I have attempted to collect the earliest records of the "remnant according to the election of grace," gathered from the nation of Israel, with reference not so much to those Israelites who abandoned the Mosaical observances, and were joined to the Gentile Churches, as to those who, first as a settled Church, and afterwards as a scattered flock, clung to their birthright as the children of Abraham, received Christ by faith as the great salvation for which their fathers had waited, and in the offensiveness, as it appeared to Gentile-Christians, of their national aspect, were a standing response to the important question raised and answered by St. Paul, "I say then, Hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."
It is needless to say, especially when the Church of Christ is beginning to take pleasure in the very stones of Zion, that the history of the Hebrew-Christian Church of Jerusalem is, and ought to be, a deeply interesting subject. Every Christian would surely be glad to know something of the fortunes of that Church, which was the common mother of us all, whose children were the fathers of Christendom, and which was truly the great missionary Church of the world. The mere lover of antiquity must delight in being able to commence his researches at the great fountain-head of ecclesiastical history; and if, in tracing backwards the records of any branch of the Catholic Church, he fails to connect it with Jerusalem, it is certain that he has at least dropped a link in his chain.
It is needless to say, especially when the Church of Christ is beginning to take pleasure in the very stones of Zion, that the history of the Hebrew-Christian Church of Jerusalem is, and ought to be, a deeply interesting subject. Every Christian would surely be glad to know something of the fortunes of that Church, which was the common mother of us all, whose children were the fathers of Christendom, and which was truly the great missionary Church of the world. The mere lover of antiquity must delight in being able to commence his researches at the great fountain-head of ecclesiastical history; and if, in tracing backwards the records of any branch of the Catholic Church, he fails to connect it with Jerusalem, it is certain that he has at least dropped a link in his chain.
- from pages 293-295, Church of St. James