Читать книгу 3 books to know The Devil - Джон Мильтон - Страница 17

OF THE PROGRESS OF Satan in carrying on his conquest over mankind, from the fall of Eve to the Deluge.

––––––––

I DOUBT, IF THE DEVIL was asked the question plainly, he would confess, that after he had conquered Eve by his own wicked contrivance, and then by her assistance had brought Adam too (like a fool as he was,) into the same gulf of misery, he thought he had done his work, compassed the whole race, that they were now his own, and that he had put an end to the grand design of their creation; namely, of peopling heaven with a new angelic race of souls, who, when glorified, should make up the defection of the host of hell, that had been expunged by their crime; in a word, that he had gotten a better conquest than if he had destroyed them all.

But, in the midst of his conquest, he found a check put to the advantages he expected to reap from his victory, by the immediate promise of grace to a part of the posterity of Adam, who, notwithstanding the fall, were to be purchased by the Messiah, and snatched out of his (Satan’s) hands, and over whom he could make no final conquest; so that his power met with a new limitation, and that such, as indeed fully disappointed him in the main thing he aimed at; namely, preventing the beatitudes of mankind; which were thus secured; (and what if the numbers of mankind were upon this account increased in such a manner, that the selected number should, by length of time, amount to just as many as the whole race, had they not fallen, would have amounted to in all?) And thus, indeed, the world may be said to be upheld and continued for the sake of those few, since, till their number can be completed, the creation cannot fall, any more than that without them, or but for them, it would not have stood.

Bat leaving this speculation, and not having inquired of Satan what he has to say on that subject, let us go back to the antediluvian world. The Devil, to be sure, gained his point upon Eve, and in her upon all her race: he drew her into sin; got her turned out of paradise, and the man with her: the next thing was to go to work with her posterity, and particularly with her two sons, Cain and Abel.

Adam having, notwithstanding his fall, repented very sincerely of his sin, received the promise of redemption and pardon, with an humble, but believing heart; charity bids us suppose that he led a very religious and sober life ever after; arid, especially in the first part of his time, that he brought up his children very soberly, and gave them all the necessary advantages of a religious education, and a good introduction into the world, that he was capable of; and that Eve likewise assisted to both in her place and degree.

Their two eldest sons, Cain and Abel, the one heir apparent to the patriarchal empire, and the other heir presumptive, I suppose also, lived very sober and religious lives; and as the principles of natural religion dictated an homage and subjection due to the Almighty Maker, as an acknowledgment of his mercies, and a recognition of their obedience; so the received usage of religion dictating, at that time, that this homage was to be paid by a sacrifice, they either of them brought a free-will offering to be dedicated to God respectively for themselves and families.

How it was, and for what reason, that God had respect to the offering of Abel, which, the learned say, was a lamb of the firstlings of the flock, and did not give any testimony of the like respect to Cain, and his offering, which was of the first fruits of the earth, the offerings being equally suited to the respective employment of the men, that is not my present business; but this we find made heart-burnings, and raised envy and jealousy in the mind of Cain; and at that door the Devil immediately entered; for he, who, from the beginning, was very diligent in his way, never slipped any opportunity, or missed any advantages, that the circumstances of mankind offered him to do mischief.

What shape or appearance the Devil took up to enter into a conversation with Cain upon the subject, that authors do not take upon them to determine; but it is generally supposed he personated some of bain’s sons or grandsons to begin the discourse, who attacked their father, or perhaps grandfather, upon this occasion, in the following manner, or to that purpose:

D. Sir, I perceive your majesty (for the first race were certainly all monarchs as great as kings, to their immediate posterity) to be greatly disturbed of late; your countenance is changed, your noble cheerfulness, the glories of your face, are strangely sunk and gone, and you are not the man you used to be. Please your majesty to communicate your griefs to us your children; you may be sure, that, if it be possible, we would procure you relief, and restore your delights, the loss of which, if thus you go on to subject yourself to too much melancholy, will be very hurtful to you, and, in the end, destroy you.

Cain. It is very kind, my dear children, to show your respect thus to your true progenitor, and to offer your assistance. I confess, as you say. my mind is oppressed and displeased; but, though it is very heavy, yet I know not which way to look for relief; for the distemper is above our reach, no cure can be found for it on earth.

