2. But neither Elijah nor Elisha dwelt in underground dwellings. Moreover the former carried the dead son of the widow up into the loft where he abode, and there raised him to life; and for the latter, that _great woman_, the Shunamite, prepared a _chamber on the wall_, and there she obtained the privilege of conceiving a son, for she was barren, and there also she saw the miracle of his restoration to life. And what shall I say of Peter who at the sixth hour went up upon the house-top, and there learnt the mystery of the baptism of the Gentiles. But the homicide Absalom had reared for himself a pillar in the King’s dale, and then, after his death, he was cast into a great pit. So then the saints ascend unto the Lord, the wicked descend to crime; the saints are on the mountains, the wicked in the valleys; _For God is the God of the hills, not of the plains_. 3. Those therefore who dwelt in the plain, where God dwells not, could not have the house of God in themselves; for this is the house which God required of them, that they should build up themselves, and should erect within them the temple of God with the living stones of faith. For it was not the erection of earthly walls nor of wooden roofs that He required, for these, had they existed, would have been destroyed by the enemies’ hand; but He sought for that temple which should be raised in men’s minds, to whom it might be said, _Ye are the Temple of God_, wherein the Lord Jesus was to dwell, and from whence He was to proceed for the redemption of the world. Thus in the womb of a Virgin a sacred chamber was to be prepared, wherein the King of heaven might dwell, and the human Body might become the temple of God, Which also when It was destroyed, was to be raised again in three days. Sidenote: Hag. i. 4. Sidenote: Jer. xxii. 13. 4. But such a house as this sensual persons, _they who dwell in cieled houses_ and delight in chased silver, do not build. For as they despise pure silver, so also they despise simple dwellings. They enlarge the site of their houses, they add more and more, joining house to house and farm to farm, they dig up the ground; so that the very earth itself gives way to their habitations, and like sons of the earth they are laid up within her womb, and hidden in her bowels. They surely are those of whom Jeremiah says, _Woe unto him that buildeth his house in unrighteousness_. For he who builds in righteousness, builds not on earth but in heaven. Sidenote: Ib. 14. Sidenote: Cant. iv. 3.