The speediest of thy winged messengers, To visit all thy creatures, and to all Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought; 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 vanquish'd; 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 9:
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoil'd of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop, Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarm'd.
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 carcase glut the Then, with the multitude of my redeem'd, 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 aspect
With corruption there to dwell.
Psalm xvi. 10. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither suffer thine Holy one to see corruption;" applied to our Saviour's resurrection by St. Peter, Acts ii. 20, 21.-NEWTON.
What a charming and lovely picture has Milton given us of God the Son, considered as our Saviour and Redeemer !-not in the least inferior in its way to that grander one in the sixth book, where he describes him clothed with majesty and terror, taking vengeance of his enemies. Before he represents him speaking, he makes "divine compassion, love without end, and grace without measure, visibly to appear in his face," v. 140; and, carrying on the same amiable picture, makes him end it with a countenance "breathing immortal love to mortal men.' Nothing could be better
Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love To mortal men, above which only shone
Filial obedience: as a sacrifice
Glad to be offer'd, 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: O thou, in heaven and earth the only peace Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou, My sole 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 flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed, 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, ransom'd with his own dear life. So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate Giving to death, and dying to redeem ; So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroy'd; 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,
Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition, quitted all to save
contrived to leave a deep impression upon the reader's mind; and I believe one may venture to assert, that no art or words could lift the imagination to a stronger idea of a good and benevolent being. The mute eloquence which our author has so prettily expressed in his "silent, yet spake," is with no less beauty described by Tasso, at the end of Armida's speech to Godfrey, c. iv. st. 65.
Ciò detto tace, e la risposta attende
Con atto, ch' en silentio hà voce, e preghi.-THYER.
See 1 Cor. xv. 22.-NEWTON.
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 supremet, 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 arraign'd 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, 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",
Under thee, as head supreme.
Here the speech begins to swell into a considerable degree of sublimity, and that of the purest and most perfect kind, in no way inconsistent with our most reverent ideas of the great Being who is the speaker, as he is portrayed to us in the Holy Scriptures.-DUNSTER.
At this expression of angelic praise, it may be proper to give Addison's remarks unbroken upon the amazing colloquy which they had heard. The critic commences at ver. 56, and ends with ver. 415.
The survey of the whole creation, v. 56, and of everything that is transacted in it, is a prospect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that in which Virgil has drawn Jupiter, as the christian idea of the Supreme Being is more rational and sublime than that of the heathens. The particular objects on which he is described to have cast his eye are represented in the most beautiful and lively manner.
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy; heaven rung With jubilee, and loud hosannas fill'd The eternal regions. Lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold;
Immortal amarant, 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'er Elysian flowers her amber stream; With these, that never fade, the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams; Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone, Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.
Then crown'd again their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side. Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet Of charming symphony they introduce Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part: such concord is in heaven.
Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent, Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King; thee, Authour of all being, Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt'st Throned inaccessible; but when thou shadest The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, Yet dazzle heaven; that brightest seraphim Approach not; but with both wings veil their eyes. Thee next they sang of all creation first,
Satan's approach to the confines of the creation is finely imaged in the beginning of the speech which immediately follows. The effects of this speech in the blessed spirits, and in the Divine Person to whom it was addressed, cannot but fill the mind of the reader with a secret pleasure and complacency.
I need not point out the beauty of the circumstance, wherein the whole host of angels are represented as standing mute; nor show how proper the occasion was to produce such a silence in heaven. The close of this divine colloquy, and the hymn of angels which follows upon it, are wonderfully beautiful and poetical.—ADDISON. ▾ Dark with excessive bright.
Gray has imitated this, speaking of Milton,
Blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance without cloud Made visible the Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold: on thee Impress'd the effulgence of his glory abides; Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests. He heaven of heavens and all the powers therein By thee created, and by thee threw down The aspiring dominations: thou that day Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare, Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels that shook Heaven's everlasting frame; while o'er the necks Thou drovest of warring angels, disarray'd. Back from pursuit thy powers with loud acclaim Thee only extoll'd, Son of thy Father's might, To execute fierce vengeance on his foes; Not so on man; him, through their malice fallen, Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom So strictly; but much more to pity incline. No sooner did thy dear and only son Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail man So strictly, but much more to pity inclined; He, to appease thy wrath, and end the strife Of mercy and justice in thy face discern'd, Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat Second to thee, offer'd himself to die For man's offence. O unexampled love,
Love no where to be found, less than Divine ! Hail, Son of God! Saviour of men! Thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth; and never shall my harp thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin.
Thus they in heaven, above the starry sphere, Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent. Meanwhile upon the firm opacous globe
Of this round world, whose first convex divides, The luminous inferiour orbs, inclosed From Chaos and the inroad of Darkness old; Satan alighted walks; a globe far off
It seem'dw, now seems a boundless continent,
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night Starless, exposed, and ever-threatening storms
Satan's walk upon the outside of the universe, which at a distance appeared to him of a globular form, but upon his nearer approach looked like an unbounded plain, is natural and noble; as his roaming upon the frontiers of the creation, between that mass of matter which was wrought into a world, and that shapeless unformed heap of materials which still lay in chaos and confusion, strikes the imagination with something astonishingly great and wild.-ADDISON.
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