"They plucked the seated hills with all their load, Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shagy tops Uplifting bore them in their hands: amaze, Be sure, and terror seized the rebel host, When coming towards them so dread they saw The bottom of the mountains upward turned" (PL Book VI, 644-649)

So I noticed this interesting little contradiction and just had to point it out. We were discussing Milton's fantastical depiction of the war in heaven which Raphael relays to Adam and Eve in class the other day, and that popped in my head while reading this part of Areopagitica in which Milton depicts writers as the champions of truth. This reinforces my conception of Milton as a no-nonsense type writer, particularly in biblical contexts. So no, I definitely do not think he was mocking or satirizing the unreal aspects of the traditional heroic epic. I think, in Book VI, Milton really was trying to depict an Angel's relaying a message to mortal humans that they truely cannot understand in the same manner he does; meaning to say, the mountains are a war of matter, the lightning electricity. Everything in Raphael's story is a representation in laymen's terms, per say, meant to relay a truely subliminal scene to Adam and Eve.

"I formed them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change Their nature, and revoke the high decree Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained Their freedom: they themselves ordained their fall." (PL Book III 124-128)

Milton's God in Book III sounds a lot like Milton himself here in Areopagitica. To be free is to be set before a provoking object, Milton asserts here. Only then, through abstinence, can humanity merit our reward. Milton's God posits a similiar conception of free will in his new creations. In order to be truely free and merit the reward of heaven, humanity must be allowed to ordain its own fall. Just before this excerpt Milton specifically names Adam, suggesting reason, which is but choosing, gave him freedom.

"relating to or characteristic of heaven or paradise"

Both pieces conclude with a similar sentiment -- some sort of divine fulfillment and a desire to live in the specific frame of thought laid out above. In this case, it is with mirth -- energy, active, -- that this sublime satisfaction may be achieved.

Words such as Forest, Element, Planet, Sun, Winds, Leaves, Oake, etc are capitalized out of context in Il Penseroso; perhaps the pensive man appreciates the natural world around him more so than the active man.

"This is one life, in and abroad." - Wordsworth

This concept seems to harken to the Romantics over a hundred years later -- Wordsworth and his disciples championed an introspective relationship with nature and depicted this relationship as a prime pathway toward happiness and fulfillment in life.