The truest Comfort arises from an Opinion, That an Adviser knows what he says; and says, what in his Conscience he believes to be true. How much greater is the Comfort we take, from a Perswasion that the Plague seldom, or never, passes from one Body into another, as was lately proved? As also, that Observations rather inform us of the Seeds of a Pestilence, seldom, or never, being brought over to us in foreign Goods; and besides these two Perswasions, founded on Reason and Experience, we have the Authority of the best Physicians in all Ages, that the Plague, nor any other Disease, is speedily generated. By the first of those Accounts, we have fewer Chances for being sick; and we are sure, by the second, that we have Time to prevent it, or to take the Distemper early, before it is settled into a Habit, or confirmed in a Disease. Such Reasoning, such Observation, is proceeding on good and firm Ground; the other, altogether depends on the Knowledge and Honesty of the Insurer, which can never be depended on, if we have any doubt about his Sincerity, or Understanding. What Doctor _Mead_ has already said, is contrary to the Experience of Mankind, and is purely supported on his bare Assertion; and therefore, I am afraid no great Comfort can be reasonably taken from it. His next Assertion, about the Sweating Sickness, labours under all the Defects imaginable. He will not allow it to be of _British_ Original; nay, that _it is a Plague abated in its Violence by the mild Temperament of our Climate_. He, afterwards, brings it from _France_, and clears the _French_ of its being bred among them; for they, says he, brought it from the Siege of _Rhodes_. Can any Man equal this Doctor in Assertion? Or in quoting History absurdly? For it carries the Name of _Sudor Anglicus_, and our Country charged for having produced it. All foreign Physicians declare it peculiar to _England_; and, that a parcel of it went into _Holland_; but neither _French_, nor _Italian_ Physician, heard any Thing of it, in their own Country, nor among the _Greek_ Islands; and the _Dutch_ fix the Scene of the Sweating Sickness in _England_. So the Sweating Sickness was four Times in _England_, and no where else; yet it is the Fag-end of the Plague brought from _Rhodes_, and thither God knows how, or from whence: But all this supported by much foreign Reading. He _calls this Distemper a Plague with lessen’d Force, _because_ the Symptoms of it were of that Kind, tho’ in a less Degree, as great Faintness and Inquietudes, inward Burning, Pains in the Head, a Delirium_, &c. I am glad we have Dr. _Mead_’s Description of a Plague, it being the first Time he has ventur’d to mention it; and, to do him Justice, he has touched upon it very gently: But, if this is the Plague, we are not seldom, but often visited with it. So there ends our Comfort.