Encaenia.  
THE FEAST OF DEDICATION.  
CELEBRATED AT LINCOLN'S INN, in a Sermon there upon Ascension day, 1623.  
At the Dedication of a new Chapel there, Consecrated by the Right Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of LONDON.  
Preached by JOHN DONNE, Deane of St. PAUL'S.  
LONDON, Printed by AUG. MAT. for THOMAS JONES, and are to be sold at his Shop in the Strand, at the black Raven, near unto Saint Clement's Church. 1623.   

TO THE MASTERS OF THE BENCH, AND the rest of the Honourable Society of LINCOLN'S INN.  
IT pleased you to exercise your interest in me, and to express your favour to me, in inviting me to preach this Sermon: and it hath pleased you to do both over again, in inviting me to publish it. To this latter service I was the more inclinable, because, though in it I had no occasion to handle any matter of Controversy between us, and those of the Roman Persuasion, yet the whole body and frame of the Sermon, is opposed against one pestilent calumny of theirs, that we have cast off all distinction of places, and of days, and all outward means of assisting the devotion of the Congregation. For this use, I am not sorry that it is made public, for I shall never be sorry to appear plainly, and openly, and directly, without disguise or modification, in the vindicating of our Church from the imputations and calumnies of that Adversary. If it had no public use, yet I should satisfy myself in this, that it is done in obedience to that, which you may call your Request, but I shall call your Commandment upon  
Your very humble Servant in Christ jesus. JOHN DONNE.   

The Prayer before the Sermon.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, Father of our Lord jesus Christ; and in him, of all those that are his, As thou didst make him so much ours, as that he became like us, in all things, sin only excepted, make us so much his, as that we may be like him, even without the exception of sin, that all our sins may be buried in his wounds, and drowned in his Blood. And as this day we celebrate his Ascension to thee, be pleased to accept our endeavour of conforming ourselves to his pattern, in raising this place for our Ascension to him. Lean upon these Pinnacles, O Lord, as thou didst upon jacobs' Ladder, and hearken after us. Be this thine Ark, and let thy Dove, thy blessed Spirit, come in and out, at these Windows: and let a full pot of thy Manna, a good measure of thy Word, and an effectual preaching thereof, be evermore preserved, and evermore be distributed in this place. Let the Leprosy of Superstition never enter within these Walls, nor the hand of Sacrilege ever fall upon them. And in these walls, to them that love Profit and Gain, manifest thou thyself as a Treasure, and fill them so; To them that love Pleasure, manifest thyself, as Marrow and Fatness, and fill them so; And to them that love Preferment, manifest thyself, as a Kingdom, and fill them so; that so thou mayest be all unto all; give thyself wholly to us all, and make us all wholly thine. Accept our humble thanks for all, etc.   
JOHN 10.22. And it was at jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication; and it was Winter; and jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch. 
SAint Basill in a Sermon upon the 114. Psalm; 
Basill.  upon the like occasion as draws us together now, The consecration of a Church, makes this the reason and the excuse of his late coming thither to do that Service, that he stayed by the way, to consecrate another Church: I hope every person here hath done so; consecrated himself, who is a Temple of the Holy Ghost; before he came to assist, or to testify the consecration of this place of the Service of God. 
Bern. Ser. 1.  Nostra festivitas haec est, quia de Ecclesia nostra; says Saint Bernard. This Festival belongs to us, because it is the consecration of that place, which is ours, Magis autem nostra, quia de nobis ipsis: But it is more properly our Festival, because it is the consecration of ourselves to God's service. For, Sanctae Animae propter inhabitantem Spiritum; your Souls are holy, by the inhabitation of God's holy spirit, who dwells in them. Sancta corpora propter inhabitantem animam; Your Bodies are holy, by the inhabitation of those sanctified Souls. Sancti parietes, propter Corpora Sanctorum. These walls are holy, because the Saints of God meet here within these walls to glorify him. But yet these places are not only consecrated & sanctified by your coming; but to be sanctified also for your coming; that so, as the Congregation sanctifies the place, the place may sanctify the Congregation too. They must accompany one another; holy persons and holy places; If men would wash sheep in the Baptisterie, in the Font, those sheep were not christened. If profane men, or idolatrous men, pray here after their way, their prayers are not sanctified by the place. Neither if it be after polluted, doth the place retain that sanctity, which is this day to be derived upon it, and to be imprinted in it.  
