18 Aug. 1814

Logic

4

Ch. Differentia

Church

4. From designating first the act of calling together an assembly, then the assembly composed of all persons, and no other than all persons, actually assembled together at a particular /one and the same/ time in a particular place, and then all the persons who were regarded as entitled so to assemble at that place, it came also to be employed to designate the place itself at or in which such assembly was wont to be held: the place consisting of the soil, the portion of the earth's surface, on which, for containing and protecting the assembly from the occasional injuries of the weather a building was erected, and such building itself when erected.

Such as above being the purpose for which the sort of building in question was erected, viz. the paying homage to God, God, although present at all times in all places, was regarded as being in a more particular manner present at and in all places of this sort; attentive to whatsoever was passing at all other places, but still more attentive to whatsoever was passing in these places.

Being thus as it were the dwelling-places of God, these places became to the members of the association objects of particular awe and reverence, of a mixture of respect and terror - they became, in one word, holy; whereupon, by an easy and insensible transition, this mixture of respect and terror came to extend itself to, upon, and to the benefit of, the class of persons in whose hands was reposed the management of whatsoever was done in these holy places: holy functions made holy places, holy places and holy functions made holy persons.

175