proper orbits, tending to their particular centres, and enjoying every one their peculiar systems, within which were contained innumerable planets, with their satellites or moons, in which, again, a reciprocal influence, motion, and revolution, conspired to form the most admirable uniformity of the whole.
Surprised, to be sure, with this sudden and yet glorious work of the Almighty, (for the creation was enough, with its lustre, even to surprise the Devils,) they might reasonably be supposed to start out of their dark retreat, and with a curiosity not below the seraphic dignity (for these are some of the things which the angels desire to look into) to take a flight through all the amazing systems of the fixed suns or stars, which we see now but at a distance, and only make astronomical guesses at.
Here the Devil found not subject of wonder only, but matter to swell his revolted spirit with more rage, and to revive the malignity of his mind against his Maker, and especially against this new increase of glory, which to his infinite regret was extended over the whole waste, and which he looked upon, as we say in human affairs, as a pays conquis, or, if you will have it in the language of the Devil, as an invasion upon his kingdom.
Here it naturally occurred to them, in their state of envy and rebellion, that though they could not assault the impregnable walls of heaven, and could no more pretend to raise war in the place of blessedness and peace; yet that perhaps they might find room in this new, and however glorious, yet inferior kingdom or creation, to work some despite to their great Creator, or to affront his majesty in the person of some of his new-made creatures; and upon this they may be justly supposed to double their vigilance, in the survey they resolve to take of these new worlds, however great, numberless, and wonderful.
What discoveries they may have made in the other and greater worlds, than this earth, we have not yet had an account: Possibly they are conversant with other parts of God’s creation, besides this little, little globe, which is but as a point in comparison of the rest; and with other of God’s creatures besides man, who may, according to the opinion of our philosophers, inhabit those worlds; but as nobody knows that part but the Devil, we shall not trouble ourselves with the inquiry.
But it is very reasonable, and indeed probable, that the Devils were more than ordinarily surprised at the nature and reason of all this glorious creation, after they had, with the utmost curiosity, viewed all the parts of it. The glories of the several systems; the immense spaces in which those glorious bodies that were created, and made part of it, were allowed respectively to move; the innumerable fixed stars, as so many suns in the centre of so many distant solar systems; the (likewise innumerable) dark opaque bodies receiving light, and depending upon those suns respectively for such light, and then reflecting that light again upon, and for the use of, one another. To see the beauty and splendor of their forms, the regularity of their position, the order and exactness, and yet inconceivable velocity, of their motions, the certainty of their revolutions, and the variety and virtue of their influences; and then, which was even to the Devils themselves most astonishing, that after all the rest of their observations they should find this whole immense work was adapted for. and made subservient to, the use, delight, and blessing, only of one poor species, in itself small, and in appearance contemptible; the meanest of all the kinds supposed to inhabit so many glorious worlds, as appeared now to be formed; I mean, that moon called the earth, and the creature called man; that all was made for him, upheld by the wise Creator, on his account only; and would necessarily end and cease whenever that species should end, and be determined.
That this creature was to be found nowhere but (as above) in one little individual moon; a spot less than almost any of the moons, which were in such great numbers to be found attendant upon, and prescribed within, every system of the whole created Heavens: this was astonishing even to the Devil himself; nay, the whole clan of devils could scarce entertain any jnst ideas of the thing; till at last Satan, indefatigable in his search or inquiry into the nature and reason of this new work, and particularly searching into the species of man, whom he found God had thus placed in the little globe, called earth; he soon came to an eclair cissement, or a clear understanding of the whole. For example:
1. He found this creature, called man, was, however mean and small in his appearance, a kind of a seraphic species: that he was made in the very image of God, endowed with reasonable faculties to know good and evil, and possessed of a certain thing till then unknown and unheard of even in hell itself; that is, in the habitation of devils, let that be where it would; namely,
2. That God had made him indeed of the lowest and coarsest materials; but that he had breathed into him the breath of life, and that he became a living thing called Soul, being a kind of an extraordinary heavenly and divine emanation; and consequently that man, however mean and terrestrial his body might be, was yet heaven-born, in his spirituous part completely seraphic; and after a space of life here, (determined to be a state of probation,) he should be translated through the regions of death into a life purely and truly heavenly, and which should remain so forever: being capable of knowing and en joy ingGod, his Maker, and standing in his presence, as the glorified angels do.
3. That he had the most sublime faculties infused into him; was capable not only of knowing and contemplating God, and, which was still more, of enjoying him, as above; but (which the Devil now was not,) capable of honoring and glorifying his Maker; who also had condescended to accept of honor from him.
4. And, which was still more, that, being of an angelic nature, though mixed with, and confined for the present in, a case of mortal flesh, he was intended to be removed from this earth after a certain time of life here, to inhabit that heaven, and enjoy that very glory and felicity, from which Satan and his angels had been expelled.
When he found all this, it presently occurred to him, that God had done it all as an act of triumph over him, (Satan;) and that these creatures were only created to people heaven, depopulated or stript of its inhabitants by his expulsion; and that these were all to be made angels in the devils’ stead.
If this thought increased his fury and envy, as far as rage of devils can be capable of being made greater; it doubtless set him on work to give a vent to that rage and envy, by searching into the nature and constitution of this creature, called man; and to find out whether he was invulnerable, and could by no means be hurt by the power of hell, or deluded by his subtilty; or whether he might be beguiled and deluded; and so, instead of being preserved in holiness and purity, wherein he was certainly created, be brought to fall and rebel, as he (Satan) had done before him; by which, instead of being transplanted into a glorious state, after this life, in heaven, as his Maker had designed him to be, to fill up the angelic choir, and supply the place, from whence he (Satan) had fallen, he might be made to fall also like him, and, in a word, be made a devil like himself.
This convinces us, that the Devil has not lost his natural powers by his fall; and our learned commentator, Mr. Pool, is of the same opinion; though he grants, that the Devil has lost his moral power, or his power of doing good, which he can never recover. Vide Mr. Pool upon Acts xix. 16, where we may particularly observe, when the man possessed with an evil spirit flew upon the seven sons of Sceva, the Jew, who would have exorcised them in the name of Jesus, without the authority of Jesus, or without faith in him, he flew on them, and mastered them, so that they fled out of the house from the Devil, conquered, naked, arid wounded. But of this power of the Devil I shall speak by itself.
In a word, and to sum up all the Devil’s story from his first expulsion, it stands thus: For so many years as were between his fall and the creation of man, though we have no memoirs of his particular affairs, we have reason to believe he was without any manner of employment; but a certain tormenting endeavor to be always expressing his rage and enmity against heaven; I call it tormenting, because ever disappointed; every thought about it proving empty; every attempt towards it abortive; leaving him only light enough to see still more and more reason to despair of success; and that this made his condition still more and more an hell than it was before.
After a space of duration in this
