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LET.

IX.

Doubtless. But what comparison can be properly inftituted between these hearsay stories concerning pagan prodigies, and a feries of miracles, like thofe openly and publickly wrought, for years together, in the face of the world, by Mofes and by Chrift? The hiftorical facts related by Livy may be true, whatever becomes of his prodigies; but, in the other cafe, the miracles are interwoven with, and indeed constitute, the body of the hiftory. No feparation can poffibly be made; the whole must be received, or the whole must be rejected.

P. 3. "Neither is any credit given "to the wonderful account of curing "diseases by the touch, faid to be

poffeffed by Mr. Greatrix, though "we find it in the Philofophical "Tranfactions."

Mr.

Mr. Greatrix's general method of LET.

curing difeafes was not, as I remember, fimply and inftantaneously by the touch, but by the operation of stroking the part affected, and that long continued, or frequently repeated. Sometimes, it is faid, this ftroking fucceeded, and fometimes it failed. If (as we are informed in a note) Boyle, Wilkins, Cudworth, and other great men, attefted the fact, that there were perfons who found themselves relieved by this new device, undoubtedly there were fuch perfons. But whether this relief were temporary; whether it were owing in any, or what degree, to the working of the imagination, or to a real physical change effected by the application of a warm hand, or any particular temperament in the conftitution of the strokerthese

IX.

LET. thefe are points, which the reader IX. may find difcuffed in Mr. Boyle's letter to Henry Stubbe, written upon the occafion, in which he reproves Stubbe, as he well might, for suppofing there was any thing neceffarily and properly miraculous in the affair. Mr. Valentine Greatrix, by all accounts, was an honest, harmless, melancholy country gentleman, of the kingdom of Ireland, who after having gained great reputation by froking in England, returned to pafs his latter days quietly and peaceably in his native country, and was heard of no more. He had no new doctrine to promulgate, pretended to no divine miffion, and, I dare fay, never thought of his cures being employed to dif credit those of his Saviour. The won-. ders reported to have been wrought

formerly

IX.

formerly by Apollonius Tyaneus, LET. and more lately at the tomb of Abbé Paris, have been applied to the fame

purpose. But their day is over—and

now all depends upon poor Mr. Valentine Greatrix !

P. 3. "The miracles of the Old "Teftament were all performed in "thofe ages, of which we have no "credible history."

وو

Pardon me There cannot be a more credible history than that of Mofes ; fince it is impoffible that he could have written, or the Ifraelites received his hiftory, had it not been true, Would he, think you, have called them together, and told them, to their faces, they had all heard and seen fuch and fuch wonders, when every man woman and child in the company knew they had never heard or

feen

LET. feen any thing of the kind? What? IX. Not one honeft foul to

cry out prieftcraft, and impofture! Let these gentlemen try their hands in this way. They have often been requested to do it. Let one of them affemble the good people of London and Weftninfter, and tell them, that on a certain day and hour, he divided the Thames, and led them on dry ground over to Southwark; appealing to them for the truth of what he fays. I should like to see the event of fuch an appeal. There are many fuch appeals recorded of Mofes to his nation; and the book, in which these appeals are fo recorded, contains the municipal law by which that nation has been governed, from the days of Mofes to the diffolution of their polity. This is a fact, without a parallel upon

earth;

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