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

However, tho’ the Triumph of the Israelites over the Egyptians must needs be a great Mortification to the Devil, and exasperated him very much, yet the Consequence was only this, viz. that Satan, like an Enemy who is baulk’d and defeated, but not overcome, redoubles his Rage, and reinforces his Army, and what the Egyptians could not do for him, he resolves to do for himself; in order then to take his Opportunity for what Mischief might offer, being defeated, and provok’d, I say, at the Slur that was put upon him, he resolves to follow them into the Wilderness, and many a vile Prank he plaid them there; as first, he straitens them for Water, and makes them murmur against God, and against Moses, within a very few Days, nay, Hours, of their great Deliverance of all.

Nor was this all, but in less than one Year more we find them, (at his Instigation too) setting up a golden Calf, and making all the People dance about it at Mount Sinai; even when God himself had but just before appear’d to them in the Terrors of a burning Fire upon the Top of the Mountain; and what was the Pretence? Truly, nothing but that they had lost Moses, who used to be their Guide, and he had hid himself in the Mount, and had not been seen in forty Days, so that they could not tell what was become of him. This put them all into Confusion; a poor Pretence indeed, to turn them all back to Idolatry! but the watchful Devil took the Hint, push’d the Advantage, and insinuated that they should never see Moses again, that he was certainly devour’d by venturing too near the Flashes of Fire in the Mount, and presuming upon the Liberty he had taken before; in a word, that God had destroyed Moses, or he was starved to Death for want of Food, having been forty Days and forty Nights absent.

All these were, it’s true, in themselves most foolish Suggestions, considering Moses was admitted to the Vision of God, and that God had been pleased to appear to him in the most intimate manner; that as they might depend God would not destroy his faithful Servant, so they might have concluded he was able to support his Being without Food as long as he thought fit; but to a People so easy to believe any thing, what could be too gross for the Devil to persuade them to?

A People who could dance round a Calf, and call it their God, might do any thing; that could say to one another, that this was the Great Jehovah, that brought them out of the Land of Egypt; and that within so few Days after God’s miraculous Appearance to them, and for them; I say, such a People were really fitted to be imposed upon, nothing could be too gross for them.

This was indeed his first considerable Experiment upon them as a People, or as a Body; and the Truth is, his Affairs requir’d it, for Satan, who had been a Successful Devil in most of his Attempts upon Mankind, could hardly doubt of Success in any thing after he had carried his Point at Mount Sinai: To bring them to Idolatry in the very Face of their Deliverer, and just after their Deliverance! It was more astonishing in the main than even their passing the Red Sea: In a Word, the Devil’s whole History does not furnish us with a Story equally surprising.

And how was poor Aaron bewilder’d in it too? He that was Moses’s Partner in all the great Things that Moses did in Pharaoh’s Sight, and that was appointed to be his Assistant and Oracle, or Orator rather, upon all public Occasions; that he, above all the rest, should come into this absurd and ridiculous Proposal, he that was singled out for the sacred Priesthood, for him to defile his holy Hands with a polluted abominable Sacrifice, and with making the Idol for them too, (for ’tis plain that he made it,) how monstrous it was!

And see what an Answer he gives to his Brother Moses, how weak! how simple! I did so and so, indeed, I bad them bring the Ear-rings, &c. and I cast the Gold into the Fire, and it came out this Calf. Ridiculous! as if the Calf came out by meer fortuitous Adventure, without a Mould to cast it in; which could not be supposed: And if it had not come out so without a Mould, Moses would certainly have known of it; had Aaron been innocent, he would have answered after quite another manner, and told Moses honestly that the whole Body of the People came to him in a Fright, that they forced him to make them an Idol; which he did, by making first a proper Mould to cast it in, and then taking the proper Metal to cast it from: That indeed he had sinn’d in so doing, but that he was mobb’d into it, and the People terrified him, perhaps they threatned to kill him; and if he had added, that the Devil prompting his Fear beguil’d him, he had said nothing but what was certainly true; for if it was in Satan’s Power to make the People insolent and outrageous enough to threaten and bully the old venerable Prophet (for he was not yet a Priest) who was the Brother of their Oracle Moses, and had been Partner with him in so many of his Commissions; I say, if he cou’d bring up the Passions of the People to a Height to be rude and unmannerly to him (Aaron) and perhaps to threaten and insult him, he may be easily suppos’d to be able to intimidate Aaron, and terrify him into a Compliance.

