Isaac Samuel Reggio

“ Through revelation, man was made acquainted that God created the universe out of nought, that He governs it with His wisdom, and can work every change which He deems suitable; that He created man in the Divine image, that is, with an immortal soul, capable of receiving within itself the Divine idea, of conceiving its sublimity, and carrying it into effect. Through revelation, man learnt that God is One, omnipotent, holy, of infinite forbearance and mercy, and an inexhaustible source of pure love ”

“ He, who truly loves and fears God, will surely feel the necessity of placing in Him exclusively all his trust, for he is convinced that there is no being in nature, besides God, that can offer an infallible support to human hopes. He will find in his heart an almost irrepressible impulse to praise the Divine perfections, to extol His glory, to offer sincere homage to the Sovereign of the universe, to worship and serve Him with purity of heart, to thank Him for favours received, to supplicate Him for help, to confess to Him sins committed, and to ask His pardon with contrite spirit. ”

“ One of the features, which most enhances the value of religion, is precisely this, that it is the product, not of transcendental devices of the mind, but of faith in God, itself springing from love, and that consequently, it is not originated by the intellect, but infused by a Divine grace. Thus we see every day, in our own experience, that the loftiest thoughts of virtue and heroism are not suggested to us by a long and laborious chain of syllogisms, but break upon us unexpectedly as inspirations of the heart ”

“ When we see a mother struggling to death, and with admirable self-devotion, against overpowering waves, or ferocious beasts, or devouring flames, to save her child from certain destruction, it would be stolidity and folly for us to bring into comparison with this act, the cares bestowed by a brute in feeding her young, since as soon as the latter has carried into effect the order of nature, she forsakes them, and, when grown, does not even recognise them; whereas the love of a mother endures beyond the grave. ”

“ It pleased the supreme Being, through His infinite mercy, to manifest His will, and make known some great and precious truths, which men would have vainly attempted to discover with the unaided operation of their reason; He chose to undertake, to a certain extent, the education of mankind. From the beginning of the world God revealed Himself to the first man; and He continued afterwards for many ages, as His eternal wisdom deemed proper, to communicate to such individuals as were the worthiest among mortals the instructions which were afterwards to work the salvation of all mankind. ”

“ While in the latter, self-love is a necessary supreme law, in the spiritual life of man we see prevailing, as a foundation to morality, a voluntary sacrifice of self, offered on the altar of love. No pain or regret ever accompanies such an offering; on the contrary, a sensible man undertakes it with cheerfulness, as a manifestation of his exalted nature, and derives from its performance a purer joy than all other earthly enjoyments could afford him. But this love, which limits and conquers self-love, this love which so well testifies to the excellence of man, whence does it proceed? ”

“ It is desired to prevent and forbid every arbitrary act, and every unjust attempt, directed to deprive the legitimate possessor of, or to restrict and in any other way to disturb him in, the full, free, and exclusive enjoyment of his own. To respect the life, the conjugal bed, and the property of others, is to consolidate the bonds of society, to pay homage to the eternal principles of justice, upon the practice of which God willed that the preservation and prosperity of mankind should depend. ”

“ But when man loves God because he understands, and admires, and adores in Him the aggregate of all perfections, and feels within himself the flame of a desire to approach the Divine Majesty, then his love is an inextinguishable love, for he abnegates his own self, and centres his motives exclusively in the object beloved. This kind of love, however, presupposes a uniformity of tendencies, which causes the one who loves to esteem and to endeavour to appropriate the qualities admired by him ”

“ Not so the awe and reverence inspired by the majesty of the Supreme King of the universe. It pervades all the heart, disposes it to feelings of submission and obedience, convinces it that man is at all times in the presence of his Maker, and thus prevents inordinate material appetites from bursting forth and rising forcibly to uncontrollable preponderance. Hence it is that the fear of God, taken in the latter sense, is a powerful prop which supports the religious edifice, is the most effectual and valuable lesson we derive from the revelation of the Divine attributes. ”

“ If faith in God, in His providence, and in the immortality of the human soul, were a mere product of the imagination, it would last only so long as the semblance, which had given it aliment, exists; and when man is awakened to the sense of realities and facts calculated to destroy the delusion, he would be seen to withdraw from the meshes of his error, and his reason triumphant would confess the former aberration of the mind ”

“ XVII. When man obeys the dictates of reason, an internal voice in his heart tells him that he has done right; he feels satisfied with himself, and is penetrated with a sense of true joy. When, on the contrary, he consciously infringes the laws of reason, he is not only deprived of that internal approbation, but an inextinguishable voice rises reproachful within his heart; he is no longer satisfied with himself, but feels uneasiness and perturbation. That internal voice, which judges man's actions, and generates happiness or sorrow, is what is called Conscience. ”

“ The scope of Judaism is, then, the propagation among men of the religious idea, and this comprises the doctrines revealed respecting the Deity and respecting man, in consequence of which the latter will be able to attain his true goal. Respecting God, revelation teaches that He is a Being absolute—that is to say, that has in Himself all the sources of existence, of will, of power, and of action—hence He is eternal, all-perfect, all-powerful, all-holy; He is unique, because there is no God beside Him ”

“ XXXVIII. When an individual, after long and serious meditations, and through a concourse of favourable circumstances, acquires a comprehension of this divine plan, and conceives it in its fullest extent and excellence, he will feel an irresistible attraction towards such a contemplation, and an ineffable admiration will seize all his mind; an internal intense desire will spring up in his heart to see it carried out, nay, to contribute himself to its accomplishment, since the first tendency is already engrafted on his very nature. ”

