261

"Father! Thy word is past, man shall find grace : "And shall grace not find means, that finds her way "The speediest of thy winged messengers

"To visit all thy creatures; and to all

"Comes unprevented,1 unimplored, unsought?
Happy for man, so coming! He her aid

66

"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; 2 I for his sake will leave
"Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee

66

Freely put off, and for him lastly die

"Well pleas'd: on me let Death wreak all his rage;
"Under his gloomy power I shall not long

66

Lie vanquish'd: thou hast given me to possess "Life in myself for ever: by thee I live,

66

3

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
66 His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
"For ever with corruption there to dwell:

"But I shall rise victorious, and subdue.

66

My vanquisher spoil'd of his vaunted spoil :

5

"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
"Pleas'd, out of heaven shalt look down, and smile,

66

While, by thee rais'd, 1 ruin all my foes—
"Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave:
"Then, with the multitude of my redeem'd,
"Shall enter heaven, long absent, and return,

7

1 Unanticipated. Milton, on Scriptural authority, uses the word prevent, and prevenient elsewhere, in the Latin sense of pravenio, to come before, to anticipate. "Grace unprevented," here, is grace not preceded by merit or supplication; but which does itself precede, as it is a free gift. See 2 Tim. i. 9; Psalm lxxxviii. 13.--(Rich.)

2 The frequent and earnest repetition of "me" here is very much like that in Virg. En. ix. 427.

3 So John v. 26.

Me, me: adsum qui feci, in me convcrtlle ferrum.". . . .
Figite me, si qua est niotas, In me omnia tela

Conjicite, 0 Rutuli; me primum absumlte ferro."—(N.)

So Psalm xvi. i0: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thy Holy One to seo corruption." applied by St. Peter, (Acts ii. 20,) to our Saviour's resurrection.—(N.) "0 death! where is thy sting? 0 grave! where is thy victory?" i Cor. xv. 55 6"Maugre," in despite of. See Psalm lxviii. 18.—(N.)

7 1 Cor. xv. 26.-(N.)

296

"Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud
"Of anger shall remain, but peace assur'd
"And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more
"Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire."1
His words here ended, but his meek aspect
Silent yet spake,2 and breath'd immortal love
To mortal men; above which only shone
Filial obedience: as a sacrifice

Glad to be offer'd, he attends the will

All heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend,
Wondering; but soon the Almighty thus replied.

O thou,

"0 thou, in heaven and earth the only peace
"Found out for mankind under wrath!
"My sole complacence! well thou knowest how dear
"To me are all my works, nor man the least,

66

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

4

n;

"And be thyself man among men on earth,
"Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed,

66

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, 6
"As from a second root, shall be restor'd
"As many as are restor'd; 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,

8

"Shall satisfy for man, be judg'd and die;

"And dying rise, and rising with him raise

i So Psalm ivi. 11.

.-(?'.)

This passage has been frequently quoted as an instance of the power and accuracy with which Milton sustains the character of his personages. The goodness and mildness of Christ are here admirably portrayed.

a An allusion to Psalm xl. 6 and the following verses.—(N.)

I. e. The nature of them whom thou only canst redeem.

5 "Time" here is used in the occasional case of temput, xxipos, a proper occasion, or 111 time, in opposition to diet, length of time, or xpovof.

« I Cor. xv. 22.-(N.)

1 "Imputed," t. e. ascribed to them. This passage is quoted by Johnson as an illustration of one definition of impute—" to reckon to one what does not properly belong to him."

» Milton here, as elsewhere, when speaking the doctrines of Christianity, adopts the style of St. Paul.—(N.)

331

"His brethren, ransom'd with hjs own dear life.
"So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,1
"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 thron'd in 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: 3 all power

3

"I give thee; reign for ever, and assume

"Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme,

66 Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce.
"All knees to thee shall bow,5 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

1 "Heavenly love," on the part or Father and Son, gave a price Tor the redemption of mankind, i. e. the death of the Son; and by virtue of that price, really redeemed them.— (Warb., N.) See Matt. xx. it.—(Gil.)

There are many passages in these speeches of the Father and Son, where the fall is spoken of as a thing past, (see 151, 181,) because all things, even future ones, are present to the Divine mind.—(P.)

8 Mat. xxviii. is.—(N.)

A phrase similar to that of Horace, iii. Od. xxx. 14.

"Sume superhiam quæsltam meritis."—(N.)

Here the speech begins to swell into a considerable degree of sublimity, which is quite consistent with the picture conveyed by the Scriptures or the Supreme Being.—(D.) See Philip, ii. 10; Matt. xxv. 30, etc:; 1 Thcss. iv. 16; Rev. xx. 11; xxi. 1; 1 Cor. xv. 51 ; 2 Pet. iii. 12; John v. 23 ; Psalm xcvii. 7; Hcb. i. 6.—(N.)

