The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts

Again, ’tis evident in this Case, they were not only acting contrary to the Nature of Things, but contrary to the Design and to the Command of Heaven; for God’s Command was that they should replenish the Earth, that is, that they should spread their Habitations over it, and People the whole Globe; whereas they were pitching in one Place, as if they were not to multiply sufficient to take up any more.

But what car’d the Devil for that, or to put it a little handsomer, that was what Satan aimed at; for it was enough to him, to bring Mankind to act just contrary to what Heaven had directed or commanded them in any thing, and if possible in every Thing.

But God himself put a stop to this foolish Piece of Work, and it was time indeed to do so, for a madder thing the Devil himself never proposed to them; I say, God himself put a stop to this new Undertaking, and disappointed the Devil; and how was it done? not in Judgment and Anger, as perhaps the Devil expected and hop’d for, but as pitying the Simplicity of that dreaming Creature Man, he confused their Speech, or as some say, divided and confused their Councils, so that they could not agree with one another, which would be the same Thing as not to understand one another; or he put a new Shibboleth upon their Tongues, thereby separating them into Tribes or Families, for by this every Family found themselves under a Necessity of keeping together, and this naturally encreased that Differing Jargons of Language, for at first it might be no more.

What a Confusion this was to them we all know, by their being oblig’d to leave off their building, and immediately separating one from another; but what a Surprize it was to the old Serpent, that remains to be considered of, for indeed it belongs to his History.

Satan had never met with any Disappointment in all his wicked Attempts till now; for first, he succeeded even to triumph upon Eve, he did the like upon Cain, and in short upon the whole World, one Man (Noah) excepted; when he blended the Sons of God, and the Daughters of Hell, for so the Word is understood, together, in promiscuous voluptuous Living as well as Generation.

As to the Deluge, Authors are not agreed whether it was a Disappointment to the Devil or no, it might be indeed a Surprize to him, for tho’ Noah had preach’d of it for a hundred Year together, yet as he (Satan) daily prompted the People not to heed or believe what that old Fellow Noah said to them, and to ridicule his whimsical Building a monstrous Tub to swim or float in, when the said Deluge should come; so I am of the Opinion he did not believe it himself, and am positive he could not foresee it, by any insight into Futurity that he was Master of.

’Tis true the Astronomers tell us, there was a very terrible Comet seen in the Air, that it appeared for 180 Days before the Flood continually; and that as it approach’d nearer and nearer every Day all the while, so that at last it burst and fell down in a continual Spout or Stream of Water, being of a watry Substance, and the Quantity so great, that it was forty Days a falling; so that this Comet not only foretold the Deluge or drowning of the Earth, but actually perform’d it, and drown’d it from it self.

But to leave this Tale to them that told it, let us consider the Devil, surpris’d, and a little amaz’d at the Absorption or Inundation, or whatever we are to call it, of the Earth in the Deluge, not, I say, that he was much concern’d at it, perhaps just the Contrary; and if God would drown it again, and as often as he thought fit, I do not see by any thing I meet with in Satan’s History, or in the Nature of him, that he would be at all disturb’d at it; all that I can see in it, that could give Satan any Concern, would be that all his Favourites were gone, and he had his Work to do over again, to lay a Foundation for a new Conquest in the Generation that was to come; But in this his Prospect was fair enough, for why should he be discouraged, when he had now eight People to work upon, who met with such Success when he had but two? and why should he question breaking in now where Nature was already vitiated and corrupted, when he had before conquer’d the same Nature, when in its primitive Rectitude and Purity, just come out of the Hands of its Maker, and fortify’d with the Awe of his high and solemn Command just given them, and the threatning of Death also annext to it, if broken?

But I go back to the Affair of Babel: This Confusion of Language or of Councils, take it which way you will, as the first Disappointment that I find the Devil met with, in all his Attempts and Practices upon Mankind, or upon the new Creature, which I mentioned above; for now he foresaw what would follow; namely, that the People would separate and spread themselves over the whole Surface of the Earth, and a thousand new Scenes of Actions would appear, in which he therefore prepares himself to behave as he should see Occasion.

