And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
Ver. 16. And said to the dove sellers] These (belike, as more tractable, and not so gross offenders) he deals more gently with, but bids them be packing. I expect not (saith Rev. Rolloc) a plenary and perfect reformation of the Church, after so horrible an apostasy under antichrist, till Christ come again to judgment. a And yet that Church of Scotland is said to have this rare privilege above many others; that since the Reformation there wrought, they have, without heresy, or so much as a schism, retained unity, with purity of doctrine. b
An house of merchandise] So he calls it, for all their goodly pretexts of good intentions. So the churchwarden of Ipswich was much trounced and troubled in the High Commission, for writing over the place where the spiritual court was kept, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves," Nov. 6, 1635.
a Non expecto plenam perfectamque reformalionem Ecclesieo, &c.
b Est Ecclesiae Scoticanae privilegium rarum, prae multis, quod sine schimsate, nedum haeresi, unitatem cum puritate doctrinae retinuerit. Sic in Elog. praefator, de Confess. in princip. Syntag. Confess. p. 6, edit. Geneva.