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To help in wearing
away the rocky barrier of indifference which alone stands between Israel
and the priceless blessings awaiting his restoration to the Promised
Land.
That
“a written prayer is a prayer of faith,” is said (with how much
truth all may convince themselves) by one who has produced proverbs not
unworthy of the son of David. We may not indeed be able to write a
prayer, for we dare not write it from the resources of the mind
alone, and the heart may be cold and unfortunately unacquainted with its
relations to Him who formed it, as well as to the inestimable comfort
and delight of communing with Him; but the very attempt, though it may
be at first unsuccessful, will be, in its effects, both purifying and
elevating. Let any right-minded individual make the effort, and he will
feel, while lost in meditation, before daring thus to address the
Omnipotent God of Truth, as he would confide his thoughts and feelings
to an absent friend, an equal, that he is learning more of himself and
of his Maker than he has ever yet known. The light of purity and
holiness, of self-abasement and trusting hope, will presently break
through the cloud of his imperfections; he will find himself carefully
winnowing away every particle of the chaff of falsehood, conscious of
the vanity of offering to Him, who cannot be deceived, any other than
the clean grains of truth, however few they may be; and if his newborn
convictions and emotions seek utterance in language, the words that flow
from his pen, will express the truth as it is in his heart.
In
this exercise, if ever, we become conscious of the all-pervading
presence of God. While in “his felt presence,” that formal
declaration of love without any of its experience—that cold
acknowledgment of blessings unaccompanied by one softening emotion of
gratitude—that unmeaning confession of utter dependence upon the great
Arbiter of our destiny, while secretly denying or doubting his
overruling providence—in a word, all the mere formalities of the
habitually and thoughtlessly repeated prayer, having no effect upon the
heart and only deceitfully quieting the conscience, by enabling us to
discharge, however carelessly, a duty which we feel to be incumbent upon
us,—vanish utterly: our devotions become worthy of the name,
and soon that incomprehensible influence which we may experience, but
can never define, will make known to us the truth of those blessed
words: “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him,—to all
that call upon Him in truth.”
Prayer
is the commune of the embodied spirit, with the unembodied Father of
spirits; and whatever may promote and perfect this high and holy
intercourse is most worthy of our attention and endeavours. To us,
blessed members of the house of Jacob, such inducements—such
reiterated invitations to this communion—are poured forth, that it is
astonishing to see them neglected and disregarded by any bearing the
name of Israelite. It is not a God whom neither we nor our fathers have
known, and of whose existence the light of reason alone convinces us,
that we are thus called upon to approach in spirit; but it is He, who
thus announced himself through Moses to the children of Israel: “The
Lord God of your fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob; this is my name forever, and this is my memorial throughout
all generations;” words which should make every descendant of
Abraham, despised as he may be by his blinded and ignorant fellow-men,
glory in his unequalled descent. Why do we then coldly acknowledge the
truth of those sacred writings which are the inheritance of the
congregation of Jacob, and yet, for all the effect we permit them to
have on our lives and hearts, treat them as a dead letter? Men, Jewish
men,—more especially Jewish gentlemen—are ashamed to believe
in the Lord, to call upon Him and to obey Him. But, let me ask: Is the
memory of King David held in contempt among men of any rank or any
class, because he sought the Lord at all times—because he waited for
Him and trusted in Him—praised Him among the people, and sang unto Him
among the nations; ay, and even recognised and acknowledged, that in the
very government of his kingdom it was God who subdued his people under
him?
Let
it not be urged that the gift of inspiration preserved David from
consequences which would be injurious to the worldly standing of his
brethren of the present day. This gift of inspiration may be ours
too. Read the Psalms of David, his written prayers,
containing the history of his secret intercourse with his heavenly
Father; and, then read those books of the law, which he, as king of
Israel, was commanded to write a copy of “in a book, out of that which
was before the priests, the Levites, that he might read therein all the
days of his life; that he might learn to fear the Lord his God; to keep
all the words of his law, and these statutes to DO them” (see Deut.,
18:18, 19, 20): and the well of his inspiration will be discovered as
with the magic wand. His knowledge of God—the promises upon which his
prayers were founded—his dread of the just punishments to which he
often felt that his errors had exposed him—his right to the blessings
he invoked—were all derived from that law which was his delight, and
in which, in the true spirit of obedience, he “meditated day and
night.”
This
law—this well of inspiration—this ladder of Jacob, leading up
to God—is OURS. It is the neglected (alas! that my words should be
true words)—the despised—inheritance of the congregation of Israel.
Let a daughter of Israel, whose eyes have been opened “to behold
wondrous things out of this law,” not through any merit of her own,
but by God’s blessing upon the teaching circumstances in which He has
placed her, appeal to her people in behalf of their inheritance. She
does not come to offer an apology for our faith to the strangers among
whom we are scattered, and who look upon us in proud pity for our
obstinacy in persisting that the words of the Lord are pure words, and
that we are neither to add to them nor to diminish ought from them. Well
do we deserve their pity; not, indeed, for what they so lavishly bestow
it upon us, but for evincing, as we do, our disregard of what we profess
to hold most sacred. How long shall it be said, with truth, “The ox
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not
know, my people do not consider?” Let Israel but
“consider;” first, that God himself has said: “Ye are my
witnesses.” Let each Israelite consider himself, as he is, one of
these witnesses—let him only reflect upon the evidences afforded in
his own personal existence, and in the many peculiarities which
distinguish him from the mass among whom he moves—of the truth of the
prophecies contained in his inheritance (we allude now only to the five
books of Moses)—let him consider farther the wonderful history of his
nation in connexion with these books, and in confirmation of their
divine authority: and he will become fully convinced that Moses was
commissioned of God, and, as he said, did not speak the words that he
uttered out of his own mouth. He will then begin to understand how it
is, that he is one of God’s witnesses on the earth, and to inquire
what duties are incumbent upon him—what advantages accrue to
him—what dangers threaten him in this his glorious calling.
And
where will these momentous inquiries, bearing upon almost every action
of his daily life—it may almost be said, upon every thought and
feeling of his daily experience—where will they find an answer, nay,
find as many answers, as the thousand necessities of life demand? They
will find them in “the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob; the
law which Moses gave to the children of Israel.”
Humble,
sincere, earnest inquirer into the riches of your inheritance, you will
not seek in vain. You will find the infinite God of the universe, whom
the nations about you fear to approach in his incomprehensible and
glorious majesty, without the intervention of a mediator,
revealing himself to US, as “the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth,” saying to us, “I
will take you to me for a people, and I will be your God”—“And
I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their
God”—“Take heed and hearken, O Israel; this day thou art become
the people of the Lord thy God.”
Having
convinced yourself by the ample means within your reach, that these
books are truth, and that you are one of these people of the
Lord, inquire next into the nature of your duties as one of these
people. Here is a comprehensive answer to this inquiry: “Thou shalt therefore”
(that is because thou art one of the people of the Lord thy God)
“obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his commandments and hiss
statutes.” Would you know what commandments and what statutes are
these? Behold! “They are not hidden from thee, neither are they far
off. They are not in heaven, that thou shouldst say, who shall go up for
us to heaven and bring them unto us that we may hear them and do them;
neither are they beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go
over the sea for us and bring them to us, that we may hear them and do
them? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy
heart, that thou mayest do it.”—It is the LAW delivered by God to
Moses, and by him proclaimed again and again to the assembled
congregation of your fathers.
(To
be continued.) |
