’1.  I will persuade Mansoul to receive thee for their Lord; and I know that they will do it the sooner when they shall understand that I am thy deputy.

’2.  I will show them wherein they have erred, and that transgression stands in the way to life.

’3.  I will show them the holy law unto which they must conform, even that which they have broken.

’4.  I will press upon them the necessity of a reformation according to thy law.

’5.  And, moreover, that none of these things may fail, I myself, at my own proper cost and charge, will set up and maintain a sufficient ministry, besides lectures, in Mansoul.

’6.  Thou shalt receive, as a token of our subjection to thee, year by year, what thou shalt think fit to lay and levy upon us in token of our subjection to thee.’

Then said Emmanuel to him, ’O full of deceit, how movable are thy ways!  How often hast thou changed and rechanged, if so be thou mightest still keep possession of my Mansoul, though, as has been plainly declared before, I am the right heir thereof!  Often hast thou made thy proposals already, nor is this last a whit better than they.  And failing to deceive when thou showedst thyself in thy black, thou hast now transformed thyself into an angel of light, and wouldst, to deceive, be now as a minister of righteousness.

’But know thou, O Diabolus, that nothing must be regarded that thou canst propound, for nothing is done by thee but to deceive.  Thou neither hast conscience to God, nor love to the town of Mansoul; whence, then, should these thy sayings arise but from sinful craft and deceit?  He that can of list and will propound what he pleases, and that wherewith he may destroy them that believe him, is to be abandoned, with all that he shall say.  But if righteousness be such a beauty-spot in thine eyes now, how is it that wickedness was so closely stuck to by thee before?  But this is by-the-bye.

’Thou talkest now of a reformation in Mansoul, and that thou thyself, if I will please, wilt be at the head of that reformation; all the while knowing that the greatest proficiency that man can make in the law, and the righteousness thereof, will amount to no more, for the taking away of the curse from Mansoul, than just nothing at all; for a law being broken by Mansoul, that had before, upon a supposition of the breach thereof, a curse pronounced against him for it of God, can never, by his obeying of the law, deliver himself therefrom (to say nothing of what a reformation is like to be set up in Mansoul when the devil is become corrector of vice).  Thou knowest that all that thou hast now said in this matter is nothing but guile and deceit; and is, as it was the first, so is it the last card that thou hast to play.  Many there be that do soon discern thee when thou showest them thy cloven foot; but in thy white, thy light, and in thy transformation, thou art seen but of a few.  But thou shalt not do thus with my Mansoul, O Diabolus; for I do still love my Mansoul.