1509596

Harvard Divinity School
The Idea of the Restoration of the Jews in English Protestant Thought, 1661-1701
Author(s): N. I. Matar
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 78, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1985), pp. 115-148
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
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HTR 78:1-2 (1985) 115-48
THE IDEA OF THE RESTORATIONOF THE JEWS

IN ENGLISHPROTESTANTTHOUGHT, 1661-1701*
N. I. Matar
AmericanUniversity of Beirut
In a previous study, the idea of the Restorationof the Jews to Palestine

between the Reformation and 1660 was examined.1 The result of that
survey pointed to some of the causes that led to the emergence and
development of that idea in English Protestantthought. Three factors
were seen to be instrumentalin generatinga hitherto novel principlein
Christian theology: the military Turko-Catholic threat to Protestant
Christendom, the Puritan millenarian speculations between 1640 and
1660, and England's moral responsibilityto the Jews. During the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the fear of Catholic Turkish military
power led theologians to believe that the Jews' conquest of Palestine
would necessarily be preceded by victory over Islam and Catholicism.
Consequently, they supportedthis Restorationas a means to their polit-
ical end. Moreover, they believed that such a Restoration would lead
to the fulfillment of the Pauline expectation of the millennial kingdom;
the Jews' Restoration to Palestine would inaugurate England's mes-
sianic age. Also by concentrating on Romans 11, these English
evangelists felt that they owed the Jews a debt which they could repay
only by convertingthem to Christianityand restoringthem to Palestine.
This became the Englishman's burden of responsibility to the Jews
whose rejection of Christ in the first century had allowed the overall
salvationof the Gentiles.
Part of this paperwas read in December 1982 at a Seminaron "Jews and Christians:
The Perceptionof the Other" at HarvardDivinity School. I am grateful to Professor
KristerStendahland RabbiMarcSapersteinfor their insights.
1 See
my "The Idea of the Restorationof the Jews in English ProtestantThought:
Between the Reformationand 1660," DurhamUniversity Journal(1985).
116 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW
Underlyingthese three attitudes that generated the idea of Restora-

tion was an implicitly intellectual and theological domination. Few of
the numerous writershad ever met a Jew in their lives; fewer cared for
the Jews as a community of a specificallyhistorical and religious cul-
ture. Englishmen restructuredthe Jews into a worldview that fitted
their own Protestant ideals, and interpretedJewish history and aspira-
tions in light of English self-perception. Even after 1655, when Jews
appeared in London, they were so few and unimposing that English
writersfelt no need to change their previous perceptionsof them.2 The
English viewed the Jews and the idea of Restoration from their own
perspective;the Jewish community was not allowed to articulateits own
political and religious identity because the English theologians felt that
they were more authoritativelyinformed about Jewish matters than the
Jews themselves. Englishmen offered themselves as spokesmen and
prophetsof world Jewry.
Menasseh Ben Israel, the negotiatingRabbi from Amsterdam,unwit-
tingly gave fuel to this English restructuringattitude. On addressing
Cromwell for permission to settle with his community in England, he
assured the Lord Protectorthat the Jews would present no challenge to
social mores and traditions,and would submit to English law and to the
status quo.3 The Jews, he explained, had all the credentialsto fit har-
moniously into English society: they were "white," thus set apartfrom
Moors and Indians, and were as economically active as the London
merchants themselves.4 Trying to win English approvalfor settlement
by showing that the Jews were no different from others, Ben Israel had
made possible the continuance of restructuring. Since the Jews wished
to view themselves as potential Englishmen, their hosts concluded that
they were also potentialChristians. Thus after 1660, few theologians or
writers changed their previouslyheld interpretationof the Jews as war-
riors against the Turks (although Menasseh Ben Israel had praised
2 Before
1655, Jews in London were consideredSpaniardsor Portuguese. See Lucian
Wolf, "Jews in ElizabethanEngland," JewishHistoricalSocietyof England:Transactions
[=JHSET] 11 (1924-27) 1-91; E. R. Samuel, "PortugueseJews in JacobeanLondon,"
JHSET18 (1953-55) 171-87. On 14 December 1655, John Evelyn wrote in his diary,
"Now were the Jews admitted."
3 That the Jews could pose a politicalthreat to the state was frequentlyemphasized.
See WilliamPrynne, A ShortDemurrerto the Jewes(London, 1655) 64-65; and the peti-
tion of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London quoted in Lucien Wolf,
"Statusof the Jews in Englandafter the Re-settlement,"JHSET4 (1899-1901) 186.
4 Menasseh Ben Israel, To His Highenessethe LordProtector(1655; ed. A. Yedida and
P. Radin; OccasionalPapers, English Series 3; San Francisco:CaliforniaState Library,
1939) 21.
N. I. MATAR 117
Muslim tolerance) or as fighters for England's Protestantcause against

Catholicism.5While Ben Israel wanted to demonstrate that Jews were
like the English, the latter understood him to suggest that the Jews
wanted to become fully English and Protestant. Clearly, the English
viewed Jews as a religiouslyand culturallytransitionalpeople.
The Jews were so much under English intellectual domination that
they even were depicted by some eager theologians as propagatorsof
the ChristianGospels. As the early evangelists were Jews, so, it was
believed, the present Jews would become missionaries. There was no
difference, in English thinking, between St. Paul and Menasseh Ben
Israel. Indeed, since Christianity had replaced Judaism, then the
sooner Ben Israel converted and preached Jesus as the Messiah, the
better. Although sixteen centuries had elapsed, the English maintained
that the Jews still had a mission to the world. Nathaniel Homes noted
that it was "ChristianJews" who had translatedthe Bible and propa-
gated it as far as Arabia.6TheophilusGale and IsaacNewton treatedthe
Jews as the source of the prisca theologia.7Given the fact that the Jews
were neither a social nor a political force between 1661 and 1701, this
act of religious superimpositionwas quite possible. To their English
hosts, the Jews were not an autonomous communitywith a distinct eth-
nic history, but potential Christians and spiritual descendants of Paul
ratherthan Moses. Once the right circumstancesand inducements pre-
vailed, there was little doubt in the English mind that the Jews would
renounce their Judaismand become as zealous in their Protestantismas
were the Londonersthemselves.
With such a restructuringattitude to Jewish ethnic and religious
character, it is doubtful whether the term "philo-semitism" can be
correctlyappliedto the period under examination. It would be difficult
to find an English writer between the Reformation and 1660 (the
official date for the Jews' admission to England) or between 1661 and
1701 (the year in which the first synagogue was built in London) who
accepted the Jews on their own grounds. When the Jews were sym-
patheticallytreated in print, this was done in light of their hoped-for
5 Ibid., 9-10; cf. L. Addison, ThePresentState of the Jews (moreParticularly

relatingto
those in Barbary)(London, 1675) 7, who declared that the Muslim persecutionof the
Jews was divine punishmentfor the Jews' crucifixionof Jesus.
6 Nathaniel Homes, The ResurrectionRevealed(London, 1661) 163, 165, 167ff. See
Addison, PresentState, 4; James Durham, A CommentarieUpon the Book of Revelation
(1658; Glasgow, 1680) 530; Thomas Beverly, An Expositionof the DivinelyPropheticSong
of Songs (London, 1687) 60.
7 Frank E. Manuel, Isaac NewtonHistorian(Cambridge:Harvard University Press,
1963) 96-97.
118 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
conversion to Christianity and their renunciation of their religious char-

acter and history. If "philo-semitism" means, as Cecil Roth and David
Katz have argued, a positive attitude toward the Jews, then it is too
vaguely defined, not only because non-Jewish semitic peoples were
violently unacceptable to the English, but because this philo-semitism
was conditional on the Jews' conversion to Christianity and their adop-
tion of English culture and identity.
A more accurate description of the English attitude may be obtained
by distinguishing between the "Hebraic" and the "Judaic" response to
the Jews, as Samuel Stollman has done in his analysis of John Milton.
Although such a distinction did not occur within Judaism itself, it cer-
tainly did occur in the English perception of the Jews. The "Hebraic"
Old Testament character of the Jews was cherished because it had antic-
ipated Christ and the New Testament, but the "Judaic" character (the
Jews as a people, the Law, the Pharisees) was completely rejected. The
"Hebraic" elements could be Christianized and were sympathetically
adopted by the English; the "Judaic" elements remained part of the old
law and the old covenant, not only opposed but also nullified.8
Thus, only after the English had imposed the prospect of conversion
to Christianity upon the Jews did they respond to Jews positively; they
called for Jewish settlement in England or Restoration to Palestine only
insofar as that served the Protestant ideals of Christian England. There
was neither a sympathetic address to the Jews nor a treatise encourag-
ing tolerance that was not explicitly conversionist in purpose or
"Hebraic" in emphasis. Even in the mid-1650s, when the motives for
allowing settlement were bluntly financial, there was no escaping the
conversionist perspective. Major General Whalley, reporting to Secre-
tary Thurloe in December 1655 was unaware how incongruous and
paradoxical his views on the Jews were: "They [the Jews] will bring in
much wealth into this Commonwealth: and where wee both pray for
theyre conversion, and beleeve it shal be, I knowe not why wee should
deny the meanes."9 There was no love lost for the Jews as members of
a religious and racially different community, but they inspired hope as
8 Cecil
Roth, A History of the Jews in England (3d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1964) 149.
See also the extended analysis by David Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the
Jews to England, 1603-1655 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982). For the distinction between
Hebraic and Judaic, see the studies by Samuel S. Stollman, "Milton's Understanding of
the 'Hebraic' in Samson Agonistes," Studies in Philology 69 (1972) 334-47; idem,
"Milton's Dichotomy of 'Judaism' and 'Hebraism,'" Proceedings of the Modern Language
Association 89 (1974) 105-12.
9 Quoted in Cecil Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1934) 238.
N. I. MATAR 119
delayed English Christians.

