NOTICES.

THE following Subjects are appointed by the Church of God, denominated Freethinking Christians, for the instruction of the Public on the Sunday Mornings, at their Meeting-house, Crescent, Jewin Street, Aldersgate Street. The Business commences at Eleven o'Clock PRECISELY.

July 6.-The character of Moses, with a view to shew his fitness for the circumstances in which he was placed, and the objects he had to accomplish.

July 13.-On Marriage, and the present Marriage Ceremony. July 20. The doctrines of the Trinity and of Transubstantiation compared.

July 27.—Unitarianism compared with Christianity.

August 3d.-The Constitution and Discipline of the Christian Church.

August 10th. The grounds of the Reformation from Popery in the sixteenth century, and the necessity of completing it by reverting to the principles taught by Jesus and his apostles.

August 17th.-An explanation of scripture difficulties-Joshua and the sun standing still-Sampson-the witch of EndorJonah in the whale's belly.

August 24th.-Death-bed Repentance.

August 31st. The character of Paul-with a view to shew his fitness for the peculiar objects he had to accomplish, and to explain how far he becomes an example to the Christian in the present day.

Sept. 7th. The nature of Sacrifice.

Sept. 14th.-A Review of the moral Government of the Deity. Sept. 21st. The scripture doctrines of Heaven and Hell. Sept. 28th.-Popular religiou compared with the principles laid down in the New Testament.

MRS. FRY AND THE QUAKERS.

The notice which was taken in our last number of this distinguished lady has moved a Quaker gentleman to undertake her defence. Although it is far from our intention to render our pages a vehicle for individual controversy, yet, as the letter of our correspondent speaks the sentiments of a large class of the community, with regard to Mrs. Fry's public services, we purpose in our next publishing this letter, together with a full exposition of the principles, pharasaical spirit, and political subserviency of MODERN QUAKERISM.

We are gratified to find our labours approved by our correspondent from Gloucestershire.

On the Creation and Fall of Man, Essay II. together with other important articles which have been delayed on account of the space occupied in our present number by Dissenters' Marriages, will appear in our next.

HETHERINGTON, PRINTER, 13, KINGSGATE STREET,

IN

ON RELIGIOUS WORSHIP.

ESSAY IV.

THE JEWS-THEIR TABERNACLE WORSHIP.

"What is man?

Where must he find his Maker? with what rites

Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless?

Or does he sit regardless of his works?

-Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts."—Cowper's Task, Book II.

N our former Essay the point was established, from a reference to the passages of scripture bearing upon the subject, that public social prayer was not commanded by Deity, or practised without such command at the creation of man, or at any time throughout the patriarchal ages. We have now to proceed another step in the investigation, and to enquire-Was this practice instituted by Moses, or was it afterwards, by divine direction, introduced into the tabernacle, or temple worship?

The advocates of prayer-performed socially and in public and (in these respects) distinct from the prayer of the closet, do not pretend to adduce in its favour the command either of Jesus or his apostles. They admit that they do not find the practice instituted in the New Testament; and the most learned and the most competent amongst them are likewise compelled to confess that it is equally without warrant from the writings of the Old.

Dr. Prideaux (himself an advocate of social prayer; and more than any other writer quoted in support of its observance) allows, that the Jews, " till after the Babylonish captivity had

"not any set forms of prayer" (Connection, vol. 3, p.382); and adds after speaking of the devotions of the people at the temple, during the time of sacrifice" neither had these any public forms to pray by, nor any public ministers to officiate to them herein; but all prayed IN PRIVATE, TO THemselves,

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"AND ALL ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN PRIVATE CON

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every man the

"CEPTIONS." Here it is conceded that their prayers, although made in a public place, were strictly individual, all praying "in private to themselves," and each, of course, according to their several wants and dispositions; knowing (to use the language of Solomon on this very subject) "plague of his own heart." The parable of the publican and the pharisee, also, affords Dr. Prideaux an apt and striking illustration in support of this position; and supplies us with an argument not the less strong, because it is incidental, in confirmation of our views upon the same subject. Dr. Priestley also, in a work expressly written in support of public social prayer, makes, on this part of the subject, the following remarkable concession,-" In the usual mode of worship, among the Jews, the people prayed in the great court of the temple, "at the time that the priests were offering incense in the holy place, EACH PERSON PRAYINg for himself.'

