Page 77 - BV18

The House of Israel 77

To students of Scripture, the most significant aspect of edge of the Scriptures and of antiquity. These men
Canada’s national life is her relations with her great neigh- brought to the enquiry a specialized knowledge of the
bour, the United States of America. Across this boundary, Anglo-Saxon peoples, Sharon Turner being an ac-
the people of Canada and the United States have lived in knowledged authority on the Anglo-Saxons in Europe
neighbourly amity for more than a hundred years, illustrat- and the British Isles and Dr. Moore on the progenitors
ing the sort of peace that “shall be upon Israel” (Psalm of the Anglo-Saxons in the Middle and Far East.
125:5) -- and a foretaste of the happy conditions for all
mankind which will obtain when God’s Kingdom shall fill The second fact is that the conclusions of these schol-
the earth. arly men were accepted by clergymen who were not
only well versed in both the Old and the New Testa-
The motto on the Canadian Arms, which means “From sea ments, but whose classical education enabled them to
to sea,” is taken from the seventy-second Psalm, verse 8 of check the claims and conclusions in the ancient He-
which reads: “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, brew and Greek. The fear expressed by Cardinal
and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Newman reveals that the Israel Identity hypothesis had
been accepted by a majority of the clergy of the Church
-- Wake Up! September/October 1991 of England which, at that time, was by far the largest
denomination in the British Isles.
Identity Truth is Under Attack By
Failing End-Time Churchianity The third fact is that John Wilson did not discover the
identity of the Israel peoples for himself; but was suc-
In 1840 a scholar named John Wilson published a book en- cessful in being able to trace them back from Europe
titled Our Israelitish Origin which not only attracted the through the Balkans to the area of the Caucasian
favourable attention of two historians -- the great Sharon mountains. The fact of our identity had been taken for
Turner and the distinguished Dr. George Moore -- but of granted, for as early as the fifth century St. Patrick had
the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Professor C. Piazzi said: “We turned away from God and did not keep His
Smyth, who was at that time involved in research into the Commandments, and did not obey our priests who
antiquities of Egypt. It was also being read with avid inter- used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord
est by clergymen of the Anglican church both at home and brought over us the wrath of His anger and scattered us
throughout Europe and the Empire. It made a profound among many nations, even unto the uttermost part of
and lasting impression. the earth.”

Five years later, in 1845, the Anglo-Catholic vicar of St. Writing in the sixth century, Gildas referred to the peo-
Mary the Virgin in Oxford resigned his living and was re- ple of Britain as “God’s Israelites, whether they loved
ceived into the Roman Catholic church, later to be made a Him or not.” In the seventh century Pope Vitalianus
cardinal -- Cardinal John Henry Newman. When asked told Oswy, king of the Saxons: “Because your nation
why he had left the Anglican communion, he gave, as one believed in Christ, the Almighty God, according to the
of his reasons, his fear that the Church of England stood in words of the divine prophets, as it is written in Isaiah,
danger of being taken over by the Christian Israel Identity ‘In that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall
movement. stand for an ensign of the people. To him shall the
Gentiles seek’.” In the ninth century Alfred the Great
These two incidents are recalled in order to underline three told His people: “Be ye kind to the stranger within thy
facts which are so often overlooked: gates, for ye were strangers in the land of the Egyp-
tians.”

The first fact is that the Israel Identity hypothesis was the
work of scholarly men, scholars with a profound knowl-

The Berean Voice November-December 2002