See this cunning Agent, when he has Man’s Destruction in his View, how securely he acts! he never wants a handle; the best of Men have one weak place or other, and he always finds it out, takes the Advantage of it, and conquers them by one Artifice or another; only take it with you as you go, ’tis always by Stratagem, never by Force; a Proof that he is not empower’d to use Violence: He may tempt, and he does prevail; but ’tis all Legerdemain, ’tis all Craft and Artifice, he is still Διαβολὴ, the Calumniator and Deceiver, that is, the Misrepresenter; he misrepresents Man to God, and misrepresents God to Man, also he misrepresents Things; he puts false Colours, and then manages the Eye to see them with an imperfect View, raising Clouds and Fogs to intercept our Sight; in short, he deceives all our Senses, and imposes upon us in Things which otherwise would be the easiest to discern and judge of.

This indeed is in part the Benefit of the Devil’s History, to let us see that he has used the same Method all along; and that ever since he has had any thing to do with Mankind, he has practis’d upon them with Stratagem and Cunning; also ’tis observable that he has carried his Point better that way than he would have done by Fury and Violence, if he had been allowed to make use of it; for by his Power indeed he might have laid the World desolate, and made a Heap of Rubbish of it long ago; but, as I have observed before, that would not have answered his Ends half so well, for by destroying Men he would have made Martyrs, and sent abundance of good Men to Heaven, who would much rather have died, than yielded to serve him, and, as he aimed to have it, to fall down and worship him; I say, he would have made Martyrs, and that not a few: But this was none of Satan’s Business; his Design lies quite another Way; his Business is to make Men sin, not to make them suffer; to make Devils of them, not Saints; to delude them, and draw them away from their Maker, not send them away to him; and therefore he works by Stratagem, not by Force.

We are now come to his Story, as it relates to the Jewish Church in the Wilderness, and to the Children of Israel in their travelling Circumstances; and this was the first Scene of publick Management that the Devil had upon his Hands in the World; for, as I have said, till now, he dealt with Mankind either in their separate Condition, one by one, or else carried all before him, engrossing whole Nations in his Systems of Idolatry, and overwhelming them in an ignorant Destruction.

But having now a whole People as it were snatch’d away from him, taken out of his Government, and, which was still worse, having a View of a Kingdom being set up independent of him, and superior to his Authority, it is not to be wondred at if he endeavour’d to overthrow them in the Infancy of their Constitution, and tried all possible Arts to bring them back into his own Hands again.

He found them not only carried away from the Country where they were even in his Clutches, surrounded with Idols, and where we have Reason to believe the greatest part of them were polluted with the Idolatry of the Egyptians; for we do not read of any stated Worship which they had of their own, or if they did worship the true God, we scarce know in what manner they did it; they had no Law given them, nothing but the Covenant of Circumcision, and even Moses himself had not strictly observ’d that, till he was frighted into it; we read of no Sacrifices among them, no Feasts were ordain’d, no solemn Worship appointed, and how, or in what manner they perform’d their Homage, we know not; the Passover was not ordain’d till just at their coming away; so that there was not much Religion among them, at least that we have any Account of; and we may suppose the Devil was pretty easy with them all the while they were in the House of their Bondage.

But now, to have a Million of People fetch’d out of his Hands, as it were all at once, and to have the immediate Power of Heaven engaged in it, and that Satan saw evidently God had singled them out in a miraculous manner to favour them, and call them his own; this allarm’d him at once, and therefore he resolves to follow them, lay close Siege to them, and take all the Measures possible to bring them to rebel against, and disobey God, that he might be provok’d to destroy them; and how near he went to bring it to pass, we shall see presently.

