 Part 2. CHAPTER I. OF THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. By Daniel Defoe. Part 2. CHAPTER I. I have examined the antiquities of Satan's history and the former part of this work, and brought his affairs down from the creation, as far as to our blessed Christian times, especially to the coming of the Messiah, when one would think the devil could have nothing to do among us. I have indeed but touched at some things which might have admitted of a farther description of Satan's affairs, and the particulars of which we may all come to a farther knowledge of hereafter. Yet I think I have spoken to the material part of his conduct as it relates to his empire in this world, what has happened to his more sublimated government, and his angelic capacities, I shall have an occasion to touch at in several solid particulars, as we go along. The Messiah was now born, the fullness of time was come, that the old serpent was to have his head broken, that is to say, his empire or dominion over man, which he gained by the fall of our first father and mother in paradise, received a downfall, or overthrow. It is worth observing, in order to confirm what I have already mentioned of the limitation of Satan's power, that not only his angelic strength seems to have received a father blow upon the coming of the Son of God into the world, but he seems to have had a blow upon his intellects, his serpentine craft, and devil-like subtlety seems to have been circumscribed and cut short, and instead of his being so cunning a fellow as before, when, as I said, to his evident he outwitted all mankind, not only Eve, Cain, Noah, Lot, and all the patriarchs, but even nations of men, and that in their public capacity, and thereby led them into absurd and ridiculous things, such as the building of Babel, and deifying and worshipping their kings when dead and rotten, idolizing beasts, stocks, stones, any thing, and even nothing, and in a word, when he managed mankind just as he pleased. Now, and from this time forward, he appeared a weak, foolish, ignorant devil, compared to what he was before. He was upon almost every occasion resisted, disappointed, balked, and defeated, especially in all his attempts to thwart or cross the mission and ministry of the Messiah, while he was upon earth, and sometimes upon other and very mean occasions too. And first, how foolish a project was it, and how below Satan's celebrated artifice in like cases, to put Herod upon sending to kill the poor, innocent children in Bethlehem, in hopes to destroy the infant. For I take it for granted, it was the devil put into Herod's thoughts that execution, how simple and foolish so ever, now we must allow him to be very ignorant of the nativity himself, or else he might easily have guided his friend Herod to the place where the infant was. This shows that either the devil is in general ignorant as we are of what is to come in the world before it is really come to pass, and consequently can foretell nothing. No, not so much as our famous old Merlin, or Mother Shipton did, or else that great event was hid from him by an immediate power superior to his, which I cannot think, neither, considering how much he was concerned in it, and how certainly he knew that it was once to come to pass. But be that as it will, to his certain the devil knew nothing where Christ was born, or when, nor was he able to direct Herod to find him out, and therefore put him upon that foolish as well as cruel order to kill all the children that he might be sure to destroy the Messiah among the rest. The next simple step that the devil took, and indeed the most foolish one that he could ever be charged with, unworthy the very dignity of a devil, and below the understanding that he always was allowed to act with, was that of coming to tempt the Messiah in the wilderness. It is certain, and he owned it himself afterwards upon many occasions, that the devil knew our Saviour to be the Son of God, and tis as certain that he knew that as such he could have no power or advantage over him. How foolish then was it in him to attack him in that manner, if thou beest the Son of God. Why he knew him to be the Son of God well enough, he said so afterwards, I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. How then could he be so weak a devil as to say, if thou art, then do so and so. The case is plain. The devil, though he knew him to be the Son of God, did not fully know the mystery of the Incarnation, nor did he know how far the Inonition of Christ extended, and whether, as man, he was not subject to fall as Adam was, though his reserved Godhead might be still immaculate and pure, and upon this foot, as he would leave no method untried, he attempts him three times, one immediately after another, but then, finding himself disappointed, he fled. This evidently proves that the devil was ignorant of the great mystery of godliness, as the text calls it. God manifest in the flesh, and therefore made that foolish attempt upon Christ, thinking to have conquered his human nature as capable of sin, which it was not. And at this repulse, hell groaned. The whole army of regimented devils received a wound, and felt the shock of it. T'was a second overthrow to them, they had had a long chain of success, carried a devilish conquest over the greatest part of the creation of God. But now they were cut short. The seed of the woman was now come to break the serpent's head, that is, to cut short his power, to contract the limits of his kingdom, and in a word, to dethrone him in the world. No doubt the devil received the shock, for you find him always afterward, crying out in a horrible manner, whenever Christ met with him, or else very humble and submissive, as when he begged leave to go into the herd of swine, a thing he has often done since. Defeated here, the first stratagem I find him concerned in after it, was his entering into Judas, and putting him upon betraying Christ to the chief priest. But here again he was entirely mistaken, for he did not see, as much a devil as he was, what the event would be. But when he came to know, that if Christ was put to death, he would become a propitiatory, and be the great sacrifice of mankind, so to rescue the fallen race from that death they had incurred the penalty of, by the fall. That this was the fulfilling of all scripture prophecy, and that thus it was that Christ was to be the end of the law, I say, as soon as he perceived this, he strove all he could to prevent it, and disturbed Pilate's wife in her sleep, in order to set her upon her husband, to hinder his delivering him up to the Jews, for then, and not till then, he knew how Christ was to vanquish hell by the power of his cross. Thus the devil was disappointed, and exposed in every step he took, and as he now plainly saw his kingdom declining, and even the temporal kingdom of Christ rising up upon the ruins of his, Satan's, power. He seemed to retreat into his own region the air, and to consult there with his fellow devils, what measures he should take next to preserve his dominion among men. Here