None of the Fathers (excepting St. _Chrysostom_[85], who writes here more like an _Orator_ than a _Physician_) ever trouble themselves, when they speak of this Miracle, about the Nature of the Disease, literally, in this Woman, or the greatness of the Cure of it; but alone bend their Studies to the mystical Interpretation, for the sake of which, this Evangelical Story was written, and originally transacted. Accordingly, they tell us that this Woman is a Type[86] of the Church of the _Gentiles_ in after Times. And as to her _Hæmorrhage_ or _Issue of Blood_, they understand it of the[87] Impurity and Corruption of the Church by ill Principles and bad Morals, that the would _flow with_. Some of the Fathers, as[88] _Gregory Nazianzen_, and[89] _Eusebius Gallicanus_, will have the _Issue of Blood_ to be a Type of the scarlet Sin of Blood-guiltiness in the Church: If so, we must understand it of the Effusion of Christian Blood by War and Persecution. The _twelve Years_ of the Woman's Affliction with her _Hæmorrhage_ is a typical Number of the Church's impure State for above _twelve Hundred Years_. And whether some of the primitive Church did not, by the said _twelve Years_ of the Woman, understand _twelve Ages_, I appeal to[90] _Irenæus_, to whom I refer my Readers, Accordingly this typify'd Woman of the Church, should be the same with the Woman[91] in the Wilderness, that, as St. _John_ says, was twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years there sustained; and by whom many Protestants, as well as the Fathers, understand the Church universal. When the said twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years of the Church's being in the Wilderness, did commence or will end, is none of my Business to enquire or ascertain. But as this Woman in the Gospel is said after _twelve Years_ Affliction, to be cured of her Disease by _Jesus_; so it is the Opinion of the Fathers, that the Church universal, after _twelve Hundred Years_ of her Wilderness State, will be purified and sanctified by the Gifts of the Spirit of Christ, and enter upon a more holy, peaceable, and happy Condition, absolutely freed from her _Issue of Blood_, which, through Persecution and War, she has for many Ages labour'd under. It is not my Concern to collect all the Authorities of the Fathers to this Purpose; but only say, that if at the End of twelve Hundred and sixty Days or Years, the Church, like the Woman, be not cur'd of her _Hæmorrhage_ and mystical _Wounds_ and _Sores_; if her present impure and unsound State be not chang'd into an holy, healthy, and peaceable one; many good _Protestants_, as well as the Fathers, are mistaken, and abundance of Prophecies of the Old and New Testament, that have been hereunto urged, will lose their Credit.