The Political History of the Devil  

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The Political History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe (1726).

This work sounds like a joke or satire. But the general scholarly opinion is that Defoe really did think of the devil as a participant in world history. He spends some time discussing Milton's Paradise Lost and explaining why he considers it inaccurate.

His view is 18th century Presbyterian - he blames the Devil for the Crusades and sees him as close to Europe's Catholic powers.

The book was placed on The Index.

See also

• De Betoverde Weereld

Full text

V \ \ T H E N O VE L S AND M I S C E L LAN E O U S WO R K S O F D AN I E L D E F O E . DEVIL .

is “ THE N OV E LS AND K ) “ MI S C EL LAN E OUS WO RK S DAN IEL DE FOE. WI TH A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE AU THOR, LITERARY PREF ACES TO THE V ARIOU S PIECES, ILLU STRATIV E N OTES, ETC. IN CLU DING ALL CONTAIN E D IN THE E DITION A TTRIBU TED TO THE LATE SIR WALTER SCOTT, WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITION S. V OL. ! . THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . O! FORD PRIN TED BY D . A . TALBOYS, ron THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSI ' DE, LONDON . 1 840.

THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEV IL . IN O N E VOLU ME .

a V THE “ ; PO L I T I C A L H I S T O R Y OF T HE D E V I L AS WE LL A N C I E N T AS M O D E R N IN TWO PARTS . PART I . Containing a State of the Devil ’ s Circumstances, and the various Turns of his Affairs , from his Expulsion ou t of Heaven , to the Creation of Man ; with Remarks on the several Mistakes concerning the Reason and Manner of his Fall . Also his Proceedings with Mankind ever since Adam, to the first planting of the Christian Religion in the world . PAR T II . Conta ining his more private Conduct, down to the pre sent times : His Government , his Appearances , his Manner of Working, and the Tools he works with . Ba d a s he is, the D ev il may be a bus ’d, Bef a lsely cha rg ’d, a nd ca uselessly a ccu s ’ d, When Men u nwilling to be bla m ’d a lone, S hif t of those Crimes on Him which a re th eir O wn. L O N D O N Printed for T . WARN ER, at the Bla ck Boy in Pa ter - noster Row, 1 726 .

AS CONCERNING A D E D I C A T I O N . IT is not the easiest thing in the case before me to de termine who has the most right to a dedication of this work . Ancient usage would have directed a solemn author to address these sheets to the great Majesty of Heaven, in congratulation of his glorious victory over the Devil and his angels ; but I decline that method as profane . The same reason forbids me addressing to Him who conquered him on earth, and who when the Devil was so insolent as to assault him, made him fly like a van quished rebel , with but the word, Get thee behind me. I had then some thoughts of inscribing it to Satan himself, but I did ngt really know how to relish hold ing a parley with the Devil , and talking to him in the first person ; nay, and as it were, making all my readers do so too ; and besides, as I knew there was so very little in the whole work that Satan would be pleased with , I was loath to compliment him, while I was exposing him ; which would be to imitate the very hypocrisy by which he is disting uished, and you might say, I played the devil with the Devil . M These difficulties presenting, I think the giving my reasons for the making no dedication , is dedication

THE C ON TEN TS. PART I . CHAP . I . Being an introduction to the whole work CH AP . II. Of the word devil, ’ as it is a proper name to the Devil, and any or all his host, angels, &c. CHAP . III. Of the original ofthe Devil, who he is, what he w as before his expulsion out of heaven, and in what state he was from that time to the creation of man CHAP . IV . Of the name of the Devil , his original, and the nature of his circumstances since he has been called by that name CHA P . V . Of the station Satan had in heaven before he fell ; the nature and original of his crime , and some of Mr. Milton ’ s mistakes about it CHAP . VI . What became of the Devil and his host of fallen spirits after their being expelled from he aven, and his wandering condition till the creation with some more of Mr . Milton ’ s ab surdities on that subject VII . Of the number of Satan ’ s host ; how they came first to know of the new created worlds now in being, and their measures with man kind upon the discovery 1 7 xii C ON TEN TS . C HAP . VIII . Of the power Of the Devil at the time of the creation ofthis world whether it has not been further straitened and limited since that time , and what shifts and stratagems he is obliged to make u se of to compass his de signs upon mankind CIIAP. I! . Of the progress Of Satan in carrying on his conquest over mankind, from the fall of Ev e to the Deluge C HA P . X . Of the Devil ’ s second kingdom, and how he got footing in the renewed world by his v ictory over Noah and his race CHAP . XI . Of God ’ s calling a church out ofthe midst of a degenerate world, and of Satan ’ s new mea sures u pon that incident : how he attacked them immediately, and his success in those attacks 1 45 PART II . CHAR. I . Introduction C HAP . II. Of Hell, as it is represented to u s, and how the Devil is to b e understood as being person ally in Hell, when, at the same time, we find him at liberty, ranging Over the world CHAR. III. Of the manner Of Satan ’ s acting and carry ing on his affairs in this world, and particularly of his ordinary workings in the dark, by pos session and agitation C HAP . IV . Of S atan ’ s ag ents or missionaries , and their actings upon and in the minds of men In his name CONTENTS . C HAR. V . Of the Devil ’ s management in the Pagan hierarchy by omens, entrails, augurs, oracles, and such-like pageantry Of hell and how they went off the stage, at last, by the introduction oftru e religi on CHAR. VI . Of the extraordinary appearances Of the Devil, and particularly Of the cloven foot CHAR. VII . Whether is most hurtful to the world, the Devil walking about without his cloven foot, or the cloven foot walking about without the Devi l ? CHAR. VIII . Of the cloven foot walking about the without the Devil, v iz . of witches making bar gains for the Devil, and particularly of selling the soul to the Devil CHAR. IX . Of the tools the Dev il works with, v iz . witches, wizards or warlocks, conjurers, magi eiaus, diviners, astrologers, interpreters of dreams, tellers Of fortunes ; and, above all the rest, his particular modern privy- councillors , called wits and fools CHAR. X . Of the various methods the Devil takes to converse with mankind CHAR. XI . Of divination, sorcery, the black art, pawaw ing, and such- like pretenders to devilism, and how far the Devil is or is not concerned in them THE CO N C LU SIO N . Of the Devil ’ s last scene of liberty, and what may be supposed to be his end, with what we are to understand of his being tor mented for ever and ever ! ( lll

THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEV IL. CHAP. I . Being a n Introdu ction to the whole work . I DOU BT not but the title of this book will amuse some Of my reading friends a little at first ; they will m ake a pause, perhaps, as they do at a witch ’ s prayer, and be some time a resolving whether they had best look into it or no, lest they should really raise the Devil by reading his story . Children and Old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the Devil, and have formed ideas Of him in their minds, in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that really it were enough to fright the Devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed u p in the several figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds Of men ; and, as for themselves , I cannot think by any means that the Devil would terrify them half so much if they were to converse face to face with him . It must certainly therefore be a most useful un der taking to give the true history Of this tyrant Of the air, this god of the world, this terror and aversion of H . D . B 2 THE POLITICAL mankind, which we ca ll Devil ; to Show what he is, and,wh at he is not ; where he is, and where he is not ; when he is in us, and when he is not ; for I cannot doubt but that the Devil is really and bona fi de in a great many of ou r honest weak -headed friends, when they themselves know nothing Of the matter . N or is the work so diffic ult as some may imagine . The Devil ’ s history is not so hard to come at as it seems to be his original and the first rise of his family is upon record ; and as for his conduct, he h as acted indeed in the dark , as to method, in many things, but in general , as cunning as he is, he has been fool enough to expose himself in some Of the most con siderable transactions of his life, and has not shown himself a politician at all . O ur Old friend, Machiavel, outdid him in many things, and I may in the process of this work give an account Of several of the sons of Adam, and some societies Of them too, who have ou t witted the Devil nay, wh o have ou t - sinned the Devil, and that I think may be called out- shooting him in his own b ow. It may perhaps be expected of me in this history, that since I seem inclined to Speak favourably of Satan , to do him j ustice, and to write his story im partially, I Should take some pains to tell you what religion he is of; and even this part may not be so much a jest, as at first sight you may take it to be for Satan has something of religion in him, I assure you ; nor is b e such an unprofitable Devil that way, as some may suppose him to be ; for though, in reverence to my brethren , I will not reckon him among the clergy ; yet I cannot deny but that he Often preaches, and if it be not profitably to his hearers, it is as much their fault, as it is ou t of his design . It has indeed been suggested that he has taken orders , and that a certain pope, famous for being an extraordinary favourite of his, gave him both institu tion and induction ; but as this is not u pon record,

4 THE POLITICAL believes and trembles, or ou r modern gentry of who believe neither God nor Devil . Having thus brought the Devil within the pale, I shall leave him among you for the present ; not but that I may examine in its order who h as the best claim to his brotherhood, the papists or the protestants, and among the latter the Lutherans or the Calvinists, and so descending to all the several denominations Of churches, see who has less of the Devil in them, and who more ; and whether less, or more, the Devil has not a seat in every synagogue, a pew in every church, a place I n every pulpit, and a vote in every synod ; even from the sanhedrim of the Jews, to ou r friends at the Bull and Mouth, &c . , from the greatest to the least . It will I confess, come very much within the com pass Of this part of my discourse, to give an account, or at least make an essay towards it, Of the share the Devil has had in the spreading religion in the world, and especially of dividing and subdividing opinions in religion perhaps, to eke it out and make it reach the further and also to Show h ow far he is or has made himself a missionary of the famous clan de p ropaga nda fi de it is true, we find him heartily employed in al most every corner Of the world a d pmpaga ndum errorem but that may require a history by itself. As to his propagating religion, it is a little hard in deed, at first sight, to charge the Devil with propaga ting religion , that is to say, if we take it literally, and in the gross ; but if you take it as the Scots insisted to take the oath Of fidelity, v iz . with an explanation, it is plain Satan h as very Often had a share in the method, if not in the design, of propagating Christian faith : for example I think I do no inj ury at all to the Devil, to say that he had a great b and in the Old holy war, as it was ignorantly and enthusiastically called ; and in stirring up the Christian princes and powers Of Europe to run a madding after the Turks and Saracens, and make HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 5 war with those innocent people above a thousand miles Off, only because they entered into God ’ s heritage when he had forsaken it, grazed upon his ground when he had fairly turned it into a common and laid it open for the next comer ; spending the nation ’ s treasure, and embarking their kings and people, I say, in a war above a thousand miles Off, filling their heads with that religious madness, called, in those days, ‘holy zeal ’ to recover the term sa ncta , the sepulchres of Christ and the saints, and as they called it falsely, the ‘holy city, ’ though true religion says it was the accursed city, and not worth spending one drop Of blood for. Thisreligious bubble wascertainly Of Satan , who, as he craftily drew them in, so like a tr u e Devil he left them in the l urch when they came there, faced about to the Saracens, animated the immortal Saladin against them, and managed so dexterously that he left the bones of about thirteen or fourteen hundred thousand Christians there as a trophy of his infernal politics ; and after the Christian world had run a la sa nta terra , or in English, a sauntering about a hundred years , he dropped it to play another game less foolish, but ten times wickeder than that which went before it, namely, turning the cru sa does of the Christians one against another ; and, as Hudibras said in another case, Made them fight like mad or drunk, For dame Religion as for punk. Of this you have a complete account in the history Of the popes ’ decrees against the co unt de Toulouse, and the Waldenses and Albigenses, with the crusadoes and massacres which followed upon them, wherein, to do the Devil ’ s politics some justice, h e met with all the success he could desire, and the zealots Of that day executed his infernal orders most punctually, and planted religion in those countries in a glorious and triumphant manner, u pon the destruction Of an infinite 6 THE POLITICAL number Of innocent people, whose blood h as fattened the soil for the growth of the Catholic faith, in a manner . very particular, and to Satan ’ s full satisfaction . I might, to complete this part of his history, give you the detail Of his progress in these first steps of his alliances with Rome , and add a long list Of ma ssacres , wars , and expeditions in behalf of religion , which he has had the honour to have a visible hand in ; such as the Parisian massacre, the Flemish war under the duke d ’ Alva, the Smithfield fires in the Marian days in England, and the massacres in Ireland ; all which would most effectually convince us that the Devil has n ot been idle in his business ; but I may meet with these again in my way, it is enou gh, while I am upon the generals only, to mention them thus in a summary way ; I say, it is enough to prove that the Devil has really been as much concerned as anybody, in the methods taken by some people for propagating the Christian religion in the world . Some have rashly, and I had almost said maliciously, charged the Devil with the great triumphs Of his friends the Spaniards in America, and would place the conquest of Mexico and Peru to the credit Of his ac count . But I cannot j oin with them in this at all, I must say, I believe the Devil was innocent Of that matter ; my reason is, because, Satan was never such a fool as to spend his time or his politics, or embark his allies to conquer n ations who were already his own ; that would be Satan against Beelzebub, a making war upon himself, and at least doing nothing to the purpose . If they sho uld charge him, indeed, with deluding Philip II . Of Spain into that preposterous attempt called the Armada, (Anglice, the Spanish Invasion , ) I should indeed more readily j oin with them ; b ut whether he did it weakly, in h Ope, which was indeed not likely, that it should succeed ; or wickedly, to destroy the great fleet Of the Spaniards and draw them in within HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 7 the reach of his own dominions , the elements ; this being a question which authors differ exceedingly about, I shall leave it to decide itself. But the greatest piece of management which we find the Devil has concerned himselfin Of late, in the matter Of religion , seems to be that Of the mission into China ; and here indeed Satan has acted his masterpiece . It was, no doubt, much for his service, that the Chinese should have no insight into matters of religion, I mean that we call Christian ; and therefore, though popery and the Devil are not at so much variance as some may imagine, yet he did not think it safe to let the general system of Christianity be heard Of among them in China . Hence, when the name of the Christian religion had but been received with some seeming approb ation in the country Of Japan, Satan immediately, as if alarmed at the thing, and dreading what the consequence of it might be, armed the Japanese against it with such fury, that they expelled it at once . It was much safer to his designs, when , if the story be not a fiction , he put that Dutch witticism into the mouths of the States ’ commanders, when they came to Japan ; wh o, having more wit than to own themselves Christians in such a place as that, when the question was put to them, answered negatively, that they were not, but that they were Of another religion, called Hol landers . However, it seems the diligent Jesuits outwitte d the Devil in China, and, as I said above, overshot him in his own bow; for the mission being in danger, by the Devil and the Chinese emperor ’ s j oining together, Of being wholly expelled there too, as they had been in Japan, they cunningly fell in with the ecclesiastics of the country, and j oining the priestcraft of both religions together, they brought Jesus Christ and Confucius to be so reconcilable, that the Chinese and the Roman idolatry appeared capable of a confederacy, of going on 8 THE ‘ POLITICAL hand in hand together, and consequently Of being very good friends . This was a masterpiece indeed, and, as they say, almost frightened Satan out of hi s wits ; but he being a ready manager, and particularly famous for serving himself of the rogueries Of the priests, faced about im mediately to the mission, and making a v irtue Of necessity, clapped in , with all possible alacrity, with the proposal "

so the Jesuits and he formed a hotchpotch of religion, made up of popery and paganism, and cal culated to leave the latter rather worse than they found it, blending the faith of Christ and the philosophy or morals Of Confucius together, and formally christenv ing them by the name of religion ; by which means the politic interest Of the mission was preserved , and yet Satan lost not one inch of ground with the Chinese, no, not by the planting the gospel itself, such as it was , among them . Nor has it been much disadvantage to him that this plan or scheme Of a new - modeled religion would not go down at Rome, and that the Inquisition damned it with bell, book , and candle ; distance of place served his new allies, the missionaries, in the stead Of a pro tection from the Inquisition ; and now and then a rich present well placed found them friends in the congrega tion itself; and where any nuncio with his impudent zeal pretended to take such a long voyage to Oppose them, Satan took care to get him sent back re inf ecta , or in spired the mission to move him off the premises, by methods of their own, that is to say, being interpreted, to murder him . Thu s the mission has, in itself, been truly devilish, and the Devil has interested himself in the planting the Christian religion in China . a N. B . He never refused setting his hand to any Opinion which he thought it for his interest to acknowledge . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 9 The influence the Devil has in the politics of man kind, is another especial part of his history, and would require, if it were possible, a very exact description ; but here we shall necessarily be obliged to inquire so nicely into the arcana of circumstances, and u nlock the cabinets of state in so many courts, canvass th e councils of ministers and the conduct Of princes so fully, and expose them so much , that it may, perhaps, make a combustion among the great politicians abroad ; and in doing that we may come so n ear home too, that though personal safety and prudentials forbid our med dling with ou r own country, we may be taken in a double entendre, and fall unpitied for being only su s pected of touching truths that are so tender, whether we are guilty or no ; on these accounts I must meddle the less with that part, at least for the present . Be it that the Devil has had a share in some Of the late councils of Europe, influencing them this way or that way, to his own advantage, what is it to us ? F or example, what if he has had any concern in the late affair of Thorn ? what need we put it upon him, seeing his confederates the Jesuits with the Assessorial tri bunal Of Poland take it upon themselves ? I shall leave that part to the issue of time . I wish it were as easy to persuade the world that he had n o hand in bringing the injured protestants to commit the abitration of that affair to the very party, and leave the justice due to the cries Of protestant blood to the arbitrement of a popish power, wh o dare say that the Devil must be in it, if j ustice should be Obtaihed that way : I should rather say, the Devil is in it, or else it would n ever be expected . It occurs next to inquire from the premises, whether the Devil has more influence or less in the affairs Of the world now, than he had in former ages ; and this will depend upon comparing, as we go along, his me thods and way Of working in past times, and the modern politics by which he acts in our days ; with the 1 0 T HE \ POL IT ICAL diff ering reception which he has met with among the men of such distant ages . But there is so m uch to inquire of about the Devil, before we can bring his story down to our modern times, that we must for the present let that drop, and look a little back to the remoter part of his history, and draw his picture that people may know him when they meet him, and see who and what he is, and what he has been doing ever since he got leave to act in th e high station he now appears in . In the mean time, if I might obtain leave to pre sent an humble petition to Satan, it should be, that he would, according to modern u sage, oblige us all with writing the history of his own times ; it would, as well as one that is gone before it, be a devilish good one ; for, as to the sincerity of the performance, the auth o rity of the particulars, the j u stice of the characters, &c . , if they were n o better vouched, no more consistent with themselves, with charity, with truth, and with the honour of an historian , than the last of that kind which came abroad among us, it must be a reproach to th e Devil himself to be author of it . Were Satan to be brought under the least obligation to write truth, and that the matters of fact, which he sho uld write, might be depended upon, he is certainly qualified by his knowledge of things to be a complete his torian ; n or could the bishop himself, wh o, by the way, has given us already the devil of a history, come up to him . Milton ’ s Pandemonium, though an excellent dra matic performance, would appear a mere trifling sing song business, beneath the dignity of Chevy Chase the Devil could give us a true account of all the civil . wars in heaven ; how and by whom, and in what man ner he lost the day there , and was obliged to quit the field . The fiction of his refusing to acknowledge and submit to the Messiah , upon his being declared gene ralissimo of the heavenly forces, which Satan expected himself, as the eldest officer ; and his not being able to

1 2 THE POLITICAL the creatures came volunteer to him to go into the ark, or whether he went a - hunting for several years before, in order to bring them together . He could give us a true relation h ow he wheedled the people of the next world into the absurd, ridicu lous undertaking of building a Bab el ; how far that stu pendons staircase, which was in imagination to reach up to heaven , was carried, before it was interrupted and the builders confounded ; how their speech was altered, how many tongues it was divided into, or whether they were divided at all and how many sub divisions or dialects have been made since that, by which means very few of God ’ s creatures , except the brutes, understand one another, or care one farthing whether they do or no . In all these things Satan , who, no doubt, would make a very good chronologist, could settle every epoch, correct every calendar, and bring all our ac counts of time to a general agreement, as well th e Grecian Olympiads, the Turkish Hegira, the Chinese fictitious accounts of the world ’ s duration , as our blind Julian and Gregorian accounts, which put the world, to this day, in such conf usion, that we neither agree in ou r holy days or working days, fasts or feasts, nor keep the same sabbath in any part of the same globe . This great antiquary could bring us to a certainty in all the difficulties of ancient story, and tell us whe ther the tale of the Siege of Troy, and the Rape of Helen, was a fable of Homer, or a history ; whether the fictions of the poets are formed from their own brain , or founded in facts , and whether letters were invented by Cadmus the Phoenician , or dictated immediately from heaven at mount Sinai . Nay, he could tell us h ow and in what manner he wheedled Eve, deluded A dam, put Cain into a passion , till he made him murder his own brother ; and made Noah, wh o was above five hundred years a preacher of righteousness, turn sot in his old age, dishonour all his HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 3 ministry, debauch himself with wine , and by getting drunk and exposing himself, became the jest and laugh ing - stock of his children, and of all his posterity to this daf And would Satan , according to the modern practice of the late right reverend historian , enter into the cha racters of the great men of his age, h ow should we be di verted with the just history of Adam, in Paradise and out of it, his character, and how he beha v ed at and after his expulsion ; how Cain wandered in the land of N od, what the mark was which God set upon him, whose daughter his wife was, and how big the city was he built there, according to a certain poet of noble extrac tion, How Cain in the land of Nod When the rascal wa s all alone Like an owl in an ivy tod Built a city as big as Roan . RO CH . He could certainly have drawn Eve ’ s picture, told us every feature in her face, and every inch in her shape, whether sh e was a perfect beauty or no, and whether with the fall she did grow crooked, u gly, ill natured and a scold ; as the learned V aldemar suggests to be the effect of the curse . Descending to the characters of the patriarchs in that age, he might, no doubt, give us in particular the Characters of Belus , worshipped under the name of Baal, Saturn and Jupiter, his successors, who they were here, and how they behaved ; with all the Pha raohs of Egypt, the Abimilech s of Canaan, and the monarchs of Assyria and Babylon . Hence also he is able to write the lives of all the heroes of the world, from Alexander of Macedon to Lewis ! IV . , and from Augustus to the great king George ; nor could the bishop himself go beyond him 31 4 THE POLITICAL for flattery, any more than the Devil himself could go beyond the bishop for falsehood . I could enlarge with a particular satis faction upon the many fine things which Satan , rummaging that in exhaustable storehouse of slander, could set down to blacken the characters of good men , and load the best princes of the world with infamy and reproach But we shall never prevail with him, I doubt, to do mankind so much service as resolving all those difli culties would be; for he has an indelible grudge again st us ; as he believes, and perhaps is assured, that men were at first created by his sovereign , to the intent that, after a certain state of probation in life, such of them as shall be approved, are appointed to fill up those vacancies in the heavenly host, which were made by the abdication and expulsion of him the Devil and his angels ; so that man is appointed to come in Satan ’ s stead, to make good the breach , and enj oy all those ineffable j oys and beatitudes which Satan enj oyed b e fore his fall . N O wonder, then , that the Devil swells with envy and rage at m ank ind~ in general , and at the best of them in particular ; nay, the granting this point is giving an unanswerable reason why the Devil prac tises with such u nwearied and indefatigable applica tion upon the best men , if possible, to disappoint God Almighty ’ s decree, that he sho uld not find enough among the whole race to be proper subjects of his clemency, and qualified to succeed the Devil and his host, or fill up the places vacant by the fall ! It is true, indeed , the Devil , wh o we have reason to say is no fool, ought to know better than to suppose that if he could seduce the whole race of mankind and make them a s bad as himself, he could, by the success of his wickedness, thwart or disappoint the determined pur poses of heaven ; but that those which are appointed to inherit the thrones which he and his followers ah dicated and were deposed from, shall certainly be pre ~ served in spite of all his devices for that inheritance, HISTORY OP THE DEVIL . 1 5 and shall have the possession secured to them, not withstanding all that the Dcvil and all the host of Hell can do to prevent it . But, however, he knows the certainty of this, and that when he endeavours the seducing the chosen ser vants of the Most High, he fights against God himself, struggles with irresistible grace, and makes war with infinite power, undermining the Church of God and that faith in him which are fortified with eternal pro mises of Jesus Christ, that the gates of Hell, that is to say, the Devil and all his power shall not prevail against them ; I say, however, he knows how impossible it is that he should obtain his ends, yet so blind is his rage , so infatuate is his wisdom, that he cannot refrain break ing himself to pieces against this mountain , and Split ting against this rock, gu i Jupiter v u lt perdere hos dementa t. But to leave this serious part, which is a little too solemn, for the account of this rebel ; seeing we are not to expect he will write his own history for our in formation and diversion, I shall see if I cannot write it for him : in order to this, I shall extract the sub stance of his whole story, from the beginning to our own times, which I shall collect ou t of what is come to hand, whether by revelation or inspiration , that is nothing to him, I shall take care so to improve my in telligence, as may make my account of him authentic, and , in a word, such as the Devil himself shall not be able to contradict . In writing this uncouth story I shall be freed from the censures of the critics, in a more than ordinary manner, upon one account especially ; that my story shall be so just and so well grounded, and , after all the good things I shall say of Satan , will be so little to his satisfaction , that the Devil himself will not be able to say, I dealt with the Devil in writing it : I might, perhaps, give you some account where I had my intelligence, and h ow all the arcana of his manage 1 6 THE POLITICAL ment have come to my hands ; but pardon me, gentle men, this would be to betray conversation, and to dis c over my agents, and you know statesmen are very careful to preserve th e ' correspondences they keep in th e enemy ’ s country, lest they expose their friends to the resentment of the powers whose councils they betray . Besides, the learned tell us , that ministers of state make an excellent plea of their not betraying their in telligence, against all party inquiries into the great sums of money pretended to be paid for secret service ; and whether the secret service was to bribe people to betray things abroad or at home ; whether the money was paid to somebody or to nobody ; employed to es tablish correspondences abroad, or to establish families and amass treasure at home ; in a word, whether it was to serve their co untry or serve themselves, it has been the same thing, and the same plea has been their protection : likewise, in the important affair which I am upon , it is hoped you will not desire me to betray my correspondents ; for you know, Sata n is n aturally cruel and malicious, and who knows what he might do to show his resentment ? at least it might endanger a stop of ou r intelligence for the future . And yet, before I have done, I shall make it very plain , that, however my information may be secret and difficult, that yet I came very honestly by it, and shall make a very good u se of it ; for it is a great mistake in those who think that an acquaintance with the affairs of the Devil may not be made very useful to u s all they that know no evil can know no good ; and, as the learned tell us, that a stone taken out of the head of a toad is a good antidote against poison , so a competent knowledge of the Devil and all his ways, may be the best help to make us defy the Devil and all his works . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 7 CHAP. II . Of the wor d devil, ’ a s it is a proper na me to theDev il, a nd a ny or a ll his host, a ngels, IT is a question , not yet determined by the learned, whether the word Devil be a singular, that is to say, the name of a person standing by himself, or a noun of multitude ; if it be a singular, and so must be used personally only as a proper name, it consequently implies one imperial devil , monarch or god of the whole clan of Hell ; j ustly distinguished by the term, The Devil , or as the Scots call him, The muckle -horned Dee ’ l, or as others in a wilder dialect, The Devil of Hell, that is to say, The Devil of a devil ; or ( better still ) as the Scrip ture expresses it, by way of emphasis, the great red dragon, the Devil, and Satan . But if we take this word to be, as above, a noun of multitude, and so to be used ambidexter , as occasion presents, singular or plural, then the Devil signifies Satan by himself, or Satan with all his legions at his heels, as you please, more or less ; and this way of nu derstanding the word, as it may be very convenient for my purpose, in the account I am now to give of the in fernal powers, so it is not altogether improper in the nature of the thing. It is thus expressed in Scripture, where the person possessed (Matt . iv . is first said to be possessed of the Devil, singular ; and our Saviour asks him, as speaking to a single person, Wha t is thy na me? and is answered in the plural and singular together, My na me is L egion, f or we a re ma ny. Nor will it be any wrong to the Devil , supposing him a single person ; seeing entitling him to the con duct of all his inferior agents, is what he will take H . D . C 1 8 THE POLITICAL rath er _ for an addition to his infernal glory, than a diminution or lessening of him in the extent of his fame . Having thus articled with the Devil for liberty of speech , 1 shall talk of him sometimes in the singular, as a person , and sometimes in the plural , as a host of devils, or of infernal spirits ; just as occasion requires, and as the history of his affairs makes necessary . But before I enter upon any part of his history, the nature of the thing calls me back, and my lord B of in his late famous orations in defence of liberty, summons me to prove that there is such a thing or such a person as the Devil ; and, in short, unless I can give some evidence of his existence, as my lord said very well , I am talking of nobody. D—mn me, sir, says a graceless comrade of his to a great man, your grace will go to the Devil . D—mm ye, sir, says the d then I shall go no where ; I wonder where you intend to go ? Nay, to the D 1 too, I doubt, says Graceless, for I am almost as wicked as my lord duke . D . Thou art a silly empty dog, says the d and if there is such a place as a hell, though I b e lieve nothing of it, it is a place for fools, such as thou art . GR. I wonder, then, what heaven the great wits go to, such as my lord duke ? I don ’ t care to go there, let it be where it will ; they are a plaguy tiresome kind of people, there ’ s no bearing them, they ’ ll make a hell wherever they come . D . Prithee, hold thy fool ’ s tongue ; I tell thee, if there is any such place as we call nowhere, that ’ s all the heaven or hell that I know of, or believe anything about . GR . Very good, my lord so that heaven is no where, and hell is nowhere, and the Devil is nobody, according to my lord duke ! D; Yes, sir, and what then ?

20 THE POLITICAL I had the ordering of you , I ’ d make you sensible of it ; ll ’d make you think yourself damn ’d for want of a Devil . GR. That ’ s like one of your grace ’ s paradoxes such as when you swore by God, that you did not believe there was any such thing as a God or Devil ; so you swear by nothing, and damn me to nowhere . D . You are a critical dog ; who taught you to b e lieve these solemn trifles ? who taught you to say there is a God ? GR . Nay, I h ad a better schoolmaster than my lord duke . D . Why, wh o was your schoolmaster, pray ? GR. The Devil, an ’ t please your grace . D . The devil ! the devil he did ! What, you ’ re going to quote Scripture, are you ? Prithee don ’ t tell me of Scripture , I know what you mean, the dev ils believe a nd tremble ; why then I have the whip -han d of the Devil, for I hate trembling, and I am delivered from it effectually, for I never believed anything of it, and therefore I don ’ t tremble . GR . And there, indeed, I am a wickeder creature than the Devil, or even than my lord duke, for I b e lieve, and yet don ’ t tremble neither. D . Nay, if you are come to your penitentials, I have done with you . GR. And I think I must have done with my lord duke, for the same reason . D . Ay, ay, pray do, I ’ ll go and enj oy myself; I won ’ t throw away the pleasure of my life ; I know the con sequence of it . GR. And I ’ ll go and reform myself; else I know the consequ ence too. This short dialogue happened between two men of quality, and both men of wit too and the effect was, that the Lord brou ght the reality of the Devil into the question , and the debate brought the profligate to be a penitent so, in short, the Devil was made a preacher of repentance . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 2 1 The truth is, God and the Devil, however Opposite in their nature, and remote from one another in their place of abiding, seem to stand pretty much upon a level in our faith : for as to ou r believing the reality of their existence, he that denies one, generally denies both ; and he that believes one, necessarily believes Very few, if any, of those wh o belie v e there is a God, and acknowledge the debt of homage which mankind owes to the supreme Governor of the world, doubt the existence Of the Devil, except here and there one, whom we calllpractical . atheists , and it is the character ! of an atheist, if there Is such a creature on earth, that , like my lord duke, he believes neither God nor Devil . AS the belief of both these stands u pon a level, and that God and the Devil seem to have an equal share in ou r faith ; so the evidence of their existence seems to stand upon a level too, in many things and as they are known by their works in the same particular cases, so they are discovered after the same manner of demonstration . Nay, in some respects, it is equally criminal to deny the reality of them both, only with this difference, that to believe the existence of a God is a debt to nature, and to believe the existence of the Devil is a like debt to reason one is a demonstration from the reality ofl visible causes , and the other a deduction from the like reality of their effects . One demonstration of the existence of God, is from the universal well -guided consent of all nations to worship and adore a supreme power one demonstra tion of the existence of the Devil, is from the avowed ill - guided consent of some nations, who knowing no other god , make a god of the Devil for want of a better . It may be tru e, that those nations have no other ideas of the Devil than as of a sup erior power if they thought him a supreme power i t would have other 22 THE POLITICAL effects on them, and they would submit to and worship him with a different kind of fear . But it is plain they have right notions of him as a devil, or evil spirit, because the best reason, and in some places the only reason , they give for worshipping him is, that he m ay do them no hurt ; having no notions at all of his having any power, much less any inclination , to do them any good ; so that, indeed, they make a mere devil of him, at the same time that they b ow to him as to a god. All the ages of paganism in the world have had this notion of the Devil : indeed, In some parts of the world, they had also some deities which they honoured above him, as being supposed to be b eneficent, kind, and inclined, as well as capable, to give them good things ; for this reason the more polite heathens, such as the Grecians and the Romans, had their Lares, or household gods , who they paid a particular respect to, as being their protectors from hobgoblins, ghosts of th e dead, evil spirits, frightful appearances, evil geniuses . and other noxious creatures from the invisible world or, to put it into the language of the day we li v e in, from the Devil, in whatever shape or appearance he might come to them, and from whatever might hurt them . And what was all this but setting up devils against devils, supplicating one devil, under the notion Of a good spirit, to drive out and protect them from another, whom they call ed a bad spirit ; the white devil against the black devil ? This proceeds from the natural notions mankind ‘ necessarily entertain of things to come ; superior or in ferior, God and the Devil, fill up all futurity in ou r thou ghts ; and it is impossible for us to form any images in ou r minds of an immortality and an invisible world, but under the notions of perfect felicity, or ex treme misery . N ow, as these two respect the eternal state of man after life, they are respectively the object of our reve HISTORY OR THE DEVIL. 23 rence and affection, or of ou r horror and aversion ; but n otwithstanding they are placed thus in a diametrical opposition in our affections and passions, they are on an evident level as to the certainty of their existence, and, as I said above, bear an equal share in ou r faith . It being then as certain that there is a Devil, as that there is a God, I must from this time forward admit no more doubt of his existence, nor take any more pains to convince you of it ; but speaking of him as a reality in being, proceed to inquire wh o he is, and from whence, in order to enter directly into the detail of his history . Now, not to enter into all the metaphysical trumpery of the schools, nor wholly to confine myself to the lan guage of the pulpit, where we are told, that to think of God and of the Devil, we must endeavour first to form ideas of those things which illustrate the descrip tion of rewards and punishment ; in the on e the eternal presence of the highest good, and, as a neces sary attendant, the most perfect, consummate, durable bliss and felicity, springing from the presence of that being in whom all possible beatitude is inexpressibly present , and that in the highest perfection and on the contrary, to conceive of a sublime fallen archangel, at tended with an innumerable host of degenerate, rebel seraphs or angels, cast out of heaven together, all guilty of inexpressible rebellion, and all suffering from that time, and to suff er for ever, the eternal vengeance of the Almighty, in an inconceivable manner ; that his presence, though blessed in itself, is to them the most complete article of terror that they are in themselves perfectly miserable ; and to be with whom for ever, adds an inexpressible misery to any state as well as place, and fills the minds of those wh o are to be, or expect to be, banished to them, with inconceivable hor ror and amazement . But when ' you have gone over all this , and a great deal more of the like, though less intelligible language , 24 THE POLITICAL which the passions of men collect to amuse one an other with, you have said nothing if you omit the main article, namely, the personality of the Devil ; and till you add to all the rest some description of the company with whom all this is to be suffered, V iz . the ' Devil and his angels . N ow, who this Devil and his angels are, what share they have either actively or passively in the eter nal miseries of a future state, how far they are agents in or partners with the sufferings of the place, is a dif ficulty yet not fully discovered by the most learned ; nor do I believe it is made less a difficulty by their meddling with it . But to come to the person and original of the Devil , or, as I said before, of devils ; I allow him to come of an ancient family, for he is from heaven , and more truly than the Romans could say of their idolized Numa, he is of the race of the gods . That Satan is a fallen angel, a rebel seraph, cast out for his rebellion , it is the general opinion, and it is not my business to dispute things universally received ; as he was tried, condemned, and the sentence of expulsion executed on him in heaven, he is in this world like a transported felon , never to return ; his crime, whatever particular aggravations it might have, it is certain amounted to high -treason against his lord and gover nor, who was also his maker, and against whom he rose in rebellion , took up arms , and, in a word, raised a horrid and unnatural war in his dominions ; but being overcome in battle and made prisoner, he and all his host, whose numbers were infinite, all glorious angels like himself, lost at once their beauty and glory with their innocence, and commenced devils, being transformed by crime into monsters and frightful objects ; such as to describe, human fancy is obliged to draw pictures and descriptions in such forms as are most hateful and frightful to the imagination . These notions, I doubt not, gave birth to all the HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 25 b eautiou s images and sublime expressions in Milton ’ s majestic poem ; where, though he has played the poet in a most luxuriant manner, he has sinned against Satan most egregiously, and done the Devil a manifest injury in a great many particulars, as I shall Show in its place . And as I shall be obliged to do Satan jus tice when I come to that part of his history, Mr . Mil ton ’ s admirers must pardon me if I let them see, that though I admire Mr . Milton as a poet, yet that he was greatly ou t in matters of history, and especially the history of the Devil ; in short , that he has charged Satan falsely in several particulars ; and so he has Adam and Eve too : but that I shall leave till I come to the history of the royal family of Eden which I re sol ve to present you with when the De vil and I have done with on e another . But not to run down Mr . Milton neither, whose poetry, nor his j udgment, cannot be reproached with ou t injury to our own ; all those bright idea s of his, which make his poem so justly valued, whether they are capable of proof as to the fact, are, notwithstanding, confirmations of my hypothesis ; and are taken from a supposition of the personality of the Devil , placing him at the head of the infernal host, as a sovereign elevated spirit and monarch of Hell ; and as such it is that I undertake to write his history . By the word Hell, I do not suppose, or at least not determine, that his residence, or that of the whole army of devils, is yet in the same local hell to which the di vines tell u s he shall be at last chained down ; or, at least, that he is yet confined to it ; for we shall find he i s at present a prisoner at large : of both which circum stances Of Satan I shall take occasion to speak in its course . But when I call the Devil the monarch of Hell, I am to be understood as su its to the present purpose ; that h e is the sovereign of all the race of hell, that is to say, of all the devils or spirits of the infernal clan ; 26 THE POLITICAL let their numbers, quality, and powers, be what they will . Upon this supposed personality and superiority of Satan , or, as I call it, the sov ereignty and government of one Devil above all the rest ; I say, upon this notion are formed all the systems of the dark side of futurity, that we can form in our minds : and so general is the Opinion of it, that it will hardly bear to be opposed by any other argument, at least that will bear to b e rea soned upon : all the notions of a parity of devils, or making a commonwealth among the black divan , seem to be enth u siatic and visionary, but with no consistency or certainty, and is so generally exploded that we must not venture so much as to debate the point . Taking it, then , as the generality of mankind do, that there is a grand Devil, a superior of the whole black race ; that they all fell, together with their general Satan at the head of them ; that though he , Satan, could not maintain his high station in heaven, yet that h e did continue his dignity among the rest, who are called his servants, in Scripture his angels ; that he has a kind of dominion or authority over the rest, and that they were all, how many millions soev er in number, at his command ; employed by him in all his hellish de signs, and in all his wicked contrivances for the de struction of man , and for the setting up his own king dom in the world . Supposing then , that there is such a superior master Devil over the rest, it remains that we inquire into his character, and something of his history ; in which, though we cannot perhaps produce such authentic documents as in the story of other great monarchs, tyrants, and furies of the world ; yet I shall endeavour to speak some things which the experience of mankind may be apt to confirm, and which the Devil himself will hardly be able to contradict . It being then granted that there is such a thing or person, call him which we will , as a master - Devil ;

28 THE POLITICAL any of his wicked powers, and find room to do mischief to mankind . Nay, they go further, and suggest bold things against the wisdom of heaven in exposing mankind, weak in comparison of the immense extent of the Devil ’ s power, to so manifest an overthrow, to so unequal a fight, in which he is sure, if alone in the conflict, to be worsted, to leave him such a dreadful enemy to engage with, and so ill furnished with weapons to resist him . These objections I shall give as good an answer to as the case will admit in their course, but must adj ourn them for the present . That the Devil is not yet a close prisoner, we have evidence enough to confirm ; I will not suggest, that, like our Newgate thieves, ( to bring little devils and great devils together, ) he is let out by connivance, and has some little latitudes and advantages for mischief, by that means ; returning at certain seasons to his confinement again . This might hold, were it not, that the compariso n must suggest, that the power which has cast him down could be deluded, and the under - keepers or j ailers , under whose charge he was in custody, could wink at his excursions, and the lord of the place know nothing of the matter . But this wants further explana tion . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 29 CHAP. III . Of the origina l of the Dev il, who he is, a nd wha t he wa s brf ore his expu lsion ou t of hea v en, a nd in wha t sta te he wa sf rom tha t time to the crea tion of ma n. TO come to a regular inquiry into Satan ’ s affairs, it is n eedful we should go back to his original, as far as history and the opinion of the learned world give us leave . It is agreed by all writers, as well sacred as pro fane, that this creature we now call a Devil , was originally an angel of light, a glorious seraph ; perhaps the choicest of all the glorious seraphs . See how Milton describes his original glory Satan, so call him now, his former name Is heard no more in Heaven ; he ofthe first, If not the first archangel, great in power, In favour and preeminence . Par . Lost, lib . v . And again the same author, and upon the same subject Brighter ones amidst the host Of angels, than that star the stars among. Ih . lib . v ii. The glorious figure which Satan is supposed to make among the thrones and dominions in heaven is such , as we might suppose the highest angel in that exalted train could make ; and some think, as above, that he was the chief of the archangels . Hence that notion, and not ill founded, namely, that the first cause of his disgrace, and on which ensued his rebellion, was occasioned upon God ’ s proclaiming his 30 THE POLITICAL Son ggneralissimo, and with himself supreme r uler in heaven, giving the dominion of all his works of crea tion , as well already finished as not then begun, to him ; which post of honour, say they, Satan expected to be conferred on himself, as next in honour, majesty, and power, to God the supreme . This Opinion is followed by Mr . Milton too, as ap pears in the following lines, where he makes all the angels attending a t a general summons, and God the Father making the following declaration to them Hear all ye angels, progeny oflight, Thrones , dominations , princedoms, v irtues, powers Hear my decree, which unrevok ’d shall stand. This day I have begot whom I declare My only Son, and on this holy hill Him have anointed, whom you now behold At my right hand your Head I him a point ; And by my self have sworn to him sha l b ow All knees in heaven, and shall confess him lord U nder his great vice-gerent reign abide U nited, as one individual soul , For ever happy him who disobeys, Me disobeys , breaks union , and, that day Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls Into utter darkness, deep ingulf ’d, his place Ordained without redemption, without end . Satan, aff ronted at the appearance of a new essence or being in heaven, called the Son of God ; for God, says Mr . Milton, ( though erroneously, ) declared himself at that time , saying, This day have I begotten him, and that he should be set up above all the former powers of heaven , of whom Satan ( as above) was the chief,and expecting, if any higher post could be granted, it might be his due ; I say, affronted at this, he resolved With all his legions to dislodge, and leave U nworship ’d, unobey ’d, the throne supreme C ontemptuous. Par. Lost, lib . v. HISTORY O F THE DEVIL . 3 1 But Mr. Milton is grossly erroneous in ascribing those words, This day have I begotten thee, to that declaration of the Father before Satan fell, and cou se quently to a time before the creation ; whereas, it is by interpreters agreed to be u nderstood of the incar nation of the Son of God, or at least of the resurrection see Pool upon Acts xiii . 33 3 . In a word , Satanwithdrew, with all his followers, mal content and chagrined , resolved to disobey this new command, and not yield Obedience to the Son . But Mr . Milton agrees in that opinion , that the number of angels which rebelled with Satan was in finite ; and suggests in one place, that they were the greatest half of all the angelic body or seraphic host . But Satan with his powers, Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dew drops . which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flow ’ r. Ib . lib . v . Be their number as it is, numberless millions and legions of millions, that is no part of my present inquiry ; Satan , the leader, gu ide, and superior, as he was author of the celestial rebellion , is still the great head and master -devil as before; and under his au tho rity they still act, not obeying, but carrying on the 3 Mr . Pool ’ s words are these Some refer the words , ‘this day have I begotten thee , ’ to the incarnation of the Son of God, others to the resurrection our translators lay the stress on the preposition, ofwhich the verb is compounded, and by adding ‘ again, ’ ( v iz . ) raised u p Jesu s again , ’ Acts xiii . 33, intend it to be understood of the resurrection ; and there is ground for it, in the context, for the resurrection of Christ is that which St. Paul had propounded in v . 30 . of the same chapter, as his theme or argument to preach upon . Not that Christ at his resurrection began to be the Son of God, but that he was manifested then to be so. 32 THE POLITICAL same insurrection against God, which they begun in heaven ; making war still against heaven, in the person Of his image and creature man ; and though vanquished by the thunder of the Son of God, and cast down head long from heav en , they have yet reassumed, or rather not lost, either the will or the power of doing mischief. This fall of the angels, with the war in heaven which preceded it, is finely described by Ovid, in his war of the Titans against Jupiter, casting mountain upon mountain, and hill upon hill (Pelion upon Ossa) , in order to scale the adamantine Walls, and break Open the gates of heaven, till Jupiter struck them with his thunderbolts and overwhelmed them in the abyss . Vide Ovid . Metam . new translation Nor were the Gods themselves secure on high, For now the Giants strove to storm the sky, The lawless brood with bold attempt invade The Gods , and mountains u pon mountains laid . But now the bolt, enraged the Father took, Olympus from her deep foundation shook, Their structure nodded at the mighty stroke, And Oss a ’ s shattered top o ’ er Pelion broke, They ’ re in their own ungodly ruins slain . Lib . i . p . ix. Then , again , speaking of Jupiter, resol ving in council to destroy makind by a deluge, and giving the reasons of it to the heavenly host, says thus, speaking of the demigods, alluding to good men below Think that they in safety can remain , When I , myself, who o ’ er immortals reign, Who send the lightning, a nd heaven ’ s empire sway, The stem LycaOn b practised to betray ? l b . Since, then, so much poetic liberty is taken with the Devil, relating to his most early state , and the time b Satan . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 33 before his fall , give me leave to make an excursion of the like kind, relating to his history immediately after the fall , and till the creation of man ; an interval which I think much of the Devil ’ s story is to be seen in, and which ‘ Mr. Milton has taken little notice of, at least it does not seem completely filled up ; after which I Shall return to honest prose again, and pursue the duty of an historian . Satan, with hideous ruin thus supprest, Expell ’d the seat of blessedness and rest, Look ’d back and saw the high eternal mound, Where all his rebel host their outlet found Restor ’d impregnable the breach made up, And garrisons of angels ranged a top In front, a hundred thousand thunders roll, And lightnings temper ’d to transfix a soul, Terror of devils . Satan and his host, N ow to themselves as well as station lost, U nable to support the hated sight, Expand seraphic win 1 gs, and swift as light Seek for new safety in eternal night . 5 In the remotest gulf of dark they land, Here vengeance gives them leave to make their stand Not that to steps and measures they pretend, Councils and schemes their station to defend, But broken, disconcerted, and dismay ’d, By guilt and fright to guilt and fright betray ’d Rage and confusion every spirit possess ’d, And shame and horror swell ’ d in every breast ; Transforming envy to their essentials burns , And beauteous angels frightful devils turns . Thus Hell began ; the fire ofconscious rage No years can quench, no length oftime assuage . Material fire, with its intensest flame , Compared with this can scarce deserve a name How should it up to immaterials rise ? When we ’ re all flame, we shall all fire despise . This fire outrageous and its heat intense Turns all the pain ofloss to pain ofsense . The folding flames concave and inward roll, Act upon spirit and penetrate the soul : H. D . 34 THE POLITICAL N ot force of devils can its new powers repel, Where ’ er it burns it finds or makes a hell For Satan flaming with u nquench ’d desire Forms his own hell and kindles his own fire V anquish ’d, not humbl ’d, not in will brought low, But as his powers decline his passions grow The malice, v iper like, takes vent within, Gnaws its own bowels, and bursts in its own sin Impatient of the change he scorns to b ow, And never impotent in power till now ; Ardent with hate, and with revenge distract, A will to new attempts , but none to act Yet all seraphic, and in just degree, Suited to Spirits ’ high sense of misery, Derived from loss which nothing can repair, And room for nothing left but mere despair . Here ’ s finish ’d Hell ! what fiercer fire can burn ? Enough ten thousand worlds to overturn. Hell ’ s but the frenzy of defeated pride , Seraphic treason ’ s strong impetuous tide, Where vile ambition , disap ointed first, To its own rage and bound ess hatred curst ; The hate ’ s fann ’d up to fury, that to flame, For fire and fury are in kind the same These burn unquenchable in every face, And the word endless ’ constitutes the place . 0 state of being ! where being ’ s the only grief, And the chief torture ’ s to be damn ’d to life 0 life ! the only thing the have to hate The finish ’d torment of a uture state, Complete in all the parts ofendless misery, And worse ten thousand times than not to be ! Could but the damn ’d th ’ immortal law repeal, And devils die, there ’ d be an end of hell Could they that thing called being ’ annihilate, There ’ d be no sorrows in a future state The wretch, whose crimes had shut him out on high, C ould be revenged on God himself, and di e Job ’ s wife was in the right, and always we Might end by death all human misery, Might have it in our choice, to be, or not to be.

36 THE POLITICAL Here he is called the serpent, Gen . iii . I . The old serpent, Rev . xii . 9. The great red dragon , Rev . x1 1 . 3 . The accuser of the brethren, Rev . xi 1 . 10 . The enemy, Matt . xxiii . 29. Satan, Job i.

Zech . iii . l , 2 .

