1768 AMOS ADAMS. Sermon on Religious Liberty by a Chaplain of the Continental Army. Rare!

A fascinating sermon on a timely subject, both then and now, by Amos Adams.

After an exemplary career at Harvard, he graduated in 1752 and was immediately and unanimously elected minister at the influential Roxbury church. 

He was from the beginning a voice for liberty of conscience as it relates to the relationship between the Boston political and religious power structure and the diversity of worshipping communities in New England. And he was also a voice for liberty against the increasing oppression of Great Britain as well. He was particularly active in the period immediately preceding the Revolutionary War and in its earliest days, presiding over and praying at meetings of the emerging informal militias and later as a Chaplain to the Continental Army [9th Regiment]. It was likely these extra demands that led to his decline in health and untimely death. 

As a preacher, he was said to speak with "pitiless directness against human sin," a directness he used to great effect in advocating for religious liberty, as here, and for political liberty in the days before the War of Independence. His pulpit was used and influential to bring the people of Roxbury to the side of the Continental Army, where he also served as pastor.

On his Roxbury home, a plaque still reads, in part, " . . occupied by Rev. Amos Adams, patriot minister of the church; Chaplain to the 9th Regiment of the Continental Army; Scribe of the Convention of Ministers at Watertown, whose appeal to the people was for war"

Of particular note in this sermon is his use of the Constantinianization of the Church as an anti-example of an appropriate relationship between religion and the state [see the next to last image included in the present listing]. An excellent discourse. Not offered at auction since 1978, and before that, 1920. 

Adams, Amos. Religious Liberty and Invaluable Blessing: Illustrated in Two Discourses Preached at Roxbury Decr. 3. 1767. Being the Day of General Thanksgiving. Boston. Printed by Kneeland and Adams. 1768. 57pp.

A good copy, bound in half leather, generally solid, with moderate foxing and handled pages.