 Part 2. CHAPTER IV. OF THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. by Daniel Defoe. PART 2. CHAPTER IV. Of Satan's agents or missionaries, and their actings upon and in the minds of men, in his name, infinite advantages attend the devil in his retired government, as they respect the management of his interests, and carrying on his absolute monarchy in the world. Particularly, as it gives him room to act by the agency of his inferior ministers and messengers, called on many occasions his angels, of whom he has an innumerable multitude at his command. Of, for ought we know, despair one to attend every man and woman now alive in the world, and of whom, if we may believe our second sight Christians, the air is always as full as a beam of the evening sun is of insects, where they are ever ready for business, and to go and come as their great governor issues out orders for their directions. These, as they are all of the same spiritualist quality with himself, and consequently invisible like him, except as above, are ready, upon all occasions, to be sent to and into any such person, and for such purposes. Superior limitations only accepted, as the grand director of devils, the devil, properly so-called, guides them. And be the subject, or the object, what it will, that is to say, be the person they are sent to, or into as above, who it will, and the business the messenger is to do what it will, they are sufficiently qualified. For this is a particular to Satan's messengers or agents, that they are not, like us, humane devils here in the world. Some bred up one way, some another, some of one trade, some of another, and consequently some fit for some business, some for another, some good for something, and some good for nothing. But his people are every one fit for every thing, can find their way everywhere, and are a match for every body they are sent to. In a word, there are no foolish devils. They are all fully qualified for their employment, fit for anything 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 holy in his administration? How many divins and great councils under his direction? Nay, I believe, it would 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 1713. We don't 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 to chair. And though 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 don't pretend to say, that he has never been disappointed. But those examples are so rare, and of so small signification, that when I come to the particulars, as I shall do in the sequel of this history, you will find them hardly worth 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, notwithstanding, so 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 establishment. Suppose we take an observation from the beginning of Luther, or from the year 1420, and call the Reformation a blow to the devil's kingdom, which before that was come to such a height in Christendom, that his 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 epica 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 Reformation. Namely, the countries of the Duke of Savoie's Dominion, where the Reformation is almost eaten out by persecution, the whole Valtolene and some adjacent countries, the whole Kingdom of Poland, and almost all Hungary, for since the last war the Reformation, as it were, lies gasping for breath and expiring in that country. Also, several large provinces in Germany, as Austria, Corinthia, and the whole Kingdom of Bohemia, where the Reformation, once powerfully planted, received its death's wound at the Battle of Prague, Anno 1627, and languished but a very little while, died and was buried, and Good King Popary reigned in its stead. To these countries, thus regained to Satan's infernal empire, let us add his modern conquests and the encroachments he has made upon the Reformation in the present age, which are, however light we make of them, very considerable, namely, the electorate of the Rhine and the Palatinate, the one fallen to the house of Bavaria, and the other to that of Newberg, both Popish. The Duchy of Douce-Pontes fallen just now to a Popish branch. The whole electorate of Saxony fallen under the power of Popish government by the apostasy of their princes, and more likely to follow the fate of Bohemia, whether the diligent devil can bring his new project in Poland to bear, as to his more than probable he will do so, some time or other, by the growing zeal as well as power of that house of bigots, the house of A. Blank. But to sum up the dull story, we must add in the role of the devil's conquests, the whole Kingdom of France, where we have in one year seen to the immortal 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 innumerable 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 management under the agency of his two prime ministers, Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV, whom he entirely possessed. Thus far we have a melancholy view of the devil's new conquests and the ground he has regained upon the Reformation, in which his secret management has 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 devil is not infallible. He has rendered impossible. He would bring the Protestant interest so near its ruin, that heaven would be, as it were, put to the necessity of working by miracle to prevent it. The case is thus. Ancient historians tell us, and from good authority, that the devil, finding it for his interest, to bring his favorite, Mahomet upon the stage, and spread the victorious half-moon upon the ruin of the cross, having with great success raised first the Saracen Empire, and then the Turkish to such a height as that the name of Christian seemed to be extirpated in those two quarters of the world, which were then not the greatest only, but by far the most powerful, I mean Asia and Africa, having totally laid waste all those ancient and flourishing churches of Africa, the labors of St. Cyprian, Tertullian, St. Augustine, and 670 Christian bishops and fathers who governed there at once, also all the churches of Smyrna, Philadelphia, Ephesus, Sardis, Antioch, Laodicea, and innumerable others in Pontus, Bithynia, and the provinces of the lesser Asia. The devil, having, I say, finished these conquests so much to his satisfaction, began to turn his eyes northward, and though he had a considerable interest in the whore of Babylon, and had brought his power by the subjection of the Roman hierarchy to a great height, yet finding the interest of Mahomet most suitable to his devilish purposes, as most adapted to the destruction of mankind and laying waste the world, he resolved to espouse the growing power of the Turk and bring him in upon Europe like a deluge. In order to this, and to make way for an easy conquest, like a true devil, he worked underground and sapped the foundation of the Christian power by sowing discord among the reigning princes of Europe, that so envying one another, they might be content to stand still and look on while the Turk devoured them one by one, and at last might swallow them up all. This devilish policy took to his heart's content. The Christian princes stood still, stupid, dozing, and unconcerned till the Turk conquered Thrace, overrun Serbia, 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 upon 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 valor 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 peaks in 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 humors 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 temper of their people, the nature of their commerce, the climate, the manner of living, or something which should forever render it impossible for them to unite. This, I say, was a scheme truly infernal, in which the devil was a certainly the principal operator, to illustrate great things by small, as ever John of Layden was of the High Dutch Rebellion, or Sir John B. Blankt, of the late project called the South Sea Stock. Nor did this contravence of the devil at all dishonor his author, or to success appear unworthy of the undertaker, for we see it not only answer the end, and made the Turk victorious at the same time, and formidable to Europe ever after. But it works to this day, the foundation of the divisions remain in all the several nations, and that, to such 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 nothing of what is to come. For this very foundation of immortal jealousy and discord between the several nations of Spain, France, Germany and others, which the devil himself, with so much policy contrived, and which served his interests so long, is now the only obstruction to his 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 is particularly, 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 1623 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 join their powers to attack the Protestants, the latter would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend themselves. But