An Essay Concerning The Restoration Of Primitive Christianity, In A Conduct Truly Pious And Religious Thomas Beaven

Contemporary calf. Spine worn and defective, boards a little rubbed and scuffed, upper cover almost detached, front pastedown untidy, but text-block sound; a useful working copy. Third edition (first edition 1723, second 1729); 6pp. publisher's advertisements at end, offering first The Select Works of William Penn and, last, Return of the whole number of Persons within the several Districts of the United States. Thomas Beaven (died 1735), a Melksham clothier, was active with the Wiltshire Quakers; his books include John Plimpton's Ten Charges Against the People, Call'd Quakers, Briefly Answer'd (1696), Thomas Beaven's Second Thoughts, in Relation to the Quakers [1707] and The High-Priest of Melksham, His Reasonings, His Concessions, and His Self-Contradictions (1707). Benjamin Franklin was a reader of this Essay, and sold copies. "It was . . . my principal design in the following undertaking, to set before the eyes of men, and make it as plain to them as possibly I could, that the light of their spirit and of God's Spirit are of different and distinct natures and kinds. That their own natural powers and faculties alone, are not adequate for attaining to the knowledge and practice of true piety and religion . . ."