.

It is said also, and I am apt to believe it, that he was very familiar
with that holy father Pope _Silvester_ II. and some charge him with
personating Pope _Hildebrand_ on an extraordinary occasion, and himself
sitting in the chair apostolick, in a full congregation; and you may
hear more of this hereafter: But as I do not meet with Pope _Diabolus_
among the list; in all father _Platina_'s lives of the Popes, so I am
willing to leave it as I find it.

But to speak to the point, and a nice point it is I acknowledge;
_namely_, what religion _the Devil_ is of; my answer will indeed be
general, yet not at all ambiguous, for I love to speak positively and
with undoubted evidence.

1. _He is a believer._ And if in saying so it should follow, that
even the _Devil_ has more religion than some of our men of fame can
at this time be charged with, I hope my Lord ---- and his Grace the
---- of ---- and some of the upper class in the red-hot club, will
not wear the coat, however well it may sit to their shapes, or
challenge the Satyr, as if it were pointed at them, because 'tis
due to them: In a word, whatever their Lordships are, I can assure
them that the _Devil_ is no Infidel.

2. _He fears God._ We have such abundant evidence of this in sacred
History, that if I were not at present, in common with a few
others, talking to an infidel sort of Gentlemen, with whom those
remote things call'd Scriptures are not allow'd in evidence, I
might say it was sufficiently prov'd; but I doubt not in the
process of this undertaking to shew, that _the Devil_ really _fears
God_, and that after another manner than ever he fear'd Saint
_Frances_ or Saint _Dunstan_; and if that be proved, as I take upon
me to advance, I shall leave it to judgment, who's the better
Christian, _the Devil_ who _believes_ and _trembles_, or our modern
gentry of ---- who believe neither _God nor Devil_.

Having thus brought the _Devil_ within the _Pale_, I shall leave him
among you for the present; not but that I may examine in its order who
has the best claim to his brotherhood, the Papists or the Protestants;
and among the latter the Lutherans or the Calvinists; and so descending
to all the several denominations of churches, see who has less of _the
Devil_ in them, and who more; and whether _less_ or _more_ the Devil has
not a seat in every synagogue, a pew in every