as fatal as such a union of the Popish powers would be, and as useful as it would be to the devil's 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 can't unite them. So that even just as tis with men, so tis with devils, they may do in an hour what they can't undo in an age. This may comfort those faint-hearted Christians among us, who cry out 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. Jarring humours may be reconciled, but jarring interests never can. They may unite so as to make peace, though that can hardly be long, but never 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 return to Satan's interest in the several governments and nations by virtue of his invisibility, in which he carries on by possession. Tis by this invisibility that he presides in all the councils of foreign powers, for we never mean our own, that we always premise. And what, though 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 not much, and if he does not vote as a counselor, if he votes in the counselor, tis much 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 prophets, 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 he was a dissembling spirit in Charles the Ninth, a turbulent spirit in Charles the Fifth, emperors, a bigoted spirit of fire and faggot in our Queen Mary, an apostate spirit in Henry the Fourth, a cruel spirit in Peter of Castile, a revengeful spirit in Ferdinand II, a phyton in Louis the Fourteenth, a sardinopolis in C. Blank II. In the great men of the world, take them a degree lower than the class of crowned heads, he has the same secret influence, and hence it comes to pass that the greatest heroes and men of the highest character for achievements of glory, either by their virtue or valor, however they have been crowned with victories and elevated by human tongues, whatever the most consummate virtues or good qualities they have been known by, yet they have always had some devil or other in them to preserve Satan's claim to them uninterrupted and prevent their escape out of his hands. Thus we have seen a bloody devil in a D'Alva, a profligate devil in a Buckingham, a lying, artful or politic devil in a Richelieu, a treacherous devil in a Mazarene, a cruel, merciless devil in a Cortes, a debauched devil in a Eugene, a conjuring devil in a Luxembourg, and a covetous devil in a M. Blank H. In a word tell me the man I tell you the spirit that reigned in him. Nor does he thus carry on his secret management by possession in men of the first magnitude only, but have you not had evidences of it among ourselves? How has he been a lying spirit in the mouths of our prophets, a factious spirit in the heads of our politicians, a profuse devil in a B. Blank S, a corrupt devil in M. Blank, a proud spirit in my Lord plausible, a bullying spirit in my Lord bugbear, a talkative spirit in his grace the D. Blank of Rattle Hall, a scribbling spirit in my Lord H. Blank, a runaway spirit in my Lord frightful, and so through a long roll of heroes whose exceeding and particular qualifications proclaim loudly what handle the devil took them by, and how fast he held them, for these were all men of ancient fame. I hope you know that. From men of figure we descend to the mob, and his there the same thing. Possession, like the plague, is Morbus plebe, 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, add infinitum. Nay, even the ladies have their share in the possession, 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 she-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 employment, tis 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 Montabanc, on that side the Mary Andrew. Nothing comes amiss to him, from the great mogul to the skaramush, the devil is in them more or less, and plays his game so well that he makes sure work with them all. He knows where the common foible lies, which is universal passion, what handle to take hold of every man by, and how to cultivate his interest, so as not to fail of his end or mistake the means. How then can it be denied, but that his acting thus in tenebrae, and keeping out of the sight of the world, is abundantly his interest, and that he could do nothing, comparatively speaking, by any other method? What would this public appearance have signified, who would have entertained him in his own proper shape and person? Even B. Blank. B. Blank 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 upon him, now he passes for a fool of art, then it should have done if the naked devil had come and challenged him for a fool in nature. Infinite variety illustrate the devil's reign among the sons of men, all which he manages with admirable dexterity, in a slight particular to himself, by the mere advantage of his present concealed situation, in which had he been obliged to have appeared in public, had been all lost, and he capable of just nothing at all, or at least of nothing more than the other ordinary politicians of wickedness could have done without him. Now authors are much divided, as to the manner how the devil manages his proper instruments for mischief. 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. Tizol won, he makes them do his work, when they think they are doing their own. Nay, so cunning is he, in his guiding the weak part of the world, that even when they think they are serving God, they are doing nothing less or more than serving the devil. Nay, Tiz some of the nicest part of his operation, to make them believe they are serving God when they do his work. Thus, those who to scripture foretold, should persecute Christ's church in the latter days, were to think they do 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 ought we know, go on for God's sake, torture, murder, starve to death, mangle and macerate, and all for God, and God's Catholic church. And to certainly the devil's masterpiece, 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 hellfire judicature as the Inquisition is, by the name of the holy office? And so in paganism, how could so many nations, among the poor Indians, offer human sacrifices to their idols, and murder thousands of men, women, and children, to appease this God of the heir, when he is angry, if the devil did not act in them, under the visor of devotion? But we need not go to America, or to the Inquisition, not 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 offered upon God's altar. Are not our churches, I, and meeting-houses, too, as much as they pretend, to be more sanctified than their neighbors, full of devil-worshippers? Where do his devotees congratulate one another, and congratulate 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 deities, or at least, to the fair devils, his representatives, which I shall speak of in their place? Do not the sons of God make asignations 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 adjusting their dress? Are they not sacrificing to Venus and Mercury, Nay, and the very devil they dress at? Let any man impartially survey the church gestures, the air, the postures, and the behavior. Let him keep an exact role, and if I do not show him two devil-worshippers for one true saint, then the word saint must have another signification than I ever yet understood it by. The church, as a place, is the receptacle of the dead, as well as the assembly of the living. What relates to those below, I doubt Satan, if he would be so kind, could give a better account of than I can. But as to the superfaces, I pretend to so much penetration, as to tell you, that there are more specters, more apparitions, always there, than you that know nothing of the matter may be aware of. I happen to be at an eminent place of God's most devout worship the other day, with a gentleman of my acquaintance, who I observed, minded very little the business he ought to come about. First I saw him always busy staring about him, and bowing this way, and that way. Nay, he made two or three bows, and scrapes, when he was repeating the responses to the ten commandments, and assure you he made it correspond strangely, so that the harmony was not so broken in upon as you would expect it should. Thus, Lord, in a bow to a fine lady just come up to her seat, have mercy upon us. Blank three bows to a throng of ladies that came into the next pew altogether. And incline, blank, then stopped to make a great scrape to my Lord, blank, our hearts. Just then the hearts of all the church were gone off from the subject, for the response was over. So he huddled up the rest in whispers. For God Almighty could hear him well enough, he said. Nay, as well as if he had spoken as loud as his neighbors did. After we were come home, I asked him what he meant by all this, and what he thought of it. How could I help it, said he, I must not be rude. What, says I, rude to who? Why, says he, there came in so many she-devils I could not help it. What, said I, could not you help bowing when you were saying your prayers? Oh, sir, says he, the ladies would have thought I had slighted them, I could not avoid it. Ladies, said I, I thought you called them devils just now. I, I, 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 Almighty, because you could not be rude to the devil. Why, that's true, said he, but what can we do? There's no going to church as the case stands now, if we must not worship the devil a little between wiles. 