Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (1).pdf/3

3 them in the world to handle it better; and as the author professes he is far from thinking his piece perfect, they ought not to be angry, that he gives them leave to mend it.

I doubt not but the title of this book will amuse some of my reading friends a little at first; they will make a pause, perhaps, as they do at a witch's prayer, and be some time a resolving whether they had best look into it or no, least they should really raise the Devil, by reading his story.

Children and old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the Devil, and have formed ideas of him in their minds, in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that really it was enough to fright the Devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed up in the several, figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds of men; and; as for themselves, cannot think by any means that the Devil would terrify them half so much, if they would converse face to face with him.

It must therefore be a most useful undertaking, to give the true history of this tyrant of the air, this god of this world, this terror and aversion of mankind, which we call Devil: to shew what he is, and what he is not; where he is, and where he is not ; when he is in us, and when he is not; for I cannot doubt but that the Devil is really, and bona fide, in a great many of our honest weak headed friends, when they themselves know nothing of the matter.

Nor is the work so difficult as some may imagine. The devil's history is not so hard to come at, as it seems to be; his original and the first rise of his family is upon record; and as for his conduct, he has acted indeed in the