THE JEWS AND THEIR RELIGION.

BY THE REV. ISAAC LEESER,

PASTOR OF THE HEBREW PORTUGUESE CONGREGATION, PHILADELPHIA.

WHEN We endeavour to trace the origin of the civilization which rules with its benignant sway the mightiest nations of modern times, and none more so than the people inhabiting the United States of America, we shall soon discover that it must be ascribed to a great moral influence which had its birth in the gray ages of antiquity. For, disguise it as you will, seek with candour or prejudice, you must at length arrive at the conclusion, that the sources whence the modern rules of moral government are in the main drawn, is the same which refreshed the Chaldæan shepherd when he first felt moved to peril his all in the cause of that truth which his high-reaching intellect had discovered; that is to say, the truth of the existence of ONE Supreme, who created all and sustains in his mercy all that his power has called into being.-This source of light we call divine revelation, and it is contained for us, who live at this day, in the pages of that priceless book which we call the BIBLE.

Long indeed, however, had this Bible, this source of truth, to struggle against the furious assaults of pagan superstition; long even after the establishment of Christianity was the leaven of ancient usages too powerful for the simple truths of the Word of God; but with all this, triumph is gradually perching upon the banners of divinely illuminated reason; and with the certain, though slow, progress of mankind in the path of science and enlightenment, it is not to be doubted that pure religion will also become more and more the rule of life for the sons of man. There may be, and in truth are, many retrogressions; we find indeed that from some unforeseen causes, such as luxury, devastating wars, the irruption of barbarous nations, mankind have appeared, and to this day do appear, to deteriorate in certain periods; but upon the whole every age becomes wiser than its predecessor through the light of experience and by a knowledge of the evils which others had to endure. The storms

through which civilization has periodically to pass, purify it from the stagnant air which entire repose would necessarily create around it; for it has to share the fate with every other gift which has been bestowed upon mankind, of being endangered if it is not constantly watched, and guarded against the enemies which have been wisely placed around our happiness, that we may not fall into inaction and effeminacy.

The Jews, and their predecessors the Israelites, have been always regarded with suspicion, and not rarely with aversion, by those who hold opinions different from them; but if an inquirer were to look with the eye of truth into the source of this suspicion and of this aversion, he would be disappointed, for the honour of mankind, to find that both are without sufficient ground to warrant their being indulged in by any person who can lay the least claim to intelligence. One would suppose that the Judæophobia must be owing to some monstrous doctrines which the Jewish religion contains, which would render its professors dangerous to the state as unsafe citizens or rebellious subjects, by teaching them to imbrue their hands in blood, or to plunder the unwary of their possessions. Perhaps calumny has asserted these things; perhaps ignorance may have imagined that this could be so. But how stands the case?

In the days when the wealth of many nations was not estimated by the gold and silver in their houses, and by the ships which bore their products upon the face of the ocean, but by the multitude of their herds and flocks and of "the ships of the desert" the patient and burdensome camels, and the toilsome asses, and the number of their household: there arose a man in his beginning as simple as his countrymen, as unostentatious as any shepherd of them all. He was called Abraham; and lived in that fruitful country once known as Chaldæa. Around him every one seemed to have forgotten the existence of ONE Creator; for gross idolatry, or the worship as gods of things which have no power to save, was the prevailing vice of mankind. It is well to inquire, whether notions of right and wrong based upon such premises can be of real utility to man? whether a belief in gods full of human vices, according to the ideas even of their worshippers, can inspire the virtues which are the basis of true civilization? The candid reasoner will answer in the negative; for debasing conceptions of worship will naturally debase the understanding, and one is but too apt to excuse in himself what he discovers or fancies to exist in the being to whom he looks up with respect and adoration. This being premised, it will be readily conceded that at the appearance of Abraham the pervading popular

opinions were unfriendly to the advancement of civilization; and that therefore his promulgating contrary views, granting that he did so, was no evidence of his being an enemy to the general welfare. Let us then see, what did Abraham do? Disgusted with the follies surrounding him on all sides, convinced that the works of human hands were not proper objects of worship: he resolved in his heart to look from the creature to the Cause, and thus he brought himself to adore the Creator; since there is every where apparent the same principle as the foundation and origin of all that exists. Full of this sublime thought he left his native land, his father's roof, and wandered to the smiling country of the South, where the most horrible superstition had established itself in the shape of human sacrifices to the devouring Moloch. It was here he proclaimed the "God who is the living God and everlasting King," and exhibited in his conduct that neighbourly love, that regard for justice and righteousness, which compelled even the followers of a senseless system, if system it may be called, to look upon him who had come among them a stranger, who had made publicly known his attachment to a worship which they knew not, as "a prince of God in the midst of them." What now were the principles of Abraham? Simply these: first, the belief in the existence of one God, who made heaven and earth; secondly, obedience to the dictates of this God; thirdly, accountability to this God for all deeds by intelligent creatures; fourthly, charity and neighbourly love; and fifthly, the exercise of evenhanded justice. We will not insist that there are no other principles involved in the doctrines of Abraham; but we give these points merely to convey a general idea of what he did in the fulfilment of his mission. Let us now examine briefly the effect such a system must have, if generally adopted and generally carried out in practice. Without the belief in a superior Power there cannot be imagined a being great enough to exercise any control over the actions of man; the Being to be adored must be eternal, universal, and uniform. Now precisely such a God Abraham proclaimed. The God of the scriptures is from the beginning; He made all that exists; He is of unending endurance, surviving all that can ever appear in the world; He is in every imaginable part of the creation-no space can limit Him, no obstacles can bar out his presence; and finally, He is uniform-there are no disturbing causes which can diminish his power, weaken his energies, or abridge his wisdom; there are no discoverable means to divide Him into parts, or to add aught to his greatness, felicity, or perfection, for every thing is his, and existing only by his will and sufferance. This God, according to Abraham's doctrines, has given

