Works, Book 1 · Discourse 47
DISCOURSE XLVII.
DEUTERONOMY 16. 16, 17.
Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall chuse: in the Feast of Vnleavened bread, and in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee.
THESE words are a commandment for the observation of the great and chiefest Festival times of the Law; not only here mentioned, but elsewhere injoyned in the Books of the Law; as I think in three several places, Exod. 23. 14. and again 34. 23. and also Levit. 23. The words I read consist of two parts: First, The Observation it self; 2. A special duty required thereat. The Observation it self comprehends four things. 1. The Work or Action commanded; which is, To appear before the Lord: 2. The Persons who, every Male; all thy Males: 3. The Place where; in a select place, in the place which the Lord shall chuse: 4. The Time when; Three times in the year; In the Feast of Vnleavened bread, in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. The second part, A special duty required at this solemn service, and that is a duty of real thanksgiving, viz. a holy present or oblation to be given unto God, and that expressed First, in the kind, They shall not appear before the Lord empty; Secondly, in the measure, Every one shall give as he is able, &c. Of these I am to speak in order, and first of the first, The Action enjoyned, To appear before the Lord.
To appear before the Lord, is in an Holy Assembly to perform a Religious service unto him. For in every such Assembly and Service he is present after a special and peculiar manner,Matth. 18. 20. according to that of our Saviour in the Gospel, Where two or three are gathered in my Name, there am I in the midst of them. And as when one man speaks unto another, or hears another speaking unto him, either is said to be in others presence: So he that comes to speak unto God in Confession, Prayer and Thanksgiving; and hath God likewise speaking unto him either in the publishing of the Law, in the promises of his Gospel, in the receiving of his Sacraments, and ministerial benediction, is truly said to appear or come into the presence of the Lord. To appear therefore in God's presence is to be assembled in his publick Worship, where there is, as it were, a mutual entercourse between him and us; and in this it is differing from private Devotion, where the one part only is acted, and not the other. Every day is a day of private Devotion, yea every hour, if occasion serveth; but a Holyday's work is the publick service of God in a Holy Convocation.
Seeing therefore as often as we come together for the Worship of God in the Holy Assembly of the Church, we appear in the presence of the Majesty of God himself, it may admonish us of the reverence we are to use in such Assemblies. If when we come into the presence of a Prince, we think an awful fear and a more than ordinary reverence doth best beseem us in whatsoever we speak or do: much more is this required of us when we approach the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Hosts. No gesture we use, no word we speak, no action we do, but should be framed to express the awe and regard we owe unto so great and high a presence. If Order be any where required, it is here. If idle and vain words be in a far less presence taken as contemptuous; in this they cannot be less than merely blasphemous. If any unseemly or unsutable gesture, if any neglectful or regardless demeanour be elsewhere culpable; here it is abominable, when we are in his presence who is the God of Order and Beauty, and gives us an express command to perform all points of his Service foreign, according to order and with comeliness.Deut. 16. 16.
This makes him say to Moses when he appeared in the Bush,1 Cor. 14. 40. Pluck off thy shooes from off thy feet,Exod. 35. for the place whereon thou standest is Holy ground. Whence Solomon borrows his speech, Eccles. 5. 1. Keep thy foot (or, look unto thy feet) when thou enterest into the House of God. This being as much as if he had …aid, Behave thy self in God's presence reverently: Which in the words following he enlarges, saying, Be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of Fools—v. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God; for God is in Heaven, and thou upon Earth, &c. And hither belongs that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 4, 5, &c. requiring a seemly habit and gesture of men and women in the Holy Assemblies: the woman to pray covered, in token of her subjection; the man uncovered, as a sign of his head-ship and superiority over the woman, according to the use of those times and places. And it is specially to be observed which he speaketh in the 10. Verse, For this cause ought the woman to have *S. Ambrose (as also the Greek Scholiasts) by foreign here understand Velamen, or foreign, qu… se vi…o subditam ind…ce…. The Hebrew foreign which signifies the womans …il (and rendred by the Targum foreign) comes from foreign that signifies power.power on her head, (that is, the ensign of power to which she is subject) because of the Angels; i.e. because of the presence of God attended with multitudes of Angels. For these are the Train of the Almighty, and as it were the Guard attending and ministring unto his presence; wheresoever he keeps his station,Chap. 7. 10. they pitch round about him. When Daniel saw him in the Vision, thousand thousands ministred unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. Revel. 5. 11. I beheld saith S. Iohn, and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. Gen. 28. 12.So when God appeared to Iacob going to Padan-Aram, he saw the Angels of God descending and ascending upon a Ladder. Whence it appears that wheresoever God keeps his Court, his Train is with him; and perhaps it were no error to affirm. That the peculiarity of God's presence in one place more than another did consist in no other thing but in the ministerial retinue of his Angels. Which if true, where should his Angels encamp rather than in the Assemblies of his Saints,Matth. 18. 20. in midst of whom he hath promised he would be? So will the speech of S. Paul have an evident meaning, That we ought to attire and demean our selves with comeliness, because of the Angels, because of the presence of God in the ministry of his holy Angels.
