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Its Possibility and necessity.—A Sermon Delivered
in the Synagogue, Shearith Yisrael, Montreal, on Pentecost 5608, by the
Rev. Abraham De Sola.
No. I.
וידבר אלהים את כל הדברים
האלה לאמר׃ שמות כ׳׃
God spake all these words.—(Exodus 20.)
Brethren!
The Pentecost again greets us with its happy
return, and its joyous reminiscences, important teachings, and boundless
anticipations, will now naturally engage our most serious and attentive
consideration. For this festival is not vested with that interest only,
which it derives from commemorating the happy period when our fathers
occupied the land of promise;—when plenty covered their fields and
filled their houses;—when a spirit of subordination, peace, and
brotherly union, was deeply implanted in every breast;—when the
ה׳ עמכם, the sincere blessing with
which the master greeted his labourers, was returned with the
יברכך ה׳ which constituted their
equally fervent benediction;—when a Ruth gleaned and a Boaz “commanded
his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach
her not, and also let fall some of the handfuls on purpose for her;”†—
<<227>>when the sons of Jacob, from far and near, repaired in joyousness of
heart, and lightsomeness of spirit to their holy Temple to utter forth
their praises and gratitude to the God of the universe, and to place on
his altar the first fruits of the bounteous harvest wherewith He
(blessed be his name) had crowned their labours in the field.
A. D. S.
It is not from these associations only that the
חג השבעות obtains that surpassing
interest and importance which have ever been assigned to it by the house
of Israel; no, brethren, this festival becomes more particularly
hallowed, and more warmly cherished in our hearts’ best affections, from
its connection with an event much more glorious in its nature, and much
more momentous in its results than any of these. One of the most
excellent of our late poets* has said of this season:
אחר סב העתים אתא החדש
רשום בכלל הדת "מורשה לנו"
על כן שנה שנה יתחדש בנו
זכרון יום הנורא נאדר בקדש
כי במראה ההיא שאין כמוה
האל קרב אל איש האיש לאלוה
How inspiring, how blissful this assurance, dear
brethren. It was at this time, then, that “God drew near to man, and man
to God,”—האל קרב אל איש האיש לאלוה This
then is זמן מתן תורתנו—the joyous
season whereon the Deity, having removed the physical darkness which
covered the world, came now to dispel by the bright and benignant ray of
the law, the mental gloom which the ignorance and superstition of man
had engendered, when for the second time “God said let there be light,
and there was light,” for “the Eternal came from Sinai, and rose up from
Seir unto them, He shone forth from Mount Paran, accompanied with
myriads of angels, and from his right hand went forth a fiery law,† that
fiery law, Israelites, whose light hath burned with undiminished lustre
during more than thirty centuries, whose light hath proved a source of
comfort and salvation to you in the hour of pain and danger, as it has
been one of instruction and advantage to you in the time of prosperity
and joy,—זה היום עשה ה׳ מגילה ונשמחה בו.—This,
then, is the day when the Eternal vouchsafed to manifest himself to the
thousands encompassing Sinai, <<228>>and when “the voice of God, speaking from
amidst the fire,” deigned, publicly to convey to trembling man, the
expression of his will. This is the day whereon our ancestors amidst the
lightning’s vivid flash, and the thunder’s dreadful roar, did make a
solemn covenant with God, to observe ever faithfully all his behests,
and this is the day whereon we, their children, have solemnly assembled
in this holy place, to ratify the obligation they entered into for us.
Yes, my hearers, for us, and for those who shall
come after us, was the Sinaic covenant designed. It was not to be
confined to those only who encompassed the fiery mount, but it was to
extend to those who were not there present. Nor was it intended to
endure during the lifetime of those only, with whom it was sensibly and
directly made, but for countless generations after them. And so speaks
Moses our master. In the משנה תורה he
tells us in the name of God “neither with you only, do I make this
covenant and this oath; but with him that standeth here with us this day
before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this
day.”* Therefore, brethren, since we are as much concerned and as deeply
interested, in this glorious compact as our ancestors, since its duties
and obligations extend as fully to us, as to them, it were well, that,
even as is the wont in human agreements, we should closely examine, and
diligently study, the nature and requirements of this covenant, so that
fully comprehending, we may be enabled strictly to perform them, and so
that like our ancestors of old, we may determine that “all those things
which the Eternal hath said unto us we will do.Ӡ To this important end
it will be necessary that we consider on the present occasion,
First. The possibility of the Divine revelation
afforded at Sinai; and
Secondly. Its necessity.
