amparts to thee no happiness, no Joy, Rather inflames thy torment: representing Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable, So never more in hell than when in heaven,... But thou art serviceable to heaven's King. Wilt thou impute to obedience why thy fear Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites?> What but thy malice mov'd thee to misdeem Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict himet With all inflictions? but his patience won.
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The other service was by chosen task, To be a liar in four hundred mouths; For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. qu Yet thou pretend'st to truth; all oracles By thee are given, and what confess'd more trus Among the nations? that hath been thy craft, By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies, But what have been thy answers? what but dark Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding, s Which they who ask'd have seldom understoxi, 1 And, not well understood, as good not known. P Who ever by consulting at thy shrineq Return'd the wiser, or the more instruct, To fly or follow what concern'd him most, And run not sooner to his fatal snare? For God hath justly given the nations up To thy delusions; justly, since they fell Idolatrous: but when his purpose is Among them to declare his providence.. [truth To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy But from him, or his angels president... In every province, who, themselves disdaining To approach thy temples, give thee in command What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear, Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st: Then to thyself ascribest the truth foretold But this thy glory shall be soon retrench'd No more shalt thou by oracling abused
The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are cead'd, And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice Shalt be inquir'd at Delphos, or elsewhere ; At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. God hath now sent his living oracle Into the world to teach his final wilnef And sends his Spirit of truth henceforth to dwell n pious hearts, an inward oracle 8 To all truth requisite for men to know.
So spake our Saviour, but the subtle fiend, Though inly stung with anger and disdain, Dissembled, and this answer smooth returu'd: "Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke, And urg'd me hard with doings, which not will But misery hath wrested from me. Where Easily canst thou find one miserable,
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And not enforc'd' oft-times to part from truth, If it may stand him more in stead to lie, Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? But thou art plac'd above me, thou art Lord From thee I can, and must, submiss endurton Check or reproof, and glad to 'scape so qu Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, Smooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the And tunable as sylvan pipe or song on lear What wonder then if I delight to hear Her dictates from thy mouth? Most men admire Virtue, who follow not her lore: permit me To To hear thee when I come, (since no man comes,) And talk at least, though I despair to attain. Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, Suffers the hypocrite or atheons priest To tread his sacred courts, and minister About his altar, handling holy things, Praying or vowing; and vouchsafed his voice To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet Inspir'd: disdain not such access to me."
To whom our Saviour, with unalter'd brow: Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope
bid not, or forbid : do as thou find'st ermission from above; thou canst not more " He added not; and Satan, bowing low slis gray dissimulation, disappear'd Loto thin air diffus'd; for now began Night with her sullen wings to double-shade The desert: fowls in their clay nests were couch'd And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.
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The disciples of Jesus, uneasy at his long absence, reason amongst themselves concerning it. Mary also gives vent to her maternal anxiety; in the expression of which she recaritulates many circumstances respecting the birth and early life of her son. Satan again meets his infernal council, re. ports the bad success of his first temptation of our blessed Lord, and calls upon them for counsel and assistance. Belial proposes the tempting of Jesus with women. Satan rebukes Belial for his dissoluteness, charging on him all the profligacy of that kind ascribed by the poets to the heathen gods, and rejects his proposal, as in no respect likely to succeed. Satan then suggests other modes of temptation, par ticularly proposing to avail himself of the circumstance of our Lord's hungering; and, taking a band of chosen spirits with him, returns to resume his enterprise. Jesus hungero in the desert. Night comes on; the manner in which out Saviour passes the night is described. Morning advances. Satan again appears to Jesus, and, after expressing wonder that he should be so entirely neglected in the wilderness, where others had been miraculously fed, tempts him with a sumptuous banquet of the most luxurious kind. This he rejects, and the banquet vanishes. Satan, finding our Lord not to be assailed on the ground of appetite, tempts him again by offering him riches, as the means of acquiring power : this Jesus also rejects, producing many instances of great a tions perforined by persons under virtuous poverty, and spe. sifying the danger of riches, and the cares and paips insepa. mble from power and greatness.
MEANWHILE the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'd At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen Him whom they heard so late expressly call'd Jesus Messiah, Son of God declar'd, And on that high authority had believ'd, And with him talk'd, and with him lodg'd; I mean Andrew and Simon, famous after known, With others, though in holy writ not nam'd;
Now missing him, their joy so lately found, (So lately found, and so abruptly gone,) Began to doubt, and doubted many days, And, as the days increas'd, increas'd their doubt. Sometimes they thought he might be only shown And for a time caught up to God, as once Moses was in the mount and missing long, a And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels Rode up to heaven, yet once again to come : Therefore, as those young prophets then with care Sought lost Elijah, so in each place these Nigh to Bethabara; in Jericho,
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