I might indeed go back to Originals, and derive this _Cloven-Foot_ from Satan's primitive State as a Cherubim or a celestial Being, which Cherubims, as _Moses_ is said to have seen them about the Throne of God in Mount _Sinai_, and as the same _Moses_, from the Original represented them afterwards covering the Ark, had the Head and Face of a Man, Wings of an Eagle, Body of a Lion, and Legs and Feet of a Calf; but this is not so much to our present Purpose, for as we are to allow that whatever _Satan_ had of heavenly Beauty before the Fall, he lost it all when he commenc'd _Devil_, so to fetch his Original so far up would be only to say, that he retain'd nothing but the _Cloven-Foot_, and that all the rest of him was alter'd and deform'd, become frightful and horrible as the DEVIL; but his Cloven-Foot, as we now understand it, is rather mystical and emblematick, and describes him only as the Fountain of Mischief and Treason, and the Prince of Hypocrites, and as such we are now to speak of him.
'Tis from this Original all the hypocritic World copy, he wears the Foot on their Account, and from this Model they act: This made our blessed Lord tell them, _the Works of your Father ye will do_, meaning the _Devil_, as he had express'd it just before.
Nor does he deny the Use of the _Foot_ to the meaner Class of his Disciples in the World, but decently equips them all upon every Occasion with a needful Proportion of Hypocrisy and Deceit; that they may hand on the Power of promiscuous Fraud thro' all his temporal Dominions, and wear _the Foot_ always about them as a Badge of their profess'd Share in whatever is done by that Means.
Thus every Dissembler, every false Friend, every secret Cheat, every Bearskin-Jobber has a _Cloven-Foot_, and so far hands on the Devil's Interest by the same powerful Agency of Art, as the _Devil_ himself uses to act when he appears in Person, or would act if he was just now upon the Spot; for this _Foot_ is a Machine which is to be wound up and wound down, as the Cause it appears for requires; and there are Agents and Engineers to act in it by Directions of _Satan_ (the grand Engineer) who lies still in his Retirement, only issuing out his Orders as he sees convenient.