Hence it is evident that though the extraordinary receipts in thefe five years have amounted to more than five millions, and have even been affifted by loans of near 1,200,000l. they have not been fufficient to fupply a million furplus. But the money borrowed on the Tontine and Short Annuity by no means include the whole of the debt which has been incurred fince the first establishment of the Confolidated Fund. The following statement will fhew that a variety of other particulars ought to be added to the account. • Amount of the Debt incurred by the Public from the 5th of January 1786 to the 5th of January 1791. Borrowed in 1786 by Exchequer bills then firft iffued, Anticipation of the Lady-day quarter of the Sinking Increase of navy debt on December 31, 1790, compared Borrowed on 14,cco Short Annuity in 1789 1,000,000 628,982 537,950 274.228 1,002,140 187,000 Total 3,630,300 In the courfe of five years the fum of five millions has been appropriated to the payment of the debt, which exceeds the above fum by 1,369,7col. But it should be remembered that the expence of the Spanish armament amounted to three millions; and, therefore, the debt contracted from the year 1785 to the year 1791, notwithstanding the extraordinary receipt of five millions, exceeded the debt redeemed by more than a million and a half.-In the last year the revenue appears to have been more productive than in any of the preceding years.-Allowing it however even to have fup plied the million furplus after paying the expence of the Ruffian armament (which is not very probable) the money borrowed will fill exceed the money paid, and no real progrefs will have been made in diminishing the public debt.-I am aware that the expence of the Spanish armament is reprefented as only a temporary debt that will be entirely difcharged in four years in confequence of the heavy taxes which have been impofed for that purpofe. -But admitting this to be true, it does not make that expence to be less a debt at prefent, nor afford any reason, while it continues unpaid, for excluding it from the foregoing account.' Mr. Morgan, at the clofe of this interefting publication, has the following remarks: 'I cannot conclude thefe obfervations without taking notice of a pamphlet lately published under the fanction of the Treafury, and entitled, "A brief Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, "Commerce, and Navigation of Great Britain." According to the different statements in this work, it may be inferred that the progrefs which has been made in redeeming the national debt has been fo rapid, that above fix millions of it have been already extinguifhed. If the Spanish Armament, the Anticipation of the Sinking Fund, the Arrears due from the East India Company, and every other article of expence and extraordinary receipt, excepting the Navy Debt and Tontine, be excluded: all this may poffibly be true: or in other words, if the whole money that is paid be confidered as fo much faved, and the whole that is borrowed to affect this payment be not confidered as a debt, it may perhaps be allowed that the finances of the nation are in an improving ftate, and that the Minifter has difcovered a more expeditious method of difcharg-t ing the public debts than by the operations of compound intereft. But this is not the ordinary mode of balancing accounts, and however well it may be calculated to anfwer a particular purpofe, it must appear to those who have no wish to be deceived, fufficiently abfurd and prepofterous, without the affittance of argument to expofe it. The obvious defign of this work is to imprefs the public with an idea of their great obligations to the Miniftry for the wisdom of thofe measures which have conducted the nation to its prefent ftate of profperity; and in order to enhance this obligation, the year 1783 is felected for the contraft, when a war which had nearly deftroyed the refources and credit of the kingdom had just been terminated. I believe there are few inftances in which, Minifters of State have any claim to the gratitude of a country for I do not know that the appropriation of 400,000l. this year (in addition to the million) to the difcharge of the debt, is any proof that fuch a furplus has really arifen from the produce of the taxes. We have feen that in the five preceding years a million has been annually applied to the fame purpote, although the expenditure