Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (3).pdf/13

 ( 14 ) mouth : for we never more hear of him after, though he lived a long time. It would be tedious and deſultory to trace Satan through all his indefatigable workings to reduce man- kind to devil worſhip, and how completely he ſucceed- ed till God called Abraham out from among his idol worſhipping friends, and in his feed erected a church, in which, in fulneſs of time, the Meſſiah, who before had expelled Satan heaven, was to appear and give his kingdom a mortal wound. Nor ſhall we ſhew the many defections in the brighteſt luminaries of that church, to the coming of our Saviour; and it was, no doubt, then at a low ebb, though there was a glorious remnant of Saints who waited the ſalvation of Iſrael, and kept Satan at bay. And this was a more mortal ſtab to the thrones principalities infernal, than the creation of man; and therefore with this I break off the antiquities of the Devil's hiſtory, or the ancient part of his kingdom: for from hence downward, we ſhall find his empire has declined gradually: and though, by his wonderful addreſs, his prodigious ap- plication and the vigilance and fidelity of his inſtru- ments, as well human as infernal and diabolical ; and of the human, 15 well the eccleſiaſtic as the ſecular, he has many times retrieved what he had lost, and ſometimes bid fair for recovering the univerſal empire he once poſſeſſed over mankind: yet he has been ſtill defeated again, repulſed, and beaten back, and his kingdom has declined in many parts of the world, and eſpecially in the northern parts. And we ſhall conſider how he has politically maintained his intereſt, and increaſed his dominion, among the wife and righteous generation that we cohabit with and among; which is in ſo far, the ſubject of the modern part of Satan's hiſtory, and of which we are next to give an account.