The English Protestant Era
The path that led to the widespread belief in the end-time restoration of the Jews to Israel started with the study of the Bible, first in the original languages, followed by the influence of the newly acquired English translations.[23] When both scholars and laymen alike, for the first time in the history of the church, had the text of Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) more readily available, it led to greater study, a more literal interpretation and a greater awareness of the Israel of the Old Testament. This provided the atmosphere in which a major shift occurred in England (also on the Continent to a lesser degree) from medieval Jew-hatred, which led to the expulsion of all Jews from Britain in 1290, to their invitation under Cromwell to return in 1655. " From such a context and from among this people," notes Douglas Culver, " now growing more and more intimate with things Jewish, the early millenarian protagonists for the restoration of the Jews to their Palestinian homeland arose." [24] However, it would be a tough road to get to the point where belief in a Jewish restoration to their ancient homeland would become so widespread.
It wasn' t just any group of English protestants that provided a fertile soil for Jewish Restorationist doctrines, it was out of the English Puritan movement that this belief sprung. " Starting with the Puritan ascendancy," notes Tuchman, " the movement among the English for the return of the Jews to Palestine began." [25] Why the Puritan? Puritans were not just dissenters, they were a Protestant sect that valued the Old Testament to an unprecedented degree in their day. Tuchman tells us:
They began to feel for the Old Testament a preference that showed itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid a respect to the Hebrew language that they refused to the language of their Gospels and of the epistles of Paul. They baptized their children by the names not of Christian saints but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. They turned the weekly festival by which the church had from primitive times commemorated the resurrection of her Lord, into the Jewish Sabbath. They sought for precedents to guide their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges and Kings.[26]
One of the first Englishman to put forth the view that the Jews should be restored to the land of Israel was a scholar who had taken two degrees from Cambridge named Francis Kett. In 1585 he had published a book entitled The Glorious and Beautiful Garland of Mans Glorification Containing the Godly Misterie of Heavenly Jerusalem (one of the shorter titles of the day). While his book primarily dealt with other matters, Kett did have a section in which he mentioned " the notion of Jewish national return to Palestine." [27] This notion, which some think was likely gaining many followers,[28] was deemed heretical to the English establishment of the day and Rev. Kett was quickly burned at the stake on January 14, 1589, for expressing such views about the Jews return to their land, an idea he claimed to have received from reading the Bible.[29] About the same time as Kett, strict Calvinist, Edmund Bunny (1540- 1619) taught the Jewish restoration to Palestine in a couple of books: The Scepter of Ivday (1584) and The Coronation of David (1588).[30]
As the 1600s arrived, a flurry of books advocating Jewish restoration to their land began to appear. Thomas Draxe released in 1608 The Worldes Resurrection: On the general calling of the Jews, A familiar Commentary upon the eleventh Chapter of Saint Paul to the Romaines, according to the sense of Scripture. Draxe argued for Israel' s restoration based upon his Calvinism and Covenant Theology.[31]
Two great giants of their era were Thomas Brightman (1552- 1607), (likely a Postmillennialist) and Premillennialist Joseph Mede (1586- 1638) who both wrote boldly of a future restoration of Israel. Brightman' s work, Revelation of the Revelation appeared in 1609 and told " how the Jews will return from the areas North and East of Palestine to Jerusalem and how the Holy Land and the Jewish Christian church will become the centre of a Christian world." [32] Brightman wrote: " What, shall they return to Jerusalem again? There is nothing more certain; the prophets do everywhere confirm it." [33] Mede' s contribution was released in 1627 in Latin [34] and in 1642 in English as The Key of the Revelation.[35] The father of English premillennialism was also an ardent advocate of Jewish restoration to their homeland. Momentum was certainly building toward widespread acceptance of English belief in Jewish restoration, but a few bumps in the road still lay ahead.
