- dinary, if the Rabbinists really believe their own doctrine, that
Israel can be delivered from captivity by almsgiving, that they should set any bounds to their liberality, or ever stop giving, until the desired redemption be effected. If their doctrine be true, then all that they so earnestly pray for, is entirely in their own power. They know the means, and they possess the means of terminating this long captivity. They need only to give a sufficiency of alms, and, according to the oral law, even Zion itself shall be delivered. How extraordinary then, that they should have suffered so many centuries of misery to pass over their heads, and left their brethren to endure such calamities, when liberality in almsgiving could have put a period to all their sorrows. We think too highly of Israel's charity to suppose for a moment that they would hesitate to make the sacrifice, if they were persuaded of its efficacy. We must therefore infer, that they do not believe in the doctrine, and ask them, why do they profess a religion in which they do not believe?
No. XL.
PRIESTS AND LEVITES.
The great test of a man's faith in, and love to, his religion
is his practice. If a man live in open and perpetual transgression
of its commands, no profession can satisfy us that he is
in earnest, or that he really believes what his creed confesses.
Now let the advocates of the oral law examine themselves by
this test. They profess to believe in, and to love the law of
Moses; and their great boast is, that Moses is their master,
and that they are his disciples, but do they prove the reality of
their faith by their obedience? They sometimes tax Christians
with inconsistency in professing to believe in Moses, and yet in
neglecting the observance of certain ceremonial observances;
but are they themselves more careful and less guilty in this
matter? We do not mean to allude to the weightier matters
of the law, love to God and man: that is a question for the
conscience, not a subject for controversy, but we refer to some
mere external matters, easy of observance, and open to the
cognisance of every man. Moses and the prophets have commanded
that the priests, the Levites, (
Hebrew characters), should
be the teachers of the law, and that from them the people
