Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

Het Leven van den wijzen en magtigen Konink Salomon (The Wise and Mighty King Solomon) [WITH] De Prediker van den Wijzen en magtigen Konink Salomon (The Preacher of the Wise and Mighty King Solomon)

Leenhof, Frederik van

Zwolle: Barent Hakvoord and the widow of Gysbert de Groot, 1700. First edition. Hardcover. Sammelband of two works, octavo. I: [star]4 A-L8 (blank L8), 92 leaves, pp. [8], 172, [1, errata], [3, blank]; additional engraved title, printed maginalia. II: [star]4 A-2D8 2E4, 224 leaves, pp. [8], 440; printed marginalia. Texts in Dutch; occasional words appear in Hebrew type in the De Prediker. Contemporary vellum, manuscript title at spine. Neat old underlinings and marginalia throughout the De Prediker, else fine, clean copies.

Two rare educational sermons, by Frederik van Leenhof (1647-1723), a seventeenth-century radical Dutch minister and writer who was influenced by Spinoza. “A Zeelander by origin, who studied theology in the 1660s, initially at Utrecht under Voetius, and then at Leiden under Cocceius, Leenhof began to be noticed in the Republic of Letters from the early 1680s when, as a still relatively young Reformed preacher at Zwolle, he emerged as a fervent Cartesio-Cocceian in the fight against Voetian fundamentalism.” By 1703 Leenhof was famous for his Hemel op Aarde (Heaven on Earth) “which provoked an uproar about illicit ideas…” But it was earlier in 1700 that he first revealed his Spinozistic leanings in the sphere of political ideas more openly, “publishing two remarkable treatises on the life and views of King Solomon, both ostensibly about the Biblical figure but acutally propounding a thinly veiled republican idealogy” (J. Israel).

Annotations: A careful reader has noted passages throughout the De Prediker. Fine. Item #49147

References: STCN 055783716 (He Leven); STCN 055784038 (De Prediker). Cf. Bamberger, Spinoza, 55 & 159, for two other works by van Leenhof. For van Leenhof, see J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Chap. 22, 406ff.

Full titles: Het Leven van den wijzen en magtigen Konink Salomon. Leerzaamelijk voorgedragen in een kort ontwerp [with:] De Prediker van den Wijzen en magtigen Konink Salomon. Kort en leerzaamelijk verklaart en op onze tijden en zeden toegepast.

Price: $1,500.00