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, oh, how few. But I return to the devils managing our wicked part, for this he does with most exquisite subtlety, and this is one part of it, namely, he thrusts our vices into our virtues, by which he mixes the clean and the unclean, and thus by the corruption of the one poisons and debauches the other, so that the slave he governs cannot account for his own common actions, and is feign 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 and half service, I don't see, but the devil would carry away all his servants. Here indeed I should enter into a long detail of involuntary wickedness, which, in short, is neither more or less than the devil in every body. I, in every one of you, are governors accepted. Take it, as you please. What is our language when we look back with reflection and reproach on past follies? I think I was bewitched, I was possessed, certainly the devil was in me, or else I had never been such a sought. Devil in you, sir, I, 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'll be just the same sought that you say you were before. In short, the devil is too cunning for us, and manages 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 us every single man, every individual, has a devil attending him, to execute the orders of the grand senior devil of the whole 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 mischief, and leaves you to do every thing that is pernicious to yourself. They also allege that there is a good spirit which attends him too, which latter is always accessory to every thing that we do that is good, and reluctant to evil. If this is true, how 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, tis 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 tis a fib. But 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 out the devil's story. If there are good and evil spirits attending us, that is to say, a good angel and a devil, then tis no unjust reproach upon any body to say, when they follow the dictates of the latter, the devil is in them, or they are devils, nay, I must carry it farther 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 nominating 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 purpose give me leave to borrow a few lines of a friend on this very part of the devil's management. To places and persons he suits his disguises and dresses up all his banditty, who as pickpockets flock to a country as sizes, 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 agents about, and has something to do with us all, sir. In some he has part, and in some he's the whole, and of some, like the vicar of Bado, it can neither be 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 bows walk about like the shadows of men, and wherever he leads them they follow. But take them and shake them, there's not one in ten, but's as light as a feather and hollow. Thus all his affairs he drives on in the skies, and he tickles mankind with a feather, creeps in at our ears, and looks out at our eyes, and jumbles our senses together. He raises the vapors and prompts the desires, and to every dark deed holds the candle. The passions and flames and the appetite fires, and takes every thing by the handle. Thus he walks up and down in complete masquerade, and with every company mixes, sells in every shop, works at every trade, and everything doubtful perplexes. How Satan comes by this governing influence in the minds and upon the actions of men is a question I am not yet come to, nor indeed does it so particularly belong to the devil's history. It seems rather a polemic, so it may pass at school among the metaphysics, and puzzle the heads of our masters. Wherefore I think to write to the learned Dr. B. Blank about it, imploring his most sublime haughtiness, that when his other, more momentous avocations of pedantry and pedagogism will give him an interval from wrath and contention. He will set apart a moment to consider human nature devilized, and give us a mathematical anatomical description of it, with a map of Satan's kingdom in the microcosm of mankind, and such other illuminations, as to him and his contemporaries, Blank and Blank, etc., and their great wisdom shall seem meet. End of Part 2, Chapter 4. Part 2, Chapter 5 of the History of the Devil. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The History of the Devil, by Daniel Defoe. Part 2, Chapter 5. Of the Devil's management in the pagan hierarchy, by elements, entrails, augurs, oracles, and such like pageantry of hell, and how they went off the stage at last by the introduction of true religion. I have adjourned, not finished my account of the devil's secret management by possession, and shall re-assume 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 trumpet yielded an uncertain sound for some ages, and like what he was, and according to what he practiced 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 diverse others at the 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 audience given to the inquirers, in all which the devil, or somebody for him, permissu superiorum, for either vindictive or hidden ends and purposes, was allowed to make at least a pretension to the knowledge of things to come. But as public chiefs generally do, they acted in masquerade, and gave such uncertain and inconsistent responses that they were obliged to use the utmost art to reconcile events to the prediction, even after things were come to pass. Here the devil was a lying spirit in a particular and extraordinary manner, in the mouths of all the prophets, and yet he had the cunning to express himself so that whatever happened the oracle was supposed to have meant as it fell out, and so all their augurs, omens, and voices by which the devil amused the world, not at that time only but since, have likewise been interpreted. Julian the Apostate dealt mightily in these amusements, but the devil, who neither wished to fall or presaged it to him, evidence 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 together to inform him of the success of his Persian expedition, they all like Ahab's prophets, having a lying spirit in them encouraged him and promised him success. Nay, all the ill omens which disturbed him they presaged good from. For example, he was at a prodigious 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 Antiochians in contempt called him victimarius. But whenever the entrails foreboded evil, the cunning devil made the priests put a different construction upon them and promised him good. When he entered into the Temple of Genes to offer sacrifice, one of the priests dropped down dead. This, had at any signification more than a man falling dead of an apoplectic, would have signified something fatal to Julian, who made himself a brother sacrist or priest. Whereas, the priest turned it presently to signify the death of his colleague, the consul Salas, which happened just at the same time, though 800 miles off. So in another case, Julian thought at 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 Julianus, Felix, Augustus, and two of his principal officers were Julianus and Felix. Now both Julianus and Felix died within a few days of one another, which disturbed him much, who was the third of the three names. But his flattering devil told him it all imported good to him, via z. That though Julianus and Felix should die, Augustus should be immortal. Thus whatever happened, and whatever was foretold, and how much soever they differed from one another, the lying spirit was sure to reconcile the prediction and the event, and make them at least seem to correspond in favor of the person inquiring. Now we are told oracles are ceased, and the devil is farther 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 upon 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 out any answers, but what were the invention of the priests and the delusions of the devil? I have a great many ancient authors on my side in this opinion, as Assybius, Tartulian, Aristotle, and others, who as they lived so near the pagan times, and when even some of those rites were yet in use, they had much more reason to know, and could probably pass a better judgment upon them. Nei Cicero himself ridicules them in the openness manner. Again, other authors descend to particular ensue how the cheat was managed by the heathens, sacros, 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 out dubious and ambiguous answers, that when the people did not find