A Confession of Faith Owned and Consented to by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut in New-England, Assembled by Delegation at Say Brook September 9th, 1708.
New-London: Printed by Timothy Green, 1760. Second edition of the Saybrook Platform; the first appeared in 1710. 16mo (5.63 x 3.63 inches), original sprinkled full sheep, [ii], 118 pages. With the Articles for the Administration of Church Discipline bound in with its own title page and the Timothy Green 1760 imprint, but the pagination and signatures continuous. A bit of cracking in the hinges. Some light rubbing and staining; a very good copy. Item #21290
A lovely copy of the Saybrook Platform (one of the critical American Puritan documents) in original sprinkled sheep over scaleboard, with strap sewing supports. Per the Streeter Sale 663 entry on the 1710 first edition, “The Saybrook Platform, adopted at a synod meeting called by the Connecticut legislature and held at Saybrook in September, 1708, modified the Cambridge Platform by emphasizing rule by councils of church leaders, rather than by the individual congregations within themselves. The adoption of the Saybrook Platform made the church in Connecticut practicaly [sic] a form of Presbyterianism and resulted in a rigid orthodoxy. . . . and though not, as formerly thought, the first book printed in Connecticut [in 1710] it was one of the most important books printed in the eighteenth century.” The reactions of Separate congregations and New Lights who chafed under the authority of the Saybrook Platform (and sought a more experiential evangelical religious experience) played a substantial part in sparking the upheavals of various New England congregations in Great Awakening; see for instance Cooper, James F. “Enthusiasts or Democrats? Separatism, Church Government, and the Great Awakening in Massachusetts.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 2, 1992, pp. 265–283. The reasons for republication of the Saybrook Platform specifically in 1760 remain obscure, though controversy over its authority had arisen again in 1759 during the Wallingford Controvesry and further debates between New Lights and Old Lights, and seemed to be taken up in debates of tyranny and legislative authority that would have poltical implications as the Revolution approached; see Hopson, Thomas, “The Roots of Radicalism: Natural Rights, Corporate Liberty, and Regional Factions in Colonial Connecticut, 1740-1766” (2016). MSSA Kaplan Prize for Yale History. 7. Later small clerical bookplate on the front pastedown. Evans 8733; Sabin 15448.
Price: $850.00