is not only opposed to reason and Scripture, but also seems to contradict other statements of the oral law. Here the Gentiles appear to be marked out for destruction; whereas, we are told elsewhere, that the pious of the nations of the world are to have a part in the world to come: and that obedience to the seven commandments of the sons of Noah, is all that is required from a Gentile. If this be true, what need is there of giving them the command to keep the Feast of Tabernacles? But, above all, if they are to be cast down into the lowest hell, as the Prayer-book says, how can they have a part of the blessings of the world to come? It is at the very least, the duty of those who advocate the oral law, to explain this matter to us Gentiles. We cannot persuade ourselves that a religion, which makes so little provision for the eternal welfare of the great bulk of the human race, can possibly proceed from Him who is the God of the spirits of all flesh, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind. Living daily by his bounty, and receiving all we have at his most gracious hands, we believe that if He makes such provision for our bodies, He has made still more for our immortal spirits; and therefore, amongst other reasons, we believe in Christianity; for if it be not true, there is no spiritual provision for the Gentiles, and God has left the majority of his rational creatures without any proof of his paternal affection.

No. XXXVIII.

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD.

To the fool, who hath said in his heart, There is no God, it is a matter of little consequence, whether the religion of his forefathers afford a reasonable ground of hope or not.

He may therefore consistently neglect all inquiry into the nature and evidences of that religion in which he happened to be born. He does not believe in it, whatever it may be, and such an inquiry could have no interest for him. Not so with the Jew or the Christian, who honestly believes, as he has been taught, that there is, in another world, an abode of bliss, and another of woe. His earnest desire must be to know how he may attain to the one and escape the other; and if his religion does not afford him a hope, a reasonable, well-grounded hope of salvation, it is not worth the having. We say a reasonable hope, for as it has pleased God to endow us with reason and understanding, and to give us his Word to guide our reason, no other hope can or ought to satisfy us. In examining, then, the modern Jewish religion, one great test of its value is, whether it affords a hope on which a reasonable man can rely, and upon which he can hazard his eternal welfare. We think not, and we have already given some reasons for this opinion. The inconsistency and contradictory nature of the Rabbinic doctrines respecting justification and atonement appear to us so glaring as to destroy all confidence in the hope which they propose: and the custom, which prevails at this and other festivals, of praying for the dead, proves, beyond a doubt, that the Rabbinic hope is a mere delusion. Amongst the prayers of the Feast of Tabernacles, we find the following declaration and prayer:

נוהגים בתפוצות ישראל להזכיר נשמות אבותיו ביום כפור ובשלוש רגלים ביום מתנת יד לאחר הפטרה : יזכור אלהים נשמת אבא מורי פ'ב' פ' שהלך לעולמו בעבור שאני נודר צדקה בעדו בשכר זה תהא נפשו צרורה בצרור החיים עם נשמת אברהם יצחק ויעקב שרה רבקה רחל ולאה ועם שאר צדיקים וצדקניות שבגן עדן ונאמר אמן : יזכור אלהים נשמת אמי וכו' •

"It is customary among the dispersions of Israel, to

make mention of the souls of their departed parents, &c., on the day of atonement, and the ultimate days of the three festivals; and to offer prayers for the repose of their souls.

"May God remember the soul of my honoured father, A. B., who is gone to his repose; for that I now solemnly vow charity for his sake; in reward of this, may his soul be bound up in the bundle of life, with the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, with the rest of the righteous males and females that are in Paradise; and let us say, Amen."

