Reasonably then speaking, there was not much in the Disease and Cure of this Woman. Excepting that Part, which _Satan_ bears, in the Story, there is nothing wonderful in it. And supposing _Jesus_ might exorcise the _Devil_ out of this Woman, or dismount him from off her Shoulders; yet even this makes nothing for his Divine Power and Authority, in as much as many _Exorcists_ among the _Jews_ and even among _Papists_, if Protestants had not more Wit than to believe it, could do as much. And after all, I don't believe the _Evangelist_ intended, that our Saviour should be had in Admiration for the Letter of this Miracle, or St. _Luke_ would accurately have described the Disease, so as to put it out of the Power of Nature and Art to heal it, and of the Wit of _Infidels_ to cavil at the miraculous Cure of it. Neither do I find that the Fathers of the Church ever trouble themselves about the Letter of this Story, which is some Argument, that no great Heed is to be given to it; but are only curious about the Mystery, for which this Miracle was related, and which I come now to give an Account of. As the Fathers said of the Woman with her _Issue of Blood_, that she was a Type of the Church; so they say of this Woman with her _Spirit of Infirmity_, that she is a[101] Figure of the Church too. As the Woman was _bow'd together_; so the Church, as the Fathers do interpret, may be said to be[102] _bow'd down_ to the Earth, when she is _prone_ and _bent_ to, and _intent on_ the literal or earthly Interpretations of the Scriptures; and _can in no wise lift up her self_, like the Woman, _that is_, can't raise her Thoughts to the Contemplation of the cælestial, spiritual, and sublime Sense of them. Hence we see the Propriety of the Name of the Woman's Disease, call'd [Greek: pneuma astheneias], a _Spirit of Weakness_, which is not properly significative of any bodily Distemper, but succinctly is very expressive of the Church's _Weakness_ at the _Spirit_ of Prophecy, which at this Day she labours under.