A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

Your last end endeavour consists in an exception to somewhat affirmed in the twentieth Chapter of the Animadversions directed unto your Paragraph about Saints and Heroes. And I am sorry that I must close with the Consideration of it because I would willingly have taken my leave of you upon better terms, then your discourse will allow me to do. But I shall as speedily represent you unto your self as I am able; And then give you my Salve aeternumque Vale.

YOur last end endeavour consists in an exception to somewhat affirmed in the twentieth Chapter of the Animadversions directed unto your Paragraph about Saints and Heroes. And I am sorry that I must close with the Consideration of it because I would willingly have taken my leave of you upon better terms, then your discouse will allow me to do. But I shall as speedily represent you unto your self as I am able; And then give you my Salve aeternumque Vale.

You tell us in your Fiat, that the Pagans defamed the Christians for the worship of an Asses head, and you give this reason of it because the Jews had defamed our Lord Jesus Christ whose head and half Portraiture Christians used upon their Altars, even as they do at this day, of his great simplicity and ignorance. Two things you suppose, (1.) That the Christians placed the Head and half Portraiture of our Saviour in those days on their Altars; which is alone to your purpose. (2.) That this gave occasion to the Pagans to defame them with the worship of an Asses head, because the Jews had so blasphemed the Lord Christ as you say. These things I told you are fond and false, and destitute of all colour of Testimony from Antiquity. That the worship of an Asses head was originally charged on the Jews themselves, and on Christians no otherwise, but as they were accounted a Sect of them, or their off spring▪ and that what in the same place you assert, of the Jews ⟨p. 560⟩accusing the Christians for the worship of Images, or the Christians using the Picture of Christs head, or his half Portraiture on their Altars, are monsters that none o• the Ancients ever dreamed of. What plead you […] your Vindication? quite omitting that what […] alone you are concerned, you only undertake to prove that the worship of an Asses head was […] used to the Christians as well as to the Jews, which you say I deny, and say that it was not charged on the Jews at all. And the reason of this charge you say, was, because they were reckoned among the Jews in odiosis, and accounted of them. So well do you mind what you had said before, of the rise of that imputation on the Christians, from the blasphemy of the Jews. So (1.) In your Fiat you say no hig of the Jews at all, but only that by their […], the Pagans took occasion to slander the […]; being now better instructed by the Animadversions, in the rise of that foolish calumny, you change your note and close in with what is in them […]. (2.) You unduly affirm that I deny this to have been charged on the Christians, when I grant it was, and that in the very same manner and on the same account, that your self, now contrary to what you had written before, acknowledge it to have been.