Puritan Treatise in a Puritan Binding
[BINDING.] BAXTER, Richard; J[ohann] F[ischer] (translator). Die Nothwendige Lehre Von der Verleugnung Unser Selbst / Aus Gottes Wort außgeführet durch Richard Baxter. Welche von dem Authore in Englischer Sprache beschrieben: Nun aber in Teutsch übergesetzet und heraus gegeben/ durch J. F. L. Frankfurt, Johann Görlin for Zacharias Hertel and Matthäus Weyrauch’ s heirs [in Hamburg]. 1682.
12mo. Contemporary black morocco, spine with raised bands and gilt double rules, gilt double fillet border on covers, edges gilt, gauffered at edges, 2 gilt-tooled morocco over vellum clasps to fore-edge with brass-gilt foliate fittings; pp. 708, [8], title printed in red and black, woodcut initials, head-, and tailpiece; binding very lightly rubbed; running-titles occasionally slightly trimmed, else an excellent copy; nineteenth-century armorial bookplate of the Düben family (see below).
Rare third German edition, very well-preserved in a handsome yet sober contemporary binding, of Richard Baxter’s Treatise of Self-Denyall (1659), a seminal text of Puritanism.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691), a minister and religious writer from Shropshire, was a follower of the Huguenot theologian Amyraldus (Moïse Amyraut) ‘in developing a mean between Calvinism and Arminianism which maintained the decree of election but rejected predestined reprobation and a limited atonement’ (ODNB). The treatise on self-denial was translated into German by the theologian Johann Fischer (1636-1705), and first published in 1665, with reissues in 1675, 1682, and 1697. A native of Lübeck, Fischer was active in many Baltic coastal towns and translated the Bible into Estonian and Latvian. His translation of Baxter’s Puritan treatise was cause for suspicion among the orthodox Lutheran theologians.
Max Weber (1864-1920), the German sociologist, made significant use of Baxter’s works in developing his thesis for The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and perhaps knew this translation.
Provenance: From the library of the Düben family, a Swedish noble family of Saxon origin. Although the book might have entered the Düben library only in the nineteenth century, several factors suggest that it was likely bound in Sweden shortly after publication: the north German, possibly Scandinavian, style of the binding, the publishers’ location in Hamburg, and Fisher’s own connections with the Baltic area.
Very rare outside Germany: OCLC finds only one copy of this edition (Basel).
#2089031