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