it was that he resolved upon that truly hellish thing called persecution, by which, though he proved a foolish devil in that too, he flattered himself he should be able to destroy God's church, and root out its professors from the earth, even almost as soon as it was established. Whereas on the contrary, heaven counteracted him there too, and though he armed the whole Roman Empire against Christians, that is, say, the whole world, and they were fallen upon everywhere, with all the fury and rage of some of the most flaming tyrants that the world ever saw, of whom Nero was the first. Yet in spite of hell, God made all the blood, which the devil caused to be spilt, to be semen ecclesiée, and the devil had the mortification to see that the number of Christians increased, even under the very means he made use of, to root them out and destroy them. This was the case through the reign of all the Roman emperors, for the first three hundred years after Christ. Having thus tried all the methods that best suited his inclination, I mean those of blood and death, complicated with tortures and all kinds of cruelty, and that for so long a stage of time is above, the devil, all in a sudden, as if glutted with blood and satiated with destruction, sits still and becomes a peaceable spectator for a good while, as if he either found himself unable, or had no disposition to hinder the progress of Christianity in the first ages of its settlement in the world. In this interval the Christian church was established under Constantine, religion flourished in peace, and under the most perfect tranquility. The devil seemed to be at a loss what he should do next, and things began to look as if Satan's kingdom was at an end, but he soon let them see that he was the same indefatigable devil that ever he was, and the prosperity of the church gave him a large field of action. For knowing the disposition of mankind to quarrel and dispute, the universal passion rooted in nature, especially among the churchmen for precedency and dominion, he fell to work with them immediately, so that turning the tables and re-assuming the subtlety and craft which, I say, he seemed to have lost in the former four hundred years, he gained more ground in the next ages of the church, and went farther towards restoring his power and empire in the world, and towards overthrowing that very church which was so lately established than all he had done by fire and blood before. His policy now seemed to be edged with resentment for the mistakes he had made, as if the devil, looking back with anger at himself, to see what a fool he had been to expect to crush religion by persecution, rejoiced for having discovered that liberty and dominion was the only way to ruin the church, not fire and faggot, and that he had nothing to do but to give the zealous people their utmost liberty in religion, only sowing error and variety of opinion among them, and they would bring fire and faggot in fast enough among themselves. It must be confessed these were devilish politics, and so sure was the aim, and so certain was the devil to hit his mark by them, that we find he not only did not fail then, but the same hellish methods have prevailed still, and will do so to the end of the world. Nor had the devil ever a better game to play than this, for the ruin of religion, as we shall have room to show in many examples, besides that of the dissenters in England who were evidently weakened by the late toleration. Whether the devil had any hand in baiting his hook with an A of parliament or no, history is silent, but it is too evident he has catched the fish by it, and if the honest Church of England does not, in pity and Christian charity, to the dissenters straighten her hand a little, I cannot but fear the devil will gain his point, and the dissenter will be undone by it. Upon this new foot of politics, the devil began with the emperors themselves. Arius, the father of the heretics of that age, having broached his opinions, and Athanasius, the orthodox bishop of the east, opposing him. The devil no sooner saw the door open to strife and imposition, but he thrust himself in, and raising the quarrel up to a suited degree of rage and spleen, he involved the good emperor himself in it first. And Athanasius was banished and recalled, and banished and recalled again, several times, as error ran high, and as the devil either got or lost ground. After Constantine, the next emperor was a child of his own, Arius, and then the court came all into the quarrel, as courts often do, and then the Arians and the orthodox persecuted one another as furiously as the pagans persecuted them all before. To such a height, the devil brought his conquest in the very infancy of the question, and so much did he prevail over the true Christianity of the primitive church, even before they had enjoyed the liberty of the pure worship twenty years. Flushed with this success, the devil made one push for the restoring paganism, and bringing on the old worship of the heathen idols and temples. But like our King James II, he drove too hard, and Julian had so provoked the whole Roman Empire, which was generally at that time become Christian, that had the apostate lived, he would not have been able to have held the throne. And as he was cut off in his beginning, paganism expired with him, and the devil himself might have cried out, as Julian did, and with much more propriety. The Chiesti Galilean Jovian, the next emperor, being a glorious Christian, and a very good and great man, the devil abdicated for a while, and left the Christian armies to re-establish the orthodox faith. Nor could he bring the Christians to a breach again among themselves a great while after. However, time and a diligent devil did the work at last, and when the emperors concerning themselves one way or other did not appear sufficient to answer his end, he changed hands again, and went to work with the clergy. To set the doctors effectually together by the ears, he threw in the new notion of primacy among them, for a bone of contention. The bait took, the priests swallowed it eagerly down, and the devil, a cunninger fisherman than ever Saint Peter was, struck them, as the anglers call it, with a quick hand, and hung them fast upon the hook. Having them thus in his clutches, and they being now, as we may say, his own, they took their measures afterwards from him, and most obediently followed his directions. Nay, I will not say, but he may have had pretty much the management of the whole society ever since, of what profession or party so ever they may have been, with exception only to the reverend and right reverend among ourselves. The sacred, as above, being thus hooked in, and the devil, being at the head of their affairs, matters went on most gloriously his own way. First the bishops fell to bandying and party making for the superiority, as heartily as ever temporal tyrants did for dominion, and took as black and devilish methods to carry it on, as the worst of those tyrants ever had done before them. At last Satan declared for the Roman Pontiff, and