their expectation answered by the event, they might be imposed upon by the priests, and confidently told they did not rightly understand the oracle's meaning. However, I cannot say but that indeed there are some authors of good credit too, who will have it that there was a real prophetic spirit in the voice or answers given by the oracles, and that off times they were miraculously exact in those answers, and they give that of the Delphic oracle answering the question which was given about crisis. For an example, V.I.Z., what crisis was doing at that time? To wit, that he was boiling a lamb and the flesh of a tortoise together in a brass vessel, or boiler, with a cover of the same metal, that is to say in a kettle with a brass cover. To affirm therefore that they were all cheats, a man must encounter with antiquity, and set his private judgment up against an established opinion. But it is no matter for that, if I do not see anything in that received opinion capable of evidence much less of demonstration, I must be allowed still to think as I do. Others may believe as they list, I see nothing harder difficult in the thing. The priests, who were always historically informed of the circumstances of the inquirer, or at least something about them, might easily find some ambiguous speech to make, and put some double entendre upon them, which upon the event solved the credit of the oracle, were it one way or other, and this they certainly did, or we have room to thank the devil knows less of things now than he did in former days. It is true that by these delusions the priests got infinite sums of money, and this makes it still probable that they would labor hard and use the utmost of their skill to uphold the credit of their oracles, and tis a full discovery as well of the subtlety of the sacros as of the ignorance and stupidity of the people in those early days of Satan's witchcraft, to see what merry work the devil made with the world and what gross things he put upon mankind. Such was the story of the Dordanan oracle in Epirus, B.I.Z., that two pigeons flew out of Thebes, and B. it was the Egyptian Thebes, from the Temple of Belus, erected there by the ancient sacros, and that one of these fled eastward into Libya and the deserts of Africa, and the other into Greece, namely, to Dordana, and these communicated the divine mysteries to one another, and afterwards gave mystical solutions to the devout inquirers. First the Dordanian 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 accordingly done. The other pigeon did the like on the hill in Africa, where it commanded them to build another to Jupiter, Amon, or Haman. Why Cicero condemned all this, and as authors tell us, ridiculed the answer, which as I have hinted above, the oracle gave to Croceus, proving that the oracle itself was a liar, that it could not come from Apollo, for that Apollo never spoke Latin. In a word, Cicero rejected them all, and Demosthenus also mentions the cheats of the oracles. When speaking of the oracle of Apollo, he said, Pythia Philippist. That is, that when the priests were bribed with money, they always gave their answers in favor 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 use of them were the people who exposed them, and who insist most positively upon their being cheats and imposters, as in those particular mentioned above. While the Christians who reject them yet believe they did really foretell things, answer questions, and see, only with a difference, that the heathen authors who opposed them insist 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 I do nothing. My reason is this. I insist Satan is as blind and matters of futurity as we are, and can tell nothing of what is to come. These oracles, often pretending 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 people believe they predicted, whether they gave answers which came to pass or prevailed upon the people to believe that what was said did come to pass, it was much at one and fully answered the devil's end. Namely, to amuse and delude the world and as to do or cause to be done is the same part of speech. So whoever did it, the devil's interest was carried on by it, and 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's out of the question. Indeed, I have wondered sometimes why, since by this society the devil performs such wonders, that is, played so many tricks in the world and had such universal 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 that at present. To his true, there were not many of them, and yet considering what a great deal of business they dispatched, it was enough. For six or eight oracles were more than sufficient to amuse all the world. The chief oracles we meet within history are among the Greeks and the Romans, via Zee, that of Jupiter Ammon in Libya as above, the Dordanan and Apyrus, Polodeficus in the country of Falsus in Greece, Apollo Clavius in Asia Minor, Seraphus in Alexandria in Egypt, Trufflemus in Beochia, Sebilica Mea in Italy, Diana at Ephesus, Apollo de Fena set Antioch, besides many of lesser note in several other places as I have mentioned before. I have nothing to do here with the story mentioned by Plutarch, of a voice being heard at sea from some of the islands called the Echinites, and calling upon one Thamuz in Egyptian who was on board a ship, bidding him, when he came to the Polites, other islands in the Ionian seas, tell them there that the great god Pan was dead, and when Thamuz performed it, great groanings and howlings and lamentation were heard from the shore. This tale tells but indifferently, though indeed it looks more like a Christian fable than a pagan, because it seems as if made to honor the Christian worship and blast all the pagan idolatry, and for that reason I rejected the Christian profession needing no such fabulous stuff to confirm it. Nor is it true, in fact, that the oracles did cease immediately upon the death of Christ. But, as I noted before, the sum of the matter is this, the Christian religion spreading itself universally as well as miraculously, 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 out of the world as well as they could. In short, the customers fell off, and the priests, who were the shopkeepers having no business to do, shut up their shops, broke, and went away. The trade and the tradesmen were hissed off the stage together, so that the devil, who it must be confessed, got infinitely by the cheat, became bankrupt, and was obliged to set other engines at work, as other cheats and deceivers do, who, when one trick grows stale, and will serve no longer, are forced to try another. Nor was the devil to seek in new measures, for though he could not give out his delusive trash as he did before, in pomp and state, with the solemnity of a temple and a set of enthusiasts called priests, who plowed a thousand tricks to amuse the world, he then had recourse to his old Egyptian method, which indeed was more ancient than that of oracles, and that was by magic, sorcery, familiars, witchcraft, and the like. Of this we find the people of the south, that is, of Arabia and Chaldea, were the first, for once we are told of the wise men, that is to say magicians, or called Chaldeans and South Sayers. Hence also we find Ahaziah, the king of Israel, sent to Baels above the God of Ekron, to inquire whether he should live or die. This something was a kind of an oracle, though others think it was only some overgrown magician, who counterfeited himself to be a devil, and obtain upon that idle hunting age to make a cunning man of him, and for that purpose he got himself made a priest of Baels above, the God of Ekron, and gave out answers in his name. Thus those merry fellows in Egypt, Yannis and Yambres, are said to mimic Moses and Aaron, when they work the miraculous plagues upon the Egyptians, and we have some instances in scripture that support this, such as the Witch of Endor, the King of Manassas, who dealt with the devil openly, and had a familiar, the woman mentioned Acts 26, who had a spirit of divination, and who got money by playing the oracle, that is answering doubtful questions and see which spirit or devil the apostles cast out. Now though it is true that the old women in the world have filled us with tales, some improbable, others impossible, some weak, some ridiculous, and that this puts a general discredit upon all the graver matrons who entertain us with stories better put together, yet to certain, and I must be allowed to affirm, that the devil does not disdain to take into his service many troops of good old women, and old women men too, who he finds tis for his service to keep in constant pay. To these he is found frequently to communicate his mind, and oft times we find them such proficient that they know much more than the devil can teach them. How far our ancient friend Merlin, or the grave matron his satans, most trusty and well beloved cousin and