also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men." 1 Thessalonians ii. 14, 15. So thoroughly had the grace of God eliminated from the soul of St. Paul that withering and malignant principle of caste, which burned more fiercely and intensely in the Jewish mind and blood, than in any other people that ever lived.
And yet, look at this same large-hearted, Catholic-minded Paul; what a patriot he is! what longings he has for his race! How he falls back upon their high and noble prerogatives! Yea, what zeal, what deep desire, what earnest self-sacrifice, he cherishes for them! "What advantage hath the Jew?" he asks, "Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." Romans iii. 1, 2. The Epistle to the Romans was written after that to the Thessalonians. And again, in the 9th chapter, he says: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."
