whole So the great King of Persia to whom sitting Enthroned in Susa or Ecbatane the Author of the Book De Mundo hath compared God used to demand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those Nations whom he intended to bring under his Subjection and that little he accepted as an acknowledgment of his Dominion as the denial was a bidding Desiance to his Power There are two consequences of this 1. First That seeing its Gods own we take great care of our behaviour towards it Reverence my Sanctuary Holiness becometh thy House for ever In our entrance put off thy Shooes in Western phrase our Hats for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground Keep thy feet when thou goest into the House of God The Adoration by bowing is a most reasonable acknowledgment of that Majesty we do approach The Greek Liturgies call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to put us in mind that we ought to have the humility as we have the indigencies of a Penitent Sinner What composedness of mind and setled devotion purity of heart and innocency of hands ought to be preserved in that place where God says his Eyes and his Heart shall be perpetually he will more easily pardon the miscarririages of life committed amidst our secular imployments than those Errours which profane that place where Religion ought to be our business 2. That we never think of alienating it from that holy use to which we have designed it So jealous is God in this particular that he would not suffer the Censors of the Rebels to be imployed to common uses but for the service of the Temple He asks the Question by way of Admiration Will a man rob God Sacriledge is a Crime which the Heathens generally so abhorred that in their Histories more severe judgments are recorded to have befallen the Committers of it than of any other sin against the Law of Nature The Romans in the height of their Conquests always preserved due respect to sacred places and when they thought it convenient utterly to destroy a City they always by certain Ceremonies invited the Gods under whose tuition it was to a fair removal and civilly promised them more fortunate habitations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a term of the greatest infamy and reproach imaginable Only Christians in the Apostles words because they abhor Idols think God will easily dispence with Sacriledge Because they have a better name think they may securely be guilty of more horrid actions Whereas God was always tender of his Soveraignty and though by methods to us undiscernable seldom leaves the boldness of this sin unpunished but first or last uses his own ways and times for the regaining of his right as our own eyes have seen For as by the overflowing of Nilus all particular possessions become undistinguished and would for ever remain confused in Mire and Dirt did not Geometry after the rage of the River is asswaged recover the ancient bounds and gratefully secure that property to which it ows its first Original So when an armed Impiety in this our Land as a Mighty Flood brake down the Banks betwixt things Sacred and Common swallowed up Churches with their Revenues and laid desolate the Sanctuaries of Piety and Religion the Inheritance of the Lord was well nigh lost in so great an Inundation had not that God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Great Geometer of the Universe come down with his Line and Measuring Rod in his hand as once he did to Ezekiel's Temple and measuring the height length and breadth of our Church retrived every part which it did possess and miraculously restored it to all its old proportions 3. Lastly We will consider the effects of this Consecration 1. First as to God I have hallowed this House to put my Name there for ever and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually In all places where I record my Name there will I come and bless thee By which and many other expressions he assures us of his more peculiar presence in places sanctified to his Worship I will not now discourse the presence of Angels in Christian Assemblies it seeming to Learned men to have Foundation in Scripture may piously be believed and to be that Retinue which makes up the Court of the Heavenly King The Gentiles by the Power of Magical Arts supposed their Gods imprisoned in their Temples to inhabit the Images fixed there and to be refreshed with the smoak and sumes of Sacrifices God may be found in Woods or Desarts in a Dungeon or a Prison in the wild Fields or open Air but in his own House is his promised residence Here will I dwell for I have desired it Hearken thou to the Supplications of thy People Israel when they pray towards this place If a man trespass against his Neighbour and come before thine Altar in this house if thy People Israel be smitten down before the Enemy and make supplication before thee in this house when Heaven is shut up that there be no Rain if they pray towards this place then hear thou in Heaven and when thou hearest forgive 2. The effect upon our selves will be greatly to encrease Devotion and promote our Piety in our Addresses made in so holy a place There are few I suppose of so setled a Stoical humour as to be influenced by no external circumstances in Religion The decorousness of the Building the gravity of the Auditory the solemnity of the Service and the separated Relation of the Place cannot but move a man whose composition is such as on purpose to receive impressions either of pleasure or dislike from material Objects There