Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/468

 the law." (Nedarim, fol. 31, col. ii.) So that there can be no doubt that this is the doctrine of the oral law. Now just let the reader consider the nature of circumcision. It is, in the first place, an external act,—it is, in the second place, an act performed without the will of the infant, and at a time when he can exercise no act of moral responsibility, and yet the mere act is placed above the highest perfection of a created being, love to God and his fellow-creatures. But the oral law does not merely assert this doctrine, but gives its proofs, and the first is, that to the precept of circumcision the threat of excision is annexed. Of course, we admit the fact, for it is plainly said, "The uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant" (Gen. xvii. 14); but we deny the consequence. There is nothing peculiar to circumcision in the annexed threat of excision. God has pronounced the same threat against every presumptuous sin, as it is written, "But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him." (Numb. xv. 30, 31.) Here we see that presumptuous transgression of any one of God's commandments will be visited with the same punishment denounced against the omission of circumcision, so that the annexed threat is far from proving that this precept is superior to all the other affirmative commandments. On the contrary, it shows that God does not judge by the external act, but by the state of the heart, and that presumptuous disobedience of any commandment, as demonstrating an utter want of love to him, will be visited with the severity of his wrath. It is further alleged, "That Abraham was not called perfect until he was circumcised,"—and this is proved in the Talmud, by the words, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect." But these words do not prove that, even after his circumcision, Abraham was called perfect; they are a command to be perfect, but not a declaration that he was so; and it cannot be urged that by being circumcised he obeyed this command, and thus became perfect, for this would open an easy way of attaining perfection to the most abandoned of mankind. Besides, it is easy to prove that this word "perfect" is also given to the uncircumcision. Long before circumcision was given, it was applied to Noah. "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God" (Gen. vi. 9), where that which