The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts

by Daniel Defoe

I confess, I do not well understand this compacting with such a Fellow as can neither write nor read; nor do I know who is the Scrivener between them, or how the Indenture can be executed; but that which is worse than all the rest is, that in the first Place, the Devil never keeps Articles; he will contract perhaps, and they say he is mighty forward to make Conditions; but who shall bind him to the Performance, and where is the Penalty if he fails? if we agree with him, he will be apt enough to claim his Bargain and demand Payment; nay, perhaps before it is due; but who shall make him stand to his.

Besides, he is a Knave in his Dealing, for he really promises what he cannot perform; witness his impudent Proposal to our Lord mentioned above. All these Kingdoms will I give thee! Lying Spirit! Why they were none of thine to give, no not one of them; for the Earth is the Lords and the kingdoms thereof, nor were they in his Power any more than in his Right: So (I have heard that) some poor dismal Creatures have sold themselves to the Devil for a Sum of Money, for so much Cash, and yet even in that Case, when the Day of Payment came, I never heard that he brought the Money or paid the Purchase, so that he is a Scoundrel in his Treaties, for you shall trust for your Bargain, but not be able to get your Money; and yet for your Part, he comes for you to an Hour: Of which by it self.

In a Word, let me caution you all, when you trade with the Devil, either get the Price or quit the Bargain; the Devil is a cunning Shaver, he will wriggle himself out of the Performance on his Side if possible, and yet expect you should be punctual on your Side. They tell you of a poor Fellow in Herefordshire, that offer’d to sell his Soul to him for a Cow, and though the Devil promised, and as they say, sign’d the Writings, yet the poor Countryman could never get the Cow of him, but still as he brought a Cow to him, some body or other came and challeng’d it, proving that it was lost or stolen from them; so that the Man got nothing but the Name of a Cow-stealer, and was at last carried to Hereford Goal, and condemn’d to be hang’d for stealing two Cows, one after the other: The wicked Fellow was then in the greatest Distress imaginable, he summon’d his Devil to help him out, but he failed him, as the Devil always will; he really had not stolen the Cows, but they were found in his Possession, and he could give no Account how he came by them; at last he was driven to confess the Truth, told the horrid Bargain he had made, and how the Devil often promis’d him a Cow, but never gave him one, except that several Times in the Morning early he found a Cow put into his Yard, but it always prov’d to belong to some of his Neighbours: Whether the Man was hang’d or no, the Story does not relate; but this Part is to my Purpose, that they that make Bargains with the Devil, ought to make him give Security for the Performance of Covenants, and who the Devil would get to be bound for him, I can’t tell, they must look to that who make the Bargain: Besides, if he had not had a Mind to cheat or baffle the poor Man, what need he have taken a Cow so near home? if he had such and such Powers as we talk of, and as Fancy and Fable furnish for him, could not he have carried a Cow in the Air upon a Broom-stick, as well as an old Woman? Could he not have stole a Cow for him in Lincolnshire, and set it down in Herefordshire, and so have performed his Bargain, saved his Credit, and kept the poor Man out of Trouble? so that if the Story is True, as I really believe it is, either it is not the Devil that makes those Bargains, or the Devil has not such Power as we bestow on him, except on Special Occasions he gets a Permit, and is bid go, as in the Case of Job, the Gadaren Hogs, and the like.

We have another Example of a Man’s selling himself to the Devil, that is very remarkable, and that is in the Bible too, and even in that, I do not find, what the Devil did for him, in Payment of the Purchase Price. The Person selling was Ahab, of whom the Text says expresly, there was none like him, who did sell himself to work Wickedness in the Sight of the Lord, 1 Kings xxi. 20, and the 25. I think it might have been rendred, if not translated in Spight of the Lord, or in Defiance of God; for certainly that’s the Meaning of it; and now allowing me to preach a little upon this Text, my Sermon shall be very short. Ahab sold himself, who did he sell himself to? I answer that Question by a Question; who would buy him? who, as we say, would give any thing for him? and the Answer to that is plain also, you may judge of the Purchaser by the Work he was to do; he that buys a Slave in the Market, buys him to work for him, and to do such Business as he has for him to do: Ahab was bought to work wickedness, and who would buy him for that but the Devil?

I think there’s no room to doubt but Ahab sold himself to the Devil; the Text is plain that he sold himself, and the Work he was sold to do points out the Master that bought him; what Price he agreed with the Devil for, that indeed the Text is silent in, so we may let it alone, nor is it much to our Purpose, unless it be to enquire whether the Devil stood to his Bargain or not, and whether he paid the Money according to Agreement, or cheated him as he did the Farmer at Hereford.

This buying and selling between the Devil and us, is, I must confess, an odd kind of Stock-jobbing, and indeed the Devil may be said to sell the Bear-skin, whatever he buys; but the strangest Part is when he comes to demand the transfer; for as I hinted before, whether he Performs or no, he expects his Bargain to a Tittle; there is indeed some Difficulty in resolving how and in what Manner Payment is made; the Stories we meet with in our Chimney-Corner Histories, and which are so many Ways made Use of to make the Devil frightful to us and our Heirs for ever, are generally so foolish and ridiculous, as, if true or not true, they have nothing Material in them, are of no Signification, or else so impossible in their Nature, that they make no Impression upon any body above twelve Years old and under seventy; or else are so tragical that Antiquity has fabled them down to our Taste, that we might be able to hear them and repeat them with less Horror than is due to them.

This Variety has taken off our Relish of the Thing in general, and made the Trade of Soul-selling, like our late more eminent Bubbles, be taken to be a Cheat and to have little in it.

However, to speak a little more gravely to it, I cannot say but that since, by the two eminent Instances of it above in Ahab, and in Christ himself, the Fact is evidently ascertain’d; and that the Devil has attempted to make such a Bargain on one, and actually did make it with the other. The Possibility of it is not to be disputed; but then I must explain the Manner of it a little, and bring it down, nearer to our Understanding, that it may be more intelligible than it is; for as for this selling the Soul, and making a Bargain to give the Devil Possession by Livery and Seisin on the Day appointed, that I cannot come into by any Means; no nor into the other Part, namely, of the Devil coming to claim his Bargain, and to demand the Soul according to Agreement, and upon Default of a fair Delivery, taking it away by Violence Case and all, of which we have many historical Relations pretty current among us; some of which, for ought I know, we might have hop’d had been true, if we had not been sure they were false, and others we had Reason to fear were false, because it was impossible they should be true.

The Bargains of this Kind, according to the best Accounts we have of them, used to consist of two main Articles, according to the ordinary Stipulations in all Covenants; namely,

1. Something to be perform’d on the Devil’s Part, buying.