_Christ_'s second spiritual and glorious Advent on the Clouds of the Law and the Prophets. I have indeed written against the _literal_ Stories of _Jesus_'s Miracles, which I still nauseate and abominate the Confinement of Mens Thoughts to it; but if our _Clergy_ would but a little bear with me, they shall see, I _alone_ do Honour to their literal Stories, by making them beautiful Emblems of future and more wonderful Operations. I have indeed call'd _Jesus_ an Impostor, Juggler, Fortune teller (and what not?) by way of Objection against the _Letter_ of his Miracles; but I _alone_ shall do him Honour, in those very Miracles, which he wrought in the Flesh, by proving him to be the Wisdom, as well as Power of God, and that _God was in him of a Truth_, and endued him with a divine Prescience of Futurities, or he could not then have wrought such curious and admirable Models and Prefigurations of his mysterious Works at his _second_ Advent. Whether the _Bishop_ of _St. David_'s, and others, can as yet certainly discern the foresaid Consequence of Christ's mystical Accomplishment of his Miracles upon his spiritual Advent, I can't guess; but if they'll favour me with their Opinion on my _Rabbi_'s Objection above, which will lead us to the allegorical Interpretation of the Law, they shall soon clearly see it. And now I would have the _Bishop_ of _St. David_'s to compare _this Part_ of my _Defence_ with the _Third Chapter_ of his _Vindication_, which treats _on the Practice of the Fathers in interpreting the Scriptures in a mystical and allegorical Method_, and consider whether He or I write the most like a Christian of an orthodox and primitive Faith and Practice. The _Bishop_ says[397] "That it is certain, that without such Assistance (_of the Spirit_) as St. _Paul_ enjoy'd, the mystical Expositions of the Scripture by _Origen_ and other Fathers, tho' made in Imitation of St. _Paul_, have no such Authority as that of St. _Paul_ stampt on them." What, in the Name of Wonder, does the _Bishop_ here mean? Tho' St. _Paul_ has not allegoriz'd the whole Law, but only some few Parts; yet he expressly says, often enough, that the whole is a _Figure_ and _Shadow_ of Things to come under _Christ_; and our Saviour himself, as the Fathers understood him, intimates often, that all Things that were written in the Law and the Prophets, are Types and Prophecy of him, and that he came to fulfil them _to a Tittle_. Is not here Authority enough for the Fathers to allegorize the whole Law and the Prophets, in order to shew the Agreement between the Type and Antitype; between the Shadow and the Substance; between the Figure and the Thing figured; and between the Prophecy and its Accomplishment. And whether the Fathers, in their allegorical Expositions, rightly or not, hit off the Sense of the Prophecy; (for it must be confess'd they variously allegorized _this_ and _that_ Passage of Scripture) yet it was _their_ and _our_ Duty and Office,