Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/102

of Israel. Because of this system, the anger of the Lord is not turned away, but His arm is stretched out still. If then you love your people—if you desire their national exaltation, and their eternal welfare, lift up your voice and protest against the oral law. Condemn the Scribes and Pharisees as the inventors of the system, and the first authors of that moral captivity in which the people has been held for so many centuries. Now when you remember the mercies of the Lord in delivering you from the house of bondage, make an effort to deliver your brethren from the more degrading chains of error and superstition. At the same time we would ask you to consider the case of so many of your nation, who, when these chains were rivetting, gloriously maintained their freedom, and have left us a collection of writings, entirely free from every trace of this mistaken ingenuity. We mean the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. They, too, were Jews, children of Abraham, and of the stock of Israel. How is it then, that they who were condemned by the Talmudists as heretics, and propagators of a false religion, have left us the principles of a healthy, manly, and rational piety, whilst their judges and accusers have fallen headlong into error and even absurdity? If Jesus and his disciples were deceivers or fanatics, how is it that they were preserved from inculcating such false doctrines: and if the Scribes and Pharisees were right in condemning and persecuting them—were actually serving God in resisting false pretensions, how is it that they were given over to such delusions, and to such a system of trifling? That they were not infallible, the above extracts from the oral law prove beyond all controversy. They have altogether erred in the first element of acceptable worship, simplicity of intention and uprightness of heart. They have confounded the form with the reality of obedience to God's commands. And in all these things where they have erred, Jesus and his disciples have asserted and maintained the truth. Account for this fact. The Talmud tells you to light a taper and search for leaven in a mousehole, and to get rid of all in your possession by a fictitious contract. The New Testament says, "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor. v. 7, 8.)