Now I am able to concentrate my ideas of Judaism of former times, and bring them under one focus. Judaism consisted, or, according to the founder's design was to consist of:
The heavens tell the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy work.
One day streams this unto another, and night therein instructeth night.
No lesson or words of which the voice is not heard; their chord rings through the entire globe; their discourse penetrates to the extremes of the inhabited world, where he set a tabernacle to the sun, etc. (Ps. 70:1).
Their effect is as universal as the salutary influence of the sun, which, while revolving round its orbit, diffuses light and heat over the whole globe, as the same bard still more distinctly declares in another place:
From where the sun rises to where it sets, the name of the Lord is praised.
Or, as the prophet Malachi says, in the name of the Lord: "From where the sun rises to where it sets, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in all places, incense, sacrifice, and pure meal-offerings are offered unto my name, for my name is great among the heathen."
These historical truths, contain the groundwork of the national union; and, as historical truths, they cannot, according to their nature, be received otherwise than on trust; authority alone gives them the necessary evidence. And they were, moreover, confirmed to the nation by miracles, and supported by an authority which sufficed to place faith beyond all doubt and hesitation.
These laws were revealed, that is, they were made known by the Lord, by words and in writing. Still, only the most essential part thereof was entrusted to letters; and without the unwritten laws, without explanations, limitations, and more particularly definitions, even these written laws are mostly unintelligible, or must become so in the course of time; since neither any words or written characters whatever retain their meaning unaltered, for the natural age of man.
As directions to general practice, and rules of conduct, both the written and unwritten laws have public and private happiness for their immediate object. But they must also be mostly considered as a mode of writing; and as ceremonial laws, there is no sense and meaning in them. They lead inquiring reason to divine truths; partly to eternal, partly to historical truths, on which the religion of that nation was founded. The ceremonial law was the bond for uniting practice with speculation, conduct with doctrine. The ceremonial law was to offer inducements to personal intercourse and social connexion between the school and the professor, the inquirer and the instructor, and to excite and encourage com- petition and emulation; and that purpose it actually did answer in the first times, before the polity degenerated, and human folly again intermeddled to change, by ignorance and misguidance, good to evil, and the bene ficial to the hurtful.