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We need not draw the attention of our readers to
the fact, that at the present moment the English Jews are engaged in an
endeavour to obtain freedom from the distinctive laws, under which they
have so long laboured; since the subject is one in which a general
interest is felt, especially here, where similarity of language and
institutions renders whatever occurs in Great Britain a matter of more
interest, than if it happened elsewhere. Perhaps many of our friends are
not aware that in 1753, a bill passed both houses of Parliament, the
House of Lords unanimously, and received the royal assent, whereby any
person professing the Jewish religion was permitted to apply to
Parliament to be naturalized, without first receiving the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper. But so great was the public clamour against doing
justice to the Israelites, that the next session the bill was regularly
repealed, upon the recommendation of the prime minister, the Duke of
Newcastle, and we were placed back again as we were before that act of
grace and justice. We some time ago obtained an old pamphlet, under the
title, “Considerations of the Bill to permit persons professing the
Jewish Religion, to be naturalized by Parliament, in several letters,
(but the pamphlet itself contains but one,) from a merchant in
Town, to his friend in the Country, wherein the motives of all parties
interested therein are examined; the principles of Christianity with
regard to the admission of the Jews, are fully discussed; and their
utility in trade clearly proved. ‘Even so have these also not believed,
that through your mercy they may also obtain mercy.’—Rom. 11:31. ‘Aliud
alios movet: ac plerunque parvae res maximas trahunt. Varia suet hominum
judicia, variae voluntates: inde qui eandem
<<518>>causam simul audierunt saepe
diversum, interdum idem, sed ex diversis animi motibus sentiunt.’”—Plin.
London, 1753. pp. 60.
As the subject is so very curious, and comparing,
as it does, so singularly with the present agitation, we hope the
readers of our periodical will feel sufficient curiosity and interest in
the matter, to excuse our devoting a few pages to the transaction of a
century ago. The first thing that will strike every one, is the
smallness of the boon asked and conceded, and the great astonishment
hence resulting, that so trifling a thing should have created so great a
sensation in all England, that as Parliament was about to undergo the
ordeal of a new election, one vied with another to secure popular
favour, by blotting out the obnoxious law of mere justice from the
statute-book, and that both ministers and opposition should succeed in
repealing before the end of a year a law, by a vote in the Commons,
nemine contradicente, which had passed the Lords unanimously, though
from the opposition to a certain amendment proposed in the preamble on
the part of the elder William Pitt, and Mr. Henry Pelham, both
ministers, and the latter the brother of the Duke of Newcastle, they
must have felt that they yielded the right of the Jews to a senseless
public clamour. No doubt many who have beard of this bill, must have
thought that some great rights were conceded to the English Israelites
thereby; how much must they then be astonished, when they are informed
that they absolutely gained nothing, not even the right of holding any
land or the most insignificant office in the gift of the crown and the
people. We will insert here an extract from the pamphlet, containing the
principle of the bill.
This bill recites that an act, made in the seventh
year of James the I., (a time when the Protestant religion was but newly
established, and no Jews were in this country,) enacts that all who were
to be naturalized, should first receive the Sacrament, and the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy; and particularly, that none should be
permitted to apply for a bill for such naturalization, unless they had
taken the Sacrament within one month before the exhibition of the bill.
As persons who have not been first christened cannot, without impiety,
receive the Sacrament, (they not being prepared for it,) many of
considerable substance who profess the Jewish religion, (not being in a
capacity to receive the Sacrament, though they could, and are, according
to the act, to take the oaths to the government,) were thereby rendered
incapable of petitioning that a private bill might be passed in their
favour in Parliament.
<<519>>It further recites, that Jews may acquire that
right by other methods, and particularizes an act, whereby, on their
residing seven years in our American colonies, they are naturalized in
Great Britain; which, though not the only method, is that where there
are undoubted proofs of their being capable of naturalization. It then
enacts, that persons professing the Jewish religion may apply for a bill
to be passed in their favour, and may be naturalized in pursuance
thereof by Parliament, without receiving the Sacrament.
And in order that no persons whatsoever, so
naturalized, may pretend to any post or place of trust under the
government, there is a clause to be inserted, that all such persons
shall be liable to the disabilities expressed in an act made in the
first year of King George the I., the substance of which follows in the
extract of a private naturalization bill.