is indeed a Religion in the World swallowed up in the Apparel which only should adorn it where the external Grandeur of Piety tends to Atheism and there is a Religion dark and slovenly as the minds which have made it containing nothing to invite but to cause to nauseate and loath the Offering of the Lord. The former winds up to too high a pitch the latter lets down to too great a laxity both which do equally spoil that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul as Philo calls it wherein consists the health of its Constitution only the Church of England like Virtue it self preserves its Essence by being placed betwixt two opposite Vices its deadly Enemies Here is comeliness without aflected gaudiness beauty without meretricious painting gravity without a pievish morosity a Religion which being most fitted to the nature of man cannot but be most acceptable unto God How dreadful is this place it is no other but the House of God and this is the Gate of Heaven Here are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Port and Residence of that King whose blessings not like Isaacs never are exhausted Here thou need'st not wait for those milder times when only that Serene Jupiter of the Flattering Poet would give a favourable Audience But when ever thy heart is oppressed with grief or thy condition with necessities when ever thy
thing unworthy of so incomparable a Being whose both as Creatures and Christians we are is to be found The contrary to this is to prophanc and pollute his Holy Name not giving that Honour which is due unto it either by Atheism which doth not only deny Honour but superadds Contempt or Polytheism dividing and making common that Religious Worship which the notion of one God challenges as incommunicable and proper to it self Persons are then hallowed when being separated from the more common imployments of the World and dedicated to the peculiar Service of God in managing the Offices of Religion they enjoy that honour and respect which is due to the Agents of so great a Master And so the Priesthood hath been honoured in all Ages in all Religions their Persons esteemed Sacred as their Office and received with all the Differences which are wont to make a Reputation Glorious and Resplendent and if to the great attainments of the Age wherein we live the want of this may be reckoned a strong Exception the contempt of the Clergy being become the Subject of Books and Discourses in vain shall we trouble our selves in searching out other Reasons of that Incivility which must be ultimately resolved into the decay of Reverence to Religion and of Loyalty to God himself Where this is not what Learning Wisdom or Piety can oblige or what could have defended him whom Nec Apollinis infula texit In the mean while we cannot but justly wonder that he who all along pretends to have laid the Foundations of his Commonwealth in the observation of Humane Nature the Humours Inclinations and Practises of Universal Mankind should not remember that there never was any Nation Time or Place how Barbarous soever which was not Highly Civil in this and thought themselves bound to reward the Procurators of their Religion with the best and greatest of worldly things So that the effect of his Politicks may be very much to spoil Christianity by complying with the corrupt humours of men but shall never be able to introduce any other way of Religion the Priesthood whereof shall not have a considerable Rule and Interest in the World when all he hath said to the contrary shall be forgotten The Sanctification which the Christian Doctrine teacheth devested of those adventitious niceties whereby the disputing humour of some hath much spoiled the ancient simplicity of its Nature is resolved into the two things we have discoursed 1 The Dedication of our selves to God viz. in Baptism 2 And the management of our selves according to the Holiness of that Relation For in Baptism we were admitted into the Church incorporated into that Divine Society and made Partakers of all the Priviledges of the Gospel Here we were taken into the Protection of the Holy Ghost as the Jews say their Baptized Proselite was put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Wings of the Divinity by the assistance of which H. Spirit the Power of Original Sin whereinsoever it doth consist is over-ballanced and our own industry concurring made ineflectual as the Jews also believed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vicious inclination was taken away by Circumcision So that since the infusion of Vertuous Habits hath but seldom been experienced and brings but little reason for which in these our days we should believe it what can be demanded more as necessary to our Sanctification than to be put into possession of those Spiritual helps which are always assisting our sincere endeavours or where can we fix the date of it but in that Sacrament where such a Right was bestowed Hither also must be referred Regeneration Adoption and Justification all which Blessings are the Acts of God by that means which in his Church he hath ordained by Baptism confirmed unto us But whether or no we have forfeited them in our after-lives will not be known till the Day of Judgment For they are all Judicial Acts and the words with many more in our Religion terms not only of the Jewish but Roman Law and do in their nature suppose a Corporation but as distinct from the Temporal as the things signified by them transcend the Graces of Princes or the indulgences of any Imperial