conftantly exceeded the revenue by more than this fum. But it is not my defign in this work to enter into the accounts of the prefent year. Thefe may poflibly come to be examined in fome fature time.' D 3 promoting promoting its trade and manufactures; but that, on the contrary, they often deferve its feverest reprehenfion for checking their progrefs, and even ruining them altogether. If therefore the commerce of this kingdom has increased of late, it has been by the gradual operations of a peace of nine years, and the induftrious Spirit of the people, not by any encouragement it has received from the prefent Adminiftration. Their claims to gratitude are indeed peculiarly improper, and they ought to blush in affuming to themselves the leaft merit on this occafion. For, by the impofition of vexatious taxes, by the extenfion of the excife +, and by three fucceffive armaments, our commerce has been materially obftructed; and confequently the high degree of profperity to which it is faid to have now arrived, has been attained not only without the affiftance of Ministry, but even by furmounting the impediments which the operations of government have oppofed to its progrefs.' From the masterly manner in which this pamphlet is drawn up, Mr. Morgan fhews himself to be well skilled in political arithmetic. E. ART. V. Thoughts on Public Worship: Part the First. Containing a full Review of Mr. Wakefield's Objections to this Practice; with fuitable Anfwers. By J. Bruckner. 8vo. Is. 6d. Johnfon. 1792. PP. 66. MR. R. Wakefield has here, according to the common phrase, met with his match. For reafoning, Mr. Bruckner returns him reafoning; for learning, learning; and for raillery, fuch an abundant portion of raillery, that he may very properly be faid to have given him a Rowland for his Oliver. It is chiefly, however, on the hiftorical part of the question, that Mr. B.'s pamphlet merits the attention of the public. He proves, much more clearly and fully than any of Mr. W.'s other antagonifts, that the Jews, in the time of our Saviour, had public liturgies, which it was the bufinefs of an appointed officer to read in their fynagogues; and, confequently, that Chrift, by making it his cuftom to attend the fynagogue on the Sabbath-day, gave his fanction to public prayers. The following paffage will, we have no doubt, be acceptable to thofe of our readers who have attended to this controversy: Prayers, both private and common, are accordingly mentioned in every defcription which has been given of the fervice of the Synagogue, whether by Jewish or Chriftian writers. Private prayers were repeated individually, but the next were delivered by the Chazan, or minifter of the Synagogue; the people attending to them with their heads covered, and repeated inclinations. This Glove-tax, Hat-tax, Shop-tax, &c.' 'On Wine, Tobacco, Cotton Manufactory, &c.' fhort fhort fketch is copied from two writers whofe names alone, with refpect to many, would be fufficient to warrant its accuracy. However as opinions differ, and as I wish to leave no doubt on the fubject here under confideration, namely, "the united noife of the parfon, and the congregation," I will endeavour to prove more particularly, that this circumftance is not peculiar to the Chriftians of the prefent age, but that they have it in common with the Jews, taking their mode of worship as it ftood when Chrift lived amongst them. The nature of my affertion requires that I should confider it, I. With regard to the real exiftence of Social Worship among the Jews. II. With regard to the substance, or component parts of that worship among them. I. That Social Worfhip was, as it ftill is, practifed among the Jews, at the beginning of the Chriftian æra, is evident; (1) From their Synagogues having been from time immemorial, under the direction of an infpector or minifter, whom they called the Chazan, whole office is thus described by their own writers. The Chazan †, an inspector of the congregation appointed to take the lead in public prayers. (2) From the ufe of liturgies among them, both for the fervice of the Synagogue and Temple, which Liturgies being repeated, by the Chazan in the Synagogue, and the Prieft in the Temple, the people answered to the prayers contained in the former, by the ufual acclamation, Amen; and to thofe in the latter by certain doxologies . (3) From the ideas of fuperior excellence and