66 which he elsewheres calls the house of our Dove, i. e. of Sect. II. the holy Spirit; and there describes the very form and fashion of it. And in another place 53, speaking of their going into the water to be baptized, he tells us, "They were wont first to go into the church, to make their so"lemn renunciation before the Bishop." About this time, in the reign of Alexander Severus, the Emperor, (who began his reign about the year 222,) the heathen historian tells us54, that when there was a contest between the Christians and vintners about a certain public place, which the Christians had challenged for theirs; the Emperor gave the cause for the Christians against the vintners, saying, "It was much better that God should be worshipped "there any ways, than that the vintners should possess "it." If it be said, that "the heathens of those times ge"nerally accused the Christians for having no temples, "and charged it upon them as a piece of atheism and im"piety; and that the Christian apologists did not deny it;" the answer depends upon the notion they had of a temple; by which the Gentiles understood the places devoted to their gods, and wherein the deities were inclosed and shut up; places adorned with statues and images, with fine altars and ornaments 55. And for such temples as these, they freely confessed they neither had nor ought to have any, for the TRUE GOD did not (as the heathens supposed theirs did) dwell in temples made with hands; he neither needed, nor could possibly be honoured by them: and therefore they purposely abstained from the word Temple, which is not used by any Christian writer for the place of the Christian assemblies, for the best part of the first three hundred years. But then those very writers, who deny that Christians had any temples, do at the same time acknowledge that they had their meeting places for divine worship; their Conventicula, as Arnobius calls them 56, when he complains of their being furiously demolished by their enemies. §. 2. It cannot be thought that in the first ages, while Their the flames of persecution raged, the Christian churches churches should be very stately and magnificent: it were sufficient sumptuous if they were such as the condition of those times would 52 Adv. Valentin. c. 3. p. 251. B. 53 De Corona Milit. c. 3. p. 102. A. 54 Æl. Lamprid. in Vita Alex. Sever. c. 49. apud Hist. August. Scriptor. p. 575. Lugd. Batav. 1661. 55 Minutius Felix, c. 10. p. 61. Arnob. adv. Gentes, ad initium 1. 6. 56 Arnobius adv. Gentes, ad finem and magni Chap. II. bear; their splendor increasing according to the entertainment Christianity met withal in the world; till, the empire becoming Christian, their temples rose up into grandeur and stateliness: as, amongst others, may appear by the particular description which Eusebius gives of the church of Tyre 57, and of that which Constantine built at Constantinople in honour of the Apostles 58: both which, the historian tells us, were incomparably sumptuous and magnificent. The form of them. The Chan cels, why It §. 3. I shall not undertake to describe at large the several parts and dimensions of their churches, (which varied according to the different times and ages,) but only briefly reflect upon such as were most common and remarkable, and are still retained amongst us. For the form and fashion of their churches, it was for the most part oblong, to keep the better correspondence with the fashion of a ship; the common notion and metaphor by which the church was wont to be represented, to remind us that we are tossed up and down in the world, as upon a stormy and tempestuous sea, and that out of the church there is no safe passage to heaven, the country we all hope to arrive at. was always divided into two principal parts, viz. the Nave or Body of the church, and the Sacrarium, since called Chancel, from its being divided from the body of the church by neat rails, called in Latin Cancelli. The Nave was common to all the people, and represented the visible world; the Chancel was peculiar to the Priests and Always sacred persons, and typified heaven: for which reason they stood at the always stood at the East end of the church, towards which East end of part of the world they paid a more than ordinary reverence and why. in their worship; wherein, Clemens Alexandrinus 59 tells us, they had respect to Christ: for as the East is the birth and womb of the natural day, from whence the sun (the fountain of all sensible light) does arise and spring; so Christ, the true Sun of righteousness, who arose upon the world with the light of truth, when it sat in the darkness of error and ignorance, is in Scripture styled the EAST: and therefore since we must in our prayers turn our faces toward some quarter, it is fittest it should be towards the East; especially since it is probable even from Scripture so called. the church, 60 vi. 12. the Messiah is called the BRANCH; and in Luke i. 78. the DAY-SPRING: in all which places the original words signify the EAST, and are so rendered in all other versions of the Bible. itself, that the Majesty and Glory of God is in a peculiar Sect. II. manner in that part of the heavens, and that the Throne of Christ and the splendor of his Humanity has its residence there. In this Chancel always stood the Altar or Communion-table: which none were allowed to approach, but such as were in holy orders, unless it were the Greek Emperors at Constantinople, who were allowed to go up to the table to make their offerings, but were immediately to return back again 62. §. 