What Became Of The Devil And His Host Of Fallen Spirits After Their Being Expell'd From Heaven

What became of the Devil and his Host of fallen Spirits after their

being expell'd from Heaven, and his wandring condition till the

Creation; with some more of Mr. Milton's absurdities on that

subject.





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 enquiry 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, tho', perhaps, not so

Geographically as some have pretended to do.



1. That Satan was not immediately, nor is yet lock'd down into

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 call'd 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, roll'd down directly into a

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, advanc'd to receive

them, or he ought to have consider'd the space which is to be allow'd

to any locality, let him take what part of infinite distance between

Heaven and a 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 Gulph which Abraham tells him was fix'd between them,

does not seem to be so large, as according to 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 be nine Days, according to Mr. Milton, what

follow'd? why Hell gap'd wide, open'd 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 desensus averni, sed revocare gradum

Hoc opus hic 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 prepar'd of old,

indeed, but it was for the King, that is to say, it was prepar'd for

those whose lot it should be to come there; but this does not at all

suppose it was prepar'd before it was resolv'd 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 receiv'd them, clos'd upon them; that is to say, took them in,

clos'd or shut its Mouth; and in a word, they were lock'd in, as it was

said in another place, they were lock'd in, and the Key is carry'd 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 roar'd

'And felt ten-fold confusion in their fall:

'----Hell at last

'Yawning receiv'd them all, and on them clos'd;

'Down from the verge of Heaven, eternal wrath

'Burnt after them----

'Unquenchable.





This Scheme is certainly deficient, if not absurd, and I think is more

so than any other he has laid; 'tis evident, neither Satan or his Host

of Devils are, no not any of them, yet, even now, confin'd in the

eternal Prison, where the Scripture says, he shall be reserved in

chains of darkness. They must have mean thoughts of Hell, as a

Prison, a local Confinement, that can suppose the Devil able to

break Goal, knock off his Fetters, and come abroad, if he had been once

lock'd in there, as Mr. Milton says he was: Now we know that he is

abroad again, he presented himself before God, among his neighbours,

when Job's case came to be discours'd of; and more than that, it's

plain he was a prisoner at large, by his answer to God's question, which

was, whence comest thou? to which he answer'd, from going to and fro

thro' the Earth, &c. this, I say, is plain, and if it be as certain

that Hell closed upon them, I demand then, how got he out? and why was

there not a Proclamation for apprehending him, as there usually is,

after such Rogues as break prison?



In short, the true Account of the Devil's Circumstances, since his

Fall from Heaven, is much more likely to be thus: That he is more of a

Vagrant than a Prisoner, that he is a Wanderer in the wild unbounded

Wast, where he and his Legions, like the Hoords of Tartary, who, in

the wild Countries of Karakathay, the Desarts of Barkan, Kassan,

and Astracan, live up and down where they find proper; so Satan and

his innumerable Legions rove about hic & ubique, pitching their Camps

(being Beasts of prey) where they find the most Spoil; watching over

this World, (and all the other Worlds for ought we know, and if there

are any such,) I say watching, and seeking who they may devour, that

is, who they may deceive and delude, and so destroy, for devour they

cannot.



Satan being thus confin'd to a vagabond, wandring, unsettl'd

Condition, is without any certain Abode; For tho' he has, in consequence

of his Angelic Nature, a kind of Empire in the liquid Wast or Air;

yet, this is certainly part of his punishment, that he is continually

hovering over this inhabited Globe of Earth; swelling with the Rage of

Envy, at the Felicity of his Rival, Man; and studying all the means

possible to injure and ruin him; but extremely limited in Power, to his

unspeakable Mortification: This is his present State, without any fix'd

Abode, Place, or Space, allow'd him to rest the Sole of his Foot upon.



From his Expulsion, I take his first View of Horror to be that, of

looking back towards the Heaven which he had lost; there to see the

Chasm or Opening made up, out at which, as at a Breach in the Wall of

the holy Place, he was thrust Head-long by the Power which expel'd him;

I say, to see the Breach repair'd, the Mounds built up, the Walls

garison'd with millions of Angels, and arm'd with Thunders; and, above

all, made terrible by that Glory from whose Presence they were expel'd,

as is Poetically hinted at before.



Upon this sight, 'tis no wonder (if there was such a Place) that they

fled till the Darkness might cover them, and that they might be out of

the View of so hated a Sight.



Wherever they found it, you may be sure they pitch'd their first Camp,

and began, after many a sour Reflection upon what was pass'd, to

consider and think a little, upon what was to come.



If I had as much personal Acquaintance with the Devil, as would admit

it, and could depend upon the Truth of what Answer he would give me, the

first Question I would ask him, should be, what Measures they resolv'd

on at their first Assembly? and the next should be, how they were

employ'd in all that space of Time, between their so flying the Face of

their almighty Conqueror, and the Creation of Man? as for the Length of

the Time, which, according to the Learn'd, was twenty thousand Years,

and according to the more Learned, not half a Quarter so much, I would

not concern my Curiosity much about it; 'tis most certain, there was a

considerable time between, but of that immediately; first let me enquire

what they were doing all that time.



