Several Sermons on Angels. With a sermon on the power of Devils in bodily distempers. by Thomas Shepherd - 1702

Shepherd, Thomas M. A. Several Sermons on Angels. With A Sermon on the Power of Devils in Bodily Distempers. By Thomas Shepherd, M.A. London: Printed for Samuel Drury, at the Golden Lyon and Lamb in White-Chappel. 1702. [blank], A4, B8-I8, K4, [blank]. 7 3/4 by 4 3/4 inches. New calf and new blanks. Tears in pages but not affecting text. Otherwise clean and bright with some occasional spotting. A scarce work. Tied to Cotton and Increase Mather as a theologian of the same mindset.

There are two Thomas's; one is Thomas Shepherd, the author of this book and the second is Thomas Shepard (1604-1649) and much is known about the later. The former, Thomas Shepherd M.A. very little can be found except to say that he was a solemn man who lived in 'Newtowne' New England after having left England and moving to America. The work, 'Several Sermons on Angels and Devils' is a scarce work and deals with the spiritual qualities of angels and devils and how they affect our beings and influence our lives, according to Shepherd. It is much in the keeping of Thomas Shepard's writings, in the 'Parable of the Ten Virgins' and generally has a Calvinist or evolved Puritan flavor and much in keeping with the devil hunting going on in England (earlier in the century) as well as the devil and witch hunting going on in the Colonies, especially in the Boston area.

Cotton Mather identifies eight Protestant theologians by name, yet his assertion that so few books had been written and sermons preached about angels gives the impression that nearly two hundred years after the inception of the Reformation, Reformers had scarcely produced any writings on the topic. Mather was not alone in his opinion of this lamentable state. Richard Saunders (d.1692), writing shortly before the publication of Mather's Angelographia, commented: Tis great pity so rich a Privilege and Blessing, as is that we have by those Celestial Agents, should lie so much in the dark, and unobserved, as hitherto it hath: For tho' many great Divines have asserted it on Scripture Grounds, yet it hath been so rarely and sparingly spoken of, that few men take any considerable notice of it, or count much upon it.8 Additionally, the Non-conformist pastor Thomas Shepherd (1665-1739), reinforcing Mather's and Saunders's claims, prefaced his 1701-2 publication, Several Sermons on Angels, with these words: 'The Doctrine of Angels has been handled by very few; and those that have done it, have done it mostly in a Scholastick way; so that the plain Christian is still in the Dark about it'. This is an extremely scarce work. Book plate of Dr. William Sargant, FRCP. Cleanly bound in modern Calf with gold lettering on cover, frontis.