God sitting on his Throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shows him to the Son, who sat at his right hand; foretels the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free, and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man: but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man, without the satisfaction of divine justice; Man hath offended the majesty of God, by aspiring to Godhead; and therefore, with all his progeny, devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him: they obey, and, hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while, Satan alights, upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wandering, he first finds a place, since called the Limbo of Vanity: what persons and things fly up thither: thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his passage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel; and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed: alights first on Mount Niphates.
HAIL, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born ; Or, of the Eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert; and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters, dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool; though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn; while, in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes, than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught, by the heavenly muse, to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill
Smit with the love of sacred song: but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet and warbling flow
Nightly I visit. Nor, sometimes, forget
Those other two, equall'd with me in fate
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides;
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine:
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased;
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see, and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean, where he sits
High throned, above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works, and their works, at once to view.
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance: on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden placed,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love;
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall'd love,
In blissful solitude. He then survey'd
Hell, and the gulf between, and Satan there,
Coasting the wall of Heaven, on this side Night,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now
To stoop, with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosomed, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding, from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds;
Thus to his only Son, foreseeing, spake.
"Only begotten Son! seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary? whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss,
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head
And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light
Directly towards the new created world,
And man there placed; with purpose to essay,
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert:
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience; so will fall
He and his faithless progeny.-Whose fault?
Whose, but his own? Ingrate! he had of me,
All he could have: I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal powers [fail'd;
And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appear'd,
Not what they would? what praise could they re-
What pleasure I from such obedience paid, [ceive?
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me? They, therefore, as to right belong'd
So were created; nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-ruled
Their will, disposed by absolute decree,
Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain, unforeknown.
So, without least impulse, or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass; authors to themselves in all,
Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
form'd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthral themselves: I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd
Their freedom: they themselves ordain'd their fall.
The first sort, by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved. Man falls, deceived
By the other first; man therefore shall find grace,
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