It was such a domination on an intellectual and religious level that
was responsiblefor generatingand sustaining the idea of Restorationto
Palestine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Theologians
hoped that the Jews would conquer Palestine because that was advanta-
geous to ProtestantChristendom. Given England's millenarianzeal, it
was assumed that such a Restoration and conversion could not and
would not be carried out except under England's aegis. Only God's
Englishmen would help in fulfilling God's promises to his once chosen
people; now that England was God's Israel, it was only charitable to
help the Jews recognize Christ and make possible the millennial glory.10
The Jews were an instrumentin England'stheologicalaspirations;their
Restorationand conversion would not only fulfill the Old and New Tes-
tament prophecies, but would fulfill England's role as the messianic
kingdom. The future history of Zion was subservientto the divine his-
tory of Albion: the role of the Jews was to fulfill England's military
and spiritualresponsibility.
With the official settlement of Jews in London in 1660, a familiarity
grew between the English and the Jews that influenced the Restoration
idea in a double-edged manner. On the one hand, for the first time
Englishmen had the opportunityto meet real Jews who practicedtheir
religion. From a letter by one John Greenhalgh it is clear that the
house-turned-synagogueon CreechurchLane was open to Gentile visi-
tors. On watching the Jewish community during prayer, Greenhalgh
could not help but enter emotionally into the prayerscene before him.
Although he remained a conversionist in his attitude toward the
Jews-he viewed them as potentialChristians-he was able to recognize
the intense humanity of the Jewish community. The Jews were no
longer an abstracttheologicalprincipleabout whom there was extensive
biblical debate; they were individualswith a reality that had long been
ignored by the English:
10Thomas Collier, A BriefAnswerto Some of the Objections and Demurrers MadeAgainst

the Comingin and inhabitingof the Jews in the Commonwealth (1656; ed. A Yedida and P.
Radin;OccasionalPapers,EnglishSeries 3; San Francisco:CaliforniaState Library,1939)
33, 36, 39; Henry Jessey, A Narrativeof the late Proceedsat White-HallConcerningtheJews
(London, 1656) 4, 11. For studies on English millenarianismand the Jews see Peter
Toon, ed., Puritans,the Millenniumand the Futureof Israel (Cambridge/London:James
Clarke, 1970); ChristopherHill, Antichristin Seventeenth-Century
England(London:Oxford
University Press, 1971); BryanW. Ball, A GreatExpectation(Leiden:Brill, 1975); James
A. De Jong, As the WatersCover the Sea: MillennialExpectationsin the Rise of Anglo-
AmericanMission1640- 1810 (Amsterdam,1970).
I confess that looking earnestly upon them in this [as they recalled
the exile] . . . tears stood in my eyes the while, to see those ban-
ished Sons of Israel standing in their ancient garb (veiled) but in a
strange land, solemnly and carefullylooking East towardtheir own
Country,confessing their sins and the sins of their forefathers."1
The passage shows how familiaritywith the Jews consolidated the

Restoration idea. Greenhalgh recognized the historical attachment of
the Jews to Jerusalem and thus implicitly supported the prospect of
their Restoration on humane grounds. But as a conversionist,
Greenhalghurged the Jews to become Christiansin order for the Res-
torationto become theologicallyvalid. The impetus for such advice, as
the passage shows, was a patronizingsense of compassion. Not theol-
ogy, but charitablepity was favoring the Restoration: "I do love you,"
wrote an anonymous person to the Jews, "and pity you, and do long
for your conversion and restauration."12Familiaritywith the Jews led
to pity towardsthem, and in this case at least, to sympathyfor the Res-
toration.
But familiaritycould also breed contempt. Once the Jews walked in
London streets, and exhibited a social and religious identity, embryonic
as it was, the writers who had zealously advocated their return to En-
gland awaited the fulfillment of their conversionist expectations. The
Jews, conversionists believed, now that they were in the midst of true
and unadulteratedProtestant Christianity,would quickly profess Jesus
as Messiah. Theologiansnever tired of describingnot only how vicious
Catholics were to Jews, but also how Catholic idolatry had invariably
repelled the Jews and prevented their conversion. In Protestant En-
gland, however, it was felt that the Jews had no excuse; when
Nathaniel Crouch described a council of Jews in 1650, he noted how
the Jews had wished to meet Protestant theologians rather than idola-
trous papists, because the former could help them more in undertand-
ing and acceptingChristianity. Indeed, Crouch recordedhow the Jews
had specifically praised English Protestants for praying for their
conversion.13 As far as he was concerned, the Jews viewed themselves
ll WilfredS. Samuel, "The First London Synagogueof the Re-Settlement,"JHSET10

(1921-23) 55.
12
Anon., The Jews Jubilee or, the Conjunction and Resurrection of the Dry Bones of the
Whole House of Israel (London, 1688) 22.
13 Nathaniel
Crouch, Two Journies to Jerusalem, containingfirst a strange and true Account
of the Travels of two English Pilgrims (Henry Timberlakeand John Burrell); secondly, the
Travels of fourteen Englishmen, by T. B. ... lastly, the final Extinction and Destruction of the
Jews in Persia (London, 1683) 136-38. Cf. John Durie, A True Relation of the Conversion
and Baptism of Isuf the Turkish Chaous (London, 1658) 5-19. See also John Jacob, The
N. I. MATAR 121
as potentialChristians.
But the London Jews, as Menasseh Ben Israel had declared, sought
to settle in England not to be converted but to maintaintheir religious
practice, and to do so publicly. They had no intention of becoming
Protestants;rather they aimed to preserve their cultural and historical
identity. Once that attitude became evident to Londoners in the mid-
1650s and early 1660s, there was an immediate backlashagainst allow-
ing the Jews' settlement in England. Perhapsthe most notorious piece
of writing in this context was Alexander Ross's A Viewof the Jewish
Religion. Although the book was published in 1655, it was one of the
most devastatingattackson the Jews and remained influentialwell into
the 1660s and after. Ross wrote it in anticipationof Ben Israel's visit in
the early 1650s, the first time a Jew, not a Marrano, would present
himself in London with the heritage and faith of Judaism. Ross
attempted to depict the Jews as foreigners-indeed, as cultural and
anthropologicaloddities. In this respect, he touched at the very core of
English insularityand succeeded in transformingthe refugee Jew into a
fearful threat. Shrewdly, Ross capitalizedon xenophobia; nothing, he
realized, would terrify the English Protestantsmore than a foreign peo-
ple, completely un-English in their habits, dress, and ritual, planningto
settle in the midst of Albion.
A brief analysisof this treatisewill shed light on this anti-Jewishatti-
tude. The treatise purportsto describe, as the full title indicates, the
manner of life, rites, and customs of the Jews. The title recalls various
treatises in the seventeenth century which portrayedother civilizations:
Indian, Russian, and Turkish, for example. The seventeenth century
had produced English travelers who crossed seas and continents and
recorded their observations. Ross's treatise, an imaginary journey
among the Jews, is very much in this genre. Although Ross sometimes
indicated that what he describedwas a result of personal experience, it
is evident that most of his treatise was derived from his library. Ross
journeys through this different community and describes in great detail
how its members conduct the daily routine of life. Ross must have
viewed himself as an anthropologistsurveying a community so unusual
that every fact warrantedrecording. Thus chapter titles include the
following:
Jew TurnedChristian(London, 1678/79) 8; RichardMayo, TwoConferences: OneBetwixta

Papistand a Jew, the otherbetwixta Protestantand a Jew (London, 1679); Gilbert Burnet,
The Conversion& Persecutionsof Eve Cohan (London, 1680) 5. Collier noted the
"antipathybetween Jesuites and Jewes" in BriefAnswer,34. In his memorandumto the
Council of State in April 1655, Antonio RodriquesRobles expatiatedon Jewish suffering
under the Pope: Roth, Jewsin England,164-66. See also n. 60 below.
How the Jews arise from Bed, and compose themselves for Morn-
ing Prayer:. . . Now a Jew is not to arise uprightin his bed without
his cloths, nor yet sitting thereon to put on his shirt, but lying on
his back, and covered with the bed-cloaths, to creep into it, lest the
walls and beams should discover his secrets.
How the Jews behave themselves after morning Prayer, and
preparefor dinner.
Concerningthe Table-behaviourthe Jews [sic].
Of the manner of killing Cattellamong the Jews.14
Although in these chapters Ross was drawingupon traditionalrabbinic

teachings, his purpose was to underscore how culturally different the
Jews were from the English. For Ross, there were no common factors
between a people who arose "upright"in bed without "cloths" and the
English, who presumablywere supine in bed with clothes. For hun-
dreds of pages, Ross detailed the Jewish way of life which he treatedas
highly ritualizedand foreign. The Jew, Ross urged, was too alien, too
much of an "other" to the English.
In later chapters, Ross described Jewish feasts and religious
ceremonies. He attempted to prove that contemporaryJewish practices
had strayed from the Mosaic code and followed rabbinicalteachings.
Seventeenth-centuryJews were not even true to the Old Testament:
"From what hath been hitherto said of the Jewish rites, it plainly
appearsthat their religion is no longer founded upon Moses and the
Prophets, but upon meer lyes and false constitutions of their
Rabbins."15Accordingto Ross, no Christiancould respond favorablyto
a community which not only continued to reject the New Testament,
but did not even follow the Old Testament accurately. Fully ignoring
the rabbiniccontributionto the development of Judaism after the de-
struction of the Second Temple, Ross accused the Jews of historical
falsification. The Jews in England, Ross warned, would remain
"Judaic" and would not accept the "Hebraic" restructuring. They
would prove to be theologicaland culturalaliens.
For Ross and many of his contemporariesthere was evidently one
criterion of civilization and religion: an Anglo-Saxon ProtestantChris-
tianity. Any people or religion, Jewish or not, that failed to measure up
to the established criteriacould not be toleratedin England. Although
Ross was opposed to forcible conversion, his violence towardthe Jews
14 Alexander
Ross, A Viewof theJewishReligion(London, 1656) 94, 98, 153.
15Ibid., 381; cf. A Viewof all Religionsin the World(London, 1655) 37.
N. I. MATAR 123
took the form of a domination and representationthat tended towards

the dismissal, denigration,and complete manipulationof Jewish history
and identity. For Jews to be acceptableto Ross, not only would they
have to convert to Protestantism, they would also have to become
English in their "manner of life, rites, ceremonies, and customs."
Seeing that the Jews in London did not convert, but rather contin-
ued in their Judaic "unbelief," English theologians turned against the
idea of the Jews' Restoration to Palestine. Indeed, it is in this period
that the first detailed refutations of this principleappeared. Although
prior to 1660 there was varied and serious opposition to the idea of
Restoration, it was only now, after the Jews had settled in Englandbut
remained unconverted, that theologians began to doubt the validity of
the Restorationistspeculations. Seeing that the Jews who were living in
the midst of ProtestantEnglandhad not converted, how was it possible,
they wondered, that they would convert once they were in Palestine, so
far from Canterbury? Since the Restoration principle was associated
with conversion and since the hoped-for conversion did not take place,
there was no valid theological reason to supportthe Restoration. Con-
sequently, while the Restorationistsand conversionistspropagatedtheir
ideas, another camp appearedafter 1660 that presented a detailed refu-
tation of the Restorationidea.
Between 1661 and 1701 the anti-Restorationistscame to recognize
that the Jews would cling to their faith and resist conversion to
Christianity-in short, they would remain "Judaic" and would not
leave England. This group could not and did not "restructure" the
Jews but admitted them on their own religious and cultural terms. In
rejecting thus the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine they had put
aside, bitter as it may have been, the possibilityof converting the Jews
out of their history and religion and into Christianity. They had finally
accepted the "Judaic" element in the Jews. While the Restorationists
only accepted the "Hebraic" element, and thus treated the Jews as
potential Christians and as aliens in England awaiting departure, the
anti-Restorationistswere willing to tolerate the Jews in Englandand the
"Judaic" in the midst of the Protestant.
TheRestorationists
As the period between 1661 and 1701 witnessed the growth and
decline of Turkish power, the Jews were kept in the role that had been
prescribedfor them earlier in the century: by wresting Palestine from
the hands of the Turks, the Jews would help ProtestantChristendomto
destroy the Muslim danger and liberate the land of Jesus from the
"Invaders."16The geopolitical map of European-Ottomanrelations

