[Rarebooks] fa: RICHARD BAXTER - CHRISTIAN CONCORD w/ AN EXPLICATION OF THE PROPOSITIONS - 1653

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other antiquarian theology and religion, auctions ending MONDAY, July 8. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ne3qqmu

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Richard Baxter: Christian Concord: or The Agreement of the Associated Pastors and Churches of Worcestershire. With Rich. Baxter’s Explication and Defence of it, and his Exhortation to Unity. London: Printed by A.M. for Thomas Underhill, at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door, and Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street near Dunstons Church, 1653. FIRST EDITION. Small 4to (19.5 cm), stitch-bound as issued, in modern (but not recent) plain paper wraps; [26] pp., [3 leaves], 3-120 pp. (erratic pagination as per ESTC, but text is continuous and complete); Thomason E.706[6], E.216[3]; Wing B1218; ESTC R2012.

The first part contains the Propositions Agreed on by the Associated Ministers; the bulk of the book (123 pp.) consists of Baxter's Explication of some Passages in the foregoing Propositions and Profession. Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was a prominent Dissenting church leader, poet, theologian, and hymn-writer. As the reformist curate at Kidderminster, Worcestershire, he was forced by his Royalist neighbors to abandon his ministry at the outbreak of the English Civil War. Despite subsequently serving as chaplain to the Parliamentary army, he remained a religious moderate and a man of conscience, traits which  regularly got him into trouble with all sides during the tumultuous years of the Protectorate and the Restoration. At Kidderminster, where he returned after the war, he formed the radically reasonable notion of uniting all the ministers in the county, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Independents alike, into an association whose members resolved "not to engage our selves to any Party… but only to Practise unanimously those known Truths which the sober and godly of each Party are agreed in…" (See our other auctions this week for Baxter-related works by Roger L'Estrange and the bishop of Worcester.)

Dust-soiling, darkening, and wear to the title-page and last page and occasionally to the edges of the text block; bumping and curling to the corners of the first and last few leaves; intermittent light to moderate damp-staining to some corners; two leaves with closed edge-tears not affecting text; some modest toning to the leaves with a few occasional small spots; otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Armorial bookplate of John William Willis Bund (Worcestershire historian and politician, 1843-1928) tipped onto the verso of the title.