FLEETWOOD, William.

£950 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Sermon Against Clipping, One of two editions of that year, without established priority. Fleetwood (1656-1723), then chaplain to William and Mary and later Bishop of Ely, touched on contemporary economic issues in many of his sermons, here arguing that the clipping of the coinage was a moral evil, alongside a civic crime, and was proscribed by scripture. The publication was part of the administration's campaign against clipping - the court invited Fleetwood to preach the sermon to the mayor and aldermen of London, and it was published two days later under the imprimatur of the Bishop of London (Kleer, p. 60). It is probable that few coin clippers were deterred by the moralizing (given that they were already facing the death penalty if caught), but it is still a notable publication, later reprinted in Fleetwood's collected works. There were two editions (distinguished by the pagination), and this edition is also split into two variants distinguished by minor typographic changes. Only four copies are located by ESTC of this variant (two in Christ Church Oxford, and one in Eton and the Victoria and Albert Museum), although it is probable that other examples have been identified as the other variant.

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