I. What we are to understand by the word church, as we find it applied in scripture.
1. It is sometimes used to signify any assembly that is met together, whatever be the design of their meeting. Though, indeed, it is very seldom taken in this sense in scripture; nevertheless, there are two or three places in which it is so understood: thus the multitude that met together at Ephesus, who made a riot, crying out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians, are called a church; for the word is the same, which we generally so render, in Acts xix. 32. Our translators, indeed, render it, The assembly was confused, and, in ver. 39. it is said, This matter ought to be determined in a lawful assembly, that being an unlawful one; and, in ver. 41. The town-clerk dismissed the assembly; in all which places, the word, in the Greek[[257]], is the same which we, in other places, render church; and the reason why our translators have rendered it assembly, is, because the word church is used, in a very uncommon sense, in these places: and we do not find it taken in that sense in any other part of scripture.
2. It is frequently used, by the Fathers, metonymically, for the place in which the church met together for religious worship, and so it is often taken among us, and some other reformed churches, as well as the Papists; but it does not sufficiently appear that it is ever so understood in scripture. It is true, some suppose, that it is taken in this sense in 1 Cor. xi. 28. where it is said, When ye come together in the church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and, they think, it is farther explained, and proved to be taken in this sense, from what the apostle adds, in ver. 20. When ye come together in one place; and also from what is said in ver. 22. Have ye not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God? From whence they conclude that the apostle means nothing else but the place where they were convened together, and, more especially, because it is here opposed to their own houses.
But to this it may be replied, that, in the first of these verses but now mentioned, viz. when ye come together in the church, it may be very easily understood of particular persons met together with the rest of the church; and when it is said, in ver. 20. that when ye come together into one place, this does not refer to the place in which they were assembled[[258]]; but to their meeting together with one design, or accord. And when it is said, in ver. 32. Have ye not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God? the opposition is not between their own houses and the place where they were together; but the meaning is, that by your not eating and drinking in your own houses, but doing it in the presence of the church, or the assembly of God’s people that are met together, you are not only chargeable with indecency and interrupting them in the work which they are come about, but you make a kind of schism among them, as doing that which they cannot, in conscience, approve of, or join with you in; and this you are ready to call caprice, or humour, in them, and hereby you despise them. And, indeed, the place of worship cannot properly speaking, be said to be the object of contempt; therefore the apostle does not use the word, in this metonymical sense, for the place of worship, but for the worshipping assembly.
Object. The word synagogue is often taken metonymically, in scripture, for the place where persons were assembled to worship: thus our Saviour is said sometimes to teach in the synagogue of the Jews, Matt. iv. 23. and elsewhere we read of one, concerning whom the Jews say, He loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue, Luke xii. 5. and elsewhere the Psalmist speaking of the church’s enemies, says, they have burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land, Psal. lxxiv. 8. and the apostle James, adapting his mode of speaking to that which was used among the Jews, calls the church of God a synagogue, If there come unto your assembly, or synagogue, as it is in the margin, a man with a gold ring, &c. James ii. 2. where the word is taken for the place where they were assembled; therefore we have as much reason to understand the word church for the place where the church meets together.
Answ. It is true, the word synagogue, in most of these scriptures, is taken for the place where persons meet together on a religious account, though it is very much to be doubted whether it be to be understood so in the last of the scriptures referred to, and therefore our translators render it assembly; and so the meaning is, when you are met together, if a poor man come into your assembly, you despise him: but suppose the word synagogue were to be taken in this, as it is in the other scriptures, for the place of worship, and that, by a parity of reason, the word church may be taken in the same sense; all that can be inferred from hence is, that they, who call the places of worship churches, speak agreeable to the sense, though it may be not the express words of scripture: but this is so trifling a controversy, that it is not worth our while to say any thing more to it.
The learned Mede[[259]] insists largely on it, in a discourse, founded on those words of the apostle before-mentioned, Have ye not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God? in which he attempts to prove, that the apostle, by the church, means the place of worship, from the opposition that there is between their own houses and the church of God, the inconclusiveness of which argument has been before considered. What he farther says, to prove that there were places in the apostle’s days, appropriated, or set apart, for divine worship; and, in particular, that the room in which they met together, on the days of our Saviour’s resurrection, and eight days after, in which they were honoured with his presence, was the same in which he eat his last Passover with them, and instituted the Lord’s Supper, and that it was in that place that they constantly met together for worship, and that therein the seven deacons were afterwards chosen, mentioned in Acts vi. and that after this a goodly church was erected on the same spot of ground; these are no other than uncertain conjectures. That they met together in an apartment, or convenient room, in the dwelling-house of some pious disciple, is very probable; but his observations from its being an upper room, as freest from disturbance, and nearest to heaven, seems to be too trifling for so great a man. And what he says farther, in defence of it, as supposing that this is what is intended by their breaking bread from house to house, in Acts ii, 46. is not so agreeable to the sense of the Greek words[[260]], as our translation, which he militates against, and supposes, that it ought to be rendered in the house, that is, in this house appointed for the same purpose.
What he farther adds, to prove that there were particular places appropriate for worship, in the three first Centuries, by referring to several quotations out of the Fathers, who lived in these ages, is not to be contested; though the objection he brings against this being universally true, taken from what Origen, Minutius, Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius say, concerning the Christians, in their time, declining to build them, after they had been disturbed and harrassed, by various persecutions, seems to have some weight in it, and is not sufficiently answered by him. What he says on this subject, may be consulted in the place before-mentioned.
All that we shall say, as to this matter, is, that it is beyond dispute, that, since the church was obliged to convene together for religious worship, it was necessary that the usual place, in which this was performed, should be known by them. But it still remains uncertain, whether, (though, at some times, in the more peaceable state of the church, they met constantly in one place) they did not, at other times, adjourn from place to place, or sometimes convene in the open air, in places where they might meet with less disturbance from their enemies. All, who are conversant in the history of the church in those ages, know, that they often met, especially in times of persecution, in caves, and other subterraneous places, near the graves of those who had suffered martyrdom, in which their end was not only to encourage them to bear the like testimony to Christianity, that they had done, but that they might be more retired and undisturbed in their worship.
But, to add nothing more on this subject, as being of less moment, that which I would principally militate against is, what that excellent writer, but now mentioned, attempts to prove, in his following Dissertation[[261]], concerning the reverence that is due to these churches; not only whilst divine duties are performed therein, but at other times, as supposing that they retain a relative sanctity, which calls for veneration at all times. The main stress of his argument is taken from the sanctity of those places, which, by divine appointment, were consecrated for worship, under the ceremonial law; and the reverence that was expressed by persons when they entered into them, which, by a supposed parity of reason, he applies to those places which are erected for worship under the gospel-dispensation.