rested upon the role of the Jews in fighting their way to Palestine. The
stronger the Turks grew the more prominent the Jews' role became.
From the late 1650s to 1663 (the attack on Hungary, Moravia, and
Silesia) until 1683 (the unsuccessful siege of Vienna), English theolo-
gians were apprehensiveabout Turkish expansion. The Jews were thus
repeatedlypushed to the forefront of this conflict in the hope that they
would resolve it militarily. Nathaniel Homes believed that the Jews
would ally with the Persiansto fight the Turks in Palestine. Isaac New-
ton believed that once the Jews captured Palestine they would be
attacked by "Persia and Arabia" but would prove "invincible."
Increase Mather maintained that the Restoration entailed the destruc-
tion of Turk and Catholic, as did William Sherwin, who added that the
Gentiles would help the Jews. Samuel Lee, perhapsindulgingin wish-
ful thinking, observed the decline of the Ottomans in the 1660s and
added that their "waining" would facilitate the Jews' Restoration.
Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, followed Mede's line of
interpretationin his ApocalypsisApocalypseos.He was very hostile to
the Turks, the Saracens,and Islam and viewed the Jews and the church
of Christ as the only allies against the "Satanical Kingdom of
Mahomet."17Clearly, the more hostility More developed for Islam the
less violent he was towardsJudaism. The Muslim replaced the Jew as
the targetof his invective.
The Jews were the strategicallies of Protestantismagainst both Turk
and Catholic. Just as the Jews were fighting the Turks in Asia, Mather
thought, so the Protestantswere fightingthe Catholicsin Europe. And,
as Cromwell and Milton noted in the mid-1650s, just as the Catholics
were persecuting the Jews, so had they persecuted the Protestants of
16Samuel Lee, IsraelRedux:or TheRestaurationof ISRAEL,and A Superaddition to the

formerDissertationContaininga Discourseof the grandCharterof Donationof the Land of
Canaanto Israel(London, 1677) 63, 79.
17 Homes, Resurrection Revealed,179; Frank E. Manuel, The Religionof Isaac Newton
(Oxford:Clarendon,1974) 134. For a similaropinion see anon., EclecticalChiliasm;or a
DiscourseConcerning the State of Thingsfrom the Beginningof the Millenniumto the End of
the World(London, 1700) 50; IncreaseMather, TheMysteryof Israel'sSalvation(London,
1669) 21; WilliamSherwin, Xoyo; srEptLoyov (London, 1670) 6; Lee, IsraelRedux,72;
Henry More, ApocalypsisApocalypseos;or the Revelationof St. John the Divine unveiled
(London, 1680) 82; anon., JewsJubilee,38, where the TurkishMuslimswill not only be
"blasted" and "dried," but also convert, like the Jews, to Christianity. For a hostile
attitudeto the Muslimsand the Saracenssimilarto More's and Mede's, see Samuel Cra-
dock, A Brief and Plain Expositionand Paraphraseof the WholeBook of the Revelation
(1690; London, 1696) 82-91.
N. I. MATAR 125
Waldenses.18Protestantsand Jews had to cooperatetogether against the

Sultan and the Pope. The Restorationto Palestine thus would serve to
wrest for England a military victory from her enemies. It also would
win for Protestantismvictory over its theological foe, Catholicism, and
bring about the conversion of the Jews, an event much awaitedin mil-
lenarianand nonmillenarianthought.
Perhaps because they recognized their own failure in converting the
Jews, post-1660 theologians counted on God alone to effect this mira-
cle. The Restorationwould be the sign that God was fulfilling the Old
Testament prophecies. Given the high number of nonconformists in
this period who favored the Restoration, it is not difficult to see how
that "miracle" of the Jews overcoming the Turks and converting to
Christianity would have supported their religious hope. Nonconfor-
mists had widely propagatedthe Restorationistprinciplebetween 1640
and 1660; after the humiliationof 1660, they clung to the propheciesof
Isaiah in the hope of literal fulfillment. This was a result of their need
for divine confirmation: if they could witness the fulfillment of Isaiah's
prophecies they would ascertainthat God's action was continuing una-
bated. If the God who restored Israel from Babylonwould now restore
the Jews to Palestine, then he was preparingthat Restorationas a figure
of their own returnfrom the "Babyloniancaptivity"of Anglicanism. If
God could be seen to fulfill his promises to the Jews, he would cer-
tainly not forget the promises made to the once victorious but now
defeated saints. It was difficult for nonconformists, especially those
who had shared in the intense aspirationsof the Interregnum,to justify
the victory of the Anglican church. Like the Jews, they viewed them-
selves as theological exiles, awaiting God's divine and supreme inter-
cession. Nonconformist theologians and such writers as William
Sherwin, Vavasor Powel, Edward Bagshaw, John Milton, and others
awaitedthe Restorationand conversion of Israel because they hoped for
their own restorationto the messianic kingdomof the English Zion.
In such a mood of Turkishdanger and propheticfulfillment, the rise
of SabbataiZevi could not have been better timed.19Indeed, the 1660s
witnessed various Ottoman assaults on central Europe. Thus the pros-
pect of the Jews confrontingthe Turks became urgent. News of Sabba-
tai Zevi's messianic movement was avidly received by the English and
18Mather, Mystery,36; Roth, MenassehBen Israel,231; John Milton,

"Upon the late
Massacrein Piedmont." See my "Milton and the Jews, and the Idea of the Restoration
of the Jews," Studiesin EnglishLiterature
(forthcoming).
19For the effects of the movement in Europe, see Gershom Scholem, SabbataiSevi,
TheMysticalMessiah(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1973) 461-602.
the preparationfor the Jews' Restorationbecame a real matter in Lon-

don. On 19 February1666, Samuel Pepys noted how the Jews in Lon-
don gave up work in the expectationof an imminent departureto Pale-
stine. Letters from Aberdeen, Barbary,Antwerp, and Constantinople
supposedly reported about the Jewish military force that had begun to
fight the Turks and move towards Palestine.20The English eagerly
believed the news: the Jews were not only destroying the Turks, they
were also fulfillingthe prophecies:
They [the Jews] have had Encounters with the Turks, and slain
great numbers of them; none are able to stand against them: They
give Liberty of Conscience to all, except the Turks, endeavouring
the utter Ruine and Extirpationof them: As for their Ship, the
Sails thereof are white branchedSattin, and all their Ropes are Silk
of the same colour; and in the Sails was the Inscriptionin fair Red
Characters, THESE ARE OF THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL,
which was to discover them to be Jews.21
Clearly, the Restorationists'concern for the Jews was aimed at resolv-

ing English matters; their ideologicalview of the Restorationwas Prot-
estant, the military frameworkwas anti-Turkish. The Restorationists
had little philo-semitism: the "Libertyof Conscience" could not be an
issue except for nonconformistswho were cheated out of the Declara-
tion of Breda. The rediscoveryof the ten lost tribes not only confirmed
the theories that had surfaced in England in the 1650s that associated
Jews with the Indians of America, but also supported the Christian
interpretationof prophecyin Isaiah.22
Other letters were even more extravagantin their claims about the
20Even before the Zevi

movement, such Jewish expectationswere known to English-
men. See AbrahamCohen, An Anglo-Jewish Scrapbook,1600-1840 (London:Cailingold,
1943-69) 217; Crouch, TwoJournies,142ff.
21R. R., A New Letterfrom Aberdeenin Scotland(26 October 1665), quoted in Cecil
Roth, Anglo-JewishLetters(London: Soncino, 1938) 68; note also the title of The Last
Lettersto the London-Merchants and FaithfulMinistersConcerningthefurtherProceedingsof
the Conversionand Restaurationof the Jews; Withmoststrangeand wonderfulMiracles,per-
formed by the Holy Captain-General of the WandringIsraelites;A Prophecietouchingthe
Downfallof Babylonin 66, and the timeof the Gospelto be Preach'dthroughout the whole
World(1665).
22Robert M. Hyamson, "The Lost Tribes, and the Influenceof the Searchfor them on
the Return of the Jews to England," JewishQuarterly Chronicle15 (1903) 640-76; Katz,
Philo-Semitism,chap.4.
N. I. MATAR 127
movements of the Jews in the Levant.23What all these Christianletters

shared was both a conversionist attitude toward the Jews and an
ignoranceof the real nature of Zevi's movement-until Sir Paul Rycaut
published the first account in his The TurkishHistory (1668). The
repercussionsof Zevi's messianism were felt among Christiansfamiliar
with Jews, whether in London or in Buda. Hearingabout Zevi's com-
motion in Palestine, his messianic appointment of subordinate
"princes," his plans to restore Jerusalem-all happening in the omi-
nous year 1666-the expectations already prevalent among English
Protestants were immediately projected onto the movement: Sabbatai
Zevi became an army leader fighting the Turks who would convert to
Christianityafter capturingPalestine. Zevi was immediatelytrappedin
Protestantmillenarianism. When to the dismay of Christiansand Jews
alike Zevi failed in his proposed mission and converted to Islam,
violent hostility ensued and John Evelyn, who reproduced Rycaut's
account in 1669, denounced him as one of the "Three late Famous
Imposters." As long as Zevi had been perceived as workingwithin the
Hebraic interpretationof the Jews, he had the blessing of the English;
once he demonstratedthat he was really not going to fulfill the much-
awaited prophecies, he was rejected and the Jews inevitably "became
the common derision of the Towns."24
Another issue that the Restorationists raised was that concerning
Palestine itself. The fact that the land of Christwas under Muslim rule
was a thorn in the side of the English. By seizing the land from the
Turks, the Jews would not only liberate it from Islam but, upon their
conversion, they would make it again a Christianbiblicalterritory. This
attitude appears in the travel literature of the seventeenth century.
English travelers were shocked to see Muslim rule over Jerusalem and
Bethlehem; even worse, Catholic and Greek communities were in pos-
session of some of the holy sites. Palestine and Christ's historic terrain
were in the grip of Protestantism'sworst enemies: the Sultan and the
Pope. This constituted a challenge to the Reformation and to God's
chosen people which only the miracle of the Jews' Restoration would
resolve.
In 1683 Nathaniel Crouch published his Two Journiesto Jerusalem
In the introductionhe succinctly analyzed the various names that had
been applied to Palestine: the Land of Canaan, the Land of Promise,
23See the various letters from Antwerp,