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May God remember the soul of my honoured mother," &c. (Prayer for the Feast of Tabernacles, p. 156.) Now this custom and this prayer show that the Jews themselves do not believe in their own doctrines, nor put any trust in the hopes held out by the oral law; for if they did, they would never observe this custom nor offer this prayer. If they believed that their departed parents were already safe —that their merits, or the merits of their ancestors, or the day of atonement, &c., had procured for them pardon and eternal life, why should they offer alms, and pray that God would accept the alms as a ransom for the deceased? The fact of making such a vow and offering such a prayer proves, that the Rabbinical Jew has no ground for believing in the salvation of even his own father and mother; that on the contrary his belief is, that they have not been bound up in the bundle of life, and that they are not in paradise with Abraham and the other saints; but that they are in some other place, whence he hopes, by his prayer and his almsgiving, to ransom them. Here, then, we see that the Rabbinical hope is a mere delusion. After all his fasting and ceremonial observances, he has no hope after death of going to the mansions of the blessed. His sad prospect is, that when he goes hence, he must go to the place of punishment, and there abide until the prayers and alms-giving of his

children purchase his liberation. According, then, to this doctrine, every Jew and Jewess dies without pardon, for if they were pardoned, they would not go to the place of punishment, and if they did not go to the place of punishment, there would be no necessity to offer alms in order to deliver their souls. So then, after all the pretensions and promises of the rabbies, they here fairly confess that all the hopes which they have held out are a mere lie and a delusion; that none of their observances can deliver the soul, and that even after the dread hour of death, the survivors have still to undertake the work of saving the deceased.

This inference follows inevitably from the custom and the prayer which we have just considered; but it does not rest solely on these. The oral law furnishes other adequate proof, that the Jewish survivors of a departed parent do not believe that he is safe, and that therefore a dying Jew can have no hope of his own salvation; for it requires the surviving son to repeat a certain prayer for his departed parent, and that for many months, in order to procure his release, as we read in the Joreh Deah :

ע"כ נהגו לומר קדיש על אב ואם בתרא י"ב חודש וכן נהגו להפטיר בנביא ולהתפלל ערבית במוצאי שבתות שהוא הזמן שחוזרין הנשמות לגיהנם וכשהבן מתפלל ומקדש ברבים פודה

אביו ואמו מגיהנם :

"Therefore the custom is for twelve months to repeat the prayer called Kaddish, and also to read the lesson in the prophets, and to pray the evening-prayer at the going out of the Sabbath, for that is the hour when the souls return to hell; but when the son prays and sanctifies in public, he redeems his father and his mother from hell." (376.) Now every child who observes this custom, makes a public confession, that his deceased parent is not enjoying the bliss of Paradise, but suffering the torments of hell.

This is but a poor hope for a child respecting his parent, the very utmost limit of which is, that he is not one of the notoriously wicked, and that he may perhaps, by his prayers, get him out of the place of torment. But if he believes in the oral law, he must be convinced that his father or mother, with all their exertions, and notwithstanding the merits of their forefathers, and the benefits of the Day of Atonement, died in sin, sunk into perdition, and that he must now undertake the work of their salvation. The dying Jew, therefore, has no hope when he dies of being admitted to a state of happiness; he cannot die with the peace of one who knows that his sins are forgiven, but must look forward with horror to at least eleven dreary months of punishment in the abodes of the damned. The doctrine of the Talmud is, that those who die in communion with the Synagogue, or who have never been Jews, are punished for twelve months, but that Jewish heretics and apostates are doomed to eternal punishment.

פושעי ישראל בגופן ופושעי אומות העולם בגופן יורדין לגיהנם ונידונין בה שנים עשר חדש לאחר שנים עשר חדש גופן כלה ונשמתן נשרפת ורוח מפזרתן תחת כפות רגלי צדיקים שנאמ' ועסותם רשעים כי יהיה אפר תחת כפות רגליכם אבל המינין והמוסרות והאפיקורסין שכפרו בתורה ושכפרו בתחיית המתים ושפירשו מדרכי צבור ושנתנו חיתית' בארץ חיים ושחטאו והחטיאו את הרבים כגון ירבעם בן נבט וחביריו יורדין לגיהנ' ונידונין בה לדורי דורות :

"Israelites who sin with their body, and also Gentiles, descend into hell, and are judged there for twelve months. After the twelve months their body is consumed and their soul is burnt, and the wind scatters them under the soles of the feet of the righteous, as it is said, Ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.' (Mal. iv. 3.) But heretics, and informers,

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