nothing of his doing, and hear nothing of his saying,
in his own Name; and if you propose any Thing to be done, and it be but
said the _Devil_ is to help in the doing it, or if you say of any Man he
deals with the _Devil_, or the _Devil_ has a Hand in it, every Body
flies him and shuns him, as the most frightful Thing in the World.

Nay, if any Thing strange and improbable be done or related to be done,
we presently say the _Devil_ was at the doing it: Thus the great Ditch
at _Newmarket Heath_, is call'd the _Devil_'s _Ditch_; so the _Devil_
built _Crowland_ Abby, and the Whispering-Place in _Gloucester_
Cathedral; nay, the Cave at _Castleton_, only because there's no getting
to the farther End of it, is call'd the _Devil_'s A---- and the like:
The poor People of _Wiltshire_, when you ask them how the great Stones
at _Stonehenge_ were brought thither? they'll all tell you the _Devil_
brought them: If any Mischief extraordinary befalls us, we presently say
the _Devil_ was in it, and the _Devil_ would have it so; in a Word, the
_Devil_ has got an ill Name among us, and so he is fain to act more _in
Tenebris_, more _incog._ than he used to do, play out of sight himself,
and work by the Sap, as the Engineers call it, and not openly and
avowedly in his own Name and Person, as formerly, tho' perhaps not with
less Success than he did before; and this leads me to enquire more
narrowly into the manner of the _Devil_'s Management of his Affairs
since the Christian Religion began to spread in the World, which
manifestly differs from his Conduct in more antient Times; in which if
we discover some of the most consummate Fool's Policy, the most profound
simple Craft, and the most subtle shallow Management of Things that can
by our weak Understandings be conceiv'd, we must only resolve it into
this, that in short it is the DEVIL.

CHAP. II.

_Of Hell as it is represented to us, and how the_ Devil _is to be
understood, as being personally in Hell, when at the same Time we
find him at Liberty ranging over the World._

It is true, as that learn'd and pleasant Author, the inimitable Dr.
_Brown_ says, the _Devil_ is his own Hell; one of the most constituting
Parts of his Infelicity is, that he cannot act upon Mankind _brevi
Manu_, by his own inherent Power, as well as Rage; that he cannot
unhinge this Creation, which, _as I have observ'd in its Place_, he had
the utmost Aversion to from its Beginning, as it was a stat