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Untitled Article
of wickedness in the Jewish people having been filled up in the rejection of Christ , they were doomed from that time te inevitable ruin . But we must avoid the perilous notion of confounding the Divine foreknowledge with the necessary causation of events . According to the first principles of the Mosaic constitution , national guilt led to national ruin . But still the motives which actuated many in that fatal struggle , which led to the accomplishment
of the Divine predictions , may have been noble and generous . It was the national rejection of Christ , not the resistance to Rome , which was culpable . The Jew , though guilty of refusing to be a Christian , might still be a highminded and self-devoted patriot . Although we lament that the gentle and pacific virtues of Christianity did not spread more generally through the lovely and fertile region of Palestine , yet this is no reason why we should
refuge our admiration to the bravery , or our deepest pity to the sufferings of the Jewish people . Let us not read the fate of the Hol y City in that unchristian temper which prevailed during the dark ages , when every Jew was considered a personal enemy of Christ , and therefore a legitimate object of hatred and persecution ; but rather in the spirit of Him who , when he looked forward with prophetic foreknowledge to its desolation , nevertheless was seen ' to weep over Jerusalem . " *
Josephus is happily characterized : he certainly deserted his country in the hour of need , and exhibited a time-serving and a servility which fix upon his character some sus picion . Mr . Milman concedes to him the praise of ability , but argues , from his early desertion of the cause , that his history is in many places to be received with great allowance . He follows him , not withstanding , with great closeness , and even in those passages where there seems to be a discrepancy between him and the evangelists , without even alluding to the fact of any difference existing , adheres to the latter .
Luke , in Acts , speaks of Theudas , an impostor , who made his appearance in the life-time of Jesus , if not before ; and Josephus gives the history of one of the same name , who was put to death b y Festus , the Roman governor . These could not be the same individuals , for there is a variation of many years in the accounts of their times of appearance . Dr . Lardner avoids the difficulty by supposing that there were two false Messiahs of that name , and that Josephus did not mean the one alluded to in the speech of Gamaliel , Now , Mr . Milman , if he acquiesced in this solution , should have stated that
there were two of the same name , or have noticed in some way or other the discrepancy . He incorporates into his narrative other events of Jewish history incidentally mentioned in the books of the New Testament , and in the present case should have acted in the same manner . The third volume , which is chiefly occupied with the subsequent history of the Jews down to the present time , abounds with information . The rise
of Rabbinism , and the establishment of the rival authorities of the Patriarch of Tiberias and the Prince of the Captivity , are interesting , and are well told . The modern history of ( he Jews is almost one uq varying tale of cruelty and oppression , a very dark page in the records of human events . Treated on every side with contempt and indignity , they naturally acquired much of that grovelling and sordid spirit which has been their constant reproach ; but , in favourable circumstances , they have reached a grandeur of character never surpassed ; they have shewn as great skill and fidelity in the discbarge of important offices , as fine a capacity for knowledge , and as elegant a taste in literature , as any other set of people ; and we rejoice for the honour of human nature that tney are now likely to be restored to their due rights in society . The change in public feeljng towards them is amazing .
Untitled Article
382 The History of the Jews .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 382, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/22/
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