uch a Cheat put upon
him in _East-Smithfield_ once, where a Person pretended to converse with
the _Devil_ Face to Face, and that in open Day too, and to cause him to
tell Fortunes, foretel Good and Evil, _&c._ discover stollen Goods, tell
where they were who stole them, and how to find them again, nay, and
even to find out the Thieves; but _Satan_ was really sandered in the
Case, the Fellow had no more to do with the _Devil_ than other People,
and perhaps not so much neither: This was one of those they call'd
CUNNING-MEN, or at least he endeavour'd to pass for such a one, but
'twas all a Cheat.

Besides, what had the _Devil_ to do to detect Thieves, and restore
stollen Goods? Thieving and Robbing, Trick and Cheat, are part of the
Craft of his Agency, and of the Employments which it is his Business to
encourage; they greatly mistake him, who think he will assist any Body
in suppressing and detecting such laudable Arts and such diligent
Servants.

I won't say, but the _Devil_, to draw these People we call
_Cunning-Men_, into a Snare, and to push on his farther Designs, may
encourage them privately, and in a manner that they themselves know
nothing of, to make use of his Name, and abuse the World about him, till
at last they may really believe they do deal with the _Devil_, when
indeed 'tis only he deals with them, and they know nothing of the
Matter.

In other Cases he may encourage them in these little Frauds and Cheats,
and give them leave, as above, to make use of his Name to bring them
afterwards, and by Degrees to have a real Acquaintance with him; so
bringing the Jest of their Trade into Earnest, till at length prompting
them to commit some great Villany, he secures them to be his own, by
their very Fear of his leaving them to be exposed to the World; thus he
puts a _Jonathan Wild_ upon them, and makes them be the very Wretches
they only pretended to be before: So old _Parsons_ of _Clithroe_, as
Fame tells, was twenty five Years a _Cunning-man_, and twenty two Years
a Witch; that is to say, for five and twenty Years, he was only
pretending to deal with the _Devil_, when Satan and he had no manner of
Acquaintance, and he only put his _Leger-de-main_ upon the People in the
_Devil_'s Name, without his leave; but at length the _Devil_'s Patience
being tir'd quite out, he told the old Counterfeit, that in short, he
had been his stalking Horse long enough, and that now, if he thought fit
to enter himself, and take a C