them.
Into this void or abyss of Nothing, however unmeasurable, infinite, and even to those Spirits, themselves Inconceivable, they certainly launch’d from the bright Precipice which they fell from, and here they shifted as well as they could.
Here expanding those Wings which Fear, and Horror at their Defeat furnish’d them, as I hinted before, they hurried away to the utmost Distance possible, from the Face of God their Conqueror, and then most dreaded Enemy; formerly their Joy and Glory.
Be this utmost remov’d Distance where it will, Here, certainly, Satan and all his Gang of Devils, his numberless, tho’ routed Armies retired. Here Milton might, with some good Ground, have form’d his Pandemonium, and have brought them in, consulting what was next to be done, and whether there was any room left to renew the War, or to carry on the Rebellion; but had they been cast immediately into Hell, closed up there, the Bottomless pit lock’d upon them, and the Key carried up to Heaven to be kept there, as Mr. Milton himself in part confesses, and the Scripture affirms; I say, had this been so, the Devil himself could not have been so ignorant as to think of any future Steps to be taken, to retrieve his Affairs, and therefore a Pandemonium or Divan in Hell, to consult of it, was ridiculous.
All Mr. Milton’s Scheme of Satan’s future Conduct, and all the Scripture Expressions about the Devil and his numerous Attendants, and of his actings since that time, make it not reasonable to suggest that the Devils were confin’d to their eternal Prison, at their Expulsion out of Heaven; But that they were in a State of Liberty to act, tho’ limited in acting, of which I shall also speak in its place.
Chap. VII.
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