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A
Sermon.
Delivered
at Baltimore on Friday Afternoon, the 24th of Elul, 5605, September 26th,
1845, at the Consecration of the New Synagogue.
Brethren
And Friends!
A
good work has this day been accomplished, a new house of prayer rears its
fair proportions towards heaven, and it has been set aside, for days to
come, unto the service of our God and King, the Holy One of Israel. It has
ever, on similar occasions, been the good custom amongst us to have words
of earnestness addressed to the assembled brethren, in order that the
power of audible sounds may not be wanting to impress upon the mind
something to be remembered above and in addition to the imposing service
and the psalmody uttered in praise of the Most High, the Guardian of
Jacob’s sons. The present occasion would therefore be incomplete, if one
of the essential elements of our solemn assemblies, were the word of
instruction, to be absent from us this day; let me therefore entreat you
to give me your kind attention whilst I accomplish the task imposed upon
me by your partiality, by laying before you some reflections which well
befit the labour which has been completed this day.
Let
us take as the text for our contemplation the following from the Parashah
of this week, being a portion of the concluding address of our blessed
teacher Moses to the people of Israel before his departure from this life.
He was speaking to the assembled multitudes that had so long listened to
his words of power, and he summed them all up as belonging to the divine
covenant, and then added:
ולא
אתכם לבדכם
אנכי כרת את
הברית הזאת
ואת האלה
הזאת׃ כי את
אשר ישנו פה
עמנו עמד
היום לפני ה'
אלהינו ואת
אשר איננו פה
עמנו היום׃ דבר'
כ"ט י"ג י"ד
“And
not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath; but with him who
standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and with him who
is not here with us this day.” Deut. 29:13, 14.
Forty
years had Israel been in training to become a people unto the Lord, and
during all this time they had deeply sinned and frequently rebelled
against the Power who had redeemed them from slavery. Stiff-necked in
their conduct towards God, they had followed their evil inclinations, and
thus transgressed the law whenever a favourable opportunity had presented
itself. With all this the prophet knew that the law had taken deep root in
the hearts of his followers. He, indeed, was himself doomed to die in the
wilderness, in full sight of the lovely land whither he was not to go,
because he had not sanctified the will of God at the waters of contention
in the wilderness of Zin; he was to leave the people in the yet untried
hands of his trusty Joshua; the deeds which had struck terror, wonder and
dismay in both sons and enemies of Jacob’s house would soon be
forgotten, when those who had witnessed them should have passed away from
the busy scenes of life; the Israelites were to enter into the midst of
refined and powerful idolaters, whose daughters were fair and whose
country was lovely; and they were, what is more than, all, to be left to
the self-will of their own hearts, when the conquest should be over, free
to form alliances with nations that knew not the worship of the Most High,
who bowed down to the host of heaven or the works of their own hands. Nay
he foresaw that all these circumstances would work their effects upon his
hearers and their descendants; that, in short, the curses which he had
pronounced against them would have to be accomplished to the very letter.
Yet his hope of better things faltered not; he flung from his soul the
gloomy picture of an unhappy future, and he felt conscious that his
structure, which in Heaven’s name he had reared for so long a time,
would never be totally lost to mankind, to Israel; for that, when one
generation should have passed away, another and another yet would start
up, as from the earth, to proclaim aloud that they are men in covenant
with the Lord ONE, the God and Father of Israel. “Not with you alone,”
that is the people then living and known as the Israelites, “do I make
this covenant and this oath; but with him who standeth here with us this
day before the Lord our God, and with him who is not here with us this
day.” If we consider that Moses spoke to all the Israelites of his day,
we shall have no difficulty in ascertaining who the absent ones were who
are here referred to. They were the whole seed of Jacob, all who might
follow those who came forth from Egypt to the latest generation. The
prophet limits not his words to one century, nor to one country; but he
ranges over an indefinite period, over an indefinite space, including
those who were not then, could not be then, standing in person at the door
of the tabernacle, to give in their adhesion by word of mouth to the terms
of the covenant proposed to them by the blessed son of Amram, and those
who were actually present, and had been cognizant of the great miracles of
the Lord, which He had wrought before them in the land of Mitzrayim and
the desert, where his mercy had so long protected them and provided for
all their wants.
