---

CHAPTER VIII.
PURITAN FRIENDS OF THE JEWS

Newes from Rome—Rev. Dr. William Gouge—Sir Henry Finch, Sergeant-at-law—King James I.—Archbishop Laud—Archbishop Abbot—Roger Williams—Johanna Cartwright and her son Ebenezer—John Harrison—Rev. John Dury—Rev. Henry Jessey—Rev. Thomas Fuller—Re-admission and Restoration—Manasseh and the Puritans.

The publication of a tract in 1607, entitled:—

“Newes from Rome ... of an Hebrew people ... who pretend their warre is to recouer the land of Promise....”  (Appendix xxv)

is remarkable for the interest evinced at a time when the presence of a Jew in England was deemed unlawful. It purports to be a translation from the Italian of a letter dated 1 June, 1606, sent by Signior Valesco to Don Mathias de Rensie of Venice. In it he is informed of the perturbed state of the world, and that Hungary, Bohemia and Muscovia are to declare war, seize Constantinople, and drive the Turk out of Europe. Tunis, Morocco, with the Arabians, and others, are to expel the Turk entirely out of Africa. The Soffie, the Medes, the people of Melibar on the border of India are in revolt. The most alarming news is to the effect than an unknown people, strong, mighty and swift, from beyond the Caspian mountains, claiming to be descendants of the lost Ten Tribes, are coming to recover the Land of Promise from the Turk. This is followed by a detailed account of the leaders of each tribe, the strength of each army, with the particulars of its equipment. The letter concludes by a promise of more news in a few days.

It was, however, a Puritan England that welcomed back the Jews as an ancient nation and as the “People of the Book.” In 1621 the Rev. Dr. William Gouge (1578–1653) published the anonymous work:—

The World’s Great Restauration. Or, The Calling of the Iewes   (Appendix xxvi).

In the preliminary leaf, “To the Reader,” signed “Thine in the Lord, William Gouge. Church-Court in Black-fryers, London 8. Ianuary. 1621.” he states:—

“... I haue bin moued to publish this Treatise ... and to commend it to thy reading. And this is all that I haue done. The worke it selfe is the worke of one who hath dived deeper into that mysterie then I can doe. His great understanding of the Hebrew tongue hath bin a great helpe to him therein. How great his paines haue beene, not in this onely but also in other poynts of Diuinitie, his Sacred doctrine of Diuinitie, first published in a little Manuel, after set forth in a larger volume, his Old Testament, or Promise, Therein the mysteries of the Iewish types and ceremonies are opened, his Exposition of the song of Salomon,¹ and this, The World’s great restauration, or Calling of the Iewes (workes of his heretofore and now published) doe witnesse.”

The writer, Sir Henry Finch (1558–1625), Serjeant-at-Law (1616), was a distinguished author of many legal works. Mr. J. M. Rigg, in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xix., 1889, tells us, that in this treatise “he seems to have predicted in the near future the restoration of temporal dominion to the Jews and the establishment by them of a world-wide empire.” This caused James I. to treat the work as a libel, and accordingly Finch was arrested in April, 1621. He obtained his liberty by disavowing all such portions of the work as might be construed as derogatory to the sovereign and by apologizing for having written unadvisedly. William Laud (1573–1645), Bishop of St. David’s, 1621,¹ in a sermon preached in July of that year, took occasion to animadvert on the book. It was suppressed, and is now extremely rare.

In spite of the official proceedings, in consequence of which he was forced to sign his recantation and acknowledge his loyalty to the sovereign, Finch clearly never renounced the principal idea of his book. A letter from the pen of a celebrity of the day gives a fair idea not only of the sensation which Finch’s Apocryphal Apocalypse created at the time, but also of the personal and somewhat strange motives underlying King James’s indignation (Appendix xxvii).

Dr. Gouge was considered equally culpable. He was imprisoned for nine weeks, and only released on giving certain explanations, which [George Abbot (1562–1633)] the Archbishop of Canterbury (1611) deemed satisfactory. He was a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, where he taught Hebrew, having been the only steadfast pupil of a Jew (Appendix xxviii) who came to Cambridge to give instruction in that language.

Roger Williams (1604(5)–1683), the son of James (ob. 1621) and Alice Williams, was a native of London. He was one of the great pioneers of Religious liberty, his prime contention being that the civil powers should have no authority over the consciences of men. Ecclesiastical tyranny induced him to emigrate in 1631 to America. In 1635 he was banished from the state of Massachusetts for his heretical and political opinions. The following year he and a few other malcontents, after many hardships and trials arrived at Rhode Island, and in gratitude to God’s mercy he named the first settlement “Providence.” In 1638 he purchased land from the aborigines, and the state of Rhode Island was founded. In June, 1643, he set sail for his native land to obtain a charter, which was granted, dated 14 March, 1644, giving the “Providence Plantations” full power to rule themselves by any form of government they preferred. During his stay here of but a few months, he published two tracts advocating religious and political freedom. In one he writes: “For who knowes not but many ... of the ... Jewish Religion, may be clear and free from scandalous offences in their life, and also from disobedience to the Civill Lawes of a State?”¹

In July, 1644, he left the English shores, and in the following month, the tract containing this plea for the Jews, was by the order of the Commons publicly burnt by the common hangman. The author arrived at Boston on the seventeenth of December following. In 1651 he again embarked for England, in connection with matters concerning the State he had founded and remained for two and a half years.

Ecclesiastical affairs here were in an unsettled condition, so a “Parliamentary Committee,” known as “The Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel,” was formed, of which Cromwell himself was a member, to consider certain proposals of some twenty leading divines. Among the papers, one presented by Major Butler and others, contained the following clause:—

4. “Whether it be not the duty of the Magistrates to permit the Jews, ... to live freely and peaceably among us.”

