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A Sermon
O Lord our God, almighty and merciful Father! how
long wilt thou delay having mercy on Jerusalem, and the outcasts of thy
people? Behold! our city is desolate, and but a ruin remains of thy
sanctuary; and thy children are scattered over the face of the earth,
without a government, without a shepherd, and many of them are lost
among the gentiles, through the length of the captivity and are drawn
unto sin, because they listen to the overtures of their adversaries, and
worship the strange gods which others worship, as though the hope of
Israel were lost and extinguished in the whirlpool of eternity. Whereas
thou, O living God! art the sole Hope of our race, the God whom
<<73>>alone we
will worship; the true Shepherd, who wilt lead us securely, on rich
pastures, the Saviour of Jacob, who wilt in mercy send the redeemer to
us to reinstate us in our inheritance, to restore thy law to its ancient
power over the heart and affairs of man, to banish all false belief, all
vanity from the earth, when all who have spirit will truly see thy
glory, and call alone on Thee, and worship none beside Thee, on that
glorious day when justice and righteousness will rule the earth, and
nation will not lift up sword against nation, and mankind no more learn
war. And then will our temple again be the dwelling of thy Name, and
offerings will be acceptable to Thee as of old, when Thou wilt abide in
our midst, to bless us and all the world with thy peace. Amen.
Brethren,
In the Haphtorah of to-day, taken from the fourth
and fifth chapters of the second book of Kings, is told the history of
the leper Naaman, the chief officer of the ruler of Syria, who on being
informed that the Israelitish prophet had power not granted to any other
man, was prevailed upon to visit Samaria, with the permission of his
master, to obtain from the man of God that relief from his incurable
disease, which he had hoped for in vain from the remedies of the
physicians of his own country and belief. Behold him full of doubts and
misgivings on his adventurous journey; a Jewish captive maiden had
indeed assured his wife that he should of a certainty be cured by the
prophet of Samaria; but it might be the boasting of a captive, who
reverted back with regret to her native land, where she had sported in
innocent mirth among maidens as gleesome as herself, and whose romantic
soul covered everything in her lost home with the mantle of a peculiar
holiness not appertaining to other lands. It was merely the desperation
of hopelessness, perhaps, which induced the valiant soldier to listen to
such a wonderful tale; his own priests, the worshippers of his own gods,
had no such power, they claimed not to restore a man from leprosy; and
why should such a power be inherent in the men of that people over which
he had so often triumphed? And, still he had heard of the mighty God of
Israel, of the many great deeds which He had wrought in Egypt and
Palestine for his people; and how He was supposed by them to be superior
to all gods, and all-sufficient to do of himself whatever might be
<<74>>pleasing to his will. But again he may have thought, if this God be so
great why does He not extend his kingdom over all the earth, which the
Israelites allege is the work of his creation? Why does he allow other
gods to be worshipped when He is God alone? Again he may have supposed that, granted
even that God had power, would He heal one like himself who worshipped
Him not? who paid his adoration to what must be false in case the idea
of the Hebrews with regard to the Deity were true? And observe farther
in our narrative, the general had gone and told the king of Syria of the
marvelous story of the maiden; and as potentates of the earth always
think their power paramount to all, he at once conceived the idea, that
if Naaman could be cured in Samaria it must be through means of the king
of Israel, who if even not able to devise the required remedy himself,
would to a certainty have the influence with the humble prophet, who had
no armed legions to do his will, nor courtiers to flatter his vanity, to
do all that he desired.
