By this expulsion of the Devils, it is allow’d by most Authors, they are, ipso facto, stript of the Rectitude and Holiness of their Nature, which was their Beauty and Perfection; and being ingulph’d in the abyss of irrecoverable ruin, ’tis no matter where, from that very time they lost their Angelic beautiful Form, commenc’d ugly frightful Monsters and Devils, and became evil doers, as well as evil Spirits; fill’d with a horrid malignity and enmity against their Maker, and arm’d with a hellish resolution to shew 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 thro’.
Chap. VI.
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.