A simple
declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say,
his apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some
expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to
inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old
persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben
Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great
body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to
the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as
much to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are
Protestants, as children, and the common people call all that are not
animals Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a
proselyte. Or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved
in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a
Protestant; _ergo_, etc.: as if a marmoset, contending to be a man,
overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly
proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say,
_ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_
proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of
Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert.
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