A FATHER'S PRAYER. SLEEP, lovely one! beside thy peaceful bed May'st thou be blest, my child! When fear alarms, But to return more fondly to that home, And with endearing innocence entwine, Thy playful limbs-thy happy heart with mine. A safer refuge-holier home be given, When thy young thoughts expand from earth to heaven. ON RELIGIOUS WORSHIP.-ESSAY VIII. THE SYNAGOGUE WORSHIP.-GENERAL VIEW. "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. 337. FROM the first number of our Register, we have been engaged in proving that the modern practice of public social prayer is unsupported by scripture. The seventh essay (p. 254) only brought up the question to an examination of the worship of the Jewish temple; an examination of the remaining parts of the subject, conducted on the same scale, would evidently have occupied many succeeding essays; the close of our Work at this time compels us to compress what we have to say into one essay. To do this, we have of course abridged much and omitted much; we do not pretend, indeed, in this number, to give more than an outline of our argument; having discussed at length the early part of the subject, our object now is to give the clue only to the remaining part. The honest mind, which values truth sufficiently to labour after it, will feel a motive to follow the clue which we have afforded. We seek the approbation of, and have ourselves laboured for, none other. Having, in our former essays, entered on a part of the argument as to social prayer, hitherto but little entered upon, namely, the evidence of the Old Testament, and the practice of the Jewish people, we have, in the early part of this essay, endeavoured, on nearly the same scale, to complete that part of the subject. What follows as to the teaching of Jesus, the principles of Christianity, and the general view of the question, is in the abridged form explained above, and as an abridgment must be regarded by the reader. A a Turning, then, to the practice of the Jewish people, we have seen, in the former essays, that the priests were appointed to sacrifice, the levites to sing, and that the people prayed individually, not socially, in the outer court of the Jewish temple. Pursuing yet further a negative of argument, it will be found-not only that prayer was not-but that it could not-have been practised in the temple. In support of this, we may refer, first, to the description of the temple and its courts; and, secondly, to that of the duties of all the officers: and these descriptions we will takenot only from the scriptures-but even from the writings of the very men who advocate the practice of social prayer. From these we shall see that there was no place for public social prayer, and no person by whom it could have been conducted or administered. First, For descriptions of the objects and contents of the temple, see 1 Kings vi. and vii.; 2 Chron. ii. to v.; and, in illustration, Ezek. xl. The temple, both as a whole, and in all its parts, is here described, and there is no PLACE appointed for social prayer. Consult also Godwyn's Moses and Aaron, book ii. chap. 1; Jennyngs's Hebrew Antiquities, book ii. chap. 1; Lewis's Origines Hebrææ, book iii. chap. 10 to 18; Fleury's Short History of the Israelites, part ii. chap. 16. These works, often quoted in favour of social prayer, contain plain and, in some of the cases, minute descriptions of the temple and all its parts, and yet there is no one spot which either of them appropriates to the social prayer of the Jewish people.* 1 * Lewis occupies many chapters in describing the temple, and the objects of its various parts, and names no place appointed for the social prayer of the people; in a subsequent part of the work, whilst describing the process of sacrificing, he incidentally says" and now they" (the priests) "go into the room Gazith, which they used as an oratory for public prayer." B. iv. chap. 13; see also Lightfoot's Temple Service, chap. ix. § 4. For this assertion, or for the very existence of the room, called Gazith, at all, Lewis produces no authority whatever. The service of the temple was national, and intended for the whole Jewish people; how can we believe then, that its prayer, if social, would have been confined to "a room?” and that too a room not mentioned or even alluded to in scripture? When we call for cases from the scriptures of social prayer, we are told, as a reason for the paucity of evidence, that the thing was of too common occurrence to be recorded; how is it then that Lewis has learned the very name of the room in which the Jewish priests prayed socially? Where and why has that name been recorded? But our chief object now is to point out that this writer, who professes to be acquainted with the very name of "the room" in which the Jewish priests prayed, yet in a long and minute description of the temple, has discovered no place intended for, or appropriated to the social prayer of the Jewish people; nay, has in the same volume acknowledged (b. iv. chap. 1) that "under the temple the people were usually left to their own conceptions." Is not this to give up the whole question? for if the people were left "to their own conceptions" how could they practice social prayer? We turn to the OFFICERS of the temple. The duties of all those officers are described, yet no one of them is appointedto social prayer. First, The priests; see their duties stated Numb. iv. 16, vi. 23; 1 Sam. ii. 27; 1 Chron. vi. 48, xvi., xxiii. 13; 2 Chron. xxix.; Heb. viii. 3. See on this subject, Godwyn, book i. chap. 5; Jennings, book i. chap. 5; Lewis, book ii. chap. 1 to 8; Croxall, Scripture Politics, chap. 7. Secondly, The levites; for their duties, see Numb, i. 50, iii. 6—18-39, the whole of chapter four; viii.9; Deut. x. 8; 1 Chron. vi. 31, ix. 32, xv. 2—16, xvi. 1, xxiii. 