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their whole nation. But it may be asked, What has the opinion of the Jews to do with the question? In this case, we reply, it has every thing to do with it; for, as we have already shown at length, Jesus Christ and his apostles expressly sanction the scriptures received by the Jews, as inspired and canonical, and therefore it follows, that as the apocryphal books never formed a part of the Jewish scriptures, it is perfectly evident, that by Christ and his apostles they were regarded as spurious.

3. The third argument against the apocryphal books, is founded on the entire silence of the New Testament respecting them. They are never quoted by our Savior or his inspired apostles,never mentioned or alluded to by them, either directly or indirectly, in a solitary instance. From this it seems plain, that in the time of Christ, they were either entirely unknown or utterly disregarded.

4. A fourth argument against these books is, that they were not received as canonical by the christian fathers, but, on the contrary, were expressly declared by them to be apocryphal and spurious. Augustine is the only christian writer, within four hundred years of the time of our Savior, who is an exception to this remark. For a time he seems to have regarded six of these books as belonging to the canon, but afterwards, on more mature examination, he expressly retracted this opinion, and has left this retraction recorded in his writings; and still later in life he repeatedly rejects all the apocryphal books. The same was the opinion of the great body of the church for centuries together; and some of the most distinguished even of the Roman Catholic divines, in every age from the establishment of that church down to the sixteenth century, united in condemning these books as spurious, and in rejecting them from the sacred canon. From this successive and almost uniform testimony, then, it is evident, that the books in question are apocryphal,that they have no rightful claim to a place in the canon, and that the council of Trent acted unwisely and sinfully in decreeing that the Roman Catholics should receive them as of divine authority. They acted sinfully, for their decree was in the very face of the testimony of the Savior and his apostles, and by passing it they impiously arrogated to themselves the authority to add to the canon of scripture. They acted unwisely, for they were setting up their mere decree against the explicit testimony of ages, and in declaring that Tobit, Judith, &c. should be a part of the canon, they were acting as absurdly as if they had endeavored, by a mere vote, to render Shakspeare, or Gibbon's Rome, or even Voltaire's works, canonical,-to make them a part of the real word of God!

5. The fifth argument, proving the spuriousness of the books of which we speak, is derived from internal evidence. Books which contain manifest falsehoods, or which are filled with silly and ridiculous fables, or which contradict the plain and uniform doctrine of that which all admit is the real word of God, cannot be canonical. Most, or all of the books in question, however, are condemned by this rule. In the book of Tobit, an angel of God is made to tell a palpable falsehood, in one place declaring, that he is Azarias the Jew, and in another, that he is the angel Raphael. In the next book, Judith is represented as telling falsehoods repeatedly, and then as impiously praying God to bless them to the accomplishment of her purpose, and at the same time for all this she is commended; and of the whole book it may be remarked, that very many of its statements cannot be reconciled with authentic profane history. Between the first and second books of Maccabees there is an obvious contradiction; for in the former, Judas is said to have died in the one hundred and fifty-second year, and in the latter, he is spoken of as alive in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year, thirty-six years after his own death! In the first book, again, an entirely false account is given of the civil government of the Romans, and in the second a man is commended for committing suicide, Baruch, in the book of that name, is said to have read that book to Jeremiah, at Babylon, at the very time when we know from the canonical scripture, that he was a captive in Egypt. In the additions to the book of Esther, the conspiracy against the king's life is said to have been before the marriage of Esther, which is contradicted by the true canonical book, and it is also said, that Mordecai was rewarded for detecting this conspiracy, while in the real book of Esther the reward is said to have been conferred for detecting another. These are but a few of the many examples of inconsistency, and falsehood, and contradiction of the true word of God, with which these works abound. Did our limits permit, we might easily quote at length from each one of the remaining books of the Apocrypha, and show conclusively, from the foolish and absurd stories which they contain, that they are clearly spurious works.

6. The last reason, proving that the apocryphal books are not canonical, is, that they are not inspired. The succession of prophets terminated, and the spirit of prophecy ceased at the death of Malachi, and after him no inspired man arose until the days of John the Baptist. But all the apocryphal books were written within this period, when there were no prophets or inspired men on earth. Hence it is clear, from this considera

tion, as well as from the internal evidence afforded by the books themselves, that they are not inspired, and of course cannot be canonical. Very properly, therefore, are they called apocryphal. And though one or two of them, especially the book of Ecclesiasticus, contains many sound and useful maxims, still they should never be regarded as anything more than mere human compositions.

