"ordered the prelates, in all places where there were "Jews, to appoint learned divines to preach to them, "The sovereign princes were obliged to send all the "Jews in their dominions to attend at the sermon, " and heavy penalties were to be inflicted on any per"son who should hide or detain them. At the same "time it was forbidden to eat with them or to keep "them company. It was not lawful to have foot"men, nurses, physicians, or farmers of that nation, "or to let them houses near any church, or in the "middle of any city: and that they might be the

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more easily known, they were obliged to wear a "particular habit. Lastly, the council passed a con"demnation, and inflicted penalties on those who "should pawn to them the sacred books, crosses, "chalices, and the ornaments of churches.

"The council made regulations also relating to the Jews who should receive Christianity. These con"verts acquired by baptism a right to enjoy their "own possessions and goods, those excepted which they had gained by usury; for they were obliged to "restore these extortions, if the persons wronged were living; and in case of death, as the church was the "mistress of these unlawful and confiscated gains, "she made a present of them to the new converts, "This regulation was of a singular kind; for the

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church hath no right to appropriate to herself the goods of particular persons, especially if they had "acquired them before they entered into the church, "and in the days of their ignorance; nor can she ex"ercise it to the prejudice of the children and the "heirs of those to whom restitution was due. This also was an obstacle to the conversion of the Jews,

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by stripping them of their acquisitions.

The

"The council also, by a law of its own, declared "the converted Jews capable of all civil offices in the city where they were baptized, because, forsooth, "it is more noble to be born anew of the Holy Ghost, "than to be born of the flesh, Councils have no bu"siness to dispose of the charges and privileges of corporations; and the reason here assigned is drole, "namely, that regeneration gives men, a right to tem"poral dignities.

The council, after all, could not be certain of the sincerity of these proselytes, and seems to have "doubted of it; for it permitted not the new converts to receive and return mutual visits, or to dwell together, knowing by experience that they only helped to spoil one another, and that their faith was "rather weakened than improved by such intercourse. "It also forbad them to bury their dead according to "the Jewish ritual, to observe the Sabbath, and other "national ceremonies; a sufficient proof that these new Christians were not sincere.-It ordered the "curates to seek out Christian wives for these Jews, "and to get them advantageous matches: and as it 'granted great privileges to the proselytes, it de"nounced terrible panishments against dissemblers, "ordering the priests to watch them narrowly, to de"liver them to the inquisitors, and to make use of the "secular arm, that they might be punished with the "utmost rigour, declaring that they who should pro"tect these pretended converts should be treated as “friends to heretics; and carrying its authority still farther, it annulled and annihilated all privileges formerly granted to the Jews, either by popes, or by emperors. One is amazed to hear Ecclesiastics "talk at this rate,-confounding things temporal

with spiritual, political with ecclesiastical, and "drawing false consequences from the one to the other. With reason the council ordered that there "should be care taken to instruct the Jews, and that "they should be relieved by the alms of Christians; "but by mere usurpation it claimed a power over "emperors and imperial laws.' Basnage Hist. des Juifs, T. v. p. 2051,

In the year 1650 the Jews, as it is said, held an assembly in the plain of Ageda in Hungary, to examine the Scriptures concerning Christ. Many of them seemed disposed to own him for the promised Messias; but upon hearing the doctrines of Christianity, as they were represented by some priests of the church of Rome who were present at the assembly, they were shocked at such idolatrous tenets, and cried out blasphemy, and chose rather to reject the gospel than to admit such a sort of Christianity.

The narrative of these remarkable proceedings was drawn up by Samuel Bret, who was present at that synod, and is published in the Phoenix, vol. i. The question is, whether this narrative have any more truth in it than the Adventures of Telemachus. The authors of the Acta Eruditorum declared their just suspicions concerning it.Ceterum sunt in ea Relatione nonnulla, quæ si plane dubiam fidem ejus non reddant, rerum saltem Judaicarum ignorantiæ auctorem arguant. Doctissimo certe Basnagio in erudito de Historia Judeorum opere plane illud Concilium prætermissum observamus, 1709. p. 104.

Many things have been reported of us, that never entered into the thoughts of our nation; as I have seen a fabulous narrative of the proceedings of a great council

of

of the Jews, assembled in the plain of Ageda in Hungary, to determine whether the Messiah were come or no. Manasseh Ben Israel, in his Defence of the Jews, in the Phoenix, Vol. ii. p. 401.

The account of the Jews who have been plundered, sent naked into banishment, starved, tortured, left to perish in prisons, hanged and burnt by Christians, would fill many volumes. But now they enjoy better times, they escape persecution even in some Popish countries, and those of them who dwell in Protestant nations have been well used, and no where more kindly than here; so that they have great reason to remember the command which God gave them by Jeremiah, when they were in Babylon, and to apply it to their present situation; Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. Why should we not, in charity, suppose them to be thus inclined? for they are men; and men will commonly love those who treat them gently, and will certainly entertain a bad opinion of their persecutors. In this let us judge of others, by what we feel ourselves; since there are two things which every honest person equally dislikes, To oppress, and, To be oppressed.

If we had a circumstantial and an impartial account of all the insurrections and rebellions of the Jews, and of the causes which produced them, we should perhaps find this people to have been often provoked and exasperated by ill usage, and therefore rather less turbulent and seditious than they have been commonly represented. We should not forget that it is oppression, which, usually speaking, begets rebellion, op

pression

pression, which, as the wise man observes, will make d wise man mad.

St Paul, in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, observes that God had rejected the Jews, and chosen the Gentiles to be his people, but, says he, this rejection of the Jews, as it is not universal, so neither is it final and irreversible; some of them are now called to the faith, but to the greater part blindness is happened, and this blindness must continue, till the fulness, the more complete conversion of the Gentiles be come, and then the people of Israel shall also be saved, that is, shall be converted to the gospel, and so be put in a state of salvation. St Paul argues thus; If God hath called the Gentiles to his grace after a long idolatry and infidelity, though they were never before admitted to those privileges which the Jews enjoyed, and though God had never promised to be their God forever, much more will he recall his chosen people from their infidelity. Here we have his own authority for it, which he also strengthens by appealing to the scriptures: It is written, says he, The Deliverer shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and God shall make a covenant with his people, and take away their sins. The Jews were called God's own people, and his first-born; to them Christ was sent, to them the apostles first preached the gospel, and the first Christian church was that of Jerusalem, which in the primitive times, was as the mother-church, and had some degree of dignity and pre-eminence over all churches. The prophets speak of a future calling of the Jews, and of a state of stability, piety, power, happiness, glory, peace, and prosperity, which they should enjoy. The expressions which are used upon this occasion are extremely strong and magnificent, and have not as yet

been