TO THE EDITOR OF THE WITNESS.

Sir,––Upon hearing read aloud your remarks[1] in the Witness of Saturday the 28th ultimo, upon the danger of investing the mere building in which we meet for public worship with a character of sanctity, an English gentleman asked, ‘How does the writer of that article reconcile with his views our Saviour’s conduct, described by St. John, ii. 14-17, and by each of the other evangelists?’

Though quite disposed to agree with the purport of your remarks, and fully aware that the tendency of the opinions openly promulgated by a large section of the clergy of the Church of England is to give ‘the Church’ the place which should be occupied by a living and active faith in our Saviour, I found it difficult to meet this gentleman’s objections, and only reminded him that you made a special exception in the case of the Jewish temple. Brought up from childhood, as Englishmen are, with almost superstitious reverence for the buildings ‘consecrated’ and set apart for religious uses, it is difficult to meet objections founded on such strong prejudices as were evident in this case.

If any arguments suggest themselves to you, to show that the passage above referred to cannot be fairly employed in the defence of the Church of England tenets, in favour of consecrating churches, and of reverence amounting almost to the worship of external objects devoted to religious purposes, 162 you will oblige me by stating them.––I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant,

An Absentee.

The passage of Scripture referred to by the ‘English Gentleman’ here as scarcely reconcilable with the views promulgated in the Witness of the 28th ult. runs as follows:––‘And Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting; and when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.’

It will perhaps be remembered by our readers, that in referring to the Scotch estimate of the sacredness of ecclesiastical edifices, we employed words to the following effect:––‘We (the Scotch people) have been taught that the world, since it began, saw but two truly holy edifices; and that these, the Tabernacle and the Temple, were as direct revelations from God as the Scriptures themselves, and were as certain embodiments of His will, though they spoke in the obscure language of type and symbol.’ Now the passage of Scripture here cited is in harmonious accordance with this view. It was from one of these truly holy edifices that our Saviour drove the sheep and oxen, and indignantly expelled the money-changers. Without, however, begging the whole question at issue––without taking for granted the very point to be proven, i.e. the intrinsic holiness of Christian places of worship––the text has no bearing whatever on the view taken by the ‘English Gentleman.’ If buildings such as York Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s, be holy in the sense in which the temple was holy, then the passage as certainly applies to them as it applied, in the times of our Saviour, to the sacred edifice which was so remarkable 163 a revelation of Himself. But where is the evidence of an intrinsic holiness in these buildings? Where is the proof that the rite of consecration is a rite according to the mind of God? Where is the probability even that it is other than a piece of mere will-worship, originated in the dark ages; or that it confers one whit more sanctity on the edifice which it professes to render sacred, than the breaking a bottle of wine on the ship’s stem, when she is starting off the slips, confers sanctity on the ship? Stands it on any surer ground than the baptism of bells, the sacrifice of the mass, or the five spurious sacraments? If it be a New Testament institution, it must possess New Testament authority. Where is that authority?

