If there be great care to build and beautify these corruptible sanctuaries, little or none that the living temples of the Holy Ghost, the dearly redeemed souls of the people of God, may be edified; huge expences upon timber and stone, but towards the relief of the poor, small devotion ; cost this way infinite, and in the mean while charity cold; we have in such case just occasion to make complaint as St. Jerome did: The walls of the church there are enough contented to build, and to underset it with goodly pillars, the marbles are polished, the roofs shine with gold, the altar hath precious stones to adorn it; and of Christ's ministers no choice at all." The same Jerome both in that place and elsewhere debaseth with like intent the glory of such magnificence, (a thing whereunto men's affection in those times needed no spur,) thereby to extol the necessity sometimes of charity and alms, sometimes of other the most principal duties belonging unto Christian men; which duties were neither so highly esteemed as they ought, and being compared with that in question, the directest sentence we can

give of them both, as unto me it seemeth, is this;

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God, who requireth the one as necessary, accepteth the other also as being an honourable work."

SECTION VIII.

OF THE HOLINESS WHICH WE ASCRIBE TO THE CHURCH MORE THAN TO OTHER PLACES.

CHURCHES receive as every thing else their chief perfection from the end whereunto they serve. Which end being the public worship of God, they are in this consideration houses of greater dignity than any provided for meaner purposes.

For which cause they seem after a sort even to mourn, as being injured and defrauded of their right, when places not sanctified, as they are, prevent them unnecessarily in that preeminence and honour. Whereby also it doth come to pass, that the service of God hath not then itself such perfection of grace and comeliness, as when the dignity of place which it wisheth for doth concur.

Again, albeit the true worship of God be to God in itself acceptable, who respecteth not so much in what place, as with what affection he is served; and therefore Moses in the midst of the sea, Job on the dunghill, Hezechiah in bed, Jeremiah in mire, Jonas in the whale, Daniel in the den, the children in the furnace, the thief on the cross, Peter and Paul in prison, calling unto God were heard, as St. Basil noteth : manifest notwithstanding it is, that the very majesty and holiness of the place, where God is worshipped, hath in regard of us great virtue, force, and efficacy, for that it serveth as a sensible help to stir up devotion, and in that respect no doubt, bettereth even our holiest and best actions in this kind. As therefore we every where exhort all men to worship God, even so, for performance of this service by the people of God assembled, we think not any place so good as the church, neither any exhortation so fit as that of David, O worship

the Lord in the beauty of holinesss."

s Ps. xcvi. 9.

SECTION IX.

OF PUBLIC TEACHING, OR PREACHING, IN THE

CHURCH; WHAT IT IS.

PLACES of public resort being thus provided for, our repair thither is especially for mutual conference, and as it were commerce between God and us.

Because therefore want of the knowledge of God is the cause of all iniquity amongst men, and as contrariwise the very ground of all our happiness, and the seed of whatsoever perfect virtue groweth from us, is a right opinion touching things divine; this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing which God imparteth unto His people, and our duty of receiving this at His merciful hands, for the first of those religious offices, wherewith we publicly honour Him on earth. For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men to eternal life it is necessary, that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them. Which open

publication of heavenly mysteries, is by an excellency e termed preaching. For otherwise there is not any thing publicly notified, but we may in that respect, rightly and properly say it is "preached."

We find not in the world any people that have lived altogether without religion; and yet this duty of religion, which provideth that publicly all sorts of men may be instructed in the fear of God, is to the Church of God and hath been always so peculiar, that none of the heathens, how curious soever in searching out all kinds of outward ceremonies like to ours, could ever once so much as endeavour to resemble herein the Church's care for the endless good of her children.

SECTION X.

OF THE FIRST KIND OF PREACHING, i. e. PUBLIC

CATECHISING.

WAYS of teaching there have been sundry

e That is, this is what we especially mean, when we use the word to preach or preaching.