counselor, Mother Shipton, were commissioned 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 undertake to prove, but that he might be acquainted with them both, as well as with several of our modern gentlemen I will not deny neither. I confess it is not very incongruous with the devil's temper, or the nature of his business to shift hands. Possibly he found that he tried the world with irracular sheets, that men began to be forfeited 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 light, which the Christian doctrine bringing with it began to spread in the minds of men, that it would outshine the dim-burning igneous fatuus, with which he had so long cheated mankind it 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 withdraw from those old retreats the oracles, and 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 the want of them, so that it made them run up and down the conjurers, and man-gossips, to brazen heads, speaking calves, and innumerable simple things, so gross that they are scarce fit to be named, to satisfy the itch of having their fortunes told them, as we call it. Now, as the devil is very seldom blind to his own interest, and therefore thought fit to quit his old way of imposing upon the world by his oracles, only because 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. But he set up 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 married Dr. Brown says, and exercises his minor troperies by way of his own contriving, lifting a great number of newfound operators, such as witches, magicians, diviners, figure-casters, astrologers, and such inferior seducers. Now 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 and 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 upon the shining of new lights from the Christian doctrine, so it must be acknowledged the devil made himself amends upon mankind by the various methods he took and the multitude of instruments he employed, and perhaps diluted 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 had cheated mankind then in a way of magnificence and splendor. 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 angels and instruments, visible and invisible, hardly may be said to suffice for one town or one city. But in short, as his invisible agents fill the air and are at hand for mischief on every emergence, so his visible fools swarm in every village, and you have scarce a hamlet or a town, but his emissaries are at 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 devil 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 mountbank, he can always bring a good 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's the reason, that upon the silencing the oracles and religion telling them that miracles are seized, and that God has done speaking by prophets, they never inquire whether heaven has established any other new way of revelation, but a way they ran with their doubts and difficulties to these dreamers of dreams, tellers of fortunes and personal oracles to be resolved, as if when they acknowledged 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 the heaven, taking away the devil's voice, had furnished him with an equivalent by allowing scolds, termigants, 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 his Jeroboam made priests of the meanest of people, so he has grown a little humble, and makes of us meaner instruments than he did before. For whereas the priests of Apollo and of Jupiter were splendid in their appearance, of grave and venerable aspect and sometimes of no mean quality, now he makes use of scoundrels and rabbles, beggars and vagabonds, old hags, superannuated miserable hermits, gypsies and strollers, the pictures of envy and ill luck. Either the devil is grown an ill master and gives but mean wages that he can get no better servants, or else common sense is grown very low-priced and contemptible, that such as these are fit tools to continue the succession of fraud and carry on the devil's interest in the world. For were not the passions and temper of mankind deeply pre-engaged in favor of this dark prince, we could never suffer ourselves to accept his favors by the hands of such contemptible agents as these. How do we receive his oracles from an old witch of particular eminence, and who we believe to be more than ordinarily inspired from hell? I say we receive the oracle with reverence, that is to say, with a kind of horror, with regard to the black prince it comes from, and at the same time turn our faces away from the wretch that mumbles out the answers, lest she should cast an evil eye as we call it upon us, and put a devil into us when she plays the devil before us. How do we listen to the cant of those worst of vagabonds, the gypsies, when at the same time we watch our hedges and henrush for fear of their thieving? Either the devil uses us more like fools than he did our ancestors, or we really are worse fools than those ages produced, for they were never deluded by such low-priced devils as we are, by such despicable bridewell devils that are fitter for a whipping-post than an altar, and instead of being received as the voice of an oracle should be sent to the House of Correction for pickpockets. Nor is this accidental, and here and there one of these wretches to be seen, but in short, if it has been in other nations as it is with us, I do not see 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-turned-wizard, and where have we had a witch of quality among us? Mother J. Blank G.S. accepted, and if she had not been more of something else than a witch, was thought she had never got so much money by her profession. Magicians, southsayers, devil-raisers, and such people we have heard much of, but seldom above the degree of the meanest of the mean people, the lowest of the lowest rank. Indeed, the word wise men, which the devil would feign have had his agents honored with, was used while in Egypt and in Persia among the 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 acquire 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 counselors and statesmen who merited the character of wise in the best sense, that is to say, good and wise, as they stand in conjunction, but as to what has happened since that, or, as we may call it, from that Queen's funeral to the late revolution, I have little to say. But I'll tell you what an honest Andrew Marvel said of those times, and by what you may, if you please, make your calculation or let it alone, tis all one. To see a white staffmaker, 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 constitution, or wise men as they are opposed to fools, whereas we are talking of them now under another class, namely as wise men or magicians, south sayers, and sea, such as were in former times called by that name. But to this I answer, 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 statesman he had employed among us for many years past, I'm apt to think that though oracles are seized he would honestly, according to the old ambiguous way, when I asked if they were Christians, answer they were his privy counselors. It is but a little while ago that I happened, in conversation, to meet with a long list of magistrates of that age in a neighboring 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 among them a great deal of good company. It is not for me to tell you how many white slaves, golden keys, marshals, batons, cordon blue, cordon rouge, and cordon blank there were among them, or by what titles as dukes, counts, marquee, abbot, bishop, or justice they were to be distinguished. But the marginal notes I found upon most of them were being marked with an asterism as follows. Such a duke, such eminent offices added to his titles, asterisk in the margin, blank no saint, such an ark, blank, with the title of noble added, blank no archangel, such an eminent statesman and prime minister, blank no witch, such a ribbon with a set of great letters added, blank no conjurer. It presently occurred to me that though oracles were deceased and we had now no more double 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 to a certain custom led the readers to conclude them to be saders, and that they were to be wrung backwards like the bells when the town's 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 talking of. But to return to the subject to such mean things as the devil now reduced in his ordinary way of carrying on business in the world, that his oracles are delivered now by the bellman 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 seemed to me as if the devil had singled them out by their deformity, or that there was something in particular required in their aspect to qualify them for their employment, once it has 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 other case to look as envious as a witch. Now whether there is anything particularly required in the looks of the devil's modern agents, which is assisting in