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                                                        Most quotes extracted from the author's award-winning 

                                 GOD SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE GREATEST MINDS  (Click on title for more information)

 

JOHN MILTON

 

From "Paradise Lost"

     Hail holy light, of spring of Heav'n first-born,

Or of  th'Eternal  Coeternal beam

May I express thee unblam'd since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternitie, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate

Or hear't Thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the sun,

Before the Heavens Thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,

Won from the void and formless infinite.  

(Ibid, Book III, 1-12)

 

O Son, in whom my souls has chief delight,

Son of my bosom, Son who art alone

My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,

all hast thou spok'n as my thoughts are, all

As my Eternal purpose hath decreed:

Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will,

Yet not of will in him, but grace in me

Freely voutsaft; once more I will renew

His lapsed powers, though forfeit and enthrall'd

By sin to foul exorbitant desires;

Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand

On even ground against his mortal foe,

By me upheld , that he may know how how frail

His fall'n is, and to me ow

All his deliv'rance, and to none but me.

(Ibid, Book III, 168-182)

 

    "Let us require no better authority than God Himself

for determining what is worthy or unworthy of Him."

(Robins, 1963, 67)

 

     "If after the work of six days it be said of God that he rested and was refreshed . . . let us believe that it is not beneath the dignity of God  . . . to be refreshed in that which refreshed Him . . . For however we may attempt to soften down  such expressions by a latitude of interpretation, when applied to the Deity, it comes in the end to precisely the same."

(Ibid., 67)

 

     "Our safest way is to form in our minds such a conception of God, as shall correspond with His own delineation and representation of Himself in the sacred writings."

(Ibid., 67)

 

     "We may be sure that sufficient care has been taken that the Holy Scriptures should contain nothing unsuitable to the character or dignity of God, and that God should say nothing of Himself which could derogate from His own majesty."

(Ibid., 67)

 

 

 

 

 

© Michael Caputo, 2004