Page:History of the Devil, ancient and modern (2).pdf/12

 the deſtruction that followed, from the invaſion

of the Spaniards, whom he knew would hurry

them out of the world as faſt as he (the Devil

hlmſelf) could deſire of them.

To return to the beginning of things, in the

midſt of his conqueſt, he found a check put to the

advantages he expected to reap from his victory,

by the immediate promiſe of grace to a part of

the poſterity of Adam, who notwithſtanding the

fall, were to be purchaſed by the Meſſiah, and

ſnatched out of his (Satan's) hands, and over

whom he could make no final conqueſt; ſo that

his power met with a new limitation, and that

ſuch as indeed fully diſappointed him in the main

thing he aimed at, viz. preventing the beatitudes

of mankind; which were thus ſecured, (and what

if the numbers of mankind were upon this account

increaſed in ſuch a manner, that the ſelected num-

ber ſhould, by length of time, amount to juſt as

many as the whole race had they not fallen, would

have amounted to in all?) And thus, indeed the

world may be ſaid to be upheld and continued for

the ſake of thoſe few; ſince, till their number

can be completed the creation cannot fall, any

more than that without them, or but for them, it

would not have ſtood.

The ſecond exploit the Devil atchieved, was

abſtracting the mind of Cain, Adam's eldeſt ſon,

from his allegiance to God, who, on finding that

his brother's more virtuous ſacrifice was prefer-

red to his own, conceived and perpetrated the ſa-

tanic deed of butchering Abel. For which God

curſed Cain, blaſted his race, and drove them

from his preſence.—Thus the Devil too ſuc-

ceſsfully practiſed his wiles on the Antedeluvian;

for tho' Seth the third ſon of Adam had had two

ſons, in thoſe days we find "that men began to

call on the one of the Lord;" yet in tracing