Belial, 2 Cor. vi . 1 5 . Beelzebub, Matt . xii . 24 . Mammon, Matt . vi . 24 . The angel of light, 2 Cor . xi . 1 4 . The angel of the bottomless pit, Rev . ix . 1 1 . The prince of the power of the air, Eph . ii . 2 . Lucifer, Isa . xiv . 1 2 . Abb addon, or Apollion, Rev . ix . 1 1 . Legion , Mark v . 9. The god of this world, 2 Cor. iv . 4 . The fou l spirit, Mark ix . 5 . The unclean spirit, Mark i . 2 7 . The lying spirit, 2 Chron . xxx . The tempter, Matt . iv . 3 . The son of the morning. Isa . xiv . 1 2 . But to sum them all up in on e, he is called in the N ew Testament plain Devil ; all his other names are varied according to the custom of speech, and the dialects Of the several nations where he is spoken of ; but in a word, Devil is the common name of the Devil in all the known languages of the earth . Nay, all the mischief he is empowered to do, is in Scripture placed to his account, under the particular title of the Devil , not of devils in the plural number, though they are sometimes mentioned too but in the singul ar it is the identical individual Devil , in and under whom all the little devils, and all the great devils, if such there be, are supposed to act ; nay, they are supposed to be governed and directed by him . Thus we are told in Scripture of the works of the devil, 1 John iii . 8 ; of casting ou t the devil , Mark i . 34 ; of resisting the devil , James iv . 5 of our Saviou r being tempted of the HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 37 devil , Matt . iv . 1 ; of Simon Magus, a child of the devil , Acts xiii . 1 0 ; the devil came down in a great wrath, Rev. x1 1 . 1 2, and the like . And according to this usage in speech we go on to this day, and all th e infernal things we converse with in the world, are fathered upon the Devil, as one undivided simple essence, by h ow many agents soever working : every thing evil, frightful in appearance, wicked in its actings, horrible in its manner, monstrous in its effects, is called the Devil ; in a word, Devil is the common name for all devils, that is to say, for all evil spirits, all evil powers, all evil works , and even all evil things yet it is remarkable the Devil is no Old Testament word, and we never find it used in all the Old Testament but four times, and then not once in the singular number, and not once to signify Satan , as it is now understood . It is true, the learned give a great many differing . interpretations of the word Devil ; the English com mentators tell us, it means a destroyer, others that it signifies a deceiver, and the Greeks derive it from a calumniator, or false witness for we find that Calumny was a goddess, to whom the Athenians built altars and offered sacrifices upon some solemn occasions, and they call her Am BoM), from whence came the masculine ArdBv g, which we translate Devil . Thus we take the name of Devil to signify not per sons only, but actions and habits ; making imaginary devils , and transforming that substantial creature called Devil, into everything noxious and off ensive thus St . Francis being tempted by the Devil in the shape of a bag of money lying in the highway, the saint having discovered the fraud, whether seeing his cloven foot hang out of the purse, or whether b e distinguished him by his smell of sulphur, or h ow otherwise, authors are not agreed ; but, I say, the saint, having discovered the cheat, and outwitted the Devil, took occasion to preach that eminent sermon to his disciples, where his text was, Money is the Devil . 38 THE POLITICAL N or, uponthe whole, 1 8 any wrong done to the Devil by this kind of treatment ; it only gi v es him the so v e reignty of the whole army of Hell , and making all the numberless legions of the bottomless pit servants, or, as the Scripture calls them, angels to Satan the grand devil ; and all their actions, performances, and achieve ments, are j ustly attributed to him, not as the prince of devils only, but the emperor of devils, the prince of all the princes of devils . Under this denomination then of Devil, all the powers of Hell . all the princes of the air, all the black armies of Satan are comprehended, and in this manner they are to be u nderstood in this whole work, mu ta tis mu ta ndis, according to the several circumstances in which we are to speak of them . This being premised, and my authority being so. good, Satan must not take it ill if I treat him after the manner of men , and give him those titles which h e ' is best known by among us ; for indeed, having so many, it is not very easy to call him out of his name . However, as I am obliged by the duty of an historian to decency, a s well as impartiality, so I thought it ne cessary, before I used too much freedom with Satan , to produce authentic documents , and bring antiquity upon the stage, to justify the manner of my writing, and let you see I shall describe him in no colours, nor call him by any name, but what he has been known by for many ages before me . And now, though being writing to the common u n derstanding of my reader, I am obliged to treat Satan very coarsely, and to speak of him in the common ac ceptation, calling him plain Devil ; a word which In this mannerly age is not so sonorous as others might be, and which by the error of the times is apt to prejudice us against his person yet it must be acknowledged he h as a great many other names and surnames which he might be known by, of a less obnoxious import than that of Devil, or Destroyer, 850 . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 39 “ Mr . Milton, indeed, wanting titles of honour to give to the leaders of Satan ’ s host, is obliged to borrow se v eral of his Scripture names , and bestow them upon his infernal heroes, whom he makes the generals and leaders of the armies of Hell ; and so he makes Beelze bub, Lucifer, Belial, Mammon, and some others, to be the names of particular devils, members of Satan ’ s upper house, or Pandemonium whereas, indeed, these are all names proper and peculiar to Satan himself. The Scripture also has some names of a coarser kind, by which the Devil is understood ; as particularly, as is noted already, in the Apocalypse, he is called the Great Red Dragon, the Beast, the Old Serpent, and the like : but take it in the Scripture, or where you will in history, sacred or profane, you will find that in general the Devil is, as I have said above, his ordinary name in all languages and in all nations, the name by which he and his works are principally dis tinguish ed : also the Scripture, besides that it Often gives him this name, speaks of the works of the devil . of the subtilty of the devil , of casting out devils, of being tempted of the devil, of being possessed with a devil ; and so many other expressions of that kind, as I have said already, are made use of for us to under stand the evil spirit by, that in a word, Devil is the common name of all wicked spirits : for Satan is no more the devil, as if he alone was so, and all the rest were a diminutiv e species who did not go by that name ; but, I say, even in Scripture, every spirit, whe ther under his dominion or ou t of his dominion , is called the Devil, and Is as much a real devil , that IS to say, a condemned spirit, and employed in the same wicked work, as Satan himself. His name, then, being thus ascertained, and his exist ence acknowledged, it should be a little inqu ired what he is ; we believe there is such a thing, su ch a creature as the Devil ; and that he has been , and may still with 4 0 THE POL ITICAL propriety of speech, and without injustice to his cha ractt i he called by his ancient name, Devil . But ‘w. o is be ? what is his original ? whence came he ? and what is his present station and condition for these things and these inquiries are very necessary to his history . nor, indeed, can any part of his history be complete without them . That he is of an ancient and noble original must b e acknowledged, for he is heaven - born and of angelic race, as has been touched already ; if Scripture evi dence may be of any weight in the question , there is no room to doubt the genealogy of the Devil ; he is not only spoken of as an angel, but as a fallen angel , one that had been in heaven, had beheld the face of God in his full effulgence of glory, and had surrounded the throne of the Most High ; from whence, commencing rebel, and being expelled, he was cast down , down , down, God and the Devil himself only know where for indeed we cannot say that any man on earth knows it and wherever it is, he has, ever since man ’ s creation, been a plague to him, been a tempter, a deluder, a calumniator, an enemy, and the object of man ’ s horror and aversion . A s his original is heaven -born , and his race an gelic, so the angelic nature is evidently placed in a class superior to the human , and this the Scripture is express in also when speaking of man, it says , he ma de him a little lower tha n the a ngels. Thus the Devil, as mean thoughts as you may have of him, is of a better family than any of you , nay, than the best gentlemen of you all ; what he may be fallen to, is one thing, but what he is fallen from, is another ; and therefore I must tell my learned and reverend friend J . W. , I I D . , when he spoke so rudely of the Devil la sly, H O pinion b e abused his betters . Nor is the Scripture more a help to us in the search after the Devil ’ s original, than it . is in our search after , HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 4 1 his nature ; it is true , authors are not agreed " bo u t his age, what time he was created, h ow many “ I f. H' s he enj oyed his state of blessedness before he fe f r f or h ow many years he continued with his whole al my in a state of darkness before the creation of man. It is supposed it might be a considerable space, an d that it was a part of his punishment too, being all the while inactive, unemployed . having no business, nothing t o do but gnawing his own bowels , and rolling in the agony of his own self - reproaches, being a hell to him self in reflecting on the glorious state from whence he was fallen . How long he remained thus, it is true we have no light into from history, and but little from tradition ; Rabbi J udah says, the Jews were of the opinion that he remained twenty thousand years in that condition , and that the world shall continue twenty thousand more, in which he shall find work enough to satisfy his mischievous desires ; but he shows no authority for his Opinion . Indeed, let the Devil have been as idle as they think he was before, it must be acknowledged that now he is the most busy, vigilant, and diligent, of all God ’ s creatures, and very full of employment too, such as it Is . Scripture, indeed, gives us light into the enmity there is between the two natures, the diabolical and the human ; the reason of it, and how and by what means the power of the Devil is restrained by the Messiah ; and to those wh o are willing to trust to gos pel light, and believe what the Scripture says of th e Devil, there may much of his history be discovered ; and therefore those that list may go there for a fuller account of the matter . But to reserve all Scripture evidence of these things , as a magazine in store for the use of those with whom Script ure testimony is of force, I must for the present turn to other inquiries, being now d irecting my story 42 THE POLITICAL to an age, wherein to be driven to Revelation and Scripture assertions is esteemed giving up the dispute ; people now- a - days must have demonstration ; and, in a word, nothing will satisfy the age, but such evidence as perhaps the nature of the question will not admit . It is hard, indeed, to bring demonstrations in such a case as this : N o ma n h a s seen God a t a ny time, says the Scripture, 1 John iv . 1 2 . So the Devil, being a spirit incorporeal, an angel of light, and consequently not visible in his own substance, nature, and form, it may in some sense be said, N O man has seen the Devil at any time ; all those pretences of frenziful and fanciful people, who tell us they have seen the Devil, I shall examine, and perhaps expose by them sel v es . It might take u p a great deal of our time here, to inquire whether the Devil has any particular shape or personality of substance, which can be visible to us, felt, heard, or understood, and which he cannot alter ; and then , what shapes or appearances the Devil has at any time taken u pon him ; and whether he can really appear in a body which might be handled and seen , and yet so as to know it to have been the Devil at the time of his appearing but this also I defer, as not of weight in the present inquiry. We have divers accounts of witches conversing with the Devil ; the Devil In a real body, with all the ap pearance of a body of a man or woman appearing to them ; also of having a familiar, as they call it, an incubus, or little devil, which sucks their bodies, runs away with them into the air, and the like ; much of this is said, but much more than it is easy to prove, and we ought to give but a just proportion of credit to those things . As to his borrowed shapes and his subtle trans formings, that we have such Open testimony of, that there 1 8 no room for any question about it ; and when I come to that part, I shall be obliged rather to give a

4 4 THE POLITICAL he has thought fit not to be seen , and rather to make the poor people believe he had a real shape and body, with hands to act, mouth to speak, and the like, than to giv e proof of it in common to the whole world, by showing himself, and acting visibly and openly, as a body usually and ordinarily does . Nor is it any disadvantage to the Devil , that his se raphic nature is not confined or imprisoned in a body or shape, suppose that shape to be what monstrous thing we wo uld ; for this would, indeed, confine his actings within the narrow sphere of the organ or body to which he was limited ; and though you were to sup pose the body to have wings for a velocity of motion equal to spirit, yet if it had not a power of invisibility too, and a capacity of conveying itself, undiscovered, into all the secret recesses of m ankind, and the same secret art or capacity of insinuation , suggestion , accu sation, &c. , by which his wicked designs are now pro pagated, and all his other devices assisted, by which he deludes and betrays mankind ; I say, he would be no more a devil, that is, a destroyer , no more a deceiver, and no more a Satan , that is, a dangerous arch - enemy to the souls of men ; nor would it be any difficulty to mankind to shun and avoid him, as I shall make plain in the oth er ' part of his history . Had the Devil from the beginning been embodied, as he could not have been invisible to us, whose souls, equally seraphic, are onlyprescrib ed by being embodied and incased in flesh and blood as we are ; so he would have been no more a devil to anybody but him self : the imprisonment in a body, had the powers of that body been all that we can conceive to make him formidable to u s, would yet have been a hell to him . Consider him as a conquered exasperated rebel, re taining all that fury and swelling ambition , that hatred of God, and envy at his creatures which dwells now in his enraged spirits as a Devil ; yet suppose him to have been condemned to organic powers, confined to HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 4 5 corporeal motion , and restrained as a body must be supposed to restrain a spirit it must, at the same time, suppose him to be effectually disabled from all the me thods he is now allowed to make use of, for exerting his rage and enmity against God, any further than as he might suppose it to affect his Maker at second hand, by wounding his glory thr ough the Sides of his weakest creature, man . He must, certainly, be thus confined, because body can only act upon body, not upon spirit ; no species being empowered to act ou t of the compass of its own sphere : he might have been empowered, indeed, to have acted terrible and even destru ctive thi ngs u pon mankind, especially if this body had any powers given it which mankind had n ot, by which man would be overmatched and not be in a condition of self - defence; for example, suppose him to have had wings to have flown in the air ; or to be invulnerable, and that no human invention, art, or engine, could hurt, ensnare, captivate, or restrain him . But this is to suppose the righteous and wise Creator to have made a creature and not be able to defend and preserve him, or have left him defenceless to the mercy of another of his own creatures, whom he had given power to destroy him this indeed, might have oc casioned a general idolatry, and made mankind, as the Americans do to this day, worship the Devil, that he might not hurt them ; but it could not have prevented the destruction of mankind, supposing the Devil to have had malice equal to his power ; and he must put on a new nature, be compassionate, generous, b enefi cent, and steadily good in sparing the rival enemy he was able to destroy, or he must have ruined mankind . In short, he must have ceased to ha v e been a devil , 8 11 111 11 11 “ have reassumed his original, angelic, heavenly nat e, filled with the principles of love, to delight in the works of his Creator, and bent to propagate his glory and interest ; or he must have put an end to the 4 6 THE POLITICAL race of - man, whom it would be in his power to destroy , and oblige his Maker to create a new species, or fortify the old with some kind of defence which must be in vulnerable, and which his fiery darts could not penerate . On this occasion suffer me to make an excursion from the usual style of this work, and with some solem nity to express my thoughts thus How glorious is the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator of the world ! in thus restraining these seraphic outcasts from the power Of assuming human or organic bodies, which, could they do, invigorating them with the supernatural powers, which, as seraphs and angels, they now possess and might exert, they would be able even to fright mankind from the face of the earth, destroy and confound God ’ s creation ; nay, even as they are, were not their power limited, they might destroy the creation itself, reverse and overturn nature, and put the world into a. general conflagration but were those immortal spirits embodied, though they were not permitted to confound nature, they would be able to harass poor, weak, and defenceless man ou t of his wits, and render him perfectly useless, either to his Maker or himself. But the dragon is chained, the Devil ’ s power is limited ; he has indeed a vastly extended empire, being prince of the air ; having, at least, the whole atmo Sphere to range in, and how far that atmosphere is extended, is not yet ascertained by the nicest ob ser v ations ; I say, at least, because we do not yet know h ow far he may be allowed to make excursions beyond the atmosphere of this globe into the planetary worlds, and what power he may exercise in all the habitable parts of the solar system ; nay, of all the other solar systems, which, for aught we k now, , may exist in the mighty extent of created space, and of which you may hear further in its order. But let his power be what it will there, we are sure it is limited here, and that in two partic ulars ; first, he HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 4 7 islimited, as above, from assuming body or bodily shapes and substance ; and secondly, from exerting seraphic powers, and acting with that supernatural force, which, a s an angel, he was certainly vested with before th e fall , and which we are not certain is yet taken from him ; or at most, we do not know how much it may or may not be diminished by his degeneracy, and by the blow given him at his expulsion : this we are certain, that be his power greater or less , he is restrained from the exercise of it in this world ; and he, who was once equal to the angel who killed a hundred and eighty thousand men in one night, is not able now, without a new commission, to take away the life of one Job, nor to touch anything he had . But let us consider him then limited and restrained as he is, yet he remains a mighty, a terrible, an immortal being : infinitely superior to man, aswell in the dignity of his nature , as in the dreadful powers he retains still about him and though the brainsick heads of ou r enth u sias tics paint him blacker than he is, and, as I ha v e said, represent him clothed with terrors that do not really belong to him ; as if the power of good and evil was wholly vested in him, and that he was placed in the throne of his Maker, to distribute both punishments and rewards ; terrifying and deluding fanciful people about him till they turn their heads, and fright them into a belief that the Devil will let them alone if they do such and such good things, or carry them away with him, they know not whither, if they do not ; as if the Devil, whose proper business is mischief, seducing and del uding mankind, and drawing him in to be a rebel like himself, should threaten to seize upon them, carry them away, and, in a word, fall upon them to hurt them, if they did evil, and on the contrary, he favourable and civil to them, if they did well . Thus a poor deluded country fellow in our town , that had lived a wicked, abominable, debauched life, was frightenedwith an apparition, as he called it, of the Devil ; 4 8 THE POLITICAL he fancied that he spoke to him, and telling his tale to a good honest Christian gentleman his n eighbour, that had a little more sense than himself, the gentleman asked him if he was sure he really saw the Devil ? Yes, yes, sir, says he, I saw him very plain ; and so they began the following disco urse . GEN T . See him ! see the Devil ! art thou sure of it Thomas THO . Yes, yes, I am sure enough of it master ; to be s ure it was the Devil . GENT . And how do you know ’ twas the Devil, Thomas had you ever seen the Devil before ? THO . No, no, I had never seen him before, to be sure, but for all that I know it was the Devil . GENT . Well, if you ’ re sure, Thomas, there ’ s no con tradicting you ; pray what clothes had he on ? THO . Nay, sir, don ’ t jest with me, he had no clothes on, he was clothed with fire and brimstone . GENT . Was it dark or daylight when you saw him ? THO . O it was very dark, for it was midnight . GEN T . How could you see him then ? did you see by the light of the fire you speak of ? THO . N o, no, he gave me no light himself, but I saw him for all that . GEN T . Bu t was it within doors, or ou t in the street ? THO . It was within, it was in my own chamber, when I was j ust going into bed, that 1 saw him . GEN T . Well then , you had a candle, h adn ’ t you ? THO . Yes, I had a candle, but it burnt as blue ! and as dim ! GENT . Well , but if the Devil was clothed with fire and brimstone, he must give you some light ; there can ’ t be such a fire as you speak of but it must give a light with it . THO . No, no, he gave no light, but I smelt his fire and brimstone he left a smell of it behind him, when he was gone . GEN T . Well , so you say he had fire, but gave no HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 4 9 lig ht ; it was a devilish fire, indeed did it feel warm was the room ‘ hot while he was in it ? THO . No, no, but I was hot enough without it, for it put me into a great sweat with the fright . GEN T . Very well, .h e was all in fire, you say, but without light or heat, only it seems he stunk of brim stone ; pray what shape was h e in ? what was he like for you say you saw him . THO . O ! sir, I saw two great staring saucer eyes, enough to frighten anybody out of their wits . GEN T . And was that all you saw ? THO. No, I saw his cloven - foot very plain ; ’ twas as big as one of our bullock ’ s that goes to plough . GENT . So you saw none of his body but his eyes and his feet ? a fine vision , indeed THO . N0 , that was enough to send me going . GEN T . Going ! what did you run away from him THO . No , but I fled into bed at one jump, and sunk down , and pull ’d the bedclothes quite over me . GEN T . And what did you do that for ? THO . To hide myself from such a frightful crea ture . GEN T . Why, if it had really been the Devil, do you think the bedclothes would have secured you from him THO . Nay, I don ’ t know, but in a fright it was all I could do. GEN T . Nay, ’ twas as wise as all the rest ; but come , Thomas, to be a little serious, pray did he Speak to you THO . Yes , yes, I heard a voice, but who it was th e Lord knows . GEN T . What kind of voice was it ? was it like a man ’ s voice THO . No ; it was a hoarse u gly noise, like the croak ing of a frog, and it called me by my name twice, Tho mas Dawson , Thomas Dawson ! GEN T . Well, did you answer ? H. D . 50 THE POLITICAL THO: N0 , not I, I could not have spoken a word for my life ; why, I was frightened to death ! GEN T . Did it say anything else ? TH O . Yes, when it saw that I did not speak, it said, Thomas Dawson , Thomas Dawson , you are a wicked wretch ; you lay with Jenny S last night ; if you don ’ t repent, I will take you away alive a nd carry you to hell, and you shall be damn ’d, you wretch . GE N T . And was it true, Thomas ? did you lie with Jenny S the night before ? THO . Indeed, master, it was true ; but I was very sorry afterwards . GEN T . But how should the Devil know it, Thomas ? THO . Nay, he knows it to be sure ; why, they say he knows everything . GEN T . Well, but why should he be angry at that ? he would rather bid you lie with her again, and en courage you to lie with forty whores, than hinder you this can ’ t be the Devil , Thomas . THO . Yes, yes, sir, ’ twas the Devil to be sure . GEN T . But b e bid you repent too , you say ? THO . Yes, he threatened me if I did not . GEN T . Why, Thomas, do you think the Devil would have you repent ? THO . Why no , that ’ s true too ; I don ’ t know what to say to that ; but what could it be ? ’ twas the De vil to be sure, it could be nobody else . GEN T . No, no, ’ twas neither the De vil, Thomas, nor anybody else, but your own frightened imagination , Tho mas you had lain with that wench, and being a young Sinner of that kind, your conscience terrified you , told you the Devil would fetch you away, and you would be damn ’d ; and you were so persuaded it would be so, that you at last imagined he was come for you in deed ; that you saw him and heard him whereas, you may depend upon it, if Jenny S will let you lie with her every night, the Devil will hold the candle, or do anything to forward it, but will never disturb

52 THE POLITICAL in ; and these we have a clear discovery of in the whole series of his conduct from the beginning . 1 . That he is the vanquished but implacable enemy of God his creator, who has conquered him, and expelled him from the habitations of bliss ; on which account he is filled with envy, rage, malice, and all uncharitableness ; would dethrone God, and overturn the thrones of heaven, if it was in his power . 2 . That he is man ’ s irreconcilable enemy ; not as he is a man , nor on his own account simply, nor for any advantage he ( the Devil ) can make by the ruin and destruction of man , but in mere envy at the felicity he is supposed to enj oy as Satan ’ s rival ; and as he is appointed to succeed Satan and his angels in the possession of those glories from which they are fallen . And here I must take upon me to say, Mr . Milton makes a wrong judgment of the reason of Satan ’ s resolution to disturb the felicity of man he tells us it. was merely to affront God his maker rob him of the glory designed in his new work of creation , and to disappoint him in his main design, namely, the creating a new Species of creatures, in a perfect rectit ude of soul, and after his own image, from whom he might expect a new fund of glory should be raised, and who was to appear as the triumph of the Messiah ’ s victory over the Devil . In all which Satan could not be fool enough not to know that he should be disappointed by the same power which had so eminently counteracted his rage before . But, I believe, the Devil went u pon a much more probable design ; and though he may be said to act upon a meaner principle than that of pointing his rage at the personal glory of his Creator, yet I own, that In my Opinion , it was by much the more rational under taking, and more likely to succeed ; and that was, that whereas he perceived this new species of creatures had HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 53 a sublime as well as a human part, and were made capable of possessing the mansions of eternal beatitude, from whence he ( Satan) and his angels were expelled and irretrievably banished envy at such a rival moved him by all possible artifice, ( for he saw himself de priv ed of capacity to do it by force , ) to render him nu worthy, like himself; and that bringing him to fall into rebellion and disobedience, he might see his rival damned with him ; and those who were intended to fill up the empty spaces in heaven , made so by the absence of so many millions of fallen angels, be cast out into the same darkness with them . How he came to know that this new species of creatures were liable to such imperfection , is best ex plained by the Devil ’ s prying, vigilant disposition, judging or leading him to j udge by himself, ( for he was as near being infallible as any of God ’ s creatures had been , ) and then inclining him to try whether it was so or no . Modern naturalists, especially some who have not so large a charity for the fair sex as I have, tell u s, that as soon as ever Satan saw the woman, and looked in her face, he saw it evidently that sh e was the best formed creature to make a fool of, and the best to make a hypocrite of, that could be made, and therefore the most fitted for his purpose . 1 . He saw by some thwart lines in her face, ( legible, perhaps, to himself only, ) that there was a throne ready prepared for the sin of pride to sit in state u pon , especially if it took an early possession . Eve you may suppose was a perfect beauty, if ever such a thing may be supposed in the human frame ; her figure being so extraordinary was the groundwork of his project there needed no more than to bring her to be vain of it, and to conceit that it either was so, or was infinitely more sublime and beautiful than it really was ; and having thus tickled her vanity, to introduce pride gradually, till at last he might persuade her that she 54 THE POLITICAL was really angelic, or of heavenly race, and wanted nothing but to eat the forbidden fruit, and that would make her something more excellent still . 2 . Looking further into her frame, and with a nearer view to her imperfections, he saw room to conclude that she was of a constitution easy to be seduced, and especially by flattering her, raising a commotion iii her soul and a disturbance among her passions ; and ao cording ly he set himself to work, to disturb her repose, and put dreams of great things into her head together with something of a nameless nature, which ( however some have been ill - natured enou gh to suggest ) I shall not injure the Devil so much as to mention, without better evidence . 3 . But, besides this, he found, u pon the very first survey of her outside, something so very charming in her mien and behaviou r, so engaging as well as agree able in the whole texture of her person , and with al such a sprightly wit, such a vivacity of parts , such a fluency of tongue, and above all, such a winning pre vailing whine in her smiles, or at least in her tears, that h e made no doubt if he could but once delude her, sh e would easily be brought to delude Adam, whom he found set not only a great value u pon her person, but was perfectly captivated by her charms in a word, he saw plainly, that if he could but ruin her, he should easily make a devil of her, to ruin her husband , and draw him into any gulf of mischief, were it ever so black and dreadful, that sh e should first fall into her self. How far some may be wicked enough , from hence, to suggest of the fair sex, that they have been devils to their husbands ever since, I cannot say ; I h Ope they will not be so unmerciful to discover tru ths of such fatal consequence, though they should come to their knowledge . Thus subtle and penetrating has Satan been from the beginning and who can wonder that, upon these discoveries made into the woman ’ s inside, he went HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 55 immediately to work with her, rather than with Adam ? not but that one would think, if Adam was fool enough to be deluded by his wife, the Devil might have seen so much of it in his countenance, as to have encouraged him to make his attack directly upon him, and not go round about, beating the bush , and ploughing with the heifer ; setting upon the woman first, and then setting her upon her husband, who might as easily have been imposed upon as she. Other commentators upon this critical text suggest to us, that Eve was not so pleased with the hopes of being made a goddess ; that the pride of a seraphic knowledge did not so much work upon her imagination to bring her to consent, as a certain secret notion , ih fused into her head by the same wicked instrument, that sh e sho uld be wiser than Adam, and should by the superiority of her understanding, necessarily have the government over him ; which, at present, she was sensible sh e h ad not, he being master of a particular air of gravity and majesty, as well as of strength, ih finitely su perior to her . This is an ill - natured suggestion ; but it must be con fessed, the impatient desire of government which ( since that ) appears in th e general behaviour of the sex, and particularly of governing husbands, leaves too much room to legitimate the supposition . The philosophers and expositors who are of this Opinion, add to it, that this being her original crime, or the particular temptation to that crime, Heaven thought fit to Show his justice, in making her more entire subjection to her husband be a part of the curse, that sh e might read her sin in the punishment, viz . He sha ll ru le ov er thee. I only give the general hint of these things as they ‘ appear recorded in the annals of Satan ’ s first tyranny, and at the beginning of his government in the world ; those that would be more particularly informed, may inquire of him and know further . 56 THE POL ITICA L I cannot, however, but observe here, with someregret, h ow it appears by the consequence, that the Devil was n ot mis taken when he made an early j udgment of Mrs . Eve ; and h ow Satan really went the right way to work, to j udge of her ; it is certain the Devil had no thing to do but to look in her face, and upon a near steady View he might easily see there, an instrument for his turn ; nor has he failed to make her a tool ever since, by the very methods which he at first proposed ; to which, perhaps, he has made some additions in the corrupting her composition, as well as her understand ing ; q ualifying her to be a complete snare to the poor weaker v essel man ; to wheedle him with her syren ’ s voice, abuse him with her smiles, del ude him with her crocodile tears , and sometimes cock her crown at him, and terrify him with the thunder of her treble ; making the effeminated male apple - eater tremble at th e . noise of that very tongue which at first com "manded him to sin. For it is yet a debate, which the learned have not decided , whether she persuaded and entreated him, or like a true sh e- tyrant, exercised her authority and obliged him to eat the forbidden fruit . And therefore a certain au thor, whose name, for fear of the sex ’ s resentment, I conceal, brings her in , calling to Adam at a great distance, in an imperious haughty manner, beckoning to him with her hand, thus ; Here, says sh e, you cowardly faint - h eartedwretch, take this branch of heavenly fruit, eat and be a stupid fool no longer ; eat and be wise ; eat and be a god and know, to your eternal shame, that your wife has been made an enlightened goddess before you . He tells you , Adam hung back a little at first, and trembled, afraid to trespass : What ails the sot ? says the new termagant ; what are you afraid of ? did God forbid you ! yes ; and why ? that we might not b e knowing and wise like himself! what reason can there be that we, who have capacious souls, able to receive HISTORY O F THE DEVIL . 57 knowledge, should have it withheld ? take it, you fool, and eat ; don ’ t you see h ow I am exalted In soul by It, and am quite another creature ? take it, I say, or, if you don ’ t, I will go and cut down the tree, and you shall never eat any of it at all, and you shall be still a fool, and be governed by your wife for ever . Thus, if this interpretation of the thing is just, She scolded him into it, rated him, and brought him to it by the terror of her voice ; a thing that has retained a dreadful influence over him ever since ; nor have the greatest of Adam ’ s successors, h ow light soever some husbands make of it in this age, been ever able, since that, to conceal their terror at the very sound ; nay, if we may believe history, it prevailed even among the gods ; not all the noise of Vulcan ’ s hammers could silence the clamours of that outrageous whore, his goddess ; nay, even Jupiter himself led such a life with a termagant wi fe, that once, they say, Juno outscolded the noise of all his thunders, and was within an ace of brawling him out of heaven . But to return to the Devil . With these views he resolved, it seems , to attack the woman ; and if we consider him as a devil , and what he aimed at, and consider the fair prospect he had of success, I must confess I do not see who can blame him, or at least, h ow anything less could be expected from him ; but we shall meet with it again by and by . 58. THE POLITICAL CHAP. V . Of the sta tion S a ta n ha d in hea v en bef ore hef ell the na tu re a nd origina l of his c rime, a nd some qf ' Mr . Milton ’ s mista kes a bou t it. THU S far I have gone upon general observation in this great affair of Satan and his empire in this world ; I now come to my title, and shall enter upon the histori cal part, as the main work before me . Besides what has been said poetically, relating to the fall and wandering condition of the Devil and h is host, which poetical part I oder only as an excursion , and desire it should be taken so ; I shall give you what I think is deduced from good originals on the part of Satan ’ s story in a few words . He was one of the created angels, formed by the same omnipotent hand and glorious power who created the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein : this innumerable heavenly host, as we have reason to believe, contained angels of higher and lower stations, of greater and of lesser degree , expressed in the Scripture by thrones , dominions, and principalities : this, I think , we have as much reason to believe, as we have that there are stars in the firmament ( or starry heavens ) of greater and of lesser magnitude . What particular station among the immortal choir of angels this arch - seraph, this prince of devils, called Satan, was placed in before his expulsion, that, indeed, we cannot come at the knowledge of, at least, not with such an authority as may be depended upon ; but as from Scripture authority, he is placed at the head of all the apostate armies, after he was fallen , we cannot think it in the least assuming to say, that he might be supposed to be one of the principal agents in the rebel

60 THE POLITICAL divine face, to admire and adore, which is the full em ployment of angels ; but even this, though it goes as high as imagination can carry us, does not reach it, nor, to me , make it one j ot more comprehensible than it was before ; all I can say to it here, is, that so it was, the fact was upon record, and the rejected troop are in being, (whose circumstances confess the guilt, ) and still groan under the punishment . If you will bear with a poetic excursion upon the subject, not to solve, but to illustrate, the difficulty, take it in a few lines, thus Thou sin ofwitchcraft ! first-born child of crime ! Produc ’d before the bloom oftime ; Ambition ’ s maiden sin, in heaven conceiv ’d, And who could have believed Defilement could in purity begin, And bright eternal day be soil ’d with sin ? Tell us , sly penetrating crime, How cam ’ st thou there , thou fault sublime ? How didst thou pass the adamantine gate, And into spirit thyselfinsinuate ? From what dark state ? from what deep place ? From what strange u ncreated race Where wa s thy ancient habitation found, Before void cha os heard the forming sound ? Wast thou a substance , or an airy ghost, A vapour flying in the fluid waste Of unconcocted air ? And how at first didst thou come there ? Sure there w as once a time when thou wert not ; By whom wast thou created ? and for what ? Art thou a stream from some contagious damp exhal ’d? How should contagion b e entail ’d, On bright seraphic spirits, and in a place Where all ’ s supreme, and glory fills the space ? No noxious vapour there co uld rise, For there no noxious matter lies Nothing that ’ s evil could appear, Sin never could seraphic glory hear ; The brightness ofthe eternal face , Which fills as well as constitutes the place, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 61 Would be a fire too hot for crime to bear, ’T would calcine Sin, or melt it into air. How then did first defilement enter in ? Ambition, thou first v ital seed of Sin ! Thou life of death ! h ow cam ’ st thou there ? In what bright form didst thou appear ? In what seraphic orb didst thou arise ? Surely that place admits of no disguise Eternal sight must know thee there, And being known, thou soon must disappear. But since the fatal truth we know, Without the matter whence or manner how Thou high superlative of sin, Tell u s thy nature , where thou didst begin ? The first degree ofthy increase, Debauch ’d the regions of eternal peace, And fill ’d the breasts ofloyal angels there With the first treason and infernal war. Thou art the high extreme of pride, And dost o ’ er lesser crimes preside Not for the mean attempt of vice design ’d, But to embroil the world and damn mankind . Transforming mischief, h ow hast thou procur ’d That loss that ’ s ne ’ er to b e restor ’ d, And made the bright seraphic morning star In horrid monstrous shapes appear ? Satan, that while he dwelt in glorious light, Was always then as pure as he was bright, That in effulgent rays of glory shone, Excell ’d by the eternal light, by Him alone Distorted now, and stript ofinnocence, And b anish ’d with thee from th e high pre-eminence How has the splendid seraph ch ang ’d his face, Transform ’d by thee, and like thy monstrous race ? U gly as is the crime, for which he fell, Fitted by thee to make a local hell, For such must be the place where either of you dwell . Thus, as I told you, I only moralise u pon the subject, but as to the difficulty, I must leave it as I find it, u n less, as I hinted at first, I could prevail with Satan to set pen to paper, and write this part of his own history ; 62 THE POLITICAL no question but he could let us into the secret . But to be plain, I doubt I shall tell so many plain truths of the Devil, in this history, and discover so many of his secrets, which it is not for his interest to have dis co v ered, that, before I have done, the Devil and I may not be so good friends as you may suppose we are ; at least, not friends enough to obtain such a favour of him, though it be for public good ; so we must be con tent till we come ’ tother side the Blue -blanket, and then we shall know the whole story . But now, though, as I said , I will not attempt to solve the difficulty, I may, I hope, venture to tell you, that there is not so much difficulty in it as at first sight appears, and especially not so much as some people would make us believe let us see h ow others are mis taken ih it, perhaps that may help us a little in the inquiry ; for to know what it is not, is one help to wards knowing what it is . Mr . Milton has indeed told us a great many merry things ofthe Devil, in a most formal, solemn manner ; till, in short, he has made a good play of Heaven and Hell a nd no doubt, if he had lived in our times, he might have had it acted with our Pluto and Proserpine . He has made fine speeches both for God and the Devil, a nd a little addition might have turned it, a la modern, into a Ha rleq u in D ieu et Dia ble. I confess, I do not well know how far the dominion of poetry extends itself; it seems the butts and bounds of Parnass us are not yet ascertained ; so that, for aught I know, by virtue of their ancient privileges, called licentia poeta ra m, there can be no blasphemy in verse, as some of ou r divines say there can be no trea son ih the pulpit . But they that will venture to write that way, ought to be better satisfied about that point than I am . Upon this foot, Mr . Milton, to grace his poem, and give room for his towering fancy, has gone a length b e yond all that e ver went before him, since Ovid in his HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 63 Metamorphoses . He has, indeed, complimented God Almighty with a flux of lofty words, and great sounds, and ha s made a very fine story of the Devil, but he has m ade a mere ye ne sea i guoz of Jesu s Christ . In one line he has him riding on: a cherub, and in another sitting on a throne, both in the very same moment of action . In a nother place he has brought him in making a speech to his saints, when it is evident he had none there, for We all know man was not created till a long while after ; and nobody can be so dull as to say the angels may be called saints, without the greatest absurdity in nature . Besides, he makes Christ himself distinguish them, as in two several bands, and of differing persons and species, as to be sure they are . Stand still in bright array, ye saints Here stand, Ye angels . Par . Lost, lib . vi . So that Christ here is brought in drawing up his army before the last battle, and making a speech to them, to tell them they shall only stand by in war like order, but that they shall have n o occasion to fight, for he alone will engage the rebels . Then, in embat tling his legions, he places the saints here, and the angels there, as if one were the main battle of infantry, and the other the wings of cavalry . But who are those saints ? they are indeed all of his own making, for it is certain there were no saints at all in heaven or earth at that time ; God and his angels filled u p the place ; and till some of the angels fell and men were created, had lived, and were dead, there could have been no saints there . Saint Abel w as certainly the proto - saint of all that ever were seen in heaven , as well as the proto - martyr of all that have been upon earth . Just such another mistake, not to call it a blunder, he makes about hell

which he not only makes local,

64 THE POLITICAL but gives it a being before the fall of the angels, and brings it in Opening its mo uth to receive them . This is so contrary to the nature of the thing, and so great an absurdity, that no poetic license can account for it ; for though poesy may form stories as idea and fancy may furnish materials, yet poesy must not break in upon chronology, and make things, which in time were to exist, act before they existed . Thus a pai nter may make a fine piece of work, the fancy may be good, the strokes masterly, and the beauty of the workmanship inimitably curious and fine, and yet have some unpardonable improprieties which mar the whole work . So the famous painter of Toledo painted the s tory of the three wise men of the East coming to worship and bring their presents to ou r Lord upon his birth at Bethlehem, where he represents them as three Arabian or Indian kings ; two of them are white, and one black but unhappily, when he drew the latter part of them kneeling, which to be sure was done after their faces, their legs being necessarily a little intermixed, he made three black feet for the N ea gro king, and but three white feet for the two white kings, and yet never discovered the mistake till the piece was presented to the king, and hung up in the great church . As this is an unpardonable error in sculpture or limning, it must be much more so in poetry, where the images must have no improprieties; much less inconsistencies . In a word, Mr . Milton has indeed made a fine poem, b u t it is the devil of a history . I can easily allow Mr. Milton to make hills and dales, flowery mea dows and plains, and the like, in heaven ; and places of retreat and contemplation in hell ; though, I must add, it can be allowed to no poet on earth but Mr . Mil ton . Nay, I will allow Mr . Milton , if you please, to set the angels a dancing in heaven, lib . v . and the devils a singing in hell, lib . i . though they are, in short, especially the last, most horrid absurdities . HISTORY OF THE DE VIL. 65 But I cannot allow him to make their music in hell to b e harmonious and Charming as he does ; such images being incongruous, and indeed shocking to nature . Neither can I think we should allow things to be placed ou t of time in poetry, any more than in history ; it is a confusion of images which is allowed to be disallowed by all the critics of what tribe or species soever in the world, and is indeed unpardonable . But we shall find so many more of these things in Mr . Milton , that really taking notice of them all would carry me quite out of my w ay, I being at this time not writing the history of Mr . Milton, but of the Devil : besides, Mr . Milton is such a celebrated man , that wh o but he that can write the history of the Devil dare meddle with him But to come back to the business . As I had cau tioned you against running to Scripture for shelter in cases of difficulty, Scripture weighing very little among the people I am directing my speech to, so indeed, S ' criptu re gives but very little light into anything of the Devil ’ s story before his fall, and but to very little of it for some time after. Nor has Mr . Milton said one word to solve the main difli culty, viz . , h ow th e Devil came to fall , and h ow sin came into heaven , and how the spotless seraphic nature c ould receive infection, whence the contagion pro c eeded, what noxious matter could emit corruption , h ow and whence any vapo ur to poison the angelic frame could rise up, or h ow it increased and grew up to crime . But all this he passes over, and hurrying up that part in two or three words, only tells us, his pride Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring To set himselfin glory above his peers, He trusted to have equ all ’d the Most High . Lib . i . His pride! ! buthow came Satan , while an archangel , H . D . F 66 THE POLITICAL to b e ' prou d? How did it consist, that pride and per “ feet holiness should meet in the same person ? Here we must bid Mr . Milton good night ; for, in plain terms, he is in the dark about it, and so we are all ; and th e most that can be said, is, that we know the fact is so, b ut nothing of the nature or reason of it . But to come to the, history : the angels fell , they sinned, (wonderful ! ) in heaven , and God cast them ou t ; what their sin was is not explicit, but in general it is called a rebellion against God ; all sin must be so. Mr . Milton here takes upon him to give the history of it, as particularly as if he had been born there, and came down hither on pu rpose to give us an account o f it ; ( I hope he is better informed by this time ;) but this he does In such a manner, as j ostles with religion, and shocks our faith In so many points necessary to b e believed, that we must forbear t o give up to Milton , or must set aside part of the sacred text, in such a manner, as will assist some people to set it aside all . I mean by this, his invented scheme of the Son ’ s being declared in heaven to be begotten then , and then to be declared generalissimo of all the armies of h eaven ; and of the Father ’ s summoning all the angels of the heavenly host to submit to him, and pay him homage . The words are quoted already, page 30 . I must own the invention , indeed, is very fine, th e images exceeding magnificent, the thou ght rich and bright, and , in some respect truly sublime : but th e authorities fail most wretchedly, and the mistiming of it is uns ufferably gross, as is noted in the introduction to this work for Christ is not declared the Son of God but on earth ; it is true, it is spoken from heaven , b u t then it is spoken as perfected on earth if it was at all to be assigned to heaven , it was from eternity, and there, indeed, his eternal generation is allowed ; but to take upon us to say, that, On a day ; a certain day for so our poet assumes, lib . v . :

68 THE POLITICAL mediate sovereign ; in short, he threw up his commis sion , and, in order not to be compelled to obey , re v olted, and broke ou t in open rebellion . All this part is a decoration noble and great, nor is there any objection to be made against the invention , because a deduction of probable events ; but the plot is wrong laid, as is observ ed above, because contradicted by the Scripture account, according to which Christ was declared in heaven, not then , but from eternity, and not declared with power but ’ on earth, viz . , in his victory over sin and death, by the resurrection from the dead ; so that Mr . Milton is not orthodox in this part, but lays an avowed foundation for the corrupt doctrine of Arius, which says, there was a time when Christ was not the Son of God . But to leav e Mr. Milton to his flights, I agree with him in this part, viz . , that the wicked or sinning angels with the great archangel at the head of them, revolted from their obedience, even in heaven itself; that Satan began the wicked defection , and being a chief among the heavenly host, consequently carried over a great party with him, who altogether rebelled against God ; that upon this rebellion they were sentenced, by the righteous judgment of God, to be expelled the holy habitation ; this, besides the authority of Scrip ture, we have v isible testimonies of from the devils themselves ; their influences and operations among us every day, of which mankind are witnesses ; in all the merry things they do in his name, and under his pro tection, in almost every scene of life they pass through , whether we talk of things done openly or in masque rade, things done in or ou t of it, things done in earnest or in jest. But then , what comes of the long and bloody war that Mr . Milton gives such a full and particular account of, and the terrible battles in heaven between Michael with -the royal army of angels on one hand , and Satan with his rebel host on hte other ; in which he s upposes HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 69 th e numbers and strength to be pretty near equal 9 . “ but at length brings in the Devil ’ s army, upon doubling their rage, and bringing new engines of war into the field , putting Michael and all the faithful army to the worst ; and , in a word, defeats them ? For though they were not put to a plain flight, in which case he must, at least, have given an account of two or three thousand millions of angels cut in pieces and wounded, yet he allows them to give over the fight, and make a kind of retreat ; so making way for the complete vic tory of the Son of God n ow this ’ is all invention, or at least, a borrowed thought from the old poets, and the fight of the giants against Jupiter, so nobly designed by Ovid, almost two thousand years ago ; and there it was well enough ; but whether poetic fancy should be allowed to fable upon heaven, or no, and upon the kin g of heaven too, that I leave to the sages . By this expulsion of the devils, it is allowed by most authors, they are, ipso f a cto, stripped of the recti tude and holiness of their nature, which was their beauty and perfection ; and being ingulfed in the abyss of irrecoverable ruin , it is no matter where, from that very time they lost their angelic beautiful form, and commenced ugly frightful monsters and devils, and became e vil doers, as well as evil Spirits ; filled with a horrid malignity and enmity against their Maker, and armed with a hellish resolution to Show and exert it on all occasions retaining however their exalted spirituous nature, and having a vast extensive power of action, all which they can exert in nothing else but doing evil, for they are entirely divested of either power or will to do good ; and even in doing evil , they are under restraints and limitations of a su perior power, which it is their torment, and, perhaps, a great part of their hell, that they cannot break through . 0 THE POLITICAL CHAP . VI . W ' ha t became of the Dev il a nd his host of f a llen spirits af ter their being expelled f rom hea v en, a nd his wa ndering condition till the crea tion with some more of Mr . Milton ’ s a bsu rdities on tha t su bject. HAVIN G thus brought the Devil and his innumerable legions to the edge Of the bottomless pit, it remains, before I bring them to action, that some inquiry should be made into the posture of their affa irs im mediately after their precipitate fall, and into the place . of their immediate residence ; for this will appear to be very necessary to Satan ’ s history, and indeed, so as that, without it, all the further account we have to give of him will be inconsistent and imperfect. And first, I take u pon me to lay down some funda mentals, which I believe I shall be able to make out . historically, though. perhaps, not so geographically as some have pretended to ' do . 1 . That Satan was not immediately, nor is yet locked down into th e abyss of a local hell, such as is supposed by some, and such as he shall be at last ; or that, 2 . If he was, he h as certain liberties allowed him for excursions into the regi ons of this air, and certain spheres of action, i n which he can and does move, to do like a very devil as he is, all the mischief h e can , and of which we see so many examples both about us and in us : In th e inquiry after which, I shall tak e o ccasion to ex amine whether the Devil is not in most of u s sometimes, if not in all of us one time or other . 3 . That Satan has no particular residence in , this HISTORY on THE DEVIL. 7 1 globe or earth where we live , that he rambles abo ut among us , and marches over and over our whole country, he and his devils, In camps vola nt , but that he pitches his grand army or chief en campment in our adj acencies, or frontiers, which the philOSOpherS call atmosphere, and whence he is called the prince of the power of that element or part of the world we call air ; from whence he sends ou t his Spies, his agents, and emissaries, to get intelligence, and to carry his commissions ' to his tru sty and well-beloved cousins and council lors on earth, by which his business is done, and his affairs carried on in the world . Here again , I meet Mr. Milton full in my face, who will have it, that the Devil, immediately at his expu l sion , rolled down directly into a hell proper and local ; nay, he measures the very dista nce, at least gives the length of the j ourney by the time they were passing or falling, which, he says, was nine days ; a good poetical flight, b ut neither founded on Scripture or philosophy, for he might every j ot as well have brought hell up to the walls of heaven , advanced to receive them, or he ought to have considered the space which is to be allowed to any locality, let him take what part of infinite distance between heaven and a created hell he pleases. But let that be as Mr. Milton ’ s extraordinary genius pleases to pla ce it ; the passa ge, it seems , is j ust nine days betwixt heaven and hell , well might Dives then see father Abraham, and talk to him too ; but then the great gulf which Abraham tells him was fixed b e tween them, does not seem to be so large as, according to sir Isaac Newton , Dr. Halley, Mr . Whiston , and the rest of our men of science, we take it to be . But suppose the passage to be nine days, according to Mr . Milton , what followed ? why hell gaped wide, opened its frightful mouth and received them all at once ; millions and thousands of millions as they were, 72 THE POLITICAL it received them all at a gulp , as w e call i t ; they had no difficulty to g o in , no, none at all . Facilis descensus Averni sed revocare gradum Hoe Opus h ‘ Ic labor est. Virg. All this, as poetical, we may receive, but not at all as historical ; for then come troubles insuperable in our way, some Of which may be as follow : ( L) hell is here suppo sed to be a pla ce ; nay, a place created for the punishment Of angels and men , and likewise created long before those had fallen , or these had being ; this makes me say, Mr . Milton was a good poet, but a bad historian ; Tophet wa s prepared Of Old, indeed, but it was for the king, that is to say, it was prepared for those whose lot it should be to come there ; but this does not at all suppose it was prepared before it was . resol ved whether there sho uld be subjects for it, or no ; else we must suppose both men and angels were made by the glorious and upright Maker Of all things on purpose for destruction, which would be incongruous and absurd . But there is worse yet to come ; for in the n ext place he adds, that hell having received them, closed upon ' them that is to say, took them in , closed or shu t its mouth ; a nd, in a word , they were locked in , as it was said in another place; they were locked in , and the key “ is carried up to heaven and kept there, for we know the angel came down from heaven , having the key of ' the bottomless pit ; but first, see Mr . Milton . Nine days they fell confounded Chaos roar ’d And felt tenfold confusion in their fall Hell, at last, Yawning, receiv ’d them whole, and on them clos ’d D own from the v erge Of heaven, eternal wrath Burnt after them U nquenchable . This scheme is certainly deficient, if not absurd, andJ HISTORY O F T HE DEVIL. 73 I think is more so than any other he h as laid ; it is evident, neither Satan or his host of devils are, no, not any of them, yet, even now, confined in the eternal prison , where the Scripture says, he sha ll be reserv ed in cha ins of da rkness. They must have mean thoughts of hell , as a prison , a local confinement, that c an sup pose the Devil able to break j ail, knock off his fetters, and come abroad, if he had been once locked in there, as Mr . Milton says he was : now we know that he is abroad again ; he presented himself before God, among his neighbours, when Job ’ s case came to be discoursed of ; and more than that, it is plain he was a prisoner at large, by his answer to God ’ s question , which was, W ' h ence comest thou ? to which he answered , F rom going to a nd f ro through the ea rth, cfic . this, I say, is plain, and if it be as certain that hell closed u pon them, I demand then, h ow got he ou t ? and why was there not a proclamation for. apprehending him, as there usually is after such rogues as break ou t Of prison In short, thetrue account of the Devil ’ scircumstances, since his fall from heaven , is much more likely to be thus : that he is more of a va grant than a prisoner ; that he is a wanderer in the wild unbounded waste, Where he and hi s legions, like the hordes of Tartary, who, in the wild countries of Karak ath ay, the deserts OfBarkan, Cassan , and Astracan , live u p and down where they find proper ; so Satan and his innumerable legions rove about, hic et u biq u e, pitching their camps . ( b eing beasts Of prey) where they find the most spoil ; watching over this world, ( and all the other worlds for aught w e know, and ifthere are any such I say, watching, and seeking wh o they may devour, that is, wh o they may deceive and delude, and so destroy, for devour they cannot . Satan being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is without any certain abode ; for though he h as, in consequence of his angelic nature, a kind of empire in the liquid waste or air, yet this is: 74 THE POLITICAL certainly part of his punishment, that he 1 8 continually hovering over this inhabited globe ofearth swelling with the rage of envy at the felicity of his rival , man , and studying all the means possible to injure and ruin him , but extremely limited In power, to his unspeakable mor tification : this is his present state, without any fixed abode, place, or space allowed him to rest the sole of hi s foot upon . -From his expulsion , I take h is first view of horror to be that of looking back towards the heaven which h e had lost, and there to see the chasm or opening made up, ou t at which, as at a breach in the wall of the holy place, he was thrust headlong by the power which expelled him ; I say, to see the breach repaired , the mounds built up, the walls garrisoned with millions of angels, and armed with thunders ; and, above all, made terrible by that glory from whose presence they ' were expelled, as is ! poetically hinted at before . Upon this sight, i t i s no wonder ( if there was such a place) that they fled till the darkness might cover ' them, and that they might be ou t of the v iew of so hated a sight . Wherever they found it, you may be sure they “ pitched their first camp, and began , after many a sour reflection upon what was passed, to consider and think a little u pon what was to come . If I had as much p ersonal acquaintance with the Devil as would admit i t, and could depend upon the ! ‘ truth of what answer he would give me, the ‘ first q uestion I would ask him, should be, What measures " they resolved on at their first assembly ; and the n ext should be, how they were employed in all that space of f time, between their so flying the face of their almighty Conqueror, and the creation Of man . As for the length of the time , which, according to the learned, was twenty thousand years , and according to the more learned , not ! a quarter so much , I would not concern my curiosity much abo ut it ; it is most certain, there was a cou si

76 THE POLITICAL systemary world, and be able, if not restrained, to do mischief enough there too, and even to ruin and over throw the whole body of people contained in it . But , I say, we need not fly to these shifts, or consult the astronomers in the decision of this point ; for, wherever Satan and his defeated host went at their ex pulsion from heaven , we think we are certain none of all these beautiful worlds, or be they worlds or no, I mean the fixed stars , planets , &c . , had then any exist ence ; for the beginning, as the Scripture calls it, was not ‘ yet begun . But to speak a little by the rules of philosophy, that is to say, so as to be understood by others , even when w e speak of things we cannot fully understand ou r selves : though in the beginning of time all this glori ou s creation was formed, the earth, the starry heavens, and all the furniture thereof, and there was a time when they were not ; yet we cannot say so of the void, or that nameless nowhere, as I called it before, which now appears to be a somewhere, in which these glorious bodies are placed . That immense space which . those take up, and which they move in at this time, must be supposed, before they had being, to be placed there : as God himself was, and existed before all being, time, or place, so the heaven of heavens, or the place where the thrones and dominions of his kingdom then existed, inconceivable and inefl ' able, had an existence before the glorious seraphs, the innumerable company of angels, which attended about the throne of God, existed these all had a being long before, as the eternal Creator of them all had before them . Into this void or abyss of nothing, however um measurable, infinite, and , even to those Spirits them selves, inconceivable, they certainly launched from the bright precipice which they fell from, and shifted as well as they could . Here, expanding those wings which fear and horror at their defeat furnished them, as I hinted before, they HISTORY OP THE DEVIL: 77 hurried away to the utmost distance possible from the face of God their conqueror, and then most dreaded enemy, formerly their j oy and glory . Be this utmost removed distance where it will, here, certainly, Satan and all his gang of devils, his num b erless, though routed armies, retired. Here Milton might, with some good ground, have formed his Pan demonium, and have brought them in, consulting what was next to be done, and whether there was any room left to renew the war, or to carry on the rebellion ; bu t had they been cast immediately into hell, closed up there, the ‘ bottomless pit look ed upon them, and the key carried up to heaven to be kept there, as Mr . Mil ton himself in part confesses, and the Scripture affirms ; I say, had this been so, the Devil himself could not have been so ignorant as to think of any future steps to be taken , to retrieve his affai r s , and therefore a Pandemonium or divan in hell, to consult Of it, was ridiculous . All Mr . Milton ’ s schemes of Satan ’ s future conduct , and all the Scripture expressions about the Devil and his numerous attendants, and of his actings since that time, make it not reasonable to su ggest that the devils were confined to their eternal prison , at their expulsion out of heaven ; but that they were in a state of liberty to act, though limited in acting ; of which I shall also speak in its place . 78 THE POLITICAL CHAP. VII . Of the number of S a ta n ’ s host; how they ca me fi rst to know of the new crea ted worlds, now in being, a nd their mea su res w ith ma nkind upon the dis coverg . SEVERAL things have been su ggested to set u s a cal c ulating the number of this frightful throng of devils, wh o, with Satan , the master - devil , was thus cast out of heaven ; I cannot say I am so much m aster of political arithmetic as to cast up the number of the beast, no, nor the number of the beasts or devils who make up this throng . St . Francis, they tell us, or some other saint, they do not say who, asked the Devil once, h ow strong he was ; for St . Francis, you must know, was very familiar with him ; the Devil, it seems , did not tell him, but presently raised a great cloud Of dust, by the help, I suppose, of a gust of wind, and bid that saint count it ; he was, I suppose, a calculator that wo uld be called grave, wh o dividing Satan ’ s troops into three lines, cast up the number of the devils of all sorts in each battalia, at ten hundred times a hundred thousand millions Of the first line, fifty m illions of times as many in the second line, and three hundred thousand times as many as both in the third line . The impertinence of this account would hardly have given it a place here, only to hint that it h as always been the Opinion , that Satan ’ s name may well be called a noun of multitude, and that the Devil and his angels are certainly no inconsiderable number . It was a smart repartee that a Venetian nobleman made to a priest, who rallied him upon his refusing to give some HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 79 thing to the church, which the priest demanded for the delivering him from purgatory ; when the priest asking him if he knew what an innumerable number of devils there were to take him, he answered, yes, he knew how many devils there were in all . How many ? says the priest ; his curiosity, I suppose, being raised by the novelty of the answer : Why ten m illions , five hundred and eleven thousand, six hundred and seventy -fiv e devils and a half, says the nobleman . A half! says the priest ; pray what kind of a devil is that ? Yourself, says the nobleman, for you are half a devil already, and will be a whole one when you come there, for you are for deluding all you deal with , and bringing us soul an d body into your hands, that you may be paid for letting us go again . So mu ch for their number . Here also it would come in very aptly, to consider the state of that long interval between the time of their e xpulsion from heaven , and the creation of the world ; an d what the posture of the Devil ’ s affairs might be, during that time . The horror of their condition can only be conceived of at a distance, and especially by u s, who being embodied creatures, cannot fully judge of what is or is n ot a punishment to seraphs and Spirits ; but it is just to suppose they suffered all that Spirits of a seraphic nature were capable to sustain , consistent with their existence ; notwithstanding which they re tained still the hellishness of their rebellious principle, namely, their hatred and rage against God, and their envy at the felicity of his creatures . A s to how long their time might be, I shall leave the search, no lights being given me that are either probable or rational, and we have so little room to make a judgment of it, that we may as w ell believe father M wh o su pposes it to be a hundred thou sand years, as those wh o j udge it one thousand years ; it is enough that we are sure it was before the creation ; how long before is not material to the Devil ’ s history, 80 THE POLITICAL unless we had some records of what happened to him, or was done by him in the interval . During the wandering condition the Devil was in at that time, we may suppose he and his whole clan to be employed in exerting their hatred and rage at the Almighty, and at the happiness of the remaining faithful angels, by all the ways they had power to Show it . From this determined stated enmity of Satan and his host against God , and at everything that brought glory to his name, Mr . Milton brings in Satan, when first he saw Adam in Paradise, and the felicity Of his station there, Swellin g with rage and envy, and taking up a dreadful resolution to ruin Adam and all his pos terity, merely to disappoint his Maker Of the glory of his creation ; I shall come to Speak of that in its place . How Satan , in his remote situation , got intelligence of the place where to find Adam ou t, or that any such thing as a man was created, is matter of j ust specula tion , and there might be many rational schemes laid for it : Mr. Milton does not undertake to tell us the particulars, nor indeed could he find room for it ; per haps the Devil , having, as I have said, a liberty to range over the whole void or abyss, which we want as well a name for, as indeed powers to conceive of, might have discovered that the almighty Creator had formed a new and glorious work, with infinite beauty and variety, filling up the Immense waste of space, in which he, the Devil and his a ngels, had roved for so long a time, without finding anything to work on , or to exert their apostate rage in against their Maker . That at length they found the infinite u ntrodden space, on a sudden spread full with glorious bodies, shining in self- existing beauty, with a new, and to them unknown lustre, called light : they found these luminous bodies,though immense in bulk, and infinite in number, yet fixed in their wondrous stations, regular and exact HISTORY OR THE DEVIL . 8 1 in their motions, confined In their proper orbits, tending to their particular centres , and enj oying every one their peculiar systems , within which was contained Innumer able planets with their satellites Or moons, in which a gain a reciprocal influence, motion , and revolution , conspired to form the most admirable uniformity of the whole . S urprised, to be sure, with this sudden and yet glori ou s work Of the Almighty, ( for the creation was enough, with its lustre, even to surprise the devils, ) they might reasonably be supposed to Start out of their dark retreat, and with a curiosity not below the seraphic dignity, ( for these are some Of the things which the angels desire to look into, ) to take a flight through all the amazing systems of the fixed suns or stars, which we see now but at a distance, and only make “ astrono mical guesses at . Here the Devil fou nd not subject Of wonder only, but matter to swell his revolted Spirit with more rage, and to revive the malignity of his mind against his Maker, and especially against this n ew increase Of glory, which, to his infinite regret, was extended over the whole waste, and which he looked upon, as we say in human affairs, as a pags conq u is, or, if you will have it in the lan guage of devils, as an invasion upon their kingdom . Here it naturally occurred to them, in their state of envy and rebellion , that though they could not assault the impregnable walls of Heaven , and could no more pretend to raise war in the place Of blessedness and peace, yet that perhaps they might find room in thi s new, and, however glorious, yet inferior kingdom or creation , to work some despite to their great Creator, or to affront his majesty in the person Of some of his new creatures and upon this they may be justly supposed to double their v igilance, in the survey they resolved to take of these new worlds, however great, numberless , and wonderf ul . What discoveries they may have made in the other H . D . G 82 THE POLITICAL and greater worlds than this earth, we have nbt ’ yet ’ had an account ; possibly they are conversant with other parts of God ’ s creation , besides this little, little globe, which is but as a point in comparison of the rest ; andwith other of God ’ s creatu resb esides man, wh o may, according to the Opinion of our philosophers, inhabit those worlds ; but as nobody knows that part but th e Devil, we Shall not trouble ourselves with the inquiry . ' But it is very reasonable, and indeed probable, that the devils were more than ordinarily surprised at the n ature and reason of all this gloriou s creation , after they had, with the utmost curiosity, viewed all the parts of it ; the glories of the several systems ; the im mense spaces in which the glorious bodies that were created and made part of it, were allowed respectively to move ; the innumerable fixed stars, as so many suns in the centre Of so many distant solar systems ; the ( likewise innumerable) dark Opaque bodies receiving light, and depending upon those suns respectively for such light, and then reflecting that light again u pon and for the u se of one another ; to see the beauty and Splendour of their forms, the regularity of their position, the order and exa ctness, and yet inconceiv able velocity of their motions, the certainty of their revolutions , and the variety and virtue of their influ ences ; and then, which was even to the devils them selves most astonishing, that after all the rest of their observations they should find this whole immense work was adapted for, and made subservient to, the use, de light, and blessing only of one poor species, in itself small , and in appearance contemptible ; the meanest of all the kinds supposed to inhabit so many glorious worlds, as appeared now to be formed ; I mean, that moon called the Earth, and the creatu re called Man ; that all was made for him, ‘ upheld by the wise Creator, on his acco unt only, and would necessarily end and cease whenever that speices should end and be determined . That this creature was to be found nowhere but ( as

