3 books to know The Devil. Джон Мильтон

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 modem 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, namely, 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 them 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, received 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, received 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 received 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 be fore; 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 afNewmarketheath is called the Devil’s ditch; so the Devil built Crowland Abbey, and the whispering place in Gloucester cathedral; nay, the cave at Castleton, only be cause there is no getting to the farther end of it, is called the Devil’s place, and the like. The poor people of Wiltshire, when you ask them how the great stones at Stonehenge were brought thither? they will 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 incog, 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.

      Chapter 2

      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.

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      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 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 man, and fill the vacancies occasioned by his degeneracy and rebellion.

      This rilled 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 an 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 ex quisite 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 ex ecution; how palatable it is in itself; and how well it relishes when dished up with proper sauces; such as plots, contrivance, 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, (death,) 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 an 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 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) our 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 an 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 in tense fire flaming about and from within him, at all the pores of bis 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;