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by
Isaac Leeser
(Continued
from vol. 1. issue 5. )
“Hear
O Israel, the Lord, our God, is the Lord one.”
As
we said in our second article on the Jewish Creed, it is the first duty
of the Israelite to believe in the existence of God. He is bound to
imbue his mind with the conviction that, however great or sublime any
thing may be, it is directly derived from a First Cause, the
incomprehensible Essence by whom all things were produced. Whatever we
contemplate, and if we investigate the origin of any thing, we must come
at length to a stopping-place beyond which our knowledge cannot pass,
and where we must confess that our intellect is insufficient to dive
deeper into the unknown recesses which are concealed from our view. With
all this we will be struck with the remarkable fact, that however
unknown the First Cause may be, it is uniform in its operation, and that
there exists not one thing which from its harmonizing with all else of
which we have any knowledge, is not referable to the same Principle. In
other words, the Deity, otherwise called the First Cause, is uniformly
the same in all nature, and is in harmony with himself and in unison
with all existing things. We do not wish to discuss the subject with
reference to abstruse reasonings which are beyond our own comprehension,
but simply in the most popular form, so that we can whilst understanding
our own words make them likewise intelligible to our readers.
If
now in our investigations, which are daily forced upon our notice by the
objects of nature or the events of life, we could once only meet with a
principle diverging from the usual Cause which governs the world, we
might perhaps assume that there was a diversity, or a multiplicity in
the great Author of all things. This, however, not being the case, we
must arrive at the conclusion that there is but one Principle,
which is uniformly the same. In other words, there exists but one God,
who is the Creator and Governor of all existence. This conclusion can
alone account for the astonishing uniformity and regularity which are
every where discoverable, and which have been observed at all times of
the world. Take any branch of history, and trace the chain of events as
they develope each other in regular succession: how the same causes
always produce the same effects; how the intellect of man has always
been of the same nature and acting alike under the same circumstances:
and you must confess, that at least in the government of the human
family there has been the same Power as Ruler and Guardian, who,
whatever man might determine on, always guided events so as to be
productive of some tangible good in some shape or the other. It may be
difficult in every instance to trace the benefits which historical
catastrophes have produced; but this much we may assume—that whatever
positive evil befell a community it was owing to some previous
abandonment of the principles on which the happiness of society
naturally depends. At all events, the manner of development of such
occurrences has ever been the same; hence we assert that the Cause that
presides ever the affairs of life has been uniformly the same in all
ages of which we have any knowledge.
The
same applies to natural phenomena. Whatever agents are known to us
always have produced, and still do produce, the same results. Fire,
water, earth, and air, whether these be regarded as elementary or
compound substances, have always contributed to produce or to enter in
the combinations which constitute the different bodies of which we can
form any knowledge. The dissolution and reproduction, and renewal of all
substances have been going on in one regular and uniform succession, and
never has any one discovered the least deviation from the laws which
sound and accurate demonstration has proved to be true. If you analyze
substances which are subject to your control, and if you investigate
materials which you cannot handle; if you divide the gross objects which
are evident to your sight, or let your search be directed to the
aeriform bodies which you only can prove as present by their effects; if
you meditate on the forces of mechanics or the instruments by which they
are produced; if you evaporate or distil in your skilful operations the
solids or liquids, or condense them again into their original bodies; in
whatever art, or science, or experiment, or discovery may venture on its
bold inquiry, in all will you see exhibited the same process of cause
and effect, unchangingly and without fail, if no outward disturbing
causes are present to prevent the expected result. We say then that over
outward nature in all its ramifications, and in all the times of which
we have any knowledge, the same superintending divine Power has borne
rule; and, to judge from analogy, as we know of no causes which can
produce a new and different power, we must go farther, and say, that we
learn from outward nature that another Creator is inconceivable as
Possible to be associated with the one from whom has sprung
whatever now exists.
The
great uniformity then which is thus revealed to us in the book of nature
will exhibit this fact, that there is but one Power who bears
rule, and that whatever evil is discoverable in any part of our
investigation is a part of goodness which necessarily enters into the
arrangement of those things where we ourselves can discover the
beneficence of the Creator. For were it that the evil were a
separate principle, a contending force against goodness, there
would be discoverable some one thing which fell a victim to the former
whilst the protection of the latter was withdrawn. But where is such an
instance? On the contrary, up to this moment, nothing has passed away
which GOODNESS has called forth; hence the apparent evil must
likewise be the effect of the same great Cause. Evil then is a means of
correction or progress rather, which helps things from a state of
inferior felicity to one of a higher degree, and is constantly
accomplishing whatever has been from the first in the mind of Almighty
Power as his object to effect in the universe.
