No Body, I trust, can complain of any disrespectful Usage, I have here given the _Bishop_ of St. _David's_, that considers, how he has treated me in _his Sermon before the Societies for Reformation_; and _in his Charge to the Clergy of his Diocese_; as well as _in his Vindication_. It would be sufficient, if I had no other Excuse for my self than _this_, That Controversy is like a _Game_ at _Foot ball_, in which, if a _Lord_ will engage with a _Plowman_, and should meet with a Kick on the Shins, he ought not to complain of the ill Manners of it: So if a _Bishop_ will dispute with one of lower Degree, he must look for a Rub on his Intellects, a Rap on his Pate, and if his Adversary cuts him on a soft Place, he should know how to bear it with Patience. But the _Bishop_, contrary to this _Game-Rule_ in Controversy, complains[356] of my _unmannerly_ Treatment of him, and cries out of the Sufferings and Reproaches he undergoes, as if he was already more than half a Martyr for Religion. I can't pretend to equal him in Reproaches and Sufferings, having not so quick a Sense of them; and therefore I am willing, that good Christian People should pity my poor _Bishop_, rather than me, in a persecuted and sorrowful Condition. How long it will be, before I publish another, and _second_ Part of my _Defence_, is uncertain, for a Reason, that I need not again mention. But if it please God, that I enjoy Life, Health, and Liberty, I'll go on with my Designs. I am resolv'd to give the _Letter_ of the Scriptures no Rest, so long as I am able by Reason and Authority to disturb it. If our Ministers of the _Letter_ will not ascend with me, the sublime and allegorical _Mountain_ of divine Contemplation, they than have no Comfort nor Enjoyment of themselves in the low _Valley_ of the _Letter_, if I can disquiet them. Notwithstanding what the _Bishop_ has written in _Vindication_ of _Jesus_'s Miracles, the litteral Story of them, by the Leave of God, and of the Civil Magistrate, shall be afresh attack'd, and perhaps with more _Ridicule_, than I used before. What should I flinch for? The litteral Story of _Jesus_'s Miracles is not, in the Opinion of the Fathers, as well as of my self, agreeable to Sense and Reason; neither can _Jesus_'s Authority and Messiahship be founded on the _Letter_ of them. I am not for the _Messiahship_ of a carnal _Jesus_, who cured the bodily Diseases of Blindness and Lameness; but for Messiahship of the spiritual _Jesus_, who will cure the Blindness and Lameness of our Understandings. I am for the Messiahship of the spiritual _Jesus_, who will expel the mercenary Preachers out of his Church, after the manner that _Jesus_ in the Flesh is supposed to have driven the Sellers out of the Temple, which litterally is but a sorry Story. I am for the Messiahship of the spiritual _Jesus_, who exorcised the furious and persecuting Devils out of the Mad-men of _Jews_ and _Gentiles_; and