But as fatal as such a Union of the Popish Powers would be, and as useful as it would be to the _Devil_'s Cause at this time, not the _Devil_ with all his Angels are able to bring it to pass; no, not with all his Craft and Cunning; he divided them, but he can't unite them; so that even just as 'tis with Men, so 'tis with _Devils_, they may do in an Hour what they can't undo in an Age.
This may comfort those faint-hearted Christians among us, who cry out of the Danger of a religious War in _Europe_, and what terrible Things will happen when _France_, and _Spain_, and _Germany_, and _Italy_, and _Poland_ shall all unite; let this Answer satisfy them, The _Devil_ himself can never make _France_ and _Spain_, or _France_ and the Emperor unite; jarring Humours may be reconcil'd, but jarring Interests never can: They may unite so as to make Peace, _tho' that can hardly be long_, but never so as to make Conquests together; they are too much afraid of one another, for one to bear, that any Addition of Strength should come to the other. But this is a Digression. We shall find the _Devil_ mistaken and disappointed too on several other Occasions, as we go along.
I return to Satan's Interest in the several Governments and Nations, by vertue of his Invisibility, and which he carries on by Possession; 'tis by this Invisibility that he presides in all the Councils of _foreign Powers_, (for we never mean our own, that we always premise;) and what tho' it is alledged by the Criticks, that he does not preside, because there is always a President; I say, if he is not in the President's Chair, yet if he be in the President himself, the Difference is not much; and if he does not vote as a Counsellor, if he votes in the Counsellor, 'tis much the same; and here, as it was in the Story of _Ahab_ the King of _Israel_, as he was a _lying Spirit_ in the Mouths of _all his Prophets_, so we find him a Spirit of some particular evil Quality or other, in all the Transactions and Transactors on that Stage of Life we call the State.
Thus he was a dissembling Spirit in _Char._ IX. a turbulent Spirit in _Char._ V. Emperors; a bigotted Spirit of Fire and Faggot in our Queen _Mary_; an apostate Spirit in _Hen._ IV.; a cruel Spirit in _Peter_ of _Castile_; a revengeful Spirit in _Ferdinand_ II.; a _Phaeton_ in _Lewis_ XIV.; a _Sardanapalus_ in _C------_ II.