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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	soul_n	time_n	14,269	5	4.0958	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43790	Dissertation concerning the antiquity of churches wherein is shewn, that the Christians in the two first centuries, had no such publick separate places for worship, as the papists generally, and some Protestants also presume, and plead for.	Hill, Joseph, 1625-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing H1999; ESTC R19760	56,800	78

these are but this Conjectures for which he brings no Proof in founded upon the Piety of the Apostles who always imployed their utmost Power to propogate Religion amongst all Nations For we no where find that any of the Apostles required the erecting of Structures for Worship or Consecrating any for that end Nor the least Signification that without such Religion could not be propogated And the Renowned Sir H. Spelman p. 70. De non temevandis Ecclesiis having mentioned the Consecration of Churches in Constantines Time adds That the Christians being in Elder Ages in Persecution might hardly Build or Dedicate any Churches but were constrained to use Private Houses and Solitary Places for their Assemblies The Learned Mr. Robert Cook Viccar of Leeds in 's Censura quor Script shews Dionysius Works to be Counterfeit because he mentions several Things and particularly stately Temples after the manner of that at Jerusalem having their Sancta Sanctorum divided from the rest into which it was not lawful for the Monks and Lay People to enter Whereas there were no such Things in those Days saith Cook but Christians met together after the Manner of the Apostles Acts 1.13 and 12.12 and 20.8 in private and secret Places and there had their Prayers and Sermons Publick Temples they had none by reason of Tyrants I might bring in the like Attestations from our famous Jewel Article 3. p. 145. Willet's Synopsis Papismi sixth General Controversie Quest 6. With several others But I shall conclude all with the Testimony of a great Historian yet living of whose Acquaintance and Friendship I have the Honour to partake viz Dr. Spanhem the Honorary Professor at Leyden who in 's learned and useful Ecclesiastical Hist of the New Testament saith Loca Sacrorum Conventuum fuere saeculo secundo partim aedes privatorum caenacula balnea porticus cryptae loca abdita Partim caemeteria seu Sepulchreta Martyrum ad quae Conventus indicerent zelo accendendo his constantiae exemplis The Places of the Christians Meetings in the Second Century were partly Private Houses Dining Rooms Baths Galleries Vaults and secret Places Partly Burial-Places or Sepulchres of the Martyre which they appointed their Meetings for the inflaming their Zeal by those Examples of Constancy And afterwards shews the Manner of notifying their Conventions was by their Servants from House to House For as yet neither the beating of Wood nor sound of Bells or Brass or Voice of Cryers were used for this end lost their Assemblies should be known to the Heathens In the Third Century whether the Christians had any Temples or Churches Dedicated or Consecrated by Sacred and Christian Rites is saith He a Controversie amongst the Learned Pol. Virgil Durantus Baronius Bellarminus Ciaconius and Valcsius affirm it And of ours also Wower Fuller Selden and others That Churches are frequently mentioned in this Age is out of doubt At nec Temptorum illis aut Nomen aut Forma aut Splendor aut Species quaedam Aedes fuere Privatorum Domus caenacula sed plorumque caemeteria Cryptae spatiosissimae quas areas Martyrum dixere etiam latibula stabula oremi carceres agri ex Antiquis Scripporibus ox Conditione Temporum saeviente ut plurimum Persecutions Quanquam sub Al. Severo Philippis Gallieno conveniendi libertas Christianis major Hinc nulla esse Christianis Templa Quae memorantur Templa Tituli Consecrationum Ritus Sacerdotales à Baronio Ciaconio Fr. Bivario aliis ea ex Apocryphis Decretalibus ex Pontific vitis ex Flavii Dextri Chronico Supposititio id genus fontibus lutulentis hausta But they had neither the Name nor Form nor Splendor nor Shape or Kind of Temples They were the Dwellings of Private Persons Houses Dining-Rooms and for the most part Burying-places very spacious Vaults which they called the Floors of the Martyrs Also Lurking-places Stables Wildernesses Prisons Fields as from Ancient Writers and the Condition of those Times is manifest Persecution then for the most Part raging Allthough under Al. Sevetus the Philips and Gallienus greater Liberty was given for Christian Assemblies Hence we conclude the Christians yet had no Temples Those Temples Titles and Sacerdotal Rites of Consecration mentioned by Baronius Ciaconius Fr. Bivarius and others are all taken from the Apocryphal Decretals the Lives of the Popes and the Supposititious Chronicle of Flavius Dexter and such like impure Fountains Thus far that Learned Professor To draw up all in a short Conclusion We read in Eusebius of the Christians building Publick Oratories after Deeius