John Milton - 3 books to know The Devil

The Devil having, I say, finished these conquests so much to his satisfaction, began to turn his eyes northward; and though he had a considerable interest in the Whore of Babylon, and had brought his power, by the subjection of the Roman hierarchy, to a great height, yet finding the interest of Mahomet most suitable to his devilish purposes, as most adapted to the destruction of mankind, and laying waste the world, he resolved to espouse the growing power of the Turk, and bring him in upon Europe like a deluge.

In order to this, and to make way for an easy conquest, like a true devil, he worked under ground, and sapped the foundation of the Christian power, by sowing discord among the reigning princes of Europe; that so envying one another, they might be content to stand still and look on, while the Turk devoured them one by one, and, at last, might swallow them all up.

This devilish policy took to his heart’s content; the Christian princes stood still, stupid, dozing and unconcerned, till the Turk conquered Thrace, overrun Servia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and all the remains of the Grecian empire, and last the imperial city of Constantinople itself.

Finding this politic method so well answer his ends, the Devil, who always improves upon the success of his own experiments, resolved, from that time, to lay a foundation for the making those divisions and jealousies of the Christian princes immortal; whereas they were at first only personal, and founded in private quarrels between the princes respectively; such as emulation of one another’s glory, envy at the extraordinary valor, or other merit, of this or that leader, or revenge of some little affront; for which, notwithstanding, so great was the piety of Christian princes in those days, that they made no scruple to sacrifice whole armies, yea, nations, to their piques, and private quarrels; a certain sign whose management they were under.

These being the causes by which the Devil first sowed the seeds of mischief among them, and the success so well answering his design, he could not but wish to have the same advantage always ready at his hand; and therefore he resolved to order it so, that these divisions, which, however useful to him, were only personal, and consequently temporary, like an annual in the garden, which must be raised anew every season, might for the future be rational, and consequently durable and immortal.

To this end it was necessary to lay the foundation of eternal feud, not in the humors and passions of men only, but in the interests of nations. The way to do this was to form and state the dominion of those Princes, by such a plan drawn in hell, and laid out from a scheme truly political, of which the Devil was chief engineer; that the divisions should always remain, being made a natural consequence of the situation of the country, the temper of their people, the nature of their commerce, the climate, the manner of living, or something which should for ever render it impossible for them to unite.

This, I say, was a scheme truly infernal, in which the Devil was as certainly the principal operator, to illustrate great things by small, as ever John of Leyden was of the High Dutch rebellion, or Sir John B 1 of the late project, called the South Sea Stock.

Nor did this contrivance of the Devil at all dishonor its author, or the success appear unworthy of the undertaker; for we see it not only answered the end, and made the Turk victorious at the same time, and formidable to Europe ever after, but it works to this day; the foundation of the divisions remains in all the several nations, and that to such a degree, that it is impossible they should unite.

This is what I hinted before, in which the Devil was mistaken, and is another instance that he knows nothing of what is to come; for this very foundation of immortal jealousy and discord between the several nations of Spain, France, Germany and others, which the Devil himself, with so much policy, contrived, and which served his interests so long, is now the only obstruction to his designs, and prevents the entire ruin of the reformation; for though the reformed countries are very powerful, and some of them, as Great Britain and Prussia are particularly, more powerful than ever; yet it cannot be said that the Protestant interests in general are stronger than formerly, or so strong as they were in 1623, under the victorious arms of the Swede. On the other hand, were it possible that the popish powers, to wit, of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland, which are entirely popish, could heartily unite their interests, and should join their powers to attack the Protestants, the latter would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend themselves.

But as fatal as such an union of the popish powers would be, and as useful as it would be to the Devil’s cause at this time, not the Devil with all his angels is able to bring it to pass; no, not with all his craft and cunning; he divided them, out he cannot unite them; so that even just as it is Avith men, so it is with devils, they may do in an hour what they cannot undo in an age.

This may comfort those faint-hearted Christians among us, who cry out of the dangers of religious war in Europe, and what terrible things will happen when France, and Spain, and Germany, and Italy, and Poland, shall all unite. Let this answer satisfy them, the Devil himself can never make France and Spain, or France and the emperor, unite; jarring humors may be reconciled, but jarring interests never can. They may unite so as to make peace, though that can hardly be long, but never so as to make conquests together; they are too much afraid of one another, for one to bear that any addition of strength should come to the other. But this is a digression. We shall find the Devil mistaken and disappointed too on several occasions, as we go along,

I return to Satan’s interest in the several governments and nations, by virtue of his invisibility, and which he carries on by possession: it is by this invisibility that he presides in all the councils of foreign powers; (for we never mean our own, that we always premise;) and what though it is alleged by the critics, that he does not preside, because there is always a president; I say, if he is not in the president’s chair, yet if he be in the president himself, the difference is not much; and if he does not vote as a counsellor, if he votes in the counsellor, it is much the same; and here, as it was in the story of Abab, the king of Israel, as he was a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets; so we find him a spirit of some particular evil quality or other, in all the transactions and transactors on that stage of life we call the state.

Thus he was a dissembling spirit in Charles IX., a turbulent spirit in Charles V. emperor; a bigoted spirit of fire and fagot in our Queen Mary; an apostate spirit in Henry IV.; a cruel spirit in Peter of Castile; a revengeful spirit in Ferdinand II.; a phaeton in Louis XIV.; a Sardanapalus in C II.

In the great men of the world, take them a degree lower than the class of crowned heads, he has the same secret influence; and hence it comes to pass, that the greatest heroes, and men of the highest character for achievements of glory, either by their virtue or valor; however they have been crowned with victories, and elevated by human tongues, whatever the most consummate virtues or good qualities they have been known by, yet they have always had some devil or other in them, to preserve Satan’s claim to them uninterrupted, and prevent their escape out of his hands; thus we have seen a bloody devil in a D’ Alva; a profligate devil in a Buckingham; a lying, artful, or politic devil in a Richelieu; a treacherous devil in a Mazarin; a cruel, merciless devil in a Cortez; a de bauched devil in an Eugene; a conjuring devil in a Luxemburg; and a covetous devil in a M h. In a word, tell me the man, I will tell you the spirit that reigned in him.