the discharge of their offices, and which make 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 out such creatures as are fit only to fright 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 extraordinary 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 votaries may think when they speak to the witches they are really talking to the devil, or perhaps it is necessary 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 certain they can see nothing uglier than themselves. Some are of the opinion that the communication with the devil, or between the devil and those creatures his agents, has something assimilating in it, and if they were tolerable before they are ipso facto turned into devils by talking with them. I will not say but that a tremor in the limbs, a horror in the aspect, and a surprising stare in the eyes may seize upon some of them when they really see the devil, and that the frequent repetition may make those distortions which we so constantly see in their faces becomes natural to them, by which if it does not continue always upon the countenance they can at least, like the posture masters, cast themselves into such figures and frightful dislocations of the line and features in their faces, and so assume a devil's face suitable to the occasion, or as may serve the term for which they take it up, and as often as they have any use for it, but be at which of these the inquirer pleases to zall one to the case in hand. This is certain that such deformed devil-like creatures, most of those we call hags and witches, are in their shapes and aspects, and that they give out their sentences and frightful messages with an error of revenge for some injury received, for witches are famed chiefly for doing mischief. It seems the devil has always picked out the most ugly and frightful old women to do his business. Mother Shipton, our famous English witch or prophetess, is very much wronged in her picture if she was not of the most terrible aspect imaginable, and if it be true that Merlin, the famous Welsh fortune teller, was a frightful figure, it will seem the more rational to believe, if we credit another story, viz, that he was begotten by the devil himself, of which I shall speak by itself. But to go back to the devil's instruments being so ugly, it may be observed, I say, that the devil has always dealt in such sort of cattle, the symbols, of whom so many strange prophetic things are recorded, whether true or no is not to the question, or if the Italian painters may have any credit given them, all represented as very old women, and as if ugliness were a beauty to old age. They seem to paint them out as ugly and frightful, as not they the painters, but even as the devil himself can make them. Not that I believe there are original pictures of them really extant, but it is not unlikely that the Italians might have some traditional knowledge of them, or some remaining notions of them, or particularly that ancient civil name Anas, who sold the fatal book to Tarquin, to a set of her that Tarquin supposed she doted 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 necessity of having the recourse to them for Satan's more exquisite 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 counselors of both laws and state, and especially civilians or doctors of the law into old women, and how the extraordinary operation is performed. But this is a thing of great consequence in Satan's management of humane affairs, and particularly as it may lead us into the necessary history, as well as characters of some of the most imminent of these sex 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 the most exact manner possible what is to be understood by a male old woman of what heterogeneous kind they are produced, give to you the monstrous 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 contextual without, particularly hollow in the cavity, defines most philosophically that ancient paradoxical saying, viz, being full of emptiness, and makes it very consistent with nature and common sense. I shall likewise spend some time, and it must be labor too, I assure you, want is done, in determining whether this new species of wonderfuls are not derived from that famous old woman, Merlin, which I proved to be very reasonable for us to suppose, because of the many several judicious authors who affirmed the said Merlin, as I hinted before, to have been begotten by the devil. As to the deriving of 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, however, in deriving the so much magnified prophet and a right line from the devil, much may be said 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 I adjourn for the present, and proceed to the affair at hand, namely the several branches of the devil's management since his quitting the temples and oracles. Some people would fain have a street this tale of the devils appearing with a cloven foot with more solemnity than I believe the devil 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 understandings 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 un-deceive 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 spectrum 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 creature made use of by our Savior 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 account of their similitude to the sheep, and so to represent the just fate of hypocrisy and hypocrites, and in particular to form the necessary antithesis in the story. For else our whimsical fancies accepted, a sheep or a lamb has a cloven foot as well as a goat, nay if the Scripture be of any value in the case, does to the devil's advantage for the dividing the hoof was the distinguishing character or mark of a clean beast, and how the devil can be brought into that number is pretty hard to say. When would have thought if we had intended to have given a just figure of the devil, it would have been more apposite to have ranked him among the cat kind, and given him a foot, if he is to be known by his foot like a lion, or like a red dragon being the same creatures which he is represented by in the text, and so his claws would have had some terror in them as well as his tea. But neither is the goat a true representative of the devil at all, for we do not rank the goats among the subtle or cunning part of the brutes, he is counted a fierce creature indeed of his kind though nothing like those other above mentioned, and he is emblematically used to represent a lustful temper, but even that part does not fully serve to describe the devil whose operation lies principally another way. Besides it is not the goat himself that is made use of, tis the cloven hoof, only and that so particularly, that the cloven foot of a ram or a swine, or any other creature may serve as well as that of a goat, only that history gives us some cause to call it the goat's foot. In the next place tis understood by us not as a bear token to know Satan by, but as if it were a brand upon him, and that like the mark God put upon Cain it was given him for a punishment, so that he cannot get leave to appear without it, nor can I conceal it whatever other dress or disguise he may put on, and as if it was to make him as ridiculous as possible they will have it be that whenever Satan has occasion to dress himself in any humane shape be it of what degree so ever from the king to the beggar, be it of a fine lady or oven, old woman the latter it seems he oftenest assumes, yet still he not only must have this cloven foot about him, but he is obliged to show it to, nay they will not allow him any dress whether it be a prince's robes, a lord, char, blank, garse, gown, or a lady's hoop and long petty coats, but the cloven foot must be showed from under them, they will not so much as allow him an artificial shoe or a jack boot, as we often see contrived to conceal a clubfoot or a wooden leg, but that the devil may be known wherever he goes he is bound 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. He must be confessed this is very particular and would be very hard upon the devil if it had not another 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's run 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 went for want of this cloven foot they do not know him. Upon this very account I have sometimes thought not that this has been put upon him by mere fancy and the cheat of a heavy imagination propagated by fable and chimney corner divinity, but that it has been a contrivance of his own, and that in short the devil raised this scandal upon himself that he might keep his disguise the better, and might go visiting among his friends without being known for where it really so that he could go nowhere without this particular brand of infamy. He could not come into company, could not dine with my Lord Mayor nor drink tea with the ladies, could not go to the drawing room. Our blank, Ed Blank, could not have gone to Fontainebleau to