The Christian Quaker and His Divine Testimony, Stated and Vindicated, from Scripture, Reason and Authority [Quaker Provenance: Roberts Family of Lower Merion]

12mo 7" - 7½" tall; 254 pages; 1699. London: T. Sowle. Third edition. 12mo. Period full calf gilt with corner tools and double gilt rules; spine with raised bands, gilt rules, and gilt title. Boards edge-rubbed with bumped front corners and shallow loss at spine ends. Hinges reinforced long ago with what appears to be archival paper tape. Lacking the original front and rear marbled endpapers. Shallow chipping to the edges of the initial blanks; rear blank with lacey predation loss to the edges. A shallow crescent-shaped oil stain affects the top margin of the first twenty or so leaves. Page stock with scattered toning and spotting, as expected. William Penn’s The Christian Quaker is one of his most sustained defenses of the Society of Friends, written against charges of heresy and sedition. First issued in 1673 during his early controversies with Anglican and Presbyterian opponents, this work sets out Penn’s insistence on the spiritual grounding of Quaker testimony and his rebuttals to accusations of antinomianism and disorder. Extensive early ownership inscriptions to the front and rear blanks by members of the Roberts family of Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania — prominent early Welsh Quaker settlers of the "Welsh Tract. " Notations include "Robert Roberts his Book – 1709", repeated entries across the 18th century, Phineas Roberts (with Wynne family witness-style signatures) , and, by the later 18th century, Algernon Roberts (bookplate to front pastedown) , 4th proprietor of the Pencoyd estate. The succession of names demonstrates that the volume remained in Roberts family hands for over a century. The Roberts were founders and long-time proprietors of Pencoyd, central figures in Quaker life at Merion. Robert Roberts (1685–1768) is recorded as the second proprietor; Algernon Roberts (1751–1815) , later inscriber and owner of this volume, was its fourth proprietor and is noted for his Revolutionary service (for which he was disowned by the Merion Meeting). An evocative family association copy, an heirloom of one of the principal Welsh-Quaker families in Pennsylvania. Condition: Good, sound but worn, with significant historical interest in the inscriptions.…