[143] quarrel for it, or as others cast a piece of money among a company
of boys for the sport of seeing them scramble for it, so was the pastime
of the angels here.” In dealing with the healing of the woman who
suffered from a bloody flux, he asks: “What if we had been told of the
Pope’s curing an haemorrhage like this before us, what would Protestants
have said to it? Why, ‘that a foolish, credulous, and superstitious
woman had fancied herself cured of some slight indisposition, and the
crafty Pope and his adherents, aspiring after popular applause,
magnified the presumed cure into a miracle.’ The application of such a
supposed story of a miracle wrought by the Pope is easy; and if
Infidels, Jews, and Mahometans, who have no better opinion of Jesus than
we have of the Pope, should make it, there’s no help for it.”

Woolston professed no doubts of the inspiration of Scripture. While he
argued that it was out of the question to suppose the miracles literally
true, he pretended to believe in the fantastic theory that they were
intended allegorically as figures of Christ’s mysterious operations in
the soul of man. Origen, a not very orthodox Christian Father, had
employed the allegorical method, and Woolston quotes him in his favour.
His

[144] vigorous criticisms vary in value, but many of them hit the nail
on the head, and the fashion of some modern critics to pass over
Woolston’s productions as unimportant because they are “ribald” or
coarse, is perfectly unjust. The pamphlets had an enormous sale, and
Woolston’s notoriety is illustrated by the anecdote of the “jolly young
woman” who met him walking abroad and accosted him with “You old rogue,
are you not hanged yet?” Mr. Woolston answered, “Good woman, I know you
not; pray what have I done to offend you?” “You have writ against my