There ought also to be but one temple for one God; for likeness is the constant foundation of agreement. This temple ought to be common to all men, because he is the common God of all men. High priests are to be continually about his worship, over whom he that is the first by his birth is to be their ruler perpetually. His business must be to offer sacrifices to God, together with those priests that are joined with him, to see that the laws be observed, to determine controversies, and to punish those that are convicted of injustice; while he that does not submit to him shall be subject to the same punishment, as if he had been guilty of impiety towards God himself. When we offer sacrifices to him, we do it not in order to surfeit ourselves, or to be drunken; for such excesses are against the will of God, and would be an occasion of injuries and of luxury; but by keeping ourselves sober, orderly, and ready for our other occupations, and being more temperate than others. And for our duty at the sacrifices (22) themselves, we ought, in the first place, to pray for the common welfare of all, and after that for our own; for we are made for fellowship one with another, and he who prefers the common good before what is peculiar to himself is above all acceptable to God. And let our prayers and supplications be made humbly to God, not [so much] that he would give us what is good, (for he hath already given that of his own accord, and hath proposed the same publicly to all,) as that we may duly receive it, and when we have received it, may preserve it. Now the law has appointed several purifications at our sacrifices, whereby we are cleansed after a funeral, after what sometimes happens to us in bed, and after accompanying with our wives, and upon many other occasions, which it would be too long now to set down. And this is our doctrine concerning God and his worship, and is the same that the law appoints for our practice.

(22) We may here observe how known a thing it was among the Jews and heathens, in this and many other instances, that sacrifices were still accompanied with prayers; whence most probably came those phrases of "the sacrifice of prayer, the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of thanksgiving." However, those ancient forms used at sacrifices are now generally lost, to the no small damage of true religion. It is here also exceeding remarkable, that although the temple at Jerusalem was built as the only place where the whole nation of the Jews were to offer their sacrifices, yet is there no mention of the "sacrifices" themselves, but of "prayers" only, in Solomon's long and famous form of devotion at its dedication, 1 Kings 8.; 2 Chronicles 6. See also many passages cited in the Apostolical Constitutions, VII. 37, and Of the War, above, B. VII. ch. 5. sect. 6.