the King of France's wedding or to the Diet of Poland to 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 reason is plain he would be always discovered, exposed and forced to leave the good company or which would be as bad the company would all cry out the devil and run out of the room as if they were frighted. Nor could all the help of invention do him any service, no dress he could put on would cover him. Not all our friends at tabas.corner could furnish him with a habit that would disguise or conceal him. This unhappy foot would spoil it all. Now this would be a great 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 access to mankind in his complete disguise, I mean that of his invisibility, yet learned very much agree in this that his corporal presence in the world is absolutely necessary upon many occasions to support his interest and keep up his correspondences, and particularly 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 consider him as a gentleman of business in his locality and under the head of visible apparition, but I return to the foot. As I have thus suggested that the devil himself has politically sped 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 our people and especially of those clear-sided 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 to even before Satan himself whenever he sat upon the bench, that they have seen his worship's foot at such and such a time. This advance, the rather because it is very much for his interest to do this, for if we had not many witnesses, Eva Voce, to testify we should have had some obstinate fellows always among us who would have denied the fact or at least have spoken doubtfully of it, and so have raised disputes and objections against it as impossible or at least as improbable, buzzing one ridiculous notion or other into our ears as if the devil was not so black as he was painted that he had no more cloven foot than a pope whose apostolic toes have so often been reverentially kissed by kings and emperors, but now alas this part is out of the question, not the man in the moon, nor the groaning board, not the speaking of fire, bacon's brazen head, not the inspiration of Mother Shipton or the miracles of Dr. Faustus, things as certain as death 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 thousand 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 it 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 substantial witnesses ready to testify that he has a cloven foot and that they have seen it to Nay and that we have antiquity on our 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 ancestors have been of this opinion and divers learned authors have left it upon record as particularly that learned familiarist Mother Hazel whose writings are to be founded manuscript in the famous library at Pye Corner, also the admired Joan of Amesbury, the history of the Lancashire witches, and the reverend orc sourcest 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 confirmation of the antiquity of this truth, but there seems to be no occasion for Father Evidence to his enough Satan himself if he did not raise the report yet tacitly owns the fact that at least he appears willing to have it believed and be received as a general truth for the reasons above. But besides all this and as much a just as some unbelieving people would have this story passed for who knows but that if Satan is empowered to assume any shape or body and to appear to us visibly as if really so shaped I say who knows but he may by the same authority be allowed to assume the addition of the cloven foot or two or four cloven feet if he pleased and why not a cloven foot as well as any other foot if he thinks fit for if the devil can assume a shape and can appear to mankind in a visible form it may I doubt not with as good authority be advanced that he is left at liberty to assume what shape he pleases and to choose what case of flesh and blood he'll pleased to wear whether real or imaginary and if this liberty be allowed him it is an admirable disguise for him to come generally with his cloven foot that when he finds it for his purpose on special occasions to come without it as I said above he may not be suspected but take this with you as you go that all this is upon a supposition that the devil can assume a visible shape and make a real appearance which however I do not yet think fit to grant or deny certain it is the first people who bestowed a cloven foot upon the devil were not so despicable as you may imagine but were real favorites of heaven for did not errands set up the devil of a cat in the congregation has set the people are dancing about it for a god upon which occasion expositors tell us that particular command was given leviticus 177 they show no more offer their sacrifices under devils after whom they have gone a whoring likewise King Jeroboam set up the two calves one at Dan and the other at Bethel and we find them charged afterwards besetting up the worship of devils instead of the worship of god after this we find some nations actually sacrificed to the devil in the form of Iran and others of a goat from which and that above of the calves at harl red I doubt not the story of the cloven first derived and it is plain that the worship of that calf at Horab is meant in the scripture quoted above leviticus 177 thou shalt know more offer sacrifices unto devils the original is san niram 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 hieroglyphic 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 that 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 in the matter being indifferent this took place and easily rooted itself in the bewildered fancy of the people and now to his riveted too fast for the devil himself to remove it if he was disposed to try but as I said about his 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 or 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 conjuring stone and tell us that in former times when satan drove a greater trade with mankind in public then he has done of late he gave this cloven foot as a token to his particular favorites to work wonders with and to conjure by and that which is various 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 out of practice and so like the melting of marble and the painting of glass is laid aside among the various useful arts which history tells us are lost to the world what may be practiced in the very world if such a place there be we can give no particular account at present but neither is this all for other would be wise people take upon them to make further and more considerable improvements upon this doctrine of the cloven foot and treated as a most significant instrument of satan's private operation and that is 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 other secret operations and possessions and other hellish mechanisms upon the spirits as well as bodies of men by the medium or instrumentality of the cloven foot accordingly it had a kind of and hellish inspiration in it and a separate a magical power by which he wrought his infernal miracles that the cloven foot had a superior signification and was not only emblematic and significant of the conduct of men but really guided their conduct 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 the destruction were equipped with this foot in aid of their other powers for mischief here they read us learned lectures upon the sovereign operations which the devil is at present master of in the government of human affairs and now the cloven foot is an emblem of the true double 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 mankind worse than the ravenous brutes prays upon his own kind and devours them by all the laudable methods of flattery wine cheat and treachery crocodile like weeping over those it will devour destroying those it smiles upon and in a word devours its own kind which the very beast refuse and that by all the ways of fraud and allurement that hell can invent holding out a cloven divided her for hand pretending to save when the very pretenses made use of to ensnare and destroy thus the divided hoof is the representative of a divided double tongue and heart an emblem of the most exquisite hypocrisy the most fawning and fatally deceiving flattery and here they give us very diverting histories though tragical in themselves of that manner which some of the devil's inspired agents have managed themselves under the special influence of the cloven foot how they have made war under the pretense of peace murdered garrisons under the most sacred capitulations massacres innocent multitudes after surrenders to mercy again they tell us the cloven foot has been made use of in all trees and spots assassinations and secret as well as open mirthers and rebellions thus joe up under the treason of an embrace showed how dexterously he could manage the cloven foot and struck abner under the