The subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. John baptizing at the river Jordan. Jesus coming there, is baptized; and is attested by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from Heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is present, flies up into the regions of the air; where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman destined to destroy all their power, and points out to them the necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting to counteract and defeat the person from whom they have so much to dread. This office he undertakes, and sets out on his enterprise. In the meantime, God, in the assembly of holy angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretells that the Tempter shall be completely defeated by him; upon which the Angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Saviour of mankind. He narrates, in a soliloquy, what d vine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother, Mary, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and informed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own reflections and inquiries had supplied, in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent attestation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty days, fasting, in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peasant, and enters into discourse with our Lord. Jesus replies. Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifest his divine power by changing some of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him, and, at the same time, tells him that he knows who he is. Satan avows himself, and offers an artful apology. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and confutes every part of his justification. Satan still endeavours to justify himself; and, professing his admiration of Jesus, and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his conversation; but is answered, that this must be as he shall find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night coming on in the desert. *The Arguments were written by Dunster, and first appeared in his edition of Paradise Regained, 1795. PARADISE REGAINED. I BOOK I. WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung By one man's disobedience lost, now sing Recovered Paradise to all mankind, By one man's firm obedience fully tried 5 Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed, And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness. Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite Into the desert, his victorious field 10 Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence And unrecorded left through many an age; Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried 20 Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked To the flood Jordan-came as then obscure, 25 Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore As to his worthier, and would have resigned To him his heavenly office. Nor was long His witness unconfirmed; on him baptized 30 Heaven opened, and in likeness of a dove The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. That heard the Adversary, who, roving still About the world, at that assembly famed 35 Would not be last, and, with the voice divine Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom Such high attest was given a while surveyed With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air 40 To council summons all his mighty peers, Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, A gloomy consistory; and then amidst, With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake : "O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World 45 (For much more willingly I mention Air, This our old conquest, than remember Hell, Our hated habitation), well ye know How many ages, as the years of men, This Universe we have possessed, and ruled, 50 In manner at our will the affairs of Earth, Since Adam and his facile consort Eve 55 Upon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven Delay, for longest time to Him is short; And now, too soon for us, the circling hours This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound 60 (At least, if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power To be infringed, our freedom and our being His birth to our just fear gave no small cause; Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear. I saw |