And may God, the knowledge of whose holy name we
would humbly strive to spread, and whose honour and glorification we
would ardently desire to promote;—may He, in his infinite mercy,
illumine us with a spirit of understanding; may He guide and assist our
meditations and bless our inquiries. Amen.
I.
My friends, we have proposed to consider in the
first place, <<229>>the possibility of a divine revelation; not because we
think there are any amongst us so foolish as to entertain the slightest
doubt thereof; but being convinced that the surest and best means for
staying the progress of error no matter where found, is to expose it,
and actuated as much by the hope that you may be enabled to follow up
the teachings of some of the lights of Israel* on this head, as by an
earnest desire to do the fullest possible justice to our subject; we are
induced to dwell for a few moments on this theme, so that we may be
enabled to present to you, however briefly and imperfectly, what the
wise and good amongst us have thought and said on the subject, and so,
that when you shall speak of these things to the unenlightened, “they
may believe that the Lord God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto you.Ӡ We
therefore proceed to observe,
1. The possibility of a Divine revelation is
shown by the Creator’s Omnipotence. Let us picture to ourselves the
parent of the human family, as he stood fresh from his Creator’s hand
amidst the blissful bowers of Eden. A reasonable being, and endowed with
the powers of observation, he sees himself surrounded by numerous and
various objects, which, animate or inanimate, alike claim his attention,
and which become agreeable or unpleasing to him, accordingly as they
affect his senses. When by the exercise of those powers implanted within
him, when by generalization and abstraction, he has discovered the
admirable adaptation of these objects to certain uses, when he has
observed how “the sun rules by day, and the moon by night,”—how “the
gates of the east are opened in wisdom, and the seasons are changed with
understanding;”—how the congenial shower restores and enlivens the
drooping vegetation;—how “the springs are sent into the valleys, to give
drink to every beast of the field”—how “the grass is made to grow for
cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may obtain food from
the earth,”‡—that food, which he has found to be the staff of life, and
which he sees bestowed in abundance around him: in short, when he has
discovered the beautiful harmony, connexion, and design, existent in all
creation, and when he has farther discovered his own total
<<230>>inability to
devise or execute anything which shall at all approach such perfection;
we can well imagine the awe, admiration, and reverence, with which he
must have been filled, when a full sense of the wisdom and omnipotence
of the world’s mighty Architect had taken possession of him, and how
like the wisest among those who sprang from him, he must have exclaimed,
“It is the Eternal who hath founded the earth by wisdom, and hath
established the heavens by understanding.”*
And have not we also thus felt, brethren, when
there was nought near us but the works of God, the sun, dispensing light
and life to all around, and reflecting a thousand beautiful colours from
the brilliant dewdrop, or placid stream; the air, resounding with the
lowing of cattle, and the chorus of numberless sweet songsters, whose
delightful notes entrance the ear; the earth, covered with its lovely
green mantle, here spotted with countless beautiful flowers, whose
fragrance is wafted on the refreshing breeze, there varied by the fair
meadow or rich cornfield, where fruit and herb are alike beautifully
scattered? Have we witnessed all this and refrained from acknowledging
that “the heavens recount the glory of God, and the firmament showeth
the work of his hands,”† that “the Eternal is great, and his greatness
is unsearchable ?”‡
And when, impressed with this conviction, we have
turned to consider ourselves, have we not been impelled to the
conclusion that we do but form part of a beautiful whole, and that, as
well as the rest of God’s works have their objects to perform, and their
ends to fulfil, even so must we have our vocation, a vocation which we
feel to be most high, most important, and most glorious—a vocation which
must be most high, which must be most important, and which must be most
glorious, to comport with the exalted position assigned us in the scale
of creation? When farther convinced of this, and when experience has
shown us how totally incapable we are of ascertaining, from ourselves,
the ultimate design of God in giving us our being: are we not led to
inquire again, “whether there is anything too hard for the Eternal,”§
and whether that Omnipotent One who hath given us the power of imparting
our wants, sentiments, and wills, to our fellow-men, could not, if He
thought fit, convey to us in an extraordinary
<<231>>manner, or otherwise, the
expression of his own will or directions, whereby we should become
acquainted with those instructions which are indispensably necessary to
teach both our relation and duties to Him and to our fellow-creatures?
