By vifion, found thee in the temple', and fpake Like things of thee to all that present stood. The law and prophets, fearching what was writ 260 Known partly, and foon found of whom they fpake I am; this chiefly, that my way must lie 265 Yet neither thus difhearten'd or dismay'd, The time prefix'd I waited, when behold The Baptift (of whofe birth I oft had heard, 270 Not knew by fight) now come, who was to come Before Meffiah and his way prepare. I as all others to his baptifm came, Which I believ'd was from above; but he Strait knew me, and with loudest voice proclam'd As much his greater, and was hardly won: ; manner of intimacy or acquaintance with each other. John the Baptift fays expressly John I. 31, 33. And I knew him not; and he did not fo much as know him by fight, till our Saviour came to his baptifm and afterwards it doth not appear that they ever converfed together. And it was wifely ordered fo by Providence, that the teftimony of John might have the greater weight, and be freer from all fufpicion of any compact or collufion between them. 278. Refus'd on me his baptifm to confer, As much his greater,] Here Milton uses the word greater in the 280 Heav'n fame manner as he had done before, Parad. Loft. V. 172. Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and foul, Acknowledge him thy greater. And this, I think, is a proof that the prefent reading there is right, and that both Dr. Bentley's emendation and mine ought abfolutely to be rejected. Thyer. 280.- out of the laving fream,] Alluding, I fancy, to the phrafe laver of regeneration fo frequently applied to baptifm. It may be observed in general of this foliloquy of our Saviour, that it is not only excellently well adapted to the pre fent Heav'n open'd her eternal doors, from whence 285 fent condition of the divine fpeaker, but also very artfully introduc'd by the poet to give us a hiftory of his hero from his birth to the very fcene with which the poem is open'd. Thyer. 281. eternal doors] So in Pfal. XXIV. 7, 9. everlasting doors. 286. the time Now full,] Alluding to the Scripture phrafe, the fulness of time. When the fulness of time was come &c Gal. IV. 4. 293. For what concerns my know ledge God reveals. ] Jefus was led by an inward impulfe to retire into the defert: and he obey'd the motion, without knowing the purpose of it, for that was not reveal'd to him by God. The whole foliloquy is form'd upon an opinion,which hath authorities enough to give it credit, viz. that Chrift was not, by virtue of the personal union of the two natures, and from the first moment of that union, pof Th' authority fefs'd of all the knowledge of the Th' authority which I deriv'd from Heaven. I learn not yet, perhaps I need not know impie poffe exponi hunc in mo- 290 295 The ons,ut videtur,] TOIDUTA NAT2 EXCI- 800 DEOTHS QTenaλvfe. Non eft Dei Verbi ignorantia, fed Formæ Servi, quæ tanta per illud tem→ pus fciebat, quanta Deitas inhabi-' tans revelabat. Repreh. Anath. quarti Cyrilli, Tom. 4. P. 713. If fome things might be fuppos'd unknown to Chrift, without prejudice to the union, being not reveal'd to him by the united Word, it will follow that, till fome certain time, even the union itself might be unknown to him. This time feems to have been, in Milton's scheme, after the foliloquy; but before the forty days of fafting were ended, and the Demon enter'd upon the fcene of action: and then was a fit occafion to give him a feeling of his own ftrength, when he was juft upon the point of being attack'd by fuch an Adverfary. Calton. 294. So fpake our Morning Star] So our Saviour is called in the Revelation XXII. 16. the bright and 1 The way he came not having mark'd, return Was difficult, by human steps untrod; And he still on was led, but with fuch thoughts Lodg'd in his breast, as well might recommend Full forty days he pass'd, whether on hill Sometimes, anon in fhady vale, each night, Under the covert of some ancient oak, 3 Or cedar, to defend him from the dew, |