Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/175

 when the reader declares of Israel that there is no blemish in them, for they are all entirely perfect, when he knows and feels that he and all his brethren are just as frail, as sinful, and as imperfect as the other sons of men? How can they expect the return of God's favour to their nation so long as these fictions are made a part of public worship? Moses teaches very different doctrine. He says, "If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember: and I will remember the land." (Levit. xxvi. 40-42.) Here Moses makes a conviction and acknowledgment of guilt, an indispensable preleminary to the return of God's favour to the nation. Israel must feel that, so far from being cleansed from all impurity, their heart is uncircumcised, and this uncircumcised heart must be humbled; but how is this possible, so long as the oral law and the prayers of the synagogue teach that the Israelites are the most righteous of mankind, because they received the law, which the other nations rejected—and the most pure, or rather the only pure, of mankind, inasmuch as they were cleansed from every taint at Sinai? These doctrines harden the heart against true humility, prevent true repentance, and thereby retard the happiness and the glory of Israel.