Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/483

 by its laws respecting the killing and cooking meat (Nos. xlix.-liv.), it prevents the poor from getting food for themselves and their children.

8. It degrades the female sex, by permitting polygamy (No. xlvii.)—by permitting divorce on the most trifling pretext (No. xlviii.)—by declaring women incompetent to give evidence—by excluding them from the public worship of God—and by teaching that they are under no obligation to learn the revealed will of their Creator (No. iii.).

9. It oppresses and insults slaves, by forbidding them to be instructed in the law (No. iii.), and by placing them, when dead, on a level with brutes (No. lv.).

10. It is a persecuting and intolerant system. It gives every rabbi the power of excommunicating the Jews (No. xxxi.), and it commands the conversion of all the Gentile nations by the sword (No. vi.).

11. It forbids the exercise of the commonest feelings of humanity to those whom it calls idolaters. It will not permit a drowning idolater to be helped, nor a perishing idolater to be rescued, nor an idolatrous woman in travail to be delivered (Nos. iv. and v.).

12. ''It leaves those Gentiles who are not idolaters without religion.'' It teaches that they are not commanded to love God, and breaks up all the happiness of domestic life, by asserting that amongst Gentiles there is no such thing as marriage (No. viii.). For these and other reasons which might be adduced, we believe that Judaism is contrary to the religion of Moses and the Prophets—that it has not proceeded from God, but is the mere invention of men, and therefore false.

II. From these premises we have concluded, secondly, . One of the most daring acts of wickedness, that can be committed is to invent laws and principles, and pass them off as the laws of God. Every degree of wilful falsehood is sinful; but to forge Divine laws, and impose upon the consciences of men, is the most daring of all wickedness, for it not only deceives men, but it dishonours God. The Divine Being is represented as the author of principles and practices which are abhorred by the good even amongst men. Is it possible that those men could be good, who invented the fables of which we have spoken above—or who overturned the Mosaic constitution for the purposes of personal aggrandisement—or who teach that oaths may be broken with impunity—or that men may keep what does not belong to them—or that unlearned men may be murdered without ceremony—or that it is lawful to look upon the agonies and pain of an idolater without rendering him any assistance or feeling any