84 THE POLITICAL enj oying him, as above, but (which the Devil now was not) capable of honouring and glorifying his Maker, who also had condescended to accept of honour from him. 4 . And, which was still more, that being of an angelic nature, though mixed with, and confined for th e present in, a case of mortal flesh ; he was intended to be removed from this earth after a certain time of life here, to inhabit that heaven, and enj oy that v ery glory and felicity, from which Satan and his angels had been expelled . When he found all this, it presently occurred to him, that God had done it all as an act of triumph over him ( Satan) ; and that these creatures were only created to people heaven, depopulated, or stripped of its lu hahi tants, by their expulsion ; and that these were all to be made angels in the devils ’ stead . If this thought increased his fury and envy, as far as rage of devils can be capable of being made greater ; it doubtless set him on work to give a vent to that rage and envy, by searching into the nature and constitution Of this creature, called man ; and to find out whether he was invulnerable, and could by no means be hurt by the power of hell, or deluded by his subtilty ; or whether he might be beguiled and deluded, and so, instead of being preserved in holiness and purity, wherein he was certainly created, be brought to fall and rebel as he ( Satan) had done before him ; by which, instead of being transplanted into a gloriou s state, after this life in heaven, as his Maker had de signed him to be, to fill up the angelic choir, and sup ply the place from whence he ( Satan) had fallen , he might be made to fall also like him, and, in a word, he made a devil like himself. This convinces us that the Devil has not lost his na tural powers by his fall, and our learned commentator Mr . Pool is of the same opinion ; though he grants that the Devil has lost his moral power, or his power of doing HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 85 good, which he can never recover . Vide Mr . Pool upon Acts xix . 1 7 where we may particularly observe, when the man possessed with an evil spirit flew upon the seven sons of Scaev a the Jew, (wh o would have ex orcised them in the name of Jesus, without the au tho rity of Jesus, or without faith in him, ) he flew on them and mastered them, so that they fled out of the house from the Devil , conquered, naked, and wounded : b ut Of this power of the Devil I shall speak by itself. In a word, and to sum u p all the Devil ’ s story from his first expulsion , it stands th us : for so many years as were between his fall and the creation of man , though we have no memoirs Of his particular affairs, we have reason to believe he was withou t any manner of em ployment, but a certain tormenting endeavour to be always expressing his rage and enmity against heaven . I call it tormenting, because ever disappointed every thought about it proving empty ; e v ery attempt towards it abortive leaving them only light enough to see still more and more reason to despair of success and that this made his condition still more and more a hell than it was before . After a space of duration in this misery, which we have no light given us to measure or j udge of, he at length discovered the new creation of man , as above, upon which he soon found matter to set himself to work upon , and has been busily employed ever since . And now, indeed, there may be room to suggest a local hell, and the confinement of souls (made corrupt and degenerate by him) to it, as a place , though he himself, as is still apparent by his actings , is not yet confined to it ; of this hell, its locality, extent, dimen sions, continuance, and nature, as it does not belong to Satan ’ s history, I have a good excuse for saying no thing, and so put off my meddling with that, which if I would meddle with, I could say nothing to the purpose . 86 THE POLITICAL CHAP. VIII . Of the power of the D ev il a t the time of the crea tion of this world a nd whether it ha s not been f a rther stra itened a nd limited since tha t time, a nd wha t shif ts a nd stra tagems he is obliged to ma ke u se of to compa ss his designs upon ma nkind. CU N N IN G men have fabled, and though it be without either religion, authority, or physical foundation, it may be we may like it n ever the worse for that, that when God made the stars and all the heavenly ln minaries, the Devil, to mimic his Maker, and insul t his n ew creation , made comets, in imitation of the fixed stars but that the composition of them being comb u s tible, when they came to wander in the abyss, rolling by an irregular ill - grounded motion , they took fire, in their approach to some of those great bodies of flame, the fixed stars ; and being thus kindled, like a firework unskilfully let off, they then took wild and eccentric, as also different motions of their own, ou t of Satan ’ s direction , and beyond his power to regulate ever after . Let this thought stand by itself, it matters not to ou r purpose whether we believe anything of it or no ; it is enough to ou r case , that if Satan had any such power then , he h as no such power n ow, and that leads me to inquire into his more recent limi tations . I am to suppose, he and all his accomplices being c onfounded at the discovery of the new creation , and racking their wits to find out the meaning of it, had at last, no matter how, discovered the whole system, and concluded , as I have said, that the creature called man was to be their successor in the heavenly man sions ; upon which, I suggest that the first motion of

88 THE POLITICAL globe at once with a storm ; or how easily could he, who, by the situation of his empire, must be supposed able to manage the clouds , draw them u p in such position as should naturally produce thunders and lightnings, cause those lightnings to blast the earth , dash in pieces all the fine buildings, burn all the popu lous towns and cities, and lay waste the world ; at the same time command suited quantities of sublimated air to ‘ b u rst out of the bowels of the earth, and overwhelm and swallow up in the opening chasms all the in habitants of the globe . In a word, Satan , left to him self as a Devil, and to the power, which by virtue of his seraphic original he must be vested with, was able to have made devilish work in the world, if by a superior power he was not restrained . But there is no doubt, at least to me, but that with his fall from heaven, as he lost the rectitude and glory of his angelic nature, I mean his innocence, so he lost the power too that he h ad before and that when he first commenced devil, he received the chains of re straint too , as the badge of his apostacy, viz . a general prohibition to do anything to the prejudice of this creation , or to act anything by force or violence with ou t special permission . This prohibition was not sent him by a messenger, or by an order in writing, or proclaimed from hea ven by a law ; but Satan , by a strange, invisible, and nu accou ntable impression felt the restraint within him ; and at the same time that his moral capacity was not taken away , yet his power of exerting that capacity felt the restraint, and left him unable to do, even what he was able to do, at the same time . I make no question but the Devil is sensible of this restraint, that is to say, not as it is a restraint only, or as an effect of his expulsion from heaven ; but as it prevents his capital design against man , who, for the reason I have gi v en already, he entertains a mortal hatred Of, and would destroy with all his heart, if h e HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 89 might ; and , therefore, like a chained mastiff, we find him oftentimes making a horrid hellish clamour and noise, barking and howling, and frightening the peo ple, letting them know that if he was loose he would tear them to pieces ; but at the same time his very fury shakes his chain , which lets them know, to their satisfaction, he can only bark, but cannot bite . Some are Of Opinion that the Devil is not restrained so much by the superior power of his sovereign and Maker ; but that all his milder measures with man are the effect of a political scheme, and done upon mature deliberation ; that it was resol v ed to act thus in the great council or p t of devils, called upon this v ery occasion , when they first were informed of th e creation of man and especially when they considered what kind of creature he was and what might probably be the reason Of making him, viz . to fill up the vacancies in heaven ; I say, th at then the devils re solved, that it was not for their interest to fall upon him with fury and rage, and so destroy the species , for that this would be no benefit at all to them, and would only cause another original man to be created ; for that they knew God could, by the same omnipotence, form as many new species of creatures as he pleased and, if he thought fit, create them in heaven too, ou t of the reach of devils or evil Spirits, and that therefore to destroy man would no way answer their end . On the other hand, examining strictly the mould Of this new creature, and ofwhat materials he was formed ; how mixed up of a nature convertible and pervertible, capable indeed of infinite excellence, and consequently of eternal felicity but subject likewise to corruption and degeneracy, and consequently to eternal misery that instead of being fit to supply the places of Satan and his rejected tribe ( the expelled angels ) In heaven , and filling up the thrones or stalls In the celestial choir, they might, if they could but be brought into crime , become a race of rebels and traitors like the rest, and 90 THE POLITICAL so come at last to keep them company, as well in the place of eternal misery, as in the merit of it ; and, in a word, become devils instead Of angels . Upon this discovery, I say, they found it infinitely more for the interest of Satan ’ s infernal kingdom, to go a nother way to work with mankind , and see if it were possible, by the strength of all their infernal wit and councils , to lay some snare for him, and by some stratagem to bring him to eternal ruin and misery . This being then approved as their only method, ( and the Devil showed he was no fool in the choice, ) he next resolved that there wa s no time to be lost ; that it was to be set about immediately, before the race was multi plied, and before, by that means, the work be not made greater only, but perhaps the more difli cu lt too ; ac cordingly, the diligent Devil went instantly about it, agreeable to all the story of Eve and the serpent, as before the belief of which, whether historically or alle gorically, is not at all Obstructed by this hypothesi I do not affirm that this was the case at first, because being not present in that black divan, at least not that I know Of, for who knows where he was or was not in his pre - existent state ? I cannot be positive in the re solve that passed there ; but except for some very little contradiction , which we find in the sacred writings, I Should, I confess, incline to believe it historically ; and I shall speak of those things which I call contradictions ‘ to it, more largely hereafter . In the mean time, be it one way or other, that is to say, either that Satan had no power to have proceeded with man by Violence, and to have destroyed him as soon as he was made ; or that he had the power, but chose rather to proceed by other methods to deceive and debauch him ; I say, be it which you please, I am still of the Opinion that it really was not the Devil ’ s business to destroy the species ; that it would have been nothing to the purpose, and no advantage at all to him, if he had don e it ; for that, as above, G od co uld 1m

92 THE POLITICAL u pon the camels and the servants, to carry off the first , and murder the last he made lightning flash upon the poor sheep, and kill them all and he blowed the house down upon his poor children , and buried them all in the ruins . N ow here is a specimen of Satan ’ s good will to mankind, and what a havoc the Devil would make in the world, if he might ; and here is a testimony too, that he could not do this without leave ; so that I can not but be of the opinion he has some limitations , some bounds set to his natural fury ; a certain number of links in his chain , which he cannot exceed , or, in a word, that he cannot go a foot beyond his tether . The same kind of evidence we have in t he Gospel , Matt . viii . 3 1 , where Satan could not so much as pos sess the filthiest and meanest of all creatures, the swine, till he had asked leave; and that still toi show his good will, as soon as he had gotten leave, he hurried them all into the sea and choked them ; these, I say, are some of the reasons why I am not willing to say the Devil is not restrained in power but, on the other Side, we are told of so many mischievous things the Devil has done in the world, by virtue of his dominion over the elements, and by other testimonies bf his power, that I do not kn ow what to think of it, though, u pon the whole, the first is the safest Opinion ; for if we believe the last, we may, for au ght I know, h e brought, like the American Indians, to worship him that he may do us no harm . And now I have named those people in America, I confess it would go a great way in favour of Satan ’ s generosity, as well as in testimony of his power, if we might believe all the accounts, which indeed authors are pretty well agreed in the truth of, namely, of the mischiefs the Devil does in those countries , where his dominion seems to be established ; h ow he uses them when they deny him that homage he claims Of them as his due ; what havoc and combustion he makes among HISTORY O F THE DEVIL . 93 them ; and how b eneficent he is, or at least negative in his mischiefs, when they appease him by their hellish sacrifices . Likewise we see a test of his wicked subtilty in his management Of those dark nations, when he was more immediately worshipped by them namely, the making them believe that all their good weather, rains, dews, and kind influences upon the earth , to make it fruitful, was from him whereas they really were the common blessings of a higher hand, and came not from him, the Devil , but from him that made the Devil , and made him a devil or fallen angel by his curse . But to go back to the method the Devil took with the first of mankind ; it is plain the policy of hell was right, though the execution of the resolves they took did not fully answer their end neither for Satan fastening upon poor, p roud, ridiculous mother Eve, as I have said before, made presently a true judgment of her capacities, and of her temper ; took her by the right handle, and soothing her vanity, which is to this day the softest place in the head of all the sex, wheedled her out of her senses , by praising her beauty, and pro mising to make her a goddess . The foolish woman yielded presently, and that we are told is the reason why the same method so strangely takes with all her posterity, viz . that you are sure to prevail with them, if you can but once persuade them that you believe they are witty and handsome ; for the Devil, you may observe, never quits any hold he gets, and having once found a way into the heart, al ways takes care to keep the door open , that any of his agents may enter after him without any more difli c ulty hence the same argument, especially the last, h as so bewitching an influence on the sex, that they never deny you anything, after they are but weak enough and v ain enough to accept of the praises you ofl ' er them on that head ; on the other hand, you are sure they ne ver forgive you the unpardonable crime of saying 94 THE POLITICAL they are u gly or disagreeable . It is suggested that the first method the Devil took to insinuate all those fine things into Eve ’ s giddy head , was by creeping close to her one night, when sh e was asleep , and laying his mouth to her ear, whispering all the fine things to her; which he knew would set her fancy a tiptoe, and so made her receive them involuntarily into her mind; knowing well enough that when she had formed such ideas In her soul, however they came there, sh e would n ever be quiet till she had worked them up to some extraordinary thing or other . It was evident what the Devil aimed at, namely, that sh e should break in upon the command Of God, and so having corrupted herself, bring the curse u pon herself and all her race, as God had threatened ; but why the pride of Eve should be so easily tickled by the motion of her exquisite beauty, when there then was no pro spect of the u se or want of those charms that indeed makes a kind of difficulty here, which the learned have not determined for, 1 . If She had been as u gly as the Devil, She had no body to rival her, so that She n eed not fear Adam Should leave her and get another mistress . 9 If sh e had been bright and beautiful as an angel , sh e h ad no other admirer but poor Adam, and he could have no room to be jealous of her, or afraid Sh e should cuckold him ; so that in short, Eve had no such occasion for her beauty, nor could sh e make any use of it, either to a bad purpose or to a good ; and therefore I believe the Devil, wh o I S too cunning to do anything that signifies nothing, rather tempted her by the hope of Increasing her wit, than her beauty . But to come back to the method of Satan ’ s tempting her, viz . by whispering to her in her Sleep ; it was a cunning trick, that ’ s the truth of it, and by that means

96 THE POLITICAL sueded ( if it were done by persuasion) by his wife to do the same thing . And mark h ow wise they were after they had eaten , and what fools they both acted like, even to one another nay, even all the knowledge they attained to by it was, for aught I see, only to know that they were fools to be sensible of sin and shame ; and see h ow simply they acted, I say, upon their having committed the crime, and being detected in i t. View them to-day conversing with their God, His image both enjoy ’d and u nderstood , To-morrow skulking with a sordid flight, Among the bushes from the infinite, As ifthat power was blind which gave them Sig ht With senseless labour tagging fig -leaf-vests, To hide their bodies from the sight of beasts . Hark ! how the fool pleads faint, for fOIfeit life, First he reproaches heaven, and then his wife The woman which thou gav ’ st, as ifthe gift Could rob him ofthe little reason left, A weak pretence to shift his e arly crime, As if accusing her would excuse him But thus encroaching crime dethrones the sense, And intercepts the he avenly influence Debauches reason, makes the man a fool, And turns his active light to ridicule . It must h e confessed, that it was unaccountable de gen eracy, even Of their common reasoning, which Adam and Eve both fell into upon the first committing the offence of taking the forbidden fruit : if that was their being made as gods, it made but a poor appear ance in its first coming, to hide their nakedness when there was nobody to see them, and cover themselves among the bushes from their Maker but thus it was, and this the Devil had brought them to , and well might he and all the clan of hell, as Mr . Milton brings them in, laugh and triumph over the man after < the HISTORY OP THE DEVIL . 97 blow was given , as having so egregiously abused and deluded them both . But here, to be sure, began the . Devil ’ s new king dom ; as he had now seduced the two first creatures, he was pretty sure of success upon all the race, and therefore prepared to attack them also, as soon as they came on ; nor was their increasing multitude any dis cou ragement to his attempt, but j u st the contrary for he had agents enough to employ, if every man and woman that should be born was to want a devil to wait upon them, separately and singly to sed uce them ; whereas some whole nations have been such willing subjects to him, that one Of his seraphic imps may, for aught we know, have been enough to guide a whole country ; the people being entirely subjected to his government for many ages ; as in America, for ex ample, where some will have it, that he conveyed the first inhabitants, at least, if he did not, we don ’ t well know wh o did, or h ow they got thither . And h ow came all the communication to be so entirely cut off between the nations of Europe and Africa, from whence America must certainly have been peopled, or else the Devil must. have done it in deed ? I say, how came the communication to be so entirely cut off between them, that except the time, whenever it was, that people did at first reach fi om one to the other, none ever came back to give their friends any account of their success, or invite them to follow ? N or did they hear of one another afterwards, as we have reason to think did Satan politically keep them thus asunder, lest news from heaven Should reach them, and SO they should be recovered out of his go v ernment ? We cannot tell how to give any other rational account of it, that a nation , nay, a quarter of the world, or as some will have it be, half the globe, should be peopled from Europe or Africa, or both, and nobody ever go after them, or come back from them in above three thousand years after. H . D . 98 THE POLITICAL Nay, that those countries should be peopled when there was no navigation in u se in these parts of the world, no ships made that could carry provisions enough to support the people that sailed in them, but that they mu st have been starved to death before they could reach the shore Of America ; the ferry from Europe or Africa, in any part (which we have known navigation to be practised in) being at least a thousand miles, and in most places much more . But as to the Americans, let the Devil and they alone to account for th eir coming thither, this we are certain of, that we knew n othing of them for many hundred years and when we did, when the discovery was made, they that went from hence, found Satan in a full and quiet possession of them, ruling them with an arbitrary government, particular to himself. He had led them into a blind subjection to himself, nay, I might call it devotion, ( for it was all of religion that was to be found among them, ) worshipping horrible idols in his name, to whom he directed human sacri fices continually to be made, till he deluged the country with blood, and ripened them up for the de struction that followed from the invasion of the Spaniards, who he knew would hurry them all out Of the world as fast as he ( the Devil ) himself could desire of them . But to go back a little to the original of things, it is evident that Satan h as made a much better market of mankind, by thus subtilly attacking them, and bring ing them to break with their Maker, as he had done before them, than he could have done by fulminating upon them at first , and sending them all ou t of the world at once; for now h e h as peopled his own dominions with them, and though a remnant are snatched, as it were, ou t of his clutches, by the agency Of invincible grace , of which I am not to discou rse in this place ; yet this may be said of th e Devil , without Off ence, that he has in some sense carried his point, and, as it were,

100 THE POLITICAL the power of irresistible grace ; which number thus se lected, or elected, call it which we will, are still to supply the vacancies in heaven, which Satan ’ s defee tion left open ; and what was before filled up with created seraphs, is now to be restored by recovered saints, by whom infinite glory is to accrue to the king dom of the Redeemer. This glorious establishment has robbed Satan of all the j oy of his v ictory, and left him just where he was, defeated and disappointed , nor does the possession of all the myriads of the sons of perdition, who yet some are Of the Opinion will be snatched from him too at last ; I say, the possession Of all these makes no amends to ‘ him, for he is such a devil in his nature, that the envy at those he cannot seduce, eats out all the satis faction Of the mischief he has done in seducing all the rest ; but I must not preach, so I return to things as much needful to know, though less solemn . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 10 1 CHAP. IX . Of the progress of S a ta n in ca rrying on his conqu est over ma nkind, f rom thef a ll of E v e to the Deluge. I DOU BT if the Devil was asked the question plainly, he would confess, that after he had conquered Eve by his own Wicked contrivance, and then by her assistance had brought Adam too, like a fool as he was, into the same gulf of misery, he thou ght he had done his work, compassed the whole race, that they were now his own, and that he had put an end to the grand design Of their creation ; n amely, of peopling heaven with a new angelic race of souls, who when glorified, should make up the defection of the host of hell, that had been ex pu nged by their crime ; and that, in a word, he had gotten a better conquest than if he had destroyed them all . But that in the midst of his conquest, he found a check put to the advantages he expected to reap from his victory, by the immediate promise of grace to a part of the posterity of Adam, who, notwithstanding the fall, were to be purchased by the Messiah, and snatched ou t of his (Satan ’ s) hands, and over whom he could make no final conquest ; so that his power met with a new limitation , and that such , as indeed fully disappointed him in the main thing he aimed at, viz . , preventing the beatitudes of mankind, which were thus secured ; ( and what if the numbers of mankind were, u pon this account, increased in such a manner, that the selected number should, by length of time, amount to j ust as many as the whole race, had they not fallen , would have amounted to in all ? ) and thus, indeed, the world may be said to be upheld and con 1 02 THE POLITICAL tinned for the sake of those few, since till their number can be completed, the creation cannot fall , any more than that without them, or but for them, it would not have stood . But leaving this speculation , and n ot having in quired of Satan what he has to say on that subject, let us go back to the antediluvian world ; the Devil , to be sure, gained his point upon Eve, and in her upon all her race ; he drew her into sin ; got her turned ou t of Paradise, and the man with her : the next thing was to go to work with her posterity, and particularly with her two sons, Cain and Abel . Adam having, notwithstanding his fall , repented very Sincerely of his Sin, received the promise of redemp tion and pardon , with an humble but believing heart ; charity bids us suppose that he led a very religious and sober life ever after, and especially in the first part of his time ; that he brought up his children very soberly, and gave them all the necessary advantages of a religi ou s education , and a good introduction into the world, that he was capable of, and that Eve assisted to both in her place and degree . Their two eldest sons , Cain and Abel, the one heir apparent to the patriarchal empire, and the other heir presumptive, I suppose also , lived very sober and reli giou s lives ; and as the principles of natural religion dictated a homage and subjection due to the Almighty Maker, as an acknowledgment of his mercies, and a recognition of their obedience ; so the received usage of religion dictating at that time that this homage was to be paid by a sacrifice, they either of them brou ght a free -will Offering to be dedicated to God, re spectiv ely for themselves and families . How it was, and for what reason , that God had re spect to the off ering of Abel, which , the learned say, was a lamb of the firstlings of the flock, and did not give any testimony of the like respect to Cain and his Offering, which was of the first-fruits of the earth, the

1 0 4 THE POLITICAL lplains towards the sea, is the oracle to which all his children fly for direction in such cases as are ou t of the reach of the ordinary understanding of mankind ; please you to give leave, we will take a j ourney to him, and, re presenting your case to him, we will hear his advice , and bring it to you with all speed, for the ease of your mind . CAIN . I know not wh eth erh e can reach my case or no. D . Doubtless he may, and if not, the labour of ou r j ourney is nothing when placed in competition with the ease of your mind it is but a few days ’ travel lost, and you will not be the worse if we fail of the desired success . CAIN . The offer is filial, and I accept your affection ate concern for me, with a j ust sense of an obliged parent ; go, then , and my blessing be upon you ; but, alas ! why do I bless ? can he bless whom God has not blessed ? D . O sir, do not say so ; has not God blessed you ? are you not the second sovereign of the earth ? and does he not converse with you face to face ? are not you the oracle to all your growing posterity, and n ext after his sovereign imperial majesty lord Adam, patri arch of the world ? CAIN . But h as not God rejected me, and refused to converse any more with me, while he daily favours and countenances my younger brother Abel, as if b e re solved to set him up to rule over me ? D . No, sir, that cannot be, you cannot be disturbed at such a thing ; is not the right of sovereignty yours by primogeniture ? can God himself take that away, when it is once given are not you lord Adam ’ s eldest son ? are you not the first - born glory of the creation and does not the government descend to you by the divine right of birth and blood ? CAIN . But what does all that signify to me, ‘ while God appears to favour and caress my younger brother, and to shine upon him, while a black dejection and HISTORY OP THE DEVIL . 1 05 token of displeasure ' su rrounds me every day, and he does not appear to me as he used to do ? D . And what need your majesty be concerned at that, if it be so ? if h e does not appear pleased, you have the whole world to enj oy yourself in , and all your nu merous and rising posterity adore and honour you ; what need those remote things be any disturbance to you CAIN . How ! my children ; not the favour of God be valued ! yes, yes, in his favour is life ; what can all the world avail without the smiles and countenance of him that made it ? D . Doubtless , sir, he that made the world and placed you at the head of it all, to govern and direct it, has made it agreeable, and it is able to give you a full satisfaction and enj oyment, if you please to consider it well, though you were n ever to converse with him all the while you li ve in it . CAI N . You are quite wrong there, my children , quite wrong. D . But do you not, great sir, see all you r children as well as . us rej oicing in the plenty of all things , and are they not completely happy, and yet they know little of this great God, he seldom con v erses among us we hear of him indeed by your sage advices, and we bring our offerings to you for him, as you direct, and when that is done, we enj oy whatever ou r hearts ’ desire ; and so doubtless may you in an abundant manner if you please . CA IN . But your felicity is wrong placed then , or you suppose that God is pleased and satisfied in that your offerings are brought to me but what would you say, if you knew that God is displeased ? that h e does not accept your offerings ? that, when I sacrificed to h im in behalf of you all, he rejected my offerings, though I brought a princely gift, being of the finest of the wheat, the choicest and earliest fruits, and sweetest of the oil, an offering suited to the giver of them all ? 1 06 THE POLITICAL D . But if you offered them, sir, how are you sure they were not accepted ? C AIN . Yes, yes, I am sure ; did not my brother Abel offer at the same time a lamb of his flock, ( for he, you know, delights in cattle, and covers the mo u ntains with g his herds, ) over him, all the while he was sacri ficing, a bright emanation shone, cheering and enli v en ing, a pledge of favour ; and light ambient flames played hov ering in the lower air, as if attending his sacrifice ; and, when ready prepared, immediately descended and burnt up the flesh, a sweet odoriferous savour as cending to him, who thus testified his acceptance ; whereas, over my head a black cloud, misty, and dis tilling vapour, hung dripping upon the humble altar I had raised, and , wetting the finest and choicest things I had prepared, Spoiled and defaced them ; the wood unapt to burn by the mois ture which fell, scarce re ceiv ed th e fire I brought to kindle it, and even then, rather smothered and choked, than kindled into a flame ; in a word , it went quite out, without consum ing what was brought to be offered up . D . Let not ou r truly reverenced lord and father he disquieted at all this ; if he accepts not what you bring, you are discharged ofthe debt, and need bring no more, nor have the trouble of s uch laboured collections of rarities any more; when he thinks fit to require it again you will have notice, no question , and then it being called for, will be accepted, or else why should it be required ? CAIN . That may indeed be the case, nor do I think of attempting any more to bring an offering, for I rather take it, that I am forbidden for the present ; but then , what is it that my younger brother triumphs in ? and h ow am I insulted , in that he and his house are all j oy and triumph , as if they had some great ad vantage over me, in that their offering was accepted when mine was not ? D . Does he triumph over yo ur majesty, our lord and

1 0 8 THE POLITICAL the undutiful behaviour of Abel , had given Cain a commission to chastise him, and by force to cut him Off and all his family, as guilty of rebellion and pride Filled with this mischievous and bloody resolution , they came back to their father Cain , after staying a few days , such as were sufficient to make Cain believe they had been at the plains of Shinnar, where Adam dwelt ; the same which are n ow called the blessed valleys, or the plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix, near the banks of the Red sea . Note here also, that Cain having received a wicked hint from these men, his children and subjects , as b e fore, intimating that Abel had broken the laws Of primogeniture in his behaviour towards him, (Cain, ) and that he might be j ustly punished for it ; Satan , that cunning manager of all our wayward passions, fanned the fire of envy and jealousy with his utmost skill all the while his other agents were absent ; and by the time they came back had blowed it up into such a heat of fury and rage, that it wanted nothing but air to make it burn ou t, as it soon afterwards did, in a furious flame of wrath and revenge, even to blood and destruction . Ju st in the very critical moment, while things stood thus with Cain , Satan brings in his wicked instruments , as if j ust arrived with the return of his message from Adam, at whose court they had been for orders ; and thus they, that is the Devil, assuming to speak by them, approach their father with an air of solemn but cheerful satisfaction at the s uccess of their embassy . D . Hail , sovereign , reverend, patriarchal lord! we come with j oy to render thee an account of the success of our message . CAIN . Have you then seen the venerable tents, where dwell the heaven -born , the angelic pair , to whom all human reverence highly due, is and ought always to be humbly paid ? HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 09 D . ‘ We have . CA IN . Did you, together with my grand request, a j ust, a humble homage for me pay to the great Sire and mother of mankind D . We did. CAIN . Did you in humble language represent the griefs and anguish which Oppress my soul ? D . We did, and back their blessing to thee bring . CAIN . I hope with humblest signs of filial duty you took it for m e on your bending knees ? D . We did, and had our Share ; the patriarch, lifting his hands to heaven , expressed his j oy to see his Spreading race, and blessed us all . CAIN . Did you my solemn message too deliver, my Inj uries Impartially lay down, and due assistance and direction crave ? D . We did . CA I N . What Spoke the oracle ? h e ’ s God to me ; what just command d ’ ye bring ? what ’ s to be done ? am I to bear the insulting junior ’ s rage, and meekly suffer what unjustly he, affronting primogeniture and laws of God and man, imposes by his pride unsufferable ? am I to be crushed, and be no more the first-born son on earth, but how and kneel to him ? D . Forbid it heaven ! asAdam too forbids ; who, with a justice godlike, and peculiar to injured parents, Abel ’ s pride resents, and gives his high command to thee to punish . CAIN . To punish, say you ! Did he u se the word, the very word ? am I commissioned then to punish Abel ? D . Not Abel only, b ut his rebel race; as they, alike in crime, alike are j oined in punishment . CAIN . The race indeed have Shared the merit with him ; how did they all insult, and with a shou t of tri u mph mock my sorrow, when they saw me from my sacrifice dejected come; as if my disappointment was their j o-y. D . This, too, the venerable prince resents ; and to 1 1 0 THE POLITICAL preserve the race in bounds of laws subordinate and limited to duty, commands that this first breach be not passed by, lest the precedent upon record stand to fu ture times to encourage like rebellion . CAIN . And is it then my sovereign parent ’ s will ? D . It is his will, that thou , his eldest son, his image, his beloved, should be maintained in all the rights of sovereignty derived to thee from him ; and not be left exposed to injury and power usurped, but should do thyselfj ustice on the rebel race . CAI N . And so I will . Abel shall quickly know what it is to trample on his elder brother ; Shall know that he is thus sentenced by his father, and I am commis sioned but to execute his high command, his sentence, which is God ’ s ; and that he falls by the h and of heavenly justice . So now Satan had done his work : he had deluded the mother to a breach against the first and only com mand ; he had drawn Adam to the same snare; and now he brings in Cain , prompted by his own rage, and de luded by his ( Satan ’ s ) craft, to commit murder, nay, a fratricide, an aggravated murder . Upon this he sends ou t Cain , while the bloody rage was in its ferment, and wickedly at the same time bringing Abel , innocent and fearing no ill, j ust in his way, he suggests to his thoughts such words as these. Look you , Cain, see how divine j ustice concurs with your father ’ s righteous sentence ; see there is thy bro ther Abel directed by heaven to fall into thy hands u n armed, unguarded, that thou mayest do thyself j ustice upon him witho ut fear ; see, thou mayest kill him, and if thou hast a mind to conceal it, no eyes can see, or will the world ever know it, S0 that no resentment or ' revenge upon thee or thy posterity can be appre~ hended, but it may be said some wild beast had rent him ; nor will any one suggest that thou, his brother and superior, could be possibly the person .

1 12 T HE POLITICAL poor Abel was butchered ; and thus the Devil made a S econd conquest in God ’ s creaton ; for Adam was now, a s may be said, really childless , for his two sons were thus far lost, Abel was killed, and Cain was cursed and driven out from the presence of the Lord, and his race blasted with him . It would be a u seful inquiry here, and worthy ou r giving a n account of, could we come to a certainty in it, namely, what was the mark that God set upon Cain by which he was kept from being fallen u pon by Abel ’ s friends or relations ? but as this does not belong to the Devil ’ s history, and it wa s God ’ s mark, not the Devil ’ s, I have nothing to do with it here . The Devil had n ow gained his point, the kingdom of grace, so newly erected, had been, as it were, extinct, without a new creation, had not Adam and Eve been alive, and had not Eve, though n ow one hundred and thirty years of age, been a breeding young lady, for we must suppose the women in that state of longevity bare children till they were seven or eight hundred years old : this teeming of Eve peopled not the world so much as it restored the blessed race ; for though Abel was killed, Cain had a numerous Offspring pre sently, which, had Seth, Adam ’ s third son, never been born would soon have replenished the world with people, such as they were ; the seed Of a murderer, cursed of God , branded with a mark of infamy, and who after wards fell altogether in the universal ruin of the race by the Deluge . But after the murder of Abel, Adam had another son born , namely, Seth, the father of Enos, and indeed the father of the holy race ; for during his time and his son Enos, the text says , that men began to call on the name of the Lord ; that is to say, they began to look back upon Cain and his wicked race, and being convinced of thewickedness theyhad committed, and led theirwhole posterity into, they began to su e to heaven for pardon of what was past, and to lead a new sort of life . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 1 3 But the Devil had met with too much success in his first attempts , not to go on with his general resolution of debauching the minds of men, and bringing them off from God ; and , therefore, as he kept his hold u pon Cai n ’ s cursed race, embroiled already in blood and murder, so he proceeded with his degenerate Off spring, till , in a word, he brought both the holy seed and the degenerate race to j oin in one uni v ersal consent of crime, and to go on in it with such aggravating cir c umstances, as that it repented the Lord that he had made man, and he resolved to overwhelm them again with a general destruction, and clear the world of them . The succession of blood in the royal original line of Adam, is preserved in the sacred histories, and brought down as low as Noah and his three sons, for a conti nu ed series of 1 540 years, say some ; 1 640, say others ; in which time sin spread itself so generally through the whole race, and the sons of God , so the Scripture calls the men of the righteous seed, the progeny of Seth came in unto the daughters of men , that is, j oined themselves to the cursed race of Cain , and mar ried promiscuously with them, according to their fancies, the women it seems being beautiful and tempt ing ; and though the Devil could not make the women handsome or ugly on one or other families, yet he might work up the gust of wicked inclination on either side, so as to make both the men and women tempting and agreeable to one another where they ought not to have been so ; and perhaps, as it is often seen to this day, the more tempting for being under legal re straint . It is objected here, that we do n ot find in the Scrip ture that the men of either race were at that time for bid intermarrying with one another ; and it is true that, literally, it is not forbid ; but if we did not search rather to make doubts than to explain them, we might suppose it was forbidden by some particular command H . D . I 1 1 4 THE POLITICAL at that time ; seeing we may reasonably allow every thing to be forbidden , which they are taxed with a crime in committing ; and as the sons of God taking them wives as they thought fit to choose , though from among the daughters of the cursed race, is there charged upon them as a general depravation , and a great crime, and for which, it is said, God even re pented that he had made them, we need go no further to satisfy ourselves that it was certainly forbidden . Satan, no doubt, too, had a hand in this wickedness ; for as it was his business to prompt men to do every thing which God had prohibited , so the reason given why the men of those days did this thing was, they saw th e daughters of men, that is of the wicked race or forbidden sort, were fair, he tempted them by the lust of the eye ; in a word, the ladies were beautiful and agreeable, and the Devil knew how to make u se of the allurement ; the men liked and took them by the mere direction of their fan cy and appetite, without re garding the supreme prohibition ; They took them wiv es of a ll which they chose, or such as they liked to choose . But the text adds , that this promiscuous generation went further than the mere outward crime of it, for it showed that the wickedness of the heart of man was great before God, and that he resented it ; in short, God perceived a degeneracy or defect of virtue had seized u pon the whole race, that there was a general corruption of manners and a depravity of nature upon them, that e v en the holy seed was tainted with it, that the Devil had broken in upon them, and prevailed to a great degree ; that not only the practice of the age w as corrupt, for that God could easily have restrained, but that the very heart of man was debauched, his de sires wholly v itiated, and his senses engaged in it ; so that, hi a word, it became necessary to Show the divine displeasure, not in the ordinary manner, by judgment and reproofs of such kind as u sually reclaim men, but

1 1 6 THE POLITICAL and man, like the wild bear in the forest, lived by prey, biting and devouring one another . At this time, Noah begins to preach a new doctrine to them, for as he had before been a preacher of right! eou sness, now he becomes a preacher of vengeance ; first, he tell s them they Shall be all overwhelmed with a Deluge ; that for their sins God repented they were made, and that he would destroy them all ; adding, that to prevent the ruin of himself and family, b e resolved to build him a ship to have recourse to when the water should come over the rest of the world . What jesting, what scorn, what contempt did this work expose the good old man to for above a hundred years ; for so long the work was building, as ancient authors say. Let us represent to ourselves, in the most lively manner, how the witty world at that time behaved to poor old Noah ; how they took their evening walks to see what he was doing, and passed their judgment u pon it, and upon the progress of it ; I say, to repre sent this to ourselves, we need go no further than to our own witticisms upon religion , and upon the most solemn mysteries of divine worship h ow we damn the serious for enthusiasts, think the grave mad, and the sober Imelancholy; call religion itselff la tus and hyppo make th e devout ignorant, the divine mercenary, and the whole scheme of divinity a frame of priestcraft ; and thus no doubt the building an ark or boat, or whatever they called it, to float over the mountains and dance over the plains, what could it be but a religious frenzy, and the man that so busied himself, a lunatic ; and all this in an age when divine things came by immediate revelation into the minds of men ! The Devil must therefore have made a strange conquest u pon mankind , to obliterate all the reverence , which, but a little before, was so strangely impressed upon them concerning their Maker . This was certainly the height of the Devil ’ s king HISTO RY OF THE DEVIL . 1 1 7 dom, and we shall never find him arrive to such a pitch again ; he was then truly and literally the universal monarch, nay, the god of this world and as all tyrants do, he governs them with an arbitrary absolute sway and had not God thought fit to give him a writ of ejectment, and afterwards drown him out of possession , I know not what would have been the case he might have kept his hold, for aught I know, till the seed Of the woman came to bruise his head, that is . to say, cripple his government , dethrone him, and depose his power, as has been fulfilled in the Messiah . But as he was, I say, drowned ou t of the world, his kingdom for the present was at an end at least, if he had a dominion he had no subjects, and as the creation was in a manner renewed, so the Devil had all his work to do over again . Unhappy man how has he, by his weak resistance, made the Devil , reco vering his hold too easy to him, and given him all the advantages, except as before excepted, which he had before ? Now whither he retired in the mean time, and h ow he got ' footing again after Noah and his family were landed upon the new surface, that we come next to inquire . 1 1 8 THE POLITICAL CHAP . X . Of the Dev il ’ s second kingdom, a nd how he gotf ooting i n the renewed world, by his v ictory ov er N oa h a nd his ra ce. THE story of Noah, his building the ark , his embarking himself and all nature ’ s stock for a new world on board it ; the long voyage they took, and the bad weather they met with, though it would embellish this work v ery well, and come in very much to the purpose in this place, yet as it does not belong to the Devil ’ s story, ( for I cannot prove what some suggest, viz . that he was in the ark among the rest, ) I say, for that reason I must omit it . And now, having mentioned Satan ’ s being in the ark , as I say I cannot prove it, so there are, I think, some good reasons to believe he was not there : first, I know no business he had there ; secondly, we read of no mischief done there, and these j oined together make me conclude he was absent ; the last I chiefly insist upon , that we read of no mischief done there, which if he had been in the ark would certainly have happened ; and therefore I s uppose rather, that when he saw his kingdom dissolved, his subjects all ingulfed in an inevitable ruin and desolation, ( a sight suitable enough to him, except as it might unking him for a time, ) I say, when he saw this, he took care to speed himself away as well as he could, and make his retreat to a place of safety, where that was, is no more difficult to us, than it was to him . It is suggested , that as he is prince of the power of the air, he retired only into th at region . It is most rational to suppose he went no further on many ac counts, of which I shall speak by and by : here he stayed

1 20 THE POLITICAL for all the numberless legions of Satan ’ s host ; but there was, and now certainly is, sufficient space to re ceiv e him, and a sufficient body of his troops for the business he had for them at that time, and that is enou gh to the purpose ; or, if the earth ’ s atmosphere did suffer any particular convulsion on that occasion , he might make his retreat to the atmosphere of the moon , or of Mars, or of Venus, or of any of the other planets, or to any other place for he that is prince of the ~ air could not want retreats in such a case, from whence he might watch for the issue of things ; cer tainly he did not go far, because his business lay here, and he never goes out of his way of doing mischief. In particular, his more than ordinary concern was to see what would become of the ark ; h e was wise enough doubtless to see, that God, wh o had directed its making, nay, even the very structure of it, would certainly take care of it, preserve it upon the water, and bring it to some place of safety or other ; though where it should be, the Devil with all his cunning could not resolve, whether on the same surface, the waters drawing off, or in any other created or to be created place ; and this state of u ncertainty being evi dently his ca se , and which proves h is ignorance of fu tu rity, it was his business, I say, to watch with the u t most vigilance for the event . If the ark was, as Mr. Burnet thinks, guided by two angels , they not only held it from foundering or being swallowed up in the water, but certainly kept the waters calm about it, especially when the Lord brought a strong wind to blow over the whole globe , which by th e way was the first, and, I suppose, the only univer sal storm that ever blew, for to be sure it blew over the whole surface at once I say, if it was thus guided , to be sure the Devil saw it, and that with envy and re gret that he could do it no injury ; for, doubtless, had it been in the Devil ’ s power, as God had drowned th e whole race of man, except what was in the ark , he HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 1 2 1 would have taken care to have dispatched them too, and so made an end of the creation at once ; but either he was not empowered to go to the ark , or it was so well guarded by angels, that when he came near it he could do it no harm : so it rested at length, the waters abating, On the mountains of Arrarat in Armenia, or somewhere else that way, and where they say a piece of the keel is remaining to this day, of which, however, with Dr . I say, I believe not a word. The ark being safe landed, it is reasonable to b e lie v e Noah prepared to go on shore, as the seamen call it, as soon as the dry land began to appear ; and here you must allow me to suppose Satan , thou gh himself clothed with a cloud, so as not to be seen , came imme diately, and perching on the roof, saw all the heaven k ept household safely landed, and all the host Of living creatures dispersing themselves down the sides of the mountain , as the search Of their food or other proper occasions directed them . This sight was enou gh ; Satan was at no loss to con clu de from hence that the design of God was to repeo ple the world, by the way of ordinary generation , from the posterity Of these eight persons, without creating any new species . Very well, says the Devil, then my advantage over them, by the snare I laid for poor Eve, is good still ; and I am now just where I was after Adam ’ s expulsion from the garden, and when I had Cain and his race to go to work with, for here is the Old expunged cor rupted race still ; as Cain was the object then , so Noah is my man now, and if I do not master him one way or another, I am mistaken in my mark . Pardon me for making a speech for the Devil . Noah, big with a sense of his late condition , and while the wonders Of the Deluge were fresh in his mind, spent his first days in the ecstacies of his soul, giving thanks, and praising the power that had been his pro tection in and through the flood of waters, and which 1 22 THE POLITICAL h ad in so miraculous a manner safely landed him on the surface of the newly - discovered land ; and the text tells us , as one Of the first things he was employed in, He built a n a lta r u nto the L ord, a nd of ered bu rnt of erings upon the a lta r . Gen . viii . 20 . While Noah was thus employed he was safe, the Devil himself could nowhere break in upon him ; and we may suppose very reasonably, as he found the old father invulnerable, he left him for some years, watch ing, notwithstanding, all possible advantages against his sons and their children ; for now the family began to i ncrease, and Noah ’ s sons had several children whether himself had any more children after the Flood or not, that we are not arrived to any certainty abo ut . AmOiIg his sons , the Devil fo und Japhet and Shem, good , pious, religious, and very devout persons ; serv ing God daily, after the example of their good Old father Noah, and he could make nothing of them, or of any of their posterity ; but Ham the second , or, according to some, the younger son of Noah, had a son who was named Canaan , a loose, young, profligate fel low ; his education was probably but cursory and su per ficial, his father Ham being not near so religious and serious a man as his brothers Shem and Japh et were ; and as Canaan ’ s education was defective, so he proved, as untaught youth generally do, a wild, and, in short, a very wicked fellow, and consequently a fit tool for th e De vil to go to work with . Noah, a diligent industrious man , being, with all his family, thus planted in the rich fruitful plains of Ar menia, or wherever you please, let it be near the mountains Of Caucasus or Arrarat ; went immediately to work , cultivating and improving the soil, increasing his cattle and pastures, sowing corn , and, among other things, planting trees for food ; and among the fruit trees b e planted vines, of the grapes whereof he made , no doubt, as they still in the same country do make, most excellent wine, rich, luscious, strong, and pleasant .