that upon excellent conditions, in the reign of the emperor Mauritius, for Boniface, who had long contended for the title of supreme, fell into a treaty with focus, captain of the emperor's guards. Whether the bargain was from hell or not, let any one judge. The conditions absolutely entitled the devil, to the honor of making the contract. That is to say, that focus, first murdering his master, the emperor, and his sons, Boniface should countenance the treason and declare him emperor. And in return, focus should acknowledge the primacy of the church of Rome, and declare Boniface universal bishop. A blessed compact, which at once set the devil at the head of affairs in the Christian world, as well spiritual, as temporal, ecclesiastic, and civil. Since the conquest over Eve and Paradise, by which death and the devil, hand in hand, established their first empire upon earth, the devil never gained a more important point than he gained at this time. He had indeed prospered in his affairs tolerably well for some time before this, and his interest among the clergy had got ground for some ages. But that was indeed a secret management, was carried on privately and with a difficulty, as in sowing discord and faction among the people, perplexing the councils of their princes, and secretly weedling in with the dignified clergy. Also he had raised abundance of little church rebellions by setting up heretics of several kinds, and raising them favourers among the clergy, such as Abbeon, Corinthius, Pelagius, and others. He had drawn in the bishops of Rome to set up the ridiculous pageantry of the key, and while he, the devil, set open the gates of hell to them all, set them upon locking up the gates of heaven, and giving the bishop the key, a cheat, which as gross as it was, the devil so gilded over, or so blinded the age to receive it, that like Gideon's effod all the Catholic world went ahorring after the idol, and the bishop of Rome sent more fools to the devil by it than ever he pretended to let into heaven. Though he opened the door as wide as his key was able to do. The story of this key, being given to the bishop of Rome by Saint Peter, who, by the way, never had it himself, and of its being lost by somebody or other, the devil it seems did not tell them who, and it's being found again by a lombard soldier in the army of King Antares, who attempting to cut it with his knife was miraculously forced to direct the wound to himself and cut his own throat, that King Antares and his nobles happened to see the fellow do it, and were converted to Christianity by it, and that the king sent the key, with another made like it, to Pope Pelagius, then bishop of Rome, who thereupon assumed the power of opening and shutting heaven's gates, and he afterwards, setting a price or toll upon the entrance, as we do here at passing a turnpike, these fine things, I say, were successfully managed for some years before this I am now speaking of, and the devil got a great deal of ground by it too, but now he triumphed openly, and having set up a murderer upon the temporal throne, and a church emperor upon the ecclesiastic throne, and both of his own choosing, the devil may be said to begin his new kingdom from this epica, and call it the restoration. Since this time indeed, the devil's affairs went very merrily on, and the clergy brought so many gyugas into their worship, and such devilish principles were mixed with that which we called the Christian faith, that in a word, from this time the bishop of Rome commenced whore of Babylon in all the most express terms that could be imagined, tyranny of the worst sort crept into the pontificate, errors of all sorts into the profession, and they proceeded from one thing to another, till the very popes, for so the bishop of Rome was now called, by way of a distinction. I say, the popes themselves, their spiritual guides, professed openly to confederate with the devil, and to carry on a personal and private correspondence with him at the same time, taking upon them the title of Christ's vicar, and the infallible guide of the consciences of Christians. This we have sundry instances of in some merry popes, who, if fame lies not, were sorcerers, magicians, had familiar spirits, an immediate conversation with the devil, as well visibly as invisibly, and by this means became what we call devils incarnate. Upon this account it is that I have left the conversation that passes between devils and men to this place, as well, because I believe it differs much now in his modern state, from what it was in his ancient state, and therefore that which most concerns us belongs rather to this part of his history, as also because, as I am now writing to the present age, I choose to bring the most significant parts of his history, especially as they relate to ourselves, into that part of time that we are most concerned in. The devil had once, as I observed before, the universal monarchy or government of mankind in himself, and I doubt not, but in that flourishing state of his affairs, he governed them like what he is, that is to say, an absolute tyrant. During this theocracy of his, for Satan is called the God of this world, he did not familiarize himself to mankind so much, as he finds occasion to do now. There was not then so much need of it. He governed then with an absolute sway. He had his oracles, where he gave audience to his votaries like a deity, and he had his sub-gods, who under his several dispositions recede the homage of mankind in their names. Such were all the rabble of the heathen deities, from Jupiter the Supreme to the lares or household gods of every family. These, I say, like residents, recede the prostrations, but the homage was all Satan's. The devil had the substance of it all, which was the idolatry. During this administration of hell, there was less witchcraft, less true literal magic than there has been since. There was indeed no need of it. The devil did not stoop to the mechanism of his more modern operations, but ruled as a deity and recede the vows and the bows of his subjects in more state and with more solemnity, whereas since that he is content to employ more agents and take more pains himself too. Now he runs up and down, hackney in the world, more like a drudge than a prince, and much more than he did then. Hence all those things we call apparitions and visions of ghosts, familiar spirits, and dealings with the devil, of which there is so great a variety in the world at this time, were not so much known among the people in those first ages of the devil's kingdom. In a word, the devil seems to be put to his shifts, and to fly to art and stratagem for the carrying on his affairs, much more now than he did then. One reason for this may be that he has been more discovered and exposed in these ages than he was before. Then he could appear in the world in his own proper shapes, and yet not be known. When the sons of God appeared at the divine summons, Satan came along with them, but now he has played so many scurvy tricks upon men, and they know him so well that he is obliged to