n.

Furthermore, the servile, abject, needy circumstances wherein the Devil
keeps the Slaves, that are under his more sensible Vassalage, do suggest
unto us, how _woful_ the Devil would render all our Lives. We that live
in a Province, which affords unto us all that may be necessary or
comfortable for us, found the Province fill'd with vast Herds of
Salvages, that never saw so much as a _Knife_, or a _Nail_, or a
_Board_, or a Grain of _Salt_, in all their Days. No better would the
Devil have the World provided for. Nor should we, or any else, have one
convenient thing about us, but be as indigent as _usually_ our most
_Ragged Witches_ are; if _the Devil's Malice_ were not over-ruled by a
_compassionate God_, who _preserves Man and Beast_. Hence 'tis, that
_the Devil_, even like a _Dragon_, keeping a Guard upon such _Fruits_ as
would _refresh_ a languishing World, has hindred Mankind for many Ages,
from hitting those _useful Inventions_, which yet _were so obvious_ and
_facil_, that it is every bodies wonder, they were no sooner hit upon.
The _bemisted World_, must jog on for thousands of Years, without the
knowledg of _the Loadstone_, till a _Neapolitan_ stumbled upon it, about
_three hundred years_ ago. Nor must the World be _blest_ with such a
_matchless Engine_ of _Learning_ and _Vertue_, as that of _Printing_,
till about _the middle of the Fifteenth Century_. Nor could _One Old
Man, all over the Face of the whole Earth_, have the _benefit_ of such a
_Little_, tho most _needful_ thing, as a pair of _Spectacles_, till a
_Dutch-Man_, a _little while_ ago accommodated us.

Indeed, as the Devil does begrutch us all manner of _Good_, so he does
annoy us with all manner of _Wo_, as often as he finds himself capable
of doing it. But shall we mention some of the _special woes_ with which
the Devil does usually infest the World! Briefly then; _Plagues_ are
some of those _woes_ with which the Devil troubles us. It is said of the
_Israelites_, in _1 Cor. 10.10._ _They were destroyed of the destroyer._
That is, they had the _Plague_ among them. 'Tis the _Destroyer_, or _the
Devil_, that scatters _Plagues_ about the World. Pestilential and
Contagious Diseases, 'tis the Devil who does oftentimes invade us with
them. 'Tis no uneasy thing for the Devil to impregnate the Air about us,
with such Malignant _Salts_, as meeting with _the Salt_ of our
_Microcosm_, shall immediately cast us into that Fermentation and
Putrefaction, which