ng very good
friends.

This was a master-piece indeed, and, _as they say_, almost frighted
_Satan_ out of his wits; but he being a ready manager, and particularly
famous for serving himself of the rogueries of the priests, fac'd about
immediately to the mission, and making a virtue of necessity, clapt in,
with all possible alacrity, with the proposal[1]; so the _Jesuits_ and
he form'd a _hotch-potch_ of _religion_ made up of _Popery_ and _Paganism_
and calculated to leave the latter rather worse than they found it,
binding the faith of Christ and the philosophy or morals of _Confucius_
together, and formally christening them by the name of _religion_; by
which means the politick interest of the mission was preserved; and yet
_Satan_ lost not one inch of ground with the _Chineses_, no, not by the
planting the Gospel it self, _such as it was_, among them.

Nor has it been such disadvantage to him that this plan or scheme of a
new modell'd religion would not go down at _Rome_, and that the
Inquisition damn'd it with Bell, Book and Candle; distance of place
serv'd his new allies, the missionaries, in the stead of a protection
from the Inquisition; and now and then a rich present well plac'd found
them friends in the congregation it self; and where any Nuncio with his
impudent zeal pretended to take such a long voyage to oppose them,
_Satan_ took care to get him sent back _re infecta_, or inspir'd the
million to move him off the premisses, by methods of their own (that is
to say, being interpreted) to _murther him_.

Thus the mission has in itself been truly _devilish_, and the Devil has
interested himself in the planting the christian religion in _China_.

The influence _the Devil_ has in the Politicks of mankind, is another
especial part of his history, and would require, if it were possible, a
very exact description; but here we shall necessarily be obliged to
inquire so nicely into the Arcana of circumstances, and unlock the
cabinets of state in so many courts, canvass the councils of ministers
and the conduct of princes so fully, and expose them so much, that it
may, perhaps, make a combustion among the great politicians abroad; and
in doing that we may come so near home too, that tho' personal safety
and prudentials forbid our medling with our own country, we may be taken
in a double entendre, and fall unpitied for being only suspected of
touching truths that are so tender, whether we are guilty or no; on
these acc