Had
Moses been an ordinary man, one who spoke merely from analogy, human
probability, he could scarcely have ventured to make so bold a
declaration; or if he had, it would to a surety not have come to pass.
There were at that time too many reasons to apprehend that the polity
which he had been the means of revealing to the world would soon fall into
oblivion, when the inquirer views the very turbulent disposition of the
people, their but recent state of ignorance, and the constant inducements
held out to them to break away from a law which grants so few pleasures,
but on the contrary imposes many restrictions upon us in almost every
stage of life. But he was not a man of every day; he did not reason from
probability or analogy; he was instructed from the highest Source of
wisdom, and he could therefore not fail of saying the truth even when
speaking of that which was to happen; in fact the opposite idea must be
inconceivable from the very nature of the case; since He who is the Father
of all men, and knows their frame, also penetrates the recesses of
futurity with unerring certainty, with a view from which nothing escapes,
from which nothing is hidden; and it was his word, his will, which Moses
proclaimed, and from Him he received knowledge of the things which were to
be. Let us not commit the error then of looking upon our teacher as a mere
historian, who relates events which happened under his eye, nor as a
successful leader, who glorifies himself for the accomplishment of some
mighty achievement; for if he had been only thus, though he had combined
in himself the learned writer and the brave general, though his wisdom had
become the fundamental law of all civilized states, which
in fact it is this day: still he would not demand our implicit
faith, our entire surrendering of our judgment to his instruction, since
there might be room to doubt whether or not some of the things announced
by him might not remain unfulfilled, as, even assuming for him the highest
power of penetration incident to human reason, there would still be a
certainty that the major part of his speculations would necessarily be
mere assumptions, which might or might not come to pass. We are not then
Mosaists, or followers of Moses, nor is ours the Mosaic religion, or
Mosaism, which is the new term now used abroad, in the sense which is
usually given to systems called after their founders. We indeed call our
law the Mosaic law or law of Moses, because the divine inspiration
gives it that name, inasmuch as he was the means of making the divine
legislation known to his compatriots; still it is not for this reason a
system of Moses, a Mosaism, of which Moses was the founder or inventor;
no, we are Hebrews, Israelites, followers of the God of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob, descendants of those who themselves heard from Sinai, “I
am the Lord thy God,” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” we
are the legitimate successors of those who themselves entered into a
voluntary covenant “to obey all the words of the Lord,” and who
partook of all the blessings and hardships which accompanied their journey
through the desert.
If
then we go to examine our religion we must not proceed as though we were
entering upon a mere scientific inquiry, at liberty to refuse belief to
one, and to correct another part; but we should sit down to this study
with fear and trembling, with a mistrust in our own power of
comprehension, with a well-founded conviction that the word is true
although our understanding of it be imperfect and unsatisfactory to
ourselves. We should reflect that it is not Moses who speaks, but the holy
spirit of our Creator, who has written the book of the law for our
guidance and instruction. For all this we are not prohibited from
reasoning on, or investigating the evidences of religion; they are open to our scrutiny, and challenge the strictest
investigation; provided, as I said, that we do not enter upon this labour
with a reckless defiance of our early training, and bring to the task that
humility which becomes and is required for an inquirer after truth. Let us
now apply what has premised to the text we have chosen. It is one of a
long discourse pronounced at the most solemn moment of existence, that,
just preceding the awful hour of death, when the connexion between earthly
life and eternity is mysteriously interwoven in the existence of the
spirit by its departure from the earth. It is then that man looks back
upon all that he has done with an eye different from what it was when
expectation and hope stood in our way, calling us hither and thither to
pursue some new phantom, some unexpected vista where success smiled in the
dim distance. O! it is then that we turn with loathing from the idols to
which we clung during our pilgrimage; we them see the nakedness of our
unholy desires which would fain rob us of our peace hereafter; we cannot
then hide from ourselves the wickedness and falsehood to which we attached
ourselves year by year and hour by hour; we feel the ground so to say as
sliding from under our feet, and we stretch forth our hands to the God our
Saviour, to snatch us up into his embrace, to shield us from the
consequences of our misdeeds. It may be, nay it is often the case, that
wicked men will die with a falsehood on their lips; they cannot imagine
that this life must indeed terminate, they cannot bear, whilst the breath
is yet in their nostrils, to forego one iota of their assumed
self-importance. But not so is the case with the pure and righteous; they
have no part to play, no assumed character to sustain; they therefore
attach no importance to fortuitous circumstances in which they may have
been placed, but view their past life in all its deformity and error,
conceal nothing from themselves for which atonement should be made, and
attach not any undue value to their good deeds, any farther than that they
calm the conscience; and they trust in the mercy of the Creator that He
will perfect what they have left undone in the weakness of fallen human
nature.