Leghorn, Florence, and Amsterdam,collected
in TheRestauration of theJews(London, 1665).
24John Evelyn, TheHistoryof the Threelatefamous Imposters
(London, 1669) 92.
Israel, Judea, Palestine, and the Holy Land.25Clearly, after the advent
of Christ the only identity that the land had was a Christianone. For
Crouch it was Christ's land and the Turkish Muslim presence in it was
transitional. The only geopoliticalterm that could apply to the land was
a religious-and specificallyChristian-one: the "Holy Land."
This transitionalist attitude toward the land appears even more
specificallyin Henry Maundrell'sA Journeyfrom Aleppoto Jerusalemin
1697. Coming at the end of the seventeenth century, this text not only
recapitulatedthe perceptionprevalent among previous travelers, it also
adumbrated a mode of analysis that would prevail for centuries to
come. Beginninghis journey on 26 February1697, and ending it on 11
May of that year, Maundrellnoted with careful detail his observations
on the land and its people. Although he assured his addressee, the
Lord Bishop of Rochester, that there would be no lies in his work,
Maundrelltook with him on his journey the premises of his own cul-
ture and history; as a result, the work is dominated by a distorted per-
ception. As an Englishman Maundrellcould not help but react nega-
tively to the foreign element in Palestine, whether Turkish, Arab,
Greek, or Armenian. A telling and frequently repeated phrase in his
narrative is "as in England."26As a Protestant he denounced both
Islam and Catholicism but was more rancoroustoward the friars than
the infidels. As a biblical scholar he viewed the land either as it was
detailed in the Pentateuchor as it was prophesiedin Isaiahand Ezekiel.
Maundrell's geography is dominated by his theology and everything
that attractshis attention recalls a biblical reference. The land is seen
as it was in the past or in the propheticfuture: in the present, Maun-
drell sees nothing except Muslim depradationand violence:
At about one third of an hour from Naplosa, we came to Jacob's
Well; famous not only upon account of its author, but much more
for that memorableconference which our blessed Saviourhere had
with the woman of Samaria, Joh. 4. If it should be question'd,
whether this be the very well that it is pretendedfor, or no, seeing
it may be suspected to stand too remote from Sychar, for women
to come so far to draw water? it is answer'd, that probablythe city
extended farther this way in former times than it does now. ...
Over the well there stood formerly a large church, erected by that
25 It is
striking that the two most popularnames for the land in that century were
Canaanand Palestine, the first signifyinga fresh messianicstart for ChristianJews and
the second the contemporarygeopoliticalreality.
26 Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 1697 (ed. David Howell;
Beirut:Khayats,1963).
N. I. MATAR 129
greatand devoutpatronessof the HolyLand,the empressHelena;

but of this the voracityof time, assistedby the handsof the Turks,
has left nothingbut a few foundationsremaining. 27
Finally, as a ChristianMaundrellyearned for the "future restauration"

of Christian domination and lamented the demise of the Crusaders:
"Who can expect ever to see these holy places rescued from the hands
of infidels," he wondered.28For Maundrell,the land awaitedthe Chris-
tian savior who would deliver it from Muslim domination. That savior,
most of his contemporariesconcurred, could only be the Jews after
their conversion.
Such an attitude was instrumentalin sustaining the idea of Restora-
tion: the Jews would not only redeem the land to Christianity,but on
their Restorationand conversion God would rewardthem with an agri-
culturally improved Palestine. Many believed that once the Jews
replacedthe Muslims in Palestine, the land would prosperand become
more fertile.29 The Turks were blamed for having ruined the land,
which no longer fitted the descriptionsof Joshua's time: "Its face be in
part deformed for want of culture and tillage among the Turkish bar-
barians," wrote Samuel Lee.30The Restorationof the Jews to the land
would restore biblical geography and history. Furthermore, the Jews
would possess not only the "land of Canaan," but a larger territory;
they would subdue Edom (thus controllingthe land east of the Jordan
River) and would never leave again.31 In addition, "they had by
appointment all the Mountain and beautiful Valleys of Lebanon,
wherein stood the famous City of Damascus in as stately and pleasanta
Vale between the two Lebanons as any the Sun shines upon."32
Lee was not only restructuringthe destiny of the Jews, but as a
result of his geographicalignorance, he was drawinga new map of the
land. So distant was he from the physical reality of the area that he
rhapsodicallysituated Damascus between Mounts Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon. Although he drew part of his informationabout the Levant
27Ibid., 83-84.
28
Ibid., 95.
29 61. See also Vavasor Powel, "A Collec-
Mather, Mystery,122; Lee, Superaddition,
tion of the Prophecieswhich concern the Callingof the Jews, and the glory that shall be
in the latterdays," in A New and UsefulConcordance to theHolyBible(London, 1671).
30Lee, Superaddition,114. Not all writers, however, were in agreementover blaming
the Turks for the land's bad condition. JosephusBen Gorion maintainedthat the "rich
and most
ground in Palestine" became arid as a result of the Jews' sins (The Wonderful,
DeplorableHistoryof theLatterTimesof theJEWS[London, 1671] 368).
31 Lee, IsraelRedux,85.
32Lee, Superaddition, 11.
from travel literature, both classical and contemporary,Lee primarily

depended on the propheticwritingsfor his topography: as a result, his
map did not reflect seventeenth-centuryPalestine but depicted the mes-
sianic Canaan. Lee examined and finally divided the land in accordance
with Ezekiel. Unperturbed by two millennia that separated the pro-
phetic vision from his own century, he laboriouslycalculated the area
of Palestine which each tribe would soon occupy. Even as the Bible
was timeless, so, for Lee, was the politicalgeographyof the land of the
Bible. Small wonder that when he turned to the populationof the land,
"from its first inhabitation to this day," he ignored the "present
intruders"who in "Gods due time [would] be dispossessed by Israel."
Rather, he turned to the truly "actual" people of Palestine: the
Canaanites, Perizzites, Kenites, Kenizites, Kedmonites, Rephaim,
Avites, Cherethites, Philistines, and many others.33For Lee realitywas
found in Genesis and in prophecy. Using the biblical texts, he con-
clusively restructured the geography and the demography of
seventeenth-centuryPalestine. He drew its map and emptied it of its
"barbarousTurks": "We have also out of the holy Prophets delineated
the new Land of Israel, expatiatingfrom Euphrates to Egypt and the
Red Sea, and cleared it of its old Inhabitants, to make room for the
Vine of Zion."34
For writers like Lee, Mather, and Newton, the interpretationof bib-
lical prophecyfollowed the literal approach. "If Men," warnedMather,
"allow themselves the Liberty of Allegorizing, we may at last Allegor-
ize Religion into nothing but Fancy."35The debate between literal and
allegoricalinterpreterscontinued in this period as earlierin the century.
Some writers, both nonconformistand Anglican, viewed the prophecies
in an allegoricallight and applied Jerusalem and the return from the
exile to their specific communities. They used a nongeographical
interpretationof Isaiah's prophecies so much so that in addressing a
treatise to the Jews, MargaretFox urged upon them a depoliticized
view of Jerusalemand offered her own Quakercommunity as the New
Zion. In his Sacred Theoryof the Earth,Thomas Burnet also spoke of
the restoration of the "Church in the future kingdom of Christ."36
33Ibid., 63ff.
34 Ibid., 123.
35 Increase Mather, A Dissertation Concerning the Future Conversion of the Jewish Nation
(London, 1695) 27.
36 Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth (1684; ed. Basil Willey; Illinois: Cen-
taur, 1965) 344-45. See also Margaret Fox, A Loving Salutation to the Seed of Abraham
among the Jewes (London, 1656) and idem, A Call to the Universall Seed of God (London,
1665) 5-9. See the study by Isabel Ross, MargaretFell (London: Longmans, Green,
N. I. MATAR 131
Simple nonconformists and erudite scientists concurredon a nonliteral

interpretationof prophecy.
Allegorical interpretation was opposed by theologians who had
developed the doctrine of the double return. These writers stated that
although the Jews did return to Jerusalem after the Babylonianexile,
they were to return again after their dispersalin 70 CE. The prophecies
of Isaiah, they maintained, applied to two different historical periods:
one in the sixth century, and one probablyin the seventeenth century.
Their justification of this interpretationrested on the view that the
conversion of the Jews and the "calling in" of the Gentiles had not yet
taken place. Again, as earlierin the century, they had confused Isaiah's
prophecy of the postexilic return with the Pauline expectation of the
Jews' conversion and "restitution." For Mather, Newton, Lee, and
others, restitution meant a political Restoration of the Jews to Pale-
stine. There was no allegory in prophecy, as EdwardBagshawwarned:
"The Prophecies of Scripture, concerning the reign of Christ, are
literally to be understood .... This way [allegorical] of putting mystical
and spiritualmeanings upon plain and positive texts, is very unsafe and
dangerous."37That is why theologians were preoccupiedwith calculat-
ing the exact date of the Restoration or the exact division of the land.
The propheciesof Isaiah and Ezekiel had only partiallybeen realized in
the past. Only through a Restoration that corresponded to a literal
interpretationof the text could the prophecies be seen to be fulfilled.
On 4 August 1657, Henry Oldenburgwrote to Menasseh Ben Israel:
I for my part, most honoured Sir, am convinced that those prophe-
cies which were made to you in the books of Moses and of the
Prophets concerning your return to the land of Judah and your
perennial happiness therein were by no means fulfilled on your
return from the Babyloniancaptivity. Indeed, although the Holy
Land was recovered at that time, nevertheless you never enjoyed
then that liberty and that flourishing state which the prophecies
announced. 38
1949) 89. Cf. John Perrot, ImmanuelTheSalvationof Israel (London, 1660); Isaac Pen-
ington, Some Questionsand Answersfor the openingof the Eyesof theJews(London, 1661);
LodowickMuggleton, A TrueInterpretation of All Chief Texts,and MysteriousSayingsand
Visionsopened,of the wholeBook of theRevelationof St. John(London, 1665) 169, 185.
37EdwardBagshaw, TheDoctrineof the Kingdomand PersonalReign of Christ(London,
1669) 12. For the Restoration,see 31.
38Roth (ed.), Anglo-JewishLetters,50. See also Lee, IsraelRedux,63.
Curiously, however, the Restorationists were careful about the

