Note 61 — PART II.
Reading edition
In this Connection it may be interesting to have the Views of Dr. Increase Mather respecting the Attributes of the Devil.
"There were many of them [the Devils Angels] that were concerned in that first Transgression and Rebellion against the Lord. It is said, Ephes. 2. 3. That the Devil is the Prince of the Power of the Air. So that there is a Power, an Host, a vast Army of those Evil Spirits, that did joyn with the Devil, in setting themselves against the Great God. How many, is not for us to say, the Written Word of God not speaking anything as to the Quantity of their Number; only it is manifest from the Scripture, that there are far more Angels that have sinned, far more Devils than there are Men in all the World. There is not a Man in the whole World but there are Devils to tempt him continually. And if so, they must needs be more in Number than Men are. We read in the Gospel of no less than a Legion of Devils in one poor miserable Man. Luk. 8, 30. You read there of a possesed Man, and Christ demanded of the Evil Spirit what his Name was: The chief Devil among them made Answer, It is Legion for we are many. A Legion is six Thousand six Hundred and Sixty-six. Now then, if the Devil has such vast Numbers of Infernal Spirits under him; if he has such Troops of them, as that he can spare no less than a Legion to afflict, and as it were to keep Garrison in one poor miserable Man: what prodigious Numbers of Evil Angels must there needs be."—Angelographia, 111-112. See also The Devil Discovered, Vol. I, 217-247.