er the powerful Guard and Protection of
the Devil, Men do sometimes go a great Way in Crime, and that perhaps
farther in these our Days of boasted Morals than was known among our
Fathers; the only Difference that I meet with between the Sons of
_Belial_ in former Days, and those of our Ages, seems to be in the
Devil's Management, not in theirs; the Sum of which amounts to this,
that Satan seems to act with more Cunning, and they with less; for in
the former Ages of Satan's Dominion, he had much Business upon his
Hands, all his Art and Engines, and Engineers also, were kept fully
employ'd, to wheedle, allure, betray and circumvent People, and draw
them into Crimes, and they found him, as we may say, a full Employment;
I doubt not, he was call'd the Tempter on that very Account; but the
Case seems quite alter'd now, the Tables are turned; then the Devil
tempted Men to sin, _But now, in short_, they tempt the Devil; Men push
into Crimes before he pushes them; they out shoot him in his own Bow,
out run him on his own Ground, and, as we say of some hot Spurs who ride
Post, they whip the Post-Boy; in a Word, the Devil seems to have no
Business now but to sit still and look on.

This, I must confess, seems to intimate some secret Compact between the
Devil and them; but then it looks, not as is they had contracted with
the Devil for leave to sin, but that the Devil had contracted with them,
that they should sin so and so, up to such a Degree, and that without
giving him the Trouble of daily Solicitation, private Management, and
artful screwing up their Passions, their Affections and their most
retir'd Faculties, as he was before oblig'd to do.

This also appears more agreeable to the Nature of the Thing; and as it
is a most exquisite part of Satan's Cunning, so 'tis an undoubted
Testimony of his Success; if it was not so, he could never bring his
Kingdom to such a height of absolute Power as he has done; this also
solves several Difficulties in the Affair of the World's present Way of
sinning, which otherwise it would be very hard to understand; as
particularly how some eminent Men of Quality among us, whose upper Rooms
are not extraordinary well furnished in other Cases, yet are so very
witty in their Wickedness, that they gather Admirers by hundreds and
thousands; who, however heavy, lumpish, slow and backward, even by
Nature, and in force of Constitution in better things, yet in their Race
Devil-wards they are of a sudden g