king war upon himself, and at least doing
nothing to the purpose.

If they should charge him, indeed, with deluding _Philip_ II. of _Spain_
into that preposterous attempt call'd _the Armada_, (_anglice_, the
_Spanish Invasion_,) I should indeed more readily join with them; but
whether he did it weakly, in hope, _which was indeed not likely_, that
it should succeed; or wickedly, to destroy that great fleet of the
_Spaniards_, and draw them within the reach of his own dominions, the
elements; this being a question which authors differ exceedingly about,
I shall leave it to decide it self.

But the greatest piece of management, which we find _the Devil_ has
concern'd himself in of late, in the matter of religion, seems to be
that of the mission into _China_; and here indeed _Satan_ has acted his
master-piece: It was, no doubt, much for his service that _the Chineses_
should have no insight into matters of religion, I mean, that we call
christian; and therefore, tho' _Popery_ and the _Devil_ are not at so
much variance as some may imagine, yet he did not think it safe to let
the general system of Christianity be heard of among them in _China_.
Hence when the name of the christian religion had but been received with
some seeming approbation in the country of _Japan_, _Satan_ immediately,
as if alarm'd at the thing, and dreading what the consequence of it
might be, arm'd the _Japoneses_ against it with such fury, that they
expell'd it at once.

It was much safer to his designs, when, if the story be not a fiction,
he put that _Dutch_ witicism into the mouths of the States commanders,
when they came to _Japan_; who having more wit than to own themselves
Christians in such a place as that, when the question was put to them,
answered negatively, _That they were not_, but that _they were of
another religion call'd_ Hollanders.

However, it seems the diligent _Jesuits_ out-witted the Devil in
_China_, and, as I said above, over-shot him in his own Bow; for the
mission being in danger _by the Devil and the_ Chinese _Emperor_'s
_joining together_, of being wholly expell'd there too, as they had been
in _Japan_, they cunningly fell in with the ecclesiasticks of the
country, and joining the priestcraft of both religions together, they
brought _Jesus Christ_ and _Confucius_ to be so reconcilable, that the
_Chinese_ and the _Roman_ idolatry appeared capable of a confederacy, of
going on hand in hand together, and consequently of bei