Who can consider of this so great a presence, with so glorious a retinue, and not be strucken with a religious fear, with an holy reverence, as often as he is to appear before it? Let us then learn to say with Iacob, Gen. 28. 16. Surely the Lord is in this place, and be afraid as he was, and say, (v. 17.) foreign, How dreadful is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate (or Court) of Heaven.
AND now I come to the second thing, The persons who were to appear at these solemn Feasts, Every Male; All thy Males shall appear. And here we are to enquire the reasons, Why the Females or Women had an exemption from this solemn duty: which (to omit that of a Type of the Messiah, which some bring) I take to be these three. 1. The weakness and infirmity of that sex, not able without much danger and trouble to endure so long a journey. 2. The danger of their chastity in such a concourse of people as was an Assembly of the whole Nation in one place. 3. The care of their tender infants and young children, and other house-affairs, which would have been wholly abandoned, if they as well as the Males should have been at the same time so far away and so long absent: neither can it otherwise be imagined how their houses could be looked unto, unless the one were to stay at home in the absence of the other. Again, it may be questioned whether all Males without respect were to appear; for it is not likely that young children should, or decrepit old men could appear. I answer therefore, That it is to be understood of all Males who were within the age and years of service, namely, between twenty and fifty; for at fifty it is apparent that all were emeriti, discharged from that duty, even the Priests and Levites served not after that age; but at what years they came to be capable of service, there is difference. The Priests might not serve in the Priests office afore thirty, Numb. 4. 3. nor the Levites in their office afore twenty five, Numb. 8. 24. but the Laity were capable of imployment and serviceable at twenty; as appeareth out of the … of Numb. 2, 3. where God commands Moses to take the summe of all the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to War; so implying that from twenty years of age they were able for that service.
These things thus explained and supposed, we may observe, That the indulgence of God admits the case of infirmity, unavoidable inconvenience, and requisite imployment,Observat. 1. as allowable reasons of absence from holy Assemblies: For these we have seen to be the reasons of the exemption of Women from the annual and solemn Feasts. And no question but if the like cases might happen even for their ordinary and Sabbath-Assemblies, God would in like manner dispense. For weakness of body we have no reason to doubt; and for the other cases mention'd, the equity being the same with that which here dispensed with Women for the solemn Assemblies, it is not to be doubted but the indulgence of God should be the same, as well for other times as those, and as well for the other sex as for Women. And if in the time of that Law God was thus indulgent, when all these things were so severely and strictly exacted; much more in the liberty of the Gospel, Christ himself here loosing the strictness even of the Sabbath's rest,Mark 2. 27. all…dging that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: For of the two duties required in the observation of an Holy day, the calling of an holy Assembly, and bodily rest from corporal labour, the Law seemed to exact this latter of rest more severely than the other, in regard it was a figure of things to come, which the other was not. If then that which was most strict be released; much more is the other, which was less, as free now as in former time. I speak not this against a Religious diligence, for that is required of all who have no just impediment and such a one as God himself shall allow; and therefore let no man deceive himself, for God (as the Apostle saith) is not mocked: But I speak against that more than Iudaical scrupulosity of some,Gal. 6. 7. who think it not lawful upon the Lord's day to leave any at home to keep house, or be imployed in such businesses as conveniency cannot dispense with.
The second thing I observe here is,Observat. 2. That to obey God in what he commandeth is as it were a protection (or a warrant of security) from those dangers which humane reason would otherwise think unavoidable: or, Obedience unto God in what he commandeth is a greater security than all the cautions and preventions that humane wisdom can procure us. For who would think when all the able and serviceable men of the whole land of Israel should thrice every year be gathered together at Ierusalem, but the whole land should be in great danger of invasion from their enemies, whom such an advantage could not but allure; and all their borders thus unfurnished, could not well prevent such a mischief? Nevertheless we find not in the whole Scripture that ever any such evil befell them upon this occasion: So good a protection was Obedience: But we find an express Promise to the contrary made by God himself, lest you might think this was but a surmised danger; For Exod. 34. 24. where this commandment is also mentioned, God saith, I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders; neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year. But for all this we know their last woful destruction by the Romans was at the time of the Passover, one of these solemn times: and no marvel; for when God meant to cast them off from being any more his people, he ordered even this (perhaps) to be a token that they were no longer under his wonted protection.