nature of the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Understandably,they
were not advocatinga Jewish state based on Mosaic law; much as they
advocated the Jews' Restoration on prophetic grounds, they opposed
the Jewish state on the basis of the New Testament. For that state had
been repealed by Christianityand constituted a heresy reminiscent of
Julian the Apostate's attempt to restore the Jews to Jerusalem. There
was an obvious eclecticism on the part of these Restorationists in
selecting and interpretingprophecies: their criterion was New Testa-
ment doctrine. Because the Restoration served the Christian ideal, it
was adopted. The Mosaic state challenged the teachings of Christ and
consequently it was rejected. Increase Mather, a strong advocate of the
Restoration,was clear on this matter: "The Church polity which Israel
shall then be under, will not be a carnalone (such as was from Moses
unto Christ) but a very spiritualpolity, for they shall be no more under
the Mosaicalpedagogy."39
Mather objected to the "temporal glory of Messias" in the Talmud
and warnedthat if such a kingdomwere proposedit would be similarto
the condemnable Fifth Monarchy or the ideal of "those monstrous
German Anabaptists."40Samuel Lee spoke of a "National Restitution"
of not just the spiritual, but also the temporalIsrael; but he explained
that "in Emanuel's Land" the Jews would "worship our blessed Lord
accordingto his Gospel Institutions."41He noted that thirty years after
the fall of the papacy,the Jews will make their way
toward their own land ... with thoughts of building the Temple,
and restoringthe OldWorship;whichneverwill be, for God hath
abolishedall thatpedagogy,in the sufferingof Christ,but theymay
comewithgreatexpectationof a temporalgloryunderthe Messiah:
and whenthey are at the heightof theirexpectation,they shallbe
most miserablytorn; Jerusalemtaken, the Houses rifled, the
Woman ravished. . . . Then will the Lord set his feet upon the
Mountof Olivesfor theirdeliverance.42
Lee was not unaware of Jewish political messianism and, perhaps

recalling SabbataiZevi, warned against such an ideal. Understandably
for him, the Jews' Restorationcould not lead to the rebuildingof the
Temple since that underminedChristiandoctrine. Only after the Jews
39Mather, Mystery,113; Cradock,BriefandPlainExposition,218.

40 Mather, Mystery,147.
41
Lee, IsraelRedux,104, 105.
42
Ibid., 118-19. See also Beverly, Exposition,62, 67.
N. I. MATAR 133
converted to Christianitywould it be theologicallyacceptablefor them

to establish a messianic kingdom in Palestine-in 1811.43 James Dur-
ham, a Glasgow minister, likewise refuted a Jewish political entity.
Durham interpretedPaul's "restitution" as an "outwardNational Civil
State" for the Jews, the "naturallseed of Abraham."Such a restitution
would take place after they converted to Christianity,since their initial
loss of the land was a result of their rejection of Christ. Durham
pointed out that the Jews' final condition would be to join with the
Gentiles in professing Christ within the framework of a "Visible
Church-state."44Like Mather, Lee, and others, Durham saw the Jews
in a Christian, rather than Mosaic, state. The Restoration was to
advance Christianity,not Judaism, since once the Jews were converted
and restored, their Judaism would have been completely and
definitivelyrefuted.
The Restorationistswere amenable to the Jews' "possession of the
land of their fathers" only because that served in the English Protestant
scheme of history and theology. At times they explicitly revealed their
anti-Jewishhostility; their most violent act was the intellectualencapsu-
lation of the Jews within a "Hebraic" frameworkthat neither recog-
nized nor accepted Jewish religion and biblical interpretation. By
promoting the idea of the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine, these
theologians were imposing an interpretationof geopolitical reality that
ignored the self-perceptionof the community at the heart of that real-
ity. The English theologians were not concerned with the Jews except
as a first cause to what they wished to say politicallyor theologically,
against Catholicism and Islam, or for England's imperialist Prot-
estantism. The restoration was a way of coming to terms with the
Jews, traditionallyenemies of the church. Such a representationwas by
definition and result negative, for not only did the English want the
Jews to departfrom England, they also wanted to convert them: "Are
you willing to know how, and when you shall go home? . . . First, it
will be by believing in Jesus the true Messiah."45The Restoration to
Palestine would serve as the suicide of Judaism.
43Lee, Israel Redux, 122. Beverly identified 1772 as the appointed year. The
anonymousauthorof JewsJubileeidentified1691 or 1692 (p. 2).
44Durham, Commentarie, 531, 532.
45Anon., JewsJubilee,28.
TheAnti-Restorationists
It is not surprisingthat the period after 1660 witnessed the rise of a
group of theologians opposed to the idea of the Restoration of the
Jews. Although prior to 1660 many writers had expressed
opposition-John Lightfoot, Alexander Petree, Thomas Fuller,
Hezekiah Holland, and Joseph Hall, to mention only a few-it was only
in the 1660s and later that a developed refutationof that idea emerged.
There were various factors responsiblefor the growth of this objection,
although, as in the case of the Restorationists,no specific political or
social pressureresulted in this particularview. Primarily,the return of
Anglicanismto the church broughtwith it a reaffirmationof a conserva-
tive attitude toward biblical interpretation and a more experienced
apprehensionof the political danger of such interpretations. Further-
more, opposition was vehemently expressed against the ideals that had
been upheld by, and thus associatedwith, the theologians of the Inter-
regnum. One such ideal was the notion of the Jews' Restoration. The
anti-Restorationistswere exposed to the rationalismof English Latitudi-
narianismand Deism, which challenged not only the theology but also
the practicabilityof the departureof the Jews from England to Pale-
stine. The anti-Restorationistsexamined the means of the Jews' Res-
toration and the effects that a Jewish state in Palestine would have
upon England's internationalstrategy. Unlike the Restorationists,who
were completely absorbed in theological debate, this group departed
from the restrictions of biblical exegesis and examined questions of
applicationand practicability.Concerned about the financialand politi-
cal repercussionsof the idea of Jewish Restorationon king and country,
the anti-Restorationistsexplored the physicalfeasibility of the Restora-
tion of a whole people and revealed the subsequent disadvantagesthat
would befall not only Protestantismbut also English imperialism.
In 1659, one year before the return of the Anglican establishment,
Henry Hammond's influential contribution to biblical study, A Para-
phrase, and AnnotationsUponall the Books of the New Testament,origi-
nally published in 1653, was reissued. Reacting against the various
distorted interpretations of Revelation, Hammond selected Thomas
Brightmanas the target of his attack and criticized his method, which
had treated the text as propheticalof the Jews' Restoration. Hammond
accused Brightmanof having imposed his own subjectivetheology onto
the text and of having obtruded "his own fancies for divine
revelations."46 Objecting to such inacuracy, Hammond examined
46
Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase, and Annotations Upon all the Books of the New Testa-
N. I. MATAR 135
Revelation within its historical context and concluded that the events
presented in it had alreadytaken place in the first century of the church
and were not, as Brightmanand others of his school maintained, pro-
phecies yet to be fulfilled. From this standpointof methodologicalcriti-
cism, Hammond opposed Brightman's Restorationist position on the
grounds that it was extrabiblical: the Book of Revelation, in his opin-
ion, did not pertain to the future of Jewry but to the violent past of
Christendom.
Hammond's criticism of Brightman, who was one of the most
influentialRestorationistsin English theology, was both methodological
and theological in nature. Brightmanhad become after his death the
mentor of Puritanwriters,while Hammondwas a defender of Anglican-
ism. In his disagreementwith Brightmanover the Book of Revelation
and the idea of Restoration,Hammondwas preparingthe officialAngli-
can position on biblical interpretation: not only would the Anglican
method be less allegoricaland more historical,it would lead to positions
diametricallyopposed to Puritan conclusions. In refuting Brightman,
Hammond especially undermined the millenarianopinions which had
been popular during the civil wars and the Interregnum. In opposing
Jewish Restoration, he was rejecting an idea that had been zealously
upheld by Anglicanism'sonce formidableenemies.47
This antimillenarian, anti-Restorationist attitude prevailed among
other Anglicanwriters, especiallySir Paul Rycaut in his TurkishHistory,
from the Originalof thatNation, to the Growthof the OttomanEmpire.In
writing on SabbataiZevi, Rycaut curiouslydid not put all the blame for
this false Messiah on Zevi himself, nor on the Jews who supported
him, but on the "FanaticalEnthusiasts, who dreamed of Fifth Monar-
chies, the downfallof the Pope and Antichrist, and the greatness of the
Jews."48Had it not been that the year 1666 had been so eagerly awaited
in the "Countries of the Reformed Religion," and had it not been that
Christiantheologians had alreadyadvocatedtheir Restoration,the Jews,
"this subtile people," as Rycaut called them, would not have fitted
"their Motion according to the season of the Modern Prophecies."
Rycaut felt that the Jews had been indirectlyencouragedto accept Zevi
as their Messiah because of the false and "Fanatical"expectations that
ment(1653; Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1845) 4. 502.

47 IncreaseMatherwas in the mainstreamwhen he associatedthe millenarianswith the
propagatorsof the idea that the "Jews shall be repossessedof the Land of their Fathers,
and that they shall have an externaltemporalglory" (Mystery,C3v).
48 Sir Paul Rycaut, The TurkishHistory,from the Originalof thatNation,to the Growthof
the OttomanEmpire(6th ed.; London, 1687) 174.
Protestantshad built for the Jews and for themselves. Rycaut blamed
his own coreligionists for having been responsible in the Zevi mass
delusion. A more serious attitude toward biblical interpretationwould
have abortedsuch reckless ideas from the start.49
A similar association between anti-Puritanism and anti-
Restorationismappearedin G. Hickes, later one of the nonjurors. In
1681, Hickes was a conservative divine who, in preaching before the
Aldermen and citizens of London, seized the opportunity to inveigh
against the whole arrayof anti-Anglicanforces in England. Writingon
the heels of the Popish Plot, it is not difficultto understandwhy Hickes
was so hostile towardJews, Catholics, and nonconformistsalike; all dis-
sidence was dangerous to the fragile status quo. Shrewdlyrecognizing
the greater danger from nonconformity's financial power in London,
Hickes particularlycriticized the early Puritans and their manipulation
of church preachingfor politicalgoals. Hickes attackedthe millenarian-
ism of the 1640s and 1650s, which had been responsible for the civil
wars, and he condemned the idea of the Jews' Restorationwhich had
emanated from that heresy. He rejected that Restoration because it
entailed a political interpretationof the Fifth Monarchywhich, Hickes
recalled, had posed a militarythreat to the monarchy, the last instance
being the Venner rising exactly twenty years earlier. In condemning
the Fifth Monarchists, Hickes also condemned, by citing Jesus, the
similar political goals of the Jews: "Our Saviour, who put an end to
the Jewish State, and his Fathers temperoal [sic] Reign, put an end
thereby to all future pretensionsof super legal impulses and Zeal."50
Hickes maintainedthat Jesus had rejectedthe "Jewish State" both in
his own time and for all time, including seventeenth-centuryEngland.
For Englishmen to emulate the Jews in their "fits of Fanaticalheat"
and in their plots for a messianic state was objectionable,since the Jews
no longer represented God's chosen people. The Jews had neither a
political nor a religious role to play within the Christianworldview, and
any recognitionof such a role would "invalidatethe Gospel."51Hickes
violently criticizedthe Judaizingspirit that he detected among English-
men sympathetic to the Jews. The role of the Jews had long been
over, Hickes repeated, and there was no justificationfor continuing to
discover in them, now that Jesus the Messiah had come, an inspiration
to politicalaction.
49Ibid.;cf. RichardKidder,A Demonstration

of theMessias(London, 1700) 313.
50G. Hickes, PeculiumDei, a Discourseabout the Jews (London, 1681) 21. See also
328.
Kidder, Demonstration,
51Hickes, PeculiumDei, 11, 22.
N. I. MATAR 137
New Testament scholars like George Hickes, Henry Danvers, and

