While looking for a particular volume in the rare book collection I came across this fascinating publication:
The entry on Thomas Pierce on Wikipedia states:
On 16 June 1662 he had been appointed to the lectureship at Carfax. During 1661 and 1662 many sermons were preached by him in London. This included one delivered on 1 February 1663 before the King at Whitehall against the Roman Catholic Church. This pronouncement produced a furious controversy. Within a year it ran through at least eight editions, and was translated and printed in several foreign languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pierce
For a little historical context, this was published 2 years before the great plague of London began in 1665 and three years before the great fire of London 1666.
While searching for copies across the internet I found the cover page for the eighth edition.
We have a copy of the earlier London printing. You can read the Sixth edition online https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-primitive-rule-of-re_pierce-thomas_1663_1
This is not the only publication against the Church of Rome in the collection. In 1839 Bishop Pompallier published his first eight page catechism in Te Reo.
In response William Colenso published his Dialogues on a further six errors of the Church of Rome in 1840. Here is our copy of this work.
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