There is nothing which the most gifted of men can create that is not mixed up with earth, and Milton, too, works it up with his gold. The weakness of the _Paradise Lost_ is not, as Johnson affirms, its lack of human interest, for the _Prometheus Bound_ has just as little, nor is Johnson’s objection worth anything that the angels are sometimes corporeal and at other times independent of material laws. Spirits could not be represented to a human mind unless they were in a measure subject to the conditions of time and space. The principal defect in _Paradise Lost_ is the justification which the Almighty gives of the creation of man with a liability to fall. It would have been better if Milton had contented himself with telling the story of the Satanic insurrection, of its suppression, of its author’s revenge, of the expulsion from Paradise, and the promise of a Redeemer. But he wanted to “justify the ways of God to man,” and in order to do this he thought it was necessary to show that man must be endowed with freedom of will, and consequently could not be directly preserved from yielding to the assaults of Satan. _Paradise Regained_ comes, perhaps, closer to us than _Paradise Lost_ because its temptations are more nearly our own, and every amplification which Milton introduces is designed to make them more completely ours than they seem to be in the New Testament. It has often been urged against _Paradise Regained_ that Jesus recovered Paradise for man by the Atonement and not merely by resistance to the devil’s wiles, but inasmuch as Paradise was lost by the devil’s triumph through human weakness it is natural that _Paradise Regained_ should present the triumph of the Redeemer’s strength. It is this victory which proves Jesus to be the Son of God and consequently able to save us. He who has now become incarnated for our redemption is that same Messiah who, when He rode forth against the angelic rebels, “into terror chang’d His count’nance too severe to be beheld, And full of wrath bent on his enemies.” It is He who “on his impious foes right onward drove, Gloomy as night:” whose right hand grasped “ten thousand thunders, which he sent Before him, such as in their souls infix’d Plagues.” (_P. L._ vi. 824–38.) Now as Son of Man he is confronted with that same Archangel, and he conquers by “strong sufferance.” He comes with no fourfold visage of a charioteer flashing thick flames, no eye which glares lightning, no victory eagle-winged and quiver near her with three-bolted thunder stored, but in “weakness,” and with this he is to “overcome satanic strength.” Milton sees in the temptation to turn the stones into bread a devilish incitement to use miraculous powers and not to trust the Heavenly Father. “Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust, Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?”