nation, finding it to be so, gives him three hours time to consider, whether he would quit his religion, or his life. During this space, Theotecnus, bishop of Cæsarea, meets with him, and taking him by the hand, carries him to the church, and sets him by the holy table, then offers him a Bible and a sword, and bids him take his choice. He readily, without any demur, lays his hand upon the Bible; whereupon the bishop thus bespake him: Adhere,' says he, adhere to God, and in his strength enjoy what thou hast chosen, and go in peace. With this he immediately returns from the church to the judge, makes his confession, receives his sentence, and dies a martyr." Who that reads this story, can question, whether the worshipping places, which Gallienus is said a little before to have restored to the Christians, were properly churches with holy tables, or altars in them? To the testimonies cited from Tertullian, may be added one more, where he plainly distinguishes the parts of their churches, as the discipline of their penitents then required. For, speaking of the unnatural sins of uncleanness, he says, "all such monsters were excluded, not only from the nave or body of the church, but from every part of it: they were obliged to stand without door in the open air, and not allowed to come under the roof of it.” This discipline was in the church of Antioch, in the time of Babylas, Anno 247, when, according to the account given by St. Chrysostom* and Eusebius, Babylas excluded the Emperor Philip from the church, with all his guards about him, on Easter-Eve, and would not suffer him to pray with the faithful, till he had set himself in the place of the penitents, (ueravoías xeog-Eusebius calls it,) and there made confession of his crimes. I stand not now critically to inquire into the truth of this history, which some learned men question, and others defend; it is sufficient to our present

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1 Euseb. lib. vii. c. 15. Ἐπὶ τήν ἐκκλησίαν προάγει, ἔισω τε πρὸς ἀυτῷ τήσας τῷ ἁγιάσματι, &c. 2 Euseb. lib. vii, c. 13. 8 Reliquas autem libidinum furias impias, et in corpora, et in sexus, ultra jura naturæ, non modo limine, verùm omni ecclesiæ tecto submovemus, quia non sunt delicta, sed monstra. Tertul. de Pudicit. c. 4. Chrys. cont. Gentil. tom. i. p. 741. Τον βασιλέα τῶν τῆς ἐκκλησίας προθύρων ἐξήλασε, &c. Vid. P. 748. 6 Euseb. lib. vi. c. 34.

6 Cave Prim. Christ. p. 46.

Pagi Critic. in Baron. an. 247. n. 6. Huetius Origenian. lib. i. c. 8. n. 12.

1

purpose, that both Eusebius and St. Chrysostom give us such an account of the ancient churches, as necessarily supposes them distinct from common habitations in the middle of the third century. Nay, St. Austin,' and the author of the Comments, under the name of St. Ambrose," say expressly, "that as soon as the religion of Christ was planted in the world, churches were built, to pray for kings, and all that are in authority," &c. according to the Apostle's direction, 1 Tim. ii. 1, upon which St. Austin founds the use and building of churches. I lay no stress upon the Martyrologies, nor such writers as Abdias Babylonius, and Anacletus, which speak of churches built in Persia by Simon and Jude, and at Alexandria by St. Mark, and at Rome by St. Peter, because these are late and spurious writings. But yet, if we may judge of the first conversions, by those that happened in the time of Constantine, we may conclude, that as soon as any people were converted, they provided themselves churches for divine service. As when Frumentius had converted the Indians, Socrates says, he immediately built churches among them; which is confirmed by Ruffin, who not only takes notice of that, but says further, that before he had converted them, meeting with some Roman merchants that were Christians, he encouraged them to build themselves oratories in all places, whither they might resort for prayer, after the custom of the Romans. Theodoret, and Socrates, and Ruffin, observe the same in the conversion of the nation of the Iberians by a captive woman, who taught them to build churches after the Roman form; which they did, and then sent embassadors to Constantine, (in whose time both these conversions happened,) to desire him to send them priests, to carry on the work they had thus begun, and to minister in their churches. Now we may reasonably conclude, that some

Aug. cont. Faust. lib. xii. c. 36. Ex hoc quippe illis credentibus constructa sunt domicilia pacis, basilicæ Christianarum congregationum. Ambros. in Ephes. 4. Ubi omnia loca circumplexa est Ecclesia, conventi cula constituta sunt, &c. 9 Socrat. lib. i. c. 19. 'Everýρiα жоλа Ruffin, lib. i. c. 9. Monere cœpit, ut conventicula per loca singula facerent, ad quæ Romano ritu orationis causâ confluerent. Theod. lib. i. c. 23. Socrat. lib. i. c. 20. Ruffin. lib. i. c. 10.

ἱδρύει, &c.

such thing was observed in all conversions from the very first, allowing for the difference betwixt times of persecution and times of peace. For though they had not such public and stately edifices at some times, as they had at others; yet they always had places peculiarly set apart for divine worship, before the peaceable reign of Constantine, as the evidences produced above do undeniably prove,

CHAP. II.

Of the Difference between Churches in the First Ages and those that followed. And of Heathen Temples and Jewish Synagogues converted into Christian Churches.

