ncing the Oracles, and Religion telling them that Miracles
are ceas'd, and that God has done speaking by Prophets, they never
enquire whether Heaven has established any other or new Way of
Revelation, but away they ran with their Doubts and Difficulties to
these Dreamers of Dreams, Tellers of Fortunes, and personal Oracles to
be resolv'd; as if when they acknowledge the Devil is dumb, these could
speak; and as if the wicked Spirit could do more than the Good, the
_Diabolical_ more than the _Divine_, or that Heaven having taken away
the DEVIL's Voice, had furnish'd him with an Equivalent, by allowing
Scolds, Termagants, and old weak and superannuated Wretches to speak for
him; for these are the People we go to now in our Doubts and
Emergencies.

While this Blindness continues among us, 'tis Nonsense to say that
Oracles are silenced, or the _Devil_ is dumb, for the _Devil_ gives
Audience still by his Deputies; only as _Jeroboam_ made Priests of the
meanest of the People, so he is grown a little humble, and makes use of
meaner Instruments than he did before; for whereas the Priests of
_Apollo_, and of _Jupiter_, were splendid in their Appearance, of grave
and venerable Aspect, and sometimes of no mean Quality; now he makes use
of Scoundrels and Rabble, Beggars and Vagabonds, old Hags, superannuated
miserable Hermits, Gypsies and Strollers, the Pictures of Envy and ill
Luck.

Either the _Devil_ is grown an ill Master, and gives but mean Wages,
that he can get no better Servants; or else Common Sense is grown very
low priz'd and contemptible; that such as these are fit Tools to
continue the Succession of Fraud, and carry on the _Devil_'s Interest in
the World; for were not the Passions and Temper of Mankind deeply
pre-engaged in favour of this dark Prince, we could never suffer our
selves to accept of his Favours by the Hands of such contemptible Agents
as these! How do we receive his Oracles from an old Witch of particular
Eminence, and who we believe to be more than ordinarily inspir'd from
Hell; I say, we receive the Oracle with Reverence; that is to say, with
a kind of Horror, with regard to the Black Prince it comes from, and at
the same time turn our Faces away from the Wretch that mumbles out the
Answers, lest she should cast an _Evil Eye_, as we call it, upon us, and
put a Devil into us when she plays the _Devil_ before us? How do we
listen to the Cant of those worst of Vagabonds the _Gypsies_, when at
the same tim