Messiah ought to have been born, and was born at the very time in which we believe the Messiah to have been born. But if he was born, who was he? What other person can make any claim to the Messiahship, but He whom we acknowledge? Is it reasonable to believe, as the rabbies do, that God actually sent the Great Deliverer down into this wretched world, and then took him away again, without permitting him to accomplish his work? No; if ever he visited this earth-and that he did visit it, both the ancient Jews and Christians assert, he could not have left it again without bestowing upon its inhabitants a remedy for their woes. The ancient rabbies and the Christians both agree as to the time of Messiah's birth, and the fact of his birth in Bethlehem. Indeed the whole nation practically showed their agreement with Christians, as to the time of Messiah's advent, by readily following every military adventurer who laid claim to the character of Redeemer. Even before the destruction of the temple, multitudes had suffered by their credulity; but immediately after the desolation, the people and the rabbies with one accord followed Bar Chochba, and thereby showed the reality of their belief, that that was about the time when Messiah ought to appear. Judaism, therefore, teaches this doctrine-that God promised the Messiah, that God fixed a time, that that time is past, and yet that God did not keep his promise. Christianity, on the contrary, acknowledges the promise, recognises the time, believes that Messiah was born, but believes further that God fulfilled his word-that Messiah was not carried away into Paradise, until he had accomplished the work that was to be done at his first advent. Then, indeed, we acknowledge that He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at God's right hand, from whence he will come again for the final redemption of his people, and the establishment of the reign of righteousness. The only real difference between us

is, as to the VERACITY of God. We believe that God did not, and could not, break his word. Modern Judaism teaches that God broke his promise. It is for rational beings to decide which doctrine is most agreeable to the Divine character. For our own parts, we will rejoice in God's unchangeableness, and say, in the remembrance, that "His truth endureth for ever."

No. LI.

SLAUGHTERING OF MEAT, CONTINUED.

ACCORDING to the confessions of the rabbies themselves, the time for the advent of Messiah is long since past, what is there then that prevents the Jews from believing in Him, who came at the appointed time? The grand objection is, that the nation is still in captivity; they say that Messiah ought to have given them liberty. The answer to this objection is, that Messiah was willing, and is willing to this hour, to give them liberty, but that they will not have it. The very first condition of national liberty and independence is moral and intellectual emancipation. No nation was ever yet enslaved until the hearts and intellects of the people had first become the slaves of corruption or superstition—and no nation that hugs to its heart the chains of moral slavery, can ever be made free, nor could it retain its liberty if it got it. When Messiah came, therefore, as he found the Jewish nation already under the Roman yoke, the very first step was to endeavour to emancipate their hearts and minds, and to deliver them from that moral bondage, of which their national degradation was only a consequence. This first step Messiah

immediately took-he protested against the superstitions of the oral law, and pointed them to the perfect liberty of God's written Word. But the nation chose to retain the cause of their misfortunes, and to reject the overtures of deliverance. If therefore they are still in a state of national dependence, they must not cast the blame on God, and say that He suffered the time to pass away without fulfilling his promise; nor upon the Messiah, when they themselves refused to receive that without which no national liberty can possibly exist. They chose to give themselves, body and soul, as bond-slaves to the oral law, there was, therefore, no possibility of national redemption. It would require an act of omnipotent coercion, such as God does not employ, to make a nation free against its will. But perhaps the Jews of the present day will deny that they are in a state of moral and intellectual slavery. We refer them, in reply, to the numerous proofs already given in these papers, and especially the laws of any or slaughtering, upon which we have a few words to add. Where in all the world can a more wretched slave be found, than the man, who himself, together with his family, is ready to perish of hunger, and yet dare not partake of wholesome food, offered by the providence of God, because his rabbinical task-masters say, No? But now take another instance :

כל טבח שלא בדך הסכין שלו ששוחט בה לפני חכם ושחט לעצמו בודקין אותה • אם נמצאת יפה ובדוקה מנדין אותו לפי שיסמוך על עצמו פעם אחרת ותהיה פגומה וישחוט בה • ואם נמצאת פגומה מעבירין אותו ומנדין אותו ומכריזין על כל בשר ששחט שחוא טרפה :

"If a slaughterer, who has not had his slaughtering knife examined before a wise man [a rabbi], slaughters by himself, his knife must be examined. If it be found in good order and examined, he is to be excommunicated,

because he may depend upon himself another time, when it has a gap in it and yet slaughter therewith. But, if it be found to have a gap, he is to be deposed from his office, and excommunicated, and proclamation is to be made, that all the meat which he has slaughtered is carrion." (Jad Hachazakah, Hilchoth Sh'chitah, c. i. 26.) Here we have the same slavery and the same cruel oppression. In the first place we see the intention to make the Jews entirely dependent upon the rabbies. The Jews are not to eat meat unless it be slaughtered as the rabbies direct, and the slaughterer himself is not even to do that, which he knows to be right according to the oral law, without the express sanction of the rabbies. All are to be in bondage, not merely to the oral law, but to the rabbi for the time being. They are to have no mind and no judgment of their own. In the simplest concerns of life they are to be entirely dependent upon the will and judgment of another. In the second place, we see the determination to maintain this tyranny by the severest punishments. The man who has slaughtered without showing his knife to the rabbi, even though they have no fault to find with him, is to be excommunicated-but if a rabbinic flaw in the knife should be detected, then not only the man himself is to suffer, but those who employed him, and also the Israelites themselves to be deprived of food. All that he has slaughtered is to be declared unfit for use. Who can deny that those who think their consciences bound by such laws are in miserable bondage? Who, that has his senses and God's Word to guide them, can believe that a small gap in a knife is sufficient to make meat unfit for food? Who ever saw a knife, or even the finest razor that ever was manufactured, without a series of such imperfections? Let a rabbi, who has just pronounced, concerning a knife, that it has no gap in it, apply a microscope, and he will soon find out that a

knife without gaps never existed. He will be convinced that the oral law requires what is impossible, and therefore cannot possibly be from God. Who then can deny that those who are bound by it, are the slaves of superstition? There never was, and never will be in the world, such a thing as a knife without the least possible gap, and consequently there never was, and never will be, any meat fit for the food of a Rabbinist. The Jews must therefore either give up the use of meat entirely, or they must give up the oral law.

If the oral law were uniformly severe, and everywhere required that its adherents should obtain the best possible evidence that their meat was properly slaughtered: or in case they could not obtain this evidence, that they should entirely abstain from meat, the consistency of the doctrine would in some measure justify, or at least excuse the credulity of the Jews. But this is not the case, its authors felt the inconvenience of their own doctrine, and therefore relaxed whenever it suited themselves. For instance, they say,

הרי שראינו ישראל מרחוק ששחט והלך לו ולא ידענו אם יודע אם אינו יודע הרי זו מותרת • וכן האומר לשלוחו צא ושחוט לי ומצא הבהמה שחוטה ואין ידוע אם שלוחו שחטה אם אחר הרי זו מותרת • שרוב המצויין אצל שחיטה מומחין

הן :

"If we were to see an Israelite at a distance who had slaughtered a beast, and he was to go his way, and we were ignorant of the fact whether he understood the art or not, in that case the meat is lawful. And in like manner, if a man should say to his messenger, Go and slaughter for me, and should find the beast slaughtered, but it should not be certain whether his messenger, or another person, had slaughtered it, this also is lawful, for the majority of persons concerned in slaughtering are skilful.” (Ibid., c. iv. 7.)