σε open; his entrails come out, and his bowels are taken "and dashed in his face. After the three days a man "receives judgment on his eyes, his hands and his feet, "which have committed iniquities, till the thirtieth "day. The sixth is the judgment of hell. The "seventh is, that his soul wanders, and is driven "about the world, finding no rest anywhere till the days of his punishment are ended."

In answer to an objection urged against parts of this, that a dead body is not capable of feeling, Rabbi Isaac says, “A worm in a dead body is as painful as

The precepts of modern Judaism are enumerated by the Rabbies, six hundred and thirteen. They are divided into two classes-affirmative and negative. The affirmative are two hundred and forty-eight; answering, as we are gravely informed, to the number of members in the human body. The negative are three hundred and sixty-five; which rabbinical anatomy pronounces to be the number of veins, or other smaller vessels.

Rabbi Crool, of Cambridge, in his book on the restoration of Israel, speaking of the two tables of the decalogue, says: These two tables contained "the whole six hundred and thirteen precepts of the

law." And the reason he assigns is highly characteristic of modern Judaism. It is this: "In the ten "commandments there are six hundred and thirteen

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letters, and each letter stands for one command;

"and in the whole law of Israel there are six hundred "and thirteen commandments: and such was the "power of these two tables, that it contained the "complete law. Thus far it is proved that a perfect "God gave a perfect law.”

In a work entitled Prayers for the New Year, printed in London in 1807, and used in the synagogues, we find the following painful specimen of modern Judaism:-

"O! deign to hear the voice of those who glorify "thee with all their members, according to the num"ber of the two hundred and forty-eight affirmative "precepts. In this month they blow thirty sounds, "according to the thirty members of the soles of "their feet. The additional offerings of the day are "ten, according to the ten in their ankles. They

approach the altar twice, according to their two legs. “Five men are called to the law, according to the "five joints in their knees. Lo! with the additional offering of the new moon, they are eleven, accord"ing to their eleven ribs. They pour out their "supplication with nine blessings, according to the "muscles in their arms; these contain thirty verses, "according to the thirty in the palms of their hands. "They daily repeat the prayer of eighteen blessings, "according to the eighteen vertebræ in their spine. "At the offering of the continual sacrifice they sound "nine times, according to the nine muscles in their "head. In the two orisons they blow eight times,

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according to the eight vertebræ of their neck. "Their statutes and laws are contained in five books, "according to the five perforations. He hath or“dained the six orders of the Mishna, according to "the six different imaginations of the heart and in"ward parts; also the animal life, spirit, rational soul, "perception, appetite; the skin, flesh, veins, and "bones: these shall all lift up the eye, and pierce "the ear, and open the mouth, that with the tongue "and speech of their lips, and from the sole of the "foot to the head, may shew the particulars of their "good acts; so that when the sound of the cornet "ascends, their adversaries may be ashamed, and that "they may be justified in the day of judgment, and "hear the second time from their God."

Such is the appalling spectacle presented by modern Judaism! A mixture of buffoonery and falsehood, cheating the conscience, and drowning the soul in everlasting perdition, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. The case, considered simply as one of missionary obligation, cries aloud for exertion, and it is a case in which effective exertion is attended with peculiar and complicated difficulty. The details of the traditions and superstitions of the Jews are but little known by the Christian church; yet it may safely be affirmed, that no man who is ignorant of them, can be a competent Christian Missionary (or what, in this case, is synonymous, a Christian Controversialist to the Jews. The

Christian controversialist against Popery, however gifted, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures he may be, is seen and felt to be incompetent if he be ignorant of the Missal, the Breviary, and the Mass Book. And equally, or more glaringly incompetent, must be the Christian controversialist amongst the Jews, if he be ignorant of the Targums, the Talmud, and the Cabbala.

Targum is a Chaldee word, signifying a paraphrase. The general opinion is, that these paraphrases originated in the circumstances arising out of the Babylonish captivity. That the Jews dwelling among, and serving the Chaldeans by the space of seventy years, during which time a whole generation, with few exceptions, must have passed away, did very generally adopt the language of their masters; that pure Hebrew ceased to be a vernacular tongue, an accurate knowledge of it being confined to the priests, and perhaps a few of the higher orders of the nation. When they returned to Jerusalem, and the law was read in pure Hebrew, an interpretation was indispensable to enable them to understand it. This interpretation must have been Chaldee, the only language with which the majority were acquainted. There is reason to believe that the method adopted in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and continued for several generations on every Sabbath day, was for a sentence of the law to be read in Hebrew, and then interpreted in Chaldee, and so each successive clause to

the end of the section. These interpretations were at first given extempore by persons familiar with both languages, and under the superintendance of Ezra. Nehemiah viii. 1-8.

Afterwards, under less favourable circumstances, these interpretations became less accurate; and eventually degenerated from faithful translations of the word of God into fanciful paraphrases of men. These paraphrases, though progressively more and more mingled with human falsehood, nevertheless continued. to be received as of divine authority, and were, in many instances, perpetuated by insertion in the margin of the copies of the law. Increasing in number from time to time, they were at length collected by certain industrious persons, who supplied of their own what was yet wanting, to complete a version of any one or more books of the sacred volume. These compilations are the Targums. Many are supposed to be lost. The most celebrated of those still extant, and in pernicious use amongst the Jews, are that of Onkelos on the Law, and that of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, on the Prophets..

The word Talmud signifies learning or doctrine. The book distinguished by this title, and received amongst the Jews with the most unbounded veneration, consists of two parts, called the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna denotes a second law. The Jews believe that all the precepts of the law, given to Moses, were accompanied with an interpretation.

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