But whoever has been his adviser,
As his kingdom increases in growth,
He now takes his measures much wiser,
And trafics with beauty and youth.
Disguis'd in the wanton and witty,
He haunts both the church and the court;
And sometimes he visits the city,
Where all the best christians resort.
Thus dress'd up in full masquerade,
He the bolder can range up and down
For he better can drive on his trade,
In any one's name than his own.
To be brief, the devil, it appears, is by far too cunning still for
mankind, and continues to manage things in his own way, in spite of
bishops, priests, laymen, and new churches. He governs the vices and
propensities of men by methods peculiarly his own; though every crime or
extortion, subterfuge or design, whether it be upon the purse or the
person, will not make a man a devil; it must nevertheless be confessed,
that every crime, be its magnitude or complexion what it may, puts the
criminal, in some measure, into the devil's power, and gives him an
ascendancy and even a title to the delinquent, whom he ever afterwards
treats in a very magisterial manner.
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