I have said above, his ordinary name in all languages and in all nations; the name by which he and his works are principally distinguish’d: Also the Scripture, besides that it often gives him this name, speaks of the works of the Devil, of the subtilty of the Devil, of casting out Devils, of being tempted of the Devil, of being possess’d with a Devil, and so many other expressions of that kind, as I have said already, are made use of for us to understand the evil Spirit by, that in a word, Devil is the common name of all wicked Spirits: For Satan is no more the Devil, as if he alone was so, and all the rest were a diminutive species who did not go by that name; But, I say, even in Scripture, every Spirit, whether under his Dominion or out of his Dominion, is called the Devil, and is as much a real Devil, that is to say, a condemn’d Spirit, and employ’d in the same wicked work as Satan himself.
His Name then being thus ascertain’d, and his Existence acknowledg’d, it should be a little enquir’d what he is; we believe there is such a thing, such a creature as the Devil, and that he has been, and may still with propriety of speech, and without injustice to his Character be call’d by his antient name Devil.
But who is he? what is his original? whence came he? and what is his present station and condition? for these things and these enquiries are very necessary to his History, nor indeed can any part of his History be compleat without them.
That he is of an antient and noble original must be acknowledged, for he is Heaven-born, and of Angelic Race, as has been touch’d already: If Scripture-evidence may be of any weight in the question, there is no room to doubt the genealogy of the Devil; he is not only spoken of as an Angel, but as a fallen Angel, one that had been in Heaven, had beheld the face of God in his full effulgence of glory, and had surrounded the Throne of the most High; from whence, commencing rebel and being expell’d, he was cast down, down, down, God and the Devil himself only knows where; for indeed we cannot say that any man on Earth knows it; and wherever it is, he has ever since man’s creation been a plague to him, been a tempter, a deluder, a calumniator, an enemy and the object of man’s horror and aversion.
As his original is Heaven-born, and his Race Angelic, so the Angelic nature is evidently plac’d in a class superior to the human, and this the Scripture is express in also; when speaking of man, it says, he made him a little lower than the Angels.
Thus the Devil, as mean thoughts as you may have of him, is of a better family than any of you, nay than the best Gentleman of you all; what he may be fallen to, is one thing, but what he is fallen from, is another; and therefore I must tell my learned and reverend friend J. W. LL. D. when he spoke so rudely of the Devil lately, That in my opinion he abus’d his Betters.
Nor is the Scripture more a help to us in the search after the Devil’s Original, than it is in our search after his Nature: it is true, Authors are not agreed about his age, what time he was created, how many years he enjoy’d his state of blessedness before he fell; or how many years he continued with his whole army in a state of darkness, and before the creation of man. ’Tis supposed it might be a considerable space, and that it was a part of his punishment too, being all the while unactive, unemploy’d, having no business, nothing to do but gnawing his own Bowels, and rolling in the agony of his own self-approaches, being a Hell to himself in reflecting on the glorious state from whence he was fallen.
How long he remain’d thus, ’tis true, we have no light into from History, and but little from Tradition; Rabbi Judah says, the Jews were of the opinion, that he remain’d twenty thousand years in that condition, and that the World shall continue twenty thousand more, in which he shall find work enough to satisfy his mischievous desires; but he shews no authority for his opinion.
Indeed let the Devil have been as idle as they think he was before, it must be acknowledg’d that now he is the most busy, vigilant and diligent, of all God’s creatures, and very full of employment too, such as it is.
Scripture indeed, gives us light into the enmity there is between the two natures, the Diabolical and the Human; the reason of it, and how and by what means the power of the Devil is restrain’d by the Messias; and to those who are willing to trust to Gospel-light, and believe what the Scripture says of the Devil, there may much of his History be discover’d, and therefore those that list may go there for a fuller account of the matter.
But to reserve all Scripture-evidence of these things, as a Magazine in store for the use of those with whom Scripture-testimony is of force, I must for the present turn to other enquiries, being now directing my story to an age, wherein to be driven to Revelation and Scripture-assertions is esteem’d giving up the dispute; people now-a-days must have demonstration; and in a word, nothing will satisfy the age, but such evidence as perhaps the nature of the question will not admit.
It is hard, indeed, to bring demonstrations in such a case as this: No man has seen God at any time, says the scripture, 1 John iv. 12. So the Devil being a spirit incorporeal, an Angel of light, and consequently not visible in his own substance, nature and form, it may in some sense be said, no man has seen the Devil at any time; all those pretences of phrenziful and fanciful people, who tell us, they have seen the Devil, I shall examine, and perhaps expose by themselves.
It might take up a great deal of our time here, to enquire whether the Devil has any particular shape or personality of substance, which can be visible to us, felt, heard, or understood; and which he cannot alter, and then, what shapes or appearances the Devil has at any time taken upon him; and whether he can really appear in a body which might be handled and seen, and yet so as to know it to have been the Devil at the time of his appearing; but this also I defer as not of weight in the present enquiry.
We have divers accounts of Witches conversing with the Devil; the Devil in a real body, with all the appearance of a body of a man or woman appearing to them; also of having a Familiar, as they call it, an Incubus or little Devil, which sucks their bodies, runs away with them into the air, and the like: Much of this is said, but much more than it is easy to prove, and we ought to give but a just proportion of credit to those things.
As to his borrow’d shapes and his subtle transformings, that we have such open testimony of, that there is no room for any question about it; and when I come to that part, I shall be oblig’d rather to give a history of the fact, than enter into any dissertation upon the nature and reason of it.
I do not find in any author, whom we can call creditable, that even in those countries where the dominion of Satan is more particularly establish’d, and where they may be said to worship him in a more particular manner, as a Devil; which some tell us the Indians in America did, who worship’d the Devil that he might not hurt them; yet, I say, I do not find that even there the Devil appear’d to them in any particular constant shape or personality peculiar to himself.
Scripture and History therefore, giving us no light into that part of the question, I conclude and lay it down, not as my opinion only, but as what all ages seem to concur in, that the Devil has no particular body; that he is a spirit, and that tho’ he may, Proteus like, assume the appearance of either man or beast, yet it must be some borrow’d shape, some assum’d figure, pro hac vice, and that he has no visible body of his own.
I thought it needful to discuss this as a preliminary, and that the next discourse might go upon a certainty in this grand point; namely, that the Devil, however, he may for his particular occasions put himself into a great many shapes, and clothe himself, perhaps, with what appearances he pleases, yet that he is himself still a meer Spirit, that he retains the seraphic Nature, is not visible by our eyes, which are human and Organic, neither can he