Constitution To this I will only add that if in Astronomy Philosophy Anatomy and other Sciences that Hypothesis is by all esteemed best and nearest truth which doth most easily naturally and consistently explain the appearances proper to it then that the Church is a distinct Society though upon no other reasons will strongly challenge our belief because upon this doth depend the Nature of many Essential parts in Religion the Solution of which is in vain elsewhere to be expected 2. The second thing is the Dedication of Places for Gods Worship where we will enquire 1 The Antiquity of them 2 What this Dedication doth imply as the reasonableness of it 1. It cannot be doubted that Religion is as Old as Humane Nature the sense of mans own necessities forcibly producing an acknowledgment of a more Excellent Being upon whom he doth depend And if Reason or Cogitation be the Formality of the Soul Religion or Dependence must be the first Subject whereupon those Faculties must be imployed But Religion no dull or sluggish but an active and vigorous thing will make its appearance by outward signs and visible effects and therefore in the Infancy of the World it soon put forth it self in all material circumstances They offered Sacrifice and at a certain time for so the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 4. signifie a fixed period of a constant Revolution That it was at a stated place is reasonable because in Paradise there seems to have been one place where more especially God manifested his Presence from which Adam fled hoping to be concealed After the Flood Noah built an Altar to the Lord and Jacob took a Stone and set it for a Pillar and called it Bethel and endowed it with the tenth of his whole Estate which the Gentiles imitating worshipped their Gods in the shape of unpolished stones Boeharti Geogr Sa. lib. 2. c. 1. and called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their unsetled way of living or the imperfection of Arts stinted the expressions of their Devotions which in aster-Ages let it self loose to that Superstitious Prodigality in the number and Magnificence of their Temples which we read and cannot but admire in Greek and Roman Story And this was only a true deduction from the Law of Nature for there were Temples in the Gentile World before either the Tabernacle of Moses or that of Solomon to the building of which neither by any Command from God or Covenant of the Jewish Law did he stand obliged There was indeed a sort of haughty and morose Philosophers who alone outbraved mankind and boasted their own perfections in affront to all the world besides who laying down for the foundation of their morality That all things out of the power of Mans own will were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
frequently the dying person commended his Soul to God by bequeathing his Estate to the encouragement of Religion So the House of Pudens a Noble Senator mentioned 2 Tim. 4. and of Theophilus of Antioch St. Lukes most excellent Patron were converted into Christian Temples Within an hundred years after the death of our Saviour we read in the Dialogue ascribed to Lucian called Philopatris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Critius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Representing the Assemblies of the Christians we passed through iron Gates and brazen Thresholds when after many winding Ascents we came to an House whose Roof was overlaid with Gold Nor is the Authority of this Book made less by any thing that either Blondel in opposition to the Antiquity of Churches or the Socinians in favour of their Antitrinitarian Opinion have disputed seeing it is certain whoever was the Author it was written if not about the time of Nero as some think yet in the Reign of Trajan Marcilius adlocum whose conquests over the Parthians he plainly doth congratulate He that considers the several Classes of Persons to every of which was an appointed Station in the Church and the distinct degrees through which they passed in the primitive discipline before they were accounted perfect must conclude that not a confused assembling but a designed methodized place was onely capeable of so regular and orderly proceedings The poverty of their affairs did not discourage the Christians nor the rage of their enemies affright them but they met together in hallowed places where they prayed for the lives of their Persecutors and did no other hurt than what Pliny relates ' in his known Epistle But if at any time either policy of State or the goodness of the Emperour gave them release from their afflictions and exercise of their religion then could they not rest satified to serve God amidst ruins and desolations but with sumptuous charges they reedified the fallen Churches which for ought they knew the next breath of an angry Tyrant might again throw to the ground When the Empire turned Christian then was there an Emblem of the general resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb lib. 10. c. 2. Religion seem to be clad in the joyes of immortality their Temples ascended above all clouds and tempests not afraid of a second death Then was there in every Town and City lasting monuments raised to that God who had at length tamed the madness of the people had spoken the word and delivered them from further fears of Stormes and Shipwracks Then might you have Seen the Splendor of Paulinus his Cathedral at Tyre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the first sight to attract the