"THE SUPREME EXPRESSION OF EDWARDS' PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION": FIRST EDITION OF JONATHAN EDWARDS' FAMED TREATISE CONCERNING RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS, 1746, WITH A DISTINCTIVE CONTEMPORARY PROVENANCE

EDWARDS, Jonathan. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, In Three Parts. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1746. Octavo, late 18th-century three-quarter brown sheep, marbled boards, red morocco spine label. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box.

First edition of this central work of "The Great Awakening" by one of America's most famous theological figures—"we can hardly understand Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, unless we comprehend" the formative role of the revival and Edwards' pivotal influence (Perry Miller)—with a major contemporary provenance with the owner inscription and notations of Harvard alumnus and ordained minister Peres Fobes, who served as vice president of Rhode Island College (now Brown University).

Jonathan Edwards stands at the center of "The Great Awakening," the mid-18th century New England religious revival that also prompted "social cleavage and church divisions with partisan conflict between exponents of religion as violent emotion and those who regarded it as rectitude of conduct" (ANB). To many, however, these divisions "are of little importance before the terrific universality of the Revival. In fact the dominant theme in America… is the invincible persistence of the revival… We can hardly understand Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, unless we comprehend this" monumental force (Miller, Life of the Mind, 7). In carrying "the idealism of early Calvinism into dialogue with the secularized intellectual currents of the 18th century," Edwards published "in 1746 what has been regarded by many historians as his most important work, the Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, an attempt to ground the graciousness of God's Elect in an integrative understanding of the soul's actions… [As] the supreme expression of his psychology of religion," this seminal work further marks his powerful influence over American thought. One of the 18th century's finest orators, Edwards continually engaged "with the best European ideas, innovatively synthesizing rationalism and piety in order to transmit the best of the Puritan vision of man's frailty and God's glory into a modern age that found it convenient to ignore both" (ANB). As the rear printed bookseller's note states, this work was much sought after, with nearly 1300 subscriptions received: more "sent in than Books Printed." With engraved ornamental initials, head- and tailpieces. As issued with mispagination of page 215 (as 115). With rear errata statement. Evans 5767. Sabin 21967. ESTC W29564. This copy contains the contemporary owner inscription of Peres Fobes, dated 1775, on a preliminary blank leaf, with embossed stamp and inkstamp of his descendant, Leonard A. Doggett on the same leaf, together with later marginalia tracing the family provenance. Preliminary front and rear leaves with Fobes' inked marginalia, including his careful notes and page references to Edwards' text. Fobes, who graduated from Harvard in 1762, was minister of a Congregational church in Massachusetts, a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served as vice president of Rhode Island College (now Brown University) prior to his appointment there as professor of natural philosophy. Small loss to upper corner of preliminary blank likely to excise an owner signature. Tiny inked notation above title page.

Text fresh with only lightest scattered foxing, minor rubbing to boards. A handsome extremely good copy with an important provenance.