So
then it was on one of the last few days of Moses’s life, that he called
around him the people of Israel, together with the strangers and the
foreign labourers who were among them. He rehearsed briefly, but
eloquently, the principal events of the forty years during which he was
connected with the administration of public affairs, and recalled to their
mind how frequently they had presumptuously sinned against the Lord. He
also repeated certain of the commandments; but more than all, he insisted
anew upon the distinctive doctrines of the religion which he had taught so
long; and emphatically instructed the people to believe in no association
in the godhead, in no thought of a division; for that the Lord, the
Eternal, is one and alone, and that He woundeth and healeth, slayeth and
bringeth to life again, and that from his power there is none to save us,
if He willeth to condemn. And when all this had been accomplished by the
teacher, when the conduct of the Hebrews had during his whole connexion
with them been the reverse of obedience: he still lays before them again a
solemn compact, to answer for the last time, whether they would remain
true and faithful to the law, to the Lord, to themselves! The Israelites
did assent, and the book of the law was written and completed by the hand
of the prophet, and he delivered it to the priests and Levites to place it
by the side of the ark of the covenant, that it might be a witness against
them in all future generations. There was no wild enthusiasm in Moses’s
manner; he was calm and collected; he knew his end to be rapidly
approaching, whilst neither his sight was dimmed nor his bodily vigour in
aught diminished; he stood like the giant of the forest, in the branches
of which thousands of the feathered tribe have built their nests, towering
upward, unbending, erect, unterrified, whilst around it play the
lightnings of heaven, and its branches are tossed by the fury of the
tempest, and its leaves are dashed to the earth by the drenching rain. And
as his body was strong so was his soul; he felt that death was coming at
the command of God to release him from his earthly labours; and hence he
spoke at that very time with the same dignity and candour which he had
exhibited throughout his long career, and which characterized him chiefly
as the great messenger, like whom none has arisen in Israel since his day.
In this temper of mind he did not, he could not think of deceiving himself
and others by a pretended belief in things of which he was not himself
convinced; there is nothing recorded of an agony of soul, of an
unwillingness to die, of a forced submission, which wrung from him
contradictory declarations; indeed there is no deathscene described in
history so full of the vigour of life as that of Moses; he passed from the
changeful scene of the earth to a uniformity of happiness in an altered
state; and with the most solemn conviction, forced upon himself and his
hearers, that he had been a messenger of truth in what he had done and
what he had foretold, he announced the permanence of the law and the
permanence of Israel.
History
has told us then how Israel rose from a nation of slaves to become the
conquerors of the beautiful country of Palestine. But history also tells
us that the predictions of Moses have been literally fulfilled in all
where they have yet been reached by the events which have occurred,
especially with reference to the permanence of the law in the line of
Jacob; for this is the principal topic of our to-day’s discussion. O!
