History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Nahum Sokolow

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

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

[¹] The Sacred Doctrine of Divinity, 1589, 1613; and Exposition of the Song of Salomon, 1615, issued anonymously, are in the Bodleian Library. Neither Wood’s Athenæ, Bohn’s Lowndes, The Dictionary of National Biography, nor The British Museum catalogue mention them.

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

[¹] Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1626; Bishop of London, 1628; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633.

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

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

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

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