The passage admits of a more probable explanation. The
two-handed engine, the epithet 'two-handed' meaning that its length and weight required it to be grasped with both hands, refers to the sword of St. Michael, the guardian and protector of the Church. In the 6th Book of the 'Paradise Lost' (vv. 250-253) it is said of the sword of Michael that it
'Smote and felled
Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway
Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down
Wide-wasting.'
The poet in this passage therefore means to say that St. Michael's sword is to smite off the head of Satan, who, at the door of Christ's fold, is, 'with privy paw,' daily devouring the hungry sheep.
In a sublime invocation to the Son of God, at the conclusion of the fourth section of 'Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus,' Milton says: 'As thou didst dignify our fathers' days with many revelations above all the foregoing ages, since thou tookest the flesh, so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though unworthy) as large a portion of thy spirit as thou pleasest; for who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? Seeing the power of thy grace is not passed away with the primitive times, as fond and faithless men imagine, but thy kingdom is now at hand, and thou standing at the door. Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth! put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.'
The view taken is strengthened by another disputed passage of the poem, a few verses farther on. The poet is addressing his drowned friend, whose body he imagines to be tossed about by the waves (vv. 154-163):