THERE was much in Cromwell’s followers to dispose them favourably towards Israel. Their history, their theology, their character, their morals, and their ideals were all as Hebraic as anything could be that had not had its birth in Asia. The Puritans boasted, as the Jews had always done, that they themselves were the only pure Church, and hated all others as idolaters. They believed, as the Jews had always done, that they were the favourite people of Heaven, selected by the Almighty to bear testimony to His unity, to fight His battles and to exterminate His enemies: “Destroy the Amalekites, root and branch, hip and thigh,” was the burden of the Puritan preachers. They dreamed of a Theocracy, as the Jews had always done; of a state in which the civil should be subordinated to religious authority. The spiritual arrogance of the Jew met with its other half in the spiritual arrogance of the Puritan. If the Jew held that for him Jehovah had spoken on Mount Sinai, the Puritan was equally certain that for him God had suffered on the hill of Calvary. If the Jew applied to himself the prophecies of the Old Testament, the Puritan was as eager to appropriate the fulfilments of the New. They both walked with their heads in the skies, but with their feet firm upon solid earth. The daily contemplation of eternal interests did not disqualify either of them for the successful pursuit of temporal ends. Spiritual at once and practical, they saw in material prosperity a proof of divine approbation. Believing, as they did, that “thrift is blessing,” they strove to earn the fruits of thrift by excessive piety. And, while they established their own rule, they had no doubt that they were promoting the Kingdom of God. The resemblance can be traced to the minutest details. The Puritan’s detestation of the fine arts, of ecclesiastical decoration, and of sacerdotal foppery was not less sincere than that of the Jew. Equally strong was the hatred entertained by both sects towards public amusements. Under the reign of the Puritans the playhouses were closed, masques were anathematised, maypoles demolished; all beauty was denounced as a sin, all pleasure punished as a crime. Even so at the same period (about 1660) a Rabbi of Venice expressed his horror at the establishment of theatres by Venetian Jews, wherein men, women, and children of the chosen people assisted at frivolous performances, and regretted his inability to suppress the graceless and godless gatherings. Both Jews and Puritans in the seventeenth century were ready to subscribe to the words of the Talmudic sage of the first: “I give thanks to thee, O Lord, my God and God of my fathers, that thou hast placed my portion among those who sit in the House of Learning and the House of Prayer, and didst not cast my lot among those who frequent theatres and circuses. For I labour, and they labour; I wait, and they wait; I to inherit paradise, they the pit of destruction.”[131]