which latter are particularly mentioned as
Roman proselytes. Nor is it indeed historically true that the small
section of the Jewish race which dwelt in Palestine rejected Christ.
The reverse is the truth. Had it not been for the Jews of Palestine,
the good tidings of our Lord would have been unknown for ever to the
northern and western races. The first preachers of the gospel were Jews,
and none else; the historians of the gospel were Jews, and none else. No
one has ever been permitted to write under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, except a Jew. For nearly a century no one believed in the good
tidings except Jews. They nursed the sacred flame of which they were the
consecrated and hereditary depositaries. And when the time was ripe to
diffuse the truth among the ethnics, it was not a senator of Rome or a
philosopher of Athens who was personally appointed by our Lord for that
office, but a Jew of Tarsus, who founded the seven churches of Asia. And
that greater church, great even amid its terrible corruptions, that has
avenged the victory of Titus by subjugating the capital of the Caesars,
and has changed every one of the Olympian temples into altars of the God
of Sinai and of Calvary, was founded by another Jew, a Jew of Galilee.

From all which it appears that the dispersion of the Jewish race,
preceding as it did for countless ages the advent of our Lord, could not
be for conduct which occurred subsequently to the advent, and that they
are also guiltless of that subsequent conduct which has been imputed to
them as a crime, since for Him and His blessed name, they preached, and
wrote, and shed their blood 'as witnesses.'

But, is it possible that that which is not historically true can be
dogmatically sound? Such a conclusion would impugn the foundations of
all faith. The followers of Jesus, of whatever race, need not however be
alarmed. The belief that the present condition of the Jewish race is a
penal infliction for the part which some Jews took at the crucifixion is
not dogmatically sound.

2. _Not dogmatically sound_. There is no passage in the sacred writings
that in the slightest degree warrants the penal assumption. The
imprecation of the mob at the crucifixion is sometimes strangely quoted
as a divine decree. It is not a principle of jurisprudence, human or
inspired, to permit the criminal to ordain his own punishment. Why, too,
should they transfer any portion of the infliction to their posterity?
What