Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/233



"Moreover, all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much, after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the King of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand—and they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof." (2 Chron. 14-19.) Here, then, obstinate idolatry is represented as the cause of the first desolation. Israel learned and practised the abominations of the heathen, and thus polluted the temple, and therefore God destroyed the temple and sent them into captivity. There were no doubt many and other great sins in Israel, but they are not mentioned, as if to show that nothing short of wilful and obstinate departure from God could have led him to adopt so severe a measure. As long as they retained their allegiance to God and rejected the abominations of the heathen, there was a hope and a possibility that they might repent of other sins, but when men obstinately turn away from God, and will not hearken to his warnings, all hope of repentance is at an end, and there is no alternative but just judgment. But was this the case in the second temple? Were the Jews then obstinate idolaters? Had they images amongst them, and did they pollute the second temple with such abominations of the heathen? No, rather than bow down to images, they willingly endured every torture, and offered up even their lives as a sacrifice to the truth, and when the second temple was destroyed, there was not amongst Israel a single vestige of idolatry. Never, in the whole course of their history, from the going forth out of Egypt to that day, was there such an apparently scrupulous observation of the letter of the law, and never had Israel had so many learned men devoted to the study