us in divine worship as things sacred, or as holier than other houses, vessels, and bells; but we use them only for natural necessity,—partly for that common decency which hath no less place in the actions of civil than of sacred assemblies; yea, in some cases they may be applied to civil uses, as hath been said;(535) whereas the controverted ceremonies are respected and used as sacred rites, and as holier than any circumstance which is alike common to civil and sacred actions, neither are they used at all out of the case of worship. We see now a double respect wherefore our argument inferreth not the necessity of abolishing and destroying such temples, vessels, and bells, as have been abused to idolatry, viz. because it can neither be said that they are not things necessary, nor yet that they are things sacred. _Sect._ 9. Nevertheless (to add this by the way), howbeit for those reasons the retaining and using of temples which have been polluted with idols be not in itself unlawful, yet the retaining of every such temple is not ever necessary, but sometimes it is expedient, for farther extirpation of superstition, to demolish and destroy some such temples as have been horribly abused to idolatry, Calvin also(536) and Zanchius(537) do plainly insinuate. Whereby I mean to defend (though not as in itself necessary, yet as expedient _pro tunc_,) that which the reformers of the church of Scotland did in casting down some of those churches which had been consecrate to popish idols, and of a long time polluted with idolatrous worship. As on the one part the reformers (not without great probability) feared, that so long as these churches were not made even with the ground, the memory of that superstition, whereunto they had been employed and accustomed, should have been in them preserved, and, with some sort of respect, recognised; so, on the other part, they saw it expedient to demolish them, for strengthening the hands of such as adhered to the reformation, for putting Papists out of all hope of the re-entry of Popery, and for hedging up the way with thorns, that the idolatrously-minded might not find their paths. And since the pulling down of those churches wanted neither this happy intent not happy event, I must say that the bitter invectives given forth against it, by some who carry a favourable eye to the pompous bravery of the Romish whore, and have deformed too much of that which was by them reformed, are to be detested by all such as wish the eternal exile of idolatrous monuments out of the Lord’s land, yet let these Momus-like spirits understand that their censorious verdicts do also reflect upon those ancient Christians of whom we read,(538) that with their own hands they destroyed the temples of idols, and upon Chrysostom, who stirred up some monks, and sent them into Phœnicia, together with workmen, and sustained them on the expences and charges of certain godly women, that they might destroy the temples of