The Origin and Development of Milton’s Thought on the Trinity: First Period,1608-1625

Citation preview

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

..... Janua,ry...15 .......... 19...51

This dissertation prepared under my direction by

Reverend Edward F. Kenrick

entitled

....... ON THE TRINITY:

FIRST PERIOD,

1608-1625

has been accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the

Degree of

Doct o r o f Phi l osophy

........ Gabriel Leigey (F aculty A d v is e r)

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MILTON'S THOUGHT ON THE TRINITY:

FIRST PERIOD, 1608-1625

BY REV. EDWARD F. KENRICK A.M., Fordham University, 19^7

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK 1950

ProQuest N um ber: 10993013

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uest ProQuest 10993013 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). C opyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C o d e M icroform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346

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~i TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

Page

PREFACE......................................

.'.v

I. THE QUESTION OF MILTON'S ORTHODOXY........

1

II. GENERAL THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES PERTAINING TO MILTON'S VIEWS ON THE TRINITY..........

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III. THE ELDER MILTON AND THE PSALMS...........

76

IV. MILTON'S BOYHOOD: REV. RICHARD STOCK AND CHARLES DIODATI.......................

89

V. MILTON'S RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT ST. PAUL'S..110 VI. THOMAS YOUNG AND THE CHRISTIAN AUTHORS.... 13*+ VII. THE TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF THE GILS...... 172 VIII. CONCLUSION

........................... 200

APPENDIX................

237'

BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................276

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THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MILTON'S THOUGHT ON THE TRINITY:

FIRST PERIOD, 1608-1625

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PREFACE

It has been said that there was little literary scholar­ ship in England during the reign of King James I. was the all-absorbing interest.

Theology

Those years parallel ap­

proximately the first, or pre-Cambridge, period of the life of John Milton. Modern literary scholarship devoted to the poet has also been marked by an increasing emphasis on theology.

Miltonic

criticism has employed his De Doctrina Christiana as a gloss upon his other works and upon his entire life. The most startling section of that posthumous treatise contains Milton1s thought on the Trinity.

In it, the author

of the glorious epic, Paradise Lost, was discovered to be an anti-Trinitarian. When and why did Milton become an anti-Trinitarian? Are his other works anti-Trinitarian?

This monograph offers

material which may be of some help to this sphere of Mil­ tonic criticism.

I have studied the origin and development

of Milton*s thought on the Trinity in the hitherto neglected years 1608-1625.

The later periods of his life may present

a more fruitful field, but scientific investigation must be­ gin at the beginning. I am indebted to Professor Gabriel M. Liegey as direc­ tor of this dissertation for his tireless, valuable help. My thanks extend also to the other readers, Dr.'Charles

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Donahue and Mr. Erwin W. Geissman, for their constructive suggestions.-

The staff of Union Theological Library has

been generous in permitting me to use the indispensible McAlpin Collection.

Finally, I am grateful to my superiors

of the New York Archdiocese who have made possible my study at Fordham University.

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CHAPTER I THE QUESTION OF MIL10NrS ORTHODOXY For many years John Milton was regarded as the great poet of traditional Protestantism.

As few men ever had,

he had penned in compelling beauty the quintessence of recognized Protestant truths.

Besides this, his poetic

genius had recounted the tale of man's creation, fall, and redemption held sacred by every Christian in a manner, literateurs said, that rivalled Virgil and Homer. Protestant

The

praise given to Milton was very great, and

many Protestants considered ..him their poet laureate. It is true that when he was a young man he had written intemperately upon divorce and marriage, but he had been duly censured by the sermon of Herbert Palmer, B-D., delivered before Parliament at Westminster,^ and by his forced appearance before the House of Lords.

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Further, even that censure should perhaps be softened, for it seemed easiest to conclude that these writings

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1.

Henry J. Todd, Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Milton, London, Printed for R» Johnson, 1809, quoted in Bishop Sumners "Notes on the English Translation of the Ite Doctrina Christiana," The Works of John Milton, 20 vols., N. Y., Columbia University Press, 1931-1938, XVII, 481. (This work will be cited hereafter as £*E.)

2.

John Phillips, The Life of M r . John Milton, in The Early Lives of Milton (ed. Helen Darbishire), London, Constable and Co., 1932, p. 24. J

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rwere but the outpourings of a heart deeply wounded by the marital difficulties of his own life.

This aberration

from moral teaching was more than obliterated, traditional opinion continued, by the glorious doctrinal orthodoxy of Paradise Lost. Only faint and quite isolated were the murmurings against the orthodoxy of John Milton.

Rome had looked

warily upon Paradise Lost and in l^H^ had placed that it/ iTi irfrviAfii great poem, quite incongruously to the eyes of the world, 4 upon the Index of Prohibited Books.^ The free-thinking Toland, one of the poet’s earliest biographers, had noted the disturbing fact, passed over in silence by Milton’s biographically-inclined nephews, John: and Edward Phillips, that in his later years the great man had be­ longed to no religious sect.2

Some critics, but vastly

in the minority, either through ill will or unusual 1.

The Italian translation of Paradise Lost was put on the Index in 1732. Dr. J. Martin Tellen, Milton dans la Literature francais, Paris, Haehette, 1904, p. 7.

2.

The Early Lives of: Milton (ed. Helen Darbishire), pp. ZZ7T11 -XXIX • Of. "Eor my own part, I adhere to the Holy Scriptures alone* I fallow no other heresy or sect.n De Doctrine Christiana, 202 ff. /

2*

H. J. C. Grierson* "John Milton*" Hasting*s Encyclo­ pedia of Religion and Ethics, New York* C. Scribner & Sons, 1915, VIII, 641-648; "John Milton, 1*homme et le po&te," RA-A, YI (1928), ..p. 19 ff.* 97.ff.; Cross Currents in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century, London* Chatto and Windus, 1929; Milton and Wordsworth: Poets and Prophets, London* Cambridge University Press, 1937; "Milton and Liberty," MLR, XXXIX (1944, 97-107.

3.

E . M . W. Tillyard* Milton^ New York, The Dial Press* 1930; "The Christ of Paradise Regained and-the Renaissanee Heroic Tradition," SP, i0a1fX~(1938), 247252; The Miltonic Setting, Past and Present, London, Chatto and Windus, 1938.

4.

Edwin Greenlaw,-"A Better Teacher than Aquinas," S P, XIV (1917), 196-217; "Spencer *s Influence on Paradise Lost," SP, SYII (1920), 320-359.

5.

Elmer E. Stoll* "Was Paradise Well Lost?" PMLA, XXXHE (1918), 429-435; "Certain Fallacies and Irrelevancies in the Literary Scholarship of the Day," S P ,XXIV (1927), 485-508; Poets and Playwrights, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1930: ^Criticism Crit­ icized: Shakespeare and Milton," JEGP, XL! (1942), 451-477; From Shakespeare to Joyce, New York,. Doubleday, Doran and Company* 1944. J

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n traditional reputation*. Among Catholic commentators on the theology of the poet, Hilaire Belloc holds that the thought of De Doctrina Christiana was by no means merely the conclusions of his last years.'**

That work* in his calculations, was written

substantially between 1642-1649.

Thus is bolstered

Bellocfs suspicion of unorthadoxy in the rest of Milton's writings dating from that time. stress

of Canon Looten.

Quite different is the

His interest lies in champion­

ing the orthodox Christian elements in the works of the poet, and he consequently gives little weight to the modern proponents of the quest for the unorthodox in the writings of Milton other than the De Doctrina Christiana.

The study of Eisenring

of the De Doctrina Christ­

iana has shown how its thought is at variance with Catholic and Anglican theology. The views on Milton's theology, maintained by the following scholars, are conditioned by their attribution

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1.

Hilaire Belloc, Milton. Philadelphia, 1. B. cott Company, 1955.

Lippin-

2.

Le Chanoine C. Looten, John Milton: Quelque aspects de son g 6nie, .Lille, Faculties Catholiques, Paris, Descl6e de Bronwer, 1938; H i l t o n et. les amours de Dieu," RA-A, ¥11 (1931}, 345-34.6; "Milton et L'ldSe du Po&te,** RA-A, IX (1931), 1-15.

3.

A . I . Th. Eisenring, Milton's *De Doctrina Christi­ ana*: An Historical Introduction and Critical Analysis, Fribourg, Switzerland, Pr. by the Society of St. Paul, 1946.

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to him of source material which in general they limit to his own times.

Miss Nicolson has studied his thought in

the light of More's mortalism, the Cabbalistic literature, the Cambridge Platonism, and his disagreement with Hobbes."*" Barker has linked him to the rational latitudinarianism 2 of the seventeenth century. Other theologians are found 3 to have affected him in the analyses presented by Kelley, h * 6 Larson, Whiting, and others. Howard stresses that Milton's theology must be read according to the principles 1.

Marjorie Nicolson, "The Spirit World of Milton and More," SP, XXII (1925), ^33-^52; "Milton and Hobbes," SP, XXIII (1926), ^f05-V33? "Milton and the Con.jectura Cabbalistica." PQ, VI (1927), 1-18: "Christ's College and the Latitude Men," MP, XXVII (1929-1930), 35-53*

2.

Arthur Barker, "Milton's Schoolmasters," MLR, XXXII (1937), 517-537? Milton and the Puritan Dilemma. 16^-1-1660, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 19^2.

3*

Maurice Kelley, oj). cit., passim.

if.

M. A. Larson, "Milton and Servetus; A Study in the Sources of Milton's Theology," PMLA, XLI (1926), 89393^.

5.

George M. Whiting, "Milton and Lord Brooke on the Church," MLN, LI (1926), 161-166.

6.

T. S. K. Scott-Craig, "Milton's Use of Wolleb and Ames," MLN, LV (19^03, ^03-^07. William Haller, "Order and Progress in Paradise Lost," PMLA, XXXV (1920), 218-22?$ Grant MeColley, "The Epic Catalogue Paradise Lost," ELH, IV (1937), 180-191$ Don C. Allen, "Milton and the Sons of God," MLN, LXI (19*+6), 73-79. ~

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”i of Bamean logic,.1 while Williams emphasizes Renaissance scriptural commentaries as fountainheads of the poet's thought*

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Another group of Miltonic critics have gone far out­ side the seventeenth,century and under the aegis of their putative source findings, have diagnosed the theological thought in his worksSemitic works,

Fletcher has led the hunt among

while Taylor has been the foremost prober

of hexameral literature-.^

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Source material has been sought

1.

Leon Howard, "'The Invention* of Milton's 'Great Argument': A Stu dyi n the Logic of 'God's lays to M e n , H3AU IX (1946), 149-173.

2.

Arnold Williams, "Milton and the Renaissance Commen­ taries on 'Genesis,'" MP, XXXVII (1939-194G), 263278* "Renaissance Commentaries on 'Genesis* and Some Elements of the Theology of Paradise Lost,7 PMLA, LVI (19411, 151-164; "Milton and the Book of Enoch - An Alternative Hypothesis," HTR, XXXIIX (19401, 291- 299.

3.

Harris Fletcher, Milton's Semitic Studies, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1926; Milton's Rabbini­ cal Readings, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1930; E. G. Baldwin, "Paradise Lost and the Apoca­ lypse of Moses," JEGP, XXIV (1925l7~3S3-386; "Some Extra-Biblical Semitic Influences.upon Paradise Lost," JEGP, XXVIII (19291, 366-401; Alfred Moller, "Xu. Milton's rabbinischen Studien,^ Beiblatt zur Anglia, XLIV (19531, 154-159. ~ “

4.

George Coffin Taylor, Milton's Use of Du Bartas, Cam­ bridge, Harvard University Press, 1 W 4 ; Sister Mary Irma Corcoran, Milton's Paradise with Reference to the Hexameral Background, Washington, Catholic Uni­ versity Press , 1945-; Grant McColley, Paradise Lost, an Account of Its Growth and Major Origins, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1940.

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in Old English and Medieval literature,2 the Fathers*3 4 and the classics. Unreceptive to any category are T. S. Eliot5 and Conklin.

The former has launched the "metaphysical

attack"- upon Milton's poetry* the latter has discounted "influences" upon Milton and found his theology to be purely the spinnings of his

own mind's conviction that

Scripture is theology* Thus vast indeed is the problem of Milton's ortho­ doxy, vast because of the large number of separate hereti­ cal points cited* vast because, of the complexity of 1#

P. E* Dustoor, "Legends of Lucifer in Early English and in Milton," Anglia, LIT (Neue Folge XLI) [1930), 213-280; J. W* Lever, "Paradise Lost and the AngloSaxon Tradition," RES, XXIII (19TTfJ 97-106*

2.

Allen H* Gilbert* "Milton and the Mysteries," S P , XYII (1920), 147-169; Arthur 0. Lovejoy, "Milton and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall *" ELS, IV* (1937) , 161-179; 0* Kuhns, "Dante's Influence, on Milton," MLN, XIII (1898);* U 1 2 ; George R* Coffman* "The . parable of the Good Shepherd, De Contemptu Mundi, and Lycidas," ELH, III (1936), 101-113.

3.

Kathleen Hartwell* Lactantius and Milton* Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1929.

4.

Samuel Kliger, "The fUrbs Aeterna' in Paradise Re­ gained," PMLA, LXI (1946), 474.-491; Mason Hammond* "Concilia Deorum from Homer through Milton," SP, XXX (1933), 1-16;

5*

T. S. Eliot, "A Note on the Verse of John Milton," Essays and Studies. XXI (1935)* 32-4Q; "Milton" Annual Lecture on Master Mind, London* Oxford University Press, 1947.

6.

George Newton Conklin, Biblical Criticism and Heresy in Milton* New York* King's Crown Press, 1949“*

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contradictions among the critics, and vast by reason of the unlimited source material reputedly coloring the poetfs theology.

Consequently, when the problem is

treated as a whole there is neoessarily a lack of thorough­ ness and completeness.

Each problem must be narrowed and

treated individually and exclusively*

At least at first.

Afterwards assimilation and conclusion can legitimately and fruitfully follow* The problem chosen by this dissertation is Milton’s view of the Trinity.

What has been adduced above certain­

ly reveals the need of a thorough study of Milton’s Trinitarianism.

Only such a study will provide students of

Milton with some corpus of agreement despite debatable areas.

This study should make possible also some system­

atization of the critical holdings on the problem.

And

the orderly corpus will have been established in the context of sound historical examination. Searching what has already been produced by students of the

poet shows that the defense of such a dissertation

is relatively easy.

Possibly, because those whose ex

professo interest is theology feel that the examination of a poet’s production should be left to those in the field of literature, and because vice versa literateura consider theology a foreign aspect not lightly to be meddled with, there has been but one book-length treatment

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This has

been done by Louis Wood.'*’ Wood’s work was published in 1911 and was consequently completed before the avalanche of contemporary research into the poet’s background was available*

Because of

this the work has now a large incompleteness, and it has been severely criticized.

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Its value lies positively in

the examination of the writings of Bernadino Ochino as a source of the poet’s later anti-Trinitarianismr 'Negative­ ly it presents the conclusion that Milton’s views differ from those of the early Arians*

To have concentrated

upon one source when the subject of examination has cited over a thousand writers in his works, leaves much room for Wood’s successors. of 1608-1625*

Wood by-passes entirely the period

Further, only the major statements of the

poet on the Trinity are considered, and not all. of those have been examined*

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1*

Louis Aubrey Wood, The Form and Origin of Milton’s Anti-Trinitarian Conception {inaugural Dissertation zur Erlangung der Dohtorwuerde der Hohen philosophischen Fakultaet der Grossherzoglich Badischen Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet in Heidelberg.), Ontario, Advertiser Printing Co., 1911.

2*

Martin A* Larson charges against Wood that: (11 not the Trinity but only two Persons are examined* .(2) only trifles are discussed, not fundamentals. (3) the details employed actually do not establish a similarity of thought between Milton and Ochino. ’’Milton and Servetus: A Study in the sources of Milton’s Theology,” PMLA. XLI (1926), 891-934*

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The second type of writing on the problem, is that of 1 by-product literature.

Kelley*** and Sewell^

have devoted

many pages to the poet’s views on the Trinity* but that scholarship has been a by-product.

Their interest is not

In Milton's Trinitarian views ut sic, but their fundament­ al concern is the relationship of De Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost.

Kelley treats the Trinitarian question

in the poem to show that it comes from the treatise and is one of many evidences that their thought coincides. Sewell attempts to sustain his belief that the De Doctrina Christiana is an evolutionary document of three layers, composed in different years, by examination of Milton's Trinitarian views.

Finding them evolutionary and vacil­

lating, he feels this is true of the rest of the poet's theology,, and consequently explains the three stages of the treatise.

Rather than the Trinity, Sewell more

exactly seizes upon the mediatorial office of the Son as the key to Milton's theological wanderings.

In Sewell

as in Kelley there is no treatment of the source materials of the poet's Trinitarian views. Also by-product literature contributing to the study of Milton’s theology of the Trinity is the work of editors and commentators, and the works of those providing a

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1.

Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument.

2.

Arthur Sewell* A Study in Milton's Christian Doctrine.

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general critical attitude for the study of Milton’s writ­ ings*

By their very nature these works have provided no

definitive study of Milton and the Trinity* A third class of writings is that in which discussion of the poet’s Trinitarian views is hut a segment of a larger whole*

Such are the works of Saurat, Lewis, Han­

ford, Grierson* and Tillyard, all cited above, and the biographical studies of the poet*

Their wider canvass

has precluded a full sketching in of Milton’s

Trinitar-

ianism in detail* A fourth class of writings discussing Milton’s theo­ logy is article-length treatments.'*'

Articles have a very

obvious limitation; it is simply impossible to condense a thorough study of the problem in so small a space.

Be­

cause of this, in their discussion of one aspect of his Trinitarian thought, they have assumed a fragmentary nature.

These articles either comment on a particular

pertinent passage, or isolated theological conception in a work or works, or they discuss and apply some source his Trinitarianism may have

drawn upon*

Sueh is a brief conspectus of research upon Milton’s views on the Trinity*

The scholarship has been learned,

stimulating, and helpful, but the bulk of that study is: still to be done despite such erudite pioneering. processes are still essential: 1* L

Yide Supra.

1)

a chronological

Two

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This has not yet been done and is offered here

in an Appendix containing 1.6$ -pertinent::- entries*

2) a

biography of John Milton in terms of all the Trinitarian thought that was available to him and possibly reached- A his consciousness and even possibly formed the very views he held* This biography of the poet in terms of Trinitarian thought embraces the method of literary criticism,, termed the historical one.

This traces in a chronological fash­

ion the Trinitarian thought he met in his own times at the different levels of his life*

There is no question

but that Milton's theological views were changing through­ out his life.

Hence the Trinitarian thought surrounding

him at different times must be determined.

How much of

that thought he accepted must next be determined, if it is possible to do so.

It will be of particular value to

discover what aspects of such thought occupied him at a time most near an individual writing of his* information has been achieved, it provides

When such the natural

and proper context for the interpretation of that work. It has been the failure to adhere to this method of historical criticism which has brought about the greats pervasive contradictory confusion of contemporary scholar­ ship on Milton's theology*. Only by a painstaking and thorough application of this method to the individual

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points of Milton's theology can some degree of definitive scholarship on the subject be realized* This examination of the problem of Milton's views on the Trinity through the mechanism of historical criticism seeking to establish the changing, varied, and complex Trinitarian milieu of the various periods of his life is so vast that it seems a task fit to engage a number of lifetimes.

Arid for this reason the present study has

limited itself to the first period of Milton's life, the Pre-Cambridge days of 16Q8-1625. It is but a small beginning but it should be done* Even now, regretfully, the other periods would seem to be the more fruitful- ones In this particular quest.

But

even should the years 1608-1625 prove rather barren, still until they have been searched and found not to be the source of the poet *s Trinitarian views, no one has the right in sound scholarship to say so,

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CHAPTER II GENERAL THEOLOGICAL PRINC IPLES PERTAINING TO HILTONfS VIEWS ON THE TRINITY My examination of the writings of John Milton for ex­ plicit statements concerning the Trinity,, soon revealed that Milton held certain general theological principles which of their nature would condition and possibly be pre­ dominantly responsible for his ultimate position of antiTrinitarianism in De Doctrina Christiana,

Those general

theological principles consisted of his conceptions of church authority, as vested in Pope, bishop and priest; the function and interpretation of Scripture; the validity of tradition* in itself and in its facets, the Fathers, the Councils, and theologians; what constituted heresy; the desirability of sects; and the binding power of creeds, It is quite necessary to include a chapter illustra­ tive of these general theological principles because, rather than any expressly anti-Trinitarian work* or person, or move­ ment, these general theological principles may well have caused Milton's unorthodoxy.

Unless the relevance of these

general theological principles is clear, the reader might indeed be puzzled when they are examined for the period 1608-1625, This chapter will embrace Milton's entire life span, because its elm is to show that in his life and works Mil­ ton held such principles. l

Once that fac^ is established, I, —■

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rem Justified in including these same general theological

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principles, as well as explicit Trinitarian utterances, in my examination of the period 1608-1625. The following pages will attempt to point out that ad­ herence to these general theological principles might yield anti-Trinitarianism.

Examples will show that these general

theological principles actually did lead some people to anti-trinitarianism.

While I have limited these examples

to Milton*s life span, actually their validity is not de­ pendent upon their time in history but upon their intrinsic content.

However, forcefulness is added when contemporaries

of Milton,, who held such general theological principles, be­ came anti-Trinitarian* Briefly, an exposition of his general theological principles is important because they may have led to Mil­ ton's anti-Trinitarianism.

This is probable because 1) ex

natura sua such principles logically so result,

2)

de facto

other men with such principles so progressed, 3} some of these men were contemporaries of Milton and he probably came in contact with their thought.

Consequently* a study of the

origins of his views on the Trinity must have a wary eye for any appearance of such principles in the poet's milieu in the years 1608^1625* I do not intend to search systematically the entire progression of all of Miltonrs theological attitudes.

This

chapter will merely indicate that those mentioned above were present in his thought. L

While examples of similar -J

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thought will serve as background and parallel, this treat­

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ment is by no means to be construed as even a skeletal his­ tory of the Reformation*

The interest here is only with

certain general theological principles which are important because of their bearing on the question of the Trinity; Church Authority Milton denounced papal supremacy as the apex of all that was detestable in ehurch authority.1

in the episcopal

controversy, Milton was a bitter foe of the bishops.

He

denied that there was any divine warrant for bishops or that they possessed any spiritual authority.

The powers

that they wielded were the result, in his judgment, of political, worldly aggrandizement.2

After the Westminster

Assembly, Milton was opposed even to the traditional con3 cept of priesthood. He wrote that churchmen had thwarted 4 God's work. He denounced ministerial training at the 1,

So obvious and frequent is this view in Milton's works that citation seems superfluous*

2.

Of Reformation Touching Church Government; The Reason of Church Government; Of Prelatical Episcopacy; Anlmadversions upon the Remonstrants Defense against Smeotymnuus; An Apology against a iamphlet called A Modest ConfutaTion of the Animadversions of the Remonstrant against Smeotymnuus.

3*

"New Presbyter is but old Priest write large,* John S* Smart, Sonnets of Milton. Glascow, Maclehose,.Jackson and Company, 192T, p. 126; Douglas Bush, English Lit­ erature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, p. 37l;‘ r Saurat, Milton, Man and Thinker, pp. 59-67. Reason of Church Government, C.E^, III, Part 1,'268; 23—28•

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universities- which produced ministers who were ignorant*5 and lacking in prayerfulness.

The Judicature of the Church

and churchmen* according to Milton* should be narrowed to a mere watching of the flock in a hands-off fashion.4

His

own ministerial aspirations were abandoned because he would not "subscribe slave."5

This elimination of church author­

ity aggregated to himself an absolute freedom which was above any man-made law6 and above even the moral law *7

He

felt that he was responsible only to conscience and Christ’s spirit within himself.8

Such an attitude freed Milton from

any theology sanctioned by church authority; he was logic­ ally to be the creator of his own theology, even in the matter of the Trinity. 1.

Letter to Alexander Gill. Jr., Cambridge, July 2, 1682, C.E., XII, 13:1-7.

2.

Considerations to Remove Hirelings, C.E*, VI, 96:1-10.

3.

Apology against a Modest Confutation, C.E., III Part 1, 349:26-28. ~

4.

Animadversions, C.E., Ill, Part 1, 165:6-11.

5.

Reason of Church Government, C.E., Ill, Part 1, 242. 4. Treatise of Civil Power,

> VI, 5117-25.

7,

The Judgment of Martin Bucer, G.E., IV, 40:8-13.

8.

Tetrachordon, C .E., IV, 74:27-7h:4; Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, G.E., V, 8:4-7; A Treatise of Civil Power, G.E., VI, 5:17-25.

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These views concerning (Church authority were dia­ metrically opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church* The participants at Trent gave absolute allegiance to papal supremacy,^"

The Council considered bishops to be the

successors of the Apostles placed over the Church both to ordain priests and to rule ,2

In the Mew Testament, Trent

maintained, there is a visible, external, priesthood with the power to offer sacrifice and forgive sins:

anyone re­

ducing the priest to a mere gospel preacher was anathema­ tized*3

The obeisance of the Catholic to the authority of

the Church in the sphere of doctrine could hardly be greater than this pledge from Trent: 1, "Romanoque Pontifici, beati PETRI Apostolorum principis suecessori ac Jesu Christi vicario, veram obedientiam spondeo ae Juro** Professio fidei Tridentina (Ex Bulla PII IY Inlunctum nobis, Nov, 1564. ] Henricus Renzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum Befinitionum et Deelarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum (ed. 0, Bannwart}, Roma, Riunti, 1908, #999, This work will be cited as B. 2,

3,

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Bess, 'XXIII, B. #960; Father Herve' considers the following thesis to be Catholic Doctrine: "Episcopi, singillatim sumpti, sunt in sua diacesi magistri, non quidem infallibiles, sed authentici doctrinae fidei,* Canon J. M, Herve, Manuale Theologiae Bogmaticae, 4 vols*, Maryland, Newman, 1943, I, 491; "Episcopi quoque, licet singuli vel etiam in Conciliis particularibus congregati infallibilitate docendi non polleant, fideiSum tamen curis commissorum, sub auctoritate Romani Pontifieis, veri doctores sen magistri sunt,** Canon 1326, Codex Juris Canonicl, Maryland, Newman, 1942, ' 7' ‘ Bess*

XXIII, B. #960.

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simulque contraria omnia, atque haereses quascumque ab Ecclesia damnatas et reiectas et anathematizas ego pariter damno, reicio et anathematizo. 2 The Churoh of England had rejected papal supremacy, 3 4 but unlike Milton, defended bishops^ and priests, although

1.

Profess!o fidei Tridentina, D. #1000.