Can it be possible, however, that the shrewd English really differ from us in our estimate? We think we have good grounds for holding they do not. On a late occasion we enjoyed the pleasure of visiting not only York Cathedral, but Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, and saw quite enough to make even the least mistrustful suspect that the professed Episcopalian belief in the sacredness of ecclesiastical edifices is but sheer make-belief after all. The ‘English Gentleman’ refers to the example of our Saviour in thrusting forth the money-changers from the temple, as a sort of proof that ecclesiastical edifices are holy; and we show that it merely proves the temple to have been holy. The passage has, however, a direct bearing on a somewhat different point: it constitutes a test by which to try the reality of this ostensible belief of English Episcopalians in the sacredness of their churches and cathedrals. If the English, especially English Churchmen, act with regard to their ecclesiastical buildings in the way our Saviour acted with regard to the temple, then it is but fair to hold that their belief in their sacredness is real. But if, on the contrary, we find them acting, not as our Saviour acted, but as the money-changers or the cattle-sellers acted, then is it equally fair to conclude 164 that their belief in their sacredness is not a real belief, but a piece of mere pretence. In the north transept of York Minster there may be seen a table like a tomb of black Purbec marble, supported by an iron trellis, and bearing atop the effigy of a wasted corpse wrapped in a winding-sheet. ‘This monument,’ says a little work descriptive of the edifice, ‘was erected to the memory of John Haxby, formerly treasurer to the church, who died in 1424; and in compliance with stipulations in some of the ancient church deeds and settlements, occasional payments of money are made on this tomb to the present day.’ Here, at least, is one money-changing table introduced into the consecrated area, and this not irregularly or surreptitiously, like the money-changing tables which of old profaned the temple, but through the deliberately formed stipulations of ecclesiastical deeds and settlements. The state of things in St. Paul’s and Westminster, however, throws the money-table of York Minster far into the shade. The holinesses of St. Paul’s we found converted into a twopenny, and those of Westminster into a sixpenny show. For the small sum of twopence one may be admitted, at an English provincial fair, to see the old puppet exhibition of Punch and Judy, and of Solomon in all his glory; and for the small sum of twopence were we admitted, in like manner, to see St. Paul’s, to see choir, communion-table, and grand altar, and everything else of peculiar sacredness within the edifice. The holinesses of Westminster cost thrice as much, but were a good bargain notwithstanding. Would English Churchmen permit, far less originate and insist in doggedly maintaining, so palpable a profanation, did they really believe their cathedrals to be holy? The debased Jewish priesthood of the times of our Saviour suffered the money-changers to traffic unchallenged within the temple; but they did not convert the temple itself into a twopenny show: they did not make halfpence by exhibiting the table of shew-bread, 165 the altar of incense, and the golden candlestick, nor lift up corners of the veil at the rate of a penny a peep. It is worse than nonsense to hold that a belief in the sacredness of ecclesiastical buildings can co-exist with clerical practices of the kind we describe: the thing is a too palpable improbability; the text quoted by the Englishman is conclusive on the point. Would any man in his senses now hold that the old Jewish priests really believed their temple to be holy, had they done, what they had decency enough not to do––converted it into a raree-show? And are we not justified in applying to English Churchmen the rule which would be at once applied to Jewish priests? The Presbyterians of Scotland do not deem their ecclesiastical edifices holy, but there are certain natural associations that throw a degree of solemnity over places in which men assemble to worship God; and in order that these may not be outraged, they never convert their churches into twopenny show-boxes. Practically, at least, the Scotch respect for decency goes a vast deal further than the English regard for what they profess, very insincerely it would seem, to hold sacred.

We have said there is quite as little New Testament authority for consecrating a place of worship as for baptizing a bell; and if in the wrong, can of course be easily set right. If the authority exists, it can be no difficult matter to produce it. We would fain ask the reader to remark the striking difference which obtains between the Mosaic and the New Testament dispensations in all that regards the materialisms of their respective places of worship. We find in the Pentateuch chapter after chapter occupied with the mechanism of the tabernacle. The pattern given in the mount is as minutely described as any portion of the ceremonial law, and for exactly the same reason: the one as certainly as the other was ‘a figure of things to come.’ How exceedingly minute, too, the description of the temple! How very particular the narrative of its dedication! The 166 prayer of Solomon, Heaven-inspired for the occasion, forms an impressive chapter in the sacred record, that addresses itself to all time. But when the old state of things had passed away,––when the material was relinquished for the spiritual, the shadow for the substance, the type for the antitype,––we hear no more of places of worship to which an intrinsic holiness attached, or of imposing rites of dedication. Not in edifices deemed sacred was the gospel promulgated, so long as the gospel remained pure, but in ‘hired houses’ and ‘upper rooms,’ or ‘river-sides, where prayer was wont to be made,’ in chambers on the ‘third loft,’ often in the streets, often in the market-place, in the fields and by solitary waysides, on shipboard and by the sea-shore, ‘in the midst of Mars Hill’ at Athens, and, when persecution began to darken, amid the deep gloom of the sepulchral caverns of Rome. The time had evidently come, referred to by the Saviour, when neither in the temple at Jerusalem, nor on the mountain deemed sacred by the Samaritans, was the Father to be worshipped; but all over the world, ‘in spirit and in truth.’ Until Christianity had become corrupt, we do not hear even of ornate churches, far less of Christian altars, of an order of Christian priests, of the will-worship of consecration, or of the presumed holiness of insensate matter,––all unauthorized additions of man’s making to a religion fast sinking at the time under a load of human inventions,––additions which were in no degree the more sacred, because filched, amid the darkness of superstition and error, from the abrogated Mosaic dispensation. The following is, we believe, the first notice of fine Christian churches which occurs in history;––we quote from the ecclesiastical work of Dr. Welsh, and deem the passage a significant one:––‘From the beginning of the reign of Gallienus till the nineteenth year of Diocletian,’ says the historian, ‘the external tranquillity of the Church suffered no general interruption. The Christians, with partial exceptions, were 167 allowed the free exercise of their religion. Under Diocletian open profession of the new faith was made even in the imperial household; nor did it prove a barrier to the highest honours and employments. In this state of affairs the condition of the Church seemed in the highest degree prosperous. Converts were multiplied throughout all the provinces of the empire; and the ancient churches proving insufficient for the accommodation of the increasing multitudes of worshippers, splendid edifices were erected in every city, which were filled with crowded congregations. But with this outward appearance of success, the purity of faith and worship became gradually corrupted; and, still more, the vital spirit of religion suffered a melancholy decline. Pride and ambition, emulation and strifes, hypocrisy and formality among the clergy, and superstitions and factions among the people, brought reproach on the Christian cause. In these circumstances the judgments of the Lord were manifested, and the Church was visited with the severest persecution to which it ever yet had been subjected.’

