A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

John Wilkie,

Minister, Thomas Jones, 1602.

Another pew occurs in the same church, dated 1604.

From this time till the episcopate of Wren, bishop of Hereford, pews seem to have become more universal, and only then to have found their deserved rebuke. Among other questions in his several articles of visitation we find the following: “Are all the seats and pews so ordered, that they which are in them may kneel down in time of prayer, and have their faces up to the holy table?” “Are there any privy closets or close pews in your church? Are any pews so loftily made, that they do any way hinder the prospect of the church or chancel, so that they which be in them are hidden from the face of the congregation?”

The last question points at another objection to pews, besides their destructive effect on the interior of a church. They seem to have originated with the Puritans, and to have been intended to conceal the persons sitting in them, that they might, without conviction, disobey the rubrics and canons, providing for a decent deportment during Divine service. The injunctions especially avoided under cover of pews, were the order to bow at the name of Jesus, and the rule to stand at the Gloria Patri.

It would, however, be equally absurd and unjust to apply such remarks to the present times; nor shall we offer any reasons against pews instead of open benches, except that they destroy the ecclesiastical character of a church, that they encourage pride, that they make a distinction where no distinction ought to exist, and that they must be erected at a loss of 20 per cent. of church accommodation.—See the Cambridge Camden Society’s History of Pews.

PHARISEES. From the Hebrew word Pharez, division, or separation. (In other words, sectarians, or separatists.) The most sanctimonious sect of the Jews, forming their religious world. They were denounced by our Lord for their hypocrisy, that is to say, the hypocrisy of the majority. St. Paul was originally a Pharisee: “after the most strictest sect (αἵρεσιν) of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.” Acts xxvi. 5.

PHILIP, ST., AND ST. JAMES’S DAY. A festival of the Christian Church, observed on the first day of May.

I. St. Philip was a native of Bethsaida, in Galilee, and probably a fisherman, the general trade of that place. He had the honour of being first called to be a disciple of our blessed Saviour. It was to Philip our Saviour proposed that question, what they should do to procure so much bread as would feed the vast multitude that followed him? It was to him the Gentile proselytes addressed themselves, when desirous to see Jesus. And it was with Philip our Lord had that discourse concerning himself before the last supper.

The Upper Asia fell to this apostle’s lot, where he took great pains in planting the gospel, and by his preaching and miracles made many converts. In the latter end of his life, he came to Hierapolis in Phrygia, a city very much addicted to idolatry, and particularly to the worship of a serpent or dragon of prodigious bigness. St. Philip, by his prayers, procured the death, or, at least, the disappearing, of this monster, and convinced its worshippers of the absurdity of paying Divine honours to such odious creatures. But the magistrates, enraged at Philip’s success, imprisoned him, and ordered him to be severely scourged, and then put to death; which, some say, was by crucifixion; others, by hanging him up against a pillar.