play quite out of sight and act in disguise. Mankind will allow nothing of his doing, and hear nothing of his saying in his own name. And if you propose anything to be done, and it be but said the devil is to help in the doing it, or if you say of any man he deals with the devil, or the devil has a hand in it, everybody flies him and shuns him as the most frightful thing in the world. Nay, if anything strange and improbable be done, or related to be done, we presently say the devil was at the doing it. Thus the great ditch at Newmarket Heath is called the devil's ditch. So the devil built Crowland Abbey, and the Whispering Place in Glauchester Cathedral. Nay, the cave at Castleton, only because there's no getting to the farther end of it, is called the devil's ay, and the like. The poor people of Wiltshire, when you ask them how the great stones at Stonehenge were brought thither, they'll all tell you the devil brought them. If any mischief extraordinary befalls us, we presently say the devil was in it, and the devil would have it so. In a word, the devil has got an ill name among us, and so he is fain to act more in tenebris, more incognito than he used to do, play out of sight himself, and work by the sap, as the engineers call it, and not openly and avowedly in his own name and person, as formerly. Though perhaps not with less success than he did before. And this leads me to inquire more narrowly into the manner of the devil's management of his affairs, since the Christian religion began to spread in the world, which manifestly differs from his conduct in more ancient times. In which, if we discover some of the most consummate fool's policy, the most profound simple craft, and the most subtle, shallow management of things that can, by our weak understandings, be conceived, we must only resolve it into this, that in short, it is the devil. And part two, chapter one, part two, chapter two, of the history of the devil. The History of the Devil, by Daniel Defoe. Part two, chapter two. Of hell, as it is represented to us, and how the devil is to be understood as being personally in hell, when at the same time, we find him at liberty, ranging over the world. It is true, as that learned and pleasant author, the inimitable Dr. Brown says, the devil is his own hell. One of the most constituting parts of his infelicity is that he cannot act upon mankind, brevi-manu, by his own inherent power, as well as rage, that he cannot unhinge this creation. Which, as I have observed in its place, he had the utmost aversion to from its beginning, as it was a stated design in the Creator to supply his place in heaven with a new species of beings called men, and fill the vacancies occasioned by his degeneracy and rebellion. This filled him with rage, inexpressible, and horrible resolutions of revenge, and the impossibility of executing those resolutions torments him with despair. This, added to what he was before, makes him a complete devil, with a hell in his own breast, and a fire unquenchable, burning about his heart. I might enlarge here, and very much to the purpose, in describing, spherically and mathematically, that exquisite quality called a devilish spirit, in which it would naturally occur to give you a whole chapter upon the glorious articles of malice and envy, and especially upon that luscious, delightful, triumphant passion called revenge. How natural to man, nay, even to both sexes, how pleasant in the very contemplation, though there be not just, at that time, a power of execution. How palatable it is in itself, and how well it relishes when dished up with its proper sauces, such as plot, contravence, scheme, and confederacy, all leading on to execution. How it possesses a human soul in all the most sensible parts. How it empowers mankind to sin in imagination, as effectually to all future intents and purposes. Damnation, as if he had sinned, actually. How safe a practice it is, too, as to punishment in this life, namely, that it empowers us to cut throats clear of the gallows, to slander virtue, reproach innocence, wound honor, and stab reputation, and in a word, to do all the wicked things in the world out of the reach of the law. It would also require some few words to describe the secret operations of those nice qualities when they reach the human soul. How effectually they form a hell within us, and how imperceptibly they assimilate and transform us into devils. Mere human devils, as really devils as Satan himself, or any of his angels, and that therefore, it is not so much out of the way, as some imagine, to say, Such a man is an incarnate devil, for as crime made Satan a devil, who was before a bright, immortal seraph, or angel of light. How much more easily may the same crime make the same devil, though every way meaner and more contemptible, of a man or a woman either? But this is too grave a subject for me at this time. The devil being thus, I say, fired with rage and envy, in consequence of his jealousy upon the creation of man, his torment is increased to the highest by the limitation of his power, and his being forbid to act against mankind by force of arms. This is, I say, part of his hell, which as above is within him, and which he carries with him wherever he goes. Nor is it so difficult to conceive of hell, or of the devil, either under this just description, as it is by all the usual notions that we are taught to entertain of them. By the old women are instructors, for every man may, by taking but a common view of himself, and making a just scrutiny into his own passions, on some of their particular excursions, see a hell within himself, and himself a mere devil, as long as the inflammation lasts, and that as really, and to all intents and purposes, as if he had the angel, Satan, before his face, in his locality and personality, that is to say, all devil and monster in his person, and an immaterial but intense fire flaming about and from within him, at all the pores of his body. The notions we receive of the devil as a person, being in hell as a place, are infinitely absurd and ridiculous. The first, we are certain, is not true in fact, because he has a certain liberty, however limited, that is not to the purpose, is daily visible, and to be traced in his several attacks upon mankind, and has been so ever since his first appearance in paradise. As to his corporal visibility, that is not the present question neither, it is enough that we can hunt him by the foot, that we can follow him as hounds do a fox upon a hot scent. We can see him as plainly by the effect, by the mischief he does, and more by the mischief he puts us upon doing, I say, as plainly as if we saw him by the eye. It is not to be doubted, but the devil can see us when and where we cannot see him, and as he has a personality, though it be spirituous, he and his angels too may be reasonably supposed to inhabit the world of spirits, and to have free access from thence to the regions of life, and to pass and repass in the air as really, though not perceptible to us, as the spirits of men do after their release from the