2.

On February 11, 1531, the first of the Five Articles de­ clared the King to be the supreme head of the clergy and Church of England, Rev.,Fernand Mourret, S.S., A History of the Catholic Church (trans. Rev. Hewton Thompson} 6 vols., St. Louis, £• Herder, 1945, ¥, 401. The Supre­ macy Act of 1534 omitted the saving clause of the Bishop’s Submission, "so far as the law of Christ allows," Henry Gee and W. I. Hardy, Documents Illus­ trative of English Church History, London, Macmillan and Company, 1921, pp. 243-44* After the brief restor­ ation of the status quo of 1529 by Q,ueen Mary’s Second Act of Repeal in 1554 (Gee and Hardy, Qp. cit., pp. 385-415} the Injunctions of Elizabeth in 1559 (ibid., pp. 417-442) continued royal supremacy.

3.

These bishops eventually were not in union with Rome, accepted a lay superior, and permitted the trespass of the King upon their spiritual powers, e.g., no canons were to be made without royal license and ratification (Submission of the Clergy, ibid., pp. 176-177}, bishops were to be consecreated upon royal appointment even against Rome's will, any interdict would be disregarded (Restraint of Annates, ibid., pp. 178-186}, spiritual cases hitherto sent to Rome would be definitivly adjucated by the King, who. would also grant dispensations, reform indulgences, etc. (Restraint of Appeals, ibid., pp. 187-200}* Edward ¥1 promulgated an Ordinal for episcopal consecration, Second Edwardine Act of Uni­ formity, ibid., pp* 369-372.

4.

Priests, within the meaning of Anglican teaching on the mass and the sacraments, were ordained in conformity with the Edwardine Ordinal. "The Bull (Apostplicae Curae} pronounces ’Anglican ordinations invalid and nuilY on account of defective form and intention." Gustav Constant, The Reformation in England (trans. E. II Watkin) 2 vols., New York, Sheed and Ward, 1942, II, 338.

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differing with. Borne as to their nature and authority.

De­

”i

spite this avowal of church authority, Anglican deviation from, fuller traditional concepts weakened that authority. The views of Milton concerning church authority repre­ sented the position of the Independents, who: opposed even the nugatory priesthood of Presbyterian Puritanism.^

With

other groups, the Independents had championed the Grand Remonstrance which blamed current religious degeneration upon the ^ecclesiastical tyranny and usurpation* of the "bishops and the corrupt part of the clergy**2

Their own

exiled ministers in Holland were referred to In these words of the document:

"The bishops and the rest of the clergy

did triumph in the suspensions, excommunications, depri­ vations, and degradations of divers painful, learned and rz pious ministers,*." Two leading Independents, Vane and Cromwell, presented to Parliament in May, 1641, the Boot and Branch Bill which wanted the complete abolition of episcopacy.4

Independent divines argued against the

--- "

----- 1

■■ -- ' -

1.

Sonnet XXIII, Smart,Sonnets of Milton, p. 126 j Bush, English literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, p ♦ 37l!i Saurat, Milton, Man and Thinker, pp. SSMgff.

2.

Gee and Hardy,

5.

Ibid., p. 557.

4.

Ibid., p. 537.

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"

■'

11

' ....

op.cit.,p. 555.

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”i

Bishop of Lincoln on the Twentieth Article, “Babet ecclesia author!tatem in controversils fidei...”1

John Milton also

attacked this article by giving it his own unique and evacuating interpretation.2

In the Parliamentary forces,

the Independents had gained ascendancy, and although after March, 1646, Presbyterianism was legally established, the actual power was in the hands of the Independents, Cromwell, Vane and Milton,3 Prescinding from the goodness or badness of the bishops and priests, as well as from the proper or abusive use of church authority, these/ in combination,, represented a safeguard for the traditional Trinitarianism which they had always proclaimed*

The diminution or elimination of

this authority offered men a new freedom to propound novel and individualistic theology.

Opposition to the authority,

when translated into practical human affairs, often meant opposition to the things this authority stood for, in this case traditional Trinitarianism.

History shows that some

of this anti-church authority group did have a tendency to and an untoward tolerance of anti^Trinitarian$sm. 1.

Rev. William H. Hutton, The English Church from the Accession of Charles I to the Death of Anne, London, Macmillan and Company, 1913, p. 93. Of True Religion, C.E., VI, 166:14-19.

3.

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Hutton, Q£. cit., pp. 123, 144.

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40

The closeness of Milton to Cromwell is seen In his position as Oliver's Latin Secretary.

His sympathy with

the Holland divines* the Independents of the Westminster Assembly, Is evident in the sonnet, "Because you have thrown off your Prelate, Lord."-*-

Cromwell and these di­

vines favored toleration for all holding the "fundamentals** of Christianity,

In their Instrument of Government * 1653,

a chief Mfundamental,* as written in Article XXJOTII, was: That such as profess Faith In God by Jesus Christ (though differing in Judgment from the doctrine, worship, or discipline publickly held forth] shall not be restrained from* but g shall be protected in, the profession of Faith*.. This clearly would tolerate anti-Trinitarianism. m

the controversy which marked the Westminster

Assembly, Milton sided with those who shared his view on Church authority, namely the Independents, Thomas Goodwin, Philip Kye, Sidrach Simpson, William Bridge, and Jeremiah Burroughs,

Burroughs and Bridges were from time to time

pastors of Congregational churches.4

Among the

1,

Smart, Q£. eit*. p.126.

2,

Parliamentary or Constitutional History of England 1066^1660Ted. William Cobbett and J. Wright], 36 vols., London, R* Bagshaw, ISCB, III, column 1425*

3.

Smart, op. cit., p. 129.

4.

The Dictionary of Rational Biography (ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee), IXII vols*, London, Ox-* ford University Press, 1938, II, 1223; II, 446. This will be cited as DUB.

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41

Gongregationalists, there was then a certain amount of anti-Trinitarianism.-*-

Simpson had Seekers and Anabaptists

in his congregation.2

These groups provided a fertile soil

for anti-Trinitarianism and among them were those actuallydenying the Trinity.^

The ministers themselves, however*

do not seem to have been explicit anti-Trinitarians.4 After the Best©ration, John Goodwin and Milton had been arrested and excepted together.

Beforehand, Goodwin’s

views on church authority paralleled those of Milton.

Like

most of the Independent ministers* he had been convened by ecclesiastical superiors, and at the time of the Westmin­ ster Assembly,, welcomed the opportunity of opposition.

He

denounced the Canons of 1640, quoted Milton’s Tenure of Kings approvingly* and attacked Presbyterian ism in his » or the Grand Imprudence of Fighting against God, 1644.5

Among the hearers of John Goodwin was Thomas Firmin

1.

Robert Wallace, Antltrinitarian Biography, 3 vols., London, E. T. Whitfield, 1850, I, 90.

2.

DRB, XVIII, 227•

3.

Wallace, op. cit., III, 542.

4.

These men were among those who on February 10, 1651, delivered a "printed Book” to Parliament for examin­ ation, David.Masson, The Life of John Milton, 7 vols., London, Macmillan and Company, 1875, IV, 396. The House of Commons Journal for April 2, 1652 gives the report of the parliamentary committee which condemned the anti-Trinitarianism of the Racovian Catechism, presumably the "Printed Book*," Among the signatures are those of Rye, Bridge, and Simpson; Great Britain. House of Commons Journal« 179 vols., London, keprinted by Order of the House of Commons, 1813, VII, 114.

1_5.

M B , VIII, 145.

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42

who took down the ministers sermons in shorthand.

Later,

Firmin openly proclaimed the anti-Trinitarianism of John Biddle, the "Father of English U n i t a r i a n i s m . G o o d w i n held that even the denial of the Holy Trinity was not a heresy.2

In 1647 Goodwin translated the first four hooks

of ^ e Satanae Stratagemata Into English.$

This work had

been written by Jacobus"Acontius,^ one of the leaders of the anti-Trinitarians found in the Italian Academies, and a friend of the anti-Trinitarian* Benjamin Gchlno* to whom is traced Milton^ own anti-Trinltarianlsm.^ 1.

Wallace, o£. oit.. Ill, 372-389..

2.

M B , Till, 146; "Mr. Mye, the Independent, had been heard to say that *to his knowledge the denying of the divinity of Christ was a growing opinion* and that there was a company of them met about Coleman Street, a Welshman being their chief, who held this opinion.1 Coleman Street appears indeed to have been a very hot bed of heresy. For here it was that John Goodwin had his congregation." Masson, ©£. cit,, II, 528-584.

3.

Wallace, op. cit., I, 108; Francis Cheynell, The Divine Triunity of the''’Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, London* 1650, pp. 441 tt., DKB, VIII,“X46.

4.

Among the Protestants in the Italian Academies there was considerable anti-Trinitarianism. When forced to flee, they went to Switzerland, Poland, and Transyl­ vania where they established Unitarian!sm. After leaving the continent, both Ochino and Acontlus lived for a while in England.

5.

Louis A. Wood, The Form and Origin of Milton*s Antitrinitarian Conception.

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1

The committee of the Westminster Assembly which in-

vestigated Goodwinfs book found it defective.

1

In the points

necessary for salvation there was no mention either of the divinity of Jesus Christ, or of the divinity of the Holy Ghost.

As Milton was later to do, Acontius made Christ

the Son of God, but would not declare Him to be the natu­ ral Son of God.1

It is of considerable Interest that the

translation was dedicated to Sir Thomas Fairfax, whom Mil­ ton knew and immortalized in a sonnet,2 and of further in­ terest that the investigating committee discovered a letter, written by John Brurie, recommending the book to Samuel Hartlib.3

It was to Hartlib that Milton dedicated his

Tract on Education. On the other hand, Milton in his very opposition to church authority was in a position of hostility to those who were most vocal against anti-Trinitarianism. Edwards, whose Gangra ena:

Thomas

or a Catalogue and Discovery of

many of the Errors, Heresies. Blasphemies and pernicious practices of the Sectaries. London* 1646, was a barrage against contemporary heterodoxy, Milton dubbed “shallow Edwards.”^

Edwards * work, listed as error #24, the

1.

Wallace, op. bit** I, 109.

2.

Sonnet XV, Smart, op. cit... p. 83.

3.

Wallace, op. eft., I, 109. Drurie, according to Masson, had a scheme for the union of all the Protestant Churches of Europe, an aim that has also been attri­ buted to Milton, Masson, op. clt., III, 194.

4. L

Smart, op. cit., p. 126. J

44

proposition:

^That in the unity of the Godhead there is

not a Trinity of Persons; and that the doctrine of the. Trinity is a Popish tradition and a doctrine pf Borne.*'*’ John Goodwin, also in opposition to Edwards, wrote a rebut­ tal to Gangraena entitled, Cretensis:

£r a Brief Answer.2

When the Holland divines published the Apologetioal Nar­ ration t 1643, which was their manifesto against church authority,, it had been Thomas Edwards who answered them in his Antapologla:

or a Full Answer. 1644.3

Bishop Hall,

who showed his scorn of anti-Trinitarianism in his work Irenieum, was the direct target of Milton in the episcopal controversy.

Robert Baillie was another target of Milton

in the episcopal controversy.4

He was the "Scotch What-

d-*ye call" Milt on also opposed in his sonnet on the West­ minster Assembly.5 1»

Edwards * Gangraena, pp* 15-31. DNB, VIII, 145.

3.

James Bass Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, 3 vols., London, Cambridge University Press, 1911, III, 444.

4.

Robert Baillie, A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time: wherein the tenets of the principal sects, especially the Independents, are drawn together in one map... London. J*or Samuel Gellihrand, 1645.

5.

Smart, op. cit., p. 129; Masson* pp.

L

cit., H I , 157.

45

Sir Henry Vane,. the younger, was one of the most powerful of the Independents*

The paralleling of his own

and Miltonts views is evident, since his two cardinal re­ ligious principles were a hostility to any settled ministry and an elevation, above all religious authority, of con­ science and the indwelling Spirit of Christ.'*’ On these points he and Milton stood steadfastly together even against Cromwell, as the poet^S sonnet sent to Vane on July 3, 1652 testifies.2 When John Biddle, the most public and prolific contem­ porary exponent of anti-Trinitarianism was imprisoned in April, 1647, it was to Vane he appealed for help, and he received it.3

Biddle wrote Twelve Arguments Against the

Deity of the Holy Spirit, and, in a dispute with the Bev* John Griffin of St. Pauls, he. denied the divinity of Christ.4 These teachings caused Biddle constantly to be facing charges*

He was continually in and out of prison.

Yet,

despite the fact that since May 2, 1648, there was an ordinance inflicting the death penalty upon anyone denying the Trinity,5 Biddle always escaped with light punishment. 1.

Henry Vane, Retired Man *s Meditations, London,1655, p. 388. Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, London, 1696, p. 75. -

2.

Sonnet XVII, Smart, op. cit., p. 93.

3.

DNB, XX, 113-129.

4.

Wallace, op. cit*. Ill, 173-206.

3.

Ibid., I, 112.

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46

^ome apparent solicitude on the part of Vane and Cromwell, and possibly Milton also, may well have been responsible for this otherwise unintelligible leniency* Most likely the one who translated the Anti-Trinitar­ ian Racovian Catechism into English in 1652 was John Biddle*1

Milton, in his capacity of censor, may have per© mitted the printing of this work. When Biddle published in 1648 The Testimonies of Irenaeus, Novatianus, and Lactantiust he made those Fathers witnesses for antiTrinitarianism*

Kathleen Hartwell claims that Milton in

his anti-Trinitarian!sm likewise was under the sway of Lactantius.3 Vane's own theology is a puzzling, mystical melange which students of the man feel‘may be traceable to Jacob Boehme.4

Boehme shared Milton's criticism of the univer-

sity^trained clergy. to the Scriptures

He sought

to reduce

and the "inner light s

their training SomeMiltonic

1.

Wallace, op* cit* * I, 117.

2*

£*.JU, XVIII, 524. Masson, op* cit*, IV,390 ff*, 438 ff.; Wood, Form and Origin of Milton's Antitrinitarian Conception* pp. 89-90* For the view that Milton was licenser of news-books only, see William M. Clyde, "Parliament and the Press," The Library. 13 (1932-1933), 399-425; 14 (1933-1934TP39-58.

3*

Kathleen Hartwell, Lactantius and Milton, pp* 108 ff.

4.

DNB, XX, 127.

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critics have contended that Boehme influenced the poet and

possibly did so in the direction of anti-Trinitarianism, for Boehme*s "inner light" led him to deny the divinity of Christ,1 Another anti-Trinitarian defended by the Independents in their opposition to church authority m s Paul Best, Wallace thinks it was their favor that saved him from the death penalty.

Milton seems to have owned, and annotated

with approval, his forbidden anti-Trinitarian Mysteries Biscovered.3

Tradition and Scripture Tradition was linked to Catholicism in the mind of John Milton and he sought to eliminate this sacrosanct guardian of theological dogma.

He claimed that all real

tradition had been lost as early as Irenaeus.^

Custom, he

pointed out, could as well sanction error, and most often did.

5

Tradition was described as "the perverse iniquity

of sixteen hundred years."6

He used the Fathers when they

1.

MargHnefc Lewis Bailey, Milton and Jakob Boehme, New York, Oxford University Press, 19l4, pp. 162-167.

2.

Wallace, op. cit., III, 163,

3.

C .E., XVill, 572; Appendix, #59.

4*

Of Prelatieal Episcopacy, G.E*, III, Part 1, 97:8-16.

5.

Of Reformat ion

6.

Reason of Church Government. G.E*, 24-246:37

C*E*» III, Part 1, 29:8-11. III, Part 1, 245; '

48

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served him, but in his later life he had little respeet for

their holdings; certainly none for things held simply on their own authority."** similar.

His view of the (councils was quite

He maintained that their only authority was the

intrinsic reasons they could allege, and reason, he ob­ served caustically,, was the same in one as in a thousand,2 Theologians he slightingly dubbed "stupid"® and their logi­ cal systems "paradoxes" of faith.,4

The doctrinal heritage

handed down by the stupid monks as well as its vehicle, scholastic philosophy, was also denounced.5 Perhaps the main general theological principle of John Milton, which grew gradually during his lifetime and became in his last days his sole theological criterion, was the exclusive sufficiency of Scripture interpreted under the Holy Spirit*

He wrote that Scripture needs no

1.

Animadversions, G.E., III, Part 1, 123:4-10. Of Prelatical Episcopacy/ G.E., Ill, Part 1, 82:5-16. Pritchard, The Influence of the Fathers. Hartwell, lactantius and Milton.

2.

Animadversions, G.E., Ill, Part 1, 126:4-11.

3.

Commonplace Book, £.E., XVIII, 138*26.

4*

Artis Loglcae, C.E., XI, 7:1-7, 315:7-317:4.

5#

Contra Phjlosophiam Scholasticam, CUE., XII, 158-172.

6.

Be Doctrina Christiana. , XIV, 5 ff. "First, as early as 1641, in his tracts on prelacy, Milton re­ solved that the Scriptures and only the Scriptures were to be for him the final test of truth, a position from which he never departed..." H.S.C. Grierson, "Milton and Liberty," MLR, XXXIX (1944), p. 98. Of Reformation, G.E., Ill, Part I, 33:11-19.

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49

rsupplement, i that teaches.2

nothing is catholic hut what Scripture

"i

It was Milton*s view that in Scripture study

each is his own best interpreter#^ be trained in Scripture only?4

He wanted ministers to

Illumined by the Holy Spirit

Scripture was the sole rule of faith#

It was considered

by him to be the main foundation of Protestantism6 and his posthumous statement of belief is founded upon Scripture 7 alone. The Catholic position on tradition and Scripture is completely at variance with the views expressed by John Milton.

The profession of faith at Trent gave the fullest

acceptance to tradition:

1.

Of Prelatical

2.

EikonoklastesC *E., ¥, 206:12-16.

3*

A Treatise of

Civil Power. G.E., ¥1, 6:2-12; 13:19-22.

4.

Consideration

to Remove Hirelings. C*E*, ¥1, 96:5-7.

5*

L

Episcopacy, 0*1*, III, Part 1, 82:9.

Of True Religion» C*E*,; ¥1, 168:17-21; 178:6-11.

6*

A Treatise of Civil Power. jg.E . , ¥1* 6:2-12.

7.

Be Doctrina, C.E*, XI¥, 5 ff.; A Treatise of Civil Power. C.E., ¥1, 4:11-14.

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Apostolicas at eeclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem Scclesiae observationes at constitutiones firmissime admitto at amplector. Item sacram Scripturam juxta earn sensum* quam tenuit et tenet sancta mater Eeclesia, cuius est judicare de vero sensu et interpretations sacrarum Scripturarum..

~i

The legates pledged themselves to receive and profess with­ out hesitation the decrees of Trent and the other oecumen­ ical councils.2

Trent considered the Fathers so important

that it judged that Scripture must never be interpreted "nisi juxta unanimen consensum Patrum.**^

Trent honored the

theologians by having them prepare the documents for the

1.

Professio fidei Tridentiha, Jk 995. Father Herve con- , siders as de fide the assertion: "Praeter Seripturam, alius est fons Revelationis, Tradition,scilicet divinar quae, ab authentico Ecclesiae m'agisterio usque ad nos infallibiliter servata* regulam fidei constituit Scripture priprem et ampliorem." Rerve, op. cit., I, 548.

8.

Ibid., 1000. ^Cetera item omnia a sacris canonibus et oecumenicis Gonciliis, ac praecipue a sacrosancta Tridentino Synodo* tradita, definita ac deelarata* indubitanter recipio atque profiteer."

5.

Ibid., 995.. Father Herve considers as Catholic doc­ trine: "Unanimis consensus Patrum in rebus fidei et morum est cert urn divinae veritatis argument urn; singulorum autem Pat rum auctoritas, etsi non infallibilis, magni tamen est momenti in re theologies* ac proinde non facile admittendus est inter eos dissensus.” Hervet op. cit., I, 567. ' .*

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Council*

With the Bible and the decrees of the Popes, the

i ,

Summa of St* Thomas was placed on the altar In the eon~ clave.^ The Anglican view of Scripture and tradition* although at variance with Borne, did not share Miltonrs hostility and extreme radicalism*

Its departure from Rome was marked by

an overstress of Scripture and a minimizing In theory if not an abolition in practice, of tradition and tradition*s interpretative role in the understanding of Scripture* Anglicanism maintained that since all truths are in Scrip­ ture, nothing necessary to salvation Is found"out side Scripture.

2

Concerning Councils, Anglicanism taught that

they had erred being but gatherings of fallible men.5 1*

"Sixtus ¥, in Bulla Triumphatus a. 15S8* theologiam scholasticam dicit munitissimam arcem contra haeresim et ’invictum fidei propugnaculum*, 'hereditatem Patrum nostrorum* quam conservare et tueri debemus*** Herve* op* cit*,I. 577* Father Herve considers theologically certain; "Unanimis et constans Scholarum christianarum consensus,.in rebus fidei et morum certum est divinae veritatis argumentum** Ibid*, I, 577*

2*

"Scripture sacra oontinet omnia, quae ad salutem sunt necessaria, ita, ut quicquid in ea nee legitur, neque inde probari potest, non sit a quoquam exigendum, ut tanquam articuius Fidei credatur, aut ad salutis necessitatem* requiri putetur*" Art. ¥1, Artleulorum XXXIX Icclesiae Anglicanae Defensio (0..Ellis)* AmsielodamT, Apud Joann* Paulium, 1696, p. 23.

3*

Ibid., p. 76* ."Generalia Concilia sine jussu at voluntate Principum congregaTi non pussunt; et quando con­ gregate fuerint (quia coetus hominum sunt quorum omnes non Spiritu et verbo Dei reguntur| errare possunt atque interdum errarunt * etiam In rebus ad Deum pertinentibus; quapropter ab illis constitute, tanquam ad salutem necessaria* neque robur habent, neque authoritatem,nisi declarari possunt e sacris literis esse desumpta." Art* H I . j

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52

Another Anglican article impugned the doctrine of the schoolmen as vainly invented.^

Yet there were Anglican

statements in the direction of conservativism.

This po-

sition is seen in ArchMshop Laud and ,his followers.

p

Milton's view of Scripture and tradition was that of the continental Reformation?

L

Luther had asserted the

1.

Ibid., p. 79.

Art. XXIX.

2.

Of interest is the debate between Laud and Father Fisher, Hutton, op. cit., p. 11. The Canons of 1571 had enjoined preachers to employScripture but also "what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this same doctrine.1* See and Hardy, op. cit *, p. 476; Rev. W. H. Frere, The English Church In the Reigns of Elizabeth and lames 1^ (1558-1625), Macmillan and Company, London, 1924, pV 167. Article XX speaks of the author ity of the church in contro­ versies of faith, and Article XXXIY asserts the value of tradition in matters of ceremony and discipline. Citing such statements, the Anglican, Rev. H. Edwards Symonds discusses the distinctions of tradition, inhaesiva, declarative, and distincta, H. 1. Symonds, The Council of Trent and Anglican Formularies. London, Oxford University Press/ 1933, p, 2. A Catholic treat­ ment of this matter is available in Herve, op. cit., I, 547 ff. Symonds attempts to minimize the Catholiclaglican differences. Although aware of the fact that such an attempt, made by the Franciscan Dr. Christo­ pher Davenport under the pseudonym Santa Clara, was ordered to be withdrawn from publication by Catholic authority, Symonds did not permit that knowledge to discourage his own scholarly efforts.

5.

**From the Reformation hermeneutics of Martin Luther, whose chief tenet was Scripture above ecclesiastical authority and whose principle of scriptural inter­ pretation by Scripture advanced Biblical supremacy in all matters of doctrine, came the basic Protestant theory of the absolute sufficiency of Scripture in Christian theology.** George Newton Conklin, Bibli­ cal Criticism and Heresy in Milton. Hew York, King's Crown Press, 1949, p. 11.

J

Supremacy of Scripture over all church authority and tra­ dition*

Calvin had made the *plain sense* of Scripture the

exclusive doctrinal font.**’ This blunt and final contin­ ental dismissal of tradition was consolidated in the Helvetto Confession*

In England such an evaluation of

Scripture and tradition was accepted by two groups, the Puritans and the conglomerate liberal rational theologians. Both wanted dogma expressed entirely in scriptural langu­ age*

The former emphasised divine guidance and literal

exactness, the latter reason and freedom, in its interpre­ tation. 3 The Puritans were distinctive in their bitter animus against all tradition*

This was due to the exigencies of

their historical stragglings against established authori­ tative religion.4

Because tradition supported the Trinity,

1.

Ibid., p. 9.

2.

"Credimus uni cam regulam et normam, secundum quam omnia dogmata omnesque doctores aestimari et iudicari ©porteat, nullam omnino aliam esse, quam prophetica et apostolica scripta cum V. turn N. Testamenti.M Gonf. Helv* II, c*2* quoted in Herve, 0£. cit*, I, 54?.

3.

"The Bible presents itself to the Puritan as a uniform manual of doctrine and duty, an absolute law of truth and right, in which his own system is plainly and authoritatively laid down.n John Tulloch, D*D*, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England • in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols *, Edinburgh, William Brackwood and Sons, MBCCCLIXII, I, 64.

4.

In Milton*s day they opposed a bloc in the Anglican Church seeking to return to the Church of the fourth century with its Fathers and Gouncils* Gf. Tulloch, op. cit*, I, 64*

54

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i

the Puritans began to associate that doctrine with the Church of Rome.^

Their refusal to how at the name "Jesus"

was indicative of their growing hostility to Trinitarianism.2 Milton came into contact with these continental prin­ ciples regarding Scripture and tradition* not only through Puritanism,3 hut quite directly by his reading of Peter

1.

Thomas Edwards in Gangraena listed as error #24, "that in the Unity of the Godhead there is not a Trinity of Persons; and that the doctrine of the Trinity is a Popish tradition* and a doctrine of Rome."

2.

When Laud sought to enforce the Canons of 1603 enjoin^ ing the bowing of the head at the name "Jesus" to acknowledge that He is "true and eternal Son of God," the Puritans objected to it as a Popish practice. Wallace, op. cit** I, 72*

3*

The best statement of Puritan hermeneutics was The Reason of Faith, or An Answer to that Enquiry.Wherefore We Believe the Scripture to Be the Word of God written by Dr. John Owen* "'Milton'* s views have been considered to be practically a synopsis of this work. Cf. Conklin, op. cit., p. 30.

!_

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55

|—

Martyr,^ Baza,2 Grotins,3 Bucer,4 Rivetus,5 Fagius,6 7

Paraeus,

Zwingli,

a

Galvin

q

and the Sooinian catechism.

and probably also Paul Best

TO

11

These continental principles were bound of their nature to lead to anti-Trinitarianism.

