Natali Jesu Christi. Dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, 1707. (My copy was issued in 1722, and gives the date 1710 to the Dedicatory Epistle. The true date, however, is 1707, when Lord Pembroke was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.)
The learning and candour of Dr. Allix found employment in such cases as that of Jonah (John, after baptism) Xeres, a learned Jew from Barbary, who came to England to investigate the truth as to the Messiah. By helping him to inform himself out of books, and by encouraging him to exercise his private judgment, he led him to the conviction that Jesus is the Messiah. He took four hours to convince him of the absurdity of the pretended oral law of the Rabbins. He lent him all the Jewish Paraphrases, Maxims and Commentaries, and finally the New Testament translated into Hebrew; and from these authoritative sources all their arguments were drawn in a controversy which seems to have been prolonged for months. The result was all that could be desired. Xeres had brought a certificate of character from seven London “merchants trading into Barbary in Africa,” “having formerly lived for several years in those parts,” viz., Messrs. Peter Fleuriot, Samuel Robinson, John Lodington, John Adams, Val. Norton, Robert Colmore, and Thomas Coleman. He received a certificate from Dr. Allix, in these words:—
“These are to certify that upon several discourses had with the afore-mentioned Jonah Ben Jacob Xeres, I have found him very well acquainted with the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, and all other Jewish (particularly the Talmudic) learning; so that he was very ready upon the chief objections the Jews make to the doctrine, divinity, and office of our Saviour. But as he is endowed with very good natural and acquired parts, I was the more able to satisfy and convince him of the truth; so that, after having examined by Scripture all the most material controversies, he hath freely declared to myself, and his other friends, his desire to renounce the errors and prejudices of hi, education in the Jewish religion, and to embrace and profess the Christian faith.
“Witness my hand, this 30th day of July, 1709,
“Peter Allix, D.D.”
In 1709, Dr. Allix published anonymously a pamphlet extending to upwards of 200 pages, entitled:—
“Remarks on some books lately publish'd, viz.,
| Mr. | Basnage’s History of the Jews. J Whiston’s Eight Sermons. Lock’s Paraphrase and Notes on St. Paul’s Epistles. Le Clerc’s Bibliotheque Choisie.” |
The Trinitarian controversy raised no slight animosity in some quarters against Dr. Allix. He had attributed some works of Anti-Trinitarian tendency to a Mr. N., and other writers who professed to believe the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. The rage of the Rev. Stephen Nye, Rector of Hormead, may be seen in the following ebullition:— “Of so many eminent for learning and dignity as have written against those books . . . . none charged those books on Mr. N., or on the other supposed writers, save only this stranger, who of a refugee for religion was not ashamed to turn informer; he that will take on him the infamous character of an informer is ready, without doubt, to go much farther, if circumstances and opportunity invite him.” He also came into collision with a personal acquaintance, William Whiston, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge.
I would not go farther in this matter, if it did not afford a good opportunity of exhibiting Dr. Allix’s intercourse with English society, and also his remarkable command of the English language, which he had acquired by careful study. I have before me a pamphlet entitled, “Remarks upon some places of Mr. Whiston’s books, either printed or in manuscript. By P. Allix, D.D. The Second Edition, to which is adjoined, an answer to Mr. Whiston’s Reply. London, 1711.”
