rest; and so come at last to keep them Company, as well in the Place of eternal Misery, as in the Merit of it, and in a Word, become Devils instead of Angels.
Upon this Discovery, I say, they found it infinitely more for the Interest of Satan’s infernal Kingdom, to go another way to work with Mankind, and see if it were possible, by the strength of all their infernal Wit and Counsels, to lay some Snare for him, and by some Stratagem to bring him to eternal Ruin and Misery.
This being then approv’d as their only Method, (and the Devil shew’d he was no Fool in the Choice) he next resolv’d that there was no time to be lost; that it was to be set about immediately, before the Race was Multiplied, and by that means the Work be not made greater only, but perhaps the more difficult too; accordingly the diligent Devil went instantly about it, agreeably to all the Story of Eve and the serpent, as before; the belief of which, whether historically or allegorically, is not at all obstructed by this Hypothesis.
I do not affirm that this was the Case at first, because being not present in that black Divan, at least not that I know of, for who knows where he was or was not in his pre-existent State? I cannot be positive in the Resolve that past there; but except for some very little Contradiction, which we find in the sacred Writings, I should, I confess, incline to believe it Historically; and I shall speak of those things which I call Contradictions to it more largely hereafter.
In the mean time, be it one way or other, that is to say, either that Satan had no Power to have proceeded with Man by Violence, and to have destroy’d him as soon as he was made; or that he had the Power, but chose rather to proceed by other Methods to deceive and debauch him; I say, be it which you please, I am still of the Opinion that it really was not the Devil’s Business to destroy the Species; that it would have been nothing to the purpose, and no Advantage at all to him, if he had done it; for that, as above, God could immediately have created another Species to the same end, whom he either could have made invulnerable, and not subject to the Devil’s Power, or remov’d him out of Satan’s Reach, plac’d him out of the Devil’s Ken, in Heaven or some other Place, where the Devil could not come to hurt him; and that therefore it is infinitely more his Advantage, and more suited to his real Design of defeating the End of Man’s Creation, to debauch him and make a Devil of him, that he may be rejected like himself, and increase the infernal Kingdom and Company in the Lake of Misery in æternum.
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