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 "LI E> RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
 SUBSTANCE OF A SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MOTION OF LORD JOHN RUSSELL 
 
 FOR A 
 
 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE, WITH A VIEW TO 
 THE REMOVAL OF THE REMAINING 
 
 JEWISH DISABILITIES; 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1847. 
 TOGETHER WITH A PREFACE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1848. 
 
 /u
 
 LONDON: 
 GEORGE WOODFALL AND SON, 
 
 ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The proposal to open the doors of Parliament to the pro- 
 fessors of the Jewish creed, and to make them eligible for 
 political office, is manifestly one of deep religious interest. The 
 University of Oxford, as well as that of Cambridge, has 
 accordingly given expression to its own feeling upon the 
 subject, through a petition to the House of Commons, which 
 was carried in convocation by a very large majority. On 
 such an occasion, she has an especial title to know for what 
 reasons it was that a person whom she has recently and most 
 highly honoured by choosing him to be one of her repre- 
 sentatives in Parliament, has been constrained to place him- 
 self in opposition to her own formally recorded sentiment. 
 
 The following speech, to which reference would naturally 
 be made for those reasons, took its form mainly from the 
 previous course of the debate ; and from this cause, as well as 
 from others, particularly the nature of the subject and its 
 nearness to the region of abstract principle, it supplies but an 
 imperfect statement of opinions which I am desirous to place 
 under the cognizance of members of the University with 
 more approach to completeness. 
 
 The immediate question, contracted as at first sight it may 
 appear to be, touches the whole range of topics connected 
 with national religion, and with the connection between the 
 Church and the State. Yet the positive argument on both 
 sides is concise; while almost all detail goes to illustration, 
 and to the removal of objections. On the one side, it is the 
 presumptive claim of the Jew, bearing civil burdens without 
 limitation, to the similarly unrestrained enjoyment of civil 
 rights. On the other side, it is mainly the maxim, that the 
 
 a 2
 
 constitution of this Christian nation, having now a Christian 
 character, ought not by any act of us, its guardians, to be 
 divested of it; a maxim which, thus generally expressed, ap- 
 peals to instinct not less than reason for its support. 
 
 I am not ashamed to confess that, upon a first view of 
 these rival considerations, the latter is calculated to make 
 the livelier impression. But it is not the less my duty to 
 avow, how very different with me has been the result of pro- 
 longed reflection : how I have found both the political claim 
 strengthened, and likewise the religious objection enfeebled, 
 by every fresh and widened examination of the facts bearing 
 upon them. 
 
 By way of example of the first : I assume it to be a capital 
 rule of policy, for the preservation of the mixed government 
 of this country, under the conditions of the present time, 
 that the elements out of which our representative system is 
 generated should be mixed • that the sway of numbers should 
 be limited by intelligence, virtue, and respect for order ; and 
 that, in the absence of any test at once direct and secure, we 
 should make the best of such materials as are at our com- 
 mand, and should be content to adopt property partly as a 
 criterion of intelligence in a liberal sense, partly as a gua- 
 rantee for general stability of character and conduct. This 
 recognition of property is, I do not say, more effective, but 
 more palpable and methodical, now than it was before the 
 Reform Act. We had then a chance medley system, which 
 stood upon its working capabilities in the gross, and, discard- 
 ing theory altogether, afforded no logical plea, drawn from 
 its own practice, to those whom it excluded. We have now 
 a franchise, as well as a legal qualification for Parliament, very 
 generally and distinctly, though variously, related to property 
 as its basis. But if we take this view of our representative 
 institutions, if we feel that they are now dependent less than 
 heretofore upon prescription, and more than heretofore upon 
 direct appeals to reasoning for their hold on the public 
 mind ; that the possessor of property, as such, has now a far 
 stronger constitutional argument for admission to the Legisla- 
 ture than he had before the great change of 1832; we can- 
 not but acknowledge that the claim of the Jew, upon civil 
 grounds, whether it be paramount or not, is at least a strong 
 claim both in point of policy and in point of justice. 
 
 But here we may be met by two popular objections. It is 
 said, that the claim of the Jew should not be placed on the 
 ground of right or justice. First, because justice does not 
 
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 change, though policy may ; and as no one will contend that 
 the exclusion of Jews from the Legislature has been unjust to 
 them during all the centuries for which they have been inha- 
 bitants of England, therefore it cannot be unjust now. Se- 
 condly, because there are no civil rights, except such as the 
 law confers. It is thus attempted to place the argument for 
 the removal of Jewish Disabilities on low grounds, so that 
 it may come into disadvantageous collision with the pleas of 
 religion which are urged against it. 
 
 Now with regard to the first, however true it may be that 
 the ultimate principle of social justice, or proportionate deal- 
 ing as between man and man, does not alter, yet it is obvious 
 from the very terms that its practical application must be 
 liable to change, because it depends upon relations between 
 men and classes of men, which relations are subject to con- 
 stant modification. To take a comprehensive form of illus- 
 tration : the intellectual relations of sovereign and subject are 
 very different now from what they were in the time of Charle- 
 magne, or of Henry VIII., or even of William III.; and in 
 proportion as the latter has come nearer to the former, it has 
 become just that prerogative should (whether formally or 
 virtually) be narrowed, and popular control extended and 
 confirmed. The doctrine of the original compact, taken in 
 the letter, was doubtless a fiction ; but it was a fiction em- 
 bodying much truth, for it taught that the classes and 
 persons, of whom society is composed, meet upon terms, and 
 are bound to observe terms one towards another. It is not 
 less true that those terms alter with the lapse of time, and 
 with the change of the minds and the conditions of men. 
 Happy is that nation, of which the social development is so 
 orderly and continuous, that, in the most formal and seem- 
 ingly new enunciations of civil maxims, it can found itself 
 upon immemorial tradition, can assert itself to have inherited 
 and not acquired, can maintain its precious property in the 
 past, while it makes improved provision for the future, and 
 can allege that it commonly has occasion to do no more than 
 reduce to more determinate expression what it before less 
 determinately held. Most eminently has this been the case 
 with the English people ; and yet, even with regard to them, 
 who can doubt that much has been justly claimed in later, 
 which was justly withheld in earlier times ? And, if so, then 
 that here, as elsewhere, the application of the immutable prin- 
 ciples of justice to the shifting relations of society must be 
 determined by successive generations for themselves, accord-
 
 6 
 
 ing to their several diversities. So obvious and resistless is 
 this law of human affairs, that they who decline to recognise 
 any claim as one of justice because it has gradually emerged, 
 and is as it were born of events, never can succeed in pre- 
 venting the recognition of such claims, but may unhappily 
 succeed in giving to that recognition a degraded character, 
 in converting every question of rights into a mere conflict of 
 powers, and thus in expelling from political controversy all 
 those higher elements by which, in a greater or a less degree, 
 its vices are redeemed and its dangers neutralised. 
 
 From an outcast the Jew came to be only an alien among us, 
 from an alien he came to be a citizen, from a citizen having 
 rights of person and property only, he has obtained by fresh 
 stages access to the franchise, to the magistracy, and to mu- 
 nicipal government. 
 
 It is the part of political prudence to graduate such transi- 
 tions but, with political prudence, in the discharge of that 
 office, justice may go hand in hand, and may require us now 
 to concede to a demand which, in an earlier stage of social 
 development, or in times of a different doctrine and practice 
 as to national religion, it might have required us to resist. 
 
 If the principles upon which our laws and institutions are 
 modelled supply a basis of civil right for the Jewish claim, 
 we have then only to inquire whether the concession of it will 
 entail the violation of other and more sacred, or else more ex- 
 tended, rights ; if it does, we must refuse — if it does not, we 
 must grant ; but in either case it will be justice, and nothing 
 less than justice, that decides. 
 
 And with regard to the second objection, that there are no 
 civil rights except such as the law confers, I cannot but think 
 that, when examined, it will be found to resolve itself into a 
 question of terms. Surely it is the whole office and function of 
 law to reduce to a definite form rights, or, at least, claims to 
 rights, which were before real though indeterminate. No 
 law is good, unless there be reasons for its enactment : but, if 
 there are such reasons, they must be founded, either on rights 
 of some one or more persons, or, if the term right be too de- 
 terminate and rigid, on such equitable claims as it is the duty 
 of a legislature to convert into formal rights. Either, therefore, 
 as we may think fit to choose our language, there are rights 
 which the law does not recognise, or else, the non-existence of 
 such rights being conceded, there may still be an obligation of 
 justice to create them. I recognise the wisdom of resisting 
 all attempts to confound any claim to political privilege with
 
 the universal claim (itself, however, subject to modifications) 
 to life and liberty, or even to property ; yet political privilege, 
 if it be conferred according to reason, must follow fitness ; and 
 where there is fitness, in such a form as can be grasped and 
 defined by human law, then as real a claim to political privi- 
 lege may be asserted, as if it were a question of the first con- 
 ditions of personal freedom. 
 
 I hold, accordingly, that the political argument for the re- 
 moval of Jewish Disabilities is strong on the ground of pru- 
 dence, and is also strong on the ground of justice, without any 
 condemnation of the policy which has made the admission of 
 Jews to privilege a gradual admission, or any extravagant 
 notion of titles to political power antecedent to the definite 
 sanctions of law. 
 
 I turn now to examine the religious objection to the ad- 
 mission of the Jews to Parliament and political office 
 — namely this, that our constitution, having at present a 
 Christian character, and belonging to a Christian nation, ought 
 not by any act of ours to be divested of it. 
 
 It appears to me that it would be unreasonable and unjust 
 to demand that, for the sake of completing the political status 
 of a very limited class in the nation (scarcely more than a thou- 
 sandth part of the community), we should make an essential 
 change in the religious relations of the rest of the community 
 to the State ; in the securities which they at present possess, 
 that their religious interests, so far as they depend upon the 
 State, shall receive no prejudice, but, on the contrary, fur- 
 therance from its proceedings. 
 
 But, on the other hand, I ask from a candid listener the 
 concession, that since the political claim of the Jew, as a 
 citizen bearing the burdens of the State, and possessed of pro- 
 perty and intelligence, is definite and strong on its own ground, 
 it shall be held valid to every intent and purpose, except it can be 
 shown that some such essential, or at the least serious and ex- 
 tensive, change, unfavourably affecting the rest of the com- 
 munity, is to follow upon the concession which he demands. 
 
 There are several senses in which a legislature may be 
 called Christian. For example ; either because all its members 
 profess a known and definite body of truth constituting the 
 Christian faith ; or because they all adopt the designation of 
 Christians ; or because, from the great preponderance of 
 Christians in its personal composition, from their generally 
 representing Christian constituencies, from the admitted prin- 
 ciples of the constitution under which they are to act, or from
 
 8 
 
 the high and earnest tone of character prevalent among them, 
 or from any or all of these causes in combination, a Christian 
 spirit pervades and regulates their legislation. 
 
 Our legislature was once Christian in the first of these 
 senses. It is now Christian in the second. If the Jews shall 
 be allowed to enter it, it will, I fervently hope and firmly be- 
 lieve, remain, much as it is now, Christian in the third ; and 
 it will, in that sense, be Christian under each of the aspects to 
 which I have referred ; namely, as composed of Christians in 
 an immensely preponderating degree; as representing consti- 
 tuencies similarly composed ; as being summoned to act in 
 the spirit of a system of Christian laws, and to be the great 
 council of a Christian Queen : as being made up of men, 
 among whom the sense of responsibility and standard of per- 
 sonal duty are, on the whole, evidently rising. 
 
 I hope my reader will keep in full and clear view, during 
 the perusal of these remarks, the essential distinctness be- 
 tween the Christianity of Parliament as it is dependent upon a 
 profession of the name, and as it is dependent upon these 
 living sources. 
 