"Beneath thy sentence: Hell, her numbers full,
"Thenceforth shall be for ever shut.

66

Meanwhile

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
"New heaven and earth,1 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,

66

Adore him who, to compass all this, dies ;—
"Adore the Son, and honour him as me."-

No sooner had the Almighty ceas'd, but all
The multitude of angels,' with a shout
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.8 Lowly reverent

Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground,
With solemn adoration, down they cast

Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold—7
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 remov'd, where first it grew, there grows,

And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,

And where the river of bliss, through midst of heaven,

359

Bolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream:

•

I Millon often uses the well known Jewish phrase "heaven and earth," lo express Ihe whole creation.—(P.)

» Virg. Eel. iv. 9:

"Tolo surget gens aurea mundo."

3 The close of this divine colloquy, together with the hymn of angels that follows it, are mentioned by Addison and other critics as instances of the highest sublimity and of wonderful beauty, far superior to any thing of the kind in Homer or Virgil. Dunster justly remarks, that Millon still retained in the poem after he had moulded it into an epic, much of the dramatic form which at one time he intended entirely to have given it on the Grecian model—of this a chorus was a material part. For the choral parts, besides this passage, he says, we may refer to vi. 882; vii. 182, 565, 601; also to i. 666 ; x. 505. For the divine chorus singing their angelic hymns, see Isaiah vi. 3; Job xxxviii. 7. * Pearce says these words, down to "joy" inclusive, must be taken as the absolute case. Lord Monboddo, on ihe other hand, would supply the verb shouted or answered, to which "the multitude" is the subject.

« See Dante, Parad. xxviii. 94.—(O.)

6 So they are represented Rev. iv. 10.—(N.)

7 "Amarant," μxpavtos, unfading; a flower of a purple velvet colour, which, though gathered, keeps its kjauty, and recovers its lustre by being sprinkled with a little water. See Pliny, xxi. u : "Amaranlus flos symbolum est immortalitatis."—Clem. Alex. Milton seems to have taken this hint from l Pet. i. 4, "an inheritance that fadeth not away," ά; and 1 Pet. v. 4, "a crown of glory that fadeth not away," aμapxvTivov.—iH.) 8 We may suppose the finest flowers to grow at the bottom of the river of bliss, or ra

With these1 that never fade, the spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks, inwreath'd with beams;
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,8
Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.

Then, crown d again, their golden harps they took—'
Harps ever tun'd, 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—Immorlal^Infinite—

Eternal King! Thee, Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyself invisible

5

4

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt'st
Thron'd inaccessible, but when thou shad'st
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,6
Yet dazzle heaven, that brightest Seraphim

382 Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.7

thcr ihe river to roll over them sometimes to water them; much the same as iv. 240.— He calls it "amber stream" on account of its clearness. So Virg. Georg. iii. 522:—

--" Purior electro campum petit amnt*."—(N.)

1 "These" refers evidently to flowers: so thai any proposed emendation here is unnecessary, if not bad.

* Jasper is a precious stone of several colours, (sea-green predominating most,) and much esteemed; spoken of in Scripture for its brightness. See Rev. xxi. 11, 18; Exod. xxiv. io.—(H. D.) See Spenser, Fairy Queen, ll. xii. 62.—(T.)

8 In the preceding part of the description, the choral angels are palpably active persons of the drama, (see note on 314;) and we can scarcely avoid attributing a measure, i. e. a movement regulated by music, to their solemn adoration (361). Here the measure, I suppose, was intended to cease, and the heavenly chorus prepare to sing their epode or stationary song, i. e. their angelic hymn, to which Milton prefixes the "preamble sweet of charming symphony."—(D.)

How superior is this to the hymn to Hercules in Virgil, £n. viii.; which see.—(N.) * "But" here is the same as except, unless. Pearce refers by way of parallel to the following passage in Ovid, Met. ii. 40:—

-Clrcum caput omne micantes

Dcposuit radios, propiusque accedere jussit.".

Greenwood thinks these ideas were suggested by the 33d chapter of Exodus, ver. iS, etc., where Moses begs of the Almighty lo thow him his glory: "And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man sec me and live..... thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen."

6 See v. 599: Milton's idea is not only poetical in the highest degree, but strictly and philosophically just. Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all objects, so as in effect to resemble darkness. Thus are two ideas as opposite as can be imagined reconciled to the extremes of both; and both, in spite of this opposite nature, brought to concur in producing the sublime.--(Burke on the Sublime.) See Spenser, Hymn of Heavenly Beauty; Tasso, Gier. Liber, ix. 57.—(Th.)

7 "Approach not." So Ov. Mel. ii. 22: