3 books to know The Devil. Джон Мильтон

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      While Noah was thus employed, he was safe, the Devil himself could nowhere break in upon him; and we may suppose very reasonably, as he found the old father invulnerable, he left him for some years, watching notwithstanding all possible advantages against his sons, and their children; for now the family began to increase, and Noah’s sons had several children; whether himself had any more children after the flood or not, that we are not arrived to any certainty about.

      Among his sons the Devil found Japhet and Shem, good, pious, religious, and very devout persons; serving God daily, after the example of their good old father Noah; and he could make nothing of them, or of any of their posterity; but Ham, the second, or, according to some, the younger son of Noah, had a son, who was named Canaan, a loose young profligate fellow; his education was probably but cursory and superficial, his father Ham not being near so religious and serious a man as his brothers Shem and Japhet were; and, as Canaan’s education was defective, so he proved, as untaught youth generally do, a wild, and, in short, a very wicked fellow, and consequently a fit tool for the Devil to go to work with.

      Noah, a diligent industrious man, being with all his family thus planted in the rich fruitful plains of Armenia, or wherever you please, let it be near the mountains of Caucasus or Ararat, went immediately to work, cultivating and improving the soil, increasing his cattle and pastures, sowing corn, and among other things planted trees for food; and among the fruittrees he planted vines, of the grapes whereof he made, no doubt, as they still in the same country do make, most excellent wine, rich, luscious, strong, and pleasant.

      I cannot come into the notion of our critics, who, to excuse Noah from the guilt of what followed, or at least from the censure, tell us, he knew not the strength or the nature of wine; but that gathering the heavy clusters of the grapes, and their own weight crushing out their balmy juices into his hand, he tasted the tempting liquor; and that, the Devil assisting, he was charmed with the delicious fragrance, and tasted again and again, pressing it out into a bowl, or dish, that he might take a larger quantity; till at length the heady froth ascended, and seized his brain; he became intoxicate and drunk, not in the least imagining there was any such strength in the juice of that excellent fruit.

      But to make out this story, which is indeed very favorable for Noah, but in itself extremely ridiculous, you must necessarily fall into some absurdities, and beg the question most egregiously in some particular cases; which way of arguing will by no means support what is suggested; at first you must suppose there was no such thing as wine made before the deluge, and that nobody had been ever made drunk with the juice of the grape before Noah; which, I say, is begging the question in the grossest manner.

      If the contrary is true, as I see no reason to question; if, I say, it was true, that there was wine drank, and that men were or had been drunk with it before; they cannot then but suppose, that Noah, who was a wise, a great and good man, and a preacher of righteousness, both knew of it, and without doubt had, in his preaching against their crimes, preached against this among the rest, upbraided them with it, reproved them for it, and exhorted them against it.

      Again, it is highly probable they had grapes growing, and consequently wines made from them, in the antediluvian world: how else did Noah come by the vines which he planted? For we are to suppose, he could plant no trees or shrubs, but such as he found the roots of in the earth, and which no doubt had been there before in their highest perfection, and had con sequently grown up, and brought forth the same luscious fruit, before.

      Besides, as he found the roots of the vines, so he understood what they were, and what fruit they bore, or else it may be supposed also he would not have planted them; for he planted them for their fruit, as he did it in the provision he was making for his subsistence, and the subsistence of his family; and if he did not know what they were, he would not have set them; for he was not planting for diversion, but for profit.

      Upon the whole, it seems plain to me. he knew what he did, as well when he planted the vines, as when he pressed out the grapes; and also, when he drank the juice, that he knew it was wine, was strong, and would make him drunk, if he took enough of it. He knew that other men had been drunk with such liquor before the flood; and that he had reprehended them for it: and therefore it was not his ignorance, but the Devil took him at some advantage, when his appetite was eager, or he thirsty, and the liquor cooling and pleasant; and in short, as Eve said, the serpent be guiled her, and she did eat, so the Devil beguiled Noah, and he did drink; the temptation was too strong for Noah, not the wine; he knew well enough what he did, but, as the drunkards say to this day, it was so good he could not forbear it, and so he got drunk before be was aware; or, as our ordinary speech expresses it, he was overtaken with drink; and Mr. Pool, and other expositors, are partly of the same mind.

      No sooner was the poor old man conquered, and the wine had lightened his head, but it may be supposed he falls off from the chair or bench where he sat, and, tumbling backward, his clothes, which in those hot countries were only loose open robes, like the vests which the Armenians wear to this day, flying abroad y or the Devil so assisting on purpose to expose him, he lay there in a naked indecent posture not fit to be seen.

      In this juncture who should come by but young Canaan! say some; or, as others think, this young fellow first attacked him by way of kindness, and pretended affection; prompted his grandfather to drink, on pretence of the wine being good for him, and proper for the support of his old age; and subtly set upon him, drinking also with him; and so (his head being too strong for the old man’s) drank him down, and then, devil-like, triumphed over him; boasted of his conquest, insulted the body as it were dead, and un covered him on purpose to expose him; and, leaving him in that indecent posture, went and made sport with it to his father Ham, who in that part, wicked like himself, did the same to his brethren, Japhet and Shem; but they, like modest and good men, far from carrying on the wicked insult on their parent, went and covered him, as the Scripture expresses it, and, as may be supposed, informed him how he had been abused, and by whom.

      Why else should Noah, when he came to himself, show his resentment so much against Canaan his grandson, rather than against Ham his father; and whom it is supposed in the story the guilt chiefly lay upon? We see the curse is (as it were) laid wholly upon Canaan, the grandson, and not a word of the father is mentioned, Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27. “ Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be,” &c.

      That Ham was guilty that is certain from the history of fact; but I cannot but suppose his grandson was the occasion of it; and in this case the Devil seems to have made Canaan the instrument or tool to delude Noah, and draw him in to drunkenness, as he made the serpent the tool to beguile Eve. and draw her into disobedience.

      Possibly Canaan might do it without design at first, but might be brought in to ridicule, and make a jest of, the old patriarch afterward, as is too frequent since in the practice of our days; but I rather believe he did it really with a wicked design, and on purpose to ex pose and insult his reverend old parent; and this seems more like too, because of the great bitterness with which Noah resented it after he came to be in formed of it.

      But be that as it will, the Devil certainly made a great conquest here, and, as to outward appearance, no less than that which he gained before over Adam; nor did the Devil’s victory consist barely in his having drawn in the only righteous man of the whole antediluvian world, and so beginning or initiating the new young progeny with a crime; but here was the great oracle silenced at once; the preacher of righteousness, for such no doubt he would have been to the new world, as he was to the old, I say, the preacher was turned out of office, or his mouth stopt, which was worse; nay, it was a stopping of his mouth in the worst kind, far worse than stopping his breath; for had he died, the office had descended to his sons Shem and Japhet; but he was dead to the office of an in structor, though alive as to his being: for of what force could his preachings be, who had thus fallen himself into the most shameful and beastly excess?

      Besides, some СКАЧАТЬ