A17650:245
A commentary on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews. By M. John Calvin. Translated…A commentarie on the vvhole Epistle to the Hebrevves. By M. Iohn Caluin. Translated…
A commentary on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews. By M. John Calvin. Translated out of FrenchA commentarie on the vvhole Epistle to the Hebrevves. By M. Iohn Caluin. Translated out of French
London: printed by Felix Kingston for Arthur Johnson, 1605London: printed by Felix Kingston for Arthur Iohnson, 1605
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
2 Of the doctrine of Baptisms, and laying on of hands, &c. of the resurrection from the dead, and of eternal judgment.
2 Of the doctrine of Baptismes, and laying on of hands, &c. of the resurrection from the dead, and of eternall iudgment.
Wherefore leaving, Vers. 1 &c.] After he hath sharply reproved them, he exhorteth them that in leaving the beginnings, they go on forward aiming to the mark. For he calls the doctrine of beginning, the rudiments by which the ignorant are to begin, when they be received into the Church. Now in that he commands them to leave such rudiments, or beginnings, his meaning is, not that the faithful should forget them, but that they should not stick fast, as it were, in them: the which is better known by the similitude of laying the foundation, which by and by followeth. For when an house is to be builded, men must never shrink away from the foundation: and yet notwithstanding it were a mockery to be always about that, & to go no further. For howsoever the foundation of the building is to be laid, yet he which shall always busy himself about that, never fitting or preparing matter wherewithal to raise up the building; shall he not busy himself foolishly, and in vain? In a word, as we are to begin by the foundation, so the labour of the master builder is to hasten that the house also be raised up in due season. The like is it in Christianity. For the foundation is laid in us by learning ⟨p. 109⟩the rudiments: but by and by after a more high doctrine ought to follow, which may finish up the whole building. Wherefore those who always stick in the first rudiments, go forward but ill; because they propound no end unto themselves. As if the master workman employing his whole labour about laying the foundation, 1should utterly neglect to build any thing upon it. And therefore he would have our faith so laid in the beginnings, that it should still rise higher and higher, until at the last it be perfected by continual increases.