to say that there is anything peculiar in the system. We know that the Provincial Letters develop a Gentile system as corrupt and corrupting. But that system has nothing to do with the Christianity of the New Testament. Our forefathers renounced it long ago. The Jews still adhere to the oral law, and in their prayers and observances still acknowledge its Divine authority; and wherever Judaism exists in vigour, these are the doctrines instilled into the minds of the young, and to which the flower of the Jewish nation devote the vigour of their manhood and the judgment of their old age. That there are Jews who abhor this system, and have adopted the purer principles of the New Testament, even though they do not profess Christianity, we well know. But how is it that there are none who have courage to protest against it? How is it that there is not one who comes forward to emancipate his brethren from moral slavery and the galling chain of superstition and error? "There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth: neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up." (Isaiah li. 18.)
No. XV.
SABBATH MIXTURE.
In discussing the substance and tendency of the oral law, the
very nature of our design compels us to dwell upon its peculiarities,
and to notice those traits which appear as its essential
characteristics. Our object is not, primarily, to show its defects
and fruits, but to prove that it is not of Divine authority. In
proving this, it is absolutely necessary to show, by a comparison
with the law and the prophets, as the unerring standard of
right and wrong, that the system is bad. We know, and have
more than once admitted, that as it is not a mere human
invention, but a corruption of a divinely revealed religion,
it must contain much that is good. But this admission no more
justifies the system, than a small quantity of gold in a mixed
metal would prove that the whole mass is gold. And this
comparison may be well illustrated by the holy day constitutions,
which have lately occupied our attention. The
concluding paragraph of these constitutions contains several
beautiful and pious precepts; as, for example, after the