D. Do not say so, sir: there can be no disease sure on earth, but may be cured on earth; if it be a mental evil, we have heard that your great ancestor, the first father of us all, who lives still on the great Western Plains towards the Sea, is the oracle to which all his children fly for direction in such cases as are out of the reach of the ordinary understanding of mankind; please you to give leave, we will take a journey to him, and, representing your case to him, we will hear his advice, and bring it to you with all speed, for the ease of your mind.

Cain. I know not whether he can reach my case or no.

D. Doubtless he may; and. if not. the labor of our journey is nothing, when placed in competition with the ease of your mind; it is but a few days’ travel lost; and you will not be the worse, if we fail of the desired success.

Cain. The offer is filial, and I accept your affectionate concern for me, with a just sense of an obliged parent; go then, and my blessing be upon you. But, alas! why do I bless? Can he bless whom God has not blessed?

D. O! sir, do not say so; has not God blessed you? are you not the second sovereign of the earth? and does he not converse with you face to face? are noj you the oracle to all your growing posterity, and, next after his Sovereign Imperial Majesty Lord Adam, patriarch of the world?

Cain. But has not God rejected me, and refused to converse any more with me, while he daily favors and countenances my younger brother, Abel, as if he resolved to set him up to rule over me?

D. No, sir, that cannot be, you cannot be disturbed at such a thing; is not the right of sovereignty yours by primogeniture? Can God himself take that away, when it is once given? Are you not Lord Adam’s eldest son? are you not the first-born glory of the creation? and does not the government descend to you by the divine right of birth and blood?

Cain. But what does all that signify to me, while God appears to favor and caress my younger brother, and to shine upon him, while a black dejection, and token of displeasure, surround me every day, and he does not appear to me as he used to do?

D. And what need your majesty be concerned at that, if it be so? if he does not appear pleased, you have the whole world to enjoy yourself in, and all your numerous and rising posterity adore and honor you; what need those remote things be any disturbance to you?

Cain. How! my children, not the favor of God be valued! yes, yes, in his favor is life; what can all the world avail without the smiles and countenance of him that made it?

D. Doubtless, sir, he that made the world, and placed you at the head of it all, to govern and direct it, has made it agreeable; and it is able to give you a full satisfaction and enjoyment, if you please to con sider it well, though you were never to converse with him all the while you live in it.

Cain. You are quite wrong there, my children, quite wrong.

D. But do you not, great sir, see all your children as well as us, rejoicing in the plenty of all things? and are they not completely happy, and yet they know little of this great God’? He seldom converses among us; we hear of him indeed by your sage advices, and we bring our offerings to you for him, as you direct; and when that’s done, we enjoy whatever our hearts desire; and so doubtless may you in an abundant manner, if you please.

Cain. But your felicity is wrong placed then, or you suppose that God is pleased and satisfied in that your offerings are brought to me; but what would you say, if you knew that God is displeased’? that he does not accept your offerings? that when I sacrificed to him in behalf of you all, he rejected my offerings, though I brought a princely gift, being of the finest of the wheat, the choicest and earliest fruits, and the sweetest of the oil, an offering suited to the Giver of them all?

D. But if you offered them, sir, how are you sure they were not accepted?

Cain. Yes, yes, I am sure; did not my brother Abel offer, at the same time, a lamb of his flock? for he, you know, delights in cattle, and covers the mountains with his herds. Over him, all the while he was sacrificing, a bright emanation shone cheering and en livening, a pledge of favor; and light ambient flames played hovering in the lower air, as if attending his sacrifice; and, when ready prepared, immediately descended, and burnt up the flesh, a sweet odoriferous savor ascending to him, who thus testified his acceptance; whereas, over my head, a black cloud, misty, and distilling vapor, hung dripping upon the humble altar I had raised, and, wetting the finest and choicest things I had prepared, spoiled and defaced them; the wood, unapt to burn by the moisture which fell, scarce received the fire I brought to kindle it; and, even then, rather smothered and choked, than kindled into a flame; in a word, it went quite out, without consuming what was brought to be offered up.

