leaven; the great bulwarks built against it are temptations; and there has been found a poor wise man who has delivered it—that is to say, virtue.
And on Psalm xli, 1: "Blessed is he that considereth the poor."
And on Psalm lxxviii, 39: "The spirit passeth away, and cometh not again"; whence some have erroneously argued against the immortality of the soul. But the sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death, and will not return at the resurrection.
And on Psalm ciii the same thing.
And on Psalm xvi.
Principles of Rabbinism: two Messiahs.
447
Will it be said that, as men have declared that righteousness has departed the earth, they therefore knew of original sin?—Nemo ante obitum beatus est[1]—that is to say, they knew death to be the beginning of eternal and essential happiness?
448
[Miton] sees well that nature is corrupt, and that men are averse to virtue; but he does not know why they cannot fly higher.
449
Order.—After corruption to say: "It is right that all those who are in that state should know it, both those who are content with it, and those who are not content with it; but it is not right that all should see Redemption."
450
If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man…?
What, then, can we have but esteem for a religion which knows so well the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so desirable?
- ↑ "No one is happy before he is dead."
