ABSTRACT
John Toland (1670–1722) was a British philosopher and political pamphleteer, the author of the major Deist tract Christianity not Mysterious (1696) and an associate of both John Locke and the influential politician Robert Harley (later Lord Oxford) with whom he eventually broke over the terms negotiated for the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) that ended the War of the Spanish Succession. A true radical and “free thinker” (a term coined to describe him), Toland favored not just open Protestant and Jewish immigration to Britain but, as this pamphlet argues, the full naturalization of Jews and their complete acquisition of most civil and political rights. Although powerfully influenced by Simone Luzzatto’s Discorso ( C3 , which he claimed to have translated to English although no trace has been found), Toland essentially reversed Luzzatto’s position by emphasizing Jews’ capacity to contribute to British life not just in the areas of trade and commerce but in all professions and livelihoods, including the crucial ones of land ownership, farming, and even soldiering. Toland emphasized that Jews would contribute to the size of the British population (a common argument in his day reflecting the belief that increases in population spurred economic growth) and that their age-old association with usury should not be held against them, since even Christians had long ago adopted credit as a crucial instrument of trade. 2 Toland’s pamphlet was remarkably ahead of its time, although it had little immediate effect. 3