eyes and hearts of the enemies of the Faith Cap. 4. as the Panegyrist at that Dedication doth express it From thence that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great and heavenly quire made hast to perform the like solemnity at Jerusalem De vâ—â— Constan Cap. 43. Jernsalem the City of the great God he was once well known in thy palaces and in the gates of Sion The glory of all nations the joy of the whole earth where the Lord said he would dwell for ever in thee was he worshipped with the beauty of holyness till by the rebellion of thy people the wicked obstinacy of thy Priests and Rulers when they truly murdred the Lord of life and glory the vail of thy Temple rent in sunder the gates flew open on their own accord and a dreadful voice was heard let us go hence Then did the Scepter and the Glory depart from Israel then was thy holy place prophaned with all impurities and buried in the dust Behold now thy King cometh whom thou wouldst not to reign over thee in greatness Power and Triumph over the despised lodging of his birth shall be built a glorious Temple to his Name Every place which formerly entertained his Sacred Person shall be turned into an Oratory every spot of earth whereon he stood shall for ever be accounted holy ground Here will we raise Altars to the memory of every action which he did and consecrate to eternity the particulars of his Sufferings hither shall resort from the utmost ends of the earth the wearie Pilgrim and prostrate pay the Vows which he made in trouble at his shrines here the mournful penitent shall power fourth floods of teares where He wept shall love the place where He was scourged and by those stripes shall be healed Here shall the disconsolate spend his life in sacred retirement and all devout employments here lastly shall men dedicate their time to Diviner Studies write Commentaries upon his Life and defences of his Religion To this new Jerusalem it was they made haste from Tyre to the Encaenia of a Magnificent Temple where was a concourse of holy Confessors and Bishops from all parts of the Christian World attended by an innumerable company of every particular Nation Some sanctified the Solemnity with devout prayers and pious exhortations some made Orations upon the virtues of the Emperour extolling the sincerity of his love to Religion and the honour he paid to Martyrs Others composed devout meditations from passages of holy Scripture to the occasion They who were not of such attainments made their Devotions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with unbloody Sacrifices Ibid. cap. 45. and mystical Services praying for the peace of the Church and Happiness of the Emperour The frequency of after-Dedications are not here to be mentioned nor need we add any thing in defence of them it being so much a part of natural Religion and Gods ready acceptance of this in the Text so solemnly performed is an infallible Argument that many Ceremonies in divine Worship are approved by him for which no particular command can be produced It is childish impertinency when God hath given us sense and reason besides general rules in Scripture for our direction to expect a divine Revelation to lead us by the Hand and mark out every step we are to go I have hallowed this House that thou hast built that is what you offer I do accept and will bless it for those ends you have designed it But some people are so afraid of the Law of Moses as if they had been present at the Thunder and Lightning the Shakeings of Mount Sinai So terrified are they at the very name of the Ceremonial Law that they are not capable of understanding what it is nor will learn to distinguish betwixt what is so indeed and what are truely the results of nature and common reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazian Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of so undoubted Antiquity it is in Christianity that Blondel himself who writ an Apology for his own opinion rather than St. Hierom's acknowledges Dedications to have been performed with the Solemnity of Prayer onely he urges against the Superstitious Ceremonies of the Romanists and will be sure not to allow the Bishop the chief disposing of the Office which yet is ever
reckoned in the number of his Prerogatives They who first affixing a typical signification to every particular under the Law dispute that none ought to be retained as receiving their full impletion under the Gospel seem not carefully to have attended the consequence of the Argument whilest they endeavour to give it an unbounded force they make it altogether lose its strength encreasing the shadow to such a vastness as to take away the light of the very Sun and bring Universal Darkness upon all Divine Revelation If all shall be received for the sence of Scripture which the Allegorizing wits of men warmed with thinking have obtruded who sees not upon what a Rack the litteral sence will be put tortured into such confessions as will call in question its Truth and destroy its Being All Ages as our own have found that the immoderate indulging Spiritual meanings have rendered the Scripture but a dead Letter It seems a pleasant thing to make apt similitudes Allegories have been the entertainment of great wit and high Devotion too oft also the refuge of Heresie when deserted of plainer Scripture We give due reverence to the pious industry of those who by this method of Interpretation have performed any thing which may with pleasure perswade to Vertue or illustrate the Analogy of Faith