ounts I must meddle the less with that part, at least for the
present.

Be it that the Devil has had a share in some of the late councils of
_Europe_, influencing them this way or that way, to his own advantage,
what is it to us? For example, What if he has had any concern in the
late affair of _Thorn_? What need we put it upon him, seeing his
confederates the _Jesuites_ with the _Assessorial_ tribunal of _Poland_
take it upon themselves? I shall leave that part to the issue of time. I
wish it were as easy to persuade the world that he had no hand in
bringing the injur'd Protestants to leave the justice due to the cries
of protestant blood to the arbitrament of a popish power, who dare say
that _the Devil_ must be in it, if justice should be obtain'd that way:
I should rather say, _the Devil_ is in it, or else it would never be
expected.

It occurs next to enquire from the premisses, whether _the Devil_ has
more influence or less in the affairs of the world now, than he had in
former ages; and this will depend upon comparing, as we go along, his
methods and way of working in past times, and the modern politicks by
which he acts in our days; with the differing reception which he has met
with among the men of such distant ages.

But there is so much to enquire of about _the Devil_, before we can
bring his story down to our modern times, that we must for the present
let them drop, and look a little back to the remoter parts of this
history; drawing his picture that people may know him when they meet
him, and see who and what he is, and what he has been doing ever since
he got leave to act in the high station he now appears in.

In the mean time, if I might obtain leave to present an humble petition
to _Satan_, it should be, that he would according to modern usage oblige
us all, with writing _the history of his own times_; 'twould, as well as
one that is gone before it, be a Devilish good one; for as to the
sincerity of the performance, the authority of the particulars, the
justice of the characters, _&c._ if they were no better vouch'd, no more
consistent with themselves, with charity, with truth, and with the
honour of an historian, than the last of that kind which came abroad
among us, it must be a reproach to _the Devil_ himself to be the author
of it.

Were _Satan_ to be brought under the least obligation to write truth,
and that the matters of fact, which he should write, might be depended
upon, he is certainly