Lancelot Addison rejected the Restorationistthesis because it was valid
only within an Old Testament context. Within the Christianinterpreta-
tion of the exilic propheciesany "return to Canaan"would necessitate
a return to the "Mosaical Ritual" and that was not theologically per-
missible after Christ.52Indeed, wrote a Jewish convert to Christianity
addressing King Charles in 1662, the fact that there is no Jewish
government now in Palestine, neither law nor Sanhedrin, leads to the
conclusion that the Messiah must have alreadycome. To support the
Restoration would undermine Christianitybecause it would imply the
nonfulfillment of the prophecies. That is why, he added, Jews should
be encouragedto convert.53Henry Danvers, one of the most important
anti-Restorationists,emphasized that the fulfillment of prophecies in
Christ completely annulled Jewish political anticipations. All that
related "Carnally" to the Jews within the framework of their
religion-their Abrahamicdescent, tribal allegiance, and attachment to
"their holy City or Nation"-was "Typical" of the Gospel fulfillment.
Danvers, moreover, pointed to the nonterritorialnature of Christianity
as opposed to Judaism and noted that any present attempt to associate
the once chosen people with a specific land or city (especially
Jerusalem) meant to "keep up Moses, and out Christ."54While Juda-
ism was a landed theology, Christianitywas not; for Danvers, the Res-
toration to Palestine meant a Jewish particularnessthat Christianityhad
overcome.
But Danvers' most perceptive comment lies in his separation
between the racial and religious characterof the Jews. The term Jew
was often used in references to an ethnic and religious community,
with the emphasis falling mainly on the latter element. The Jews,
before 1660, were a religious group whom the English theologian
encountered biblically. But after the Jews had settled in London, their
ethnic difference-what Ross had so notoriously popularized-became
apparent. Making a distinction between these two factors, Danvers
seemed to be tolerant of the ethnic difference, even admitting that the
Jews might become a nation and dwell in Palestine. But as the conver-
sionist that he was, Danvers did not admit that the Jews would remain
adherents to Judaism;should they be restored they would do so as part
of the Holy Nation of Jew and Gentile about which 1 Pet 2:9 speaks:
52Addison, PresentState,21.
53Jacob, Jew TurnedChristian,15.
54Henry Danvers, Theopolis,Or The City of God New Jerusalem(London, 1672) 237,
239, 240.
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's
own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Ethnically, they
remained Jews, but that did not suggest that they would "return to
their own Land, to the building of City and Temple, and injoyment of
legal rites and ceremonies." Following conversion, such an interpreta-
tion of the Restorationas a return to a Jewish Mosaic structurewas no
longer valid.55Danvers, like Hammond, Mather, and other contem-
poraries,realized that the Restorationof the Jews as adherentsof Juda-
ism entailed a challenge to Christianity;only as Christians of Jewish
descent would their Restorationto Palestine be in conformitywith New
Testament teaching.56
Unfortunately, such a subtle distinction between ethnicity and reli-
gion was not often noted by English writers. As a result, much of the
invective against Judaism and the idea of Restoration was mixed with
racist hostility. Josephus Ben Gorion providedviolent slurs against the
Jews, recalling some of the medieval accusations (i.e., odor, usury,
child sacrifice). Associated with this racism was a theological condem-
nation of the Jews' claim to Restoration and to a temporal Mosaic
kingdom.57Racism and theology had become so confused by prejudice
that opposition to a Jewish theological principle (the Mosaic kingdom)
included racist hostility. Addison combined an anti-Jewish invective
with the age-old thesis that the Jews' landlessness was God's punish-
ment. Indeed, in his attackon the Jews, Addison associatedthem with
the Turks as opponents of the Trinity and sharers in the heresy of
apocatastasis.58 The Jew was now not only as foreign as the Turk, but
as anti-Christianas the followers of the Koran. Torah and Koran were
now equally dangerous to Christianity. This was a marked departure
from the more prevalent view that the Jews would fight the Turks in
order to conquer Palestine.59Addison, following his racism to its logical
55
Ibid., 245. Cf. Mather's feeble attempt to distinguish the Jews on a "National"
ratherthan a "Genealogical"level in Mystery,13.
56In a few years RichardBaxterwould challengeeven the survivalof Jewish ethnicity:
once converted, the Jews "would be no Jews immediately in a Religious sense, nor
within sixty or eighty years in a naturalsense" (The GloriousKingdomof Christ[London,
1691] 62).
57Ben Gorion, The Wonderful andMostDeplorableHistory,B2v, 371, 375.
58Addison, PresentState,26, 35.
59The Jews' position in relationto other religiouscommunitieswas invariablydictated
by the subjectiveattitudeof the writer: Jews supportedProtestantsagainstthe Turksand
supportedProtestantsagainst the Catholics. On the other hand, Jews could be allies of
both Protestants and Turks against Catholics (anon., Jews Jubilee, 33) or could be
attackedby Protestantsand Turks together (Crouch, TwoJournies,203; Kidder, Demons-
N. I. MATAR 139
conclusion, denied any such possibilityand emphasizedthe nonmilitary

characterof the Jews: he pointed out that the Jews were "enclined to a
great aversness to everything that is Military: being as destitute of true
Courage, as good Nature."60Such a statement constitutes a refutation
of the idea of Restorationnot only from a theological but a racial per-
spective; Protestant Christianityand Jewish semitism met for the first
time in opposing the Restoration.61Theology was merging with ethnic-
ity.
Having had physical contact with Jews in London, some English
writers demonstrated intense hostility to their presence. They were
appalled by Jewish adherence to the Mosaic law which they believed
had long been repealed by Christianity. They could not understand
why the Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Having been
subjected before 1660 to extensive writings on the Jews' inevitable
conversion and Restoration, theologians were shocked that such expec-
tations were not forthcoming. More dangerouswas Jewish messianism,
which challenged both New Testament doctrine and the theological
legitimacy of the English state. The Restoration to Palestine without
the proviso of conversion underminedChristiandoctrine and made En-
gland subservient to Israel. This was certainlynot how English writers
restructuredthe small Jewish community whom they tolerantlypatron-
ized. This Restorationidea was strongly attackedbecause it challenged
theology and ideology; if the Jews were restored to Isaiah's "Israel,"
Christendom,in particularthe Protestantcommunity of England, would
no longer qualifyas the Zion of Christ.
The 1690s witnessed the most developed refutations of the idea of
Jewish Restoration. Behind these refutations stood two powerful theo-
logians on different sides of the ecclesiasticalfence: RichardBaxter, a
persistent Presbyteriannonconformist, and Richard Kidder, Bishop of
Bath and Wells. Although Baxter's treatise was in direct response to
Increase Mather's Mysteryof Israel'sSalvationand to Thomas Beverly's
numerous prophecies, it did concentrate on the Jews, especially the
idea of Restorationand their conversion. Thirty years after their settle-
ment, the Jews were becoming noticeable in English life. They had
consolidatedtheir economic position and establishedinternationalbank-
ing and commercial links. Twice the king had interceded to protect
stration,3. 480). It is noteworthythat Protestant,Turk and Catholicagreement against

the Jews is nowhere to be found; for English Protestants,the most heinous enemy was
the Catholic.
60 Addison, PresentState,8.
61
Ibid., 21.
them from litigious merchants, while they had slowly expanded their
outside trade and inner contacts. They became acquaintancesof the
Mayor of London, and Amsterdam Jews, with an eye toward their
coreligionists, were financially supportive of the 1688 revolution.
Although the Jews did not yet constitute a politicalor social force, they
evidently had become established in commercial life.62 Perhaps this
explains the flurry of treatises by converted Jews between 1689 and
1703: the more Englishmen saw the Jews established in their London
enclave, the more desperately they prayed for their conversion and
encouragedthe publicationof conversionistliterature.63
By the end of the seventeenth century, Jews were demonstrating
both financial and religious resilience that could no longer be easily
ignored. They had increasedin number to between seventy and eighty
families, all settled in London, and had begun to frequent the theater
and coffee shops. Although they were concentratedin specific areas in
London, the absence of a ghetto provided the Jews with ample oppor-
tunity to mix with Englishmenon various levels. This new Jewish real-
ity constitutes the backgroundto Baxter's refutationof the idea of Res-
toration. Baxter followed a very unusual line of refutation: although
fully theological in his purpose, he approachedthe idea of Restoration
from an analyticalperspective. He did not get entangledin biblicalexe-
gesis, but turned to the conclusions that all the theologians of Jewish
Restoration had reached and examined them from a practicalpoint of
view. Baxter preferred simple pragmatism,inspired by the Latitudi-
nariantheology of Barrowand Tillotson, and the deism of John Locke.
After all, it was only a few years later that TheReasonablenessof Chris-
tianitywas published. Instead of falling into the trap of biblicalcitation
and counter-citation,with all the exegetical alternatives, Baxter applied
pragmatic reasoning to the idea of Restoration. The result was an
extensive and crushingrefutation.
62For studies on the Jews in this period, see A. S. Diamond, "The Communityof the
Resettlement, 1656-1684: A Social Survey," JHSET24 (1970-73) 134-50; Cecil Roth,
"New Light on the Resettlement," JHSET 11 (1924-27) 112-42; Max Kohler, "The
Doctrine that 'Christianityis a part of the Common Law,' and its Recent Judicial
Overthrowin England, with ParticularReference to Jewish Rights," Publicationsof the
AmericanJewishHistoricalSociety31 (1928) 105-34.
63See God'sCovenantDisplayed,byJohnAlexanderA Converted Jew (London, 1689); An
Accountof the Conversionof Theodore John,A late TeacheramongtheJews(London, 1693);
A TrueNarrativeof God's GraciousDealingswiththe Soul of ShalomeBen Shalomoh(Lon-
of Mr. Aronde Amanza(London, 1703).
don, 1699); A Declarationof the Conversion
N. I. MATAR 141
Baxter began, however, with the theological arguments where he

