Цитаты из книги Потерянный рай

Я смягчу их каменные сердца для молитвы, для раскаяния, для покорности своему Богу, покорности не насильственной, но искренней. Тогда к молитвам их, к раскаянию, никогда ни ухо Мое не будет глухо, ни око закрыто. Я вселю в них судью, посредника между Мной и ими, Совесть. Тот, кто будет слушаться ее, от света переходя к высшему свету, и настойчиво стремясь к цели, достигнет спасения. Тот же, кто насмеется над Моим долготерпением и благостью, не узнает пощады. Черствое сердце еще более очерствеет, ослепленные взоры ослепятся еще более, чтобы грешники сбивались с пути и глубже падали.

Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven. O, then, at last relent: Is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced With other promises and other vaunts Than to submit, boasting I could subdue The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know How dearly I abide that boast so vain, Under what torments inwardly I groan, While they adore me on the throne of Hell. With diadem and scepter high advanced, The lower still I fall, only supreme In misery: Such joy ambition finds.

The hasty multitude Admiring enter’d, and the work some praise And some the Architect: his hand was known In Heav’n by many a Towred structure high, Where Scepter’d Angels held thir residence, And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King Exalted to such power, and gave to rule, Each in his Herarchie, the Orders bright. Nor was his name unheard or unador’d In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Men call’d him Mulciber; and how he fell From Heav’n, they fabl’d, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’re the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve, A Summers day; and with the setting Sun Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star, On Lemnos th’ Aegaean Ile: thus they relate, Erring; for he with this rebellious rout Fell long before; nor aught avail’d him now To have built in Heav’n high Towrs; nor did he scape By all his Engins, but was headlong sent With his industrious crew to build in hell.