496 The Session of Parliament. QMAY, 



As to making a man a legislator for the church and state, who does 

 not believe in Christianity, is it not practically done every day ? How 

 many members of the House of Commons are Unitarians? and undoubt- 

 edly it is a contradiction in terms to call a man a Christian who denies 

 the divinity, the doctrines, the merits, and the power of the Lord Christ. 

 Yet those men, not being bound, as the Papist is, to overthrow the church, 

 legislate for it without obvious injury. How many Deists, how many 

 Socinians, how many men who never trouble their heads with asking 

 themselves what they are, legislate for the church ? To expect a Jew 

 to feel any kind of zeal for the Church of England would be idle. But 

 we defy him to feel less zeal or possess less knowledge on the subject 

 than many a man who takes a part in the national councils. 



To think that because the Jews have lain under a divine malediction 

 for ages, men will please God by treating them with severity or injustice j 

 is to mingle ourselves with the divine wrath in a manner totally unau- 

 thorised and culpable. Our duty is, in all instances, to show mercy and 

 love, to give every man service and justice. But the scriptures not 

 merely give this great command, but plainly declare, that kindness to 

 the Jew is an eminently acceptable service to God ; that severity to the 

 Jew is an eminently displeasing offence ; that he still loves them, for the 

 sake of their ancestors ; and that he will exact a terrible vengeance from 

 their oppressors ; and that this vengeance has followed, we believe may 

 be shown in the history of every nation which has made itself con- 

 spicuous in cruelty to the Jews, even in modern times. Our conclusion 

 is, that so far from " doing God service," in excluding the Jew from 

 any privilege which might ease his condition, we are presumptuously 

 and hazardously exposing ourselves to the divine displeasure by op- 

 pressing his people, rejected as they are for a time ; that we have no 

 right to add human infliction to that measure of suffering which it has 

 pleased the Divine Wisdom to lay upon them; and that our duty in this 

 case, as in all others, is to leave the working of Providence to its own 

 ways, following the great command, te to do justice, and love mercy, 

 and to walk humbly with our God." 



The bill will probably be thrown out, because it connects itself with 

 no political interest. It promises no additional strength to the minister, 

 nor any addition to the importance of his clerks in office. But if our 

 disgust for him and his could be heightened, it is by hearing the pro- 

 testations of those eminent champions of the Constitution and Christianity, 

 the Goulburns, and Herrieses, &c. haranguing against it as hostile to their 

 dearly beloved church and religion ; Mr. Goulburn, honest man, objecting 

 to it on the further ground that this change of oaths, and so forth, would 

 bring scandal on the Parliament, as a (< vacillating body, capable of altering 

 its conceptions suddenly upon great points, and unsaying this year what 

 it said a dozen months before." Of such materials are the consciences and 

 countenances of public men made in our time! Peel had the policy to 

 keep aloof. The pretext of his father's illness answered his purpose in 

 avoiding the necessity of a harangue against his solitary elector, the Jew 

 Masseh, Manasseh Lopez. He thus also escaped having directly applied 

 to him the brand which Sir Robert Inglis declared must be on the fore- 

 head of every Jew representative. 



But those men and their generation will pass away. Other minds 

 will yet have the regulation of England, if she is to hold her rank among 

 nations ; and we may see manliness and virtue once more the distinc- 

 tions of a British statesman. 



