THE CASE OF The JEWS is Altered, AND Their Synagogue Shut To all Evil-WALKERS. OR, A VINDICATION OF THE JEWS From the false IMPUTATIONS laid upon them in a scurrilous PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, The CASE of the JEWS Stated, OR, The JEWS SYNAGOGVE Opened.  
By Joseph Copley, Gent.  
LONDON, printed for the AUTHOR, 1656.   

The Case of the JEWS, etc.  
THere came lately to my view, a Libel which did penance in a sheet, (as I am informed its Author did once, doubtless for some of his good qualities upon the pillory) entitled, The Case of the Jews stated, or their Synagogues opened. A man would admire to find so much venom in the body of so little a Spider; but what can be more poisonous than the blood of a red haired man? This Scribblers pen was once filled with malice and slander as black as his ink; yet God sends curse Cows short Horns, and 'tis in vain for such Wolves to bark against the Moon. As this Fellows heart is filled with envy and malice; so his noddle is as well gifted with a goodly talon of beastly ignorance, which he betrays at the first dash, when he would needs have the Archisynagogues to be Levites and Prophets; whereas the Levites are one certain Tribe, and the Archi-Synagogue neither were always chosen out of that Tribe, nor constantly Prophets. In the next place he picks out a ridiculous fable out of Matthew Paris, which relates the crucifixion of some children by the Jews: 'tis a likely matter, that the Jews should first circumcise a Child to make him a Jew, and then murder him; or, that in such their erterprises, they should cause one to represent Pilate, when none of them that I ever spoke with, believe there was any such person; besides this Hebraeomastix should (if he would have had his story credited) have bestowed some Hebrew name on his child, rather than Jurnin. We do not deny, but some such things were fathered upon the Jews, as also poisoning of Wells about the time they were expelled, but who I beseech you were the actors of these crimes? none but the Monks and Friars, men, who besides their practice of Necromancy and other unlawful Arts, did frequently murder children in their Monasteries, to keep their unclean conversation from the knowledge of the world, they moved by envy at the prosperity of the Jews, crucified Children, and poisoned Wells that laying the blame upon the Jews, they ●●ght provoke the hatred of the common people towards them, and also to have matter where-with●●●●r which to complain of them to the King that they might pr●●●●e from him their Banishment, for which they h d l●●g time before very earnestly, though in vain, solicited ●im, as Mr. Daniel showeth, whose excellent pen hath set forth very much of the injurious dealing and cruelties used towards the Jews; from the guilt of which, I beseech the Lord to absolve this Generation, & give us good hearts towards his poor afflicted people, who are therefore dispersed amongst us, that we may have occasion for the exercise of mercy and hospitality; and because Almighty God will try whether we will like savage Cannibals devour strangers, or with good Abraham and Lot, receive them kindly into our houses. This fellow says moreover (for though jupiters' brain could produce but one Minerva his whimsical noddle can hatch a thousand Chymaeraes of folly) that the Jews were enjoyed by a Statute to wear a piece of woollen Cloth upon their breasts▪ that they might be thereby distinguished, but he tells us not in what time this Statute was enacted; so that we must let it remain Apocryphas till we have leisure to search, and then I doubt it will be canonised, nemine contra dicente, amongst the rest of his lies. But that which I most blame in this Companion, is, that he goes about by a secret way to instruct (sic sus Minervam docet) the supreme Authority what is to be done; for his presumption intends this Patch as a precedent for them, and flatters himself that it may prove a Remora to their favourable proceed in the Jewish affairs. But admit the Jews were commanded to wear such a badge of distinction formerly in England, as now they are at Rome, caused to wear Hats of a different colour from others: must the same measure be used towards these Jews in these times, and under this most excellent Government? must we imitate Papists in using strangers to whom we give harbour despitefully? doth this man find it in the Gospel, that we must do good to those who persecute us, and will he persecute those who do him no hurt? is this to assert the Kingdom of Christ? truly it is rather the mystery of iniquity, and the voice of an Antichrist: there is no reason for this pretence, against it there is; for should the Jews have Re-admittance here, it would behoove many of them, and some very eminent persons, who have been forced to dissemble their Religion among the Papists, to keep themselves still in some sort secret (which they cannot do if they may be known by their Garments, lest the Jesuitical spies, which are here, should send intelligence of them beyond Sea, and upon their account cause their Friends in Spain and Portugal, and in some parts of Italy, where the Inquisition is, as in Milan, to be called in question.  