 Endeavouring to guard against that common form of self- 
 deception in which we dwell upon words without carefully 
 considering how far their relation to ideas is constant, and how 
 far variable, I must confess it appears to me, that the interval 
 between the first and the second of the three states of national 
 or rather legislative Christianity I have described is a wide 
 one ; and the interval between the second and the third, a 
 narrow one. I speak now not of sound, but of sense ; for, 
 with respect to the former, the case is exactly the reverse. 
 We have made changes, great and substantial in a religious 
 sense, though I do not say greater than the altered and di- 
 vided state of the community has demanded : we are now 
 called upon to make one in its essence small, but which, it 
 appears to me, is thought great, and not unnaturally, because 
 it parts with a symbol, a figure, and an echo of what is great. 
 The proposition, that all the members of a legislature should 
 be united in the profession of those truths of revelation from 
 God which make up the Christian faith, undoubtedly an- 
 nounces a principle, and, whether at all times applicable or 
 not, a great principle ; and defines a broad ground of com- 
 mon action for those whom it includes : but the proposition 
 that, after they have ceased to hold, or to profess to hold, in 
 common the distinctive articles of the Christian creed, they 
 should still plead their uniformity of name in bar of the civil
 
 9 
 
 rights of others, enunciates no principle that has, so far as I 
 am aware, any adequate ground in history, or in philosophy, 
 or in religion, or in practical utility. 
 
 But have I truly represented the Christian title of the 
 Legislature as no longer implying an agreement in the articles 
 of the Christian Faith? Or, again — do I imply that the 
 Christianity of the Legislature is valueless and unreal ? I shall 
 endeavour to show, first, that I have truly represented the 
 breadth of that transition which we have already made : 
 secondly, that the present Christianity of the Legislature is not 
 valueless and unreal, — that, on the contrary, it should, even 
 though incomplete, be held most precious by every considerate 
 as well as every pious mind : yet, I shall also contend, that 
 with that which is real in the Christianity still professed by 
 the Legislature we are not now about to part; but we are 
 about to part with a title which we should dishonour by em- 
 ploying it for purposes of civil injustice, and which, if we so 
 employ it, may become perilously delusive to ourselves. 
 
 It is urged by some persons that, although those who now 
 find access to Parliament are not agreed among themselves in 
 the confession of any body of distinctively Christian truths, 
 yet that what the constitution requires is not the mere 
 Christian name, but "the true faith of a Christian;" and that 
 thus the existing laxity has arisen only through an evasion 
 of the spirit of the law, for which not the law itself, but the 
 individual who has so evaded it, is responsible. 
 
 The words appear to have been first employed in the reign 
 of James I. for the purpose of enabling those Roman 
 Catholics, who did not recognise the deposing power of the 
 Pope, to swear allegiance to the crown without renouncing the 
 papal supremacy. And I suppose there can be little doubt 
 that, by " the true faith of a Christian," it was then really in- 
 tended to designate the doctrine of the creeds, admitted alike 
 by recusants and by members of the Church of England; and 
 that this doctrine was regarded, at least on our side, as the 
 true and essential faith of a Christian, apart from the ques- 
 tions, however important they might be, which were contro- 
 verted with the Church of Rome. So far, therefore, as the 
 original animus imponentis is concerned, I admit the sub- 
 stantive and definite meaning of the words. Persons were 
 long liable to be burned by law, and were burned in fact, for 
 the denial of the divinity of our Lord, after those words had 
 come into use; a conclusive proof that they were not then 
 included in the authorised sense of the declaration. 
 
 But, when I survey the course of subsequent legislation, 1
 
 10 
 
 cannot deny that the constitution has since conceded to the 
 Unitarian, however slowly and reluctantly, an acknowledged 
 competency for Parliament and office. That the concession 
 was made piecemeal proves it to have been deliberate, and 
 obliges us to reason from it in its full extent accordingly. 
 Let us observe the facts. First, the capital punishment of 
 heresy is abolished. Then an actual toleration is provided for 
 those who subscribe the doctrinal, and only object to the 
 ecclesiastical, articles of the Church. Then acts of indemnity 
 are introduced for all those who had entered Parliament or 
 municipal corporations without submitting to the Sacramental 
 test. Then we see substituted for the subscription to the 
 doctrinal articles, which had ceased to be enforced, a declara- 
 tion involving simple belief in the Godhead of our Saviour. 
 But this declaration also is allowed to become a dead letter. 
 Next, by the deliberate removal of that test, and the esta- 
 blishment of perfect toleration, the Unitarian is placed, in the 
 eye of the constitution, on a footing of perfect equality with 
 other Dissenters. And finally, by the repeal of the Corpora- 
 tion and Test Acts, he with them obtains as full and unequi- 
 vocal a right to sit in Parliament as the professors of the 
 national religion, and the declaration "upon the faith of a 
 Christian" is retained in the very law intended for his relief; 
 retained therefore now not as a test to repel him, but (to use 
 the language of Lord J. Russell) as a sanction suitable for him. 
 I therefore, for one, feel myself entirely disabled from con- 
 tending that the constitution demands of the Unitarian any 
 thing beyond what he can honestly give, when he declares 
 himself a Christian in his own sense. And, if so, I apprehend 
 it is quite impossible to urge that there is any definite body of 
 revealed truth to which the Unitarian*, whose case I take by 
 way of illustration as the extreme one, adheres both in com- 
 mon with us, and also in contradistinction from those who 
 do not bear the Christian name. For it must be observed 
 that the recognition of our Lord as an inspired teacher, and 
 of many of the facts of his history, is not confined to Chris- 
 tians by name, but may be found even among the fiercest 
 enemies of Christendom. It is therefore that name which 
 unites together members of Parliament, as it is now con- 
 stituted, without any fixed or anthoritative relation to the sub- 
 stance of which it is properly the index. 
 
 * It may be as well to mention that I take the description of the 
 Unitarian creed from Mr. Belsham's Letters to the Bishop of London in 
 1815.
 
 11 
 
 Nor will it avail to say in reply, there are a few persons in 
 Parliament who do not agree with us in holding by the 
 creed, or the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, but the 
 great mass of its members are agreed in those doctrines; 
 from them our judgment should be formed, and we must 
 overlook the minuter portion of those more widely separated, 
 who are as it were lost in the general composition of the body. 
 For this completely shifts the character of the argument, and 
 makes it depend, not on the nature of the creed, but on the 
 numbers of those who hold it. It is, indeed, altogether an 
 argument in favour of the admission of the Jew, except with 
 those, if such there be, who anticipate their entering Parlia- 
 ment in large numbers. 
 
 I shall avoid altogether the painful and invidious questions 
 which arise upon a comparison of any affinities which our 
 religious creed may have with that of the Unitarian and that 
 of the Jew respectively. Because, even if the results of such 
 a comparison could be satisfactorily worked out for the 
 individual mind, they would be wholly unavailable for the 
 decisions of Parliament. The law can only deal with what is 
 tangible. A creed, in its sphere, is tangible: it has an his- 
 torical as well as a theological form and body. Even a name, 
 in its own distinct sphere, is tangible too ; and Parliament 
 may, if it thinks fit, legislate for names. But an analysis of 
 religious doctrines, and a fresh classification of them accord- 
 ing to their presumed degrees of importance, will no where 
 afford any breadth of ground sufficient for public law to 
 occupy or to maintain. 
 
 I stand then on the proposition that as matter of fact there 
 is no creed, or body of truth, definite and also distinctive, in 
 which the present parliamentary profession of Christianity 
 unites or purports to unite us, and by which it likewise sepa- 
 rates us from those whom it excludes. 
 
 But, further, I do not conceive that when we thus recognise 
 the slenderness of this bond, we therefore imply that there is 
 no more substantial element in the Christianity of the State 
 than the nominal and exclusive profession of Christian belief. 
 I have already spoken of a Christian character of parliament 
 as referable to the throne, the law, the nation, and as de- 
 pendent on the personal belief and qualities of its individual 
 members; I may also name the inward sense of obligation 
 under which they take their vows, and the solemn ordinances 
 of Christian worship with which the proceedings of each day 
 are commenced. Over and above all this, though associated
 
 12 
 
 with it, there is what I may describe as an atmosphere of 
 Christian opinion and feeling, a diffusion of Christian in- 
 fluences, which exercise over men a sway far beyond the 
 bounds of their own consciousness, and either prompt or at 
 least restrain them often in modes they would themselves the 
 least suspect. In short, it will be thankfully felt that, through 
 the Divine mercy, religious sentiment and affection often pass 
 beyond those dogmatic limits within which we are more 
 strictly entitled to look for them : that, so to speak, the 
 living waters overflow the well-compacted cistern, which has 
 been framed to preserve them in certain purity for those who 
 thirst. From all these various sources is drawn what is vital 
 and essential in the Christianity of the Legislature. 
 
 But which of them all is to be closed by the proposed 
 measure ? I know of no claim which the Jew can have to 
 demand, that on his account the floor of Parliament shall be- 
 come a neutral ground for all religions. I do not conceive, 
 that the duty of the Legislature to promote the welfare of 
 the Church has been abrogated by the formal admission of 
 Roman Catholics and Dissenters : neither then would its less 
 definite but still wider obligations in regard to Christianity at 
 large, considered as the aggregate of the several professions, 
 be annulled by the admission of the Jews. When Parlia- 
 ment has been called upon to consider questions affecting the 
 interests of the Church, we have never been told that such 
 functions are to be put aside, because we now have among 
 us those who cannot enter upon them under the same feelings 
 and in the same position with ourselves. The Jew has a 
 very strong claim, when he pleads to be allowed to take part, 
 as far as he is able, in the existing duties of Parliament : but it 
 would fail him utterly, if he should demand of us that the du- 
 ties of the Christian members of Parliament should remain un- 
 fulfilled, or should be positively annulled, for his convenience. 
 His candid opponents will allow, that there is a semblance of 
 equity in his plea to be admitted to the enjoyment of civil 
 honours, not to be absolutely disqualified from civil and se- 
 cular duties in Parliament on account of that portion of its 
 business which is directly related to religion ; but his most 
 zealous coadjutor must admit, that his plea of equity would 
 be converted into unjust and insolent exaction, if he should 
 found on the entrance of a few persons of his persuasion into 
 the House of Commons the demand, that the great mass of 
 that assembly should cease, on account of his inherent dis- 
 qualification, from the discharge of any duty that is recog-
 
 Id 
 
 m'sed and suitable, and especially from imploring the blessing 
 and guidance of God in the only way in which they can law- 
 fully implore it, namely, in the sacred name of their Redeemer. 
 Such a change as that would, indeed, deprive the Christian 
 of a privilege, but it would confer none on the Jew. 
 
 I now speak of formal alteration, which is thought by 
 some likely to be consequent on the admission of persons 
 not Christian to assemblies which have functions specifically 
 Christian to perform. We have no cause then, as I conceive, 
 to fear such alteration by way of consequence from this 
 measure ; none on any ground of right, for the reasons 
 which I have indicated, none on any ground other than of 
 right, for reasons too obvious to require particular men- 
 tion. 
 
