8. The children of Israel are naturally mercifull, and full of compassion. This was acknowledged by their enemies, Kings 1.20, 31. when Benhadad King of Assyria was discomfited in the battel, and fled away, he became a petitioner for his life to King Ahab, who had conquered him; for he understood that the Kings of the house of Israel were mercifull Kings; and his own experience confirmed it, when for a little affection that he pretended in a complement, he obtained again his life and fortunes, from which the event of the warre had disentitled him. And when the Gibeonites made that cruell request to David, that seven of Saul’s sons who were innocent, should be delivered unto them, the prophet saies, now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, Sam. 2.21, 2. as if he had said, in this cruelty, the piety of the Israelites is not so much set forth, as the tyranny, and implacable rage of the Gentiles, the Gibeonites. Which being so, and experience withall declares it, viz. the fidelity which our nation hath inviolably preserved towards their superiours, then most certainly it is wholly incompatible, and inconsistent with the murdering of their children.

9. There are some Christians, that use to insult against the Iewes, as Christian homicides, that will venter to give a reason of these pretended murtherous practises. As if the accusation were then most infallibly true, if they can find any semblance of a reason why it might be so. As they say, that this is practised by them in hatred and detestation of Jesus of Nazareth. And that therefore they steal Christian Children, buffeting them in the same manner that he was buffetted; thereby to rub up, and revive the memory of the aforesaid death. And likewise they imagine that the Iewes secretly steal away crosses, crucifixes, and such like graven images, which Papists privately and carefully retein in their houses, and every day the Iewes mainly strike, and buffet, shamefully spitting on them, with such like ceremonies of despight, and all this in hatred of Jesus. But I admire what they really think, when they object such things as these, laying them to our charge. For surely we cannot believe, that a people, otherwise of sufficient prudence, and judgement, can perswade themselves into an opinion that the Iewes should commit such practises, unlesse they could conceive they did them in honour and obedience to the God whom they worship. And what kind of obedience is this they perform to God blessed for ever, when they directly sin against that speciall command Thou shalt not kill? Besides, this cannot be committed without the imminent, and manifest perill of their lives and fortunes, and the necessary exposing themselves to a just revenge. Moreover, it is an Anathema to a Iew to have any graven images in his house, or any thing of an idol, which any of the nations figuratively worship, Deut. 7.26.

10. Matthew Paris p. 532. writes, how that in the year 1240. the Iewes circumcised a Christian child at Norwich, and gave him the name Iurnin, and reserved him to be crucified, for which cause many of them were most cruelly put to death. The truth of this story will evidently appear upon the consideration of its circumstances. He was first circumcised, and this perfectly constitutes him a Iew. Now for a Iew to embrace a Christian in his armes, and foster him in his bosome, is a testimony of great love and affection. But if it was intended that shortly after this child should be crucified, to what end was he first circumcised? If it shall be said it was out of hatred to the Christians, it appears rather to the contrary, that it proceeded from detestation of the Iewes, or of them who had newly become proselytes, to embrace the Iewes religion. Surely this supposed pranck (storied to be done in popish times) looks more like a piece of the reall scene of the Popish Spaniards piety, who first baptiz’d the poor Indians, and afterwards out of cruel pity to their souls, inhumanely butchered them; then of strict-law-observing Iewes, who dare not make a sport of one of the seales of their covenant.

11. Our captivity under the Mahumetans is farre more burdensome, and grievous then under the Christians, and so our ancients have said, it is better to inhabit under Edom then Ismael, for they are a people more civill, and rationall, and of a better policie, as our nation have found experimentally. For, excepting the nobler, and better sort of Iewes, such as live in the Court of Constantinople, the vulgar people of the Iewes that are dispersed in other countries of the Mahumetan Empire, in Asia and Africa, are treated with abundance of contempt and scorn. It would therefore follow, that if this sacrificing of children be the product and result of hatred, that they should execute and disgorge it much more upon the Mahumetans, who have reduced them to so great calamity and misery. So that if it be necessary to the celebration of the Passeover, why do they not as well kill a Mahumetan? But although the Iewes are scattered, and dispersed throughout all those vast territories, notwithstanding all their despite against us, they never yet to this day forged such a calumnious accusation. Wherefore it appeares plainly, that it is nothing else but a slander, and such a one, that considering how the scene is laid, I cannot easily determine whether it speak more of malice, or of folly: certainly Sultan Selim made himself very merry with it, when the story was related him by Moses Amon his chief Physicyan.

