8vo. [14], 400pp. Contemporary panelled sprinkled calf, contrasting gilt-tooled red morocco lettering-piece. A crisp copy, a little rubbed and marked, with some wear to edges and scuff to lower board. Staining to endpapers and spotting throughout, title page browned.

A defence of Episcopal Ordination by the Bishop of Winchester Benjamin Hoadly (1676-1761), to which is attached a rebuttal of Edmund Calamy's (1671-1732) A Defence of Moderate Non-Conformity (1703). Calamy, one of four generations of non-conformist churchmen bearing the same name, was best known for his biographies of nonconformist heroes - fitting for such a rivalry, the staunchly conformist Hoadly would double down and pen in the same year as this volume A Defence of the Reasonableness of Conformity (1707).