And urg'd me hard with doings, which not will But misery hath wrested from me.
Easily canst thou find one miserable, 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 endure Check or reproof, and glad to 'scape so quit. Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, Smooth on the tongue discours'd, pleasing to the ear, And tunable as sylvan pipe or song;
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 hear thee when I come (since no man comes), And talk at least, though I despair to attain. The Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, Suffers the hypocrite or atheous 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 knew thy scope, I bid not, or forbid; do as thou find'st Permission from above; thou canst not more. He added not; and Satan, bowing low gray dissimulation,1 disappear'd
Into thin air diffus'd: for now began
Night with her sullen wings to double-shade
The desart; fowls in their clay nests were couch'd; And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.
'Gray dissimulation:' head gray with dissimulation.
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 recapitulates many circumstances respecting the birth and early life of her son.-Satan again meets his Infernal Council, reports 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, particularly 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 hungers in the desert.-Night comes on; the manner in which our 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 actions performed by persons under virtuous poverty, and specifying the danger of riches, and the cares and pains inseparable 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 encreas'd, encreas'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, 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
The city of palms, Ænon, and Salem1 old, Machærus, and each town or city wall'd On this side the broad lake Genezaret, Or in Perea; but return'd in vain. Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek, Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play, Plain fishermen (no greater men them call), Close in a cottage low together got,
Their unexpected loss and plaints out breath'd. Alas, from what high hope to what relapse Unlook'd-for are we fallen! our eyes beheld Messiah certainly now come, so long Expected of our fathers; we have heard His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth; Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand, The kingdom shall to Israel be restor❜d; Thus we rejoic'd, but soon our joy is turn'd Into perplexity and new amaze : For whither is he gone, what accident Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire After appearance, and again prolong Our expectation? God of Israël,
Send thy Messiah forth, the time is come!
Enon and Salem:' see John iii. 23.-Machærus:' a castle beyond Jordan.
Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppress Thy chosen; to what highth their power unjust They have exalted, and behind them cast All fear of thee; arise, and vindicate Thy glory; free thy people from their yoke! But let us wait; thus far He hath perform'd, Sent his Anointed, and to us reveal'd him, By his great Prophet, pointed at and shown In publick, and with him we have convers'd; Let us be glad of this, and all our fears Lay on his Providence; He will not fail, Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall,
Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence ; Soon we shall see our Hope, our Joy, return.
Thus they, out of their plaints, new hope resume To find whom at the first they found unsought: But, to his mother Mary, when she saw Others return'd from Baptism, not her Son, Nor left at Jordan, tidings of him none,
Within her breast though calm, her breast though pure, Motherly cares and fears got head, and rais'd Some troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad. O, what avails me now that honour high
To have conceiv'd of God, or that salute,
'Hail, highly favour'd, among women blest!" While I to sorrows am no less advanc'd; And fears as eminent, above the lot Of other women, by the birth I bore ; In such a season born, when scarce a shed Could be obtain'd to shelter him or me
From the bleak air; a stable was our warmth, A manger his; yet soon enforc'd to fly Thence into Egypt, till the murderous king Were dead, who sought his life, and missing fill'd
Began to doubt, and doubted many days, And as the days encreas'd, encreas'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, 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
The city of palms, Enon, and Salem1 old, Machærus, and each town or city wall'd On this side the broad lake Genezaret, Or in Peræa; but return'd in vain. Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek, Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play, Plain fishermen (no greater men them call), Close in a cottage low together got,
Their unexpected loss and plaints out breath'd. Alas, from what high hope to what relapse Unlook'd-for are we fallen! our eyes beheld Messiah certainly now come, so long Expected of our fathers; we have heard His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth; Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand, The kingdom shall to Israel be restor❜d; Thus we rejoic'd, but soon our joy is turn'd Into perplexity and new amaze : For whither is he gone, what accident Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire After appearance, and again prolong Our expectation? God of Israël,
Send thy Messiah forth, the time is come!
'Ænon and Salem:' see John iii. 23.—Machærus:' a castle beyond Jordan.
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