From these premises it plainly appears that the king really pretended to be endowed with the power or gift of working miracles, and of healing or curing one of the most obstinate and incurable diseases incident to the human frame, even by his _touch_. Most curious and ludicrous it surely must be to see such a man as Charles making such a pretension, and affecting to be hand and glove with Heaven; and no less so to see the whole nation, or at least the whole body of the church folks, or national religionists, (clergy and laity) which constituted the great bulk of the people, giving him full credit for every thing, and deeming the least doubt or hesitation about his miraculous claims as a sure indication of disloyalty, and scarcely short of high treason. Allowing or supposing his majesty to have really possessed this miraculous power, or supernatural healing gift, still it must appear rather a queer case that it should be affected by the _temperature of the seasons_, and actually controlled, overpowered, and crippled, as it were, by the _hot weather_; and that the royal operator, in the meantime, in case he persisted in his benevolent practice, or labour of love, during the dog-days, and for some time before and after, should be exposed to the imminent danger of some alarming _contagion_: at least he and his courtiers seemed evidently to have had such apprehension. In all this, however, his loyal and admiring subjects could discover nothing, either marvellous or suspicious, or yet any way inconsistent. Their sovereign’s miraculous claims found in them the most ready acquiescence. With some, indeed, especially among the poor persecuted nonconformists, the case was otherwise. They disbelieved those royal pretentions. But it only served to strengthen the public prejudice against them; being generally looked upon as an additional and sure proof of their disaffection, or their moral and political depravity.—So much for Charles’s supernatural powers and miraculous deeds.