Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting, safe arrive. This my long sufferance and my day of grace,1 They who neglect and scorn shall never taste; But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, 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 feälty, and sins Against the high supremacy of Heaven, Affecting godhead, and so losing all, To expiate his treason hath nought left, But to destruction sacred and devote, He with his whole posterity must die. Die he or justice must; unless for him Some other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction-death for death. 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? Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?"
He asked; but all the heavenly quire stood mute, And silence was in Heaven: on man's behalf Patron or intercessor none appeared,
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, adjudged to death and Hell By doom severe, had not the Son of God, In whom the fullness dwells of love divine, His dearest mediation thus renewed:
"Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace; And shall grace not find means, that finds her way, The speediest of thy wingéd messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented,2 unimplored, unsought?
1 It is a great pity that our author should have thus debased the dignity of the Deity by putting in his mouth this horrid doctrine of a day of grace, after which it is not possible for a man to repent; and there can be no sort of excuse for him, except the candid reader will make some allowance for the prejudices which he might possibly receive from the gloomy divinity of that enthusiastic age in which he lived.-Thyer.
2 i.e. unanticipated, from prevenire, to come before. Cf. Ps. lxxxviii. 13. The word is commonly so used in our Articles and Liturgy.
Happy for man, so coming; he her aid Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost, Atonement for himself or offering meet, Indebted and undone, hath none to bring: Behold me then; me for him, life for life, I offer; on me let thine anger fall; Account me man; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage; Under his gloomy power I shall not long Lie vanquished; thou hast given me to possess Life in myself for ever; by thee I live,
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due All that of me can die; yet that debt paid, Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul For ever with corruption there to dwell;1 But I shall rise victorious, and subdue My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil; Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed.
I through the ample air in triumph high Shall lead Hell captive, maugre Hell, and show The powers of darkness bound. Thou at the sight Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile, While by thee raised I ruin all my foes, Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave Then with the multitude of my redeemed Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return, Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud Of anger shall remain, but peace assured And reconcilement; wrath shall be no more Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.”
His words here ended, but his meek aspéct Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love To mortal men, above which only shone Filial obedience; as a sacrifice
Glad to be offered,2 he attends the will
Of his great Father. Admiration seized
All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend, Wondering; but soon the Almighty thus replied:
1 Cf. Ps. xvi. 10, Acts ii. 20, sq. 2 Alluding to P's. xl. 6.
"O thou, in Heaven and earth the only peace Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou My soul complacence! well thou know'st how dear To me are all my works, nor man the least, Though last created; that for him I spare Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save, By losing thee awhile, the whole race lost. Thou therefore, whom thou only canst redeem, Their nature also to thy nature join; And be thyself man among men on earth, Made Hesh, when time shall he, of virgin se d, By wondrous birth: be thou in Adam's room The head of all mankind, though Adam's son As in him perish all men, so in thee, As from a second root, shall be restored As many as are restored, without thee none. His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit Imputed shall absolve them who renounce Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds, And live in thee transplanted, and from thee Receive new life. So man, as is most just, Shall satisfy for man, be judged and die, And dying rise, and rising with him raise His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life. So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate, Giving to death, and dying to redeem,1 So dearly to redeem what hellish hate So easily destroyed, and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume Man's nature, lessen or degrade thine own.
The love of the Father in giving the Son to death, and the love of the Son in submitting to it and dying to redeem mankind. Mr. Warburton thus explains it :-"Milton's system of divinity taught," says he, "not only that man was redeemed, but likewise that a real price was paid for his redemption; 'dying to redeem,' therefore, signifying only redemption in a vague uncertain sense, but imperfectly represents his system; so imperfectly that it may as well be called the Socinian; the price paid (which implies a proper redemption) is wanting. But to pay a price implying a voluntary act, the poet therefore well expresses it by giving to death;' that is, giving himself to death; so that the sense of the line fully expresses Milton's notion, 'Heavenly love gave a price for the redemption of mankind, and by vutue of that price really redeemed them."-Newton.
Because thou hast, though throned on highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition, quitted all to save
A world from utter loss, and hast been found By merit more than birthright Son of God, Found worthiest to be so by being good, Far more than great or high; because in thee Love hath abounded more than glory abounds, Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt
With thee thy manhood also to this throne; Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man, Anointed universal King; all power
I give thee; reign for ever, and assume Thy merits; under thee as head supreme Thrones, princedoms, powers, dominions I reduce: All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide In Heaven, or earth, or under earth in Hell. When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven, Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send The summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds The living, and forthwith the cited dead Of all past ages, to the general doom
Shall hasten, such a peal shall rouse their sleep. Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge Bad men and angels; they arraigned shall sink Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full, Thenceforth shall be for ever shut. Meanwhile The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring New Heaven and earth, wherein the just shall dwell, And after all their tribulations long
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds, With joy and love triumphing, and fair truth. Then thou thy regal sceptre shalt lay by, For regal sceptre then no more shall need; God shall be all in all. But, all ye gods,1 Adore him, who to compass all this dies; Adore the Son, and honour him as me."
No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of angels, with a shout
1 From Ps. xcvii., "Worship him, all ye gods," which St. Paul (Heb. i. 6) expresses by "all the angels of God."
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled The eternal regions: lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast1
Their crowns enwove with amarant and gold; Immortal amarant,2 a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven Rolls o'er3 Elysian flowers her amber stream; With these, that never fade, the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks enwreathed with beams Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone, Empurpled with celestial roses, smiled.1
Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side Like quivers hung, and with preämble sweet
2" Amarant," Aμaparros, Greek, for unfading, that decayeth not; a flower of a purple velvet colour, which, though gathered, keeps its beauty, and when all other flowers fade, recovers its lustre by being sprinkled with a little water, as Pliny affirms, lib. xxi., c. 11. Our author seems to have taken this hint from 1 Pet. i. 4, "To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," apaρavτov; and 1 Pet. v. 4, "Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away," auapavTivov, both relating to the name of his everlasting amarant," which he has finely set near the tree of life. tus flos, symbolum est immortalitatis."-Clem. Alexand.
3 We frequently see grass, and weeds, and flowers, growing under water; and we may therefore suppose the finest flowers to grow at the bottom of the "river of bliss," or rather the river to "roll over" them sometimes, to water them. The author seems to intend much the same thing that he has expressed in iv. 240, where, speaking of the brooks in Paradise, he says, they
"Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise."
And as there they are flowers "worthy of Paradise," so here they are worthy of "Elysium," the region of the blessed.-Newton.
Cf. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 7, 16:—
"Whose sides impurpled were with smiling red."
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