emptations, and quench his fiery darts."--"But," says he
again, "if God much strong, much might, as the devil, why God not kill
the devil, so make him no more wicked?"

I was strangely surprised at his question; and after all, though I was
now an old man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill enough qualified
for a casuist, or a solver of difficulties: and, at first, I could not
tell what to say; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he
said; but he was too earnest for an answer to forget his question; so
that he repeated it in the very same broken words, as above. By this
time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, "God will at last
punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment, and is to be cast
into the bottomless pit, to dwell with everlasting fire." This did not
satisfy Friday; but he returns upon me, repeating my words, "Reserve at
last! me no understand: but why not kill the devil now, not kill great
ago?"--"You may as well ask me," said I, "why God does not kill you and
me, when we do wicked things here that offend him: we are preserved to
repent and be pardoned." He muses awhile at this; "Well, well," says he,
mighty affectionately, "that well; so you I, devil, all wicked, all
preserve, repent, God pardon all." Here I was run down again by him to
the last degree, and it was a testimony to me, how the mere notions of
nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of
a God, and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as
the consequence of our nature; yet nothing but divine revelation can
form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of a redemption purchased for
us; of a Mediator; of a new covenant; and of an Intercessor at the
footstool of God's throne; I say, nothing but a revelation from Heaven
can form these in the soul; and that therefore the Gospel of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the word of God, and the Spirit of God,
promised for the guide and sanctifier of his people, are the absolutely
necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of
God, and the means of salvation.

I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man, rising
up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; then sending him
for some thing a great way off, I seriously prayed to God, that he would
enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting, by his
Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature to receive the light