because a deduction of probable events; but the plot is wrong laid, as is observed above, because contradicted by the scripture account, according to which Christ was declared in heaven, not then, but from eternity, and not declared with power, but on earth;namely, in his victory over sin and death, by the resurrection from the dead: so that Mr. Milton is not orthodox in this part; but lays an avowed foundation for the corrupt doctrine of Arius, which says, there was a time when Christ was not the Son of God.
But to leave Mr. Milton to his flights, I agree with him in this part; namely, that the wicked or sinning angels, with the great archangel at the head of them, revolted from their obedience, even in heaven itself; that Satan began the wicked defection, and, being a chief among the heavenly host, consequently carried over a great party with him, who all together rebelled against God; that upon this rebellion they were sentenced by the righteous judgment of God, to be ex pelled the holy habitation: this, besides the authority of scripture, we have visible testimonies of, from the devils themselves; their influences and operations among us every day, of which mankind are witnesses; in all the merry things they do in his name, and under his protection, in almost every scene of life they pass through, whether we talk of things done openly, or in masquerade, things done in earnest or in jest.
But then, what comes of the long and bloody war that Mr. Milton gives such a full and particular account of, and the terrible battles in heaven between Michael with the royal army of angels on one hand, and Satan with his rebel host on the other; in which he supposes the numbers and strength to be pretty near equal? But at length brings in the Devil’s army, upon doubling their rage, arrd bringing new engines of war into the field, putting Michael and all the faithful army to the worst; and, in a word, defeats them? For though they were not put to a plain flight, in which case he must, at least, have given an account of two or three thousand millions of angels cut in pieces and wounded, yet he allows them to give over the fight, and make a kind of retreat; so making way for the complete victory of the Son of God. Now this is all invention, or, at least, a borrowed thought from the old poets, and the fight of the giants against Jupiter, so nobly designed by Ovid, almost two thousand years ago: and there it was well enough; but whether poetic fancy should be allowed to fable upon heaven, or no, and upon the King of Heaven too, that I leave to the sages.
By this expulsion of the devils, it is allowed hy most authors, they are, ipso facto, stript of the rectitude and holiness of their nature, which was their beauty and perfection; and being ingulfed in the abyss of irrecoverable ruin, it is no matter where, from that very time they lost their angelic beautiful form, commenced ugly frightful monsters and devils, and became evil doers, as well as evil spirits; filled with an horrid malignity and enmity against their Maker, and armed with an hellish resolution to show and exert it on all occasions; retaining however their exalted, spirituous nature, and having a vast extensive power of action, all which they can exert in nothing else but doing evil; for they are entirely divested of either power or will to do good; and, even in doing evil, they are under restraints and limitations of a superior power, which it is their torment, and, perhaps, a great part of their hell, that they cannot break through.
Chapter 6
WHAT BECAME OF THE Devil, and his host of fallen spirits, after their being expelled from heaven, and his wandering condition till the creation; with some more of Mr. Milton’s absurdities on that subject.
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HAVING THUS BROUGHT the Devil and his innumerable legions to the edge of the bottomless pit, it remains, before I bring them to action, that some inquiry should be made into the posture of their affairs immediately after their precipitate fall, and into the place of their immediate residence; for this will appear to be very necessary to Satan’s history, and, indeed, so as that, without it, all the farther account we have to give of him, will be inconsistent and imperfect.
And first, I take upon me to lay down some fundamentals, which I believe I shall be able to make out historically, though, perhaps, not so geographically as some have pretended to do.
1. That Satan was not immediately, nor is yet, locked down in the abyss of a local hell, such as is supposed by some, and such as he shall be at last; or that,
2. If he was, he has certain liberties allowed him for excursions into the regions of this air, and certain spheres of action, in which he can and does move, to do. like a very devil as he is, all the mischief he can. and of which we see so many examples both about us and in us; in the inquiry after which, I shall take occasion to examine whether the Devil is not in most, of us sometimes, if not in all of us one time or other.
3. That Satan has no particular residence in this globe or earth where we live; that he rambles about among us, and marches over and over our whole country, he and his devils, in camps volant; but that he pitches his grand army, or chief encampment, in our adjacencies or frontiers, which the philosophers call atmosphere; and whence he is called the prince of the power of that element or part of the world we call air; from whence he sends out his spies, his agents and emissaries, to get intelligence, and to carry his commissions to his trusty and well-beloved cousins and counsellors on earth, by which his business is done, and his affairs carried on, in the world.
Here, again, I meet Mr. Milton, full in my face, who will have it that the Devil, immediately at his expulsion, rolled down directly into hell proper and local; nay, he measures the very distance, at least gives the length of the journey by the time they were passing or falling, which, he says, was nine days; a good poetical flight, but neither founded on scripture or philosophy. He might every jot as well have brought hell up to the walls of heaven, advanced to receive them; or he ought to have considered the space which is to be allowed to any locality, let him take what part of infinite distance between heaven and created hell he pleases.
But let that be as Mr. Milton’s extraordinary genius pleases to place it; the passage, it seems, is just nine days betwixt heaven and hell; well might Dives then see father Abraham, and talk to him too; but then the great gulf, which Abraham tells him was fixed between them, does not seem to be so large, as, according to 6
Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Halley, Mr. Whiston, and the rest of our men of science, we take it to be.
But suppose the passage to he nine days, according to Mr. Milton, what followed? Why, hell gaped wide, opened its frightful mouth, and received them all at once; millions and thousands of millions as they were, it received them all at a gulp, as we call it; they had no difficulty to go in, no, none at all.
“Facilis descensus Averni:
Sed revocare gradum
Hoc opus, hie labor est.” — Virg.
All this, as poetical, we may receive, but not at all as historical; for then come difficulties insuperable in our way; some of which may be as follow: 1. Hell is here supposed to be a place; nay, a place created for the punishment of angels and men, and likewise created long before those had fallen, or these had being: this makes me say, Mr. Milton was a good poet, but a bad historian: Tophet was prepared of old, indeed; but it was for the king, that is to say, it was prepared for those whose lot it should be to come thither; but this does not at all suppose it was prepared before it was resolved whether there should be subjects for it, or no; else we must suppose both men and angels were made by the glorious and upright Maker of all things, on purpose for destruction, which would be incongruous and absurd.
But there is worse yet to come: in the next place he adds, that hell having received them, closed upon them; that is to say, took them in, closed or shut its mouth; and in a word, they were locked in, as it was said in another place, they were locked in, and the key is carried up to heaven, and kept there; for we know the angel came down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit; but first, see Mr. Milton:
“Nine days they fell: confounded chaos roared,
And felt tenfold confusion in their fall:
Hell at last
Yawning received them whole, and on them closed;
Down