God and the offices of religion. And this is not the effect or result of any distinct covenant God hath made with man, in any period of the world; but it is merely a favour of God, either hearing the prayer of dedication, or complying with human order or necessities. For there is nothing in the covenant of Moses' law, that, by virtue of special stipulation, makes the assignment of a house for the service of God to be proper to Moses' rite. Not only because God had memorials and determinations of this manner of his presence before Moses' law, as at Bethel, where Jacob laid the first stone of the church, (nothing but a stone was God's memorial,) and the beginning and first rudiments of a temple; but also because after Moses' law was given, as long as the nation was ambulatory, so were their places and instruments of religion and although the ark was not confined to a place till Solomon's time, yet God was pleased in this manner to confine himself to the ark; and in all places, wherever his name was put, even in synagogues, and oratories, and threshing-floors, when they were hallowed with an altar and religion, thither God came, that is, there he heard them pray, and answered and blessed accordingly, still in proportion to that degree of religion which was put upon them. And those places, when they had once entertained religion, grew separate and sacred for ever. For therefore David bought the threshing-floor of Araunah, that it might never return to common use any more: for it had been no trouble or inconvenience to Araunah to have used his floor for one solemnity; but he offered to give it, and David resolved to buy it, because it must, of necessity, be aliened from common uses, to which it could never return any more when once it had been the instrument of a religious solemnity: and yet this was no part of Moses' law, that every place of a temporary sacrifice should be "holy for ever." David had no guide in this but right reason, and the religion of all the world. For such things which were great instruments of public ends, and things of highest use, were also, in all societies of men, of greatest honour, and immured by reverence and the security c Nec fortuitum spernere cespitem Leges sinebant, oppida publico Sumptu jubentes, et deorum Templa novo decorare saxo.-Hor. lib. ii. od. 15. of laws. For honour and reputation is not a thing inherent in any creature, but depends upon the estimate of God or men, who, either in diffusion or representation, become fountains of a derivative honour. Thus some men are honourable; that is, those who are fountains of honour in civil account have commanded that they shall be honoured. And so places and things are made honourable, that as honourable persons are to be distinguished from others by honourable usages and circumstances proper to them, so also should places and things (upon special reason separate) have an usage proper to them, when, by a public instrument or minister, they are so separated. No common usage then; something proper to tell what they are, and to what purposes they are designed, and to signify their separation and extraordinariness. Such are the person of the prince, the archives and records of a kingdom, the walls and great defences of the imperial city, the eagles and ensigns of war amongst the Romans; and, above all things, though not above all persons, the temples and altars, and all the instruments of religion. And there is much reason in it. For thus a servant of a king, though his employment be naturally mean, yet is more honourable, because he relates to the most excellent person: and therefore much more those things which relate to God. And though this be the reason why it should be so; yet, for this and other reasons, they that have power, that is, they who are acknowledged to be the fountains and the channels of honour, I mean the supreme power, and public fame, have made it actually to be so. For whatsoever all wise men, and all good men, and all public societies, and all supreme authority, hath commanded to be honoured or revered, that is honourable and reverend; and this honour and reverence is to be expressed according to the customs of the nation, and instruments of honour proper to the nature of the thing or person respectively. Whatsoever is esteemed so, is so; because honour and noble separations are relative actions and terms, creatures and productions of fame, and the voice of princes, and the sense of people and they who will not honour those things or those persons, which are thus decreed to be honourable, have no communications with the civilities of humanity, or the guises of wise nations; they do not " give honour to whom honour belongs." Now that which in civil account we call "honourable," the same in religious account we call "sacred:" for by both these words we mean things or persons made separate and retired from common opinion and vulgar usages, by reason of some excellency really inherent in them, (such as are excellent men ;) or for their relation to excellent persons, or great ends, public or religious, (and so servants of princes, and ministers of religion, and its instruments and utensils, are made honourable or sacred :) and the expressions of their honour are all those actions and usages which are contrary to despite, and above the usage of vulgar things or places. Whatsoever is sacred, that is honourable for its religious relation; and whatsoever is honourable, that also is sacred (that is, separate from the vulgar usages and account) for its civil excellency or relation. The result is this: that when public authority, or the consent of a nation, hath made any place sacred for the uses of religion, we must esteem it sacred, just as we esteem persons honourable who are so honoured. And thus are judges, and the very places of judicature, the king's presence-chamber, the chair of state, the senate-house, the royal ensigns of a prince, whose gold and purple, in