as it has been toward the colonies, the same evils will soon break out at home." (p143).

Contents include "An Essay on the Church"; "A short view of the present state of the argument between the Church of England and the dissenters" (pp 93-136); and "Postscript. An account of the first separation of the dissenters from the Church of England", (pp 137-143).

8vo, [2], xv, [1], 143 pp, edges uncut. In the original plain tan laid paper wrappers- a subscriber would have the volume bound to their own taste. Wrapper spine mostly missing; text bright and clean. OCLC: 28270632.