reaffirmedthe theses of previous anti-Restorationists. He maintained
that the prophecies of the Jews' Restoration had alreadybeen fulfilled
four times in the past, and "will be yet more fulfilled in the New
Heaven and Earth."64He denied that after the advent of Jesus the divi-
sion between Gentile and Jew still stood; therefore, to speak about the
religious right of the Jews to a Restorationwas invalid accordingto the
New Testament. He also expressed his doubts that the Jews would
convert to Christianity.65Baxter refused to delve into the exegesis of
New Testment verses to prove his point: he simply denied their inter-
pretive significance. The idea of Restorationwas humanly created, not
God-inspired. Baxter, although worried about his reputation, was
courageousenough to reject what he recognizedwas a nonscripturalbut
very popularidea:
I knowof no such Promisein God's Word,but I find it in many
Books of Men, and I hear of it in the Prayersand Sermonsof
many Men, so good, and of so good repute,that divers of my
Friendsdisswademe from so muchas givingmy Reasonsagainst
it, lest I lose my Reputationwith such Men, and lest I occasiona
Divisionby contradictingthem.66
Looking at the Jews in England, as they enjoyed what to him

appearedto be unmolested religious freedom and financialopportunity,
Baxter wondered why England's Jews would ever wish to return to
Palestine, a small and barrenspot, "like our Wales." The comparison
with Wales is noteworthyif only because it remainedin usage until the
twentieth century. Wales was seen to be a darkand uncivilized place to
which missionarieshad been sent to preachChristianityforty years ear-
lier. Palestine was so uncivilized and so geographicallysimilar to Wales
that Jews and Englishmen would resist going there.67Baxter was the
first to drawthis comparisonbetween barrenPalestine and Wales, as he
also was the first to inquire about the legality of displacingPalestine's
present community: "Must all that now possess it [Palestine] be
64Baxter, GloriousKingdom,57.
65As early as 1655, the anonymous author of Anglo-Judaeus had made a similarstate-
ment in the context of opposingthe Jews' settlement in England(32-33). See also, but
64-65.
in a differentspirit,Prynne, ShortDemurrer,
66Baxter, GloriousKingdom,54.
67Ibid., 60, 69.
robbedof their Habitationsand Estates, to make room for our Jews?"68

At a time when Indians were being mercilessly liquidated on the
grounds that America was the Englishman's new Jerusalem, such an
attitude is striking. Unlike Maundrell who viewed the inhabitantsof
Palestine as temporary,and unlike Durham who believed that once the
inhabitants"that possess now their Land" were defeated by the Jews,
the land would become "void,"69 Baxter was, if not humanely, at least
practicallyaware of the legal quandaryto which the Restoration of the
Jews would lead Christians. Earlier, Durham had attested to the Jews'
scripturalright to Palestine through the Abrahamiccovenant; Samuel
Lee affirmedthat the "Land of Canaan [was] theirs by right of dona-
tion from God."70Baxter, however, had been involved throughouthis
life in extensive politicalnegotiations. He was a divine who had partici-
pated in realpolitikand knew that geopoliticalcontrol was rarely attain-
able or defensible by faith alone. Law and the sword, Parliamentand
the Prince of Orange, had won for nonconformistsand for the English
their freedom from the Catholic rule of James II. Thus, for the Jews
to possess Palestine, they would have to resort to both-neither of
which Baxter saw in their possession. Baxter foresaw the violence of
the Restoration: the Abrahamicrights of the Jews were not enough to
oust the inhabitantsof the land. Baxter had witnessed too much war
and bloodshed in the 1640s to believe otherwise; the Restorationof the
Jews, he feared, would inevitably lead to a tremendously vicious
conflict. Unlike Samuel Lee and others, he did not conceive of the
Restorationas a quick and benign act.
Baxter further doubted the practicalityof the whole project of Res-
toration: will the Jews have enough money to "bear the chargeof their
Transplantation";will they wish to leave comfortableand wealthy Por-
tugal or Constantinople for a "Country ... very full of mountains,
Rocks, and Deserts, and oft infested with Famines?" Baxteradded that
such an emigrationfor the Jews would be as much of a "Banishment"
as it was for an Englishmanto be "sent to Jamaica,yea or Barbadoes."
And given the fact that theologically the Restoration must necessarily
be preceded by the Jews' conversion, Baxterwondered how many mis-
sionaries it would take and how long it would be before all Jewrycon-
verted. He turned with a smile to his English coreligionistsreminding
68Ibid.,61.
69Durham, Commentarie, 532.
70Ibid.;Lee, IsraelRedux,88.
N. I. MATAR 143
them of how few were the London Jews that had actuallyforfeited their
Judaism.71
Baxter's anti-Restorationistposition responds to many of the theses
that Joseph Mede, Henry More, Thomas Beverly, IncreaseMather, and
others had proposed throughoutthe century. Baxter had not addressed
the question of the biblical basis for the idea, but rather whether the
idea of Restoration was simply reasonable. In the England following
the Glorious Revolution, and in the period of the rise of the Jewish
magnates,72Baxtercould not afford to view the Jews as purely theologi-
cal entities. Although a capable biblical scholar, Baxter preferred to
consider the practicalconsequences of the Restorationists' interpreta-
tion in the matter of England'sJews. The Restorationwas not an issue
related to an abstract community understandableonly from a biblical
perspective; the Restoration was addressed to a community whom
Baxter had met in the streets of London or Cambridge.73For Baxter,
the Jews were too real to be restructuredinto a Protestant English
framework.
What is strikingabout Baxter is that he did not fall into antisemitism
as a consequence of such an attitude. Of course, like any good English-
man, Baxter hoped for the conversion of the Jews, alreadyand inevit-
ably implying their transitionalreligious position. But that he also real-
ized the unlikeliness of such a prospect demonstrated his realistic
views. In this respect, especially as it pertainedto the idea of Restora-
tion, his realism suggested tolerance in the spirit of John Locke's A
LetterConcerningToleration(1689). As Locke was willing to allow the
Jews freedom of worship and trade, so was Baxter. For he was quite
aware that the Glorious Revolution had brought in new Jewish immi-
grants to the metropolis.74Jews were not, he observed, departing for
Palestine, nor were they behaving as potential Christians. In as much
as Baxteracceptedthe Jews' preferenceof the comforts of London over
the deprivationsof Jerusalemand of Judaismover Christianity,he also
affirmedthe theological and pragmaticinvalidity of the idea of Jewish
71Baxter, GloriousKingdom,67-70.
72For Jewish commercial and financial involvement, see Maurice
Wolf, "Foreign
Trade of London Jews in the Seventeenth Century," JHSET24 (1974) 35-58; Elkan
Nathan Adler, London(Philadelphia:The Jewish PublicationSociety of America, 1930)
113; Wilfred S. Samuel, "Sir William Davidson, Royalist (1616-1689), and the Jews,"
JHSET14 (1935-39) 39-79.
73Jews were to be found in only two other cities-Dublin and Cambridge;Roth, Jews
in England,185-86; H. P. Stokes, Studiesin Anglo-Jewish
History(Edinburgh:Jewish His-
toricalSociety of England,1913) 220-21.
74Roth, Jewsin England,194.
Restoration. For him there was no reason to believe that the London
Jews preferredPalestine to England, since he found no supportfor this
thesis either exegetically or demonstrably. Indeed, he may have
recalledthat if the Jews became familiarwith the statements of Increase
Mather and Samuel Lee about their "distress" and "hopeless estate"
after their Restoration, they would certainly oppose the idea.75 By
rejecting the idea of Restoration, Baxter had accepted the Jews not as
temporarysettlers but as residents in a secure England.76
By so doing, Baxterwas confirmingthe officialattitudeof the English
monarchywhich was not only protective of the Jews but happy to sup-
port their financial investments. The Jews were a source of sizeable
income to the exchequer, and in the courts of CharlesII, James II, and
William and Mary, their Judaism was secondary to their wealth.77The
idea of Restorationwas unacceptableto Baxter on practicalgrounds as
it was to financierson economic grounds. Indeed, ever since their set-
tlement in England had been proposed by Menasseh Ben Israel, the
opposition had pointed to the financial danger of settlement and Res-
toration: What would happen to England's economy, some asked,
should the Jews, after settling and accumulating wealth, decided to
depart for Palestine? Would they not take that wealth with them and
thus cause a financialdisaster in London?78Such accusationshad been
made as early as the 1650s and Ben Israel had respondedto them in his
Spes Israel. He was intelligent enough to recognize that the hope of
Jewish Restorationwas double edged, and he urged Cromwellnot to be
concerned as it seemed very unlikely that the Jews would really ever
leave Englandonce they were settled:
For where the Jewes are once kindly receaved, they make a firm
resolution never to departfrom thence, seeing they have no proper
place of their owne: and so they are alwayeswith their goods in the
Cities where they live, a perpetuallbenefit to all payments.79
For Ben Israel, the practicality of the Jews' Restoration was not
75Mather,Mystery,35.
76IncreaseMather
feebly tried to respondto Baxter,but only produceda survey of the
previous literatureon the subject: A DissertationConcerningthe FutureConversionof the
JewishNation(London, 1695).
77 Samuel Hayne, An Abstractof all StatutesMade Concerning Aliens Tradingin England
(London, 1685) 9: "The Jews are a sort of Persons admiredat by most TradingPeople
all the Worldover, as well as here in Englandfor their greatWealth."
78Another fear was that the Jews would become wealthyenough to buy up Englandas
"anotherland of Goshen" (Collier, BriefAnswer,32).
79MenassehBen Israel, To his Highnesse,8.
N. I. MATAR 145
forthcoming. He desisted from developing the idea since he realized

that it was being proposedby anti-Jewishwritersas an argumentagainst
settlement in England. This Jewish Rabbi was the first to recognize
that English Restorationismcoincided with anti-Judaism.
Ben Israel's practical reponse to the financial threat was also
presented by Sir Josiah Child in his A New Discourseof Trade. Pub-
lished in 1692, the work provided a confirmationof the Jewish contri-
bution to England's financial growth. When addressed regardingthe
potential danger of the Jews' transfer of capital from England to Pale-
stine, Child, the chairmanof the East India Company, pointed out the
futility of such speculations. Since the Jews were not preparingto be
restored, they would stay in England along with their capital. Child,
the economist, recognized the importance of Jewish financial invest-
ments and wished to see them increase. The idea of the Restoration
was not only impracticalfor the Jews, it was also a disservice to the
English economy.80
The 1690s witnessed a serious analysis of the implications of Res-
toration. The emphasis shifted from biblical interpretationto the self-
interest of English Protestantsand Jews alike. The influence of ration-
alism and the decline in religious enthusiasm certainly cooperated in
generatingthis criticism. Before 1660 all refutationsof the idea of Res-
torationwere based on theologicaland textual analysis;towardsthe end
of the century, a pragmaticrefutation began to make an impact. Fur-
thermore, the political and territorialimplications of the Restoration
were raised and examined. Earlierin the century, Sir Henry Finch had
declaredthat upon the establishmentof "Israel" in Palestine, all world
kingdoms would pay homage to it-an idea that infuriatedKing James I
and subsequently led to Finch's imprisonment.81This political opposi-
tion to the Restoration was frequently recalled in theological writings
throughout the periods before and after 1660. A more pointed princi-
ple appearedtowards the end of the seventeenth century and opposed
the Jews' Restorationon colonial grounds: their Restorationwas seen
not as a divine act of theololgicalimport, but as one of a purely expan-
sionist nature. At a time when England was fighting with France for
the control of the trade routes, the prospectof a Jewish army occupying
the Levant was strategicallyobjectionable. Baxter feared that the Jews'
Restoration to Palestine would lead not to their conversion but rather
80 Josiah
Child, A NewDiscourseof Trade(London, 1692) 126-27.
81 Sir The WorldsGreatRestauration,or The
Henry Finch, Callingof theJewes(London,
1621) 3. See the attackon Finch by ArchbishopLaud, Works(Oxford:Parker, 1867) 1.
16ff.
to a reenactmentof the "Popes old Zeal" which aimed at militaryoccu-