Our Text settles us upon both these considerations, The holy place, 
Divisie.  and the holy person. It was the Feast of the Dedication: there's the holiness of the place; And the holy person, was holiness itself in the person of Christ jesus, who walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch. These two will be our two parts: And the first of these we shall make up of these pieces. First, we shall see a lawful use of Feasts, of Festival days. And then of other Feasts, than were instituted by God himself; diverse were so; this was not. And thirdly, not only a festival solemnising of some one thing, at some one time, for the present, but an Anniversary returning to that solemnity every year; And lastly, in that first part, this Festival in particular, The Feast of the Dedication of the Temple: that sanctified the place, that shall determine that part. In the second part, The holiness of the person, we shall carry your thoughts no farther, but upon this, That even this holy person jesus himself, would have recourse to this place, thus dedicated, thus sanctified: And upon this, that he would do that especially at such times, as he might countenance and authorize the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church, which had appointed this Festival. And this, says the Text, he did in the Winter: First, Et si Hiems, though it were Winter, he came, and walked in the Porch, a little inconvenience kept him not off: And, Quia Hiems, because it was Winter, he walked in the Porch which was covered, not in the Temple which was open. So that here with modesty, and without scandal he condemned not the favouring of a man's health, even in the Temple, And it was at jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication; and it was Winter; and jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch.  
In our first part, Holy places, 
1. Part. Festa.  we look first upon the times of our meeting there, Holy days. The root of all those is the Sabbath, that God planted himself, even in himself, in his own rest, from the Creation. But the root, and those branches which grow from that root, are of the same nature, and the same name: And therefore as well of the flower, as of the root of a Rose, or of a Violet, we would say, This is a Violet, this is a Rose: so as well to other Feasts of God's institution, as to the first Sabbath, God gives that name; he calls those several Feasts which he instituted, Sabbaths; enioynes the same things to be done upon them, inflicts the same punishments upon them that break them. 
Levit. 23.  So that there is one Morality, that is the soul of all Sabbaths, of all Festivals; howsoever all Sabbaths have a ceremonial part in them, yet there is a Moral part that inanimates them all; they are elemented of Ceremony, but they animated with Morality. And that Morality is in them all, Rest: for if Adam could name creatures according to their nature, God could name his Sabbath according to the nature of it, and Sabbath is Rest. It is a Rest of two kinds; our rest, and God's rest. Our rest is the cessation from labour on those days; Gods rest, is our sanctifying of the day: for so in the religious sacrifice of Noah, when he was come out of the Ark, 
Genes. 8.  God is said to have smelled, Odorem quietis, the savour of rest: upon those days we rest from serving the world, and God rests in our serving of him. And as God takes a tenth part of our goods, in Tithes, but yet he takes more too, he takes Sacrifices, so though he take a seventh part of our time in the Sabbath, yet he takes more too, he appoints other Sabbaths, other Festivals, that he may have more glory, and we more Rest: for all wherein those two concur, are Sabbaths. Vacate & videte quoniam ego sum Dominus says God. First vacate, 
Psal. 46.10  rest from your bodily labours, distinguish the day, and then videte, come hither into the Lord's presence, and worship the Lord your God, sanctify the day: And in all the Sabbaths there is still a Cessate, 
Levit. 23.  and a Humiliate animas, bodily rest, and spiritual sanctifying of the day. Holy days then, that is, days seposed for holy uses, and for the outward & public service of God, are in Nature, and in that Moral Law which is written in the heart of man. That such days there must be is Moral; and this is Moral too, that all things in the service of God be done in order; and this also, that obedience be given to Superiors, in those things wherein they are Superiors. And therefore it was to the jews, as well Moral, to observe the certain days which God had determined, as to observe any at all. Not that God's commandment limiting the days, infused a Morality into those particular days: for Morality is perpetual; and if that had been Moral, it must have been so before, and it must be so still; Gods determining the days did not infuse, not induce a Morality there, but it awakened a former Morality, that is, an obedience to the commandment, for that time, which God had apppointed that for them; for this Obedience, and Order is perpetual, and so, Moral. We depart therefore from that error, which those ancient Heretics, the Ebionites begun, and some laboured to refresh in Saint Gregory's time, and which continues in practice in some places of the world still; To observe both the jews Sabbath, and the Christians, Saturday, and Sunday too; because the Sabbath is called Pactum sempiternum: 
Exod. 31.  for to that any of Saint Augustine's Answers will serve; either that it is called everlasting, because it signified an everlasting rest; (where be pleased to note by the way, that Holy days, Sabbaths, are not only instituted for Order, but they have their Mystery, and their Signification; for Holy days, (as the Text calls them there) and New Moons, 
Col. 2.16.  and the Sabbath, were but shadows of things to come:) or else the Sabbath was called everlasting to them, because it bond them everlastingly, and they might never intermit it, as some other ceremonies they might. But their Sabbaths bind not us; we depart from them who think so; and so we do from them, who think we are bound to no Festivals at all, or at least to none but the Sabbath. For God requires as much service from us, as from the jews, and to them he enlarged his Sabbaths, and made them diverse. But those were of God's immediate institution: but all that the jews observed were not so; and that's our next consideration, Festivals instituted by the Church.  

