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bring obedience due.

      To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,

      Though but endeavour’d with sincere intent,

      Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.

      And I will place within them as a guide,

      My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,

      Light after light, well us’d, they shall attain,

      And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.

      This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,

      They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;

      But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,

      That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;

      And none but such from mercy I exclude.

      But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,

      Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins

      Against the high supremacy of Heaven,

      Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,

      To expiate his treason hath nought left,

      But to destruction sacred and devote,

      He, with his whole posterity, must die,

      Die he or justice must; unless for him

      Some other able, and as willing, pay

      The rigid satisfaction, death for death.

      Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?

      Which of you will be mortal, to redeem

      Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?

      Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?”

      He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,

      And silence was in Heaven: on Man’s behalf

      Patron or intercessour none appear’d,

      Much less that durst upon his own head draw

      The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

      And now without redemption all mankind

      Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell

      By doom severe, had not the Son of God,

      In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,

      His dearest mediation thus renew’d.

      “Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;

      And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,

      The speediest of thy winged messengers,

      To visit all thy creatures, and to all

      Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?

      Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid

      Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;

      Atonement for himself, or offering meet,

      Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;

      Behold me then: me for him, life for life

      I offer: on me let thine anger fall;

      Account me Man; I for his sake will leave

      Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee

      Freely put off, and for him lastly die

      Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

      Under his gloomy power I shall not long

      Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess

      Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;

      Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,

      All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid,

      Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave

      His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul

      For ever with corruption there to dwell;

      But I shall rise victorious, and subdue

      My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

      Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop

      Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;

      I through the ample air in triumph high

      Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show

      The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight

      Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,

      While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;

      Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave;

      Then, with the multitude of my redeemed,

      Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return,

      Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud

      Of anger shall remain, but peace assured

      And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more

      Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.”

      His words here ended; but his meek aspect

      Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love

      To mortal men, above which only shone

      Filial obedience: as a sacrifice

      Glad to be offered, he attends the will

      Of his great Father. Admiration seized

      All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend,

      Wondering; but soon th’ Almighty thus replied:

      “O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace

      Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou

      My sole complacence! Well thou know’st how dear

      To me are all my works; nor Man the least,

      Though last created, that for him I spare

      Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save,

      By losing thee a while, the whole race lost.

      Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem,

      Their nature also to thy nature join;

      And be thyself Man among men on Earth,

      Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed,

      By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room

      The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.

      As in him perish all men, so in thee,

      As from a second root, shall be restored

      As many as are restored, without thee none.

      His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit,

      Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce

      Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,

      And live in thee transplanted, and from thee

      Receive new life. So Man, as is most just,

      Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die,

      And dying rise, and rising with him raise

      His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.

      So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,

      Giving to death, and dying to redeem,

      So dearly to redeem what hellish hate

      So

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