A first edition-Saul and Samuel at Endor, or The new waies of salvation and service, which usually temt [sic] men to Rome, and detain them there : Truly represented, and refuted. By Dan. Brevint, D.D. As also a brief account of R.F. his Missale vindicatum, or Vindication of the Roman Mass. By the same author.

Engraved frontispiece showing the Witch of Endor in a magic circle

The Witch of Endor, Hebrew, sometimes called the Medium of Endor, was a medium who apparently summoned the prophet Samuel's spirit, at the demand of King Saul of the Kingdom of Israel in the First Book of Samuel, chapter 28:3–25. The witch is absent from the version of that event recounted in the deuterocanonical Book of Sirach (46:19–20).

Controversial Anti Catholic- anti rosary- anti Popery book

Condition and notes

Measures about 8” by 5”

No missing pages (all preface pages accounted for even though appears one excised, actually fold over from frontis trimmed out)

As pictured the front cover is not attached but it is present. Heavy external wear

Page 117 small tear at corner not affect text 

403 pages 

A Brief Account- pages 407-413

Errata on verso 

Rubbed

Soiling to edges

Textblock good for age scattered foxing

Original spine leather discovered inside as pictured.

Leather boards heavily worn with age

Back board attached - a previous owners name plate pasted in- upside down. Heavy external wear

2 other names 

Age toning pages light Foxing

Tear on page 69 not affecting 

Outer joints split

Exterior poor condition

Daniel  Brevint or Brevin (1616 – 1695) was Dean of Lincoln from 1682 to 1695.

Brevint was from the parish of Saint John, Jersey, Channel Islands and was the son and grandson of clergymen. He studied, like his father before him, at the Protestant University of Saumur, and graduated with a MA in 1634. He married Anne de Carteret, daughter of Philippe de Carteret II. When King Charles I created three fellowships for Channel Islanders at Jesus College, Oxford in 1636, Brevint was chosen from Jersey. He held this position until 1648, when his fellowship was removed by Parliamentary commissioners, and he then returned to Jersey, serving as pastor of Grouville. He was ordained deacon and priest in Paris in 1651 by Bishop Thomas Sydserf.

When King Charles II was restored in 1660, he returned to England, becoming prebendary of Durham Cathedral and rector of Brancepath in December 1660. He was appointed Dean of Lincoln on 7 January 1682. He died in the deanery in 1695 and was buried in the cathedral.

Brevint's works included anti-Catholic writings and a famous devotional work on the eucharist: Missale Romanum (1672), The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice (1673), Saul and Samuel at Endor (1674) Fifty years after Brevint's death, an abridgement of "The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice" (1673) prepared by John Wesley became Methodism's core "authoritative doctrine on the Sacrament" and remains so today.

Saul consults a witch at Endor.

When we go from the plain path of duty, every thing draws us further aside, and increases our perplexity and temptation. Saul desires the woman to bring one from the dead, with whom he wished to speak; this was expressly forbidden, De 18:11. All real or pretended witchcraft or conjuration, is a malicious or an ignorant attempt to gain knowledge or help from some creature, when it cannot be had from the Lord in the path of duty. While Samuel was living, we never read of Saul's going to advise with him in any difficulties; it had been well for him if he had. But now he is dead, to Bring me up Samuel. to Many who despise and persecute God's saints and ministers when living, would be glad to have them again, when they are gone. The whole shows that it was no human fraud or trick. Though the woman could not cause Samuel's being sent, yet Saul's inquiry might be the occasion of it. The woman's surprise and terror proved that it was an unusual and unexpected appearance. Saul had despised Samuel's solemn warnings in his lifetime, yet now that he hoped, as in defiance of God, to obtain some counsel and encouragement from him, might not God permit the soul of his departed prophet to appear to Saul, to confirm his former sentence, and denounce his doom? The expression, to "Thou and thy sons shall be with me, to means no more than that they shall be in the eternal world. There appears much solemnity in God's permitting the soul of a departed prophet to come as a witness from heaven, to confirm the word he had spoken on earth. (1Sa 28:20-25)