the first to go forth into the world, and proclaim to the Gentiles the
such a man will long to do good to others. He will feel for those who are living without God and without Christ. He will say, "I am a debtor to Greek and Barbarian, to Africa and India, to China and Hindostan. What can I do to save souls and make others partakers of my blessings?"
Now I ask such a man to consider gravely this day, whether he is not under special obligations to the Jew. I ask him to remember that there are peculiar reasons why we should care with more than ordinary care for Israel.
1. To whom do we owe our Bible? By what hand was that blessed Book written, which is a lamp to so many feet and a lantern to so many paths, that Book without which we could neither live with comfort nor with comfort die? I answer that every book in the Old and New Testament, unless we except Job, was written by Jews. The pens which the Holy Spirit guided to put down the words which He inspired were held by Jewish fingers. The hands which were employed to forge this matchless sword of the Spirit were Jewish hands. Every time we take up that wondrous volume, that volume whose nature and existence no infidel can explain away, every time we draw out of it doctrine, correction, reproof, instruction in righteousness, our eyes fall on matter which passed through Jewish minds. The texts which we live upon now, the texts we shall cling to by memory in death, when sight and hearing fail us, the texts which will be a staff in our hand when we go down into the cold river, these texts were first put down in black and white by Jews. Is this nothing?
2. To whom do we owe the first preaching of the Gospel? Who were the first to go forth into the world, and proclaim to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ? Again I answer, they were all Jews. The men who first turned the world upside down and deprived heathen temples of their worshippers, and put to silence the philosophers of Greece and Rome, and made kings and rulers tremble on their judgment seats, and made the name of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth more influential than the name of Caesar, they
were all children of Israel. They soon passed away. Many of them died for their preaching. The lamp they lighted was taken up by multitudes of converted Gentiles who walked in their steps.
But the fact remains, that the FIRST to begin that blessed work on which the very life of a Church depends at this day, I mean the preaching of the Gospel, were all Jews. Where would Europe be at this moment, if it had not been for an invasion of Jewish preachers who obeyed the call, "Come over and help us "? Surely this also is something.
3 Above all, what shall we say to the great fact that the woman of whom the Savior was born, when He condescended to come into the world, was a Jewish woman? When that grand mystery, the incarnation, took place, the mystery which so many slur over and keep back, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, the virgin who miraculously conceived and bare a son, was a virgin of the house of David. No royal family of Assyria, or Persia, or Greece, or Rome, was chosen for this honor. That precious blood which was shed on Calvary for our redemption, was the blood which flowed from the body of one who was Man in all things like ourselves, sin only excepted, and took a man's nature by being born of an Israelitish woman. The seed of the woman, be it always remembered, that bruised the serpent's head, the Mediator between God and man, the Almighty Friend of sinners when He "took on Him the form of a servant, though equal to God," was pleased to take upon Him the form of a Jew. "He took on Him the seed of Abraham" (Heb. 2:16).
If facts like these do not make up a peculiar claim on Christians, I am greatly mistaken. In the face of the Bible, the preaching of the Gospel and the person of Christ, I am bold to say that Christians owe a peculiar debt to Israel. If there is such a thing as gratitude in the world, every Gentile Church on earth is under heavy obligation to the Jews.
But how can our debt be paid? That question admits of being answered in two ways.
On the one hand, we may pay our debt directly, by using every reasonable effort to bring the Gospel to bear on the minds of our Jewish brethren in every part of the globe. No doubt they need to be approached with peculiar wisdom, delicacy, and care. They are not to be treated as heathen, but as men who already hold half the truth, who believe the Old Testament like ourselves although they do not see and receive its full meaning. But all experience proves that there is everything to encourage those who endeavor to lead Israel to the true Messiah, the Christ of God, with love and patience.
Now, as in the apostles' times, though the nation, as a whole, remains unbelieving, there is a "remnant according to the election of grace." I repeat, there is abundant encouragement to do what the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews does and to preach the Gospel directly to the Jews. If Saul the Pharisee was converted and made a Christian, I know not why we should despair of the conversion of any Israelite upon earth, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America.
On the other hand, we may all pay our debt indirectly by striving to remove stumbling blocks which now lie between the Jews and Christianity. It is a sorrowful confession to make, but it must be made, that nothing perhaps so hardens Israel in unbelief as the sins and inconsistencies of professing Christians. The name of Christ is too often blasphemed among Jews, by reason of the conduct of many who call themselves Christians. We repel Israel from the door of life, and disgust them by our behavior. Idolatry among Roman Catholics, skepticism among Protestants, neglect of the Old Testament, contempt for the doctrine of the atonement, shameless Sabbath‐ breaking, wide‐spread immorality, all these things, we may depend on it, have a deep effect on the Jews. They have eyes and they can see. The name of Christ is discredited and dishonored among them by the practice of those who have been baptized in Christ's name.