body, pass to the place, wherever that is, which is appointed for them. If the devil was confined to a place, hell, as a prison, he could then have no business here, and if we pretend to describe hell as not a prison, but that the devil has liberty to be there, or not be there as he pleased, then he would certainly never be there, or hell is not such a place as we are taught to understand it to be. Indeed, according to some, hell should be a place of fire and torment to the souls that are cast into it, but not to the devils themselves, who we make little more or less than keepers and turnkeys to hell, as a goal, that they are sent about to bring souls thither, lock them in when they come, and then away upon the sent to fetch more. That one sort of devils are made to live in the world among men, and to be busy, continually debauching and deluding mankind, bringing them as it were to the gates of hell, and then another sort are porters and carriers to fetch them in. This is, in short, little more or less than the old story of Pluto, of Cerberus, and of Charon, only that our tale is not half so well told, nor the parts of the fable so well laid together. In all these notions of hell and devil, the torments of the first, and the agency of the last tormenting, we meet with not one word of the main, and perhaps only, accent of horror, which belongs to us to judge of about hell. I mean the absence of heaven, expulsion and exclusion from the presence and face of the chief ultimate, the only eternal and sufficient good, and this loss sustained by a sordid neglect of our concern in that excellent part, in exchange for the most contemptible and justly condemned trifles. In all this, eternal and irrecoverable, these people tell us nothing of the eternal reproaches of conscience, the horror of desperation, and the anguish of a mind hopeless of ever seeing the glory, which alone constitutes heaven, and which makes all other places dreadful and even darkness itself. And this brings me directly to the point in hand, that is to say, the state of that hell which we ought to have in view when we speak of the devil as in hell. This is the very hell which is the torment of the devil. In short, the devil is in hell, and hell is in the devil. He is filled with this unquenchable fire. He is expelled the place of glory, banished from the regions of light. Absence from the life of all beatitude is his curse. Despair is the reigning passion in his mind, and all the little constituent parts of his torment, such as rage, envy, malice, and jealousy, are consolidated in this to make his misery complete. That is to say, the duration of it all, the eternity of his condition, that he is without hope, without redemption, without recovery. If anything can inflame this hell and make it hotter, tis this only, and this does add an inexpressible horror to the devil himself. Namely, the seeing man, the only creature he hates, placed in a state of recovery, a glorious establishment of redemption formed for him in heaven, and the scheme of it perfected on earth, by which this man, though even the devil by his art may have deluded him, and drawn him into crime, is yet in a state of recovery, which the devil is not, and that it is not in his, Satan's, power to prevent it. Now take the devil as he is, in his own nature, angelic, a bright, immortal seraph, heaven-born, and having tasted the eternal beatitude, which these are appointed to enjoy, the loss of that state to himself, the possession of it granted to his rival, though wicked, like, and as himself. I say, take the devil as he is, having a quick sense of his own perdition, in a stinging sight of his rival's felicity, tis hell enough, and more than enough, even for an angel to support. Nothing we can conceive can be worse. As to any other fire than this, such and so immaterially intense as to torment a spirit, which is itself fire also, I will not say it cannot be, because to infinite everything is possible, but I must say I cannot conceive rightly of it. I will not enter here into the wisdom or reasonableness of representing the torments of hell to be fire, and that fire to be a co-mixture of flame and sulfur. It has pleased God to let the horror of those eternal agonies about a lost heaven be laid before us by those similitudes or allegories, which are most moving to our senses and to our understandings. Nor will I dispute the possibility. Much less will I doubt, but that there is to be a consummation of misery to all the objects of misery, when the devil's kingdom in this world ending with the world itself. That liberty he has now may be farther abridged, when he may be returned to the same state he was in between the time of his fall and the creation of the world, with perhaps some additional vengeance on him. Such as at present we cannot describe, for all that treason and those high crimes and misdemeanors which he has been guilty of here in his conversation with mankind. As his infelicity will be then consummated and completed, so the infelicity of that part of mankind, who are condemned with him, may receive a considerable addition from those words in their sentence, to be tormented with the devil and his angels. For as the absence of the supreme good is a complete hell, so the hated company of the deceiver, who was the great cause of his ruin, must be a subject of additional horror, and he will be always saying, as a Scots gentleman who died of his excesses, said to the famous Dr. P., who came to see him on his deathbed. But had been too much his companion in his life. I would not treat the very subject itself with any indecency, nor do I think my opinion of that hell which I say consists in the absence of him, in whom is heaven, one jot less solemn than theirs who believe it all fire and brimstone. But I must own that to me nothing can be more ridiculous than the notions that we entertain and fill our heads with about hell, and about the devils being there, tormenting of souls, broiling them upon grid irons, hanging them up upon hooks, carrying them upon their backs, and the like, with the several pictures of hell, represented by a great mouth with horrible teeth, gaping like a cave on the sides of a mountain. Suppose that appropriated to Satan in the peak, which indeed is not much unlike it, with a stream of fire coming out of it, as there is of water, and smaller devils going and coming continually in and out to fetch and carry souls the Lord knows wither, and for the Lord knows what. These things, however intended for terror, are indeed so ridiculous that the devil himself, to be sure, mocks at them, and a man of sense, can hardly refrain doing the like, only I avoid it, because I would not give offence to weaker heads. However, I must not compliment the brains of other men at the expense of my own, or talk nonsense because they can understand no other. I think all these notions and representations of hell and of the devil to be as profane as they are ridiculous, and I ought no more to talk profanely than merrily of them. Let us learn to talk of these things, then, as we should