Sine Mandato.  At first, when God was alone, it is but Faciamus, let us, us the Trinity make man. This was, when God was, as we may say, in Coelibatu. But after God hath taken his spouse, married the Church, than it is Cadite nobis vulpes, 
Cant. 2.15  do you take the little Foxes, you the Church; for our vines have grapes; the vines are ours; yours and mine says Christ to the Church: and therefore do you look to them, as well as I. The Tables of the law God himself writ, and gave them written to Moses: he left none of that to him; not a power to make other Laws like those laws: but for the Tabernacle, which concerned the outward worship of God, that was to be made by Moses, 
Exod  juxta similitudinem, according to the pattern which God had showed him. God hath given the Church a pattern of Holy days, in those Sabbaths which he himself instituted, and according to the pattern, the Church hath instituted more: and Recte festa Ecclesiae colunt, 
Aug.  qui se Ecclesiae filios recognoscunt: They who disdain not the name of sons of the Church, refuse not to celebrate the days which are of the Church's institution. There was no immediate commandment of God for that Holy day, which Mordechai, by his letters established; 
Ester 9.23  but yet the jews undertook to do as Mordechai had written to them. There was no such commandment for this Holy day, in the Text; and yet that was observed, as long as they had any being. And where the reason remains, the practice may; The jews did, we may institute new Holy days. And not only transitory days, for a present thanks giving for a present benefit, but Anniverssaries, perpetual memorial of God's deliverances. And that's our next step.  

Anniversaria.  Both the Holy days, which we named before, which were instituted with out special Commandment from God, were so. That of Mordechai, he commanded to be kept every year for two days, and this in the Text, judas Maccabeus commanded to be kept yearly for eight days, which was more than was apppointed to any of the Holy days, instituted by God himself, for the Festival alone. According to which pattern, 
Felix.  one Bishop of Rome, ordained that the Festivals of the Dedication of Churches should be yearly celebrated in those places; 
Greg.  and another extended the Festival to eight days; at least at the first dedication thereof, if not every year: that God might not only be put into the possession of the place, but settled in it. God by Moses made the children of Israel a Song, because, as he says, 
Deut. 31.19  howsoever they did by the Law, they would never forget that Song, & that Song should be his witness against them. Therefore would God have us institute solemn memorials of his great deliverances, that if when those days come about, we do not glorify him, that might aggravate our condemnation. Every fift of August, the Lord rises up, to hearken whether we meet to glorify him, for his great deliverance of his Majesty, before he blessed us with his presence in this Kingdom: and when he finds us zealous in our thankes for that, he gives us farther blessings. Certainly he is up as early every fift of November, to hearken if we meet to glorify him for that deliverance still; and if he should find our zeal less than heretofore, he would wonder why. God's principal, his radical Holy day, the Sabbath, had a weekly return; his other Sabbaths, instituted by himself, and those which were instituted by those patterns, that of Mordechai, that of the Maccabees, & those of the Christian Church, They all return once a year. God would keep his Courts once a year, and see whether we make our appearances as heretofore; that if not, he may know it. Feasts in general, Feasts instituted by the Church alone, Feasts in their yearly return and observation, have their use, and particularly those Feasts of the Dedication of Churches, which was properly and literally the Feast of this Text. It was the Feast of Dedication.  

