DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW MEETING-HOUSE ERECTED BY THE CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN WATERTOWN, ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1836. DISCOURSE III. 1 KINGS, IX. 3. "I HAVE HALLOWED THIS HOUSE, WHICH THOU HAST BUILT." It is a great thing which man does, when he consecrates himself and his possessions to God. He recognises thereby a sacred relation, in which is written the explanation of his mysterious being. He signifies that he is overshadowed by the Spirit of love and truth, that he dwells with the Father and the Father with him, and that the inward life, which alone constitutes his true existence, is the token of his union with the Highest. So when he attaches to the works of his hands peculiar associations with the Holy One, he makes the material minister to the spiritual, the transient to the everlasting, and elevates what is in itself poor or perishing into a glorious meaning that takes hold on eternity. It is thus that the very wood and stones, of which he constructs an edifice for worship, become beautifully significant; and the forms, into which his skill and taste have wrought them, are no longer silent, but speak of things beyond the outward world. Shall such aids to piety, congenial as they are to the very laws of our moral nature, be set at nought? Shall we doubt that we obey a true and holy impulse, when we thus find in the visible a symbol of the invisible, and place among our dwellings, or beside our daily walks, the tokens of our connexion with the spiritual world? The consecration of special places to a sacred service is so much a dictate of our nature, that the world over, in all ages, it has held a prominent position among religious ceremonies. However defective or gross may have been the worship, however enthralled among debasing superstitions the action of the religious sentiment, still men have felt, and have expressed the feeling, that there was a meaning in sacred enclosures, which might not be scorned with impunity even by him who scorned other things. The Roman poet did but give utterance to a natural suggestion, when he threatened his countrymen with the vengeance of the gods for the ruinous condition of their domes and altars. * To this spontaneous sentiment our religion has given a new and lofty direction. It would be little to the praise of Christianity, had it broken asunder all such associations, had it renounced for its spiritual service the aid of place and of externals; for this would be in ill accordance with the philosophy of our nature. At the centre of the Christian dispensation lies the purest form of spirituality, the most intense principle of interior life. These are the vital and characteristic elements of its being. But along with these, and as helps to these, it gladly allies itself to the decencies of outward attractions, and appropriates the instrumental influence that acts upon the senses. They mistake, "Delicta majorum immeritus lues, HOR. CARM, lib. iii. 6. See likewise the account given by Tacitus, of the dedication of the Capitol, when rebuilt by Vespasian,- HIST, lib. iv. 53. who suppose that they make Christianity any more a religion of the heart, by denying to it all relation to place and time. It is interesting to contemplate the progress of Christianity in respect to the external accommodations enjoyed by its disciples, as well as in respect to its moral power. We look back on the little and friendless band of the Saviour's followers, just after they had returned from the memorable scene, at which their Master bade them farewell, to go to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God. They turned away, as we may suppose, with heavy hearts, and, when they reached Jerusalem, assembled in "an upper room," where they continued "with one accord in prayer and supplication." What holy and touching associations does imagination attach to that room, where were gathered the small company of God's messengers, from whom the word of life was to go forth subduing and blessing the world. Time rolled on, and that little band grew into a large body of believers, holding "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," ," and carrying with them the power that was to effect the greatest moral revolution in the annals of the world. During this time, they had stated places of meeting, though not such as were then denominated temples.* As their numbers increased, and as they found periods of peace and favor from the civil power, they built their churches. These were multiplied rapidly, insomuch that when the edict of Diocletian went forth for the destruction of such edifices, * The early Christians were reproached with having no temples: the meaning of this reproach is explained in Joseph Mede's Discourses and Treatises concerning Churches, &c. See Mede's Works, book ii. 334-336. |