hree thousand millions of Angels cut in pieces and wounded, yet
he allows them to give over the fight, and make a kind of retreat; so
making way for the compleat victory of the Son of GOD: Now this is all
invention, or at least, a borrow'd thought from the old Poets, and the
Fight of the _Giants_ against _Jupiter_, so nobly design'd by _Ovid_,
almost two thousand years ago; and there 'twas well enough; but whether
Poetic Fancy should be allow'd to fable upon _Heaven_, or no, and upon
the King of Heaven too, that I leave to the Sages.

By this expulsion of the _Devils_, it is allow'd by most Authors, they
are, _ipso facto_, stript of the Rectitude and Holiness of their Nature,
which was their Beauty and Perfection; and being ingulph'd in the abyss
of irrecoverable ruin, _'tis no matter where_, from that very time they
lost their Angelic beautiful Form, commenc'd ugly frightful Monsters and
_Devils_, and became evil doers, as well as evil Spirits; fill'd with a
horrid malignity and enmity against their Maker, and arm'd with a
hellish resolution to shew and exert it on all occasions; retaining
however their exalted spirituous Nature, and having a vast extensive
power of Action, all which they can exert in nothing else but doing
evil, for they are entirely divested of either Power or will to do good;
and even in doing evil, they are under restraints and limitations of a
superior Power, which it is their Torment, and, perhaps, a great part of
their Hell that they cannot break thro'.

CHAP. VI.

_What became of the_ Devil _and his Host of fallen Spirits after their
being expell'd from Heaven, and his wandring condition till the
Creation; with some more of Mr._ Milton's _absurdities on that
subject._

Having thus brought the _Devil_ and his innumerable Legions to the edge
of the Bottomless-pit, it remains, before I bring them to action, that
some enquiry should be made into the posture of their affairs
immediately after their precipitate Fall, and into the place of their
immediate Residence; for this will appear to be very necessary to
_Satan_'s History, and indeed, so as that without it, all the farther
account we have to give of him, will be inconsistent and imperfect.

And first, I take upon me to lay down some Fundamentals, which I believe
I shall be able to make out Historically, tho', perhaps, not so
Geographically as some have pretended to do.

1. That _Satan_ was not immediately, nor i