Encaevia.  As it diminishes not, preiudices not God's Eternity, that we give him his Quando, certain times of Invocation, God is not the less yesterday, 
Temple.  and to day, and the same for ever, because we meet here to day, and not yesterday, so it diminishes not, preiudices not God's Ubiquity and Omnipresence, that we give him his Vbi, certain places for Invocation. That's not the less true, that the most High dwells not in Temples made with hands, 
Acts 7.48.  though God accept at our hands our dedication of certain places to his service, & manifest his working more effectually, more energetically in those places, then in any other. for when we pray, Our Father which art in Heaven, It is not (says Saint chrysostom) that we deny him to be here, 
chrysostom.  where we kneel when we say that Prayer, but it is that we acknowledge him to be there, where he can grant, and accomplish our prayer. It is as Origen hath very well expressed it, 
Origen.   in melioribus mundi requiramus Deum: That still we look for God in the best places; look for him, as he hears our petitions, here, in the best places of this world, in his House, in the Church; look for him as he grants our petition, in the best place of the next world, at the right hand, and in the bosom of the Father. 
Deut. 30.13  When Moses says that the word of God is not beyond Sea, he adds, It is not so beyond Sea, as that thou must not have it without sending thither. When he says there, it is not in heaven, he adds, not so in heaven, as that one must go up, before he can have it. The word of God, is beyond Sea, the true word, truly preached in many true Churches there, but yet we have it here, within these Seas too; God is in Heaven, but yet he is here, within these walls too. And therefore the impiety of the Manicheans exceeded all the Gentiles, who concluded the God of the Old Testament to be an impotent, an unperfect God, because he commanded Moses first to make him a Tabernacle, and then Solomon to make him a Temple, as though he needed a House. God does not need a house, but man does need, that God should have a House. And therefore the first question, that Christ's first Disciples asked of him, was Magister, ubi habitas, they would know his standing house, where he hath promised to be always within, and where at the ringing of the Bell, some body comes to answer you, to take your errand, to offer your Prayers to God, to return his pleasure in the preaching of his Word to you. The many and heavy Laws, with which sacred and secular stories abound, against the profanation of places, appropriated to God's service, and that religious custom, that passed almost through all civil Nations, that an oath, which was the bond between man, and man, had the stronger Obligation, if that were taken in the Church, in the presence of God, (for such was the practice of Rome towards her enemies, Tango arras mediosque ignes, to make their vows of hostility in the Church, and at time of divine Service, (and such is their practice still, they seal their Treasons in the Sacrament) such was Rome's practice towards others, and such was the practice of others towards Rome, (for so Hannibal says, that his father Amilcar swore him at the Altar, that he should never be reconciled to Rome, (And such is your practice still, as often as you meet here, you renew your band to God, that you will never be reconciled to the Superstitions of Rome) all these, and all such as these, and such as these are infinite, heap up testimonies, that even in Nature there is a disposition to apply, and appropriate certain places to God's service. And this impression in nature is illustrated in the Law, as the time, so the place is distinguished, Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, 
Levi. 19.30  there is the time, and you shall reverence my Sanctuary, there is the place. But that they may be reverenced, that they may be Sanctuaries, they are to be sanctified; and that's the Encaenia, the Dedication.  