 But it may be said or felt that, short of formal alteration of 
 any kind, a change still both essential and profound might 
 pass over the spirit of Parliament : the Christian standard 
 of general opinion might be reduced to a pagan level, the 
 Christian sympathies really though imperfectly diffused there 
 might be repelled and driven home to the silent breasts of 
 individuals : and this, I believe it is, in the first instance, that 
 religious persons apprehend from the admission of the Jew. 
 They measure the immense distance between his creed, which 
 treats Christ as a deceiver, and ours, according to which He is 
 Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, and all is 
 summed up and centred in His sole Person : and they think, 
 that the presence of the former will act on the ktter as a 
 virulent poison, of which ever so small a quantity suffices to 
 corrupt a mighty mass. But although this feeling be natural, 
 and, as arising from the love of the Highest and Holiest, 
 entitled to respect, yet those who would thus apply it are, 
 perhaps, neither strictly reasonable nor quite consistent with 
 themselves. For, when they are pressed in argument by the 
 present state of Parliament, they will urge, and urge justly, 
 that we ought not to estimate it only by reference to the ex- 
 treme latitude of dogmatic belief which it includes, but should 
 observe how a corporate sentiment and temper is formed ac- 
 cording not to the extreme but the predominating elements ; 
 how the faith, commanding the allegiance of the vastly greater 
 number within doors and without, stands in a certain sense as 
 the faith of the whole, and fixes the movement of the whole, im- 
 perfectly as the component parts of it are associated together in 
 common belief. It is within its own sphere a consoling truth, 
 that the power of the Gospel is not bounded by its letter, that 
 inscrutable influences operate amonp; us to produce true re-
 
 14 
 
 ligious sympathies, even where the great laws of dogmatic 
 and ecclesiastical unity cannot reach. But then I ask those, 
 who apply this consideration to qualify any argument drawn 
 from the present diversities of the composition of Parliament, 
 to bear with those who apply it a little farther : how are they 
 authorised, or why should they desire, after admitting that 
 these genial influences pass in some way beyond the bound- 
 aries of the entire and substantive Christian system, to deny 
 that they may likewise pass beyond another barrier — a bar- 
 rier conventional more than real, useful, therefore, as long as 
 as it is respected, but no longer — a barrier of yesterday, un- 
 known to apostles and martyrs and saints of earlier time, 
 which human prudence set up to meet the purposes of a 
 former generation, and which human prudence may remove 
 now that those purposes can be served by it no longer. 
 
 On the other hand, I have not concealed from myself that 
 the removal of Jewish Disabilities is one of a series of mea- 
 sures, all of them tending to bring about a certain incongruity 
 between the personal composition of Parliament, and a par- 
 ticular portion of its functions, especially and mainly those, 
 which are connected with legislation for the Church of 
 England. I find such a tendency in the Acts of Indemnity, 
 in the Act of 1828 which formally admitted Dissenters, in 
 the Act of 1829 which emancipated the Roman Catholics. 
 But neither can I deny that these measures, incongruous if 
 the State had had the Church alone to care for, went not 
 to destroy, but on the contrary to establish congruity 
 between the composition of Parliament and other indispen- 
 sable duties which it had to perform ; namely the duties of 
 general provision for civil and social welfare, upon the prin- 
 ciples of a free representative system, and in a community of 
 mixed religious professions. Which one of these conflicting 
 considerations should prevail was, in each case as it arose, a 
 question of degree. The solution of it could not but depend 
 on a multitude of other questions of degree : how far reli- 
 gious divisions had become fixed among us, what was their 
 extent, what the nature and relations of the prevailing creeds, 
 what the general tone of public opinion in regard to any 
 right of political representation, what the disposition and 
 habit of Parliament as to interference in religious concerns, 
 what the relative amount and weight of its duties in this 
 department and in others. Every one of these questions was 
 in a fluent state from generation to generation ; it may almost 
 be said from year to year. But the mode and time of the 
 answer in each case has distinctly shown a growing pre-
 
 16 
 
 dominance of civil claims, as such, over considerations drawn 
 from the religious character of the State; and every new 
 concession has of course materially weakened the arguments 
 to be drawn in the next succeeding contest from that reli- 
 gious character. The principle of exclusion from civil office 
 on religious grounds was in its own nature one which 
 depended upon the existence of the very closest relations 
 between the Chinch and the State, and upon a particular 
 tone of the public mind in regard to them. Entailing such 
 very clear and definite disadvantage on particular classes, it 
 could never be vindicated, after it had once been subjected 
 to serious question, except upon some distinct theory, wrought 
 out with at least a show of consistency into the practice of the 
 State. We have no longer such a theory; and he who 
 plainly announces this, does not alter facts, but merely dis- 
 closes them. Our religious institutions, thank God ! subsist 
 and thrive ; and in their venerable age, and amidst their many 
 dangers, are rich with all the vigour and all the promise of 
 early youth : but they subsist as facts, by their own vitality, 
 and by their hold upon the general affection, respect, and con- 
 fidence, not in obedience to, nor in conformity with, any 
 logically ordered speculation. This affords no reason for 
 wanton change ; but it affords a strong reason against apply- 
 ing to the weak, after we have withdrawn them from the 
 strong, principles of policy which never could be respected 
 after they had ceased to be impartial. 
 
 The question, therefore, is not merely whether, the admis- 
 sion of the Jews to Parliament will place another element, 
 wanting at least in the presumable qualifications for a por- 
 tion of its duties, by the side of those which are already 
 found there. I must regard the constitutional position of 
 Roman Catholics and Dissenters in the Legislature, not as 
 the chance triumph of a particular party or opinion, but as 
 established, and, if I may so say, normal and organic facts, 
 no longer to be reasoned upon, but to be reasoned from. 
 From these it is that the Jew reasons; and I for one cannot 
 adopt by way of reply that common language, "because we 
 have done wrong once, do not let us commit more wrong :" 
 first, because, upon the principles I have pointed out, it was not 
 wrong at all to make those changes ; secondly, because there 
 are many principles which in the loose language of politics 
 may be called wrong, and which nevertheless when they 
 have been partially admitted, it may be just and right 
 to admit impartially ; and this, of the removal of Civil Dis- 
 abilities on religious grounds, may well be regarded, even by
 
 16 
 
 those who abstractedly disapprove of it, as among them. 
 The question then returns upon us — can we show not a dis- 
 tinction merely, but such a distinction between the conces- 
 sions already made and the concession now asked as, upon 
 the principles which dictated the one, will warrant our with- 
 holding the other? If we say, "You are few/' the Jew 
 replies, " We shall have the less influence." If we say, " There 
 is greater distance between our creeds," he answers, " If so, 
 yet there is less rivalry." He challenges us to show that 
 the admission of a handful of his brethren will metamorphose 
 a whole crowd of Christians, nay of Churchmen, and in some 
 new sense disqualify them for the performance of their 
 Christian duties; he points to the nation, in which outside 
 Parliament he exercises the franchise, and which is still a 
 Christian nation; to the bench of magisterial justice on 
 which he sits, and which still administers Christian laws; 
 he points to the estimation in which parliamentary seats are 
 held among us as a measure of his grievance in being ex- 
 cluded from them ; and I for one cannot resist his appeal, so 
 long as I conceive that any risks which it involves may be 
 met in a manner much less violent, as well as much more 
 intelligible, than by its rejection. 
 
 This, however, is an apologetic plea. But it appears to 
 me that there are stronger reasons, of a religious kind, for de- 
 dining to found an opposition to the full political emanci- 
 pation of the Jew on the ground of that exclusively Christian 
 title which it would take away from us. 
 
 If we argue against the fitness of the Jew for parliamentary 
 duties because he does not possess that title, we shall for every 
 practical purpose find ourselves asserting also the affirmative 
 side of the proposition, namely, that such a title, defined as it 
 now is, constitutes a sufficient guarantee of fitness to legis- 
 late in matters affecting the Church. If we plead the power 
 and efficacy of a Christian designation as something so 
 weighty and essential, that the want of it is to debar the Jew 
 from what would otherwise be his civil rights, we must abide 
 the consequences of our own reasoning upon occasions when 
 any question may arise in regard to the distinctive tenets of 
 the Church, to the maintenance of the integrity of her 
 doctrine and discipline, or to breaking down the barriers 
 which mark them off on this side, and on that, from Roman 
 Catholics and Dissenters. I am reluctant to invoke the aid 
 of those fellow-Christians in excluding the Jew from civil 
 privileges, on the ground of a religious unity distinguishing 
 us all in common from him, unless I were also prepared to
 
 17 
 
 make light (in a civil sense) of laws or tenets distinguishing 
 us from one another. Suppose such modes of persuasion 
 were attempted, and suppose they were efficacious, and that 
 the result should be the rejection of the Jewish claims ; and 
 that the next day we had been called upon to consider whether 
 the religious restraints upon our Universities were to be 
 relaxed in order to allow of the general and obligatory recep- 
 tion of Roman Catholic and dissenting students. I confess 
 I should feel an incongruity between the arguments by which 
 the importance of our common Christianity had been magnified 
 to exclude the Jew, and the arguments by which the im- 
 portance of our distinctive Christianity had been magnified to 
 exclude the Dissenter. Adverse to whatever may endanger 
 the integrity of the institutions of the Church of England, I 
 see great, though perhaps not immediate, hazard in fighting 
 battles, which must pass for hers, under symbols which are 
 not hers, but which, after having made them serve our pur- 
 poses, we shall scarcely be permitted to repudiate. 
 
 My conviction is, that those who may from henceforth 
 oppose the admission of Jews to Parliament on religious 
 grounds, will, if the struggle be a protracted one, gradually 
 involve themselves in the embarrassments of a false position. 
 It is one thins; to frame an argument and to give a vote on a 
 particular occasion, but it is another to wage the war from 
 year to year. It is in the nature of prolonged parliamentary 
 contests, that their basis alters ; the stress is shifted from one 
 point to another through causes much subtler and fnore pro- 
 found than the mere will of the combatants ; and it is essential 
 to consider at the outset, where in the long run the pressure 
 and the strain will lie, and whether the means of resistance 
 are logically and morally adequate. And it may also be bet- 
 ter to consider this before the strife is well begun, than in its 
 middle, or towards its close. In the argument on Jewish Dis- 
 abilities, the pressure will lie more and more upon that Chris- 
 tianity of which so much is said, not upon the real Christianity 
 of thought, character, and feeling, which this measure cannot 
 destroy; but on that designative Christianity, void of definite, 
 substantive, historical meaning, which forms, I grant, for the 
 present, so effective an instrument of popular and even parlia- 
 mentary appeals. More and more strictly will the nature of that 
 nominal or symbolical bond be examined ; more and more, I fear, 
 will the venerable name be exposed to slight and irreverence, 
 of which some part may be chargeable upon those who are 
 content that it should be used as a name alone, and used in 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 that shadowy signification for the undoubtedly invidious pur- 
 pose of withholding from men who bear civil burdens the 
 correlative opportunities of access to civil privileges. We 
 shall be told, and told with truth, that there was at least in- 
 telligible meaning in our policy, when we conceived of Par- 
 liament as the lay organ of the Church, and excluded from it 
 all who did not adhere to that known and legally defined 
 establishment ; but that, after we had so generalized our con- 
 stitutional Christianity as to leave to it absolutely no standard 
 whatever of truths at once common and distinctive, it became 
 absurd, as well as inequitable, to plead this colourless ab- 
 straction against a claim of civil right, humbler in its preten- 
 sions, limited as to the numbers who put it forward, but yet 
 in its own sphere palpable and solid. Nor shall we be told 
 this alone ; for if the resistance is to be made good, it must 
 be by continually enhancing in argument the moment (in- 
 asmuch as this will be the turning point) of a naked Christian 
 designation, a course which cannot long be held without vir- 
 tually narrowing in the public mind and view the radical 
 distinctions which (if we will open our eyes to facts) separate 
 the creeds of some Christian persuasions from one another, and 
 proportionably endangering the verities of the Christian faith. 
 This is not a merely arbitrary supposition. It is sustained by 
 the analogies, if not the parallels, of our recent history. It is 
 a proposition supported, I conceive, by experience, that when 
 public combinations are formed upon negative principles, for 
 purposes of resistance or restriction, the pursuit of those pur- 
 poses is often found after a time greatly to derange the relative 
 positions of the parties of which the combination is composed, 
 and even to leave them, when the first object has been 
 gained or lost, as the case may be, with contentious questions 
 to settle among themselves, even more full of bitterness, per- 
 haps more vital too, than that which gave rise to their origi- 
 nal association against a common foe. And if I am told that 
 there is danger to the Christian tone of the legislature, or of 
 public opinion, from the admission of persons not Christians 
 into Parliament, I must, without at all going the full length of 
 an absolute denial, assert the duty of choosing, among opposite 
 dangers, that which appears to be the least ; and must, there- 
 fore, be chiefly careful to avoid any policy such as might even 
 indirectly tend towards resolving into more vague and indeter- 
 minate forms the well-defined intelligible Christianity of the 
 Church of England, which it is so deeply important, both for 
 the religious and the general interests of the country, to uphold.
 