How the Devil learn’d to speak all the Languages that were now to be used, and how many languages they were, the several ancient Writers of the Devil’s Story have not yet determined; some tell us they were divided only into fifteen, some into seventy two, others into one hundred and eighty, and others again into several Thousands.

It also remains a doubt with me, and, I suppose, will be so with others also, whether Satan has yet found out a Method to converse with Mankind, without the Help of Language and Words, or not: Seeing Man has no other Medium of Conversing, no not with himself: This I have not time to enter upon here; however, this seems plain to me (viz.) that the Devil soon learn’d to make Mankind understand him, whatever Language he spoke, and no doubt but he found Ways and Means to understand them, whatever Language they spoke.

After the Confusion of Languages, the People necessarily sorted themselves into Families and Tribes, every Family understanding their own particular Speech, and that only; and these Families multiplying grew into Nations, and those Nations wanting Room, and seeking out Habitations wandred some this Way, some that, till they found out Countries respectively proper for their settling, and there they became a Kingdom, spreading and possessing still more and more Land as their People encreased, till at last the whole Earth was scarce big enough for them: This presented Satan with an Opportunity to break in upon their Morals at another Door, (viz.) their Pride; for Men being naturally Proud and Envious, Nations and Tribes began to jostle with one another for Room; either one Nation enjoy’d better Accommodations, or had a better Soil or a more favourable Climate than another; and these being numerous and strong thrust the other out, and encroach’d upon their Land; the other liking their Situation, prepare for their Defence, and so began Oppression, Invasion, War, Battle and Blood, Satan all the while beating the Drums, and his Attendants clapping their Hands, as Men do when they set Dogs on upon one another.

The bringing Mankind thus to War and Confusion, as it was the first Game the Devil play’d after the confounding of Languages and Divisions at Babel so it was a Conquest upon Mankind, purely devilish, born from Hell, and so exactly tinctured with Satan’s original Sin Ambition, that it really transform’d Men into meer Devils; for when is Man transform’d into the very Image of Satan himself, when is he turn’d into a meer Devil, if it is not when he is fighting with his fellow Creatures and dipping his Hands in the Blood of his own Kind? Let his Picture be consider’d, the Fire of Hell flames or sparkles in his Eyes, a voracious Grin sits upon his Countenance; Rage and Fury distort the Muscles of his Face; his Passions agitate his whole Body, and he is metamorphos’d from a comely Beauteous angelic Creature into a Fury, a Satyr, a terrible and frightful Monster, nay, into a Devil; for Satan himself is describ’d by the same Word which on his very Account is chang’d into a Substantive, and the Devils are call’d Furies.

This sowing the Seeds of Strife in the World, and bringing Nations to fight and make War upon one another, would take up a great Part of the Devil’s History, and abundance of extraordinary Things would occur in relating the particulars; for there have been very great Conflagrations kindled in the World, by the Artifice of Hell, under this Head, (viz.) of making War; in which it has been the Devil’s Master-piece, and he has indeed shewn himself a Workman in it, that he has wheedled Mankind into strange unnatural Notions of things, in order to propagate and support the fighting Principle in the World; such as Laws of War, fair Fighting, behaving like Men of Honour, fighting at the last Drop, and the like, by which killing and murdering is understood to be justifiable. Virtue and a true Greatness in Spirit is rated now by Rules which God never appointed, and the Standard of Honour is quite different from that of Reason and of Nature: Bravery is denominated not from a fearless undaunted Spirit in the just Defence of Life and Liberty, but from a daring Defiance of God and Man, fighting, killing and treading under Foot his fellow Creatures, at the ordinary Command of the Officer, whether it be right or wrong, and whether it be in a just Defence of Life, and our Country’s Life, that is Liberty, or whether it be for the Support of Injury and Oppression.

A prudent avoiding causeless Quarrels is call’d Cowardice, and to take an affront Baseness, and Meanness of Spirit; to refuse fighting, and putting Life at a Cast on the Point of a Sword, a Practice forbid by the Laws of God and of all good Government, is yet call’d Cowardice; and a Man is bound to die duelling, or live and be laugh’d at.