Even in those things which accrue unto God, and become his, 
Encaenia.  by another title, then as he is Lord of all, by Creation, that is, by appropriation, by dedication to his use and Service, There is a Lay Dedication, and an Ecclesiastical Dedication. I hope the distinction of Laiety, and Clergy, the words, scandalise no man. Luther, and Caluin too might have just cause to decline the words, as they did; when so much was over-attributed to that Clergy which they intent, as that they were so Sors Domini, the Lords portion, as that the world had no portion in them, and yet they had the greatest portion of the world; and how little soever they had to do with God, yet no State, no King might have any thing to do with them. But, as long as we declare, that by the laiety we intent the people glorifying God in their secular callings, and by the Clergy, persons seposed by his ordinance, for spiritual functions, The laiety no farther removed than the Clergy, The Clergy no farther entitled than the laiety, in the blood of Christ jesus, neither in the effusion of that blood upon the Cross, nor in the participation of that blood in the Sacrament, and that an equal care in Clergy, and laiety, of doing the duties of their several callings, gives them an equal interest in the joys, and glory of heaven, I hope no man is scandalised with the names. The Lay Dedication then is, the voluntary surrendering of this piece of ground thus built, to God. For we must say, as Saint Peter said to Ananias, 
Acts 5.4.  Whiles it remained, was that not your own? and now, when that is raised (saving that there was Dedicatio Intentionalis, a purpose from the beginning to appropriate it, to this holy use) might you not, till this hour, have made this room your Hall, if you would? But this is your Dedication, that you have cheerfully pursued your first holy purposes, and deliver now into the hands of this servant of God, the Right Reverend Father the Bishop of this See, a place to be presented to God for you, by him, not misbecoming the Majesty of the great God, who is pleased to dwell thus amongst us. What was spent in salomon's Temple is not told us. What was prepared, before it was begun, is such a sum, as certainly, if all the Christian Kings that are, would send in all that they have, at once, to any one service, all would not equal that sum. They gave there, till they who had the overseeing thereof, complained of the abundance, and proclaimed an abstinence. Yet there was one, who gave more than all they; for Christ says the poor widow gave more than all the rest, because she gave all she had. There is a way of giving more than she gave; & I, who by your favours was no stranger to the beginning of this work, and an often refresher of it to your memories, and a poor assistant in laying the first stone, the material stone, as I am now, a poor assistant again in this laying of this first formal Stone, the Word & Sacrament, and shall ever desire to be so in the service of this place, I, I say, can truly testify, that you (speaking of the whole Society together of the public stock, the public treasury, the public revenue) you gave more than the widow, who gave all, for you gave more than all. A stranger shall not intermeddle with our joy, as Solomon says: strangers shall not know, how ill we were provided for such a work, when we begun it, nor with what difficulties we have wrestled in the way; but strangers shall know to God's glory, that you have perfected a work of full three times as much charge, as you proposed for it at beginning: so bountifully doth God bless, and prosper intentions to his glory, with enlarging your hearts within, and opening the hearts of others, abroad. And this is your Dedication, and that which without prejudice, and for distinction, we call a Lay Dedication, though from religious hearts, and hands.  
There is another Dedication; 
Ecclesiastica  that we have called Ecclesiastical, appointed by God, so as God speaks in the ordinances, and in the practice of his Church. Haereditary Kings are begotten & conceived the natural way; but that body which is so begotten of the blood of Kings, is not a King, no nor a man, till there be a Soul infused by God. Here is a House, a Child conceived (we may say borne) of Christian parents, of persons religiously disposed to God's glory; but yet, that was to receive another influence, an inanimation, a quickening, by another Consecration. Oportet denuo nasci, holds even in the children of Christian parents; when they are borne, they must be borne again by Baptism: when this place is thus given by you, for God, oportet denuo dari, it must be given again to God, by him, who receives it of you. It must; there seems a necessity to be implied, because even in Nature, there was a consecration of holy places; jacob in his journey, 
Gen. 28.20.  before the Law, consecrated even that stone, which he set up, in intention to build God a House there. In the time of the Law, 
Num. 7.1.  this Feast of Dedication, was in practice; first in the Tabernacle; that and all that appertained to it, was anointed, and sanctified: So was salomon's Temple after; so was that which was re-edified after their return from Babylon, and so was this in the Text, after the Heathen had defiled and profaned the Altar thereof, and a new one was erected by judas Maccabeus. Thus in Nature, thus in Law, and thus far thus in the Gospel too: that as sure as we are that the people of God had material Churches in the Apostles first times, so sure we are, that those places had a Sanctity in them. If that place of Saint Paul, 
1 Cor. 11.22  Despise ye the Church of God? be to be understood of the local, of the material Church, and not of the Congregation, you see there is a rebuke for the profanation of the place, and consequently a sanctity in the place. But as soon as the Church came evidently by the favour of Princes, to have liberty to make laws, and power to see them practised, it was never pretermitted to consecrate the places. Before that, we find an ordinance by Pope Hyginus (he was within 150. after Christ, and the eighth Bishop of that See after Saint Peter) even of particulars in the Consecrations. But after, 
Athanas.  Athanasius in his Apology to Constantius, makes that protestation for all Christians, That they never meet in any Church, till it be consecrated: And Constantine the Emperor lest he should be at any time unprovided of such a place, (as we read in the Ecclesiastical story) in all his wars, carried about with him a Tabernacle which was consecrated: In Nature, in the Law, in the Gospel, in Precept, in Practice, these Consecrations are established.  