The scriptural

renaissance of the Reformation, stressed Pauline writings* In them the Ghristology is abstruse and difficult•

The

attempt to interpret the Pauline Christ apart from tradition invited disaster.

The terms in which the doctrine of the

Trinity was commonly taught were discarded -because they had not been expressed verbatim in Scripture.

Scripture texts

were pored over with diligence while Fathers, Councils, etc., 1.

Commonplace Book. C . E . X V I I I , 182-185.

2.

Animadvers ions, C .E., III, Part 1, 149. Judgment of Mart in Bucer. C.E., IV, 11.

4.

Ibid., pp. 1-63.

5.

Tetrachordon. G.E., IV, 162.

6.

Tetrachordon. G.E., IV, 224.

7.

Reason of Church Government« G.E..

8.

Tenure of Kings. C.E., V, 47. Ibid*. Loc. cit.

10. Vide supra, p. 47. Vide supra, p. 46.

L

III. Part X p 238.

were neglected with hostility.^

Gradually Trinitarianism

yielded to anti-Trinitarianism, not because the reformers directly attacked the Trinity,, but because their repudi­ ation of tradition sapped the pillars helping to sustain this doctrine.^ Thus* of the continental reformers Milton read, Best and Beza were openly anti~Trinitarian *

So was the Socin-

ian Catechism, that example par excellence of the arbitrary interpretation of Scripture sans tradition. 1.

3

"Pour le comprendre* il faut analyser le texte confornament h tous les principes philosophiques, Stablir le sens exact des termes et des phrases dans s*arr#ter aux commentaires anciens. Ce qui a #t# #crit par les PSres de l ’eglise est inutile et m§me suspect, ptautre part, il faut rejeter entforement tout ce qui a £t€ aceumul# par la tradition et l fea­ se igemient de l^lglise. L fhumanity est tomb^e dans l»erreur en pr#tant criance h cette tradition*” Stanislas Kot* "Le Mouvement anti-trinitaire au XVIle siSole," Humanisms et Renaissance» IV (1937), p. 39, ' L.

L

2.

"Ses chefs n fattaquaient pas directement le dogme de la Trinit#, cependant par le fait d^carter les termes philosophiques et th#ologiques et de s ,en;tenir strictement h ce que rapporte l rHcriture, ils contribuhrent ind€niablement h en sapor les fondements*" Ibid*, IV, p. 24*

3.

"The Socinian confession of faith (which is actually what the Bacovian catechism amounts to),... was begun by Socinus (who had no professional theological train­ ing), completely Independent of tradition and pointed­ ly disavowing existing creeds, by direct deduction from Scripture..." Gonklin, op*, cit., p. 38,

J

57

| — —| Luther,1 Zwingll,2 and Calvin3 said unorthodox things about the Trinity.

The others, if not anti-Trinitarian them­

selves, were friendly with anti-Trinitarians and tolerant of anti-Trinitarianism.

Peter Martyr was an intimate of

Bernard Oohino and others of the circle of the Italian Academies, mies

L

4

Anti-Trinitarianism was rife in these Acade-

where John Milton was later so well received.

Milton

may have read Oohino*s anti-Trinitarian Dialogues*^

Ochino

1.

Luther preferred the term "God* to "Trinity," dis­ liked homoousios as unseriptural, and omitted these terms from his catechism and the invocation of the Trinity from his litany* lari Morse Wilbur, D.D., A History of Unitarianism, Cambridge, Harvard.University Press, 1945, pV 15.

2.

Zwingli said Christ was not a proper object of wor­ ship, Ibid., p. 16.

3.

Calvin taught the Holy Spirit was not so much a Person as God’s active power in the world. Ibid., p. 16.

4.

Wallace, o£. cit.. I, 18. Martyr brought the antiTrinitarian Cons iderat ions on a Religious Life of John Valdez to Basle where he sought to publishit(Wallace, op. cit., II, 9.1. He corresponded with Laelius Sooinius (Ibid., II, Ql.) , and the Polish anti-Trini­ tarians (IbidV, II, 159.).

5.

Harold R. Hutcheson, Lord Herbert of Cher bury *s ffDe Religions Lalei,ttr Hew Haven, Yale University Press, 1944, pp. 61-62. Italian anti-Trinitarianism was apparently imported originally from Spain, Frederic C. Church, The Italian Reformers 1554-1664, New York, Columbia University Press, MCM1XXII, p. 3.

6.

Wood, op. cit.

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58

r

had sojourned in England.

“i

Rivetus praised the anti-Trini­

tarian Acontius to whom some of Milton*s Areopagitica passages may be indebted.^

Grotius, whom Milton met as

well as read, is suspect of anti-Trinitarianism,^ Milton found these same general theoLogical principles not only among the Puritans and the continental reformers whom he read, but also among the Cambridge Platonists.

The

Cambridge Platonists seem to hare been known to. him, and thought similar to theirs is discernible in his writings, Milton probably knew and heard Peter Sterry, for Sterry was with him for four years at Cambridge, was an associate of Vane, Cromwell*s chaplain-in^ordinary, preacher to the Council of State, and possibly Milton's assistant Latin Secretary.

Sterry had also served as chaplain to the wife

of Lord Brooke,3

L

Brooke and Milton possibly complimented

1.

Cf . Monthly Repository, XVI, pp. 456-458,

2.

Grotius used Faustus Socinius* On the Authority of the Holy Scripture in writ ing hi s Be Veritate ChristTanae Religionis (Wallace, op. cit., II, 329-330), praised the Socinian The Five Books of John Volkelius, (Ibid., II, 451i 432) and drew up a perfect Socinian system in his own Annotations (Ibid., III, 574-575)• ”Sur les rapports de Hugo Grotius avec les antitrinitaires: L, Chmaj* H. Grotius et le socjnianisme et St. Kot, H. Grotius et la Pologne dans la Reformacja w Polsee, vol. IV, 19*26 en polonais," S. Kot, Humanisms et Renaissance, IV (1937), p. 135..

3.

Vivian de Sola Pinto, Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1934'*

J

59

W e h otherrs writings by imitation.1

Benjamin ihlcheote

and Henry More were at Cambridge with the poet, and William Cudworth, Nathaniel Culverwell, and John Smith arrived there shortly after his departure*

They all shared the

same intellectual environment* Marjorie Nicolson makes Milton's own college, Christ's, rather than Emmanuel, the home of the Cambridge Platonists. Henry More was at Christ's as was Joseph Made.

Mede was a

kindred soul to More in Miss Nieolson's opinion.2

Mullin­

gar claims that Mede's Clavis Apocalyptioa impressed Hartlib, with whom Made corresponded,^ and modified the religious belief of Milton.*

In An Apology against a

Modest Confutation Milton mentions letters from Fellows of Christ.5

Masson suggests Mede* More and others.®

In common

with Mede, both More and Milton had a keen interest in the apocalyptic books of the Bible*

Further, Milton's tutor, 7 JWilliam Chappell was a close friend of Mede. 1.

G* W.. Whiting, "Milton and Lord Brooke on the Church," MLN, LI (1936), 161-166.

2.

M* Nicolson, "Christ's College and the Latitude Men," MP, X£VTI C1929-1930), p* 36*

3*

D. Bush, English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, p* 345.

4*

Mullingar, 0£. cit., III, 24.

5*

§>$., Ill, Part I, 297*

6.

Masson, op* cit*, II, 401.

7*

Mullinger, op* cit*, III, 16.

L

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60

r~

The Cambridge Platonists* among other tenets* held the

continental principles governing Scripture and tradition. They sought to discredit tradition* especially in what they considered to be its quarrelsome systems of doctrine*^ They wanted all dogma to be expressed exclusively in scrip­ tural language*

How the scriptural statement should be

interpreted was to be left entirely to the individual. This view seems to have been resultant upon their assimilation of Arminianism

2

at Cambridge *

Benjamin Whichcote wrote to Limborch of Amsterdam that he had adopted Arminianism at Cambridge and that most of 3 the doctores there had also done so by 1653. Anthony Tuckney, his former tutor said that Whichcote taught that Scripture left some doctrines undetermined.^

Whichcote

1.

"For him /Whichcote7 and all the Cambridge men the authority of Scripture as the word of God was unques­ tioned j the authority of Creed and Fathers was alto­ gether secondary*" Frederich J* Powicke, The Cambridge^ Platonists, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 19267 p. 206* Chapter I has a statement of their general tenets*

2*

Simon Episcopius developed his master's teaching syste­ matically. He reassessed all dogma by a strict scrip­ tural measurement• "The authority of Scripture, said the Arminian, is merely ‘directive** (Confessio lemons, I. 10.) It is the witness of the Holy Spirit in the divine Word; but it can only be brought near to the in­ dividual and become operative by his own free inquiry and assent.” Tulloch, op* cit*, I, 28* Gf. James F. Coughlin, "Arminianism," The Catholic Encyclopedia, 16 vols*, Hew York, The Encyclopedia Press, 1914, I, 740-742.

3.

Powicke, op* cit *, p* 112*

4. L

Ibid*, p. 56* J

61

served as tutor to Smith*

Cudworth made no secret of his

Arminianism in a speech before Commons.1

More in his An

Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness put great stress on Scripture as the font of dogma. As Arminianism had led its founders to anti-Trinitar­ ianism,2 it seems also to have drawn the Cambridge Platon­ ists into making unorthodox statements regarding the Trinity,

This seems to have been the logical consequence 3 of the abandonment of tradition. These Cambridge .'Divines

were so liberal that even the Unitarians were able to 1.

Ibid** p. 112.

2.

Simon Episcopius employed John 3:16 to stress that Christ was " b e g o t t e n J o h n Milton was later to do the same. Both Jacobus Arminius and Episcopius had anti-Trinitarian notions. In his Notes on the English Translation of the De Doctrina Christiana Bishop Sumner has found parallel thought in theworks of Episcopius.

3*

"This exclusive dependence on the letter of Scripture had great results. For one thing it initiated the Arian movement * Of that movement, Dr. Samuel Clarke... may be described as a pioneer*..his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity exhibits in its title the ground on wEieh he based himself. Discarding all previous form­ ulations of the Trinity, he professed to bring his mind as a tabula rasa to the lew Testament , understood in its plain and proper sense. The semi-Arian con­ clusion at which he arrivedwas -the said) something forced upon him by the evidence. lockeand Sir Isaac Newton wound up their no less * impartial* study of Scripture at much the same goal." Powicke, op. cit.* p. 207.

L.

J

62

I

^

abide painlessly by the Conventicle Act.x

—t

these men depart­

ed from the traditional Christian concept of Christ by their teachings on the atonement.

Whichcote **that mixture of

Platonisme, Qrigenisme, and Arianisme,emphasized that sin is pardoned primarily by Cod’s goodness, that Christ f2 is but a secondary* promoting cause. This view has also been attributed to Milton.

John Smith had a similar view

in the appendix of his Discourses of legal and Evangelical Rightepusness.^

More and Cudworth said little about

Christ*s role in the atonement * things to say about the Trinity.

L

More, however, had strange In trying to reconcile

1.

"The number of clergymen* entertaining liberal senti­ ments on doctrinal subjects, was at this time consid­ erable; - a circumstance which rendered it less offen­ sive for a Unitarian, than it would otherwise have been, to attend the Church service. These were gener­ ally Cambridge men, who had been formed under such Di­ vines as Doctors Whichcote, Cudworth, Wilkins, More and Worthington. (Of. Burnet, Riatory of His Own Time, I, 186.)." "Indeed it is generally admitted, that many who held valuable livings after the Restoration, be­ lieved only in a modal Trinity.** Wallace, op. cit., I, 152.

2.

Richard Baxter quoted in B. Bush, English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, p. 341,

3.

f,The free pardon of sin to them that do repent it, is primarily and originally owing to the goodness of God Himself: though it is also to be attributed and ascri­ bed to the interposing of Our Lord and Saviour as a secondary and a further promoting cause, and that which Divine wisdom did think fit should be, but the original goodness of God is the primary cause of all.*1 Whichcote*s Works, II, 100 quoted in Powicke, op. cit., p. 70. Tuckney had accused Whichcote of holding a merely subjective view of the atonement.

4.

Ibid., p. 70 J

63

r

the unity of the Trinity with neo-Platonic doctrine, he

employed the allegory of the marriage of abstractions,.

In

his Psychozoia he parallels the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost with the Plotinian Good, Mind and Spirit.

1

Sterry,

apparently wrestling with the same problem in his Discourse of the Freedom of the Will, makes the Trinity a Godhead Of Light, Life and Love*

The Son is God*s treasury of Ideas,"

and the "First Image of the whole creation and of every p ■ * creature, as a part of the whole.11 - Gulverwell seems to have doubted that the doctrine of the Trinity was revealed.3 1*

Marjorie Nicolson, **More*s Psychozoia,** MLH. XXXVTII (1922}, 144-148.

2.

"The Godhead is a Trinity of Life, Light, and Love* Life is identified with the Father. Love is identi­ fied with the Spirit as the informing, soul of the Father and the Son. Light is identified with the Son. The Son is the *mind of God,* is the ♦Treasury of all Ideas.* He is.His Wisdom, or His Image. The last is Sterry*s favorite comparison. The Son is at once the First Image of God, ’the clearest and full­ est effulgency or brightness of all His glories in His own most proper and most glorias form* (Discourse of the Freedom of the Will 1675}; and *in that, the First Image of the whole creation and of every crea­ ture, as a part of the whole.* Thus the Son standeth in the middle between God and all creatures, compre­ hending both entirely in one in Himself.* (Ibid.I He is also the *Way by which God descendeth into the creature, by which the creation cometh forth from God.*** Powicke, op. cit., pp. 182-183•

3.

Gulverwell wrote, "You believe in the Trinity; and the Trinity, you say, is a great mystery; and you hope that someday it may be revealed. But, if ever it be revealed it will, so far, pass beyond faith,, and take rank among things intelligible. Revelation, now and always, must have for end and result the clearing up of what before was dark to Reason.** Quoted in Powicke, op. cit., p. 147.

L

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64

r

Sewell links Milton and Gudworth In anti-Trinitarian thought: Milton's anti-Trinitarian view is shockingly parallel to Gudworth's remarks on the Platonic Trinity* like Milton, Gudworth was deeply impressed by the passage in I Cor. XV in which it is said that "God shall be all in all*9 In a sermon preached in Lincoln's Inn, 1644, Gudworth laid special emphasis on this passage, and gave it a central place in the thought of the whole sermon* This emphasis seems to imply exactly that inferiority of the Son to the Father which is first suggested in Paradise Lost and elaborately argued in Be Doctrina. It Is true that Gudworth does not openly confess the "Christian Platonist's* view of the Trinity as his own; but there is little doubt that his "Christian Platonist" who defends an unorthodox position is Gudworth himself..*. In a reference to Plotinus, too, Cudworth (True In­ tellectual System* tr* 1845, II, 3901 refers to W e S on a s' Int elleet, which "beholds Being as its Father*" So Milton declares that the generator must produce something different from himself, not equal with himself*1 In the light of the evidence presented above, it would

he difficult to deny a link between the antecedent, abandon­ ment of tradition, and the consequent ant1-Trinlterlanisnu Nor does John Milton's anti-Trinitarianism seem to have been an exception,

"Milton's Arianism was lust an aspect

of his revolt against scholastic philosophy, his resolve to abide by the Soriptures*"2

Or, in the words of another:

1.

Arthur Sewell, A. Study in Milton's Christian Doctrine, pp* 193-194*

2.

H* J* G* Grierson, "Milton and Liberty," MLR, X H X (19441, ; .100. ~~

L

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65

The heterodoxies that resulted from M s (Milton's) theory and practice of Biblical criticism (liberal Puritan hermeneutics plus philological exegesis) seem an inevitable corollary or that medium rather than a potpourri of directing influence from his catholic and constant reading. In his heretical opinions,.•Milton has followed strictly his professed Protestant method of ad­ herence to Scripture alone — without recourse to any other Judges or interpreters — under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.& Consequently there seems much reason to watch alertly for any infusion into the mind of John Milton, during the period 1608-1625* of this general theological principle, the abandonment of tradition, so fruitful in the way of ant i~Trini tarIanism,

Heresy. Schism, and Creeds Although there are places in his works wherein Milton spoke against heresies3 he extended to heresies the virtue concept of his Cornus.

This view would deliberately expose

one to the allurements of heresy*

The reasoning was that

the possessor of truth would thus be made strong, and his virtue, in this case the possession of truth, would be the more praiseworthy.^

His final position on the question of

Conklin, op^ cit., p. 3.

2.

Ibid., p. 85.

3.

Of Prelatical Bpiscopacy, C.E., III, Part 1, 88:1689:9,; Befenslo Secunda, C *Er, YIIX, 125:24-25,

4.

Areopagitica, G,E., IV, 33&-33S,

L

1.

-J

66

r

-

■

heresy was that after all it was unimportant whether or not

i

one held heresies, for as long as one possessed good will, God pardoned any errors.

Not only was he tolerant of

Protestant sects, but he anticipated them as the necessary modus agendi of religion, and felt they actually represent­ ed God*s will in the matter*2

He seemed to consider all

schisms to he acceptable churches,

and maintained that the

Protestant disputes were concerned with unessentials only, 4 although the question of the Trinity was one of them. Naturally such a state of mind removed all barriers to his own acceptance of heresy and schism and represented an aprioristic justification of anti-Trinitarianism, As a logical consequence of the above, John Milton also sought to eliminate the validity of the traditionally ac­ cepted Christian Greeds which had definitely and authori­ tatively drawn the line of demarcation between theological truth and error.

Despite sporadic protestations in whieh

he reverenced Creeds,, his true and final position was that he wanted no Greed, that the best Creed was simply Scripture.

Even divine testimony was worth only the intrinsic Of True Religion. G*E., VI, 168*17-21.

2.

Areopagitica, CUE*, IV, 342:10-25*

3*

Klkonoklastes. £*E*, V, 208:14^16*

4*

Of True Religion, G*E*, VI, 168:25-170:9.

5*

Apology against a Modest Confutation,. C*E*, III, Part 1, 2>56:19—24 •

L

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67

I reasoning it possessed,

1

”

and reason helped by Scripture

was the best preventive of heresy.

Hence, even divine or

credal attestation to the Trinity was a fortiori deprived of any validity. The Catholic stand pn Creed, Heresy* and Schism was quite opposite to Milton1s . At Trent* each Catholic ac­ cepted without qualification the Catholic Creed::

"Ego firms

fide credo et profiteor omnia et singula, quae continentnr in Symbols fidei, quo sancta Romana Ecclesia utitur... «z The Catholic Church alone was acknowledged. All heresies condemned by the Church must be rejected.

4

The Anglican Church departed somewhat from the concept of the Creed held by Rome.

Article VIII maintained that

the Nicene, Apostle's and Athanastan creeds "ought to be K thoroughly received and believed." Yet, the Articles* as Laud pointed out to Fisher, were not imposed under anathema Logicae. C .E. , XI, 281:25-283:12. 2.

Professio fidei Tridentina, D. #994.

3.

"Sanctam catholic am et apostolicam Romanam Eeclesiam omnium ecclesiarum matrem et magistram agnosco.” D., #999.

4.

"simulque contraria omnia, atque haereses quascumque ab Ecclesia damnatas et reiectas et anathemattzatas ego, pari ter damno, reicio et anathematize*" D., #1C00. c

5.

L

Ellis, Articulorum XXXIX, p. 34. There are many di­ rectives to the clergy to teach the Creed, e.g., Direct ions to Preachers (King lames I, 1622) See and Hardy, oju cTt., p. 517.

J

68

ras were the decrees of Trent*^

Symonds writes of the

Articles, MNor are the laity required to accept them* Canon 5 of 1604 merely censures those who impugn, i.e. 2 openly attack them** Anglicanism did not encourage sects cr and heresy, as numerous documents testify*. However, as will be shown* the £atitudinarian ministers of the seven4 teenth century undermined this position. While Lutheranism and Calvinism felt it necessary to resort to Confessional theology, the continental reformers in Milton's time became aware of the inherent contradiction of doing so and, in general, reverted to the prime princi­ ple of the Revolt's inauguration, namely private interpre­ tation*

Thus the Arminians, Soeinians, and continental

reformers, mentioned above in connection with Scripture and tradition, ruled out Creeds and accepted heresies and schisms.

A division between fundamental and non-fundament­

al dogmas was laid down in the hope of uniting the various sects and obtaining theological peace.

But since no one

could establish the fundamentals, it meant in practice a 1* 8*

L

Symonds, pp. cit*. p. X. , p* XI*

3*

In the Canons of 1640, #4 was againstSocinianism and #5 against sectaries, Gee & Hardy, op* cit., p, 535* Other documents are found in the same work, pp. 3Q7, 432, 460, 492 (against Puritans), 526 (against Armin­ ians) , 626.

4.

Vide infra, pp. 67-72* J

carte blanche for all heresies and schisms.

1

'

Further, all

Symbols were weakened by denying to them any binding force even upon those who subscribed to them.

p

The group in

England which imbibed this aspect of Arminianism, now grown quite powerful since the cessation of

L

the Arminian debates,^

X*

**This renewed manifestation of the rational spirit in Protestantism touched.•.a point to which we have not hitherto alluded, but which became, as will be seen, one of the most influential in the course of rational religious thought, — namely, the limits of dogma, or the distinction between fundamental and non-funda­ mental articles of Christian belief*** Tullach, op. cit., 1 1 26. Cf. C. H. Joyce, ^fundamental Articles*** Catholic Encyclopedia. YI, 319-321.

2.

^Symbols and Confessions, it /Trminianism^ held, accord­ ing to their true meaning, and even their ancient usage to have no other design but to testify, not what was to be believed, but what the authors themselves believed. (Pref .""to Confession. Opera Eptscopii, II, Pars. Sec. p. 71.) Tulloch. op. cit., I, 30.

3.

In November, 1628 the Declaration prefixed in the Book of Common Prayer to the Thirty-Nine Articles ealled for atheological amnesty. In Canterburies Doome, pp. 160-161, William Prynne wrote; **By colour of this Declaration and pretended amnesty of.silencing both sides, the Anti-Arminian truths and received doc­ trines of our Church, came to be totally silenced, suppressed in presse, pulpit, schooles, universities, and the Arminian errors found free passage in them all without any or very little opposition.® Cf. Mullingar, op. cit., 111,79.

J

70

1

was the Latitudinarian or rational theologians,

1

* especi­

ally the Grant Tew group and their neighbor, Jeremiah Taylor,

This Latitudinarian view was the category to which

the attitude of Milton toward Greed, heresy and schism be­ longed.

The Great Tew group read Episeaplus and felt that

dogmatical Greeds were inventive, scholastic, Papist spino nings from an original, simple Christian core of belief. John Bales had been greatly impressed by Episcopius and 3 Paraeus at the Synod of Dort. Lord Falkland had travelled on the continent, conversed with reformers advocating such views, and ascribed verses to Grotius.

Lord Falkland was

1.

This view is discernible also in the Cambridge Platonists who have been discussed above. Likewise the Latitudinari ana of Great Tew showed the attitude of the Cambridge Platonists towards tradition and Scrip­ ture. Hales in his Sermon w0f Enquiry and Private Judgment in Religion," opposed tradition ut sic and held the Councils had.erred in his Tract Concerning Schism and Schismatics. Ohlllingworth in his An Answer against...Rushworth*s Dialogues insistecT there was no tradition with the weight of Scripture. In his Religion of Protestants he said "the Bible* only is the religion of Protestants." Taylor writing the Liberty of Prophesying called the Fathers, Councils, and tradition quite fallible. Both the Latitudinarians and the Cambridge Platonists also made religious authority, which was discussed above-in connection with the Independents, their target. These theologi­ cal attitudes were not compact vats monopolized by one group, but rather overlapping intellectual tides.

2.

Hales wrote: "It was the Judgment of Paraeus, a great divine, that the greatest cause of contention in the church was this, that the schoolmen's conclusions and cathedral decisions had been received as oracles and articles of faith." Quoted in Tullach, op. cit., I, 17®.

3.

M B , III, 1155-1160,

L

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71

accused of introducing, Socinian works into England*^ William Chillingworth has also been charged with Socinian p leanings • Milton’s friends* Sir Henry Wotton and Andrew Marvell knew Hales. approbation*,

Marvell had used his Tract on Schism with Wotton was with Hales at Eton for many years

and seems to have shared his views and background.^

Milton

had the opportunity at least of hearing Hales preach at Paul’s Gross in his London neighborhood.^

Jeremy Taylor

had been a contemporary of Milton’s for about seven years at Cambridge.

Later, he was appointed lecturer at St.

Paul’s when Milton lived nearby.

L

Milton may have known

1.

Wood, op. cit., p. 28.

2.

Cf. Edward Knott, S. J.* A Direction to be observed by W.N., 1636j Rev. Francis Cheynell, GhilXingwor thl KovTssima. 1644; Wallace, Antltrinitarian BiographyV Vol. I, Eat, op. cit., Henry M. Dexter, England and Holland of the Pilgrims. A colorful picture of the Great Tew group is found in Suckling’s poem, A Session of the Poets.

3.

Wotton had travelled on the continent for six years. He had met and conversed with Beza, Tulloch, op. cit. f I, 197. Miss Nicolson considers Eton to have been the center of Latitudinarianism at this time. Henry More had been there before going to Christ’s College, M. Nicolson, ’’Christ’s College and the Latitude Men,” MP, XXVII (1929-1930}, \*. 36*

4.

Edward Augustus George, Seventeeth Century Men of Latitude, Kew York, Charles Scribner and Sons, 1908, p. 35. I A/ V r U T t A ' t . 7~o A ltL U '0 r T * * r M o r s 5 / n t . r * A/ & p ,L L /> b

***

OifLiAfit

SKYS

"H ”

A^o

/ I I c T o * / tx ASC.VV

* ,£ L C

MAi t e e *

J

tord Falkland from government circles in which the latter was prominent*

His speeches in parliament would have

pleased Milton when at first they opposed episcopacy* Ghillingwarth*s opinions may have been retailed to Milton by Alexander Gil

who was with Ghillingworth at Trinity

College, Oxford, and was possibly quite close to him*^

Of

course, Chillingworth*s Religion of Protestants was intrin­ sically of such major importance, it is difficult to con­ ceive of Milton1s not knowing the work*.

This is also true

of Taylor*s Liberty of Prophesying and Hales* Tract on Schism*

These Latitudinarians were not only very prominent

theological thinkers of their day, but their thought was exactly what Milton was intellectually craving* As the Arminians and Socihians, by teaching in defiance of Creeds a limitation of fundamental doctrines which exeluded the Trinity,

2

drifted into anti-Trinitarianism, so

the English Latitudinarians began to hold dangerous notions which would affect that doctrine*3

The Great Tew group

1*

This will be discussed in Chapter ¥111* Hales Tract apparently had been written at Chillingworth*s request. He used it in writing his Religion of Protestants, Tulloch, I, 201-202.