This making a Calf, and paying an idolatrous Worship to it (for they acted the Heathens and Idolaters, not in the setting up the Calf only, but in the manner of their Worshiping, viz. Dancing and Musick, Things they had not been acquainted with in the Worship of the true God) I mention here, to observe how the Devil not only imposed upon their Principles, but upon their Senses too; as if the awful Majesty of Heaven, whose Glory they had seen in Mount Sinai, where they stood, and whose Pillar of Cloud and Fire was their Guide and Protection, would be worship’d by dancing round a Calf! and that not a living Creature, or a real Calf, but the mere Image of a Calf cast in Gold, or, as some think, in Brass gilded over.

But this was the Devil’s Way with Mankind, namely, to impose upon their Senses, and bring them into the grossest Follies and Absurdities; and then, having first made them Fools, it was much the easier to make them Offenders.

In this very manner he acted with them thro’ all the Course of their Wilderness Travels; for as they were led by the Hand like Children, defended by Omnipotence, fed by Miracles, instructed immediately from Heaven, and in all things had Moses for their Guide; they had no room to miscarry, but by acting the greatest Absurdities, and committing the greatest Follies in Nature; and even these, the Devil brought them to be guilty of, in a surprising manner: 1. As God himself reliev’d them in every Exigence, and supply’d them in every Want, one would think ’twas impossible they should be ever brought to question either his Willingness or his Ability, and yet they really objected against both; which was indeed very provoking, and I doubt not, that when the Devil had brought them to act in such a preposterous Manner, he really hoped and believed God would be provok’d effectually: The Testimonies of his Care of them, and Ability to supply them, were miraculous and undeniable; he gave them Water from the Rock, Bread from the Air, sent the Fowls to feed them with Flesh, and supported them all the Way by Miracles; their Health was preserv’d, none were sick among them, their clothes did not wear out, nor their Shoes grow old upon their Feet; could any thing be more absurd, than to doubt whether he could provide for them who had never let them want for so many Years?

But the Devil managed them in spight of Miracles; nor did he ever give them over till he had brought six hundred thousand of them to provoke God so highly that he would not suffer above two of them to go into the Land of Promise; so that in short, Satan gained his Point as to that Generation, for all their Carcasses fell in the Wilderness. Let us take but a short View to what a Height he brought ’em, and in what a rude, absurd Manner they acted; how he set them upon murmuring upon every Occasion, now for Water, then for Bread; nay, they murmured at their Bread when they had it; Our Soul loaths this light Bread.

He sow’d the Seeds of Church-Rebellion in the Sons of Aaron, and made Nadab and Abihu offer strange Fire till they were strangely consumed by Fire for the doing it.

He set them a complaining at Taberah, and a lusting for Flesh at the first three Days Journey from Mount Sinai.

He planted Envy in the Hearts of Miriam and Aaron, against the Authority of Moses, to pretend God had spoke by them as well as by him, till he humbled the Father, and made a Leper of the Daughter.

He debauch’d ten of the Spies, frighted them with sham Appearances of Things, when they went out to search the Land; and made them fright the whole People out of their Understanding as well as Duty, for which six hundred thousand of their Carcasses fell in the Wilderness.

He rais’d the Rebellion of Korah, and the two hundred and fifty Princes, till he brought them to be swallowed up alive.

He put Moses into a Passion at Meribah, and ruffled the Temper of the meekest Man upon Earth, by which he made both him and Aaron forfeit their Share of the Promise, and be shut out from the Holy Land.

He rais’d a Mutiny among them when they travelled from Mount Hor, till they brought fiery Serpents among them to destroy them.

He tried to make Baalim the Prophet curse them, but there the Devil was disappointed: However, he brought the Midianites to debauch them with Women, as in the Case of Zimri and Cosbi.

He tempted Achan with the Wedge of Gold, and the Babylonish Garment, that he might take of the accursed thing, and be destroy’d.

He tempted the whole People, not effectually to drive out the cursed Inhabitants of the Land of Promise, that they might remain, and be Goads in their Sides, till at last they often oppress’d them for their Idolatry; and, which was worse, debauched them to Idolatry.