Vsus.  This they did. But to what use did they consecrate them? not to one use only; and therefore it is a frivolous contention, whether Churches be for preaching, or for praying. But if Consecration be a kind of Christening of the Church, & that at the Christening it have a name, we know what name God hath apppointed for his House, Domus mea, Domus orationis vocabitur. My House shall be called the House of Prayer. And how impudent and inexcusable a falsehood is that in Bellarmine, That the Lutherans and Caluinistes do admit Churches for Sermons and Sacraments, Sed reprehendunt quod fiant ad orandum, They dislike that they should be for Prayer: when as Caluin himself, (who may seem to be more subject to this reprehension than Luther) (for there is no such Liturgy in the Caluinists' Churches, as in the Lutheran) yet in that very place which Bellarmine cities, says Conceptae preces in Ecclesia Deo gratae; and for singing in Churches, (which in that place of Caluin cannot be only meant of Psalms, for it was of that manner of singing, which being formerly in use in the Eastern churches, S. Ambrose, in his time, brought into the Church of Milan, and so it was derived over the Western churches, which was the modulation and singing of Versicles and antiphon's and the like) this singing, says Caluin, was in use amongst the Apostles themselves, Et sanctissimum & saluberimum est institutum. 
l. 3.20. § 32.  It was a most holy and most profitable Institution. Still consider Consecration to be a Christening of the place; and though we find them often called Templa propter Sacrificia, for our sacrifices of prayer, and of praise, & of the merits of Christ, and often called Ecclesiae ad conciones, Churches, in respect of congregations, for preaching, and often called Martyria, for preserving with respect, and honour the bodies of Martyrs, and other Saints of God, there buried, & often, often, by other names, Dominica, Basilica, and the like, yet the name that God gave to his house, is not Concionatorium, nor Sacramentarium, but Oratorium, the House of Prayer. And therefore without prejudice to the other functions too, (for as there is a vae upon me, Si non Euangelizavero, If I preach not myself, so may that vae be multiplied upon any, who would draw that holy ordinance of God into a dis-estimation, or into a slackness,) let us never intermit that duty, to present ourselves to God in these places, though in these places there be then, no other Service, but Common prayer. For than doth the House answer to that name, which God hath given it, if it be a house of Prayer.  

Modus.  Thus then were these places to receive a double Dedication; a Dedication, which was a Donation from the Patron, a Dedication which was a consecration from the Bishop, for to his person, and to that rank in the Hierarchy of the Church, the most ancient Canons limited it; and to those purposes, which we have spoken of; of which, Prayer is so fare from being none, as that there is none above it. A little should be said, (before we shut up this part) of the manner, the form of Consecrations. In which, in the Primitive Church, as soon as Consecrations came into free use, they were full of Ceremonies. And many of those Ceremonies derived from the jews: and not unlawful, for that. The Ceremonies of the jews, which had their foundation in the prefiguration of Christ, and were types of him, were unlawful after Christ was come; because the use of them, then, employed a denial or a doubt of his being come. But those Ceremonies, which, though the jews used them, had their foundation in Nature, as bowing of the knee, lifting up the eyes, and hands, and many, very many others, which either testified their devotion that did them, or exalted their devotion that saw them done, are not therefore excluded the Church, because they were in use amongst the jews. That Pope whom we named before, Hyginus, the eighth after Saint Peter, he instituted, Ne Basilica sine Missa consecretur. That no Church be consecrated without a Mass. If this must bind us, to a Mass of the present Roman Church, it were hard; and yet not very hard truly; for they are easily had. But that word, Mass, is in Saint Ambrose, in Saint Augustine in some very ancient Counsels; and surely intends nothing, to this purpose, but the Service, the Common Prayer of the Church, then in use, there. And when the Bishop Panigarola says in his Sermon upon Whitsunday, that the Holy Ghost found the blessed Virgin and the Apostles at Mass, I presume he means no more, then that they were met at such public Prayer, as at those times they might make. Sure Pope Clemens, and Pope Hyginus mean the same thing, when one says Missa consecretur, and the other Divinis Precibus: One says, Let the Consecration be with a Mass, the other, with Divine Service; the Liturgy, the Divine Service was then the Mass. In a word, a constant form of Consecrations, we find none that goes through our rituals: the Ceremonies were still more or less, as they were more or less obnoxious, or might be subject to scandalise, or to be misinterpreted. And therefore I am not here either to direct, or so much as to remember, that which appertains to the manner of these Consecrations; only in concurring in that, which is the Soul of all, humble and hearty prayer, that God will hear his Servants in this place, I shall not offend to say, that I am sure my zeal is inferior to none. And more I say not of the first Part, The Holy place; and but a little more, of the other; though at first it were proposed for an equal part, The Holy Person, That at the Feast of the Dedication, jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch.  

