Is "Paradise Lost" by John Milton biblical?

NOTE. - Milton - I do not know what men of taste will say - was a miserable engrafting of all the heathen mythology on what was, after all, error so as really to make a fresh heathenism; that is the effect for the imagination, and so merge the power of what approached to truth in it. With most beautiful poetry, no doubt, it is a very mischievous book; indeed I have ever thought it so since I read it. But he was full of various learning of this kind, and turned Scripture scenes, and his views of truth (which was not the truth) into it. Purity mixed with corruption is corrupted purity, and that is not purity at all, but as an effect, and an evil worse than new corruption, save indeed, as the word implies, that it is always that, for corruption always implies something good corrupted, there is no evil created. What God has had to bear with in man! but He is perfect in all, and oh! how great the grace which has brought, and brought us, into the perfect light in grace and truth by Jesus Christ.

Do not treat even Scripture poetry as mere poetry. I grant that even from the poetic point of view nothing is like it, and that all Shakespeare or Milton ever wrote so grandly is poor indeed compared with what is therein. Take even Milton, who had the benefit of using Scripture expressly. He puts all wrong where, if I listen to him, the devil is reigning in a very fine palace. What a vain dream! Satan has never reigned in hell. The devil will be the most miserable object in hell through all eternity. This is not reigning. So evident is it that the effect of the Miltonic picture is to disorder men's minds about the truth. The devil is reigning in this world now and here, not in hell. What is still more important is the erroneous impressions he gives of God and especially of His Son. For Christ is ever the test whether one is taught of God, or only glories in man. I press this for the purpose of securing the truth to settle our souls — to give us true objects as seen in the light of God — to make us firm and constant in His grace and truth, His light shining down upon our every step through this wilderness world. May God in His rich mercy grant that these remarks may help to lead some weary wayfarer out of the darkness of the enemy into the marvellous light of God. Amen.

Satan has been considered commonly (as one finds in the Paradise Lost of a great poet) to be here as a prisoner broken loose from hell, into which he had been cast immediately upon his fall, a hell in which even now he is supposed to reign, and to reign there eternally over fallen spirits and lost men, the divinely appointed tormenter of those whom he has made his prey. For no part of this is Scripture responsible, and its grotesque horror has been the reproach of orthodox theology. What would be thought of a government which allowed its prisoners so to break their bounds, and which employed the chief criminal to torture the lesser ones?

All is, then, of a piece with what is the only natural meaning of this war in heaven. The question of good and evil, everywhere one, receives its answer for heaven as for earth, first, in the work of Christ, which glorifies God as to all, and then as the fruit of this in the recovery of what was alienated from Him, the enemies of this glorious work being put under Christ's feet. This now begins to take effect, though even yet in a way which to us may seem strange: strange it does seem to hear of war in heaven, even though Milton has sought to make it familiar to us, while putting it, however, in a wrong place; to hear of arrayed hosts on either side — of resistance, though unsuccessful, the struggle being left, as it would seem, to creature-prowess, God not directly interfering: "Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not."

It was the poet, John Milton, who described Satan as preferring to be first in hell, than second in heaven. Indeed we know from Scripture that his fall came by not being content with the very high place God had assigned to him as a creature—the anointed cherub that covereth” (Ezek. 28:14). He dared to say in his hart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13-14). What a fall was his, and his end will be most lamentable—“cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:10). Here we trace the source of the evil spirit of Diotrephes, and of all who have transgressed like him from his day to this.

Isa. 14:12. The king of Babylon is intended here, the final holder of the power which was first vested in the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. It is the last head of the beast (Rev. 17), for the context supposes that his destruction is contemporaneous with the deliverance and blessing of Israel. The scene is of course future in any full sense. For styling Satan "Lucifer" there is, probably, no ground, save the fancy of poets, or the misinterpretations of the Fathers.

Milton's great epics are largely but adaptations of Scripture, and owe their sublimity to the faithfulness with which he has adhered to the inspired page. What elegies can be compared with the pathos of David's lament over Jonathan and his bitter enemy Saul? What odes can rival the majesty of the nineteenth and one hundred and fourth psalms? But we must leave this delightful and attractive theme for later consideration.

I would ask you not to go to Milton for this, but to take it as it is here in all its perfect typical beauty. Then you will behold with adoration, death coming upon Christ, the last Adam, of whom the first was the figure, the church formed, and the delight of His heart when she shall be presented to Him, and He shall see in her that which corresponds perfectly to His own glory as the Man of God's counsels.