Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15Temple, William
Religion
Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15
Temple, William
Church and state
[#] It is to be observed that the State is by its very nature largely
limited to the regulation of those human relationships where men oppose
each other with rival claims; as soon as men rise to the reciprocity of
friendship the method of the State is inappropriate. People do not go
to law to determine whether either loves the other adequately.
*LECTURE IV*
*HOLINESS AND CATHOLICITY IN THE CHURCH*
"This is the law of the house: upon the top of the mountain the whole
limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of
the house."—Ezekiel xliii, 12.
"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb,
are the temple thereof."—Revelation xxi, 22.
The Bible gives us two elaborately conceived pictures of the perfected
life of man. The first is that which occupies the closing chapters of
Ezekiel’s prophecy; its leading feature is the immense separation which
is insisted upon between the Temple and the secular City. The Hill of
Zion has become a very high mountain; upon the top of it the Temple is
set, and there is a wide space, at least two miles, between it and the
City of Jerusalem, which has been moved away by that distance to the
south.
Indeed, if we take the description as intended to be complete, the City
seems to exist chiefly to provide a congregation for the Temple’s
services, and the Prince only to offer representative worship on behalf
of His people. All attention is concentrated upon the place of the
worship of God, and the holiness which is to be characteristic of that
place. By thus keeping the Temple holy, through separating it from the
body of the City and its secular life, the Prophet attains no doubt the
end he has in view, but he also, of necessity, though probably
unintentionally, leaves the suggestion that the secular life itself
cannot be wholly consecrated.
In sharp contrast with this is St. John’s picture in the Book of
Revelation; here there is no specific place of worship at all, for the
whole City is the Temple of God; more than that, the whole City is the
very Holy of Holies, for it is described as being a perfect cube, and
the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple was a perfect cube.
"And the city lieth four square, and the length thereof is as
great as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed,
twelve thousand furlongs; the length and the breadth and the
height thereof are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, and
it was one hundred and forty and four cubits."[#]
[#] Rev. xxi, 16, 17.
The City thus corresponds in symbolic form with the Holy of Holies. It
is become the dwelling place of God. No special shrine is needed, no
place to which men draw apart, because their whole life is an act of
worship, and God dwells among them in their daily activities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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