D. Let not our truly reverenced lord and father be disquited at all this; if he accepts not what you bring, you are discharged of the debt, and need bring no more; nor have the trouble of such labored collections of rarities any more; when he thinks fit to require it again, you will have notice, no question, and then it, being called for, will be accepted, or else why should it be required?

Cain. That may indeed be the case, nor do I think of attempting any more to bring an offering; for I rather take it, that I am forbidden for the present; but then, what is it that my younger brother triumphs in? and how am I insulted, in that he and his house are all joy and triumph, as if they had some great advantage over me, in that their offering was accepted when mine was not?

D. Does he triumph over your majesty, our lord and sovereign? Give us but your order, and we will go and pull him and all his generation in pieces; for to triumph over you, who are his elder brother, is an horrid rebellion and treason, arid he ought to be ex pelled the society of mankind.

Cain. I think so too, indeed; however, my dear children, and faithful subjects, though I accept your offer of duty and service, yet I will consider very well, before I take up arms against my brother; besides, our sovereign father, and patriarchal lord, Adam, being yet alive, it is not in my right to act offensively without his command.

D. We are ready therefore to carry your petition to him, and doubt not to obtain his license and commission too, to impower you to do yourself justice upon your younger brother; who, being your vassal, or at least inferior, as he is junior in birth, insults you upon the fancied opinion of having a larger share in the Divine favor, and receiving a blessing on his sacrifices, on pretence of the same favor being denied you.

Cain. I am content. Go, then, and give a just account of the state of our affairs.

D. We shall soon return with the agreeable answer; let not our lord and father continue sad and dejected, but depend upon a speedy relief, by the assistance of thy numerous issue, all devoted to thy interest and felicity.

Cain. My blessing be with you in your way, and give you a favorable reception at the venerable tent of our universal lord and father.

Note. Here the cursed race being fully given up to the direction of the evil spirit, which so early possessed them, and swelling with rage at the innocent Abel, and his whole family, they resolved upon forming a most wicked and detestable lie, to bring about the advice which they had already given their father Cain a touch of; and to pretend, that Adam, being justly provoked at the imdutiful behavior of Abel, had given Cain a commission to chastise him, and by force to cut him off, and all his family, as guilty of rebellion and pride.

Filled with this mischievous and bloody resolution, they came back to their father Cain, after staying a few days, such as were sufficient to make Cain believe they had been at the spacious plains, where Adam dwelt; the same which are now called the blessed Valleys, or the Plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix, near the banks of the Red Sea.

Note here also, that Cain having received a wicked hint from these men, his children and subjects, as before, intimating that Abel had broken the laws of primogeniture in his behavior towards him (Cain;) and that he might be justly punished for it; Satan, that cunning manager of all our wayward passions, fanned the fire of envy and jealousy with his utmost skill all the while his other agents were absent; and by the time they came back had blown it up into such an heat of fury and rage, that it wanted nothing but air to make it bum out, as it soon afterwards did in a furious flame of wrath and revenge, even to blood and destruction.

Just in the very critical moment, while things stood thus with Cain, Satan brings in his wicked instruments, as if just arrived with the return of his message from Adam, at whose court they had been for orders; and thus they, that is, the Devil assuming to speak by them, approach their father with an air of solemn, but cheerful satisfaction at the success of their embassy.

D. Hail, sovereign, reverend, patriarchal lord! we come with joy to render thee an account of the successs of our message.

Cain. Have you then seen the venerable tents where dwell the heaven-born, the angelic pair, to whom all human reverence highly due, is and ought always to be humbly paid?

D. We have.

Cain. Did you, together with my grand request, a just and humble homage for me pay, to the great sire and mother of mankind 1

D. We did.

Cain. Did you in humble language represent the griefs and anguish which oppress my soul?

D. We did, and back their blessing to thee bring.

Cain. I hope, with humblest signs of filial duty, you took it for me on your bending knees?

D. W“e did, and had our share; the patriarch lifting up his hands to heaven, expressed his joy to see his spreading race, and blessed us all.

Cain. Did you my solemn message too deliver, my injuries impartially lay down, and due assistance and direction crave?

