A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Adapted to the State and Condition of All Orders of Christians ... from the 15th London edition, to which is added Some account of the Author and Three Letters to a Friend... by Law, William, A. M - 1808

Boston: E. And J. Larkin, 1808. Boards. Good. xxvi, [25]-343, [1-blank],[2-last blank, Larkin adv] pages. Old bookseller ticket for Fred S. Collin, Boston MA on front pastedown endpaper. Worn leather hinges weakening. Black title label still readable though worn, 1 inch 'flap' of leather at base of spine panel. Leather worn generally. Still a decent reading copy of an early American edition of this work. Boards. Law's SERIOUS CALL is an important book in his own publishing career, and had significant impacts on others. 'It is the Serious Call, a plea for a return to the practice of private individual piety, in an unadorned, lucid, and deeply moving style, on which [Law's] reputation chiefly stands. Its peculiar force is difficult to convey; authorities as different as Gibbon, Lord Lyttelton, and George Whitefield spoke enthusiastically of it. Samuel Johnson attributed to it his first earnest attention to religion. But the most significant testimony is that of John Wesley, who reaped where Law had sown. Writing after they had parted company, he said: 'it will hardly be excelled, if it be equaled, in the English language, either for beauty of expression or for justice and depth of thought.' (Printing and the Mind of Man #187, referring to the 1729 first edition).