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the deſtruction that followed, from the invaſion
of the Spaniards, whom he knew would hurry
them out of the world as faſt as he (the Devil
hlmſelf) could deſire of them.
To return to the beginning of things, in the
midſt of his conqueſt, he found a check put to the
advantages he expected to reap from his victory,
by the immediate promiſe of grace to a part of
the poſterity of Adam, who notwithſtanding the
fall, were to be purchaſed by the Meſſiah, and
ſnatched out of his (Satan's) hands, and over
whom he could make no final conqueſt; ſo that
his power met with a new limitation, and that
ſuch as indeed fully diſappointed him in the main
thing he aimed at, viz. preventing the beatitudes
of mankind; which were thus ſecured, (and what
if the numbers of mankind were upon this account
increaſed in ſuch a manner, that the ſelected num-
ber ſhould, by length of time, amount to juſt as
many as the whole race had they not fallen, would
have amounted to in all?) And thus, indeed the
world may be ſaid to be upheld and continued for
the ſake of thoſe few; ſince, till their number
can be completed the creation cannot fall, any
more than that without them, or but for them, it
would not have ſtood.
The ſecond exploit the Devil atchieved, was
abſtracting the mind of Cain, Adam's eldeſt ſon,
from his allegiance to God, who, on finding that
his brother's more virtuous ſacrifice was prefer-
red to his own, conceived and perpetrated the ſa-
tanic deed of butchering Abel. For which God
curſed Cain, blaſted his race, and drove them
from his preſence.—Thus the Devil too ſuc-
ceſsfully practiſed his wiles on the Antedeluvian;
for tho' Seth the third ſon of Adam had had two
ſons, in thoſe days we find "that men began to
call on the one of the Lord;" yet in tracing