The Devil and his Host, being thus, I say, cast out of Heaven, and not

yet confin'd strictly to Hell, 'tis plain they must be some where.

Satan and all his Legions did not lose their Existence, no, nor the

Existence of Devils neither; GOD was so far from annihilating him,

that he still preserv'd his Being; and this not Mr. Milton only, but

GOD himself has made known to us, having left his History so far upon

record; several expressions in Scripture also make it evident, as

particularly the story of Job, mentioned before; the like in our

Saviour's time, and several others.



If Hell did not immediately ingulph them, as Milton suggests, 'tis

certain, I say, that they fled Somewhere, from the anger of Heaven, from

the face of the Avenger; and his absence, and their own guilt, wonder

not at it, would make Hell enough for them wherever they went.



Nor need we fly to the Dreams of our Astronomers, who take a great

deal of pains to fill up the vast Spaces of the starry Heavens with

innumerable habitable Worlds; allowing as many solar Systems as there

are fix'd Stars, and that not only in the known Constellations, but even

in Gallaxie it self; who, to every such System allow a certain number

of Planets, and to every one of those Planets so many Satellites or

Moons, and all these Planets and Moons to be Worlds; solid, dark,

opaque Bodies, habitable, and (as they would have us believe) inhabited

by the like Animals and rational Creatures as on this Earth; so that

they may, at this rate, find room enough for the Devil and all his

Angels, without making a Hell on purpose; nay they may, for ought I

know, find a World for every Devil in all the Devil's Host, and so

every one may be a Monarch or Master-Devil, separately in his own

Sphere or World, and play the Devil there by himself.



And even if this were so, it cannot be denied but that one Devil in a

place would be enough for a whole systemary World, and be able, if not

restrained, to do mischief enough there too, and even to ruin and

overthrow the whole body of People contain'd in it.



But, I say, we need not fly to these shifts, or consult the Astronomers

in the decision of this point; for wherever Satan and his defeated

Host went, at their expulsion from Heaven, we think we are certain,

none of all these Beautiful Worlds, or be they Worlds or no, I mean the

fix'd Stars, Planets, &c. had then any existence; for the Beginning,

as the Scripture calls it, was not yet Begun.



But to speak a little by the rules of Philosophy, that is to say, so as

to be understood by others, even when we speak of things we cannot fully

understand ourselves: Tho' in the Beginning of Time all this glorious

Creation was form'd, the Earth, the starry Heavens, and all the

Furniture thereof, and there was a Time when they were not; yet we

cannot say so of the Void, or that nameless no-where, as I call'd it

before, which now appears to be a some-where, in which these glorious

Bodies are plac'd. That immense Space which those take up, and which

they move in at this Time, must be supposed, before they had Being, to

be plac'd there: As God himself was, and existed before all Being, Time,

or Place, so the Heaven of Heavens, or the Place, where the Thrones and

Dominions of his Kingdom then existed, inconceivable and ineffable, had

an existence before the glorious Seraphs, the innumerable company of

Angels which attended about the Throne of God existed; these all had a

Being long before, as the Eternal Creator of them all had before them.



Into this void or abyss of Nothing, however unmeasurable, infinite, and

even to those Spirits, themselves Inconceivable, they certainly launch'd

from the bright Precipice which they fell from, and here they shifted as

well as they could.



Here expanding those Wings which Fear, and Horror at their Defeat

furnish'd them, as I hinted before, they hurried away to the utmost

Distance possible, from the Face of GOD their Conqueror, and then most

dreaded Enemy; formerly their Joy and Glory.



Be this utmost remov'd Distance where it will, Here, certainly,

Satan and all his Gang of Devils, his numberless, tho' routed Armies

retired. Here Milton might, with some good Ground, have form'd his

Pandemonium, and have brought them in, consulting what was next to be

done, and whether there was any room left to renew the War, or to carry

on the Rebellion; but had they been cast immediately into Hell, closed

up there, the Bottomless pit lock'd upon them, and the Key carried up to

Heaven to be kept there, as Mr. Milton himself in part confesses,

and the Scripture affirms; I say, had this been so, the Devil himself

could not have been so ignorant as to think of any future Steps to be

taken, to retrieve his Affairs, and therefore a Pandemonium or Divan

in Hell, to consult of it, was ridiculous.



All Mr. Milton's Scheme of Satan's future Conduct, and all the

Scripture Expressions about the Devil and his numerous Attendants, and

of his actings since that time, make it not reasonable to suggest that

the Devils were confin'd to their eternal Prison, at their Expulsion

out of Heaven; But that they were in a State of Liberty to act, tho'

limited in acting, of which I shall also speak in its place.