The
idea, however, of the oneness of the Godhead has always been a
stumbling-block to gross and material men; they could not conceive that
what to them appeared contending forces should proceed from the same
source. Hence they invested material objects with divine powers which
naturally do not belong to them, or they divided the powers of God
between imaginary beings whom they worshipped for their kindness, or
whose wrath they deprecated owing to their power of injuring from a sort
of malevolence. This division of the powers of God has been the source
of many idolatries, or false conceptions of the Deity, and it has
adopted different forms in different ages of the world. There is no use
to go over all the beliefs of ancient and modern nations; enough that
the most enlightened, the Brahmins and Parsees, adopt the idea of evil
and good spirits, who are in a constant contest, each one the author of
what is akin to his nature. Well known are Ahriman the evil, and Ormuzd
the good principle of Zoroaster, corresponding with the Siva, the
destroyer, and Vishnu, the preserver, of the Brahmins. It was to combat
this error of the gentiles, especially the Persians, amongst whom it was
so strongly prevalent, that the prophet Isaiah, in the commencement of
his forty-fifth chapter, expresses himself in the following manner:
“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I
have holden to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of
kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not
be shut: I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I
will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut asunder the bars of
iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches
of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, who call thee
by name, am the God of Israel. For my servant Jacob's sake, and Israel
my elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee,
though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is no one else,
there is no god beside me; I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that
there is none beside me; I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form
the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil: I the Lord
do all these things.” In this the prophet notifies the Persian Cyrus,
who was not yet born, whilst the Babylonian kingdom had not yet subdued
that of Israel, that he should become the restorer of the Hebrew nation.
Cyrus is called the anointed, the Messiah of the Lord, being appointed
to fulfil the mission of mercy to God's elect, and is then told, that he
most not imagine that the punishment and the reward, the darkness and
the light, proceed from different sources, but that, on the contrary,
they are all referable to the same principle of eternal goodness, the Lord,
who alone is the sovereign Ruler of all things. Cyrus, when he lived to
see the accomplishment of this remarkable prediction, must have felt
that the truth was indeed with Israel; but beyond this the influence did
not extend, and the principle of a divided deity has survived to this
day. For when the gentiles at length began to become familiar with the
law of Moses and the prophetic writings, they again halted at the Unity,
and would not believe that the same power could punish and save. Hence
they proceeded to imagine a plurality in the Godhead, one part of which
assumed the human form to suffer the penalty of sin, as an atonement to
the other that accepted the sacrifice. We really know not how to express
the idea in other words. To us it seems but the revival of the notion of
a good and an evil principle in a modified form, since needs there must
be a species of inexorable justice which cannot forgive or remit
transgression. But be this as it may, there can be no unity of purpose
nor singleness of will, if a sacrifice can be accepted by one part of
the Deity from the other; for where there is a necessity to do an act of
homage, which a sacrifice, however voluntary, naturally is, there is at
the same time a superiority in the receiver above him who is the victim
of the other's wrath, or else the sacrifice could be of no avail. There
can moreover be no unity in the essence or nature of these personages,
even admitting that two can be one, which we deny, for otherwise the
sacrifice would be nothing else than that God sacrificed himself to
himself, to make himself an atonement to his own being, in order to
forgive iniquity which otherwise he could not; which evidently would
require a division of wills if even there be no division of bodies in
the Deity. That this cannot be, without even going to Scripture for
proof, appears from the fact, that the course of nature emphatically
contradicts the existence of two antagonizing principles in the
creation; and then the scheme of the sacrifice ought, in justice to the
benevolence which must have dictated it, had it actually taken place, to
have occurred at a much earlier period in the history of man than it is
said to have done. Besides, upon what principle could the agreement to
sacrifice a part of himself have been made by the other? except by
assuming that the one is amenable to, which would argue, that he is also
derived from, the other. Now this view would at once destroy all idea of
a unity, and would establish the existence of two separate divinities,
the one the principal, the other the secondary, and this would require
not personages of the same being, but different beings of, if you will,
the same substance, but still separate, and distinct in person, purpose,
power, and will.