and Valerians Days not of any built before These were by Publick Decrees commanded to be pulled down by Dioclesian and Maximus and not long after restored by Consiantine Those formerly taken from the Christians by Decius and Valerian were expressed to be Caemeteria Places of Burial in which they had their Cryptae or Vaults under-ground formerly represented So that for separate and publick Places for Worship for Two Hundred Years and more after Christs Nativity we have no Records in approved History FINIS A Catalogue of BOOKS sold by Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheap-side near Mercers-Ckappel THE Fountain of Life open'd or a Display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory containing Forty Two Sermons on varions Texts Wherein the Impetration of our Redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun carried on and finished by his Covenant Transaction mysterious Incarnation solemn Call and Dedication blessed Offices deep Abasement and Supereminent Advancement A Treatise of the Soul of Man wherein the Divine Original excellent and immortal Nature of the Soul are opened its Love and Inclination to the Body with the necessity of its Separation from it consider'd and Improved The Existence Operations and States of separated Souls both in Heaven and Hell immediately after Death asserted discussed and variously applied Divers knotty and difficult Questions about departed Souls both Philosophical and Theological stated and determin'd The Method of Grace in bringing home the Eternal Redemption contrived by the Father and accomplished by the Son through the Effectual Application of the Spirit unto Gods Elect being the second Part of Gospel-Redemption The Divine Conduct or Mystery of Providence its Being and Efficacy asserted and vindicated All the Methods of Providence in our Course of Life open'd with Directions how to apply and improve them Navigation spiritualiz'd or a new Compass for Seamen consisting of Thirty Two Points of pleasant Observations profitable Applications serious Reflections all concluded with so many spiritual Poems c. Two Treatises the first of Fear the second the Righteous Mans Refuge in the Evil Day A Saint indeed the great Work of a Christian A Touchstone of Sincerity or Signs of Grace and Symptoms of Hypocrisie being the second Part of the Saint indeed A Token for Mourners or boundaries for Sorrow for the Death of Friends Husbandry spiritualiz'd Or the Heavenly use of Earthly Things All these Ten by Mr. John Flavel A Funeral Sermon on the Death of that Pious Gentlewoman Mrs. Judith Hammond late Wife of the Reverend Mr. George Hammond Minister of the Gospel in London Of Thoughtfulness for the Morrow With an Appendix concerning the immoderate Desire of foreknowing Things to come Of Charity in Reference to other Mens Sins The Redeemer's Tears wept over lost Souls in a Treatise on Luke 19.41 42. With an Appendix wherein somewhat is occasionally Discoursed concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how God is said to Will the Salvation of them that Perish A Sermon directing what we are to do after a strict Enquiry whether or no we truly Love God These Five by Mr. John Howe

comfortable calm Aurelian's Edict made for Persecution being never signed by him God having terrified him with Lightning as Eutropius and Vopiscus affirm and so stopt his wicked Tyranny But alas instead of being better'd they extreamly degenerated So that Eusebius saith God sent that direful storm of Persecution on them under Dioclesian for the corruptness of their lives and manners Maximè vero Ecclesiasticorum in quorum vultu simulationem in corde dolum verbis fallaciam cernere licuit livore superbia inimicitiis inter se certantes tyrannidem potius quam sacerdotium sapere videbantur Christianae pietatis omnino obliti divina mysteria profanabant potius quam celebrabant Which I forbear to English Those that please may read more in Fox's Martyrology in the 9th Primitive Persecution tho he misreckon it there having been no general Persecution in Aurelian's Reign who as he himself saith rather intended than moved Persecution But for their wickedness followed the 10th When their Churches were demolished their Bibles burnt their Persons punished with all kinds of cruelty neither Courtiers nor Friends not the Empress Prisca nor Daughter Valeria spared his Decree was aut Deos Gentilium aut mortem eligerent That the Christians should choose either the Heathen Gods or Death Of this Tenth and greatest Persecution Eusebius in his 8th Book of History Lactantius de mortibus Persecutorum from 7 to 49 Chap. with the Notes in Latin of 1693 which are 10 times larger than the Text. And Fox in his first book of Martyrology from Eusebius and several others have written largely which I shall not transcribe but dismiss with this short remark That of all the 10 general Persecutions this last which was the forest and continued above Ten Years only reached England wherein Albanus first and very many after sealed their Faith in Christ with their blood so that Christianity