[Jerome (Stephen)] The Arraignement of the whole creature

[Jerome (Stephen)] The Arraignement of the whole creature, At the barre of Religion, Reason, and Experience Occasioned upon an Inditement preferred by the Soule of Man against the Prodigals vanity and vaine prodigality ... , London: by B. Alsop and Tho: Fawcet, 1631, first edition, small 4to, contemporary limp vellum, complete with the pictorial title and explanatory page by Martin Droeshout, manuscript A and flourish of leaves, thistle and rose to reverse of explanatory leaf, heavily annotated in a contemporary hand [STC 13538.5]

The writer and protestant minister Stephen Jerome was a “paradoxical puritan”, whose “association with godly clergy marked him out as a rising young puritan preacher” until in 1622 he was caught in a decidedly impure act with a parishioner’s wife and fled to Ireland. After serving as a minister there, he returned to England and took up a post in Cheshire, before an accusation of rape by his maidservant sent him back to Ireland, Surviving records lose track of him after the publication in 1650 of his book 'A Minister’s Mite'.
The arraignement – anonymous, but confidently attributed to Jerome – announces its argument in the second chapter: “the whole lustre and glory of the world […] with which the heart of man hath beene bewitched […] are not all of them, of any validity, or sufficiency, to give any true […] satisfaction to the heart and soule, and spirit of a man, till […] hee truely turne and convert unto GOD […] as this Prodigall heere, to his Fathers house”. It’s unclear whether Jerome was writing in a hypocritical or penitential frame of mind (as “this Prodigall heere”) after his transgressions, but the early annotator of this damaged copy, one “James Rudyerd” (name inscribed at the head of B1), seems to have taken him at his word. Rudyerd has annotated over 100 pages with notes ranging from single words (“Drinkinge”, “Beautye”) to longer phrases (“ye toyle of pleasure”, “Dantes Excluded from a feast for meane cloathes”). He seems especially interested in the use of similes and often marks these “Simile *” or with remarks such as “Simile of man in pleasures". A James Rudyerd is mentioned as a correspondent of Lord Salisbury in William Peter Bird's thesis 'The Third generation of an arriviste family' and his name is found in several other religious volumes, such as Didacus Stella's Reverendi Patris Fratris Didaci Stellae monioranti regularies Observantiae Provinciae Sancti Jacobi, Antwerp 1622