Moreover, brethren, we are generally unable to
trace or explain the origin of our ideas; yet we know that these are
most commonly engendered from external causes, and that we frequently
permit these causes to influence our sentiments and actions. How can we
suppose that the Almighty Causer of these causes should not be able to
affect our minds in a different manner, and by a manifestation of
himself more clear, extraordinary, and satisfactory than that afforded
by the light of his works, “so teach us ordinances and laws which should
show the way wherein we must walk and the work that we must do?”* These
are questions, my hearers, which we have only to put to ourselves to be
convinced of the affirmative of the proposition we are desirous of
proving. But:
2. The possibility of a Divine revelation is not
only shown by the Creator’s Omnipotence, but by other of those
attributes, which natural, as well as revealed religion, have ascribed
to Him. For we cannot suppose that He who “is good to all,”† and
whose Benevolence is proclaimed by everything that is, should
have abandoned man, the most glorious of all his works, to the unaided
exercise of his reason only, for a discovery of those things which it so
deeply concerns him to know; nor can we reconcile with the ideas we are
taught to entertain of God’s Wisdom the belief, that, while He
should have assigned to each and every object in creation some use and
end, He should have sent on earth, a being possessed of such
capabilities as man, merely to live and to die; nor will it comport with
the notions we have of the Divine Justice, to suppose that God
should have declared his will in respect to these, and not in respect to
us, that He should have “made a decree which must not be transgressed”‡
by the heavens, the earth, and all that in them is, but should have left
us uninstructed and unenlightened. From these considerations alone,
might we deem ourselves justified in concluding, that not only is a
divine communication possible, but in the highest degree probable, and
indeed
3. The general sense of mankind has, in all ages
of the world, <<232>>been in favour of the possibility of a Divine
revelation.—The conviction has always been felt, by saint, by
savage, or by sage, that some communication has subsisted between God
and man; and no matter how various and conflicting may have been the
opinions they entertained of the nature of this revelation, whether they
have discovered it in the flight of birds, the entrails of animal, or in
any of the other more imposing and direct forms in which the oracular
divinations of heathenism may have declared it, they have ever concurred
in the one point of belief, that the Deity could, and did, favour
certain men, at different times, with a supernatural illumination of his
will. The history of the world, showing how the most important
undertakings and events, and how the mightiest revolutions which have
convulsed it, have resulted from a supposed or real dictation from God
to man, amply proves how convinced the human family have ever been of
the possibility of such a dictation. But what need we of such testimony,
when
4. We Israelites prove in ourselves the
possibility of a Divine revelation.—Nay, not only its possibility,
but its reality. With the “law which Moses sat before us” in our hand,
we exclaim, “God spake all these words,” and none can nor dare
gainsay us. With us there is no question as to its possibility. We
affirm that the Almighty did really and immediately instruct our
ancestors in those rules of conduct which were necessary for their
guidance while on earth, that from the Mount Sinai He really did
proclaim to them,
אלה מצותי. ואלה חקתי
ואלה תורותי. תמימים וישרים*
and that we have duly received, and inviolably
preserved the instructions, “so that it may be well with us, and with
our children after us.” Therefore, brethren, need we say nothing more
now on this head, but let us pass on to the second subject of inquiry
proposed, which was to show that a divine communication to man was
really and indispensably requisite.
II.
