3. _Third_ miraculous Story of _Jesus_'s, that is of his telling (_John_ iv.) the Woman of _Samaria_ her Fortune, _of having had five Husbands, and being then an Adulteress_, &c. in which there is a notable Miracle display'd, in the Opinion of our _Divines_, that proves _Jesus_'s Omniscience, or he could not so have search'd into the Heart of this Woman, and told her such Occurrences, that concern'd her Life past. I thought once of transcribing here entirely this Story; and so I would, but that it is a long one, and might have set some Readers, who are by this time awaken'd to pry into the Absurdities of the Letter, a laughing, before I had time my self regularly to animadvert on it. Whether there was any Truth at all in the Letter of this Story, I should much have questioned, but that some Fathers write of it, as if they believed it literally, tho' they make a mystical and allegorical Explication of the whole and every part of it. And I, having a sincere Veneration for the Fathers, will not contradict them, (and I hope this Concession will please the _Clergy_) but, for all that, can't like any part of this Story literally, but could almost wish, that the Fathers, for the Honour of _Jesus_, had made the whole no other than a Parable. It's strange that no _Jews_ or _Infidels_ have as yet ludicrously treated this Story to the, almost, Confutation of our Religion. If their Tongues had not been ty'd by the aforesaid _Satan_ or _Adversary_ to Liberty, I can't think but they must have made some pleasant Animadversions upon it before now. If such a broken, elliptical, and absurd Tale had been told of any other Impostor in Religion; the Wits of our _Clergy_ had been at Work to expose it plentifully; and indeed there's no need of much Wit to make this Tale nauseous and ridiculous to vulgar Understandings. I shall not myself here make all the Remarks I can to the Disadvantage of this Story: I am not as yet so disposed to make Scoffers and _Infidels_ laugh at the _Clergy_ for their Adherence to the Letter of it. All I shall do now, is to make my Observations on the two Uses, that the Clergy very seriously put this Story to, and they are, _First_, to prove the Expectation that there was amongst the _Samaritans_, of a _Messiah_ to come; And _Secondly_, to prove _Jesus_'s Omniscience, or he could not have entered into the Heart of the Woman, and told her, that she had had five Husbands, and was then an Adulteress. To these two Purposes, I find this Story urged by our _Divines_, and I must needs say, as to the