A wonderful and personally meaningful volume from the personal library of abolitionist, William Wilberforce.
William Wilberforce considered the disciple and gift of a weekly Sabbath as the great delight and safeguard of the genuinely Christian life. He was, especially when young, deeply tempted to ambition and reputation; but, says he, “Blessed be to God for the day of rest and religious occupation wherein earthly things assume their true size and ambition is stunted.”
Elsewhere he says:
"O what a blessing is Sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the divine path of the Israelites through the sea! There is nothing in which I would advise you to be more strictly conscientious than in keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can truly declare that to me the Sabbath has been invaluable."
In his most influential written work, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System, from beginning to end, he insists the degradation of Sabbath is one of the primary causes of the spiritual rot that weakened the true church. His push for Sabbath was strong enough that it gave rise to a controversy against him, which was answered by Samuel Palmer's, Apology for the Christian Sabbath, dedicated to Wilberforce.
The present work, scarce in any condition, is here preserved beautifully, with Wilberforce's original bookplate, and then also from the famous British Antiquarian, Christopher Rowe. There are a few very minor bits of marginalia which are "old," but impossible to ascribe to Wilberforce specifically.
In an age of the recovery of the practice of Sabbath, a wonderful physical reminder that one of the busiest men in the world valued Sabbath, promoted it, read and studied about it, defended it, and himself practiced it.
White, Francis. A Treatise of the Sabbath-Day. Containing a Defence of the Orthodoxall Doctrine of the Church of England, against Sabbatarian Novelty. London. Printed by Richard Badger. 1635. Second Edition. 311pp + Table.
Bound in original or early paneled sheepskin with very slightly contrasting morocco label; some light cracking at hinges and surface loss to panels, but solid, attractive, and well-preserved on the whole. The text itself is very crisp and clean with one area of slight sepia ink splash to lower margin and some very light handling toward last few leaves. An exceptional example. Table lacks one sheet for some reason; seems to not ever have been present.