Wines, Abijah; Smith, Ethan. An Inquiry into the Nature of the Sinner's Inability to Make a New Heart bound with A Key to the Figurative Language found in the Sacred Scriptures; With three additional titles bound in. Windsor, [Vermont]: Published by P. Merrifield & Co. | Thomas M. Pomroy - Printer, 1812. First Edition. [10489]
Five separate items bound together.
Full leather binding, joints good, gilt lines to spine, no spine title label, 7 x 4 1/4 inches, tight. Private bookplate, lacks front free end papers (blanks). Five items bound together, pages are 169; 84; 106; 36; ix., [1], 32. Texts are generally clean with a few marginal notations. Very good. Hardcover.
An Inquiry into the Nature of the Sinner's Inability to Make a New Heart, or to Become Holy: Containing some Remarks on the Hon. Nathaniel Niles' "Letter to a Friend" By Abijah Wines. Windsor: P. Merrifield & Co. 1812. 169 pp. Abijah Wines, A. M. (1766-1833), pastor of the Congregational Church of Christ, in Newport, N. H. [Allibone places him in Newport, R. I.]. He takes issue with a publication by Hon. Nathaniel Niles, a Supreme Court jurist of the state of Connecticut and a “zealous preacher.” The controversy is over the extent of man’s inability to do good or make a new heart; Wines says Niles is to far to the negative. Both were Trinitarian Congregationalists.
The Conversion of the World: or the Claims of Six Hundred Millions and the Ability and Duty of the Churches respecting them. Andover: Printed for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, By Flagg & Gould. 1818. 84 pp. Written by the Revs. Gordon Hall and Samuel Newell, American missionaries at Bombay. Includes numbers of missionaries then serving around the world, and where.
A Key to the Figurative Language found in the Sacred Scriptures, in the form of Questions and Answers. By Ethan Smith, A. M. Exeter: Printed by C. Norris & Co., 1814. 106 pp. Rev. Ethan Smith (1762-1835), Trinitarian Congregationalist minister. Smith was born at Belchertown, Mass., learned the trade of making shoes and other leather goods, and served in the American army during the Revolutionary War. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1790, served as pastor for nine years at a church in Haverhill, N.H., afterwards becoming the minister of a Presbyterian church in Hebron, N.Y. He served several other churches before accepting an appointment as a City Missionary in Boston.
“He was a Bible man, and a Bible preacher. He was well read in Theology and Ecclesiastical History. He delighted much in what he regarded the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, and was at once apt in illustrating them, and able in defending them.” – Abraham Burnham, in Sprague’s Annals.
Ethan Smith is known today for his book A View of the Hebrews: Designed to Prove, among other Things, that the Aborigines of America are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, a book considered by many to be the inspiration for the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith even quotes directly from Smith’s (no relation) book in The Times and the Seasons, volume three.
“Smith lived in Poultney, VT at the same time as Oliver Cowdery, who later became Joseph Smith’s scribe for the Book of Mormon. Ethan Smith also pastored the Congregational church that Cowdery's family attended from 1821 to 1826 while he was writing View of the Hebrews.” – Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, pp. 59-60.
Solemn Reasons for Declining to Adopt the Baptist Theory and Practice: in a Series of Letters to a Baptist Minister. By Noah Worcester, A. M. Manlius (N. Y.): Printed by Leonard Kellogg. 1816. 36 pp. Noah Worcester (1758-1837), “a Unitarian Congregational minister."
Brief Remarks upon Rev. Thomas Andros's Strictures on the Review of his Essay. By the Author of the Review. Providence: Printed by Miller & Hutchens. 1822. ix., [1], 32 pp. Attributed to Otis Thompson (1773-1859), graduate of and then tutor in Brown University, studied theology under Dr. Emmons, became pastor of the Congregational Church at Rehoboth where he stayed for the whole of his ministry. "For many years he received and instructed pupils who were looking forward to the ministry. He was everywhere regarded as a profound theologian, and a man of more than usual ability." - M'Clintock & Strong. This pamphlet is a salvo in the theological dispute over God's sovereignty and sin.
