SERMONS PREACHED ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS AT THE West London Synagogue of British Jews, BY THE REV. PROFESSOR MARKS, MINISTER OF THE CONGREGATION. PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COUNCIL. THIRD SERIES. LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. I. ON THE ESSENTIALS OF MOSAISM. FIRST LECTURE. עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ ולהג הרבה יגיעת בשר : סוף דבר הכל נשמע את האלהים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור כי זה כל האדם : "Of making many books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep His commandments : for this is the whole duty of man."-ECCLESIASTES Xii. 12, 13. THERE is at the present time much inquisitiveness abroad about the religion professed by Jews, and as to what constitutes its principles and practices. Those who form their estimate of Judaism from what is weekly set forth from hundreds of pulpits are led to conclude that it is a worn-out garment, destined from the beginning to be of a temporary and shifting character, and to endure so long only as the ordinance of sacrifice was in force, and apart from which it had no stand-point and no aim. The object of the present Lectures is to enter upon an inquiry whether Judaism, as described above, is in harmony with the teachings of Moses, the prophets and the Hagiologists, whose writings are embalmed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Was it for a mere temporary B |