2*

Perhaps the first to exclude the Trinity from the fund­ amental doctrines were the Italian Academicians* Of* Sebastian Castellion* Be Haereticiis An Sint Persequendi* 1554*

3*

"On the Trinity among the Latitudinarians, some were orthodox, others heterodox, some intermediate, i*e* adopting Sabellianism, and Arianism in some modifi­ cation.” Wallace, 0£. cit*, I, 56*

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Maintained that God required only that a man. did his best to secure the truth. forgive all errors.

If he did, God knew that and would Heresy and schism, therefore, were of

little account* Schism or heresy occurred in their opinion only In the lack of good will and charity toward these errors.

Thus

Lord Falkland in his Discourse on Infallibility wrote that dogmatic differences should never justify intolerance, even, he said, when they concerned the Trinity.

On the

question of the Trinity he referred to Constantinefs letter, as did Milton .^ Creeds and Confessions.2

Chillingworth had little use for He accepted the distinction of

non-fundamental doctrines and excluded from necessary beliefs the Procession of the Holy Ghost in the Trinity.

5

During his lifetime, his Trinitarian views were impugned 1.

Tulloch, op. cit*, I* 163.

Z+

”by the rreligion of protestants,* 1 do not under­ stand. ..the Confession of Augusta, or Geneva, nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the Church of England, no, nor the harmony of protestant confessions; but that wherein they all agree...the Bible.” William Chillingworth, The Works of William Chillingworth, M.A., 3 vols., London, Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1838, IX, 140.

3.

"Secondly, the question touching fundamentals is pro­ fitable, but not fundamental. He that believes all fundamentals cannot be damned for any error in faith, though he believe more or less to be fundamental than is so. That also of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son...which were doubted by a considerable part of the primitive Church (until I see a better reason for the contrary than the bare author­ ity of men) — I shall esteem of the same condition.” Charity Maintained by Catholics, Works, II, 54.

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74

by his adversaries.^-

Hales dubbed heresy and schism mere

theological scarecrows.

He maintained that the Arians, who

denied the divinity of Christ , were schismatics merely in matters of opinion.2

Jeremy Taylor in his Liberty of Pro­

phesying held that honest error was inevitable and not heretical. necessary*3

Faith alone, he maintained to be the one thing We could doubt, Taylor held, about anything

concerning God, His veracity alone excepted. 1.

L

He said

In The Preface to the Author of Charity Maintained Chillingworth cites Father Knott*s threat "that such things should be published to the~TOrld touching my belief of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Deity of our Saviour, and all supernatural virtues, as should endanger all my benefices, present and future.* Works, I, 7. Whiston, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston. London, 1749, p. 389 accused~ Chillingworth of Arianism. P. des Maizeaux, The Life of William Chillingworth. London, 1725, pp. 44-76, defends Chillingworth.

2.

"Heresy and schism, as they are in common use, are two theological LboR#35 , or scarecrows, whieh they who uphold a party in religion use to frighten away such as making inquiry into it, are ready to relinquish and oppose it if it appear either erroneous or suspicious." "I do not yet see that opinionum varietas et opinantium unites* are &/y6vTa,Ta, , or that men of difrerent opinions in Christian religion may not hold communion in sacris, and both go to one Church. Why may X fiot go, if occasion require, to an Arian Church, so there be no Arianism expressed In the liturgy." Tulloch, op. cit., I, 228, 251.

3.

Taylor held "Heresy is only that which is against faith in the true sense — that is to say, which strikes at the foundation of Christianity embodied in the Apostle*s Creed, or *teaches ill life.* All other propositions which.are ^extrinsical to these two considerations,* whether they be true or false, are not heretical." Tulloch, op. cit.. I, 395.

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that the only primitive Creed was that Christ is the Son of God and our Saviour.^ Thus, all of this theological thought surrounded John Milton,

It had within itself the potentiality of anti-

Trinitarianism, which in some instances grew quite explicit. In other men, it never developed into anti-Trinitarianism, although it was eventually of its nature to do so*

In John

Milton’s logical mind it did reach that stage in the Be Poetrina Ghristiana.

Therefore, to study thoroughly the

development of this heresy in the life of John Milton, any rays of such general theological principles which crossed his alert consciousness in the years 1608-162:5, must he carefully examined*

1,

L

"We may indifferently doubt or believe many things concerning God, 9where the question is not concerning GodiBs veracity*...’That which is of the foundation of faith, that only is necessary.* The primitive creed was nothing more than belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our Saviour," Ibid.,I, 381.

76

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CHAPTER III THE ELDER MILTOE MED THE PSAIMS Milton’s home quit© naturally provided his earliest training*

Although we -do not have much information con­

cerning that home, there are one or two paints

which may

he significant for the tracing of the poet *s Trinitarian concepts*

The disinheritance of his father, his father*©

musical compositions, and the work of both father and son on the psalms supply such knowledge* Chapter Two showed that Milton*s gradual rejection of ecclesiastical authority and tradition may have led him away from orthodoxy.

That rejection in turn was certainly

linked to his dislike of Catholicism*

His emotional an­

tipathy towards Rome, while In harmony with the intellectual climate in the England of his day, was at least conditioned by the fact that his own father, John Milton the elder, had been disinherited for ^disloyalty** to Catholicism. The cause of his disinheritance might well embitter and inflame the man*

In Aubrey*s version of the affair,

as soon as Richard Milton, t.he poet’s grandfather, found an English Bible in the chamber of John Milton, the elder, he took this severe action of disinheritance.

Phillips

makes the offense not only possession but describes the 1*

L

John Aubrey, Mr.. John Milton: .Minutes by John Aubrey, in Early Lives (ed. Darbishire), p* 2*

I 1 elder Milton as actually reading the Bible.

“! It is possible

of course, that there was much more to this event than either of the biographers has left with us.

However, since

one cannot presume this, we must proceed on what they have left. Bichard Milton's rigorism may have been the zeal of the new convert to Catholicism.

Ernest Brenneeke Jr. writes

that Richard Milton was elected churchwarden in 1582 in -\

the Protestant Church of Stanton, St. John.2

This sub­

stantial fact, plus the lack of evidence for any Catholi­ cism on his part before 1582, indicates to Brenneeke that Richard Milton was not a Catholic before then, but at about that time became a convert.

For a father, who had

lust become a convert, so to turn on the very son he had trained as a Protestant, meant indeed that this action, harsh enough in itself, would have been further inflamma-

1.

2.

L

John Phillips, The Life of M r . John Milton, in Early Lives (ed. Darbishire), p. 18. fhe Bible was found in John Milton's chamber at home, after he had been taken from Oxford by his father* Masson places the university career of John Milton the elder between 1577-1582. By at least 1585, he went to London to seek his fortune. Ernest Brenneeke, Jr., John Milton the Elder and His Music. Hew York, Columbia University Press, 1938, p . 4 l . Against Masson's view that Richard Milton was always a Catholic, Brenneeke rightly asks why did he send his son to Oxford, why did Oxford accept a Catholic as a chorister, and finally, how was a Catholic elected a Protestant churchwarden? J

78

As a result of this incident, the elder

Milton may

have sublimated the Bible to represent completely his re­ ligion*

Further, the elder Milton constantly employed the

Bible in his musical work*

Consequently, the younger Mil­

ton following his father*s footsteps, may have also given the Bible this same heavy importance*

His own writings,

even the earliest of them, show it to have been their chief treasury*

This indebtedness would reach its consummate

importance in the De^Doctrina Christiana where he stated explicitly that the Bible was his sole religious criterion. In this way perhaps, Miltonrs father unwittingly shaped the poet's dislike of Borne and tradition; when he made Scripture alone all important, he may also have affect­ ed indirectly his son's ultimate thinking on the Trinity. But of direct importance is the question of what beliefs the elder Milton held on the Trinity itself.

Here Milton's

father seems to have been quite traditional*

Because he

was a musical composer, we are able to fix that fact with some satisfaction by an examination of his extant composi­ tions.

For example, he contributed to the Tristitiae

remedium of Thomas Myriell ;, a motet using these quite Trinitarian words of an old evening hymnr Precamur, sancte Bomine, Befende nos in hae nocte Sit nobis in te requies, ^uietam noetem tribue.

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79

Deo patri sit gloria, Eiuaque soil filio, Cum spiritu paracleto .. Et nunc et in perpetuum. He also did a prayer to the Holy Ghost in the Ravenscroft Psalm Book.2 The fact that the elder Milton composed an In Nomine using the melody associated with the words, Gloria tibl Trinitas aequalis una Beitas et ante omnia saecula, et nunc et in perpetuum, but employed different words which simply called upon God to hear prayers devoutly presented, would not indicate any anti^Trinitarian bias.

Such sub-

stitutions were quite customary during those times. vulgar ditties in taverns employed the melody.

Even

The sub­

stitution, however, probably was an instance of the general contemporary practice of disavowing anything with a tra­ ditionally Roman connotation*

This is further evidence of

the point already made in Chapter Two that there existed a trend to make the Trinity something of a Roman doctrine. Miltonrs father also supplied the musical settings fora few of the psalms forRavens croftys Psalm Book, 1.

Quoted in Brenneeke, op. cit.. p. 84.

2.

Ibid., p.

108.

5.

Ibid., p.

140.

J

This mast have kindled the interest of the young poet In psalm material,.

We know that the poet put Psalms

114 and 156 into English poetic paraphrases in 1619.

He

may have paraphrased Psalm 114 in Greek about the same p time. Because the psalms to which the elder Milton applied his musical talents do not contain pertinent material, they throw no direct light upon his Trinitarianism.

Indirectly, however, there is theological signifi­

cance in the fact that in this work he probably consulted the Geneva Bible, which he used for his wording of the 0 Jonathan anthem*^

This version of the Bible was popu­

lar among the Puritans*

Consequently, there was available

to young John Milton, working himself at this time on the 1.

Throughout this dissertation the numbering of the psalms follows Milton's numbering which is of course Protestant* This table may be helpful: Protestant Vulgate Protestant Vulgate pss. 1-8 1-8 116 114-115 9,10 9 117-146 116-145 11-113 10-112 147 146,147 114-115 115 148-150 148-150 F. E* Gigot, Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament Part II, New York, Benziger, 19G6, p* 71.

2*

Phillips, Life of Milton in Early Times led. Darbishire), p. 18. The Columbia Milton fixes the date as 1634, CUE. I, Part I, 2V9* Clark uses 1634 also, and considers this piece to be the Greek ode Milton spoke of in his letter to Alexander Gill, Jr* of the same date, Clark, op» cit., p. 69. In 1648 Milton rendered Psalms 80-88, and in 1653 another group, Psalms 2-8.

3»

Brenneeke, op* cit*# P* 88 •

81

psalms, a carrier of heresy,^

In the opinion of Marion

Studley* John Milton used the Geneva Bible in his psalm 2 translations of 1648. 1.

"Then again* the leaders of the New Puritan movement* the exiles from England In the reign of Queen Mary, were trained as Englishmen never had been previously trained In the religious culture of foreign centers, Frankfort * Strassburg, Geneva, at a time when the influence of Galvin* Zwingli, and Beza, were /aigT at their height. The English exiles were brought into the current of the most living thought of the Con­ tinent, at a moment when it was most Biblical in texture and content. The first objective result of this influence was the English Bible of 1560, 1561, 1568, 1569, 1570 , etc *, all published at Geneva * These Geneva versions were circulated in England right on till the middle of the seventeenth century." Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660, London, Cambridge University Press, 1908, pp. 55-56, Mr. Wynne Baxter in Notes and Queries, II ser. Ill, p. 109 ff. discusses Milton's Bibles. He lists a 1560 Geneva Bible. The Columbia editors consider this "a bad description of the Minshull or a forgery*" (C.E. XVIII, 564) Another Geneva Bible, which Milton may have owned, was printed in London (Christopher Barker), 1588, The Milton signature in this Bible has been questioned. Cf. Harris Fletcher, The Use of the Bible in Milton's Prose, University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, Urbana,“University of Illinois Press, 1989, pp. 20 ff.

2.

Marion H. Studley, "Milton and his Paraphrases of the Psalms," PQ, IV (1925), 564-372.

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82

In Psalms 114 and 136, paraphrased in Milton's boy­ hood j there are no Trinitarian references.1. But again, the helps he may have used in paraphrasing them are of signifi­ cance. hold's,

The most popular Psalm Book at the time was Stern-* 2

which Milton's father, because of his musical work,

certainly would have possessed. of

the

Another popular paraphrase

. psalms was by George Wither.3

Since this poet

was a favorite of Alexander Gil, Sr., Milton's headmaster at St* Paul's, and an exemplar for the students in Gil's Lagonomia Anglica,4 it was probably available to Milton at the school*

James Holly Hanford links Milton's Psalms

1.

Milton's Greek paraphrase of Psalm 114 has been trans­ lated in part as follows: ?Shake yourself, Earth, tremble in fear before the Lord as he makes a mighty noise, shake, Earth, fearing the Lord, the loftiest majesty of the son of Isaac, of God Who, even from the crags by the sea, poured forth the roaring rivers, and- from the dripping rock an overflowing fountain." £*£., I, Part I, 201:19-24. This translation seems, unfortunate in that it might lead the reader to con­ strue Trinitarian content into the words "the lofti­ est majesty of the son of Isaac, of God*.*". Perhaps this translation would eliminate that danger: "Shake, 0 Earth, fearing God while He makes a great noise, 0 Earth, out of fear of God, Who is the lofty majesty of Isaac's son, and Who even from the rocks by the sea poured forth the roaring rivers,..M• Following the former translation, it would have been necessary to include the passage in the Appendix.

2*

Studley, op* cit*, p* 365*

3.

Ibid., p* 365.

4.

Alexander Gil, Sr*, Logonomie Anglica ted. Otto L* Jiriczek) in Q.ueIIeh und ffofsohungen zur Sprache und Culturges chi cht e der Gemanis chen Vdlker * 90 EaFt, Strassburg, karn r * Trubner, xyQ3, dll. XIX.

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83

tl4 and 136 to the Latin version of George Buchanan^ which he claims the poet studied at St. Paulrs.^

Donald Lemen

Clark holds that at St. Paul1© Milton studied the Hebrew Psalter as part of his Hebrew class.®

This took place in

the eighth form which Milton would have reached when he 4 5 was about fifteen years old. Whether as a school exercise , 1.

Bachaniml Paraphrasis in Librum Psalmorum. in Foemata, Amsterdam, 1687.

2.

Although Marion Studley agrees with this view, there is a weakness in Hanford’s footnotes "I have no evidence that Buchanan was used at St. Paul1s.* James Holly Hanford, "The Youth of Milton," University of Michigan Publications in Language and Literature, vol. I 11925}, p. 95.

3.

Donald Lemen Clark, John Milton at St.; Paul’s School, Mew York, Columbia University Press, 1948, p. 146. Milton also would have studied a Hebrew Grammar* Brinsley, a leading educator, recommended that of Martinius and Udall’s adaptation of it in English. This grammar contained Psalms 1, 25, and 68. The study of those psalms would allegedly impart the ability to do any part of the Hebrew Bible. James Whitelocks, who studied Hebrew at Merchant Taylor’s School and had a private tutor, wrote in his LiberFamelicus that he had read "all Jobe, 20 psalms, and part of Genes is." D.Clark, op. cit*, p* 31.

4.

D.Clark, op. cit., p. 119. Against this is the fact that Milton entered Cambridge in 1625. Clark explains that Milton’s departure to the university was de­ layed a few years because of eye trouble. Ibid., p. 32.

5.

A. F. Leach, "Milton as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster," Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. Ill (1907-

19081, V* 30TT

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—

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84

r v or as an extra-curricular activity,

perhaps Milton para­

phrased Psalms 114 and 136 from the Hebrew Psalter.

“»

All of

these helps have this in c o m m o n t h e y did not contain any doctrinal statements endorsing anti-Trinitarianism. Another work which affected Milton, and which contain­ ed material pertinent to his psalm paraphrases, was the Logonomla Anglica, mentioned above,

if it was not a textp book at St. Paul's, at least Milton knew of it there. In

this work there are English translations of the psalms.^ Of them only Psalms 96 and 97 have any Trinitarian import, and they are strongly orthodox in their English dress. 1.

Because in school the psalms would have been turned into Latin from the Hebrew,, Clark holds that Psalms 114 and 136 were extra-curricular endeavors, perhaps from the Hebrew into English* Gil's work, published in 1619, and in 1621 with emendations, was planned to teach English to those who knew Latin. "Brinsley, in his A Consolation for our Grammar Schools (1622), recommends it ^For stran­ ge rs, who understand the Latine tongue, at-least in some sort, and would learne our tongue, themselves, or would teach it unto others publiquely or privately* D£lark, "Milton’s Schoolmasters; Alexander Gil and his son Alexander,?* IX (1945^19461, p. 125. 1. Milton French and Thomas Ollive Mabbott maintain; "One more book Milton must have owned,....although Milton’s copy is not known. This is the textbook used at St. Paul’s school while Milton was there, Alexander Gil’s Logonomia Anglica. G . E . , XVIII, 656i. Clark holds that there is no evidence it was used as a textbook, but feels Milton was affected by the book, Clark, Milton at St. Paul’s , p. 70.

3.

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Psalms 62, 67, 96, 97 and 104. (ed. Jiriezek) pp. 35 ff.

Logonomia Anglica

J

Psalm 96 is an exhortation to praise God for the coming of Christ and His kingdom*

Yerses 7-13 are Messianic and

impute divinity to Christ,1

In Psalm 9? all are invited

to rejoice at the glorious coming and reign of Christ, Yerses 5-^9 declare again the divinity of Christ,2 1,

f,Bring ye to the Lord, 0 ye kindreds of the Gentiles* bring ye to the Lord glory and honour: 8 bring to the Lord glory unto his name. Bring up sacrifices, and come into his courts: 9 adore ye the Lord in his holy court, Let all earth be moved at his presence. 10 Say ye among the Gentiles, the Lord hath reigned,, lor he hath corrected the world, which shall not be moved: he will judge the people with justice* 11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea be moved, and the fullness there­ of: IB the fields and all things that are in them, shall be joyful. Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice 13 before the face of the Lord, because he cometh: because he cometh to judge the earth* He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with his truth.f*

2*

tr5 The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth, 6 The heavens declared his justice: and all people saw his glory. 7 Let them be all confounded that adore graven things, and that glory in their idols* Adore him, all you his angels: 8 Sion heard and was glad. And the daughters of Juda rejoiced, because of thy judgments, 0 Lord* 9 For thou art the most high Lord over all the earth: thou art exalted exceedingly above all gods*M

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Milton’s work in the psalms brings forth another

childhood interest of theological significance. - Students of the poet agree that John Milton was familiar with Joshua Sylvester’s translation of the Divine Weeks of Du Bartas, and some feel that the familiarity began in his childhood.1 Dunster points out that there was a folio edition of Syl­ vester in 1613‘printed by Humphrey Lownes, who dwelt on Bread Street Hill at the very time Milton lived there.

Be-'

sides, the work was prominently popular being lauded by such literati as Jenson, Daniel and Bishop Hall*

The

similarities between the two psalm paraphrases and the Divine Weeks are worth noting. 1*

2*

p

The significance of

The pioneer of this research, Charles-Dunster, speci­ fically, links Sylvester to Milton’s paraphrases of Psalms-114 and 136, Charles Dunster, -Considerations on Milton’s Early Reading, and the Prima Stamina of his "Paradise Lost," London, 1800, p. 48. Til'lyard writes: “His first extant poem, a version of the 114th Psalm, written at the age of f-ifteen, is in the metre and manner of Sylvester*" Tlllyard, Milton, p. 9. Hanford, op. e it ♦, p. 95 and A, Stern, Milton und seine Zeit, Leipzig, 1877-1879, I, j* 38 ff* also trace Sylvester in Milton’s early poems.

^

?And sought to hide his froth^beeurled head Low in the earth; Jordan’s clear streams recoil," (Mi It on I “Clear Jordan’s self, in his dry ozier bed, Flushing for shame, was fain to hide his head." (Sylvester) "The ruddy waves he cleft in twaine, Of the Erythrean main."

(Milton)

"His dreadful voice, to save his antient sheep, Did cleave the bottom of the Erythrean deep." (Sylvester) L

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87

Hilton's probable use of the work arises from the fact that"1 Du Bartas contains quite a bit of material on the Trinity and this material is strongly traditional.

This has been

fully shown by George Coffin Taylor in his comparison of the work with Paradise Lost.^

Here the Trinitariantsm will

be simply indicated. The Divine Weeks had the conventional concept of the nature of God

quite free from the pantheism or materialism

which was attributed to Milton's later works *

The follow­

ing passage is explicitly Trinitarian not only in itself but in the reinforcement of the marginal notations also: of God: of the eternall generation of the Sonne

Qf the Holy Ghost

It may be also that he meditated The Worlds Idea, yet it was Created: Alone he livfd not; for, his Son and Spirit Were with him ay, Equal1 in might and merit. Of 3. Persons in one only Essence For a sons beginning, seed and mother tender,

1.

George Coffin Taylor, Milton* s Use of Du Bartas, Cam­ bridge, Harvard University Press, 1934.

2.

"Before all time, all Matter, Form, and Place, God all In all, and all in God it was: Immutable, immortall, infinite, Incomprehensible, all spirit, all light, All Majesty, all-self•Omnipotent, Invisible, Impassive, excellent, Pure, wise, Just, good, God reign'd alone (at rest) Himself alone selfs Palace, host and guest." Joshua Sylvester, Translation of Du Bartas Divine Weeks and Works, London, 1611, p . .2.

L

proceeding from the

This great Worlds Father he did 1 first ingender Father and the Sonne: (To wit} His Son, lisedom, and Word eternal, The which Squall in Essence to th* All-One Paternal. three Persons Out of these Two* their common Power proceeded, are one onely Their Spirit, their Loue; in Essence Undivided: and the Qnely distinct in Persons whose Divinity, same God. All Three in One, makes One eternall Trinitie.l

As a result* therefore* of this Chapter's examination of young Milton*s relations with his father and their com­ mon interest in the psalms, we may conclude that in the way of explicit statements dealing with the Trinity all was quite orthodox.

The works with which that common interest

brought them in contact were such, with the possible ex­ ception of the Geneva Bible, that a sound Trinitarianism in the young poet should have been protected.

On the

other hand, general theological principles, combining a dislike of Catholicism and its arm, tradition, with a veneration of the Bible as almost a sole religious font, both perhaps resultant upon the disinheritance of Milton*s father, m y

well have conditioned Milton*s ultimate abro­

gation of Trinitarianism.

1.

Sylvester, op. cit.» pp. 3-4.

89

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i CHAPTER IV

MILTON*S BOYHOOD: REV* RICHARD STOCK AND CHARLES DIGDATI Ernest Brenneck Jr* wrote of the Rev* Richart Stock: "His probable influence on Milton is not to be lightly d i s c o u n t e d . M a s s o n conjectures that Stock introduced Thomas Young to the Milton family and that as a result 2 Young became the tutor of John Milton* Richard Stock was a Puritan divine.

Residing at All

Hallows Church* Bread Street, London* he was curate there from 1604 to 161Q and pastor from then until his death in 1626*3

Milton was baptized at All Hallows, and it re­

mained his parish church in boyhood* Stock possessed an admirable reputation as a clergy­ man*

His description by James Cranford in the dedication

to Stock*s A Stock of Divine Knowledge as: An able minister of the Cospel, in his time a burning and shining light, eminent above others for his learn­ ing and for his labours.4 1*

.

Brennecke, ojd

2*

Masson,

3*

M B , XVIII, 1276. His B*A* and M*A* were fromSt* John*s College, Cambridge*

4*

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0£.

cit*, p* 69.

cit*,I* 47*

Riehard Stock* A Stock of Divine Knowledge. Being a Lively Description of the Divine Nature * or the Divine Essence, Attributes* and Trinity particularly explained and profitably applied. London Printed by T* H. for Philip Neril, 1641.

90

lias not been challenged*

His parishoners loved him for

his zealous ministrations among them* ‘ great popularity among the youthful*

He also enjoyed It is difficult to

conjecture what intimacy may have existed between Richard Stock and the Milton family *

However, his zeal and learn­

ing, plus the interest of Milton*s father in church music, as well as the link of Thomas Young, who had been pulpit assistant to the Rev* Thomas Gataker, Stock?s lifelong friend,*’ all taken together suggest a possible formative importance upon the theological views of John Milton* In passing, it should be mentioned that Brian Walton was Stock’s curate from 1623—1628*^

in that capacity he

must have preached and Milton may well have heard him before departing for Cambridge.

Walton, of course, was

famous later as the editor of the Polyglot Bible*

As he

was a friend of Laud and a conservative minister in his theology, if he discussed anything doctrinal before the youthful poet, he certainly did not advocate anti-Trini3 tarianism.

L

1*

BNB, YII, 939-941.

2*

DNB, IX, 725* This conflicts with the dates, 16231626, also given in the BUB* ZYIII, 1277.

3.

M B , IX, 725-728* Years later his struggle for what he felt were the proper tithes for the clergy, e*g* A Treatise concerning the Payment of Tythes and Oblations In London,would have found him in direct opposition to the views of an older John Milton.

“l

Stock had quite an interest In the Trinity*

His

treatise^ discussed the subject with surprising complete­ ness.

In all his express utterances on the Trinity he is

entirely traditional.

In fact, at times he goes back to

St.. Thomas Aquinas and utilizes Catholic tradition in work­ ing out some of the details of his treatment*

Unlike most

Puritan divines, Stock quoted rather profusely from the P 3 Fathers. He did not hesitate to use St. Thomas Aquinas or to acknowledge his indebtedness to him*

He even cites

that b&te noir,^ in the judgment of the Hefarmors, St* Robert Be 11amine. Stock denounced the Arians and SebeIlians because they denied the Trinity.

So strong was he in his stress

on the necessity of explicit belief in the Trinity* that he reverts to the commonplace medieval theological question of whether the Jews and Turks could be saved.

In each case

he answers with a flat denial on the grounds that they are 1.

A

2.

Richard Stocks, A SermonPreached at Paules Crosse the second of November 160S . london* Printed by 1*0* for Edmond Weaver and William. Welby, 1609* Stock's name is spelled with or without the e quite indis­ criminately*

3.

A

4.

A Sermon at Paules Crosse, passim*

5*

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Stock of Divine Knowledge.

Stock of Divine Knowledge, p* 45*

Ibid*, p* 40; A Stock of Divine Knowledge. p. 264*

93

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'ignorant of the Trinity.

t

To those la eking the fullest

explicit Trinitarianism he threatens hell.

2

His central Trinitarian position, there is one God in three divine Persons, father, Son and Holy Ghost, is as orthodox as the catechism, whose question and answer format he sometimes follows.

s In separate sections, Stock sets

out to prove the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. He does so in a detailed fashion and employs'arguments that are among those attacked by Milton in the De Doctrine

1.

"Turks, they cannot be saved, because God hath not revealed himselfe, one in three persons to them: the Jews, they cannot be saved, because God hath not revealed one In three persons to them:...** A Stock of Divine Knowledge, p. 267.

2.

"it is necessary that every man that would be saved must beleeve, and no deleaving without a distinct understanding of the Trinity; he shall be in danger of hell fire that does not labour to know and under­ stand it, when he hath the meanes; and yet there are, that will not know faith; it is the Doctrine of the Church, that a man beleeves not this distinction, cannot be saved,...11. Ibid., p. 266,

5.

"Quest. How many such persons bee there in the Deity? Anew. Three, the Father, the Sonne, and the Holy Ghost:" Ibid., p. 260 "first, they are all God." Ibid., p. 262*.

4*

"Answ. Because he is equall to God. Secondly, be­ cause they name Jehovah, is given unto him. Thirdly, because Essentiall Attributes, are attributed to him. Fourthly, proper workes, and so divine workes are given to him:" Ibid., p. 284. On page 295 the same arguments are adduced to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost.

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When he calls upon philosophy to aid his understand­ ing of the mystery of the Trinity, Stock resorts to scho­ lasticism.

Thus he employs scholastic terminology in ex­

plaining the concepts of the three Persons,1 their works O a ad extra, the nature of person,' and the distinctions of the three Persons.4

Milton in his later writings con­

sidered this practice an intrusion.

He held that the

Trinity should be discussed only in Scriptural terms.

All

the difficulty, Milton felt, was due to this unwarranted scholastic practice of philosophizing the Trinity. 1.

"the Father is the nature of the Divine Essence, sub­ sisting by the incommunicable property of begetting* The Sonne is the nature of the divine Essence, sub­ sisting by the incommunicable property of being be­ gotten. The Holy Ghost is the nature of the divine Essence, subsisting by his incommunicable property of proceeding." Ibid., p. 261.

2.

"To explain this; There is a rule, that the works of the Trinity without them, are undivided; these three persons are together, and works together." Ibid., p. 263.

3.

"It is a substance subsisting of it selfe, undivideable, incommunicable, living, understanding, and willing..." Ibid., p. 258. ,

4.

"The answer is, they are three, not divided, but distinguished, truely and really: not essentially, but personally, and that by their order, properties, and workes I say, they are distinguished, not divided; there is a double distinction of persons, one is call­ ed an essential distinction, then the persons are so distinguished as they are divided, and there is a personall, but not essentiall distinction; then one person is not severed from another, because the Essence is not severed. Three persons of men essenti­ ally distinguished, are three men; but the persons of the Trinity distinguished onely personally, are not three Gods, but one:" Ibid., p. 258.

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Thus, on every essential point of accepted Trinitar­ ianism, Stock is impeccable*

His position is squarely

opposed to the major tenets of the De Dootrina Christiana. The general theological principles of the Bev* Bichard Stock may not have been such a bulwark of Trinitarianism*, They seem to include those very principles which* in Chap­ ter Two* were seen to be the possible causes of* John Mil­ ton 1s later repudiation of the Trinity* flattering to church authority*

Stock is not

He denounces the mini­

sters,^- he judges the Councils to be erroneous,2 and he considers the declaration of heresy to be outside the 3 A competence of the Church. Stock disparages tradition^ 1.

"That wicked magistrates and ministers, flattering and bolstering each others in their wicked courses, shall certainly be punished and oftentimes together*" Stock, A Sermon at Paul*s Crosse, p. 44*

2*

"for when all ministers or the-greater part may fall into grosse errours, and things in a Councell are carried by the most voices, shall we thinke they may not then erre?" Ibid*, pp* 52-53. This is redolent of Milton*s query, is not reason the same in one as in a thousand?

3*

“She may declare something to be an heresie, but her determination cannot make an heresie: and if she had never defined it to be an heresie: yet had it beene an errour; and^hee had therein manifestly erred, who either then erenow shall holde it." Ibid*, p. 70*

4*

"If this bee so, here are overthrowne all humane tra­ ditions which are by man added to the Scripture; all traditions that are either written or carried from hand to hand are rejected; whatsoever is taught with­ out the Scripture; is to be abhorred; for the Word is the rule, and he that brings any other doctrine, let him be occursed." Stock* A Stock of Divine Knowledge, p. 21.

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^nd makes Scripture his sole theological font.

The function*

of the Church toward Scripture is greatly narrowed.

He

limits the Church to 1} keeping the Scriptures as a public notary,,

2)

publishing them, and 31 discerning true Scrip­

tures from forgeries* tative role:

The Church is allowed no interpre­

"It is the foundation of the Church, then

the Church cannot give authority unto it .1,1 While Stock*s aim may be a plea for increased Scripture study , he seems at times to encourage a completely private, individualistic interpretation of Scripture^ Thus, despite the orthodoxy of Stack's explicit state­ ments On the Trinity itself, his general theological prin­ ciples could easily undermine the doctrine of the Trinity* His disparagement of tradition and Councils, criticism of Churchmen, cutting down of church authority, and possible encouragement of an individualistic private interpretation of Scripture, weakened the traditional safeguards of Trin­ itarianism.

Stack's general theological principles, there­

1.

Ibid., p. .44#

2.

"Every man ought to receive the Scripture for its owne authority; not that any man should condemn the author­ ity of the Church, but he may not depend onely upon it, no not upon Saint Paul himselfe, but must search the Scriptures, to see whether it be so or no: we ought not to receive the testimony of any Church in the world, except it be grounded upon the Scripture; ...so we use the authority of the Churoh, as a meanes to come to beleeve; but when us beleeve, let us not beleeve for the saying of the Church, but for the Scriptures themselves." Ibid., pp. 44-45.

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fore, add up to an unbridled religious "freedom*”

This is

the same theological attitude that Milton pledged allegiance to*

As Chapter Two pointed out, these general theological

principles may well have led Milton to his abandonment of Trinitarianism.

The beginnings of that abandonment, con­

sequently, may go all the way back to the Rev, Richard Stock. In the period from 1S08-1625 Charles Diodati may well have been Milton’s closest schoolboy briend.^

Charles was

of the same age as Milton and attended St. Paul’s School with the poet.

Although his studies were two years in ad­

vance of Milton’s, both boys were kindred souls, sensitive­ ly eager to learn, and interested in literature.

Their

correspondence, although postdating this period, reveals their intimacy,

Milton confided to Charles his difficul-

ties at Cambridge.

2

Charles in one letter hoped they would

have fair weather for a projected outing,3 and in another chided Milton for studying all of the time.4 Masson thinks that when Charles was studying at Trinity College, Oxford, 1.

"it is natural to suppose that Milton found in him from the first a protector and an appreciative com­ panion..." lames Holly Hanford, John Milton English­ man, New York, Grown Press, 1949, p. 16.

2.

Elegy the First, (c. 1625-1626) G.E., I, Part I, 168175. ~

3.

Charles Diodati to Milton

(16251, G*E., XII, 293.

4.

Charles Diodati to Milton 295.

(Spring, 1626J, C*®*, XII,

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he and Milton met in London during the vacations.

i

Milton

told Charles when he decided to write his Nativity Ode.2 When he fell in love with the Italian singer, Diodati was 3 informed of his plight* One letter told Charles of his readings in history ,4 another regretted that Charles had not visited him.

Finally* learning pf his friend^s death,

Milton tenderly lamented it in his Epitaphium Damonis and sorrowfully asks who will now be his companion and the sharer of his converse.6 Milton*s friendship may also have extended to the Diodati family.

We know from the poet’s writings that when

he made his continental tour he stayed with the uncle of Charles, Giovanni Diodati, at Geneva.7

In Italy* Milton

went out of his way to visit Lucca to see the ancestral 1.

Charles Diodati entered Trinity in February, 1621 and obtained his M.A. there in 1628, DNB. Y, 1000. Elegy the Sixth (1629) , G.E., I, Part I,, 206.

3.

Sonnet I¥ (c. 1630), C .E., I, Part I, 55.

4.

Letter YII (Sept. 23, 1637), G.IU* XII, 23-29.

5.

Letter YI (Sept. 2, 1637), G.E., XII, 19-21.

6.

Epitaphium Damonis, G.E., I, Part I, 301. "But what of me? What loyal comrade will cling to my side* as you were wont to do... Who will teach me to lighten consuming eares, who to beguile the long nights with sweet converse..."

7.

"At Geneva I had daily intercourse with John Deodati, the very learned professor of divinity." Defensio Secunda, C.E., YIII, 127. . ~

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98

*"hQme of the Diodati family.-*-

He used the Scriptural writ­

ings of Giovanni in preparing his own works.2

It is reason­

able to suppose that he went to the home of Charles and met his father, Theodore Diodati.^ No one could be intimate with the Diodatis and remain unaffected theologically*

Figuratively and literally the

family "looked toward Geneva."

They had fled as Protestant

exiles from Lucca ,4 and Charles’ father was born at Geneva. Giovanni had studied at Geneva University under Beza and later succeeded him as professor of theology. Genevan representative at the Synod of Bort.

He was the Through his

works, his translations, his missionary efforts in other countries* his friendship with Sir Henry Wotton

5

-K

and Fra

Paolo Sarpi, Giovanni Diodati was one of the most noted Protestant theologians in the seventeenth century. 1.

John S. Dlekhoff, Milton on Himself, New York, Oxford University Press, 1939, p. 21.

2.

Tetrachordon, B.B . , IV, 109.

3.

Hanford, John Milton Englishman, p. 16. Charles Borgeaud, Histoire de l*Universit% de Gendve, 4 vols., Geneva, Georg and Co., 1900-1934, I, 340,

4.

Eugene de Bud€, Vie de Jean Diodati, Lausanne, Bridel, 1869, p. 19. Lucca was close to Modena and Ferrara the centers of the Italian reformation, Cf, Church, The Italian Reformers.

5.

L

Sir Henry ?/otton was intermittently the British ambassa­ dor to Venice from 1604-1624, William S. Clark points out that Giovanni Diodati knew the English scientist, Robert Bovle. Boyle’s father, the Earl of Cork, had employed Diodati as tutor upon the recommendation of Wotton. "Milton and the Villa Diodati," RES, XI, C1935), 51-57. J

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Bid the friendship of Charles Diodati and John Milton 1

include an interest in and discussion of things religious? In all probability the answer to this question is yes.

®hen

Charles wrote Milton and expressed the hope that they might enjoy a pleasant holiday together, he felt that part of the pleasantness would be "that we may enjoy learned and philosophical discourse together.® terested in the ministry.

Further, both boys were in­

Milton did not abandon this

interest until his Cambridge days.

2

Diodati did not turn

immediately to medicine after talcing his M.A., "on the con­ trary he first planned to enter the clergy,, and actually spent at least a year and five months in the study of theology at Geneva.”

3

During their vacation meetings or

in letters it would have been abnormal for Charles not to speak about the affairs of Trinity College,

Since Milton's

friend, Alexander Gil, Jr., and William Chillingworth were at Trinity while Charles was,^ surely some of his news 1.

Charles Diodati to Milton 11825}, C.E., XII, 293.

2.

"the difficult labours of the church, to whose service by the intentions of my parents and friends I was des­ tined of a child, and in mine own resolutions, till coming to some maturity of years...® Reason of' Church Government, C.E.,- III, Part I, 242. . In a l e t W r to a friend at Cambridge (1632) Milton defends his refusal to take orders, C.E., XII, 322-325.

3.

The entry in the matriculum album reads "Carlos Deodatus Anglus natu April.16. 1630." Another entry at the University bearing the signature of Charles Dio­ dati is dated, Sept. 15, 1631. Cf. Donald C. Dorian, ’Charles Diodati at Geneva," PMLAT~XlX (1944) 589-591. ^ifl® i a f > Chapter Seven.

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100

must have touched upon the theological* Another point of theological interest is the acquaint­ ance of Charles with Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

Gherbury

has been termed the father of deism^ and was one of the most important writers on natural theology in the England of Milton*s boyhood* Diodati also seems to have been intimate with Lord Herbert of Cher bury,., who entrusted him with a copy of his De Yeritate (1624) to pre­ sent to the philosopher Gassendi at Paris* (Herbert, lutobiog. 1886, p. LY, 292 n *)2 Likewise, it is inconceivable that Charles would not have talked to Milton about his famous uncle, Giovanni Diodati.3 In the span of Milton*s boyhood Giovanni*s Italian and French Bibles and his Annotations were reprinted and circu­ lated.

His work at the Synod of Dort in 1618 was widely

known.

In 1620 he published his De verbo Dei and De

Christo media tore. 1.

B. Bush, English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century. p« 322.

2.

"Charles Diodati," DHB» Y, 1Q0G. It is doubtless a misprint., in Lee*s work which fixes the date at 1643 (p. xxxv). A note on p. 158 gives the approximately correct date, 1654-1635. Sidney Lee, Lord Herbert of Gherbury, London, Kentledge, 1886.

3.

Bud6 , op,cit. and Maria don, Charles I. Thynne, to Diodati*s writings. duction plainly admits, English dress.

C0VU+*,

L

His work The Sacred Psalms of David

££: t>0*.lA*'/ T&&

£ as £C/ i H

Q/p D A T ' s

fP.3y.o~3V/.

Betts, Giovanni Diodati, Lon­ 1905, both devote two chapters The Betts* work, as its intro­ is simply Bud&*s volume in

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r

was already in print when Milton's father was engaged in

musical composition for the psalms and when Charles Diodati and young Milton had psalm translations as sehoolwork at St. Paul's.

Shortly after 1620 his translation of Fra

Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent appeared. Milton refers to Sarpi*s work at least thrice in his own writings,

and the very substantial indebtedness of

Milton's Areopagitica to the History has not yet been fully explored.

Lads such as Charles and Milton would have been

enchanted to learn of Giovanni's religio-politieal in­ trigues with Sarpi and Sir Henry Wotton in

1.

Commonplace Book, C.E., XVIII, 149. Of Reformation, C.E., III, Part I, 46. Areopagatica, G.E., IV, 302.

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102

Venice*

1

Wotton, who was the British ambassador there until 1

1624^returned a few times to England.2

Bid he perhaps visit

Giovanni *s brother, Theodore, Charles’ father, and tell of these adventures?

Did the warmth that marked the acquaint­

ance of Milton and Wotton perhaps date from these days? Later, Milton wrote of his continental tour: 1.

2.

L

At lotton’s request Diodati made his first trip to Venice in 16Q& under the name Giovanni Ooreglia. He preached reformation sermons at Wot ton’s home, but ■ since the audience was disappointing in its smallness, public lectures containing ill-concealed, antiCatholicism were adopted. Father Fulgenzio, Sarpi’s friend, and William Bedell, Wotton’s chaplain from 1607-1610, helped in these endeavors, Another acti­ vity was the smuggling of heretical books, two cases of which were found in Wotton’s house, Sarpi had been excommunicated in 160? and Father Fulgenzio was known to have lived immorally. It seems that Wotton was actually trying to provoke a war against Pope Paul I V . Wotton also employed printed propaganda: "Each month some fifty copies of a broadsheet should be printed by the British envoy in which a covert attack would be made on some point of- Catholic teach­ ing or practice.” Ludwig Freicherr von Pastor, The History of the Popes, 34 vols., London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1937, XXV, 184-217, Cf. Bud£, op. cit., Betts, op. cit., ^William BedeiX,” DNB, II, 163-1Q8. The first Homan printing of Diodati*s Hew Testament was in 1849 at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society while Pius IX was absent. Papal authorities confiscated most of the copies, but eventually through the intervention of Hon, J. Cass, the TJ. S. Charge d* Affairs there, repaid the full money value of these books, Pastor,

0£.

cit». XXV, 208-219.

103

On my departure I was treated in the most friendly manner by Sir Henry Wotton* who was long ambassador from King James to Venice, and who not only followed me with his good wishes, but communicated in an elegant letter some maxims of the greatest use to one who is going abroad.1 Wottoo^s letter is most friendly.2

!

It seems difficult to

explain this whole Wotton incident without some background of friendship such as has been above conjectured,

further,

there is evidence that Giovanni Diodati was at the home of his brother, Theodore, on a visit to London in 1627.

Mr.

Alexander Clogie relates how Giovanni and the Rev. Mr. Bedell met at Cheapside.5

This he has on the authority of 4

WA person of honour who was well acquainted with Diodati...n' That person Jones thinks* was ofie of the Harleys, since Clogie knew them, and Dr. Theodore Diodati was on friendly terms with the Harleys* as the letters of Lady Brilliana testify.

The Harleys knew of the incident from Theodore,

with whom his brother was probably staying.5 1.

Defensio Secunda, O.K., VIII, 121.

2.

In the letter Wotton writes: “therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few. lines to Mr.^'B..." G.E., I, Part I, 476-477. T-fris, I think, is William PedeldF, whom Milton-apparently would have met in Pario.—

delllSL_part--4s--jbber^Ven±ce-~±]rtrriguea-Tias™^r±ready--been noted. Trt'i Tit-C

aucaasl f & A V r # w i r e

D /oPAr/S,

lp.

?. z y f .

3.

Diodati had been seeking his old friend from the days of Venice. Bedell, he had imagined to be famous in England, but no one seemed to have heard of him. The Cheapside meeting was entirely accidental.

4.

Thomas Wharton Jones, F.R.S., The Life and Death of William Bedell. Westminister, Camden Society, MDCCTTLXXHI, p. 141.

lJ>*

Ibid., pp. 141-142.

104

r

Was Hilton's youthful: friendship with Charles Diodati

~i

the channel of theological thought which helped shape the poet's views on the Trinity^

Concerning explicit views on

the Trinity itself, none of the Diodatis, nor Wotton, nor Sarpi seem to have accepted the anti-Trinitarianism of the Italian Protestants.

The chief treasury of Giovanni

Diodati*s theological views , m s his Pious and Learned Annotations Upon the Holy Bible .1

Here, Giovanni acknow2 ledged the Trinity of three equal Persons in one God. He

holds the eternal generation of the Son and His divinity.

L

1.

First printed in 1607 and frequently after that date.

2.

He comments on the gospel of St. John, Ch. Ill, v. 17: **lt was appointed by the councell of the whole Trinity, that the Son should in his own person, and immediately take humane flesh upon him in the world, and in the same flesh fulfill the work of redemption...this word (sent) often used in Scripture to expresse ©economy and distribution of the actions proper to each of the Persons of the holy Trinity, out of themselves together, doth not signify any superiority of the one above the other, nor mutation of place or dignity...* Giovanni Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations Upon the Holy Bible. London. Printed by James ^lescher for Nicholas Fussell, 1651, n.p.

3.

The comment on John U Y , v* 20 reads: "That is, when you shall have received of the holy Ghost, you shall be dearly instructed concerning the truth of my divine person: in regard of which the father is in me by unity of essence and perpetuall beginning of life, and of operation; and I in him by subsisteney in the divine essence, whieh I have from him by eternal generation, without division or distraction either of the beeing, or of the operation.n

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r

la his french Bible, Giovanni* in a note which is exactly

the same in his Annotations, makes the Holy Spirit a Person active in the work of creation,1

Quite as full is

the role assigned the Holy Spirit in the Annotations of the Westminister Assembly, a work that is practically Diodati’s own Ingotations .2 Yet Diodati was always the strong pro­ ponent of the Deformation and, when he goes beyond the actual fact of the Trinity in his efforts at theological explanation, he departs from, the Catholic, traditional con­ cepts.

This marks even his translations of the Bible.

1.

tfL tesprit: la tierce personne de la sacrie Trinit€, imm€diatement et par sa propre operation: qui est de conserver et soustenir toutes les choses en l*estre qu'elles ont re. cit., p. 451.

3.

Nicholaus Clenard, Institutiones linguae Graeoea, Cf. Clark, Milton at St. 'Paul’s .

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133

On this general theological principle also, these men were far more moderate and reasonably far less inclined utterly to extirpate tradition, than was John Milton,

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134

CHAPTER VI THoms

y o u n g a n d the

Ch r i s t i a n

authors

Milton's boyhood education extended beyond the walls of St. Paulas School.

John Phillips wrote that he ”had

his institution to learning both under public, and private Masters ...,”1 Aubrey partially identified Milton's tutor, p ”his schoolmaster was a Puritan in Essex *n This tutor was the Rev. Thomas Young.

Young, the son of a Scotch

minister, came to England about 1612.

In England, he

supported himself by teaching in addition to his minis­ terial labors*

From 1618-1620 he served as tutor to John

Milton. Young separated from Milton when he went to Hamburg in 1620 to serve as chaplain to the English merchants 1.

John Phillips, The Life of Mr. John Milton, in Early Lives (ed. Darbishire], p. 18.

2.

John Aubrey, Mr. John Milton:Minutes, in Early Lives (ed. Darbishire), p. 2. Masson, op. cit., I, 47. The Rev* Richard Stock may have introduced Young to the Milton family, vide supra, ch. IV. The designation of Young as ”a Puritan from Essex” still puzzles Milton scholars. In the DNB; it is recounted of Rev. Thomas Gataker that he was a tutor and chaplain to William Ayloffe of Braxted, Essex. In a Memoir of Gataker, appended to his Funeral Sermon, by Simeon Ashe, 1655, a Mr. Young is mentioned as having been Gataker*s pulpit assistant. Could this bo the origin of Youngrs designation?

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135

r 1 there.

The separation did not sever their friendship,

“»

however, for we have Milton*s letter and his thanks to Young for the gift of a Hebrew Bible from Hamburg*2

In

1628 Young became the vicar of St. Peter and St. Mary in Stowmarket, Suffolk* primising a visit:

Milton wrote him there from Cambridge "as soon as spring is a little advanced,

I will gladly come, to enjoy the delights of the season, % and not less of your conversation*.." Mr. Laing considers that we may safely assume that the old intercourse between the two was now renewed, and maintained *by occasional visits* (on Milton*s part) *to the vicarage as well as by correspondence*.4 The episcopal controversy strengthened their friendship. When Bishop Hall published his Humble Remonstrance, Young was one of the five, who under the famous pseudonymn, Smectymnuus, answered him in the Answer to An Humble 1*

Arthur Barker points out that Masson (I, 72) errs in fixing his departure later in 1622* The DHB (XXI, 1307) follows this error. Barker offers this decisive evidence: "In a letter dated 24 March^ 1620/21 and included in-Birch’s Court and Times of James 1^ III* 240) Joseph Mede mentions Young as having returned to England from Hamburg* In a letter dated 7 July, 1621, Mede again mentions Young as being *at Cambridge this commencement.* (Birch, II, 266).** "Milton’s Schoolmasters." MLB;, XXXII (1937), 517*

2.

C*E*, XII, 7:15-16.

3.

C*E*, XII, 13-15.

4.

DKB, XXI, 1307.

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136

Remonstrance (1641),

There is no doubt that Milton was

very close to this group, not only in thought but in fact * The only question is whether he actually collaborated in their writings.

A comparison of Milton's History of Britain

and the historical Postscript to their Answer reveals a striking similarity of sources.^

It was against Bishop

Hall that Milton wrote his Animadversions and Apology. Barker points out:

"much of Of Reformation will be found

upon close study to eeho their arguments, and it seems likely that the ’friend* to whom the pamphlet is addressed was Thomas Young."

2

The year 1642, however,, would probably mark the terminus ad quern of this friendship.

After this the course

of Young's career must have displeased John Milton, and the Westminister Assembly, of which Young was a leading spirit, was certainly at loggerheads with the views that Milton now 3 began to publish. 1.

Masson and W. T. Hale (Of Reformation); both think Milton assisted in the preparation of.this historical Postscript. G. W. Whiting (MLR, XXX, 13-18) disagrees.

2.

Barker, "Milton's Schoolmasters," MLR, XXXII, 521*

3.

Young was appointed Master of Jesus College, Cambridge in 1644. He was unable to accept the Engagement, and his refusal to comply with the new test cost him his Cambridge post. In 1655 he died at Stowmarket, whither he had retired to live quietly.

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137

I

How close to Milton was Young during the span of their

friendship?

P

The youthful Milton must have considered the

friendship important.

He surely found Thomas Young most

impressive, and his tutor probably weighed deeply and heavily in the boy*s intellectual formation. outstanding personage.

Young was an

He was, in the words of Brook, "a

person of great learning, prudence, and piety and dis­ covered great fidelity and ability in the work of the m i n i s t r y . L e a r n i n g and piety were qualities which above all would have appealed to a youthful student whose own goal was the ministry.

And factually they seem to have

drawn Milton quite close to Young.

It would be difficult

to express in words a warmer, more intimate, testimonial of the youth*s regard for Young than that expressed by his own pen.

"He verily, is more than half of my life..."

2

^or I call God to witness how much in the light of a Father I regard you, with what singular devotion I have always followed, your thought... "3

"Your so many recent kind-

nesses to me...one laden with so great benefits by you." 1.

4

Benjamin Brook, Lives of the Puritans, 3 vols., London, 1813, XII, 255.

2.

Elegy the Fourth, 1626, G.E., I, Part I, 187.

3.

Milton to Thomas Young, £*E., XII, 7. This letter is dated March 26, 1625. William R. Parker thinks that the letter is misdated and gives the substitute date, March 26, 1627. For his reasons see "Milton and Thomas Young," M , 53 (1938), 399-407.

4.

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Milton to Thomas Young, July 21, 1628, G.E., XII, 13-15. -J

138

Young may also have been the friend to whom the letter con­ taining the sonnet,, "How soon hath time,* was addressed. In view of this importance of Young as a formative force of Milton's youth it is of interest to discover what was the theological thought of Young, particularly upon the Trinity. Young denounced the Arians in a number of his works* The passages selected below are worth examining to see their resemblance to Milton's own contemporaneously written thought on the Arians,

Both Young and Milton

criticized Arlan experimentation with prayer forms,2 and

L

1.

William R. Parker, TIB, May 16, 1936.

2,

"Nor was this liberty in prayer taken away, and set and imposed forms introduced,, until! the time that the Arian and Pelagian Heresies did invade the Church, and then because those Heretieks did convey their poyson in their formes of Prayer and Hymnes, the Church thought it convenient to restrain the liberty of making and using publique forms....* "Smectymnuus Redivivus.* Being An Answer to a Book entituled An Humble Remonstrance, London. Printed by T. 0. for John Roth well, 1654, pp. C§]-(6i. "Reason was the only thing and not any divine Command, that mar’d them to enjoin the set forms of a Liturgy.. First", lest anything in general might be missaid in their public Prayers, thro ignorance or want of care, contrary to the Faithj and next, lest the Arians and Pelagians In particular should Infect the people by their hymns, and formes of Praier." Animadversiona C*|L, III, Part I, 126:11-19.

