XIV. The like unto this is a fancy which they have against the fashion of our churches, as being framed according to the pattern of the Jewish temple. A fault no less grievous, if so be it were true, than if some king should build his mansion-house by the model of Salomon’s palace. So far forth as our churches and their temple have one end, what should let but that they may lawfully have one form? The temple was for sacrifice, and therefore had rooms to that purpose such as ours have none. Our churches are places provided that the people might there assemble themselves in due and decent manner, according to their several degrees and orders. Which thing being common unto us with Jews, we have in this respect our churches divided by certain partitions, although not so many in number as theirs. They had their several for heathen nations, their several for the people of their own nation, their several for men, their several for women, their several for the priests, and for the high priest alone their several1. There being in ours for local distinction between the clergy and the rest (which yet we do not with any great strictness or curiosity observe neither) but one partition2; the cause whereof at the first (as it seemeth) was, that as many as were capable of the holy mysteries might there assemble themselves and no other creep in amongst them: this is now made a matter so heinous, as if our religion thereby were become even plain Judaism, and as though we retained a most holy place, whereinto there might not any but the high priest alone enter, according to the custom of the Jews3.
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Footnotes
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[Joseph. A. J. xv. 11. 5. ed. Oberthür. περιει̑χε ἑρκίον, λιθίνου δρυϕάκτου, γραϕῃ̑ κωλύων εἰσιέναι τὸν ἀλλοεθνη̑ … ἐσωτέρω δὲ γυναιξὶν ἄβατον ἠ̑ν τὸ ἱερόν. ἐκείνου δ’ ἐνδότερον τρίτον, ὅπου τοι̑ς ἱερευ̑σιν εἰσελθει̑ν ἐξὸν ἠ̑ν μόνοις. comp. Heb. ix. 6, 7. For the corresponding distinctions in the Primitive Church, see Bingham, Antiq. viii. 4, 5, 6.] ↩
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[Sparrow’s Rationale of the Com. Prayer, 325. “The chancel was divided from the body of the Church, Cancellis: whence it is called the Chancel. This was, as was said, peculiar to the Priests and sacred persons. In it were, at least in some principal churches, these divisions; Chorus Cantorum, the Quire, where was an high seat for the bishop, and other stalls or seats for the rest of the quire: … and the Chancel properly, that which of old was called ἅγιον βη̑μα, ‘the Sanctuary,’ which was separated from the rest of the Church with rails, and whither indeed none but sacred persons entered; whereas the laity entered into the other.”Bancroft, Survey, 260. “There is in every church for the most part a distinction of places betwixt the clergy and the laity. We term one place the chancel and another the body of the church: which manner of distinction doth greatly offend the tender consciences (forsooth) of the purer part of our reformers. Insomuch as Mr. Gilby, a chief man in his time among them, doth term the quire a cage, and reckoneth that separation of the ministers from the congregation one of the hundred points of Popery, which, he affirmeth, do yet remain in the church of England.” The book from which he quotes is “A View of Antichrist, his laws and ceremonies in our English Church unreformed.” circ. 1578. Strype, Ann. II. ii. 215.] ↩
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[T. C. i. 105.] ↩