thing call'd
Man, who _Satan_ saw so much reason to hate, as being created to succeed
him in Happiness in _Heaven_.

Satan found him placed out of his Power to hurt, or out of his Reach to
touch; and here, by the way, appears the second Conquest of _Heaven_
over the _Devil_; that having plac'd his Rival, as it were, just before
his Face, and shew'd the hateful sight to him, he saw written upon his
Image, _Touch him if you dare_.

It cannot be doubted, but, had it not been thus, Man is so far from
being a Match for the _Devil_, that one of Satan's least Imps or
_Angels_ could destroy all the Race of them in the World, ay World and
all in a moment;

As he is Prince of the Power of the Air, taking the Air for _the
Elementary World_, how easily could he, at one Blast, sweep all the
Surface of the Earth into the Sea, or drive weighty immense Surges of
the Ocean over the whole Plane of the Earth, and deluge the Globe at
once with a Storm? Or how easily could he, who, by the Situation of the
Empire, must be supposed able to manage the Clouds, draw them up, in
such Position as should naturally produce Thunders and Lightnings, cause
those Lightnings to blast the Earth, dash in Pieces all the Buildings,
burn all the populous Towns and Cities, and lay wast the World;

At the same time he might command suited Quantities of sublimated Air to
burst out of the Bowels of the Earth, and overwhelm and swallow up, in
the opening Chasms, all the Inhabitants of the Globe?

In a Word, _Satan_ left to himself as a Devil, and to the Power, which
by virtue of his Seraphic Original he must be vested with, was able to
have made Devilish Work in the World, if by a superior Power he was not
restrain'd.

But there is no doubt, _at least to me_, but that with his fall from
Heaven, as he lost the Rectitude and Glory of his Angelic Nature, I mean
his Innocence, so he lost the Power too that he had before; and that
when he first commenc'd Devil, he received the Chains of Restraint too,
as the Badge of his Apostacy, _viz._ a general Prohibition, to do any
thing to the Prejudice of this Creation, or to act any thing by Force or
Violence without special Permission.

This Prohibition was not sent him by a Messenger, or by an Order in
Writing, or proclaimed from Heaven by a Law; but _Satan_, by a strange,
invisible and unaccountable Impression felt the Restraint within him;
and at the same time that his moral Capacity was not taken away, yet his
Pow