ויצינו ה׳ לעשות את כל החקים האלה ליראה את ה׳ אלהינו לטוב לנו כל הימים לחיותנו כיום הזה , וצדקה תהיה לנו כי נשמר לעשות את כל המצוה הזאת לפני ה׳ אלהינו כאשר צונו ׃
“And the Lord commanded us to do ALL 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 ALL 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 who confessedly has sins. Moses requires perfect and universal obedience as the condition of life. It becomes, therefore, an important, an awfully important, consideration for every Israelite, whether he will rest his soul’s salvation on the word of Moses, or on that of the oral law. If he rests upon the oral law, than he will be satisfied that a partial obedience is sufficient to secure everlasting salvation, and in this hope he will die. But if he is to be judged according to the law of Moses, he will, at the hour of God’s judgment, find himself awfully mistaken. Moses knows of no righteousness, but that of universal obedience every day of a man’s life, and promises life to none but those who have this righteousness. He that has it not, therefore, must be condemned. And let every Israelite mark well that Moses has not left us to draw this just conclusion from the premises which he has laid down, but has himself stated, in the distinctest and plainest terms, That he who does not yield this universal obedience is accursed. And that no man may mistake his meaning, he sums up all that he has said upon this subject, and repeats, that he who keeps ALL God’s commandments shall be blessed, and that he who does not keep ALL God’s commandments shall be accursed:—
ונינ אם שמוע תשמע בקול ה׳ אלהיך לשמור לעשות את כל מצותיו אשר אנכי מצוך היום ונתנך ה׳ אלהיך עליון על כל גויי הארץ , ובאו עליך כל הברכות האלה וגו׳ ׃
“And it shalt come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do ALL his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee high above all nations of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee,” &c. And then, after enumerating the blessings, he adds—
והיה אם לא תשמע בקול ה׳ אלהיך לשמור לעשות את כל מצותיו וחקותיו אשר אנכי מצוך היום ובאו עליך כל הקללות האלה והשיגוך , ארור אתה בעיר וארור אתה בשדה וגו׳ ׃
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do ALL his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field,” &c. (Deut. xxviii. 1-15.) Here Moses plainly says, that he who is perfectly obedient is blessed, and that he who is not perfectly obedient is cursed. And it is to be noted that Moses knows nothing of an intermediate state of man, the בינוניים who are neither righteous nor wicked. He divides all Israel into two classes, the blessed and the cursed. He who keeps ALL God’s commandments belongs to the former; he who does not keep ALL God’s commandments to the latter. In this matter, than, the most important that can employ the mind of man, the oral law contradicts the plain words of Moses. One of the two is certainly in error. It is for the Israelites to choose whether they will believe Moses, or that oral law which contradicts his words. If they believe in Moses, then no one is accounted just before God, but that man who has all the days of his life kept all God’s commandments without one deviation. Every other person is so far from being just, that he is accursed. If there were a human being who had all his life kept all the commandments, and only once been guilty of transgression, that one transgression makes him unjust and accursed. But there is no such person. Every man’s conscience tells him that his sins far exceed his obedience, and therefore if Moses speak truth he is accursed. Oh, let no one endanger his salvation by trusting to the oral law. Let him take up the law of Moses, let him investigate the conditions which Moses lays down. We ask not now, that the Israelites should read the New Testament, or that they should listen to our arguments or any reasoning of man. We simply point out to them the words of Moses, and we show other passages of the oral law which teaches an entirely different doctrine. We ask, then, whether the man who rebels against the law of Moses can hope for salvation? Yet this is what every one who follows the oral law is doing. If his temporal welfare only were concerned, it would not be of such moment. But here his eternal interests are at stake. If the oral law be mistaken, and mistaken it is if Moses spoke truth, their eternal salvation is forfeited by every one who follows it. We therefore entreat every reader of this paper to take up the law of Moses, and to investigate this question:—“What are the conditions of blessing and cursing, of life and death, according to the declarations of Moses? Does he promise life to that man whose merits exceed his sins, or does he require universal obedience?” To Moses himself we appeal, and him we constitute the arbiter of our differences.
No. XXXIII.
NEW YEAR, CONTINUED.
We showed in our last number that the first axiom of the. oral law respecting the mode of justification is false. Moses requires perfect and universal obedience to all the commandments as the condition of justification and life, whereas the oral law says it is sufficient if a man’s merits exceed his sins. One of the two, then, has spoken falsehood. It is for the Jews to consider which of them they will brand with the character of liar. As for ourselves, we believe that Moses spoke the truth, and by his standard of right and wrong we proceed to examine the second and third principles of Rabbinic justification. The oral law tells us, further, that when God weighs the merits and the offences, “This weighing is made not with respect to the number of the merits and the sins, but according to their greatness. There is a merit which may outweigh many sins, as it is said, ‘Because in him there is found some good thing.’ (1 Kings xiv. 13.) And there are sins which may outweigh many merits, for it is said, ‘One sinner destroyeth much good.’ (Ecclesiast. ix. 18.)” And for this reason we are told that “In the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement, Israel abounds in almsgiving and good works more than in all the year besides.” Such is the hope which the oral law holds out to Israel. It first tells a man, that if his merits exceed his sins, he is safe. Then feeling that none but a fool or madman can dream of his merits exceeding his sins, it tries to quiet the conscience by assuring the guilty, that the quality of the deeds is regarded more than their number, and that there may be one meritorious act which will outweigh many sins. It endeavours to prove this by a citation from the Book of Kings. This is in itself suspicious. Why did it not bring one or more plain passages from the Books of Moses? They contain the law of God, and the great principles of God’s judgment. In determining a case like this, an appeal to the letter of the law is absolutely necessary. Let every Israelite, then, before he trusts his salvation to the oral law, find out one passage in the law of Moses, where Moses himself declares that “one merit may outweigh many sins.” We know not of one similar declaration, and therefore hesitate not to say, that whosoever rests his salvation on this hope, has apostatized from the religion of Moses.
But the passage itself, which the oral law cites, proves nothing in support of the above principle. The words were spoken of the son of Jeroboam. “He only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.” (1 Kings xiv. 13.) There is not one word said here about his being justified by that one good thing, whatever it was. It did not save the child from his sickness. It did not change the sentence of death into life. All it did was to procure him a peaceable burial. How, then, can any reasonable man argue, because the son of Jeroboam had a peaceable burial, that therefore some meritorious act will save him from the punishment due to his offences? To warrant such a conclusion, he ought first to show that the son of Jeroboam had been a grievous sinner like his father, which the Bible does not say; and, secondly, that this one meritorious act had obtained pardon of his sins, and restored him to life; and moreover it ought to be expressly said, that God considered him as just. The very circumstance that the rabbies were obliged to have recourse to such a passage, and that they could find nothing better in the law or the prophets, shows that they were hard pushed to find anything that would even bear a faint resemblance to their doctrine.