High thron'd above all height, bent down his eye,1
His own works, and their works,8 at once in view.
About him all the sanctities of heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance; on his right

3

The radiant image of his glory sat,

His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love—
Uninterrupted joy—unrivall'd love,

In blissful solitude. He then survey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of heaven on this side night,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without firmament;"
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son, foreseeing, spake :

66

Only begotten Son! seest thou what rage "Transports our adversary? whom no bounds "Prescrib'd, no bars of hell, nor all the chains "Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss

6

"Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
"On desperate revenge, that shall redound

"Upon his own rebellious head.

And now,

"Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
"Not far off heaven, in the precincts of light,
"Directly towards the new-created world,
"And man there plac'd, with purpose to essay
"If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,

» " By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert :

i See Tasso, Ger. i. 7, for a similar piclure of Ihe Almighty's looking down from Heaven. (Th.) So Mn. i.: "Sic conslitit vertice cœli."

* I.e. the operations of the devils."—(N.)

He here alludes to the beatific vision, in which many divines suppose the happiness of the saints to consist in Heaven.—(Th.)

The universe appeared to Satan to be a solid globe encompassed on all sides, but whether with air or water he was uncertain, yet without any firmament, t. e. any sphero or fixed stars over it, as over the earth.—(N.)

« In this, and other speeches of God the Father, Milton has followed the doctrine of St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, etc. with great exactness, and has generally kept to their very expressions.—(S/i7.)

* "Interrupt." Adjective, "containing a chasm-"—(Johnson.) Used in the occasional tense of the Latin inlerruplus, broken through; as "murus interruptus," Cæsar. Bel. Gal. vii.; "interrupti pontes," Tacit. Hist.; "itinera inlerrupta," Tacit. Annal.

126

"For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
"And easily transgress the sole command,
"Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall,
"He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
"Whose but his own? Ingrate! he had of me
"All he could have; I made him just and right,
"Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
"Such 1 created all the ethereal Powers

"And spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail'd;' "Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

"Not free, what proof could they have given sincere

"Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,

"Where only what they needs must do appear'd,

"Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
"What pleasure I from such obedience paid;
"When will and reason (reason also is choice)8
"Useless and vain,--of freedom both despoil'd,—
"Made passive both,—had serv'd necessity,
"Not me? They therefore, as to right bclong'd,
"So were created; nor can justly accuse
"Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
"As if predestination over-rul'd

"Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree,

"Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed
"Their own revolt, not I: if3 I foreknew,
"Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
"Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
"So, without least impulse, or shadow of fate,
"Or aught by me immutably foreseen,*
"They trespass; authors to themselves in all,
"Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
"I form'd them, free; and free they must remain,
"Till they enthral themselves: I else must change
"Their nature, and revoke the high decree

* Both the anlitheton and the repetition in the next line show that the author gave it fell, not failed.—(B.)

2 When two or more things are proposed, it is the business of Reason to choose, i. e. determine speculatively, which is the best; as it is the business of Wisdom to determine practically. A mode of expression taken from Plato.—(Slil.)

* "If" here does not imply doubt or uncertainty, but is used, as it sometimes is in the best authors, in the sense of though.—(N.) So is si in Latin: Ter. Eun. I. i. 4, "Redeam? non, si me obsecret."

↳ Benlley says the two ideas here cannot unite; and proposed to read "immutably foredoomed." Pearce, agreeing in the objection, proposes immutable foreseen." Newton says "immutably foreseen" seems to mean, so foreseen as to be immutable. I think the present reading is defensible and right, "immutably" being metaphorically taken for, perpetually, constantly, steadily; immutabilis is sometimes used in this sense. (See Facciolati's Lexicon Omnis Latinilatis.) I think it quite wrong to propose emendaions, if Milton's own text be capable of explanation.

162

"Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd

"Their freedom: they themselves ordain'd their fall.
"The first sort by their own suggestion feel,

66

66

Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: man falls, deceiv'd

"By the other first: man therefore shall find grace, "The other none: in mercy and justice both,

66

Through heaven and earth, so shall my glory excel :
"But mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine."
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd.1

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious in him all his Father shone
Substantially express'd; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear'd,

2

Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake :

"0 Father! gracious was that word which clos'd
"Thy sovereign sentence, that man should find grace;
"For which both heaven and earth shall high extol
"Thy praises, with the innumerable sound

3

"Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Encompass'd shall resound thee ever blest.