He prompted the Benjamites to refuse Satisfaction to the People, in the Case of the Wickedness of the Men of Gibeah, to the Destruction of the whole Tribe, four hundred Men excepted in the Rock Rimmon.

At last he tempted them to reject the Theocracy of their Maker, and call upon Samuel to make them a King; and most of those Kings he made Plagues and Sorrows to them in their time, as you shall hear in their Order.

Thus he plagued the whole Body of the People continually, making them sin against God, and bring Judgments upon themselves, to the consuming some Millions of them, first and last, by the Vengeance of their Maker.

As he did with the whole Congregation, so he did with their Rulers, and several of the Judges, who were made Instruments to deliver the People, yet were drawn into snares by this subtil Serpent, to ruin themselves or the People they had delivered.

He tempted Gideon to make an Ephod, contrary to the Law of the Tabernacle, and made the Children of Israel go a whoring (that is, a worshiping) after it.

He tempted Sampson to debauch himself with a Harlot, and betray his own happy Secret to a Whore, at the Expence of both his Eyes, and at last of his Life.

He tempted Eli’s Sons to lie with the Women, in the very Doors of the Tabernacle, when they came to bring their Offerings to the Priest; and he tempted poor Eli to connive at them, or not sufficiently reprove them.

He tempted the People to carry the Ark of God into the Camp, that it might fall into the Hands of the Philistines. And

He tempted Uzzi to reach out his Hand to hold it up; as if he that had preserved it in the House of Dagon the Idol of the Philistines, could not keep it from falling out of the Cart.

When the People had gotten a King, he immediately set to work in diverse Ways to bring that King to load them with Plagues and Calamities not a few.

He tempted Saul to spare the King of Amaliek, contrary to God’s express Command.

He not tempted Saul only, but possessed him with an evil Spirit, by which he was left to wayward Dispositions, and was forced to have it fiddl’d out of him with a Minstrel.

He tempted Saul with a Spirit of Discontent, and with a Spirit of Envy at poor David, to hunt him like a Partridge upon the Mountains.

He tempted Saul with a Spirit of Divination, and sent him to a Witch to enquire of Samuel for him; as if God would help him when he was dead, that had forsaken him when he was alive.

After that, he tempted him to kill himself, on a Pretence that he might not fall into the Hands of the Uncircumcised; as if Self-Murther was not half so bad, either for Sin against God, or Disgrace among Men, as being taken Prisoner by a Philistine! A Piece of Madness none but the Devil could have brought Mankind to submit to, tho’ some Ages after that, he made it a Fashion among the Romans.

After Saul was dead, and David came to the Throne, by how much he was a Man chosen and particularly savoured by Heaven, the Devil fell upon him with the more Vigour, attack’d him so many Ways, and conquer’d him so very often, that as no Man was so good a King, so hardly any good King was ever a worse Man; in many Cases one would have almost thought the Devil had made Sport with David, to shew how easily he could overthrow the best Man God could choose of the whole Congregation.

He made him distrust his Benefactor so much as to feign himself mad before the King of Gath, when he had fled to him for Shelter.

He made him march with his four hundred Cut-throats, to cut off poor Nabal, and all his Houshold, only because he would not send him the good Chear he had provided for his honest Sheep-shearers.

He made him, for his Word’s sake, give Ziba half his Master’s Estate for his Treachery, after he knew he had been the Traitor, and betray’d poor Mephibosheth for the sake of it; in which

‘The good old King, it seems, was very loth‘To break his Word, and therefore broke his Oath.

Then he tempted him to the ridiculous Project of numbring the People, tho’ against God’s express Command; a Thing Joab himself was not wicked enough to do, till David and the Devil forc’d him to it.

And to make him compleatly wicked, he carried him to the Top of his House, and shew’d him a naked Lady bathing her self in her Garden, in which it appear’d that the Devil knew David too well, and what was the particular Sin of his Inclination; and so took him by the Right Handle; drawing him at once into the Sins of Murther and Adultery.

