XI. Solemn duties of public service to be done unto God, must have their places set and prepared in such sort, as beseemeth actions of that regard. Adam, even during the space of his small continuance in Paradise, had where to present himself before the Lord1. Adam’s sons had out of Paradise in like sort2 whither to bring their sacrifices. The Patriarchs used 3altars, and 4mountains, and 5groves, to the selfsame purpose.
In the vast wilderness when the people of God had themselves no settled habitation, yet a moveable tabernacle they were commanded of God to make6. The like charge was given them against the time they should come to settle themselves in the land which had been promised unto their fathers, “Ye shall seek that place which the Lord your God shall choose7.” When God had chosen Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem Mount Moria8, there to have his standing habitation made, it was in the chiefest of David’s9 desires to have performed so good a work. His grief was no less that he could not have the honour to build God a temple, than their anger is at this day, who bite asunder their own tongues with very wrath, that they have not as yet the power to pull down the temples which they never built, and to level them with the ground. It was no mean thing which he purposed. To perform a work so majestical and stately was no small charge. Therefore he incited all men unto bountiful contribution, and procured towards it with all his power, gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, precious stones, in great abundance10. Yea, moreover, “Because I have (saith David) a joy in the house of my God, I have of mine own gold and silver, besides all that I have prepared for the house of the sanctuary, given to the house of my God three thousand talents of gold, even the gold of Ophir, seven thousand talents of fined silver11.” After the overthrow of this first house of God, a second was instead thereof erected; but with so great odds, that they12 wept which had seen the former, and beheld how much this later came behind it, the beauty whereof notwithstanding was such, that even this was also the wonder of the whole world. Besides which Temple, there were both in other parts of the land, and even in Jerusalem, by process of time, no small number of synagogues for men to resort unto. Our Saviour himself, and after him the Apostles, frequented both the one and the other.
The Church of Christ which was in Jerusalem, and held that profession which had not the public allowance and countenance of authority, could not so long use the exercise of Christian religion but in private only13. So that as Jews they had access to the temple and synagogues, where God was served after the custom of the Law; but for that which they did as Christians, they were of necessity forced other where to assemble themselves14. And as God gave increase to his Church, they sought out both there and abroad for that purpose not the fittest (for so the times would not suffer them to do) but the safest places they could. In process of time, some whiles by sufferance, some whiles by special leave and favour, they began to erect themselves oratories; not in any sumptuous or stately manner, which neither was possible by reason of the poor estate of the Church, and had been perilous in regard of the world’s envy towards them. At the length, when it pleased God to raise up kings and emperors favouring sincerely the Christian truth, that which the Church before either could not or durst not do, was with all alacrity performed. Temples were in all places erected. No cost was spared, nothing judged too dear which that way should be spent. The whole world did seem to exult, that it had occasion of pouring out gifts to so blessed a purpose. That cheerful devotion which David this way did exceedingly delight to behold, and wish that the same in the Jewish people might be perpetual15, was then in Christian people every where to be seen.
Their actions, till this day always accustomed to be spoken of with great honour, are now called openly into question. They, and as many as have been followers of their example in that thing, we especially that worship God either in temples which their hands made, or which other men sithence have framed by the like pattern, are in that respect charged no less than with the very sin of idolatry. Our churches, in the foam of that good spirit which directeth such fiery tongues, they term spitefully the temples of Baal, idol16 synagogues, abominable styes17.
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Footnotes
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Gen. iii. 8. ↩
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Gen. iv. 3. ↩
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Gen. xiii. 4. ↩
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Gen. xxii. 1. ↩
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Gen. xxi. 33. ↩
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Exod. xxvi. ↩
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Deut. xii. 5-7. ↩
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2 Chron. iii. 1. ↩
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2 Chron. vi. 7. Psal. cxxxii. 3-5. ↩
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1 Chron. xxii. 14. ↩
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1 Chron. xxix. 3, 4. ↩
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Ezra iii. 12. Hag. ii. 2. ↩
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Acts i. 13. ↩
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Acts ii. 1, 46. ↩
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1 Chron. xxix. 17, 18. ↩
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[So A. C. (“idoll”), comp. Zech. xi. 17, “idle,” K. Comp. in Bacon’s Letters, 1595 (Spedding, i. 365), “any insufficient obscure idole man,” “any idole man.”] 1886. ↩
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[Hooker seems here to be quoting some tract of Henry Barrow’s: probably “A Brief Discovery of the False Church,” London, 1590; reprinted in 1707. But the editor has not as yet been able to meet with that pamphlet.] ↩