do, and as we really cannot describe them to our reason and understanding, why should we describe them to our senses? We had, I think, much better not describe them at all, that is to say, not attempt it. The blessed Apostle Saint Paul was, as he said himself, carried up, or caught up into the third heaven. Yet, when he came down again, he could neither tell what he heard or describe what he saw. All he could say of it was that what he heard was inutterable, and what he saw was inconceivable. It is the same thing as to the state of the devil in those regions which he now possesses, and where he now more particularly inhabits. My present business, then, is not to enter into those grave things so as to make them ridiculous, as I think most people do that talk of them. But as the devil, let his residence be where it will, has evidently free leave to come and go, not into this world only, I mean the region of our atmosphere. But for ought we know, to all the other inhabited worlds which God has made, wherever they are, and by whatsoever names they are, or may be known or distinguished. For if he is not confined in one place, we have no reason to believe he is excluded from any place, heaven only accepted, from whence he was expelled for his treason and rebellion. His liberty, then, being thus ascertained, three things seem to be material for us to give an account of, in order to form this part of his history. 1. What his business is on this globe of earth, which we vulgarly call the world, how he acts among us, what affairs mankind and he have together, and how far his conduct here relates to us and ours is or may be influenced by him. 2. Where his principal residence is, and whether he has not a particular empire of his own, to which he retreats upon proper occasions, where he entertains his friends when they come under his particular administration, and where, when he gets any victory over his enemies, he carries his prisoners of war. 3. What may probably be the great business this black emperor has at present upon his hands, either in this world or out of it, and by what agents he works? As these things may perhaps run promiscuously through the course of this whole work, and frequently be touched at under other branches of the devil's history, so I do not propose them as heads of chapters or particular sections, for the order of discourse to be handled apart, for, by the way, as Satan's actings have not been the most regular things in the world, so, in our discourse about him, it must not be expected that we can always tie ourselves down to order and regularity, either as to time or place or persons. For Satan, being Hick and Eubique, a loose, ungoverned fellow, we must be content to trace him where we can find him. It is true, in the foregoing chapter, I showed you the devil and tread into the herd ecclesiastic, and gave you some account of the first successful step he took with mankind since the Christian epica, how having secretly managed both temporal and spiritual power apart, and by themselves, he now united them in point of management, and brought the church usurpation, and the armies usurpation together, the pope, to bless the general in deposing and murdering his master, the emperor, and the general, to recognize the pope, and dethroning his master, Christ Jesus. From this time forward, you are to allow the devil a mystical empire in this world, not an action of moment, done without him, not a treason, but he has a hand in it, not a tyrant, but he prompts him, not a government, but he has a... ... in it. Not a fool, but he tickles him, not a nave, but he guides him. He has a finger in every fraud, a key to every cabinet, from the Divin at Constantinople, to the Mississippi in France, and to the South Sea Cheats at... ... from the first attack upon the Christian world, in the person of the Romish Antichrist, down to the bull Unigenitus, and from the mixture of Saint Peter and Confucius in China, to the Holy Office in Spain, and down to the Emelons and Doddwells of the current age. How he is managed, and does manage, and how in all probability he will manage, till his kingdom shall come to a period, and how at last he will probably be managed himself, inquire within, and you shall know farther. End of Part 2, Chapter 2 The Devil being thus for just to act upon mankind by stratagem only, it remains to inquire how he performs, and which way he directs his attacks. The faculties of man are a kind of a garrison in a strong castle, which as they defend it, on the one hand under the command of the reasoning power of man's soul, so they are prescribed on the other hand, and can't sally out without leave, for the governor of a fort does not permit his soldiers to hold any correspondence with the enemy, without special order and direction. Now the great inquiry before us is, how comes the devil to a party with us? How does he converse with our senses, and with the understanding? How does he reach us? Which way does he come? At the affections, and which way does he move the passions? It is a little difficult to discover this. It is reasonable correspondence, and that difficulty is indeed the devil's advantage, and for odd I see, the chief advantage he has over mankind. It is also a great inquiry here, whether the devil knows our thoughts or not. If I may give my opinion, I am with the negative. I deny that he knows anything of our thoughts, except those thoughts which he puts us upon thinking, for I will not doubt, but he has the art to inject thoughts, and to revive dormant thoughts in us. It is not so wild a scheme as some take it to be that Mr. Milton lays down to represent the devil injecting corrupt desires and wandering thoughts into the head of Eve by dreams, and that he brought her to dream whatever he put into her thoughts by whispering to her vocally when she was asleep. And to this end he imagines the devil laying himself close to her ear in the shape of a toad when she was fall asleep. I say this is not so wild a scheme, seeing even now if you can whisper anything close to the ear of a person in a deep sleep, so as to speak distinctly to the person, and yet not awaken him as has been frequently tried, the person sleeping shall dream distinctly of what you say to him. Nay, so dream the very words you say. We have then no more to ask but how the devil can convey himself to the ear of a sleeping person, and it is granted then that he may have power to make us dream what he pleases, but this is not all for if he can so forcibly by his invisible application cause us to dream what he pleases, why can he not with the same facility prompt our thoughts whether sleeping or waking. To dream is nothing else but to think sleeping, and we have abundance of deep headed gentlemen among us who give us ample testimony that they dream waking, but if the devil can prompt us to dream that is to say to think, yet if he does not know our thoughts how then can he tell whether the whisper had its effect. The answer is plain, the devil like the angler beats the hook, if the fish bite his lies ready to take the