_Sect._ 8. 2d. Times, places and things, which the church designeth for the worship of God, if they be made holy by consecration of them to holy political uses, then either they may be made holy by the holy uses to which they are to be applied, or else by the church’s dedicating of them to those uses. They cannot be called holy by virtue of their application to holy uses; for then (as Ames argueth(475)) the air is sacred, because it is applied to the minister’s speech whilst he is preaching, then is the light sacred which is applied to his eye in reading, then are his spectacles sacred which are used by him reading his text, &c. But neither yet are they holy, by virtue of the church’s dedicating of them to those uses for which she appointed them; for the church hath no such power as by her dedication to make them holy. P. Martyr(476) condemneth the dedication or consecration (for those words he useth promiscuously) whereby the Papists hallow churches, and he declareth against it the judgment of our divines to be this, _Licere, imo jure pietatis requiri, ut in prima cujusque rei usurpatione gratias Deo agamus, ejusque bonitatem celebremus, &c. Collati boni religiosum ac sanctum usum poscamus._ This he opposeth to the popish dedication of temples and bells, as appeareth by these words: _Quanto sanius rectusque decernimus._ He implieth, therefore, that these things are only consecrated as every other thing is consecrated to us. Of this kind of consecration he hath given examples. _In libro Nehemiae dedicatio maeniam civitatis commemoratur, quae nil aliud fuit nisi quod muris urbis instauratis, populus una cum Levitis et sacerdotibus, nec non principibus, eo se contulit, ibique gratias Deo egerunt de maenibus reaedificatis, et justam civitatis usuram postularunt, qua item ratione prius quam sumamus cibum, nos etiam illum consecramus._ As the walls of Jerusalem then, and as our ordinary meat are consecrated, so are churches consecrated, and no otherwise can they be said to be dedicated, except one would use the word _dedication_, in that sense wherein it is taken, Deut. xx. 5; where Calvin turns the word _dedicavit_; Arias Montanus, _initiavit_; Tremelius, _caepit uti_. Of this sort of dedication, Gaspar Sanctius writeth thus: _Alia dedicatio est, non solum inter prophanos, sed etiam inter Haebreos usitata, quae nihil habet sacrum sed tantum est auspicatio aut initium operis, ad quod destinatur locus aut res cujus tunc primum libatur usus. Sic Nero Claudius dedicasse dicitur domum suam cum primum illam habitare caepit. Ita Suetonius in Nerone. Sic Pompeius dedicavit theatrum suum, cum primum illud publicis ludis et communibus usibus aperuit; de quo Cicero,_ lib. 2, epist. 1. Any other sort of dedicating churches we hold to be superstitious. Peter Waldus, of whom the Waldenses were named, is reported to have taught that the dedication of temples was but an invention of the devil.(477) And though churches be