fifth rib thus david played the cloven foot upon poor iraia when he had a mind to live with his wife thus brutus played it upon Caesar and to come near a 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 fate beheading the Queen of Scots and diverse others in Queen Elizabeth's time that of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Thomas Overbury Gondemore and Sir Walter Raleigh and many others in King James the first time in all which if the cloven foot had not been dexterously managed those mirthers had not been so dexterously managed or the mirthers have so well been screened from justice for which and the implicated justice of heaven unappeased some have thought the innocent branches of the royal house of steward did and not fair the better in the ages which followed he must be confessed the cloven foot was in its full exercise in the next reign and the generation that rose up immediately after them arrived to the most exquisite skill for management of it here they fasted and prayed there they plundered and murdered here they raised war for the king and there they fought against him cutting threats for God's sake and opposing both king and kingly government according to law nor was the cloven foot unemployed on all sides for it is the main excellency of this instrument of hell that it acts on every side it is its denominating quality and is for that reason called out cloven or divided hoof this mutilated apparition has been so public in other countries too that it seems to convince us the devil is not confined to england only but that as his empire extended to all the sublunary world so he gives them all room to see he is qualified to manage them his own way what abundant use did that prince of december's chose the fifth make of this foot to us by the help of this apparition of the foot that he baited his hook with the city of malan and tickle francis of france so well with it that when he passed through france and was in that king's power he let him go and never get the bait off of the hook neither it seems the foot was not on king francis's side at that time how cruelly did philip the second of spain managed this foot in the murder of the nobility of the spanish neverlands 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 so nicely did he bestow his cloven hoof that this monarch died consolated their impenitent in the arms of the church and with it benediction of the clergy to 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 as a machine has done great things in the world for the propagating his dark empire among us and history is full of examples besides the little low prize things done among us for we are come to such a kind of degeneracy and folly that we have even dishonored 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 been mentioned above we find flaming examples 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 the cloven foot upon gas bar calani admiral of france when he caressed him complimented him invited him to paris to the wedding of the king of navar 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 did not Henry the third in the same country played the cloven foot upon the duke of geese when he called him to counsel and caused him to be murdered as he went in at the door the geese is again played the same game back upon the king when they sent out a jackabin friar to assassinate him in his tent as he lay at the siege of paris anywhere this opera and the cloven foot has been acted all over the christian world ever since judas betrayed the son of god with a kiss nay our savior says expressly of him one of you is a devil and the sacred text says in another place the devil entered into judas 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 course of european with what most accurate hypocrisy satan has made use 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 designed one whole volume upon this subject in which i shall call the complete history of the cloven foot i say for that reason and diverse others i shall say but very little more to 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 has been all along the great emblem of the devil's government in the world and by which all his most considerable engagements have been answered 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 december a deceiver and carried a double on tondra in all he does or says that he cannot but say one thing and mean another promise one thing and do another engage and not perform 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 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 represented them afterwards covering the ark have 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 he commenced devil so to fetch his original so far up would be only to say that he retained nothing 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 as we 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 just 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 your father you will do meaning the devil as he had expressed it just before nor does he deny the use of the foot to the meaner class of his disciples in the world but decently quips them all upon every occasion with a need for a proportion of hypocrisy and deceit that they may hand on the power of promiscuous fraud through all his temporal dominions and where the foot always about them as a badge of their professed share in whatever is done by that means thus every december every false friend every secret cheat every bare-skinned jobber has a cloven foot and so far hands on the devil's interest by the same powerful agency of art as the devil himself uses to act when he appears in person or would act if he was just now upon the spot for this foot is a machine which is to be wound up and wound down as the cause it appears for requires and there are agents and engineers to act in it by directions of satan the grand engineer who lies still in his retirement only issuing out his orders as he sees convenient again every class every trade every shopkeeper every peddler nay that meanest of tradesmen that church peddler the pope has a cloven foot with which he paw was upon the world wishes them all well and at the same time teach them wishes them all fed and at the same time starves them wishes them all in heaven at the same time marches before them directly to the devil a la mode cloven foot neither very benched the ever living foundation of justice in the world how often has it been made the tool of violence the refuge of oppression the seat of bribery and corruption by this monster masquerade and that everywhere our own country always accepted they had much better wipe out the picture of justice blinded and having the sword and scales in her hand which in foreign countries has generally painted over the seat of those who sit to do justice in place instead there are a naked on arm cloven proper emblem of that spirit that influences the world and of the justice we often see administered among them human imagination cannot form an idea more suitable nor the devil propose an engine more or better qualified for an operation of justice by the influence of bribery and corruption it is this magnificent instrument in the hands of the devil which under the closest disguise agitates every passion bribes every affection blackens every virtue gives a double face to words and actions and to all persons who have any concern in them and in a word makes us all devils to one another indeed the devil has taken but a dark emblem to be distinguished by for this of a goat was said to be a creature hated by mankind from the beginning and that there is a natural antipathy in mankind against them hence the scapegoat was to bear the sense of the people and to go into the wilderness with all that burden upon him but we have a saying among us in defense of which we must inquire into the proper sphere of action which may be assigned to this cloven foot as hitherto described the proverb is this every devil has not a cloven foot this proverb instead of giving us some more favorable 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 holes good still namely that he may be more affectionately 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 honor or mark of his infamy take it as 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 occasions be a mistake of very ill consequence and in particular as we 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 where 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 learning speculation offers itself to our debate in which indeed I ought to call a council of casuous and then learned in the devil's politics to determine whether is most hurtful to the world the devil walking about without 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 diverse others I have referred it to be treated with some decency and as a dispute of dignity sufficient to take up a chapter by itself into part two chapter six