1 24 THE PO LITICAL the roots Of in the earth, and which no doubt h ad been there before in their highest perfection , and had cou se quently grown up and brought forth the same luscious fruit before . Besides, as he found the roots Of the v ines , so he understood what they were, and what fruit they bore, or else it may be supposed also he would not have planted them ; for he planted them for their fruit, as he did it in the provision he was making for his su b sistence, and the subsistence of his family ; and if h e did not know what they were, he would not have set them, for he was not planting for diversion , but for profit . Upon the whole, it seems plain to me he knew what he did, as well when he planted the vines as when he pressed ou t the grapes ; and also, when he drank the juice, that he knew it was wine, was strong, and would make him dr unk if he took enough of it : he knew that other men had been drunk with such liquor b e fore the Flood , and that he had reprehended them for it ; and therefore it was not his ignorance, but the Devil took him at some advantage, when his appetite was eager, or he thirsty, and the liquor cooling and pleasant ; and, in short, as Eve said, The serpent be gu iled her, a nd she did ea t, so the Devil beguiled Noah and he did drink ; the temptation was too strong for Noah , not the wine ; he kn ew well enough what he did, but as the drunkards say to this day, it was so good he could not forbear it, and so he got drunk b e fore he was aware ; or, as ou r ordinary speech expresses it, he was overtaken with drink ; and Mr . Pool and other expositors are partly of the same mind . N O sooner was the poor Old man conquered, and the wine had lightened his head, but it may be supposed he falls off from the chair or bench where he sat, and tumbling backwards, his clothes, which in those hot countries were only loose open robes, like the vests which the Armenians wear to this day, flying abroad, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 125 or the Dev il so assisting on purpose to expose him, he lay there in a naked indecent posture, not fit to be seen . In this juncture, who should come by but young Canaan, say some ; or as others think, this young fellow first attacked him by way of kindness and pre tended affection ; prompted his grandfather to drink, On pretence Of the wine being good for him, and proper for the support Of his Old age, and subtilly set upon him, drinking also with him, and S O ( his head being too strong for the Old man ’ s ) drank him down , and then, Devil like, triumphed over him ; boasted Of his conquest, insulted the body as it were dead, u n covered him ou purpose to expose him ; and, leaving him in that indecent post ure, went and made sport with it to his father Ham, who in that part, wicked like himself; did the same to his brethren Japh et and Shem ; but they like modest and good men, far from carrying on the wicked insult on their parent, went and covered him, as the Script ure expresses it, and, a s may be supposed, informed him h ow he had been abused, and by who . Why else Should Noah , when he came to himself, shew his resentment so much against Canaan his grandson , rather than against Ham his father, and who it is supposed in the story, the guilt chiefly lay upon ? we see the curse is , as it were, laid wholly upon Canaan the grandson , and not a word of the father is mentioned, Gen . ix . 25, 26, 27, Cu rsed be Ca na a n, a serv a nt of serv a nts sha ll he be, 50 . That Ham was guilty, that is certain from the history of fact, but I cannot but suppose his grandson was the occasion of it ; and in this case the Devil seems to have made Canaan the instrument or tool to delude Noah, and draw him into drunkenness, as he made the serpent the tool to beguile Eve, and draw her into dis obedience . Possibly Canaan might do it without design at first, 1 26 THE POLITICAL but might be brought In to ridicule and make a jest Of the Old patriarch afterwards, as is too frequent since in the practice of ou r days but I rather believe he did it really with a wicked design , and on purpose to ex pose and insult his reverend old parent ; and this seems more likely too, because of the great bitterness with which Noah resented it, after he came to be in formed of it . But be that as it will , the Devil certainly made a great conqu est here, and as to outward appearance, no less than that which he gained before over Adam nor did the Devil ’ s victory consist barely in his having drawn in the only righteous man of the whole antedi l uvian world, and so beginning or initiating the new young progeny with a crime ; but here was the great oracle silenced at once the preacher of righteousness , for such no doubt he would have been to the new world, as he was to the Old, I say, the preacher was turned ou t of Office, or his mouth stopped, which was worse , nay, it was a stopping of his mouth in the worst kind, far worse than stopping his breath, for had he died , the office had descended to his sons, Shem and Japh et, but he was dead to the office of an instru c tor, though alive as to his being ; for of what force could his preachings be, who had thus fallen himself into the most shameful and beastly excess Besides, some are of the Opinion, . th oug h I hope without ground, that Noah was not only overtaken once in his drink, but that being fallen into that sin it became habitual, and he continued in it a great while, and that it was this which is the meaning of his being uncovered in his tent, and that his son saw his n aked ness that is, he continually exposed himself for a long time, a hundred years, say they, and that his son Ham, and his grandson Canaan , having drawn him into it, kept him in it, encouraged and prompted it, and all the While Satan still prompting them, j oined their scoffs and contempt of him, with their wicked endea

1 28 THE POLITICAL and that not only to form a general defection among the race, upon the foot of the original taint of nature, but like a bold devil, he strikes at the very root, and flies at the next general representative of mankind, attacks the head Of the family, that in his miscarriage the rise and progress Of a reformation of the new world should recei v e an early check, and should be at once prevented ; I say, like a bold devil, he strikes at the root, and , alas ! poor unhappy Noah, he proved too weak for him, Satan prevailed in his very first attempt, and got the victory over him at once . Noah , thus overcome, and Satan ’ s conques t carried on to the utmost of his own wishes, the Devil had little more to do in the world for some ages , than to carry on an universal degeneracy among mankind, and to finish it by a like diligent application, in deluding the generality of the race, and them as they came on gradually into life this he found the less difficult, b e cause Of the first defection, which spread like a conta gion upon the earth immediately after . The first evidence we have of his success in this mis chievou s design , was in the building that great stupen duou s staircase, for s uch it seems it was intended, called Babel, which if the whole world had not been drunk, or otherwise infatuated , they would never have undertaken even Satan himself co uld never have pre vailed with them to undertake such a preposterous piece Of work, for it had neither end or means, possi bility or probability in it . I must confess I am sometimes apt to vindicate ou r Old ancestors in my thoughts, from the charge itself, as we generally understand it, namely, that they really designed to build a tower which should reach up to heaven , or that it should secure them in case of another flood and Father Casaubon is of my opinion, whether I am Of his or no, is a question by itself; his Opinion is, that the confusion was nothing but a breach among the undertakers and directors of the work, and that the HISTORY OE THE DEVIL. 129 building was designed chiefly for a storehouse for pro visions, in case of a second Deluge as to their notion of its reaching up to heaven , he takes the expression to be allegorical rather than litteral, and only to mean that it should be exceeding high ; perhaps they might not be astronomers enough to measure the distance of space between the earth and heaven, as we pretend to do now : but as Noah was then alive, and as we b e lieve all his three sons were so too, they were able to have informed them how absurd it was to suppose either the one or the other, viz . 1 . that they could build up to heaven ; or, 2 . that they could build firm enough to resist, or high enough to overtop the waters, supposing such another flood should happen . I would rather think it was only that they intended to build a most glorious and magnificent city, where they might all inhabit together ; and that this tower was to be built for ornament and also for strength, or, as above, and for a storehouse to lay u p vast magazines of pro visions , in case of extraordinary floods or other events, the city being built in a great plain, namely, the plains of Shinnar near the river Euphrates . Bu t the story, as it is recorded, suits better with Satan ’ s measures at that time and as he was from the beginning prompting them to everything that was con trary to the happiness of man, so the more prepos tet ons it was, and the more inconsistent with common sense, the more to his purpose ; a nd it showed the more what a complete conquest he had gained over the reason as well as the religion of mankind at that time . Again ; it is evident in this case, they were not only a cting contrary to the nat ure Of things, but contrary to the design and to the command of heaven ; for God ’ s command was that they should replenish the earth , that is, that they should spread their habitations over it, and people the whole globe ; whereas they were pitching in one place, as if they were not to multiply sufficient to take up any more . H . D . 13 0 THE POLITICAL But what cared the Devil for that ; or, to put it ' a little ha ndsomer, that was what Satan aimed at ; for it was enough to him to bring mankind to act j ust contrary to what heaven had directed or commanded them in anything, and if possible in everything . But God himself put a stop to this foolish piece of work, and it was time indeed to do so, for a madder thing the Devil himself never proposed to them ; I say, God . him self put a stop to this new undertaking, and disappointed the Devil and h ow was it done ? not in j udgment and anger, as perhaps the Devil expected an d hoped for, but, as pitying the simplicity of that dreaming creature man , b e confused their speech, or as some say, divided and confused their councils, so that they could not agree with one a nother, which would be the same thing as not to understand one another ; or he put a new Shibboleth upon their tongues, thereby separating them into tribes or fa milies, for, by this, every family found themsel v es under a necessity of keeping together, and this na tu rally increased that differing j argons Of language, for at first it might be no more . What a confusion this was to them we all know, by their being obliged to leave Off their building, and immediately separating one from another ; but what a surprise it was to the old serpent, that remains to be considered of, for indeed it belongs to his history . Satan had never met with any disappointment in all his wicked attempts till now ; for first, he succeeded even to triumph upon Eve, he did the like upon Cain , and , in short, upon the whole world, one man (Noah) excepted , when he blended th e sons of God and the daughters Of hell, for so the word is understood , together, in promiscuous voluptuous living as well as generation . As to the Deluge, authors are not agreed whether it w as a disappointment to the Devil or no, it might be indeed a surprise to him, for though Noah had preached of it for a hundred years together, yet as he (Satan)

1 32 THE POL ITICAL j ust given them, and the threatening of death also an nexed to it if broken ? But I go back to the affair of Babel this confusion of language or of councils, take it which way you will, was the first disappointment that I find the Devil met with in all his attempts and practices upon mankind , or upon the new creation, which I mentioned above ; for now he foresaw what would follow ; namely, that the people would separate and spread themselves over the whole surface of the earth, and a thousand new scenes of action would appear, in which he therefore prepares himself to behave as he should see occasion . How the Devil learned to speak all the languages that were now to be used, and h ow many languages they were, the several ancient writers of the devil ’ s story have not yet determined ; some tell us they were divided only into fifteen , some into seventy-two, others into one hundred -and - eighty, and others again into se veral thousands . It also remains a doubt with me, and, I suppose, will be so with others also, whether Satan has yet found out a method to converse with mankind without the help of language and words, or not ; seeing man has n o other medium of conversing, no not with himself : this I have not time to enter upon h ere however, this seems plain to me, viz . that the Devil soon learned to make mankind u nderstand him, whatever language he spoke, and no doubt but he found ways and means to u nderstand them, whatever language they spoke . After the confusion of langu ages, the people neces sarily sorted themselves into families and tribes, every family understanding their own particular speech, and that only ; and these families multiplying grew into nations , and those nations wanting room, and seeking out habitations, wandered some this way, some that, till they found ou t countries respectively proper for their settling ; and there they became a kingdom, spreading and possessing still more and more land as their peo HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 33 ple increased, till at last the whole earth was scarce big enough for them . This presented Satan with an opportunity to break in upon their morals at another door, V iz . their pride ; for men being naturally proud and envious, nations and tribes began to j ostle‘ with one another for room either one nation enj oyed better a ccommodations, or had a better soil or a more favour able climate than another ; and these being numerous and strong thrust the other out, and encroached upon their land ; the other liking their situation, prep are for their defence, and so began Oppression, invasion, war, battle, and blood ; Satan all the while b eatingt he drums, and his attendants clapping their hands, as men do when they set dogs on upon one another . The bringing mankind thus to war and confusion, as it was the first game the Devil played after the con founding of languages and divisions at Babel, so it was a conquest upon mankind, purely devilish, born from hell, and so exactly tinctured with Satan ’ s original sin, ambition , that it really transformed men into mere devils for when is man transformed into the very image of Satan himself, when 1 8 he turned into a mere devil, if it is not when he is fighting with his fellow creatures, and dipping his hands in the blood of his own kind ? Let his picture be considered —the fire of hell flames or Sparkles In his eyes, a voracious grin sits u pon his countenance, rage and fury distort the muscles of his face, his passions agitate his whole body, and he is metamorphosed from a corne beauteous angelic creature into a fury, a satyr, a terrible and frightful monster, nay, into a devil ; for Satan himself is de scribed by the same word, which on his very account is changed into a substantive, and th e devils are called Furies . This sowing the seeds Of strife in the world, and bringing nations to fight and make war upon one another, would take up a great part of the Devil ’ s history, and abundance of extraordi nary things would 1 34 THE POLITICAL occur in relating the particulars for there have been very great confl ag rations kindled in the world, by the artifice of hell under this head, viz . of making war in which it has been the Devil ’ s masterpiece, and he has indeed shown himself a workman in it, that he has wheedled mankind into strange unnatural n otions of things, in order to propagate and support the fighting principle in the world ; such as laws Of war, fair fig ht ing, behaving like men of honour,fighting to the last drop,and the like, by which killing and murdering is understood to be justifiable . Virtue and a true great n ess of Spirit is rated now by rules which God never appointed, and the standard Of honour Is quite dif ferent from that of reason and of nature : bravery Is denominated, not from a fearless u ndaunted spirit in the j ust defence of life and liberty, but from a daring defiance of God and man , fighting, killing, and treading under foot his fellow creatures, at the ordinary com mand of the Cfli cer, whether it be right or wrong, and whether it be in a just defence Of life, and our country ’ s life, that is liberty, or whether it be for the support of injury and oppression . A prudent avoiding cau seless quarrel is called cowardice, and to take an affront, baseness, and mean ness of spirit ; to refu se fighting, and putting life at a cast on the point of a sword, a practice forbid by the laws of God and Of all good government, is yet called cowardice and a man is bound to die duelling, or live and he laughed at . This trumping u p these imaginary things called bravery and gallantry, naming them virtue and ho nour, is all from the Devil ’ s new management, and his subtle influencing the minds of men to fly in the face of God and nature, and to act against his senses ; nor b ut for his artifice in th e man agement, could it be possible that such inconsistencies could go down with mankind, or they could pass such absurd things among them for reasoning ; for example, A IS found in bed with B ’ s

1 36 THE POLITICAL ried on ever since, as apparently from the same in terest, and by the same original . But we shall meet with this part again very Often in the Devil ’ s story, and as we bring him further on in the management of mankind I therefore lay it by for the present, and come to the next step the Devil took with mankind after the confusion of languages, and this was in the affair of worship . It does not appear yet that ever the Devil was so bold, as either, 1 . To set himself up to be worshipped as a god ; or which was still worse, 2 . To persuade men to believe there was no God at all to worship . Both these are introduced since the Deluge, one in deed by the Devil, who soon found means to set him self up for a god in many parts Of the world, and holds it to this day ; but the last is brought in by the inv en tion of men, in which it must h e confessed man h as outsinned the Devil ; for to do Satan justice, he never thought it could ever pass upon mankind, or that any thing so gross would go down with them ; so that , in short, these modern casuists, in the reach Of our days, have, I say, outsinned the Devil . As then both these are modern inventions, Satan went on gradually, and being to work upon human n ature by stratagem, not by force, it would have been too g ross to have set himself up as an Object of worship at first, it was to be done step by step ; for example 1 . It was sufficient to bring mankind to a neglect of God, to worship him by halves , and give little or no regard to his laws , and so grow loose and im moral , in direct contradiction to his commands ; this would not go down with them at first, so the Devil went on gradually . 2 . From a negligence in worshipping the true God, he by degrees introduced the worship of false gods ; and to introduce this, he began with th e su n, moon, and stars, called, in the holy text, the HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 37 host Of heaven ; these had a greater majesty upon them, and seemed fitter to command the homage of mankind ; so it was not the hardest thing in the world to bring men , when they had once for gotten the true God, to embrace the worship of such gods as those . 3 . Having thus debauched their principles in wor ship, and led them from the tr u e an d only Object of worship, to a false, it was the easier to carry them on ; so, in a few gradations more, he brought them to downright idolatry, and even in that idolatry he proceeded gradually too ; for he began with awful names, such as were venerable in the thoughts of men , as Baal or Bell, which, in Chal daic and Hebrew, signifies lord or sovereign, or mighty and magnificent, and this was therefore a name ascribed at first to the true God, but afterwards they descended to make images and figures to represent him, and then they were called by the same name as Baal, Baalim, and afterwards Bell, from which , by a hellish degene racy, Satan brought mankind to adore every block of their own hewing, and to worshipping stocks, stones, monsters, hobgoblins, and every sordid frightful thing, and at last, the Devil himself. What notions some people may entertain of the for wardness of the first ages of the world, to run into idolatry, I do not inquire here ; I know they tell us strange things, of its being the product of mere nature, one remove from its primitive state ; but I, who pre tend to have so critically inquired into Satan ’ s history, can assure you, and that from very good authority, that the Devil did not find it so easy a task, to oblite rate the knowledge of the true God, in the minds and consciences of men, as those people suggest . It is true, he carried things a great length under the patriarchi al government of the first ages, but still he 1 38 THE POLITICAL was sixteen hundred years bringing it to pass ; and though we have reason to believe th e old world, before the Flood, was arrived to a very great height Ofwicked ness, and Ovid very nobly describes it by the war Of the Titans against Jupiter, yet we do not read that e v er Satan was come to such a length as to bring them to idolatry ; indeed we do read of wars carried on among them, whether it was one nation against another. or only personal , we cannot tell ; but the world seemed to be swallowed u p in a life of wicked ness, that is to say, of luxury and lewdness, rapine and Violence, and there were giants among them, and men of renown, that is to say, men famed for their mighty valour, great actions in war we may suppose, and their strength , who personally Oppressed others . We read of no considerable wars, indeed, but it is not to be doubted there were such wars, or else it is to be u n derstood, that they lived, in common , a life somewhat like the brutes , the strong devouring the weak ; for the text says , the whole ea rth wa s fi lled w ith v iolence, hunting and tearing one another to pieces, either for dominion or for wealth , either for ambition or for avarice, we know not well which . Thus far the old antediluvian world went, and very wicked they were, there is no doubt of that ; but we have reason to believe there was no idolatry, the Devil h ad not brought them to that length yet ; perhaps it would soon have followed, but the Delu ge intervened . After the Deluge, as I have said, he had all his work to do over again , and he went on by the same steps ; first he brought them to Violence and war, then to Oppression and tyranny, then to neglect of true wor ship, then to false worship , and then idolatry by th e mere natural consequ ence Of the thing . Who were the first nation or people that fell from the worship Of the true God, is something hard to determine ; the Devil, who certainly of all God ’ s creatures is best able to in form u s, having left u s nothing upon record u pon that

1 40 THE POLITICAL Jupiter Feretrius, and about ten or twelve Jupiters more . I mu st acknowledge, that I think it was a master piece of hell to bring the world to idolatry so soon after they had had such an eminent example of the in finite power Of the true God, as was seen in the Deluge ; and particularly in the escape of Noah in the ark, to bring them ( even before Noah or his sons were dead) to forget whose hand it was, and give the homage of the world to a name, and that a name of a mortal man , dead and rotten , who was famous for nothing when he was ali v e but blood and war ; I say, to bring the world to set up this nothing, this mere name, nay, the very image and picture of him, for a god, it was first a mark of most prodigious stupidity in the whole race of man , a monstrous degeneracy from nature, an d even from common sense ; and, in the next place, it was a token of an inexpressible craft and subtilty in the Devil, who had n ow gotten the people into so full and complete a management , that, in short, he could have brought them, by the same rule, to have worshipped anything ; and in a little while more, did bring many of them to worship himself, plain devil as he was, and knowing him to be such . As to the antiquity of this horrible defection Of mankind, though we do not find the beginning of it particularly recorded , yet we are certain i t was not long after the confusion of Babel ; for Nimrod, as is said, was no more than Noah ’ s great grandson , and Noah himself, I suppose, might be alive some years after Nimrod was born and as Nimrod was not long dead before they forgot that he was a tyrant and a m u rderer, and made a Baal, that is a lord or idol, of him ; I Say, he was not long dead, for Nimrod was born in the year of the world 1 84 7 , and built Babylon , the year 1 8 79 ; and we find Terah, the father Of Abram, wh o lived from the year 1879, was an idolater, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 4 1 as was doubtless Bethu el, who was Terah ’ s grandson ; for we find Laban, who was Bethuel ’ s son, was so, and all this was during the life of the first post - diluvian family, for Terah was born within one hundred and ninety -three years after the Flood, and one hundred and fifty - seven years before Noah was dead ; and even Abram himself was eight - and - fifty years old before Noah died , and yet idolatry had been then , in all probability, above a hundred years practised in the world . N. B . It is worth remark here, what a terrible ad vantage the Devil gained by th e debauching poor Noah and drawing him into the sin of drunken ness ; for by this , as I said , he silenced and stopped the mouth of the great preacher of right eou sness, that father and patriarch of the whole world , who not being able, for the shame of his own foul miscarriage, to pretend to instruct or re prove the world any more, the Devil took hold of them immediately, and for want of a prophet to warn and admonish, run that little of religion which there might be left in Shem and Japhet, quite out of the world, and delu ged them all in idolatry . How long the whole world may be said to be thus o verwhelmed in ign orance and idolatry, we may make s ome tolerable guess at by the history of Abraham ; for it was not till God called him from his father ’ s h ouse, that any such thing as a church was established in the world ; nor even then , except in his own family an d successors, for almost four hundred years after th at call ; and till God brought the Israelites back out of Egypt, the whole world may be said to be involved i n idolatry and Devil worship . SO absolute a conqu est h ad the Devil made over m ankind immediately after the Flood, and all tak ing 1 42 THE POLITICAL its rise and beginning at the fatal defeat of Noah, who had he lived untainted and invulnerable, as he had done for six hundred years before, would have gone a great way to have stemmed the torrent of wickedness which broke in upon mankind ; and therefore the Devil , I say, was very cunning, and very much in the right of it, take him as he is a mere devil, to attack Noah personally, and give him a blow so soon . It is true, the Devil did not immediately rase out the notion Of religion, and of a God, from the minds of men , nor co uld he easily suppress the principle of worship and homage to be paid to a sovereign being, the author of nature and guide of the world ; the Devil saw this clearly in the first ages of the n ew world, and therefore, as I hav e said, he proceeded politically and by degrees . That it was so, is evident from the story of Job and his three friends, who, if we may take it for a history, not a fable, and may judge of the time of it by the length of Job ’ s life , and by the family of Eliphaz the Temanite, who, it is manifest, was a t least grandson or great grandson to Esau, Isaac ’ s eldest son, and by the language of Abimelech, king of Gerar, to Abraham, and of Laban to Jacob, both the latter being at the same time idolaters ; I say, if we may j udge of it by all these, there were still very sound notions of religion in the minds Of men ; nor could Satan with all his cunning and policy deface those ideas, and root them ou t Of the minds of the people . And this put him upon taking new measures to keep up his interest and preserve the hold he got u pon man kind and his method was, like himself, subtle and po litic to the last degree, as his whole history makes ap pear ; for seeing he found they could not but believe the being of a God , and that they would needs worship something, it is evident he had no game left him to play but this , namely, to set up wrong notions Of wor ship, and bring them to a false worship instead o f a

1 4 4 THE POLITICAL the northern parts of Europe, and in them the vast coun tries of China and Tartary, Persia and India, Guinea, Ethiopia, Zanq u eb ar, Congo, Angola, Monomotapa, &c. , in all which, except Ethiopia, we find no vestiges of any other worship but that of idols, monsters, and ev en the Devil himself; till after the very coming of our Saviour, and even then, if it be true, that the Gospel was preached ‘ in the Indies and China by St . Thomas, and in other remote countries by other of the apostles ; we see that whatever ground Sata n lost, he seems to have recovered it again ; and all Asia and Africa is at present overrun with Paganism or Maho metanism, which I think of the two is rather the worst ; besides all America, a part of the world, as some say, equal in bigness to all the other, in which the Devil ’ s kingdom was never interrupted from its first being inhabited, whenever it was, to the first dis covery of it by the E uropean nations in the sixteenth century . In a word, the Devil got what we may call an entire v ictory over mankind, and drove the worship of the true God, in a manner, quite ou t of the world, forcing, a s it were, his Maker in a new kind of creation, the old one proving thus ineff ectual to recover a certain number by force and mere omnipotence to return to their duty, serve him and worship him ; but of that hereafter. HISTORY OF THE D EVIL. 1 45 CHAP . xi . Of God ’ s ca lling a chu rch ou t of the midst of a de genera te world, a nd of S a ta n ’ s new mea su res upon tha t incident : how he a tta ched them immedia tely, a nd his success in those a tta cks. SATAN having, as I have said in the preceding chap ter, made, as it were, a full conquest of mankind, de bauched them all to idolatry, and brought them at least to worshipping the true God by the wretched medium of corrupt and idolatrous representations ; God seemed to have no true servants or worshippers left in the world , but, if I may be allowed to speak so, was obliged, in order to restore the world to their senses again , to call a select number out from among th e rest, who he himself undertook Sho uld own his godhead or supreme authority, and worship him as he required to be worshipped this, I say, God was obliged to do, because it is evident it has not been done so much by the choice and council of men , for Satan would have overruled that part, as by the power and energy of some irresistible and invincible operation , and this our divines give high names to ; but be it what they will, it is the second defeat or disappoint ment that the Devil has met with in his progress in the world ; the first I have spoken of already . It is true, Satan very well u nderstood what was threatened to him in the original promise to the woman , immediately after the fall, namely, Thou sha lt bru ise his hea d, 8rd , but he did not expect it so sud denly, but thought himself sure of mankind, till the fulness of time when the Messiah should come ; and therefore it was a great surprise to him to see that H . D . L 1 46 THE POLITICAL Abraham, being called, wa s so immediately received and established, though he did not so immediately follow the voice that directed him ; yet in him, in his loins, was all God ’ s church at that time contained . In the calling Abraham, it is easy to see that there was no other way for God to form a Church, that is to say, to Single out a people to himself, as the world was then stated, but by immediate revolution and voice from heaven . All mankind were gone over to the enemy, overwhelmed in idolatry, in a word, were en gaged to the Devil God Almighty, or, as the Scripture distinguishes him, the Lord, the true God, was ou t of the question ; mankind knew little or nothing of him, much less did they know anything of his worship, or that there was such a being in the world . Well might it be said the Lord appeared to Abraham, Gen . xii . 7, for if God had not appeared himself, he must have sent a messenger from heaven, and perhaps it was so too, for he had not one true servant or wor shipper that we know of; then on earth , to send on that errand ; no prophet, no preacher of righteousness : Noah was dead, and had been so above seventeen years ; and if he had not, his preaching, as I observed after his great miscarriage, had but little effect ; we are indeed told, that Noah left behind him certain r ules and orders for the true worship of God, which were called the Precepts of Noah, and remained in th e world for a long time ; though, h ow written, when neither any letters, much less writing, were known in the world, is a difficulty which remains to be solved ; and this m akes me look upon those laws, called the Precepts of Noah, to be a modern invention, as I do also the Alpha betum N oa chi, which Boch art pretends to give an account of. But to leave that fiction, and come back to Abraham ; God called him, whether at first by voice, without any vision ; whether in a dream or night vision , which was very significant in those days ; or whether .

1 4 8 THE POLITICAL short, they could never have any husbands, &c. , and so in their abundant concern to repeople the world, and that the race of mankind might not be destroyed, they go and lie with their own father ; the Devil telling th em " doubtless how to do it, by intoxicating his head with wine ; in all which story, whether they were not as drunk as their father, seems to be a question, or else they could not have supposed all the men in the earth were consumed, when they knew that the little city Zoar had been preserv ed for their sakes . This now was the third conquest Satan Obtained by the gust of human appetite ; that is to say, once by eating and twice by drinking, or drunkenness , and still the last was the worst and most shameful ; for Lot, however his daughters managed him, could not pretend he did not understand what the strength of wine was ; and one would have thought after so terrible a judgment as that of Sodom was, which was, as we may say, executed before his face, his thoughts should have been too solemnly engaged in praising God for sparing his life, to be made drunk , and that two nights together . But the Devil played his game sure, he set his two daughters to work, and as the Devil ’ s instruments seldom fail, so he secured his by that h ellish stratagem of deluding the daughters to think all the world was consumed but they two and their father : to be sure the old man could notsuspect that his daughters ’ design was so wicked a s indeed it was, or that they intended to debauch him with wine, and make him drink till he knew not what he did . Now the Devil, having carried his game here, gained a great point ; for as there were but two religious families in the world before, from whence a twofold generation might be supposed to rise, religiou s and righteous like their parents , viz . that of Abraham and this of Lot ; this crime ruined the hopes of one of them ; it could no more be said that j ust Lot was in being, who vexed his righteous soul from day to day HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 49 with the wicked behaviour of the people of Sodom ; righteous Lot was degenerated into drunken incestuous Lot; Lot, fallen from what he was, to be a wicked and unrighteo us man ; no pattern of virtue, no reprover of the age, b ut a poor fallen degenerate patriarch, who co uld now no more reprove or exhort, but look down and be ashamed, and had nothing to do but to repent ; and see the poor mean excuses of all the three Eve says, The serpent beguiled me, a nd I did ea t. Noah says, My gra ndson beguiled me, or the wine begu iled me, a nd I did drink . Lot says, My da ughters begu iled me, a nd I a lso did drink . It is observable, that, as I said above, Noah was silenced, and his preaching at an end, after that one action, so the like may be said of Lot ; and, in short, you never hear on e word more of either of them after it ; as for mankind, both were useless to them, and as to themselves, we never read of any of their repentance, nor have we much reason to believe they did repent. From this attack of the Devil upon Lot, we hear no more of the Devil being so busily employed as he had been before in the world ; he had indeed but little to do, for all the rest of the world was his own, lulled asleep under the witchcraft of idolatry, and are so still . But it co uld not be long that the Devil lay idle ; as soon as God called himself a people, the Devil could not be at rest tell he attacked them . Wherever God sets up a house Of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there . Abraham indeed went Off the stage free, and so did Isaac too, they were a kind of first- rate saints ; we do not so much as read ' of any failing they had, or of any thing the Devil h ad ever the face to offer to them ; no, or with Jacob either, if you will excuse him for b e guiling his brother Esau, of both his b irthright and . his 150 THE POLITICAL blessing, but he was b u sv enough with all his children ; for example, He sent Judah to his sheep - shearing , and placed a whore (Tamar) in his way, in the posture of temp tation, so made him commit incest and whoredom both together . He sent incestuous Reuben to lie with his father ’ s concubine, Billah . He sent Dinah to the ball , to dance with the Sich emite ladies, and play the whore with their master . He enraged Simeon and Levi, at the supposed in jury, and then prompted them to revenge, for which their father heartily cursed them . He sent them altogether to fall upon poor Joseph, first to murder him intention ally, and then a o tu ally sell him to the Midianites . He made them Show the party - coloured coat and tell a lie to their father, to make the poor old man believe Joseph w as killed by a lion, 86 0 . He sent Potiphar ’ s wife to attack Joseph ’ s chastity, and filled her with rage at the disappointment . He taught Joseph to swear by th e life of Pharaoh . In a word , he debauched the Whole race, except Benj amin , and never man had such a set of sons, so wicked and so notorious, after so good an introduction into the world as they all of them had, to be sure ; for Jacob, no doubt, gav e them as good instru ction as the circumstances of his wandering condition would allow him to do . We must now consider the Devil and his affairs in a quite differing Situation : when the world first ap peared, peopled by the creating power of God, he had only Adam and Eve to take care of, and I think he plied his time with them to purpose enough : after the Deluge he had Noah only to pitch upon , and he quickly conquered him by the instigation of his grandson . At the building of Babel , he guided them by their

1 52 THE POLITICAL been able to have prevented the miracle, he would certainly have prevented the escape, by sending out Pharaoh and his army time enough to have taken the strand before them, and so have driven them to the necessity of travelling on foot round the north point of that sea, by the wilderness of Etan, where he would have pursued and harassed them with his cavalry, and in all probability have destroyed them : but the blind short -sighted Devil , perfectly in the dark, and u nacquainted with futurity, knew nothing of the matter, was as much deceived as Pharaoh himself, stood still, flattering himself with the hopes of his booty, and the revenge he should take u pon them the next morning ; till he saw the frighted waves in an uproar, and to his utter astonishment and confusion , saw the passage laid open, and Moses leading his vast army in full march over the dry Space ; nay, even then it is very probable Satan did not know, that if the Egyptians followed them, the sea would return upon and overwhelm them ; for I can hardly think so hard Of the Devil himself, that if he had, he would have suff ered, much less prompted, Pharaoh to follow the chace at such an ex pense ; so that either he must be an ignorant, u nfore seeing Devil, or a very ungrateful false Devil to his friends the Egyptians . I am inclined al so to the more charitable Opinion of Satan too, because the escape of the Israelites was really a triumph over himself; for the war was cer tainly his, or at least he was auxiliary to Pharaoh ; it was a victory over hell and Egypt together, and he would never have suffered the disgrace, if he had known it beforehand ; that is to say, though he could not have prevented the escape of Israel, or the dividing the water, yet he might have warned the Egyptians, and ca utioned them not to venture in after them . But we shall see a great many weak steps taken by the Devil in the affair of this very people, and their forty years ’ wandering in the wilderness ; and though HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 53 he was in some things successful , and wheedled them into many foolish and miserable murmurings and wranglings against God, and mutinies against poor Moses, yet the Devil was oftentimes baulked and dis appointed ; and it is for this reason , that I choose to finish the first part of his history with the particular relation of his behaviour among the Jews, because also, we do not find any extraordinary things happen ing anywhere else in the world, for above one thousand five hundred years ; no variety, no revolutions, all the rest of mankind lay still under his yoke, quietly sub mitted to his government, did just as he bade them, worshipped every idol he set up, and , in a word, he had no difficulty with anybody but the Jews, and for this reason , I say, this part of his story will be the more useful and instructing. To return , therefore, to Moses , and his ‘ div iding the Red sea ; that the people went over or ‘ throu gh it, that we have the sacred history for ; but h ow the Devil behaved, that you must come to me for, or I know not where you will find a true account of it, at least not in print . 1 . It was in the night they marched throu gh ; whether the Dev il saw it in the dark or no, that ’ s not my business . But when he had daylight for it, and v iewed the next day ’ s work, I make no question but all Hell felt the surprise, the prey being thus snatched ou t of their hands unexpectedly. It is true, the Egyptian host was sent to him in their room, but that was not what b e aimed at ; for he was sure enough Of them his own way, and if it was not just at that time, yet he knew what and who they were ; but as he had devoured the whole Israelitish host in his imagination, to the tune of at least a million and a half of soul s ; men , women, and children ; it was, no doubt, a great disappointment to the Devil to miss of his prey, and to see them all triumphing on the other side in safety . 1 54 THE POLITICAL It is true, Satan ’ s annals do not mention this defeat, for historians are generally backward to register their own misfortu nes ; but as we have an account of the fact from other hands, so as we cannot question the truth of it, the nature of the thing will tell us it was a disappointment to the Devil, and a very great one too. I cannot but observe here, that I think this part of the Devil ’ s story v ery entertaining, because Of the great variety of incidents which appear in every part Of it ; sometimes he is like a hunted fox, curveting and counter - running to avoid his being pursued and found out, while, at the same time, he is carrying on his secret designs to draw the people he pretends to manage, into some snare or other to their hurt ; at an other time, though the comparison is a little too low for his dignity, like a monkey that has done mischief, and who, making his own escape, sits and chatters at a distance, as if he had triumphed in what he had done so Satan , when he had drawn them in to worship a calf, to offer strange fire, to set up a schism, and the like, and so to bring the divine vengeance upon them selves, leaving them in their distress, kept at a dis tance, as if he looked on with satisfaction to see them burned, swallowed up, swept away, and the like as the several stories relate . His indefatigable vigilance is, on the other hand, a useful caveat, as well as an improving view to us ; no sooner is he routed and exposed, defeated and disap pointed in one enterprise, but he begins another, and, like a cunning gladiator, warily defends himself and boldly attacks his enemy at the same time . Thus we see him, up and down , conquering and conquered, through this whole part of his story, till at last, b e re ceiv es a total defeat, of which you shall b ear in its place ; in the mean time, let us take up his story again at the Red sea, where he received a great blow, ’ in3 stead of which he expected a complete victory ; for,

1 56 THE POLITICAL suggestions , considering Moses was admitted to the . vision of God, and that God had been pleased to ap pear to him in the most intimate manner ; that as they might depend God wo uld not destroy his faithful ser vant, so they might have concluded he was able to support his being without food as long as he thought fit ; but to a people so easy to believe anything, what cOuld be too gross for the Devil ,to persuade them to ? A people who could dance round a calf, and call it their god , might do anything ; that could say to one another, that this was the great Jehovah tha t brought them ou t of the la nd of Egypt; and that within so few days after God ’ s miraculous appearance to them, and for them ; I say, such a people were really fitted to be imposed upon , nothing could be too gross for them . This was, indeed, his first considerable experiment upon them as a people, or as a body ; and the truth is, his affairs required it, for Satan, who has been a suc cessful devil in most of his attempts upon mankind, could hardly doubt of success in anything after he had carried his point at mount Sinai : to bring them to idolatry in the very face of their deliverer, and just a fter their deliverance ! It was more astonishing, in the main, than even their passing the Red sea . In a word, the Devil ’ s whole history does not furnish u s with a story equally surprising . And how was poor Aaron bewildered in it too ? , He that was Moses ’ s partner in all the great things that Moses did in Pharaoh ’ s sight , and that was appointed to be his assistant and oracle, or orator rather, u pon all public occasions ; that he, above all the rest, Should come into this absurd and ridic ulous proposal, he that was singled out for the sacred priesthood ; for him to defile his holy hands with a polluted abominable sacri fice, and with making the idol for them too, ( for it is plain that he made it, ) h ow monstrous was it ! And see what an answer he gives to his brother Moses ; how weak ! how simple ! I did so and so, ‘ in ’ HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 57 deed, I bade them bring the earrings, &c. , and I cast the gold into the fire, and it came ou t this calf. Ri dicu lou s ! as if the calf came ou t by . mere fortuitous adventure, without a mould to cast it i n ; which could not be supposed : and if it h ad not come out so with out a mould, Moses would certainly have known of it . Had Aaron been innocent, he would have answered after , quite another manner, and told Moses honestly that the whole body of the people came to him in a fright, that they forced him to make them an idol ; w hich he did, by making first a proper mould to cast it in , and then taking the proper metal to cast it from ; that indeed he had sinned in so doing, but that he was mobbed into it, and the people terrified him, perhaps they threatened to kill him ; and if he had added, that the Devil, prompting his fear, beguiled him, he had said nothing but what was certainly true ; for if it was in Satan ’ s power to make the people insolent and outrage ou s enough to threaten and bully the old venerable prophet ( for he was not yet a priest) who was the brother of their oracle, Moses, and had been partner with him in so many of his commissions ; I say, if he could bring u p the passions of the people to a height to be rude a nd unmannerly to him (Aaron), and perhaps to threaten and insult him, he may be easily supposed to be able to intimidate Aaron, and terrify him into a compliance . See this cunning agent, when he has man ’ s de struction in his view, h ow securely he acts ! he never w ants a handle ; the best of men have one weak place or other, and he always finds it ou t, takes the advantage of it, and conquers them by one artifice or another ; only, take it with you as you go , it is always by stra tagem, never by force; a proofthat he is not empowered t o use violence . He may tempt, and he does prevail

but it is all legerdemain, it is all craft and artifice, he is still Ai a fioxh, the calumniator and deceiver, that is, the misrepresenter ; he misrepresents man to God, and 1 58 THE POLITICAL misrepresents God to man ; also he misrepresents things ; he p uts false colours , and then manages the eye to see them with an imperfect view, raising clouds and fogs to intercept our sight ; in short, he deceives all our senses, and imposes upon us in things which otherwise would be the easiest to discern and judge of. This, indeed, is in part the benefit of the De vil ’ s history, to let us see that he has used the same method all along and that ever since he has had anything to do with mankind, he has practised upon them with stratagem and cunning ; also it is observable that he has carried his point better that way than he would have done by fury and violence, if he h ad been allowed to make use of it ; for, by his power indeed he might have laid the world desolate, and made a heap of r ubbish of it long ago . But, as I have obser ved b e fore, that would not have answered his ends half so well, for by destroying men he would have made martyrs, and sent abundance of good men to heaven, who would much rather have died than yielded to serve him, and, as he aimed to have it, to fall down and worship him ; I say, he would have made martyrs, and that not a few : but this was none of Satan ’ s busi n ess ; his design lies quite another way ; his business is to make men Sin , not to make them suffer ; to make dev ils of them, not saints ; to delude them, and draw them away from their Maker, not send them away to him ; and therefore he works by stratagem, not by force . We are now come to his story, as it relates to the Jewish church in the wilderness, and to the children of Israel in their travelling circumstances ; and this was the first scene of public management that the Devil had upon his hands in the world ; for, as I have said, till now, he dealt with mankind either in their separate condition , one by on e, or else carried all before him, engrossing whole nations in his systems of idolatry, and overwhelming them In an ignorant destruction . 1 °

1 60 THE POLITICAL This making a calf, and paying an idolatrous worship to it ( for they acted the heathens and idolaters, not in the setting up the calf only, but in the manner of their worshipping, v iz . dancing and music, things they had not been acquainted with in the worship of the true God) I mention here, to observe how the Devil not only imposed upon their principles, but upon their senses too ; as if the awful majesty of heaven , whose glory they had seen in mount Sinai , where they stood, and whose pillar of cloud and fire was their guide and protection, would be worshipped by dancing round a calf! and that not a living creature, or a real calf, but the mere image of a calf cast in gold , or, as some think , in brass gilded over . But this was the Devil ’ s way with mankind, namely, to impose upon their senses, and bring them into the grossest follies and absurdities ; and then having first made them fools, it was much the easier to make them offenders . In this very manner he acted with them through all the course of their wilderness travels ; for, as they were ledby the hand like children, defended by omnipotence , fed by miracles, instructed immediately from heaven, and in all things had Moses for their guide, they had n o room to miscarry, but by acting the greatest absurd ities, and committing the greatest follies in nature ; a nd even these the Devil brought them to be guilty of in a surprising manner : 1 . AS God himself relieved them in every exigence, and supplied them in every want, one would think it was impossible they should be ever brought to question either his willingness or his ability, and yet they really objected against both ; which was indeed very provoking, and I doubt not, that when the Devil had brought them to act in such a preposterous manner, he really hoped and believed God wo uld be provoked effectually. The testimonies of his care of them, and ability to supply them were miraculous and undeniable he gave them water from HISTOR Y OF THE DEVIL . 1 61 th e rock, bread from the air, sent the fowls to feed them with flesh , and supported them all the way by miracles ; their health was preserved, none were sick among them, their clothes did not wear ou t, nor their shoes grow old upon their feet ; could anything be more absurd, than to do ubt whether he could provide for them, who had never let them want for so many years But the Devil managed them in spite of miracle ; nor did he ever give them over till he had brought six hundred thousand of them to provoke God so highly that he would not suff er above two of them to go into the land of promise so that, in short, Satan gained his point as to that generation , for all their carca ses fell in the wilderness . Let us take but a short v iew to what a height he brought them, and in what a rude, absurd manner they acted how he set them upon murm uring upon every occasion , now for water , then for bread ; nay, they murmured at their bread when they had it ; Ou r sou l loa thes this light brea d. He sowed the seeds of church rebellion in the sons of Aaron, and made Nadab and Abih u offer strange fire till they were strangely consumed by fire for the doing it . He set them a complaining at Taberah ; and a lust ing for flesh at the first three days ’ j ourney from mount Sinai . He planted envy in the hearts of Miriam and Aaron against the authority of Moses, to pretend God had spoken by them as well as by him, till he humbled the father, and made a leper of the daughter . He debauched ten of the spies, frightened them with sham appearances of things, when they went out to search the land, and made them frighten the whole people out of their understanding, as well as duty, for w hich six hundred thousand of their carcases fell in the wilderness . He raised the rebellion of Korah and the two hun H. D . M 1 62 THE POLITICAL dred and fifty princes, till he brought them to be swal lowed u p alive . He put Moses into a passion at Meribah, and ruffled the temper of the meekest man u pon earth , by which he made both him and Aaron forfeit their share of the promise , and be shut out from the Holy Land . He raised a mutiny among them when they travelled from mount Hor, till they brought fiery serpents among them to destroy them . He tried to make Balaam the prophet curse them ; but there the Devil was disappointed ; however, he brought the Midianites to debauch them with women , as in the case of Zimri and Cosbi . He tempted Achan with the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment, that he might take of the accursed thing, and be destroyed . He tempted the whole people not effectually to drive out the cursed inhabitants of the land of promise, that they might remain and be goads in their sides, till at last they often Oppressed them for their idolatry, and, which was worse, debauched them to idolatry . He prompted the Benj amites to refuse satisfaction to the people in the case of the wickedness of the men of Gibeah, to the destruction of the whole tribe, four hundred men excepted, in the rock Rimmon . At last he tempted them to reject the theocracy of their Maker, and call upon Sam uel to make them a king ; and most of those kings he made plagues and sorrows to them in their time, as you Shall hear in their order . Thus he plagued the whole body of the people con tinu ally, making them sin against God, and bring judgments upon themselves, to the consuming some millions of them, first and last, by the vengeance of their Maker . As he did with the whole congregation, SO he did with their rulers and several of the j udges, who were

1 64 T HE POLITICAL circumcised ; as if self - murder was not half so bad, either for sin against God, or disgrace among men , as being taken prisoner by a Philistine ! A piece of mad ness none b ut the Devil could have brought mankind to submit to, though , some ages after that, he made it a fashion among the Romans . . After Saul was dead, and David come to the throne, by h ow much he was a man chosen and particularly favoured by heaven , the Devil fell upon him with the more vigour, attacked him so many ways, and con quered him so very often, that, as no man was so good a king, so hardly any good king was ever a worse man ; in many cases one would ha v e almost thought the Devil had made sport with David, to show h ow easily he could overthrow the best man God could choose of the whole congregation . He made him distrust his benefactor so much as to feign himself mad before the king of Gath, when he had fled to him for shelter . He made him march with his four hundred cut throats, to cut off poor Nabal, and all his household, only because he would not send him the good cheer he had provided for his honest sheep - shearers . He made him, for his word ’ s sake, give Ziba half his master ’ s estate for his treachery, after he knew he had been the traitor, and betrayed poor Mephibosheth for the sake of it ; in which, The good Old king, it seems , was very loath To break his word, and therefore broke his oath . Then he tempted him to the ridiculous project of numbering the people, though against God ’ s express command ; a thing Joab himself was not wicked enough to do, till David an d the Devil forced him And, to make him completely wicked, he carried him to the top of his house, and showed him a naked lady bathing herself in her garden, in which it ap HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 65 peared that the Devil knew David too well, and what was the particular sin of his inclination ; and so took him by the right handle, drawing him at once into the sins of murder and adultery. Then, that he might not quite give him over, ( though David ’ s repentance for the last sin kept the Devil off for a while) , when he could attack him no further personally, he fell upon him in his family, and made him as miserable as he could desire him to be, in his children . three of whom he brought to destru c tion before his face, and another after his death . First, he tempted Amnon to ravish his sister Tamar ; so there was an end of her ( poor girl ! ) as to this world, for we never hear any more of her . Then he tempted Absalom to murder his brother Amnon, in revenge for Tamar ’ s maidenhead . Then he made Joab run Absalom through the body, contrary to David ’ s command . And, after David ’ s death, he brought Adomj ah (weak man ! ) to the block, for usurping king Solomon ’ s throne . As to Absalom, b e tempted him to rebellion , and raising war against his father, to the turning him shamefully out of Jerusalem, and almost ou t of the kingdom . He tempted him, for David ’ s further mortification, to lie with his father ’ s wives, in the face of the whole city ; Zand had Ahith oph el ’ s honest counsel been fol lowed, he had certainly sent him to sleep with his fathers long before his time . But there Satan and Ahithophel were both outwitted together . Through all the reigns of the several s u ccessors of David, the Devil took care to carry on his own game, to the continual insulting the measures which God himself had taken for the establishing his people in the world , and especially as a church ; till, at last, h e so eff ectually debauched them to idolatry, that crime, which, of all others, was most provoking to God , as it 1 66 THE POLITICAL was carrying the people away from their allegiance, and transposing the homage they owed God their maker, to a contemptible block of wood, or an image of a brute beast ; and this , how sordid and brutish soever it was i n itself; yet so did his artifice prev ail among them, that, first or last, he brought them all into it, the ten tribes as well as the two tribes ; till , at last, God himself was provoked to unchurch them, give them up to their enemies and the few that were left of them, after incredible slaughters and desolation, were hurried away, some into Tartary, and others into Babylon ; from whence very few, of that few that were carried away, ever found their way home again ; and some, when they might have come, would not ac cept of it, but continued there to th e very coming of the Messiah . See epistles of St . James and of St . Peter, at the beginning . But to look a little back u pon this part, ( for it can not be omitted, it makes so considerable a part of the Devil ’ s history, ) I mean his drawing God ’ s people, kings and all, into all the sins and mischiefs which gradually contributed to their destruction . First, ( for he began immediately with th e very best and wises t of the race, ) he drew in king Solomon, in the midst of all his zeal for the building God ’ s house, and for the making the most glorious and magnificent appearance for God ’ s worship that ever th e world saw ; I say, in the middle of all this, he drew him into such immoderate and insatiable an appetite for women , as to set u p the first, and, perhaps, the greatest seraglio of whores that ever any prince in the world had, or pretended to before nay, and to bring whoring so much into reputation , that, as the text says, seven hundred of them were princesses, that is to say, ladies of qua lity; not as the grand seigniors, and great moguls, ( other princes of the eastern world) have since prae tised, namely, to pick up their most beautiful slaves ; but these, it seems, were women of rank, kings ’ ,

1 68 THE POLITICAL But, though God might appoint Jeroboam ‘ to be king, ( that is to say, of ten tribes, ) yet God did not appoint him to set u p the two calves in the two ex treme parts of the land, viz . , in Dan and in Bethel ; that was Jeroboam ’ s own doing, and done on purpose to keep the people from falling back to Rehoboam, by being obliged to go to Jerusalem to the public wor ship : and the text adds, Jeroboa m ma de Isra el to sin. This was, indeed, a masterpiece Of the Devil ’ s policy, and it was eflectu al to answer the end ; nothing could have been more to the purpose : what reason he had to expect the people would so universally come into it, and be so well satisfied with a couple of calves , instead of the true worship of God at Jerusalem, or what arts and management he ( Satan) made u se of afterwards, to bring the people in , to j oin with such a delusion , that we find but little of in all the annals of Satan , nor is it much to the case . It is certain the Devil found a strange kind Of propensity to worshipping idols rooted in the temper of that whole people, even from their first breaking away from the Egyptian bondage ; so that he had nothing to do but to work u pon the old stock , and propagate the crime that he found was so natural to them . And this is Satan ’ s general way of working, not with them only, but with us also, and with all the world, even then , and ever smee . When he h ad thus secured Jeroboam ’ s revolt, we need not trace him among his successors ; for the same reason of state that held for the setting up the calves at Bethel an d Dan , held good for the keeping them up to all Jerob oam ’ s posterity ; nor had they one good king ever after ; even Jehu, who called his friends to come and see his zeal for the Lord, and wh o fulfilled the threatenings of God u pon Ahab and his family, and upon queen Jezebel and her offspring, and knew all the while that he was executing the j udgment of the true God, upon an idolatrous race ; yet he would HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 69 not part with his calves, but would have thought it to have been parting with his kingdom, and that as the people would have gone u p to Jerusalem to worship, so they would at the same time have transferred their civil obedience to the king of Judah, whose right it really was, as far as they could claim by birth and right line ; so that, by the way, Satan any more than other politicians, is not for the jus div inum of lineal succession , or what we call hereditary right, any fu rther than serves for his purpose . Thus Satan ridded his hands of ten of the twelve tribes ; let us now see h ow he went on with th e rest, for his work was now brought into a narrower compass the church Of God was now reduced to two tribes, ex cept a few religious people, who separated from the schism of Jerob oam, and came and planted themselves among the tribes of Judah and Benjamin ; the first thing the Devil did after this, was to foment a war b e tween the two kings, while Judah was governed by a boy or youth, Abijah by name, and he none of the best neither ; but God ’ s time was not come, and the Devil received a great disappointment, when Jeroboam was so entirely overthrown, that if the records of those ages do not mistake, no less than five hundred thousand men Of Israel were killed ; su ch a slau ghter, that one would think the army of Judah , had they known h ow to improve as well as gain a victory, might have brought all the rest back again, and have entirely re du ced the house of Jeroboam, and the ten tribes that followed him, to their obedience ; nay, they did take a great deal of the country from him, and among the rest, Bethel itself; and yet so c unningly did Satan man age, that the king of Judah, wh o was himself a wicked king, a nd perhaps an idolater in his heart, did not take down the golden calf that Jeroboam had there, n o, nor de stroy the idolatry itself, so that, in short, his v ictory signified nothing . From hence to the captivity, we find the Devil busy 1 70 THE POLITICAL with the kings of Judah, especially the best of them ; as for such as Manasseh and those who transgressed by the general tenor of their lives, those he had no great tro uble with . But such as Asa, Jeh osh aph at, Hezekiah, and Josiah , he hung about them and their courts, till he brought every one of them into some mischief or an other . As first, good king Asa, of whom the Scripture says, his hea rt wa s perf ect a ll his days, yet this subtle spirit, that could break in upon him nowhere else, tempted him when the king of Israel came ou t against him, to send to hire Benhadad the king of Syria to help him ; as if God, who had before enabled him to conquer the Ethiopians, with an army of ten hundred thousand m en, could not have saved him from the king of the ten tribes . In the same manner b e tempted Jeh osh aph at to j oin with that wicked king Ahab against the king of Syria, and also to marry his son to Ahab ’ s daughter, which was fatal to Jeh osh aph at, and to his posterity . Again , he tempted Hezekiah to show all his riches to the king of Babylon ’ s messengers ; and who can doubt, but that he ( Satan) is to be understood by the wicked spirit which s tood before the Lord, 2 Chron . xviii . 20, and Off ered his service to entice Ahab the ' king of Israel to come ou t to battle to his ruin , by being a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets ; and who for that time had a special commission , as he had a nother time in the case Of Job ? and indeed it was a commission fit for nobody but the Dev il ; Thou sha lt entice him, a nd thou sha lt a lso prev a il ; go ou t a nd do ev en so. ver . 2 1 . Even good Josiah himself, of whom it is recorded, that like him there wa s no king bef ore him, neither ; af ter him a rose ther a ny like him, 2 Kings xxiii . 25, yet the Devil never left him with his machinations , till finding he could not tempt him to anything wicked

1 72 THE POLITICAL nion so much as acknowledged ; all the world was buried in idolatry, and that of so many horrid kinds, that one would think the light of reason should have convinced mankind , that he who exacted such bloody sacrifices as that of Moloch , and such a bloody cutting themselves with knives, as the priests of Baal did , could not be a god, a good and beneficent being, b ut must be a cruel, voracio u s, and devouring devil, whose end~ was not the good, but the destruction of his crea tures : but to such a height was the blind demented world arrived to at that time , that in these sordid and corrupt ways , they went on worshipping dumb idols, and off ering human sacrifices to them, and in a word, committing all the most horrid and absurd abomina tions that they were capable of, or that the Devil could prompt them to, till Heaven was again put as it were to the necessity of bringing about a revolution , in favour of his own forsaken people, by miracle and surprise, as he had done before . We come therefore to the restoration or return from the captivity : had Satan been able to have acted any thing by force, as I have observed before, all the princes and powers of the world, having been , as they really were, at his devotion , he might easily have made use of them, armed all the world against the Jews , and prevented the rebuilding the temple, and even the return of the captivity . But now the Devil ’ s power manifestly received a check, and the hand of God appeared in it, and that he was resolved to re- establish his people the Jews, and to have a second temple built : the Devil , who knew the extent of his own power too well , and what limitations were laid upon him, stood still, as it were looking on, and not daring to Oppose the return of the captivity, which he very well knew had been proph e sied, and would come to pass . He did indeed make some little Opposition to the . building, and to the fortifying the city, but as it was HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 7 ‘ to no purpose, so he was soon obliged to give it over and thus the captivity being returned , and the temple rebuilt, the people of the Jews increased and mu l tiplied to an infinite number and strength and from this time, we may say the power of the Devil rather declined and decreased, than went on with success, as it had done before ; it is true the Jews fell into sects and errors, and divisions of many kinds , after the return from the captivity, and no doubt the Devil had a grea t b and in those divisions but he could never bring them back to idolatry, and his not being able to do that, made him turn his hand so many ways to pl ague and oppress them ; as particularly by Antiochus the Great, wh o brought the abomination of desolation into the holy place ; and there the Devil triumphed over them for some time ; but they were delivered many ways, till at last they came peaceably under the pro tec tion, rather than th e dominion , of the Roman em pire; when Herod the Great governed them as a k ing, and re- edified, nay, almost rebuilt their temple, with so great an expense and magnificence, that he made it, as some say, greater and more glorious than that of Solomon ’ s, though that I take to be a great— fable, to sav no worse of it . In this condition the Jewish church stood, when the fulness of time, as it is called in Scripture, was come and the Devil was kept at bay, though he had made some encroachments upon them as above ; for there was a glorious remnant of saints among them, such as old Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, and old Simeon , who waited for the salvation of Israel I say, in this condition the Jewish church stood when the Messiah came into the world, which was such another mortal stab to the thrones and principalities infernal , as that of which I have Spoken already in chap . iii . at the creation of man ; and therefore with this I break off the antiquities of the Devil ’ s history, or the ancient part of his kingdom ; for from hence downward we 1 74 THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. Shall find his empire has declined gradually ; and though by his wonderful address, his prodigious appli cation , and the Vigilance and fidelity of his instru ments, as well human as infernal and diabolical, and of the human, as well the ecclesiastic as the secular, he has many times retrieved what he has lost, and sometimes bid fair for recovering the universal empire he once possessed over mankind, yet he has been still defeated again , repulsed and beaten back, and his king dom has greatly declined in many parts of the world and especially in the northern parts, except Great Britain : and h ow he has politically maintained his interest, and increased his dominion among the wise and righteous generation that we cohabit with and among, will be the subject of the modern part of Satan ’ s history, and of which we are next to give an account .

