And how can we come at the Knowledge of this Woman's Disease, but by the original Words of the _Evangelist_. St. _Luke_ says, she was one [Greek: pneuma echousa astheneias], _that had a Spirit of Weakness_, that is, was poor-Spirited and pusilanimous; and if she was [Greek: synkyptousa], _bow'd down_ upon't, its no more than might be expected of a disconsolate, melancholy and dejected Person. Here then is the Disease of the Woman: If it had been worse, St. _Luke_, the Physician, if he was of Sufficiency in his Art, should better have express'd himself; so as to give us another Conception of it. And if _Satan_ had not been brought into the Tale, whom it is easy, by reasoning as above, to exorcise out of it, here is a no more grievous Distemper, than what upon the comfortable Exhortations of a wise Man may be cured. And do what our Divines can, they can make literally no more of this Story. It is said, that for _eighteen Years_ the Woman labour'd under this Disease. And she might be _hippish_ and _drooping_ for a longer time, and be no less easily at last cured. It's pity the _Evangelist_ had not told us how old this Woman was, when the Distemper first seiz'd her; then we could have made better Conjectures about the Nature and Cure of it. If there was any room to suppose, either from the Words of Scripture or extra-scriptural History, that she was about _fifty_ or _sixty_, when she first began to droop and the _Devil_ got upon her Back; here had been Scope for a most stupendous Miracle; and our _Divines_ might have asserted, what no Body could have contradicted, that _Jesus_ had made an old Woman, who was _bow'd down_, not only under the Weight of _Satan_, but under the Burthen of seventy or eighty Years, young again; and had restored her to the Health, Vigor, and Beauty of one of fifteen. Here would have been a mighty Miracle indeed. And I don't doubt, but our _Divines_ would willingly get into such a Notion of this Miracle, and would heartily espouse it, but for the Offence they must needs give to decrepid old Women, who may be out of Conceit with themselves upon it, as if they carried the _Devil_ on their Shoulders, as the Cause of their Decripedness and Incurvity. And such an Offence would be of ill Consequence.