 19 
 
 In the speech annexed, I have mentioned the practical diffi- 
 culty which arises, not out of the present measure so much as 
 out of the series to which it belongs, in reference to legisla- 
 tion for the Church, and to the administration of church pa- 
 tronage by the Crown and its Ministers, especially in the 
 highest class ; and have pointed out what appears to me 
 by far the simplest and safest remedy, namely, the informal 
 but sincere and steady adoption by politicians, whatever be 
 their party, of a rule, or a habit as it may be called, of regard- 
 ing the general sense and voice of the Church as entitled to 
 great weight, both in respect to laws affecting her internal 
 concerns and to ecclesiastical appointments. Now that the 
 State has made itself in a certain degree external to the Church 
 and her laws, it is time that we should consent in a certain 
 degree to view the Church as a body external to the State, 
 should think more of emancipating the distribution of offices in 
 the Church from servitude to political party, and should seek to 
 make her living organs, instead of echoing back the voice of 
 any section, religious or political, or the notion of the day, 
 faithful exponents of her own system, defined by her own 
 laws. It seems to me a paradoxical notion, which will not bear 
 scrutiny, that the Church has derived advantage from the re- 
 laxations that have taken place in the composition of Parlia- 
 ment, farther than as, by awakening an apprehension of real 
 dangers, they have helped to throw her back on the develop- 
 ment of her own energies. Never, perhaps, for generations 
 has she been placed in circumstances so critical* as to the 
 security, in certain respects, of her most vital interests, as dur- 
 ing some of the last fifteen or twenty years. 
 
 Good sense and moderation, a manful resolution to resist 
 all temptation to tamper and experimentalize upon our re- 
 ligious system, an honest regard to the laws and formularies of 
 the Church, as indicating the spirit in which new laws or new 
 appointments should be made for her, are now more than ever 
 needful, and may yet avert a crisis otherwise too probable. 
 But the admission of Jews to the Legislature is neither the 
 source and spring of the danger, nor would it in my judgment 
 make any sensible addition to the difficulty of taking due pre- 
 cautions to avoid it. Perhaps, on the contrary, by the new 
 light which it throws on the actually subsisting position of 
 the Church, the measure may tend to inspire those disposi- 
 tions, which, if sincerely and consistently entertained, would 
 afford every reasonable security. 
 
 I know not how 7 far what has been said may tend to satisfy 
 
 b 2
 
 20 
 
 or soothe the religious sentiment which has been aroused in 
 opposition to the Jewish claim. At least I trust there has 
 been nothing, except what is consistent with the most frank 
 acknowledgment on my part of the purity of its origin, and 
 of the real kindliness of temper towards the Jews with which 
 it is so generally associated. 
 
 There is a sentiment of another kind, and not without its 
 title to respect, which reasonings can hardly satisfy; that 
 sentiment which abhors the disturbance of what exists, and is 
 vexed at seeing that one change leads onwards to another. 
 The only cure I can suggest for this uneasiness is, more care 
 to distinguish between what is temporary and what is perma- 
 nent, between secondary obligations which qualify and super- 
 sede one another, and essential obligations, which cannot be 
 superseded nor qualified ; and, even while reckoning up in its 
 mere quantity what is surrendered, to reckon up also what is 
 retained. It is surely a surprising and a refreshing spectacle 
 that presents itself, when we review the history of this country 
 for the last fifteen years, and consider how the fiery excite- 
 ment of the period of the Reform Bill has grown cool, the 
 loud demands for organic change have sunk into low whispers ; 
 the gift of power then conveyed, amidst the trembling antici- 
 pations of many even of those who did not dare to withhold 
 it, has been, beyond all example in history, gracefully and tem- 
 perately used. Without any attempt to beg particular ques- 
 tions, but as a sedative to general discontent with the amount 
 of change which has been made, it is surely not unreasonable 
 to point to the monarchy, and all its kindred institutions, 
 still overshadowing the land in their chastened and peaceful 
 splendour, and to ask whether this could in the common 
 order of Providence have been so, but for a discriminating 
 prudence in the public mind, which has frankly and ungrudg- 
 ingly recognized a law of change, applicable to human affairs, 
 as well as and by the side of a law of permanence ? 
 
 Lastly, though in an argument of this kind I am reluctant 
 to mix personal matter, it may, perhaps, be right that I should 
 state why the reasons which led me to oppose, in 1841, a bill 
 for granting municipal privileges to the Jews, have not guided 
 me to a like decision on an occasion when the greater ques- 
 tion of admission to Parliament is agitated. My opinion is now, 
 as I declared it in 1841, that the municipal privilege could not 
 be granted and the Parliamentary privilege withheld. The 
 ground on which, having given to the Jew himself the fran- 
 chise, and to every class of professing Christians the freest
 
 21 
 
 entrance into Parliament and office, we could refuse to the 
 Jew what yet remained for him to ask, was narrow; and 
 I then thought, as I think now, that it would not bear to be 
 narrowed any more without total surrender. When municipal 
 privileges were granted in 1845, almost without contest, I took 
 no part in the proceedings, mainly because if I had shared in 
 them I must either have affirmed or denied the principle I had 
 before asserted, that they involved the corresponding concession 
 with regard to Parliament, and I thought it better to take time 
 for consideration than to bind my judgment by a premature 
 decision on a question which had not practically arisen. 
 
 I had, at an earlier period, striven to persuade myself and 
 others, that the nation had not yet reached the point at which 
 it would become impracticable, and even if practicable un- 
 just, for the State to act upon the rule of exclusive support to 
 the Church, with simple toleration to other forms of religion ; 
 setting aside particular cases in which our hands might be con- 
 sidered as tied up by the pledges, direct or implied, of those who 
 had preceded us. It may be that I unconsciously strained the 
 facts of the case, as they stood eight or ten years ago, in order 
 to find for myself a warrant to cling to the cherished, and 
 under given conditions legitimate, and even in my view obli- 
 gatory principle, of unity in national religion; but, if so, it was 
 the less to be denied (and I myself sufficiently perceived so 
 much as this) that any further relaxations of our policy would 
 render it impossible to appeal, with any kind of impartiality or 
 consistency, to any principle of the constitution "against the 
 civil and political claims of bodies separated from the national 
 Church. It remained indeed quite practicable to appeal to 
 particular sentiments, vividly impressed upon the popular 
 mind, as against measures like the endowment of Maynooth 
 College, or the removal of Jewish Disabilities ; but I never 
 thought that so one-sided an application of a restrictive theory 
 could be either just or endurable. 
 
 At that time I was so sanguine as to cherish a belief in the 
 capacity of the reviving energies of the Church to reabsorb 
 with rapidity a great portion of the masses detached from 
 her ; she was then gaining alike in extension outwards, and 
 in harmony within. But since that period new features have 
 appeared in the religious movements of the day : a disloyal 
 spirit and a secret preference for an aggressive communion 
 developed themselves, in a mode and with a force new to her 
 experience ; and though her inward vitality and consistency 
 has endured and survived the strain, and real life and the 
 capacity for truly great achievements rise higher and higher
 
 22 
 
 within her, yet, as a public institution claiming to be the 
 exclusive handmaid of the State for religious purposes, she 
 has been so far weakened by this in combination with other 
 and political causes, that she has, it may be said, silently sur- 
 rendered one of her ancient prerogatives, that of being the sole 
 recipient of the bounty, as she is also the sole subject of the 
 control, of the Legislature. I am aware that the principle of 
 indiscriminate endowment, to which in a great degree I con- 
 ceive that she has given her passive adhesion, is distinct from 
 that of indiscriminate admission to Parliament and office : 
 but they are nearly related one to another; the latter indeed, 
 in my view, is morally and logically rather antecedent 
 than posterior to the former : and it is from the acts which 
 have taken place in both departments, and also from other 
 proceedings in direct connection with the Church, which, in 
 my opinion, have now fixed the policy of the State in such a 
 sense as to make it unfair to plead religious opinion in bar of 
 civil privilege. My own language of late years has therefore 
 been, that as citizens and as members of the Church we should 
 contend manfully for her own principles and constitution, and 
 should ask and press without fear for whatever tends to her 
 own healthy development by her own means and resources, 
 material or moral, but should deal amicably and liberally with 
 questions either solely or mainly affecting the civil rights of other 
 portions of the community. Disclaiming every forced construc- 
 tion of the principle of such conduct, declining to be tied 
 to it as a set theory, far less as a calculating machine, assert- 
 ing a perfect freedom to judge of its application to each parti- 
 cular case upon its own merits, I think it reasonable in itself, and 
 well adapted to the spirit of our institutions, and to the genius 
 of the people, as well as to the exigencies immediately con- 
 nected with our divisions in faith and in communion, and to 
 the political temper of the age. This I regard as our ap- 
 pointed function : in this, as I think, the duties of churchman 
 and of patriot are harmonized under the conditions of the time 
 in which we live, and for which we are to consult and to labour. 
 I have been the rather induced to add these concluding re- 
 marks, because although they are more immediately con- 
 nected with a personal question, yet they also have a relation 
 to some of the most important problems connected with the 
 social organization of man, and to the deep though silent 
 changes which have long been passing upon the public mind 
 in regard to those problems. 
 
 W. E. G. 
 
 December, 1847.
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, who rose along with one or two 
 other honourable Members, said, — I regret to stand in the 
 way of any other Gentleman who may be desirous to address 
 the House ; but I am quite sure that I shall not appeal in 
 vain to its indulgence, when I refer to the fact, that my 
 honourable Friend and Colleague the Member for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford (Sir R. H. Inglis) has to-night presented the 
 petition of that learned body against the projected measure 
 of the noble Lord, and when I state, with deep regret so far 
 as regards my relation to that learned body, that, not without 
 pain indeed, but after full consideration, and with firm con- 
 viction, it is my intention, because I feel it to be my duty, to 
 support the measure which we are now assembled to discuss. 
 I will first ask the permission of the House t<* say a very 
 few words upon the relation in which I stand to my constitu- 
 ents. I think honourable Members will concur with me, that 
 there is something peculiar in that relation ; that in ordinary 
 cases of representation there is a palpable difference between 
 the person who sits here and those who send him here j that 
 he ought to be, and commonly is, their superior in mental 
 cultivation and in opportunities of knowledge, and that it is 
 an easy thing comparatively, under these circumstances, for 
 him to act upon that which is undoubtedly the true principle 
 of representation, namely, to follow the conscientious dic- 
 tates of his own judgment, whether they happen to coincide 
 in the particular case with the judgment of his constituency 
 or not. But for me, Sir, the circumstances are very different.
 