Then, that he might not quite give him over, (tho’ David’s Repentance for the last Sin kept the Devil off for a while) when he could attack him no farther personally he fell upon him in his Family, and made him as miserable as he could desire him to be, in his Children, three of whom he brought to Destruction before his Face, and another after his Death.

First, he tempted Ammon to ravish his Sister Tamar; so, there was an End of her (poor Girl!) as to this World, for we never hear any more of her.

Then he tempted Absalom to murther his Brother Amnon, in Revenge for Tamar’s Maidenhead.

Then he made Joab run Absalom thro’ the Body, contrary to David’s Command.

And after David’s Death he brought Adonija (weak Man!) to the Block, for usurping King Solomon’s Throne.

As to Absalom, he tempted him to Rebellion, and raising War against his Father, to the turning him shamefully out of Jerusalem, and almost out of the Kingdom.

He tempted him, for David’s farther Mortification, to lie with his Father’s Wives, in the Face of the whole City; and had Achitophel’s honest Council been follow’d, he had certainly sent him to Sleep with his Fathers, long before his time – But there Satan and Achitophel were both out-witted together.

Thro’ all the Reigns of the several Successors of David, the Devil took care to carry on his own Game, to the continual insulting the Measures which God himself had taken for the establishing his People in the World, and especially as a Church; till at last he so effectually debauch’d them to Idolatry; that Crime which of all others was most provoking to God, as it was carrying the People away from their Allegiance, and transposing the Homage they ow’d God their Maker, to a contemptible Block of Wood, or an Image of a brute Beast; and this how sordid and brutish soever it was in it self, yet so did his Artifice prevail among them, that, first or last, he brought them all into it, the ten Tribes as well as the two Tribes; till at last God himself was provoked to unchurch them, gave them up to their Enemies, and the few that were left of them, after incredible Slaughters and Desolation, were hurried away, some into Tartary, and others into Babylon, from whence very few, of that few that were carried away, ever found their Way Home again; and some, when they might have come, would not accept of it, but continued there to the very coming of the Messiah. See Epistles of St. James and of St. Peter, at the Beginning.

But to look a little back upon this Part (for it cannot be omitted, it makes so considerable a Part of the Devil’s History) I mean his drawing God’s People, Kings and all, into all the Sins and Mischiefs which gradually contributed to their Destruction.

First, (for he began immediately with the very best and wisest of the Race) he drew in King Solomon, in the midst of all his Zeal for the building God’s House, and for the making the most glorious and magnificent Appearance for God’s Worship that ever the World saw; I say, in the middle of all this, he drew him into such immoderate and insatiable an Appetite for Women, as to set up the first, and perhaps the greatest Seraglio of Whores that ever any Prince in the World had, or pretended to before; nay, and to bring whoring so much into Reputation, that, as the Text says, seven hundred of them were Princesses; that is to say, Ladies of Quality: Not as the Grand Seigniors, and Great Moguls, (other Princes of the Eastern World) have since practised, namely, to pick up their most beautiful Slaves; but these, it seems, were Women of Rank, King’s Daughters, as Pharaoh’s Daughter, and the Daughters of the Princes and prime Men among the Moabites, Ammonites, Zidonians, Hittites, &c. 1 Kings xi. 1.

Nor was this all; but as he drew him into the Love of these forbidden Women (for such they were, as to their Nation, as well as Number) so he ensnar’d him by those Women to a Familiarity with their Worship; and by degrees brought that famous Prince (famous for his Wisdom) to be the greatest and most-impos’d-upon old Fool in the World; Bowing down to those Idols by the Inticing of his Whores, whom he had abhorr’d and detested in his Youth, as dishonouring that God for whom, and for whose Worship he had finish’d and dedicated the most magnificent Building and Temple in the World: Nothing but the invincible Subtlety of this Arch Devil could ever have brought such a Man as Solomon to such a Degeneracy of Manners, and to such Meannesses; no, not the Devil himself, without the Assistance of his Whores, nor the Whores themselves, without the Devil to help them.