John Milton - 3 books to know The Devil

Some are of opinion, and I among the rest, that if the Devil was personally and visibly present among us, and we conversed with him face to face, we should be so familiar with him in a little time, that his ugly figure would not affect us at all; that his terrors would not fright us; or that we should any more trouble ourselves about him, than we did with the great comet in 1678, which appeared so long, and so constantly, without any particular known event, that at last we took no more notice of it, than of the other ordinary stars which had appeared before we or our ancestors were born.

Nor indeed should we have much reason to be frighted at him, or at least none of those silly things could be said of him, which we now amuse ourselves about, and by which we set him up, like a scare-crow, to fright children and old women, to fill up old stories, make songs and ballads; and, in a word, carry on the low-prized buffoonry of the common people; we should either see him in his angelic form, as he was from the original; or, if he has any deformities entailed upon him by the supreme sentence, and injustice to the deformity of his crime, they would be of a superior nature, and fitted more for our contempt as well as horror, than those weak-fancied trifles contrived by our ancient devil-raisers and devil-makers, to feed the wayward fancies of old witches and sorcerers, who cheated the ignorant world with a devil of their own making, set forth in terror, with bat’s wings, horns, cloven foot, long tail, forked tongue, and the like.

In the next place, be his frightful figure what it would, and his legions as numerous as the host of heaven, we should see him still, as the prince of devils, though monstrous as a dragon, flaming as a comet, tall as a mountain, yet dragging his chain after him equal to the utmost of his supposed strength; always in custody of his gaolers the angels, his power overpowered, his rage cowed and abated, or at least awed, and un der correction, limited and restrained; in a word, we should see him a vanquished slave, his spirit broken, his malice, though not abated, yet hand-cuffed and overpowered, and he not able to work anything against us by force; so that he would be to us but like the lions in the tower, engaged and lacked up, unable to do the hurt he wishes to do, and that we fear, or in deed any hurt at all.

From hence it is evident, that it is not his business to be public, or to walk up and down in the world visibly, and in his own shape; his affairs require a quite different management, as might be made apparent from the nature of things, and the manner of our actings, as men, either with ourselves, or to one another.

Nor could he be serviceable in his generation, as a public person, as now he is, or answer the end of his party who employ him. and who, if he was to do their business in public, as he does in private, would not be able to employ him at all.

As in our modem meetings for the propagation of impudence, and other virtues, there would be no entertainment, and no improvement for the good of the age if the people did not all appear in masque, and concealed from the common observation; so neither could Satan (from whose management those more happy assemblies are taken, as copies of a glorious original,) perform the usual and necessary business of his profession, if he did not appear wholly in covert, and un der needful disguises. How, but for the convenience of his habit, could he cast himself into so many shapes, act on so many different scenes, and turn so many wheels of state in the world, as he has done? as a mere professed devil he could do nothing.

Had he been obliged always to. act the mere devil in his own clothes, and with his own shape, appearing uppermost in all cases and places, he could never have preached in so many pulpits, presided in so many councils, voted in so many committees, sat in so many courts, and influenced so many parties and factions in church and state, as we have reason to believe he has done in our nation, and in our memories too, as well as in other nations and in more ancient times. The share Satan has had in all the weighty confusions of the times, ever since the first ages of Christianity in the world, has been carried on with so much secrecy, and so much with an air of cabal and intrigue, that nothing can have been managed more subtly and closely; and in the same manner has he acted in our times in order to conceal his interest, and the influence he has had in the councils of the world.

Had it been possible for him to have raised the flames of rebellion and war so often in this nation, as he certainly has done? Could he have agitated the parties on both sides, and inflamed the spirits of three nations, if he had appeared in his own dress, a mere naked devil? It is not the Devil as a devil that does the mischief, but the Devil in masquerade, Satan in full disguise, and acting at the head of civil confusion and distraction.

If history may be credited, the French court at the time of our old confusions was made the scene of Satan’s politics, and prompted both parties in England and in Scotland also, to quarrel; and how was it done? Will any man offer to scandalize the Devil so much as to say, or so much as to suggest, that Satan had no hand in it? Did not the Devil, by the agency of Cardinal Richelieu, send four hundred thousand crowns at one time, and six hundred thousand at another, to the Scots, to raise an army, and march boldly into England? and did not the same Devil, at the same time, by other agents, remit eight hundred thousand crowns to the other party,, in order to raise an army to fall upon the Scots? Nay, did not the Devil, with the same subtlety, send down the Archbishop’s order to impose the service-book upon the people in Scotland; and at the same time raise a mob against it, in the great church (at St. Giles’s)? Nay, did not he actually, in the person of an old woman, (his favorite instrument,) throw the three-legged stool at the service-book, and animate the zealous people to take up arms for religion, and turn rebels for God’s sake?

All these happy and successful undertakings, though it is no more to be doubted they were done by the agency of Satan, and in a very surprising manner too, yet were all done in secret, by what I call possession and injection, and by the agency and contrivance of such instruments, or by the Devil in the disguise of such servants as he found out fitted to be employed in his work, and whom he took a more effectual care in concealing of.

But we shall have occasion to touch all this part over again, when we come to discourse of the particular habits and disguises which the Devil has made use of, all along in the world, the better to cover his actions, and to conceal his being concerned in them.

In the mean time the cunning or artifice the Devil makes use of in all these things is in itself very considerable; it is an old practice of his using, and he has gone on in divers measures, for the better concealing himself in it; which measures, though he varies sometimes, as his extraordinary affairs require, yet they are in all ages much the same, and have the same tendency; namely, that he may get all his business carried on by the instrumentality of fools; that he may make mankind agents in their own destruction; and that he may have all his work done in such’ a manner as that he may seem to have no hand in it; nay, he contrives so well, that the very name devil is put upon his opposite party, and the scandal of the black agent lies all upon them.

In order then to look a little into his conduct, let us inquire into the common mistakes about him, see what use is made of them to his advantage, and how far mankind is imposed upon in those particulars, anoTo what purpose.

OF SATAN’S AGENTS OR missionaries, and their actings upon and in the winds of me?i, in his name.