This trumping up these imaginary Things call’d Bravery and Gallantry, naming them Virtue and Honour, is all from the Devil’s new Management, and his subtil influencing the Minds of Men to fly in the Face of God and Nature, and to act against his Senses; nor but for his Artifice in the Management, could it be possible that such Inconsistencies could go down with Mankind, or they could pass such absurd Things among them for reasoning; for Example, A is found in Bed with B’s Wife, B is the Person injur’d, and therefore offended, and coming into the Chamber with his Sword in his Hand, A exclaims loudly, Why Sir, you won’t murder me, will you? as you are a Man of Honour let me rise and take my Sword.

A very good Story indeed! fit for no body but the Devil to put into any Man’s Head; But so it is, B being put in mind, forsooth, that he is a Man of Honour, starts back and must act the honourable Part; so he lets A get up, put on his Clothes and take his Sword; then they fight, and B is kill’d for his Honour; whereas had the Laws of God, of Nature and of Reason taken Place, the Adulterer and the Adulteress should have been taken Prisoners and carried before the Judge, and being taken in the Fact, should have been immediately sentenc’d, he to the Block and she to the Stake, and the innocent abus’d Husband had no Reason to have run any Risque of his Life for being made a Cuckold.

But thus has Satan abus’d the Reason of Man; and if a Man does me the greatest Injury in the World, I must do my self Justice upon him, by venturing my life upon an even Lay with him, and must fight him upon equal Hazard, in which the injur’d Person is as often kill’d as the Person offering the Injury: Suppose now it be in the same Case as above, a Man abuses my Wife, and then to give me Satisfaction, tells me, he will fight me, which the French call doing me Reason; No Sir, say I, let me lie with your Wife too, and then if you desire it, I may fight you; then I am upon even Terms with you; but this indeed is the Reasoning which the Devil has brought Mankind too at this Day: But to go back to the Subject, viz. the Devil bringing the Nations to fall out, and to quarrel for Room in the World, and so to fight in order to dispossess one another of their Settlements: This began at a Time when certainly there were Places enough in the World for every one to choose in, and therefore the Devil, not the want of Elbow-room, must be the Occasion of it; and ’tis carried on ever since, as apparently from the same Interest, and by the same original.

But we shall meet with this Part again very often in the Devil’s Story, and as we bring him farther on in the Management of Mankind, I therefore lay it by for the Present, and come to the next Steps the Devil took with Mankind after the Confusion of Languages, and this was in the Affair of Worship; It does not appear yet that ever the Devil was so bold, as either,

1. To set himself up to be worship’d as a God, or which was still worse,

2. To persuade Man to believe there was no God at all to worship.

Both these are introduc’d since the Deluge, one indeed by the Devil, who soon found Means to set himself up for a God in many Parts of the World, and holds it to this Day; but the last is brought in by the Invention of Man, in which it must be confess’d Man has out-sin’d the Devil; for to do Satan justice, he never thought it could ever pass upon Mankind, or that any Thing so gross would go down with them; so that, in short, these modern Casuists, in the Reach of our Days, have, I say, out-sin’d the Devil.

As then both these are modern Inventions, Satan went on gradually, and being to work upon human Nature by Stratagem, not by Force, it would have been too gross to have set himself up as an Object of Worship at first, it was to be done Step by Step; for Example.

1. It was sufficient to bring Mankind to a Neglect of God, to worship him by halves, and give little or no Regard to his Laws, and so grow loose and immoral, in direct Contradiction to his Commands; this would not go down with them at first, so the Devil went on gradually.

2. From a Negligence in worshiping the true God, he by Degrees introduc’d the worship of false Gods; and to introduce this he began with the Sun, Moon, and Stars, call’d in the holy Text the Host of Heaven; these had greater Majesty upon them, and seem’d fitter to command the Homage of Mankind; so it was not the hardest Thing in the World, to bring Men, when they had once forgotten the true God, to embrace the Worship of such Gods as those.