 24 
 
 I have received the honour of being chosen to represent in 
 this House a body, of which I gladly acknowledge that I 
 must look upon the members of whom it is composed as being 
 in ability, in knowledge, in all means of judgment which 
 depend upon individual character, either superior, or, on the 
 least favourable showing, equal to myself. But I am sure 
 I shall be borne out by the concurrence of all who hear me, 
 when I say, that fact will not absolve me in stifling the 
 dictates of my own judgment and conscience, feeble as the 
 first may be, with regard to what the principles of the consti- 
 tution and the interests of the country may require. It 
 greatly increases the responsibility attaching to error ; but it 
 does not in the slightest degree allow me to shift that respon- 
 sibility by saying " it was your act, I did as you bid me." It 
 leaves me bound, just as if occupying any other seat I should 
 be bound, to take advantage of the position in which we are 
 placed as Members of Parliament, I feel that here we have 
 opportunities of judgment and of information in our own pro- 
 fession — for it may with some truth be called a profession — 
 which others cannot have ; and that I should be betraying 
 my own plain duty to my constituents, if I were to succumb 
 to their judgments in a case where I was conscientiously con- 
 vinced that there was a better course to pursue. 
 
 With regard to the positive arguments for the admission of 
 Jews to Parliament, I shall be brief. The noble Lord has 
 stated, and in terms satisfactory to me, nearly all that I think 
 requires to be stated on this head. His doctrine with regard 
 to the general fitness of the Jew for representation, and the 
 hardship of refusing to qualified persons the - right to sit in 
 Parliament, has indeed been contested by the assertion that 
 to withhold political privilege does not constitute a grievance. 
 That is a proposition which I apprehend can neither be 
 affirmed nor denied in universal terms ; it must be judged by 
 the circumstances of the case. We are bound to inquire 
 whether there are substantial causes of disqualification, which 
 oblige us to draw a distinction between one class of citizens 
 and another class prima facie entitled to occupy the same
 
 25 
 
 position. If there are strong and adequate causes incapaci- 
 tating parties for the performance of certain duties, then to 
 withhold from them political privileges does not constitute a 
 grievance ; but, if the opponent can show no such power- 
 ful and substantive reasons — if it is admitted that the parties 
 are competent for the duties which it is proposed that they 
 should discharge — then, I say, in that case, it is true, and it 
 must be affirmed, and must be reiterated in the face of any 
 abstract doctrine to the contrary, that to withhold political 
 privilege does constitute a grievance. And further, after a 
 presumptive case of general competency is shown, the burden 
 of proof must lie entirely with those who seek to defeat the 
 claim. 
 
 Now, how stands the case of the Jew ? How stands his 
 case now, with regard to those points which tell in his favour ? 
 My noble Friend (Lord Ashley) has just delivered a speech, 
 like all speeches which he delivers here, in which weight of 
 character and weight of talent were remarkably combined 
 (hear, hear) ; but when I listened to a part of that speech, in 
 which, towards the close of it, he exposed the misapprehen- 
 sion that prevails with reference to the character of the Jews 
 as a people, and described their remarkable qualities and 
 their great capacities, I will not say that I asked myself 
 whether my noble Friend was not involving himself in an in- 
 consistency, but I could not fail to see — and he, I am sure, 
 could not fail to see — that he was, at the least, greatly and 
 powerfully adding to the force of the arguments, drawn from 
 the considerations of civil right and of social justice, by which 
 the admission of Jews to Parliament is recommended. He 
 told us of their powerful intellects, of their cultivated minds, 
 of their ancient and continuous literature, in every depart- 
 ment, embracing every subject ; he spoke of their indefatiga- 
 ble diligence, which outstrips even German assiduity ; he said 
 they had among them a greater proportion of men of genius 
 than any other race ; he stated that they had discarded many 
 of their extravagant and anti-social doctrines, and had become 
 much more fit to be incorporated in the framework of general
 
 26 
 
 society. He did not allude to another point, but it is one with 
 which we are all familiar, namely, their intelligence, and ac- 
 tivity, and success in many of the pursuits of commerce and 
 of industry. Thus much then I say — that at least the civil 
 and political argument in favour of the admission of the Jew, 
 though I will not yet assume that it is to override every other 
 consideration, is as strong as the civil and political argument 
 can be ; and if you are obliged to withhold from him, on ac- 
 count of principles peculiar to you, those privileges to which 
 he thinks that he has a claim, the grievance in his case will 
 mount as high, according to the general principles applicable 
 to such a subject, as it can mount in any case of a class ex- 
 cluded from general duties on partial grounds. 
 
 Now, Sir, I must confess, that, when I consider my own 
 position, as having the honour of representing the University 
 of Oxford, with respect to this question as a question of giving 
 or withholding certain civil privileges, I feel not a greater re- 
 luctance to give because I have that honour, but a greater reluc- 
 tance to withhold. I feel a very great reluctance to be the in- 
 strument, even in my own small measure, of placing the Univer- 
 sity in conflict with the civil privileges and civil rights, if such 
 they be, of any portion of my fellow-subjects. I do not scru- 
 ple to confess a feeling which I deeply entertain ; I think that 
 we have too indiscriminately and too long pursued that policy, 
 and further, when I review the position in which we stand at 
 the present moment, I, for one, am not satisfied with the 
 practical results which it has produced. 
 
 But I pass on to what I grant must be the cardinal and 
 the overruling considerations in this case ; I mean the con- 
 siderations connected with religion. My noble Friend (Lord 
 Ashley) has discarded — and justly too, as I think — the argu- 
 ment drawn from the supposition that the Jews are a separate 
 nation in such a sense as to be disqualified from the perform- 
 ance of civil duties ; he says — and he says justly — that he 
 stands upon a conscientious adherence to principle, and that 
 the principle of religion. And now let me consider the way 
 in which my noble Friend has associated that adherence to
 
 27 
 
 principle with the vote which he proposes to give. He said 
 that he was about to contend for the maintenance of a long 
 established and an ancient system ; but shortly after he had 
 told us that the system for which he was about to contend 
 was a lon£ established and an ancient one, he likewise told 
 us — and told us, I think, with truth — that we have been for 
 many generations in a state of perpetual conflict and of con- 
 stant change, of progressive movement, all in one and the 
 same direction. He told us that we had to contend, first for 
 a Protestant Parliament, and now for a Christian Parliament. 
 But I submit to him, that he ought to have begun earlier than 
 that, because the first contest of all was a contest for a Church 
 Parliament; and the battle for a Church Parliament, fought 
 between the period of the Restoration, when in point of fact 
 formal dissent began, and the period of the Hanoverian suc- 
 cession, or perhaps I should say of the Occasional Conformity 
 :\ct, was as fierce a conflict as any of the others. Even after 
 Nonconformity had received the sanction of the law by the 
 Toleration Act, it was still attempted to dislodge or to exclude 
 ,he Nonconformist from the possession of political power. 
 It appears, then, that you first contended for a Church Par- 
 liament — you then contended for a Protestant Parliament; in 
 both cases you were defeated. You were not defeated un- 
 awares ; you were not defeated owing to accident. You were 
 defeated owing to profound and powerful and uniform tenden- 
 cies, associated with the movement of the human mind — with 
 the general course of events, perhaps I ought to say with the 
 providential government of the world. And when we plead and 
 argue upon the British laws and the British constitution, I 
 really must ask with the honourable Member for Oldham (Mr. 
 W. J. Fox) what right have we to fix upon some one particular 
 period, be it fifty or one hundred or two hundred years ago, 
 and to say, " I will take the basis of that particular period, 
 and I will say there begins, and there ends, the British con- 
 stitution?" On the contrary, I say that the very same prin- 
 ciple which makes me regard Magna Charta as a part of the 
 British constitution, the same principle which makes me re-
 
 28 
 
 gard the Bill of Rights as a part of the British constitution, 
 and the Act of Uniformity, and other Acts — I do not mean to 
 say as all equally important in all their provisions, but all 
 forming material parts of our constitutional system — by the 
 same principle, I think, in general justice, whether I like 
 them or not, independently in a degree of personal opinion, 
 we who meet here in 1847 are bound to recognise to a great 
 extent as facts those laws which have fully and deeply 
 entered into the political system of the country, which hardly 
 any one desires to change, which no one attempts to supersede, 
 which we all on coming here profess to accept, and which I 
 think we are bound to assume as data, as fixed points, in our 
 discussions, and therefore to apply and develope in the spirit 
 of fairness and justice. 
 
 It appears, then, we have now arrived at a stage in which, 
 after two or three generations had contended for a Church 
 Parliament, and two or three generations more contended for 
 a Protestant Parliament, each being in succession beaten, we 
 are called upon to decide the question whether we shall con- 
 tend for a Christian Parliament. And here I must say that 
 my noble Friend (Lord Ashley) has made assumptions, which, 
 if he could establish, I for one should not be found voting 
 against him ; and, I may say, not I alone ; since certainly, so 
 far as I understood the noble Lord who opened this debate in 
 an impressive address, the same may be said of him. I 
 thought the assumptions of my noble Friend with regard to 
 the views of the promoters of this measure entirely incon- 
 sistent with the statement of the noble Lord — I mean as they 
 respect the relation between religion and politics. My noble 
 Friend says, that we are asked to make a public declaration 
 that for all purposes of government and the making of laws 
 Christianity is needless. Certainly such was not the doctrine 
 of the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell); and I must say, without, 
 of course, impeaching the candour of my noble Friend, that I 
 think he has put an extreme and a strained construction on 
 the sense and spirit of the measure itself. 1 do not think it 
 amounts to what my noble Friend has said of it ; I do not think
 
 29 
 
 it does establish a severance between politics and religion. 
 I think it amounts to this — it amounts to a declaration on our 
 part (if it shall pass), founded on the whole circumstances 
 of the case, upon our view of the actual state of our laws 
 and of the society in which we live, its composition, and its 
 temper, that there is no necessity for our absolutely excluding 
 the Jew, as such, from an assembly, with regard to which 
 assembly every one of us in his own conscience feels perfectly 
 sure — as sure as man may venture, without presumption, 
 to feel upon what is future — that the vast and overwhelming 
 majority will long, will, as we trust and pray, always, continue 
 to be Christians. The discussion, therefore, in which we are 
 engaged does not turn upon the question whether the Chris- 
 tian religion is needless for the work of government and 
 of legislation. It must first of all be shown that the admis- 
 sion of an extremely small fraction of Jews into Parliament 
 would paralyze and nullify the Christianity of all those who 
 sit there. We may consistently affirm that Christianity is in 
 the highest degree needful for our legislation, and yet decline 
 to follow out that proposition to a conclusion so rigid as this, 
 that every individual who is not a Christian should be ex- 
 cluded from the possibility of becoming a legislator. I think 
 my noble Friend had a latent consciousness that these two ideas 
 were entirely distinct, for he evidently conceived it to be 
 necessary for the support of his argument that he should 
 assume the case of a very large number of Jews in Parlia- 
 ment. How, he asked — for I took particular notice of his 
 words — how can the principles of Christianity govern the 
 Legislature if a large portion of it should be composed of 
 Jews ; and in another place he assumed the case of a Hebrew 
 majority. But I say that practically it is not the question what 
 would follow from having either a Hebrew majority or a large 
 number of Jews in Parliament ; because none of us believes 
 that, within any fairly calculable results of this measure, there 
 will or can come any thing more than the admission of a few 
 solitary Jews to Parliament, leaving the rest of that body 
 exactly as it stands at present in respect to its religious pro-
 