1. The necessity of a Divine revelation is
shown, from the impossibility of man’s obtaining any just conception of
the being or nature of God, by the mere exercise of his reason.—When
man <<233>>became conscious that he, the heavens, the earth, and the fullness
thereof, were the work of an Infinite Being, whose omnipotence,
benevolence, and wisdom, they plainly attested: he became conscious at
the same time that “unto God every knee should bend,” and that unto the
Creator his adorations and thanksgivings were due. He, therefore,
prepared “to proclaim the name of the Eternal, and to ascribe greatness
unto his God;”* but in so doing, he most forcibly proved how faint, how
very faint, is the ray of human reason, when it seeks to illumine those
“secret things which belong to the Lord.” Creation, as we have before
said, too clearly taught him in its beautiful harmony and design, as did
also his own wonderful conformation and endowments, that their Author
must not only be infinite in power, but in wisdom also, and that
consequently He must have had some ultimate aim in all his works; but
what that ultimate aim could be, limited human comprehension was unable
to determine.
In the same way were benighted mankind unable to
form any correct notion as to the cosmogony of the world; and
accordingly we find, that the various views they entertained, on this
point, attached to the Deity so many various characters, and were in no
small degree the means of originating numerous religious systems. For
some, imagining fire to have been the active agent in the world’s
production, proclaimed the sun, its apparent source, as the only fitting
object for adoration; others observing the same properties and powers
seemingly possessed by the moon and stars, claimed and obtained for
them, their share of man’s religious homage; whilst others pointed to
the vast and foaming ocean, and willing votaries bent in dread to the
mighty spirit of the waters. But man’s idolatry and degeneracy did not
stop here. The process of deification, once commenced, was farther
promoted by the supposed beneficial or hurtful influences possessed by
the various objects of nature; and, therefore, there was nothing too
insignificant, even to the stick of wood, and nothing too revolting,
even to the foul reptile, which man did not honour with the name of god,
and before which he would not readily bow down and worship. Now let us
not suppose, that the gradual progress of knowledge and civilization
would have been sufficient in itself to dispel such midnight darkness
without the Divine interposition; for facts
<<234>>and experience show the
contrary to be the case; and the Hindoo, who even now worships his
three hundred millions of gods, affords awful but convincing
testimony to the truth of our assertion, that unless enlightened by
divine instruction, men would be utterly incapable of attaining to any
just knowledge of the Creator’s existence. But not of his existence
only, equally unable would they be fully to apprehend any of the Divine
excellencies; and thus we see that
2. A Divine revelation was necessary to instruct
the human race in God’s attributes and perfections.—Brethren, how
striking the contrast exhibited in the characters given to the Deity by
our happy and blessed faith, and by the various doctrines of heathenism.
Whilst our holy law represents Him as a being of long suffering, and
abundant in mercy and truth, the polytheistic systems display to us
their deities as beings, to whom the innocent blood of childhood would
prove a pleasing oblation, and who would favourably accept, as an
offering of sweet savour, the blackened remains of widows burned at
their husband’s funeral pile, or the slaughtered carcasses of countless
human victims. Indeed, Paganism has almost invariably represented its
divinities, as beings of the greatest cruelty and vindictiveness, whose
hot anger could only be quenched by human gore. The beautiful teaching,
that God “delighteth not in the death of the sinner,”* formed no part of
the heathens’ religious knowledge, and their notions of God’s mercy were
exceedingly vague and indistinct, since this was not so clearly shown by
the light of nature as his other attributes. Therefore, when, by
neglecting God’s worship, which an inherent sense taught them was an
obligatory duty, they became conscious of having incurred the Divine
displeasure, and they turned to their creed for instruction, they found
nought but thick darkness, for it was unable to point out to them any
means of reconciliation with the Eternal. They knew not that “He being
merciful forgiveth iniquity, and destroyeth not, yea, he frequently
turneth away his anger, and awakeneth not all his wrath;” for, the
consoling doctrine of the efficacy of repentance and amended conduct,
shed not its bright and blessed halo around their path.