This was accompanied by a comment, signed R.W.,¹ in which he argues at length under seven different heads why “this wrong”—their exclusion should not be continued:—

He returned to Providence in 1654, and in September, shortly after his arrival, was elected President or Governor of Rhode Island, one of the thirteen original states of the Union, and the first to accord Jews rights and privileges similar to other colonists. He held office until May, 1658, and it is worthy of note that one who took a significant part in securing the admission of Jews to England in the Old World, was the founder of a state in New England in the New World, which was the first to grant equal rights to Jews at a time when he was its President. He died at Providence in the early part of April, 1683.¹

In 1899 a tablet, with the following inscription:—

In Memory of Roger Williams,
Formerly a Scholar of Charterhouse
Founder of the State of Rhode Island, and the
Pioneer of Religious Liberty in America. Placed here by
Oscar S. Straus, United States Minister to Turkey, 1899.

was presented to the Charterhouse, where Williams was a scholar in the year 1624.

In 1649 two Baptists of Amsterdam, Johanna Cartwright and her son Ebenezer, presented a petition to Lord Fairfax (1612–71) and the “generall Councell of Officers” in favour of the Jews (Appendix xxix). Religious fervour had been stirred to a high pitch, and there were few men whose minds had not been influenced by Messianic beliefs and other religious and mystical ideas.

John Harrison (fl. 1630), a famous traveller and diplomatist, envoy to Barbary, published The Messiah already come, etc. (Appendix xxx). He took a lively interest in the disputes which arose between partisans of the new Puritan movement and those who adhered to the old doctrines, besides dwelling on the question of religious liberty, and he argued that so long as the Jews were not equal in their rights to others as a nation, “the heart will be filled with violence.”

John Dury (Durie), the ubiquitous Protestant divine, who travelled much and endeavoured to bring together all sections of Protestantism, was a great friend of the Jews. He was one of those who drew up the “Westminster Confession” and “Catechisms.” In 1649 –50 he wrote An Epistolicall Discourse of Mr. Iohn Dury, to Mr. Thorowgood, concerning his conjecture that the Americans are descended from the Israelites (Appendix xxxi), and during his stay at Cassel, in Germany, A Case of Conscience, Whether it be lawful to admit Jews into a Christian Commonwealth? (Appendix xxxii).¹

Another great friend of the Jews was Henry Jessey, or Jacie (1601–1663), a Baptist divine. He began his studies in 1618 at Cambridge, where at St. John’s College in ♦1622 he was admitted Constable’s scholar. Hebrew and Rabbinical literatures were his favourite studies. He projected a revised translation of the Bible and made some progress in it. He collected £300 for the poor Jews of Jerusalem, who in consequence of the war between the Swedes and Poles in 1657 were reduced to great extremity, as the main source of income derived from their charitable coreligionists in European countries was thereby cut off. This is, as far as is known, the earliest instance of English Christians helping the Jews of Palestine (Appendix xxxiii).

In 1653 he wrote a treatise for the purpose of reconciling the various religious opinions of Jews and Gentiles, entitled, The Glory of Jehudah and Israel (Appendix xxxiv).

His liberality to Jews was memorable on other occasions. He claimed for them the rights of citizenship and admission to this country which was then under consideration.

He was one of the members of the Assembly convened by Cromwell to consider Manasseh Ben Israel’s proposals for the return of his coreligionists to England. He is supposed to be the author of an anonymous tract, entitled A Narrative of the late Proceeds at White-Hall, concerning the Jews (Appendix xxxv).

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661),¹ Prebendary of Salisbury, delivered several sermons, in which he argued that the Jewish nation was fulfilling an important office in the world and was, under the order of Providence, an instrument in giving the victory to good over evil. This nation ought not, therefore, to content itself with mere existence, but should throw its elements, or the best of them, into another mould and constitute out of them a new society which would become a blessing to the world.

All these Christian pioneers of religious liberty and Zionism were in close connection with Manasseh, and helped him to prepare the way for the re-admission of the Jews into England.

The view held by many Christians, especially in England, was that the Israelitish race, now scattered over the face of the earth, would eventually be brought back to its own land. To this was generally added the belief that the Jews would return in a converted, i.e. Christian, state.¹ In conformity with the general spirit of the period, all these ideas had a religious colouring in the minds both of English theologians and writers and of the Jews themselves.

Why were these considerations particularly important with regard to England? In seeking an answer to this question we are met at once by the significant fact dealt with in the first chapter of this book: the attachment of Englishmen to the Bible.

The men and women who live in the pages of the Bible had long ago become recognized types for the English nation. As early as the seventeenth century interest in the restoration of Israel had become deep and general, England providing the earliest stimulus to Zionism. The connection between this idea, and the idea of the readmission of the Jews into England after long years of exclusion, following their final expulsion under Edward I. in the year 1290, and the steady progress of the latter idea, supported and determined by the former, is characteristic not only of Manasseh’s writings, efforts and plans, but of the whole epoch. Facts prove with what steadfastness of aim and consistency of thought the problem was attacked and conquered by the Puritan theologians and writers, and to what an extent their defence of the Jews formed one comprehensive and consistent scheme, of which the readmission of the Jews (justice applied to individuals) was one part, and the Restoration of Israel (justice applied to the nation as a whole) was another.

Whoever studies Manasseh’s writings and the Puritan literature of that epoch will have no difficulty in recognizing that the idea of national justice to the Jews underlies all the discussions and controversies and is common to all schools of thought. Thus Zionism has but brought to light and given practical form and a recognized position to a principle which had long consciously or unconsciously guided English opinion. The ideas of Readmission and Restoration originally formed a single stream in England, before they separated to flow in distinct but parallel channels. Readmission, however, became an immediate practical result, whilst Restoration was left for the future.