And in order that no person, whose utility is not
previously known, should be able to apply for such a favour, it is
provided, that no one shall be naturalized who has not resided in his
Majesty’s dominions three years, without having been absent longer than
three months at any one time. And in order that no papist, or
evil-disposed person, may avail themselves of this method, by professing
Judaism for some short time, it is further provided, that only such
persons who shall have professed Judaism for three years shall be
naturalized in the method prescribed by this bill, as foreign
Protestants may be naturalized, in the common method, by private bills.
And as by this bill Jews are deprived of all
emoluments in the state, so likewise all Jews, whether born here, or
naturalized, are rendered incapable of possessing any power on a church
benefice, whereby any offence to religion is obviated, they having no
power by this bill, either in church or state.
The common form of private naturalization bills
(which must necessarily pass before any one can be naturalized, in
pursuance of this act) recites, that the person so naturalized has given
testimony of his loyalty, and fidelity to his Majesty, and the good of
these realms. It then enacts, that the said person shall be adjudged, to
all intents and purposes, to be naturalized, and, as a free born subject
of this realm, that he may inherit and be inheritable, and retain, and
sue for, and enjoy, any real or personal estates whatsoever. It is then
provided, that the said person be disabled from being of the privy
council, or a member of either House of Parliament, or from taking any
office or place of trust, either civil or military, or from having any
grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the crown.
A bill so harmless in its details, so perfectly
excluding Jews <<520>>from all participation of the rights of freemen, met with
its most bitter opposition from the corporation of the City of London;
that very body which has now returned along with the prime minister,
Lord John Russell, the first Jew to Parliament, in the person of Lionel
Rothschild, and elected as a member of its own court of aldermen,
another Jew in the person of David Salomons. Strange e mutations these,
but more owing to a better knowledge of our character, than even to the
progress of free opinions in so many parts of the world. Thanks are also
due in this respect, to men like the author of the pamphlet before us,
who under the name of Philo-Patriae, so well espouses the claim of the
Jews to be regarded with affection by their Christian fellow-subjects,
although to judge from the tenor of his defence, one might be apt to
think that he too would have opposed the admission of our people to all
the franchises which they have lately sought, and partially obtained. We
regret that the author’s name is not known to us, as we would gladly ask
honour for one by name, who so early broke a lance, although not
successfully, in the defence of the natural rights of all men to be
treated with kindness by the state, in the defence of which they spend
their wealth, and are ready to shed their blood if need be, as was the
case with the English Jews during the rebellion of 1746, as will be
shown by proper extracts from the pamphlet. From the following, it will
be seen on what grounds the City of London opposed the Jew Bill:
The extraordinary petition of the corporation of
the city of London, presented to the House of Commons upon the third
reading of the bill, (after it had unanimously passed the House of
Lords,) has confirmed people in their jealousies; and the clamour raised
to vindicate the said petition, has prejudiced the minds of many so
strongly against the bill, that it will be difficult to undeceive them;
while a party, always fond of inveighing against all public measures,
will endeavour to keep up that spirit, raised by a false rumour, in
order to serve their private purposes.
Your conjectures were right, and I am sure you will
be heartily pleased, when I demonstrate to you that there is not the
least truth in all that has been advanced against the bill; the Jews are
not preferred, nay not put upon an equality with Protestant dissenters;
not one Jew is naturalized, not one privilege is given them more than
they had, (nay a very unnecessary and improper one is restrained,*) and
the whole <<521>>tenor of the act is to settle a method, whereby any one of
their foreign brethren, who shall reside here three years, and can prove
his utility to this country, may, if the legislature think proper, enjoy
the same liberties and immunities as those born here now enjoy, and, if
not a proper object, may, and will, no doubt, be rejected.
This, sir, is the whole scope of the bill, which
has so alarmed the unthinking part of mankind, and given a pretence to
load the government with such scandal and detraction, as if they were
giving up our all to a set of Jews, and destroying the liberties and
religion of this country for a fugitive people.
When you consider the nice examination that every
bill presented to Parliament undergoes, and that the only purport of
this bill is to dispense with a Jew’s taking the Sacrament, (an act that
in him would be a sacrilege, according to the Christian faith, he not
being previously baptized;) that this is the only difference in the
method of a bill brought in to naturalize a foreign Protestant or a Jew;
that one, as well as the other, must take the oaths of allegiance and
supremacy; that the conduct of every person is carefully examined into,
and they themselves known to several members of Parliament before a
private bill is passed in their favour; and when you also consider, that
any one that is so admitted is incapable of any employment, either in
church or state, you then will plainly see that there can be no danger
to the Constitution in any shape, since every individual must stand the
judgment of, and be approved by, a British Parliament, before he can
receive the least benefit from the bill; therefore the only thing on
which it is possible to found even a shadow of reason against the bill,
must be the impropriety of Jews being received as subjects at all. What
reasons were urged against it may be seen in the petitions of the
corporation of the city and of some merchants who thought themselves
interested in the event.
