For ene mar. found so perfect and so just,
That God vouchsafes to raise another world
From him, and all his anger to forget.

This second source of men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgment past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,

But say, what mean those coloured streaks in Hea- With some regard to what is just and right

ven

Distended, as the brow of God appeased?
Or serve they as a flowery verge, to bind
The fluid skirts of that same watery cloud,
Lest it again dissolve, and shower the earth?"
To whom the archangel. "Dexterously thou
aim'st;

So willingly doth God remit his ire,
Though late repenting, him of man depraved;
Grieved at his heart, when looking down he saw
The whole earth filled with violence, and all flesh
Corrupting each their way; yet, those removed,
Such grace shall one just man find in his sight
That he relents not to blot out mankind;
And makes a covenant never to destroy
The earth again by flood; nor let the sea
Surpass his bounds; nor rain to drown the world,
With man therein or beast; but when he brings
Over the earth a cloud, will therein set
His triple-coloured bow, whereon to look,
And call to mind his covenant: day and night,
Seed time and harvest, heat and hoary frost,
Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things

Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace; Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop, Corn, wine, and oil; and from the herb or flock, Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid, With large wine offerings poured, and sacred feast, Shall spend their days in joys unblamed; and dwel: Long time in peace, by families and tribes, Under paternal rule; till one shall rise Of proud ambitious heart; who not content With fair equality, fraternal state, Will arrogate dominion undeserved Over his brethren, and quite dispossess Concord and law of nature from the earth; Hunting (and men, not beasts, shall be his game) With war and hostile snares such as refuse Subjection to his empire tyrannous: A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled Before the Lord; as, in despite of Heaven, Or from Heaven claiming second sovereignty; And from rebellion shall derive his name, Though of rebellion others he accuse. He with a crew whom like ambition joins With him or under him to tyrannize, Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find The plain wherein a black bituminous gurge Boils out from under ground, the mouth of hell: Of brick, and of that stuff they cast to build A city and tower, whose top may reach to Heaven, And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed In foreign lands, their memory be lost; Regardless whether good or evil fame. The angel Michael continues, from the flood, to relate what But God, who oft descends to visit men shall succeed; then in the mention of Abraham, comes by de- Unseen, and through their habitations walks grees to explain, who that seed of the woman shall be, which To mark their doings, them beholding soon, was promised Adam and Eve in the fall; his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension; the state of the church till Comes down to see their city, ere the tower his second coming. Adam, greatly satisfied and recomforted Obstruct Heaven's towers, and in derision sets by these relations and promises, descends the hill with Michael; Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase awakens Eve, who all this while had slept, but with gentle Quite out their native language; and, instead, dreams composed to quietness of mind and submission. Mi

new,

Both Heaven and earth, wherein the just shall dwell.

BOOK XII.

THE ARGUMENT.

chael in either hand leads them out of Paradise, the fiery sword waving behind them, and the cherubim taking their stations to guard the place.

As one, who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the archangel
paused

Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored,
f Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes.
"Thus thou hast seen one world begin and end;
And man, as from a second stock proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine
Must needs impair and weary human sense;
Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
Thou therefore give due audience and attend.

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
Heaven,

And looking down, to see the hubbub strange
And hear the din: thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work confusion named."

Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased
"O execrable son! so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurped, 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 tower 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

horr'st

That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty: yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty

ab

Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires

And upstart passions catch the government
From reason, and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgment just,
Subjects him from without to violent 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 annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty,
Their inward lost: witness the 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 invoked,
A nation from one faithful man to spring:
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,
Bred up in idol-worship; O, that men
(Canst thou believe ?) should be so stupid grown,
While yet the patriarch lived who 'scaped 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

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 wandering poor, but trusting all his wealto
With God, who called him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents
Pitched about Sechem, and the neighbouring 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 un
named;)

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 revealed. This patriarch brest
Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call,
A son, and of his son a grandchild leaves,
Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown;
The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, de-
parts

From Canaan, to a land hereafter called
Egypt, divided by the river Nile;

See where it flows, disgorging at seven 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
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them
slaves

Inhospitably, and kills their infant males:
Till by two brethren (these two brethren called
Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from inthralment, they return
With glory and spoil, back to their promised land
But first the lawless tyrant, who denies
To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compelled by signs and judgments dire;
To blood unshed the rivers must be turned;
Frogs, lice, and flies must all his palace fill
With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land;

Which he wit show him, and from him will raise His cattle must of rot and murrain die;

A mighty nation, and upon hin shower
His benediction so, that in his seed

All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys,
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:

Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss,
And all his people; thunder mixed with han,
Hail mixed with fire, must rend th' Egyptian sky
And wheel on th' earth, devouring where it rolls