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I—

both censured Constantinefs promotion of Arianism.

1

Young;

teaches apodictically the twofold nature of Christ and His true divinity in several of his works,

He makes belief in o this doctrine essential to the Christian. He speaks of

1.

"how was the Eastern# Empire polluted with execrable Arianisme, whilst yet the Westerne continued in the Truth? The Historians give the reason of it. Constan­ tine an Arian ruled in the East; when at the same time Constans and Constantius Sonnes to Constantine the Great, treading in the steps of their pious father adheared to the truth professed by him, and so did as farre ennoble the westerns Empire with the truth* as the other did defile the easterns with his countenance ing of error and heresie..." Dr. Thomas Young, "Hopes Incouragement" pointed at in a sermon preached In St. Margarets Westminister, before the Honorable House of Commons, Assembled in Parliament: at the Last Solemn East, February 88, 1645, Printed at London- for Ralph Smith, at the signe of the Bible in Cornhill, neare the Royal1 Exchange, 1644, pp. 28*29. "then his (Constan­ tine) cruel exactions, his unsoundness in religion, favoring the Arrians that had been c o n d e m n e d . Of Reformation, £.33., III, Part I, 23:14-15.

2.

"Nothing more certaine 1 What is it not more certain that Christ is God and man? is it not more certain that Christ is the only Saviour of the world? Nothing more certain I must this then be an Article of our Creed, the corner stone of our Religion?" Smeetymnuus Rediyivua, p, (14). C f . Dr. Thomas Young, The Lordg^ ' Day (trans. by Richard Baxter), London, Printed by I. Leach, 1672, pp. 294-295. Of. also ^ d w a r d Reynolds/* The Humble Proposals of Sundry Learned and Pious Divines Within this Kingdome, Concerning the Engage­ ment . London, 1649. The attribution, of the work to Young has this authority: "Young is said to have been concerned in printing a small tract or remon­ strance against the Engagement, under the title of The Humble Proposals...intended to be imposed on them for their Subscription." David Laing, Biographi­ cal Notices of Thomas Young, S.T.D. Vicar of Stowmarket, Suffolk, by the editor of Principal Baillies "Letters and Journals," Edinburgh, 1870, p. 13.

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the Holy Ghost, and attributes to the Holy Ghost the spiritual strength displayed by the martyr, St* Stephen, and by St. Peter.^

Young defends the traditional concept

of the Trinity and opposes any tampering with that doctrine,2 Hot only is Young explicit in his orthodox Trinitarianism but his theological approach, the general theological principles he brings to the evaluation of doctrine, repre­ sents a protecting hedge to safeguard his Trinitarian position.

This is important because, as has been pointed

out in Chapter Two, there were some among; the Independents, Latitudinarians, and Cambridge Platonists who professed orthodox Trinitarianism but at the same time endorsed general theological principles, idiich, carried to their logical consequences, might well imperil their Trinitarian affirmations.

It is important too, In respect to John

Milton, for, if general theological principles were the cause of his saying strange things concerning the Trinity 1*

Hopes Inoouragement, p. 20.

2.

**yet I pray take notice, that the God of truth hath led men In authority to higher thoughts of it; which hath made, them stick closer to it, then with a luke^f warm disposition to stand by and see it trodden down: was it not commanded by the Imperial! Edict of the Enpapbui* Justinian, that no man should bee suffered so farre as to change one syllable of the Orthodox Doctrine of the Church, In the mystery of the Sacred Trinity? and why? because the Verity of the Christian JTaith was comprehended In the words and*syllables♦" Ibid., pp. 28-29.

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in later life, certainly those principles were antithetical to the ones Thomas Young imparted to him. The opinion championed in the best available study of the religious relationship between Young and Hilton,, that of Arthur Barker,***

is that Young introduced Milton to

religious "principles from which he was never to depart," To say, as Barker does, that it was "'the divergence in interpretation which was to lead him to a position quite opposed to Young*s" seems to be too weak.

The following

sentences intend to show that it was rather that the principles themselves were opposed.

These principles will

be seen to be quite different from those attributed to John Milton in Chapter Two of this dissertation. Although opposing episcopacy, Young never opposed the concept itself of church authority.

At the conclusion of

his most pretentious work* The Lords Bay, he wrote:

"And

if I have mistaken anything here I do not withdraw myself from the censure of the Orthodox Church, but submit myself very willingly to its sentence."

Young, apparently had

read St. Augustine's de Trinitate for he quotes approvingly it's respect for church authority:

"Ho sober man will

hold an opinion against reason; no Christian man against

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1.

Arthur Barker, "Milton*s Schoolmasters," MLR, AXXII (1937), 517-536.

2,

Young, Lords Day, p, 408.

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142

r ■» Scripture j no: peaceable man against the Church.”*1* Further,

“1

Young maintained that any guidance and reformation of the Church should be achieved with stress on authority.

In

p

Certaine Considerations - he emphasized that it was the duty of the magistrates and divines to lead any such reforms. The people should participate, he maintained, by praying for the success of their efforts.

Nothing, in his view,

was more harmful than to have the people divided against their own leaders.

These opinions were directed against

the Independent sectaries, whose views Milton later

Barher argues that despite Young *s reverence for church authority he is sympathetic to the ^freedom of the individual Christian” in the Areopagitioa. In proof he 1.

Ibid., p . 412.

2.

Young, Certaine Considerations to Pis-spade Men from further Gathering of Churches in this present Juncture of time. Subscribed by diverse Divines of the Assembly.....December 23, 1643, London, Printed for Ralph Scott. The McAlpin Catalogue considers this work alluded to In this excerpt from Laing: ^Both Lightfoot and Baillie make mention of.his occasional speeches (Westminister Divines 1643Assembly) on points in discussion. Baillie also says he was one of those who reasoned for the divine institution of the office of Ruling elder, and had likewise an active hand in preparing the portion of the Directory, for reading of the Scriptures and singing of Psalms.” Laing, op. cit., p. 12. Barker says Young signed it, ScE5:olmasters,” MLR, XXXII, 517.

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points out;

1} Young admitted tliat occasionally something

may be revealed to one of inferior status, yet hidden from those in authority, Ej Young gave prominence to laymen in the organization of the church.

Barker contends that Milton

merely stretched Young*s anti-episcopacy to anti-clerical­ ism.

Although Young "never forgets the dignities due to

his order," this constitutes but a difference in emphasis. I feel that none of Barker's evidence destroys the fact that Young basically recognized church authority. Young's consideration towards laymen and his recognition of private revelation were compatible with church authority. Milton opposed not only bishops but opposed all church authority.

Barker's statement that Young "doesn't forget

the dignities due to his order" reveals a firm theological principle of Young.

Milton's theological principle is in

opposition; he feels Young's order should have no dignities. That is a basic opposition of principle, Young for church authority, Milton against the concept itself. Young did not share Milton's intellectual sympathy for heretics and schismatics.^ is so.

Young differs siharply from Milton in his evaluation

of tradition. 1.

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Barker seems to agree that this

He maintains that it has always been the

"the ancients did interpret the scriptures, not as. they were by the crooked interpretation of sectaries and heretics, accommodated to their own dreams, but according to the analogy of faith, by the consent of other scriptures*.” Young, Lords Day, Dedication, n.p. -

144

Fpractice of the Church to appeal to tradition. 1 are reverenced by Young:

n

Councils

"In the Church there hath always

been great profit by and very much need of councils; and in conclusion, if ill-employed men had rejected the records of the ancients; they were forthwith exploded by the 2 3 church*" In An Answer to a Book and Humble Advice he draws frequently upon the Councils. had an even greater respect.

For the Fathers, Young

In exploring truth* after the

Scriptures, they were to be consulted,4 to him in his writings.

They were a guide

He read and compared them and

1*

"The Church of Christ in old time appealed to the scriptures, councils, and records of the ancients in deciding of questions..*" Ibid., Dedication, n.p*

2r

Ibid*, Dedication* n.p*

3.

The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, now sitting by Ordinance of Parliament at Westminister, concerning Church Government. Edinburgh: Printed by Evan Tyler, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty* 1647. And reprinted at London for Robert Bostock, at the Kings head in Pauls Church-yard. 1647*

4.

"that the things which the Lord hath written upon this matter in the Holy R e c o r d s b e i n g first observed, I might betake myself to the Councils and Records of the Antients." Lords Day, Dedication* n.p.

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followed opinions in which he found concurrence among them.'*'

However, for Young, Scripture was always

proof in doctrinal matters, as Barker emphasizes.

the best For

Milton in the Be Doctrina Christiana Scripture was the only proof, which seems again an essential difference in theo­ logical principle. Apart from Young*s explicit Trinitarian utterances and his theological principles, there is another phase of Young*s relationship with Milton.

Young was most famous

for his knowledge of the Fathers.

Because of this he

probably brought the Fathers to the attention of the youthful Milton and shared with the boy his own patristic enthusiasm. Contemporary testimony described Young as “one very well-versed in the Fathers .”2

All Young's writings show

his voluminous readings among the Fathers.

Excerpts from,

the debates of the Westminister Assembly find Young re­ ferring to Justin Martyr, Tertuilian, Cyprian, Qptatus* 1.

2.

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“I, having by the conduct of the most ancient Fathers, like them who are half blind., entered a Wood, have brought into this bundle what I thought to be most congruous for declaring the exercises of this holy solemnity. Whilst I observed sometimes the Fathers did not altogether agree among themselves, I have embraced that, which was observed by men of more sound judgment and more congruous to the practice of uni­ versal Church.” Lords Day, pp. 408-409. Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Religion and Learning,, London, 1656, p. 369. This appraisal is cited by Laing, op. cit., p. 13.

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Athanasius, and others in his oral contributions to their deliberations.

The picture of Young as the student of the

Fathers remained in the memory of Milton while he was separated from his friend* You will find him sitting, mayhap with his eharming wife, as he fondles in his arms the dear pledges of their love, or as, perchance he turns this way and that the massive scrolls of the Fathers of old, or the Holy .Books of the one true God,••^ Did John Milton read the Fathers, or the Latin Christian Authors,^ as early as the period 1608-1625? one has yet definitively answered that question* Milton read them is quite clear.

No

That

He quotes from them con­

tinually, their arguments are employed to aid his own, his Commonplace Book has many patristic entries, and finally the Index to the Columbia Milton reveals an amazing number of citations from them* 1. 2*

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Elegy the Fourth, £*E*, I, Part 1, 188-189 . The term, Father, used strictly applies only to those who wrote during the first eight centuries and whose holiness and orthodoxy merited them the approval of the Church* - Writers have used the term loosely and extended it to those who wrote as late as the six^ teenth century and to others conspicuous neither for orthodoxy nor holiness* Colet*s Statutes employed the term, Latin Christian Authors. Since Colet’s authors are important for our study, and include Proba, who is feuinine, and Mantuan, a Renaissance writer, I shall use "Latin Christian Authors."

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There is heavy evidence that he read the Latin Christ­

ian Authors, quite early in his life.

I

Because of this

evidence, I shall examine their possible part in the for­ mation of Milton’s Trinitarian views in this study of the 1608-3-625 period.

The evidence is fourfold, 1) his friend­

ship with the patristic scholar, Young, 2} the fact that authoritative Milton scholars have found patristic evi­ dences in :the poet’s earliest writings, 3} those evi­ dences involve the very Latin Christian Authors whom Golet's Statutes listed as required study at St. Paul’s, 4} bio­ graphers of the poet feel that this segment of the Statutes was enforced during Milton’s schooldays there. Colet’s curriculum for St. Paul’s provided;

"And

thenne other auctors Christian as lactantius and prudentius and proba and sedulius and JUuencus and Baptists Mantuanus..."

1

These authors became the subject of attention

when Albert S. Cook* four decades ago, discovered a number of imposing similarities between the Nativity Ode and John Baptist Mantuan.^

Upon further examination of the same

question, A. F. Leach, in an address to the British Academy, on December 10, 1908, held emphatically that this part of the curriculum was still observed when John Milton was a 1.

Kathleen Hartwell, Lactantius and Milton, pp. 161-162.

2.

Albert S. Cook, "Two Notes on Milton," MLR, II (19061907), 121-128, ffNotes on Milton’s Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity," Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciencest XV [T o W ) , 507-568.

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r 1 schoolboy.

He concurred in the traces of Mantuan unearthed

by Cook* and pointed out passages in Milton’s works possibly indebted to Lactantius, Proba, Sedulius and Prudentius. More modern scholars continue to probe the question, Kathleen Hartwell feels that Milton, while at St. Paul’s, might have read Colet’s authors;2 is no proof that the poet did.

Donald Clark holds there

r*

Even if Mantuan were not mentioned among Colet’s authors, Milton probably would have read him.

He had been

closely associated with the humanists of the Renaissance 1.

A. F. Leach, ’’Milton as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster.” Proceedings of the British Academy, III (1907-1908), 295-318,

2.

While confessing her inability to establish proof that Milton knew Lactantius as early as his days at St. Paul’s, Miss Hartwell writes: ”It would seem less of a strain on the inherent probabilities of the ease to suppose that Colet’s Statutes were ob­ served, and that Milton read Prudentius and Mantuanus and Lactantius at St. Paul’s.” Hartwell, Lactantius and Milton, p. 82.

3.

’’Aside from Colet’s mention of the Christian authors, I have discovered no surviving shred of evidence that copies of their works were ever in the school library or that they were ever read as school authors at St. Paul’s School.” Clark, Milton at St. Paul’s , p. 125, Clark’s is unquestionably the finest available study of the poet’s stay at St. Paul’s. The only evidence, however, that Clark adduces for establishing the contents of the school library seems ^to be "The School’s Library,” Appendix I, in Gardiners Admission Registers of St. -Paul’s. But this lists only about a dozen books and certainly does not represent the full content of St. Paul’s library.

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and held a high rank among them*

His Eclogues particularly

were very much a part of the educational scene of Milton1s day .1 Its classical standing was immediately and firmly established by critical acclaim, by a learned commentary, and by universal adoption in schools,** the Christian Yirgil did not depart from the schoolroom, in England at leasts until the begin­ ning of the eighteenth century.2 The fact that Mantuan*s subject matter/ and the subject matter of the other authors of Colet, was Christian, should not lead one to believe that they were not read at'St. Paul 1s.

Clark emphasizes the humanist character of St*

Paul's and is inclined to think that the pagan Latin poets rather than the Christian authors would have been read there.

Bush paints out that it was Christian humanism 5 above all that was sought in the schools. 1*

John Baptist Mantuan, or Giovanni Spagnuoli, was born at Mantua in 1448 and lived until 1516. He numbered Pico della Mirandola among his friends and claimed the Gonzagas as his patrons. Of his Eclogues, eight were written during his schooldays; the last two after he had become a Carmelite monk*

2.

Baptista Spagnuoli, The Eclogues of Mantuan. (Trans. by George TutbervilLe, 156T3 (ed. by Douglas Bush], Hew York, Scholars 1 Eacsimilies and.Reprints, 1937, P. 1.

3.

"Renaissance humanists in all countries were far more concerned with Christian faith and virtue than with the paganism that modern historians have emphasized, and they were ready to welcome a Christian poet who made pagan art the medium for material which was innocuous or, quite often, positively Christian and edifying," Ibid., p. II*

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Chief among the similarities noted between Milton and Mantuan are passages in Lyeidas and the nativity Ode. The winter scene of Christmas, Nativity Ode 11* 23 ff., the description of night

11* 111

ff ., the dragon with its

fiery tail* 11. 168 ff*, are all featured in Mantuan.

The

whole pastoral setting for the holy things of the Ode was a widespread practice in Mantuan.-**

Bush thinks the out­

burst against hireling shepherds in Lyeidas may have come to Milton from Mantuan, although he gives Dante first place as a possible source*2

The fact that Mantuan is quite

apparent in the writings of Spenser, whom Milton reverenced, makes certainty difficult. Mantuan has no work expressly devoted to the Trinity, but it is quite safe to declare his complete orthodoxy, for the Church has declared him "Blessed. "3 A marginal note, Cur Beus incarnatt in his Alphons.us attests Christ's divinity.4 1*

So do his seventh and eighth eclogues:

Cook, Trans. of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, XV 1X909), 307-368: Leach, op. cit*, pp.

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—

2.

Baptists.;»- Eclogues , p. II.

3*

"Baptista Mantuanus," Cath* B n c y * II, 276.

4.

Baptists, Qperu Baptiste Mantuani in qua sunt Alphonsus. Triumphus Panegris Roberti Sans Bansaeverlnatis et Sylvae Vendudantur in vico saneti Jacobi in aedibus. Ascenscionis: and Sub Pelicano, MXVII, n.p.

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God is a guest to simple men, the haughtie he doth spite. But Mother shee to Mightie God descended from the Skie .2 Chapter XXIII of EMahtuta’s De Patientia, Book II, is

entitled, wDe generibus filiationis cti declar&tioe dicti euagelici:

dedit eis potestatem filios dei fieri.*

In

it he properly distinguishes the unique generation of the Son of God and His equality with the Father of Whose sub­ stance He is: Filius autem multipliciter dicitur: name qui ex substantia patris ad e^usdem naturae aequalitatem est genitus naturalis dicitur filius* ut Solomon David. David Jesse* Christus Dei.3 In his poem to John Crestani,' IIMantuan is also beautifully orthodox in his Christology.^ A second author, Juvencus, was a priest of noble birth In fourth century Spain*

His chief work, Ivangeliorum

libri quattuor* was an effort to adapt the gospel narrative, 1*

Baptists, Eclogues, n.p*

2*

Ibid., n*p.

3*

Baptists, Heverendi fratris Baptjstae mantuari Carmelitae de patientia aurei libri tres, Strassburg, 15XQ, n.p* Baptist Spagnolo of Mantua Carmelite to John Crestani of Piacenza Carmelite then going away for ia time to Monte Calestano* Englished with an Introduction by Sebastian Evans. 25 copies privately printed as Hew Year gifts MXCCOLXXXIV.

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mostly that of St. Matthew, into a YirgiXian mould .1

Sinee

he follows the gospel* his Trinitarianism is, of course, quite orthodox. His preface has an invocation to the Holy Spirit, throughout the work is an active Person.3 acknowledges the divinity of Christ.

2

Who

Juvencus

The poet says that

He is horn of God ,4 is termed “God with you,*® and receives gifts honoring both His divine and human natures.

Juven­

cus, therefore, would not have led Milton astray in Trini­ tarian matters. 1.

F. CayrffiTManual of Petrology. 2 vols., Paris, Descl^e and Company, 1936, I, 554.

2.

“Ergo age I sanetificus adsit mihi carminis auctor Spiritus, et puro mentem riget amne canentis Dulcis Jordanis, ut Christo digna Xoquamur.” Juvencus, Juvencii Evangeliorum lihri quattuor, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vindobonae, apud C. Geraldi Fillium Bibliopolam Academiae, MDCCCLXXXV, vol. X2XY, Preface, 11. 25-27.

5.

“Yirtus celsa Dei circum volitabit obumbrans, Spiritus et veniet purus, lectissima virgo, Ac tibi mox puerum casto sermone Jubebit Magnificum gigni populis, ...” Ibid., Bk. I, 11. 68-71.

4.

**Magnificum gigni populis, quern oredere sanctum Supremique Dei natum vocitare necesse est.” Ibid,, Bk. I, 11. 71-72.

5.

“Hane eecinit vates venturum et virgins prolem, Nobiscum Deus est nomen cui.” Ibid., Bk. I, 11. 141-142.

6.

“turn munera trina Tus, aurum, murram, regique hominique Deoque Dona dabant.“ Ibid., Bk..I, 11. 249-251.

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Concerning the work of the next author Milton may have read in his schooldays* namely* the Roman matron Proba,^ Leach writes as follows: Milton seems to owe the exordium to Paradise Lost to the Invocatio Dei which begins this strange medley* If not* it is a singular coincidence that* while Proba quotes in her Invocation nKec libet Aonio de vertice ducere Musas," Milton should in his Invocation speak of; "my adventurous song That with no middle flight intends to soar Above the Aonian mount * Regardless, however* of how closely Milton's poetry may have followed Proba *s, the pertinent point here is that Proba*s writings contained nothing unorthodox in the matter of the Trinity*

In her account of Christ's taming of the

storm at sea, Proba testifies to the divinity of Christ. This is true of other passages also, in one of which the real divine generation of Christ from the Father, involv­ ing complete sonship, is stressed.^ 1.

"Proba, daughter of a patrician Roman family and wife of a Roman Prefect, made an attempt about themiddle of the fifth eentury to write the Bible in verse, or rather to adapt Virgil's verse, chiefly that of the Aenead, to Biblical scenes; in the Old Testament, the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and in the Hew Testament, the story of Cur Lord from His birth to the Ascension. This hybrid composition contains 694 hexameters*" 0ayr6, Q£. cit* * I, 548-549*

2* 3.

Leach, o£. cit*, p* 308* "ecce Beus magno misceri murmure pontum emissamque hiemem sensit, oui summa potestas*n "intremuit malus, gemuit sub pondere cumba, vela cadunt, puppique deus consedit in alta: et tandem laeti notae advertuntur harenae*" Proba, Cento Probae, CSEL, XVI, 11* 545-546, 559-561.

4

Ibid*, 11. 338-356

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Of the Latin Christian Authors Colet’s Statutes pre­ scribed for the students of St; Paul’s, the most important, from the viewjpoint of Milton scholars, has been Lactantius. Of all these authors, it was unquestionably with Lactantius that Milton was most familiar.

The name of Lactantius

appears at least five times in Milton’s Commonplace Book. John Paul Pritchard, who has studied the thought of the Fathers in the works of Milton, shows that the poet used Lactantius to back his own views on marriage and on the supremacy of Scripture.1' Leach feels that there is Arianism in Paradise Lost and that Milton drew the Arianism from the Divine Institutes of Lactantius.

Leach believes

also that Milton knew Lactantius as early as his days at St. Paul’s*^ Of the six Latin Christian Authors in the curriculum at St. Paul’s only Lactantius has been the subject of a book-length study by a student of Milton. The study is •z that of Kathleen Hartwell* Miss Hartwell concludes that Milton read Lactantius thoroughly and pondered what he had to say.

She has found strains of Lactantian thought in

Tetrachordon, Of Reformation, Areopagitica, Paradise Lost,

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1.

John Paul Pritchard, The Influence of the Fathers upon Milton, (typescript dissertation^Gornell, 1925}.

2.

Leach, op* cit*, p. 307.

3.

Hartwell, Lactantius and Milton, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1929.

1

and De Doctrina. well *s

5

5

Even as early a work, as Gomus, in Hart­

opinion, shows Milton*s reading of Lactantius,

Milton knew his thought, she feels, although confessing her inability to offer positive proof, as early as St, Paul*s * Lactantius is particularly important to this disser­ tation because the thought Milton is alleged to have bor­ rowed from Lactantius concerns the genesis of the Trini­ tarian views of the poet*

The four points that Milton has

in his own writings, which he perhaps first met in the works of Lactantius, are Arianism, the sexlessness of God, his concept of the Logos, and his understanding o1 the Holy Ghost* Because of the purity and perfection of his rhetori­ cal style, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, or Lactantius, has been called the Christian Cicero,'1’ Of his works, we possess De opificio Dei, a refutation of Epicureanism, De mortibus persecutorumy tracing the miserable fate of tyrants, De ira Dei, which reveals how God rewards good and punishes evil, and his Divinarum Institutionum* The Divine Institutes is the most important of his works, and 1.

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Lactantius was born in Africa circa 250* He studied under Arnobius and later taught at Nicomedia* His last years were spent at the Court of Constantine where he served as tutor to the Emperor*s son, St* Jerome cites a number of his works which are no longer extant*

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the only one with pertinent Trinitarian doctrine,-*-

Milton

quite definitely read the Institute^ either at St. Paul*a i

or later* Lactantius,. as has been pointed out above, has been accused of writing erroneously about the Holy Ghost,

St,

Jerome raised that question concerning Lactantius, but Jerome referred to one of his works that John Milton never saw as it was lost centuries before the poet attended St, Paulas*

In the Divine Institutes^ it is true that Lactan­

tius does not speak at any length of the Holy Ghost,

To

conclude from, this, however, that he doubted the Third Person of the Trinity is only an argument from silence, which of its nature is a very weak one*

The more obvious

explanation is that he simply was not attempting to say anything about the Holy Ghost.

On this matter the con­

clusion of the patristic scholar, Dupin, seems to be the proper viewr He is accused of doubting whether the Holy Ghost was the Third Person, and to have sometimes con­ founded him with the Son, and sometimes with the 1*

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"The whole work consists of seven books, of which the first three are a sort of religious catechism. I* There is only' one God; polytheism is absurd* II, Religion is necessary, and Paganism is not the true religion. In the four following books Lactantius exposes Christian doctrine: in the IVth, dogma, and the truths which must be believed (God, Christ, miracles, the Incarnation, the heresies, the Church); in the 7th, and 71th, the moral teaching, and justice in particular; and in the 7IIth, the last ends. As may be seen, the Institutiones form %an elementary summary of Christian teaching." Cayr£, pp. cit., I, 272-273* ---

157

Father, but it may be alleged in his defense,- that he meant nothing else, but that the name of the Spirit in Scripture is common to the Father and the Son* But whatever the matter is, we find no footsteps of this error in any of his works, that are now remaining; though in some places he takes occasion to speak of the Holy Ghost.1 On the next theological point that Milton is thought to have found in Lactantius, Kathleen Hartwell writes as follows: One idea about God that may have reached Milton by way of Lactantius is that of His sexlessness. It is one that an early Christian Father did well to emphasize, in the face of the innumerable legends of the gods' amorous adventures on which his converts had been raised, but it seems curious to find Milton emphasizing this idea in the seventeenth century: "Thou in thyself art perfect, and in thee Is no deficience found. Hot so in Man... Ho need that thou Should’st propagate, already infinite, And through all numbers absolute, though One; P.L., VIII, 415-429• This is but a rendering into verse of the view ex­ pressed in the severely unadorned prose of the Of Christian Doctrine.**”2 Actually the discussion of sexlessness in*God, is not in itself, a Trinitarian matter*

However, the passage Just

quoted from Milton has been used heavily in the attempt of scholars to determine the poet’s thought on the Trinity* Perhaps the most important writer, Maurice Kelley, considers 1*

2. L

L* E* Bupin, Nouvelle biblioth5que des auteurs ecclfesi astiques, Paris, 1693, I, 209. Quoted in Dictionary of Christian Biography, 3 vols., London, John Murray* TH82, III," 1616* Hartwell, op* cit, pp. 95-96. J

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158

r this passage to be a strong point in his anti-Trinitarian case against Milton.

i

Kelley considers the passage to be

"indisputably Arian."^ If, however, this thought of Milton actually came from Lactantius, the ground seems properly cut from under the charge of anti-Trinitarianism.