2. Part.  In this second part, we did not spread the words, nor shed our considerations upon many particulars: the first was, 
Jesus in Templo.  that even jesus himself had recourse to this Holy place. In the new jerusalem, in Heaven, there is no Temple. 
Apo. 21.22  I saw no Temple there says Saint john: for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the Temple of it. In Heaven, where there is no danger of falling, there is no need of assistance. Hear the Temple is called Gnazar, 
2. Paral. 4.9  that is Auxilium: A Helper: the strongest that is, needs the help of the Church: And it is called Sanctificium, by Saint Hierom, 
Psal. 78.69.  a place that is not only made holy by Consecration, but that makes others holy by GOD in it. And therefore Christ himself, whose person and presence might consecrate the Sanctum Sanctorum, would yet make his often repair to this Holy place; not that he needed this subsidy of Local holiness in himself, but that his example might bring others who did need it; and those who did not; and, that even his own Preaching might have the benefit and the blessing of God's Ordinance in that place, he says of himself, 
Math. 26.  Quotidie apud vos sedebam docens in Templo, and Semper docui in Synagoga, & in Templo; as in the Acts, the Angel that had delivered the Apostles out of prison, sends them to Church, 
Acts 5.  Stantes in Templo loquimini plebi. The Apostles were sent to preach, but to preach in the Temple, in the place appropriated and consecrated for that holy use and employment.  

Tempus.  He came to this place, and he came at those times, which no immediate command of God, but the Church had instituted. Facta sunt Encaenia, says the Text; It was the Feast of the Dedication. We know what Dedication this was; That of Solomon was much greater; A Temple built where none was before; That of Esdras at the return was much greater than this, An entire reedification of that demolished Temple, where it was before. This was but a zealous restoring of an Altar in the Temple: which having been profaned by the Gentiles, the jews themselves threw down, and erected a new, and dedicated that. Salomons Dedication is called a Feast, 
2 Chr. 5.3.  a Holy day: by the very same name that the Feast of unleavened bread, and the Feast of the Tabernacle is called so often in Scripture, 
Ezra 6.16.  which is Kag. The Dedication of Ezra is sufficiently declared to be a solemn Feast too. But neither of these Feasts, though of fare greater Dedications, were Anniversarie; neither commanded to be kept every year; and yet this, which was so much lesser than the others, the Church had put under that Obligation, to be kept every year; and Christ himself contemns not, condemns not, disputes not the institution of the Church. But as for matter of doctrine he sends even his own Disciples, to them who sat in Moses Chair, so for matter of Ceremony, he brings even his own person, to the celebrating, to the authorising, to the countenancing of the Institutions of the Church, and rests in that.  
Now it was Winter, says the Text: 
Etsi Hyeme  Christ came et si Hiems, though it were Winter; so small an inconvenience kept him not off. Beloved, it is not always colder upon Sunday, then upon Saturday; nor at any time colder in the Chapel; then in Westminster Hall. A thrust keeps some off in Summer; and cold in Winter: and there are more of both these in other places, where for all that, they are more content to be. Remember that Peter was warming himself, and he denied Christ. They who love a warm bed, let it be a warm Study, let it be a warm profit, better than this place, they deny CHRIST in his Institution. That therefore which CHRIST says, Pray that your flight be not in the Winter, 
Mat. 24.20.  nor upon the Sabbath; we may apply thus, Pray that upon the Sabbath (I told you at first, what were Sabbaths,) the Winter make you not fly, not abstain from this place. Put off thy shoes, 
Exod. 35.  says God to Moses, for the place is holy ground. When God's ordinance by his Church call you to this holy place, put off those shoes, all those earthly respects, of ease or profit, Christ came, Et si Hiems.  
