r Catholic nor
Calvinist. His heresies may be reduced to a single point; the ultimate
basis on which he rests the universe is political, not religious. The
fierce simplicity of his processes of thought here led him straight into
a trap. Law to him is an expression of Will, enforced by due penalties.
As promulgated by human authority, laws are to be obeyed only if they do
not clash with the dictates of a higher Power. The laws of God are
subject to no such restraint. They are; and, save by faith, there is no
further word to be said. But Milton had set himself to justify these laws
by reason. Destitute as he was of speculative power, he attempted no
transcendental amalgam of diverse conceptions, of Love and Law, of Mercy
and Justice. He fell back on Law as the naked assertion of Will, and
helped out the ancient argument of the pot and the potter with a
utilitarian appeal, which he puts into the mouth of a Seraph, to the
happy working of the Divine laws in practice.

So it comes about that the main argument of the poem is founded on an
outrage done to religion. In the place and under the name of Him "with
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," Milton set up in
Heaven a whimsical Tyrant, all of whose laws are arbitrary and
occasional, and who exacts from his creatures an obedience that differs
from brute submission in one point only, that by the gift of free-will it
is put within their power to disobey. His commands, like his laws, are
issued from time to time. Sometimes they enjoin the impossible on his
subjects; as when Michael and Gabriel, at the head of the heavenly host,
are ordered to drive Satan and his crew out of Heaven into the abyss--a
task they prove wholly unable to accomplish. Sometimes orders are given
merely as an assertion of power, and to test submission; as when Raphael
is sent to keep the rebels confined in Hell, and explains subsequently to
Adam:--

Not that they durst without his leave attempt;
But us he sends upon his high behests
For state, as sovran King, and to inure
Our prompt obedience.

The particular event with which, according to Milton, the whole history
begins is presented with a crudity that would have horrified the Fathers.
The appointment of a Vicegerent to the Almighty, and the edict requiring
homage to be done to him, are announced "on a day" to the host of Angels
assembled by special summons for this purpose. During the night
following, one of the chief Archan