John Morren

“ The subject of this work is singular, and it has been handled after a singular manner; the wise part of the world hath been pleased with it, the merry part hath been diverted with it, and the ignorant part has been offended at it; who can wonder then, that when the Devil is not pleased, his friends should not be angry? ”

“ The second exploit the Devil atchieved, was
abstracting the mind of Cain, Adam's eldest son,
from his allegiance to God, who, on finding that
his brother's more virtuous sacrifice was prefer-
red to his own, conceived and perpetrated the sa-
tanic deed of butchering Abel. For which God
cursed Cain, blasted his race, and drove them
from his presence.—Thus the Devil too suc-
cessfully practised his wiles on the Antedeluvian;
for tho' Seth the third son of Adam had had two
sons, in those days we find "that men began to
call on the one of the Lord;" ”

“ No sooner did the Devil see the ark resting
on Mount Araret, and Noah and his family and
every living creature descend from it; and know-
ing all his infernal work was to begin, that he
might again strike at the root instantly com-
mences with Noah, who had been a very great
preacher; and by means of his witched child
Canaan gets him drunk, and so stopt his mouth;
for we never hear of him after, though he lived
a long time.
It would be tedious and desultory to trace Satan
through all his indefatigable working to seduce
mankind to devil worship ”

“ Only we are certain, whatever
his puissance is as prince of the power of the air,
it is limited here, and that in two particulars:
first, he is limitated from assuming a body, or
body shapes with substance: and secondly, from
exerting seraphic powers, and acting with that
supernatural force, which as an angel he was cer-
tainly vested with before the Fall and which we
are not certain is yet taken from him: or at most,
we do not know how much it may or may not be
diminished by his degeneracy, and by the blow
given him at his expulsion. ”

“ Devil is of; my answer will indeed be general,
yet not all ambiguous; for I love to speak posi-
tively and with undoubted evidence.
1. He is a believer. I think none of my readers
will doubt but he has more religion that is to be
found in all the present French Convention, that
even some of our own countrymen show them-
selves Devils enough to admire; for besides ab-
juring God and all religion, they even refused the
respect that Satan thinks he has a right to, as
they have decreed, that all the people of France
shall believe death is eternal sleep ”

“ The emperor Arian a
child of the Devil. espousing the diabolical tenets
of arms, a violent persecution arose betwixt the
Arians and the orthodox. So virulently did
they carry on this persecution, that the Devil
by means of the emperor Julian made one push
for establishing Paganism again; but like King
James II, he drove too hard; and Julian had so
provoked the whole Romish empire which was
generally become Christian, that had the apostate
lived he would not have been able to have held
the throne ”

“ Defeated here, the first stratagem I find him
concerned in after it, was his entering into Judas,
and putting him upon betraying Christ to the chief
priest; but here again he was entirely mistaken;
for he did not see, as much a Devil as he was,
what the event would be; but when he came to
know that if Christ was put to death, he would
become a propitiatory and be the great sacrifice
of mankind so as to rescue the fallen race ”

“ Part I. Containing a State of the Devil's Circumances, from his expulsion out of Heaven to the Creation, with Remarks concerning his Fall.
Part II. Containing his more private Conduct down to the present Times; his Government, his Appearances, his manner of Working, and the Tools he works with.—Also an Account of St Peter's Key, and Dr Faustus.
Bad as he is, the Devil may be abus'd,
Be falsely charg'd and causelessly accus'd,
When Men, unwilling to be blam'd alone,
Shift off those Crimes on him who are their
own. ”

“ Satan: for I can assure them their prototype the
Devil is no infidel.
2. He fears God. This you have the Devil's
own authority for; and that in a confession against
himself. 1. He confesses Christ to be the Son of
God; but no thanks to him for that, for it does
not need the Devil's evidence 2. ”

“ God and overturn the thrones of heaven, if it
was in his power.
2. That he is man's irreconciliable enemy; not
as he is man, not on his own account simply, not
for any advantage he (the Devil) can make by
the ruin and destruction of man; but in mere
envy at the felicity he is supposed to enjoy as
Satan's rival, and as he is appointed to succeed
Satan and his angels in the possession of those glo-
ries from which they are fallen.
So Satan looking narrowly into the nature and
frame of our first parents ”

“ To come to a regular enquiry into Satan's af-
fairs it is needful we should go back to his ori-
ginal, as far as history and the opinion of the
learned world will give us leave.
It is agreed by all writers, as well sacred as
profane, this creature we now call a Devil, was
originally an angel of light, a glorious seraph;
perhaps the choicest of all the glorious seraphs.
See how Milton describes his original glory:
Satan, so call him now ”

“ But let us consider him then limited and re-
strained as he is, yet he remains a mighty, a ter-
rible, an immortal being, far superior to man as
well in the dignity of his nature, as is the dread-
ful powers he retains still about him. It is true
the brain sick heads of our enthusiastics print him
blacker than he is ”

“ Nor shall we show
the many defections in the brightest luminaries of
the church, to the coming of our Saviour, and
it was, no doubt, then at a low ebb, though there
was a glorious remnant of saints who waited the
salvation of Israel, and kept Satan at bay. And
this was a more mortal stab to the thrones prin-
cipalities infernal, than the creation of man; and
therefore with this I break off the antiquities of
the Devil's history, or the ancient part of his
kingdom: for from hence downward, we shall find
his empire had declined gradually ”

“ The Modern History of the DEVIL.
PART II.
I HAVE examined the antiquities of Satan's his-
tory, and brought his affairs down from the
creation as far as our blessed Christian times; espe
cially to the coming of the Messiah, when one
would think the Devil could have nothing to do
among us. ”