John Milton - 3 books to know The Devil

Cain. My blessing be with you in your way, and give you a favorable reception at the venerable tent of our universal lord and father.

Note. Here the cursed race being fully given up to the direction of the evil spirit, which so early possessed them, and swelling with rage at the innocent Abel, and his whole family, they resolved upon forming a most wicked and detestable lie, to bring about the advice which they had already given their father Cain a touch of; and to pretend, that Adam, being justly provoked at the imdutiful behavior of Abel, had given Cain a commission to chastise him, and by force to cut him off, and all his family, as guilty of rebellion and pride.

Filled with this mischievous and bloody resolution, they came back to their father Cain, after staying a few days, such as were sufficient to make Cain believe they had been at the spacious plains, where Adam dwelt; the same which are now called the blessed Valleys, or the Plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix, near the banks of the Red Sea.

Note here also, that Cain having received a wicked hint from these men, his children and subjects, as before, intimating that Abel had broken the laws of primogeniture in his behavior towards him (Cain;) and that he might be justly punished for it; Satan, that cunning manager of all our wayward passions, fanned the fire of envy and jealousy with his utmost skill all the while his other agents were absent; and by the time they came back had blown it up into such an heat of fury and rage, that it wanted nothing but air to make it bum out, as it soon afterwards did in a furious flame of wrath and revenge, even to blood and destruction.

Just in the very critical moment, while things stood thus with Cain, Satan brings in his wicked instruments, as if just arrived with the return of his message from Adam, at whose court they had been for orders; and thus they, that is, the Devil assuming to speak by them, approach their father with an air of solemn, but cheerful satisfaction at the success of their embassy.

D. Hail, sovereign, reverend, patriarchal lord! we come with joy to render thee an account of the successs of our message.

Cain. Have you then seen the venerable tents where dwell the heaven-born, the angelic pair, to whom all human reverence highly due, is and ought always to be humbly paid?

D. We have.

Cain. Did you, together with my grand request, a just and humble homage for me pay, to the great sire and mother of mankind 1

D. We did.

Cain. Did you in humble language represent the griefs and anguish which oppress my soul?

D. We did, and back their blessing to thee bring.

Cain. I hope, with humblest signs of filial duty, you took it for me on your bending knees?

D. W“e did, and had our share; the patriarch lifting up his hands to heaven, expressed his joy to see his spreading race, and blessed us all.

Cain. Did you my solemn message too deliver, my injuries impartially lay down, and due assistance and direction crave?

D. We did.

Cain. What spoke the oracle? he is God to me; what just commands do ye bring? what is to be done? Am I to bear the insulting junior’s rage? and meekly suffer what unjustly he, affronting primogeniture, arid laws of God and man, imposes by his pride iinsnfferable? Am I to be crushed, and be no more the firstborn son on earth, but bow and kneel to him?

D. Forbid it, heaven! as Adam too forbids, who with a justice godlike, and peculiar to injured parents, Abel’s pride resents, and gives his high command to thee to punish.

Cain. To punish? say you, did he use the word, the very word? am I commissioned then to punish Abel?

D. Not Abel only, but his rebel race, as they, alike in crime, alike are joined in punishment.

Cain. The race indeed have shared the merit with him; how did they all insult, and with a shout of triumph mock my sorrow, when they saw me from my sacrifice dejected come, as if my disappointment was their joy?

D. This too the venerable prince resents; and to preserve the race in bounds of law subordinate arid limited to duty, commands that this first, breach be not passed by, lest the precedent upon record stand to future times to encourage like rebellion.

Cain. And is it then my sovereign parent’s will?

D. It is his will, that thou his eldest son, his image, his beloved, should be maintained in all the rights of sovereignty derived to thee from him; and not be left exposed to injury, and power usurped, but should do thyself justice on the rebel race.

Cain. And so I will; Abel shall quickly know what it is to trample on his elder brother; shall know that he is thus sentenced by his father; and I am commissioned bat to execute his high command, his sentence, which is God’s; and that he falls by the hand of heavenly justice.

So now Satan had done his work, he had deluded the mother to a breach against the first and only command; he had drawn Adam into the same snare; and now he brings in Cain prompted by his own rage, and deluded by his (Satan’s) craft, to commit murder, nay, a fratricide, an aggravated murder.

Upon this he sends out Cain, while the bloody rage was in its ferment, and wickedly at the same time, bringing Abel, innocent, and fearing no ill, just in his way, he suggests to his thoughts such words as these:

Look you, Cain, see how divine justice concurs with your father’s righteous sentence; see, there is thy brother Abel directed by Heaven to fall into thy hands unarmed, unguarded, that thou mayst do thyself justice upon him without fear; see, thou mayst kill him; and, if thou hast a mind to conceal it, no eyes can see, nor will the world ever know it, so that no resentment or revenge upon thee, or thy posterity, can be apprehended, but it may be said some wild beast had rent him; nor will any one suggest, that thou, his brother and superior, could possibly be the person.

Cain, prepared for the fact by his former avowed rage, and resolution of revenge, was so much the less prepared to avoid the snare thus artfully contrived by the master of all subtlety, the Devil; so he immediately runs upon his brother Abel, and, after a little unarmed resistance, the innocent poor man, expecting no such mischief, was conquered and murdered; after which, as is to be supposed, the exasperated crew of Cain’s outrageous race overrun all his family and household, killing man, woman, and child.

It is objected here, that we have no authority in scripture to prove this part of the story; but I answer, it is not likely but that Abel, as well as Cain, being at man’s estate long before this, had several children by their own sisters; for they were the only men in the world who were allowed the marrying their own sisters, there being no other women then in the world; and as we never read of any of Abel’s posterity, it is likewise as probable they were all murdered, as that they should kill Abel only, whose sons might immediately fall upon Cain for the blood of their father, and so the world have been involved in a civil war as soon as there were two families in it.

But be it so or not, it is not doubted the Devil wrought with Cain in the horrid murder, or he had never done it; whether it was directly, or by agents, is not material, nor is the latter unlikely; and, if the latter, then there is no improbability in the story; for why might not he that made use of the serpent to tempt Eve, be as well supposed to make a tool of some of Cain’s sons or grandsons to prompt him in the wicked attempt of murdering his brother? and why must we be obliged to bring in a miracle, or an apparition, into the story, to make it probable that the Devil had any hand in it, when it was so natural to a degenerate race to act in such a manner?

However it was, arid by whatever tool the Devil wrought, it is certain that this was the consequence, poor Abel was butchered; and thus the Devil made a second conquest in God’s creation; for Adam was now, as may be said, really childless; for his two sons were thus far lost, Abel was killed, and Cain was curst, and driven out from the presence of the Lord, and his race blasted with him.