Place and Sacred Architecture : The Mercy Seat

One of the primary ways in which people have affirmed the holiness of their land is through the sacred spaces they have built on that land. The word “temple” comes from the same root as “template”, from the Latin templare, to mark out. Whether it is prehistoric henges, pyramids, burial mounds or churches, people seem to have had an irresistible urge to signal that a particular place is special, a focus for spiritual power, a space in which the divine is somehow made more accessible than elsewhere. Whether one believes that there is anything intrinsically more sacred about one place over another, the structures we erect seem to become sacred with use, and there is often great unease, even among those who profess no particular faith, if they are destroyed. At the very least, they come to enshrine the history of a place. Still today people talk about the “miracle” of  St Paul’s Cathedral avoiding destruction in the Blitz, seeing it as a sign of hope, whether or not they believe that God had anything to do with it. Why so many other churches and cathedrals should not have been similarly spared is not considered, but, interestingly, the reborn Coventry Cathedrals and the symbolic use made of the ruins of the old Cathedral, has made it a focus even in its apparent desecration.

While the significance of sacred buildings to Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians might be taken for granted, we might think that Protestant churches would resist this urge to sacralise their meeting spaces. Certainly the Reformation brought with it a purge on statues, images, stained glass and other decorative elements of church buildings. The emphasis shifted from the visual to the aural, from the pictures of the saints to listening to the Word of God. Pulpits became the focus rather than altars, which were in any case downgraded to being mere tables. Distracting decoration was swept away and walls whitewashed. Pews were installed so that people could sit and listen to lengthy sermons. But even this “Stripping of the Altars” as Eamonn Duffy described it, was a statement about the significance of place. It was just that it was a different significance to that expressed in pre-Reformation Catholicism. The absence within churches, the space that had been created, was as much a statement of their holiness as the decoration had been; it was just a rather different statement. The place was still as special, but in a different way, marking out a space for worship just as certainly as Catholic churches did. Any Protestant or Anglican church leaders can testify to the “sacred” power of the church and its furnishings to those who worship in it. The pews which were once a novelty, for example, have become an essential feature that said “this place is a church” to many people and modern attempts to remove them often meet with howls of protest.

Even the Salvation Army, a denomination which eschews sacraments completely, has its items of sacred furniture. Nigel Bovey in his book, “Revisiting the Mercy Seat”, powerfully reasserts the importance of this key feature of Salvation Army halls.– Mercy Seats are benches set aside for those who feel they need to make some particular prayer, perhaps a prayer of dedication or repentance, or
to receive counselling or prayer ministry. The name is a reference to the seat which covered the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle and, later in the Holy of Holies in the Temple; it was the place where God’s glory was thought to dwell. A Salvation Army officer described to me how, in her childhood, they were always roped off with a red cord outside the time of the service, and the beginning of worship was marked by the removal of the rope barrier and the end by its replacement. They might bear a carved or painted message, or be left plain, but the mercy seat is not simply another bench, and many Salvationists find it disrespectful if things are put on the mercy seat which clutter it up, or if it is shunted out of its prominent place. As Bovey says:

“It’s hard to stomach the mercy seat being used as a jumble stall, a bench for the public address system, the repository for  luncheon club cutlery or a quick step up to the platform.”

Bovey describes the Mercy Seat as no having “a straight line family tree,” but rather being a “conduit with many tributaries”. He traces its history through the Scottish Presbyterian “penitent stool” and through the Puritan traditions, taken to the USA by early settlers, where John Wesley encountered its use and repatriated it to England. It was a feature of the Holiness revivalist movements of the 19th century, and William Booth is believed to have adopted it as a characteristic feature of the Salvation Army after hearing the Irish-American revivalist preacher James Caughey in Nottingham in 1846. One might also speculate whether another “tributary” might be from the penitential practices of the early church which set aside specific parts of the church which those seeking reconciliation might sit or stand as they gradually worked through their penance[i] . Variously called the Penitents’ Bench or Form, the Cuttie Stool, the Mourners’ Bench or the Anxious Bench, the traditions which used this piece of furniture would never have seen it as sacred in its own right, but, as Bovey points out,  within the Salvation Army the use of the Mercy Seat is undoubtedly sacramental; it is a means of grace for those who use it.[ii]

Is there a heart o'erbound by sorrow.
Is there a life weighed down by care?
Come to the cross, each burden bearing;
All your anxiety—leave it there.

All your anxiety, all your care,
Bring to the mercy seat, leave it there,
Never a burden He cannot bear,
Never a friend like Jesus!

No other friend so swift to help you,
No other friend so quick to hear,
No other place to leave your burden,
No other one to hear your prayer.

Come then at once; delay no longer!
Heed His entreaty kind and sweet,
You need not fear a disappointment;
You shall find peace at the mercy seat.

Edward Henry Joy, 1871-1941



[i] Martos. J. Doors to the Sacred, SCM press 1981 p.325

[ii] “When a person kneels, however often, at the mercy seat, it is sacramental, in the sense that it is an outward sign of an inner grace – an indication that ‘something’s going on’ in the person’s life.”

Bovey, Nigel. The Mercy Seat Revisited . Shield Books. Kindle Edition. Loc 267