As of a duel, or the local wounds
Of head or heel: nor therefore joins the Son
Manhood to Godhead, with more strength to foil
Thy enemy; nor so is overcome

Satan, whose fall from Heaven, a deadlier bruise,
Disabled, not to give thee thy death's wound:
Which he, who comes thy Saviour, shall recure,
Not by destroying Satan, but his works
In thee, and in thy seed: nor can this be,
But by fulfilling that which thou didst wart,
Obedience to the law of God imposed

The space of seventy years; then brings them On penalty of death, and suffering death,

Their lords, whom God disposed, the house of God! Both by obedience and by love, though love They first re-edify, and for a while

To save them, not their own, though legal, works.
For this he shall live hated, be blasphemed,
Siezed on by force, judged, and to death, con-
demned

A shameful and accursed, nailed to the cross
By his own nation; slain for bringing life;
But to the cross he nails thy enemies,
The law that is against thee, and the sins
Of all mankind, with him there crucified,
Never to hurt them more who rightly trust
In this his satisfaction; so he dies,
But soon revives; death over him no power
Shall long usurp; ere the third dawning light
Return, the stars of morn shall see him rise
Out of his grave, fresh as the dawning light
Thy ransom paid, which man from death redeems.
His death for man, as many as offered life
Neglect not, and the benefit embrace

By faith not void of works: this godlike act
Annuls thy doom, the death thou should'st have
died,

In sin for ever lost from life; this act

Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength,
Defeating sin and death, his two main arms,
And fix far deeper in his head their stings
Than temporal death shall bruise the victor's heel,
Or theirs whom he redeems; a death, like sleep,
A gentle wafting to immortal life.
Nor after resurrection shall he stay
Longer on earth than certain times to appear
To his disciples, men who in his life
Still followed him; to them shall leave in charge
To teach all nations what of him they learned
And his salvation; them who shall believe
Baptizing in the profluent stream, the sign
Of washing them from guilt of sin to life
Pure, and in mind prepared, if so befall,
For death, like that which the Redeemer died,
All nations they shall teach; for, from that day,
Not only to the sons of Abraham's loins
Salvation shall be preached, but to the sons
Of Abraham's faith, wherever through the world;
So in his sced all nations shall be blest.
Then to the Heaven of Heavens he shall ascend,
With victory, triumphing through the air
Over his foes and thine; there shall surprise
The serpent, prince of air, and drag in chains
Through all his realm, and there confounded leave;
Then enter into glory, and resume
His seat at God's right-hand, exalted high

Shall all be Paradise, far happier place
Than this of Eden, and far happier days."

So spake the archangel Michael; then paused,
As at the world's great period: and our sire,
Replete with joy and wonder, thus replied.

"O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Than that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkness! Full of doubt I stand,
Whether I should repent me now of sin
By me done and occasioned, or rejoice
Much more, that much more good thereof shall
spring,

To God more glory, more good will to men,
From God, and over wrath grace shall abound.
But say, if our Deliverer up to Heaven
Must reascend, what will betide the few
His faithful, left among the unfaithful herd,
The enemies of truth? who then shall guide
His people, who defend? will they not deal
Worse with his followers than with him they
dealt ?"

"Be sure they will," said the angel; "but from
Heaven

He to his own a Comforter will send,
The promise of the Father, who shall dwell
His spirit within them; and the law of faith,
Working through love, upon their hearts shall
write,

To guide them in all truth; and also arm
With spiritual armour, able to resist
Satan's assaults, and quench his fiery darts;
What man can do against them, not afraid,
Though to the death; against such cruelties
With inward consolations recompensed,
And oft supported so as shall amaze
Their proudest persecutors: for the Spirit,
Poured first on his apostles, whom he sends
To evangelize the nations, then on all
Baptized, shall them with wondrous gifts endue
To speak all tongues, and do all miracles,
As did their Lord before them. Thus they win
Great numbers of each nation to receive
With joy the tidings brought from Heaven: at
length

Their ministry performed, and race well run,
Their doctrine and their story written left,
They die; but in their room, as they forewarn,
Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolyes,

Above all names in Heaven; and thence shall Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven

come,

When this world's dissolution shall be ripe,

With glory and power to judge both quick and dead;

To judge the unfaithful dead, but to reward

His faithful, and receive them into bliss,

To their own vile advantages shall turn
Of lucre and ambition; and the truth
With superstitions and traditions taint
Left only in those written records pure,
Though not but by the Spirit understood.
Then shall they seek to avail themselves of name

Whether in Heaven or earth; for then the earth Places, and titles and with these to join