PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE ARCHDEACON AND LONDON: PRINTED FOR C. & J. RIVINGTON, AND WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. Hooker, that "the solemn dedication of Churches doth not only serve to make them public, but for this end also, to surrender up that right which otherwise the founder might have in them, and to make God himself the owner." He observes too, "that the argument which our Saviour uses against profaners of the Temple, he taketh from the use whereunto it was with solemnity consecrated: and as the Prophet Jeremy forbiddeth the carrying of burdens upon the Sabbath, because it was a sanctified day, so because the Temple was a place sanctified, our Lord would not suffer, no not the carriage of a vessel through it. Christ would not suffer that the Temple should serve for a place of mart. When therefore we sanctify or hallow Churches, that which we do is only to testify that we make them places of public resort; that we invest God himself with them; that we sever them from common uses *99 When the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, it was not to signify the termination of the public worship of the Lord. Such solemnities shall never cease; no, not in the realms of glory. But the overthrow of that sumptuous house, served sufficiently to mark the folly of those who had preferred the marble columns of the Temple, to the everlasting pillars of the Truth itself. It served also to denote the rising of a Church whose congregations should be multiplied in all lands, and would accord Hooker, Eccles. Pol. book v. sect. 12. ingly require its hallowed courts of worship, not in one place, but wheresoever the collective numbers of believers should be gathered. We may observe now that after days of persecution in the first ages, when for any little term of respite the companies of Christians could meet more safely, and could make public declarations of their faith, they thought no more of building crypts for their assemblies. It was no longer an upper room, or a subterraneous vault, which they provided; and even when they had no better places of assembly, they bestowed the best cost they could upon them, and were sometimes taunted for it. The very learned Mr. Mede, in an elaborate discourse, traces the appropriation of places for Christian worship through the three first centuries, with copious testimonies, and full answers to objections. He remarks, that, "the number of Christians being so great that their ancient fabrics were no longer sufficient to contain them, they erected new and more spacious ones in every city, from their foundations. These sacred edifices, Dioclesian, and those other surrogated Emperors (which contained that direful ten years' persecution began by him) commanded by their edicts every where to be demolished, as we may read in Eusebius at large; the like whereunto seems never to have happened in any of the former persecutions, in which they were only taken from the Christians, but restored unto them again *." * Churches, that is, appropriate places for public worship, f The churches of the Christians, when they found a little calm, rose fast. Evaristus, Bishop of Rome, in the early part of the second century, he who suffered martyrdom under Trajan, is supposed to have been the first, who, finding the multitude of converts to be too great to assemble in one place, however ample, assigned their stations and settled the bounds for the congregations over which he presided. But this design was left imperfect by his martyrdom, until the reign of Gallienus; when Dionysius encouraged by a propitious edict made in favour of the Christians, resumed the work. The designation of " Tituli," applied to churches, appears to have been made in the days of Marcellinus, when no less than four-and-twenty of them are said, to have been established in Rome. If doubts have been raised concerning what has been referred to, Marcellinus, yet Baronius gives an earlier date to what has been assigned to that age. This is certain, that many churches were built long before the days of Constantine and the fixed term of imperial favour. Thus we read distinctly in Eusebius*, of 66 both in and ever since the Apostles' times, &c. by Joseph Mede," B.D. &c. London. 1638. He concludes-" And thus I think' I have proved by good and sufficient testimonies, that the Christians had Oratories or Churches, that is, appropriate places for Christian worship, in every of the first three hundred years." Adding, "Who can believe that such a pattern should not invite the Christians to an imitation of the same; though we should suppose there were no other reasons to induce them, but that of ordinary convenience." * Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 8. chap. iv. * the demolition of such churches in the reign of Dioclesian, and among these of the great church at Tyre, which was afterwards rebuilt by Paulinus; of the consecration of which we read, when the bishops of many distant Churches were collected, in order to mark the unity and correspondence of the Christian Church as well as to add splendour to the celebrations of that day. There are few things on record more striking or remarkable than the eloquent oration which was composed, it is thought, by Eusebius himself; in which he exhausted all the stores of rhetoric, and displayed at full the common sentiments which glowed then in every Christian breast. The Churches which succeeded when the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of the Lord, were beautiful and spacious. They were calculated, and accordingly divided, for every class of Christians. The font was placed there for those to be first dedicated to the Lord by baptism, who kept their places on the forms of well-instructed scholars as they advanced in riper stages of proficiency to the table of Communion. If much of these forms of distribution in the ancient churches is now disused, yet something is retained. The portion of the church, toward the western end, once used for the instruction of children, is in some instances so occupied in our own land, both in Sunday Schools, and Weekly Schools, to the present day. We have now, indeed, most *Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. 10. chap. ii. iii. |