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And get themselves a name; lest far dispers❜d
In foreign lands their memory be lost,
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tow'r
Obstruct Heav'n-tow'rs, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various sp'rit, to raze
Quite out their native language, and instead
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 in Heav'n,
And looking down to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din; thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion nam'd.
Whereto thus Adam fatherly displeas'd:

O execrable son, so to aspire

Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurp'd from God not giv❜n:
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 humaa free.
But this usurper his incroachment proud
Stays not on man; to God his tow'r 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 abhorr'st
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet known withal,

Since thy original lapse, true liberty

Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being:

Reason in man obscur'd, or not obey'd,
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 pow'rs 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 annex'd,
Deprives them of their outward liberty,
Their inward lost: witness th' 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 invok'd,
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 liv'd, who scap'd 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 inost High vouchsafes To call by vision from his father's house,

His kindred and false gods, into a land

Which he will show him, and from him will raise A mighty nation, and upon him show'r

His benediction so, that in his seed

All nations shall be bless'd; he straight obeys,

Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes.
I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford

To Haran, after him a cumb'rous traîn
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents

Pitch'd about sechem, and the neighb'ring plain
Of Moreh; théré by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,

From Hamath northward to the desart south,
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnam’d)
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 reveal'd. This patriarch bless'd,
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 increas❜d, departs
From Canaan, to a land hereafter call'd
Egypt, divided by the river Nile:

See where it flows, disgorging at sev'n 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

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Too numerous; whence of guests be makes them

Inhospitably, and kills their infant-males;
Till by two brethren (those two brethren call
Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from inthralment, they return
With glory and spoil back to their promis'd land.
But first the lawless tyrant, who denies

To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compell'd by signs and judgments dire;
To blood unshed the rivers must be turn'd;
Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill
With loath'd intrusion, and fill all the land;
His cattle must of rot and murrain die;
Botches and blains must all his flesh imboss,
And all his people; thunder mix'd with hail,
Hail mix'd with fire, must rend th' Egyptian sky,
And wheel on th' earth, devouring where it rolls;
What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain,
A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down
Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;
Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,
Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;
Last, with one midnight-stroke, all the first-born
Of Egypt must lie dead. Thus with ten wounds
The river dragon tam'd at length submits
To let his sojourners depart, and oft

Humbles his stubborn heart; but still as ice
More harden'd after thaw, till in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass
As on dry land between two crystal walls,
Aw'd by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided, till his rescu'd gain their shore;

Such wond'rous pow'r God to his saints will lend,
Though present in his Angel, who shall go
Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire,
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire,
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while th' obdurate king pursues:
All night he will pursue; but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch;
Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud

God looking forth will trouble all his host,

And craze their chariot-wheels; when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;

On their embattled ranks the waves return,
And overwhelm their war. The race elect,
Safe towards Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild desart, not the readiest way,
Lest ent'ring on the Canaanite alarm'd,
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, chusing rather
Inglorious life with servitude; for life

To noble and ignoble is more sweet
Untrain'd in arms, where rashness leads not on.
This also shall they gain by their delay

In the wide wilderness; there they shall found
Their government, and their great senate chuse
Through the twelve tribes, the rule of law ordain'd.
God from the mount of Sinai, whose grey top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpet's sound,
Ordain them laws; part such as appertain
To civil justice, part religious rites

Of sacrifice, informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destin'd seed to bruise
The serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind's deliverance. But the voice of God
To mortal ear is dreadful; they beseech
That Moses might report to them his will,
And terror cease; he grants what they besought,
Instructed that to God is no access

Without mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears, to introduce

One greater, of whose day he shall foretel,
And all the prophets in their age the times

Of

great Messiah shall sing. Thus laws and rites
Establish'd, such delight hath God in men
Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes
Among them to set up his tabernacle,
The holy One with mortal men to dwell.
By his prescript a santuary is fram'd

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