“ Now, the inanimate portion of the creation progresses unconsciously in the way ordained by Providence, obeys physical immutable laws, and is, therefore, only a means to a more exalted end. But the moral being, who has self-consciousness, resolves on action after deliberating upon what he thinks best, and carries out his resolve with free will; he is, then, himself the aim of his life. Therefore, to lead this being towards his own destination, it was proper not to subject him to restraint under laws of necessity, otherwise the freedom of his will would have been destroyed ”

“ XXXVI. The plan of the Creator is immeasurably profound, and therefore inscrutable. Nevertheless, in so far as it is permitted to the human mind to penetrate it, and as it has pleased the Divine mercy to reveal it, we know with certainty that it is all directed to diffuse happiness and beatitude over all creatures, in proportion to their respective capabilities of participating in them, and to guide all beings towards that end, which, in the scheme of the universe, was pre-ordained by the Infinite Wisdom as the best. ”

“ Through the effects and impressions of this celestial love, man feels the need of approaching his Creator, of finding in Him the provident Ruler of the human destinies, and of expecting from His kindness the future triumph of good, and an ultimate perfection of all things. God, providence, and the immortality of the soul, become then for him incontestable truths: and at such a knowledge he does not arrive by way of laborious instruction and logical demonstrations ”

“ A fit instrument only was wanted, through which the deliverance should be effected, an organ to communicate to the people the Divine laws, a medium for the new solemn covenant which was to be proclaimed between God and Israel. This elect from among all mortals—whose noble character, resplendent with all human virtues, was heightened by the true grandeur of an unexampled humility—was the holy legislator Moses, the divine man, the faithful expounder of the will of God, the first link of the glorious chain connecting the human family with its Maker. ”

“ It was only by depriving that people of all human support, and of all extraneous influences on its culture, that it could acquire a character, firm, independent, tenacious in the principles adopted, adverse to foreign notions, faithful to its vocation, and that its mind could be deeply impressed with the sentiment of a constant adoration of the Supreme Being, as its only Deliverer, Legislator, Father, and Sovereign. ”

“ XLIV. But we find, also, in man another principle diametrically opposed to self-love, which, proceeding from the noblest prerogatives of his soul, distinguishes him from the irrational creatures, and invites him to a career totally opposite to theirs. This principle, commonly called virtue, we shall express by the more comprehensive name of heroism. As by self-love man is inclined to sacrifice the welfare of others to his own, so by heroism he is led to sacrifice himself to the welfare of others. ”

“ But to repress with greater force the overflowing depravity, and to combat the evil with an opposite extreme, it was proper to divest the religious idea of its particularising and national forms, and to present it in its more comprehensive and general character, in its celestial beauty of a future reign of happiness, based on love, justice, liberty, and universal peace. ”

“ VII. Another source, affording the proof of the existence of God, man finds in himself when his intellectual faculties have attained a certain degree of culture and maturity. He then knows himself to be a moral being; that is to say, a being who, placed between good and evil, can, of his own free will, adhere to the former and reject the latter, if he follows the dictates of his reason. Then the moral sense awakens in his mind the idea of a supreme blessing, of a progressive and infallible moral perfection, of a future final accord between virtue and felicity, and their necessary co-existence. ”

“ Through revelation, we are taught to use wisely the earthly gifts, and to turn their material enjoyment into a subject for edification and the glorification of God; to exercise right, justice, rectitude, charity, piety, and humility; we are also taught that God judges the human actions, punishes those who contravene His will, and is disposed to pardon the sins of those who feel a true repentance. And, lastly, through revelation, an invitation is tendered to man to elevate his mind to the Creator, to imitate Him, to approach Him through self-sanctification ”

“ It was no part of the plan of the Divine wisdom that men should be in any way constrained, for that would have been depriving them of the precious gift of free will, and destroying their essence. But this very liberty, of action granted to man, rendered the realization of the Divine thought doubtful; and it might have happened that a generation, sinking itself into complete corruption, would have lost every trace of the truths already revealed ”

“ In proportion as this desire extends its roots in the heart of that individual, so will he make it his exclusive pre-occupation, voluntarily sacrifice to it every worldly consideration, and so will he feel impelled to devote himself to promote, promulgate, and bring to universal knowledge those truths which, as stated, form the essence of revelation; his soul will become the receptacle of the Divine idea, his tongue and all his body the organs of its fulfilment; his whole life will be an expression of the idea which pervades him ”

“ All nature is in a perpetual struggle within itself, and every component part receives the elements of its own life and increment from the destruction of others. This we see repeatedly happen under our own eyes, as well in plants as in animals, and so evidently, that we need not here record instances to confirm it. It is through this contrast of individual interests, through this perpetual alternation of production and growth with decrease and destruction, that Providence ordained the preservation of the world in its totality, while the individuals perish and the species remain. ”

“ When a husband, bound with the indissoluble tie of affection to the woman of his heart, voluntarily sacrifices to her everything dearest in the world, and finds in her affection ample recompense for his direst privations, who would dare to attribute this to the physical sexual tendency common even to the brutes? a tendency, which, besides manifesting itself only at detached periods of time, disappears altogether in old age, whereas conjugal love runs beyond the confines of time. ”

“ This thinking principle is certainly different from the body, of which no part is apt to think, and is what we call the soul; the act itself of thinking proceeds from a faculty of the soul which we call intellect.
XI. But the soul can also judge, conclude from causes to effects, distinguish between good and evil, between just and unjust, conceive an idea of things never perceived through the senses; it can recognise the supreme Author of the universe, it can adore God. This faculty of the soul is called reason; intellect and reason are the principal or superior faculties of the human soul. ”