In the next place, it would grieve one to see how the pitiful thing doth stretch his slender wits upon the tentor-books to muster up the Jews Ceremonies, Prayers, and Benedictions used in their Synagogues, which he hath borrowed ou● of Purchases Pilgrimage, or Rosse his View of Religions, (who took them upon trust themselves) but if he had met with Leo Modena's Book of the Manners and Customs of the Jews▪ translated by Mr. Edmund Chilmead, he might have been better informed, however we must take it at his hand, as men buy wares at the third and fourth Mart, with all the sophistications; so that it may he said of him in respect of his Pamphlet, as one said of Homer in regard of his Iliads.  
And thus he lies, thus mingle false with true. 'Tis true that many of those Blessings and Ceremonies are indeed used by the Jews, for which they are not to be blamed by him or any other: but when he would persuade people by the opening and shutting of Heavens Gates, that the Jews believe God hath need of rest or sleep, or shuneth importunities, risum teneatis amici? And since I read the story of his Cock, I profess I never saw a Cock, but I thought of him for a Coxcomb when he comes to the privy he paddles to the very throat in stinking lies, and there we will leave him to play the Gold-finder, for 'tis a place much fit for him, than the Pulpit: only we must take some notice of his malicious assertion, That the Jews constantly curse the Christians in their Assemblies, cujus contrarium verum est: for in their daily prayers they beseech God for the peace of those Nations among whom they live, and for the honour, safety, and increase of the power of the Prince under whose protection they are; as may more largely appear in a Declaration set forth lately by that learned Jewish Doctor Menasseh ben Israel, which might have stopped this Fellows mouth, and prevented his ugly, misshaped, abortive, unlicked Cub from creeping into the view of the world, if his brutish Sire had not been wholly made up of folly and impudence.  
Whereas he mentions lascivious Mottoes (as he calls them) placed in the houses of the Jews, it is utterly false; or should any lewd persons of them (and it seem, his acquaintance was only of that sort, if he knew any Jews at all) set up any such Ribaldry in their rooms, the graver sort, who do frequently visit the houses of the rest, would tear it down; and for my own particular, I have been in the houses of many Jews, but never saw any such thing: the only Ornaments they use for their walls are Pictures representing Bible-Histories. Suppose he had seen some such Mottoes in the houses of some idly disposed person amongst the Jews, is it not a madness in him to chargethe whole nation with it? some of all nations and religions are bad, must therefore all the men in the world be so? if men did not consider the time when his paper came out, they would think Midsummer Moon did operate in this Fellow's Pate. In the rear of all he brings up that of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. cap. ult. v. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Marinatha. But he should have remembered, that the Apostle speaketh here neither of, nor to the Jews, but concerning such as Alexander, and Hymeneus, Simon Magus, and his Followers, who were apostatised Christians; for Paul doth elsewhere expound himself, and affirm, That the Church hath no power to punish by Excommunication or Anathematization, such as always were out of the pale, but such only as having been once within the pale, have departed out of it. To this all the Fathers and Doctors of the primitive Church assent; for none can have due vocation to punish, but those to whom the offender oweth subjection. In this respect the renowned Republik of Venice, together with all the most learned Civilians of Christendom, have judged it unfit that the secular Magistrate should take any notice of any ecclesiastical censures denounced against such as never were subject to the Church, as may be seen more fully in the History of the Inquisition, compiled by that able Statesman and judicious Lawyer, Paul Serveta, an Italian Friar.  
Thus (gentle Reader) have I vindicated the honourable Nation of the Jews from the fowl aspersions of a black-mouthed slanderer; which, if I have done with some sharpness, it is but what his folly hath merited. In the mean time, I hope no ingenious Person will think a rod ill bestowed upon a Fools back: but if ever he display his folly again upon the same subject, (as I look he will, for a fool will be never the wiser, though brayed in a mortar) instead of a Rod, I will send him  

A rope, with which the silly elf  
Shall make a noose, and hang himself.   
I could have enlarged, in showing the many commodities the Jews would bring to this Commonwealth, their adherency formerly to the Parliament of England, and their great affection to the present Government, and particularly to his Highness the Lord Protector, (whose Patronage they do more desire than that of any other Prince in Christendom) but that it hath been done already sufficiently by an abler Pen, I mean that of Menass●h ben Israel, the Hebrew Doctor. Therefore I shall conclude, beseeching Almighty God to give to all those that are right in heart, the fruition of those good things promised under the reign of the Prince of peace, whose coming is daily expected and hope to be at hand by many good Christians.  O that the Salvation of Israel were come out of Zion: when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad, Psal. 14.7. 
FINIS.