But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had ought to accuse my nation of.
Ver. 19. To accuse my nation of] But to defend Christ's cause and mine own innocence, with as little reflex on the Jews as may be. It is an ill business to defame a whole nation (one's own especially), as Scaliger, that proud hypercritic, who gave this base and unmannerly character, Gothi belluae, Scoti non minus, Angli perfidi, inflati, feri, contemptores, stolidi, amentes, inertes, inhospitales, immanes. The Goths are beasts, so are the Scots. As for the English, they are perfidious, proud, fierce, scornful, fools, madmen, sluggards, inhospitable, cruel.