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To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to fee their city, ere the tower
Obftru&t Heav'n-tow'rs, and in derifion fets
Upon their tongues a various fpi'rit to rafe
Quite out their native language, and instead
To fow a jangling noife of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood, till hoarfe, and all in rage,
As mock'd they ftorm; great laughter was in Heaven
And looking down, to fee the hubbub strange
And hear the din; thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confufion nam❜d.
Whereto thus Adam fatherly difpleas'd.
O execrable fon fo to aspire

Above his brethren, to himself affuming
Authority ufurp'd, from God not given:
He gave us only over beaft, fish, fowl
Dominion abfolute; that right we hold
By his donation: but man over men
He made not lord; fuch title to himself
Referving, human left from human free.
But this ufurper his encroachment 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

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Himself and his rafh army, where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails grofs,

And famifh him of breath, if not of bread?

To whom thus Michael. Juftly thou abhorr'st

That fon, who on the quiet ftate of men

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Such trouble brought, affecting to fubdue

Rational liberty; yet know withal,

Since thy original lapfe, true liberty

Is loft, which always with right reafon dwells

Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being: 85 Reason in man obfcur'd, or not obey'd,

Immediately inordinate defires

And upftart paffions catch the government
From reason, and to fervitude reduce

Man till then free. Therefore fince he permits 90
Within himself unworthy pow'rs to reign
Over free reafon, God in judgment juft.
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly inthrall

His outward freedom: tyranny must be,
Though to the tyrant thereby no excufe.
Yet sometimes nations will decline fo low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But juftice, and fome fatal curse annex'd
Deprives them of their outward liberty,
Their inward loft: 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 worfe, till God at last
Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw
His prefence from among them, and avert
His holy eyes; refolving from thenceforth
To leave them to their own polluted ways;
And one peculiar nation to felect

From all the reft, of whom to be invok'd,
A nation from one faithful man to fpring:
Him on this fide Euphrates yet refiding,
Bred up in idol-worship; O that men

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(Canft thou believe?) fhould be so stupid grown, While yet the patriarch liv'd, who 'fcap'd the flood, As to forfake the living God, and fall

To worship their own work in wood and stone

For Gods! yet him God the most High vouchsafes
To call by vifion from his father's house,
His kindred and false Gods, into a land

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Which he will show him, and from him will raise
A mighty nation, and upon him shower
His benediction fo, that in his feed
All nations fhall be bleft; he strait obeys,
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes :
I fee him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native foil
Ur of Chaldæa, paffing now the ford
To Haran, after him a cumbrous train.
Of herds and flocks, and numerous fervitude;
Not wand'ring poor, but trufting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I fee his tents
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Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neigh'bring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,

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From Hamath northward to the defart fouth,
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd)
From Hermon east to the great western sea;
Mount Hermon, yonder fea, each place behold
In profpect, as I point them; on the shore
Mount Carmel; here the double-founted ftream
Jordan, true limit eastward; but his fons
Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.
This ponder, that all nations of the earth
Shall in his feed be blessed; by that feed
Is meant thy great deliverer, who fhall bruife
The Serpent's head; whereof to thee anon 150
Plainlier fhall be reveal'd. This patriarch blest,
Whom faithful Abraham due time fhall call,
A fon, and of his fon a grand-child leaves,
Like him in faith, in wifdóm, and renown;

The grand-child with twelve fons increas'd departs From Canaan, to a land hereafter call'd

Egypt, divided by the river Nile;

See where it flows, difgorging at fev'n mouths
Into the fea to fojourn in that land

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He comes invited by a younger fon

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In time of dearth, a fon whofe worthy deeds
Raife him to be the second in that realm

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Of Pharoah: there he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown
Sufpected to a fequent king, who feeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them flaves
Inhofpitably and kills their infant males:

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Till by two brethren (those two brethren call
Mofes and Aaron) fent from God to claim
His people from inthralment, they return
With glory' and spoil back to their promis'd land.
But first the lawlefs tyrant, who denies

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To know their God, or meffage to regard,
Must be compell'd by figns and judgments dire; 175.
To blood unfhed the rivers must be turn'd;
Frogs, lice, and flies must all his palace fill
With loath'd intrufion, and fill all the land;
His cattle muft of rot and murren die;
Botches and blains muft all his flesh imbofs,
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 darkfome cloud of locufts fwarming down
Muft eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;
Darkness muft overfhadow all his bounds,
Palpable darknéfs, and blot out three days;
Laft with one midnight ftroke all the firft-born

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Of Egypt muft lie dead. Thus with ten wounds 190
The river-dragon tam'd at length fubmits
To let his fojourners depart, and oft

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Humbles his ftubborn heart, but still as ice
More harden'd after thaw, till in his rage
Pursuing whom he late difmifs'd, the fea
Swallows him with his hoft, but them lets pafs
As, on dry land between two cryftal walls,
Aw'd by the rod of Mofes fo to stand
Divided, till his refcued gain their shore:
Such wondrous pow'r God to his faint will lend, 200
Though prefent in his Angel, who fhall 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: 205
All night he will purfue, 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
Mofes once more his potent rod extends
Over the fea; the fea his rod obeys;

On their imbattel'd ranks the waves return
And overwhelm their war: the race elect
Safe towards Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild defert, not the readiest way,
Left entring on the Canaanite alarm'd
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, choofing rather
Inglorious life with fervitude; for life
To noble and ignoble is more fweet

Untrain'd in arms, where rashness leads not`on.
This alfo fhall they gain by their delay
In the wide wildernels, there they fhall found

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