Against
all these views, of whatever shade, regarding a plurality of godheads,
our religion bears its amplest testimony. “I am the Lord and there is
none else,” so says the prophet; there is no conceivable association
with the Everlasting in his creative quality; He is alone in his
government, He is alone in his will. All derived existence is imaginable
as existing in different portions, in divisible articles: not so the
perfect Unity whom we worship. We cannot conceive Him to be more than He
is, we cannot understand how He could be less. He always was one, for
says the Prophet, “there is none else;” and surely this cannot
permit us to assume that the One is more or less than one, or that at
any one time some part of himself was separated and was actuated by a
different will, no matter how benevolent soever this might be, whilst
the other required and accepted the atonement. This is no unity, where a
submission is necessary; this is no unity, where one is the emanation
from the other. One means the same, uniform, unchanging being and this
the God of Israel emphatically is: one in purpose, one in power, one in
forgiveness, as He is alone in the creation and government of the world.
We
will add a few texts to prove that the Bible so taught as we believe.
“And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out
my hand over Egypt (i. e. punish the guilty) and bring forth the
children of Israel from the midst of them,” (i. e. protect the
oppressed,) consequently, the Lord is exhibited as the source of both
good and evil. (Exod. 7. 5.) “That thou mayest know that I am the Lord
in the midst of the earth,” i. e. ever ready, ever present to execute
my will. (Ib. 8. 18.) “The Lord will reign for ever and ever,” i. e.
unceasingly one and alone. (Ib. 15. 18.) “Hear O Israel, the Lord, our
God, is the Lord one,” i. e. the Deity whom we worship, the
everlasting God, is indeed alone everlasting, consequently alone God and
King. (Deut. 6. 9.) “And know that the Lord thy God is the God,
the faithful God, who keepeth the covenant of mercy with those who love
Him and keep his commandments, to the thousandth generation,” i. e.
always present to reward, to the latest posterity, consequently
uniformly one. (Ib. 7. 9.) “But that prophet who shall presume to
speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who
shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die,” i. e.
there is no other being than the Lord in whose name one could speak with
truth. (Ib. 18. 20.) “To fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD
THY GOD.” (Ib. 28. 58.) “The Lord would lead him alone, and no
strange god is with Him,” i. e. in all the displays of providence
which we have experienced the One is without associate or assistant.
(Ib. 32. 12.) “And now thus saith the Lord thy creator, O Jacob, and
thy former, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called
thee by name, thou art mine.” “For I am the Lord thy God, the holy
One of Israel, thy Saviour.” “For I am the Lord, and without me (not
us) there is no saviour.” “Already from the beginning of time I am
the same, and no one can save out of my hand, (there is no associate who
call redeem when the Lord punishes,) I will work and who will prevent
me?” “I the Lord am your holy One, the Creator of Israel, your
King.” (Isaiah 43. 1, 3, 11, 13, 15.) “And the Lord God is truth, he
is the living God and everlasting King; at his wrath the earth will
tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.”
“Thus shall ye say to them, The gods that made not heaven and the
earth shall be lost from the earth and from beneath these heavens.”
“Every man is brutish in his knowledge, every founder is ashamed
because of the image (he has made), for his molten image is falsehood,
and no spirit is in them. They are vanity, the works of error, in the
times of their visitation shall they perish. Not like them is Jacob's
portion, for He is the former of all things, and Israel is the rod of
his inheritance, the Lord of hosts is his name.” (Jer. 10. 10, 11,
14,-16.) We could multiply texts from all the sacred writings, which
bear but one interpretation, that is the absolute unity, saving power,
and goodness of the Creator; but we refer our readers to the Bible, and
forbear farther quotations.
All
this exhibits the truth of the second article of our creed, which is the
following words: “I believe with a perfect faith that the Creator,
blessed be his name, is one, and there is no unity like Him in
any manner whatsoever, and He alone is our God, who was, who is, and who
will be.” So also in Yigdal: “He is one, but there is no
unity like unto his unity; He is incomprehensible, and also his unity is
unending.” With this we rest for the present, trusting that what we
have advanced has furnished some additional arguments to the Israelitish
reader in favour of his faith, and given to our gentile friends an
insight into the nature of our firm adherence upon the immutability of
our God and Lawgiver, whom we regard as one and true, and the only
Eternity, to whom be praise and glory to everlasting. |