its natural capacity, hath in it no more dignity than the money of the bank, or the cloth of the mart; but it hath much more for its signification and relative use. And it is certain, these things, whose excellency depends upon their relation, must receive the degree of their honour in that proportion they have to their term and foundation: and therefore what belongs to God (as holy places of religion) must rise highest in this account; I mean higher than any other places. And this is besides the honour which God hath put upon them by his presence and his title to them, which, in all religions, he hath signified to us. 4. Indeed, among the Jews, as God had confined his church, and the rites of religion, to be used only in communion and participation with the nation, so also he had limited his presence, and was more sparing of it than in the d Religiosum est quod propter sanctitatem aliquam remotum ac sepositum à nobis est; verbum à relinquendo dictum, tanquam ceremonia à carendo.— Gel. lib. iv. c. 9. e Ceremoniæ deorum, sanctitas regum.-Jul. Cæsar apud Sueton. f Ex lege cujusque civitatis jubentur dii coli. Dictum 5 Sapient. apud Xenophon. Σπένδειν δὲ καὶ θύειν κατὰ τὰ πάτρια ἑκάστοις προσήκει. Εpict. c. 38. "It was time of the Gospel his Son declared he would be. said of old, that at Jerusalem men ought to worship," that is, by a solemn, public, and great address in the capital expresses of religion, in the distinguishing rites of liturgy; for else it had been no new thing. For, in ordinary prayers, God was then, and long before, pleased to hear Jeremiah in the dungeon, Manasses in prison, Daniel in the lion's den, Jonas in the belly of the deep, and in the offices yet more solemn in the proseuchæ, in the houses of prayer which the Jews had, not only in their dispersion, but even in Palestine, for their diurnal and nocturnal offices. But when the holy Jesus had "broken down the partition-wall," then the most solemn offices of religion were as unlimited as their private devotions were before; for wherever a temple should be built, thither God would come, if he were "worshipped spiritually and in truth;" that is, according to the rites of Christ, (who is "grace and truth,") and the dictate of the Spirit, and analogy of the Gospel. All places were now alike to build churches in, or memorials for God, God's houses. And that our blessed Saviour discourses of places of public worship to the woman of Samaria, is notorious, because the whole question was concerning the great addresses of Moses' rites, whether at Jerusalem or mount Gerizim, which were the places of the right and the schismatical temple, the confinements of the whole religion and in antithesis Jesus said, "Nor here nor there shall be the solemnities of address to God, but in all places you may build a temple, and God will dwell in it." : 5. And this hath descended from the first beginnings of religion down to the consummation of it in the perfections of the Gospel. For the apostles of our Lord carried the offices of the Gospel into the temple of Jerusalem; there they preached and prayed, and paid vows, but never, that we read of, offered sacrifice: which shows, that the offices purely evangelical were proper to be done in any of God's proper places, and that thither they went not in compliance with Moses' rites, but merely for Gospel duties, or for such offices which were common to Moses and Christ, such as were prayers and vows. While the temple was yet standing, they had peculiar places for the assemblies of the faithful, where either by accident, or observation, or religion, or choice, they met regularly. And I instance, in the house of John, surnamed Mark, which, as Alexander reports in the life of St. Barnabas, was consecrated by many actions of religion, by our blessed Saviour's eating the passover, his institution of the holy eucharist, his farewell-sermon; and the apostles met there in the octaves of Easter, whither Christ came again, and hallowed it with his presence; and there, to make up the relative sanctification complete, the Holy Ghost descended upon their heads in "the feast of Pentecost:" and this was erected into a fair fabric, and is mentioned as a famous church by St. Jerome and V. Bede; in which, as Adrichomius adds, St. Peter preached that sermon which was miraculously prosperous in the conversion of three thousand; there St. James, brother of our Lord, was consecrated first bishop of Jerusalem; St. Stephen, and the other six, were there ordained deacons ; there the apostles kept their first council, and compiled their creed: by these actions, and their frequent conventions, showing the same reason, order, and prudence of religion, in assignation of special places of Divine service, which were ever observed by all the nations, and religions, and wise men of the world. And it were a strange imagination to fancy, that, in Christian religion, there is any principle contrary to that wisdom of God and all the world, which, for order, for necessity, for convenience, for the solemnity of worship, hath set apart places for God and for religion. Private prayer had always an unlimited residence and relation, even under Moses' law; but the public solemn prayer of sacrifice in the law of Moses was restrained to one temple: in the law of nature it was not confined to one, but yet determined to public and solemn places; and when the holy Jesus disparked the enclosures of Moses, we all returned to the permissions and liberty of the natural law, in which, although the public and solemn prayers were confined to a temple, yet the temple was not confined to a place; but they might be any where, so they were at all; instruments of order, conveniences of assembling, residences of religion: and God, who always loved order, and was apt to hear all holy and prudent prayers, (and therefore also the prayers of consecration,) hath often de * Epist. 27. De Locis Sanct. c. 3. In Descript. Hieros. n. 6. |