The Fathers indeed call this Man's Infirmity the _Palsy_, which in truth is generally worse than better by Time, and after _thirty_ and _eight_ Years, must needs be very deplorable, and incurable without a Miracle. But why do they call it the Palsy? They have no Authority for it from the Text, without which, as our litteral _Doctors_ will not subscribe to their Opinions in other Cases; so why should I here? In short, the Fathers had never call'd it the _Palsy_, but for the sake of the Mystery; and I am not bound to own _that_ to have been the Distemper, any more than it was want of Legs; for that would be making of Miracles for _Jesus_, without Reason and Authority. If _Jesus_ here had healed the whole _Multitude of impotent Folk_; without Enquiry what Numbers there might be of them, I should have believed that he wrought there many great Miracles, in as much as in such a great Multitude, there must needs, in all Probability, be some incurable by Art or Nature: But since he cured only this _one_ Man, it affords Matter of Speculation, whether he was the _most_ or the _least_ diseased amongst them. Our _Divines_, for the sake of the Miracle, may possibly suppose him to be the most grievously afflicted of any; but _Infidels_, on the other hand, will say, not so: but with their Cavils will urge that this infirm Man was either a Dissembler, whom _Jesus_ shamed out of his pretended Disease, or that he was only hippish, and fancyfully more than really distemper'd of a long Time, whom _Jesus_ by suitable Exhortations and Admonitions, working upon his Imagination, persuaded into a Belief of his Cure, and bid him to walk off. Certain it is, that _Infidels_ will say, it was not a Power of Miracles in _Jesus_ which heal'd him, or he had used it then and there for the Sanation of others also. And thus have I finish'd my Invective against the Letter of this Story; which, if any are offended at, they enjoy, what is the most reasonable Thing in the World, the same Liberty to write for the Letter, which I have used against it: And so I pass to the Consideration of the Opinions and Expositions of the Fathers on this strange Story.