advantage, he whispers to the imagination, and then waits to see how it works, as Naomi said to Ruth Chapter 3 verses 5 and 18 Sit still my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall, for the man will not be at rest until we have finished the thing. Thus when the devil had whispered to Eve in her sleep according to Milton and suggested mischief to her imagination, he only sat still to see how the matter would work, for he knew if it took with her he should hear more of it, and then by finding her alone the next day without her ordinary guard her husband. He presently concluded she had swallowed the bait and so attacked her afresh, a small deal of craft, and less by far than we have reason to believe the devil is master of. We'll serve to discover whether such and such thoughts as he knows, he has suggested, haven't taken place, or know the action of the person presently discovers it, at least to him that lies always upon the watch, and has every word, every gesture, every step we take subsequent to his operation open to him, it may therefore for odd we know be a great mistake, and what most of us are guilty of to tell our dreams to one another in the morning, after we have been disturbed with them in the night for if the devil converses with us so insensibly as some are of the opinion he does, that is to say, if he can hear as far as we can see, we may be telling our story to him indeed when we think we are only talking to one another. This brings me most naturally to the important inquiry, whether the devil can walk about the world, invisibly or not, the truth is, this is no question to me, for as I have taken away his visibility already, and have denied him all prescience of futurity too, and have proved he cannot know our thoughts, nor can any force upon persons or actions, if we should take away his invisibility too, we should un-devil him quite to all intents and purposes as to any mischief he could do, nay, it would banish him the world, and he might even go and seek his fortune somewhere else, or if he could neither be visible or invisible, neither act in public or in private, he could neither have business or being in this sphere, nor could he be in any way concerned with him, the devil therefore most certainly has a power and liberty of moving about in this world after some manner or another, this is verified as well by way of allegory as by way of history, in the scripture itself, and as the first strongly suggests and supposes it to be so, the last positively asserts it, and not to crowd this work with quotations from a book which we have not much to do with in the devil's story, at least not much to his satisfaction, I only hint his personal appearance to our saviour in the wilderness, where it is said the devil take him up to an exceeding high mountain, and in another place the devil depart it from him, what shape or figure he appeared in we do not find mentioned, but I cannot doubt his appearing to him there, any more than I can his talking to our saviour in the mouse, and with the voices of the several persons who were under the terrible affliction of an actual possession, these things leave us no room to doubt of what is advanced before, namely that he the devil has a certain residence or liberty of residing in and moving about upon the surface of this earth, as well as in the compass of the atmosphere, vulgarly called the air, in some manner or other, that is the general, it remains to inquire into the manner which I resolve into two kinds, one ordinary which I suppose to be his inevitable motions as a spirit under which consideration I suppose him to have an unconfined, unlimited unrestrained liberty as to the manner of acting, and this either in persons by possession or things by agitation, to extraordinary which I understand to be his appearances in borrowed shapes and bodies, or shadows rather of bodies, assuming speech, figure, posture, and several powers of which we can give little or no account, in which extraordinary manner of speeches he is either limited by a superior power, or limits himself politically as being not the way most for his interest or purpose to act in his business, which is more effectually done in his state of obscurity, hence we must suppose the devil has it very much in his own choice, whether to act in one capacity or in the other or in both, that is to say of appearing and not appearing as he finds for his purpose, in this state of invisibility and under the operation of these powers and liberties he performs all his functions and offices as devil, as prince of darkness, as god of this world, as tempter, accuser, deceiver, and all whatsoever other names of office or titles of honour he is known by, now taking him in this large unlimited or little limited state of action he is well called the god of this world, for he has very much of the attribute of omnipresence, and may be said either by himself or his agents to be everywhere and see everything, that is to say everything that is visible, for I cannot allow him any share of omniscience at all, that he ranges about everywhere is with us and sometimes in us, sees when he is not seen, hears when he is not heard, comes in without leave and goes out without noise, is neither to be shut in or shut out, that when he runs from us we can't catch him, and when he runs after us we can't escape him, is seen when he is not known and is known when he is not seen, all these things and more we have knowledge enough about to convince us of the truth of them, so that as I have said before he is certainly walking to and fro through the earth etc. after some manner or other, and in some figure or other, visible or invisible, as he finds occasion, now in order to make our history of him complete, the next question before us is, how and in what manner he acts with mankind, how his kingdom is carried on, and by what methods he does his business, for he certainly has a great deal of business to do, he is not an idle spectator, nor is he walking about incognito, and clothed in mist and darkness, purely in kindness to us, that we should not be frightened at him, but his impolicy, that he may act undiscovered, that he may see and not be seen, may play his game in the dark and not be detected by his rugray, that he may prompt mischief, raise tempests, blow up coals, kindle strife and broil nations, use instruments and not be known to have his hand in anything, when at the same time he really has a hand in everything. Some are of the opinion and I amongst the rest, that if the devil was personally and visibly present among us, and we conversed with him face to face, we should be so similar with him in a little time, that his ugly figure would not affect us at all, that his terrors would not fright us or that we should any more trouble ourselves about him, than we did with the last great comment in 1678, which appeared so long and so constantly without any particular known event, that at last we took no more notice of it, than of the other ordinary stars which had appeared before we or our ancestors were born, nor indeed