The Jews were always thinking of their exclusive religious privileges,
of the sacredness of the Temple and of the law, and of the questionable
and dangerous position of those who were outside the covenant. Now
this habit of mind, undoubtedly religious as it was, is not held
up to our admiration in the New Testament, but the contrary. It is
denounced as being the opposite of a true spirituality. It is shown
to us as associated with intolerance, bigotry, hardness, cruelty, as
most offensive to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and fruitful
of mischief in the world. St. Paul had to undergo the reproach of
being disloyal to the religion of his fathers, because he contended
against this ecclesiastical spirit. But the reproach was as unjust as
it was painful to him. He loved the holy city and the temple and the
ordinances of the law and his kindred according to the flesh; but he
knew that the proper aim of a devout man was not to hedge round an
organization, but to glorify and bear witness to the Divine Spirit.