Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/263

 the Messiah is, that he will care for the poor. "He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy." (Psalm lxxii. 4.) He, therefore, cannot have the religion of the oral law. He will not be a rabbi, nor a rabbi's disciple.

No. XXXII.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

The season of the Jewish year, which we are now approaching, naturally leads us to the consideration of some subjects more important than those which we have lately discussed, the oral law teaches that the festival of the new year is nothing less than a day of judgment, on which God pronounces sentence respecting the state of every individual:

"As the merits and the sins of a man are weighed at the hour of his death, so likewise every year, on the festival of New Year's Day, the sins of every one that cometh into the world are weighed against his merits. Every one who is found righteous is sealed to life. Every one who is found wicked is sealed to death. But the judgment of the intermediate class is suspended until the Day of Atonement. If they repent, they are sealed to life, but if not, they are sealed to death." (Hilchoth T'shuvah, c. iii. 3.) This naturally leads us to consider the rabbinic doctrine of justification, and to inquire how far it agrees with Moses and the prophets. And here our first business must be to state the doctrine as it is found in the oral law.

This law teaches, first, that he whose merits are more than his sins is accounted a righteous man:—