D. We did.

Cain. What spoke the oracle? he is God to me; what just commands do ye bring? what is to be done? Am I to bear the insulting junior’s rage? and meekly suffer what unjustly he, affronting primogeniture, arid laws of God and man, imposes by his pride iinsnfferable? Am I to be crushed, and be no more the firstborn son on earth, but bow and kneel to him?

D. Forbid it, heaven! as Adam too forbids, who with a justice godlike, and peculiar to injured parents, Abel’s pride resents, and gives his high command to thee to punish.

Cain. To punish? say you, did he use the word, the very word? am I commissioned then to punish Abel?

D. Not Abel only, but his rebel race, as they, alike in crime, alike are joined in punishment.

Cain. The race indeed have shared the merit with him; how did they all insult, and with a shout of triumph mock my sorrow, when they saw me from my sacrifice dejected come, as if my disappointment was their joy?

D. This too the venerable prince resents; and to preserve the race in bounds of law subordinate arid limited to duty, commands that this first, breach be not passed by, lest the precedent upon record stand to future times to encourage like rebellion.

Cain. And is it then my sovereign parent’s will?

D. It is his will, that thou his eldest son, his image, his beloved, should be maintained in all the rights of sovereignty derived to thee from him; and not be left exposed to injury, and power usurped, but should do thyself justice on the rebel race.

Cain. And so I will; Abel shall quickly know what it is to trample on his elder brother; shall know that he is thus sentenced by his father; and I am commissioned bat to execute his high command, his sentence, which is God’s; and that he falls by the hand of heavenly justice.

So now Satan had done his work, he had deluded the mother to a breach against the first and only command; he had drawn Adam into the same snare; and now he brings in Cain prompted by his own rage, and deluded by his (Satan’s) craft, to commit murder, nay, a fratricide, an aggravated murder.

Upon this he sends out Cain, while the bloody rage was in its ferment, and wickedly at the same time, bringing Abel, innocent, and fearing no ill, just in his way, he suggests to his thoughts such words as these:

Look you, Cain, see how divine justice concurs with your father’s righteous sentence; see, there is thy brother Abel directed by Heaven to fall into thy hands unarmed, unguarded, that thou mayst do thyself justice upon him without fear; see, thou mayst kill him; and, if thou hast a mind to conceal it, no eyes can see, nor will the world ever know it, so that no resentment or revenge upon thee, or thy posterity, can be apprehended, but it may be said some wild beast had rent him; nor will any one suggest, that thou, his brother and superior, could possibly be the person.

Cain, prepared for the fact by his former avowed rage, and resolution of revenge, was so much the less prepared to avoid the snare thus artfully contrived by the master of all subtlety, the Devil; so he immediately runs upon his brother Abel, and, after a little unarmed resistance, the innocent poor man, expecting no such mischief, was conquered and murdered; after which, as is to be supposed, the exasperated crew of Cain’s outrageous race overrun all his family and household, killing man, woman, and child.

It is objected here, that we have no authority in scripture to prove this part of the story; but I answer, it is not likely but that Abel, as well as Cain, being at man’s estate long before this, had several children by their own sisters; for they were the only men in the world who were allowed the marrying their own sisters, there being no other women then in the world; and as we never read of any of Abel’s posterity, it is likewise as probable they were all murdered, as that they should kill Abel only, whose sons might immediately fall upon Cain for the blood of their father, and so the world have been involved in a civil war as soon as there were two families in it.

But be it so or not, it is not doubted the Devil wrought with Cain in the horrid murder, or he had never done it; whether it was directly, or by agents, is not material, nor is the latter unlikely; and, if the latter, then there is no improbability in the story; for why might not he that made use of the serpent to tempt Eve, be as well supposed to make a tool of some of Cain’s sons or grandsons to prompt him in the wicked attempt of murdering his brother? and why must we be obliged to bring in a miracle, or an apparition, into the story, to make it probable that the Devil had any hand in it, when it was so natural to a degenerate race to act in such a manner?