12. If all that which hath been said is not of sufficient force to wipe off this accusation, because the matter on our part is purely negative, and so cannot be cleared by evidence of witnesses, I am constrained to use another way of argument, which the Lord, blessed for ever, hath prescribed Exod. 22. which is an oath; wherefore I swear, without any deceit or fraud, by the most high God, the creatour of heaven and earth, who promulged his law to the people of Israel, upon mount Sinai, that I never yet to this day saw any such custome among the people of Israel, and that they doe not hold any such thing by divine precept of the law, or any ordinance or institution of their wise men, and that they never committed or endeavoured such wickednesse, (that I know, or have credibly heard, or read in any Jewish Authours) and if I lie in this matter, then let all the curses mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy come upon me, let me never see the blessings and consolations of Zion, nor attain to the resurrection of the dead. By this I hope I may have proved what I did intend, and certainly this may suffice all the friends of truth, and all faithfull Christians to give credit to what I have here averred. And indeed our adversaries who have been a little more learned, and consequently a little more civill then the vulgar, have made a halt at this imputation. Iohn Hoornbeek in that book which he lately writ against our nation, wherein he hath objected against us, right or wrong, all that he could any wayes scrape together, was notwithstanding ashamed to lay this at our door, in his Prolegomena pag. 26. where he sayes, An autem verum fit quod vulgò in historiis legatur, &c. i.e. whether that be true which is commonly read in histories, to aggravate the Iewes hatred against the Christians, or rather the Christians against the Iewes, that they should annually upon the preparation of the Passeover, after a cruell manner sacrifice a Christian child, privily stollen, in disgrace, and contempt of Christ, whose passion, and crucifixion the Christians celebrate, I will not assert for truth; as well knowing, how easy it was for those times wherein these things are mentioned, to have happen’d, (especially after the Inquisition was set up in the Popedome) to forge, and fain; and how the histories of those ages, according to the affection of the writers, were too too much addicted, and given unto fables and figments. Indeed I have never yet seen any of all those relations that hath by any certain experiment proved this fact, for they are all founded; either upon the uncertain report of the vulgar, or else upon the secret accusation of the Monks belonging to the inquisition, not to mention the avarice of the informers, wickedly hanquering after the Iewes wealth, and so with ease forging any wickednesse. For in the first book of the Sicilian constitutions tit. 7. we see the Emperour Frederick saying, Sivero Iudæus, vel Saracenus fit, in quibus prout certò perpendimus Christianorum persecutio minus abundat ad præsens, but if he be a Iew or a Saracen, against whom, as we have weighed, the persecution of the Christians do much abound, &c. thus taxing the violence of certain Christians against the Iewes. Or if perhaps it hath sometimes happened, that a Christian was kill’d by a Iew, we must not therefore say that in all places where they inhabit, they annually kill a Christian Child. And for that which Thomas Cantipratensis lib. 2. cap. 23. affirms, viz. that it is certainly known, that the Iewes every year, in every province, cast lots what city or town shall afford Christian bloud to the other cities. I can give it no more credit then his other fictions and lies wherewith he hath stuffed his book. Thus farre Iohn Hoornbeek.

13. Notwithstanding all this, there are not wanting some histories, that relate these and the like calumnies against an afflicted people, For which cause the Lord saith, He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye, Zach. 2.6. I shall cursolarily mention some passages that have occurred in my time, whereof, I say not that I was an eye witnesse, but onely that they were of generall report and credence, without the least contradiction. I have faithfully noted both the names of the persons, the places where, and the time when they happened, in my continuation of Flavius Josephus, I shall be the lesse curious therefore in reciting them here. In Vienna the Metropolis of Austria, Frederick being Emperour, there was a pond frozen, according to the cold of those parts, wherein three boyes (as it too frequently happens) were drowned. when they were missed, the imputation is cast upon the Jewes, and they are incontinently indicted, for murthering of them, to celebrate their Passeover. And being imprisoned, after infinite prayers and supplications made to no effect, three hundred of them were burnt, when the pond thawd, these three boyes were found, and then their innocency was clearly evinc’d although too late, after the execution of this cruelty.