But for once the worshipper of the calves of
Jeroboam felt that he had no ability to do the bidding of the Syrian
monarch. “Am I a god,” said he, “to slay and to make alive, that he hath
sent unto me to cure a man of his leprosy?” and straightways he imagined
that it was a device of the Syrian to seek a mere pretext for renewing
the ancient hostilities between Aram and Israel. Yes, the idolatrous
king of Samaria rent his garments, so agitated was he at the unexpected
message, so horrified was he at the presence of the leper who asked to
be restored to health. But what earthly kings cannot achieve, what
neither wealth nor station can accomplish, is nevertheless within divine
possibility. Nor had the Jewish maiden, who first had spoken of the
miraculous gifts of Elisha, in common with others acquainted with the
ways of God with man, for a moment thought the power inherent in, or
attainable by the ruler, but in the man on whom had fallen a twofold
share of the spirit of him who ascended to the abodes of the blessed
without passing through the gates of death; and as said, it was only the
natural error of the idolater of Damascus, who, because he was
all-potent with his priests and soothsayers, imagined the same to be the
case with all other religions, so that over its followers everywhere the
chief of the state had ample control to mould them to his will, to
coerce them to do his <<75>>bidding. But it need not be told you how utterly
inapplicable all this is to our religion, which has its source from God,
and knows of no authority on earth to which it must render homage, which
views all alike who have received life and intellect from the Creator;
since even the priests and prophets are not established for their own
especial benefit, but that they might render to the people the services
which their God conceives will be for the great benefit of all; so that
all, whether people or their religious, nay their civil leaders, are
included in the one great idea of all being banded to ether to worship
the Most High, and promote each other’s greatest happiness. When Elisha
therefore had heard that King Joram had rent his garments, he demanded
that the Syrian should be sent to him, that he might experience that
there was a prophet in Israel, not like the soothsayers of the heathens,
who deceived the people by false and pretended revelations, but a true
messenger who had received from the Lord the mission to prove the great
power of our God, how that He is supreme and alone exalted above all.
Now the Syrian, though suffering from a loathsome
disease, had not thereby diminished the least of the pride of his
position as leader of the royal army, and he went with his chariots and
horses and stood at the door of Elisha’s house, expecting that the
prophet should come out to him, lay his hand on the diseased part, call
on the name of the Lord, and thus not alone restore him to health, but
exhibit to him at once the connexion between the power of God, and the
prayer and influence of Elisha. This procedure would have shown Naaman
to be a man whose well-being was of importance to the divine economy,
and the evident miraculousness of the cure, the solemnity of the
prophet’s prayer, in the presence of the chiefs and nobles of Damascus
and Samaria, would have been well pleasing to the haughty military
commander who came to expect relief, not to look for it in humility. It
was therefore with deep chagrin that he received a message merely frorn
Elisha, who himself did not deign even to look upon his military
visitor, the noise of whose followers, and the tramplings of whose
steeds resounded in the street in front of his dwelling. And what was
the message? was any great demand made? any deep medical skill
displayed? any immediate miracle to be performed? any public prayer to
be offered <<76>>up? None of all this was done; but Naaman was ordered to go
farther to the east till he reached the banks of the sacred Jordan, and
in its waters he was to bathe seven times, neither more nor less, when
his flesh should again assume a healthy complexion, and he should be
cleansed from the contagion. You can easily picture to yourselves the
wrath of the proud soldier, at finding his dignity so thoroughly
slighted by the holy man of Samaria. So there was to be no prayer even
offered up in his behalf; and who could tell why he bid him to go on
that errand? was it perhaps to gain time? was it a mere device because
he had no power to act in the case? and why not order him to the
beautiful rivers of Damascus, to the lovely Amanah, and the clear
Pharpar? were they not far superior to the unpretending rivers of
Palestine? what virtue could there be in Jordan which his own streams
did not possess? But he forgot all the time, that neither he nor any
other man had a right to demand that an unusual cure should be wrought
in his behalf: that nothing he had done could entitle him to be
exhibited before the world as one for whose restoration signs and
wonders should be performed, and that at length, if he would do
something to deserve the divine mercy, it must be first by submitting
himself entirely and unconditionally to the demands of God, as extended
to him by his prophet. It was not then that Elisha had not power to cure
by prayer; but it was withheld in order to afford Naaman some slight
opportunity to render himself worthy of the blessing for which he
solicited; he had not yet learned the worship of the Lord, and he became
thus familiarized with the sublime truth, that it is obedience which
is demanded, if we wish to be pleasing to God, and that as its
reward only can mercy be shown to us. Moreover, though bathing seven
times in the Jordan made the wonderfulness of the cure no less evident
than any other inadequate means to produce a given cause, still was it
employing some natural method, some aid from man himself, through which
means the divine blessing could be conferred; and again was Naaman thus
taught another important lesson, that man must do something of his own,
that he must be active in some shape or other, in order to obtain that
assistance from above, without which all labour is vain, and against
which nothing can avail. After Naaman had therefore turned away in
<<77>>anger, his servants persuaded him not to throw away lightly the promise
of divine mercy which the prophet had opened to him. Yes a great thing,
the slaying of a thousand steers, the giving away of treasures to any
amount, wading through blood of conquered armies, would have appeared
insignificant in his sight, if he could only thereby regain his
strength; and only the smallness of the trial displeased him even more
than the prophet’s own apparent indifference to his suffering. They
entreated him then to submit to this little condition; and when thus
subdued, lo! he went into the water which he had esteemed so lightly,
and barely had the seventh ablution taken place, than his flesh was
again like the flesh of a little boy, and he was clean, and the marks of
the contagion which had made him shunned, despite of his greatness, were
at once removed, in accordance with the conditional promise of the man
of God.
