Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (1).pdf/11

11 Were Satan to be brought under the least obligation to write truth, and that the matters of fact which he should write might be depended upon, he is certainly qualified by his knowledge of things to be a complete historian; nor could the bishop himself, who, by the way, has given us already the Devil of an history, come up to him; Milton's Pandæmonium, though an excellent dramatic performance, would appear a mere trifling sing song business, beneath the dignity of Chevy chase; the Devil could give us a true account of all the civil wars in heaven; how, and by whom, and in what manner, he lost the day there, and was obliged to quit the field: the fiction of his refusing to acknowledge and submit to the Messiah, upon his being declared generalissimo of the heavenly forces, which Satan expected himself, as the eldest officer; and his not being able to brook another to be put in over his head; and I say, that fine spun thought of Mr. Milton would appear to be strained too far, and only serve to convince us that he (Milton) knew nothing of the matter. Satan knows very well that the Messiah was not declared to be the son of God with power, till by and after the resurrection from the dead; and all that power was then given him in heaven and earth, and not before; so that Satan's rebellion must derive from other causes, and upon other occasions, as he himself can doubtless give us an account if he thinks fit, and of which we shall speak further in this work.

He could give us a true relation how he wheeled the people of the next world into the absurd, ridiculous undertaking of building a Babel; how far that stupendous stair case