Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/422

 lieve that, if God meant to forbid meat and milk entirely, he should first express himself incorrectly, and then leave the correction of the error to uncertain tradition? If the command had only been once noticed, it would have been hard to believe such a thing; but when we remember that this command is thrice repeated, in Exod. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26, and Deut. xiv. 21, it is plainly incredible. Thrice is the command written, and thrice it is restricted to one particular case, and yet the rabbies have dared to make unauthorized additions of their own, and their followers to this day exalt them to a level with the laws of God. It cannot be replied that the rabbies would not commit such wickedness as this, for every one who knows anything of the oral law, knows that a great proportion of it consists merely of the words of the Scribes, acknowledged as such, and distinguished by that name from the supposed traditions from Sinai. Thus in the constitutions before us, it is plainly confessed that the written law allows the flesh of wild animals and of fowl in milk, and yet the rabbies forbid it:—

"And thus the flesh of a wild animal or of fowl, whether in the milk of a wild or tame animal, is not forbidden as food by the written law, and therefore it is lawful to boil it, and to profit by it. But according to the words of the scribes, it is unlawful to eat it, lest the people should go farther, and be led into a transgression of the written law, and eat the flesh of a clean beast in the milk of a clean beast: for the letter of the written law refers only to a kid in its mother's milk in the strictest sense; therefore the wise men have forbidden all meat in milk." In this there is no equivocation, but a simple confession that the rabbies have taken upon themselves to forbid what God has allowed; and have, without ceremony or scruple, made great additions to his law. It matters little what the motive was, the conduct itself is in the highest degree presumptuous. The pretence, that these additions were made only for the purpose of keeping the people far removed from sin, will not serve as a ground of justification. If God had desired such precautionary measures, as being either necessary or beneficial, he would have prescribed them