Page:The Political History of the Devil - Defoe (1726).djvu/20



are, I can assure them that the Devil is no Infidel.

2. He fears God. We have such abundant evidence of this in sacred History, that if I were not at present, in common with a few others, talking to an infidel sort of Gentlemen, with whom those remote things call'd Scriptures are not allow'd in evidence, I might say it were sufficiently prov'd; but I doubt not in the process of this undertaking to shew, that the Devil really fears God, and that after another manner than ever he fear'd Saint Francis or Saint Dunstan; and if that be proved, as I take upon me to advance, I shall leave it to judgment, who's the better Christian, the Devil who believes and trembles, or our modern gentry of who believe neither God or Devil.

Having thus brought the Devil within the Pale, I shall leave him among you for the present; not but that I may examine in its order who has the best claim to his brotherhood, the Papists or the Protestants, and among the latter the Lutherans or the Calvinists, and so descending to all the several denominations of churches, see who has less of the Devil in them, and who more; and whether less or more the Devil has not a seat in every synagogue, a pew in every church, a place in every pulpit, and a vote in every synod; even from the Sanhedrim of the Jews, to our friends at the Bull and Mouth, &c. from the greatest to the least.

It will, I confess, come very much within the compass of this part of my discourse, to give an account, or at least make an essay towards it, of the share the Devil has had in the spreading religion