Page:The Political History of the Devil - Defoe (1726).djvu/24

 tian, and therefore, tho' Popery and the Devil are not at so much variance as some may imagine, yet he did not think it safe to let the general system of Christianity be heard of among them in China. Hence when the name of the christian religion had but been received with some seeming approbation in the country of Japan, Satan immediately, as if alarm'd at the thing, and dreading what the consequence of it might be, arm'd the Japoneses against it with such fury, that they expell'd it at once.

It was much safer to his designs, when, if the story be not a fiction, he put that Dutch witicism into the mouths of the States commanders, when they came to Japan; who having more wit than to own themselves Christians in such a place as that, when the question was put to them, answered negatively, That they were not, but that they were of another religion call'd Hollanders.

However, it seems the diligent Jesuits out-witted the Devil in China, and, as I said above, overshot him in his own Bow; for the mission being in danger by the Devil and the Chinese Emperor's joining together, of being wholly expell'd there. too, as they had been in Japan, they cunningly fell in with the ecclesiasticks of the country, and joining the priestcraft of both religions together, they brought Jesus Christ and Confucius to be so reconcilable, that the Chinese and the Roman idolatry appeared capable of a confederacy, of going on hand in hand together, and consequently of being very good friends.

This was a master-piece indeed, and, as they say, almost frighted Satan out of his wits; but he being a ready mannager, and particularly famous for serving himself of the rogueries of the priests, fac'd about immediately to the mission, and making a virtue of necessity, clapt in, with