When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, though he knew not in reason how God could then make his Promise good unto him, To make his Seed by Isaac in number as the sand on the sea shore; yet he was obedient to the word of God, and beyond all hope secure of God's Promise, as placing his greatest security in his Obedience; as for the rest, foreign, saith he, Deus providebit, God will provide, Gen. 22. 8. and so he did indeed.
I shall need gather no more Examples. Let no man therefore be discouraged for fear of danger to do his duty in that calling and vocation wherein God hath set him. If God hath bid thee, hope thou likewi…e he will protect thee: But if thou neglect his commandment, so to avoid what thou fearest, be sure then that thou fearest or a worse will come upon thee; take heed thou goest not out of God's blessing into the warm Sun. Let Saul's example be our warning, who to prevent (as he thought) the scattering of the people from him,1 Sam. 13. 8, &c. and the evil which longer delay might occasion, if he should stay for Samuel, presumed to offer Sacrifice himself; but he was called a fool for his labour,Verse 13. and made to know at length that Obedience was better than Sacrifice. And so shall every one that makes so ungodly an experience, find his policy in the end plain foolery, and Obedience to God's Commandment better than all the Policy in the world.
AND thus I come to the third thing considerable, viz. The place where every Male was to appear, In the place the Lord shall chuse, namely, in the place where the Ark and Tabernacle of God should be; which at the first was at Shiloh in the Country of Samaria and Tribe of Ephraim, afterwards at Ierusalem in the Tribe of Iudah, where David first pitched a new Tabernacle for the Ark of the Covenant, after it had been taken by the Philistins, and returned home again; and in the same place his son Solomon built that glorious Temple which was the Beauty of the whole earth. Of these two places spake the Samaritan woman in the Gospel to our Saviour, Iohn 4. 20. Our Fathers (said she) worshipped in this Mountain; and ye say that Ierusalem is the place where men ought to worship. By Our Fathers she means the old Ephraimites, from whom the Samaritans falsly vaunted they were descended; upon which ground she likewise calls Iacob Our Father Iacob, v. 12. For they were indeed the off-spring of those strange Nations which Shalmaneser transplanted into the Cities of Samaria, when he had carried Ephraim and the rest of Israel captives into Assyria; as we read 2 Kings 17. 24. By this Mountain she means Mount Ephraim where Shiloh was, and the Ark and Tabernacle of God in ancient time had been.
For when Manasses the brother of Iaddus the High Priest was excommunicated and driven from the Priesthood because he had married the daughter of Sanball at the Horonite, (as it is in the last of Nehemiah v. 28.) he with his faction, to vex his own Nation, procured a Temple to be built in Gerizim on Mount Ephraim, whereof himself was the High Priest; and to draw a company of Transgressors like himself from the Temple at Ierusalem unto this, it was coloured as if this were the only place which the Lord had chosen, because the Tabernacle was first pitched at Shiloh in Mount Ephraim, and not at Sion on Mount Moriah: and this was the bone of everlasting division and capital hatred between the Iews and Samaritans.
Thus we have seen where This place was first and last which the Lord had chosen. Now let us further consider why it is thus called, The place which the Lord shall chuse.
First therefore, these words imply That the place for holy Assemblies was a select place; For they were not to assemble in every place as occasion and opportunity served, but to have a choice and select place for that purpose.
Secondly, This place for Legal worship was to be one only place, and no more; and therefore here the*foreign in the place. singular number is used. I say, there was but one only place for Legal worship, meaning Sacrifices and the Service accompanying them; for otherwise they had many Synagogues for hea…ing the Law read and expounded. Ierusalem it self had four hundred, and in those the Scribes bore rule, as the Priests did in the Temple. But the reason why there was but one Temple, and place of Sacrifice and Prayer, was, for a*See Discourse XII. pag. 46, 47. Type of that one only Mediator Iesus Christ, in whom alone our sins are expiated, and our prayers and thanksgivings accepted before God: So that in the time of the Law to build an holy Altar or offer Sacrifices any where but here, though it were unto the true God, was a Typical Idolatry, because it implied a multiplicity of Mediators, of whose Oneness the one only place of worship and the one Altar was a sign; which was the reason why it was so unlawful to sacrifice in the high places, though it were unto the Lord their God: And yet because it was but a ceremonial sin, God did in the confused times of that Church sometimes pass by it, as it were, because of the hardness of their hearts, as our Saviour saith in another kind. But he that did dispense with an irregularity in figure because of the state of the times, will never allow Idolatry in deed, such as is that of the Church of Rome, who fulfil the very substance of that whereof the Iewish sin was but a Type, whose Mediators are so many that they are not easily numbred: and though they for excuse subordinate them all to Christ as the chief, and derive their Mediatorship from the virtue of his merits; yet is this but like unto that of the erring Church of the Law, which, notwithstanding God's commandment to the contrary, had a conceit that they might sacrifice in any high place, so it were unto the Lord their God only.