Let it be observed that had any priests of
falsehood obtained such a triumph over the disease attached to an
important personage in the state, it would have been performed under
imposing circumstances, with all possible contrivances to lend
importance and high sanction to the occasion. Presents too, rich and
costly, would have been demanded, not alone received; and the individual
actors would have glorified themselves at their unexpected success, for
however artfully contrived, there could never be any certainty in any
jugglery or trick thus attempted to be consummated. The very absence,
however, of Elisha in the present instance, the simplicity of the
remedy, the confident tone of the promise, the entire success of the
obedience of Naaman, convinced not alone the subject of the cure but the
unbelieving Syrians, as well as the sinning Israelites, that the power
of the Lord is indeed the irresistible influence which governs the
world, and that hence, unless there be another deity of equal ability to
work his will with himself, He must be the sole controller of the whole
world; but as all the nations of that day worshipped a multitude of
divinities, all of which partook of the nature of finite beings, and
were even, according to their priests, under the influence of
uncontrollable chance, and since from this consideration they could not
predict, nor cause others to predict with certainty what was to occur;
and whereas Elisha had clearly pointed out an unusual means to effect a
given purpose, and <<78>>predicted to a certainty all the occurrences as they
took place, and this all based upon the will of God: Naaman came justly
to the conclusion, that as the God of Elisha had thus proved his ability
to effect his purpose, and had so clearly defined how it was to be
accomplished, it proved that He must be uncontrolled by any other power,
and is in fact the sole God in all the earth. And so say the Scriptures,
ויבא אל איש האלהים הוא וכל מחנהו ויבא ויעמד לפניו ויאמר
הנה נא ידעתי כי אין אלהים בכל הארץ כי אם בישראל׃
“And he returned unto the man of God, he with all
his camp, and he came and stood before him, and said, Behold, now I know
that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”
What first he had heard in anger and derision had
now proved to him that with God all is possible, and that, however
nothing he had done to deserve the mercy shown unto him, it was now made
evident unto him, that when God desires to bless, no one can stay Him,
and no circumstance, however slight, will be ineffectual to effect his
almighty purposes, the moment it is his intention to bless or to punish;
and he left Samaria with different feelings from those with which he had
entered it, and he resolved henceforward to be a follower of the true
God, and when making sacrifices, to do so only unto Him, whose are the
majesty and the glory, and the dominion of all the world.
Perhaps it may be asked why so much undeserved
kindness was shown to Naaman, especially as nothing farther is said of
him in the subsequent passages of the Bible. But without going very
deeply into the subject, it would be enough to answer in general terms,
that we must apply here also, as on other occasions, the words which the
Lord himself taught unto Moses when asking for a knowledge of the ways
of God: “And I will be gracious unto him to whom I will be gracious, and
I will have mercy on him to whom I will show mercy.”
