A Cloud of Witnesses, Or, The Sufferers Mirrour 1670. This religious-themed book is titled “A Cloud Of Witnesses; Or, The Sufferers Mirrour, Made up of The Swanlike-Songs, and other Choice Passages of Several Martyrs and Confessors to the Sixteenth Century, in their Treatises, Speeches; Letters, Prayers &c. in their Prisons, or Exiles; at the Bar, or Stake, &c. Collected out of The Ecclesiastical Histories of Eusebius, Fox, Fuller, Petrie, Scotland, And Mr. Samuel Ward’s Life of Faith in Death, &c. and Alphabetically disposed.” By T.M. [Thomas Mall], M.A. … London, Printed for Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Bishopsgate-street, 1670. The book has horizontal gilt bands and decorative gilt devices on the spine, red boards with gilt vines on the borders of the covers, marbled endpapers, a title page with red and black letters inside a black border, one leaf of testimony from Samuel Ward, six pages of a Collector’s Preface, three pages addressed to the Reader by James Frith, one page for a Poetical Prologue, the text is 258 pages long, with printer’s notes in the margins, and all the edges are gilt. The book was first published in England in 1665, then in 1670 and 1677, and the first American edition was issued in Boston in 1747; the first edition from 1665 was issued without a half-title and had an extra leaf at the end bearing the publisher's ads for three other titles, and Thomas Mall was one of the ministers deposed or removed after the Reformation. See Sabin 44124. In scriptural texts, clouds are often used to carry or convey spiritual presence. In the Bible, clouds are mentioned in several places: the Lord appeared in a cloud to guide the children of Israel through the wilderness to the promised land; the resurrected Jesus was “overshadowed” by a cloud as he ascended into heaven; at the end of the world, the Savior will descend in a cloud with power and glory; in Hebrews chapter 11, the cloud of witnesses refers to people who have gone to heaven before us, in chapter 12, there is no limit to how many people who can join that great cloud in Heaven, and there are other instances in the Bible where clouds are mentioned like this. The book measures 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in. wide and is in pretty good condition for its age. The binding is tight, there are faint brown spots or toning here and there, with rubbing and light wear at the heel and crown and along the edges of the spine, light wear at the tips and a couple of tips are slightly turned in, and there are no copies of any of the English editions offered for sale on the rare book website we use, only copies from the first American edition of 1747, which run from $700 to $7000, probably because they are considered early colonial imprints from Boston. #219