how fearful were the delinquencies of our fathers from the day that they
entered into the promised land; how did they love their idols; how did
they follow the ways of the gentiles; how did they forget the Lord! And
what followed? Punishment after punishment came over them and their land,
and they ever and anon were made to feel the awful consequences which
follow in the wake of sin. But loudly howled the storm of evil within
their breast; they forgot the Lord their Redeemer, and would not hearken
to the admonition of their prophets; and they braved the denunciations of
the law, and the vengeance it threatens against transgression. It is not
necessary to dwell upon the end of this sinning; our dispersion at this
day proves that the law has established its truth; but it likewise proves,
that the blessing of the possession of our religion has also been
accomplished. Israel sinned in Palestine, under the rule of the judges who
lived after Joshua; they did each whatever seemed best in their eyes;
horrid crimes were perpetrated with unblushing effrontery; still a Samuel
arose out of the midst of this chaos, and by the establishment of the
schools of the prophets, no doubt his work, re-established the blessed
rule of law and good order among the people. Time rolled on, and wicked
and foolish kings rebelled against the Lord, and set themselves up idols
in Dan and Beersheba and the cities of Judah; the land grew tired of
bearing on its surface the sinning generation, and they were cast forth
bound with chains of slavery into the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon; yet
again was the law restored, and we owe to the ready scribe, the zealous
Ezra, the renewal of the covenant between God and his people, when they
pledged themselves to walk in the ways which He had prescribed to their
fathers. And with this the work did not fail for want of labourers to
carry it forward with trusty heart and faithful hands; and when the
calamities thickened, and persecution from without at length came to aid
the evil inclination within: a new spirit awoke in the people, and they
clung to the ark of the Lord with undying attachment in the hours of the
greatest peril. Onward has been the march of ages; circumstances have
changed with us; new dangers have constantly sprung up to add to the
difficulties which necessarily encompass us in the state of our
dispersion; over and over again have our enemies predicted our speedy
destruction; they have tortured, or slain, or banished us in most
countries, and embittered our days in all, by a constant war against our
spirits, by exciting prejudice, by spreading calumny and falsehood of all
kinds concerning us: still we are here on earth to praise the Lord, still
here to bear a living testimony, that we are his witnesses, and that He is
God; still we are on earth the legitimate and lineal descendants of the
patriarchs of former days, of the early reformers who defied the
worshippers of idols to exhibit their power; of the philosophers of
primeval ages who kindled the torch of reason by the blazing fire of
God’s revelation; and we are here, here on this spot, a small remnant, a
fragment of the great house of Jacob, to bear with our lips our assent to
the constantly accumulating weight of the constantly renewed confession,
that Israel is ever true, will be ever true in its chosen sons, they who
are the light of the world, who walk in the fear of the Most High, to
uphold the ancient faith unbroken, to believe at all times in the promises
of their God, to follow unflinchingly, even through the whelming waves of
persecution, the guidance of their Father who is in heaven, though it lead
them to the gates of death. And no matter how great and unpardonable were
the backslidings of our people, some like these just described were always
ready to sanctify the glorious and fearful Name of the God of Israel, and
to exhibit in their lives a beautiful illustration of the effects of the
saving faith implanted in our hearts upon the conduct of those who yield
themselves to its promptings.
It
was in this manner that Moses made a covenant with those who were not
present with him on that day before the Lord, with those namely, who have
ever since succeeded to the name, the lineaments, the obligations of
Israel. And ye too, brethren, have by the work which is this day
completed, by solemnly dedicating it to the service and name of the Most
High God, the Creator and Ruler of heaven and earth,—ye too have by this
means entered into that blessed covenant in your mature age, into which
you were introduced at your birth by your pious progenitors. Do not
imagine, however, that it is merely enough that you have erected a house,
as a dwelling for the ark where the law is deposited; that you have
finished your task by providing it with every thing needful for worship,
whilst the spirit of worship itself is wanting among you. Reflect, that
only through the righteousness of the whole people could the temple at
Jerusalem become the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that through the
same means only, on the part of each congregation, can their houses of
prayer become acceptable in the eyes of the same unchanging Being, who
called unto himself Abraham out of Ur in Chaldea. There has not been
pointed out to us any new means of becoming acceptable to God; the same
requisites are still demanded of us,—faith and obedience; and these are
to be pursued through our entire life, on all occasions, in all
circumstances. Indeed, what use would a place of worship be, if the
worshippers therein assembled there merely from ostentation? from pride?
from motives to bear rule over others? Only with contrition, with
humility, should the sacred precincts be entered with sorrow for past
misdeeds, with hopes in the mercy of our Father, that He would perfect by
his spirit, what we have humbly commenced, and that He would heal the
wounds which our iniquity may have struck against the peace of our soul.
