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.
Chap. VII.
Of the Number of Satan’s Host; how they came first to know of the new created Worlds, now in being, and their Measures with Mankind upon the Discovery.
Several things have been suggested to set us a calculating the number of this frightful throng of Devils, who with Satan, the Master-Devil, was thus cast out of Heaven; I cannot say, I am so much Master of Political Arithmetick as to cast up the Number of the Beast, no, nor the Number of the Beasts or Devils, who make up this Throng. St. Francis, they tell us, or some other Saint, they do not say who, ask’d the Devil once, how strong he was? for St. Francis, you must know, was very familiar with him; The Devil, it seems, did not tell him, but presently raised a great Cloud of Dust, by the help, I suppose, of a Gust of Wind, and bid that Saint count it; He was, I suppose, a Calculator, that would be call’d grave, who dividing Satan’s Troops into three Lines, cast up the Number of the Devils of all sorts in each Battalia, at ten hundred times a hundred thousand millions of the first Line, fifty millions of times as many in the second Line, and three hundred thousand times as many as both in the third Line.
The Impertinence of this account would hardly have given it a place here, only to hint that it has always been the Opinion, that Satan’s Name may well be call’d a Noun of Multitude, and that the Devil and his Angels are certainly no inconsiderable Number: It was a smart Repartee that a Venetian Nobleman made to a Priest who rallied him upon his refusing to give something to the Church, which the Priest demanded for the delivering him from Purgatory; when the Priest asking him, if he knew what an innumerable Number of Devils there were to take him? he answer’d, yes, he knew how many Devils there were in all: How many? says the Priest, his curiosity, I suppose, being rais’d by the novelty of the answer. Why ten millions five hundred and eleven thousand, six hundred and seventy five Devils and a half, says the Nobleman: A half! says the Priest, pray what kind of a Devil is that? your self, says the Nobleman, for you are half a Devil already (and will be a whole one when you come there) for you are for deluding all you deal with, and bringing us Soul and Body into your Hands, that you may be paid for letting us go again. So much for their Number.
Here also it would come in very aptly, to consider the state of that long interval between the Time of their Expulsion from Heaven, and the Creation of the World; and what the Posture of the Devil’s Affairs might be, during that Time. The horror of their Condition can only be conceiv’d of at a Distance, and especially by us, who being embodied Creatures, cannot fully judge of what is, or is not a Punishment to Seraphs and Spirits; But ’tis just to suppose they suffer’d all that Spirits of a Seraphic Nature were capable to sustain, consistent with their Existence; notwithstanding which they retain’d still the Hellishness of their rebellious Principles; namely, their Hatred and Rage against God, and their Envy at the Felicity of his Creatures.