SECT. 1.-The first Churches very simple and plain.

THE only remaining objection against what has been advanced in the last chapter, is taken from a passage or two of the Ancients, which seem to imply that there was a great difference between the apostolical age and those that followed, in reference to this business of churches. Isidore of Pelusium treating of this matter, says, " In the Apostles' days there were no churches, (that is, buildings or temples,) when spiritual gifts abounded, and a holy conversation was the bright ornament of the Church, But in our days the buildings are adorned more than is necessary, whilst the Church is fallen into disgrace. And therefore, were I at liberty to choose, I should rather have wished to have lived in those days, when there were no such beautified temples, but yet the Church was crowned with divine and heavenly graces, than in these days, when temples are adorned with all kinds of marble, but the Church is deprived of all those spiritual gifts." These words, if they be taken in the strictest sense, may seem to import, that in the age of the Apostles there were no churches built; for beyond the apostolical age he carries not the comparison. But I rather take him to mean, that the Apostles had not such churches

'Isidor. Pelus. lib. ii. Ep. 216. Επὶ μὲν τῶν ̓Αποτόλων ἐκκλησιαςήρια , &c.

as they had in this time, that is, so stately and magnificent, so rich and beautiful, as many in after-ages. Which is certainly true; for in the first conversion of any nation the churches were always answerable to the state and condition the converts were in, which was commonly a state of persecution, when not many rich, not many noble, were called. Nay, even in those places where kings gave encouragement to the propagation of the Faith, churches were another thing from what they are now, as we may learn from the history of our own nation. There was a time, Bede telis us, when there was not a stone church in all the land, but the custom was to build them all of wood; and, therefore, when bishop Ninyas built a church of stone, it was such a rarity' and unusual thing among the Britons, that they called the place Candida Casa, Whitern, or Whitchurch, upon it. The same author tells us, "that Finan, the second bishop of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, (since called the bishopric of Durham,) built a church in the island fit for a cathedral see, which yet was not of stone, but only timber sawed, and covered with reed;" and so it continued, till Eadbert, the seventh bishop, took away the reed, and covered it all over, both roof and sides, with sheets of lead. No one after this will wonder at the account which Sulpicius Severus gives of the churches of Cyrene, in the deserts of Libya, when he tells us he went with a presbyter into one of them, which was made of small rods interwoven one with another, and not much more stately and ambitious than his own house, in which a man could hardly stand upright. But the men who frequented these churches were men of the golden age and purest morals: they neither bought nor sold any thing; they knew not what fraud or theft was; they neither had, nor desired to have, silver or

1 Bede, Hist. lib. iii. c. 4. Vulgò vocatur, Ad Candidam Casam, eò quòd ibi Ecclesiam de lapide, insolito Britonibus more fecerit. Bede, lib. iii. c. 25. Finan in Insulâ Lindisfarnensi fecit ecclesiam episcopali sedi congruam. Quam tamen more Scotorum, non de lapide, sed de robore secto, totam composuit, atque arundine texit--Sed episcopus loci illius Eadbert, ablatâ arundine, eam totam, hoc est, et tectum et ipsos quoque parietes ejus plumbi laminis cooperire curavit. Sulpic. Sever. Dial. i. c. 2. Erat vilibus contexta virgultis, non multo ambitiosior quàm nostri hospitis tabernaculum, in quo nisi incurvus quis non poterat consistere, &c.

gold, which other mortals set such a value upon. "For," says he, "when I offered the presbyter ten pieces of gold, he refused them, telling me, with some greatness of mind, 'That the church was not built with gold, but rather unbuilt by it,-Ecclesiam auro non strui, sed potius destrui, altiore consilio protestatus.' These instances may serve to explain Isidore's meaning, when he says, "the apostolical age had no churches, or not such rich and noble structures as the peace, and affluence, and emulation of after-ages commonly produced."

SECT. 2.-Reasons for enlarging and altering the State of ecclesiastical Structures.

Indeed there were many visible reasons why the state of the structures must needs alter in proportion to the advancement of the state of religion itself. For times of peace and persecution looked with a very different aspect, and had a very different influence upon the affairs of the Church. Persecution was always attended with poverty, paucity of believers, and unsettled hopes; so that either they needed not stately and sumptuous buildings, or they were not able to erect them; or, at least, they had no invitation and encouragement to do it whilst they were under daily apprehensions of seeing them plundered or demolished almost as soon as they had erected them. But in times of peace great multitudes of converts forsook the temples, and came over to the Church, and those many times persons of fortune and quality; and in some of the heathen reigns the Church enjoyed a more serene and uninterrupted gale of tranquillity, as in that happy interval of near fifty years between the death of St. Cyprian and the last persecution. And then there was a necessity to build more ample and stately churches, and they had ability to do it, and were not without hopes of continuing to enjoy their works of piety in a settled and lasting peace. So that then, in that promising interval, as Eusebius observes, when Diocletian's court and family were almost all become Christians, and great multitudes of believers in all cities

1 Euseb. lib. viii. c. 1.