 30 
 
 fession. I believe, then, I may say that the connection 
 between religion and politics is not only not denied by the 
 noble lord, but that he emphatically asserted it ["Hear, hear !" 
 from Lord J. Russell]; that he asserted that there was no 
 department of duty in which the motives of the fear and love 
 of God ought not to govern, and that you could draw no 
 distinction in that respect between domestic or private duties 
 and civil or political or public duties. But my noble Friend 
 appeared to me, I confess, (though I am very anxious, like 
 him, to avoid introducing into this discussion topics of a 
 theological character,) to attribute too much of substance, 
 and of efficacy, I must say, to the bond which is constituted 
 by a profession of the Christian name, defined by the indi- 
 vidual to himself alone, not embodied in laws or in institutions, 
 or in religious communion of any kind involving necessarily 
 the avowal of any body of fixed truths — he appeared to 
 attribute too much to a bond of that sort when he said, " I 
 will take that nominal profession as my criterion and my 
 standard, and I will affirm that all who profess that name are 
 fit for the exercise of civil duties, and that every man who 
 does not consent to bear it is unfit to be admitted into Parlia- 
 ment." I think that he laid greater stress upon such a test 
 than it will bear, though I certainly would not undervalue it, 
 or any thing which tends in any manner to connect us with the 
 profession of Christianity : still, I think that on religious 
 grounds it would be very difficult for him to prove the unfit- 
 ness of a Jew for the duties which it is proposed that he shall 
 discharge here, without also proving, by pretty sure impli- 
 cation, that many of those who sit here already, not as 
 individuals but as classes, are therefore unfit for those duties. 
 If, therefore, I admit that we are called upon to give up the 
 exclusively Christian character of the composition of Parlia- 
 ment, yet, in saying that, I perhaps make a larger concession 
 to the opponents of the measure than should in strictness be 
 made, because the only kind of Christian character which 
 this measure requires us to surrender, is one depending on 
 a title not defined except by the feelings of each individual
 
 31 
 
 for and to himself; it is one which implies little more than 
 the most vague, and naked, and generalized acknowledg- 
 ment. I am quite aware, indeed, that the question as I 
 have now described it, the question whether we shall, under 
 the circumstances of the present time, open the doors of 
 Parliament to Jews, whom we expect to enter them not 
 in mass but only by units ; whether we shall dispense in 
 their case with that reference to a Christian profession 
 which, as we now have it, has no relation to any defined 
 standard external to the individual mind ; that even this 
 is still a very important question, though it is different from 
 that which we should have to decide if we could ration- 
 ally anticipate as possible any large number of Jews in 
 Parliament, and still more, from what it would be if the title 
 with which in one sense we are now to part were a title 
 indicating concurrence in a fixed body of revealed truths. 
 
 Now I can well believe that to many, and I freely allow 
 that to myself, it is painful thus to part with even the title of 
 an exclusive Christianity, inscribed upon the portals of the 
 constitution. Yet to qualify this title as we are now asked to 
 qualify it, to surrender it as an universal and exclusive title, 
 is not to deprive ourselves of such substantial Christianity as 
 we may really now possess. Advantage is not unfairly taken 
 in debate of a word : but when it is said that we un christianize 
 the Parliament, while it may be true in name — and I would not 
 deny it — I must ask, is it true in substance? I could not help 
 being struck, and I confess I could not altogether repress a 
 smile, when, with indignation evidently the most unaffected, in 
 an earlier part of this evening, my honourable Friend and 
 Colleague (Sir R. Inglis) rebuked Dr. Van Oven for denying 
 in the pamphlet which he has just published on this question 
 that we were a Christian nation. Dr. Van Oven denies that 
 we are a Christian nation because there are a few Jews in the 
 nation, and my honourable colleague is very angry with him 
 for denying it; and yet what is now proposed is to admit 
 a few Jews into Parliament, all the rest of the body of 
 Parliament remaining Christian ; and I am afraid my honour- 
 able Colleague would be as much displeased with any one for
 
 32 
 
 asserting the Christianity of Parliament as he was with Dr. 
 Van Oven for denying the Christianity of the nation. Yet the 
 circumstances are exactly parallel. If we are now a Chris- 
 tian nation, we shall even after removing the Disabilities of 
 the Jews be a Christian Parliament: if it be true that we must 
 then cease to be a Christian Parliament, it is also true that 
 we are not now a Christian nation. Sir, I think that Parlia- 
 ment will continue to derive its character mainly from the 
 personal character of those who elect and of those who com- 
 pose it. And I must say, with regard to the speech of the 
 noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), that when he spoke of oaths and 
 declarations as affording insufficient securities, I certainly did 
 not understand him to signify — and I trust he did not intend 
 — that they were to be looked upon as altogether worthless, 
 and to be discarded from our use, but that we were not to 
 place upon them an exclusive reliance, and that we were to 
 depend more, after all, upon the qualities of men than upon 
 the letter of any regulations we could establish. [" Hear, 
 hear !" from Lord J. Russell.] But I confess I should perceive 
 in this motion a liability to very great and grave objections — 
 indeed, it would even assume in my eyes the character of a 
 practical grievance to us — if I thought that it was the intention 
 of the noble Lord to propose that our position, the position of 
 us who are now exclusively entitled to sit here, should be in any 
 particular altered by the measure which he proposes to intro- 
 duce. I hope his purpose is, that we shall continue to dis- 
 charge the very solemn duties committed to our care under the 
 sanction of the very same oaths and declarations which we 
 now take; that we who are Christians shall continue to give 
 the greatest degree of solemnity that is possible to our 
 entrance upon our public functions, by continuing to contract 
 our obligations as now " upon the true faith of a Christian." 
 I trust that nothing can be more idle than the antici- 
 pations of those — I have not heard them mentioned in this 
 debate, but they are current out of doors — the anticipations 
 of those who apprehend that, in consequence of the admission 
 of some two, or three, or four, or six Jews into Parliament, 
 that devout and seemly custom, whereby you, Sir, as our
 
 33 
 
 head and formally appointed representative, and all of out- 
 number who are present with you, at the moment when you 
 first enter this House offer up your daily supplications to 
 Almighty God for light and for guidance in our deliberations, 
 is either to be abandoned or its continuance in the slightest 
 decree endangered. I must confess I feel, for one, that if 
 it were so, then this would become a question, not between 
 considerations rather of an abstract character on the one 
 hand, and practical grievance affecting the Jews on the other, 
 but of practical grievance affecting a very small number of 
 Jews on the one hand, and of practical grievance affecting a 
 very large number of Christians — I mean all those who now 
 sit here — on the other. 
 
 I have, therefore, endeavoured to show, that the assumptions 
 with regard to the real and constitutional meaning of the law 
 which it is proposed that we should pass, are assumptions not 
 duly founded in the true nature and character of the measure. 
 But there are others who make objections to this measure in 
 language much stronger than my noble Friend. If we have 
 not yet been told, we must prepare to be told out of doors, 
 and probably in this House, that this is an anti-Christian mea- 
 sure, and one which will draw down upon us the judgment of 
 the Almighty. Now, with regard to such arguments, I admit 
 the extreme difficulty of touching them at all, because one 
 cannot deal with them with the reverence which is due to the 
 awful name they seem to invoke against us, and at the same 
 time with the freedom which belongs essentially to our com- 
 mon discussions. But this I do say, that if it be true that 
 civil justice requires the admission of the Jew into Parliament, 
 and if it be untrue that you can show any insuperable diffi- 
 culty of a practical nature in the work of legislation, or any 
 grievance to any other class of the community, as the conse- 
 quence of his admission, then this question, so far from being 
 as I think that my honourable Colleague seemed to call it, a 
 question of expediency, is, in the highest sense applicable to a 
 political question, a question of principle as contradistinguished 
 from one of mere expediency ; and that in proceeding to render 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 no more and no less than justice to any class of our fellow-sub- 
 jects, be they called by what name they may, I can have no 
 fear of drawing down upon our heads the vengeance of the 
 Almighty ; nay, on the contrary, I must entertain a very much 
 more serious fear in that respect, if, because of the influence 
 of prejudice on our own minds, or from the apprehension of 
 clamour and the displeasure of others, to which my honour- 
 able Friend so emphatically referred, we refrain from doing 
 that which we believe to be right. 
 
 But again, Sir, I must proceed to observe, that even if we 
 allow that under certain other circumstances, such an argu- 
 ment could properly find place in the discussion, it is now too 
 late for us to have recourse to it. If the concession of power 
 to the Jews be, which I do not admit, an act involving us in 
 such heavy guilt, we cannot be content with simply alleging 
 this as a plea against the present measure ; we must look back 
 upon all which we have already done, and which, it may like- 
 wise be observed, no one proposes to undo. Perhaps it is 
 more fit for me than for any other person to invite the House 
 to this retrospect, because I have before urged upon its atten- 
 tion the close and indissoluble connection between the mea- 
 sures which you have already passed for the advantage of the 
 Jew, and the measure which you are now invited to adopt in 
 his favour. In the year 1841, opposing the bill then intro- 
 duced by the noble Lord (J. Russell) for the admission of 
 Jews to municipal offices, I argued, and I founded my oppo- 
 sition upon the principle, that no broad or clear line could be 
 drawn between their eligibility for what was then in question, 
 and their eligibility for Parliament. And now let us consider 
 how far we are bound by the equitable consequences of what 
 we have already done, or how far it leaves us free to employ 
 the religious argument against the present measure. 
 
 My noble Friend draws a distinction between Executive and 
 Legislative functions, and I grant, in certain respects, a just 
 distinction ; but at the same time, although in this place we 
 may commonly look upon the name of municipal office with- 
 out any very lively sentiment of veneration, yet what does it
 
 35 
 
 involve ? It involves the magistracy ; it involves the perform- 
 ance of judicial duties; it involves the administration of laws 
 which are Christian laws, founded upon and made conform- 
 able to the principles of Christianity; and I cannot find a 
 breadth of standing ground for my foot which will enable me 
 on the one hand to say that the Jew is fit for the solemn 
 administration of those laws, and for the administration of 
 Christian oaths to Christian men, and yet upon religious 
 grounds is absolutely unfitted to enter this assembly. But 
 further, the distinction of my noble Friend, though it was 
 drawn with great force and ingenuity, I am of opinion will 
 not sufficiently avail him, even if it be admitted without any 
 restraint. Executive offices, he observes, and even judicial 
 offices, are discharged under the strict observance of the pub- 
 lic eye, and any abuse would be corrected by the operation of 
 the power of public opinion ; but I must call upon the House 
 to remember that they are not executive offices only to which 
 we have admitted the Jew. What have you to say with re- 
 gard to the franchise ? You refuse to admit the Jew to this 
 House, because they who sit here are the makers of laws ; but 
 I ask who are they that make the makers of laws ? It is 
 from a periodical return to its mother earth, that this House 
 derives its life and vigour. From thence are drawn the new 
 materials that are to qualify or to replace the old. This House 
 may be the chief organ of power, but is undoubtedly not its 
 fountain ; it advises the Crown, it represents the people, and in 
 the constituency must be sought the source of so much of the 
 authority of the State as we possess. But to that consti- 
 tuency, to that primary function of electing, a function not ex- 
 ecutive, a function the least of all subject to responsibility in 
 the sense of my noble Friend, Jews have already been ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 And yet if we are asked whether the constituency of this 
 country be a Christian constituency, I for one am ready to 
 answer yes. It is composed generally of Christians ; and no 
 man, as a voter, is in any degree precluded from recognising 
 the command of his Christian principles over him in the de- 
 
 c 2
 
 36 
 
 termination of his vote, because the Jew stands by his side. 
 If his Christianity be worth any thing at all, he must carry it 
 with him to the hustings ; in discharging his duty there, he 
 must first have asked himself what his obligations to his God 
 and Saviour require of him. I am certain my noble Friend 
 will not argue that the constituency has ceased to be a 
 Christian constituency, because there are here and there a few 
 Jews interspersed through it; and unless he is prepared to 
 argue thus, I trust that he will share in my consolatory belief 
 that Parliament will not have ceased to be a Christian Parlia- 
 ment, because some few Jews may have been admitted into 
 it. I certainly, after all that we have done for Jews outside 
 the doors of Parliament, and for others within them, am con- 
 tent on the ground of policy, content on the ground of justice, 
 to admit them, and for the future, to trust the Christianity of 
 the Legislature, under God, to the Christianity of the nation. 
 Again, Sir, my noble Friend proceeded to quote the authority 
 of Dr. Arnold, who entertained a strong opinion against the 
 admission of Jews to Parliament. I cannot wonder that the 
 opponents of the measure should seek support from such a 
 quarter. There were few men who would address their minds 
 to the consideration of any subject with greater energy than 
 Dr. Arnold, or with greater or even equal sincerity of purpose. 
 But I apprehend that his view of this particular question stood 
 related not to the strength of his mind, but to its weakness. 
 Most excellent and most able as he was, yet, like many other 
 men of remarkable and rare ingenuity and of true enthusiasm, 
 he had his own theory which he idolised, which it was the 
 dream of his life to rear into actual existence, and with re- 
 spect to which no experience could avail to undeceive him. 
 He considered that in a Christian country the State and the 
 Church ought to be regarded as one : the State belonging 
 wholly to the Church, and the Church belonging wholly to 
 the State. He viewed ministers of religion as officers of State, 
 and officers of State as ministers of religion : and he held that 
 there was no distinction between them, except the incidental 
 one of the subject-matter upon which they were respectively
 
