Devil

“ At Hurdwar, in the great fair, among jugglers and tumblers, horse-tamers and snake-charmers, fakirs and pilgrims, I saw a small boy possessed of a devil,—an authentic devil, as of yore, meet for miraculous driving-out. ”

“ To give the devil his due, he had a wonderful voice—cajoling, persuasive, domineering and demanding. He could use it with all the skill and passionate conviction of a Bearer of the Word. His tongue was a weapon—a club and a rapier—and I had been pounded and pierced with it for nearly two weeks. ”

“ Seventhly, The devil brings a nauseating of the duties of worship, by a wrong representation of them, in the carriage and gestures of those that engage in them. It seems strange to some that are but as idle spectators to observe the postures of saints, seriously lifting up their eyes to heaven, or humbly mourning and smiting on their breasts. ”

“ I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men—men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. ”

“ This opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel, and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these up to the present time are called his angels. ”

“ It is the Devil who turns us into friends of lapdogs and makes us enemies of the homeless. The Devil is the greatest master in dogmatism; he creates sects who, in the name of love and humility, foster hatred and pride; the Devil encloses men in a magic circle on the barren heath of useless speculation ”

“ When the devil enters into a nayre, he goes with a naked sword before the king, shaking and trembling and giving himself many wounds, saying, "I am such or such a god, and am come to tell thee such and such a thing," crying out, and behaving himself like a madman or one possessed. ”

“ That the stage devil should have been so commonplace an individual, when there were devils innumerable where-from an admirable selection of demons might be “constantly on hand,” made it the more inexcusable on the part of those gentlemen invested with the power of administering to, and in some measure forming, public taste. What a catalogue of devils may be found in the Fathers! Let us particularise a few from the thousand of demons with which the benevolent imaginations of our ancestors have peopled the air, the earth, and the flood. ”

“ The Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and saith unto him, "All things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." ”

“ The pilgrim turned, and pointed with his finger to the road they were to take; but as he turned, the angel seized him by the shoulders, and precipitated him into the stream below. At this the terrors of the hermit were again aroused—"It is the devil," exclaimed he internally—"it is the devil, and no good angel! What evil had the poor man done that he should be drowned?" ”

“ The devil, the three wicked spirits, the great enchanter, and his conventicle of witches, seemed all to be in convulsions at witnessing how the metamorphosed champions shook their long heads, looked at one another, and tried to speak. ”

“ If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime; Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron That you shall think the devil is come from hell. ”

“ Thus if Rage, Envy, Pride and Revenge can constitute the Parts of a Devil, why should not a Lady of such Quality, in whom all those Extraordinaries abound, have a Right to the Title of being a Devil really and substantially, and to all Intents and Purposes, in the most perfect and absolute Sense, according to the most exquisite Descriptions of Devils already given by me or any Body else ”

“ Power to prevent it: Now take the Devil as he is in his own Nature Angelic, a bright immortal Seraph, Heaven-born, and having tasted the eternal Beatitude, which these are appointed to enjoy; the Loss of that [Pg 211] State to himself, the Possession of it granted to his Rival tho’ wicked like and as himself; I say, take the Devil as he is, having a quick Sense of his own Perdition, and a stinging Sight of his Rival’s Felicity, ’tis Hell enough, and more than enough, even for an Angel to support; nothing we can conceive can be worse. ”

“ How happy are those People who they say have the particular Quality, or acquir’d Habit, call’d the Second Sight; one Sort of whom they tell us are able to distinguish the Devil, in whatever Case or Outside of Flesh and Blood he is pleas’d to put on, and consequently could know the Devil wherever they met him? ”

“ The devil is fearfully and terribly in earnest "Therefore rejoice you heavens, and you that dwell in them Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time." ”

“ The devil is in the house and can’t get out. ”

“ I know nothing about children, but I know something about the devil, and if ever the devil was in a woman’s face and voice the devil was in yours when you dragged the little creature from under the bed. ”

“ When this Satan had been formed from the Darkness—his name is the First Devil—then he began to devour and to swallow up and to ruin, to move about to the right and to the left, and to get down into the deep, so that he continually brought ruin and destruction to every one who attempted to overmaster him. ”

“ In every peasant's cottage some one could spell out the story of the devil bearing Christ through the air and placing him upon the pinnacle of the Temple,—of the woman with seven devils,—of the devils cast into the swine. ”

“ At this good news, so great
The Devil's pleasure grew,
That, with a joyful swish, he rent
The hole where his tail came through. ”

“ The devil can act upon the soul by suggesting the ideas and spiritual pictures of things to the imagination. For this is the grand repository of all the ideas and representations which the mind of man can work either upon or by. So that Satan, our skilful artist, can as easily slide his injections into the fancy as present a deluding image to the eye.—South, Sermons, 1737, vol. ”

“ We are each our own devil, and we make
This world our hell. ”

“ The Devil and his Host, being thus, I say, cast out of Heaven, and not yet confin’d strictly to Hell, ’tis plain they must be some where. Satan and all his Legions did not lose their Existence, no, nor the Existence of Devils neither ”

“ Thereafter, telling it from one to another throughout the city, they brought it to a common saying there that the most acceptable service one could render to God was to put the devil in hell, which byword, having passed the sea hither, is yet current here. Wherefore do all you young ladies, who have need of God’s grace, learn to put the devil in hell, for that this is highly acceptable to Him and pleasing to both parties and much good may grow and ensue thereof. ”

