“ Children and old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the Devil, and have formed ideas of him in their minds, in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that really it was enough to fright the Devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed up in the several, figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds of men ”

“ How glorious is the Wisdom and goodness of the great Creator of the world! in thus restraining these seraphic outcasts from the power of assuming human or organic bodies! which, could they do, invigorating them with the supernatural powers, which as seraphs and angels, they now possess, and might exert, they would be able even to fright mankind from the face of the earth, and to destroy and confound God's creation. ”

“ I think it no injury at all to the Devil, to say that he had a great hand in the old holy war, as it was ignorantly and enthusiastically called; stirring up the Christian princes and powers of Europe to run a mading after the Turks and Saracens; and make war with those innocent people above a thousand miles off, only because they entered into God's heritage when he had forsaken it ”

“ Every think evil is frightful in appearance, wicked in its actings, horrible in its manner, monstrous in its effects, is called the Devil; in a word, Devil is the common name for all devils, that is to say, for all evil spirits, all evil powers, all evil works, and even all evil things; yet it is remarkable, the Devil is no Old Testament word; and we never find it used in all that part of the Bible but four times, and then not once in the singular number: and not once, to signify Satan as it is now understood. ”

“ The strangest thing of all is, to hear Satan complain that the story is handled profanely: but who can think it strange, that his advocates should be what he was from the beginning?
It is evident the Devil, as subtile and as frightful as he is, has acted the ridiculous and foolish part, and much as most of God's creatures, and daily does so. And he cannot believe it is any sin to expose him for a foolish Devil, as he is, or shew him to the world that he may be laughed at. ”

“ But there is so much to enquire of about the Devil, before we can bring his story down to our modern times, that we must for the present let them drop, and look a little back to the remote parts of this history? ”

“ Scripture indeed gives us light into the enmity there is between the two natures, the diabolical and the human: the reason of it, and how and by what means the power of the Devil is restrained by the Messiah; and to those who are willing to trust to gospel light, and believe what the scripture says of the Devil, there may much of his history be discovered: and therefore those that list, may go there for a fuller account of the matter. ”

“ He is a believer. And if in saying to it should follow that even the Devil has more religion than some of our men of fame can at this time be charged with, I hope my Lord———, and his Grace the———, of———, and some of the upper class in the red hot club, will not wear the coat, however well it may fit to their shapes; or challenge the satire, as if it were pointed at them, because it is due to them: In a word, whatever their Lordships are, I can assure them that the Devil is no infidel. ”

“ The influence the Devil has in the politics of mankind, is another especial part of his history and would require, if it were possible, a very exact description; but here we shall be necessarily obliged to inquire so nicely into the arcana of circumstances, and unlock the cabinets of state in so many courts canvass the councils of ministers, and the conduct of princes so fully, and expose them so much, that it may perhaps make a combustion among the great politicians abroad ”

“ In all these things, Satan who no doubt would make a very good chronologist, could settle every epocha, correct every calendar, and bring all our accounts of time to a general agreement; as well as the Grecian Olympiades, the Turkish Heghira, the Chinese fictitious account of the world's duration, as our blind Julian and Gregorgian accounts, which have put the world to this day, into such confusion, that we neither agree in our holy days or working days or feasts, nor keep the same Sabbaths in any part of the same globe. ”

“ However, it seems the Jesuits outwitted the Devil in China, and, as I said above, overshot him in his own bow; for the mission being in danger, by the Devil and the Chinese Emperors joining together, of being wholly expelled there too, as they had been in Japan, they cunningly fell in with the ecclesiastics of the country, and joining the priestcraft of both religions together, they brought Jesus Christ and Confucius to be so reconcilable, that the Chinese and Roman Idolatry, appeared capable of a confederacy, of going on hand in hand together; and consequently of being very good friends. ”

“ It is true the brain-sick heads of our ehthusiastics paint him blacker than he is; and I have said, wickedly represent him clothed with terrors that do not really belong to him; as if the power of good and evil was wholly vested in him, and that he was placed in the throne of his Maker, to destribute both punishments and rewards: in this they are much wrong, terrifying and deluding fanciful people about him, till they turn their heads, and fright them into a belief that the Devil will let them alone, if they do such and such things ”

“ He may press men to this or that action, by telling them 'tis no sin, no offence no breach of God's law, and the like, when really 'tis both; but to press them to repent, when they have offended, that's quite out of the way; 'tis none of his business, nor does he pretend to it: therefore, let no man charge the Devil with what he is not concerned in. ”

“ Indeed let the Devil have been as idle as they think he was before, it must be acknowledged, that now he is the most busy, vigilant, and diligeat of all God's creatures, and very full of employment too, such as it is. ”

“ Now Thomas was not the only man that, having committed a flagitous crime, had been deluded by his own imagination, and the power of fancy, to think the Devil was come for him; whereas the Devil, to gave him his due, is too honest to pretend to such things; 'tis his business to persuade men to offend, not to repent ”

“ We have divers accounts of witches conversing with the Devil; the Devil in a real body, with all the appearances of a body of a man or woman appearing to them: also of having a familiar, as they call it, an incubus or little Devil, which sucks their bodies, runs away with then into the air, and the like. ”

“ But to return to his person; he is, as I have said, notwithstanding his lost glory, a mighty, a terrible, and an immortal spirit; he is himself called a Prince, the Prince of the Power of the Air, the Prince of darkness, the Prince of Devils, and the like. Some think the Devil is in our company visible or invisible. ”

“ Nay, even as they are, were not their power limited, they might destroy the creation itself, reverse and overturn nature, and put the world into a general conflagation. But were those immortal spirits embodied, though they were not permitted to confound nature, they would be able to harass poor, weak and defenceless man out of his wits, and render him useless, either to his Maker or himself.
But let his power be what it will there, we are sure it is limited here, and that in two particulars: First, He is limited as above, from assuming a body, or bodily shapes, with substance ”

“ However, the candle falling out of the scone, did not go out, but lay on the floor burning dully, and as is usual in such cases, all on one side. Betty cries out again, "La! Madam, that candle burns blue too!". The very moment she said this, the footman that had thrown down the scone, says to his fellow servant, that came to his assistance, I think the Devil is in the candles to night! and away he runs, out of the room for fear of his master. ”

“ This we are certain that be his power greater or less, he is retrained from exercise of it in this world; and he, who was once equal to the angel who killed 180,000 in one night, is not able now, without new a commission, to take away the life of one (illegible text) ob nor touch any thing he had.
But let us consider him then limited and restrained as he is, yet he remains a mighty, a terrible, an immortal being; infinitely superior to man, as well in the dignity of his nature as the dreadful powers he retains still about him. ”