efficacy which they attached to prayers uttered in concert with a whole congregation. God, fays one of their writers," does not reject the prayers of the congregation, though finners fhould make part of it; it behoves a man therefore, to join in its prayers, that he may not pray alone, while he has an opportunity of praying with the congregation §." II. That the Jewish prayers in the Synagogue confifted of fomething more than mere bleffings, as furmifed by Mr. W, is probable from Paul's inftructions to Timothy ¶, refpecting public prayers which he divides into Supplications, Prayers, Interceffions, and Thanksgivings: for it can hardly be fuppofed that the Jewith Synagogue which, in every other refpect, except the doctrine, was Beaufobre & L'Enfant Preface Générale fur le N. T.' + Chazan inspector congregationis ille eft qui Ecclefiæ præit in præcibus publicis. Elias Levita ex Baal Aruch. Apud Vitringam in Archifynagogo.' Buxtorf on the word Chazan, fays accordingly, Nuncius Ecclefiæ qui deftinatus erat Synagogæ neceffariis operis præftandis. Hic maxime oratione feu præcibus & cantu Ecclefiæ præibat. Diction. Rab. Talm.' See Lightfoot Hora Hebraic. in Matt. vi. 9.' § Orationes congregationis non refpuit Deus, etiamfi mixti illic adfint peccatores. Neceffe eft ergo ut homo fe congregationi afsociet, ne folus oret, cum datur opportunitas orandi cum congregatione. Thephil. cap. 8. Apud Lightfoot. Hor. Heb.' · ¶ 1 Tim. ii. 1.' 1 the archetype of the Chriftian Synagogue, as the Chriftian place of worship is called by one of the Apostles, should not have had fomething fimilar in the divifion of its prayers. We find accordingly that it divided them into Bleffings, Supplications, and Petitions, the first comprehending doxologies, or bleffings properly fo called; the fecond, prayers for the remiffion of fins; the third, fupplications for various bleffings, more particularly, for the prefervation and proper ufe of fuch as are difpenfed daily by the bountiful hand of Providence 1. Mr. Winforms us that he has visited the Synagogue, and gives it as his opinion that "when the high priest makes a prayer, it is to himself, the congregation neither hearing, nor feeming defirous to hear him ;" but as he does not "pretend to any fatisfactory acquaintance with the fubject of Jewish devotion;" the query is, what thofe have advanced who have made it the favorite fubject of their ftudy. Had Mr. W- but looked into the works of thefe men, he would have gained more information concerning the Jewish manner of worshipping the Deity, in one hour, than he could in twenty spent in the Synagogue. Thefe men, far from fiding with Mr. Win questioning the existence of Social Worship among the Jews, fpeak of it as a thing too well known to enter into a particular detail of the proofs on which refts its reality. Of this I fhall give but two inftances, as more would be tiresome to the reader. The learned Lightfoot, than whom no commentator has thrown more light on the Gofpel Hiftory, has the following paragraph in his account of the Jewish Synagogue: "To inform the reader that public prayers were delivered by the Chazan, in the name of the congregation, who answered Amen to every one of them, would be needleis, and to tranfcribe these prayers would be tedious. No one can be ignorant that prayers conftituted. the principal part of the fervice of the Synagogue ." Vitringa the father, though a competitor with Lightfoot for the Talmudiftical laurel, agrees, nevertheless with him, in giving exactly the fame account of the ancient Jewish mode of conducting divine fervice. "The prayers of the Synagogue," fays he, "were read by the Chazan, out of certain books of Liturgies containing the prayers of the ancient Church §." Profeffor Vitringa's affertion is the more to the purpose, as he had told his reader before hand, that he con James, ii. 2.' + See Ikenii Antiquit. Hebraicæ, part i. chap. ii. and Buxtorf. Diction. Rab. Talm. in voce Selichouth.' 1 Jofephus Contra Apion, lib. ii. cap. 23." Non opus eft ut memoremus fufas pro toto coetu, ab Angelo Ecclefiæ præces, coetumque unicuique orationi refpondentem Amen; & nimium effet præces iftas fingulatim recitare. Sat notum omnibus præcipua opera in Synagogis fuiffe præces. Hor. Heb in Matt. iv. 23.' Fundebantur vero præces a miniftro Synagogæ excertis formuJarum libris, qui veteris Ecclefiæ præces complectebantur. Vitringa Lib. cit.' |