Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/325

 God as he hath commanded us." (Deut. vi. 25.) Here cannot possibly signify almsgiving. And again,

"And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness (not for almsgiving)." (Gen. xv. 6.) And again,

"O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face" (Dan. ix. 7), where it is impossible to say that "Almsgiving belongeth unto the Lord." The oral law is therefore guilty of perverting the meaning of one of the plainest and most commonly repeated words in the Bible, and of course of thereby giving an erroneous sense to the passage where it occurs. Thus it says, as we have seen above, "that by almsgiving the throne of Israel is established and the law of truth standeth," and it proves this assertion by referring to a verse of Isaiah, where the word occurs, and which signifies "by righteousness shalt thou be established," but which it perverts to mean "by almsgiving thou shalt be established." Here then the oral law is plainly convicted of falsifying the Word of God, and perverting its meaning in order to serve its own purposes and favour its own false doctrine. To teach false doctrine is bad enough, but to pervert the plain sense of Scripture is a great deal worse. Either charge, if proved, would be sufficient to prove that the oral law is a false religion, but here both charges are proved together. The oral law here teaches that almsgiving can do that which it cannot do, namely, bribe God to have mercy; and it supports its false doctrine by interpreting to signify "almsgiving," whereas it plainly signifies "righteousness." A religion guilty of such error cannot be from God. It is for the Jews, then, to consider whether they will persist in upholding the truth of a system which opposes the doctrines of Moses and the prophets, and perverts the Word of God. The great boast of the Jews is, that they are faithful to Moses and to the religion of Moses: but this boast is vain so long as they profess Judaism. If Moses were to rise from the dead, and get the oral law into his hands, he would not be able to recognise it as the religion which he left to Israel. And, as to the commands about almsgiving, he would not be able even to translate them, for in his time signified righteousness.

The prophet Isaiah would feel equal astonishment if he were to return and learn, that the oral law quoted him as an authority for the assertion, that Zion is to be redeemed, not with righteousness, but with almsgiving. And we doubt not that both Moses and Isaiah would protest as earnestly as we do against a doctrine based upon perversion. But it is extraor