Or to the earth's dark basis underneath, And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze This tempest at this desert most was bent; 467. Did I not tell thee, &c.] This sentence is dark and perplexed, having no proper exit. 467. The whole passage, from v. 467 to 483, should be compared with the conclusion of the previous conversation, v. 368393, to which Satan manifestly refers. It will then be evident that the sense of the passage is sufficiently complete, and that Satan now repeats what he had before expressed, his conviction 460 465 470 of the pains and dangers which awaited Jesus, if he persisted in rejecting his offered aid, now at full age, fulness of time, his season, when prophecies of him were best fulfilled. E. 478. many an hard assay] Thus, b. i. 263. -that my way must lie Through many a hard assay unto the death. Dunster. What I foretold thee, many a hard assay Ere thou of Israel's sceptre get fast hold; Whereof this ominous night that clos'd thee round, May warn thee, as a sure fore-going sign. So talk'd he while the Son of God went on Me worse than wet thou find'st not; other harm As false portents, not sent from God, but thee; 480 485 490 At least might seem to hold all pow'r of thee, Ambitious Spirit, and would'st be thought my God, 495 And storm'st refus'd, thinking to terrify Me to thy will; desist, thou art discern'd And toil'st in vain, nor me in vain molest. To whom the Fiend now swoln with rage replied. Then hear, O Son of David, virgin-born; 500. Then hear, O Son of David, &c.] This last speech of Satan is particularly worthy of our notice. The Fiend "swoln with rage" at the repeated failure of his attacks, breaks out into the language of gross insult, professing to doubt whether our Lord, whom he had before frequently addressed as the Son of God, is in any way entitled to that appellation. From this wantonly 500 blasphemous obloquy he still recovers himself, and offers with his usual art a qualification of what he had last said, and a justification of his persisting in further attempts on the divine person, by whom he had been so constantly foiled. These are the masterly discriminating touches, with which the poet has admirably drawn the character of the Tempter: the general colouring For Son of God to me is yet in doubt: is that of plausible hypocrisy, through which, when elicited by the sudden irritation of defeat, his diabolical malignity frequently flashes out, and displays itself with singular effect. Dun ster. 501. For Son of God to me is yet in doubt:] The Tempter had heard Christ declared to be Son of God by a voice from heaven. He allows him to be virgin-born. He hath no scruples about the annunciation, and the truth of what Gabriel told the blessed woman, (Luke i. 35. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 505 510 515 overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,) and yet he doubts of his being the Son of God notwithstanding. This is easily accounted for. On the terms of the annunciation Christ might be the Son of God in a sense very particular, and yet a mere man as to his nature: but the doubt relates to what he was more than man, worth calling Son of God; that is, worthy to be called Son of God in that high and proper sense, in which his sonship would infer his divinity. Calton. All men are sons of God; yet thee I thought Therefore I watch'd thy footsteps from that hour, 520 Where by all best conjectures I collect Thou art to be my fatal enemy. 525 Good reason then, if I beforehand seek And what he is; his wisdom, pow'r, intent; To win him, or win from him what I can. To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee Of adamant, and as a centre, firm, To th' utmost of mere man both wise and good, 523. this waste wild ;] And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness, b. i. 7. Again, with v. 533. Proof against all temptation, as a rock of adamant. Compare Sams. Agon. 134. -frock of mail Adamantean proof. Dunster. 538.what more thou art than man, Worth naming Son of God by voice from heaven,] See Bp. Pearson on the Creed, p. 106. "We must find yet a "more peculiar ground of our "Saviour's filiation, totally dis 530 535 "tinct from any which belongs "unto the rest of the sons of "God, that he may be clearly "and fully acknowledged the "only-begotten Son. For al though to be born of a virgin "be in itself miraculous, yet is "it not so far above the produc❝tion of all mankind, as to place "him in that singular eminence, " which must be attributed to the "only-begotten. We read of Adam "the son of God as well as Seth "the son of Adam: Luke iii. 38. "and surely the framing Christ "out of a woman cannot so far "transcend the making Adam out of the earth, as to cause so Worth naming Son of God by voice from heaven, So say'ing he caught him up, and without wing 540 545 541. Eschylus in his Prometheus, v. 282, makes Oceanus travel on a winged steed. Dun ster. 545. The holy city lifted high her towers,] Matt. iv. 5. Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, &c. Jerusalem is frequently called the holy city in the Old Testament; but Dr. Townson remarks, that St. Matthew alone of all the Evangelists ascribes titles of this kind to Jerusalem. And this arose, as he conceives, from St. Matthew being the earliest writer of the four, and from the character of sanctity being transferred, when the others wrote, to other cities which had embraced Christianity. The towers of Jerusalem are frequently mentioned in Scripture. See 2 Chron. xxvi. 9. xxxii. 5. Dunster. 549. There on the highest pinnacle he set The Son of God,] He has chosen to follow the order observed by St. Luke in placing this temptation last, because if he had with St. Matthew |