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These concessions, supported as they may easily be by the most ample proof from the scriptures, present, it may be observed, not only direct proof that the practice was never adopted by the Jews, but, in the way of inference, afford a strong argument against the abstract propriety of the practice at any time, and, particularly so, against its performance in the present age. Prayer in public, and socially performed, is a form or ceremony. If, therefore, ordained by Deity at all, it certainly, from the very nature of things, would have been ordained by him under the Mosaic dispensation, rather than at a later period, and as part of a more enlightened system. Was Judaism more mental, more spiritual, more retiring in its practice and discipline, than Christianity? Surely not; yet such it would appear to be in the views of the writers above quoted, and of others who coincide in their views; for while they describe the children of Israel as free, in reference to prayer, from "public forms," and each "praying for himself in private, and according to his own conceptions," they make it the boast and the duty of the Christian to submit to the slavery of "public forms"-to

*Letters to a Young Man, occasioned by Mr.Wakefield's Essay on Social Prayer. By Joseph Priestley.

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do worse, indeed, than returning to the beggarly elements of ceremonies; for they call on him to adopt a public, regular, and formal mode of prayer, to which even the Jewish people never submitted! Is this correct?-is this rational?-is this consistent with enlightened views of the principles of Christianity?

The tendency of this argument has been perceived, and the necessity of proving, above all things, that the Jews practised social prayer, has been strongly felt. Writers, indeed, and some of them individuals whom we might expect to have found better advised, have hazarded some bold assertions on this subject.

Lewis, in his Hebrew Antiquities,* in speaking of the temple service, thus expresses himself: "It is certain that prayers were daily put up, together with their offerings; "and though we have very few constitutions concerning them, yet the constant practice of the Jewish church, and the par"ticular forms of prayer yet extant in their writings, are a "sufficient evidence. FOR THIS PURPOSE THEY HAD "LITURGIES, OR PRESCRIBED FORMS, WHICH MAY BE "PROVED TO BE IN USE FROM THE VERY INFANCY “of the HebREW NATION."-Vol. ii. p. 431. A similar position has been maintained by some of the more modern authors, who would appear, indeed, to derive much of their information, and their argument, from the laborious writer above quoted. Mr. John Pope, in his reply to Gilbert Wakefield, professes to find the practice of public social prayer in every stage of the progress of the Jews as a nation (see chap. iii.); and Mr. Thomas Moore, in his recently published Inquiry into the Scriptural Authority for Social

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Worship," affirms that he is" able to prove that social prayer was a practice with which the ancient Jews were familiar;" "that, “from the infancy of their nation, they were accustomed "to it," the "entire service of the temple" (prayer having been stated as an essential part of that service)" being not "only public but AS SOCIAL AS POSSIBLE."-(See pages 29, 32, 56, 58, 146, and others.)

These assertions go full to the point; proof alone is

* Origines Hebrææ, the Antiquities of the Hebrew Republic.-By Thomas Lewis, M. A. 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1724.

+ Divine Worship, founded on Nature and supported by Scripture Authority, an Essay; with remarks on Mr.Wakefield's Arguments against Public Worship. -By John Pope, Tutor in the Belles Lettres and Classical Literature in the New College, Hackney, London, 1792

wanting to their support. If the Jews practised social prayer "from the infancy of their nation," the practice must have been commanded them by Deity: let the command be pointed out to us. If the Jews adopted prayer," not only public, but as social as possible," as part of the institutions of their temple worship, let the institution be pointed out to us. Lewis, or Moore, possessed, or possess, on this subject no peculiar sources of information; they could, or they should, only have drawn their inferences from the Bible; and we too have the Bible before us, from which to draw our inferences, and on which to found our opinions. In which book, then, we ask, in what chapter, and in what verse, do they find the institution of public social prayer as a religious ordinance given to the Jewish people? Theirs, it has been frequently asserted, (though, perhaps, with some little incorrectness of expression) was a religion of forms and ceremonies; many such, indeed, expressly commanded and ordained by Deity, we find recorded in the writings of the Old Testament; and (as must ever be the case with mere ordinances, which are of arbitrary appointment, and not founded on any general principles, either moral or physical) instructions the most precise, the most particular, the most minute, are there given them with regard to those forms and ceremonies. All their feasts and holidays are ordained; all their religious officers are appointed; all their forms and ceremonies are described to the minutest particular. Page after page is filled with descriptions, down even to the very dresses of the priests, with details as to the nature and circumstances of their sacrifices; the day-the hour-the person-each is defined; nothing is left to surmise, or to conjecture. Where then, we ask, is the appointment, where the description, where the details, of public social prayer? It cannot be said that this was too unimportant an institution to need such precision; for its defenders, as we shall see hereafter, contend for its efficacy as superior even to that of any other ordinance, or religious ceremony; it cannot be argued that command and direction were unnecessary here, for they are here more necessary than on any other subject. Public social prayer, the combined act of a multitude, can only exist by command or by previous concert. This is so much the case that the Prayer Book of the church of England, with its rubric of instruction for the priest and people, forms, at this day, a volume of itself, and is established and defined by an act of the legislature. The public prayers of the modern Jews, with the various ordinances for the observance of the priests and the