was almost with the Scriptures and Churches destroyed throughout the whole Kingdom tho shortly after revived by the blessed Constantine Having now examined all our Adversaries Witnesses we leave the Impartial Reader to judge of their validity and whether they prove the Christians to have had any publick appropriate places for Worship in the two first Centuries Which tho undoubtedly most sit and convenient always yet in times of Persecution men must do as they may and meet as secretly as they can and be constrained often to change their meeting places and when private Houses will not serve for secresie to seek out Vaults under ground where they may worship God And yet not even in the most secret and retired places without fear of their enemies and danger of their lives which shews our happiness in this regard above theirs who were much better than we There is but one scruple that I can imagine remaining and that is tho these places were private yet they might be as Mede terms them appropriate To which I answer that his first Argument for his Opinion which immediatly follows from their worshipping towards the East implies that he takes them for Publick and purposely built accordingly for that end And 2 who ever diligently peruses his Treatise will see that he founds their appropriation as also their holiness of which in the next Dissertation on their Consecration or as he sometimes calls it Dedication Now if we consider when this begun Platina in vitis Pontif. tells us That Telesphorus having suffer'd Martyrdom in the first year of Antomus Pius which was about the year of our Lord 142. Hyginus an Athenian succeeded him Who ordained these two things First the use of those Witnesses we commonly call Godfathers and Godmothers in the Administration of the Sacrament of Baptism Which was then I confess more necessary by reason the generallity of those amongst whom the Christians lived were Heathens And therefore in case the Parents on whom it is incumbent to see thei Children educated in the Christian Religion came to die they that were Sponsors might take care to see them brought up therein Which Institution as likewise Confirmation is now degenerated into a meer Formality few regarding their solemn Engagements made for that end And 2. he ordained also Templorum consecrationes the Consecration of Temples that or Churches being the usual Names given to all places for Gods Worship in after Ages So that Consecration being but introduced in the second Century if Mede takes it in the usual sense his Opinion that There were appropriate Places for Christian Worship both in the Apostles days and ever since falls to the Ground except it can be proved that some of them at least lived so long But if he takes it for a private House or some room therein where the Church met together as he seems in the beginning and by the expressions of the Church in their House then whensoever any Owners thereof gave leave for the Christians to assemble therein their permission was a Consecration thereof whereby they appropriated the same to the Churches use and so according to his Tenets employed them no more for their own Civil use being appropriate to a Sacred Or else some pious Christians gave their Houses as he thinks and dedicated them to the Church for a Meeting Place by which Dedication it was appropriated But neither of these can be reasonably imagined Considering 1. That we read of several that sold their Possessions for the Maintenance of the Poor but we read of none that gave their Houses to the Church for meeting in 2. The multitude of Christians increasing many Houses were requisite to contain them as we have formerly observed 3. How often in those bloody Persecutious they were forced to shift their Meeting-Places to shun the loss of their Estates Liberties and Lives we may easily conclude And lastly Had any either granted or given any House or certain place for such an use as therein constantly to assemble they had thereby without all doubt been quickly discovered certainly dispersed and often times most severely punish'd So that tho we are not to question the readiness of many that were able nor their pious liberality so we must also consider their Prudence the times wherein they lived and what was most conducible to their preservation that they might not run themselves on the rocks of destruction SECT 9. Our Opponents besides the Authorities mentioned produce several Arguments for their Opinion whereof 3 are made use of by Mede which we shall now consider First It 's certain saith he That in their Sacred Assemblies Christians used then to Worship and Pray towards the East Which how it could be done with any order and conveniency is not easie to be conceived unless we suppose the places wherein they worshipped to have been situated and accommodated accordingly that is chosen and appointed to that end This he had touched on before from Tertullian in the beginning of the 3d Century for which no authority is vouched but that only of the forged Apstolical Constitutions falsly ascribed to Clemens Here