1610 RICHARD ROGERS. Seven Treatises on Vital Godliness. Thomas Foxcroft's Copy of Rare Puritan Work.

A rare work by a true "pastors' pastor" of the Puritan era. Richard Rogers (1551-1618) was educated at Cambridge University – Christ’s College (BA, 1571) and Caius College (MA, 1574). In 1575 he became curate of Radminster, Essex, and in 1577 was appointed lecturer at Wethersfield, Essex, where he was to remain for the next forty years. He established a presbytery at Dedham, organized meetings in his neighbourhood for prayer and spiritual fellowship, and ran a school in his own home to groom young men for Cambridge and the ministry. 

Rogers was a man of considerable learning who led a humble, peaceable, and exemplary life, although he suffered greatly for his nonconformist views, at various periods being forbidden to preach. He married twice, first to a woman named Barbara, with whom he had at least seven children, six of whom survived him. Two of his sons, Daniel and Ezekiel, became Puritan ministers. His second wife was Susan Ward, the widow of a neighbouring minister. He had no children with her but became stepfather to the six children she had by her first marriage. Of these children, three more sons – Samuel, John, and Nathaniel – became Puritan ministers.

The present copy is inscribed by Thomas Foxcroft Marsh as having been the copy of his his relative and prominent American divine, Thomas Foxcroft. 

Rogers, Richard. Seaven Treatises Containing Such Direction as is Gathered Out of the Holie Scriptures, Leading and Guiding to True Happinesse, both in this Life, and in the Life to Come: and May be Called the Practice of Christianitie. Profitable for All Such as Heartily Desire the Same : In the Which, More Particularly True Christians May Learn how to Lead a Godly and Comfortable Life Every Day, Notwithstanding Their Tribulations. First Penned, and Now Set Fourth the Third Time, Corrected and Enlarged by Richard Rogers, Preacher of the World of God at Wethersfield in Essex. London. Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, for Thomas Man. 1610. 663pp.

A good copy, bound in leather with the front board detached. The textblock is generally solid, with generally bright page. Traces of worming in the margins. Certainly suitable for use and worth restoration.