Tract volume of five collections of sermons; 1. The Divells Banket; 2. Englands Sicknes, comparatively conferred with Isreals; 3. The White Devil, or the Hypocrite uncased; 4. The Gallants Burden; 5. Heaven and Earth reconcil'd ADAMS, Thomas (1583-1652) Bible,C17th English,Theology

4to, five works in one volume; eleven sermons in total. Small wormholes through lower margins throughout; scattered early marginalia in German with occasional interlinear Latin in another hand. Late seventeenth-century speckled sheep, sound, with printed-waste guards from a c.1500 edition of Nicholas of Lyra's Postillae (2 Esdras/Nehemiah 8-9; traces of rubrication); rear free endpapers formed from an uncompleted part-printed obligation bond for excise on beer and ale (Charles II; c.1673), blanks not filled in. A fine, characterful sammelband of Adams' most vivid pulpit work. Lauded by Robert Southey as "the prose Shakespeare of puritan theologians ... scarcely inferior to Fuller in wit or to Taylor in fancy," Adams (Cambridge-educated, long active at Paul's Cross) was-despite the later tag-no separatist, but a conforming Church of England divine with a racy, quick-witted style that made him the darling of London congregations. His sermons are steeped in the controversies of the day-anti-Catholic polemic and pointed allusions to the Gunpowder Plot ("The Papists, that would have fired us in a house, were themselves fired out of a house ... Engines of their own conspiracie"), and they trade in the memorable titles and extended conceits that fixed his reputation: The Devil's Banquet, The White Devil, The Gallant's Burden. As the ODNB notes, he was "esteemed an excellent preacher" by contemporaries and remains "one of the more considerable buried literary talents of the seventeenth century." Contents (five works) 1. The Divells Banket. Described in sixe Sermons ... London: Thomas Snodham for Ralph Mab, 1614. pp. [viii], 341, [3] (blank). Second (first complete) edition, expanded from the four-sermon issue (also 1614). ESTC S100432; STC 110. 2. Englands Sicknes, comparatively conferred with Isreals. Divided into two Sermons ... London: E. G. for John Budge & Ralph Mab, 1615. pp. [iv], 101, [3] (blank). First edition. ESTC S100411; STC 114. 3. The White Devil, or the Hypocrite uncased ... The third Edition reviewed and corrected by the Author. London: Thomas Purfoot for William Erondell, 1614. pp. [viii], 62, [2] (blank). Third edition. ESTC S100429; STC 132. 4. The Gallants Burden ... London: Printed by T. S. for Clement Knight, 1614. pp. [iv], 67, [1] (blank). Second edition (first 1612). ESTC S100384; STC 118. 5. Heaven and Earth reconcil'd ... London: Printed by W. W. for Clement Knight, 1613. ff. [iv], 23, [1]; wanting G1 and G4 (blank). First edition. ESTC S100418; STC 122. Provenance & make-up: a late-Stuart binding with striking incunable-era Lyra waste as guards, and a Restoration excise bond used as rear endpapers-parchment-and-paper afterlives that suit Adams's busy London readership. The German and Latin reader's notes point to early continental engagement with English polemic. Paper crisp, presswork strong. A compelling snapshot of Adams at full tilt-the "Shakespeare of the Puritans," as Southey styled him, and a "racy writer" as styled by the Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon-here preserved with evocative binding waste and evidence of use that make the book as socially telling as it is bibliographically rich.