“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669Law and Edict on us, who without law
Erre not, much less for this to be our Lord,
And look for adoration to th’abuse
Of those Imperial Titles which assert
Our being ordain’d to govern, not to serve? (5.787–802)^119Abdiel challenges Satan’s republican argument by emphasizing the absurdity of the
royalist analogy between God and earthly monarchs, explaining that God is abso-
lute monarch of Heaven because he created all other beings, and that the Son
rightly enjoys regal status by God’s “just Decree” and as God’s agent in Creation.
So in this instance, though not otherwise, Satan’s republican argument from equal-
ity is beside the point:
But to grant it thee unjust
That equal over equals Monarch Reigne:
Thy self though great and glorious dost thou count,
Or all Angelic Nature joind in one,
Equal to him begotten Son, by whom
As by his Word the mighty Father made
All things, ev’n thee, and all the Spirits of Heav’n
By him created in thir bright degrees. (5.831–8)Abdiel and Satan continue this political debate on the battlefield, as Satan derides
the loyal angels for exhibiting the servile and slothful spirit Milton so often ascribed
to royal courts and courtiers: “traind up in Feast and Song” they will come off badly
if they try to match their “Servilitie” with the rebels’ “freedom” (6.167–9). Abdiel
counters with the natural law argument Milton made in the Second Defense to sup-
port Cromwell’s Protectorate: monarchy is proper and consonant with liberty “When
he who rules is worthiest, and excells / Them whom he governs” (6.177–8) –
patently true of God if almost never of other rulers. Abdiel also makes the familiar
Miltonic and Platonic distinction that relates liberty and tyranny in the first instance
to states of soul, which are then replicated in the state:
This is servitude,
To serve th’unwise, or him who hath rebelld
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thy self not free, but to thy self enthrall’d. (6.178–81)The Son is God’s viceregent by delegation of power based on merit: after his offer
to die for fallen man God proclaims him “universal King,” declaring that he has
been “Found worthiest to be so by being Good, / Farr more then Great or High”
(3.310–11).
In Heaven’s monarchy the angels are citizens whose diverse pleasures and re-