It is, in other words, the province of our Father
alone to determine who is to be blessed, and also to cause it to have a
permanent influence on the affairs of the world at large. We may not,
indeed, have any knowledge or conception even how any one occurrence,
for instance this one of Naaman, may or can affect mankind in general;
but for all that there may have been a great necessity in the fearful
demoralization of that age, as it was in the preceding one
<<79>>through
Elijah’s miracles, to teach the Israelites, as the depositaries of the
law—the great truths which Moses had first handed down to the assembled
people. Fearful inroads had the various systems of idolatry made upon
the simple religion of the Bible; the Israelites had adopted the
vagaries of the heathen mythologies, and the observance of the
commandments fell daily more in abeyance. It mattered not then so much
who the instruments that were made the cause of arresting the total
extinction of religion were, as that such were raised up for the wisest
of purposes, by the most benevolent of all beings; and that they were so
various, from the poor man who had to borrow an axe to chop down a tree,
to the general of Benhadad’s army,—from the simple female of Shunem to
the valiant king of Israel, only confirmed the more thoroughly the many
who yet adhered to the truth, that they would not be forsaken
themselves, and that the God whom they adored and the religion which
they followed would for ever remain the inheritance of their people, and
that nothing done by them within, and nothing done by others from
without would ever obliterate the belief in the sole Creator from the
hearts of their latest descendants, or let the law perish from out of
their mouth.
Whatever God has created is for his glory; and
hence those whom He deems so are the most fitting to carry out his
benevolent views. If, then, to our apprehension even they are not the
most suitable, we ought to be very cautious how we allow ourselves to
sin by impugning the wisdom of which we cannot understand the very
beginning; and that the actors in these great events appear but once on
the scene, is not to assert that they were useless. The example needed
was one of a peculiar kind, we may assume; and it having been given, its
repetition was not needed, and the actors also required not to be dwelt
upon in the future development of the history of the world. The Bible,
let it be remembered, was not written for our amusement, or to satisfy
our curiosity, but to instruct us in the way of life; and the healing of
Naaman is accordingly complete in itself, and teaches the lessons which
we have already touched upon, and which we will now recapitulate in a
connected form.
First, whatever afflicts us is a divine
dispensation: Naaman’s disease was evidently within the divine
cognizance, and consequently we must not imagine that we are neglected
or forsaken of God, if <<80>>the pleasant current of our days is interrupted,
and sickness and its pain invade our domicil.
Secondly, that all our cures are in the hands of
Him who afflicts us; consequently we should always hope that we shall be
relieved from all our sorrows, so soon as divine mercy deems the end of
our trials has arrived.
Thirdly, that we are permitted to use human
remedies and natural means to restore ourselves to health; but we must
never forget when so applying them, that they can only be efficacious
when blessed by God, but that otherwise the skill of the physician is
exhausted in vain, and no balm can heal the wound against which the
decree has gone forth that it should hasten the sufferer’s end.
Fourthly, that in order to obtain the blessing of
God, we must relinquish all our preconceived opinions of what we may
deem right and proper, but should assiduously endeavour to submit
without question and reluctance to what religion teaches us, in order
that God may bless us and accomplish the desires of our heart. It was
said to Naaman, “Bathe thyself and become cleansed;” and the healing
which he obtained was as the immediate consequence of his fulfilling
what he had in this respect been told was the will of God.
And, fifthly, that the power of God is unlimited by
what we call impossibilities and contradictions; with Him the will and
the power are inseparably connected, and no matter what the conditions
of the case may be, the ability of the Lord to effect his will is not in
the slightest degree abridged. Men speak of impossibilities, because
they soon feel the extent of their power; they speak of their not
knowing, because they speedily discover the limit which their wisdom can
attain; they soon complain of weariness and sleepiness, because their
endurance has been tasked to the utmost extent of their ability;—but
with God there is no conceivable want of power, not the remotest idea of
a want of mental comprehension, no possibility of weariness and sleep;
but He is always in the full enjoyment of strength, a constant source of
inexhaustible wisdom, and unflagging endurance and a wakefulness which
needs not rest to enable it to stand firm in a new task, to bear with
all the hardships which continued toil would require. In short, man is
all-dependent, God is self-sufficient; man is powerless, God is
omnipotent; man derives his being and whatever comprises it, God is self
existence, perfect and happy <<81>>in himself, and requires nothing beyond Him
to add to his perfection and happiness.