3. Having thus debauch’d their Principles in Worship, and led them from the true and only Object of Worship to a false, it was the easier to carry them on; so in a few Gradations more he brought them to downright Idolatry, and even in that Idolatry he proceeded gradually too; for he began with awful Names, such as were venerable in the Thoughts of Men, as Baal or Bell, which, in Chaldaick and Hebrew, signifies Lord or Sovereign, or Mighty and Magnificent, and this was therefore a Name ascrib’d at first to the true God; but afterwards they descended to make Images and Figures to represent him, and then they were call’d by the same Name, as Baal, Baalim, and afterwards Bell; from which, by a hellish Degeneracy, Saturn brought Mankind to adore every Block of their own hewing, and to worshipping Stocks, Stones, Monsters, Hobgoblins, and every sordid frightful Thing, and at last the Devil himself.

What Notions some People may entertain of the Forwardness of the first Ages of the World, to run into Idolatry, I do not enquire here; I know they tell us strange Things, of its being the Product of meer Nature, one remove from its primitive State; but I, who pretend to have so critically enquir’d into Satan’s History, can assure you, and that from very good Authority, that the Devil did not find it so easy a task to obliterate the Knowledge of the true God, in the Minds and Consciences of Men, as those People suggest.

It is true he carried Things a great Length under the Patriarchal Government of the first Ages, but still he was sixteen hundred Years bringing it to pass; and tho’ we have Reason to believe the old World, before the Flood was arrived to a very great Height of Wickedness, and Ovid very nobly describes it by the War of the Titans against Jupiter, yet we do not read that ever Satan was come to such a Length as to bring them to Idolatry; indeed we do read of Wars carried on among them, whether it was one Nation against another, or only Personal, we cannot tell; But the World seem’d to be swallow’d up in a Life of Wickedness, that is to say, of Luxury and Lewdness, Rapine and Violence, and there were Giants among them, and Men of Renown, that is to say, Men fam’d for their mighty Valour, great Actions of War we may suppose, and their Strength, who personally oppos’d others. We read of no considerable Wars indeed, but ’tis not to be doubted but there was such Wars, or else it is to be understood that they liv’d (in common) a Life somewhat like the Brutes, the Strong devouring the Weak; for the Text says, the whole Earth was filled with Violence, hunting and tearing one another in Pieces, either for Dominion or for Wealth, either for Ambition or for Avarice, we know not well which.

Thus far the old Antediluvian World went, and very wicked they were, there is no doubt of that; but we have Reason to believe that was no Idolatry, the Devil had not brought them to that Length yet: perhaps it would soon have follow’d, but the Deluge interven’d.

After the Deluge, as I have said, he had all his Work to do over again, and he went on by the same Steps; first he brought them to Violence and War, then to Oppression and Tyranny, then to neglect of true Worship, then to false worship, and then Idolatry by the meer natural Consequence of the Thing; who were the first Nation or People that fell from the Worship of the true God, is something hard to determine; the Devil, who certainly of all God’s Creatures is best able to inform us, having left us nothing upon Record upon that Subject, but we have Reason to believe it was thus introduc’d.

Nimrod was the Grandson of Ham, Noah’s second Son, the same who was cursed by his Father for exposing him in his Drunkenness: This Nimrod was the first who it seems Satan pick’d out for a Hero: Here he inspir’d him with ambitious Thoughts, dreams of Empire, and having the Government of all the Rest, that is to say, universal Monarchy; the very same Bait with which he has plaid upon the Frailty of Princes, and ensnar’d the greatest of them ever since, even from his most August Imperial Majesty King Nimrod the first, to his most Christian Majesty Louis the XIV. and many a mighty Monarch between.

When these mighty Monarchs and Men of Fame went off the Stage, the World had their Memories in esteem many Ages after; and as their great Actions were no otherwise recorded than by oral Tradition, and the Tongues and Memories of fallible Men, Time and the Custom of magnifying the past Actions of Kings, Men soon fabl’d up their Histories, Satan assisting, into Miracle and Wonder: Hence their Names were had in Veneration more and more; Statues and Bustoes representing their Persons and great Actions were set up in public Places, till from Heroes and Champions they made Gods of them, and thus (Satan prompting) the World was quickly fill’d with Idols.

