Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (3).pdf/11

 ſeſſion of them, ruling them with an arbitrary govern- ment, particular to himſelf. He had led them into a blind ſubjection, nay, I might call it devotion (for it was all the religion that was to be found among them); worſhipping horrible idols in his name, to whom he directed human ſacrifices continually to be made, till he deluged the country with blood, and ripened them up for the deſtruction that followed, from the invaſion of the Spaniards, who he knew would hurry them all out of the world as faſt as he (the Devil himſelf) could deſire of them. To return to the beginning of things, in the midſt of his conqueſt, he found a check put to the advanta- ges he expected to reap from his victory, by the im- mediate promiſe of grace to a part of the poſterity of Adam, who, notwithſtanding the fall, were to be pur- chaſed by the Meſſiah, and ſnatched out of his (Satan's) hands, and over whom he could make no final con- queſt: 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 beati- tudes of mankind; which were thus ſecured (and what if the numbers of mankind were upon this ac- count increaſed in ſuch a manner, that the ſelected number 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 com- pleted, the creation cannot fall, any more than that without them, or but for them, it would not have ſtood. The ſecond exploit the devil achieved was abſtrac- ting the mind of Cain, Adam's eldeſt ſon, from his al- legiance to God, who on finding that his brother's more virtuous ſacrifice was preferred to his own, con- ceived and perpetrated the Satanic deed of Butcher- ing Abel. For which God curſed Cain, blaſted