Paul hold the identity of the whole Jewish race with Israel
their forefather, as strongly as any prophet of the Old Testament?
And what is the central historic fact, save One, of the New
Testament, but the conquest of Jerusalem--the dispersion, all but
destruction of a race, not by miracle, but by invasion, because
found wanting when weighed in the stern balances of natural and
social law?
Gentlemen, think of this. I only suggest the thought; but I do not
suggest it in haste. Think over it--by the light which our Lord's
parables, His analogies between the physical and social constitution
of the world, afford--and consider whether those awful words,
fulfilled then and fulfilled so often since--"The kingdom of God
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits hereof"--may not be the supreme instance, the most complex
development of a law which runs through all created things, down to
the moss which struggles for existence on the rock!
Do I say that this is all? That man is merely a part of Nature, the
puppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies? That brute
competition is the one law of his life? That he is doomed for ever
to be the slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine
struggle for existence? God forbid. I believe not only in Nature,
but in Grace. I believe that this is man's fate only as long as he
sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption.
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