However it was, arid by whatever tool the Devil wrought, it is certain that this was the consequence, poor Abel was butchered; and thus the Devil made a second conquest in God’s creation; for Adam was now, as may be said, really childless; for his two sons were thus far lost, Abel was killed, and Cain was curst, and driven out from the presence of the Lord, and his race blasted with him.

It would be an useful inquiry here, and worthy our giving an account of, could we come to a certainty in it; namely, what was the mark that God set uponCain, by which he was kept from being fallen upon by Abel’s friends or relations? but as this does not belong to the Devil’s history, and it was God’s mark, not the Devil’s, — I have nothing to do with it here.

The Devil had now gained his point; the kingdom of grace, so newly erected, had been as it were extinct without a new creation, had not Adam and Eve been alive, and had not Eve, though now one hundred and thirty years of age, been a breeding young lady; for we must suppose the Tvomen, in that state of longevity, bare children till they were seven or eight, hundred years old. This teeming of Eve peopled not the world so much as it restored the blessed race; for, though Abel was killed, Cain had a numerous offspring presently, which, had Seth (Adam’s third son) never been born, would soon have replenished the world with people, such as they were; the seed of a murderer, cursed of God, branded with a mark of infamy, and who afterwards fell all together in the universal ruin of the race by the deluge.

But after the murder of Abel, Adam had another son born, namely, Seth, the father of Enos, and indeed the father of the holy race; for during his time and his son Enos, the text says, that men began to call on the name of the Lord; that is to say, they began to look back upon Cain and his wicked race; and, being convinced of the wickedness they had committed, and led their whole posterity into, they began to sue to Heaven for pardon of what was past, and to lead a new sort of life.

But the Devil had met with too much success in his first attempts, not to go on with his general resolution of debauching the minds of men, and Bringing them off from God; and therefore, as he kept his hold upon Cain’s cursed race, embroiled already in blood and murder; so he proceeded with his degenerate offspring, till, in a word, he brought both the holy seed, and the degenerate race, to join in one universal consent of crime, and to go on in it with such aggravating circumstances, as that it repented the Lord that he had made man, and he resolved to overwhelm them again with a general destruction, and clear the world of them.

The succession of blood in the royal original line of Adam is preserved in the sacred histories, and brought down as low as Noah and his three sons, for a continued series of fourteen hundred and fifty years, say some, sixteen hundred and forty say others; in which time sin spread itself so generally through the whole race, and the sons of God, so the scripture calls the Men of the righteous seed, the progeny of Seth, came in unto the daughters of men, that is, joined themselves to the cursed race of Cain, and married promiscuously with them, according to their fancies, the women, it seems, being beautiful and tempting; and though the Devil could not make the women handsome or ugly in one or other families, yet he might work up the gust of wicked inclination on either side, so as to make both the men and the women tempting and agreeable to one another, where they ought not to have been so; and perhaps, as it is often seen to this day, the more tempting for being under legal restraint.

It is objected here, that we do not find in the scripture, that the men and women of either race were at that time forbidden intermarrying with one another; and it is true, that literally it is not forbid. But if we did not search rather to make doubts than to explain them, we might suppose it was forbidden by some particular command at that time; seeing we may reasonably allow every thing to be forbidden, which they are taxed with a crime in committing; and as the sons of God taking them wives, as they thought fit to choose, though from among the daughters of the cursed race, is there charged upon them as a general depravation, an4 a great crime, and for which it is said, God even repented that he had made them, we need go no further to satisfy ourselves, that it was certainly forbidden.

Satan, no doubt, too, had a hand in this wickedness; for as it was his business to prompt men to do everything which God had prohibited, so the reason given why the men of those days did this thing was, they saw the daughters of men, that is, of the wicked race, or forbidden sort, were fair; he tempted them by the lust of the eye; in a word the ladies were beautiful and agreeable, and the Devil knew how to make use of the allurement; the men liked and took them by the mere direction of their fancy and appetite; without regarding the supreme prohibition: They took them wives of all which they chose, or such as they liked to choose.

