To whom the Father, without cloud, serene: “All thy request for Man, accepted Son, Obtain; all thy request was my decree. But longer in that Paradise to dwell The law I gave to Nature him forbids; Those pure immortal elements, that know No gross, no unharmonious mixture foul, Eject him, tainted now, and purge him off, As a distemper, gross, to air as gross, And mortal food, as may dispose him best For dissolution wrought by sin, that first Distempered all things, and of incorrupt Corrupted. I, at first, with two fair gifts Created him endowed⁠—with happiness And immortality; that fondly lost, This other served but to eternize woe, Till I provided death: so death becomes His final remedy, and, after life Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined By faith and faithful works, to second life, Waked in the renovation of the just, Resigns him up with Heaven and Earth renewed. But let us call to Synod all the Blest Through Heaven’s wide bounds; from them I will not hide