The Survey of the whole Creation, and of every thing that is transacted in it, is a Prospect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian Idea of the Supreme Being is more Rational and Sublime than that of the Heathens.  The particular Objects on which he is described to have cast his Eye, are represented in the most beautiful and lively Manner.

  Now had th’ Almighty Father from above,
  (From the pure Empyrean where he sits
  High thron’d above all height) bent down his Eye,
  His own Works and their Works at once to view. 
  About him all the Sanctities of Heavn
  Stood thick as Stars, and from his Sight received
  Beatitude past uttrance:  On his right
  The radiant Image of his Glory sat,
  His only Son.  On earth he first beheld
  Our two first Parents, yet the only two
  Of Mankind, in the happy garden plac’d,
  Reaping immortal fruits of Joy and Love;
  Uninterrupted Joy, unrival’d Love
  In blissful Solitude.  He then surveyed
  Hell and the Gulph between, and Satan there
  Coasting the Wall of Heaven on this side Night,
  In the dun air sublime; and ready now
  To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feel
  On the bare outside of this world, that seem’d
  Firm land imbosom’d without firmament;
  Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air. 
  Him God beholding from his prospect high,
  Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
  Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

Satan’s Approach to the Confines of the Creation, is finely imaged in the beginning of the Speech, which immediately follows.  The Effects of this Speech in the blessed Spirits, and in the Divine Person to whom it was addressed, cannot but fill the Mind of the Reader with a secret Pleasure and Complacency.

  Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
  All Heavn, and in the blessed Spirits elect
  Sense of new Joy ineffable diffus’d. 
  Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
  Most glorious, in him all his Father shone
  Substantially expressed, and in his face
  Divine Compassion visibly appeared,
  Love without end, and without measure Grace.

I need not point out the Beauty of that Circumstance, wherein the whole Host of Angels are represented as standing Mute; nor shew how proper the Occasion was to produce such a Silence in Heaven.  The Close of this Divine Colloquy, with the Hymn of Angels that follows upon it, are so wonderfully Beautiful and Poetical, that I should not forbear inserting the whole Passage, if the Bounds of my Paper would give me leave.

  No sooner had th’ Almighty ceas’d, but all
  The multitudes of Angels with a shout
  (Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
  As from blest Voices) uttring Joy, Heavn rung
  With Jubilee, and loud Hosannas fill’d
  Th’ eternal regions; &c. &c.—­