But the Jext adds, that this promiscuous generation went farther than the mere outward crime of it; for it showed that the wickedness of the heart of man was great before God, und that he resented it. In short, God perceived a degeneracy or defect of virtue had seized upon the whole race; that there was a general corruption of manners, a depravity of nature upon them; that even the holy seed was tainted with it; that the Devil had broken in upon them, and prevailed to a great degree; that not only the practice of the age was corrupt, for that God could easily have restrained, but that the very heart of man was debauched, his desires wholly vitiated, and his senses engaged in it; so that, in a word, it became necessary to show the divine dis pleasure, not in the ordinary manner, by judgment and reproofs of such kind as usually reclaim men, but by a general destruction to sweep them away, clear the earth of them, and put an end to the wickedness at once, removing the offence and the offenders all together; this is signified at large, Gen. vi. 5. “ God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And again, ver. 11, 12. “The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.”

It must be confessed it was a strange conquest the Devil had made in the antediluvian world, that he had, as I may say. brought the whole race of mankind into a general revolt from God. Noah was indeed a preacher of righteousness, and he had preached about five hundred years to as little purpose as most of the good ministers ever did; for we do not read there was one man converted by him, or at least not one of them left; for that at the deluge there was either none of them alive, or none spared but Noah and his three sons, and their wives; and even they are (it is evident) recorded, not so much to be saved for their own goodness, but because they were his sons: nay, without breach of charity we may conclude, that at least one went to the Devil even of those three; namely, Ham or Cham, for triumphing in a brutal manner over his father’s drunkenness; for we find the special curse reached to him and his posterity for many ages; and whether it went no farther than the present state of life with them, we cannot tell.

We will suppose now, that through this whole fifteen hundred years, the Devil, having so effectually de bauched mankind, had advanced his infernal kingdom to a prodigious height; for the text says, the whole earth was filled with violence: in a word, blood, murder, rape, robbery, oppression and injustice, prevailed everywhere; and man, like the wild bear in the forest, lived by prey, biting and devouring one another.

At this time Noah begins to preach a new doctrine to them; for as he had before been a preacher of righteousness, now he becomes a preacher of vengeance; first he tells them they shall be all overwhelmed with a deluge, that for their sins God repented they were made, and that he would destroy them all; adding, that to prevent the ruin of himself and family, he resolved to build him a ship to have recourse to when the water should come over the rest of the world.

What jesting, what scorn, what contempt, did this work expose the good old man to for above one hundred years? for so long the work was building, as ancient authors say. Let us represent to ourselves in the most lively manner how the witty world at that time behaved to poor old Noah; how they took their evening walks to see what he was doing, and passed their judgment upon it, and upon the progress of it; I say, to represent this to ourselves, we need go no farther than to our own witticisms upon religion, and upon the most solemn mysteries of divine worship; how we damn the serious for enthusiasts, think the grave mad, and the sober melancholy; call religion itself flatus and hypo; make the devout ignorant, the divine mercenary, and the whole scheme of divinity a frame of priestcraft: and thus no doubt the building an ark or boat, or whatever they called it, to float over the mountains, and dance over the plains, what could it be but a religious frenzy, and the man that so busied himself, a lunatic? and all this in an age when divine things came by immediate revelation into the minds of men! The Devil must therefore have made a strange conquest upon mankind to obliterate all the reverence which but a little before was so strangely impressed upon them concerning their Maker.

This was certainly the height of the Devil’s kingdom, and we shall never find him arrive to such a pitch again; he was then truly and literally the universal monarch, nay, the god of this world; and, as all tyrants do, he governs them with an arbitrary, absolute sway; and had not God thought fit to give him a writ of ejectment, and afterwards drown him out of possession, I know not what would have been the case; he might have kept his hold, for aught I know, till the seed of the woman came to bruise his head, that is to say, cripple his government, dethrone him, and depose his power, as has been fulfilled in the Messiah.

But as he was, I say, drowned out of the world, his kingdom for the present was at an end; at least, if he had a dominion, he had no subjects; and as the creation was in a manner renewed, so the Devil had all his work to do over again. Unhappy man! how has he, by his weak resistance, made the Devil’s recovering his hold too easy to him, and given him all the advantages, except as before excepted, which he had before? Now whither he retired in the mean time, and how he got footing again after Noah and his family were landed upon the new surface, that we come next to inquire.