1 76 THE MODERN power, that not only his angelic strength seems to have received a further blow upon the coming of the Son of God into the world, but he seems to have had a blow upon his intellects his serpentine craft and devil -like subteltyseems to have been circumscribed and cut Short ; and instead of his being so cunning a fellow as before, when, as I said, it is evident he outwitted all mankind, not only Eve, Cain , Noah, Lot, and all the patriarchs, but ' even nations of men, and that in their p ublic ca pacity, and thereby led them into abs urd and ridiculous things, s uch as the building of Babel, and deifying and worshipping their kings , when dead and rotten ; idolizing beasts, stock s, stones , anything, and even nothing ; and, in a word, when he managed mankind j ust as he pleased . Now, and from this time forward, he appeared a weak, foolish, ignorant devil, compared to what he was before ; he was upon almost every occasion resisted , disappointed, balked, and defeated, especially in all his attempts to thwart or cross the mission and ministry of the Messiah, while he was upon earth , and sometimes upon other and very mean occasions too . And first h ow foolish a project was it, and how below Satan s celebrated artifice in like cases, to put Herod upon sending to kill the poor innocent children in Bethlehem, in hopes to destroy the infant ? for I take it for granted, it was the Devil put into Herod ’ s thoughts that execution , h ow simple and foolish soever ; n ow we must allow him to be very ignorant of the na tiv ity himself, or else he might easily have guided his friend Herod to the place where the infant was . This shows that either the Devil is in general igno rant as we are, of what is to co ’me in the world, before it is really come to pass , and consequently can foretel nothing, no, not so much as our famous old Merlin or Mother Shipton did, or else that great event was hid from him by an immediate power superior to his, which I cannot think neither, considering how much he was H ISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 77 concerned in it, and how certainly he kne w that it was once to come to pass . But be that as it will, it is certain the Devil knew nothing where Christ was born , or when ; nor w as he able to direct Herod to find him ou t, and there fore put him u pon that foolish, as well as cruel order , to kill all the children , that he might be sure to destroy the Messiah among the rest . The next simple step that the Devil took, and, in deed, the most foolish one that he could ever be charged with, unworthy the very dignity of a devil , and below the understanding that he always was allowed to act with , was that of coming to tempt the Messiah in the wilderness ; it is certain , and he Owned it himself afterwards upon many occasions , that the Devil knew our Saviour to be the Son of God; and it is as certain that he knew, that as such he could have no power or advantage over him ; h ow foolish then was it in him to attack him in that manner, If thou beest the S on of God w hy he knew him to be the Son of God well enough ; he said so afterwards, I know thee, w ho thou a rt, the holy one of God h ow then could he be so weak a devil as to say, If thou art, then do so and so ? The case is plain , the Devil, though he knew him to be the Son of God, did not fully know the mystery of the incarnation ; nor did he know h ow far

the inani tion of Christ extended, and whether as man , he was not subject to fall, as Adam was, though his reserved Godhead might be still immaculate and pure ; and u pon this foot, as he would leave no method untried , he attempts him three times , one immediately after z n g ther ; but then , finding himself disappointed, he e This evidently pro v es that the Devil was ignorant of the grea t mystery of godliness, as the text calls it, God ma nif est in the fl esh ; and therefore made that foolish attempt u pon Christ, thinking to have con quered his human nature, as capable of Sin , which H. D. 1 78 THE MODERN it was not ; and at this repulse hell groaned, the whole army of regimented devils received a wound, and felt the shock of it ; it was a second overthrow to them, they had had a long chain of success , carried a devilish conquest over the greatest part of the creation of God ; but now they were cut short, the seed of the woma n was now come to brea k the serpent ’ s hea d, that is, to cut short his power, to contract the limits of his kingdom, and, in a word, to dethrone him In the world : no doubt the Devil received a shock, for you find him always afterwards crying ou t in a horrible manner, whenever Christ met with him, or else very humble and submissive, as when he begged leaveto go into the herd of swine, a thing he has often done since. Defeated here, the first statagem I find him con cerned in after it, was his entering into Judas, and putting him u pon betraying Christ to the chief priest ; but here again he was entirely mistaken , for he did not see, as much a devil as he was, what the event would be but when he came to know, that if Christ was put to death he would become a propitiatory, and be the great sacrifice of mankind, so to rescue the fallen race from that death they had incurred the penalty of by the fall , that this was the fulfilling of all Scripture prophecy, and that thus it was that Christ was to be the end of the law I say, as soon as b e perceived this, he strove all he could to prevent it , and disturbed Pilate ’ s wife in her sleep, in order to set her upon her husband to hinder his delivering him up to the Jews for then , and not till then , he knew how Christ was to vanquish hell by the power of his cross . Thus the Devil was disappointed and exposed in every step he took , and as he now plainly saw his kingdom declining, and even the temporal kingdom of Christ rising u p upon the ruins of his (Satan ’ s ) p ower, he seemed to retreat into his ow n region , the air, and to consult there with his fellow devils , what measures he Should take next to preserve his dominion amongg

1 80 TH E MODERN among the churchmen , for precedency and dominion, he fell to work with them immediately so that turn ing the tables, and reassuming the subtlety and craft, which, I say, he seemed to have lost in the former four hundred years, he gained more ground in the next ages of the church, and went further towards restoring his power and empire in the world, and towards over throwing that very church which was so lately esta blish ed, than all he had done by fire and blood before . His policy now seemed to be edged with resentment for the mistakes he had made ; as if the Devil, looking back with anger at himself; to see what a fool he had been to expect to crush religion by persecution, re joiced for having discovered that liberty and dominion was the only way to ruin the church, not fire and faggot ; and that he had nothing to do but to give the zealous people their utmost liberty in religion, only sowing error and variety of Opinion among them, and they would bring fire and faggot in fast enough among them selves . It must be confessed these were devilish politics ; and so sure was the aim, and so certain was the Devil to hit his mark by them, that we find he not only did not fail then, but the same hellish methods have pre vailed still , and will do so to the end of the world . Nor had the Devil ever a better game to play than this , for the ruin of religion, as we shall have room to Show in many examples, besides that of the dissenters in England, wh o are evidently weakened by the late toleration : whether the Devil had any b and in bait ing his hook with an a of parliament or no, his tory is silent, but it is too evident he has catched the fish by it ; and if the honest Church of England does not , in pity and Christian charity to the dissenters , straighten her hand a little, I cannot but fear the Devil will gain his point, and the dissenters will be undone b y it . Upon this new foot of politics the Devil began with HISTORY OP THE DEVIL . 18 1 the emperors themselves . Arius, the father of the heretics of that age, having broached his Opinions, and Athanasius the orthodox bishop of the East opposing him, the Devil no sooner saw the door open to strife and imposition, but he thrust himself in , and raising the quarrel u p to a suited degree of rage and Spleen , he involved the good emperor himself in it first, and Athanasius was banished and recalled, and banished and recalled again , several times , as error ran high, and as the Devil either got or lost ground after Con stantine, the next emperor was a child of his own (Arian) , and then the court came all i nto the quarrel , as courts Often do, and then the Arians and the ortho dox persecuted one another as fu riously as the pagans persecuted them all before . To such a height the Devil brought his conquest in the very infancy of the question , and so much did he prevail over the true Christianity of the primitive church, even before they had enj oyed the liberty of the pure worship twenty years . Flushed with this success, the Devil made one push for the restoring paganism, and bringing on the old worship of th e heathen idols and temples but, like our king James II . , he drove too hard, and Julian had so provoked the whole Roman empire, which was generally at that time become Christian , that, had the apostate lived , he would not have been able to have held the throne; and as he was cut off in his beginning, paganism expired with him, and the Devil himself might have cried ou t, as Julian did, and with much more propriety, Vicisti Ga lilea n. Jovian , the next emperor, being a glorious Christian and a very good and great man, the Devil abdicated for awhile, and left the Christian armies to re-establish the orthodox faith ; nor could he bring the Christians “ ft a breach again among themselves a great while a er . However, time and a diligent devil did the work at 1 82 THE MODERN last, andwhen the emperors ’ concerning themselves one way or other, did not appear sufficient to answer his end, he changed hands again, and went to work with the clergy : to set the doctors effectually together by the ears, he threw in the new notion of primacy among them, for a bone of contention ; the bait took, the priests swallowed it eagerly down, and the Devil , a cunninger fisherman than ever St Peter was, struck them ( as the anglers call it ) with a quick hand, and hung them fast upon the hook . Ha v ing them thus in his clutches, and they being now, as we may say, his own, they took their measures afterwards from him, and most obediently followed hi s directions ; nay, I will not say but he may have had pretty much the management of the whole society ever since, of what profession or party soever they may have been , with exception only to the reverend and right reverend among ourselves . The sacred, as above, being thus b ook ed in, and the Devil being at the head of their affairs, matters went on most gloriously his own way ; first, the bishops fell to bandying and party - making for the superiority, as heartily as ever temporal tyrants did for dominion , and took as black and devilish methods to carry it on, as the worst of those tyrants ever had done before them . At last Satan declared for the Roman pontiff, and that upon excellent conditions, in the reign of the emperor Mauritius ; for Boniface, who had long con tended for the title of supreme, fell into a treaty with Phocas, captain of the emperor ’ s guards : wh eth er the bargain was from hell or not, let any one judge, the conditions absolutely entitle the Devil to the honour of making the contract, v iz . , that Phocas first murdering his master ( the emperor) and his sons, Boniface should countenance the treason , and declare him emperor ; and in return , Phocas should acknowledge the primacy of the Church of Rome, and declare Boniface universal bishop . A blessed compact ! which at once set the

THE MODERN verted to Christianity by it, and that the king sent the key, with another made like it, to mm Pelagius, then bishop of Rome, who thereupon assumed the power of opening and shutting heaven ’ s gates ; and he after wards setting a price or toll upon the entrance, as we do here at passing a turnpike ; these fine things, I say, were successfully managed for some years before this I am now speaking of, and the Devil got a great deal of ground by it too ; but now he triumphed openly, and having set up a murderer upon the temporal throne, and a church emperor upon the ecclesiastic throne, and both of his own choosing, the Devil m ay be said to begin his n ew kingdom from this epocha, and call it the restoration . Since this time indeed the Devil ’ s affairs went very merrily on , and the clergy brought so many gewgaws into their worship, and such devilish principles were mixed with that which we call the Christian faith, that, in a word, from this time the bishop of Rome com menced whore of Babylon, in all the most express terms that could be imagined : tyranny of the worst sort crept into the pontificate, errors of all sorts into the profession, and they proceeded from one thing to another, till the v ery popes, ( for so the bishop of Rome was now called, by way of distinction , ) I say, the popes themselves , their spiritual guides, professed openly to confederate with the Devil, and to carry on a personal and private correspondence with himat the same time, tak ing o u pon them the title of Christ ’ s vicar, and the infallible guide of the consciences of Christians . This we have sundry instances Of in some merry popes , who , if fame lies n ot, were sorcerers, magicians , had familiar spirits , and immediate conversation with the Devil , as well visibly as invisibly, and by this means “ became what we call devils incarnate : upon this account it is that I have left the conversation that passes between devils and men to this place, as well because I believe it differs much now in his modern HISTORY OP THE DEVIL . 1 85 state, from what it was in his ancient state, and there fore that which most concerns us belongs rather to this part of his history ; as also because, as I am now writing to the present age, I choose to bring the most significant parts of his history, especially as they relate to ourselves, into that part of time that we are most concerned in . The Devil had once, as I observed before, the universal monarchy or government of mankind in himself, and I doubt not but in that flourishing state of his affairs, he governed them like what he is , viz . , an absolute tyrant ; d uring this theocracy of his, ( for Satan is called the god of this world, ) he did not familiarize himself to mankind so much as he finds occasion to do now, there was not then so much need of it ; he governed then with an absolute sway ; he had his oracles, where he gave audien ce to his votaries like a deity, and he had his sub - gods, who, under his several dispositions, received the homage of mankind in their names such were all the rabble of t he heathen deities, from Jupiter the supreme, to the Lares or household gods of every family ; these, I say, like residents, recei v ed the prostrations, but the homage was all Satan ’ s the Devil had the substance Of it all, which was the idolatry . During this administration of hell, there was less witchcraft, less true litera l magic, than there has been since ; there was indeed no need of it, the Devil did not stoop to the mechanism of his more modern operations , but ruled as a deity, and received the vows and the bows of his subjects in more state, and with more solemnity ; whereas, since that, he is content to employ more agents and take more pains himself too now he runs u p and down hackney in the world, more like a drudge than a prince, and much more than he did then . Hence all those things we call apparitions and visions of ghosts, familiar spirits, and dealings with the 1 86 THE MODERN Devil, of which there is so great a variety in the world at this time, were not so much known amon people in those first ages of the Devil ’ s kingdom in r a word, the Devil seems to be put to his shifts , and to fly to art and stratagem for the carrying on his affairs ! , much more now than he did then . One reason for this may be, that he has been more discovered and exposed in these ages , than he was be fore ‘

then he could appear in the world in his own

proper shapes, and yet not be known ; when the sons of God appeared at the divine summons, Satan came along with them ; but now he h as played so many scurvy tricks upon men, and they know him so well, that he is obliged to play quite ou t of sight, and act in disguise ; mankind will allow nothing of his doing, and hear n othing of his saying, in his own name and if you propose anything to be done, and it be but said the Devil is to help in the doing it, or if you say of any man, he deals with the Devil , ’ or the Devil has a hand in it, ’ everybody flies him and shuns him, as the most frightful thing in the world . Nay, if anything strange and improbable be done, or related to be done, we presently say the Devil was at the doing it . Thus the great ditch at Newmarket Heath is called the Devil ’ s ditch ; so the Devil built Crowland abbey, and the whispering - place in Glon oester cathedral ; nay, the cave at Castleton , only b e cause there is no getting to the further end of it, is called the Devil ’ s a and the like . The poor peo ple of Wiltshire, when you ask them h ow the great stones at Stonehenge were brought thither, they will all tell you the Devil brought them . If any mischief extraordinary befalls us, we presently say ‘the Devil was in it, ’ and the Devil would have it so in a word, the Devil has got an ill name among us, and so he is fain to act more in tenebris, more incog . , than he used to do, play out of sight himself, and work by the sap, as the engineers call it, and not Openly and avow

T HE MO DER N CHAP . II . Of ' Hell, a s it is represented to u s a nd how the Dev il is to be u nderstood a s being persona lly in Hell, when, a t the sa me time, wefi nd him a t liberty, r a ng ing ov er the w orld. IT is tr u e, as that learned and pleasant author, the inimitable Dr . Brown , says , ‘The Devil is his own hell one of the most constituting parts of his infelicity is, that he cannot act upon mankind brev i ma nu, by his own inherent power, as well as rage ; that he cannot unhinge this creation , which, as I have Observed in its place, he had the utmost av ersion to from its begin ning , as it was a stated design In the Creator to supply his place In heaven with a new species of being called man, and fill the vacancies occasioned by his degene racy and rebellion . This filled him with rage inexpressible, and horrible resolutions of revenge , and the impossibility of ex ecut ing those resolutions torments him with despair this, added to what he was before, makes him a complete devil, with a hell in his own breast, and a fire u n quenchable burning about his heart . I might enlarge here, and very much to the purpose , i n describing, spherically and mathematically, that ex quisito quality called a devilish Spirit, in which it would naturally occur to give you a whole chapter u pon the glorious articles of malice and envy, and especially upon that lusciou s, delightful, triumphant passion , called revenge h ow natural to man, nay, even to both sexes how pleasant in the very contemplation , though there be not, just at that time, a power ofexecution : how palatable it is in itself, and h ow well it relishes when HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 89 dished up with its proper sauces , such as plot, contri vance, scheme, and confederacy, all leading on to exe cution : h ow it possesses the human soul in all the most sensible parts : how it empowers mankind to sin in imagination, as effectually, to all future intents and purposes ( damnation) , as if he had sinned actually h ow safe a practice it is too, as to p u nishment in this life, namely, that it empowers us to cut throats clear of the gallows, to Slander virtue , reproach innocence , wound hono u r , and stab reputation ; and, in a word , to do all the wicked things in the world, out of the reach of the law . It would also requ ire some few words to describe the secret operations of those nice qualities when they reach the human soul ; how eff ectually they form a hell within us, and how imperceptibly they assimilate and transform us into devils, mere h uman devils, as really devils as Satan himself, or any of his angels ; and that, therefore, it is not so much ou t of the way a s some imagine, to say, such a man is an incarnate devil ; for, as crime made Satan a devil, who was b e fore a bright immortal seraph, or angel of light, h ow much more easily may the same crime make the same devil, though every way m eaner and more contempti ble, of a man or a woman either ! But this is too grave a subject for me at this time . The Devil being thus, I say, fired with rage and envy, in consequence of his jealou sy upon the creation of man , his torment is increased to the highest by the limitation of his power, a nd his being forbid to act against mankind by force of arms ; this is, I say, part of his hell, which , as above, is within him, and which he carries with him wherever he goes ; nor is it so difficult to conceive of hell , or of the Devil either, under this j ust description , as it is by all the usual notions that we are taught to entertain of them, by ( the old women) our instructers ; for every man may, 1 90 THE MODERN by taking but a common View of himself, and mak irig a j ust scrutiny into his own passions, on some of their particular excursions, see a hell within himself, and himself a mere devil as long as the inflammation lasts ; and that as really, and to all intents and purposes, as if h e had the angel ( Satan) before his face, in his locality a nd personality ; that is to say, all devil and monster in his person, and an immaterial, but intense fire flaming about and from within him, at all the pores of his body . 1 The notions we receive of the Devil, as a person being In hell as a place, are infinitely absurd and ri diculou s. The first, we are certain is not true in fact, because he has a certain liberty, ( however limited, that is not to the purpose, ) is daily visible, and to ' be traced in his sev eral attacks upon mankind, and has been so ever Since his first appearance in Paradise : as to his corporal visibility, that is not the present question neither ; it is enough that we can hunt him by the foot, that we can follow him as hounds do a fox upon a hot scent : we can see him as plainly by the effect, by the mischief he does, and more by the mis é ’ Chief he puts us upon doing, I say, as plainly, as if we saw him by the eye . It is not to be doubted but the Devil can see us when and where we cannot see him ; and as he has a " personality, though it be Spiritous, he and his angels too may be reasonably supposed to inhabit the world of Spirits, and to have free access from thence to the regions of life, and to pass and repass in the air, as really, though not perceptible to us, as the spirits of men do, after their release from the body, pass to the place (wherever that is ) which is appointed for them . If the Devil was confined to a place (Hell) as a ri son, he could then have no business here ; and i we “ pretend to describe hell, as not a prison , but that the “

Devil has liberty to be there or not be there, as he “

1 92 THE MODERN the Devil is in hell, and hell is in the Devil ; he is filled w ith this u nquenchable fire, he is expelled the place of glory, banished fr om the regions of light ; absence from the life of all beatitude is his curse, despair is the reigning passion in his mind ; and all the little consti tuting parts of his torment, such as rage, envy, malice, and jealousy, are consolidated in this , to make his misery complete, viz . , the duration of it all, the eternity of his condition ; that he is without hope, without re demption , without recovery. If anything can inflame this hell, and make it hotter, it is this only, and this does add an inexpressible hor ror to the Devil himself; namely , the seeing man ( the only creature he hates ) placed in a state of recovery, a glorious establishment of redemption formed for him in heaven , and the scheme of it perfected on earth ; by which this man , though even the Devil by his art may have deluded him, and drawn him into crime, is yet in a state of recovery, which the Devil is not ; and that it is not in his ( Satan ’ s ) power to prevent it . Now take the Devil as he is in his own nature , angelic, a bright immortal seraph , heaven - born , and having tasted the eternal beatitude, which these are appointed to enjoy ; the loss of that state to himself, the possessi on of it granted to his rival, though wicked like and as himself; I say , take the Devil a s he is, having a quick sense of his own perdition , and a stinging sight of his rival ’ s fe licity, it is hell enough, and more than enough, even for an angel to support ; nothing we can conceive of can be worse . As to any other fire than this, su ch and so imma terially intense as to torment a spirit, which is itself fire also, I will not say it cannot be, because to Infinite everything is possible, but , I must say, I cannot con ceive rightly of it . “ 1 will not enter here into the wisdom or reasonable ness of representing the torments of hell to be fire, and , th at fire to be a commixture of flame and sulphur ; HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 93 it has pleased God to let the horror of those eternal a gonies about a lost h eaVen be laid before us by those similit udes or allegories which are most moving to ou r senses and to ou r understandings ; nor will I dispute the possibility, much less will I doubt but that there is to be a consummation of misery to all the objects of m isery, whenthe Devil ’ s kingdom in this world, ending with the world itself, that liberty he has now may be further abridged ; when he may be returned to the same state he was in between the time of his fall and the creation of the world , with perhaps some additional v engeance on him, such as at present we cannot de s cribe, for all that treason and those high crimes and misdemeanors which he has been guilty of here in “ his conversation with mankind . As his infelicity will be then consummated and com pleted, so the infelicity of that part of mankind who a re condemned with him may receive a considerable a ddition from those words in their sentence, to be tor mented with the Dev il a nd his a ngels ; for, as the ah sence of the s upreme Good is a complete hell, so the hated company of the Deceiver, who was the great cause of their ruin , must be a subject of additional hor ror ; and they will be always saying as a Scotch gentle man wh o died of his excesses said to the famous Dr . P who came to see him on his death -bed, but had been too much his companion in his life, O tu fundamenta gessisti I would not treat the v ery subject itself with any in decency, nor do I think my Opinion of that hell which , I say, consists in the absence of him in whom is heaven , one j ot less solemn than theirs who believe it all fire and brimstone ; but I must own, that to me, nothing can be more ridiculous than the notions that we entertain and fill ou r heads with about hell , and about the devils being there tormenting of souls , broiling them upon gridirons, hanging them u p upon H . D . O 1 94 THE MODERN hooks, carrying them upon their backs , and the like '

with the several pictures of hell, represented by a great mouth with horrible teeth, gaping like a cave on the side of a mountain ; suppose that appropriated to Satan in the Peak, which, indeed, is not much unlike it, with a stream of fire coming out of it, as there is of water, and smaller devils going and coming continually in and out, to fetch and carry souls the Lord knows whither, and for the Lord knows what These things, however intended for terror, are in deed , so ridiculous, that the Devil himself, to be sure, mocks at them, and a man of sense can hardly refrain doing the like, only I avoid it, because I would not give offence to weaker heads . However, I must not compliment the brains of other men at the expense of my own, or talk nonsense b e ca use they can understa nd no other I think all these notions and representations of hell and of the Devil to be as profane as they are ridiculous, and I ought no more to talk profanely than merrily of them . Let us learn to talk of these things , then , as we should do ; and, as w e really cannot describe them to ou r reason and understanding , why should we describe them to our senses ? we h ad, I think, much better not describe them at all, that is to say, not attempt it : the blessed apostle St . Paul was , as he said himself,carried up, or caught up, into the third heaven, yet when h e came down again he could neither tell what he heard, or describe what he saw ; all he could say of it was, that what he heard was unutterable, and what he saw was inconceivable . It is the same thing as to the state of the Devil in those regions which he now possesses, and where h e now more particularly inhabits ; my present business, then, is . not to enter into those grave things so as to make them ridiculous, as I think most people do that talk of them ; but as the Devil, let his residence be where it will , has evidently free leave to come and go,

" 1 96 THE MODERN ° gu e, a loose, u ngoverned fellow, we must be content to trace him where we can find him . It is true , in the foregoing chapter I showed you the Devil entered into the herd ecclesiastic, and gave you some account of the first successful step he took with mankind since the Christian epoch ; how, having secretly managed both temporal and spiritual power apart, and by themselves, he now united them, In point of man agement, and brought the church usurpation and the army ’ S usurpation together . the pope to bless the general , in deposing and murdering his master , the emperor ° and the general to recognise the pope, in de throning his master, Christ Jesus . From this time forward you are to allow the Devil a mystical empire in this world ; not an action of moment done without him, not a treason but he has a hand in it, not a tyrant but he prompts him, not a government but he has a in it ; not a fool but he tickles him, not a knave but he guides him he has a finger in every frau d, a key to ev ery cabinet, from the divan at Constantinople to the Mississippi in France, and to the South - Sea cheats at from the first attack u pon the Christian world, in the person of the Romish antichrist, down to the bull U nigenitus and from the mixture of St . Peter and Confucius in China, to the holy ofli ce in Spain ; and down to the Emlins and Dodwells of the current age . How he has managed, and does manage, and h ow in all probability he will manage till his kingdom Shall come to a period, and how at last he will probably be managed himself, inquire within, and you Shall know HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 1 97 CHAP. 1 11 . Of the ma nner of S a ta n ’ s a cting a nd ca rrying on his afi ' a irs in this w orld, a ndpa rticu la rly of his ordina ry workings in the da rk, by possession a nd a gita tion. THE Devil being thus reduced to act upon mankind by stratagem only, it remains to inquire h ow he per forms , and which way he directs his attacks the faculties of man are a kind of a garrison in a strong castle, which as they defend it on the one hand under the command of the reasoning power of man ’ s soul , so they are prescribed on the other hand , and can not sally ou t without leave for the governor of a fort does not permit his soldiers to hold any correspondence with the enemy, without special order and direction . N ow the great inquiry before us is, How comes the Devil to a parley with us ? h ow does he converse with our senses, and with the understanding ? h ow does he reach us ? which way does he come at the affections ? and which way does he move the passions ? It is a little difficult to discover this treasonable correspond ence, and that difficulty is indeed the Devil ’ s advan tage, and , for aught I see, the chief advantage he has over mankind . It is also a great inquiry here , whether the Devil °knows our thoughts or no : if I may give my Opinion , I am with a negative I deny that he knows anything of our thoughts, except of those thoughts which he puts us upon thinking, for I will not doubt but he has the art to inject thoughts, and to revive dormant thoughts in us : it is not so wild a scheme as some take it to be, that Mr . Milton lays down , to represent the Devil injecting corrupt desires and wandering thoughts into 1 98 THE MO DERN the head of Eve, by dreams, and that he brought her to dream whatever ’ he put into her thou ghts, by whispering to her vocally when sh e was a sleep ; and to this end, he im agines the Devil laying himself close to her car, in the shape of a toad, when sh e was fast asleep ; I say, this is not so wild a schema - seeing even now, ' if you can whisper anything close to the ear of a person in a deep sleep, so as to speak distinctly to the person , and yet not awaken him, a s has been frequently tried, the person sleeping shall dream distinctly of what you say to him nay, Shall dream the very words you say. We have, then , no more to ask, but h ow the Devil can convey himself to th e ear of a sleeping person and it is granted then that he may have power to make u s dream what h e pleases : but this is not all , for if he can so forcibly, by his invisible application, cause u s to dream what he pleases , why can he not with the same facility prompt ou r thoughts , whether sleeping or waking ? To dream, is nothing else but to think sleep ing ; and we have abundance of deep -headed gentlemen among u s, who give us ample testimony that they dream waking . But if the Devil can prompt us to dream, that is to say, to think , yet if he does not know ou r thoughts , how then can he tell whether th e whisper h ad its effect ? The an swer is pl ain ; the Devil , like the angler, baits the hook , ifthe fish bite he lies ready to take th e advantage; he whispers to th e im agination , and then waits to see h ow it works ; as Naomi said to Ruth , ch ap . iii . 5, 1 8, Sit still, my da ughter, until thou know how the ma tter willf a ll, f or the ma n will not be a t r est u ntil he ha v e fi nished the thing . Thus when th e Devil h ad whispered to Eve in her sleep , according to Milton , and suggested mischief to h er im agination , he only sat still to see h ow the matter would work , for he kn ew if it took with her, he should hear more of it ; and then by finding her alone the next day, without her ordinary guard, her

200 THE MODERN work with quotations from a book which we have not much to do with in the Devil ’ s story, at least not much to his satisfaction , I only hint his personal appearance to our Saviour in the wilderness, where it is said, the Dev il ta keth him up to a n exceeding high mou nta in ; and, in another place, the Dev il depa rtedf r om him. What shape or figure he appeared in we do not find men tioned, but I cannot doubt his appearing to him there, any more than I can his talking to ou r Saviour in the mouths and with the voices of the several persons who were under the terrible affliction of an actual posses sion . These things leave us no room to doubt of what is advanced above, namely, that he ( the Devil ) has a cer tain residence, or liberty of residing in , and moving about upon , the surface of this , earth, as well as in the compass of the atmosphere, vulgarly called the air, in some manner or other : that is the general . lt remains to inquire into the manner, which I re solve into two kinds 1 . Ordinary, which I suppose to be his invisible motions as a spirit ; under which consideration I suppose him to have an unconfined, unlimited, unrestrained liberty, a s to the manner of acting ; and this either in persons, by possession ; or in things, by agitation . 2 . Extraordinary, which I understand to be his ap pearances in borrowed shapes and bodies, or Shadows rather of bodies ; assuming speech, figure, posture, and several powers, of which we can give little or no account ; in which extraordi nary manner of appearances , he Is either limited by a superior power, or limits himself politically, as being not the way most for his interest or pur pose to act in his business, which is more effec tu ally done In his state of Obscurity . Hence we must suppose the Devil has it very much in his own choice, whether to act in one capacity, or in ’ HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 20 1 the other, or in both ; that is to say, of appearing and not appearing, as he finds for his purpose : in this state of invisibility, and under the operation of these powers and liberties , he performs all his functions and offices, as Devil, as prince of darkness, as god of this world, as tempter, accuser, deceiver, and all whatso ever other names of office or titles of honour he is known by . N ow taking him in this large unlimited, or little limited state of action , he is well called the god of this world, for he has very much of the attribute of omni presence, a nd may be said, either by himself or his agents, to be everywhere, and see everything ; that is to say, everything that is visible ; for I cannot allow him any share of omniscience at all . That he ranges about everywhere, is with u s, and sometimes in us, sees when he is not seen , hears when he is not heard, comes in without leave, and goes out without noise, is neither to be shut in or shut out ; that when he runs from us we cannot catch him, and when he runs after us we cannot escape him, is seen when he is n ot known , and is known when he is not seen ; all these things, and more, we have knowledge enough about to convince us of the truth of them so that, a s I have said above, he is certainly walking to and fro through the earth, after some manner or other, and in some figure or other, visible or invisible, as he finds occasion . N ow in order to make our history of him complete, the next question before us is, h ow, and in what manner, he acts with mankind : h ow his king dom is carried on, and by what methods he does his business, for he certainly has a great deal of business to do ; he is not an idle spectator, nor is he walking about incognito, and clothed in mist and darkness, purely in kindness to us, that we should not be fright ened at him ; b ut it is in policy, that he may act un discovered, that h e may see and not be seen , may play his game in the dark, and not be detected in his 202 THE MODERN roguery ; that he may prompt mischief, raise tempests , blow up coals , kindle strife, embroil n ations, u se instru ments, and not be known to have his hand in anything , when at the same time he really has a hand in every thing . Some are of Opinion , and I among the rest, that if the Devil was personally and visibly present among u s, and we conversed with him face to face, we Should be so familiar with him in a little time, that his u gly figu re would not affect us at all , that. ll l S terrors would not frighten us , or that we should any more trouble ourselves about him than we did with the last great comet in 1 678 , which appeared so long and so con stantly without any particular known event, that at last we took no more notice of it than of the other . ordinary stars, which had appeared before we or our ancestors were born . N or, indeed, should we have mu ch reason to be frightened at him, or at least non e of those Silly things could be said of him which we n ow amuse ourselves about, and by which we set him up like a scarecrow to frighten children and old women , to fill up old stories, make songs and ballads, and, in a word, carry on the low-prized buffoonery of the common people ; we should either see him in his angelic form, as he was from the original, or if he has any deformities entailed upon him by the supreme sentence , and in justice to the deformity of his crime, th ey would be of a superior nature, and fitted more for ou r contempt , as well as horror, than those weak - fancied trifles contrived by ou r ancient devil - raisers and devil -makers, to feed th e wayward fancies of Old witches and sorcerers, who cheated the ignorant world with a devil of their own making, set forth, in ter rorem, with bat ’ s wings, horns, cloven foot, long tail, forked tongue, and the like . In the next place, be his frightful figure what it would, and his legions as numerous as the h ost _ .of heaven, we should see him still, as the princ e of devils,

20 4 THE MODERN state in the world , a s he has done ? as a mere professed devil he could do nothing , Had he been obliged always to act the mere dev il in his own clothes, and with his own Shape appearing up permost in all cases and places, he could nev er _ h av e preached in so many pulpits, presided in so many councils, voted in so many committees, sat in so many courts , and influenced so many parties and factions i n church and state, as we have reason to believe he has done in our nation, and in ou r memories too, as well a s in other nati ons and in more ancient times . The share Satan has had in all the weighty confusions of the times, ever since the first ages of Christianity in th e world, has been carried on with so much secrecy, and so much with an air of cabal and intrigue, that nothing can have been man aged more subtly and closely and in the same manner has he acted In our times, in order to conceal his interest, and conceal the influence h e has had in the councils of the world . Had it been possible for him to have raised the flames of rebellion and war so often in this nation, as he certainly has done ? could he have agitated the parties on both sides , and inflamed the spirits of three nations, if he had appeared in his own dress, a mere n aked devil ? It is not the Devil as a devil, that does the mischief, but the Devil in masquerade, Satan in full disguise, and acting at the head of civil confusion and distraction . If history may be credited, the French court at th e time of our old confusions was made the scene of Satan ’ s politics, and prompted both parties in England and In Scotland also to quarrel ; and how was it done ? will any man offer to scandalize the Devil so much as to say, or so much as to suggest , that Satan had no hand In it all ? did not the Devil, by the agency of cardinal Richelieu, send four hundred thousand crowns at one time, and six hundred thousand at another, to " HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 205 the Scots; to raise an army and march boldly into England ? and did not the same Devil, at the same time, by other agents , remit eight hundred thousand crowns to the other party, in order to ra ise an army to fall upon the Scots ? nay, did not the Devil with the same subtlety send down the archbishop ’ s order to impose the service -book upon the people in Scotland, and at the same time raise a mob against it, in the great church ( at St . Giles ’ s ) ? nay, did not he actually, in the person of an old woman ( his favourite instrument ) , throw the three - legged stool at the service - book, and animate the zealous people to take up arms for religion, and turn rebels for God ’ s sake All these happy and successful u ndertakings, though it is no more to be doubted they were done by the a gency of Satan , and in a very surprising manner too, yet were all done in secret, by what I call possession and injection , and by the agency and contrivan ce of such instruments , or by the Devil in the disguise of such servants . as he found ou t fitted to be employed in his work, and who he took a more eflectual care in concealing of. But we shall have occasion to touch all this part over again , when we come to discourse of the particu la r habits and disguises which the Devil h as made u se of all along in the world, the better to cover his actions, and to conceal his being concerned in them . In the mean time, the cunning or artifice the Devil makes u se of in all these things, is, in itself, very considerable ; it is an old practice of his using, and he has gone on in divers measures, for the better con cealing himself in it ; which measures , though he varies sometimes, as his extraordinary affairs require, yet they are in all ages much the same, and have the same tendency ° namely, that he may get all his busi ness carried on by the instrumentality of fools ; that he may make mankind a gents in their own destruo tion, and that he may have all his work done in such 2 06 THE MO DERN a manner as that he may seem to have no hand in it n ay, he contrives so well, that the very name, Devil, is put upon his opposite party, and the scandal of the black agent lies all upon them . In order, then , to look a little into his conduct, let us inquire into the common mistakes about him, see what use is made of them to his adva ntage, and h ow far ‘ mank ind is imposed u pon in those particulars, and to what purpose .

208 THE MODERN something, and some good for nothing ; but his people are every one fit for everything, can find their way everywhere, and are a match for everybody they are sent to ; in a word , they are no foolish devils, they are all fully qualified for their employment, fit for any thing he sets them about, and very seldom mistake their errand, or fail in the business they are sent to do . Nor is it strange at all, that the Devil should have such a numberless train of deputy devils to act under him for it must be acknowledged he has a great deal of business upon his hands, a vast deal of work to do, abundance of public affairs under his direction , and an infinite variety of particular cases always before him ; for example How many governments in the world are wholly in his administration ? h ow many divans and great coun cils under his direction ? nay, I believe, it wou ld be hard to prove that there is or has been one council of state in the world for many hundred years past, down to the year 1 7 1 3, (we do not pretend to come nearer home, ) where the Devil, by himself or his agents, in one shape or another, has not sat as a member, if not taken the chair . And thou gh some learned authors may dispute this point with me, by giving some examples where the councils of princes have been acted by a better hand , and where things have been carried against Satan ’ s interest, and even to his great mortification, it amounts to no more than this ; namely, that in such cases the Devil has been outvoted ; but it does not argue but he might have been present there, and have pushed his interest as far as he could, only that he had not the success he expected ; for I do not pretend to say that he has never been disappointed : but those ex amples are so rare, and of so small signification , that when I come to th e particulars, as I shall do in the sequel of this history. you will find them hardly worth HISTORY O F THE DEV IL . 209 naming ; and that, take it one time with another, the Devil has met with such a series of success in all his affairs, and has so seldom been balked and where he has met with a little check in his politics, has, not withstanding, 50 soon and so easily recovered himself; regained his lost ground, or replaced himself in another country when he has been supplanted in one, that his empire is far from being lessened in the world, for the last thousand years of the Christian esta blishment. Suppose we take an observation from the beginning of Luth er, or from the year 1 420, and call the Reform ation a blow to the Devil ’ s kingdom, which , before that, was come to such a height in Christendom, that it is a question not yet thoroughly decided whether that medley of superstition and horrible heresies, that mass of enthusiasm and idols, called the catholic hierarchy, was a church of God, or a church of the Devil ; whether it was an assembly of saints, or a synagogue of Satan : I say, take that time to be the epoch of Satan ’ s declension , and of Lucifer ’ s falling from heaven , that is, from the top of his terrestrial glory, yet whether he did not gain in the defection of the Greek church, about that time and since, as much as he lost in the reformation of the Roman , is what authors are not yet agreed about, not reckoning what he has regained since of the ground which he had lost even by the Re formation , viz . , the countries of the duke of Savoy ’ s dominion, where the Reformation is almost eaten out by persecution ; the whole V altoline, and some adj a cent countries ; the whole kingdom of Pola nd, and al most all Hungary for, Since the last war, the Reform ation , as it were, lies gasping for breath, and expiring in that country ; also several large provinces in Ger many, as Austria, Carinthia, and the whole kingdom of Bohemia, where the Reformation , once powerfully planted, received its death ’ s wound at the battle of Prague, ann . 1627, and languished but a very little H . D . P 2 10 THE MODERN while, died, and was buried, and " good king popery reigned in its stead . To these countries, thus regained to Satan ’ s infernal empire, let us add his modern conquests, and the en croachments he has made upon the Reformation in the present age, which are, however light we make of them, very considerable viz . , the electorate of the Rhine and the Palatinate, the one fallen to the house of Bav aria , and . the other to that of Neuburg, both popish ; th e duchy of Deux Ponts, fallen just now to a popish branch ; the whole electorate of Saxony, fallen under the power of popish gov ernment, by the apostacy of their princes, and more likely to follow the fate of Bohemia, whenever the diligent Devil can bring his new project in Poland to bear, a s it is more tha n probable he will do some time or other, by the growing zeal as well as power of ( that house of bigots ) the house of A But to sum up the dull story ; we must add in the roll of the Devil ’ s conquests, the whole kingdom of France , where we have in one year seen, to the immor tal glory of the Devil ’ s politics, that his measures have prevailed to the total extirpation of the protestant churches , without a war and that interest , which for two hundred years had supported itself in spite of persecutions, massacres, five civil wars, and innumer able battles and slaughters, at last received its mortal wound from its own champion Henry IV. , and sunk into utter oblivion, by Satan ’ s most exquisite manage ment, under the agency of his two prime ministers cardinal Richelieu and Lewis XIV. , whom b e en tirely possessed. Thus far we have a melancholy n ew of the Devil ’ s new conquests, and the ground he has regained u pon the Reformation , in which his secret management h as been so exquisite, and his politics so good, that could he bring but one thing to pass, which, by his own former mistake ( for the Dev il is not infallible) , he h as

2 12 THE MODERN This devilish policy took , to his heart ’ s content : the Christian princes stood still, stupid, dosing, and u ncon cerned, till the Turk conquered Thrace, overrun Servia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and all the remains of the Grecian empire, and at. last the imperial city of Constantinople itself. Finding this politic method so well answer his ends, the Devil, who always improves u pon the success of his . Own experiments , resolved from that time to lay a foundation for the making those divisions and jealousies of the Christian princes immortal

whereas they were

at first only personal, and founded in private quarrels between the princes respectively ; such as emulation of one another ’ s glory, envy at the extraordinary valour or other merit of this or that leader, or revenge of some little affront ; for which, notwithstanding , so great was the piety of Christian princes in those days, that they made no scruple to sacrifice whole armies, yea, nations, to their piques and private quarrels, a certain Sign whose management they were under . These being the causes by which the Devil first sowed the seeds of mischief among them, and the success SO well answering his design , he could not but wish to have the same advantage always ready at his hand : and therefore he resolved to order it so, that these divisions, which, however useful to him, were only personal, and consequently temporary, like an annual in the garden , which must be raised anew every season , might for the future be national, and consequently durable and immortal . To this end it was necessary to lay the foundation of eternal feud, not in the humours and passions of men only, but in the interests of nations : the way to do this was to form and state the dominion of those princes, by such a plan, drawn in hell , and laid out from a scheme truly political , of which the Devil was chief engineer, that the divisions should always remain ; being made a natural consequence of the situation of the country, the HISTORY or THE DEVIL . 2 1 3 temper of their people, the nature of their commerce, the climate, the manner of living, or something which should for ever render i t impossible for them to unite . This, I say, was a scheme truly infernal, in which the Devil was as certainly the principal operator, ( to illustrate great things by small, ) as ever John of Leyden was of the high Dutch rebellion , or sir John B t of the late project, called the South - sea stock . Nor did this contrivance of the Devil at all dishonour its author, or the success appear unworthy of the undertaker ; for we see it not only answer the end, and made the T urk victorious at the same time, and formidable to Europe ever after, but it works to this day, the foundation of the divisions remains in all the several nations, and that to s uch a degree that it is impossible they should unite . This is what I hinted before, in which the Devil was mistaken, and is another instance that he .knows n othing of what is to come ; for this very foundation of immortal jealousy and discord between the severa l nations of Spain , France, Germany, and others, which the Devil himself with so much policy contrived, and which served his interests so long, is n ow the only obstruction to ' bis designs , and prevents the entire ruin of the Reformation ; for though the reformed countries are very powerful, and some of them, as Great Britain and Prussia in particular, more powerful than ever, yet it cannot be said that the protestant interests in general are stronger than formerly, or so strong as they were in 1 632, under the victorious arms of the Swede; on the other hand, were it possible that the popish powers, to wit, of France, Spain Germany, Italy, and Poland, which are entirely popish , could heartily unite their interests, and should j oin their powers to attack the protestants, the latter would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend themselves . But as fatal as such an union of the popish powers “would be, and as useful as it would be to the Devil ’ s 2 1 4 THE MODERN cause at this time, not the Devil with all his angels are able to bring it to pass no, not with all his craft and cunning ; he divided them, but he cannot unite them ; so that, even just as it is with men , so it is with devils, they may do in an hour what they c annot undo in an age . This may comfort those faint - hearted Christians among us, who cry ou t of the danger of a religious war in Europe, and what terrible things will happen when France, and Spain , and Germany, and Italy, and Poland , shall all unite ; let this answer satisfy them, the Devil himself can never make France and Spain , or France and the emperor unite ; j arring humours may be reconciled, but j arring interests n ever can they may unite so as to make a peace, though that can hardly be long, but n ever so as to make conquests together ; they are too much afraid of one another, for one to bear that any addition of strength should come to the

other . But this is a digression . We shall find

the Devil mistaken and disappointed too on several other occasions , as we go along . I retu rn to Satan ’ s interest in the several govern " ments and nations, by virtue of his invisibility, and which he carries on by possession ; it is by this inv isi l b ility that he presides in all the councils of foreign powers, ( for we never mean ou r own, that we always premise , and what thou gh it is alleged by the critics , that he does not preside, because there is always a president ? I say, if he is not in the president ’ s chair, yet if he be in the president himself, the difference is n ot much ; and if he does not vote as a councillor, if he votes in the councillor, it is mu ch the same ; and here, as it was in the story of Ahab, the king of Israel, as he was a lying spirit in the mouths of all his pro ph ets, so we find him a spirit of some particular evil quality or other, in all the transactions and transactors on that stage of life we call the state . Thus h e was a dissembling Spirit in Charles IX . , a turbulent spirit in Charles V . , emperors ; a bigoted

2 16 THE MODERN From men of figure, we descend to the mob, and it is there the same thing ; possession, like the plague, is morbusplebwi not a family , but he is a spirit of strife and contention among them ; not a man, but he has a part in him ; he is a drunken devil in one, a whoring devil in another, a thieving devil in a third, a lying devil in the fourth, and so on to a thousand , and a hundred thousand , a d infi nitum. Nay, even the ladies have their share in the posses sion ; and if they have not the Devil in their heads or in their tails, in their faces or their tongues , it must be some poor despicable sh e- devil , that Satan did not think it worth his while to meddle with ; and the number of those that are below his operation , I doubt is very small . But that part I have much more to say to in its place . From degrees of persons to professions and employ ments, it is the same we find the Devil is a true posture - master, he assumes any dress, appears in any shape, counterfeits every voice, acts upon every stage here he wears a gown , there a long robe ; here he wears the jack - boots, there the small - sword ; is here an enthusiast, there a buffoon ; on this side he acts the mountebank , on that side the merry - andrew ; nothing comes amiss to him, from the Great Mogul, to the scaramou ch ; the Devil is in them, more or less, and plays his game so well, that he makes sure work with them all : he knows were th e common foibles lies, which is u niversal passion , what handle to take hold Of every man by, and how to cultivate his interest, so a s not to fail of his end, or mistake the means . How, then , can it be denied , but that his acting thus in tenebris, and keeping ou t of the sight of the world , is abundantly his interest, and that he could do nothing, comparatively speaking, by any other m ethod ? What would his pu blic appearance have signified ? who would have entertained him in his own proper HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 2 1 7 shape and person ? even B . B himself, though all the world knows him to have a foolish devil in him, would not have been fool enough to have taken him into his service, if he had known him ; and my lord Simpleton , also, who Satan has set up for a cunning fool, seems to have it sit much better u pon him, now he passes for a fool of art, than it would have done if th e naked devil had come and challenged him for a fool in n ature . Infinite variety illustrate the Devil ’ s reign among the sons of men , all which he m an ages with admirable dexterity, and a sleight particular to himself, by the mere advantage of his present concealed situation, and which, had he been obliged to have appeared in public, h ad been all lost, and he capable of just n othing at all, or, at least, of nothing more than the other ordinary politicians of wickedness could have done without him . N ow, authors are much divided as to the manner h ow the Devil manages his proper instruments for mis chief; for Satan has a great many agents in the dark, who neither have the Devil in them, nor are they much acquainted with him, and yet he serves himself of them ; whether of their folly, or of that other frailty called wit, it is all one, he makes them do his work when they think they are doing their own ; nay, so cu nning is he in his guiding the weak part ofthe world, that even when they think they are serving God, they are doing no thing less or more than serving the Devil ; nay, it is some of the nicest part of his operation to make them believe they are serving God when they do his work . Thus, those who the Scripture foretold should per secu te Christ ’ s church in the latter days , were to think they did God good service ; thus the Inquisition , for example, it may be, at this time, in all the acts of Christian cruelty which they are so famous for, if any of them are ignorant enough not to know that they are devils incarnate, they may, for aught we know, go on for God ’ s sake ; torture, murder, starve to death , 2 18 THE MODERN m angle, and macerate, and all for God, and God ’ s catholic church and it is certainly the Devil ’ s master piece to bring mankind to such a perfection of devilism as that of the Inquisition is, for, if the Devil had not been in them, could they christen such a hell -fire judi catu re as the Inquisition is by the name of the Holy O ffice ? And so in paganism ; h ow could S O many na tions among the poor Indians Offer h uman sacrifices to their idols, and murder thousands of men, women , and children , to appease this god of the air when he is angry, if the Dev il did not act in them under the v isor of devotion But we need not go to America, or to the Inquisition , nor to paganism, or to popery either, to look for people that are sacrificing to the Devil, or that give their peace - offerings to him while they are off ered upon God ’ s altar ; are not ou r churches ( aye, and meeting houses , too, as much as they pretend to be more sanc tified than their neighbours ) full of De vil -worshippers ? where do his devotees gratulate one another, and con gratu late him, more than at church ? where, while they hold up their hands, and turn up their eyes towards heaven , they make all their vows to Satan , or, at least, to the fair devils, his representatives, which I shall speak of in their place . Do not the sons of God make assignations with the daughters of men in the very house of worship ? do they not talk to them in the language of the eyes ? and what is at the bottom of it, while one eye is upon the prayer -book, and the other adj usting their dress ? are they not sacrificing to Venus and Mercury, nay, and to the very Devil they dress at Let any man impartially survey the church gestures , ‘ the air, the postures , and the behaviour ; let him keep an exact roll , and if I do not show him two Devil -wor shippers for one true saint, then the word sa int must have another signification than I ever yet understood it by .

220 THE MODERN Ladies ! said I, I thought you called them devils j ust n ow. Ay, ay, devils, said he, little charming devils ; but I must not be rude to them, however . Very well, said I, then you would be rude to God a ’mig hty, because you could not be rude to the Devil ? Why, that is true, said b e ; but what can we do ? there is no going to ch urch, as the case stands now, if w e must not worship the Devil a little between whiles . This is the case, indeed, and Satan carries his point on every hand for if the fair - speaking world, and the fair - looking world, are generally devils , that is to say, are in his management, we are sure the foul - speaking and the foul - doing world are all on his side ; and you have then only the fair - doing part of the world that are out of his class, and when we speak of them, 0 , h ow few ! But I return to the Devil ’ s managing ou r wicked part, for this he does with most exquisite subtlety and this is one part of it , viz . , he thrusts our vices into ou r virtues , by which he mixes the clean and the u nclean , and thus by the corruption of th e one poisons and de bauches the other ; so that the slave he governs cannot account for his own common actions, and is fain to be obliged to his Maker to accept of the heart without the hands and feet ; to take, as we vulgarly express it, the will for the deed , and if heaven was not so good to come into that half-ih - half service, I do not see but the Devil would carry away all his servants . Here, indeed , I should enter into a long detail of inv oluntary wicked ness, which , in short, is neither more or less than the Devil in everybody, ay, in every one of you, our go~ vernors excepted , take it as you please . What is our language when w e look back with re flection and reproach on past follies ? I think I was bewitched, I was possessed ; certainly ; the Devil was in m e, or else I had never been such a sot. Devil in you HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . “ 21 Sir ! ay, who doubts it ? you may be sure the Devil was in you , and there he is still, and next time he can catch you in the same snare, you will be j ust the same sot that you say you were before . In short, the Devil is too cunning for us, and ma nages us his own way ; he governs the vices of men by his own methods ; though every crime will not make a man a devil, yet it must be owned that every crime puts the criminal in some measure into the Devil ’ s power, gives him a title to the man, and he treats him magisterially ever after . Some tell u s every single man , every individual ,h as a devil attending him, to execute the orders of the ( grand seignior) devil of thewhole clan ; that this attending evil angel, for so he is called, sees every step you take, is with you in every action , prompts you to every mis chief, and leaves you to do everything that is perni cions to yourself; they also allege that there is a good spirit which attends him too , which latter is always ao cessary to everything that we do that is good, and re luctant to evil ; if this is true, h ow comes it to pass that those two opposite Spirits do not quarrel about it when they are pressing us to contrary actions, one good and the other evil ? and why does the evil tempting Spirit so often prevail ? Instead of answering this difficult question , I shall only tell you , as to this story of good and evil angels attending every particular person , it is a good allegory, indeed , to represent the struggle in the mind of man between good and evil inclinations ; but as to the rest, the best thing I can say of it is, that I think it is a filo. But to take things as they are, and only talk by way of natural consequence, ( for to argue from nature is certainly the best way to find ou t the Devil ’ s story, ) If there are good and evil Spirits attending u s, that I S to say, a good angel and a devil , then it is no unjust re proach upon anybody to say, when they follow the dictates of the latter, the Devil 1 s in them ; or they are THE MODERN devils ; nay, I must carry it further still, namely , that as the generality and greatest number of people do follow and obey the evil spirit and not the good, and that the predominate power is allowed to be the n omi nating power, you must then allow that, in short, the greater part of mankind has the Devil in them, and so I come to my text To this p urpose give me leave to borrow a few lines of a friend on this very part of the Devil ’ s manage ment . To places and persons he suits his disguises , And dresses up all his banditti , Who, as pickpockets flock to a country assizes , Crowd up to the court and the city. They ’ re at every elbow and every ear, And ready at every call , Sir The vigilant scout plants his a gents about, And has something to do with us all, Sir. In some he has part, and in some he ’ s the whole, And ofsome ( like the vicar of Baddow) , It can neither b e said they have body or soul, But only are devils in Shadow . The pretty and witty are devils in mask, The beauties are mere apparitions The homely alone by their faces are known, And the good by their ugly conditions . The b eans walk about like the shadows Of men, And wherever he leads ’ em they follow, But take ’ em and shake ’ em, there ’ s not one in ten But ’ s as light as a feather, and hollow. Thus all his affairs he drives on in disguise, And he tickles mankind with a feather Creeps in at our ears, and looks ou t at our eyes , Andjumbles our senses together.