This passage in Paradise

Lost can be interpreted as a repetition of the orthodox thought of Lactantius, namely, that God, because He is immortal, has no need of succession or of difference of sex, and can create alone.

Hartwell,

2

-rather than Kelley,

would seem to be better followed here, and, consequently, there is no need to make the Paradise Lost passage antiTrinitarian., The writing of Lactantius on the Logos is of Trini­ tarian interest.

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He is accused of overstressing

1*

Kelley, This Great Argument, p. 121*

2.

In clarification of Lactantius* thought, Miss Hartwell cites the-Div. Lasts*, Bk. I, Ghap. 8 . #s 5-7; Bk. I, Chap. 16,- W ~ 16-17; Bk. IV, chap. 8 , #3. op. cit., pp. 95-96.

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159;

rthe literal audibility of the Logos in certain passages.i 1 This emphasis,, the critique continues, Milton reechoed, and possibly because of it, came to make the Son of an essence different from God* * If Miss Hartwell is correct in this conclusion, Lactantius certainly smoothed John Milton’s way to anti-Trinitarianism.2

®hile that possi­

bility cannot be gainsaid, nevertheless, even in his words on the Logos, Lactantius expressly testifies to the divinity of the Logos: nostrae voces licet aurae misceantur atque vanescant, tamen plerumque permanent litteris comprehensae: quanto magis dei vocem credendum est et manere in aeternum et sensu ac virtute comitari, quam de deo patre tamquam riviis de fonte traduxerit 2 quodsi quis miratur ex deo deum prolatione vocis ac spiritus potuisse generari, si saeras voces prophetarum congruverit, desinet perfecto mirari.3 1*

Mprimum nee sciri a quoquam possunt nee enarrari opera divina, sed tamen sanctae litterae docent, in quibus cautum est ilium dei filium dei esse sermonem itemque eeteros angelos dei spiritus esse, nam sermo est spiritus cum voce aliquid significante prolatus* sed tamen-quoniam spiritus et sermo diversis partibus proferuntur, siquidem spiritus naribus, ore sermo procedit, magna inter nunc dei filium ceterosque angelos differentia est. "Lactantius, Divinae Ins tit ut ione s , Book IV, c. 8 ,CSEL,XIX, 2967

2.

"There is one very curious point connected with belief in the Son on which Lactantius and Milton agree, where the Latin Father may well have been Milton’s direct source. Both speak of the audibility of the word of God, the A *Yd 5 . as an actual fact." "It is in Of Christian Doctrine that Milton states the literal audibility of the A oVos as uttered by God, making the Son on this account of a different essence from God the Father." Hartwell, op. cit., pp. 108, 109* ££!• Inst>, Bk. IV, e.

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CSEL, XIX, 297. J

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As I indicated in. Chapter One, Milton students have written much on the question of his Arianism.

Those who

examined the relationship between Lactantius and Milton, have made Arianism the chief link between the two*

This

charge is, of course, basic to a discussion of Miltonrs Trinitarian development.. There is no denying that the Divine Institutes con­ tains damaging passages. ered in Book IX.

1

These "Arian" passages are eent-

Lactantius has written that he cannot

consider a son to be God, for heaven and earth are more o ancient, that God made a spirit like Himself, and then 3 another #10 later proved unfaithful. Leach considers Lactantius* description of the part of the Son in creation 1*

Book II has also Miltonrs emphasis of envy. Heither Leach, nor Hartwell have stressed that this book has Milton*s concept of the angels descending to earth (Chap. XV): on their errand of corruption, and his concept of the double death and eternal punishment (Chap. XIII).

2.

"sed cum eadem rations natum esse cogito, non possum putare deum summum quo videam esse aliquid antiquius, caelum scilicet atque terram." Div. Inst., Bk. I, c. 11, CSEL, XIX, 46.

3.

"produxit similem sul spiritum, qui esset virtutibus patris dei praeditus,.,.deinde focit alterum, in quo Indoles divinae stirpis non permansit.* Div. Inst., Bk. II, c. 8 , CSEL, XIX, 129. ~ -

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.

,

i

to be Arian and to resemble Book ¥ of Paradise Lost.x

Hartwell feels that Paradise Lost Book III and the Insti­ tutes , Book II, teach in a parallel fashion that the Son was created in time*

2

But despite these passages Lactantius was not an Arian and the Bivine Institutes did not condone. Arianism, 1*

**In Book II *0n the origin of Sin,? Be origine erroris, Lactantius takes a view of the position of Christ as Son of God and his partin creation, which is, it has been pointed out (Diet. Christ. Biog.), not far short of Arian* and ‘is precisely the view taken by Milton in P.L. Book Leach* op. cit., p. 307. The Bictionary (III,616Kseems rather against Leach for it apparently espouses the quoted opinion of Bupin: wHe seems to be of the opinion that the Word was generated in time; but it is an easy matter to give a Catholic sense to that expression* as we have seen it done in others: and we m y be with Justice allowed to do so* since he plainly establishes the Divinity of the Word in that very p l a c e . T h a t the Bictionary does not substantiate Leach seems to be conceded by Miss Hartwell* op. cit., p. 99.

2.

^In the third Book' of P.L., Milton speaks of the Son: as *of all creation first1 (III, 385),.. Heither Lactantius nor Milton claims the Son to have existed from all eternity* but from a given point of time, before the creation of the world.Mi Hartwell* op. cit., p. 106.

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162

r 1 Lactantius writes very plainly his dislike of Arianism. He holds that God begot a Pure Spirit, His Son, the only one worthy of bearing the divine name, because He is power­ ful in His Father's excellence and majesty ,2 He quotes the Sibyl to the effect that the Son is God,

Christ is truly

God, Lactantius writes, as he disposes of the argument that 4 Christ*s sufferings deny this. Throughout the Institutes, whenever Lactantius speaks of the Son, he refers the reader to Book IT for his teaching on that subject.

It is in

Book IT that there is this all-decisive passage.

Ho Arian

could ever have written it: 1*

2* 3.

"Anthropiaai seu quilibet alii nominantur, Christian! esse desierunt, qul Christi nomine amisso humana et externa vocabula induerunt. sola igitur catholloa ecclesia est quae verum culturn retineti **• Bk* IT* c. 30„ CS1L, XIX, 396, A note on p. 396 reads: "anthropiani aut arriani **Hn, H stands for the codex Palatino-Tatieanus, a tenth century document once in the Palatine library at Heidelberg. Cf. Proleg, p. XXXIT. The word “Arians** does not appear in some texts because their editors feel that the Arians had not been strong when Lactantius wrote, Even if this were granted to be a valid omission on the part of the editors, it is a strong evidence against the charge of Arianism, for it indicates that copyists, who should have known Lactantius well, found him anti-Arian* Inst.,. Bk. IT, c.

CSEL, XIX, 286.

Ibid., XIX, 290. Dlv* Inst.

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Bk. IT, e. 22, CSEL. XIX, 369.

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Fortasse quaerat aliquis quomodo, cum deum patrem et deum f ilium,. .. *cum dicimus deum patrem et deum f ilium, non diversum dicimus nec utrumque secernimus, quia nec pater a filio potest nec filius a patre sejS^cerni, siquidem nec pater sine filio nuncupari nec filius potest sine patre generari* cum igitur et pater filium faeiat et filius patrem, una utrique mens, unus spiritus, una substantia est:* The wArianrt passages of the Institutes can be explained. His remarks that a son cannot be as. ancient as the heavens refers simply to his refutation of polytheism. reference there to the Second Person of

He has no

the Trinity,

Lactantius* teaching, that God made a second spirit who envied his predecessor and threw off the dispositions of his divine origin to become diabolus, is quite orthodox* His use of "aon** is merely in the generic, traditional, Biblical sense of the teim, when he applies it to Satan* That he held eternal generation is quite clear from the passage Just quoted above. In addition, a search of Rudolph Klussmann*s BihLiotheca scriptorum classicorum2 and L*Ann6e philologlque? the traditional bibliographical fonts, has failed to reveal any studies of Lactantius raising the accusation of Arianism.

The chief difficulty in his writings is his primitive

1*

Hiv. Inst*. Bk. IY, c. 29, GSEL, XXX, 391-592.

2*

Rudolph Klussmann, Bibliotheca scriptorum. classicorum et Graecorum et Latinorum, Leipzig, 0. R, Reisland, 1912*

3*

J* Marouzeau, L *Ann^e phllologlque, Paris, Society d*edition YLes Belles Lett res,** 1927-1946.

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theological expression,, or his paucity of theological

expression:

“i

the groping of an untrained, theologian to

express properly quite orthodox conceptions.

This con­

clusion, is stressed also by the fullest analysis available of the theology of Lactantius.-^

Hence, it seems unwarranted

to attribute Arianism to Lactantius, and one who traces possible Arianism in Milton to this St* Paul's author is on somewhat unstable 'footing.

Only Lactantius misunder­

stood and merely slightly sampled would yield Arianism. To so charge Milton, even the St# Paul's Milton, would be somewhat bold indeed. Aurelius Clemens Prudentius,

2

another of the prescribed

1.

Ren6 Pichon, Lactance, ^tude sur le mouvement philo­ sophic ue et religieux sous le r^gne de Constantin, Paris, Libraire, Hachette et Gie,1&Q1, pp. 116-117.

2* .

He was b o m in Spain in 548. Although a Christian since childhood, for many years Prudentius had been rather careless about religion and overconcerned with the things of the world. Under the patronage of Theodosius he had held high posts, e.g., that of Provincial Governor. At the age of about fifty he turned his back upon the world and devoted himself to writing the praises of God, the saints, and virtue.

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authors at St* Paul's was the most prolific of this group in his writings.'*'

Both Leach2 and Cookp

by drawing com­

parisons between the Kativity Ode and the Cathemerinon, a collection of hymns by Prudentius, have given plausibility to the position that Milton actually read this author as a St. Paul's schoolboy.,

The work of greatest interest to

this dissertation is his Apotheosis, directed against those who denied the divinity of Christ.

It is ex professo

on Trinitarian theology and gives a quite full exposition of that doctrine.

Clock feels that the Apotheosis also

permeated the Nativity Ode.

Cayr6 gives the following

synopsis of the work: In 1085 hexameters* the poet refutes all those who deny Christ's divinity* either indirectly by their refusal to recognize the Trinity, such as the Unitarians (Patripassians, verses 1-177, or Modalists, 178-3201 and the Jews (321-550}* or directly, such as Ebionites (5.51-781), more Jewish than Christian, who, while recognizing Christ, refuse to admit his divine nature. After a long discussion on the nature of the soul and the punishments reserved to the wicked in the next life (782-951), the author concludes his demonstration by attacking Manichaeism, which by denying Christ's humanity also compromises His Divinity (9 52-1085). 3 1.

He attacked paganism in the Contra Symmachum. His Hamartigenia, which contains realistic descriptions of hell and paradise, is directed against Gnostic dualisnu Well circulated in medieval times was his Psychomachia, an allegorical spiritual combat between virtue and vice. He wrote also the Peristephanon and Dittochaeon^

2.

"Speaking generally, we cannot but feel that Milton had read the one before he wrote the other." Leach op. cit., p. 310.

3. I_4.

Cook, Q£. clt., passim. Cayre, op. cit., I, 555-556.

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The opening lines of his preface provide a magnifi­ cent summary of.qrthodox Trinitarian doctrine, embracing the divinity, equality* and eternal co-existence of the three Persons: Est tria summa Deus, trinum specimen* vigor unus. Corde Patris genita est Sapientia, Filius ipse est* Sanctus ab aeterno subsistet Spiritus ore* Tempore nec senior Pater est, nec numine major* Ham sapiens retro semper Deus edidit ex se, Per quod semper erat gignenda ad saecula, verbum. Plainly and beautifully, Prudentius holds the eternal generation of the Son.^

His confession of the divinity of

Christ is equally express.

Quite explicit was the opposi­

tion of Prudentius to the Unitarians, who have since heralded Milton as one of their own, and against the Sabellians, whose particular brand of anti-Trinitarianism some commentators have credited Milton with.^

Summarily,

Milton’s later De Doctrina Christiana is in complete opposition to the Trinitarian position of Prudentius.

It

is in opposition -too, to the Hativity Ode, whose orthodox Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Apotheosis, ed. A* J. Valpy, Londini, 1824* 11* 1-6, 2*

"Cui non principium de tempore, sed super omne Tempus, et ante diem majestas cum Patre summo, Immo animus Patris, et ratio, et via consiliorum, Quae non facta manu, nec voce creata jubentis* Protulit imperium patria ructata profundo.1* Ibid., 11. 89-93.

3*

ibid., 11.

4.

ibid., 11. 178-182,

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135-139.

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Trinitarianism may well owe something to Milton’s schoolboy study of Prudentius. The final Christian, author prescribed by Colet’s Statutes was Caelius Sedulius, a poet of the fifth century, whose chief work is the Carmen Pascals.

Because this work

"savoured too much of the mass,” Leach thinks it may not have been read at St. Paul’s as late as Milton’s school-

days there.

2

Dr. George Sigerson has translated the

Carmen Pascals into English and has attempted to establish the indebtedness of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained to Sedulius.3 If young John Milton read the Carmen, he found it another orthodox work as far as it concerned Trinity. Sedulius holds firmly the crux of Trinitarian dogma, three Persons in the unity of one God* 1.

Of the five books comprising it, '"the first, which is devoted to certain Biblical miracles of the Old Testa­ ment, forms a kind of introduction. The four follow­ ing books tell the story of Christ, with especial regard to His miracles, according to the Gospels and chiefly that of Saint Matthew." Cayr6 , op. cit., I, 549. T—

2.

Leach, op. cit., pp. 3QS ff.

3.

George Sigerson, The Easter Song being the First Epic of Christendom by Sedulius, Dublin, The Talbot Press* 1922. Hartwell, (op. cit., p. 82) legitimately cen­ sures the unscholarly partisanship of Sigerson.

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Per digesta rudis neenon miracula legis Dicemus, sancti coniunoto Spiritus actu Q,uae Natus socia Patris virtute peregit, Semper ut una manens deitatis forma perennis, Q,uod simplex triplicet quodque est triplicabile simplet.x Quite clearly and repeatedly Sedulius affirms the divinity of Christ***

The Carmen also holds the eternal

generation of the Son.^

One is reminded of Milton*s "all

of me that can die**1 in some of Sedulius* lines on the death of Christ .4 Kathleen Hartwell has written:. How early, then, did Milton know the Fathers in general? There is no evidence in his schoolboy paraphrases of the Psalms that he had made their acquaintance as early as the days at St. Paul's, but, because of the obvious limitations of para­ phrasing,^ this is no place to look for such evidence. Sedulii Paschalis Carminis Libri ¥, I, 291-295, CSEL,, X, 37-38. Sedulius, in describing the baptism of Christ at the Jordan, also gives express testimony to the Trinity, Ibid.., II, 162-174.

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2.

**Ipsae etiam ut possint species ostendere Christum, Aurea nascenti fuderunt munera regi, Tura dedere Deo, myrram tribuere sepulchro.** Ibid., II, 94-96. Gf. II, 59-62, III, 126-128, V, ..392^104.

3.

Ibid., II, 63-66, I, 312-330.

4.

**Ergo ubi cuncta boni complete est passio Christ!, Ipse animam proprio dimisit corpore sanctam, Ipse iterum sumpturus earn, quia mortuus idem, Idem vivus erat membris obeuntibus in se, Non obeunte Deo, cuius virtute retrorsunu..** Ibid., V, 261-265. Cf. I¥, 276-279.

5.

Hartwell, op. cit., p. 79.

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Despite the obvious reasonableness of the latter part of

Miss Hartwell*s remarks, there seems to be nonetheless some little resemblance between Milton*s Psalm GXIY, 11* 7 and 14, "That saw the troubled sea and shivering fled.*.", "Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains"? and this Carmen excerpt:: Senserunt elementa Deum, mare fugit, et ipse Jordanis refluas cursum convertit in undas* Namque propheta canensr quidnam est, mare* quod fugis* inquit, , Et tu* Jordanis* retro quia subtrabis amnem? But, whether Milton read Sedulius at St * Paul*s and revealed the work in his psalm paraphrases, at least for the purpose of this dissertation* it is clear that the Carmen Pascale was quite orthodoxly Trinitarian and did not move Milton in the direction of the unorthodox chap­ ters he later penned in Die Doctrina Christiana. This examination of a large segment of Milton*s 16081625 intellectual environment, namely, that comprised in his tutelage under Young and the kindred study of the Latin Christian Authors at St. Paul*s, indicates that the early Trinitarian orthodoxy of Milton* revealed in the Nativity Ode* was no accident.

The simplest explanation

seems to be that the youthful Milton docilely went along with the theological tide of his environment* Perhaps* this supplies a little insight into John Milton* i. L

This insight points out that, although the poet

Ibid*, II, 162-165 J

was a thoroughly independent spirit, at least in his youth that independence was relatively dormant*

Somewhat as any

average youngster, he accepted in a matter of fact fashion, the truths with which his training provided him*

Also,

the pupil, Milton, seems to have been quite affectionate and to have followed with a certain blind enthusiasm what­ ever leadership in the sphere of truth his tutor offered* He fell apparently under the spell of Young, and wholly endorsed his views up until the denouement of the episco­ pal controversy.

Only sometime after the 1608-1625

period, does the lonely warrior Milton develop:

one who

thought alone, worked alone, and was a somewhat cantanker­ ous

intellectual*

And it was the former Milton who was

his

own best preventative against excursions into radical,

esoteric, theological bypaths* The older Milton did ciples of his tutor.

Had

not retain the theological prin­ he done so, it is highly doubtful

that he ever would have arrived at anti-Trinitarianism. Youngfs adhesion to church authority, the Fathers, and the Councils, represented theological principles which Milton later rebuffed*

Chapter Two has pointed out the importance

of those principles,

Miltonrs ultimate divergence from

Young underscores the changing nature of his own theo­ logical principles and the importance of a detailed chrono­ logical examination of them, not only for the period 16081625, but especially for the time beyond.

Such study is a

171

key to an accurate understanding of the theological con­ cepts in Milton*s writings. In the early centuries of Christianity* Arianism was powerful and pervasive.

Knowing this, some editors and

commentators have adopted an antecedent probability that Milton’s reading in the sphere of early Christian litera­ ture may have weakened his orthodox Trinitarianism.

The

wide canvas of these scholars has precluded a minute examination of the Trinitarian sources available to Milton from 1608-1625.

But the detailed study of this chapter

has revealed how heavily orthodox was the contribution of Young and the Latin Christian Authors of St. Paul*s. Wherever Milton turned, to the principles of Young*s theo­ logy* io ik® writings of Sedulius, Proba, Lactantius, Juvencus,

and Prudentius, he found the teaching that in

the Trinity there are three Persons in one God* that these Persons are coeternal and equal, that the Holy Ghost is an active Person and that the Son was generated from eternity. Wherever Milton’s later anti-Trinitarianism came from., it certainly was not nurtured in this section of his intellect­ ual development from 1608-1625.

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i CHAPTER VII THE TRINITARIAM THEOLOGY OF THE GILS Ho study of Miltonrs intellectual life from 1608-

1625 would be complete without examination of the thought Of Alexander Gil* Sr., for he was the Highmaster at St* Faults during the years Milton went to school there. Contemporary testimony gives the senior Gil a fine repu­ tation as an effective teacher who enjoyed the loyalty of his pupils.^ How did John Milton feel towards this man?

Although

in Milton's writings there is no dissatisfaction* with his days at St. Paul's, still positive evidence to answer this question is lacking.

We have letters of Milton to Thomas

Young and Alexander Gil, Jr. which establish his friend­ ship with and respect for these men? but we possess, none that he wrote to Alexander Gil* Sr., nor do we have any poem commemorative of the elder Gil's death in 1635.

Yet

Alexander Gil, Sr. must have been considerably important in the intellectual formation of John Milton.

The fact

that such a sensitive boy and eager student sat under the rich learning of Gil for eight years makes this a moral necessity. 1.

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"to have such an excellent way of training up youth, that none in his time went beyond him.M Athenae Oxonienses...to which are added the "Fasti" py Anthony — a * Wood, T®d. Philip Bliss), London,.1815, II, 597. I

173

1 The stern obligation of the grammar school to give its pupils a full religious instruction turns the formative importance of Gil to the field of theology.

In the case of

the senior Gil that would mean especially Trinitarian the­ ology i

On no other subject did he write as fully*

He was

insistent, above all else, upon the importance of a know­ ledge of the doctrine of the Trinity: first, because it concernes that most excellent and high being, even of God himselfe; secondly, because the revelation thereof is from God alone,, manifested by his word; thirdly, because it is the foundation of our- faith and hope.,.. In the matter of the Trinity, we would expect the senior Gil to be quite conservative and traditional.

He was a

friend of Archbishop laud, who seems to have regarded him highly, and although enemies wrote against Gil, his doctrinal orthodoxy was never questioned*

2

1*

Alexander Gil, Sr., The Sacred Philosophie of the Holy Scripture., London, 1635, p. 53. -

2.

Two such scurrilous poems, "In St. Pauls Churchyard in London..." and "Gil upon Gil,” are reproduced in Aubrey1s Brief Lives 1669-1696, (ed, A. Clarke), 2 vols., Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1898, I, 262-266. Another poem against him was written by Mr. South Townlye. It may be read ~in Athenae Oxonienses, II, 598 ff. Townlye answered Gilfs satire, Upon Ben Jonson*s "Magnet tick Le,dye.* The ~BNB (YU, l23¥), disagreeing with the Athenae, attributes.the satire to Gil, Jr. In none of these poems is the doctrinal orthodoxy of the elder Gil impeached.

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We are able to determine quite accurately Gil's views

1

on the Trinity because we have his A Treatise concerning the Trinitie of Persons in Unitie of the Deitie.

If John

Milton was later to become an Arian, it was not due to this teacher's encouragement.

Gil's treatise was penned as a

remonstrance to Thomas Mannering, an Anabaptist, who "denied that Jesus is very God of very God,** and maintained that "he was but man only, yet endued with the infinite 1 2 power of God.** Gil traced Mannering's heresy to Arius. Chapter Eleven of Gil's other theological work, The 3 Sacred Philosophie of the Holy Scripture, discusses the Trinity.

Here, the teaching is substantially the same,

but philosophical elaborations are added to the 160.1 treatise.

Gil*s third work, Logonomia Anglica, already

discussed in a previous chapter, was not a theological one. This work contained excerpts from the Eaerie Q,ueen, Shepherd's Calendar, Ruins of,the Temple, Arcadia. and from Samuel Daniel and Sir John Harington.

These excerpts

1.

Alexander Gil, Sr., A Treatise concerning the Trinitie of Persons in Uni tie of the Dei tie, (,2nd ed.), London, Printed by Anne Griffin for Joyce Horton and Richard Whitaker, 1635, p. 231. The first edition was London, 1601.

2.

"And truly, I marvell that you, who have received this heresie from the ratten bones of Arius...**, Ibid., p. 230.

3.

Gil began the actual writing of this work in 1625. Clark points out that even before 1625 there were many "years of reading, meditating and note taking." Clark, "Alexander Gil and his son Alexander," HIQ, IX (1945-1946), p. 122. .

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said nothing concerning the Trinity,

They have only this:

i

significance, that if the young: poet read more deeply in such works, he did not expose his mind to any anti-Trinitarianism,

A second part of the Logonomia, called Log!eke,

is referred to in Gil's Sacred Philosophy, but is not ex­ tant today*

From Gil's references it seems to have been

somewhat philos ophi cal* The following are the main points of Gil's Trinitarian position*

Since Gil's was a theological treatise, as was

Milton's D

refer so frequently to Episcopius, become an even greater marvel, of scholarship. Further, when the stress on Arminianism as a theological attitude is predominant, Milton’s Arminianism is pushed back further to the days of his youth. Even in the 1608-1625 period, this dissertation has shown available to him general theological principles very similar 1.

Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, I, 19 ff. Hanford, A Milton Handbook, pp. 228-232.

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to the Arminian approach to dogma. Almost every biography of Milton has discussed his Puritanism.

To give an essential definition of Puritanism

seems an impossibility; only a descriptive definition is at­ tainable.' Milton was certainly Puritanical in his desire to "purify" religion from all taint of Rome, in the lack of gaiety in his outlook upon life, in his allegiance to Scrip­ ture privately interpeted.

His attitude towards church

authority was not only anti-episcopal, but it bracketed him with the Independent Puritans who opposed any church autho­ rity.

Puritanism was never able to attain any recognized

dogmatic system.

It emphasized serving

God in spirit and

truth, by feeling and conduct rather than by doctrine. I feel, Puritanism failed Milton,

Here,

it was not sufficiently

educated and intellectual for him.

Milton had considerable

intellectual pride that would not permit him to be one of the simple Scripture quoting, gun carrying followers of Cromwell.

Despite his denunciations of the theologians,

intellectually Milton was a kindred soul to the continental reformers, particularly the more radical ones, e.g. the Socinians, Arminians, and Unitarians. Biographers and literary critics have queried from time to time just what type of Protestant was John Milton, /

and even whether he actually was a Protestant. 1. L

It is the

Grierson, Tillyard, Barker, Saurat, Belloc, Hanford, and' many others discuss this question. '

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*view of this study that Milton is very definitely a Protes- f tant with the principles of the continental reformation* By this is meant that Milton returned to the pristine reform­ ation, which had been obscured by the resort of the various Protestant groups to Confessional theology because of his­ torical exigencies.

This belated radical continental re­

formation stressed the original private interpretation and rational spirit of Protestantism.

The main points were

1 ) ‘a completely individualistic interpretation of Scripture, 2) the evacuation of all church authority in the field of dogma, 3) no creeds possessed any binding force.

