Imatges de pàgina
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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

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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

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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;

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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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