Wo to Drunkards. Two Sermons Testifying Against the Sin of Drunkenness: Wherein the Wofulness of That Evil, and the Misery of All That Are Addicted to it is Discovered From the Word of God. The Second Edition. Habakkuk II. 15 Wo unto him that giveth his Neighbor Drink: That puttest thy Bottle to him, and makest him drunken also.

Boston: Printed and Sold by Timothy Green, at the Lower End of Middle-Street, 1712. 8vo, original or early blue-gray wrappers, early inscription reading “Dedham” on front wrapper. [4], 58, [2] p., publisher’s ad on p. 59, terminal leaf affixed to rear wrapper. Ownership inscriptions reading “N Clap Recd this 14 : 3 : 1712 : Newport [indecipherable notation]” and “Elisha Clap His Book 1755.”.

Exceptionally rare and remarkably well-preserved example of the second edition of Mather’s two sermons on the evils of drink, acquired in the year of publication by Newport, Rhode Island minister Nathaniel Clapp.

Wo to Drunkards was first published in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1673. In the years immediately preceding King Phillip’s War (1675-78) Mather preached against drunkenness and numerous other perceived evils afflicting colonial New England. When war broke out, he interpreted it as God’s punishment for backsliding and began petitioning the Massachusetts General Court for a legal solution, resulting in the passage of “Provoking Evils” legislation, some of the harshest blue laws of the era (which were repealed after the war).

Long preoccupied with drunkenness and observing the same ills in 1712, Mather felt compelled to reissue his sermons. In his address to the reader, written specifically for the second edition, he provided his justification for republication: “Great authors have affirmed, that drunkenness has slain more than ever the sword has done. If only bodies had been destroyed by it, the evil had not been so woful; but it has been the ruin of millions of immortal souls.…There was a time (as I have elsewhere noted) when a man might live seven years in New-England, and not see a drunken man. But how is it now? Several sorts of strong liquors have been the occasion of the abounding of this iniquity. In Boston there useth to be plenty of wine; but in many towns in the countrey, there is not much of that. Nevertheless, they abound with other intoxicating drinks. Cyder, and a spirit extracted out of it, has been much abused to intemperance. Some observe that since it has been so, a strange blast has been upon the fruit trees, in many places, so as that some whose orchards have yielded five hundred barrels of cyder in a year, now produce very little. But there is another sort of strong drink, imported from the sugar islands, which has been of all other the most fatal. It is now called rum…English Men who call themselves Christians, have debauched the miserable Indians with it; of which there have been some tragical effects. For in their drink the Indians have committed horrid murders. Besides what has been formerly, there were sad examples two or three years ago, when two Indians were executed for having murdered two other Indians; when all four of them, the murderers and the murdered were drunk. The sermons emitted herewith were both preached & printed nine and thirty years ago, in 1673. There was then need of preaching & writing against this prevailing evil. There is so much more at this day. I have therefore encouraged the republication of them ; hoping that a blessing may attend this, as (thro’ grace) it did the former impression.”

The first owner of the present volume, Reverend Nathaniel Clapp (1668-1745), was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard in 1690. He began his ministry at the First Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island in 1695, was ordained in 1720, and served as pastor of the church.

OCLC records just seven copies, at AAS (badly defective); Harvard, John Carter Brown, NY Public, the Boston Athenaeum (defective), UVA, the Huntington Library (defective) and Yale (the National Library of Scotland and the Faulkner Univ. Law Library are listed as owning copies, but consultation of their online catalogs indicates they have microform/electronic only). Holmes adds copies at the British Museum, the Boston Public Library (2), Mass. Historical (although their online catalog shows microfiche only), and three copies in the collection of William Gwinn Mather of Cleveland, one defective).

No copies recorded in American Book Prices Current in at least eighty years. The only copy recorded at auction in Rare Book Hub is the Brinley copy, sold in 1879, described as very scarce—quite arguably an understatement.

A rare and important Increase Mather tract.

CONDITION: A lovely, well-preserved, untrimmed copy; modest wear and slight loss to wrappers; contents unusually clean, with just an occasional touch of foxing.

REFERENCES: Evans 1570; Sabin 46759; Holmes, T.J. Increase Mather, 175-B; ESTC W29712; Hall, Michael G. The Last American Puritan : the Life of Increase Mather 1639-1723 (Middletown, c. 1988), pp. 108-109.