A09376:1519
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.
The points herein to be considered, are three: 1. The ⟨p. 473⟩person believing; to wit, Rahab. 2. The reward of her faith given by Joshua: She perished not, but was preserved in the destruction of Jericho. 3. The testimony of her faith, so called by Saint James, chapter 2. verse 25, and set down in the end of this verse, When she had received the spies peaceably.
The points herein to be considered, are three: 1. The ⟨p. 473⟩person beleeuing; to wit, Rahab. 2. The reward of her faith giuen by Iosuah: Shee perished not, but was preserued in the destruction of Iericho. 3. The testimonie of her faith, so called by Saint Iames, chapter 2. verse 25, and set down in the end of this verse, When shee had receiued the spies peaceably.
For the person: Rahab was a woman of Canaan, dwelling in Jericho; as we may read Joshua 2: there she lived and had her abode: she was no Israelite, but a foreigner in regard of her birth, and a Stranger from GODs Church. How then comes it to pass, that she is commended for her faith, and here put into the Catalogue of these renowned believers? Why are not the rest of the Canaanites preferred to this honour as well as she? Answer. We must know this, that from the beginning of the world to the time of Christs ascension, the Church of God was small; sometime shut up in some few families, as, from the flood, to the giving of the Law; and after limited to a small Kingdom and people in the Land of Canaan, where the Lords people dwelt. During which time, all other Nations and people of the world, besides this little company, were no people of God, but strangers from the covenant of promise, and (as Pau• saith) Without God in the world. And howsoever Gods Church was thus shut up,1 as it were in a corner; yet now and then it pleased God to reach out his merciful hand to some of the heathen, calling them into his Church, and receiving them into his covenant: and they are called in the new testament, Proselytes. In Abraham's family,