"But to come nearer home to you; supposing _John_ (who was then above a Hundred, and in his Dotage) had not reported this Miracle of _Lazarus_; but that _Clement_ (joining it with his[281] incredible Story of the Resurrection of a _Phoenix_) or _Ignatius_, or _Polycarp_, or the Author of the _Apostolical Constitutions_ had related it; would not your Christian _Critics_ have been at work to explode it? There is not an antient extra-evangelical Tradition of any Note about _Jesus_, that some or other of your _Critics_ have not boggled at; but such a Story as this of _Lazarus_ would have been received by none. I question, whether Mr. _Whiston_ would not have rejected the _Constitutions_ upon such a Story in them; or if his Fancy for some other Things in them had overcome his Reason against this; yet _Bishop Smallbroke_, who has written against the Canonicalness of the _Constitutions_, with his judicious Animadversions upon this Story, would absolutely have overthrown their Authority. And what would he have said here? Not only that the Miracle smells rankly of Forgery and Fraud, or the _Evangelists_, especially _Matthew_, had never forgotten to record it; but he would have reminded us of intrinsic Notes (_hereafter to be mention'd_) of Absurdity, and Incredibility, that would for ever have cashier'd the Belief of it. And whether we _Infidels_ ought not to take the same Liberty to criticize on _John_'s Gospel, which you do on your Apostolical Fathers, who wrote before him, let the impartial and unprejudiced judge: If in justice we ought to take it; we are sure we could give two or three notable Reasons (but that We will not now put Christians out of Temper with them) why _John_ may be suspected of a Mistake or Fraud in this Miracle, rather than any other Christian Writer of the _first_ or _second_ Century." To such an unhappy Objection, arising from the unnatural and preposterous Order of Time, in which they are recorded, are these three Miracles before us obnoxious. And I am thinking how Ministers of the Letter will be able to get over it. As for my self, who am for the mystical Interpretation of these Miracles, I have a solid and substantial Answer at hand to the foresaid Objection, an Answer that curiously accounts for the Order of Time in which these Miracles are related; but my Answer will not please our _Divines_, nor stand them in any stead; therefore they must look up another good one of their own, that will comport with the _Letter_; or the said Objection, improved with another presently against _Lazarus_'s Resurrection, will be too hard, not for Christianity it self, but for their Ministry.