certain instructions to his creatures, which, since He is the Source of wisdom, must be necessarily wise, useful and immutable in their tendencies and nature. Farther, the Creator expects that those who have a knowledge of his enactments will, under pain of accountability, and with a certainty of recompense, endeavour to obey strictly what they are certified to be the will of their God. Then again these enactments, as far as mankind are concerned, demand that every man shall love his neighbour, and dispense to all, whom he can reach, those acts of kindness which he himself would desire to receive in the hour of his need. But such a system would be incomplete without the superaddition of that principle with which the Creator governs the world, and this principle we call "Justice;" this therefore too was engrafted upon Abraham's creed, and he is praised for the certainty that he would command his house after him to exercise this principle in their intercourse with others.

That Abraham was viewed with prejudice by those who profited by the superstition of the times, is but too probable; that the priests who kept the people in ignorance with regard to the true nature of the Deity should hate a man who cast, so to say, their idols to the ground, by informing every one who came to him of the pure ideas he had of the Creator, is as certain as that the doers of evil hate those whose conduct is a perpetual rebuke to their iniquity; that the tyrants who governed by debasing the mind of their subjects, who caused themselves to be looked upon as superior to the mass of mankind, did not relish the presence of the philosopher whose system rendered all men equal in obedience, in hope, as creatures of the same Father, admits of not the smallest doubt, for the general acknowledgment of these views would, if not destroy the power of kings, greatly circumscribe the same, and make men jealous of their rulers. We do not wonder, therefore, that the new civilization, as we will term it, could not advance very rapidly in the then state of the world; it contradicted every thing which was assumed as true by so many interested persons, and offered to no one individual any prominence among those who submitted to its rule. Nevertheless it is not to be doubted, that the entire system of modern civilization is based upon the early dawning thereof in the person of Abraham, which we have sketched as above. Although the constitutions of the various countries, where an enlightened liberty prevails, do not in all cases recite a belief in the existence of one God and a subjection to his laws: they in the main acknowlege these ideas in legislation and jurisprudence no less than in domestic life. In short, the Abrahamic discoveries, so to term them, in the ethical sciences, have become the standard of public

liberty, the safeguard of justice, and the prop of private life, wherever science has succeeded in dispelling the reign of ignorance, and where an enlightened worship has chased away the dark clouds of superstition. Under many appellations the God of Abraham is invoked; climes the farthest asunder send forth praises to the Everliving; and prayers ascend to Him from Ethiopia's sons and from the children of the Andes, no less than from the fair Circassian race; and the mighty Name is indeed glorious among the Gentiles.

When Moses appeared on earth to accomplish what Abraham had commenced, it was not a new theory which was proclaimed, but a confirmation of the ancient covenant. The idea of belief was not enlarged, because there could be no addition to the simplicity and truth of its first inception; the creed of Abraham was one God, sole, uniform, eternal; and Moses could not add to or diminish from this unchangeable truth. What then was Moses' mission?

establishment of a consistent code of laws in consonance with the acknowledged universality of the Almighty power. The Lord, in the code of Moses, became the chief of a civil state, in which the people were citizens and equals under the banner of obedience to the divine will; there was no one equal to the Lord, there was no one above the reach of the laws. Whoever was raised to dignity among his people, held a power delegated from on high with the concurrence and sufferance of the governed; and when the ruler ceased to shape his course by the statutes which had been prescribed for the government of the whole people, he at once lost the authority which he had abused, at times by direct divine interference, at times by the simple action of the people; of this the scriptures give so many examples that it is needless to quote them here, where we are confined to a very limited space. But in connexion with the civil code based on religion, there was another object in the legislation of Moses; and this was the uniting of the belief in the unity of the divine Essence with outward, tangible rites, which should ever remind the people to whom they had been given of the truth which they had inherited from their fathers. It is obvious that neither pictures nor the works of the chisel could effect this great end. For in the commemorative works of art, to be thus produced, the Deity also, the principal agent in all these transactions, would have to be represented; and how could this be done? Where could we possibly find a likeness or an image to figure Him by? He, who is without bodily conformation, without outward shape, could He be shadowed forth by the puerile invention of genius, puerile, when compared with his greatness and purity? And besides, admit that it were possible; still how would it have com