Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/268

 your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess." (Dent. v. 32, 33.) Here Moses requires perfect obedience as the condition of life, and does not allow a single deviation either to the right hand or to the left. It is not a single declaration, nor a sentiment wrested from its context. Moses repeats the same again and again. In the very next verses to those just quoted, he says—

"Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it; that thou mightest fear the Lord they God, to keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee; thou and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life: and that thy days may be prolonged." (vi. 1, 2.) Here again Moses requires perfect obedience to the whole law. He requires it of every individual of Israel. "Thou and thy son, and thy son's son;" and this universal obedience he exacts not at some stated period of the year, but every day of a man's whole life. "All the days of thy life." Moses leaves no room for some merits and some sins. If a man does what Moses requires, he can have no sins. If a man have any sins whatever, he does not fulfil what Moses requires as the condition of life. We might quote several other similar passages, but content ourselves with one, where Moses expressly declares that universal obedience is necessary to righteousness:—

"And the Lord commanded us to do these statutes, to fear the Lord our God always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do  these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us." (Deut. vi. 24, 25.) This is Moses' idea of righteousness, and if Moses be right the oral law is wrong. It says, "If a man's merits exceed his sins, he is righteous." Moses says, If a man keep all the commandments all the days of his life he is righteous. The oral law promises life to him