The Political History of the Devil

THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEVIL

tage of his present conceal’d Situation, and which, had he been obliged to have appear’d in Publick, 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 call’d Wit, ‘tis all one, 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, ‘tis some of the nicest Part of his Operation, to make them believe they are serving God, when they do his Work. Thus those who the Scripture foretold should 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, murther, starve to Death, mangle and macerate, and all for God, and God’s Catholic Church; and ‘tis certainly the Devil’s Master-piece to bring Mankind to such a Perfection of Devilism as that of the Inquisition is; for if the Devil had not been in them, could they christen such a Hell-fire Judicature as the Inquisition is, by the Name of the Holy Office? And

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so in Paganism, how could so many Nations among the poor Indians offer human Sacrifices to their Idols, and murther thousands of Men, Women and Children, to appease this God of the Air, when he is angry, if the Devil did not act in them under the Vizor 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 offer’d upon God’s Altar; are not our Churches (ay, and Meeting-houses too, as much as they pretend to be more sanctified than their Neighbours) full of Devil Worshipers? Where do his Devotees gratulate 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 Devils his Representatives, which I shall speak of in their Place.

Do not the Sons of God make Assignations with the Daughters of Men in the very House of Worship? Do they not talk to them in the Language of the Eyes? And what is at the Bottom of it, while one Eye is upon the Prayer-book, and the other 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 Behaviour; let him keep an exact Roll, and if I do not shew him two Devil Worshipers 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,

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I doubt Satan, if he would be so kind, could give a better Account of than I can; but as to the Superficies, I pretend to so much Penetration as to tell you, that there are more Spectres, more Apparitions always there, than you that know nothing of the matter may be aware of.

I happen’d 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, and a Bow to a fine Lady just come up to her Seat, have Mercy upon us; – – three Bows to a Throng of Ladies that came into the next Pew altogether, and incline – – then stop’d to make a great Scrape to my Lord – – , 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 a Mighty could hear him well enough, he said, nay, as well as if he had spoken as loud as his Neighbours did.

After we were come home, I ask’d 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.

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What, said I, could not you help bowing when you were saying your Prayers?

O Sir! says he, the Ladies would have thought I had slighted them, I could not avoid it.

Ladies! said I, I thought you call’d them Devils just now. Ay, ay, Devils, said he, little charming Devils, but I must

not be rude to them however.

Very well, said I, then you would be rude to God a Mighty, 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 whiles.

This is the Case indeed, and Satan carries his Point on every Hand; for if the fair speaking World, and the fair looking World are generally Devils, that is to say, are in his Management, we are sure the foul speaking and the foul doing World are all on his Side, and you have then only the fairdoing Part of the World that are out of his Class, and when we speak of them, O how few!

But I return to the Devil’s managing our wicked Part, for this he does with most exquisite Subtilty; and this is one Part of it, (viz.) 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 fain to be oblig’d 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 in half Service, I don’t see but the Devil would carry

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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, ay, in every one of you, (our Governors excepted) take it as you please.

What is our Language when we look back with Reflection and Reproach on past Follies? I think I was bewitch’d, I was posses’d, certainly the Devil was in me, or else I had never been such a Sot: Devil in you, Sir! Ay, who doubts it; you may be sure the Devil was in you, and there he is still, and next Time he can catch you in the same Snare, you’ll be just the same SOT 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; tho’ 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 Signior) Devil of the whole Clan; that this attending evil Angel, for so he is call’d, 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 your self; they also alledge that there is a good Spirit which attends him too, which latter is always accessary 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?

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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 to take Things as they are, and only talk by way of natural Consequence, for to argue from Nature is certainly the best Way to find 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 Banditti, Who as Pickpockets flock to a Country Assizes, Croud 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 Baddow) It can neither be said they have Body or Soul, But only are Devils in Shadow.

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CHAPTER V

OF THE DEVIL’S MANAGEMENT IN THE PAGAN HIERARCHY BY OMENS, ENTRAILS, AUGURS, ORACLES, AND SUCH LIKE PAGEANTRY OF

HELL; AND HOW THEY WENT OFF

THE STAGE AT LAST BY

THE INTRODUCTION OF TRUE RELIGION

I have adjourn’d, not finished, my Account of the Devil’s secret Management by Possession, and shall reassume it, in its Place; but I must take leave to mention some other Parts of his retir’d Scheme, by which he has hitherto manag’d Mankind, and the first of these is by that Fraud of all Frauds call’d Oracle.

Here his Trumpet yielded an uncertain Sound for some Ages, and like what he was, and according to what he practised from the Beginning, he deliver’d out Falshood and Delusion by Retale: The Priests of Apollo acted this Farce for him to a great Nicety at Delphos; there were divers others at the same

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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 Enquirers, in all which the Devil, or some Body for him, Permissu Superiorum, for either vindictive or other hidden Ends and Purposes, was allow’d to make at least a Pretension to the Knowledge of Things to come; but, as publick Cheats generally do, they acted in Masquerade, and gave such uncertain and inconsistent Responses, that they were oblig’d 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 happen’d, the Oracle was suppos’d to have meant as it fell out; and so all their Augurs, Omens and Voices, by which the Devil amus’d the World, not at that Time only, but since, have been likewise interpreted.

Julian the Apostate dealt mightily in these Amusements, but the Devil, who neither wish’d his Fall, or presag’d it to him, evidenc’d that he knew nothing of Julian’s Fate; for that, as he sent almost to all the Oracles of the East, and summon’d 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, encourag’d him and promis’d him Success.

Nay, all the ill Omens which disturb’d him, they presag’d good from; for Example, he was at a prodigious Expence when he was at Antioch to buy up white Beasts, and white Fowls,

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for Sacrifices, and for predicting from the Entrails; from whence the Antiochians, in contempt, call’d him Victimarius; but whenever the Entrails foreboded Evil, the cunning Devil made the Priests put a different Construction upon them, and promise him Good: When he entred into the Temple of the Genij to offer Sacrifice, one of the Priests dropt down dead; this, had it had 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 Priests turn’d it presently to signify the Death of his Colleague, the Consul Sallust which happen’d just at the same Time, tho’ eight hundred Miles off; so in another Case, Julian thought it ominous that he, who was Augustus should be nam’d with two other Names of Persons, both already dead; the Case was thus, the Stile of the Emperor was Julianus Foelix Augustus, and two of his principal Officers were Julianus and Foelix; now both Julianus and Foelix died within a few Days of one another, which disturb’d Him much, who was the third of the three Names; but his flattering Devil told him it all imported Good to him (viz.) that tho’ Julianus and Foelix should die, Augustus should be immortal.

Thus whatever happen’d, and whatever was foretold, and how much soever they differ’d from one another, the lying Spirit was sure to reconcile the Prediction and the Event, and make them at least seem to correspond in Favour of the Person enquiring.

Now we are told Oracles are ceased, and the Devil is farther limited for the Good of Mankind, not being allow’d to vent his Delusions by the Mouths of the Priests and Augurs, as

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