Such worshipping will make us daily better, more pleasing in the eyes of
God and man; it will influence our speech, it will influence our actions,
it will also purify our thoughts; and the more strongly we have impressed
it on our mind, the stronger and holier will grow the plant of
righteousness, which will be lustrous with everlasting verdure, and which
will preserve an unfading freshness till the end of our days.—Pursue
then righteousness in the manner which the law ordains; do not use your
own imperfect understanding to reason away what God has commanded; ask
rather of your elders, and let them instruct you; inquire of those who are
the fathers in Israel, that they may speak unto you; and never, O never!
listen to those who would gladly sow dissension in Israel, who would urge
their own foolish counsels as the words which the Lord has taught;
whereas, they invent deceitful things out of their own hearts, and teach
the words which the prophets of God have not spoken. Pursue peace in all
your acts and words; seek not to bear unjust rule over each other;
endeavour not to become each one the chief in the earthly Synagogue; for
it is but a short rule at best, to be soon dropped, though long you wield
the staff of authority; but seek on the contrary to act rightly and truly
towards each other, bear with each other’s weakness and failings, and
have one mind, one aim to pursue; thus you will leave this life to be
accepted on high, and live unto eternity in the sanctuary of the Lord.
But
in addition to this individual duty, you have also general obligations to
perform. You are members of the house of Israel, surety and pledge that in
you there shall always be a defender of the good cause. As such then, let
all your deeds have a public bearing, and forego your own advantage, when
the public good demands it. Let your exertions for success not blind you
to the necessities of others; and never do any act, however it might be
legal, which could cast odium upon the fair fame of the house of Israel.
Towards the world at large too, you have duties to fulfil. All men are
your brethren, though the Hebrew brother claims your first love. All men
are children of one God, like you they are endowed with an intelligent
spirit. Love them, therefore, cherish them in joy and in sorrow, and
sanctify the name of the Lord, by practically proving, how beautiful his
religion is which teaches you to be angels of mercy to all who may claim
your sympathy, to all who may look up to you for aid and for counsel. The
enemies of our faith have always endeavoured to make it appear as though
we are by it taught to hate and persecute the nonIsraelites; whereas, it
will be your business to prove that the religious Jew asks not the
sufferer of what belief he is, he demands not of the widow and orphan,
whether they be of the house of Jacob; but he opens his heart, he empties
the full hand, in order that the hungry may be fed, the naked be clothed,
the needy protected; though their souls know not, their lips breathe not a
prayer to God the Eternal.
“Not
with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath,” were the words of
Moses. That generation went down to the dust as all other men, and left us
of the present day no other inheritance than the name of Israel and the
law which they had received. All the other glory and wealth which they
acquired perished before the eyes of the world, and whatever was earthly
in their greatness has been destroyed by the tooth of time. The
imperishable only alone remains; the immortal, which was immortal in the
days of Moses, survives in all its strength, and because it was thus
immortal, could he predict that it would never yield before the progress
of destruction. Our assembly here to-day proves, that up to our time the
prophecy has been upheld, it has become fulfilment, event in the pages of
history. And though now the evil hour is come, as some faint hearts believe,
which is to prove whether it
shall stand longer or not: still let those who fear this evil, look into
the hearts of our people, and then let them say whether or not the ancient
spirit yet survives, whether or not the same love for religion in the
abstract does not live there as ever. Should, however, any danger threaten
us through disunion or apostasy, then remember that you are men of the
covenant who cannot honestly leave the good cause to suffer for want of
valiant defenders. The building in which we have met, is a witness that
you have felt the importance of the Lord’s covenant, the weight of his
law which is implanted in your souls. Take then good heed that those who
are not with us this day before the Lord, may arise after you to propagate
to yet many distant generations the knowledge which you have received, and
let it be your endeavour that the worshippers in this house may all become
true and faithful witnesses of the glorious message, the unity of God and
the permanence of his religion, which has been proclaimed to you from
Sinai, which is the legacy bequeathed by your fathers. In this manner will
the spirit of God dwell in this house which you have built, and thus only
can it be truly called sacred to the Creator and King. And may He bless
you as He blessed Abraham, and be with us all as He was with our
forefathers. Amen.
Friday,
Sept. 26; Elul 24, 5605.
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