 37 
 
 employed. But with this strict idea of the State as Christian, 
 he combined an idea of Christianity relaxed in such a manner 
 that, according to him, certain general truths assumed to be 
 common, and capable of separation from what is peculiar to 
 different Christian persuasions, ought to be embodied in a 
 living and working system. He was indeed perplexed, even in 
 speculation, with certain exceptions which met him at the 
 outset, such as the case of Unitarians on the one side, and of 
 Roman Catholics on the other. Notwithstanding, however, 
 flaws and discouragements such as these, he laboured, as 
 Mr. Stanley has explained to us in that most interesting 
 work, his Life of Dr. Arnold, to reduce to form the idea 
 which he had conceived in his mind of a Christianity which 
 should comprehend in one many of the now separated per- 
 suasions, and which should then be embodied as a principle, 
 and as a test, in the constitution of the London University. 
 He laboured, as may be easily believed, without success ; but 
 likewise, if I remember right, without despair, at least with- 
 out the abandonment of his views : and his opinion, that the 
 Jews should be excluded from Parliament, was an opinion en- 
 tertained by him, not with regard to their separate case upon 
 its own merits, but rather, I think, as necessary to the inte- 
 grity of this favourite, but very peculiar and arbitrary theory. 
 I, therefore, must be allowed to urge, that the weight of Dr. 
 Arnold's opinion in this case must be measured by the prac- 
 ticability of this particular idea, and not by the authority gene- 
 rally belonging to his judgment, that is to say, upon ques- 
 tions where he had no special bias or notion to mislead him. 
 
 There is, however, another point in the argument to which 
 1 must return, as I have only noticed it hitherto in general 
 terms : whereas its bearing upon the present question is, in 
 my view, of the very highest importance. 
 
 It is alleged that we are now going to make a change in 
 the constitution which involves the essence of Christianity : 
 that what the constitution hitherto has required of us is not 
 merely that we should denominate ourselves Christians, but 
 should make our solemn declaration " upon the true faith of
 
 38 
 
 a Christian;" thus implying that each of those who so declare 
 really embraces that faith, and that, therefore, according to 
 the view of the constitution, all members of Parliament are 
 agreed in the recognition of a fixed body of revealed doctrine, 
 distinctly indicated by those words. From the mere words 
 as they stand, I at once admit, it is by no means evident 
 that they were intended to include all persons that could 
 simply call themselves Christians ; nay, that they were not 
 so intended, and did not include all such persons. But we 
 must read the sense which the declaration now bears, in the 
 light of subsequent history ; we must observe what successive 
 Parliaments have done, in order to adapt the law to the 
 altering circumstances of successive periods, and must give 
 to their measures their full breadth of meaning. After Non- 
 conformity had taken a definite shape in this country, it 
 obtained a legal toleration ; Nonconformists entered into 
 Parliament, by a sufferance which gradually came to be all 
 but a right, and which received full constitutional sanction 
 as a right in the year 1828. Among those Nonconformists, 
 almost from the first, there were Unitarians. True they had 
 their whole civil existence for a long time by sufferance ; 
 only by slow degrees they too obtained a recognition ; and I 
 apprehend that from the year 1813 the law ceased, as 
 practice had long before ceased, to draw any distinction 
 between them personally and other Dissenters. I say per- 
 sonally, not entering into the inquiry what view the law may 
 even now be thought to take of their creed, as distinct from 
 the persons professing it. Now, Sir, as these concessions 
 were not extorted by fraud, or surprise, or force, but were 
 granted one after another by Parliament, with its eyes open 
 to their significancy and their consequences, I cannot lay it 
 as a charge against the conscience of the Unitarian, that he 
 uses, in reference to his belief, the words which we too use 
 at that table with regard to ours. Whatever may have been 
 their original view and meaning, I think myself bound most 
 unreservedly to admit, that Unitarians act according to the 
 spirit and the intention of our laws, when they adopt those
 
 39 
 
 expressions for themselves, as applicable in their mouths to 
 their own religious system. But if, as I think, the consti- 
 tution, so to speak, is satisfied with the sense in which they 
 are thus employed, then I conceive we cannot dispute that 
 it has altogether ceased to require of us the recognition of 
 any fixed standard or body of Christian truths as an indispens- 
 able element of fitness for legislative duties ; that we are not 
 now tied by it to hold any thing which can in serious reflection 
 be called by us unitedly " the true faith of a Christian ; " and 
 that therefore the measure of the noble Lord at the head of 
 the Government is not open to the objection which would lie 
 against it, if it could really be shown, that, in order to meet 
 a case of limited extent, we were about to make a great sub- 
 stantial change in the religious character of the constitution, 
 and in the capacity of the great mass of those who act under it. 
 
 Passing on, Sir, from the objections which I think either 
 unreal or at best inapplicable, I now come to one of which I 
 admit the reality and the relevancy, though I do not admit 
 its sufficiency to warrant the rejection of this proposal. I 
 hope the House will bear with me while I touch for a 
 short time upon a topic, in my view of very great import- 
 ance, of which no notice has as yet been taken in this 
 debate. I am most reluctant to introduce into, it any ele- 
 ment that can even appear to be foreign to its scope, or not 
 remotely connected with it ; but I am certain of the general 
 assent of those who hear me when I say that, as being sent 
 here jointly with my honourable Friend and colleague (Sir R. 
 H. Inglis) to represent an University, to represent a consti- 
 tuency so much connected with the national Church and 
 comprising so large a number of its ministers, I should be- 
 tray my most especial and solemn duty, were I to give my 
 assent to this measure without having endeavoured to con- 
 sider very maturely its whole bearings upon the interests of 
 that Church ; I will add, without having satisfied my mind 
 that its adoption ought not to work them injury. 
 
 I say then, Sir, that there is at least one real difficulty at- 
 tending the admission of the Jews into Parliament ; that
 
 40 
 
 which arises from the mixed nature of the functions we are 
 brought here to discharge. So long as many matters relating 
 to the Church, and some also relating to the Christian re- 
 ligion in a more general sense, are liable to be discussed and 
 decided here, — so long as we continue to bear the character of 
 political guardians of the Church, — there is, as far as these 
 facts extend, a real and practical difficulty attending the ad- 
 mission of Jews to Parliament. This being granted, I must 
 ask myself what is the amount of that difficulty, and are there 
 any means by which it can be obviated, short of that extreme 
 resort, the rejection of this measure ? 
 
 And first, as to the amount of the difficulty, I confess that 
 I have not any great apprehension of practical evils to arise 
 from the actual interference of professors of the Jewish re- 
 ligion in such legislation as may directly or indirectly have to 
 do with ours. Because I know that, in the first place, the 
 good feeling of each individual as a judge of what is becoming 
 or otherwise, for himself; and, in the next place, the influence 
 of public opinion operating both within and without these walls, 
 will do much to restrain any interposition in matters relating 
 to the Church on the part of those who, on account of re- 
 ligious differences, can have no natural and sufficient interest 
 in them. We have seen that feeling operate not unfrequently 
 in this House since the Acts of 1828 and 1829. When a 
 question of the internal affairs of the Church is under con- 
 sideration here, it is not an uncommon thing to hear Gentle- 
 men, who do not belong to her communion, say, that they do 
 not look upon it as a matter for them to be concerned in, and 
 that they think it more becoming to leave the discussion to 
 those who may be supposed to feel a religious and an appro- 
 priate interest in it as members of the Church. And many 
 act upon a rule of this kind without the formal expression of 
 it. If this has been the case heretofore among us, constituted 
 as we now are, it is reasonable to expect that it will be still 
 more the practice if Jews should come to sit among us. 
 While, therefore, I do not deny that a practical anomaly or 
 difficulty presents itself, I also think that considerations of
 
 41 
 
 the class which I have mentioned go a great way to diminish 
 and reduce it. 
 
 But at any rate I must look at the alternative ; and, with 
 the views I entertain of the strength of the political claim of 
 the Jew, I find a much greater practical anomaly and difficulty 
 to follow upon holding such language as this — that after all 
 which has taken place, I will, because a certain portion of the 
 duties of Parliament are directly related to the Christian re- 
 ligion, exclude the Jew from the performance of all those among 
 its duties which are in their first aspect secular and civil. I 
 am by no means of the opinion that differences of religion 
 have no bearing upon the discharge of political duties of 
 whatever class : I do not hold that all men, whatever their 
 religious creeds, are equally qualified for those duties : I look 
 upon a right religious belief as among the elements of compe- 
 tency for them. But this is in itself a question of degree, and as 
 such the constitution regards it, because it has already recog- 
 nised a sufficient competency in persons of various creeds for the 
 duties of Parliament and of all offices ; and also the competency 
 of the Jew for every civil duty and privilege, except only seats 
 in Parliament, and the holding of certain offices. Such then 
 being the case, I have the utmost reluctance, upon the sole 
 ground that the functions of Parliament are sometimes con- 
 versant with matters of religion, to exclude the Jew from any 
 share in all those other functions that belong to the Legfisla- 
 ture, and with which it is principally occupied ; such as relate 
 to taxation and finance, to trade and industry, to the defence 
 of the country, to the administration of justice, to humanity 
 and philanthropy, to the redress of grievances, to external 
 and colonial relations, and to all the multitude of subjects, 
 defying complete classification, that are brought before us 
 from time to time. 
 
 But still, Sir, the question, as I have endeavoured to limit 
 its practical bearings, the question how, under the successive 
 changes already introduced, or likely to be introduced, in the 
 religious composition of this House, the relations of the 
 Church to the State are to be governed, is one which excites
 
 42 
 
 a great and increasing interest, a deep and just anxiety, among 
 the clergy and the members of the Church of England. 
 