But then, Quia Hiems, 
Quia Hiems  Because it was Winter, He did walk in salomon's Porch, which was covered, not in Atrio, in that part of the Temple, which was open, and exposed to the weather. We do not say, that infirm and weak men, may not favour themselves, in a due care of their health, in these places. That he who is not able to raise himself, must always stand at the Gospel, or bow the knee at the name of jesus, or stay some whole hours, altogether uncovered here, if that increase infirmities of that kind. And yet Courts of Princes, are strange Bethesdaes; how quickly they recover any man that is brought into that Pool? How much a little change of air does? and how well they can stand, and stand bare many hours, in the Privy Chamber, that would melt and flow out into Rheums, and Catarrhs, in a long Gospel here? But, Citra Scandalum, a man may favour himself in these places: but yet this excuses not the irreverent manner which hath overtaken us in all these places; That any Master may think himself to have the same liberty here, as in his own house, or that that Servant, that never puts on his hat in his Master's presence all the week, on Sunday, when he and his Master are in God's presence, should have his hat on perchance before his Masters. Christ shall make Master and Servant equal; but not yet; not here; nor ever, equal to himself, how ever they become equal to one another. God's service is not a continual Martyrdom, that a man must be here, and here in such a posture, and such a manner, though he dye for it; but God's House is no Ordinary neither; where any man may pretend to do what he will, and every man may do, what any man does. Christ slept in a storm; I dare not make that general; let all do so. Christ favoured himself in the Church; I dare not make that general neither: to make all places equal, or all persons equal in any place.  
'tis time to end. 
Basil.  Saint Basill himself, as acceptable as he was to his Auditory, in his second Sermon upon the 14. Psalm, takes knowledge that he had preached an hour, and therefore broke off: I see it is a Compass, that all Ages have thought sufficient. But as we have contracted the consideration of great Temples, to this lesser Chapel, so let us contract the Chapel to ourselves: Et facta sint Encaenia nostra, let this be the Feast of the Dedication of ourselves too God. Christ calls himself a Temple, Soluite templum hoc: 
john 2.19.  Destroy this Temple. And Saint Paul calls us so twice; 
1 Cor. 3.16. & 6.19.  Know ye not that ye are the Temples of the Holy Ghost? Facta sint Encaenia nostra: Encaenia signifies Renovationem, a renewing: 
Aug.  and Saint Augustine says that in his time, Si quis nova tunica indueretur, Encaeniare diceretur. If any man put on a new garment, he called it by that name, Encaenia sua. Much more is it so, if we renew in ourselves the Image of God, and put off the Old man, and put on the Lord jesus Christ. This is truly Encaeniare, to dedicate, to renew ourselves: 
NaZian.  and so Nazian▪ in a Sermon, or Oration, upon the like occasion as this, calls, Conuersionem nostram, Encaenia, our turning to God, in a true repentance, or renewing, our dedication. Let me charge your memories, but with this note more, That when God forbade David the building of an House, Because he was a man of blood, at that time David had not embrued his hands in Vriahs' blood; nor shed any blood, but lawfully in just wars; yet even that made him uncapable of this favour to provide God a house. Some callings are in their nature more obnoxious, and more exposed to sin, than others are: accompanied with more tentations; & so retard us more in holy duties. And therefore as there are particular sins that attend certain places, certain ages, certain complexions, and certain vocations, let us watch ourselves in all those, and remember that not only the highest degrees of those sins, but any thing that conduces thereunto, profanes the Consecration, and Dedication of this Temple, ourselves, to the service of God; it annihilates our repentance, and frustrates our former reconciliations to him. Almighty God work in you a perfect dedication of yourselves at this time; that so, receiving it from hands dedicated to God, he whose holy Office this is, may present acceptably this House to God in your behalves, and establish an assurance to you, that God will be always present with you and your Succession in this place.  
Amen.