Yet will not the quickness of Fancy be alwayes found to serve the ends of reasoning It may delight but not convince it may incline but not satisfie the inquisitive understanding Such do appear to have been the extravagancies of this kind that having treated Sacred Scripture with the like levity as the Jewes by their Gematria they have been little less ridiculous nor can they be entertained without prejudice to the common Faith and great inconvenience in believing the Egyptians and Greeks had their Mythology Theology moralized the Jews not without probability pretend an ancient Cabala they say from the time of Moses to which St. Paul seemes to refer well understanding the learnnig of his own Nation The Scripture alone must put bounds to our Faith in this particular nor are we obliged to acknowledg any other Types than what we find there declared As to our present instance the Temple or Tabernacle is not said by the Apostle Heb. 9.9 to be a figure but those Ordinances of worship therein observed Gifts and Sacrifices imposed on them till the time of Reformation St. John saw no Temple in the new Jerusalem that is as the Jewes in the dayes of the Messias expect a Temple but different from any they had before as is that described in the vision of Ezekiel 2. What Dedication doth imply as the reasonableness of it 1. That hereby the place becomes publick for Gods Service For the Church of Christ being Catholick and intended to include whole mankind it is no less honourable than necessary for the maintenance of Religion that the celebration be as publick as the design of it both the better to invite the unconverted to the same Profession as also to preserve it self entire from Herefie and Schism which private Conventicles have always bred and fomented One reason of those Heresies which much defaced the beautie of the primitive Faith was that they being denyed the publick exercise of Religion were constrained to divide into many little bodies whereby he who had a mind had the opportunity by his wit and ambition to tyrannize over the Faith of others and to compose a Church of Disciples peculiar to himself And it was great wisdom in the Dispensation of the Jews the institution of three general Festivalls every year at which the whole Nation was bound to appear whereby they secured the unity and integrity of the Worship whilst they had no long intervals to forget the constant setled method of Religion or to invent and propagate new They had also but one Temple in the whole Land which as it signified the profession of one God in opposition to the plurality of the Heathens so was it also an effectual Bar to all Schism and Innovation The Religion of Christ indeed is of another Nature of much larger extent than from Dan to Beersheba intending the advantage of more than a little spot of ground not two hundred miles in length for all Nations shall worship him and his Dominion shall be from one end of the Earth to the other And therefore our Saviour told the Woman of Samaria that neither in that Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem should they worship the Father but wheresoever a Temple was built there in the purity of his service might they find his presence Happy was that time when in what part of the world soever a good Christian might chance to be he might have found the doors of Churches wide open to his Devotion and God worshipped in that form and order to which without either scruple of his own Conscience or offence to others he heartily could conform when so inconsiderable were the differences of Worship that so prudent and pious a Bishop as S. Ambrose thought it his duty whether at Rome or Milan or any other place to observe its Customs and joyn in Sacred Offices when he might have travelled from East to West and as soon have discovered another Sun as another distinct allowed Religion Even in S. Austin's time if a man askt the way to a Catholick Church no Donatist that had not the ill humour of a Jew durst have presumed to direct him to his own But now into how many thousand pieces doth that Catholick Doctrine stand divided whilst it is forced to put on as many shapes as frail men are subject to imaginations How many Altars smoak to it with no other than the Sacrifice of Fools Strange Fire and Incense wherewith God is not delighted because himself did never kindle it As if the Holy Jesus had been designed ever to remain in Infancy no where to be found or worshipped but in Stables unseemly unhallowed places and his Religion never to take part of that Happiness which Inspired Prophets have foretold In Religion as in the Heavens were our understandings placed in clear and pure light undisturbed with passion prejudice or interest and Earthly affections we should soon discover the easiness and native simplicity of its motions no contrariety no irregularity there and that only man made Epicycles little fancies of his own and falsly said God lodged in them 2. Dedication doth imply that we part with our own right in the thing and make God the sole Owner So Solomon prayed Arise O Lord God into thy resting place thou and the Ark of thy strength And therefore at the Consecration both of the Tabernacle and Temple God by most manifest and extraordinary signs declared his taking possession of them for the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle and the Cloud filled the House of the Lord. God is the Lord of all the Earth and all that we have and by the particular assignment of some part we confess his Title to the