At these _five Porches_ of the five Books of Moses lay _a great Multitude of impotent Folk, blind, halt, withered_. And who are these mystically? The ignorant, erroneous, and unstable in Faith and Principle, as the Fathers often understand them spiritually. And what is the Reason of these their mystical Diseases? Because, as St. _Augustin_[194] and other Fathers say, they rest on the Letter of the Law, which throws them into various Errors, like Diseases, of different Kinds, of which they can't be cured without the Descent of the Spirit, like an Angel, to instruct them mystically to interpret. With these impotent Folk lay _a certain Man who had an Infirmity_. And who is this infirm Man? Mankind in general, say St. _Cyril_[195] and[196] St. _Augustin_, And what is his Infirmity? The Fathers call it the[197] _Palsy_, because of his Instability, and Unsteadiness in Faith and Principles, which is now the Case of Mankind. St. _John_ calls it [Greek: astheneian] _a Weakness_, which being a general Name of all Distempers, we can't guess what might be here the specifical one. But reasonably speaking, according to the Rule of Interpretation, this Man's _Infirmity_ is the same with the Woman's _Spirit of Infirmity_, and that is a Weakness at the Spirit of Prophecy, which Mankind, as well as the Woman of the Church, is to be cured of in the Perfection of Time. And how long did this Man with his Infirmity lay in these Porches of _Bethesda_? _Thirty eight Years_: So has Mankind with his Weakness at the Spirit of Prophecy lay eight and thirty (hundred)[198] Years, reckoning two thousand under the Law, and eighteen hundred since under the Gospel. St. _Augustin_[199] has an ingenious and more mystical way of Computation of these _thirty and eight Years_, which pleases me too, but possibly some Readers may not so easily apprehend it, unless they are well acquainted with the Mystery of Prophetical Numbers. And how is Mankind to be cured of his Infirmity at the Spirit of Prophecy? By being instructed, by the Spirit of Truth, who is to come at the Conclusion of the said thirty and eight mystical Years, _to arise and take up his bed and walk_, that is, to raise his Thoughts to the Contemplation of the divine Mysteries of the Law, and to lift up his Bed of the Letter, on which he has hitherto _rested_, into a sublime Sense, and then he will walk uprightly and steadily in the Faith, without wavering like a Paralytick.