 In illustration of what I have said, I may refer to apublished 
 letter which I have recently seen, addressed to the noble Lord, 
 by the Rev. Mr. Trevor, a clergyman, I believe, of known 
 abilities, and of no less indisputable moderation, who neverthe- 
 less it is evident feels keenly, as he also writes warmly, upon 
 the difficulties in which the Church, and the clergy in particular, 
 are placed under a course of legislation which successively 
 infuses into the composition of Parliament new elements, 
 having no sympathy with that body, and in no relations to- 
 wards them, such as those which are created by identity of re- 
 ligious communion. I have a more recent result and token 
 of this sentiment among the clergy, in my hand, in the shape 
 of a petition*, which has been forwarded to me for pre- 
 sentation to this House by a dignitary of the Church, a 
 person of high character, and of distinguished talents — I mean 
 Archdeacon Wilberforce, whose brother occupies a yet 
 higher station as Bishop of Oxford. In this petition, Arch- 
 deacon Wilberforce takes a summary view of the altered 
 position of the Church in regard to the Legislature and to the 
 expectations she may naturally entertain from it ; and then he 
 comes to the further alteration, which, as he had understood, 
 the noble Lord opposite was to propose. He says that in the 
 present state of public opinion, and having regard to all that 
 has already been done, he is not prepared, whatever his own 
 sentiments or predilections as an individual might be, to offer 
 objection to the removal of the Jewish Disabilities : but then 
 he prays that before we take this new step onwards in the 
 career which we have now for a long time been pursuing, we 
 will pass a Bill for the repeal of the Statute of the 28th year of 
 Henry VIII. chap. 17, relating to the election of bishops, inas- 
 much as he conceives that Parliament will, in consequence of 
 
 * I might also have referred to a recent pamphlet, very worthy of notice, 
 entitled " A. Clergyman's Apology for Favouring the Removal of the 
 Jewish Disabilities."
 
 43 
 
 such a measure as that now before us, cease to be a Christian 
 Legislature. Now, Sir, it will have appeared from all that I 
 have said, that I do not take the same view of the character 
 and effects of this particular measure as Archdeacon Wilber- 
 force : neither do I think that the anomaly which he points 
 out, is one that we ought now to proceed to remove by the 
 repeal of that statute of Henry VIII. But I perceive the 
 difficulty : and although I am reluctant to entertain the idea of 
 meeting it in such a mode as the particular mode which he sug- 
 gests, yet I refer to his petition as illustrating a sentiment which 
 is widely spread, and which may spread yet more widely. 
 
 Indeed, for myself, I cannot hesitate to say, that from the 
 general course of events, and in particular from the changes 
 which have been introduced, and which are now proposed in 
 the constitution of the Legislature, a very great degree, an 
 increased degree of delicacy and caution has become neces- 
 sary in the management of its relations with the Church, and 
 that the want of that delicacy and caution, an 1 of kindly 
 and considerate feeling, would in all probability lead to very 
 serious ulterior consequences ; I mean that it would have the 
 effect of producing throughout the country, among the 
 clergy, and among all the more seriously attached members 
 of the Church, a desire for what is termed organic change 
 in the connection between the Church and the State. I use 
 the phrase organic change to distinguish what I now have in 
 view, from changes not cutting so deep, from practical and 
 administrative improvements. Now I do not know whether 
 there are any persons in this House — if so, they must be few 
 and probably of extreme opinions — who contemplate and 
 desire such organic change in the connection between Church 
 and State. If there be such, I am not one of them : I am 
 deeply anxious to obviate any demand for changes of that 
 nature. Yet I feel that there is a great difficulty, pressing 
 seriously upon the consciences both of lay members of the 
 Church and of clergy, from their becoming more and more 
 alive to a want of active sympathy between the Parliament 
 and the Church, and to the slow and unsatisfactory mode in
 
 44 
 
 which the internal affairs of the Church are apt to be de- 
 spatched amidst the pressure of our other engagements. The 
 solution of this difficulty, which I should greatly prefer, is as 
 follows : and in what I am about to say, I beg most frankly 
 to assure the noble Lord opposite, that I desire to convey no 
 allusion to current events, for if I thought it right to intro- 
 duce on this occasion any reference to them, I should not 
 merely insinuate an opinion, but should state directly and 
 broadly whatever I might have to urge : this, then, is what 
 I desire, in the interest of my constituents, and in the in- 
 terest of the Church, that as you continue from time to time 
 to admit among you those who cannot justly be expected to 
 have sympathy with the laws and the spiritual purposes of 
 the Church, you should likewise recognise and act upon the 
 principle, that a consideration for the clergy and the other 
 members of the Church as such, a disposition to attach 
 weight to their feelings and views, a regard to them as a 
 body, having like the members of other religious bodies con- 
 scientious convictions, and entitled to have those convictions 
 respected, should influence Parliament in the exercise of its 
 legislative powers as they bear upon the affairs of the 
 Church, and should also influence the Ministers of the Crown 
 in the exercise of those very important executive powers of 
 patronage or otherwise, which fall to them in that capacity. 
 I think myself entitled to believe, that Parliament is disin- 
 clined to extreme views, of whatever kind, in regard to the 
 affairs of the Church. A time might possibly arrive when it 
 might be otherwise. If there should be any rapid or violent 
 movement of the popular mind, or in some season of tem- 
 porary excitement — however improbable such contingencies 
 may justly be considered — a majority of this House might pos- 
 sibly be disposed to pursue a severe and hostile policy towards 
 the Church, and might also incline the Minister of the Crown 
 to act in a similar spirit. I cannot but express it as my most 
 solemn conviction, that the adoption of any jealous, aggres- 
 sive or coercive policy of that kind towards the Church 
 would be attended with the most deplorable results. Through-
 
 45 
 
 out a great part of the last century, there was, not indeed an 
 active or violent antagonism, but a fundamental want of 
 harmony between our civil and our ecclesiastical institutions ; 
 political influence went one way, and the dispositions of the 
 clergy, and of most persons who were zealous in the religion 
 of the Church, the other. What was the consequence? It 
 was a total relaxation of discipline ; the ties of affection 
 which should unite bishops with their clergy, and pastors 
 with their flocks, became more and more feeble ; there was a 
 rapid and perpetual decline of religious activity; and the 
 scandals of the Church (which of course are not to be 
 regarded as those of the clergy alone) became at length 
 gross and notorious through the Christian world. When 
 the French Revolution burst like a clap of thunder on 
 Europe, then there began among the higher classes, as 
 venerable witnesses, now and lately alive, have assured 
 some among us, a revival of religious feeling. But shortly 
 before that Revolution, the whole relations of the Church 
 and the people appeared to be rapidly sinking into the 
 condition of a mere form ; they were too generally reduced to 
 a skeleton of dry bones, without life, or heat, or movement ; 
 there were no warm and living bonds of love and of duty 
 such as ought to connect a Christian people • with their 
 ministry. If Parliament were to be governed by a spirit of 
 hostility and of jealousy to the Church, it might in certain 
 periods produce again results like these. In a generation 
 already verging towards indifference, it might plunge the 
 Church more deeply into lethargy ; for, in this free country, 
 with the laws, tempers, and habits which happily prevail, 
 you cannot make any class or body of men, be they clergy- 
 men, or be they laymen of whatever kind, discharge their 
 duties cordially or efficaciously by measures of restriction and 
 coercion, or by the mere exercise of authority. Especially in 
 regard to the Church, from the very nature of its office, which 
 depends so essentially on the affections of the people, you 
 must infuse a genial and a kindly spirit into all your proceed- 
 ings, unless you are prepared to take upon yourselves the re-
 
 46 
 
 sponsibility of one or the other of two tremendous evils ; either 
 the evil which I have named, of paralysing all spiritual ener- 
 gies in an age of indifference, or in an age of religious warmth 
 and excitement, and of rising faith within the Church, such as 
 this, the evil of exasperating those energies, and of causing 
 convulsions which might ultimately prove almost as detrimen- 
 tal to the civil as to the ecclesiastical institutions of the country. 
 If, therefore, we desire to see what is called a working or an 
 efficient Church ; a clergy that will toil without remission until 
 it has covered the whole space, now unhappily void, amongst 
 the people with the life-giving ordinances of our religion, act- 
 ing with zeal and love, as well as with a true moderation, in 
 the spirit of that system of faith and discipline under which 
 they are appointed to work ; we cannot contribute to this pur- 
 pose, though we may defeat it, by a policy of jealousy and 
 repression; we may contribute towards it, if the duties 
 of the State in Church affairs be discharged in a wise 
 and considerate, I will say also in a genial and friendly, and 
 something of a confiding temper. Such, then, is the mode in 
 which, as it appears to me, it would not be difficult to provide 
 sufficiently against the embarrassments which might other- 
 wise arise out of the successive infusion of many new and 
 alien ingredients into the composition of the Legislature. But 
 I should think it a very great misfortune indeed, if there were 
 no other mode of avoiding those embarrassments than to re- 
 ject a measure like this, which has civil privileges for its sub- 
 ject matter, and to announce to the Jew that, on account of 
 the partially religious or ecclesiastical duties of Parliament, 
 we shall now, after all we have done in relieving different 
 classes from disability, and recognising their fitness for ad- 
 mission here, after all we have done for him in conferring 
 upon him such functions as those of the magistracy and the 
 franchise, apply as against him the exclusive rule in a man- 
 ner, as I think, so partial and unequal, and take our stand 
 upon a ground so very narrow as that lying between 
 what we have already given, and what we are now asked 
 to give. The opposition to this measure, in order to de-
 
 47 
 
 serve respect, must be placed upon the ground of religion ; 
 but it could only attract, respect, when placed upon that 
 ground, if it could be shown that there is breadth in our 
 distinctions, that there is some consistency in our policy, that 
 our rules are impartially applied ; conditions none of which I 
 am able to realise in any opposition that can now be offered to 
 the Motion of the noble Lord. 
 
 Upon a general view, then, of the case, I cannot but feel 
 that my noble Friend has misconceived the purport of this 
 measure in its bearing on the religious character of the consti- 
 tution, and has therefore greatly overrated as well as mis- 
 judged its effects. I am unable to detect any practical evil or 
 inconvenience likely to flow from it, in any degree equal to 
 the evils that would follow its rejection upon grounds that I 
 take to be not only insufficient, but even false and dangerous. 
 I rate highly the position of the Jews in the State, and I find 
 their competency for civil duties asserted in the very largest 
 terms, by one whose strenuous opposition to their claim does 
 but add to the cogency of the witness he has borne 
 in their favour. I cannot, then, but close with the 
 appeal which the noble Lord opposite has made to us, 
 and admit that in the measure he has proposed he 
 is himself aspiring, and is inviting us to perform an act 
 of justice. But if it be such, then it is one worthy of 
 a Christian legislature to enact, for Christianity recognises no 
 higher, no more comprehensive obligation. If we refuse it, 
 I conceive that the wrong which on civil grounds we shall 
 have done will be more acutely felt, and more pointedly 
 shown, from year to year : if we adopt it, in spite of the 
 prepossessions of others, and perhaps of our own, we shall 
 have the consolation of finding that calm reflection will surely 
 and speedily prevail. We shall have the consolation of be- 
 lieving that we have used the light that has been given us 
 not heedlessly, but to the best of our care and judgment, and 
 having so done, may entertain the hope that it will guide us 
 aright. Especially we may feel assured, that if the act we 
 have done be indeed an act of civil and social justice, then,
 
 48 
 
 whatever be its first aspect, it can involve no disparagement 
 to the religion we profess, can never lower Christianity, as 
 my noble Friend has feared it would, in the public estimation, 
 but must, on the contrary, tend to elevate the conception of 
 Christianity in all considerate minds ; for it will show either 
 now, pr at farthest when some years have passed, and when 
 we can look back upon the differences of the present day with 
 the aid of those lights which after events and experience will 
 have thrown upon them, that the Christian religion, which 
 we professed, was a religion that enabled us, when convinced, 
 to do an act of j ustice in spite of prepossessions appealing to 
 our liveliest and tenderest feelings ; prepossessions which still 
 attracted our sympathy and respect, almost our veneration; 
 in the full belief that truth and right would vindicate them- 
 selves, and those who had desired to follow them. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London.
 
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