Five Pebbles from the BrookEnglish, George Bethune
Religion
Five Pebbles from the Brook
English, George Bethune
Everett, Edward, 1794-1865. Defence of Christianity; Rationalism
The Jews not a nation! ask the histories of mankind; ask all writers
who give an account of the different nations and peoples into
which the race of Adam is divided! and Mr. Everett will find that
they all consider the Jews as "a distinct and peculiar people."
"But, says Mr. Everett, p. 350, if they are a nation, we can be told
whereabouts they dwell, and what cities they inhabit."
Undoubtedly Mr. Everett can be told all this if he will take the
trouble to ask their chiefs; and if he does he will be surprised to
learn that the Jews, in cities and countries that can be named and
pointed out, amount probably to ten millions of people, governed
by their own law, so far as relates to their religion and intercourse
with each other, and yet Mr. Everett maintains that the Jewish
nation does not exist. [fn79]
But I have a solemn answer from immortal lips to give to Mr.
Everett's assertion, which he may possibly, if he be a religious
man, hearken to, and tremble.
"Thus saith Jehovah, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and
the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night;
which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; JEHOVAH
OF HOSTS is his name; if those ordinances depart from before
me saith Jehovah, then the seed of Israel shall cease being A
NATION before me FOR EVER.
Thus saith Jehovah, if heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I also will cast off
all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done saith Jehovah."
Jer. ch. xxxi. 35, 36, 37.
But, says Mr. Everett, p. 352, "above all, the Jews have no
national existence in respect of their religion; which is really the
principal point to be urged. The tribe of Levi which was separated
to the service of the temple, and the family of Aaron, exonerated
[fn80] to the priesthood, and ordained to be "a perpetual duration"
have both been long extinct, At least have long since ceased to be
traced."
This is incorrect. The tribe of Levi is not extinct, neither has the
family of Aaron ceased to be traced. Hundreds, perhaps
thousands of Jews at present existing, are recognized by their
brethren as of the tribe of Levi, and the descendants of Aaron to
this day have the privilege of blessing the people in the
Synagogues on solemn days, in a peculiar form which no other
Jews are allowed to employ.
This marvellous fact, that the descendants of David and Aaron
should yet be discriminated amidst the general confusion of the
tribes, is an illustrious verification of the following promise of Him
whose word never fails, which I now oppose to the last rash
assertion of his creature who has denied it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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