224 THE MODER N CHAP. V . Of the Dev il ’ s ma nagement in the paga n hiera rchy by omens, entra ils, a ugu rs, ora cles, a nd such - like pagea ntry of hell ; a nd how they went of the stage a t la st, by the introdu ction (f tru e religion. I HAVE adj ourned, not finished my account of the Devil ’ s secret management by possession, and Shall re ass ume it, in its place ; but I must take leave to mention some other parts of his retired scheme, by which he has hitherto managed mankind, and the first of these is by that fraud of all frauds, called oracle . Here his tr umpet yielded an uncertain sound for some ages, and like what he was, and according to what he practised from the beginning, he delivered out falsehood and delusion by retail : the priests of Apollo acted this farce for him to a great nicety at Delphos there were divers others at the same time, and some, which to give the Devil his due, he had very little hand in, as we shall see presently . There were also some smaller, some greater, some more . some less famous places where those oracles were seated, and a u dience given to the inquirers, in all which the Devil, or somebody for him, permissu superiorum, for either vindictive or other hidden ends and purposes, w as allowed to make at least a pretension to the knowledge of things to come ; but, as public cheats generally do, they acted in masquerade, and gave such uncertain and inconsistent responses, that they were obliged to use the utmost art to reconcile e vents to the prediction, even after things were come to pass . Here the Devil was a lying spirit, in a particular HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 225 and extraordinary manner, in the mouths of all the prophets and yet he had the cunning to express him self so, that whatever hap pened, the oracle was sup posed to have meant as i t fell ou t ; and so all their a ugu ries, omens, and voices, by which the Devil amused the world, not at that time only, but since, have been likewise interpreted . Julian the Apostate dealt mightily in these amuse ments ; but the Devil, who neither wished his fall, or presaged it to him, evidenced that he knew nothing of Julian ’ s fate ; for that, as he sent almost to all the oracles of the East, and summoned all the priests to gether, to inform him of the success of his Persian ex pedition, they all , like Ahab ’ s prophets, having a lying spirit in them, encouragedhim and promisedhim success . Nay, all the ill omens which disturbed him, they presa ged good from ; for example, he was at a prodi ~ gions expense when he was at Antioch, to buy up white beasts and white fowls for sacrifices, and for predicting from the entrails ; from whence the Antiof chians, in contempt, called him V ictimariu s ; but whenever the entrails foreboded evil, the cu nning Devil made the priests put a different construction u pon them, and promise him good : when he entered into the temple of the Genu , to offer sacrifice, one of the priests dropped down dead ; this, had it had any sig nificatiou more than a man falling dead of an apoplec tic, would have signified something fatal to , Julian , who made himself a brother sacrist or priest ; whereas the priests turned it presently to signify the death of his colleague, the consul Sallust, which happened just at the same time, thou gh eight hundred miles off . So in another case, Julian " thought it Ominous, that he, who was Augustus, Should be named with two other names of persons, both already dead : the case was thus ; the style of the emperor was Jul1anus Felix Au gustus, and two of hi s principal officers were J ulIanu S, and Felix , now both Julian us and Felix died within H . D . Q 226 THE MODERN a few days of one another, which disturbed him much; who was the third of the three names b ut his fl atterq ing devil told him it all imported good to him, viz . , that though Julianus and Felix should die, Augustus Should be immortal . Thus whatever happened , and whatever was fore told, and how much soever they differed from one an Other, the lying spirit was sure to reconcile the predic tion and the event, and make them at least seem to correspond in favour of the person 1 nq u 1r1ng. N ow, we are told, oracles are ceased, and the Devil is further limited for the good of mankind, not being allowed to vent his delusions by the mouths of the priests and augurs, as formerly . I will not take u pon me to say how far they are really ceased, more than they were before ; I think it is much more reasonable to believe there was never any reality in them at all; or that any oracle ever gave ou t any answers but what were the invention of the priests, and the delu sions of the Devil . I have a great many ancient authors on my Side in this Opinion, as Eusebius, Ter tullian, Aristotle, and others, who, as they lived so near the pagan times, and when even some of those rites were yet in u se, they had much more reason to know, and could probably pass a better j udgment u pon them ; nay, Cicero himself ridicules them in the openest manner . Again, other authors descend to particulars, and Show h ow the cheat was managed by the heathen sacrists and priests, and in what enthusiastic manner they spoke ; namely, by going into the hollow images , such as the brazen bull, and the image of Apollo ; and how subtly they gave ou t dubious and ambigu ous an swers that when the people did not find their expect ations answered by the e vent, they might be imposed u pon by the priests, and confidently told they did not rightly understand the oracle ’ s meaning : however, I cannot say b ut that indeed there are some a uthors, of g ood credit too, who will have it that there was a real

" 228 THE MODERN ‘ fled eastward into Libya, and the deserts of Africa, and the other into Greece, namely, to Dordona, ’ and these communicated the divine mysteries to one an other, and afterwards gave mystical solutions to the de v ont inquirers ; first, the Dordonian pigeon perching upon an oak, spoke audibly to the people there, that the gods commanded them to build an oracle, or temple, to Jupiter in that place, which was accord ing ly done : the other pigeon did the like on the hill in Africa, where it commanded them to build another to Jupiter Ammon , or Hammon . Wise Cicero c ontemned all this, and, as authors tell us, ridiculed the answer which, as I have hinted above, the oracle gave to Croesus, proving that the oracle itself was a lie ; that it could not come from Apollo, ‘ for that Apollo never spoke Latin . In a word, Cicero rejected them all ; and Demosthenes also mentions the cheats of the oracles, when, speaking of the oracle of Apollo, he said, Pythia Philippized ; that is, that when the priests were bribed with money, they always gave their answers in favour of Philip of Macedon . But that which is most strange to me is, that in this dispute about the reality of oracles, the heathen who made u se of them are the people who expose them, and who insist, most positively, upon their being cheats and impostors, as in particular those mentioned above ; while the Christians who reject them, yet believe they did really foretell things, answer questions, &c. ; only with this difference, that the heathen authors who op pose them, insist that it is all delusion and cheat, ‘ and charge it upon the priests ; and the Christian opposers insist that it was real, but that the Devil, not the gods, gave the answers and that he was permitted to do it by a superior power, to magnify that power in the total silencing them at last . ' But, as I said before, I am with the heathen here; against the Christian writers, for I take it all to be a ,cheat and delusion . I must give my reason for it, or HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. 229 I do nothing : my reason is this ; I insist Satan is as blind in matters of futurity as we are, and can tell no thing of what is to come These oracles, often pre tending to predict, could be nothing else, therefore, but a cheat, formed by the money - getting priests to amuse the world, and bring grist to their mill. If I meet with anything in my way to open my eyes to a better opinion of them, I shall tell it you as I go on. On the other hand, whether the Devil really spake in those oracles, or set the cunning priests to speak for him ; whether they predicted , or only made the peo ple believe they predicted ; whether they gave an~ swers which came to pass, or prevailed u pon the people to believe that what was said did come to pass, it was much at one, and fully answered the De vil ’ s end ; namely, to amuse and delude the world ; and as to do, or to cause to be done , is the same part of speech, so, whoever did it, the Devil ’ s interest was carried on by it, his government preserved, and all the mischief he could desire was effectually brought to pass ; so that every way they were the Devil ’ s oracles, that is out of the question . Indeed, I have wondered sometimes why, since by this sorcery the Devil performed such wonders, that is, played so many tricks in the world, and had such u niversal success, he should set up no more of them ; but there might be a great many reasons given for that, too long to tire you with at present . It is true, there were not many of them and yet, considering what a great deal of business they despatched, it was enough, for six or eight oracles were more than sufficient to amuse all the world : the chief oracles we meet with i n history, are among the Greeks and the Romans, viz . , That of Jupiter Hammon , in Libya, as above . The Dordonian, in Epirus . Apollo Delphicu s, in the country of Phocis, in Greece . Apollo Clavius , in Asia Minor. 230 THE MODERN Serapis, in Alexandria, in Egypt . Trophomis, in Bceotia . Sybilla Gumasa, in Italy. Diana, at Ephesus . Apollo Daphneu s, at Antioch . Besides many of lesser note, in several other places, as I have hinted before . I have nothing to do here with th e story mentioned by ~ Plutarch, of a voice being he ard at sea, from some ' of th e islands called the Echinades, and calling u pon one Thamu z, an Egyptian , wh o was on board a ship, bidding him, when he came to the Palodes, other islands in the Ionian seas, tell them there, th at the great god Pan was dead ; and when Thamu z performed it, great groanings, and howlings, and lamentations, were heard from the shore . This tale tells but indifferently, though indeed it look s more like a Christian fable than a pagan, because it seems as if made to honour the Christian worship , and blast all the pagan idolatry ; and for that reason I reject it, the Christian profession needing no such fabulous stuff to confirm it . Nor is it true, in fact, that the oracles did cease im mediately upon the death of Christ ; but, as I noted before, the sum of the matter is this ; the Christian religion spreading itself universall y, as well as mira culously, and that too by the foolishness of preaching, into all parts of the world, the oracles ceased ; that is to say, their trade ceased, their rogueries were daily detected ; the deluded people being better taught, came no more after them, and being ashamed, as well as discouraged, they sneaked ou t of the world as well as they could ; in short, the customers fell off, and the priests, wh o were the shopk eepers, having no business to do, shut up their shops, broke, and went away ; the trade a nd the tradesmen were hissed off the stage together ; so that the Devil, who, it must he confessed, got infinitely by the c heat, became bankrupt, and was

232 THE MODERN it is certain, and I must be allowed to affirm, that th e Devil does not disdain to take into his serv ice many troops of good old women , and old women -men too, who he finds it is for his service to keep in constant pay ; to these he is found frequently to communicate his mind, and oftentimes we find them such proficients, that they know much more than the Devil can teach them . .How far our ancient friend Merlin , or the grave; matron his (Satan ’ s ) most trusty and well -beloved cousin and counsellor, mother Shipton , were commis ‘ sioned by him to give out their prophetic oracles, and what degree of possession he may have arrived to in them upon their midnight excursions, I will not under take to prove but that he might be acquainted with them both, as well as with several of ou r modern gentlemen , I will not deny neither . I confess it is not very incongruous with the Devil ’ s temper, or with the nature of his business, to shift hands possibly b e found that he had tired the world with oracular cheats ; that men began to be surfeited with them, and grew sick of the frauds which were so frequently detected that it was time to take new measures , and contrive some new trick to bite the world, that he might not be exposed to contempt or perhaps he saw the approach of new light, which the Christian doctrine bringing with it began to Spread in the minds of men ; that it would outshine the dim -burning igni f a tui, with which be had so long cheated mankind, and ' was afraid to stand it, lest he should be mobbed off the stage by his own people, when their eyes Should begin to open : that upon this foot he might, in policy, with draw from those old retreats the oracles, an d restrain. those responses before they lost all their credit for we find the people seemed to be at a mighty loss for some time, for want of them, so that it made them run up and down to conjurers, and man -gossips, to brazen heads, speaking calves, and innumerable simple things, HISTORY OF THE D EVIL. 233 so gross that they are scarce fit to be named, to satisfy the itch of having their fortunes told them, as we call it . N ow as the Devil is very seldom blind to his own interest, and therefore thou ght fit to quit his old way of imposing upon the world by his oracles, only becau se he found the world began to be too wise to be imposed upon that way ; so, on the other hand, finding there was still a possibility to delude the world, though by other instruments, he no sooner laid down his oracles, and the solemn pageantry, magnificent appearances, and other frauds of his priests and votaries, in their temples and shrines, b ut he set u p a new trade, and having, as I have said, agents and instruments sufficient for any business that he could have to employ them in, he begins in corners, as the learned and merry Dr . Brown says, and exercises his minor trumperies by ways of his own contriving, listing a great number of new-found Operators, such as witches, magicians, di v iners, figure-casters, astrologers, and such inferior N ow it is true, as that doctor says, this was running into corners, as if he had been expelled his more triumphant way of giving audience in form, which for so many ages had been allowed him ; yet I must add, that as it seemed to be the Devil ’ s own doing, from a right judgment of his affairs, which had taken a new turn in the world, u pon the shining of new lights from the Christian doctrine, so it must b e - acknowledged the Devil made himself amends u pon mankind, by the various methods he took, and the multitude of lustra ~ ments b e employed, and perhaps deluded mankind in a more fatal and sensible manner than he did before, though not so universally. He had , indeed, before more pomp and figure put upon it, and he cheated mankind then in a way of magnificence and splendour ; but this was not in above eight or ten principal places, and not fifty places in all, public or private ; whereas now, fifty thousand of his 234 THE MODERN a ngels and instruments, visible and invisible, hardly may be said to suffice for one town or city ; but in Short, as his invisible agents fill the air, and are at. hand for mischief on every emergence, so his v isible fools swarm in every village, and you have scarce a hamlet or a town but his emissaries are a t hand for. business ; and, which is still worse, in all places he finds business ; nay, even where religion is planted, and seems to flourish, yet he keeps his ground and pushes his interest according to what has been said elsewhere upon the same subject, that wherever religion plants, the Devils plants close by it . Nor , as I say, does he fail of success ; delusion spreads like a plague, and the Devil is sure of votaries ; like a true mountebank, he can always bring a crowd about his stage, and that sometimes faster than other people . What I observe upon this subject is this, that the world is at a strange loss for want of the Devil ; if it was not so, what is the reason, that upon the silencing the oracles, and religion telling them that miracles are ceased, and that God has done speaking by prophets, they never inquire whether heaven has established any other or new way of revelation but away they ran with their doubts and difficulties to these dreamers of dreams, tellers of fortunes, and personal oracles to be resolved ; a s if, when they acknowledge the Devil is dumb, these could Speak ; and as if the wicked spirit could do more than the good , the diabolical more than the divine, or that heaven having taking away the Devil ’ s voice, had furnished him with an equivalent, by allow ing scolds, termagants, and old, weak , and superannuated wretches, to Speak for him ; for these are the people we go to now in our doubts and emergencies . While this blindness continues among us , it is nonsense to say that oracles are silenced, or the Devil is dumb, for the Devil gives audience still by his deputies ; only as Jerob oam made priests of the meaneSt of the people, so he is g rown a little humble, and makes

2 36 THE MODERN in other nations as it is with us, I do not see that the Devil was able to get any better people into his pay, or at least very rarely where have we seen anything above a tinker turn wizard ? and where have we had a witch Of q uality among us, mother Je gs excepted ? and if she had not been more of something else than a witch, it was thought she had never got so much money by her profession . Magicians, southsayers, devil-raisers, and such people, we ha ve heard much of, but seldom above the degree of the meanest of the mean people, the lowest of the lowest rank : indeed the word, wisemen which the De vil would fain have had his agents honoured with, was used awhile in Egypt, and in Persia, among th e Chaldeans, but it continued but a little while, and never reached so far northward as our country ; nor, however the Devil has managed it, have many of our great men, who have been most acquainted with him, ever been able to acqu ire the title of wise men . I have heard that in older times, I suppose in good queen Bess ’ s days, or beyond, ( for little is to be said here for anything on this side of her time, ) there were some councillors and statesmen wh o merited the cha racter of wise, in the best sense ; that is to say, good, and wise, as they stand in conj unction ; but as to what has happened since that, or, as we may call it, from that queen ’ s funeral to the late revol ution, I have little to say ; but I will tell you what honest Andrew Marvel said of those times, and by that you may, if you please, make your calculation or let it alone, it is all one To see a white staff-maker, a. beggar, a lord, And scarce a wise man at a long council -board . But I may be told this relates to wise men in another construction , or wise men as they are opposed to fools ; whereas we are talking of them now u nder another class, namely, as wisemen or magicians, south HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 237 sayers, &c. , such as were in former times called by that name . But to this I answer, that take them in which sense you please, it may be the same ; for if I were to ask the Devil the character of the best statesmen he had employed among u s for many years past , I am apt to think that though oracles are ceased, he would ho nestly, according to the old ambigu ous way, when I asked if they were Christians, answer they were ( his ) privy -councillors . It is but a little while ago, that I happened, in con versation , to meet with a long list of the magistrates Of that age, in a neighbouring country, that is to say, the men of fame among them ; and it was a very diverting thing to see the judgment which was passed upon them among a great deal of good company : it is not for me to tell you h ow many white staves, golden keys, marshal ’ s batons, cordons blue, gordon rouge and gordon blanc, there were among them, or by what titles, as dukes, counts, marquis, abbot, bishop, or judge, they were to be distinguished but the marginal notes I found upon most of them were ( being marked with an asterisk) as follows Such a duke, such eminent offices added to his titles in the margin) no saint . ’ Such an arch with the title of noble added, ‘no archangel . ’ Such an eminent statesman and prime minister, ‘no witch . ’ Such a ribbon with a set of great letters added, ‘no conjurer . ’ It presently occured to me that though oracles were ceased, and we had now no more dou ble entendre in such a degree as before, yet that ambiguous answers were not at an end ; and that whether those negatives were meant so by the writers, or not, it was certain custom de the readers to conclude them to be satires, that they were to be ru ng backward, lik eu the bells when 238 THE MODERN the. town is on fire ; though , in short, I durst not read ‘ them backward anywhere, but as speaking of foreign people, for fear of raising the devil I am talk ing of. But to return to the subject : to such mean things is the Devil now reduced in his ordinary way of carry ing on his business in the world, that his oracles are de livered now by the bellmen and the chimney - sweepers, by the meanest of those that speak in the dark, and if he operates by them, you may expect it accordingly his agents seem to me as if the Devil had singled them out by their deformity, or that there was something particular required in their aspect to qualify them for their employment ; whence it is become proverbial, when our looks are very dismal and frightful , to say I look like a witch ; ’ or in other cases to say, as ugly as a witch in another case, to look a s envious as a witch . ’ N ow whether there is anything particularly required in the looks of the De vil ’ s modern agents, which is assist ing in the discharge of their offices, and which makes their answers appear more solemn , this the Devil has not yet revealed, at least not to me ; and, therefore, why it is that he singles ou t such creatures as are fit only to frighten the people that come to them with their inquiries, I do not take upon me to determine . Perhaps it is necessary they should be thus extra ordinary in their aspect, that they might strike an awe into the minds of their votaries , as if they were Satan ’ s true and real representatives, and that the said vota ries may think when they speak to the witches they are really talking to the Devil or perhaps it is neces sary to the witches themselves, that they should be so exquisitely ugly, that they might not be surprised at whatever figure the Devil makes when he first appears to them, being certai n they can see nothing uglier than themselves . if Some are of the Opinion that the communication with the Devil , or between the Devil and those creatures

240 THE MODERN were a beauty to old age, they seem to paint them out a s ugly and frightful a s, not they, the painters , but even as the Devil himself could make them ; not that I b e lieve there are any original pictures of them rea lly extant ; but it is not unlikely that the Italians might have some traditional knowledge of them, or some re maining notions of them, or particularly that ancient sibyl named Anus, who sold the fatal book to Tarquin ; it is said Of her that Tarquin supposed she doated with age . I had thoughts, indeed, here to have entered into a learned disquisition of the excellency of old women in all diabolical operations, and particularly of the neces sity of ha ving recourse to them for Satan ’ s more ex quisite administration , which also may serve to solve the great difficulty in the natural philosophy of hell

namely, why it comes to pass that the Devil is obliged, for want of old women , properly so called, to turn so many ancient fathers, grave counsellors both of law and state, and especially ci vilians, or doctors of the law, into Old women , and h ow the extraordinary operation is performed but this, as a thing of great consequence in Satan ’ s management of human affairs, and par ticularly as it may lead us into the necessary history a s well as characters of some of the most eminent of these sects among us, I have purposely reserved for a work by itself, to be published, if Satan hinders not, in fifteen volumes in folio, wherein I shall , in the first place, define in the most exact manner possible, what is to be understood by a male old woman, of what hete rogeneou s kind they are produced ; give you the mon strous anatomy of the parts, and especially those of the head, which being filled with innumerable globules of a sublime nature, and which being of a fine contexture without , but particularly hollow in the cavity, defines most philosophically that ancient paradoxical saying, v iz . , being full of emptiness, and makes it very con sistent with nature a nd common sense . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 24 1 I shall likewise spend some time, and it must be labour too, I assu re you, when it is done, in determin ing whether this new Species of wonderfuls are not de rived from that famous old woman Merlin, which I prove to be very reasonable for us to suppose, because of the many several j udicious authors, who affirm the said Merlin , as I hinted before, to have been begotten by the Devil . As to the deriving his gift of prophecy from the Devil, by that pretended generation , I shall omit that part, because , as I have all along insisted upon it, that Satan himself has no prOphetic or predicting powers of his own, it is not very clear to me that he could convey it to his posterity, nil da t guod non ha bet. However, in deriving this so much magnified pro phet in a right line from the Devil , much may be said in favour Of his ugly face, in which it was said he was very remarkable, for it is no new thing for a child to be like the father ; but all these weighty things 1 ad journ for the present, and proceed to the affair in hand, namely, the several branches of the Devil ’ s manage ment since his quitting his temples and oracles . 242 THE MODERN CHAP. VI . ,Of the extra ordina ry appea ra nce of the Dev il, a nd pa rticu la rly of the cloven f oot. SOME people wou ld fain have us treat this tale of the Devil ’ s appearing with a cloven -foot with more solem nity than I belie ve the De vil himself does for Satan, who knows how much of a cheat it is, must certainly ridicule it, in his own thoughts, to the last degree ; but as he is glad of any way to hoodwink the under standings, and bubble the weak part of the world so if he sees men willing to take every scarecrow for a devil, it is not his business to u ndeceive them on the other hand, he finds it his interest to foster the cheat, and serve himself of the consequence : nor could I doubt but the Devil, if any mirth be allowed him, often laughs at the many frightful shapes and figures we dress him up in, and especially to see how willing we are first to paint him as black, and make him appear as ugly as we can , and then stare and start at the spec trum of our own making . The truth is, that among all the horribles that we dress up Satan in, I cannot but think we Show the least of invention in this of a goat, or a thing with a goat ’ s foot, of all the rest for though a goat is a crea ture made use of by our Saviour in the allegory of the day of judgment, and is said there to represent the wicked rejected party, yet it seems to be only on ac count of their similitude to the sheep, and so to rept e sent the just fate of hypocrisy and hypocrites . and, in particular, to form the necessary antith esIS in the story ; for else, ou r whimsical fancies excepted, a Sheep or a lamb h as a cloven foot as well as a goat ; nay, if

244 THE MODERN cloven foot about him, bu t he is obliged to Showit too ; nay, they will not allow him any dress, whether it be a prince ’ s robes, a lord cha r ’ s gown, or a lady ’ s hoops and long petticoats, but the cloven foot must be showed from under them they will not so much as allow him an artifical shoe, or a j ack - boot, as we often see contrived to conceal a club - foot, or a wooden -leg ; but that the Devil may be known wherever he goes, he is b ound to show his foot ; they might as well oblige him to set a bill upon his cap, as folks do upon a house to be let, and have it written in capital letters, I am the Devil . It must he confessed, this is very particular, and would be very hard upon the Devil , if it had not an other article in it, which is some advantage to him, and that is, that the fact is not true but the belief of this is so universal, that all the world runs away with it ; by which mistake the good people miss the Devil many times where they look for him, and meet him as often where they did not expect him, and when , for want of this cloven foot, they do not know him . Upon this very account I have sometimes thought, not that this h as been put upon him by mere fancy, and the cheat of a heavy imagination , propagated by fable and chimney - corner divinity, b u t that it has been a contri vance of his own ; and that, in short, the Devil raised this scandal u pon himself, that he might keep his disguise the better, and might go a v isiting among his friends without being known ; for were it really so, that he could go nowhere without this parti cular brand of infamy, he could not come into com pany, could not dine with my lord mayor, nor drink tea with the ladies, could not go to the drawing-r at could not have gone to Fontainbleau to the king of France ’ s wedding, or to the Diet of Polan dto prevent the grandees there coming to an agreement ; nay, which would be still worse than all, he could not go to the masquerade, nor to any of our balls ; the HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 24 5 reason is plain, he would be always discovered, ex posed, and forced to leave the good company, or, which would be as b ad, the company would all cry out, the Devil , and run ' out of the room as if they were frightened ; nor could all the help of invention do him any service, no dress he could put on would cover him ; not all ou r friends at Tavistock Corner could furnish him with a habit that would disguise or con ceal him, this unhappy foot would spoil it all . N ow this would be so great a loss to him, that I question whether he could carry on any of his most important affairs in the world without it ; for though he has ac cess to mankind in his complete disguise , I mean that of his invisibility, yet the learned very much agree in this, that his corporal presence in the world is ab so l a tely necessary upon many occasions, to support his interest, and keep up his correspondences, and parti cularly to encourage his friends, when numbers are requisite to carry on his affairs ; but this part I shall have occasion to speak of again, when I come to con sider him as a gentleman of business in his locality, a nd under the head of visible apparition but I return to the foot . AS I have thus suggested that the Devil himself has politically spread about this notion concerning his appearing with a cloven foot, so I doubt not that he has thought it for his purpose to paint this cloven foot so lively in the imaginations of many of ou r people, and especially of those clear - sighted folks who see the Devil when he is not to be seen , that they would make no scruple to say, nay, and to make affidavit too, even before Satan himself, whenever he sat upon the bench, that they had seen his worship ’ s foot at such and such a time ; this I advance the rather because it is very much for his interest to do this, for if w e had not many witnesses, v iv a v oce, to testify it, we should have had some obstinate fellows always among us, who would have denied the fact, or at least have Spoken do ubtfully 246 THE MODERN of it, and so have raised disp utes and Objections against it as impossible, or at least as improbable ; buzzing one ridic ulous notion or other into our ears, as if the Devil was not SO black as he was painted, that he had no more a cloven foot than a pope, whose apostolical toes have so often been reverentially kissed by kings and emperors . But now, alas ! this question, not the man in the moon , board, not the speaking of friar Ba not the inspiration of mother Sh of Dr . Fanstus, things as certain asideath and taxes, \ can be more firmly believed : the Devil not have a cloven foot ! I doubt not but I could, in a short time, bring you a thou sand old women together, that would as soon believe there was no Devil at all , nay, they will tell you, he could not be a devil without i t, any more than he could come into the room and the candles not burn blue, or go out and not leave a smell of brimstone behind him . Since then the certainty Of the thing is so well established, and there are so many good and sub stan tial witnesses ready to testify that he has a cloven foot, and that they have seen it too nay, and that we have antiquity on ou r side, for we have this truth confirmed by the testimony of many ages why should we doubt it any longer ? We can prove that many of our auces tors have been of this Opinion , and divers learned au thors have left it upon record, as particularly that learned familiarist mother Hazel , whose writings are to be found in MS . in the famous library at Pie -Cor ner ; also the admired Joan of Amesbury, the History of the Lancashire Witches, and the reverend exorcist of the Devils of London, whose history is extant among us to this day all these and many more may be quoted, and their writings referred to for the con firmation of the antiquity of this truth ; but there seems to be no occasion for further evidence, it is enough, Satan himself, if he did not raise the report,

2 48 THE MODERN to the Devil, in the form of a ram, and others of a goat , from which, and that above of the calves at Horeb, I doubt not the story of the cloven foot first derived ; and it is plain , that the worship of that calf at Horeb, is meant in the Scripture quoted above, Lev . xv 1 1 . 7 . Thou sha lt no more qfier sa crifices u nto dev ils : the prig inal is S eghnirim ; that is, rough and hairy goats or calves ; and some think also in this shape the Devil most ordinarily appeared to the Egyptians and Arabians, from whence it was derived, Also in the Old writings of the Egyptians, I mean their hieroglyphic writing, before the use of letters was known , we are told this was the mark that he was known by and the figure of a goat was the hierog ly v phic of the Devil ; some will affirm, that the Devil was particularly pleased to be so represented ; how they came by their information, and whether they had it from his own mouth or not, authors have not yet determined . But be this as it will , I do not see that Satan could have been at a loss for some extraordinary figure to have bantered mankind with, though this had not been thought of; but thinking of the cloven foot first, and the matter being indifferent, this took place, and easily rooted itself in the bewildered fancy of the people, and n ow it is riveted too fast for the Devil himself to re mo v e it, if he was disposed to try but as I said above, it is none of his business to solve doubts, or remove difficulties out of our heads, but to perplex us with more, as much as he can . Some people carry this matter a great deal higher still , and will have the cloven foot be like the great stone which the Brazilian conjurers used to solve all difficult questions upon , after having used a great many monstrous and barbarous gestures and distortions of their bodies, and cut certain marks or magical figures upon the stone ; so, I say, they will have this cloven foot be a kind of a conj uring stone, and tell us , that m former times, when Satan drove a greater trade HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 249 with mankind in public than h e has done of late, he gave this cloven foot as a token to his particular f avourites to work wonders with , and to conjure by ; and that witches, fairies, hobgoblins, and such things, of which the ancients had several kinds, at least in their imagination , had all a goat ’ s leg, with a cloven foot, to put on upon extraordinary occasions : it seems this method is of late grown ou t of practice, and so, like the melting of marble, and the painting of glass, it is laid aside among the various useful arts which history tells us are lost to the world ; what may be practised in the fairy world, if such a place there be, we can gi v e no particular account at present . But neither is this all , for other would -b e- wise peo ple take upon them to make further and more con siderable improvements upon this doctrine of ‘ the cloven foot, and treat it as a most significant in stru ment of Satan ’ s private operation , and that as Joseph is said to divine, that is to say, to conjure, by his golden cup which was put into Benjamin ’ s sack, SO the Devil has managed several of his secret operations, and possessions , and other hellish mechanisms, upon the spirits as well as bodies of men, by the medium or in strumentality of the cloven foot ; accordingly, it had a kind of a hellish inspiration in it, and a separate and ! magical power, by which he wrought his infernal miracles ; that the cloven foot had a superior Sig nifi c ation, and was not only emblematic and significativ e of the conduct of men , but really guided their conduct t in the most important affairs of life ; and that the agents the Devil employed to influence mankind and to delude them, and draw them into all the snares and traps that he lays continually for their destruction , ! were equipped with this foot in aid of their other " powers for mischief. Here they read us learned lectures upon the sove reign operations which the Devil is at present master ~ of , in the government Of human affairs ; and how the 250 THE MODERN clo ven foot is an emblem of the true dou ble entendre or divided aspect, which the great men of the world generally act with, and by which all their affairs are directed ; from whence it comes to pass that there is no such thing as a single -hearted integrity, or an upright meaning, to be found in the world ; that man kind, worse than the ravenous brutes, preys upon his own kind, and devours them by all the laudable methods of flattery, whine, cheat and treachery ; crocodile -like, weeping over those it will devour, de stroying those it smiles upon , and, in a word, devours its own kind, which the very beasts refuse, and that by all the ways of fraud and allurement that hell can invent ; holding out a cloven divided hoof, or hand, pretending to save, when the very pretence is made use of to ensnare and destroy . Thus the divided hoof is the representati v e of a divided do uble tongue and heart, an emblem of the most exquisite hypocrisy, the most fawning and fatally deceiving flattery ; and here they give u s very divert ing histories, though tragical in themselves, of the manner which some of the Devil ’ s inspired agents have managed themselves under the especial influence of the cloven foot ; h ow they have made war under the pre tence of peace, murdered garrisons under the most sacred capitulations, massacred innocent multitudes after surrenders to mercy . Again, they tell us the cloven foot has been made use of in all treasons, plots, assassinations, and secret a s well as open murders and rebellions . Thus Joab under the treason of an embrace, showed h ow dexter ously he could manage the cloven foot, and struck Abner under the fifth rib ; thus David played the cloven foot upon poor Uriah, when he had a mind to lie with his wife ; thus Brutus played it upon Caesar ; a nd, to come nearer home, we have had a great many retrograde motions in this country, by this magical implement the foot ; such as that of the earl Of Essex ’ s

252 THE MODERN How cr uelly did Philip II . of Spain manage this foot In the murder of the nobility of the Spanish Nether lands, the assassination of the prince of Orange, and, at last, in that of his own son, Don Carlos, infant Of Spain : and yet such was the Devil ’ s craft, and s o nicely did he bestir his cloven hoof, that this monarch died consolated . though impenitent, in the arms of the church, and with the benediction of the clergy, too, those second best managers of the said hoof in the world . I must acknowledge, I agree with this Opinion thus far namely, that the Devil, acting by this cloven foot, a s a machine, has done great things in the world for the propagating his dark empire among us ; and his tory is full of examples, besides the little, low- prized things done among us for we are come to such a kind of degeneracy in folly, that we have even dishonoured the Devil, and put this glorious engine, the cloven foot, to such mean uses, that the Devil himself seems to be ashamed of us . But, to return a little to foreign history, besides what has b een mentioned above, we find flaming ex amples Of most glorious mischief done by this weapon , when put into the hands of kings and men of fame in the world how many games have the kings of France played with this cloven foot, and that within a few ,years Of one another ! First, Charles IX . played the c loven foot u pon Gaspar Coligni , admiral of France, .When he caressed him, complimented him, invited him to Paris , to the wedding of the king of Navarre, called him father, kissed him, and , when he was wounded, sent his own surgeons to take care of him, and yet, three days after, ordered him to be assassinated and murdered, used with a thousand indignities, and, at last, thrown out of the window into the street, to be insulted by the rabble . L Did not Henry III . , in the same country, play the cloven foot upon the duke of Guise, when he called HISTORY OF T HE DEVIL . 253 him to his council, and caused him to be murdered as h e went in at the door . The Guises, again, played the same game back upon the king, when they sent out a

Jacobin friar to assassinate him in his tent, as he lay at the siege of Paris . In a word, this opera of the cloven foot has been acted all over the Christian world, ever Since Judas betrayed the Son of God with a kiss nay, our Saviour says expressly of him, One of you is a dev il, and the sacred text says, in another place, The Dev il entered It would take up a great deal of time, and paper, too, to give you a full account of the travels of this cloven foot, its progress into all the courts of Europe; and with what most accurate hypocrisy Satan has made u se of it upon many occasions, and with what success but as, in the elaborate work of which I just now gave you ‘ a specimen , I design one whole volume u pon this subject, and which I shall call The Complete History of the Cloven Foot, I say, for that reason, and divers others, I shall say but very little more of it in this place . It remains to tell you , that this merry story of the cloven foot is very essential to the history which I am now writing, as it h as been all along the great emblem of the Devil ’ s government in the world, and by which all his most considerable engagements have been an swered and executed for, as he is said not to be able to conceal this foot, but that he carries it always with him, it imports most plainly, that the Devil would be no devil, if he was not a dissembler, a deceiver, and carried a dou ble entendre in all he does or says ; that he cannot but say one thing, and mean another ; pro mise one thing, and do another ; engage, and not per form ; declare, and not intend ; and act, like a true devil, as he is, with a countenance that is no index of his heart . I might, indeed, go back to originals, and derive this 254 THE MODERN cloven foot from Satan ’ s primitive state, as a cherubim, or a celestial being, which cherubims, as Moses is said to have seen them about the throne of God in mount Sinai, and as the same Moses, from the original, repre sented them afterwards co v ering the ark, had the head “ and face Of a man, wings of an eagle, body of a lion, and legs and feet of a calf; but this is not so much to our present purpose, for, as we are to allow that whatever Satan had of heavenly beauty before the fall, he lost it all when b e commenced devil so to fetch his original so far up, would be only to say that he retained no thing but the cloven foot, and that all the rest of him was altered and deformed, become frightful and horrible as the devil ; but his cloven foot, aswe now understand it, is rather mystical and emblematic, and describes him only as the fountain of mischief and treason , and the prince of hypocrites, and as such we are now to speak of him . It IS from this original all the hypocritic world copy ; he wears the foot on their account, and from this model they act ; this made our blessed Lord tell them, The works of you r f a ther ye w ill do, meaning the Devil, as he h ad expressed it just before . N or does he deny the use of the foot to the meaner class of his disciples in the world, but decently equips them all, upon every occasion, with a needful propor tion of hypocrisy and deceit, that they may hand on the power of promiscuous fraud throu gh all his tem poral dominions, and wear the foot always about them, as a badge of their professed share in whatever is done by that means . Thus every dissembler, e very false friend, secret cheat, e very bearskin -j obber has a olov and so far hands on the Devil ’ s interest by t poweI ful agency of art , as the Devil himself us when he appears in person , or would act if he n ow upon th e spot ; for this foot IS a machine

256 THE MODERN them : hence the scape -goat was to bear the sins of the : people, and to go into the wilderness with all that b urthen upon him . But we have a saying among u s, in defence of which , we must inquire into the proper sphere of action which may be assigned t o this cloven foot, as hitherto de scribed : the proverb is this ; Every devil has not a cloven foot . This proverb, instead of giving us some more favourable thoughts of the Devil , confirms what I have said already, that the Devil raised this scandal upon himself; I mean, the report that he cannot conceal or disguise his Devil ’ s foot, or hoof, but that it must appear under whatever habit he shows himself; and the reason I gave holds good still , namely, that he may be more effectually concealed when he goes abroad ' without it : for if the people were fully persuaded that the Devil could not appear without this badge of his honour, or mark of his infamy, take it a s you will ; and that he was bound also to Show it upon all occasions, it would be natural to conclude, that whatever frightful appearances might be seen in the world, if the cloven foot did not also appear, we had no occasion to look for the Devil, or SO much as to think of him, much less to apprehend he was near us ; and as this might be a mistake, and that the Devil might be there while we thought ourselves so secure, it might on many occa sions be a mistake of very ill consequence, and in par ticular, as it would give the Devil room to act in the , dark, and not be discovered, where it might be most needful to know him . From this short hint, thus repeated, I draw a new thesis , namely, that devil is most dangerous that has . no cloven foot ; or, if you will have it in words more to ! the common understanding, the Devil seems to be most dangerous when he goes without his cloven foot . And here a learned speculation offers itself to ou r debate, and which indeed I ou ght to call a council of; HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 257 casuists, and men learned in the Devil ’ s politics, to de termine Whether is most hurtful to the world, the Devil walking about witho ut his cloven foot, or the cloven foot walking about Without the Devil ? It is, indeed, a nice and difficult question, and merits to be well inquired into ; for which reason , and divers others, I have referred it to be treated with some de cency, and as a dispute of dignity sufficient to take u p a chapter by itself. H . D . 258 THE MODERN CHAP. VII . Whether is most hu rtf u l to the world, the Dev il wa lh ing a bou t withou t his cloven f oot, or the clov en f oot wa lking a bou t withou t the Dev il ? IN discussing this most critical distinction of Sata n ’ s private motions, I must, as the pulpit gentlemen direct u s, explain the text, and let you know what I mean by several dark expressions in it, that I may not be u n derstood to talk ( as the Devil walks ) in the dark . I . As to the Devil ’ s walking about . 2 . His walking without his cloven foot . 3 . The cloven foot walking about without the Devil . N ow as I study brevity, and yet would be under stood too, you may please to understand me as I nu derstand myself, thus 1 . That I must be allowed to suppose the Devil really has a full intercourse in , and through , and about this globe, with egress and regress, for the carrying on his special affairs, when , how, and where to his majesty, in his great wisdom, it shall seem meet ; that sometimes he appears and b e comes visible, and that, like a mastiff without his clog, he does not always carry his cloven foot with him . This will necessarily bring me to some de bate u pon the most important question of appa ritions, hauntings, walkings, &c . , whether of Satan in human Shape, or of human creatures in the Dev il ’ s shape, or in any other manner whatsoever . 2 . I must also be allowed to tell you that Satan has a great deal of wrong don e him by the gene ral embracing vulgar errors, and that there is a clo ven foot oftentimes without a devil ; or, in

260 THE MODERN Devil is brought u pon the stage in plain and u ndeni able apparition : the story of Samuel being raised by the witch of Endor, I shall leave quite out of my list, because there are so many scruples and objections against that story and as I shall not dispute with th e Scripture, so, on the other hand, I have so much deference for the dignity of the Devil , as not to deter mine rashly how far it may be in the power of every old (witch) woman , to call him up whenever sh e pleases, and that he must come, whate v er the pretence is, or whatever business Of consequence he may be en gaged in , as often as it is needful for her to pa w wa for half a crown , or perh aps less than half the m oney . Nor will I u ndertake to tell you, till I have talked further with him about it, how far the Devil is con cerned to discover frauds , detect murders, reveal secrets, and especially to tell where any money is hid, and Show folks where to find it ; it is an Odd thing that Satan should think it of consequence to come and t ell us where such a miser hid a strong box, or where such an Old woman bu ried her chamberpot full of money, the value of all which is perhaps but a trifle, w hen , at the same time, he lets so many veins of gold, so many unexhausted mines, nay, mountains of silver, ( as we may depend upon it are hid in the bowels of the earth, and which it would be so much to the good of whole nations to discov er, ) lie still there, and never say one word of them to anybody . Besides, how does the Devil ’ s doing things so foreign to himself, and so ou t of his way, agree with the rest of his character ; namely, showing a kind of a friendly disposition to mankind, or doing b eneficent things ? this is so beneath Satan ’ s quality, and looks so little, that I scarce know what to say to it ; but that which is still more pungent in the case is, these things are so out of his road, and so foreign to his calling, that it Shocks ou r faith in them, and seems to clash with all the just notions we have of him, and of his business in the world . The like is to b e HISTORY or THE DEVIL . 261 said of those little merry turns we bring him in acting with us, and upon us, upon trifling and simple occa SIOns, such as t umbling chairs and stools about house, setting pots and vessels bottom upward , tossing the glass and crockery ware about without breaking ; and such -like mean foolish things, beneath the dignity of the Devil , wh o, in my Opinion , is rather employed in setting the world with the bottom upward, tumbling kings and crowns about, and dashing the nations one against another ; raising tempests and storms, whether at sea, or on shore ; and, in a word, doing capital mis chiefs, suitable to hi s natur e, and agreeable to his name, Devil ; and suited to that circumstance Of his condi ti on, which I have fully represented in the primitive part of his exiled state . But to bring in the Devil playing at push -pin with the world, or, like Domitian , catching flies, that is to say, doing nothing to the purpose, this is not only deludin g ourselves, but putting a slur u pon the Devil himself; and, I say, I Shall not dishonour Satan SO much as to suppose anything in it ; however, as I must have a care too how I take away the proper materials of winter evening frippery, and leave the good wives nothing of the Devil to frighten the children with, I Shall carry the weighty point no further . No doubt the Devil and Dr . Fanstus were very intimate ; I should rob ' yo ' u Of a very SIgnifiEiéi t if I Should so much as doubt it ; no doubt the Devil showed himself in the gla ss to that fair lady who looked in it to see where to place her patches ; b ut then it should follow too that the Devil is an enemy to the ladies ’ wearing patches, and that has some difficulties in it which we cannot so easily reconcile ; but we must tell the story, and leave ou t the consequences . But to come to more remarkable things, and in which b< t As great as the Devil and Doctor Faustus . Vulg. Dr Foster . 262 THE MODERN the Devil has thought fit to act in a figure more suitable to his dignity, and on occasions consistent with himself; take the story of the appearance of Julius Cwsar, or the Devil assuming that murdered emperor, to the great Marcus Brut us , who, notwithstanding all the good things said . to justify it, was no less than a king -killer and an assassinator, which we in our language call by a very good name, and peculiar to the English tongue, a ruffian . The spectre had certainly the appearance of Caesar, with his wounds bleeding fresh, as if he had just re ceived the fatal blow : he had reproached him wi th his ingratitude, with a Tu Bru te tu guoq u e, mi fili What thou, Br utus ! thou, my adopted son ! N ow history seems to agree universally, not only in the story itself; but in the circumstances of it we have only to observe that the Devil b ad certainly power to ass ume, not a human shape only, but the shape of Julius Caesar ' in particular . Had Brutus been a timorous, conscience -harried, weak - headed wretch, had he been under the horror of the guilt, and terrified with the dangers that were b e fore him at that time, we might suggest that he was overrun with the vapours, that the terrors which were upon his mind disordered him, that his head was deli rions and prepossessed, and that his fancy only placed Caesar so contin ually in his eye, that it realized him to his imagination , and he believed he saw him : with many other suggested difficulties to invalidate the story, and render the reality of it doubtful . But the contrary, to an extreme , was the case of Brutus his known character placed him above the power of all hypochondriacs, or fanciful delusions Brutus was of a true Roman spirit, a bold hero, of an intrepid courage ; one that scorned to fear even the Devil , as the story allows ; besides, he gloried in the action , there co uld be no terror of mind upon him, b e valued himself upon it, as done in the service of liberty,

264 THE MODERN traitor ? This must be the Old Gentleman, emblem atically so called ; or who must it be ? nay, wh o else could it be ? His ugliness is not the case, though ugly a s the Dev il is a proverb in his favour ; but vanishing out of sight is an essential to a spirit, and to an evil Spirit, in ou r times especially . These are some of the Devil ’ s extraordinaries, and, it must h e confessed, they are not the most agreeable to mankind, for sometimes he takes upon him to disorder his friends very much on these o ccasions , as in the abo v e case of Charles VI . of France ; the king, they say, was really demented ever after, that is, as we vul garly, but not always improperly, express it, he was really frightened ou t of his wits . Whether the mali cions Devil intended it so or not, is not certain ; though it was not so foreign to his particular disposition if he did . But where he is more intimate, we are told, b e ap pears in a manner less disagreeable ; and there he is more properly a familiar spirit, that is, in short, a devil of their acquaintance ; it is true, the ancients under stood the word , a f a milia r spirit, to be one of the kinds of possession ; but if it serves ou r turn as well under the denomination of an intimate devil, or a devil visit ant, it must be acknowledged to be as near, in the literal sense and acceptation of the word, as the other ; nay, it must be allowed, it is a very great piece of familiarity in the Devil to make visits, and Show none Of his disagreeables, not appear formidable, or in the shape of what he is, respectfully withholding his dis mal part, in compassion to the infirmities of his friends . It is true, Satan may be obliged to make different appearances , as the several circumstances of things call for it ; in some cases he makes his public entry, and then he must Show himself In his habit of ceremony in other cases he comes upon private business, and then he appears in disguise ; in some public cases he may think fit to be incog . , and then he appears dressed HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 265 a la ma sq u e so, they say, he appeared at the f amous St . Bartholomew wedding at Paris , where he came in dressed up like a trumpeter, danced in his habit, sounded a levet , and then went out and rung the alarm - bell (which was the signal to begi n the massacre) half an hour before the time appointed, lest the king ’ s mind should alter, and his heart fail him . If the story he n ot made upon him, ( for we should n ot slander the Devil, ) it should seem he was n ot thoroughly satisfied in king Charles I! . ’ S steadiness in his cause ; for the king, it seems, had relaxed a little once before, and Satan might be afraid he would fall O ff again , and so prevent the execution ; others say, the king did relent immediately after the ringing the alarm -bell, but that then it was too late, the work was begun , and the rage of blood having been let loose a mong the people, there was no recalling the order . If the Devil was thus brought to the necessity of a secret management, it must be owned he did it dex terou sly ; but I have not authority enough for the story to charge him with the particulars, so I leave it a n croc . I have much better vouchers for the story following, which I had so solemnly confirmed by on e that lived in the family, that I never doubted the truth of it . There lived in the parish of St . Bennet Fynk, near the Royal Exchange, an honest, poor, widow woman, who, her husband being lately dead, took lodgers into her house that is, she let out some of her rooms, in order to lessen her own charge of rent among the rest, sh e let her garrets to a working watchwheel maker, or one some way concerned in making the movements of watches, and who worked to those shopkeepers who sell watches , as is usual . It happened that a man and woman went up to speak with this movement - maker upon some business which related to his trade, and when they were near 266 THE MODERN the top of the stairs, the garret - door where he usually worked being wide open , they saw the poor man ( the watchmaker, or wheelmaker) had hanged himself upon a beam which was left open in the room, a little lower than the plaster, or ceiling ; surprised at the sight, the woman stopped, and cried ou t to the man who was behind her on the stairs, that he should run u p and cut the poor creature down . At that very m oment comes a man hastily from an other part of the room which they upon the stairs could not see, bringing a j oint - stool in his hand, as if in great haste, and sets it down just by the wretch that was hanged, and getting up as hastily upon it, pulls a knife out of his pocket, and taking hold of the rope with one of his hands, beckoned to the woman and th e man behind her with his head , as if to stop and n ot come u p, showing them the knife in his other hand, as if he was just going to cut the poor man down . Upon this, the woman stopped a while, but the man who stood on the j oint - stool continued with his hand and knife as if fumbling at the knot, but did not yet cut the man down ; at which the woman cried ou t again , and the man behind her called to her, Go u p, says he, and help the man upon the stool ! supposing something hindered . But the man upon the stool made signs to them again to be quiet, and not come on, as if saying, I shall do it immediately then he made two strokes with his knife, as if cutting' th e rope, and then stopped again ; and still the poor man was hanging, and consequently dying : u pon this, the woman on the stairs cried ou t to him, What ails you ? why don ’ t you cut the poor man down ? And the man behind her, having no more patience, thrusts her by, and said to her, Let me come, I ’ ll warrant you I ’ ll do it ; and with that runs up and forward into the room to the man ; but when he came there, behold, the poor man was there hanging : but no man with a knife, or j oint -stool,

268 THE MODERN well - meant, though weak fraud, to represent the Devil to the old women and children of the age, with some addition suitable to the weakness of their intellects, a nd s u ited to making them afraid Of him . / I have another account of a person who travelled u pwards of four years with the Devil in his company, fi nd conversed most intimately with him all the while n ay, if I may believe the story, he knew most part of the time that he was the Devil, and yet conversed with him, and that very profitably, for he performed many very useful services for him, and constantly preserved him from the danger Of wolves and wild beasts, which the c ountry he travelled through was intolerably full of : where, by the way, you are to u nderstand that the wolves and bears in those countries knew the Devil, whatever disguise he went in ; or that the Devil h a s some way to fright bears, and such creatures, more than we know of : nor could this devil ever be pre vailed upon to hurt him or any of his company . This account has an innumerable number Of diverting inci dents attending it ; but they are equal to all the rest in bulk , and, therefore, too long for this book . I find, too, upon some more ordinary occasions, the Devil has appeared to several people at their call . This, indeed, shows abundance of good humour in him, considering him as a devil, and that he was mighty complaisant : nay, some, they tell us, have a power to raise the Devil whenever they think fit this I cannot bring the Devil to a level with, unless I should allow him to be serou s serv orum, as another devil in dis guise calls himself, subjected to every old Wizard ’ s call ; or that he is under a necessity of appearing on such or such particular occasions , whoever it is that calls him ; which would bring the Devil ’ s circumstances to a pitch of slavery which I see no reason to believe of them . Here, also, I must take notice again , that though I say the Devil , when I speak of all these apparitions, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 269 whether of a greater or lesser kind , yet I am n ot obliged to suppose Satan himself, in person , is con cerned to show himself, but that some of his agents, deputies, and servants, are sent to that purpose, and directed what disguise of flesh and blood to put on, as may be suitable to the occasion . This seems to be the only way to reconcile all those simple and ridiculous appearances which, not Satan, but his emissaries, (which we Old women call imps, ) sometimes make, and the mean and sorry employ ment they are put to . Thus fame tells us of a cer 4 tain witch of quality, who called the Devil once to carry her over a brook where the water was swelled with a hasty rain , and lashed him soundly with her whip for letting her ladyship fall into the water before sh e was quite over . Thus also, as fame tells u s, sh e set the Devil to work, and made him build Croiland abbey, where there was no foundation to be found, only for disturbing the workmen a little wh o were first set about it . So, it seems, another laborious devil was obliged to dig the great ditch across the country from the fen country to the edge of Suffolk and Essex ; which, however, he has preserved the reputation of, and, where it crosses Newmarket heath, it is called Devil ’ s Ditch to this day. Another piece of punishment, no doubt it was, when the Devil was obliged to bring the stones ou t of Wales into Wiltshire to build Stonehenge . How this w as ordered in those days, when it seems they kept Satan to hard labour, I know not ; I believe it must be re gistered among the ancient pieces of art which are lost in the world , such as melting of stones, painting of glass, 8 m. Certainly they had the Devil under correction in those days, that is to say, those lesser sorts Of devils ; but I cannot think that the ‘muckle thief Devil, ’ as they call him in the North, the grand seignior Devil of all, was ever reduced to discipline . !What devil it was that Dunstan took by the nose with 2 70 THE MODERN his red hot tongs, I have not yet examined antiq uity enough to be certain of, any more than I can what devil it was that St . Francis played so many warm tricks with, and made him run away from him so Often . However, this I take u pon me to say in the Devil ’ s behalf, that it could not be our Satan, the arch devil Of all devils, Of whom I have been talking so so long . Nor is it unworthy the occasion , to take notice that we really wrong the Devil, and speak Of him very m uch to his disadvantage, when we say of such a great lord, or of s uch a lady Of quality, I think the Devil is in your grace . N0 , no, Satan has other business ; he very rarely possesses f— ls : besides, some are so far from having the Devil in them, that they are really transmigrated into the very essence of the Devil themselves ; and others again , not transmigrated , or assimilated , but in deed and in tr uth show us that they are, or have, mere native devils in every part and parcel of them, and that the rest is only mask and disguise . Thus, if rage, envy, pride, and revenge , can constitute the parts of a devil, why should not a lady ofsuch quality, in whom all those extraordinaries abo und, have a right to the title of being a devil really and substantially, and to all intents and purposes , in the most perfect and absolute sense , according to the most exquisite descriptions of devils already given by me or anybody else ; and even j ust as Joan of Arc, or Joan , queen of Naples , were, wh o were both sent home to their native country, as soon as it was discovered that they were real devils, and that Satan acknowledged them in that quality. Nor does my lady d ss ’ s , wearing sometimes a case of humanity about her, called flesh and blood , at all alter the case : for so it is evident, according to ou r present hypothesis, Satan has been always allowed to do, upon urgent occasions ; ay, and to make his per son al appearance as such, among even the sons and

2 72 THE MODERN act the Old woman, as old women are vulgarly under -3 stood, in m atters Of council and politics ; but if at any time they have occasion for the Devil in person, they are obliged to c all him to their aid in such shape as he pleases to make use of, p ro [l a c m ’ ce and of all those shapes, the most agreeable to him seems to be that of a female Of quality, in which he has infinite Opportuni ty to act to perfection what part soever he is called in for . How happy are those people who they say have the particular quality, or acquired habit, called the second sight ; one sort Of whom they tell us are able to dis tingu ish the Devil, in whatever case or o utside of flesh and blood he is pleased to put on, and consequently could know the Devil wherever they met him Were I blessed with this excellent and useful accomplishment, how pleasant would it be, and h ow would it particu larly gratify my spleen, and all that which I, in common with my fellow creatures carry about me, called ill nat ure, to stand in the Mall, or at the entrance to any of our assemblies of beauties, and point them ou t as they pass by, with this particular mark, That ’ s a devil ; that fine young toast is a devil there ’ s a devil dressed in a new habit for the ball there ’ s a devil in a coach and six, cum a liis. In short, it would make a merry world a mong u s if we could but enter upon some proper method of such discriminations : but, Lawr ’d, what a hurricane would it raise, if, like who they say scourged the Devil so often that he durst not come near him in any shape whatever, we could find some new method out to make the Devil unmask ; like the angel Uriel , wh o, Mr . Milton says, had an en chanted spear, with which if he did but touch the Devil , in whatever disguise he had put on, it obliged him immediately to start up, and show himself in his true original shape, mere devil as he was . This would do nicely, and as I who am original projector, have spent some time upon this study, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 2 73 d ‘ oubt not in a little time to finish my engine, which I am contriving, to screw the Devil out of everybody, or anybody ; I question not, when I have brought it to perfection, but I shall make most excellent discoveries by it and besides the many extraordinary advantages Of it to human society, I doubt not but it will make g ood sport in the world too ; wherefore, when I pub lish my proposals, and divide it into shares, as other less useful projects have been done, I question not, for all the severe act lately passed against b ubbles, but I shall get subscribers enough, 8 m. In a word, a secret power of discovering what devils we have among us, and where and what business they are doing, would be a vast advantage to u s all ; that we might know among the crowd Of devils that walk about streets, who are apparitions, and who are not . N ow I, you must know, at certain intervals, when the Old gentleman ’ s illuminations are upon me, and when I have something of an eclaircissement with him, have some degrees Of this discriminating second sight, and therefore it is no strange thing for me to tell a great many Of my acquaintance that they are really devils, when they themselves know nothing Of the mat ter : sometimes, indeed, I find it pretty hard to con vince them Of it, or at least they are very unwilling to own it, but it is not the less so for that . I had a long discourse u pon this subject one day, with a young beautiful lady of my acquaintance, whom the world very much admired ; and as the world judges no further than they can see, ( and how should they ? you would say, ) they took her to be, as she really was, a most charming creature . To me, indeed, sh e discovered herself many ways, besides the advantage I had of my extraordinary pene tration by the magic powers which I am vested with . to me, I say, she appeared a fury, a satyr, a fiery little fiend, as could possibly be dressed up in flesh ; in ~ short, sh e appeared to me what really ‘ she was, a very H . D . T i 274 THE M ODERN devil . It is natural toh uman creatures to desire to discover any extraordinary powers they are possessed Of superior to others, and this itch prevailing in me, among the rest, I was impatient to let this lady know !that I understood her composition perfectly well , nay, as well as sh e did herself. In order to -this, happening to be in the family once for some days, and having the honour to be very inti mate with her and her husband too, I took an oppor tunity on an extraordinary occasion, when sh e was in the height of good humour, to talk with her. You must note that, as I said, the lady was in an extraor dinary good humour, and there had been a great deal of mirth in the family for some days but one evening, sir Ed her husband, upon some very sharp turn she gave to another gentleman, which made all the company pleasant, ran to her, and with a passion of good humour, takes her in his arms, and turning to me , says he, Jack, this wife of mine is full Of wit and good h umour, but when sh e h as a mind to be smart, sh e is the keenest little devil in the world : tl i\ s was alluding to the quick turn she had given the b th er gentleman . Is that the best language you can give your wife ? says my lady. O madam, says I, such devils as you, are all angels . Ay, ay, says my lady, I know that , he has only let a truth fly out that he does not under stand . Look ye there, now, says sir Edward, could any thing but such a dear dev il as this have said a thing so pointed ? Well, well, adds he, devil to a lady in a man ’ s arms, is a word of divers interpretations . Thus they rallied for a good while, he holding her fast all the while in his arms, and frequently kissing her; and at last it went off, all in sunshine and mirth . But the next day, ( for I had the honour to lodge in the lady ’ s father ’ s house, where it all happened I say, the next day my lady begins with me upon the sub j cet, and that very smartly, so that at first I did not