The third and last thing which these words imply is, That this select and only place should be of the Lord's own chusing; The place he shall chuse. But how should the Lord chuse it? it seems, by giving some extraordinary sign of his allowance in accepting their Sacrifice; or it may be they did consult him in this case by the Oracle of Vrim and Thummim. For of the first place, in Shiloh, we have nothing expressed, but only read Ioshua 18. 1. That the whole Congregation of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the Tabernacle of the Congregation there. But of the second place, in Mount Sion, we read, That*1 Chron… 21. 18. the Angel of God commanded Gad to say to David, that he should set up an Altar in the threshing-floor of Ornan; and that when David offered thereon burnt-offerings and peace-offerings,*Verse 26. the Lord answered him from heaven by fire upon the Altar of burnt-offering; and that David hereupon designed that place for the Tabernacle, and future Temple, saying, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the Altar of the burnt-offering for Israel, 1 Chron. 22. 1.
Now to make some application of this to the times of the Gospel. The two last circumstances of this place concern us not: For that of one place was a Type, and so is gone: the second, of God's immediate choice, seems to be so also, and to be a figure of that which the Angel Gabriel said to the blessed Virgin,Luke 1. 28. Hail thou highly favoured, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst Women: where God chuses the womb of Mary wherein to erect that pure Altar and Temple whereof the Legal were but shadows. Thus these two circumstances seem no ways to bind us. But the first, That there should be select places for holy Assemblies and the publick worship of God, this is that which was before the Law was given, and yet remains in force now the Law is ended. As long as it is required of the Church to appear before the Lord in publick Assemblies, so long is it also required to have chosen and select places for that purpose. Adam and his Sons had places whither to bring their Sacrifices; the Patriarchs used Altars, Mountains and Groves to the self-same purpose; from the very beginning of Christianity Christians have had their select Oratories. 1 Cor. 11. 22. S. Paul speaking of the Assemblies of the Church and some abuses therein, as eating and drinking, Have ye not (saith he) Houses to eat and drink in? or despise ye the Church of God? Here it appears that the place of holy Assemblies was not an ordinary place where men eat and drink, but a place select and set apart for holier purposes; which he yet more confirms when he addeth, v. 34. If any man hunger, let him eat at home: It follows hence, That the place of Holy Assemblies was no man's home, but a place hallowed unto God for the common use of the Church, howsoever these in the times of persecution so secret as not to be discovered by the Gentiles. What hath been the practice since in all Ages, he hath no eyes that sees not; and if there be any who cannot behold them without a desire to have them levelled, it were better their eyes were plucked out than so many monuments of our Forefathers piety should be thrown down and ruined, and God so unseemly and disorderly served, as he should be if (as Beggers do for lodging, so) his Assemblies were every week or month to seek a place of entertainment.
We are therefore as well as the Israelites to appear before the Lord in a chosen place. But here is the difference, that they were to have but one, we have liberty to have many; there God chose a place for himself, but we in the Gospel have liberty to chuse a place for God where we will. Nevertheless it is to be observed, that the Leaders of the Primitive Church, howsoever they acknowledged this liberty, yet they used to select for their Assemblies such Places as God had any way dignified or honoured either by some work of mercy, or the glorious sufferings of his Martyrs; whereupon the most ancient Monuments of the Christian Churches do mention the Assemblies of Christians In Coemeteriis Martyrum, at the Coemeteries and Monuments of their Martyrs. For howsoever God did not immediately select the place of his worship then, as he did in the time of the Law; yet they thought he had made these places of a choicer fitness than other, though none of necessary obligation: which I for my part would be loth to condemn as an error; seeing to follow the order of the Church of Israel by… way of direction and not obligation, is no abridgment to Christian liberty, so it be only so far and in those things only whereof Christianity is capable, as I think this we speak of was; though I know it was afterward an occasion of damnable Idolatry, use of erecting Temples unto Saints and Angels. But what is there which the corrupt nature of man will not make an occasion of sin? Even as an unclean body of the best nourishment will breed evil humors: So out of the most wholsome ordinances our wicked hearts will contrive superstition.