“The corporation’s petition expresses their
apprehensions that, should the bill be passed into a law, the same will
tend greatly to the dishonour of the Christian religion, endanger our
excellent constitution, and be highly prejudicial to the interest and
trade of the kingdom in general, and the said city in particular.”
It will be seen, that the same clamour as that now
raised in Prussia and by the illiberals in England, about the “Christian
State,” was also raised in London, at the first appearance of an
intention to relax of the illiberality which weighed heavily on our
people, and each step in advance which has been taken since, it
<<522>>has
always been the same. “The church will be endangered by the influence of
the Jews;” “the state cannot stand with such natural enemies to its
institution nursed in its own bosom!”
And still, point by point has been gained since
then in many countries, though often wrung from the most unwilling
concessors; and where has been the least danger to the popular
institutions? what injury has befallen the state? Let the experience of
the last eighty years tell, and put to silence and shame for ever, all
the calumniators of the Jews. It is true, Christianity has lost much of
its absolute control over the minds of mankind; both the church of Rome
and that of England have had to succumb to a liberalizing process which
they could not resist; and other Protestant denominations have divided
and subdivided in ever so many fractions. Unitarianism has lifted up its
head, and now boldly speaks out in the face of day what it feels, what
it thinks, and its advocate sits in the House of Commons along with the
representative of the university of Oxford; Catholic France is catholic
no longer, farther than that the majority profess to belong to the
church of Rome; Austria and the Pope have partially opened their
ghettos, and Jews have more liberty of motion, whilst liberty knocks
loudly at the gates of the Vatican, and approaches surely the Prader of
Vienna.
But this is not the direct work of the Jews, but is
a gradual change of opinion which has been elaborated during the past
century, and must advance and triumph, despite of the petty opposition
which the boy-monarchs place in its way, just as the boys of less growth
labour in vain, were they to endeavour to dam up a mountain torrent, by
checking its course by handfuls of earth which they pile up to stay its
headlong fury. The elements of discord were in the constitution of
society, and no rights accorded to us have contributed in the least to
the changes which we have witnessed. Our author, to return to him,
combats manfully the grounds taken by the London Corporation, and
controverts the positions taken that the residence of the Jews, and
their holding property, would be dishonourable to the Christian
religion; 2. Dangerous to the constitution; 3. Highly prejudicial to the
interest and trade of the kingdom in general; and 4, of the city in
particular. He contends that Christianity never did regard the presence
of the Jews as dishonourable, since all countries did always receive
them, as he says:
<<523>>These kingdoms have received the Jews at all times,
excepting when the most violent persecutions were exercised against
those that in the least dissented from bigotry and Popery; they have
been always patronized, even by the Popes themselves, and received by
every Christian country; and though Spain and Portugal have driven them
out, it was not from a principle of religion, but policy to get rid of
the Moors, whose numbers in Spain were dangerous, as they could be
continually fomented and supported by the African States. The
capitulations made by that crown, on the conquest of Granada, left them
no other method than a religious pretence, to clear their country of the
Moors, and break their faith; the pretext being religion, the Jews were
necessarily involved in the fate of the Moors.
The latter view is rather curious, since Spain and
Portugal actually did endeavour to exterminate the Jews, not because the
Moors were too numerous, but because the church of Rome wanted to
destroy all opposition to its power, and because state policy taught
Ferdinand and Isabella that, to confiscate the immense estates belonging
to the Jewish nobles, would fill their exhausted coffers, whilst it
gratified the dark bigotry of the Queen of Castile. The King of Portugal
only followed in the track of Spain, and France, and England, and thus
disgraced Christianity, in common with the others, by the rivers of
blood which he shed in the vain attempt to destroy Judaism, which is now
again openly professed at Lisbon, by resident Jews.—It would appear that
in 1753, the Jews enjoyed greater privileges at Leghorn,
France, Holland, and many parts of Germany, than in England, and that in
parts where they were not generally admitted, persons of wealth and
talents were intrusted with posts of honour and profit. The following
extract is rather curious:
One of the great glories of the Christian faith, is
the endeavouring to convert others to their belief; no just means are
left untried to forward this pious work. Missionaries are sent all round
the globe to perfect it, nay princes of the barbarous nations have been
brought here and converted; will it then be contrary to faith to bring
Jews here in such manner and on such terms as that they cannot hurt the
state, in order to attempt their conversion? Were we to judge by former
success, we need not despair, as there are many Jew families of note in
this kingdom from which converts have been made. Will it not be a better
method, in order to convert them, to introduce them by degrees, few at a
time, with a continual restraint in the power of Parliament, that they
<<524>>may never be too numerous, than to drive them from the light of the
gospel, and hinder them from hearing its doctrines?
