All Mr. _Milton_'s Scheme of _Satan_'s future Conduct, and all the Scripture Expressions about _the Devil_ and his numerous Attendants, and of his actings since that time, make it not reasonable to suggest that the _Devils_ were confin'd to their eternal Prison, at their Expulsion out of _Heaven_; But that they were in a State of Liberty to act, tho' limited in acting, of which I shall also speak in its place.
_Of the Number of Satan's Host; how they came first to know of the new created Worlds, now in being, and their Measures with Mankind upon the Discovery._
Several things have been suggested to set us a calculating the number of this frightful throng of _Devils_, who with Satan, the _Master-Devil_, was thus cast out of _Heaven_; I cannot say, I am so much Master of Political Arithmetick as to cast up the Number of the Beast, no, nor the Number of the Beasts _or Devils_, who make up this Throng. St. _Francis_, they tell us, or some other Saint, they do not say who, ask'd the _Devil_ once, how strong he was? for St. _Francis_, you must know, was very familiar with him; _The Devil_, it seems, did not tell him, but presently raised a great Cloud of Dust, by the help, I suppose, of a Gust of Wind, and bid that Saint count it; He was, I suppose, a Calculator, that would be call'd grave, who dividing _Satan_'s Troops into three Lines, cast up the Number of the _Devils_ of all sorts in each Battalia, at ten hundred times a hundred thousand millions of the first Line, fifty millions of times as many in the second Line, and three hundred thousand times as many as both in the third Line.
The Impertinence of this account would hardly have given it a place here, only to hint that it has always been the Opinion, that _Satan_'s Name may well be call'd a Noun of Multitude, and that _the Devil_ and his _Angels_ are certainly no inconsiderable Number: It was a smart Repartee that a _Venetian_ Nobleman made to a Priest who rallied him upon his refusing to give something to the Church, which the Priest demanded for the delivering him from Purgatory; when the Priest asking him, _if he knew what an innumerable Number of_ Devils _there were to take him_? he answer'd, _yes, he knew how many_ Devils _there were in all_: _How many?_ says the Priest, his curiosity, I suppose, being rais'd by the novelty of the answer. _Why ten millions five hundred and eleven thousand, six hundred and seventy five Devils and a half_, says the Nobleman: _A half!_ says the Priest, _pray what kind of a Devil is that? your self_, says the Nobleman, _for you are half a Devil already (and will be a whole one when you come there) for you are for deluding all you deal with, and bringing us Soul and Body into your Hands, that you may be paid for letting us go again_. So much for their Number.