In Araguza about thirty yeares ago, there was a Christian woman, into whose house there came a little girle (of eleven yeares of age, daughter to a neighbouring gentleman) richly adorned with jewels: this wretched woman, not thinking of a safer way to rob her, then by killing her, cut her throat, and hid her under her bed, the girle was presently mist, and by information they understood that she was seen to go into that house, they call a Magistrate to search the house, and find the girle dead, she confest the fact, and as if she should have expiated her own guilt by destroying a Iew, though never so innocent, she said, she did it at the instigation and perswasion of one Isaac Jeshurun, for that the Jewes wanted bloud to celebrate their feast: she was hang’d, and the Jew was apprehended, who being six times cruelly tortur’d, they employing their wits in inventing unheard of, and insufferable torments, such as might gain Perillous the estimation of mercifull and compassionate, still cryes out of the falshood of the accusation, saying, that that wickednesse which he never committed, no not so much as in his dreams, was maliciously imputed to him, yet notwithstanding he was condemned to remain close prisoner for twenty yeares, (though he continued there onely three,) and to be fed there through a trough, upon the bread and water of affliction, being close manacled, and naked, within a four square wall, built for that purpose, that he might there perish in his own dung. This mans brother Joseph Jeshurun is now living at this time in Hamborough. This miserable man calling upon God, beseeching him to shew some signall testimony of his innocencie, and citing before his divine tribunall the Senatours who had with no more mercy, then justice, thus grievously and inhumanely afflicted him; the blessed God was a just Judge, for the Prince died suddenly at a banquet, the Sunday next ensuing the giving of the sentence, and during the time of his imprisonment, the aforesaid Senatours by little and little dropt away, and died, which was prudently observed by those few that yet remain’d, wherefore they resolved to deliver themselves by restoring him to his liberty, accounting it as a particular divine providence: this man came out well, passed throughout all Italy, where he was seen, to the admiration of all that had cognizance of his sufferings, and died a few yeares since at Jerusalem.

14. The act of the faith (which is ordinarily done at Toledo) was done at Madrid, Anno 1632, in the presence of the King of Spain, where the Inquisitors did then take an oath of the King and queen, that they should maintain and conserve the Catholick faith in their dominions. In this act it is found printed, how that a family of our nation was burnt, for confessing upon the wrack the truth of a certain accusation of a maid servant, who, (provoked out of some disgust) said, that they had scourged, and whip’t an image, which by the frequent lashes, issued forth a great deal of bloud, and crying with an out stretched voice, said unto them, why do you thus cruelly scourge me? the whole nobility well understood that it was all false, but things of the inquisition all must hush.

15. A very true story happened at Lisbon, Anno 1631. A certain Church missed one night a silver pixe or box, wherein was the popish hosts. And forasmuch as they had seen a young youth of our nation, whose name was Simao pires solis, sufficiently noble, to passe by the same night, not farre from thence, who went to visit a Lady, he was apprehended, imprisoned, and terribly tortured. They cut off his hands, and after they had dragged him along the streets, burnt him. One year passed over, and a thief at the foot of the gallowes confessed how he himself had rifled and plundered the shrine of the host, and not that poor innocent whom they had burnt. This young mans brother was a Frier, a great Theologist, and a preacher, he lives now a Jew in Amsterdam, and calls himself Eliazar de solis.

16. Some perhaps will say, that men are not blame worthy for imputing to the Jewes, that which they themselves with their own mouthes have confest. But surely he hath little understanding of wracks, and tortures that speaks thus. An Earle of Portugal, when his Physicyan was imprisoned for being a Jew, requested one of the inquisitors, by letter, that he would cause him to be set at liberty, for that he knew for certain that he was a very good Christian, but he not being able to undergo the tortures inflicted on him, confessed himself a Iew, and became a penitentiary. At which the Earl being much incenst, feins himself sick, and desires the inquisitor by one of his servants, that he would be pleased to come and visit him. when he came, he commanded him that he should confesse that himself was a Iew, and further, that he should put it down in writing with his own hand, which when he refused to do, he charges some of his servants to put a helmet that was red hot in the fire, (provided for this purpose) upon his head; at which, he not being able to endure this threatned torment, takes him aside to confesse, and also he writ with his own hand that he was a Iew: whereupon the Earl takes occasion to reprove his injustice, cruelty, and inhumanity, saying, in like manner as you have confest, did my Physicyan confesse. Besides that, you have presently, onely out of fear, not sence of torment, confest more. For this cause in the Israelitish Senate, no torture was ever inflicted, but onely every person was convicted at the testimony of two witnesses. That such like instruments of cruelty may enforce children that have been tenderly educated, and fathers that have lived deliciously to confesse that they have whipt an image, and been guilty of such like criminall offences, daily experience may demonstrate.