ticular the characters of Belus, worship'd under the name of Baal, Saturn and Jupiter, his successors, who they were here, and how they behaved; with all the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Abimilechs of Canaan, and the monarchs of Assyria and Babylon.
Hence also he is able to write the lives of all the Heroes of the world, from Alexander of Macedon to Lewis the XIV. and from Augustus to the great King George; nor could the Bishop himself go beyond him for flattery, any more than the Devil himself could go beyond the Bishop for falshood.
I could enlarge with a particular satisfaction upon the many fine things which Satan, rummaging that unexhaustible storehouse of slander, could set down to blacken the characters of good men, and load the best princes of the world with infamy and reproach.
But we shall never prevail with him, I doubt, to do mankind so much service as resolving all those difficulties would be; for he has an indelible grudge against us, as he believes, and perhaps is assur'd that men were at first created by his sovereign, to the intent that after a certain state of probation in life, such of them as shall be approved, are appointed to fill up those vacancies in the Heavenly Host, which were made by the abdication and expulsion of him the Devil and his Angels; so that man is appointed to come in Satan's stead, to make good the breach and enjoy all those ineffable joys and beatitudes which Satan enjoy'd before his fall; no wonder then, that the Devil swells with envy and rage at mankind in general, and at the best of them in particular; nay,the granting this point is giving an unanswerable reason, why the Devil practises with such unwearied and indefatigable application upon the best men, if possible, to disappoint GodAlmigh-
