Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and Defences of His Discourses. Thomas Woolston

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СКАЧАТЬ say as St. John of Jerusalem[83] did, that her own Imagination cured herself; and should urge the Probability of it, because Jesus could do no Cures and[84] Miracles against Unbelief, Who can help it? In this Case our Divines must prove, that this Woman's Hæmorrhage was of that kind, that no Faith nor Fancy in herself could help her without the Divine Power; but this is impossible for them to do, unless there had been a more certain Description of her Disease, than the Evangelists have given of it.

      Our Divines will indeed tell us, what I believe, that it was the Divine Power co-operating with the Faith and Imagination of the Woman that cured her; because Jesus says that Virtue had gone out of him to the healing of her: And I wish Infidels would acquiesce here, and not say, that Jesus's Virtue hung very loose on him, or the Woman's Faith, like a Fascination, could never have extracted it against his Will and Knowledge: But what if they should say, that Jesus, being secretly appriz'd of the Woman's Faith, and Touch of him, took the Hint; and to comfort and confirm her in her Conceit, and to help the Cure forward, said, Virtue was gone out of him? This would be an untoward Suggestion, which if Infidels should make, our Divines must look for a Reply to it.

      It is said of the Pope, when he was last at Benevento, that he wrought three Miracles, which our Protestant Clergy, I dare say, believe nothing at all of. But, for all that, it is not improbable, but that some diseased People, considering their superstitious Veneration for the Pope, and their Opinion of the Sanctity of the Present, might be persuaded of his Gift of Miracles, and desirous of his Exercise of it; and if they fancyfully or actually received Benefit by his Touch, I don't wonder, without a Miracle. And what if we had been told of the Popes curing an Hæmorrhage like this before us? What would Protestants have said to it? Why, "that a foolish, credulous, and superstitious Woman had fancy'd herself cured of some slight Indisposition; and the crafty Pope and his Adherents, aspiring after popular Applause, magnified the presumed Cure into a Miracle. If they would have us Protestants to believe the Miracle, they should have given us an exacter Description of her Disease, and then we could better have judg'd of it". The Application of such a supposed Story of a Miracle wrought by the Pope, is easy; and if Infidels, Jews, and Mahometans who have no better Opinion of Jesus, than we have of the Pope, should make it, there's no Help for it.

      And thus have I made my Descants on this supposed Miracle before us and argued, as much as I could, against the Miraculousness of it, both from the Nature of the Disease, and the Manner of the Cure of it. Whether any one shall think I have said any thing to the Purpose or not, is all one to me. My Design in what I have done, is not to do Service to Infidelity, but, upon the Command and Encouragement of the Fathers, to turn Mens Thoughts to the mystical Meaning of the said Miracle, which I come now to give an Account of.

      None of the Fathers (excepting St. Chrysostom[85], who writes here more like an Orator than a Physician) ever trouble themselves, when they speak of this Miracle, about the Nature of the Disease, literally, in this Woman, or the greatness of the Cure of it; but alone bend their Studies to the mystical Interpretation, for the sake of which, this Evangelical Story was written, and originally transacted.

      Accordingly, they tell us that this Woman is a Type[86] of the Church of the Gentiles in after Times. And as to her Hæmorrhage or Issue of Blood, they understand it of the[87] Impurity and Corruption of the Church by ill Principles and bad Morals, that the would flow with. Some of the Fathers, as[88] Gregory Nazianzen, and[89] Eusebius Gallicanus, will have the Issue of Blood to be a Type of the scarlet Sin of Blood-guiltiness in the Church: If so, we must understand it of the Effusion of Christian Blood by War and Persecution.

      The twelve Years of the Woman's Affliction with her Hæmorrhage is a typical Number of the Church's impure State for above twelve Hundred Years. And whether some of the primitive Church did not, by the said twelve Years of the Woman, understand twelve Ages, I appeal to[90] Irenæus, to whom I refer my Readers, Accordingly this typify'd Woman of the Church, should be the same with the Woman[91] in the Wilderness, that, as St. John says, was twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years there sustained; and by whom many Protestants, as well as the Fathers, understand the Church universal. When the said twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years of the Church's being in the Wilderness, did commence or will end, is none of my Business to enquire or ascertain. But as this Woman in the Gospel is said after twelve Years Affliction, to be cured of her Disease by Jesus; so it is the Opinion of the Fathers, that the Church universal, after twelve Hundred Years of her Wilderness State, will be purified and sanctified by the Gifts of the Spirit of Christ, and enter upon a more holy, peaceable, and happy Condition, absolutely freed from her Issue of Blood, which, through Persecution and War, she has for many Ages labour'd under. It is not my Concern to collect all the Authorities of the Fathers to this Purpose; but only say, that if at the End of twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years, the Church, like the Woman, be not cur'd of her Hæmorrhage and mystical Wounds and Sores; if her present impure and unsound State be not chang'd into an holy, healthy, and peaceable one; many good Protestants, as well as the Fathers, are mistaken, and abundance of Prophecies of the Old and New Testament, that have been hereunto urged, will lose their Credit.

      But who are meant by the Physicians of the Woman, that have had the mystical Hæmorrhage and Diseases of the Church Under Cure all this while? Who should, but pretended Ministers, of the Gospel? Ministers of the Gospel are not only by the Fathers call'd metaphorically[92] spiritual Physicians; but our Divines and Preachers of all Denominations like the Metaphor, and think themselves able Physicians at the Diseases of the Church, which they are forward to prescribe and apply Medicines to, whenever, in their Opinion, she stands in need of them. Whether our Divines like to be accounted the Physicians of the Text before us, I much question; but it is certain that[93] Eusebius Gallicanus expressly says, that our Divines and pretended Philosophers are meant by them; and venerable Bede[94] upon the Place is of the same Mind too.

      The Woman of the Gospel is said[95] to suffer many Things of many Physicians, and was nothing better'd, but rather grew worse; that is, she grew worse not in time only, but through the Use of her Physicians, who were her[96] Tormentors. So the Diseases of the Church in time have increased, for all the Use she has made of her spiritual Physicians, the Clergy. In every Age has the Church been degenerating in Morals and Principles, as any one knows, that is able to make an Estimate of Religion in times past; and all along have her ecclesiastical Quack Doctors contributed to her ill State of Health. As many Physicians with their different Applications tormented the poor Woman; so our many Empericks in Theology with their different Schemes of Church Government and various Systems of Divinity, like so many Prescriptions for Cure, have increased the Divisions, widen'd the Wounds, and inflamed the Sores of the Church. And if the Woman's Issue of Blood be, according to the Fathers, a particular Type of the Blood of the Church, that is shed in Persecution and War; our Theological Pretenders to Physick, have been so far from providing and prescribing a good Stiptic in this Case that they have been the Occasion of the Effusion of much Christian Blood; there having been many a War and Persecution, that these Incision Doctors, who should be all Balsam, have been the Cause of.

      The Woman spent all her Living, all her yearly Income, upon her Physicians, and as it seems to a bad Purpose; so very great and large Revenues of the Church, are expended on her ecclesiastical Doctors in spiritual Physick: And to what End and Purpose? Why, to open and widen the bleeding Wounds of the Church, which they should heal and salve up. It is now about twelve Hundred Years, like the twelve Years of the Woman, that the Clergy, our Practitioners in Theological Physick, have received of the Church vast Fees, Stipends and Gratuities (for before that time her Doctors prescrib'd freely) to take care of her Health and Welfare; but unless God provide in due time a Medicine of his own, she is likely to continue in a diseased and sorrowful Condition for all them.

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