before us the disciples of the Lord Jesus healing the diseases of all who applied, without reference to their religious opinions. (Acts xix. 11.) We repeat our question, then, which system is according to the truth and the will of God, the Talmud, or the New Testament? Your brethren in France and Bavaria have declared, by adopting the New Testament exposition, that it is right; and by rejecting the intolerant principle which pervades the oral law, that the oral law is wrong. We trust that your hearts respond to their declarations. But we do not rest the decision on the natural feelings of the heart, we appeal to Moses and the prophets. The question is, do the laws, which God gave respecting the idolatrous nations of Canaan, apply to all other idolaters, and under all circumstances? The oral law answers this question in the affirmative, and hence the source of all those revolting laws which we have just considered. But the oral law is wrong: 1st, Because it draws a general conclusion from a particular case, which is contrary to all sound reasoning. That the command to destroy these nations was peculiar appears from the command itself—God does not speak generally of all the heathen, but only of certain nations which he specifies—“When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with, nor shew mercy unto them.” (Deut. vii. 1, 2.) Here the command is precise, and is as much violated by extending it to those to whom God has not extended it, as by refusing to execute it on those whom He has here designated as the just victims of his wrath.