This is the idea which the Decalogue meant to
convey of the Supreme, inasmuch much as it announced Him as the creative
power who punishes and rewards, not according to caprice, but according
to the merits of the creatures themselves. To enforce this, to render it
permanent, were the subsequent events recorded in the Bible
contrived,—to rivet faster and faster in the minds of the people their
sole dependence on the sole and only Creator. To effect this great and
small deeds were wrought; the agents were either pious or sinners, high
or humble, Israelites or gentiles; and with all it had for the only
object contemplated, to let the world understand that the whole economy
of creation is the effect of one Being, who is good and beneficent,
willing only to be obeyed, in order that the greatest good may be
conferred on the greatest numbers; not that He is injured by what is
done in the world, but that his creatures might be rendered as happy as
their nature will admit of. It is true that nature is also his, and He
call alter it to suit his purposes.
But we in our limited knowledge know not what is
the best for us and others; we cannot tell how the whole economy is
progressing to a point of absolute perfection; we cannot see how the
grass grows or the grain ripens; but when we compare the barren field
and the burnt up meadow with the state of luxuriance they present in the
bright sunlight of summer, we are conscious of the creative progress
which has taken place unseen to us, though our annual experience tells
us to expect such a result as certain to occur, to a great extent, at
least, if not to the self-same degree, in every change of seasons. So is
it with the development of the world. A religion was given to us; it has
been attested as excellent by the sanctifying influence it has had and
still has on those of Israel who submit to its behests; sparks flying,
as it were, from the rock on which it is built, shivered, as it has
been, by the calamities of a long and still enduring captivity, have
kindled a mighty flame all over the face of the globe; the elements are
in commotion, there is a chaos in the intellectual world, there are
commingled truth and error, light and darkness; but the spirit of God is
moving with the swiftness of eagles’ wings over the face of the waters,
and as the pinions touch the darksome element every
<<82>>now and then, a
spirit is awakened, and it says, “There is no God in all the earth but
in Israel;” ay, it sinks again into the abyss, and its testimony is
hushed amidst the roaring of adverse elements; but still the voice has
gone forth, and others will take up the refrain, and new witnesses will
be called forth, and new spirits will be awakened, till the whole mass
of beings will be ripe for the kingdom of God, as the harvest is ready
for the sickle of the harvester; and then will suddenly go forth, as in
the beginning, the word “Let there be light,” and there will be light,
and darkness will fly away from the face of the new creation, and error
and superstition and falsehood will be for ever banished from the earth,
and the new world will stand resplendent in the new light of God’s
truth, when the Lord himself will be the universal Sun and Shield, as
the lower world emerged from the mass of confused existence on the first
day of creation.
Let it not be imagined that the world was entirely
lifeless before light was called forth from the darkness; there was the
Creator’s will breathing on the elements, preparing them for the new
functions to which they were destined. So, too, in the moral world. The
giving of the Decalogue was but the beginning of the end; the elements
were set in motion by it; it is the spirit of God which floats over the
human mind; it prepares all for the final triumph of truth, and it will
prevail, no matter how much the wicked may despise the prophetic people,
no matter how many may claim to be possessed of the truth, better truth
than is in Israel. The leprosy which affects the masses must be removed;
Israel, as well as the world, will have to be washed of their
uncleanness; but it is faith in God which will effect this.
Unwilling or willing, men will seek to throw off their load, the burden
of which afflicts them, in this purifying stream; and when they find
themselves restored to primitive innocence, their flesh, as it were,
rendered like that of a healthful child, they all will go before those
who knew the Lord and worshipped Him during the days of tribulation, and
say, “Surely there is no God in all the earth but in Israel only, and we
will serve Him alone who is Creator, Ruler, and Saviour, who is all in
all, the sole God, whose name be blessed for evermore.” Amen.
Nissan 4th, April 7th, 5608. |
