A09376:1450
A cloud of faithful witnesses, leading to the heavenly Canaan, or, A commentary upon…A cloud of faithfull witnesses, leading to the heauenly Canaan, or, A commentarie vpon…
A cloud of faithful witnesses, leading to the heavenly Canaan, or, A commentary upon the 11 chapter to the Hebrews preached in Cambridge by that godly, and judicious divine, M. William Perkins ; long expected and desired, and therefore published at the request of his executors, by Will. Crashawe and Tho. Pierson, preachers of Gods Word, who heard him preach it, and wrote it from his mouth.A cloud of faithfull witnesses, leading to the heauenly Canaan, or, A commentarie vpon the 11 chapter to the Hebrewes preached in Cambridge by that godly, and iudicious divine, M. William Perkins ; long expected and desired, and therefore published at the request of his executours, by Will. Crashawe and Tho. Pierson, preachers of Gods Word, who heard him preach it, and wrote it from his mouth.
London: printed by Humphrey Lownes for Leo. Greene, 1607London: printed by Humfrey Lownes for Leo. Greene, 1607
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ordained the Pass-over. The word translated, ordained, signifieth, He made, or did celebrate: for the better understanding whereof, we must have recourse to the Evangelists. Matthew setteth down Christs speech to his Disciples about the Pass-over, which he kept with them a little before his passion, thus: My time is come, I will make my Pass-over at thine house. Now, S. Luke repeating the same Story, mentioneth, first the killing, and then the eating of it: by which two words he explaineth what Christ meant by making (which here is translated ordaining) the Pass-over;1 to wit, first, the killing & preparing of the Paschal Lamb, and then the eating of it as the Lord• Sacrament. But this is a strange kind of speech (will some say) how can the Pass-over be killed or eaten? seeing properly the Pass-over is nothing else, but the act of the Angel passing over the houses of the Israelites, when he smote the first borne in every house of the Egyptians. Ans. The phrase is improper: yet it must not seem strange, because it is usual in Scripture, entreating of the Sacraments, sometime to give the ⟨p. 435⟩name of the sign to the thing signified: as 1. Cor. 5.7, Christ is called our Pass-over; and on the other side, to give the name of the thing signified to the sign: as in this place, he ordained the Pass-over; that is, the Paschal Lamb, which was a sign of the Angels passing over their houses. So, This is my body, that is, a sign of my body. The rock was Christ. 2The reason of these figurative speeches, whereby one thing is put for another, is the Sacramental union of the sign with the thing signified: which yet is not natural according to place, either by change of the sign into the thing signified, or by including the thing signified in the sign, or fastening it upon it; but respective & analogical, by reason of that agreement & proportion, which is between the sign & the thing signified: which stands in this, that look when the outward sign is presented to the outward senses, at the very same time the thing signified is thereby, as by certain visible words▪ presented to the mind. And indeed look what conjunction is between words, & the things spoken of, in the mind of the understanding hearer; the same is between sacramental signs, and the things signified, in the mind of a discerning receiver.