Giles Fletcher (1549- 1611), a fellow at King' s College, Cambridge and Queen Elizabeth' s ambassador to Russia wrote a work advocating Restorationism. Fletcher' s book, Israel Redux: or the Restauration of Israel; or the Restauration of Israel exhibited in two short treatises (shortened title) was published posthumously by the Puritan divine Samuel Lee in 1677.[36] Fletcher cites a letter in his book from 1606 as he argues for the return of the Jews to their land.[37] Fletcher repeatedly taught the " certainty of their return in God' s due time." [38]
A key proponent for Israel' s future restoration was Henry Finch (1558-1625) who wrote a seminal work on the subject in 1621, called The World' s Resurrection or The Calling of the Jewes. A Present to Judah and the Children of Israel that Ioyned with Him, and to Ioseph (that valiant tribe of Ephraim) and all the House of Israel that Ioyned with Him.[39] Finch, at the time of the publication of his book was a member of Parliament and the most highly respected legal scholars in England at the time. " The book had been published for a matter only of weeks when the roof caved in on the author' s head," notes Culver. " In the persecution which ensued, Finch lost his reputation, his possessions, his health- all precipitated by his belief in Jewish national restoration." [40] " Finch' s argument may be considered the first genuine plan for Restoration." [41] Finch taught that the biblical " passages which speak of a return of these people to their own land, their conquest of enemies and their rule of the nations are to be taken literally, not allegorically as of the Church." [42] King James of England was offended by Finch' s statement that all nations would become subservient to national Israel at the time of her restoration.[43] Finch and his publisher were quickly arrested when his book was released by the High Commissioner (a creation of King James), and examined.[44] Finch was striped of his status and possessions and then died a few years latter. " The doctrine of the restoration of the Jews continued to be expounded in England, evolving according to the insight of each exponent, and finally playing a role in Christian Zionistic activities in the latter part of the nineteenth and in the first of the twentieth centuries." [45]
Many Puritans of the seventeenth century taught the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land.[46] One of the greatest Puritan theologians in England was John Owen (1616- 1683) who wrote, " The Jews shall be gathered from all parts of the earth where they are scattered, and brought home into their homeland." [47] Peter Toon, speaking of Puritans of this era says:
Of course, those who expected the conversion of the Jews added to Romans 11 other proof-texts from the Old and New Testament. Furthermore, a large proportion of those who took " Israel" in Romans 11:25 ff. to speak of Jews, also taught that there would be a restoration of Jews to their ancient homeland in the Near East either after, or at the same time as, their conversion to Christ.[48]
There was a similar Restorationist movement throughout Europe where the Reformation was strongest, but on a smaller scale. There were a number of Restorationists in Holland during the time of the Puritan movement. Isaac de la Peyrere (1594- 1676), who served as the French Ambassador to Denmark, " wrote a book wherein he argued for a restoration of the Jews to Israel without conversion to Christianity." [49] In 1655, Paul Felgenhauever, wrote Good News for Israel in which he taught that there would be the " permanent return of the Jews to their own country eternally bestowed upon them by God through the unqualified promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." [50] The Dane, Holger Paulli (1644- 1714) " believed wholeheartedly in the Jewish Return to the Holy Land, as a condition for the Second Coming." [51] He even " lobbied the kings of Denmark, England, and France to go and conquer Palestine from the Ottomans in order that the Jews could regain their nation." [52] Frenchman, Marquis de Langallerie (1656- 1717), schemed with the Turkish Ambassador in the Hague on a plan defeat the Pope and trade the papal empire for a return of the Jews to the Holy Land. Langallerie was arrested in Hamburg, tried and convicted of high treason and died in prison a year later.[53] Other European Restorationists of the era include: Isaac Vossius, Hugo Grotius, Gerhard John Vossius, David Blondel, Vasover Powel, Joseph Eyre, Edward Whitaker, and Charles Jerran.[54]
James Saddington lists the following seventeenth century English individuals as holding to Restorationist views: John Milton, John Bunyan, Roger Williams, John Sadler and Oliver Cromwell.[55] " The doctrine of the restoration of the Jews continued to be expounded in England, evolving according to the insight of each exponent," concludes Ehle, " and finally playing a role in Christian Zionistic activities in the latter part of the nineteenth and in the first of the twentieth centuries." [56]
Colonial America
Since the American colonies, especially in Puritan New England, were settled primarily by Englishmen who brought with them to the New World many of the same issues and beliefs that were circulating in the motherland, it is not surprising to find many zealous advocates in America for the restoration of the Jews. Perhaps the most influential of the early Puritan ministers in New England was John Cotton, who, following the postmillennialism of Brightman held to the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land.[57] According to Ehle, in addition to John Cotton (1584- 1652), early Restorationists included: John Davenport (1597- 1670), William Hooke (1601- 1678), John Eliot (1604- 1690), Samuel Willard (1640- 1707), and Samuel Sewall (1652- 1730).[58] Ephraim Huit, a Cambridge trained early minister in Windsor, Connecticut believed that the Jews would be regathered to their homeland in 1650.[59]
One of the standout advocates of the restoration doctrine was Increase Mather (1639- 1723), the son of Richard and father of Cotton. Increase Mather wrote over 100 books in his life and was a president of Harvard. His first work was The Mystery of Israel' s Salvation, which went through about a half dozen revisions during his life.[60] His support of the national restoration of Israel to her land in the future was typical of American Colonial Puritans and was generally widespread. Ehle notes the following:
The first salient school of thought in American history that advocated a national restoration of the Jews to Palestine was resident in the first native-born generation at the close of the seventeenth century in which Increase Mather played a dominate role. The men who held this view were Puritans, . . . From that time on the doctrine of restoration may be said to have become endemic to American culture.[61]
" It was Increase Mather' s view that this final and greatest reformation of the Christian world would be led by the Jewish people ensuing upon their restoration to the Holy Land." [62]
From the earliest times, American Christianity has always tilted toward support of the restoration of national Israel in the Holy Land. American Christians, when compared with Euro-Asian Christianity has always had a philo-Semitic disposition. Thus, it is not surprising that this tradition continues today, especially in dispensational circles.
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