sacrificed their
natural liberty for the sake of their religion to such an extent as
this people did.

2. The divine will is now received by the people in the shape of a
sacred book. They cease to look for the living voice of prophecy, and
come to think that God has given them in the Torah a perfect and
complete revelation. The book takes the place of the prophet, and in
time also to some extent of conscience. A man ceases to think for
himself what is right and good, and only asks, What does the law say?
It is true that a great part of the book is taken up with ritual,
with which the ordinary individual has not much to do, but he also
believes that the whole of his own duty is to be found there in it,
as is no doubt the case. We see from the 119th Psalm how beautiful a
form religion may assume even under these terms, when the book in
question is felt to be a spiritual treasure, and to speak the words
of a living God; but the system of a book-religion has in it the
germs of very different fruits. The sacred book is believed to be an
exhaustive directory of conduct; but to make it apply to the various
cases that arise in practical life it has to be interpreted, and
deductions have to be drawn from it. It thus comes to give many a
direction which does not appear on the surface. The secondary law, or
"tradition," is thus founded, a system which calls for the services
of a special class of students. The scribes, who interpret the law
and apply it to life, obtain great influence and become the virtual
rulers of the nation. While no doubt guided in the main by the noble
spirit of their religion, they are led by their system into many
absurdities, and their casuistry even becomes at times immoral. They
afford the classical example of the results which flow from the
doctrine of verbal inspiration, thoroughly worked out; and the life
of the Jews under them becomes highly unnatural and artificial, and
tends to occupy itself with the husk instead of the kernel of
religion.

3. The principal part of the divine will, as expressed in the law, is
that connected with sacrifice. Sacrifice occupies the central place
in the book, and in the history it records. In this book the temple
service, thinly disguised as the service of the tabernacle in the
wilderness, is set forth as the great end and aim for which God
created the world, settled the nations in it, and called Israel to be
a people. The ritual which was observed from the exile t