But it is alleged, they are stubborn unbelievers,
and no way proper objects on which we should turn our thoughts to
endeavour their conversion. I must differ in that sentiment, as I fear
those hardest to be drawn over, are such who give no credit to any
revelation at all. Now the Jews do all believe in revelation, therefore
are much nearer Christianity- than such unbelievers. It will be hard to
have any doubt of the Jews’ belief in revelation, as no man that did not
believe it would adhere to a sect reviled by so great a part of mankind,
and incapable of any emolument whatsoever. Credit being given to
revelation, must greatly tend towards Christianity.
So then even our liberal author wanted the Jews to
be admitted into England in order that they might become converted, and
he refers likewise to several conversions from resident families having
taken place. But is it not a striking feature in all arguments to
benefit the Jews, that their conversion from Judaism is always held up
as an object to be thereby obtained? And is it not equally curious that
the potentates of Germany have in many cases withheld offices, in order
to induce qualified Jews to obtain them through the water of baptism,
without a single idea of a change of opinion on their part?—We cannot,
of course, in this article give all our author advances in defence of
the Jews, but we must copy the following, for his just comprehension of
our character:
A danger is apprehended that I have not touched on:
the Jews may endeavour to make converts; but this, all who are
conversant with them know is merely ideal, for they do not attempt it.
This at first sight may seem extraordinary, but proceeds from a quite
different reason than is generally imagined. They acknowledge that the
Protestants have a right notion of the Deity, and moral virtues;
therefore are objects of salvation. To what end would it serve to
convert, as they think none bound to their ceremonies for salvation but
themselves? If this be true, are they not much nearer to us in faith
than we think and may it not be doubted whether many of them have any
enmity to the doctrines of Christianity, as they own salvation possible
in the Christian faith? Do we not carry our assertions too far, when we
insist that the present race of Jews are enemies to Protestantism? And,
if they are not, let us see how far God in his commandments carries his
resentment, “visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children,
<<525>>unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me.” Shall God’s
punishments extend only to that space, even when aggravated by continued
misconduct, and shall man extend his vengeance to the hundredth
generation? Nothing but bigotry, ill-nature, and ignorance can suppose
it.
He next combats the idea of their being dangerous
to the excellent constitution of England, and among errors he confutes
the notion of their raising a false Messiah in England! So then it must
have been urged that our people could be silly enough to attempt such a
folly; and he justly urges that our Messiah will appear in the Holy
Land, and not in a corner of Europe. Concerning the danger to the state
he says accordingly:
It is, then, the subversion of the state that we
must fear. Was ever such a chimera? The whole number of the Jews at
present in England are about eight thousand, which is not the one
thousandth part of the inhabitants; sure these cannot be the objects of
our fears! No, it is they that are to come. Can they come but by leave
of Parliament? by private acts? And, even granting they could come
otherwise, can any number come that can hurt this nation? Our soldiery,
who have so lately quelled so considerable a number of disobedient
subjects, although assisted by foreign powers, must treat with the
greatest contempt the thought of a disarmed, unsupported crew’s giving
us the least uneasiness. Permit me, sir, to say, Baye’s army is not near
so ridiculous as such a notion.
It has been urged that their tenets are repugnant
to ours or any other constitution. Their religion instructs them that
government is divine; their own form, instituted by Moses and authorized
by God, consisted of a head, with a council of the principal men. Their
chiefs first had the title of judges, then of kings, and were all
subject to the laws: is not this nearly our blessed constitution?
Their prophets have ordered them obedience to the
states they live under (Jer. 29:7): “Seek the peace of the city whither
I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord
for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”
I am informed their Rabbins say the laws of any
state are as binding on them as their own. They have no thought of
having an independent state in any country but the Holy Land. What
possibly can ever make them desire to leave our obedience, while we let
them enjoy their private liberties?
(To be continued.) |
