“The Good of the created rational Intelligence subsists in the conscious consent of his Will, with the holy Will of the Creator.”
His Good:—i. e. his innocence and original happiness, whilst these last:—his virtue and regained happiness, if he attain virtue and regain happiness:—these and the full excellence of his intellectual and natural powers—
TALBOYS.
It is Ethical, and more than Ethical.
NORTH.
The Innocence and Fall of the Rebel Angels:—The Bliss and Loyalty of the Upright:—(Consider Abdiel:) The Innocence and Fall and Restoration of Man:—are various Illustrations of this great Dogma. The Restoration, as respects Man himself:—and far more eminently as respects the person of the Uncreated Restorer.
SEWARD.
This central Thought, radiating in every direction to the circumference, cannot be regarded as a theological notion, coldly selected for learned poetical treatment. The various and wonderful shaping-out, the pervading, animating, actuating, soul-like influence and operation;—direct us to understand that in the Mind of Milton, through his day of life, a vital self-consciousness bound this Truth to his innermost being:—that he loved this Truth;—lived in and by this Truth. Wherefore the Poem springs from his Mind, by a moral necessity.
TALBOYS.
Four great aspects of Composition, or Four chief moods of Poetry appear in the Paradise Lost. 1. The Sublime of disturbed Powers in the infernal Agents:—fallen and, ere they fall, warring. 2. Heaven in humanity: while Adam and Eve are “yet sinless.”—A celestial Arcadia.—The purer Golden Age. 3. Man, Earthly: when they have eaten.