This Nimrod is he, who according to the received Opinion, tho’ I do not find Satan’s History exactly concurring with it, was first call’d Belus, then Baal, and worship’d in most of the eastern Countries under those Names; sometimes with Additions of Sir-names, according to the several countries, or People, or Towns where he was particularly set up, as Baal Peor, Baal Zephon, Baal Phegor, and in other Places plain Baal, as Jupiter in after Times had the like Additions; as Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter Capitolinus, Jupiter Pistor, Jupiter Feretrius, and about ten or twelve Jupiters more.

I must acknowledge, that I think it was a Master-piece of Hell to bring the World to Idolatry so soon after they had had such an eminent Example of the infinite Power of the true God, as was seen in the Deluge, and particularly in the Escape of Noah in the Ark, to bring them (even before Noah or his Sons were dead) to forget whose Hand it was, and give the Homage of the World to a Name, and that a Name of a mortal Man dead and rotten, who was famous for nothing when he was alive but Blood and War; I say, to bring the World to set up this Nothing, this meer Name, nay the very Image and Picture of him for a God, it was first a Mark of most prodigious Stupidity in the whole Race of Men, a monstrous Degeneracy from Nature, and even from common Sense; and in the next Place ’twas a token of an inexpressible Craft and Subtilty in the Devil, who had now gotten the People into so full and compleat a Management, that in short, he could have brought them, by the same Rule, to have worship’d any thing; and in a little while more, did bring many of them to worship himself, plain Devil as he was, and knowing him to be such.

As to the Antiquity of this horrible Defection of Mankind, tho’ we do not find the beginning of it particularly recorded, yet we are certain it was not long after the Confusion of Babel; for Nimrod, as is said, was no more than Noah’s great Grandson and Noah himself, I suppose, might be alive some Years after Nimrod was born; and as Nimrod was not long dead, before they forgot that he was a Tyrant and a Murtherer, and made a Baal, that is a Lord or Idol of him, I say, he was not long dead, for Nimrod was born in the Year of the World 1847, and built Babylon the Year 1879; and we find Terah the Father of Abraham, who liv’d from the Year 1879 was an Idolater, as was doubtless Bethuel, who was Terah’s Grandson; for we find Laban, who was Bethuel’s Son, was so, and all this was during the Life of the first Post-Diluvian Family, for Terah was born within one hundred ninety three Years after the Flood, and one hundred fifty seven Years before Noah was dead; and even Abram himself was eight and fifty Years old before Noah died, and yet Idolatry had been then, in all probability, above an hundred Years practised in the World.

N. B. It is worth Remark here, what a terrible Advantage the Devil gain’d by the debauching poor Noah, and drawing him into the Sin of Drunkenness; for by this, as I said, he silenc’d and stop’d the Mouth of the great Preacher of Righteousness, that Father and Patriarch of the whole World, who not being able for the Shame of his own foul Miscarriage, to pretend to instruct or reprove the World any more, the Devil took hold of them immediately, and for want of a Prophet to warn and admonish, ran that little of Religion which there might be left in Shem and Japhet, quite out of the World, and delug’d them all in Idolatry.

How long the whole World may be said to be thus overwhelm’d in Ignorance and Idolatry, we may make some tolerable guess at by the History of Abraham; for it was not till God call’d him from his Father’s House, that any such Thing as a Church was establish’d in the World; nor even then, except in his own Family and Successors for almost four hundred Years after that Call; and till God brought the Israelites back out of Egypt, the whole World may be said to be involv’d in Idolatry and Devil worship.

So absolute a Conquest had the Devil made over Mankind immediately after the Flood, and all taking its Rise and Beginning at the fatal Defeat of Noah, who had he liv’d untainted and invulnerable, as he had done for six hundred Years before, would have gone a great way to have stem’d the Torrent of Wickedness which broke in upon Mankind; and therefore the Devil, I say, was very cunning and very much in the Right of it, take him as he is a meer Devil, to attack Noah personally, and give him a Blow so soon.