But there is another feature in this doctrine concerning amulets, which must not be overlooked, and that is that the manufacture of amulets may be made a mere trade for collecting the money of the credulous. If a man get a reputation as an approved manufacturer, the believers in the oral law will naturally apply to him in case of sickness, or other circumstances, where amulets are of service, and of course the remedy is not to be had for nothing. We have known and heard of such things both in the west and in the east. And thus the poor Israelites are led away from the God of Israel, and induced, as the prophet says, “To spend their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not.” But what a testimony does this whole doctrine furnish to the conduct and the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth? His great endeavour was to show the apostacy of the oral law, and to lead the people back from tradition to the Holy Scriptures. Was he right or was he wrong? Which is the religion, of the oral law or of the New Testament, most agreeable to the religion revealed to Moses and the prophets. Is the practice of magic a Mosaic doctrine? Is permission to hold converse with evil demons a Mosaic doctrine? Is astrology a Mosaic doctrine? Is the manufacture of amulets and charms a Mosaic doctrine? No; they are all directly opposed to the doctrine and commandments of Moses, and the practice of all the holy men of old. Are these things doctrines of the oral law? Yes. Are they the doctrines of the New Testament? No. Christians are taught to abstain from all such things. Then in this, at least, Christianity is more like Mosaism. How long will the Jews suffer themselves to be thus deluded and imposed upon? Many are perhaps ignorant of the details of that system which they profess, but such ignorance is highly culpable. If men profess a religion they ought to know what it is, and what are its doctrines, and what the practices which it prescribes. Modern Judaism teaches, as the truth of God, all these heathenish notions and practices; it is time, then, for the Jews to inquire whether this be the true religion in which they have continued for so many centuries, and if not, to stand in the ways and ask for the old paths. It is a vain thing for a few individuals of the nation to attempt to deny that these superstitions are an essential portion of modern Judaism. As long as the oral law is acknowledged to be of Divine authority, that oral law must itself be taken as the witness for its own doctrines, and the standard of the modern Jewish religion. There is no possible middle course: either Jews must altogether and publicly renounce the Talmud as false, superstitions, and heathenish, or they must be content to be regarded in one of two characters, either as its faithful disciples, who believe all it says, or as timid men-pleasers, who are afraid to confess the truth of God, or to protest