In like rnanner, they had but dark and confused
notions of the Almighty’s justice; for while the goodness of their
Creator, as <<235>>displayed in his works, led them to suppose, that He would
be pleased with, and reward, both the services with which they
approached him, and their efforts to follow the right and flee the wrong
in so far as they were revealed to them: they could not but discover,
that while those who led a life of violence and corruption, and attached
themselves to evil, frequently flourished, those who were observant of
their duties and clave to the good, frequently perished. There then were
confusion and darkness again; for they could but indistinctly understand
that God’s justice and man’s free will, rendered a life after death and
a state of future reward and punishment indispensably necessary. We
find, therefore, that man, in endeavouring to acquire, by the sole use
of his reason, a knowledge of the Divine attributes and of religious
truth, did “but grope in darkness without light.”* The same may we say
of his search after moral truths, and with equal warrant affirm, that
3. A Divine revelation was necessary, to afford
the human race such a moral system, which, while it would promote the
happiness and perfection of the creature, would display, at the same
time, the wisdom, and glory of the Creator.—That man, if left to his
own guidance only, would be as unable to frame for himself a true or
perfect system of morals as of religion, history abundantly proves. Thus
we find that both with the ancient and modern followers of Paganism, the
one system has always resulted from the other, and the moral character
of these unenlightened beings has been formed in no slight degree by the
nature, the attributes and worship of their deities. Therefore, we
observe bloodshed, suicide, and murder, counted as matters of small
moment by those who deemed human sacrifices the most effective means for
propitiating their gods; whilst orgies and rites, the most absurd,
shameful, and licentious, were introduced and countenanced by those who
taught that to such the greatest acceptance would be extended. Whilst
some condemned theft as a crime, others upheld it as a virtue; and
whilst some denounced parricide or infanticide as most unnatural and
reprehensible acts, others recommended them as necessary and
praiseworthy deeds. Some devoted all their energies to suppress the
prevailing acts of corruption, incest, and gross impurity; whilst others
took as much <<236>>pains to promote and encourage them. And amidst all this
darkness, amidst all this horror and confusion, who shall say that
light, a revelation, was not needed? Surely not we, my brethren; no, we
are too fully conscious of the indispensableness of a divine light, to
guide us through the narrow and crooked ways of our pilgrimage on earth,
and also to point out for us the straightest and surest way to our
blissful abode in futurity, to say like unto this. No, we raise our
voices in words of praise and thanksgiving only, inasmuch as a divine
revelation being necessary our Heavenly Father did not hide the light of
his countenance from us, but in his infinite mercy and brace, did deign
to select us from all people, give us his law, and thus plant eternal
life within us, ברוך אתה ה׳ נותן התורה
Then let us bless and glorify the Eternal for this inestimable gift; let
us show that we duly appreciate it, by not permitting it to depart from
our mouth nor from the mouth of our children, for now and evermore; and
finally, let us show our worthiness of this most choice and valuable
gift of our God, by studying and executing all that it shall demand of
us.
And now unto Thee, Gracious Father! do we lift our
voice. O, grant, we beseech Thee, that our hearts may be ever impressed
with a due sense of thine infinite mercy and grace, in leading us forth
from the darkness and ignorance and superstition, and shedding around our
path the light of thy holy law. We pray Thee, O Lord, to receive our
sincere and heartfelt thanks, for thy surpassing kindness, in affording
us those instructions, laws, and precepts, which have proved as a tree
of life to such of us as have laid hold on them. More especially do we
praise Thee, O Lord, for the gift of thy blessed word, since it hath
taught us those things so necessary for us to know, and which but for
Thee we never could have discovered. Accept the praises and adorations
wherewith we now approach Thee, most holy God, in return for thine
infinite benevolence in drawing near to us at Sinai, and thereby
bestowing on us the means for inheriting everlasting happiness and life.
O, let the light which thou didst there kindle, continue to shed its
cheering brilliancy around us, even until that day when, brighter than
the sun which can illume but one half of the globe at once, it shall
shine forth refulgent on every family and place in thy world. O Lord,
grant this for thine excellency’s sake, and we do say, Amen. |
