3 books to know The Devil. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ that the Devil should have such a numberless train of deputy devils to act under him; for it must be acknowledged he has a great deal of business upon his hands, a vast deal of work to do, abundance of public affairs under his direction, and an infinite variety of particular cases always before him. For example:

      How many governments in the world are wholly in his administration? How many divans and great councils under his direction? Nay, I believe, it would be hard to prove, that there is or has been one council of state in the world for many hundred years past, down to the year 1713, (we do not pretend to come nearer home,) where the Devil by himself, or his agents, in one shape or another, has not sat as a member, if not taken the chair.

      And though some learned authors may dispute this point with me, by giving some examples, where the councils of princes have been acted by a better hand, and where things have been carried against Satan’s interest, and even to his great mortification, it amounts to no more than this; namely, that in such cases the Devil has been outvoted; but it does not argue but he might have been present there, and have pushed his interest as far as he could, only that he had not the success he expected; for I don’t pretend to say that he has never been disappointed; but those examples are so rare, and of so small signification, that when I come to the particulars, as I shall do in the sequel of this history, you will find them hardly worth naming; and that, take it one time with another, the Devil has met with such a series of success in all his affairs, and has so seldom been balked; and where he has met with a little check in his politics, has, notwithstanding, so soon, and so easily recovered himself, regained his lost ground, or replaced himself in another country, when he has been supplanted in one, that his empire is far from being lessened in the world for the last thousand years of the Christian establishment.

      Suppose we take an observation from the beginning of Luther, or from the year 1420, and call the Reformation a blow to the Devil’s kingdom, which before that was come to such an height in Christendom, that it is a question not yet thoroughly decided, whether that medley of superstition and horrible heresies, that mass of enthusiasm and idols, called the Catholic hierarchy, was a church of God, or a church of the Devil; whether it was an assembly of saints, or a synagogue of Satan: I say, take that time to be the epoch of Satan’s declension, and of Lucifer’s falling from heaven, that is, from the top of his terrestrial glory; yet, whether he did not gain in the defection of the Greek church, about that time, and since, as much as he lost in the reformation of the Roman, is what authors are not yet agreed about, not reckoning what he has regained since of the ground which he had lost even by the reformation; namely, the countries of the Duke of Savoy’s dominion, where the reformation is almost eaten out by persecution; the whole Valtoline, and some adjacent countries; the whole kingdom of Poland, and almost all Hungary; for, since the last war, the reformation, as it were, lies gasping for breath, and expiring, in that country; also several large provinces in Germany, as Austria, Carinthia, and the whole kingdom of Bohemia, where the reformation once powerfully planted, received its death’s wound at. the battle of Prague, anno 1627, and languished but a very little while, died, and was buried, and good king Popery reigned in its stead.

      To these countries thus regained to Satan’s infernal empire, let us add his modern conquests, and the en croachments he has made upon the reformation in the present age, which are, however light we make of them, very considerable; namely, the Electorate of the Rhine, and the Palatinate, the one fallen to the House of Bavaria, and the other to that of Newburgrr, both popish; the Duchy of Deux Fonts fallen just now to a popish branch, the whole Electorate of Saxony fallen under the power of popish government by the apostasy of their princes, and more likely to follow the fate of Bohemia, whenever the diligent Devil can bring his new project in Poland to bear, as it is more than probable he will do some time or other.

      But to sum up the dull story; we must add, in the roll of the Devil’s conquests, the whole kingdom of France, where we have in one year seen, to the im mortal glory of the Devil’s politics, that his measures have prevailed to the total extirpation of the protestant churches without a war; and that interest, which for two hundred years had supported itself in spite of persecutions, massacres, five civil wars, and innumerable battles and slaughters, at last received its mortal wound from its own champion, Henry IV., and sunk into utter oblivion, by Satan’s most exquisite management, under the agency of his two prime ministers, Cardinal Richelieu, and Louis the XlVth. whom he entirely possessed.

      Thus far we have a melancholy view of the Devil’s new conquests, and the ground he has regained upon the reformation; in which his secret management has been so exquisite, and his politics so good, that could he but bring one thing to pass, which by his own former mistake (for the Devil is not infallible,) he has rendered impossible, he would bring the protestant interest so near its ruin, that heaven would be, as it were, put to the necessity of working by miracle to prevent it; the case is thus:

      Ancient historians tell us, and from good authority, that the Devil finding it for his interest to bring his favorite, Mahomet, upon the stage, and spread the victorious half-moon upon the ruin of the cross, having, with great success, raised first the Saracen empire, and then the Turkish, to such an height, as that the name of Christian seemed to be extirpated in those two quarters of the world, which were then not the greatest only, but by far the most powerful, I mean Asia and Africa; having totally laid waste all those ancient and flourishing churches of Africa, the labors of St.Cyprian, Tert Lillian, St. Augustine, and six hundred and seventy Christian bishops and fathers, who governed there at once; also all the churches of Smyrna, Philadelphia, Ephesus, Sardis, Antioch, Laodicea, and innumerable others in Pontus, Bithynia, and the provinces of the lesser Asia;

      The Devil having, I say, finished these conquests so much to his satisfaction, began to turn his eyes northward; and though he had a considerable interest in the Whore of Babylon, and had brought his power, by the subjection of the Roman hierarchy, to a great height, yet finding the interest of Mahomet most suitable to his devilish purposes, as most adapted to the destruction of mankind, and laying waste the world, he resolved to espouse the growing power of the Turk, and bring him in upon Europe like a deluge.

      In order to this, and to make way for an easy conquest, like a true devil, he worked under ground, and sapped the foundation of the Christian power, by sowing discord among the reigning princes of Europe; that so envying one another, they might be content to stand still and look on, while the Turk devoured them one by one, and, at last, might swallow them all up.

      This devilish policy took to his heart’s content; the Christian princes stood still, stupid, dozing and unconcerned, till the Turk conquered Thrace, overrun Servia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and all the remains of the Grecian empire, and last the imperial city of Constantinople itself.

      Finding this politic method so well answer his ends, the Devil, who always improves upon the success of his own experiments, resolved, from that time, to lay a foundation for the making those divisions and jealousies of the Christian princes immortal; whereas they were at first only personal, and founded in private quarrels between the princes respectively; such as emulation of one another’s glory, envy at the extraordinary valor, or other merit, of this or that leader, or revenge of some little affront; for which, notwithstanding, so great was the piety of Christian princes in those days, that they made no scruple to sacrifice whole armies, yea, nations, to their piques, and private quarrels; a certain sign whose management they were under.

      These being the causes by which the Devil first sowed the seeds of mischief among them, and the success so well answering his design, he could not but wish to have the same advantage always ready at his hand; and therefore he resolved to order it so, that these divisions, which, however useful to him, were only personal, and consequently temporary, like an annual in the garden, which must be raised anew every season, might for the future be rational, and consequently durable and immortal.

      To this end it was necessary to lay the foundation of eternal feud, not in the humors and passions of men only, but in the interests of nations. The way to do this was to form and state the dominion of those Princes, by such a plan drawn СКАЧАТЬ