4. But though the Christians of those times spared no The use of convenient cost in founding and adorning public places for images forthe worship of God; yet they were careful not to run into bidden in a too curious and over-nice superstition. No images were tive the primiworshipped, or so much as used in churches for at least church. four hundred years after Christ: and therefore certainly, might things be carried by a fair and impartial trial of antiquity, the dispute about this point would soon be at an end. Nothing can be more clear than that the Christians were frequently challenged by the heathens for having no images nor statues in their churches, and that the Christian apologists never denied it; but industriously defended themselves against the charge, and rejected the very thoughts of any such thing with contempt and scorn: as might be abundantly shewn from Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius. But I shall only cite one of them, and that is Origen, who, amongst other things, plainly tells his adversary (who had objected this to the Christians) that the images, that were to be dedicated to God, were not to be carved by the hands of artists, but to be formed and fashioned in us by the word of God; viz. the virtues of justice and temperance, of wisdom and piety, &c. that conform us to the image of his only Son. "These," says he," are the only statues formed in our minds; and by "which alone we are persuaded it is fit to do honour to " him, who is the image of the invisible God, the proto"type and archetypal pattern of all such images 63." Had Christians then given adoration to them, or but set them up in their places of worship; with what face can we suppose they could have told the world, that they so much abhorred them? But more than this the council of 61 See Mr. Gregory's Notes and Observations upon Scripture, chap. 18. p. 71, &c. and p. 4, 5, of his Preface, with some other parts of his works printed at London 1665. 62 Concil. Trull. Can. 69. tom. vi. Col. 1174. B. 63 Contr. Cels. 1. 8. part. 2. p. 521. E. Chap. II. Illiberis, that was held in Spain some time before Constantine, expressly provides against them; decreeing", that "no pictures ought to be in the church, nor that any thing "that is worshipped and adored should be painted upon "the walls:" words too clear to be evaded by the little shifts and glosses which the expositors of that canon would put upon it. The first use of statues and pictures in the churches was merely historical, or to add some beauty and ornament to the place, which after-ages improved into superstition and idolatry. The first we meet with upon good authority is no older than the times of Epiphanius, and then too met with no very welcome entertainment; as may appear from Epiphanius's own Epistle to John then Bishop of Jerusalem's: where he says, that coming to Anablatha, a village in Palestine, and going into a church to pray, he espied a curtain banging over the door, whereupon was painted the image of Christ, or of some saint: which when he had looked upon, and saw the image of a man hanging up in the church, contrary to the authority of the holy Scriptures, he presently rent it, and ordered the churchwardens to make use of it as a winding-sheet for some poor man's burying. This instance is so home, that the patrons of image-worship are at a loss what to say to it, and after all are forced to cry out against it as supposititious: though the famous Du Pin, who is himself of the Romish communion, and doctor of the Sorbon, allows it to be genuine, and owns that one reason of its being called in question, is because it makes so much against that doctrine. More might be produced to this purpose: but by this, I hope, it is clear enough, that the primitive Christians, as they thought it sufficient to pray to God, without making their addresses to saints and angels; so they accounted their churches fine enough without pictures and images to adorn them. Decency in §. 5. And though these afterwards crept in again, and churches became the occasion of idolatry in the times of Popery; requisite yet our church at the Reformation not only forbad the and neces sary. worshipping them, but also quite removed them; as thinking them too false a beauty for the house of God. But though she would not let religion be dressed in the habit of a wanton; yet she did not deny her that of a matron: she would have her modest in her garb, but withal comely and clean; and therefore still allowed her enough, 64 Can. 36. tom. i. col. 974. 66 Hist. of Ecclesiast. Writers, vol. ii. p. 236. not only to protect her from shame and contempt, but to Sect. II. draw her some respect and reverence too. And no man surely can complain, that the ornaments now made use of in our churches are too many or too expensive. Good men would rather wish that more care was taken of them, than there generally seems to be. For sure a decency in this regard is conformable to every man's sense, who professes to retain any reverence for God and religion. The magnificence of the first Jewish temple was very acceptable to God; and the too sparing contributions of the people towards the second was what he severely reproved 68: from whence we may at least infer, that it is by no means agreeable to the Divine Majesty, that we turn pious clowns and slovens, by running into the contrary extreme, and worshipping the Lord, not in the beauty, but in the dirt and deformity, of holiness. Far from us be all ornaments misbecoming the worship of a Spirit, or the gravity of a church; but surely it hath a very ill aspect for men to be so sordidly frugal, as to think that well enough in God's house, which they could not endure even in the meanest offices of their own. But to return to my first design. crated by a God. §. 6. When churches are built, they ought to have a Churches greater value and esteem derived upon them by some pe- to be conseculiar Consecration: for it is not enough barely to devote formal dethem to the public services of religion, unless they are dication of also set apart with the solemn rites of a formal dedication. them to For by these solemnities the founders surrender all the right they have in them to God, and make God himself the sole owner of them. And formerly, whoever gave any lands or endowments to the service of God, gave it in a formal writing, sealed and witnessed, (as is now usual between man and man,) the tender of the gift being made upon the altar, by the donor on his knees. The antiquity of such dedications is evident, from its being an universal custom amongst Jews and Gentiles: and it is observable that amongst the former, at the consecration of both the tabernacle and temple, it pleased the Almighty to give a manifest sign that he then took possession of them 69. When it was first taken up by Christians is not easy to determine: though there are no footsteps of any such thing to be met with, in any approved writer, till the reign of Constantine: in whose time, Christianity be 671 Kings ix. 3. 68 Haggai i, and ii. 69 Exod. xl. 34. 1 Kings viii. 10, 11. |