A city' and tower, whose top may reach to Heav'n; And get themselves a name, lest far dispers'd In foreign lands their memory be lost, Regardless whether good or evil fame. But God, who oft descends to visit men Unseen, and through their habitations walks To mark their doings, them beholding soon, Comes down to see their city, ere the tower Obstruct Heav'n-towers, and in derision sets Upon their tongues a various spi'rit to rase Quite out their native language, and instead To sow a jangling noise of words unknown: Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud Among the builders; each to other calls Not understood, till hoarse, and all in rage, As mock'd they storm; great laughter was in Heav'n And looking down, to see the hubbub strange And hear the din; thus was the building left Ridiculous, and the work Confusion nam'd.
Whereto thus Adam fatherly displeas'd: O execrable son so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurp'd, from God not given: He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord, such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free. But this usurper his encroachment proud Stays not on man; to God his tow'r intends
Siege and defiance: wretched man! what food Will he convey up thither to sustain Himself and his rash army, where thin air Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross, And famish him of breath, if not of bread? To whom thus Michael: Justly thou abhorr'st That son, who on the quiet state of man Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue Rational liberty; yet know withal, Since thy original lapse, true liberty.. Is lost, which always with right reason dwells Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being: Reason in man obscur'd, or not obey'd,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government From reason, and to servitude reduce
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Man till then free. Therefore since he permits 90 Within himself unworthy powers to reign Over free reason, God in judgment just: Subjects him from without to viclent lords; Who oft as undeservedly inthral His outward freedom; tyranny must be, Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse. Yet sometimes nations will decline so low From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong, But justice, and some fatal curse annex'd Deprives them of their outward liberty, Their inward lost: witness th' irreverent son Of him who built the ark, who for the shame Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race. Thus will this latter, as the former world, Still tend from bad to worse, till God at last Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw His presence from among them, and avert His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth To leave them to their own polluted ways; And one peculiar nation to select
From all the rest, of whom to be invok'd, A nation from one faithful man to spring: Him on this side Euphrates yet residing, Bred up in idol-worship; O that man (Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown, While yet the Patriarch liv'd, who scap'd the flood, As to forsake the living God, and fall To worship their own work in wood and stone For Gods! yet him God the Most High vouchsafes To call by vision from his father's house, His kindred and false gods, into a land Which he will shew him, and from him will raise A mighty nation, and upon him shower His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest; he straight obeys, Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes: I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldæa, passing now the ford To Haran, after him a cumbrous train Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude; Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him, in a land unknown. Canaan he now attains; I see his tents Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighb'ring plain Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,
From Hamath northward to the desert south, (Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd) From Hermon east to the great western sea; Mount Hermon, yonder sea, each place behold In prospect, as I point them; on the shore Mount Carmel; here the double-founted stream Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.
This ponder, that all nations of the earth - Shall in his seed be blessed; by that seed
Is meant thy great deliverer, who shall bruise The serpent's head; whereof to thee anon Plainlier shall be reveal'd. This patriarch blest, Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call, A son, and of his son a grand-child leaves, Like him in faith, in wisdom and renown; The grand-child with twelve sons increas'd departs From Canaan, to a land hereafter call'd Egypt, divided by the river Nile;
See where it flows, disgorging at sev'n mouths Into the sea: to sojourn in that land
He comes invited by a younger son
In time of dearth, a son whose worthy deeds Raise him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh: there he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests [slaves Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them
Inhospitably', and kills their infant males: Till by two brethren (those two brethren call Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from inthralment, they return With glory' and spoil back to their promis'd land.
But first the lawless tyrant, who denies To know their God, or message to regard, Must be compell'd by signs and judgments dire; To blood unshed the rivers must be turn'd; Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill With loath'd intrusion, and fill the land; His cattle must of rot and murren die; Botches and blains must all his flesh imboss, And all his people; thunder mix'd with hail, Hail mix'd with fire, must rend th' Egyptian sky, And wheel on th' earth, devouring where it rolls; What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain, A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green; Darkness must overshadow all his bounds, Palpable darkness, and blot out three days; Last with one midnight stroke all the first-born Of Egypt must lie dead. Thus with ten wounds 190 The river-dragon mam'd at length submits To let his soicurners depart, and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart, but still as ice
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