oly City, have killed. Though ye were
ordained by God and given authority, God no longer regards you,
because ye reject Christ. Ye have become great blockheads, blind
leaders, understanding not at all the Scriptures. Yet ye should and
would teach others, just as Moses and the prophets have pointed to
this Christ promised to you and to all the world for salvation and
solace. Persisting in your blindness, ye have brought him to the
cross, though finding in him no cause for condemnation. Surely, he did
you no injury; he deprived you of naught, neither money, goods, honor
nor power, but has brought you all good--even salvation--if ye will
but receive him. But ye made yourselves the very ones who fulfilled
the Scriptures ye daily read--those who put Christ to death and
brought to pass the fact that he rose from the dead (though without
thanks to you or to Satan) and became a Lord commanding the obedience
of all creatures.

"We shall no longer regard what ye, or all the world, have to say of
our preaching Christ; it is all the same to us whether you rage or
smile. For we boast the Lord, the Son of God, made Lord over all the
fathers through his resurrection. It is his will that we preach of
him, and that all men believe. Since ye refuse him, your God-given
privilege ceases, which, however, was granted only until the advent of
the Messiah. We must withdraw from you, renouncing your authority and
priesthood, and Jerusalem itself. We tell you plainly that we cannot
and will not obey you in opposition to the will of the Lord."

18. Mark you, in order to make the Jews Christians, Paul had to preach
that Christ was already come; that he was no longer to be looked for.
He was obliged to bring home to them what they had done to Christ,
they the rulers and chief of those bearing the name of God's people
and entrusted with the Law and the order of divine worship--he was
forced to do so that they might perceive their sin and quit their
boast of having the true Law and worship, having nothing whatever
wherein to glory before God. For, though possessing the Law of Moses
and having heard often enough the Word of God, they would not
recognize and receive the Messiah sent by God in accordance with his
promise, but condemned him and became his murderers.

In view of this fact, what does their boast about being Abraham's
children, God's people, possessors of the prophets and the Law and the
priesthood, amount to? These privileges only magni