There are few more valuable chapters in Locke than the one in which he traces some of the gravest errors that infest human life to a false association of ideas. But of all his illustrations, employed to exhibit in the true light this copious source of error, there is not one half so striking as that furnished by the false association which connects the holiness that can alone attach to the living and the immortal, with earth, mortar, and stone, pieces of mouldering serge, and bits of rotten wood. Nearly one half of the errors with which Popery has darkened and overlaid the religion of the Cross, have originated in this particular species of false association. The superstition of pilgrimages, with all its long catalogue of crime and suffering, inclusive of bloody wars, protracted for ages,––-

the idolatry of relics, so strangely revived on the Continent in our own times,––the allegorical will-worship embodied in stone and lime, which Puseyism is at present so busy in introducing into the Church of England, and which renders every ecclesiastical building a sort of apocryphal temple, full, like the apocryphal books, of all manner of error and nonsense,––a thousand other absurdities and heterodoxies besides,––have all originated in this cause. True, such association is most natural to man, and, when of a purely secular character, harmless; nay, there are cases in which it may be even laudably indulged. ‘When I find Tully confessing of himself,’ says Johnson, ‘that he could not forbear at Athens to visit the walks and houses which the old philosophers had frequented or inhabited, and recollect the reverence which every nation, civil and barbarous, has paid to the ground where merit has been buried, I am afraid to declare against the general voice of mankind, and am inclined to believe that this regard which we involuntarily pay to the meanest relique of a man great and illustrious, is intended as an incitement to labour, and an encouragement to expect the same renown if it be sought by the same virtues.’ We find nearly the same sentiment eloquently expounded in the Doctor’s famous passage on Iona. But there exists a grand distinction between natural feelings proper in their own place, and natural feelings permitted to enter the religious field, and vitiate the integrity of revelation. It is from the natural alone in such cases that danger is to be apprehended; seeing that what is not according to the mental constitution of man, is of necessity at once unproductive and shortlived. Let due weight be given to the associative feeling, in its proper sphere,––let it dispose us to invest with a quiet decency our places of worship,––let us, at all events, not convert them into secular counting-rooms or twopenny show-boxes; but let us also remember that natural association is not 169 divine truth––that there attaches no holiness to slated roofs or stone walls––that under the New Testament dispensation men do not worship in temples, which, like the altar of old, sanctified the gift, but in mere places of shelter, that confer no sacredness on their services; and that the ‘hour has come, and now is, when they that worship the Father must worship Him in spirit and in truth.’

April 15, 1846.