2 76 THE MODERN into all v isionary or imaginary appearances in a differ? ent manner than other people did . Very well, says she, suppose you can, what ’ s that to me I told her it was nothing to her any further than that as sh e knew herself to be originally not the same crea ~ ture sh e seemed to be, but was of a sublime angelic original so, by the help of my recited art, I knew it too, and so far it might relate to her . Very fine, says she; so you would make a devil of me, Indeed . I took that occasion to tell her I would make no thing of her but what sh e was ; that I supposed sh e knew well enough God Almighty never thought fit to make any human creature so perfect and completely beautiful as sh e was, but that such were only reserved for figures to be assumed by angels of one kind or an‘ other. She rallied me upon that, and told me that would not bring me off, for I had not determined her for any thing angelic, but a mere dev il ; and how could I flat ter her with being handsome and a devil both at the same time ? I told her, as Satan, whom we abusively called Devil , was an immortal seraph, and of an original an gelic nature, so, abstracted from anything wicked, he was a most glorious being ; that when he thought fit to incase himself with flesh, and walk about in disguise, it was in his power, equally with the other angels, to make the form he took upon himself be, as he thought fit, beautiful or deformed . Here she disputed the possibility of that, and after charging me faintly with flattering her face, told me th e Devil co uld not be represented by anything hand some, alleging our constant picturing the Devil m all the frightful appearances imaginable . I told her we wronged him very much In that, and quoted St . Francis, to whom the Devil frequently ap HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 277; peared in the form of the most incomparably beautiful naked woman, to allure him, and what means he used to turn the appearance into a devil again, and how he effected it . She put by the discourse, and returned to that of angels, and insisted that angels did not always assume beautiful appearances ; that sometimes they appeared in terrible shapes , but that when they did not, it was at best only amiable faces, not exquisite ; and that therefore it would not hold, that to be handsome should always render them suspected . I told her the Devil had more occasion to form beauties than other angels had, his business being principally to deceive and ensnare mankind. And then I gave her some examples upon the whole . I found, by her discourse, she was willing enough to pass for an angel, but it was the hardest thing in the world to convince her that she was a devil, and sh e would not come into that by any means ; sh e argued that I knew her father, and that her mother was a very good woman, and was delivered of her in the ordinary way, and that there were such and such ladies who were present in the room when she was born, and that had Often told her so. I told her that was nothing in such a case as hers that when the Old gentleman had occasion to transform himself into a fine lady, h e could easily dispose of a. child, and place himself in the cradle instead of it, When the nurse or mother were asleep ; nay, or when they were broad awake either, it was the same thing to him ; and I quoted Luther to her upon that occasion , who affirms that it had been so. However, I said, to convince her that I knew it, ( for I would have it that sh e knew it already, ) if she pleased I would go to my chamber and fetch her my magic looking-glass, where she should see her own picture, not only as it was an angelic picture for the world to admire, but a devil 278 THE MODERN also frightful enough to ‘ anybody b ut herself and me that u nderstood it . No, no, said she, I will look in none of your conjur Ing glasses ; I know myself well enough, and I desire to look no otherwise than I am . N O, madam, says I, I know that very well ; nor do you need any better shape than that you appear in, it is most exquisitely fine ; all the world knows you are a ‘ complete beauty, and that is a clea r evidence what you would be, if your present appearing form was t e du ced to its proper personality . Appearing form ! says sh e, why, what ! would you make an apparition of me ? An apparition, madam ! said I ; yes, to be sure : why you know you are nothing else but an apparition ; and what else would you be, when it is so infinitely to your advantage ? With that, she turned p ale and angry, and then rose u p hastily, and looked into the glass, ( a large p i er glass being l n the room, ) where She stood surveying 1 erself from head to foot, with vanity not a little . I took that time to slip away, and running up into my apartment, I fetched my magic glass, as I called it, in which I had a hollow case, so framed, behind a looking - glass, that in the first sh e would see her own face only ; in the second, she would see the Devil ’ s face, ugly and frightful enough, but dressed u p with a lady ’ s head - clothes in a circle, the Dev il ’ s . face in th e ~ centre, and, as it were, at a little distance behind . I came down again so soon that she did not think the time long, especially having spent it in surveying her fair self; when I returned, I said, Come, madam, do not trouble yourself to look there, that is not a glass capable of showing you anything ; come, take thi s glass . It will show me as much of myself; says she, a little

280 THE MODERN First sh e cried, told me I came to affront her, that I would not talk so if sir Ed was by, and that sh e ought not to be used so. I endeavoured to pacify her, and told her I had not treated her with any indecency, nor I would not ; because while she thought fit to walk abroad incog . it was none of my business to dis c over her ; that if sh e thought fit to tell sir Ed anything of the discourse, sh e was very welcome, or to conceal it, (which I thou ght the wisest course, ) she should do j ust as sh e pleased ; but I made no question I should convince sir Ed her husband, that what I said was j ust, and that it was really so ; whether it was for her service or no for him to know it, was for h er to consider . This calmed her a little, and sh e looked hard at me a minute, without speaking a word, when, on a sudden , sh e broke ou t thus : And you will u ndertake, says she, to conv ince sir Ed that he has married a devil, will ye ? a fine story indeed ! and what fOIv lows ? why then it must follow, that the child I go with ( for she was big with child) will be a devil too, will it ? a fine story for sir Ed indeed ! isn ’ t it I don ’ t know that, madam, said I, that ’ s as you order it ; by the father ’ s side, said I, I know it will n ot, but what it may by the mother ’ s side, that ’ s a doubt I can ’ t resolve till the Devil and I talk further about it . You and the Devil talk together ! s ays sh e, and looks ruefully at me ; why, do you talk with the Devil, then ? Ay, madam, says I, as sure as ever you did yourself; besides, said I, can you question that ? pray who am I talking to now ? I think you are mad, says sh e ; why you will make devils of all the family, it may be, and p articularly I must be with child of a devil, that ’ s certain . NO, madam, said I, ’ tis not certain ; as I said before, I question i t. Why, you say I am the Devil ; the child, you know, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 28 1 has always most of the mother in it, then that must be a devil too, I think ; what else can it be ? says sh e. I can ’ t tell that, madam, said I ; that ’ s as you agree among yourselves : this kind does not go by generation ; that ’ s a dispute foreign to the present purpose . Then I entered into a discourse with her of the ends and purposes for which the Devil takes up such beau tiful forms as hers, and why it always gave me a su s picion when I saw a lady handsomer than ordinary, and set me u pon the search , to be satisfied whether she was really a woman , or an apparition ; a lady or a devil ; allowing all along that her being a devil was quite out of the question . Upon that very foot sh e took me up again rou ndly ; And so, says sh e, you are very civil to me through all your discourse, for I see it ends all in that, and you take it as a thing confessed, that I am a devil ! a very pretty piece of good usage indeed, says sh e ; I thank you for it . Nay, madam, says I, do not take it ill of me, for I Only discover to you that I knew it ; I do not tell it you as a secret, for you are satisfied of that another. way. Satisfied of what ? says she ; that I am a devil ? I think the Devil ’ s in you : and so began to be hot . A devil ! yes, madam, says I, without doubt a mere devil ; take it as you please, I can ’ t help that : and so I began to take it ill that sh e Should be disgu sted at Opening such a well -known truth to her . With that sh e discovered it all at once, for she turned fury, in the very letter of it ; flew out in a passion, railed at me, cursed me most heartily, and immediately disappeared ; which, you know, is the par ticu lar mark of a spirit or apparition . We had a great deal of discourse besides this, re lating to several other young ladies of her acquaint ance, some Of which, I said, were mere apparitions like 282 THE MODERN herself; and told her which were so, and which not ; and the reason why they were so, and for what uses and purposes, some to delude the world one way, and some another ; and she was pretty well pleased to hear that, but sh e could not bear to hear h er own true character, which , however, as cunning as she was, made her act the devil at last, as you have heard ; and then vanished out of my sight . I have seen her in miniat ure several times since, but she proves herself still to be the devil of a lady, for sh e bears malice, and will never forgive me that I would not let her he an angel ; but like a very devil as she is, she endeavours to kill me at a distance ; and indeed the poison of her eyes ( basilisk - like) is very strong, and she has a strange influence upon me ; but I, that know her to be a devil, strive very hard with myself to drive the memory of her ou t of my thoughts . I have had two or three engagements since this, with other apparitions of the same sex, and I find they are all alike, they are willing enough to be thought angels, but the word devil does not go down at all with them ; but it is all one, whenever we see an apparition , it is so n atural to say we have seen the Devil, that there is no prevailing with mankind to talk any other language . A gentleman of my acquaintance, the other day, that had courted a lady a long time, had the mis fortune to come a little suddenly upon her, when sh e did not expect him, and found her in such a rage at some of her servants, that it quite disordered her, especially a footman ; the fellow had done something that was indeed provoking, but not sufficient to put her into such a passion , and so ou t of herself; nor was she able to restrain herself when sh e saw her lover come in, but damned the fellow, and raged like a fury at him . My friend did his best to compose her, and begged th e fellow ’ s pardon of her, but it would not do ; nay“ the poor fellow made all the submissions that could be

284 THE MODERN than to advertise you of it, that you may shun the Devil in whatever shape you meet with him . Again , there are some half devils they say, like the Sag ittaru , half man , half horse; or rather, like the Satyr, who , they say, is half devil, half man ; or, like my lord bishop, who, they say, was half-headed : whether they mean half - witted or no, I do not find authors agreed about it ; but if they had voted him such , it had been as kind a thing as any they could say of him, because it would have cleared him from the scandal of being a devil or half a devil, for we don ’ t find the Devil makes any alliance with f— ls. Then as to merry devils , there IS my master G he may indeed have the Devil In him, but it must be said, to the credit of possession in general , that Satan would have scorned to have enteredinto a soul so narrow that there was not room to hold him, or to take up with so discording a creature, S O abject, so scoundrel , as n ever made a figu re among mankind greater than that Of a thief, a marauder, moulded up in to quality, and a rapparee dressed up, a - la -ma sque, with a robe and a coronet . Some little dog -kennel devil may, indeed, take up his quarters in or near him, and so run into and out of him a s his drum beats a call : but to him that was born a devil, Satan , that never acts to no purpose, could not think him worth being possessed by anything better than a devil of a dirty quality ; that is to say, a mean to wear the name of devil, without so or addition of infamy and meanness to distinguish by Th us what devil of quality would be confined to a P n, who, inheriting all the pride and insolence of his ancestors , without one of their good qualities the bully, the Billingsgate, and all the h ered1tary111 language of his family, without an ounce of their courage ; that has been rescued five or six times from the scandal of a coward, by the bravery, and at the hazard, of friends, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 285 and never failed tobe ungrateful ; that if ever he com mitted a murder, did it in cold blood, because nobody c ould prove he ever had any hot ; who , possessed with a poltroon devil , was always wickeder in the dark than he durst be by daylight ; and who, after innumerable passive sufferings, has been turned out Of human society, because he could not be kicked or cuffed either into good manners or good humou r . To say this was a devil, an apparition , or even a half devil , would be unkind to Satan himself, since though he ( the Devil ) has so many millions of inferior devils under his command, not one could be found base enough to match him, nor one devil found but what would think himself dishonoured to be employed about him . Some merry, good for nothing devils we have, indeed, which we might, if we had room, speak of at large, and divert you, too, with the relation ; such as my ladyHatt ’ s devil in Essex, who, upon laying a j oiner ’ s mallet in the window of a certain chamber, would come very orderly and knock with it all night upon the window, or against the wainscoat, and disturb the neighbourhood, and then go away in the morning, as well satisfied as may be ; whereas, if the mallet was not left, he would think him self affronted, and be as unsufferable and terrifying as possible, breaking the windows, splitting the wainscoat, committing all the disorders, and doing all the damage that he was able to the house, and to the goods in it . And, again, such as the drumming devil in the well at Oundle in Northamptonshire, and such -like . A great many antic devils have been seen also who seemed to have little or nothing to do, but only to as sure us that they can appear if they please, and that there is a reality in the thing called apparition . As to shadows of devils, and imaginary appearances, such as appear and yet are invisible at the same time, I had thought to have bestowed a chapter upon them by themselves, but it may be a s much ’ to the purpose 286 THE MODERN to let them alone as to meddle with them ; it is said Our Old friend Luther used to be exceedingly troubled with such invisible apparitions, and he tells us much of them in what they call his Table -talk but, with master Luther ’ s leave, though the Devil passes for a very great liar, I could swallow many things of his own proper making, as soon as some of those I find in a book that goes by his name ; particularly the story of the Devil in ' a basket, the ‘child. flying ou t of the cradle, and the like . In a word, the walking devils that we have generally a mong us are of the female sex ; whether it be that the Devil finds less difficulty to manage them, or that he lives quieter with them, or that they are fitter for his business than the men, I shall not now enter into a dispute about that ; perhaps he goes better disguised in the fair sex than otherwise . Antiquity gives u s many histories of sh e- devils, such as we can very seldom match for wickedness among the men ; such, now, as in the text, Lot ’ s daughters, Joseph ’ s mistress, Sam son ’ s Delilah, Herod ’ s Herodias, these were certainly devils, or played the devil sufficiently in their turn ; one male apparition , indeed, the Scripture furnishes you with, and that is Judas ; for his master says ex pressly of him, One of you is a dev il, not ‘has ’ the Devil, or is ‘possessed ’ of the Devil ; but really ‘is ’ a devil, or is a real devil . How happy is it, that this great secret comes thus to be discovered to mankind ! certainly the world has gone on in i gnorance a long time, and at a strange rate, that we should have so many devils continually walk ing about among us in human shape, and we know it n ot. Philosophers tell us that there is a world of spirits , and many learned pieces of guess -work they make at it, representing the world to be so near u s, that the air, a s they describe it, must be full of dragons and devils, enough to frighten our imaginations with the very

288 THE MODERN I suppose, if they get the Devil, they will not complain for want of a fortune ; and there is danger enough, I assure you, for the world is full of apparitions, non rosa sine spinis, not a beauty without a devil ; the old women spectres , and the young women apparitions, the u gly ones witches, and the handsome ones devils ; Lord ha ’ mercy ! and a may be set on the man ’ s door that goes a-courting. HISTORY OR THE DEVIL . 289 CHAP . VIII. Of the cloven f oot wa lking a bou t the world withou t the Dev il ; v iz . , qf witches ma king ba rga insf or the Devil, a nd pa rticu la rly of selling the sou l to the Dev il. I HAVE dwelt long upon the Devil in mask, as he goes about the world incog . , and especially without his cloven foot, and have touched upon some of his di s guises in the management of his interest in the world I must say some of his disguises only, for who can give a full account of all his tricks and arts in so narrow a compass as I am prescribed to ? But as I said that every devil has not a cloven foot, so I must add now, for the present purpose, that every cloven foot is not the Devil . Not but that, wherever I should meet the cloven hoof, I should expect that the Devil was not far off, and should be apt to raise the posse against him, to ap prehend him yet it may happen otherwise, that ’ s cer tain : every coin has its counterfeit, every art its pre tender, every whore her admirer, every error its patron, and every day has its devil . I have had some thought Of making a full and complete discovery here of that great doubt which has so long puzzled the world, namely, whether there is any such thing as secret making bargains with the Devil ; and the first positive assurance I can gi v e you in the case, is, that if there is not, it is not his fault, it is not for want of his endeavour ; it is plain, if you will pardon me for taking so mean a step as that of quoting Scrip ture, I say, it is evident he would fain have made a contract with our Saviour ; and he bid boldly, give him his due, namely, all the kingdoms Of the world for one bend of his knee . Impudent seraph ' ! to think thy U 290 THE MODERN Lord should pay thee homage How many would agree with him here for a less price ! They say Oliver Cromwell struck a bargain with him, and that he gave Oliver the protectorship, but would not let him call himself king, which st uck so close to that furioso, that the mortification spread into his soul, and it is said he died of a gangrene in the spleen . But take notice, and do Oliver justice ; I do not vouch the story, neither does the bishop say one word of it . Fame used to say, that the Old famous duke of Lux emb urg made a magic compact of this kind ; nay, I have heard many an ( Old woman) officer of the troops, who never cared to see his face, declare that he carried the Devil at his back . I remember a certain author Of a newspaper in London was once taken up, and they say it cost him 50 l. for printing in his news, that Luxemburg was humpbacked . Now if I have solved the difficulty, namely, that he was not humped, only carried the Devil at his back, I think the poor man should have his 50 l. again, or I should have it for the discovery . I confess, I do not well understand this compacting with such a fellow as can neither write nor read ; nor do I know who is the scrivener between them, or h ow the indenture can be executed ; but that which is worse than all the rest is, that in the first place, the Dev il never keeps articles ; he will contract perhaps, and they say he is mighty forward to make conditions ; but who shall bind him to the performance , and where is the penalty if he fails ? if we agree with him, he will be apt enough to claim his bargain and demand pay ment ; nay, perhaps before it is due ; but who shall make him stand to his word ? Besides, he is a knave in his dealing, for he really prom ises what he cannot perform ; witness his impu -t dent proposal to our Lord, mentioned above, All these kingdoms will I giv e thee Lying spirit ! why they were none of thine to give, no not one of them ; for the

292 THE MODERN make him give security for the performance of cove nants, and who the devil would get to be bound for him, I cannot tell, they must look to that who make the bargain : besides, if he had not had a mind to cheat or b aflle the poor man, what need he have taken a cow so near home ? If he ha d such and such powers as we talk of,and as fancy and fable furnish for him, could not h e have carried a cow in the air upon a broomstick, as well as an Old woman ? could he not have stole a cow for him in Lincolnshire, and set it down in Hereford shire, and so have performed his bargain , saved his credit, and kept the poor man out of trouble ? so that if the story is true, as I really believe it is, either it is not the Devil that makes those bargains, or the Devil has not such power as we bestow on him, except on special occasions he gets a permit, and is bid go , as in the case of Job, the Gadarene hogs, and the like . We have another example of a man ’ s selling himself to the Devil, that is very remarkable, and that is in the Bible too ; and even in that, I do not find what the Devil did for him, in payment of the purchase price . The person selling was Ahab, of whom the text says expressly, there w a s none like him, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the L ord, 1 Kings xxi . 20, and the 25th . Ithink it might have been rendered, if not translated, ‘in spite Of the Lord, ’ or, ‘in defiance of God for certainly that is the meaning of it ; and now allowing me to preach a little upon this text, my sermon shall be very short . Ahab sold himself; who did he sell himself to ? I answer that question by a question ; who would buy him ? who, as we say, would give anything for him ? and the answer to that is plain also, you may j udge of the purcha ser by the work h e was to do ; he that buys a slave in the market, buys him to work for him, and to do such business as he has for him to do Ahab was bought to work wickedness, and who would buy him for that b u t the Devil ? I think there is no room to doubt but Ah ab sold him HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 2 93 self to the Devil ; the text is plain that he sold himself, and the work he was sold to do points out the master that bought him : what price he agreed with the Devil for, that indeed the text is silent in, so we may let it alone, nor is it much to our purpose, unless it be to inquire whether the Devil stood to his bargain or not, and whether he paid the money according to agreement, or cheated him as he did the farmer at Hereford . This buying and selling between the Devil and us, Is, I must confess, an Odd kind of stock -j obbing, and, indeed, the Devil may be said to sell the bear -skin, whatever he buys ; but the strangest part is when he c omes to demand the transfer ; for, as I hinted before, whether h e performs or no, he expects his bargain to a tittle ; there is, indeed, some difficulty in resolving how and in what manner payment is made . The stories we meet with in our chimney- corner histories, and which are so many ways made u se of to make the Devil frightful to us and our heirs for ever, are generally so foolish and ridiculous, as, if true or not true, they hav e nothing material in them, are Of no signification, or else so impossible in their nature, that they make no impression upon anybody above twelve years Old and under seventy ; or else are so tragical that antiquity has fabled them down to our taste, that we might be able to hear them and repeat them with less horror than is due to them . This variety has taken off ou r relish of the thing in general, and made the trade of soul -selling, like our late more eminent bubbles, be taken to be a cheat, and to have little in it . However, to speak a little more gravely to it, I cannot say but that since, by the two eminent instances of it above l n Ahab, and In Christ himself, the fact 1s evidently ascertained, and that the Devil has attempted to make such a bargain on one, and actually did make it with the other, the possibility of it is not to be dis pa ted ; but then I mu st explain the mahner of 1t a little, 294 THE MODERN and bring it down nearer to our understanding, that it may be more intelligible than it is ; for as for this selling the soul, and making a bargain to give the Devil possession by livery and seisin on the day ap pointed, that I cannot come into by any means ; no, nor into the other part, namely, Of the Devil coming to claim his bargain, and to demand the soul according to agreement, and u pon defa ult of a fair delivery, taking it ' awayby v iolence, case and all, of whichwe have many historical relations pretty current among us ; some of which, for aught I know, we might have hoped h ad been true, if we had not been sure they were false, and others we had reason to fear were false, because it was impossible they should be true . The bargains of this kind, according to the best ac counts we have of them, used to consist of two main articles, according to the ordinary stipulations in all covenants namely, 1 . Something to b e performed on the Devil ’ s part, buying . 2 . Something to be performed on the man ’ s part, selling . I . The Devil ’ s part : this was generally some poor trifle, for the Devil generally bought good penny worths, and oftentimes, like a complete sharper, agreed to give what he was not able to procure ; that is to say, would bargain for a price he could not pay, as in the case Of the Hereford man and the cow ; for example, 1 . Long life : this , though the deluded chapman has Often had folly enough to contract for, the Devil never had power to make good ; and we have a famous story, how true I know not, of a wretch that sold himself to th e ‘ Dev il on condition he, Satan, should assure him ( I . ) That he should never want victuals ; That he sho uld never be a - cold ; That he should always come to him when he called him ; and That he

296 THE MODERN Whether this story were true or not, ( for you must not expect we historians should answer for the discourse between the Devil and his chaps, because we were not privy to the bargain I say, whether it was true or not, the inference is to our purpose several ways . 1 . It confirms what I have said of the knavery of the Devil in his dealings, and that when he has stock -j obbed with us on the best conditions he can get, he very seldom performs his bargain . 2 . It confirms what I have likewise said, that the Devil ’ s power is limited with this addition, that he not only cannot destroy the life of man , but that he cannot preserve it ; in short, he can neither prevent or bring on our destruction . I may be allowed, I h Ope, for the sake of the present discourse, to suppose that the Devil would have been so j ust to this wicked, though foolish creature, as to have saved him from the gallows if he could ; but it seems, he at last acknowledged that it was not in his power nay, he could not keep him from being taken and carried to prison , after he was gotten into th e hands of a bold fellow or two, that were not to be scared with his bluster, as some foolish creatures had been before . And h ow simple, how weak, h ow unlike anything of an angelic n ature, was it to attempt to save the poor wretch only by little noises and sham appearances, putting out the candles , rushing and j ostling in the dark , and the like . If the Devil was that mighty seraph which we have heard of, if he is a god of this world, a prince of the air, a spirit able to destroy cities and make havoc in the world ; if he can raise tempests and storms, throw fire about the world, and do won ~ . derful things, as an unchained devil no doubt could do ; what need all this frippery ? and what need he try ' so many ridiculous ways, by the emptiness, nay, the . HISTORY or THE DEVIL . 297 silly nonsensical manner, of which , he shows that he is able to do no better, and that his power is ex tinguish ed ? In a word, he would certainly act other wise, if he could . S ed ca retpedibus, he wants power . How weak a thing is it then , for any man to expect performance from the Devil, if he has not power to do mischief, which is his element, his very nature, and on many accounts, is the very sum of his desires ! How should he have power to do good ? how power to deliver from danger or from death ? which deliverance would be in itself a good , and we know it is not in his nature to do good to or for any man . In a word, the Devil is strangely impudent, to think that any man should depend upon him for the per formance of an agreement of any kind whatever, when he knows himself that he is not able, if he was honest enough, to be as good as his word . Come we next to his expecting ou r performance to him ; though he is not so just to u s, yet, it seems, he never fails to come and demand payment of us at the very day appointed . He was but a weak trader in things of this nature, who having sold his soul to the Devil, ( so our old women ’ s tales call the thing, ) and when the Devil came to demand his bargain, put it off as a thing of no force, for that it was done so long ago, he thought he ( the Devil ) had forgot it. It was a better answer, which they tell us a Lutheran divine gave the Devil in the name of a poor wretch who had sold himself to the Devil, and who was in a terrible fright about his coming for his bargain , as he might well be indeed, if the Devil has such a power as really to come and take it by force . The story, if you can bear a serious one, is this The man was in great horror of mind, and the family feared he would destroy himself; at length they sent for a Lutheran minister to talk with him, and who, after some labour with him, got ou t the truth, viz . , that he had sold himself to the Devil, and that the 298 THE MODERN time was almost expired when he expected the Devil would come and fetch him away, and he was sure he would not fail coming to the time to a minute . The minister first endeavoured to convince him of the horrid crime, and to bring him to a true penitence for that part ; and having, as he thought, made him a sin cere penitent, he then began to encourage him, and partic ularly, desired of him, that when the time was come that the Devil should fetch him away, he, the minister, should be in the house with him accordingly, to make the story short, the time came, the Devil came, and the minister was present when the Devil came ; what shape he was in , the story does not say ; the man said he saw him, and cried ou t the minister could not see him, but the man affirming he was in the room, the minister said aloud, In the name of the living God, Satan , what comest thou here for ? The Devil answered, I come for my own ; the minister a nswered, He is not thy own, for Jesus Christ has redeemed him, and in his name I charge thee to avoid and touch him not at which, says the story, the Devil gave a furious stamp (with his cloven foot I suppose) and went away, and was never known to molest him afterwards . Another story, though it be in itself a long one, I shall abridge ( for your reading with the less u neasi ness ) as follows : A young gentleman of berg, in the elector of Brandenb urg h ’ s ( now the king of Prussia ’ s ) dominions, being deeply in love with a beautiful lady, but some thing above his fortune, and whom he could by no means bring to love applied himself to an old thing, called ai ’ v it ’ c / hgjfer her assistance, and pro mised her great things 1 f sh e could bring the lady to love him, or any how compass her so as he might have his will of her ; nay , at last he told her he would give up his soul to her, if she would answer his desire. The old b ag, it seems, having had some of his money,

300 THE MODERN told him, whoever he saw, he must speak to nobody but her, till sh e gave him leave, and that he should not b e surprised, whatever happened, for no hurt should befall him all which he agreed to, and the Old woman going out he followed her . Being, upon this, led into another room, where there was but very little light, yet enough to let him see that there was nobody in it but himself and the woman , he Was desired to sit down in a chair next to a table, and the Old woman clapping the door to after her, he asked her why she shut the door, and where was the person sh e told him of. At which she answered, There he is, pointing to a chair at a little distance : the young gentleman turning his head, saw a grave kind of a man sitting in an elbow- chair, though he said, he ’ could have sworn there was nobody in the chair when the old woman shut the door ; however, having pro mised not to speak to anybody but the Old woman, he said not a word . By and by the woman making abundance of strange gestures and motions, and mumbling over several things which he could not u nderstand, large Wicker stood by the inoves tot endpf the w table which he sat by, but " n w db l o ' tfy in th e chair ; in about two minutes after that the chair removed, there appeared a person sitting in that too, who, the room being, as is said, almost dark, could not be so distinguished by the eye as to see his countenance . After some while, the first man , and the chair he sat in, moved, as if they had been one body, to the table also ; and the Old woman and the two men seemed to talk together, bu t the young man could not u nderstand anything they said ; after some time the old witch turned to the young gentleman, told him his request was granted, but not for marriage, but the 1 should love and receive him . The witch then gave him a stick dipped i HIS TORY OF THE DEVIL . 30 1 ends, and bid him hold it to a candle, which he did, and instead of burning like a stick , it burnt out like a torch then sh e bid him break it Off in the middle, and light the other end he did that too, and all the room seemed to be in a light flame ; then she said, Deliver one piece here, pointing to one only of the persons ; so he gave the first fire- stick to the first man or appari tion N ow, says she, deliver the other here; so he gave the other piece to the other apparition , at which they both rose u p and spoke to him words, which he said he u nderstood not, and could not repeat, and immedi ately vanished with the fire- sticks and all, leaving the room full of smoke . I do not remember that the story says anything of brimstone, or the smell of it, but it says the door continued fast locked, and nobody was left in the room b u t the young gentleman and the witch . N ow the ceremony being over, he asked the witch if the business was done . She said, Yes . Well, but says he, have I sold my soul to the Devil ? Yes, says she, you have, and you gave him possession when you delivered the two fire- sticks to him . To him ! says he; why, was that the Devil ? Yes, says the Old hag. At which the young man was in a terrible fright for a while, but it went off again . And what ’ s next ? says he; when shall I see the lady for whose sake I have done all this ? You shall know that presently, said sh e ; and opening the door, in the next room sh e presents him with a most beautiful lady, but had charged him not to speak a word to her she was exactly dressed like, and he presently knew her to be the lady he desired ; u pon which he flew to her, and clasped her in his arms, but that moment he had her fast, as he thought, in his arms, sh e vanished out Of his sight . Finding himself thus disappointed, he upbraids the old woman with betraying hi m, and flew ou t with ill language at her, in a great rage . The Devil Often de luded him thus, after this, with shows and appearances, 302 THE MODERN but still no performance after a while he gets an op portunity to Speak with the lady herself in reality, but she was as positive in her denial as ever, and even took away all hopes of his ever obtaining her, which put him into despair, for now he thought he had given himself up to the Devil for nothing ; and this brought -him to himself, so that he made a penitent confession of his crime to some friends, who took great care Of him, and encouraged him, and at last furnished him with such an answer as put the Devil into a fright, when he came for the bargain . For Satan, it seems, as the story says , had the im pudence to demand his agreement, notwithstanding he had failed in the performance on his part ; what the answer was, I do not pretend to have seen , but it seems it was something like what is mentioned above, viz . , that he was in better hands, and that he durst not touch him . I have heard of another person that had actually signed a contract with the Devil ; and upon a fast kept by some protestant or Christian divines, while they were praying for the poor man , the Devil was obliged to come and throw the contract in at the window. But I vouch none of these stories ; there may be much in them, and much use made of them, even whether exactly such in fact, as they are related, or no : the best use I can make of them, is this ; if any wicked desperate wretches have made bargain and sale with Satan, their only way is to repent, if they know ‘ h ow, and that before he comes to claim them ; then batter him with his own guns ; play religion against devilism, and perhaps they may drive the Devil out of their reach ; at least he will not come at them, which is as well . On the other hand, how many stories have we handed about Of the Devil ’ s really coming with a ter rible appearance at the time appointed, ’ and powerfully, or by violence, carrying away those that have given

30 4 THE MODERN It is true, our old mothers and nurses have told us other things, but they only told us what their mothers and nurses told them, and so the tale has been handed down from on e generation of old women to another ; but we have no vouchers for ' the fact, other than oral tradition , the credit Of which, I confess, goes but a very l ittle way with me ; nor do I believe it one j ot the more for all the frightful addenda which they generally j oi n to the tale, for it never wants a great variety of that kind . W Thus they tell us the Devil carried away Dr . Faustus, and took a piece of the wall of his garden) along with them : thus at Salisbury, the Devil, as it is said, and publicly printed, carried away two fellows that had given themselves u p to him, and carried away the roof of the house with them, and the like, all which I believe my share of. Besides, if these stories were really true, they are all against the Devil ’ s true interest, Satan must be a fool, which is indeed what I never took him to be in the main ; this would be th e way not to increase the number of desperadoes, who should thus put themselves into his hand, but to make himself a terror to them ; and this is one of the most powerful objections I have against the thing, for the Devil, I say, is no fool , that must be acknowledged he knows his own game, and generally plays it sure . I might, before I quit this point, seriously reflect here upon our bea u mondc, viz . , the gay part Of man kind, especially those of the times we live in, who walk about in a c omposure and tranquillity inexpressible, and yet, as we all know, must certainly have all sold themselves to the Devil, for the power Of acting the foolishest things with the greater applause it is true, to be a fool is the most pleasant life in the world, if the fool has but the particular felicity, which few fools want, viz . , to think themselves wise : the learned say, it is the dignity and perfection Of fools, that they never fail trusting themselves ; they believe themselves sufli HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 305 cient and able for everything ; and hence their want or waste of brains is no griev ance to them, but they hug themselves in the satiety of their own wit ; but . to bring other people to have the same notion of them, which they have of themselves, and to have their apish and ridiculous conduct make the same impression on the minds of others, as it does on their own ; this re quires a general infatuation, and must either be a judgment from heaven , or a mist of hell ; nothing but the Devil can make all the men Of brains applaud a fool ; and can any man believe that the Devil will do this for nothing ? no, no, he will be well paid for it, and I know no other way they have to compound with him, but this of bargain and sale . It is the same thing with rakes and bullies, as it is with fools and beaus and this brings me to the subject of buying and selling itself, and to examine what is understood by it in the world, what people mean by such and such a man selling himself to the Devil : I know the common acceptation of it is, that they make some capitulation for some indulgence in wickedness, on conditions of safety and impunity, which the Devil promises them ; though, as I said above, he is a bite in that too, for he cannot perform the conditions ; however, I say, he promises boldly, and they believe him, and for this privilege in wickedness, they consent that he shall come and fetch them for his own, at such or such a time . This is the state of the case in the general accepta tion Of it ; I do not say it is really so, nay, it is even an inconsistency in itself, for one would think they need not capitulate with the Devil to be so and so superlatively wicked, and give him such a price for it , seeing, unless we have a wrong notion of him, he is naturally inclined, as well as avowedly willing, to have all men be as superlatively wicked as possibly they can, and must necessarily be always ready to issue ou t his licenses gratis, as far as his authoritywill go in the H . D . x 306 THE MODERN ca se ; and ‘ thereforeI do, not see why the wretches that deal with him, should article with him for a price ; but suppose, for argument sake, that it is so, then the next thing is, some capital crime follows the contract, and then the wretch is forsaken, for the Devil cannot pro teet him, as he promised, so h e is trussed up, and, like Coleman at the gallows, he exclaims that there is no truth in devils . It may be true, however, that under the powerful guard and protection of the Devil, men do sometimes go a great way in crime, and that, perhaps, further in these our days of boasted morals, than was known among our fathers ; the only diff erence that I meet with between the sons of Belial in former days and those of our ages , seems to be in the Devil ’ s manage ment, not in theirs ; the sum Of which amounts to this, that Satan seems to act with more cunning, and they with less ; for, in the former ages of Satan ’ s dominion , he had much business upon his hands ; all his art and engines, and engineers also, were kept fully employed, to wheedle, allure, betray, and circumvent people, and draw them into crimes, and they found him, as we may say, a full employment . I doubt not, he was called the Tempter on that very a ccount ; but the case seems quite altered now, the tables are turned ; then the Devil tempted men to sin, but now, in short, they tempt the Devil ; men push into crimes before he pushes them ; they outshoot him in his own b ow, outrun him on his own ground, and, as we say Of some hotspurs who ride post, they whip the postboy ; in a . word, the Devil seems to have no business now but to sit still and look on. This, I must confess, seems to intimate some secret compact between the Devil and them ; b u t then it looks , not as if they had contracted with the Devil for leave to sin, but that the Devil had contracted with them that they should sin so and so, up to su ch a degree, and that without giving him the trouble of

30 8 THE MODERN for that ; I can never doubt a secret compact, if there is such a thing in nature ; when I see a head where there was no head, sense in posse where there is no sense in esse, wit without brains, and sight without eyes, it is all devil -work : could G write satires, that could neither read Latin or spell English ; like Old sir William Read, who wrote a book of optics, which when it was printed, he did not know which was the right Side uppermost, and which the wrong ? Could this eminent u ninformed beau turn atheist, and make wise speeches against that Being which made him a fool, if the Devil had not sold him some wit in ex change for that trifle of his, called soul ? Had he not bartered his inside with that son Of the morning, to have his tongue tipped with blasphemy, he that knew nothing of a God, but only to swear by him, could never have set u p for a wit to burlesque his providence and ridicule his government of the world . But the Devil, as he is god of the world, has one particu lar advantage, and that is, that when he has work to do he very seldom wants instruments ; with this circumstance also, that the degeneracy of human nature supplies him . As the late king Of France said of himself, when they told him what a calamity was like to befall his kingdom by the famine : Well, says the king, then I shall not want soldiers ; and it was so ; want of bread supplied his army with recruits, so want of grace supplies the Devil with reprobates for his work . Another reason why I think the Devil has made more bargains of that kind we speak of, in this age, is , because he seems to have laid by his cloven foot ; all his Old emissaries, the tools of his trade, the engineers which he employed in his mines, such as witches, warlocks , magicians , conjurers , astrologers, and all the hellish train or rabble of human devils, who did his drudgery in former days , seem to be out of work : I shall give you a fuller enumeration of them in the next chapter . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 309 These, I say, seem to be laid aside ; not that his work is abated, or that his business with mankind, for their delusion and destru ction , is not the same, or per haps more than ever ; but the Devil seems to have changed hands ; the temper and genius of mankind is altered, and they are not to be taken by fright and horror, as they were then : the figures of those crea tures were always dismal and horrible, and that is it which I mean by the cloven foot ; but now wit, beauty, and gay things, are the sum of his craft ; he manages by the soft and the smooth, the fair and the artful , the kind and the cunning, not by the frightful and terrible, the ugly and the odious . When the Devil, for weighty despatches, Wanted messengers cunning and bold, He pass ’d by the beautiful faces , And pick ’d out the ugly and Old. Of these he made warlocks and witches , To run of his errands by night Till the over-wrought hag -ridden wretches , Were as fit as the Devil to fright. But whoever has been his adviser, As his kingdom increases in growth ; He now takes his measures much wiser, And traflics with beauty and youth. Disguised in the wanton and witty, He haunts both the church and the court ; And sometimes he v isits the city, Where all the best Christians resort. Thus dress ’d up in full masquerade, He the holder can range u p and down ; For be better can drive on his trade, In any one ’ s name than his own. 3 10 THE MODERN CHAP . IX . -Of the tools tire Devil works with viz . , iz a rds or wa rlocks, conjurers, magicia ns, gers, interpreters of drea ms, tellers of f ortu nes a nd, a bov e a ll the rest, his pa rticu la r modern privy cou ncillors ca lled wits a ndf ools. THOU GH, as I have advanced in the foregoing chapter, the Devil has very much changed hands in his modern management of the world, and that, instead of the rab ble and long train of implements reckoned u p above, he now walks about in beaus, beauties, wits, and fools ; yet I must not Omit to tell you that he has not dis missed his former regiments , but, like Officers in time of peace, he keeps them all in half-pay ; or, like extra ordinary men at the cu stom -house, they are kept at a call, to be ready to fill u p vacancies, or to employ when he is more than ordinarily full of business and there fore it may not be amiss to give some brief account of them from Satan ’ s own memoirs, their performance being no inconsiderable part of his history . N or will it be an unprofitable digression to go back a little to the primitive institution of all these orders, for they are very ancient, and I assure you it requires great knowledge of antiquity to give a particular of their original I Shall be very brief in it . In order then to this inquiry, you must know that it was not for want of servants that Satan took this sort of people into his pay he had , as I have Observed in its place, millions of diligent devils at his call, what ever business, and h owever difficult, he had for them to do ; but as I have said above, that Our modern peo ple are forwarder than even the Devil himself can de

3 1 2 THE MODERN were not conjurers or magicians, only philosophers and studiers of nature, wise, sober, and studious men at first ; and we have an extraordinary account of them ; and if we may believe some of ou r best writers of fame, Abraham was himself famous among them for such magic, as sir Walter Raleigh expresses it, Qu i contem pla tione crea tu ra rum cognov it Crea torem. N ow granting this, it is all to my purpose, namely. that the Devil drew these wise men in , to search after more knowledge than nature could instruct them in ; and the knowledge of the true God being at that time sunk very low, he debauched them all with dreams, apparitions, conjurers, &c . , till he ruined the just notions they had, and made devils of them all, like himself. The learned Senensis, speaking Of this Chaldean kind of learning, gives u s an account of five sorts of them you will pardon me for being so grave as to go this length back . 1 . Chascedin or Chaldeans, properly so called, being astronomers . 2 . Asaphim or magicians, such was Zoroastres and Balaam the son of Beor . 3 . Chatumim or interpreters of dreams and hard speeches, enchanters , 4 . Mecasphim or witches, called at first prophets, ’ afterwards ma lefici or v enefici, poisoners . 5 . Gazarim or auru spices, and diviners , such as di vined by the entrails of beasts, the liver In par ticu lar ; mentioned In Ezek . or, as others, called augurs . N ow as to all these, I suppose I may do them no wrong, if I say, however justifiable they were in the beginning, the Devil got them all into his service at last ; and that brings me to my text again, from which the rest was a digression . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 3 1 3 1 . The Chascedin, or Chaldean astronomers, turned astrologers, fortune- tellers, calculators of nativi ties, and vile deluders of the people, as if the wis dom of the holy God was in them, as N eb uch ad nez zar said of Daniel on that very account. 2 . The Asaphim, or magi , or magicians ; Sixtus Senen sis says, they were such as wrought by co venants with devils, but turned to it from their wisdom, which was to study the practical part of natural philosophy, working admirable effects by the mutual application of natural causes . 3 . The Chatumim, from being reasoners or dis puters upon diflicult points in philosophy, became enchanters and conjurers . So, 4 . The Meca sphim, or prophets, they turned to be sorcerers, raisers of Spirits, su ch as wounded by an evil eye, and by bitter curses, and were after wards famed for having familiar converse with the Devil , and were called witches . 5 . The Gaz arim, from the bare observing of the good and bad omens, by the entrails of beasts, flying of birds, &c. , were turned to sacrists, or priests of the heathen idols, and sacrificers. Thus, I say, first or last, the Devil engrossed all the wise men of the East, ( for so they are called, ) made them all his own, and by them he worked wonders that is, he filled the world with lying wonders, as if wrought by these men, when, indeed, it was all his own from beginning to the end, and set on foot merely to propagate delusion, and impose upon blinded and ignorant men : the god of this world blinded their minds, and they were led away by the subtlety of the Devil, to say no worse of it, till they became devils themselves, as to mankind ; for they carried on the Dev il ’ s work upon all occasions, and the race of them still continue in other nations, and some of them among ourselves, as we shall see presently. 3 14 THE MODERN The Arabians followed the Chaldeans in this study, while it was kept within its due bounds, and after them the Egyptians ; and, among the latter, we find that Jannes and Jambres were famous for their leading Pharaoh, by their pretended magic performances, to reject the real miracles of Moses and history tells us of strange pranks the wise men, the magicians , and the southsayers, played to delude the people in the most early ages of the world . But, as I say, now the Devil has improved himself,so he did then ; for the Grecian and Roman heathen rites coming on, they outdid all the magicians and southsay ers, by establishing the Devil ’ s lying oracles, which, as a masterpiece of hell, did the Devil more honour, and brought more homage to him, than ever he had before, or could arrive to since . Again, as by the setting up the oracles, all the ma gicians and southsayers grew out of credit, so at the ceasing of those oracles, the Devil was fain to go back to the old game again, and take up with the agency of witches, divinations, enchantments, and conj urings, as I hinted before, answerable to -the four sorts men tioned in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, viz . , magi cians, astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the southsayers . How these began to b e out of request, I have men tioned already ; but, as the Devil has not quite given them over, only laid them aside a little for the present, “ we may venture to ask what they were, and what u se he made of them when he did employ them . The truth is, I think, as it was a very mean employ ment for anything that wears a human countenance to take up, so I must acknowledge, I think it was a mean low- prized business for Satan to take up with ; below the very Devil ; below his dignity as an angelic, though condemned creature ; below him even as 3 Devil , to go to talk to a parcel of ugly, deformed, spiteful , malicious Old women ; to give them power to do mischiefi-who ne ver had a will, after they entered

3 16 THE MODERN ability suitable to the horrid will they are vested with, remains to be described . These witches, it is said, are furnished with power suitable to the occasion that 1 s before them, and par ticularly that which deserves to be considered as pre diction, and foretelling events , which, I insist, the au thor of witchcraft is not accomplished with himself, nor can he communicate it to any other. How then witches come to be able to foretell things to come, which, it is said, the Devil himself cannot know, and which, as I have shown , it is evident he does not know himself, 1 s yet to be determined ; that witches do fore tell , is , certain, h v .“ from wrtch of Endorm ad thing s to Saul, which he k nem efore, namely, that he should b e slain In battle the next day, which ao cordingly came to pass . There are, however, and notwithstanding this par ticular case, many instances wherein the Devil h as not been able to foretell approaching events, and that in things of the utmost consequence, and he has giv en certain foolish or false answers in such cases ; the Devil ’ s priests, which were summoned in by the prophet Elij ah, to decide the dispute between God and Baal, had the Devil been able to have informed them of It, would certainly have received notice from him, of what was intended against them by Elij ah ; that Is to say, that they would be all cut in pieces for Satan was not such a fool as not to know that Baal was a . nonentity, a nothing, at best a dead man , perished and rotting in his grave ; for Baal was Bel or Belus, an ancient king of the Assyrian monarchy, and he could no more answer by fire to consume the sacrifice, than he could raise himself from the dead . But the priests of Baal were left of their master to their j ust fate ; namely, to be a sacrifice to the fury of a deluded people ; hence I infer his inability, for it would have been very unkind and ungrateful in him HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 3 17 not to have answered them, if he had been able . There is another argument raised here most j ustly against the Devil , with relation to his being under restraint, and that of greater eminence than we imagine, and it is drawn from this very passage, thus : it is not to be doubted but that Satan , wh o has much of the element put into his hands, as prince of the air, had a power, or was able, potentially Speaking, to have answered Baal ’ s priests by fire, fire being, in virtue of his airy princi pality, a part of his dominion ; but he was certainly withheld by the superior hand which gave him that dominion , I mean withheld for the occasion only . SO, in another case, it was plain that Balaam, who was one of those sorts of Chaldeans mentioned above who dealt in divinations and enchantments, was withheld from cursing Israel . Some are of Opinion that Balaam was not a witch, or a dealer with the Devil, because it is said of him, or rather he says it of himself; that he saw the visions of God, Numb . xxiv . 1 6 ; He ha th sa id, who hea rd the words of God, a nd knew the knowledge of the Most High, which sa w the v isions of the Almighty, f a lling into a tra nce, bu t ha v ing his eyes open. Hence they allege he was one of those magi which St . Augustine speaks of, de Div ina tione, who, by the study of nature, and by the contemplation of created beings, came to the knowledge Ofthe creature ; and that Balaam ’ s fault was, that being tempted by the rewards and honours that the king promised him, he intended to have cursed Israel ; but when his eyes were Opened, and that he saw they were God ’ s own people, he durst not do it . They will have it, therefore, that except, as above, Balaam was a good man, or, at least, that he had the knowledge of the true God, and the fear of that God upon him, and that he honestly declares this, Numb . xxii . 1 8, If Ba la k wou ld giv e me his honsef u ll of silv er a nd gold, I ca nnot go beyond the word of the Lord my God ; where, though he is called a false pro 3 1 8 THE MODERN phet by some, he evidently owns God, and assumes a property in him, as other prophets did my God, ’ and ‘ . I cannot go beyond his orders . ’ But that which gives me a better Opinion of Balaam than all this , is his plain prophecy of Christ, chap . xxiv. 1 7, where he calls him the star of Jacob, and declares, I sha ll see him, but not now I sha ll behold him, bu t not nigh there sha ll come a sta r ou t of Ja cob, a nd a sceptre sha ll rise ou t of Is ra el, a nd sha ll smite the corners of Moa b, a nd destroy a ll the children of S eth ; all which express not a know ledge only, but a faith in Christ : but I have done preaching, this is all by -the - by; I return to my busi ness, which is the history . There is another piece of dark practice here which lies between Satan and his particular agents, and which they may give us an answer to when they can, which, I think, will not be in haste ; and that is about the oh seq u iou s Devil submitting to be called up into visi bility whenever an old woman has her hand crossed with a white Sixpence, as they call it . One would think that instead of these vile things called witches being sold to the Devil , the Devil was really sold for a slave to them for h ow far soever Satan ’ s residence is off of this state of life, they have power, it seems, to fetch him from home, and oblige him to come at their c all . I can give little account of this, only that indeed so it is . N or is the thing so strange in itself, as the ‘ methods to do it are mean , foolish, and ridiculous ; as making a circle and dancing in it, pronouncing such and such words , saying the Lord ’ s prayer backward, a nd the like . Now is this agreeable to the dignity of the prince of the air or atmosphere, that he should be commanded forth with no more pomp or ceremony than that of muttering a few words, such as the old witches and he agree about ? or is there something else in it, which none of us or themselves understand ? Perhaps, indeed, he is always with those people

320 THE MODERN her breasts ! how sweet her voice ! add to all , how heavenly, divinely good, her temper ! h ow inimitable her behaviour ! how spotless her v irtue ! how perfect her innocence and, to sum up her character, we may add , the lady H is no witch . Sure, none of ou r bea u critics will be so unkind now, as to censure me in those honest descriptions, as if I meant that my good friend W G esq . , or my adored angel, the bright, the charming lady H were fools ; but what will not those savages called critics do, whose barbarous nature inclines them to trample on the brightest characters, and to cavil at the clearest ex pressions It might be expected of me, however, in j ustice to my friends, and to the bright characters of abundance of gentlemen of this age, who, by the depth of their politics, and the height of their elevations, might be suspected, and might give us room to charge them with subterranean intelligence ; I say, it might be ex pected that I should clear up their fame, and assure the world concerning them, even by name, that they are no conjurers, that they do not deal with the Devil, at least , not by wav of witchcraft and divination, such as sir T k , E B esq . , my lord Homily, col . Swagger, Geoff ry V V ellwith, esq . , capt . Harry Go deeper, Mr . Wellcome Woollen, citizen and merchant tailor of London, Henry Cadaver, esq . , the d Of Caerfilly, the marquis of Sillyh oo, sir Edward Thro ’ and - Thro ’ , bart . , and a world Of fine gentlemen more, whose great heads and weighty understandings have gi v en the world such occasion to challenge them with being at least descended from the magi , and perhaps engaged with old Satan in his politics and experi ments ; but I, that have such good intelligence among Satan ’ s ministers of state as is necessary to the pre sent u ndertaking, am thereby well able to clear up their characters ; and I doubt not but they will value themselves upon it, and acknowledge their obli HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 32 1 gation to me, for letting the world know the Devil does not pretend to have had any business with them, or to have enrolled them in the list of his operators ; in a word, that none of them are conjurers . Upon which testimony of mine, I expect they be no longer charged with, or SO much as suspected of, having an unlawful quantity of wit, or having any sorts of it about them that are contraband or prohibited , bu t that for the future they pass unmolested, and be taken for nothing but what they are, viz . , very honest wor thy gentlemen . H. D. 322 THE MODERN CHAP. X . Of the v a rious methods the Dev il ta kes to conv erse with ma nkind. HAVING spoken something of persons, and particularly of such as the Devil thinks fit to employ in his affairs in the world, it comes next of course to say something of the manner how he communicates his mind to them, and by them to the rest of his acquaintance in the world . I take the Devil to be u nder great difliculties in his affairs on his part, especially occasioned by the bounds which are set him, or which policy obliges him to set to himself, in his access to the conversing with man kind ; it is evident he is not permitted to fall u pon them with force and arms, that is to say, to muster up his infernal troops, and attack them with fire and sword if he was let loose to act in this manner, as he was able, by his own seraphic power, to have destroyed the whole race, and even the earth they dwelt upon , so he would certainly and long ago have eff ectually done it ; his particular interests and inclinations are well enough known . But, in the n ext place, as he is thus restrained from v iolence, so prudentials restrain him in all his other actings with mankind ; and being confined to strata gem, and soft still methods, such as persuasion, allure ment, feeding the appetite, prompting, and then grat ’ i fying corrupt desires, and the like, he finds it for his purpose not to appear in person , except very rarely, and then in disguise ; but to act all the rest in the dark, u nder the visor of art and craft, making use of

