SECTION VI.

On the Views of Religion presented in the Writings of the Jewish Prophets, and in the Psalms, compared with those found in the Pentateuch.

IT has been remarked, as affording evidence that the Pentateuch was not the work of Moses, that its authority is not appealed to by the Jewish prophets, the public teachers of religion among the Jews. But the writings of the higher class of prophets furnish evidence more direct to establish the same conclusion.

The religion inculcated in the Pentateuch consists very much in rites, and especially in offerings and sacrifices. The precepts concerning rites are multiplied, reiterated, and enforced in the most solemn manner. But by the prophets before the Captivity such observances are spoken of in the most disparaging terms. The language in which our Saviour has been supposed to have repealed the Levitical Law is not more full and explicit. But those prophets had no authority to repeal that Law. Their language, therefore, proves that they did not recognise such observances as enforced by God, and, consequently, that they knew nothing of the Pentateuch as the work of Moses. Their spirit is wholly different from that which appears in the Levitical Law. They insist in the strongest terms upon moral goodness as the sole recommendation to God's favor.

But it may be said, that the prophets are to be understood as disparaging the observance of the ceremonial Law only when such observance was made a substitute for higher

duties, or was practised by habitual transgressors; and were, therefore, far from teaching that a strict regard to it rites, as ordained by God, was not in the highest degree obligatory. This may appear at first view a plausible explanation of much of their language. But it is to be recollected, that if the Law proceeded from God, then the observance of the rites of the Law was a most solemn duty taking its rank, so far as the Jews were concerned, with the clearest of those obligations, which are imperative upon all men. The explanation given, therefore, supposes that the prophets spoke contemptuously of one duty in order to excite men to perform other duties; that they treated with disrespect what God had commanded in order to lead mer to obey his will. On the supposition, that the Levitical Law was ordained by God, the Jews offered sacrifices, and observed the other rites of that Law, because they believed them to have been commanded by God, and with the view of obtaining his favor. Thus far they acted right; and they were not to be reproved and discouraged in doing right, whatever, on the other hand, might be their de ficiencies and sins. But, further than this, if there were no intrinsic moral worth in the ceremonies of the Law, ther they could have been ordained only as means of holiness and the absence of holiness in the people afforded no reason for repelling them from the appointed means of obtaining it. According to the representations of the Jewish history they could hardly, at any time, have been a more pervers and disobedient race than their ancestors on whom those ceremonies were enjoined. It would, therefore, seem, tha those who have acquiesced in the explanation that has been mentioned, can have done so only through unconsciously transferring to the prophets their own secret and unacknow

ledged sense, unacknowledged even to themselves, of the worthlessness of the rites of the Levitical Law. The observance of them, it is agreed, did not constitute holiness; nor can it appear a suitable means of attaining it, if, as the explanation supposes, actual holiness was necessary to render such observance any thing but a matter of reprehension.

To illustrate the subject, let us imagine that the practices at one time in high repute in the Romish Church, fasting, the scourging of one's self, other self-inflicted sufferings, and the iteration of forms of prayer, all which were supposed to be conformable to the will of God, had been in fact expressly and most solemnly enjoined by him. It is evident, that no preacher of true religion, under a conviction that such was the fact, could, by way of reforming the Roman Catholic Church, even when fallen into its most corrupt state, have spoken of those practices contemptuously, or have made a disparaging comparison of them with other duties which he was recommending, or have ventured, through any license of rhetorical language, to represent them as not ordained and not required by God. The application of this imaginary case to the real case before us is too obvious to be dwelt upon.

With these general views let us consider some of the passages that occur in the writings of the prophets and in the Psalms.

THE prophet Amos ascribes these words to Jehovah.*

"I hate, I despise your feasts;

I have no delight in your solemn assemblies;

* Ch. v. 21 - 25.

When ye offer me burnt-offerings and flour-offerings
I will not accept them;

Nor will I look on the peace-offerings of your fat
lings.

Away with the noise of your songs:

I will not listen to your harping:

But let justice flow as water,

And righteousness like a mighty river.

Did ye offer me sacrifices and offerings

In the wilderness, for forty years, O house of Israel?:

Beside the general character of this passage, the con cluding question may be particularly remarked. It i equivalent to a strong affirmation, that the Israelites did no offer sacrifices and offerings during the forty years afte their leaving Egypt. But this is directly contrary to wha is related in the Pentateuch.

NOTHING can be more striking than the following pas sage from Micah.*

"With what shall I appear before Jehovah,

And bow myself before the Most High God?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
With calves of a year old?

Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams;
Or ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my first-born for my transgression;
The fruit of my body for my sin?'

'O man! he has made known to thee what is good:
And what does Jehovah require of thee,

* Ch. vi. 6 – 8.

But to do justly, and to love mercy,

And to walk humbly before thy God?""

I PASS to the prophet Isaiah.*

"Of what value are the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says Jehovah.

I am weary of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;

And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats.

Who hath required this of you, when ye come to appear before me, to trample my courts?

Bring no more vain oblations."

"Wash

you; make you

clean;

Put away your evil deeds from before my eyes;

Cease to do evil; learn to do well;

Seek to do justice; relieve the oppressed;

Do right to the fatherless; defend the cause of the widow."

THE following passage is from Jeremiah. It may be remarked, that it was written after the discovery, as represented, of "the Book of the Law," in the reign of Josiah, and the events immediately consequent.

"Thus says Jehovah, God of hosts, God of Israel: Put your burnt-offerings with your sacrifices, and eat the flesh;

* Ch. i. 11 - 17.

↑ Ch. vii. 21 – 23.

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