we
can very seldom match for Wickedness among the Men; such now as in the
Text, _Lot_'s Daughters, _Joseph_'s Mistress, _Sampson_'s _Dalilah_,
_Herod_'s _Herodias_, these were certainly _Devils_, or play'd the
_Devil_ sufficiently in their Turn; one Male Apparition indeed the
Scripture furnishes you with, and that is _Judas_; for his Master says
expresly of him, _One of you is a Devil_; not has the _Devil_, or is
possess'd of the DEVIL; but really is a DEVIL, or is a real DEVIL.

How happy is it, that this great Secret comes thus to be discover'd to
mankind? Certainly the World has gone on in Ignorance a long time, and
at a strange rate, that we should have so many _Devils_ continually
walking about among us in humane Shape, and we know it not.

Philosophers tell us that there is a World of Spirits, and many learned
Pieces of Guess-work they make at it, representing the World to be so
near us, that the Air, as they describe it, must be full of Dragons and
_Devils_, enough to fright our Imaginations with the very Thoughts of
them; and if they say true, 'tis our great Felicity that we cannot see
any farther into it than we do, which if we could, would appear as
frightful as Hell itself; but none of those Sages ever told us, till
now, that half the People who converse with us are _Apparitions_,
especially of the Women; and among them especially this valuable Part,
the Woman of Figure, the fair, the beautiful, or patch'd and painted.

This unusual Phaenomenon has been seen but a little while, and but a
little way, and the general Part of Mankind cannot come into the same
Notions about it; nay, perhaps they will all think it strange; but be
it as strange as it will, the Nature of the Thing confirms it, this
lower Sphere is full of _Devils_; and some of both Sexes have given
strange Testimonies of the Reality of their pre-existent _Devilism_ for
many Ages past, tho' I think it never came to that Height as it has now.

It is true, in former times Satan dealt much in old Women, and those, as
I have observ'd already, very ugly, _Ugly as a Witch_, _Black as a
Witch_, _I look like a Witch_, all proverbial Speeches, and which
testify'd what Tools it was Satan generally work'd with; and these old
Spectres, they tell us, us'd to ride thro' the Air in the Night, and
upon Broomsticks too, all mighty homely Doings; some say they us'd to go
to visit their Grand Seignior the _Devil_, in those Nocturnal
Perambulations: But be that as it