pation and control.82The anonymous author of A Short and Easie
Methodwiththe Deistsrecognizedthat the Jews viewed their Restoration
not as a propheticfulfillment but as an imperialistaction, "no greatera
Miracle than the Successes of the Romans ... or Mahomet."83 Ever
since Moses, the Jews had always had political aspirations. Yet, he
warned, English Restorationists who are eager to promote the Jews'
occupation of Palestine must recall that God's whole purpose of
dispersing the Jews had been to depoliticize their religion and to turn
them from a carnalto a spiritualview of the Messianic kingdom.84The
Restorationwould not be a miracle of God but an affront to Christ and
to England.
Between 1688 and 1716, Englandwas successfully at war with France
for the colonial market. In 1699, the Ottomanempire signed the treaty
of Karlowitz whereby its challenge to Christendom was completely
ended. For the English closely examining the internationalmap, the
prospects were good for England to expand both territorially and
economically. The realizationwas growing that the Restoration of the
Jews was dangerous from both a theological and a strategic point of
view. The creation of a Mosaic state in Palestine with army and temple
would present a serious military and religious challenge and would
threaten England's trade interests. Seeing that the Jews had not con-
verted and thus had not really become English, writers recognized that
if the Jews occupied Palestine they would pose as much a threat as did
the Turks or the Catholics. The Restoration exhibited Jewish "Zeal"
that would jeopardizeEngland'sgrowing supremacy. For the first time
English expansionism collided with Jewish Restorationism over the
question of Palestine.
In the autumn of 1701, in London's Plough Yard, Bevis Marks, the

first synagogue to be established in this location since the thirteenth
century was dedicated. Although there had been for over forty years a
synagoguein use at CreechurchLane and possibly another at nearbySt.
Helens, the one in Bevis Marks emerged as an indication not only of
the growth of the Jewish community in London but of its sense of sta-
82
Baxter, Glorious Kingdom, 67.
83 to which is Added a Second Part to
Anon., A Short and Easie Method with the Deists ...
theJews(London, 1699) 338.
84 Ibid., 247.
N. I. MATAR 147
bility and prosperity.85Since their settlement in England the Jews had

come to realize that their economic and religious well-being was
ensured by the growing liberalismof ProtestantEngland. The decision
to build a synagogue and the rumor, if it were true, that one of its
beams was dedicated by the Monarch both go far in showing how the
English had adjusted to the Jewish aliens. The year 1701 is important
as it marks the realizationby the Jews of their security in London as
well as London society's acceptanceof a Jewish worshipingcommunity
in its midst. The synagogue best shows that the "Judaic" element in
the Jews had finally been accepted over against the "Hebraic" one.
The Jews were no longer seen as potential Christianson their way to
fight England's Protestant wars in Palestine but as practicing Jews
devoted to the Torah in a synagogue protected by the Monarch and
built by a Quaker. With the anti-Restorationists,"Judaism" was vic-
torious over "Hebraism."
On the part of zealous Christians,of course, 1701 does not mark the
end of conversionist-Restorationistaspirations. Indeed, at the begin-
ning of the century Richard Kidder published A Demonstrationof the
Messias in which he hoped for the Jews' acceptance of Jesus as the
Messiah. Like Baxter, however, Kidder had witnessed Jewish prosper-
ity in London and had opposed the idea of their departureor Restora-
tion. Although he recognized the negative theological implications of
such an idea for Christianity(once restored, the Jews would rebuild the
temple, proving thereby that the propheciesof Jesus were unfulfilled),
he more importantlyrejected it out of a sense of realism and from his
personalexperience. Kidderwas familiarwith Jews and their social and
religious conduct. What argumentshe brought against Jewish Restora-
tion were a result of views and sentiments picked up from Jews, both
in London and abroad:
I have heard of a Rich Jew at Amsterdam,who treated a Christian
very splendidly. When the Christianmentioned to him the present
Captivityof the Nation, the Jew smiled at it; and said, What is this
Captivity? and protested, that he should not be willing to return to
the Land of Canaan, where he could not expect the Conveniences
which he enjoyed where he was.86
85 "Bevis Marks
Synagogue,"JE.
86Kidder, Demonstration,
3. 460.
Kidder, as well as others, was talking and arguing with Jews.

Although he was not tolerantenough to desist from endlessly hoping to
convert them, he recognized the Jews' residentialand religious choice:
the Jews firmlyadheredto their Judaismbut they did not favor the idea
of their Restoration. Kidder, Baxter, and the anti-Restorationistscer-
tainly realizedthe differencebetween a hoped for religious restructuring
of the Jews and a politicalone. While they would pray for the conver-
sion of the Jews, though recognizing its limitations, they would refute
the Restorationistson both theological and pragmaticgrounds. It was
clear to them that the Jewish community in London was neither willing
to convert nor planning to leave. Whether at the Bevis Marks syna-
gogue or in the stock exchange, the Jews were demonstratingthat they
had no intention of emigratingto a Wales of a Palestine.
The first half of the eighteenth century witnessed the decline of
interest both in the Jews and in the idea of Restoration. This period
saw the beginnings of Jewish assimilationinto English life. The publi-
cation of John Toland's Reasonsfor Naturalizingthe Jews in GreatBrit-
ain and Irelandin 1714 emanated from a growing integrative attitude
toward the Jews among English society. Although theologians ponder-
ing the eternal mysteries of the prophetictexts would invariablyinvolve
the Jews in their commentaries,they did not really concern themselves
with Jewish affairs. The Jews remained a social and theological curios-
ity encountered in a casual visit to the London syngogue, at the bank,
or in a biblical query. The anti-Restorationistsof 1661-1701 had
sufficiently demonstrated the Jews' belonging to Judaism and to En-
gland and had thereby helped the Jews in adjusting to England, and
simultaneouslyhelped the English in treatingthe Jews not as potential
emigrantsand Christiansbut as residents who practiceda different reli-
gion. Not until the "Jew Bill" of 1753 and the propheticdecade of the
1790s would the Jews surface again on the English religious and politi-
cal scene, and matters of their conversion and Restorationbe recalled.
It would take the prospect of Jewish naturalization to reawaken
violently the conversionist attitude and to reinvest the theological,
racist, and financial arguments of seventeenth-century Restorationism
with new life. I shall returnto this period in a future study.87
87For attitudes towardthe Jews in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, see Albert
M. Hyamson, British Projectsfor the Restoration of the Jews (London: Leeds, Petty & Sons,
1971); Nahum Sokolow, Historyof Zionism(2 vols.; London: Longmns, Green, 1919);
MayirVrete, "The Restorationof the Jews in EnglandProtestantThought, 1790-1840,"
MiddleEast Studies8 (1972) 3-50; Regina Sharif, "Christiansfor Zion: 1660-1919,"
Journal of Palestine Studies 5 (1976) 123-41; idem, Non-Jewish Zionism: Its Roots in
WesternHistory (London: Zed, 1983).

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Harvard Divinity School

THE IDEA OF THE RESTORATIONOF THE JEWS

In a previous study, the idea of the Restorationof the Jews to Palestine

Underlyingthese three attitudes that generated the idea of Restora-

Muslim tolerance) or as fighters for England's Protestantcause against

5 Ibid., 9-10; cf. L. Addison, ThePresentState of the Jews (moreParticularly

conversion to Christianity and their renunciation of their religious char-

delayed English Christians.

10Thomas Collier, A BriefAnswerto Some of the Objections and Demurrers MadeAgainst

The passage shows how familiaritywith the Jews consolidated the

ll WilfredS. Samuel, "The First London Synagogueof the Re-Settlement,"JHSET10

Jew TurnedChristian(London, 1678/79) 8; RichardMayo, TwoConferences: OneBetwixta

Although in these chapters Ross was drawingupon traditionalrabbinic

took the form of a domination and representationthat tended towards

"Invaders."16The geopolitical map of European-Ottomanrelations

16Samuel Lee, IsraelRedux:or TheRestaurationof ISRAEL,and A Superaddition to the

Waldenses.18Protestantsand Jews had to cooperatetogether against the

18Mather, Mystery,36; Roth, MenassehBen Israel,231; John Milton,

the preparationfor the Jews' Restorationbecame a real matter in Lon-

Clearly, the Restorationists'concern for the Jews was aimed at resolv-

20Even before the Zevi

movements of the Jews in the Levant.23What all these Christianletters

23See the various letters from Antwerp,

greatand devoutpatronessof the HolyLand,the empressHelena;

Finally, as a ChristianMaundrellyearned for the "future restauration"

from travel literature, both classical and contemporary,Lee primarily

Simple nonconformists and erudite scientists concurredon a nonliteral

Curiously, however, the Restorationists were careful about the

Lee was not unaware of Jewish political messianism and, perhaps

39Mather, Mystery,113; Cradock,BriefandPlainExposition,218.

converted to Christianitywould it be theologicallyacceptablefor them

ment(1653; Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1845) 4. 502.

49Ibid.;cf. RichardKidder,A Demonstration

New Testament scholars like George Hickes, Henry Danvers, and

conclusion, denied any such possibilityand emphasizedthe nonmilitary

stration,3. 480). It is noteworthythat Protestant,Turk and Catholicagreement against

Baxter began, however, with the theological arguments where he

Looking at the Jews in England, as they enjoyed what to him

robbedof their Habitationsand Estates, to make room for our Jews?"68

forthcoming. He desisted from developing the idea since he realized

to a reenactmentof the "Popes old Zeal" which aimed at militaryoccu-

In the autumn of 1701, in London's Plough Yard, Bevis Marks, the

bility and prosperity.85Since their settlement in England the Jews had

Kidder, as well as others, was talking and arguing with Jews.

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