324 THE MODERN if I remember right, he had this quarter of the world, which we call Christendom, just under his eye and as the motion is not so swift, but that his piercing optics can take a strict view of it en pa ssa nt for the circum ference of it being but twenty-one thousand miles, and its circular motion being full twenty - four hours per forming, he has something more than an hour to view every thousand miles, which , to his supernatural pene tration, is not worth naming . As he takes thus a daily view of all the circle, and an hourly view of the parts, he is fully master of all transactions , at least, such as are done above board by all mankind and then he despatches his emissaries, or a id du camps, to every part with his orders and in structions. Nowthese emissaries, you are to understand , are not the witches and diviners, who I Spoke of above, for I call them also emissaries ; but they are all devils or ( as you know they are called) devil ’ s angels and these may, perhaps, come and converse personally with the sub - emissaries I mentioned, to be ready for their support and assistance on all occasions of busi ness : these are those devils which the witches are said to raise ; for we can hardly suppose the master devil comes himself at the su mmons of every u gly old woman . These run about into every nook and corner, where ever Satan ’ s business calls them, and are never want ing to him but are the most diligent devils ima ginable ; like the Turkish cha iusc, they no sooner re ceiv e their errand, but they execute it with the utmost alacrity ; and as to their Speed, it may be truly written as a motto , upon the head of every individual devil, N on indiget ca lca ribus . These are those, who they tell us, our witches, sorcerers, wizards, and such sorts of folks, freely with, and are therefore called and, as they tell u s, come to them in HISTO RY O F THE DEVIL . 325 talk to them with articulate plain voices, as if men , and that ° yet the said witches, 8 m know them to be devils . History has not yet enlightened us in this part of useful knowledge, or at least not sufficiently for a de scription of the persons or habits of these sorts of ap pearances ; as what shapes they take u p, what lan ‘ guage they Speak, and what particular works they per form, so we must refer it to further inquiry ; but if we may credit history, we are told many famous stories of these appearances ; for example, the famous mother Lakland, who was burnt for a witch at Ipswich, anno 1 645, confessed, at the time of her execution , or a little before it, that sh e had frequent conversations with the Devil himself; that sh e being very poor, and withal of a devilish, passionate, cruel and revengeful disposi tion before, used to wish Sh e had it in her power to do such and such mischievous things to some that she hated , and that the Devil himself, who, it seems, knew her temper, came to her one night as she lay in h er bed, and was between sleeping and waking, and speak ing in a deep hollow voice, told her, if sh e would serve him in some things he would employ her to do, she should have her will of all her enemies, a nd Should want for nothing : that sh e was much afraid at first, but that he soliciting her very Often , bade her not be afraid of him, and still urged her to yield, and , as sh e says, struck his claw into her hand, and though it did not hurt her, made it bleed, and with the blood wrote the covenants, that is to say, the bargain between them. Being asked what was in them, and whether b e required her to curse or deny God or Christ , she said, N O . N . B . I do not find sh e told them whether the Devil wrote it with a pen , or whether on paper or parchment, nor whether sh e signed it or no , but it seems he carried it away with him . I suppose, THE MODERN if Satan ’ s register were examined, it might be found among the archives of hell, the rolls of his a cta pu blica and when his historiographer royal publishes them, we may look for it among them . Then he furnished her with three devils, to wait u pon her ( I suppose) for sh e confessed they were to be employed in her service ; they attended in the shapes of two little dogs and a mole . The first sh e bewitched was her own husband , by which he lay awhile in great misery and died ; then she sent to one captain Beal, and burnt a new ship of his j ust built, which had never been at sea ; these, and many other horrid things sh e did and confessed, and having been twenty years a witch, at last the Devil left her, and she was burnt as she deserved . That some extraordinary occasions may bring these agents of the De vil, nay, sometimes the Devil himself, to assume human Shapes, and appear to other people, we cannot doubt ; he did thus in the case of our Saviour as a tempter, and some think he did so to Manasses as a familiar, who the Scripture charges with sorcery, and having a familiar or devil . Fame tell s us that St . Dunstan frequently conversed with him, and finally, took him by the nose and so of others . But in these modern ages of the world, he finds it much more to his purpose to work under ground, as I have observed, and to keep upon the reserve so that we have no authentic account of his personal appear ance , but what are very ancient or very remote from our faith, as well as our inquiry . It seems to be a question that would hear some de bating, whether all apparitions are not devils, or from the Devil ; but there being so many of those appari tions which we call spirits, which really assume shapes and make appearances in the world, upon such ao counts as we know Satan himself scorns to be employed in , that I must dismiss the question in favour of the

328 THE MODERN he has no hand in it ; if it comes of a wicked and de v ilish errand, you may e ’ en take him up upon su Spi cion, ’ tis ten to one but you find him at the bottom of it . Next to apparitions , we find mankind disturbed by abundance of little Odd reserved ways which the Devil is . shrewdly suspected of having a hand in, such a s dreams, noises, voices, &c . , smells of brimstone, candles burning blue, and the like . As to dreams, I have nothing to say in Satan ’ s pre j udice at all there I make no queston but he deals very much in that kind ofintelligence, andwhy should he not ? We know Heaven itself formerly conversed very often with the greatest of men by the same method, and the Devil is known to mimic the methods, as well as th e actions , of his Maker ; whether Heaven has not quite left ofl ’ that way of working, we are not certain ; but we pretty well know the Devil has not left it, and I believe some instances may be given where his worship has been really seen and talked to in sleep, as much as if the person had been awake with his eyes open . These are to be distinguished too, pretty much by the goodness or badness of the subject ; how often have men committed murder, robbery, and adultery in a dream, and at the same time except an extraordinary agitation of the soul, and expressed by extraordinary n oises in the Sleep, ' by violent sweating, and other such ways, the head has never been removed from the pillow, or the body so much as turned in the bed . Whether in such cases, the soul , with all the passions and affections, being agitated, and giving their full assent to the facts, of whatever kind soever, the man is not as guilty as if the sins so dreamed of his com mitting, had been actually committed ; though it be no doubt to me, but that it is so, yet as it is foreign to the present affair, and not at all relating to the Devil ’ s history, I leave it to the reverend doctors of the church, as properly belonging to them to decide . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 329 I knew a person wh o the Devil so haunted with naked women , fine beautiful ladies in bed with him, and ladies of his acquaintance too, offering their favours to him, and all in his sleep, so that he seldom slept without some such entertainment ; the particulars are too gross for my story, but he gave me several long ao counts of his nights ’ amours, and being a man of a virtuous life and good morals, it was the greatest sur prise to him imaginable ; for you cannot doubt but that the cunning Devil made everything he acted to the life with him, and in a manner the most wicked ; he owned with grief to me . that the very first attack the Devil made upon him, was with a v ery beautiful lady of his acquaintance , who he had been really some thing freer than ordinary with in their common con versation . This lady he brought to him in a posture for wickedness, and wrought up his inclination so high in his sleep, that he, as he thought, actually went about to debauch her, sh e not at all resisting ; but that he waked in the very moment, to his particular satis faction . He was greatly concerned at this part, namely, that he really gave the consent of his will to the fact, and wanted to know if he was not as guilty of adultery as if he had lain with her ; indeed he decided the ques tion against himself so forcibly, that I, who was of the same Opinion before, had nothing to say against it ; however, I confirmed him in it, by asking him these questions 1 . Whether he did not think the Devil had the chief hand in such a dream ? He answered, it could cer tainly be nobody else, it must be the Devil . 2 . I then asked him what reason the Devil could have for it, if his consent to the fact in sleep had n ot bee n criminal ? That ’ s tru e indeed, says he, I am answered . But then he asked another question, which, I confess, is not ' so easy to an 330 THE MODERN swer, namely, how he should pre v ent being served so again ? N or could all my divinity or his own keep the Devil from attacking him again ; on the other hand , as I have said , he worried him to that degree, that he in jured his health, bringing naked women to him, some times one, sometimes another, sometimes in one pos ture of lewdness , sometimes in another, sometimes into his very arms, sometimes with such additions as I am not merry enough, and sometimes such as I am not wicked enough to put into your heads ; the man, in deed, could not help it, and so the Devil was more faulty than he ; but as I hinted to him, he might bring his mind to such a stated habit of virtue, as to prevent its assenting to any wicked motion, even in sleep, and that would be the way to put an end to the attempt ; and this advice he relished very well, and practised, I believe, with success . By this same method, the same devil injects power ful incentives to other crimes, provokes avarice by laying a great quantity of gold in your View, and no body present, giving you an Opportunity to steal it, or some of it, at the same time, perhaps, knowing your circumstances to be such as that you are at that time in a great want of the money . I knew another, who, being a tradesman, and in ' great distress for money in his business, dreamed that he was walking all alone in a great wood, and that he met a little child with a bag of gold in its hand, and a fine necklace of diamonds on its neck ; upon the sight, his wants presently dictated to him to rob the child ; the little innocent creature, ( j ust so he dreamed, ) not being able to resist, or to tell wh o it was ; accordingly, h e ‘ consented to take the money from the child, and then to take the diamond necklace from it too, and did so. But the Devil , ( a full testimony, as I told him, that

332 THE MODERN ladv antages the Devil has over mankind ; the first, I suppose, you all know, viz . , the treachery of the garri son within ; by dreams he may be said to get into the inside of us witho ut opposition ; here he opens and locks without a key, and like an enemy laying siege to a fortified city, reason and nature, the governor of the city, keep him ou t by day, and keep the garrison true to their duty ; b u t in the dark he gets in and parleys with the garrison, ( the affections and passions, ) de bauches their loyalty, stirring up them to disloyalty a nd rebellion, so they betray their trust, revolt, mutiny, and go over to the besieger . Thus he m anages his interest, I say, and insinuates himself Into the inside of u s, without our consent, nay, without our knowledge ; for whatever speculation may do , it is evident demonstration does not assist us to discover which way he gets access to the soul, while the organ tied up, and dozed with sleep, has locked it up . from action ; that it is so is clear, but how he does it i s a secret which I do not find the ancients or moderns have yet made a discovery of. That devil of a creature, mother Lakland, whose story I mentioned above, acknowledged that the first time the De v il attempted to draw her in to be a witch was in a dream, and even when sh e consented, she said, she was between sleeping and waking ; that is, she did not know whether she was awake or asleep, and the cunning devil it seems was satisfied with her a ssent given so, when sh e was asleep, or neither asleep or awake, so taking advantage of her incapacity to act rationally. The stories of her bewitching several people, and the manner in which they died, are so formidable and extravagant, that I care not to put any one ’ s faith to the stretch about them, though published by authority, and testified by abundance of witnesses ; but this is re c orded in particular, and to my purpose, whether from her own mouth or not, I do not say, namely, the de HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 333 scription of a witch , and the difference between witches and those other of Satan ’ s acquaintance who act in his name . I . They have consulted and covenanted with a Spirit or devil . 2 . They have a deputy devil, sometimes several, to serve and assist them . 3 . These they employ as they please, call them by name, and command their appearance in whatever shape they think fit . 4 . They send them abroad, to or into the persons who they design to b ewitch, ‘ who they always tor ment, and often murder them, as mother Lakland did several . As to the diff erence between the several devils that appear, it relates to the ofli ce of the persons who employ them ; as conjurers, who seem to com mand the particular devil that waits u pon them with more authority, and raise them and lay them at pleasure, drawing circles, casting figures, and the like ; but the witch, in a more familiar manner, whis pers with the Devil, keeps the Devil in a b ag or a sack, sometimes in her pocket, and the like, and like Mr . Faux Shows tricks with him . But all these kinds deal much in dreams, talk with the Devil in their sleep, and make other people talk with him in their sleep too ; and it is on this occasion I mention it here in short, the Devil may well take this opportunity with mankind, for not half the world that came into his measures would comply if they were awake but of that hereafter . An d yet his thus insinuating himself by dream, does not seem sufficient, in my Opinion , to answer the Devil ’ s end, and to carry on his business ; and therefore we must be forced to allow him a kind of actual possession , in particular cases, and that in the souls of some people 3 34 THE MODERN by diff erent methods from others . Luther is of the Opinion that the Devil gets a familiarity with some souls j ust at, or rather before, their being embodied ; as to the manner and method how he gets in , that is another question , and may be spoken of by itself; b e sides, why may not He, that at Satan ’ s request to enter into the herd of swine, said Go, give the same com mission to possess a sort of creatures so many degrees below the dignity of the Gadarenian swine, and Open the door too ? But as for that, when our Lord said Go, the Devil never inquired which way he should get in . When I see nations, or indeed herds of nations, set on fire of hell, and as I may say, inflamed by the Devil ; when I see towns, parties, factions and rabbles of people visibly possessed ; it is enough to me that the great Master of the devils has said to him, Go there is no need to inquire which way he finds open , or at what postern gate he gets in ; as to his appear ing, it is plain he often gets in without appearing, and therefore the question about his appearing still remains a do ubt, and is not very easy to be resolved . In the Scripture we have some light into it, and that is all the help I find from antiquity, and it goes a great way to solve th e phenomena of Satan ’ s appear ing ; what I mea n by the Scripture giving some light to it, is this it is said in several places, and of several persons, God came to them in a dream ; Gen . xx . 3, God ca me to Abimelech in a drea m by night. Gen . xxxi . 24 , And God ca me to L a ba n the Syria n in a drea m. Matt . ii . 1 3, The a ngel of the L ord appea red to Joseph in a drea m short comments are sufficient to plain texts , applying this to my friend when he wanted to be satisfied about the h ow, relating to his dream, viz . , how he should come to dream such wicked things ? I told him, in short, the case w as plain, the Devil came to him in a dream by night . How and in what manner he formed the wicked representations, and spread debau ched appearances before his fancy, by.

336 THE MODERN we h ad been eating, ) the following interlude happened for our entertainment when the cloth was taken away, two large candles were brought upon the table and placed there, with some bottles and glasses for the gentlemen, who, it seems, were intending to drink and be very merry ; two large wax candles were also set on another table, the ladies being going to cards ; also there were two large candles in sconces over or near the chimney, and one more in a looking-glass sconce on a pier by the window . With all this apparatus, the company, separating, sat down , the gentlemen at their table, and the ladies at theirs, to play as above ; when , after some time, the gentleman of the house said hastily to a servant, What a p ails the candles ; and, turning to the serva nt, raps out an oath or two, and bids him snuff the can dles, for they burned as if the Devil was in the room . The fellow going to snufl ‘ one of the candles, snuffs it ou t, at which, his master being in a ‘ passion, the fellow lights it again immediately at the other candle , and then, being in a little hurry, going to snuff the other candle, snuffed that ou t too. The first candle that was relighted ( as is u sual in such cases ) burned dim and dull for a good while, and the other being out, the room was much darker than before, and a wench that stood by the ladies ’ table, bawls ou t to her mistress, Law, madam ! the candles burn blue An old lady that sat by says, Ay, Betty ! so they do : upon this one of the ladies starts up, Mercy upon u s, says she, what is the matter ? In this unlucky moment another servant, without orders, went to the great pier sconce, and because, as he thought, he wou ld be sure to snuff the candle well, he Off ers to take it down , but, very unhappily, I say, the hook came ou t, down falls the sconce , candle and all, and the looking -glass broke all to pieces, with a hor rible noise ; however, the candle falling out of the sconce did not go . out, but lay on the floor burning HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 337 dully, and, as it is usual on such cases, all on one side . Betty cries out again, Law, madam, that candle burns blue too . The very moment Sh e said this, the footman , that had thrown down the sconce, says to his fellow servant that came to his assistance, I think the Devil is in the candles to -night, and away he run ou t of the room for fear Of his master . The old lady, who, u pon the maid Betty ’ s notion of the candles burning blue, had her head just full of that old chimney- corner story, ‘the candles burn blue when spirits are in the room, ’ heard the footman say the word devil , but heard nothing else of what he said ; upon this sh e rises up in a terrible fright, and cries ou t that the footman said the Devil was in the room ; as she was, indeed, frightened out of her wits, she fright ened the ladies most terribly, and they all starting up together, down goes the card table, and put the wax candles ou t. Mrs. Betty, that had frightened them all, runs to the sconce next the chimney, but that having a long snuff, sh e cried ou t it burnt blue too, and she durst not touch it ; in Short, though there were three candles left still burning in the room, yet the ladies were all so frightened, that they and the maids too run ou t of the parlour screaming like mad folks . The master in a rage kicked his first man out of the room, and the second man was run out to avoid, as I said before, the like, SO that no servant was to be had, but all was in confusion . The two other gentlemen, who were Sitting at the first table, kept their seats, composed and easy enough, only concerned to see all the house in such a fright ; it was true, they said , the candles burnt dim, and very oddly, but they could not perceive they burnt blue, except one of those over the chimney, and that on the table, which was relighted after the fellow had snu fled it out . However, the maid, the old lady, and the footman H . D . z 338 THE MODERN that pulled down the sconce , all insist that the candles burnt blue, and all pretend that the Devil was cer tainly in the room, and was the occasion of it ; and they now came to me with the story, to desire my Opi nion of it . This put me upon inquiry into the notion of can dles burning blue when Spirits are in a room, which , u pon all the search into things, that I am able to make, amounts to no more than this ; that upon any extraordinary emission of sulphurou s or of nitrous par ticles, either in a close room, or in any not very Open place, if the quantity be great, a candle or lamp, or any such little blaze of fire, will seem to be, or to burn blue ; and if then they can prove that any such efli u via attends, or is emitted from a Spirit, then . when Satan is at hand, it may be so. But then , it is begging the question grossly, b e cause no man can a ssure us that the Devil has any such sulphurous particles about him . It is true, the candles burn thus in mines and vau lts, and damp places and it is a s true that they will do so upon occasion of very damp, stormy, and moist air, when an extraordinary quantity of vapours are su p posed to be dispersed abroad, as was the case when this happened ; and if there was anything of that in it on that Monday night, the candles might, perhaps , burn blue upon that occasion ; but that the Dev il was abroad upon any extraordinary business that night, that I cannot grant, unless I have some better testi mony than the Old lady that heard the footman ’ s out cry but by halves, or than Mrs. Betty, who first fan cied the candles burnt blue ; so I must suspend my j udgment till I hear further . This story, however, may solve a great many of those things which pass for apparitions in the world, and which are laid to the Devil ’ s charge, though h e really may know nothing of the m atter and this would bring. me to defend Satan in many things wherein he may truly

340 THE MODERN call him this way and send him that, as they please, raise him and lay him, when, and h ow, and as often as they find for their purpose; I say, whatever boasts they make of this kind, they really have nothing of truth in them . N ow the injuries and injustice done to the Devil in these cases are manifest namely, that they entitle the Devil to all the mischief they are pleased to do in the world and if they commit a murder or a robbery, fire a hou se, or do any act of violence in the world, they presently are said to do it by the agency of the Devil, and the Devil helps them ; so Satan bears the reproach , and they have all the guilt . This is, 1 , a grand cheat u pon the world, and 2, a notorious slander u pon the Devil ; and it would be a public benefit to mankind to have such would -b e devils as these turned inside out, that we might know when the Dev il was really at work among u s, and when not ; what mischiefs were of his doing, and which were not ; and that these fel lows might not slip their necks ou t of the halter by continually laying the blame of their wickedness u pon the Devil . Not that the Devil is not very willing to have his hand in any mischief, or in all the mischief that is done in the world but there are some low- prized rogueries that are too little for him, beneath the dignity of his operation , and which it is really a scandal to the Devil to charge upon him . I remember the Devil had such a cheat put upon him in East Smithfield once, where a person pretended to converse with the Devil face to face, and that in open day, too, and to cause him to tell fortunes, foretell good and evil, &c. , discover stolen goods, tell where they were who stole them, and how to find them again, nay, and even to find out the thieves ; but Satan was really slandered in the case, the fellow h ad no more to do with the Devil than other people, and perhaps not so much neither this was one of those they called ‘cunning men, ’ or, at least, he en HISTORY or THE DEVIL . 34 1 d ' eavoured to pass for such a one ; but it was all a cheat . Besides, what had the Devil to do to detect thieves and restore stolen goods ? Thieving and robbing, trick and cheat, are part of the craft of his agency, and of the employments which it is his business to encou rage : they greatly mistake him, who think he will as sist anybody in suppressing and detecting such laudable arts and such diligent servants . I will not say, b ut the Devil, to draw these people we call cunning men into a snare, and to push on his further designs, may encourage them privately, and in a manner that they themselves know nothing of, to make use of his name, and abu se the world about him ; till at last they may really believe that they do deal with the Devil, when, indeed, it is only he deals with them, and they know nothing of the matter . In other cases he may encourage them in these little frauds and cheats, and giv e them leave, as above, to make use of his name, to bring them afterwards, and by degrees, to have a real acquaintance with him ; so bringing the jest of their trade into earnest, till, at length, prompting them to commit some great villany, he secures them to be his own by their very fear of his leaving them to be exposed to the world thus he puts a Jonathan Wild upon them, and makes them be the very wretches they only pretended to be before so old Parsons of Clithroe, as fame tells, was twenty- fiv e years a c unning man , and twenty - two years a witch ; that is to say, for fi ve-a nd-twenty years he was only pretend ing to deal with the Devil, when Satan and he had no manner of acquaintance, and he only put his legerde main upon the people in the Devil ’ s name, without his leave ; but, at length, the Devil ’ s patience being tired quite ou t, he told the old co unterfeit that, in short, he had been his stalking-horse long enough, and that now, if he thought fit to enter himself and take a commis sion, well and good, and he should have a lease to 342 THE MODERN carry on his trade for so many years more, to his heart ’ s content but if not, he would expose his knavery to the world , for that he should take away his people ’ s trade no longer, but that he ( Satan) would set up another in his room that should make a mere fool Of him, and carry away all his customers . Upon this the old man considered of it, took the Devil ’ s counsel, and listed in his pay ; so he, that had played his pranks twenty -fiv e years as a conjurer when he was no conjurer, was then forced really to deal with the Devil for fear the people should know he did not : till now he had a mbo dexter, cheated the Devil on one hand, and the people on the other ; but the Devil gained his point at last, and so h e was a real wizard ever after . But this is not the only way the Devil is injured neither, for we have often found people pretend u pon him in other cases, and of nearer concern to him a great deal, and in articles more weighty ; as, in parti cular, in the great business of possession . It is true, this point is not thoroughly understood among men, neither has the Devil thought fit to give us those illu minations about it, as, I believe, he might do ; partic a larly that great and important article is n ot, for aught I can see, rightly explained, namely, whether there are not two several kinds of possession ; viz . , some wherein the Devil possesses us, and some in which we really possess the Devil ; the nicety of which, I doubt, this age, with all its penetration , is not qualified to ex plain ; and a dissertation upon it being too long for this work, especially so near its conclusion , I am obliged to omit, as I am also all the practical discourses upon the usefulness and advantages of real possession , whether considered one way or other to mankind, all which I must leave to hereafter . But to come back to the point in hand, and to con sider the inj ustice done to the Devil, in the various turn s and tricks which men put upon him very often

344 THE MODERN the murdering part so far, that when they confessed themselves to be witches, and possessed, and that they had correspondence with the Devil , Satan not appear ing to vouch for them, no jury would condemn them u pon their own evidence, and they could not get them selves hanged, whate v er pains they took to bring it to pass. Thus you see the Devil may be wronged, and falsely a ccused in many particulars , and Often has been so ; there are likewise some other sorts of counterfeit devils in the world, such as gipseys, fortune - tellers, foretellers of good and bad luck, sellers of winds, raisers of storms, and many more, some practised among u s, some in foreign parts, too many almost to reckon up ; nay, I almost doubt whether the Devil himself knows all the sorts of them ; for it is evident he has little or nothing to do with them, I mean not in the way of their craft . These I take to be interlopers, or, with the Guinea merchants ’ leave, separate traders, and who act u nder the screen and protection of Satan ’ s power, but without his license or authority ; no doubt these carry away a great deal of his trade, that is to say, the trade which otherwise the Devil might have carried on by agents of his own ; I cannot but say, that while these people would fain be thought devils, though they really are not, it is but j ust they should be really made as much devils as they pretended to be, or that Satan should do himself j ustice upon them, as he threatened to do upon old Parsons of Clithroe above mentioned, and let the world know them . HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 345 CHAP . XI . Of div ina tion, sorcery, the bla ck a rt, pa wawing, a nd such like pretenders to dev i lism, a nd how f a r the Devil i s or is not concerned i n them. THOU G H I am writing the history of the Devil, I have not undertaken to do the like of all the kinds of peo ple, male or female, wh o set up for devils in the world this would be a task for the Devil indeed, and fit only for him to undertake, for their number is and has been prodigious great, and may, with his other legions , be ranked among the innumerable . What a world do we inhabit ! where there is not only with us a great roaring lion - devil daily seeking whom of us he may devour, and innumerable millions of lesser devils hovering in the whole atmosphere over us, nay, and for aught we know, other millions always invisibly mov ing about us, and perhaps in us, or at least in many of us ; but that have, besides all these, a vast many counterfeit hocus -pocus devils ; human devils, wh o are visible among u s, of our own species and fraternity, conversing with us upon all occasions ; who, like mountebanks, set up their stages in every town , chat with us at every tea -table, converse with us in every coffee -house, and impudently tell us to our faces that they are devils, boast of it, and u se a thou sand tricks and arts to make us believe it too, and that too often with success . P! It must h e confessed, there 1 s a strong propensity in man ’ s nature, especially the more ignorant part of mankind , to resolve every strange thing, or whether really strange or no, if it be but strange to u s, into 346 THE MODERN devilism, and to say everything is the Devil , that they can give no account of. Thus the famous doctors of the faculty at Paris, when John Fa u stus brought the first printed books that had then been seen in the world, or at least seen there, into the city, and sold them for manuscripts : they were surprised at the performance, and questioned Faustus about it ; but he affirming they were manu scripts, and that he kept a great many clerks employed to write them, they were satisfied for awhile . But looking further into the work, they observed the exact agreement of every book, one with another, that every line stood in the same place, every page a like number of lines, every line a like number of words ; if a word was mis - spelt in one, it was mis - spelt also in all , nay, that if there was a blot in one, it was alike in all ; they began again to muse, how this should be ; in a word, the learned divines not being able to compre hend the thing, ( and that was always su fficient, ) con cluded it must be the Devil, that it was done by magic and witchcraft, and that in short, poor Faustus, (who was indeed nothing but a mere printer, ) dealt with the Devil . N. B . John Fanstus was servant, or j ourneyman, or compositor, or what you please to call it, to Koster of Harlem, the first inventor of printing, and having printed the Psalter, sold them at Paris as manuscripts ; because as such they yielded a bet ter price . But the learned doctors not being able to under stand h ow the work was performed, concluded as above it was all the Devil, and that the man was a witch ; accordingly they took him up for a magician and a conj urer, and one that worked by the black art . that is to say, by the help of the Devil ; and, in a word, they threatened to hang him for a witch, and, in order to

34 8 THE MODERN interpret dreams, foretell events, &c . , and that use eu -i ch antments and sorceries, by all which we understand the same thing ; which now, in a more Vulgar way, we express by on e general coarse expression, dealing with the Devil . ’ The Scripture speaks of a spirit of divination , Acts xv i. 1 6, and a wench that was possessed by this spirit brought h er ma ster mu ch ga in by sou thsaying, that is to s ay, according to the learned, by oracling or answer ing questions whence you will see in the margin , that this southsaying devil is there called Python , that is, Apollo, who is often called Python and who, at the oracle of Delphos gave out such answers and dou ble entendres, as this wench possibly did ; and hence all those spirits which were called Spirits of divination, were in another sense called Pythons . Now when the apostle St . Paul came to see this creature, this Spirit takes upon it to declare that those men, meaning St . Paul and Timotheus , were the ser v a nts of the most high God, which shewed u nto them the way of sa lv a tion ; this was a good turn of the Devil , to preserve his authority in the possessed girl ; She brought them gain by southsaying, that is to say, resolving difficult questions , answering doubts, inter preting dreams, 8 m. Among these doubts, he makes her give testimony to Paul and Timotheus, to wheedle in with the new Christians , and perhaps ( though very ignorantly) even with Paul and Timotheus themselves, so to give a kind of credit and respect to her for speaking . But the Devil, wh o never speaks truth, but with s ome sinister end , was discovered here, and detected ; his flattering recognition not accepted, and he himself unkennelled as he deser ved there the Devil was over shot in his own b ow again . Here now was a real possession , and the evil spirits wh o possessed her, did Stoop to sundry little ac ts of servitude, that we could give little or no reason for, HISTORY OF THE DEVI L. 349 only that the girl ’ s master might get money by her ; but perhaps this was a particular case, and prepared to honour the authority and power the apostles had over evil Spirits . But we find these things carried a great way further in many cases, that is to say, where the parties are thus really possessed ; namely, the Devil makes agents of the possessed parties to do many things for the pro pagating his interest and kingdom, and particularly for the carrying on his dominion in the world : but I am for the present not so much u pon the real possession as the pretended, and particularly we have had many that have believed themselves possessed, when the Devil never believed it of them, and perhaps knew them better ; some of these are really poor devils to be pitied, and are what I call dia bles imagina ire ; these h av e, n otwith standing, done the Devil good service, and brought their masters good gain by southsaying. We find possessions acknowledged in Script ure to be really and personally the Devil, or, according to the text, legions of devils, in the plural . The devil , or devils, rather, which possessed the man among the tombs, is positively affirmed to be the Devil in the Scripture all the evangelists agree in calling him so, and his very works show it ; namely, the mischief he did, as well to the poor creature among the tombs , who was made so fierce that he was the terror of all the country, as to the herd of swine and to the country in the loss of them . I might preach you a lecture here of the Devil ’ s terror upon the approach of ou r Saviour, the dread of his government, and how he acknowledged that there was a time for his torment, which was not yet come Art thou come to torment u s bef ore ou r time It is evident the De vil apprehended that Christ would chain them up before the day of judgment ; and therefore some think the Devil here, being, as it were, caught ou t of his due bounds, possessing the poor man in such 350 THE MODERN a furious manner, was afraid, and petitioned Christ not to chain him up for it, and as the text says, They besought him to s af er them to go a way, (30 . that is to say, when they say, Art thou come to torment us before the time ? the meaning is, they begged he would not cast them into torment before the time, which was already fixed but that if he would cast them out of the man, he would let them go away, &c . The evangelist St. Luke says, The Dev il besought him tha t he wou ld not comma nd them to go ou t into the deep our learned annotators think that part is not rightly rendered adding, that they do not believe the Devil fears drowning ; but with submission , I believe the meaning is, that they would not be confined to the vast ocean, where, no inhabitants being to be seen , they would be effectually imprisoned and tied down from doing mischief; which would be a hell to them . As to their going into the swine, that might afford us some all egory ; but I am not disposed to jest with the Scrip ture, no, nor with the Devil neither, further than needs must . It is evident the Devil makes u se of very mean in struments sometimes, such as the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination , and several others . I remember a story, h ow true I know not, of a weak creature next door to an idiot, who was established in the country for an oracle, and would tell people strange things that should be, long before they came to pass when people were Sick, would tell them whether they sho uld live or die ; if people were married, tell how many children they Should have and a hundred such things, as filled the people with admiration , and they were the easier brought to believe that the girl was possessed ; but then they were divided about her too, and ~ that was the finest - Spun thread the Devil could work , for he carrried a great point in it ; some said She had a good spirit, and some a had, some said She was a prophetess, and some that she was the Devil .

352 THE MODERN The magic lantern is an optic machine, by the means of which are represented, on a wall in the dark, many phantasms and terrible appearances, but no devil in all this, only that they are taken for the effects of magic, by those that are not acquainted with the secret . All this is done by the help of several little painted pieces of glass, only so and so Situated, placed in certain oppositions to one another, and painted with different figures, the most formidable being placed foremost, and such as are most capable of terrifying the spectators and by this all the figures may be re presented upon the opposite wall, in the largest size . I cannot b ut take notice, that this very piece of optic delusion seems too much akin to the mock pos sessions and infernal accomplishments, which most of the possessionists of this age pretend to . so that they are most of them mere phantasms and appearances, and no more ; nor is the Spirit of divination , the magic, the necromancing, and other arts which were called diabolical, found to be of any u se in modern practice, at least, in these parts of the world ; but the Devil seems to do most of his work himself, and by shorter methods ; for he has SO complete an influence among those that he now lists in his service, that he brings all the common affairs of mankind into a narrower com pass in his man agement, with a dexterity pa rticular to himself, and by which he carries on his interest silently and surely, much more to the detriment of virtue and good government, and consequ ently much more to his satisfaction , than ever he did before . W icmg sorce _ ry,, orfl hatl g lse you may please to call it, u nknowfi o u s, is yet, it seems, still very much enco uraged by the Devil ; but this is a great way off, and in countries where the politer instruments, which he finds here, are not to be h ad ; namely, among th e Indi ans of North America ; this is called pawawing, and they have their HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 353 divines, which they call pawaws or witches, who u se strange gestures, distortions, horrid smokes, burnings , and scents, and several such things which the sorcerers and witches in ancient times are said to use in casting nativities, in philtres, and in determining, or as they pretended, directing, the fate of persons, by burning s uch and such herbs and roots, such as hellebore, wormwood, storax, dev ilwort, mandrake, nightshade, ! and abundance more such, which are called noxious plants, or the product of noxious plants ; also melting such and such minerals, gums, and poisonous things, and by several hellish mutterings and markings over them, the like do these pawaws and the Devil is pleased, it seems, ( or is permitted, ) to fall in with these things, and as some people think, appears often to them for their assistance upon those occasions . But be that as it will, he is eased of all that trouble here ; he can pawaw here himself, without their aid, and having laid them all aside, he negotiates much of his business without ambassadors ; he is his own ple nipotentiary, for he finds man so easy to come at, and so easy when he is c ome at, that he stands in no need of secret emissaries, or at least not so much as he used to do . Upon the whole, as the world, within the compass of a few past years, is advanced in all kinds of know ledge and arts, and every useful branch of what they knew before improved , and innumerable useful parts of knowledge, which were concealed before, are dis covered, why should we think the Devil alone should stand at a stay, has taken no steps to his further ac complishment, and made no useful discoveries in his way ? that he alone Should stand at a stay, and be just th e same unimproved devil that he was before N o, n o, as the world is improved every day, and every age is grown wiser and wiser than their fathers ; so, no doubt, he has bestirred himself too, in order to an ih crease of knowledge and discovery, and that he finds H . D . A a 354 THE MODERN e very day a n earer way to go to work with mankind than he had before . Besides, as men in general seem to have altered their manner, and that they move in a higher and m ore exalted sphere, especially as to Vice and Virtue, ‘ S O the Devil may have been obliged to change his measures, and alter his way of working ; particularly, those things which would take in former times, and which a stupid age would come easily into, won ’ t go down with us now . as the taste of vice and virtue alters, the Devil is forced to bait his hook with new compositions ; the very thing called temptation is altered in its nature, and that which served to delude ou r ancestors, whose gross conceptions of things caused them to be manageable with less art, will not do now ; the case is quite altered in some things, perhaps, as I hinted above, we come into crime with ease, and may be led by a finger ; but when we come to a more re fined way of sinning, which our ancestors never under stood, other and more refined politics must be made u se of, and the Devil has been put u pon many useful projects and inventions, to make many new discoveries and experiments to carry on his affairs ; and, to Speak impartially, he is strangely improved either in know ledge or experiment, within these few years ; he has found ou t a great many new in v entions to shorten his own labour, and carry on his business in the world currently, which he never was master of before, or at least we never knew he was . No wonder then that he has changed hands too, and that he has left off pawawing in these parts of the world that we don ’ t find ou r ho uses disturbed as they used to be, and the stools and chairs walking about out of one room into another, as formerly ; that children , don ’ t vomit crooked pins and rusty stub nails, as of old, the air is not full of noises, nor the church yard full of hobgoblins ; ghosts don ’ t walk about in winding - Sheets, and the good old scolding wives Visit

356 THE MODERN the method, and, as I ha ve heard, began to practise it towards the close of the Roman empire, when men began to act upon very polite principles, and were ca pahle of the most refined wickedness, and afterwards with some popes , who likewise were a kind of church devils, such as Satan himself could hardly expect to find in the world ; yet I do not find that he was ever able to bring it into practice, at least not so uni versally ashe does now. But now the case is altered, and men being generally more expert in wickedness than they were formerly, they suffer the smaller alteration of the species, in being transmigrated ; in a word , they turn into devils with no trouble at all hardly, either to the Devil or to themselves . This particular would want much the less explana tion, could I obtain a license from sir Hellebore Wormwood, bart . , or from my lord Thwartover, baron of Scoundrel Hall, in the kingdom of Ireland, to write the true history of their own conduct ; and h ow early, and above all h ow easily, they commenced devils, with out the least impeachment of their characters as wise men , and without any diminution of that part of their denomination which established them for fools . How many mad fellows appear among u s every day in the critical j uncture of their transmigration, j ust when they have SO much of the man left as to b e known by their names, and enough of the Devil taken up to settle their characters ! This easiness of the Devil ’ s access to these people, and the great conveni ence it is to him in his general business, is a proof to me that he has no more occasion of diviners, magicians, sorcerers, and whatever else we please to call those people who were formerly so great with him ; for what occasion h as he to employ devils and wizards to con found mankind, when he is arrived to such a perfec tion of art as to bring men , at least in these parts of the world, to do it all themselves , Upon this account, we do not find any of the old sorcerers and diviners, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 357i magicians or witches, appear among us ; not that the Devil might not be as well able to employ such people as formerly, and qualify them for the employment too, but that really there is no need of them hereabout, the Devil having a shorter way, and mankind being much more easily possessed ; not the old herd of swine were sooner agitated, though there was full two thousand of them together ; nature has opened the door, and the Devil has egress and regress at pleasure, so that witches and diviners are quite ou t of the question . Nor let any man be alarmed at this alteration in th e case, as it stands between mankind and the Devil , and think the Devil having gained so much ground, may in time, by encroachment, come to a general pos session of the whole race, and so we Should all come to be devils incarnate . I say, let u s not be alarmed, for Satan does not get these advantages by encroachment, and by his infernal power or art ; no, not at all ; but it is the man himself does it by his indolence and neg ligence on one hand, and his complaisance to the Devil on the other ; and both ways he, as it were, opens the door to him, beckons him with his very hand to come in, and the Devil has nothing to do but enter and take possession . N ow if it be so, and man is so frank to him, you know the Devil is no fool not to take. the advantage when it is offered him, and there fore it is no wonder if the consequences which I have been just now naming follow. But let no man be discouraged by this, from reas suming his natural and religious powers, and venturing to Shut th e Dev il out ; for the case is plain he may be Shut out ; the soul is a strong castle, and has a good garrison placed within to defend it ; if the garrison be have well, and do their duty, it is impregnable, and the cowardly Devil must raise his siege and be gone ; nay, he must fly, or, as we call it, make his escape, lest he be laid by the heels, that is, lest his weakness be exposed, and all his lurking, lying in wait, ambus . 358 THE MODERN cade -tricks . This part would bear a great enlargement, but I have not room to be witty upon him, so you must take it in the gross the Devil lies at Blye Bush, as our country people call it, to watch you coming out of your hold ; and if you happen to go abroad nu armed, he seizes upon and masters you with ease . Unarmed ; you ’ ll say, what arms should I take ? what fence against a flail ? what weapons can a man take to fight the Devil ? I cou ld tell you what to fight him with, and what you might fright him with, for the Devil is to be frightened with several things besides holy water ; but it is too serious for you, and you will tell me I am a preaching and a canting, and the like ; so I m ust let the Devil manage you rather than displease you with talking Scripture and religion . Well, but may not th e Devil be fought with some of hi s own weapons ? IS there no dealing with him in a way of human nature ? This would require a long answer, and some philosophy might be acted, or at least imitated, and some magic, perhaps for they tell us there are Spells to draw away even the Devil him self; a s, in some places , they nail horseshoes upon the threshold of the door to keep him ou t ; in other places, old pieces of flint, with so many holes, and so many corners, and the like . But I m ust answer in the nega tive ; I don ’ t know what Satan might be scared at in those days , but he is either grown cunninger since or holder, for he val u es none of those things now ; I question much whether he would value St . Dunstan and his redhot tongs if he was to meet him now, or St . Francis, or any of the saints, no, not the host itself, in full procession ; and, therefore, though you don ’ t care I Should preach, yet, in Short, if you are afraid he should charge upon you and attack you, if you won ’ t make use of those Scripture weapons I should have mentioned, and which you may hear of, if you inquire at Eph . vi . 1 6, you must look for better where you think you . can find them .

360 THE MODERN has found a nearer way to the wood with us, and that is sufficient to my present purpose . Some would persuade me the Devil had a great hand in the late religious breaches in France, among the clergy, viz . , about the pope ’ s constitution U nigen i tu s, and that he made a fair attempt to set the pope and the Gallican church together by the ears, for they were all j ust upon the point of breaking ou t into a church war, that, for aught we knew, might have gone further than the Devil himself cared it should . Now I am of the quite contrary Opinion ; I believe the Devil really did not make the breach, but rather healed it, for fear it Should have gone S O far among them as to have set them all in a flame, and have Opened the door to the return of the Huguenots again, which it was in a fair way to have done . But be it one way or t ’ other, the historical part seems to be a little against me ; for it is certain the Devil both wanted and made use of legions of agents, as well human as infernal, visible and invisible, in that great and important affair, and we cannot doubt b u t he has innumerable instruments still at work about it . Like as in Poland, I make no question but the Devil has thousands of his banditti at work at this time, and in another country not far from it, perhaps, preparing matters for the next general Diet, taking care to pre vent giving any relaxation to the protestants, and to j ustify the moderate executions at Thorn ; to excite a nation to quarrel with everybody, who are able to fight with nobody ; to erect the apostate race of S — y u pon a throne which they have no title to, and turn an elective throne into an hereditary, in favour of popery . I might anticipate all your objections, by granting the busy Devil at this time employing all his agents and instruments, ( for I never told you they were idle and useless, ) in striving to inflame the Christian world; and bring a new war to overspread Europe ; I might, HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 361 perhaps, point out to you some of the measures he takes, the provocatives which his state physicians ad minister to the courts and counsellors of princes, to fo~ ment and ferment the spirits and members of nations, kingdoms, empires, and states, in the world, in order to bring these glorious ends of blood and war to pass ; for you cannot think but he that knows so mu ch of the Devil ’ s affairs as to write his history, must know some thing of all these matters more than those that do n ot know so much as he . But all this is remote to the present case, for this is no impeachment of Satan ’ s new methods with mankind in this part of the world, and in his private and sepa rate capacity ; all this only signifies that, in his more g eneral and national affairs, the Devil acts still by his old methods ; and when he is to seduce or embroil nations, he, like other conqu erors, subdues them by armies, employs mighty squadrons of devils, and sends Out strong detachments, with generals and generalis simos to lead them, some to one part of the world , some to another, some to influence one nation, some to manage and direct another, according as business pre sents, and his occasions require, that his affairs may b e carried on currently and to his satisfaction . If it were not thus, but that the Devil, by his new and exquisite management, of which I have said so much, had brought mankind in general to be the agents of their own mischiefs, and that the world were so at his beck that he need but command them to go and fight, declare war, raise armies, destroy cities, king doms, countries, and people, the world would be a field of blood indeed, and all things would run into con fusion presently. But this is not the case at all Heaven has not let go the government of the creation to his subdued enemy, the Devil ; that would overturn the whole system of God, and give Satan more power than ever he was or will be vested with . When, therefore, I speak of a few 362 THE MODERN forward wretches in ou r day, wh o are so warm in their wickedness that they anticipate the Devil , save him the trouble to tempt, turn devils to themselves, and gallop hellward faster than he drives, I Speak of them as single persons, and acting in their own personal and private capacity ; but when I speak of nations and kingdoms , there the Devil is obliged to go on in the old road, and act by stratagem, by his proper ma chinery, and to make use of all his arts \ an d all his agents, just as he has done in all ages, from the begin ning of his politic government to this day . And if it was not thus, too, what would become of all his numberless legions, of which all ages have heard So much, and all parts of the world have had so much fatal experience ? They would seem to be quite ou t of employment, and be rendered useless In the world of Spirits , where it is to be supposed they reside ; not the Devil himself could find any business for them, which, by the way, to busy and mischievous spirits as they are, would be a hell to them, even before their time ; they would be, as it were, doomed to a State of inacti v ity, which, we may suppose, was on e part of their expulsion from blessedness and the creation of man ; or as they were for the surprising interval between the destruction of mankind by the deluge and Noah ’ s coming ou t of the ark, when , indeed, they might be said to have had nothing at all to do. But this is not Satan ’ s case ; and therefore let me tell you, too, ( that you may not think I treat the case with more levity than I really do, and than, I am sure, I intend to do , ) though it is too true that our modern and modish sinners have arrived to more exquisite ways of being wicked than their fathers, and really seem, as I have said, to need no Devil to tempt them nay, that they do Satan ’ s work for him as to others also, and make themselves devils to their neighbours, tempting others to crime even faster than the Devil desires them, running before they are sent, and going

THE MODERN manner they can ; or 2 . to gain applause, be ad~ mired , wondered at, and applauded, as if they were ten times more devil s than really they are. In a word, the matter consists of what the Devil does by the help of these people, and what they do in his n ame without him . The Devil is sometimes cheated in his own business there are pretenders to witchcraft and black art who Satan never made any bargain with, but who he connives at, becau se, at least, they do his cause no harm though their business is rather to get money than to render him any service, of which I gave you a remarkable instance before . But to go back to his real agents, of which I reckon two . 1 . Those who act by direction and confederacy, as I have said already many do . 2 . Those whom he acts in and by, and they ( per haps ) know it not, of which sort history gives u s plenty of examples, from Machiavel ’ s first disciple to the famous cardinal Alberoni , and even to some more modern than his eminence, of whom I can say no more till further occasion 1 . Those who act by immediate direction of the Devil, and in confederacy with him ; these are such as I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, whose arts are truly black , because really infernal . It will be v ery hard to decide the dispute between those who really act thus in confederacy with the Devil, and those wh o only pretend to it ; so I shall leave that dis pute where I find it ; but that there are, or at least have been , a set of people in the world, who really are of his acquaintance, and very intimate with him and though, as I have said, he has mu ch altered his schemes, and changed hands of late ; yet that there are HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 365 such people, perhaps of all sorts, and that the De vil keeps u p his correspondence with them, I must not venture to deny that part, lost I bring u pon me the whole posse of the conjuring and bewitching crew, male and female, and they should mob me for pre tending to deny them the honour of dealing with the Devil , which they are so exceeding willing to have the fame of. Not that I am hereby obliged to believe all the strange things the witches and wizards, who have been allowed to be such, nay, who have been hanged for it, have said of themselves ; nay, that they have confessed of themselves, even at the gallows ; and ifI come to have an occasion to speak freely of the matter, I may perhaps convince you that the Devil ’ s possessing power is much lessened of late, and that he either is limited, and his fetter shortened more than it has been, or that he does not find the oldway, as Isaid before, so fit for his purpose as he did formerly, and therefore takes other measures : but I must adj ourn that to a time and place by itself. But we are told that there are another sort of people, and, perhaps, a great many of them too, in whom and by whom the Devil really acts, and they know it not . It would take up a great deal of time and room, too much for this place, so near the close of this work, to describe and mark out the involuntary devils which there are in the world ; of whom it may be truly said, that really the Devil is in them, and they know it not . Now though the Devil is cunning and managing, and can be very silent where he finds it for his interest not to be known ; yet it is very hard for him to conceal himself, and to give SO little disturbance in the house, as that the family should not know who lodged in it yet, I say, the Devil is so subtle and so mischievous an agent, that he uses all manner of methods and craft to reside in such people as he finds for his purpose , whether they will or no, and, which is more, whether they know it or no . 366 THE MODERN And let none of my readers be angry, or think them selves ill used, when I tell them the Devil may be in them, and may act them, and by them, and they not know it ; for I must add, it may, perhaps, be one of the greatest pieces of human wisdom in the world, for a man to know when the Devil is in him, and when not ; when he is a tool and agent of hell , and when he is not ; in a word, when he is doing the Devil ’ s work, a nd under his direction , and when not . It is true, this is a very weighty point, and might deserve to be handled in a more serious way than I seem to be talking in all this book ; but give me leave to talk of things my own way, and withal, to tell you that there is no part of this work so seemingly lu dicrou s, but a grave and well - weighed mind may make a serious and solid application of it, if they please nor is there any part of this work, in which a clear Sight and a good sense may not see that the author ’ s design is, that they Should do so ; and as I am now so near the end of my book , I thought it was meet to tell you so, and lead you to it as far as I can . I say, it is a great part of human wisdom to know when the Devil is acting in us and by u s, and when not ; the next, and still greater part, would be to pre vent him, put a stop to his progress , bid him go about his business , and let him know he should carry on his designs no further in that manner ; that we will be his tools no longer ; in short, to turn him out of doors, a nd bring a stronger power to take possession ; but this, indeed, is too solid a subject, and too great to begin with here . But now, as to the bare knowing when he is at work with u s ; I say, this, though it is considerable, may be done, nor is it so very difficult : for example, you have no more to do but look a little into the microcosm of the soul, and see there how the passions, which are the blood, and the affecti ons, which are the Spirit, move in their particular vessels ; how they circulate, and in

36 8 THE MODERN lieve there are few thinking minds but may reflect u pon it in their own compass, than for our passions and affections to flow ou t of the ordinary channel ; the spirits and blood of the soul to be extravasated, the passions grow violent and outrageous, the afl ' ections impetuous, corrupt, and violently vicious . Whence does all this proceed ? from heaven we cannot pretend it comes ; if we must not say it is the Devil , whose door mu ' st it lie at ? Pride swells the passions ; avarice moves the aff ections ; and what is pride, and what is avarice, but the Devil in the inside of the man ? ay, as personally and really as ever he was in the herd of swine . Let not any man then , who is a slave to his passions, or who is chained down to his covetousness, pretend to take it ill, when I say he has the Devil in him, or that he is a devil : what else can it be, and h ow comes it to pass that passion and revenge so often dispossess the m an of himself, as to lead him to commit murder, to lay plots and snares for the life of his enemies, and so to thirst for blood, h ow comes this b ut by the Devil ’ s putting those spirits of the soul into so violent a fer ment , into a fever ? that the circulation is precipitated to that degree, and that the man too is precipitated into mischief, and at last into ruin ? it is all the Devil , though the man does not know it . In like manner, avarice leads him to rob, plunder, and destroy for money, and to commit sometimes the worst of violences to obtain the wicked reward . How many have had their throats cut for their money, have been murdered on the highway, or in their beds, for th e desire of what they had ! It is the same thing in other articles, every vice is the Devil in a man ; Inst of . rule is the devil of great men , and that ambition is their devil , as much as whoring is father ’ s devil ; one has a devil of one class acting him, one another, and every man ’ s reigning vice is a devil to him . Thus the Devil has his involuntary instruments, as HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 369 well as those who act in confederacy with him ; he has a very great share in many of u s, and acts us, and in us, unknown to oursel ves, though we know nothing of it , and indeed though we may not Suspect it of ou r selves ; like Hazael the Assyrian, who when the pro phet told - him how he would act the devil upon the poor Israelites, answered with detestation, Is thy ser v a nt a dog, tha t he shou ld do this thing ? and yet he was that dog, and did all those cr uel things for all that ; the Devil acting him, or acting in him, to make him wickeder than ever he thought it was possible for him to be . H . D . 370 THE MODERN THE CONCLUSION . Of the Dev il ’ s la st scene of liberty, a nd wha t may be supposed to be his end, with wha t we a re to u nder sta nd of his being tormentedf or ever a nd ev er . As the Devil is a prince of the power of the air, his kingdom is mortal, and must have an end ; and as he is c alled the god of this world, that is, the great usurper of the homage and reverence which mankind ought of right to pay to their Maker, so his usurpation also, like the world itself, must have an end Satan is called the God of the world, as men too much prostrate and prostitute themselves to him, yet he is not the governor of this world ; and therefore the homage and worship he has from the world, is an usurpation ; and this will have an end because the world itself will have an end ; and all mankind , as they had a beginning in time, so must expire and be removed before the end of time . Since, then , the Devil ’ s empire is to expire and come to an end, and that the Devil himself and all his host of devils are immortal seraphs, spirits that are not em bodied, and cannot die, but are to remain in being ; the question before us next. will be, what is to become of him ? what is his state to be ? whither is he to wander, and in what condition is he to remain to that eternity to which he is still to exist ? I hope no man will mistake me so much in what I have said as to Spirits, which are all flame, not being afl fected with fire, as if I supposed there was no place of punishment for the Devil , nor any kind of punish ment that co uld affect them ; and so of ou r Spirits also, when transformed into flame . I must be allowed to Speak there of that material

372 T HE MODERN . and that by torment, the Devil himself has owned ; and his calling ou t to our blessed Lord when he cast him o t ut of the furious man among the tombs, Is a proof of Wha t ha v e we to do with thee, and a rt thou come to torment us bef ore the time ? Luke viii . 28 ; where the Devil acknowledges four things, an d three of them are directly to my present purpose, and if you won ’ t believe the Word of God I hope you will believe the Devil , especially when it is an open confession a gainst himself. 1 . He confessed Christ to be the Son of God ( that by the way) and no thanks to him, for that does not want the Devil ’ s evidence . 2 . He acknowledges he may be tormented . 3 . He acknowledges Christ was able to torment him . 4 . He acknowledges that there is a time appointed when he Shall be tormented . As to how, in what manner, and by what means, this tormenting the Devil is to be performed or exe cuted, that I take to be as needless to us as it is im possible to know, and being not at present inclined to fill your heads and thoughts with weak and imperfect guesses, I leave it where I find it . It is enough to us that this torment of the Devil is represented to us by fire, it being impossible for our c onfined thoughts to conceiv e of torment by anything in the world more exquisite whence I conclude, that devils shall at last receive a punishment suitable to their spirituou s nature, and as exquisitely tormenting as a burning fire would be to our bodies . Having thus settled my own belief of this matter, and stated it so as I think will let you see it is rightly founded, the matter stands thus Satan having been let loose to play his game in this world, has improved his time to the utmost ; he has not failed on all occasions to exert his hatred, rage, and malice, at his conqueror and enemy, namely, his Maker he has not failed, from principles of mere envy HISTORY OF THE DEVIL . 73 and pride, to pursue mankind with all possible rancour, in order to deprive him of the honour and felicity which he . was created for, namely, to succeed th e Devil and his angels in the state of glory from which they fell . This hatred of God, and envy at man, having broken out in so many several ways in the whole series of time from the creation , must necessarily have greatly increased his guilt ; and as Heaven is righteous to judge him, must terminate in an increase of punish ment, adequate to his crime, and sufficient to his nature . Some have suggested, that there is yet a time to come, when the Devil shall exert more rage, and do more mischief than ever yet he has been permitted to do ; whether he Shall break his chain, or be unchained for a time, they cannot tell, nor I neither ; and it is h appyfor mywork, that even this part too does not belong to his history ; if ever it shall be given an account of by mankind, it must be after it is come to pass, for my part is nOt prophecy, or foretelling what the Devil shall do, but history of what he has done . Thus, good people, I have brou ght the history of the Devil down to your own times ; I have, as it were, raised him for you, and set him in your view, that you may know him, and have a care of him . If any cunninger men among you think they are able now to lay him again, and so dispose of him out of your sight, that you Shall be troubled no more with him, either here or hereafter, let them go to work with himtheir own way ; you know things future do not belong to an historian, so I leave him among you, wishing you may be able to give no worse an account of him for the time to come, than I have done for th e time past . THE E N D OF T HE H ISTORY OF T HE DEVIL . O! F ORD : PRIN TE D BY D. A. ' TALBOYS .