The HISTORY of the PuRITANS• VoL. II. K. Ch.arles1. b~ allowed that the temple was confecrated in an extraordinary manner, 1 644· we have no mention either in fcripture or jewijh writers of the confecra- ~ tion of their jjnagogues, to which our churches properly fucceed. And after all it is no conclufive way of arguing, to derive a chriil:ian inilitution from the praetice of the jeqvifh church, becaufe many of their ordi– nances were temporary, ceremonial, a11d abolilhed by the coming of Chrift. P From the beginning of cbrifriani.ty, we have no credible authority for rynne, p. l ,r; so r. coofecrating churches for t 1ree hundred years. Eu 1 ebius in his life of Col?ft.antine the great, indeed mentions his confecra!ing a temple that he built over our Sav·iour's fep.ulcbre at Jertifhlem; but how? with prayers di fputations, preaching, and expofition of fcripture, as he exprefsly define; it, cap. 45· Here were no proceffions, no knocking at the doors by the biihop, crying, open ye ewrlc!lli1!g doors; no cafl:ing duff or allies into the air, and pronouncing the ground holy; no reverencing towards the altar, nor a great many other inventions of later ages; n0, thefe were not known in the chri!lian church till the very darkefl: times of popery; nay in thofe very dark times we are told by Otho the pope's legate in his eccle– fiaflical conll:itutions, that in the reign of king Henry III. there were not only divers pari(h churches but fame cathedrals in f',ngland, which had been ufed for many years and yet never confecrated by a biihop. But its plain to a dernonfiration, that the archbiihop's method of confecrating. Prynne, p. churches is a modern popiih invention, for 'tis agreed by Gratian, Platina, 116, 117. the Centuriators and others, that pope Hyginus, Gelf!!ius, Sflvefler, Felix and Grfgory, were the firft inventers and promoters of it; and it is no where to be found but in the roman pontifical, publiihed by command of lb. p. JJS, pope Clement VIII. De ecclifta dedicatione, p. zog, z8o. for which rea– :Cons it was exploded and condemned by our firfl: reformers, and particu– larly by biihop Pilkington in his comment upon Haggai, eh. i. ver. 7, 8. and archbilhop Parker, who in his Antiq. Britan. exprefsly condemns the archbilhop's method of confecration as popiih and fuperfl:itious, p. 85, 86, 87. lb. p. so2. But the archbilhop fays, if churches are not confecrated they cannot be ·holy, whereas many places th at were never confecrated are fiiled holy, as the mofl hob• place, and the holy czty Jerufalem; and our homilies fay . that the church is called holy, not of itfelf, but becaufe God's people re: forting thither are holy, and exercife themfelves in holy things ; and 'tis evident that Jcmtiijication when applied to places, is nothing elfe but a fe– parating them from common ufe to a religious and facred one, which may be done without the fuper!litious method above-mentioned; and though the archbi(hop avers he had not his form of confecration from the
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