66

"For should man finally be lost? should man,

66

4

Thy creature late so lov'd, thy youngest son,*
Fall, circumvented thus by fraud though join'd
"With his own folly? That be from thee far,
"That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
"Of all things made, and judgest only right.
"Or shall the adversary thus obtain

"His end, and frustrate thine? shall he fulfil
"His malice, and thy goodness bring to nought;
"Or proud return, though to his heavier doom,
"Yet with revenge accomplish'd, and to hell
"Draw after him the whole race of mankind

"By him corrupted? Or wilt thou thyself

i Homer and the ancient poets, consistently with their notions of the Supreme Being, when they represent the Deity speaking, describe a scene of terror and consternation: the heavens, seas, and earth tremble, etc. But Milton, consistently with the mild, benevolent idea of the Deity, upon the christian scheme, has, very judiciously, made the words of the Almighty diffuse fragrance and delight all round him. There is a passage in Ariosto, c. xxix. st. 30, in the same taste with this of Milton.—(Th.)

2 So Ueb. i. 3: "The brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person."—(H.)

» So i. 101: "innumerable force of spirits." In both these cases "innumerable" is to be joined to "spirits" and to "hymns."—(H.) Like "magna lerga boum."—Virg. Æn. This is a purely Homeric phrase: thuyetns, 'he child of old age, or the youngest born, is often mentioned by Homer as the peculiar object of parental affection and care.

187

"Abolish thy creation, and unmake

"For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
"So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
"Be question'd, and blasphem'd without defence."
To whom the great Creator thus replied:
"0 Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
"Son of my bosom, Son who art alone

My word, my wisdom, and effectual might!
"All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all
"As my eternal purpose hath decreed.

"Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will;
"Yet not of will in him, but grace in me
"Freely youchsaf'd : once more I will renew
"His lapsed powers, though forfeit, and enthrall'd
"By sin to foul exorbitant desires;

66

Upheld by mo, yet once more he shall stand "On even ground against his mortal foe;

66

By me upheld,' that he may know how frail
"His fall'n condition is, and to me owe
"All his deliv'rance, and to none but me.
"Some I have chosen of peculiar grace,*
"Elect above the rest; so is my will:

"The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn'd
"Their sinful state, and to appease betimes
"The incensed Deity, while offer'd grace

1 The arrangement or this speech is entirely Demosthenic: first a question is put hypothetically—the question on which the whole argument depends;—then this leading question is split, or diverges into a number of direct ones, all subsidiary to the first, (which are often to be taken, in the development of the argument, parenthetically, as here); and then at last the conclusion, as answer, comes moulded to the grammatical arrangement of the antecedent. It is so here: "should man be lost (150).... so should Hiy goodness be blasphemed."—The words "that be far from thee," etc. are an imitation of Gen. xviii. 25.

* "Who will," i. e. whoever wishes; "who" is here to be taken as the particular individual from the universal genus of won, according to the principles of logic and grammar. "Not of will," i. e. not in consequence of his own wish shall he be saved. » It was before (i78,) "upheld by me." The lurn of the words here is remarkable.—yV.) Our author thought, like some of the more moderate Calvinists, that some were elected by peculiar grace; the rest might be saved by complying with the conditions of the Gospel.—(N.)

6 This a classical syntax of a very unusual kind. Is is a principle laid down by [he Latin grammarians, that a verb governing in the active voice two cases, one being an accusative, governs still the accusative in the passive: accordingly, "state" must be the accusative or objective case after "warned." The conjunction copulative "and," in place of coupling, according to its strict use and meaning, a like case, mood, or tense, couples sometimes an accusative case with an inlinite mood; "slate" and "to appease" both depending on "warned." The following passage will be a sufficient classical authority, En. Vi. 620:—

—“justiliam monili, et non temnere dlros."

But strictly speaking, and utterly abandoning the subtleties of the grammarians, I may say that the accusative case, as in Greek, is governed by a preposition understood, (»ecundum, Xkt*): as such phrases are elliptical.

226

"Invites for I will clear their senses dark,
"What may suffice; and soften stony hearts
"To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.
"To prayer, repentance, and obedience due

Though but endeaveur'd with sincere intent,
"Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
"And I will place within them as a guide,

66

My umpire, conscience; whom if they will hear,
"Light after light, well us'd, they shall attain,
"And, to the end persisting, safe arrive.
"This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
"But hard be harden'd, blind be blinded more,1
"That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
"And none but such from mercy I exclude.
"But yet all is not done : man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins

66

Some other able, and as willing, pay

"The rigid satisfaction—death for death.

66

Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?
"Which of ye will be mortal, to redeem ·

"Man's mortal crime; and just, the unjust to save?3
"Dwells in all heaven charity so dear?"

He ask'd, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,1
And silence was in heaven; on man's behalf
Patron or intercessor none appear'd;

Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

And now, without redemption, all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg'd to death and hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,

Tn whom the fulness dwells of love divine,

His dearest mediation thus renew'd.

I "Seeing they may not sec, and hearing may not understand.—(John.)

s Sacred here is used in the sense that sacer sometimes is in Latin—accuried on earth, and therefore dedicated as a propitiatory offering to the divinity,

s See I Peter iii. 18.—{N.)

The phrase is quite Homeric.—

See Rev. viii 1.

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