One more inquiry still remains: It respects,

V. The Jewish oral law. The Jews and Protestants, and the Roman Catholics, all agree in receiving the books of our canon of the Old Testament. But as the Catholics would add to these the apocryphal books, so the Jews insist on adding their oral law. They assert, that when the written law was given to Moses, inscribed on the two tables of stone, God also gave him another and a verbal law, explanatory of the first, which he was commanded not to commit to writing, but to deliver down by oral tradition. When Moses descended from the mount, they tell us, that he first repeated this oral law to Aaron and his sons, then to the seventy, and finally to all the people, each of whom was obliged again to repeat it in his presence, to insure its correct remembrance. Just before his death, say they, he again spent a month and six days in repeating it to them anew; and then they assert, that he, in a special manner, committed it to Joshua, through whom it was communicated to Phineas, and so on through the long line of prophets, and afterwards of teachers, down to the time of Judah the holy, (who lived in the second century,) by whom it was committed to writing, lest it should be lost. This work, consisting of six books, is the famous Mishna of the Jews, which, with its Gemara, or commentaries, constitutes their celebrated Talmud, in which is comprehended all their learning, and most of their religion, as a people. The whole work is held in far higher esteem by them than the bible,―so much so, that they say the bible is water, but the Talmud wine; nay more, they even declare, that the man who studies the bible when he might read the Talmud, does but waste his time, and that to sin against the latter is far worse than to sin against the former. So implicit is their confidence in this oral law, that it is almost useless to reason with a Jew out of the scriptures of the Old Testament. He is ever ready with an answer from the Talmud, with the authority of which he is fully satisfied. It is highly important, therefore, for us to show, that no such law was ever given to Moses.

We do not deny, that Moses might have received some erplanation of the written law; but we do assert, that if any

such explanation was given, it never was intended to form, and never did form, a second distinct law,-that it was not the same as the oral law of the Jews, contained in the Talmud, and that it was not received by Moses in a distinct form from the written law, with a prohibition against committing it to writing. In support of these positions, we remark:

1. That there is not the slightest mention of any such law in the sacred records; and, on the other hand, it is a well known historical fact, that what the Jews pretend is this law, was not known among themselves until more than two thousand years after they pretend it was given.

2. Moses was commanded to write "all the words of the law," and we are repeatedly told, not only that he did this, but that he "wrote all the words of the Lord." (Exodus xxiv: 4.) It seems plain, then, that he knew nothing of this pretended oral law, for he has not written a syllable respecting it.

3. The Jews themselves admit, that the only reason for giving this oral law, is founded in the imperfection of the written law of God. But God himself asserts, that his law, (meaning, obviously, the written law,) "is perfect ;" and he expressly tell the Jews, (Deut. iv: 2,) "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you." And again we are informed, that he requires nothing which is not prescribed in his law. Which is most worthy of our belief, the Jew or JEHOVAH?

4. God everywhere sends his people to the written law, as the rule of their duty,-never to any traditions; and not only so, but our Savior expressly condemns the traditions of the Jews as being contrary to the word of God, and it is of these very traditions that their oral law is composed.

5. Finally, this oral law was not recognized by many, even of the Jewish nation. At the time of our Savior, the traditions which composed it were utterly rejected by the Sadducees and Essenes, two of the three great divisions of the Jews; and as we have seen, it was never committed to writing until the second century. From these facts, as well as from the pretended oral law itself, it is plain, that it was never heard of until long after the Old Testament canon was closed; that so far from being derived by tradition from Moses, it consists merely of the traditions of the later Jewish rabbins; that it has no more claim to inspiration or canonical authority, than Don Quixote or the Waverly novels; and that it is a mere human production, which, with a vast amount of falsehood and nonsense, contains much that throws light upon Jewish manners and

customs.

Thus have we gone through with the four questions proposed for our investigation. To reverse the order of our discussion, we have seen, (1.) That the Jewish oral law, as contained in the Talmuds, is a mere human production, inconsistent with itself and with the word of God, and having no valid claims to divine authority. (2.) That the apocryphal books are opinions, and have no well-founded claims to admission into the sacred canon. (3.) That no canonical book has ever been lost. And we may now see, (4.) In a still clearer light, if possible than before, that the Old Testament, as received by us, contains the true and the only canonical books belonging to that portion of the word of God, and that it is in all respects, except so far as done away by the New Testament, a competent and safe guide of our faith and practice.

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The whole subject is in the highest degree practical. It may confirm the faith, and consequently strengthen the hopes of the christian. It may silence the cavils of the scorner, and disperse the doubts of the sceptic, and enlighten the minds of the ignorant. It may show us, that we have a reason, good one too, for the reception of every one of the books of the Old Testament. It may teach us how to instruct a candid, or silence a bitter adversary, and how to give to every one, in this respect, a reason for our hope. It warns the impenitent not to neglect or despise the word of God, lest by so doing, they quench the only light which might guide them to heaven, and their feet stumble on the dark mountains of death. It charges the christian to see to it, that his faith in its practice correspond to what he has admitted in theory; that he beware of the fatal, the damning inconsistency of claiming the christian's belief, and the christian's hope, while he is living in the disobedience and darkness of the infidel's life. Father of lights! may thy truth guide and instruct, sanctify and save, both writer and reader, may its joys, and consolations, and hopes be ours,may it point us to duty in every circumstance of life,-may it light up before us the dark vale of death,-may it guide us hereafter to the blessings which itself reveals,-to the cloudless light and the boundless blessedness of the upper world, where knowledge is forever perfect and joy forever full!

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