John Milton - 3 books to know The Devil

And yet, before I have done, I shall make it very plain, that however my information may be secret and difficult, that yet I came very honestly by it, and shall make a very good use of it; for it is a great mistake in those who think that an acquaintance with the affairs of the Devil may not be made very useful to us all: they that know no evil can know no good: and, as the learned tell us, that a stone taken out of the head of a toad is a good antidote against poison; so a competent knowledge of the Devil, and all his ways, may be the best help to make us defy the Devil, and all his works.

OF THE WORD DEVIL, as it is a proper name to the Devil, and any or all of his host, angels, &c.

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IT IS A QUESTION, NOT yet determined by the learned, whether the word Devil be a singular, that is to say, the name of a person standing by himself, or a noun of multitude: if it be a singular, and so must be used personally only as a proper name, it consequently implies one imperial Devil, monarch or king of the whole clan of hell; justly distinguished by the term the Devil, or, as the Scots call him, the muckle horrid Dee’l, or, as others in a wilder dialect, the Devil of hell, that is to say, the Devil of a Devil; or (better still) as the scripture expresses it, by way of emphasis, the great red Dragon, the Devil, and Satan.

But if we take this word to be, as above, a noun of multitude, and so to be used ambo-dezter, as occasion presents, singular or plural; then the Devil signifies Satan by himself, or Satan with all his legions at his heels, as you please, more or less; and this way of understanding the word, as it may be very convenient for my purpose, in the account I am now to give of the infernal powers, so it is not altogether improper in the nature of the thing: it is thus expressed in scripture, where the person possessed (Mark v. 9,) is first said to be possessed of the Devil (singular); and our Saviour asks him, as speaking to a single person, What is thy name? and is answered in the plural and singular together, My name is Legion, for we are many.

Nor will it be any wrong to the Devil, supposing him a single person, seeing entitling him to the conduct of all his inferior agents, is what he will take rather for an addition to his infernal glory, than a diminution or lessening of him, in the extent of his fame.

Having thus articled with the Devil for liberty of speech, I shall talk of him sometimes in the singular, as a person, and sometimes in the plural, as an host of devils, or of infernal spirits, just as occasion requires, and as the history of his affairs makes necessary.

The truth is, God and the Devil, however opposite in their nature, and remote from one another in their place of abiding, seem to stand pretty much upon a level in our faith: for as to our believing the reality of their existence, he that denies one, generally denies both; and he that believes one, necessarily believes both.

Very few, if any, of those who believe there is a God, and acknowledge the debt of homage which mankind owes to the Supreme governor of the world, doubt the existence of the Devil, except here and there one, whom we call practical Atheists; and it is the character of an Atheist, if there is such a creature on earth, that he believes neither God nor Devil.

As the belief of both these stands upon a level, and that God and the Devil seem to have an equal share in our faith, so the evidence of their existence seems to stand upon a level too, in many things; and as they are known by their works in the same particular cases, so they are discovered after the same manner of demonstration.

Nay, in some respects it is equally criminal to deny the reality of them both; only with this difference, that to believe the existence of a God is a debt to nature, and to believe the existence of the Devil is a like debt to reason: one is a demonstration from the reality of visible causes, and the other a deduction from the like reality of their effects.

One demonstration of the existence of God, is from the universal well-guided consent of all nations to worship and adore a supreme power: one demonstration of the existence of the Devil, is from the avowed ill-guided consent of some nations, who, knowing no other God, make a God of the Devil for want of a better.

It may be true, those nations have no other ideas of the Devil than as of a superior power; if they thought him a supreme power, it would have other effects on them, and they would submit to and worship him with a different kind of fear.

But it is plain they have right notions of him as a devil, or evil spirit; because the best reason, and in some places the only reason they give for worshipping him is, that he may do them no hurt; having no notions at all of his having any power, much less any inclination, to do them good; so that indeed they make a mere devil of him, at the same time that they bow to him as God.

All the ages of paganism in the world have had this notion of the Devil: indeed in some parts of the world they had also some deities which they honored above him, as being supposed to be beneficent, kind, and in clined, as well as capable, to give them good things; for this reason the more polite heathens, such as the Grecians and Romans, had their Lares, or household gods, whom they paid a particular respect to; as being their protectors from hobgoblins, ghosts of the dead, evil spirits, frightful appearances, evil geniuses, and other noxious beings from the invisible world; or, to put it into the language of the day we live in, from the Devil, in whatever shape or appearance he might come to them, and from whatever might hurt them; and what was all this but setting up Devils against Devils, supplicating one Devil under the notion of a good spirit, to drive out and protect them from another, whom they called a bad spirit, the white Devil against the black Devil?

This proceeds from the natural notions mankind necessarily entertain of things to come: superior or in ferior, God and the Devil, fill up all futurity in our thoughts; and it is impossible for us to form any image in our minds of an immortality, and invisible world, but under the notions of perfect felicity, or extreme misery.

Now as these two respect the eternal state of man after life, they are respectively the object of our reverence and affection, or of our horror and aversion; but notwithstanding they are placed thus in a diametrical opposition in our affections and passions, they are on an evident level as to the certainty of their existence, and, as I said above, bear an equal share in our faith.

It being then as certain that there is a Devil, as that there is a God, I must from this time forward admit no more doubt of his existence, nor take any more pains to convince you of it; but speaking of him as a reality in being, proceed to inquire who he is, and from whence, in order to enter directly into the detail of his history.

Now not to enter into all the metaphysical trumpery of his schools; nor wholly to confine myself to the language of the pulpit; where we are told, that to think of God, and of the Devil, we must endeavor first to form ideas of those things which illustrate the descriptions of rewards and punishments; in the one the eternal presence of the highest good, and, as a necessary attendant, the most perfect, consummate, durable bliss and felicity, springing from the presence of that being in whom all possible beatitude is inexpressibly present, and that in the highest perfection; on the contrary, to conceive of a sublime fallen archangel attended with an innumerable host of degenerate, rebel seraphs, or angels, cast out of heaven together; all guilty of inexpressible rebellion, and all suffering from that time, and to suffer for ever, the eternal vengeance of the Almighty, in an inconceivable manner; that his presence, though blessed in itself, is to them the most complete article of terror; that they are in themselves perfectly miserable; and to be with whom for ever, adds an inexpressible misery to any state as well as place; and fills the minds of those who are to be, or expect to be, banished to them, with inconceivable horror and amazement.