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tall 8vo, 16pp + 319pp, half-title, engraved portrait frontis.,occasional light spotting to endpapers, marbled endpapers and fore-edges, contemp. full calf, double gilt ruled borders, profuse gilt decoration to spine in compartments, contrasting morocco label occasional light rubbing to some extremities. A VG+ copy. John Overall (1559 1619) was the 38th bishop of the see of Norwich from 1618 until his death one year later. He had previously served as Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (from 1614), as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral from 1601, as Master of Catharine Hall (under protest) from 1598, and as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University from 1596. He also served on the Court of High Commission and as a Translator (in the First Westminster Company) of the King James Version of the Bible. He was one of the first and most influential clerics to introduce Arminianism into post-Reformation England. Overall, as Dean of St. Paul's, was present on 3 May 1606 in St Paul's Churchyard in London, for the hanging of Father Henry Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits, from whom he tried unsuccessfully to extract a gallows recantation of Roman Catholicism. Garnet was charged with having a hand in the Gunpowder Plot. During the Convocation of 1610, John Overall's famous Convocation Book was sanctioned, although it was not published until much later. This treatise was "on the subject of Government, the divine institution of which was very positively asserted." In addition, the nature of the sacraments was described by Overall. The composition of the latter part of the Catechism, containing an explanation of the Sacraments, is generally attributed to John Overall. It was added in 1604 by royal authority, "by way of explanation," in compliance with a wish which the Puritans had expressed at the Conference at Hampton Court. Seller Inventory # 1401
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