money, and every lay employment, did violence and dishonour to the temple, which was hallowed to ecclesiastical ministeries, and set apart for offices of religion, for the use of holy things; for it was God's house and so is every house by public designation separate for prayer or other uses of religion, it is God's house. ['My house :'] God had a propriety in it, and had set his mark on it, even his own name. And therefore it was, in the Jews idiom of speech, called 'the mountain of the Lord's house,' and 'the house of the Lord,' by David frequently. God had put his name into all places appointed for solemn worship. In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee.' For God, who was never visible to mortal eye, was pleased to make himself presential by substitution of his name; that is, in certain places he hath appointed that his name shall be called upon, and by promising and imparting such blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his name, hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his presence. For God's name is not a distinct thing from himself, not an idea, and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification; the expression is to be resolved into some other sense. God's name is that whereby he is known, by which he is invocated, that which is the most immediate publication of his essence, nearer than which we cannot go unto him and because God is essentially present in all places, when he makes himself present in one place more than another, it cannot be understood to any other purpose, but that in such places he : Exod. xx. 24. gives special blessings and graces, or that in those places he appoints his name, that is, himself, specially to be invocated. 2. So that when God puts his name in any place by a special manner, it signifies that there himself is in that manner; but in separate and hallowed places God hath expressed that he puts his name with a purpose it should be called upon: therefore, in plain signification it is thus; in consecrate places God himself is present to be invoked; that is, there he is most delighted to hear the prayers we make to him. For all the expressions of Scripture, of God's house,' the tabernacle of God, God's dwelling, putting his name there,' 'his sanctuary,' are resolved into that saying of God to Solomon, who prayed that he would hear the prayers of necessitous people in that place; God granting the request expressed it thus, 'I have sanctified the house which thou hast built;" that is, the house which thou hast designed for my worship, I have designed for your blessing; what you have dedicated, I have accepted; what you have conseerated, I have hallowed; I have taken it to the same purpose to which your desires and designation pretended it in your first purposes and expense. So that since the purpose of man in separating places of worship is, that thither, by order and with convenience and in communities of men, God may be worshipped and prayed unto. having declared that he accepts of such separate places to the same purpose, says, that there he will be called upon, that such places shall be places of 1 1 Kings, ix. 3. advantage to our devotions, in respect of human order, and divine acceptance and benediction. 3. Now, these are therefore God's houses, because they were given by men, and accepted by God, for the service of 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's law that, by virtue of special stipulation, makes the assignment of a house for the service of God to be proper to Moses's rite. Not only because God had memorials and determinations of this manner of his presence before Moses's 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's 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 re turn 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's 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 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 should 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 a 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 |
