נתכוון ללקוט תאנים שחורות וליקט לבנות או שנתכוון ללקוט תאנים ואחר כך ענבים ונהפך הדבר וליקט הענבים בתחלה ואח׳׳כ תאנים פטור אע׳׳פ שליקט כל מה שחשב הואיל ולא ליקט כסדר שחשב פטור שבלא כוונה עשה שלא אסרה התורה אלא מלאכת מחשבת ׃ “If a man intended to gather black figs, but gathered white figs, or if he intended to gather figs and afterwards grapes, but the matter has been inverted, and he gathered the grapes first, and afterwards the figs, he is not guilty. Although he have gathered all that he thought of gathering, yet, because he did not gather them in the intended order, he is not guilty, for he did what was unintentional, and the law forbids only intentional work.” (Ibid.) We pass by the manifest absurdity of this decision, which is, however, sufficient to prove that this law is not of God, because it is more important to consider what is to be done with a man not guilty. The law of England, or any other civilized country, would say, of course, that he is to go free; but not so the oral law, it commands that the man should be flogged. וכל מקום שנאמר שהעושה דבר זה פטור , הרי זה פטור מן הכרת ומן הסקילה ומן הקרבן אבל אסור לעשות אותו דבר בשבת ואיסורו מדברי סופרים והוא הרחקה מן המלאכה והעושה אותו בזדון מכין אותו מכות מרדות ׃ “Wherever it is said, he that doeth anything is not guilty, the meaning is, that he is not liable to excision, nor stoning, nor a sacrifice, but that thing is unlawful to be done, and the prohibition is of the words of the Scribes, and is intended as a removal from the possibility of work: and he that does it presumptuously, is to be flogged with the flogging of rebellion.” (Ibid.) Here, then, we have a whole class of crimes which the oral law itself allows are no crimes according to the law of Moses, but which it thinks fit to punish with that dreadful and degrading infliction. Are the professors of this traditional religion really acquainted with its ordinances? or can any man believe that a religion which, if it had full scope and power, would become the torment of the human race, can emanate from God?