“ But if we take this word to be, as above, a noun of multitude, and so to be used ambidexter, as occasion presents, singular or plural, then the Devil signifies Satan by himself, or Satan with all his legions at his heels, as you please, more or less. It is thus expressed in Scripture, where the person possessed (Matt. iv. 24.) is first said to be possessed of the Devil, singular; and our Saviour asks him, as speaking to a single person, What is thy name? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The spirit that I have seen May be the devil, and the devil hath power T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. ”

“ Unarm’d, you’ll say, what Arms should I take? what Fence against a Flail? What Weapons can a Man take to fight the Devil? I could tell you what to fight him with, and what you might fright him with, for the Devil is to be frighted with several Things besides Holy Water; but ’tis too serious for you, and you’ll tell me I am a preaching and a canting, and the like; so I must let the Devil manage you rather than displease you with talking Scripture and Religion. ”

“ The Devil Lore Series, which opens with this book of Devil Stories, is to serve as documentary evidence of man’s abiding interest in the Devil. It will be a sort of portrait-gallery of the literary delineations of Satan. The Anthologies of Diabolical Literature may be considered, I trust, without any risk of offence to any theological or philosophical prepossession. To those alike who accept and who reject the belief in the Devil’s spiritual entity apart from man’s, there must be profit and pleasure in the contemplation of his literary incarnations. ”

“ Witches and Diviners, who I spoke of above, for I call them also Emissaries; but they are all Devils or (as you know they are call’d) Devil’s Angels; and these may, perhaps, come and converse personally with the Sub-emissaries I mention’d, to be ready for their Support and Assistance on all Occasions of Business: These are those Devils which the Witches are said to raise; for we can hardly suppose the Master Devil comes himself, at the Summons of every ugly old Woman. ”

“ This bad and perverse being they call Satan, the Devil, the Evil One; and we see him play a great game in all the religions of the world, the founders of which have found in the impotence of Deity the sources of both good and evil. ”

“ Then shall come the Devil and three or four devils with him, carrying in their hands chains and iron fetters, which they shall put on the necks of Adam and Eve. And some shall push and others pull them to hell: and hard by hell shall be other devils ready to meet them, who shall hold high revel at their fall. And certain other devils shall point them out as they come, and shall snatch them up and carry them into hell; and there shall they make a great smoke arise, and call aloud to each other with glee in their hell, and clash their pots and kettles, that they may be heard without. ”

“ All the souls that have lived on the earth, good and bad, saints and sinners, Devil and demons, will stand before the Throne and be judged. The words, thoughts, and deeds of men and devils shall be made known. The final doom of the Devil and his angels will be shown up in detail before an assembled universe: the Godhead, angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, and all that have lived upon this planet. ”

“ The biblical 'devil,' which 'possessed' men, took as many shapes and characteristics as the genus 'dog' does: there was the devil that dwelt in tombs, the devil that tore its victim, the devil that entered into swine, the devil that spoke false prophecies, and many more. ”

“ The magician is [Pg 154] the devil, and the story concludes, after the transformations in which the peasant's son kills the devil in the shape of a hen, with the words: "And this is the reason why there is no longer any devil." ”

“ The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; The devil was well, the devil a monk was he. ”

“ One of these bad angels was called Satan. He is the chief, or prince of the bad angels. He is called the devil.
The devil is very wicked, and hates God. He can never go back to heaven again, but he comes here where we live, and he brings the other devils with him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are a number of other names by which the Devil is called in Scripture, each of which expresses something of the essential nature of hell; such as, Angel of the bottomless pit, Prince of this world, Prince of darkness, Destroyer, Beelzebub, Belial, Adversary, Accuser, Deceiver, Liar, Murderer, Tormentor, Serpent, Lucifer, Leviathan and Dragon. Such are the significant names which we find in the Bible sometimes applied to the collective body of evil spirits in the other world, who, viewed as one individual, are more frequently called the Devil and Satan. ”

“ For after a great deal of words which I had some trouble interpreting, it became apparent that this spawn of the Devil, this creature of Satan was endeavoring by means of foul enticements and false promises of release from our enchantment, to cozen us into bowing down to graven images. ”

“ The devil—I am sorry to have to refer to the person so often, but he played a notable part in the affair, and I should be more sorry to leave him without his part in it duly acknowledged—the devil, I say, finding the house abandoned to him, rushed at once into brain and heart and limbs, and possessed. ”

“ Some devils ask but the parings of one’s nail,
A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
A nut, a cherry-stone;
But she, more covetous, would have a chain.
70 Master, be wise: an if you give it her,
The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it. ”

“ The devil tormented him other [287, 288] ways; he cast him into an intolerable heat, then he gave him an intolerable cold, and then he made him dream a dream, whereby the saint shamed the devil by openly confessing it at church on Easter-day before all the people. At length, after other wonders, “the joints of his iron coate miraculously dissolved, and it fell down to his knees.” ”

“ We find Possessions acknowledg’d in Scripture to be really and personally the Devil, or according to the Text, Legions of Devils in the Plural. The Devil or Devils rather, which possessed the Man among the Tombs, is positively affirm’d to be the Devil in the Scripture ”