3. Consult also the same authors, as under the head priests. The only remaining officers of the temple, sanctioned by the scriptures, are, Thirdly, The Nethenims, "the hewers of wood and drawers of water." See Deut. xxix. 11; Neh. vii. 46; and also consult the authors above quoted. In these passages, and in these writers, will be found, described at length, the offices and duties of the priests, the levites, and the nethenims; and they none of them include social prayer, or the conducting the prayer of the people, among the number of those offices or duties. We do not say, for ourselves, that these writers (Godwyn, Lewis, &c.) are authorities on the subject, for we think the scriptures the best, if not the only, authority; but as these writers are constantly quoted by others, in support of social prayer, we refer to them, and find that, on their own shewing, it never could have been practised in the Jewish temple; for that there was no officer appointed to lead in, or administer it. Besides the above, these writers cite other officers, not named by the scriptures, and chiefly quoted on rabbinical authority. See, particularly, Lightfoot on the Temple Service, chap. iii. sec. 8; Godwyn, &c. as above; and Prideaux, part 1. b. vi. Here we find officers named Sagan, two called Katholikin, seven called Immarkalin, various stationary men, and fifteen species of overseers for various purposes; but no one of these officers, and indeed no officer whatever, appointed for public social prayer. We infer, then, that, in the Jewish temple, * Lightfoot, from the stores of whose rabbinical learning all subsequent writers on Jewish subjects have borrowed largely, for the interests of truth perhaps too largely, describes, in his treatise entitled "Temple Worship," the duties of the high priest and priest, in which duties social prayer are not included. He then, upon rabbinical, not scriptural authority, goes on to describe the other officers of the Temple, but not one of these are described as employed in social prayer. Sagan, he says, was undoubtedly next to the high priest, and vicegerent to him. Of the Katholikin there were two; their office was uncertain, but it is supposed that they had the care of the treasury. The Immarkalin were seven, in whose keeping were the seven keys of the gates of the court. There were also the Gizbaren who were substitutes for the Immarkalin. even on the shewing of the advocates of social prayer THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR IT, AND NO PERSON BY WHOM IT COULD HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED OR ADMINISTERED. . Another accumulative species of proof may be adduced to the same effect. If the Jews, as is asserted, regularly practised social prayer, they must have practised it on great and solemn occasions, particularly on their sabbaths, feasts, Lightfoot also, on the authority of the Talmud and of Maimonides, informs us that there were fifteen kinds of overseers in the Temple, and thus describes their offices and occupations. 1 An overseer concerning the times (of commencing). 2..... 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 for shutting the doors. of the guards. of the singers. of the cymbal music. of the lots. about birds. of the seals. of the drink offerings. of the sick. of the waters. of making the shew bread. of making the incense. of the workmen that made the veils. for providing the garments of the priests. While then there were overseers for all these purposes, how did it happen that there were none for social prayer? The singers, the cymbal music, &c. were thus watched and provided for-why not those who led the prayers of the people? Neither from scripture then, nor from the rabbinical writers, nor from the modern defenders of the practice, is there evidence that there was any officer employed in the temple for that purpose. Among the officers of the Jewish temple, it is asserted that there were men called "men of the station." "PERHAPS (Mr. Moore says) the Israelites of the station were considered as leaders of the devotions of the people." For this office, and its supposed duties, see Godwyn, book i. chap. 5; Lightfoot's Temple Service, chap. vii. sec. 3; Lewis, book ii. chap. 14; Prideaux, vol. i. page 382; Pope, page 45; Moore, page 45 and 58. This office all these authorities agree, is unknown to the scriptures. The words of Lightfoot are emphatic:-"this, indeed, is a title that is strange to the scriptures.' Yet upon this strange title, Moore and others build one of their chief arguments in favour of social prayer. The matter is put thus: The law required that those who offered sacrifices should be present at them. As all the people could not be present at the national sacrifices, it is inferred that they stood there (hence the term stationary men) by their representatives. Moore goes yet further: asserting that it was the duty of the people to be present at social prayer in the temple; he then assumes that, in prayer too, as before it was assumed with regard to sacrifices, these stationary men were the proxies, or representatives, of the nation. The absurdity of this conclusion, founded as it is too on a long string of unproved assumptions, Mr. Moore himself feels. "With the absurdity of worshipping God by proxy, (he adds) whether by Jews or others, our argument has no concern; but the constant attendance of these representatives of the people, who were necessarily absent, is by no means irrelevant." And he immediately adds an inference from this circumstance, that "the whole services of the temple were strictly social." The sociality of prayer, the people who joined in which were absent, would rather appear to involve an Irishism. |