are they responsible for the doctrines which it teaches; and so long as they abstain from a public renunciation of the oral law, they must be considered as believers in its authority. It will not do to renounce one particular doctrine, whilst they profess faith in the general system. The body of traditions is a whole which cannot be parted. They have all come down, resting on the same evidence; if, therefore, the evidence be invalid in any one case, it is invalid in all; and if any one admits its validity in some cases, he cannot, if a reasonable man, deny it in others. He may dispute about the conflicting opinions of the rabbies, but if he admit any one of those doctrines which are called traditions from Sinai, he must admit them all, and, consequently, this which professes to be one of them. It remains, therefore, for the Israelites of the present day to choose, whether they will still retain the system of the oral law, and thereby sanction the dispensation from oaths, or whether they will repudiate this doctrine, and thereby renounce the whole oral law.
No. LVIII.
MERITORIOUSNESS OF CIRCUMCISION.
Wherever there is an internal principle of religion, it will,
like all other principles, manifest itself in external acts, and in
an external form of rites and ceremonies. It is just as impossible
for a living man to continue without giving any signs of
life, as for the religious principle to exist without an outward
expression. It is the universal law of creation that every vital
principle should manifest itself and therefore, when the Creator
himself was pleased to give a religion, he ordained certain
rites and ceremonies to give notice of its existence, and to
serve as the body in which the soul should reside. Rites and
ceremonies, therefore, are not to be despised, even when devised
by man, for they are demonstrations of an internal life from
which they proceed; but when instituted by God, they are
doubly important, because besides being a sign, they have all
the authority of a Divine command. False religion, however,
is not satisfied with this acknowledgment, nor this measure of
reverence. It goes still further, and elevates the external sign
above the thing signified, by making the external rites the
great essentials of religion. Thus, in the time of the Prophet
Isaiah, the Israelites thought that the act of sacrifice, and the
external observation of the Sabbath and holidays, formed the
