Observations theologiques et morales, sur le livre du pere Berruyer, Jesuite, intitulé : Histoire du peuple de Dieu...

First edition. The first two volumes appeared in 1755 and the last, by abbé Jean-Baptiste Cadry, dates from 1757. Cadry indeed completed this work that M. de Caylus had left unfinished due to his death in 1754. Not held by the British Library and absent from English catalogues.
Contemporary full marbled calf bindings. Richly decorated raised band spines. Red morocco title labels and black calf volume labels. Red edges. One corner slightly bumped. Handsome copies.
Beyond the precisely theological criticism (Incarnation, Trinity...) the first volume contains numerous details on heresies. The work should be classified in a library of Jansenism, whose vision of human nature (close to Calvinism, fatalistic) could not have accommodated that of father Berruyer, a Jesuit. The work illustrates the quarrels not only theological but ontological between Jansenists and Jesuits.