cons, who also sat there at the time of the Cominunion Service, at least, as many of them as were necessary to assist the Bishop or Priest in his ininistration. Thence was the same place called also diaconicum. These several places, and this furniture, some principal and cathedral chancels had; which I have named, not that I think this Rubric does require them all in every chancel, but because I conceive the knowledge of them may serve to help us in the understanding of some ancient canons and ecclesiastical story. But though all chancels of old had not all these, yet every chancel had, even in rural curches, an altar for the consecrating of the holy Eucharist, which they always had in high estimation. "The ancients," says St. Chrysostom, "would have stoned any one that should have overthrown or pulled down an altar." Gregory Nazianzen commends his mother for that "she never was known to turn her back upon the altar." e And Optatusf accuses the peevish Donatists of the highest kind of sacrilege, because “ they broke and removed the altars of God, where the people's ways were offered, Almighty God was invocated, the Holy Ghost was petitioned to descend; where many received the pledge of eternal life, the defence of faith, the hope of the resurrection. What is the altar, but the seat of the body and blood of Christ? d S. Chrysost. Hom. LIII. ad pop. Antioch. vol. v. p. 301. D. edit. Lat. and yet your fury hath either shaken, or broken, or removed these: every of these is crime enough, while you lay sacrilegious hands upon a thing so holy. If your spite were at us, that there were wont to worship God, yet wherein had God offended you, who was wont to be there called upon? What had Christ offended you, whose body and blood, at certain times and moments, dwelt there? In this you have imitated the Jews, they laid hands upon Christ on the cross, you have wounded Him in His altars. By this doing, you are entered into the list of the sacrilegions. You have made yourselves of the number of them that Elias complains of, 'Lord, they have broken down Thine altars.' should have sufficed your madness that you had worried Christ's members, that you had broken His people, so long united, into so many sects and factions, at least you should have spared His altars." So he, and much more to the same purpose. It Many more testimonies to the same purpose might be brought; but this may shew sufficiently the respect they had to the altar; first, the epithets they gave it, calling it the divine, the dreadful altar; secondly, their bowing and adoring that way, turning their faces that way in their public prayers, as towards the chiefest and highest place of the church; lastly, placing it aloft in all their g 1 Kings xix. 10. churches at the upper end, the east. For so both Socrates and Nicephorus tell us," the altar was placed ad orientem, "at the east," in all Christian churches, except in Antiochia Syriæ, in Antioch. And so they stood at the east in the church of England till Queen Elizabeth's time, when some of them were taken down indeed, upon what grounds I dispute not; but wheresoever the altars were taken down, the holy tables, which is all one, were set up in the place where the altars stood by the Queen's Injunctions, and so they continued in most cathedral churches; and so ought to have continued in all; for that was enjoined by Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, forbidden by no after law that I know, but rather confirmed by this Rubric, "FOR THE CHANCELS ARE TO REMAIN AS IN TIMES PAST." THE DIVINE SERVICE MAY BE SAID PRIVATELY. E have seen the reason of the Church's com WE mand, that the holy service should be offered up in the church or chapel, &c. But what if a church cannot be had to say our office in? shall the sacrifice of rest, the holy service, be omitted? h B. XII. ch. xxxiv. vol. ii. p. 297. By no means. If a church may not be had, "THE PRIEST SHALL SAY IT PRIVATELY.İ And good reason; for God's worship must not be neglected or omitted for want of a circumstance. It is true, the church is the most convenient place for it, and adds much to the beauty of holiness. And he that should neglect that decency, and despising the church, should offer up the public worship in private, should sin against that Law of God that says, "Cursed is he that having a better lamb in his flock, offers up to God a worse:" for God Almighty must be served with the best we have, otherwise we despise Him. He that can have a church, and will offer up the holy service in a worse place, let him fear that curse: but if a church cannot be had, let him not fear or omit to offer up the holy service in a convenient place in private, having a desire to the church, looking toward the temple in prayer, 2 Chron. vi. 29, for it will be accepted, according to that equitable rule of St. Paul, "If there be a willing mind, God accepts according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." k Agreeable to this command of holy Church, we find it directed in the Clementine Constitutions.1 "If, O Bishop or Priest, you cannot go to the church because of infidels or persecutors, gather a congrega tion in a private house; but if you cannot be suffered to meet together, no not in a private house, psallat sibi unusquisque, "let every man say the office in private by himself." Let every layman say this morning and evening office, his psalter, leaving out that which is peculiar to the Priest, absolution, and solemn benediction; and let him know that when he prays thus alone, he prays with company, because he prays in the Church's communion, the Common Prayer and vote of the Church. But let not the Priest, of all others, fail to offer this service of the congregation. This public worship, this savour of rest, though by himself in private looking towards the temple, "Lifting up his hands toward the mercy seat of the holy temple;" that is, having in his "soul a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord," praying with David, that he may "go unto the altar of God, the God of our joy and gladness," to offer up His service there, and it will be acceptable. נח OF THE ORNAMENTS TO BE USED IN DIVINE SERVICE. HE MINISTER IN TIME OF HIS MINISTRATION THE SHALL USE SUCH ORNAMENTS AS WERE IN USE m Psalm lxxxiv. 2. |