should we have much reason to be frightened of him, or at least none of those silly things could be said of him, which we now amuse ourselves about, and by which we set him up like a scarecrow to fright children and old women, to fill up old stories, make songs and ballads, and in a word carry on the low-priced baffinery of the common people. We should either see him in his angelic form, as he was from the original, or if he has any deformities entailed upon him with a supreme sentence, and injustice to the deformity of his crime, they would be of a superior nature and fit it more for our contempt as well as honour, than those weak, fancied trifles contrived by our ancient devil-racers and devil-makers, to feed the wayward fancies of old witches and sorcerers, who cheated the ignorant world with a devil of their own making, set forth in terror him, with bat-swing, horns, cloven foot, long tail, forked tongue, and the like. In the next place, be his frightful figure what it would, and his legions as numerous as the host of heaven, we should see him still, as the prince of devils, though monstrous as a dragon, flaming as a comet, tall as a mountain, yet dragging his chain after him equal to the utmost of his supposed strength, always in custody of his jailers, the angels, his power overpowered, his rage cowed and abated. Or at least odd and under-correction, limited and restrained, in a word we should see him, a vanquished slave, his spear broken, his malice, though not abated, yet handcuffed and overpowered, and he not able to work anything against us by force, so that he would be to us but like the lions in the tar, engaged and locked up, unable to do the hurt he wishes to do, and that we fear, or indeed any hurt at all, from hence it is evident that is not his bestest to be public, or to walk up and down in the world visibly, and in his own shape, his affairs require a quite different management, as might be made apparent from the nature of things, and the manner of our actings as men, either with ourselves or to one another. Nor could he be serviceable in his generation as a public person as now he is, or answer the end of his party who employ him, and who, if he was to do their business in public, as he does in private, would not be able to employ him at all. As in our modern meetings for the propagation of impudence and other virtues, there would be no entertainment and no improvement for the good of the age, if the people did not, all appear in mask, and concealed from the common observation, so neither could Satan, from whose management, those more happy assemblies, or taken up as copies of a glorious original, perform the usual and necessary business of his profession, if he did not appear wholly in covert, and underneatful disguises. How, but for the convenience of his habit, could he call himself into so many shapes, act on so many different scenes, and turn so many wails of state in the world as he has done, as a mere professed devil. Had he been obliged always to act the mere devil in his own clothes, and with his own shape and pairing uppermost in all cafes and places, so he could never have preached in so many pulpits, presided in so many councils, voted in so many committees, sat in so many courts and influenced so many parties and factions in church and state, as we have reason to believe he has done in our nation, and in our memories too, as well as in other nations, and in more ancient times. The share Satan has had in all the weighty confusions of the times, ever since the first ages of Christianity in the world, has been carried on with so much secrecy, and so much with an air of cabal and intrigue, that nothing can have been managed more subtly and closely, and in the same manner as he acted in our times, in order to conceal his interest, and conceal the influence he has had in the councils of the world. Had it been possible for him to have raised the flames of rebellion and war so often in this nation, as he certainly has done, could he have agitated the parties on both sides and inflamed the spirits of three nations, if he had appears in his own dress, a mere naked devil? It is not the devil as a devil that does the mischief, but the devil in masquerade, Satan in full disguise, and acting at the head of civil confusion and distraction. If history may be credited, the French court at the time of our old confusions was made the scene of Satan's politics and prompted both parties in England and in Scotland, also to quarrel, and how was it done? Will any man offer to scandalise the devil so much as to say or so much as to suggest that Satan had no hand in it all, did not the devil? By the agency of Cardinal Michelet, send 400,000 crowns at one time and 600,000 at another to the Scots to raise an army and march boldly into England, and did not the same devil at the same time by other agents remit 800,000 crowns to the other party in order to raise an army to fall upon the Scots, nor did not the devil with the same subtlety send down the Archbishop's order to impose a service book upon the people in Scotland and at the same time raise a mob against him in the great church at St Giles. Nay did not he actually, in the person of an old woman, his favourite instrument, threw the three-legged still at the service book and animate the zealous people to take up arms for religion and turn rebellions for God's sake. All these happy and successful undertakings, though it is no more to be doubted, they were done by the agency of Satan and in a very surprising manner too, yet were all done in secret by what I call possession and injection, and by the agency and contrivance of such instruments, or by the devil in the disguise of such servants as he found out, bid it to be employed in his work, and who he took a more effectual care in concealing of. But we shall have occasion to touch all this part over again when we come to discourse of the particular habits and disguises which the devil has made us of, all along in the world, the better to cover his actions and to conceal his being concerned on them in the meantime that the cunning or artifice the devil makes us of, in all these things, is in itself very considerable. It is an old practice of his using, and he has gone on in diverse measures for the better concealing himself in it, which measures though he varies sometimes as his extraordinary affairs require, yet they are, in all ages, much the same, and have the same tendency, namely, that he may get all his messes carried on by the instrumentality of fools, that he may make mankind agents in their own destruction, and that he may have all his work done in such a manner as that he may seem to have no hand in it, nay, he contrives so well that the very name devils is put upon its opposite party, and the scandal of the black agent lies all upon them. In order then to look a little into his conduct, let us inquire into the common mistakes about him, see what use is made of them to his advantage, and how far mankind is imposed upon in those particulars under what purpose. End of Part 2 Chapter 3