Here, I

think will be seen the general theological principles which this dissertation has stressed as the keynote of Milton’s theological thought. Conklin writes of Milton: The heterodoxies that resulted from his theory and practice of Biblical criticism (liberal Puritan hermeneutics plus philological exegesis) seems an in­ evitable corollary of that medium rather than a pot­ pourri of directing influences from his catholic and constant reading. This view, if it were rightly pushed further, would stress that his Biblical approach was in turn due to a more basic cause, his acceptance of general theological principles countenancing private scriptural interpretation and heresy on the one hand, and rejecting tradition and church authority on the other. 1. L

Conklin, Biblical Criticism and Heresy in Milton, p. 3« J

23*+

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_t Grierson writes: "that’s the Puritan dilemma, i.e.,

how combine political liberty with the preservation of true religion."-*-

If I understand Barker correctly, whom Grierson

seems to follow here, the dilemma is how can a man have all the individual liberty of conscience which Milton allows in the Areopagitica and the divorce pamphlets and the tradi­ tional Christian doctrines be at the same time preserved^ This seems to be not only the Puritan dilemma; it is the Protestant dilemma.

How can the principles of the continen­

tal reformation, which Milton advocated, be reconciled with the preservation of any dogma.

The definition of dogma, a

fundamental Christian truth which must be believed, seems to be excluded by Milton's general theological principles. Hoiy real that dilemma was, Milton’s De Doctrina Christiana and his anti-Trinitarianism reveal. This, I think, has also been something of a critics’, dilemma.

They have accepted the fact Of the De

Christiana. tant.

Doctrina

They have acknowledged Milton to be a Protes­

h.His general theological principles, private inter­

pretation, Christian liberty, toleration of doctrinal dif­ ferences including heresy, the rejection of tradition, the opposition to church authority, all these, as expressed in his works, have received great praise from the literateurs. 1.

Grierson, "Milton and Liberty," MLR, XXXIX (19Mf),

2.

Barker, The Puritan Dilemma.

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feltonic criticism has hailed his thought as a triumphant fruit of the reformation*

Milton's writings have been

marked as a milestone in the religious liberty achieved by Protestantism.

N0r has Miltonic criticism accused his De

Doctrina Christiana of being a contradiction of all this.

In

their dilemma however, modern students of Milton have not pursued the inherent logic of their material to answer the question whether the De Doctrina Christiana should be con­ sidered the logical fruit of Protestantism?

The next ques­

tion wouldnthen be, is anti-Trinitarianism acceptable Protestantism? why not?

I am

And after that, if it is not, the question, surprised that in the literature on Milton

I have not found the following conclusion. Milton's general theological principles were upon ex­ amination, found to be diametrically opposed to those enun­ ciated at the Council of Trent. Unitarianism had been denounced.

At that time the spreading The Council stressed legi­

timate ecclesiastical authority in defense of the proper competence of bishop and priest.

The value of tradition was

insisted upon, and the dangers of individually interpreting Scripture without tradition's guidance were foreseen.

Loyal­

ty to accepted creeds and defined doctrines was stressed. Any deviation from traditional dogma into heresy was con­ demned as anathema.

As has been pointed out, the Anglican

stand on these theological principles was rather weak by comparison.

In practice, Anglicanism was further weakened

On these principles, because of the attack from within of

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rfche English Latitudinarians.

The continental reformation

1

shared Milton's principles. In conclusion, the further Milton went away from Trent in his theological principles, the nearer was his approach to anti-Trinitarianism. It was not strange that in doing so he eventually became anti-Trinitarian. have been expected. stants.

That.should almost

Milton was the most logical of Protes-

He was the incarnation of "private interpretation."

Trent alone could oppose Milton's major premise as stated at the beginning of the anti-Trinitarian chapters of De Doctrina Christiana; But since I enrol myself among the numbers of those who acknowledge the word of God alone as the rule of faith, and freely advance what appears to me much more clearly deducible from the Holy Scriptures than the commonly received opinion, I see no reason why anyone who belongs to the same Protestant or Reformed Church, and professes to acknowledge the same rule of faith as myself, should take offense at my freedom, particularly as I impose my authority on no one, but merely propose what I think more worth of belief than the creed in general acceptation.

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APPENDIX MILTON*S UTTERANCES ON THE. TRINITY CHRONOLOGICALLY QUOTED Men,, who have written about John Miltonts views on the Trinity, have searched his works for statements which might reveal his thought on that subject.

Some have con­

fined their examination to a few of the passages in which Milton treats of the Trinity; they consider to be important.

Others have consulted all No one has yet listed

chronologically all of the passages which concern the Trinity.

Such a chronological listing of all the passages

constitutes an essential basis for the scholarly determination of what Milton* s views on the Trinity were. These combined passages supply an invaluable reference guide, establish what views he held at various periods of his life, and show how those views developed.

This

procedure should minimise the danger of either a subject­ ive or an only partial treatment of Milton*s thought on the Trinity.

The value of this material to the scien­

tific seeker of Milton*s theological thought seems to be sufficient justification for its inclusion. Passages from the De Doctrina Christiana have not been included because these passages are grouped together in the treatise itself.

Further, Milton*s Trinitarian

opinions in the Be Doctrina Christiana are clear. L

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238

student of Milton is concerned with his opinions in the other works and to what extent those opinions were affected by the De Doctrina Christiana. Passages have been included which at first blush do not seem to concern the Trinity*

Actually all. of them do.

An examination of the writings of scholars on the question would make this clear, e.g., a statement of Milton’s con­ cept of place is included because a proper understanding of it affects the nature Milton attributed to God* Ho comments on the passages have been offered because to do so would be to open the floodgates.

To do so would

also be beyond the limited intention of simply reproducing Milton’s own thought.

Interpretation would be the next

step, and may be more worthwhile by reason of what is presented here.

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APPENDIX MILTON'S UTTERANCES ON THE TRINITY CHRONOLOGICALLY QUOTED

1627 You will find Him . . . he turns this way and that the massive scrolls of the Fathers of old, or the Holy Books of the one true God . . . Elegy the Fourth, 11. 44-47, C-E., 1, Part 1, 187:41-189:45.

1625-1632 No! No! The Father Omnipotent, setting the stars on strong foundations, has taken thought for the sum total of things, and with weights inerrant has poised In perfect balance the scales of the Fates, and has bidden each thing in all the mighty array to keep unceasingly the tenor of its way* This is why the rFirst Wheel of the Universe* (the Primum Mobile) rolls on with diurnal movement, and sweeps the encircled skies along with the winding course wherein they share* That Nature Submits Not to the. Decay of Old Age, ll. 40-48, £*E*, 1, Part 1, 263:40-48.

. . , tell me, I pray, who that first man-was according to whose likeness cunning nature moulded all the sons of men, a man eternal he, stranger to decay, one in age with the heavens, single and yet universal, the pattern used by God. On the Platonic Idea, as Aristotle Under­ stood It, 11. 8-10, G*E*, 1, Part 1, 267:6-10.

I believe* my hearers, it is known and recognized by all, that the great Framer of the Universe, although He had founded all other things on change and decay, had intermingled in man, beyond what is mortal, a certain divine breath, as it were a part of Himself, immortal, imperishable, immune from death and

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. . . I am hymning the King of Heavenly Seed, Bringer of Peace, and the blessed generations covenanted by the holy books, and the infant cry of God, and the stabling under a poor roof of Him who with his Father cherishes the realms on high, and of the star-beget­ ting skies, of the companies attuning their strains in the high heavens, and of the heathen gods, of a sudden crushed, at their own fanes* Elegy the Sixth, 11. 91-98, CUE., 1, Part 1, 213:91-215:97.

6.

Wherein the Son of Heav’ns eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring. Kativity Ode, 11. 2-4, CJjjU, 1, Part 1, 1:2-4.

7.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high Counsel-Table, To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and here with us to be, Forsook the Courts of Everlasting Day, And chose with us a darksom House of Mortal Clay. Ibid., 11. 8-14, CUE,, 1, Part 1, 1:8-14.

8.

Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Ibid*, 11* 15-16, CUE., 1, Part 1, 1:15-16. Our Babe to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands controul the damned crew. Ibid*, 11. 227-228, CUE*, 1, Part 1, TU7227-228. J

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1630 9*

Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight. He sov’ran Priest stooping his regal head That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered. The Passion, 11. 13-14, 16-17, CUE., 1, Part 1, 23:13-17. His Godlike acts; and his temptation fierce, . . . Ibid., 1. 24, CUE.., 1, Part 1, 24:24.

1632 10.

Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above High throned in secret bliss, for us frail dust Emptied his glory, evfn to nakedness; Upon the Circumcision, 11. 18-20, C.E.* 1, Part 1, 27:18-20.

1634 11.

That he, the Supreme good, t* whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, . A Mask„ 11. 216-218, CUE., 1, Part 1, 93:216-218.

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So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walk’d the waves Lycidas* 11. 172-173, C.E., 1* Part 1, 18:172-173.

13.

. . . It is my habit day and night to seek for this idea of the beautiful, as for a certain image of supreme beauty, through all the forms and faces of things (for many are the shapes of things divine) and to follow it as it. leads me on by some sure traces which I seem to recognize. Letter to Diodati, C.E., XII, 27:5-10, J

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, . . after the story of our Saviour Christ, suff­ ering to the lowest bent of weaknesse, in the Flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory, in the Spirit,; which drew up his body also, till we in both be united to him in the Revelation of his Kingdome: Qf Reformation, C.E., III, Part 1, 1:5-9,

15,

. . . if such Divine Ministeries as these, wherein the Angel of the Church represents the Person of Christ Jesus> must be prostitute to sordid Fees, and not pass to and fro betweene our Saviour that of free grace redeem’d us, and the submissive Penitent, . . . Ibid,, C.E,, III, Part 1, 56:8-6.

16,

In briefe, there is no act in all the errand of God’s Ministers to man-kind, wherein passes more loverlike contestation betweene Christ and the Soule of a regenerate man lapsing, then before, and in, and after the sentence of Excommunication. Ibid., C.E., III, Part 1, 72:14-18.

17.

. . . at that day when thou the Eternall and shortly-expected King shalt open the clouds to Judge-' the severall Kingdoms of the World, and distributing Nationall Honours and Rewards to Religious and Just Common-wealths, shalt put"'an end to all Earthly Tyrannies, proclaiming thy.;' universal and milde Monarchy through Heaven and Earth. m d . , C.E., III, Part. 1, 78:24-28.

18.

. . . hearken what the whole generall Council.of Nieaea the first and famousest of all the rest determines, writing a Synodal Epist. to the African Churches, to warn them of Arianisme, . . . Ibid,, C.E., III,. Part 1, 17:4-7.

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. . . them his (Constantine) eruel exactions, his unsoundnesse in Religion, favoring the Arrians that had been condemn1d . . * Ibid,, CUE*, III, Part 1, 23:14-15.

20.

Witnes the Arlans and Pelagians which were slaine by the Heathen for Christs sake; yet we take both these for no true friends of Christ. Ibid.., CUE*, Ill, Part 1, 10:3-5.

21.

. . . and the people 'Of Cod redeem'd, and wash'd with Christs blood, . . . Ibid*» C *E., III, Part 1, 18:28-29:1.

22*

. . . as if customs were greater than Truth, or that in spirituall- things that were not to be follow'd, which is revel'd for the better by the holy Ghost* Ibid., CUE*, III, Part 1, 29:8-11.

23*

If we will but purge with sovrain eyesalve that intellectual ray which God hath planted in us, then we would beleeve the Scriptures protesting their own plainness, and perspicuity, calling to them to be instructed, not only the wise, and learned, but the simple, the poor, the babes, fortelling an extraordinary effusion of God's Spirit upon every age, and sexe., attributing to all men, and requiring from them the ability of searching, trying, examin­ ing all things, and by the Spirit discerning that which is goad; . . . Ibid*. C*E*, III, Part 1, 33:11-19*

24.

. . . Athanasius in his fore-mention'd first page; the knowledge of Truth, saith he, wants no humane love, as being evident in it selfe, and by the preaching of Christ now opens brighter then the Sun* Ibid*, C*E*, III, Part 1, 33:22-26.

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Thou therefore that sits’t in light and glory un­ approachable, Parent of Angels and Men! next thee I implore Omnipotent King, Redeemer of.that last remnant whose nature thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting Love! And thou the third subsist­ ence of Divine Infinitude, illuminating Spirit, the joy and solace of created things! one Tri-personall Godhead! Ibid*, C.E* , III, Part 1,, 76:14-19.

26*

Now come the Epistles of Ignatius .. . , wherein I wonder that men teachers of the Protestant Religion, make no more difficulty of imposing upon our belief a supposititious offspring of some dozen Epistles, whereof five are rejected as spurious, containing in them Heresies and trifles, . . * In the Epistle to those of Tarsus, he condemns them for Ministers of Satan, that say Christ is Cod above all. Of Prelatical Episcopacy, C.E*, III, Part 1, 88:16-89:1.

27*

Lastly for Irenaeus, wee have cause to thinke him less judicious in his reports from hand to hand of what the Apostles did, v&en we find him so negligent, in keeping the faith which they writ, as to say in his third Booke against Heresies, that the obedience of Mary was the cause of salvation to her selfe, and all mankind, . . . Ibid** C*E*, III, Part 1, 94:10-15.

28*

But suppose Tertullian had made an imparity where none was originally, should hee move us, that goes about to prove an imparity betweene God the Father, and God the Sonne, as these words import in his Booke against Praxeas. The Father is the whole substance, but the Son a derivation, and a portion of the whole, as he himselfe professes because the Father is greater then me. Beleeve him now for a faithful relater of tradition, whom you see such an unfaithful expounder of the Scripture, besides in his time all allowable tradition was now lost. Ibid., CUE.*, III, Part 1, 97:8-16.

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29.

. . . and next, lest the Arians, and Pelagians in particular should infect the people by their hymns, and forms of Praier* Animadversions, C.E., Ill, Part 1, 126: 17-19.

30.

. . . and render and fountaine of Christ our Lord; Ibid.,

31.

0 if we freeze at noone after their earely thaw, let us feare lest the Sunne for ever hide himselfe, and turne his orient steps from our ingratefull Horizon justly condemn’d to be eternally benighted. Which dreadful judgment 0 thou, the ever-begotten light, and perfect Image of the Father, intercede may never come upon us, as we trust thou hast; for thou hast open’d our difficult and sad times, and given us an unexpected breathing after our long oppressions; thou hast done justice upon those that tyranniz'd over us, while some men waver’d and admir’d a vaine shadow of wisdome in a tongue nothing slow to utter guile, though thou hast taught us to admire onely that which is good, and to count that onely praise­ worthy which is grounded upon thy divine Precepts. Thou hast discover’d the plots, and frustrated the hopes of all the wicked in the Land; and put to shame the persecutors of thy Church; thou hast made our false Prophets to be found a lie in the sight of all the people, and chae’d them with sudden con­ fusion and amazement before the redoubled brightnesse of thy descending cloud that now covers thy Tabernacle. Who is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walke through the midst of thy Sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks, which have long suffer’d a dimnesse amongst us through the violence of those that had sei’zd them and were more taken with the mention of their gold then of their starry light; teaching the doctrine of Balaam to cast a stumbling-block before thy servants, commanding them to eat things sacrifiz’d to Idols, and forcing them to fornication. Come therefore 0 thou that hast the seven starres in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen Priests according to their Orders, and courses of old, to minister before thee, and duely to dresse and powre out the consecrated oyle into thy holy and ever-burning lamps; thou hast sent out the spirit of

thanks to God the Father of Light, heavenly grace, and to his son . . . C.S., III, Part 1, 145:6-8.

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prayer upon thy servants over all. the Land to this effect, and stirr’d up their vowes as the sound of many waters about thy Throne. Everyone can say that now certainly thou hast visited this land, and hast not forgotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time when men had thought that thou wast gone up from us to the farthest end of the Heavens, and hadst left to doe marvellously among the.sons of these last Ages. 0 perfect and accomplish thy glorious acts; for men may leave their works unfinisht, but thou art a God, thy nature is -perfec­ tion; . . . when men have better learnt that the times and seasons passe along under thyy feet, to goe and come at thy bidding, and as thou didst dignifie our. fathers dayes with many revelations above all the foregoing ages, since thou takst the flesh; so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though un­ worthy) as large a portion of thy spirit as thou pleasest; for who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the power of thy grace is not past away with the primitive times as fond and faithless men imagine, but thy Kingdome is now at hand, and thou standing at the dore. Come forth out of-thy Royall Chambers, 0 Prince of all the Kings of the earth, put on the visible robes of thy imperiall Majesty* take up that unlimited Scepter which thy Almighty Father hath bequeath’d thee; for now the voice of thy Bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh to bee renew’d. Ibid., C.H., III, Part 1, 146:13-148:25.

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That soveraigne Lord, who in the discharge of his holy anointment from God the Father, which made him supreame Bishop of our soules was so humble as to say, Who made me a Judge, or divider over yee, hath taught us that a Churchmans jurisdiction is no more but to watch over his flock in season, . . . Ibid., C.E., III, Part 1, 157:15-20.

33.

. . . I shall in the meane while not cease to hope through the mercy and grace of Christ, the head and husband of the Church, . . . The Reason of Church-government urg’d against Prelatry. C,E., III, Part I,' 183:9-11.

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If we could imagine that he had left it at randome without his prudent and gracious ordering, who is he so arrogant so presumptuous that durst dispose and guide the living arke of the holy Ghost, though he should find it wandering . . . and shatter the holy arke of the Church, . . . Ibid., CUE., Ill, Part 1, 187:21-28.

35.

. . . the sooner to edifie and accomplish that immortal stature of Christs body which is his Church in all her glorious lineaments and proportions. Ibid., G.E., Ill, Part 1, 191:12-14*

36.

In the latter he CBp. Andrews) can forbeare no long­ er, but repents him of his rich gratuity, affirming, that to say, Christ being come in the flesh, his figure in the high Priest oeaseth, is the shift of an Anabaptist; and stiffly argues that Christ being as well King as Priest was as well fore-resembled' by the Kings then, as by the high Priest. Ibid., G.E., Ill, Part 1, 202:1-7.

37.

Nor is this enough, instead of shewing the reason of their lowly condition from divine 2i.e. Christ*s, Cf. 245:24-246:37* example and command, they seek to prove their high pre-eminence from humane consent and authority. Ibid., G.E., Ill, Part 1, 246:6-9.

38.

God having to this end ordain'd his Gospell to be the revelation of his power and wisdome in Christ cT6 SU.S

Ibid., C.E., III, Part 1, 183:25-26.

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As for the office which was a representation of Christs own person more immediately in the high Priest, and of his whole priestly office in all the other, to the performance of which the Levits were but as servitors and Deacons, . . . Ibid., C.E., III, Part 1, 200:12-15. J

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40*

. . , if not a cancelling of that birth-right and immunity which Christ hath purchas’d for us with his blood. Ibid., CMS.., Ill, Part 1, 198:26-28.

41.

. . . but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim, with the hallow’d fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases . . . Ibid., G.E., III, Part 1, 241:7-10.

42,

. . . t o count it a thing most grevbus , next to the grieving of God’s Spirit, to offend those whom he hath put in autority, . . . Ibid., C.E*, III, Part 1,259:21-25.

43.

For which cause the holy Ghost by the Apostles joyn’d to the minister, as assistant in this great office sometimes a certain number of grave and faithful brethern, . . . Ibid., G.E*, III, Part l f-257:9-12*

44.

, . . let him know that this office goes not by age, or youth,, but to whomsoever God shall give apparently the will, the Spirit, and the utterance . . . An Apology against a Pamphlet call’d A Modest Confutation, C.g., III,Part 1, 289ill- 3.

45.

And this I shall easily averre though it may seeme a hard saying, that the Spirit of God who is purity it selfe, when he would reprove any fault severely, or but related things done or said with indignation by others, abstains not from some words not civill at other times to be spoken. Ibid., G.E., Ill, Part I, 315:16-20. ©

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And if prayer be the gift of the Spirit, why do they admit those to the Ministry, who want a maine guift of their function . . . Ibid., C.E., III, Part 1, 349:26-28.

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47.

. . . but when he (Jerome) excuses her out of the word of God does he not openly declare his thoughts, that the second marriage of Eabiola was permitted her by the holy Ghost himself for the necessity which she suffer*d, and to shun the danger of fornication . . . The Judgment of Martin Bueer, C.E., IV, 30:27-31:4.

48.

Here it is certain that the Holy Ghost had no pur­ pose to determine aught of marriage or divorce, but only to bring an example from the common and ordi­ nary law of wedlock, to shew that as no covenant holds either party being dead, so now that we are not bound to the law, but to Christ, our Lord, seeing that through him wee are dead to sin, and to the law; . . * Ibid. , G.E., IV, 40:8-13.

49.

Ear it is a wickedness to suspect that our Saviour branded that for adultery, which himself in his own Law, which he came to fulfill, and not to dissolve, did not only permit, but also command; for by him the only Mediator was the whole law of God given. Ibid., C.E., IV, 35:2-6.

50.

The words of our Lord, and of the holy Ghost by the Apostle Paul concerning Divorce are explained. Ibid., C.E., IV, 34:11-12.

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51.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended,, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, . . . Areopagitica. G.E., IV, 337:25-28.

52,.

It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted merely by the perusing of a nameless discourse written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to confute. Ibid., C.E,, IV, 313:24-27.

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53.

All which being lost in Adam, was recover*d with gain by the merits of Christ. Tetrachordon» G.E., IV, 74:23-24.

54.

But Christ having cancell?d the hand writing of ordinances which was against us, Coloss. 2.14. and interpreted the fulfilling of allthrough charity, hath in that respect set us over law, in the free custody of his love, and left us victorious under the guidance of his living Spirit, not under the dead letter; . . . Ibid., C.E., IV, 74:27-75:4.

55.

. . . Paul and Barnabas joynrd together by the Holy Ghost to a Spiritual work, thought it better to separate when once they grew at variance. Ibid.. £. E., IV, 116:16-18.

56.

Ho mortal! nature can endure either in the actions of Religion, or study of wisdome, without sometime slackning the cords of intense thought and labour: which lest we should think faulty, God himself con­ ceals us not his own recreations before the world was built; I was, saith the eternall wisdom, dayly his delight, playing alwayes before him. And to him indeed wisdom is as a high towr of pleasure, but to us a steep hill, and we toyling ever about

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the bottom: he executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence, as easie as with us it is to will: Ibid., C.E** IT, 85:18-27.

57.

Moreover, if man be the image of God, which consists in holiness, and woman ought in the same respect to be the image and companion of man, in such wise to be lov*d, as the Church is beloved of Christ, and if, as God is the head of Christ, and Christ the head of man, so man is the head of woman; . . . Ibid., G.E., IV, 79:4-9.

58.

For the Spirit of God himself by Solomon declares that sueh a consort the earth cannot bear, and better dwell in a corner of the housetop, or in the Wilderness. Colasterion, C.E., IT, 243:22-25*

1647 /On the Person of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

59.

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As to the person of Christ, he is by nature a real man, and who formerly, indeed, when he lived upon earth, was mortal, but is now immortal. That Christ was a man, many proofs of sacred writ teach; of which number are 1 Tim, ii. 5, One Mediator between Cod and men, the man Christ Jesus; and 1 Cor., XV. 21, Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. And of sueh a being, indeed, God had by his prophets given the promise of old, and that such Christ was, is de­ clared by that symbol of faith, usually called the Apostles Creed, which, in common with us, all Christians receive. But Jesus Christ is not simply a man. (Compare 2 Pet. 1. 17, and 1 Cor. XV. 45.] For he came forth a partaker of the Divine nature when he was made a quickening spirit, and was distinguished from the number of all other men because he is the Son of God, and indeed the only-begotten Son. Now he is called the Son of God for four reasons. The first is, because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and so had no other Father save God. This J

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reason was expressed by the Angel thus addressing the Virgin {Luke 1. 35): The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall shadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The second reason is, because he was sanctified and sent into the world by the Father, and this reason Christ himself alleged in John (X. 36). In reality, this sanctification and sending into the world, made him the Son of God, because by this means he came forth like unto God in holiness, wisdom and power, and sustained his character with the greatest authority in preaching the gospel. In which circum­ stance the very remarkable and manifestly paternal love of God towards him is perceived. The third reason is, because God raised him from the dead, and begot him as it were a second time to eternal life. Whence also he is called the firstbegotten from the dead. The fourth reason is, because God made him exact­ ly like unto himself, not only in immortality, but also in power and authority, when he appointed him as heavenly and eternal Priest and King. (See text for reference.) But he is called the only-begotten Son of God, because he is manifestly the only Son of God, not only because he was begotten by the Divine power of the Virgin, but still more because he surpasses all the other sons of God both in a most perfect resem­ blance to God, and especially in the highest degree of favour with him, so indeed that the others, when compared with Christ, scarcely deserve to be called the sons of God (1 John V. 1, 5 ) J Notes on Paul Best, C.E., XVIII, 342:19344:8.

1648 60.

For thou art good; thou, Lord, are prone To pardon; thou to all Art full of mercy, thou alone To them that on thee call. Like thee among the gods is none, 0 Lord, nor any works Of all that other gods have done Like to thy glorious works. For great thou art, and wonders great By thy strong hand are done,

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Thou in thy everlasting Seat Remainest G-od alone. Psalm 86, 11, 15-16; 25-28; 33-36, C.E., 1, Part 1, 148:13-16, 25-28; 149:33-36.

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61.

Neverthelesse, if any he found among us declar’d atheists, malicious enemies of God, and of Christ; . . . Observations on the Articles of Peace, G.E., YI, 251:9-10.

62.

Who would have imagin’d so little feare in him of the true all-seeing Deitie, so little reverence of the Holy Ghost, whose office is to dictat and present our Christian Prayers, . . . Eikonoklastes, C.E., Y, 85:19-23. . . . those two most unimprisonable things, our Prayers and that Divine Spirit of utterance that moves them, . . . Ibid., C.E., Y, 221:13-14.

63.

Which (the Lord’s Prayer) to lay aside for outward dictates of man, were to injure him and, his perfect Gift, who is the Spirit, and the giver of our abilities to pray; as if his ministrations were in­ complete, and that to whom he gave affections, he did not also afford utterance to make his Gift of prayer a perfect Gift, to them especially whose office in the Church is to pray publically. Ibid.t CUE., Y, 222:28-223:6.

64.

. . . we have a remedy of Gods finding out, which is not Liturgie, but his own free spirit. Though we know not what to pray as we ought, yet he with sighs unutterable by any words, much less by a stinted Liturgie, dwelling in us makes intercession for us, according to the mind and will, of God, both in privat, and in the performing of all Ecclesiastical duties. Ibid., C.E., Y, 224:10-16.

254 r . 65*

66*

-i Christian libertie purchased with the death of our Redeemer, and establish'd by the sending of his free Spirit to inhabit in us, is not now to depend upon the doubtful consent of an earthly Monarch; . . Ibid., C.E*, V, 207:11-14.

As for the Aerians we know of no Heretical opinion justly father'd upon them, but that they held Bishops and Presbyters to be the same. Ibid*, C.E*, Y, 232:24-26* If the ancient Churches to remedie the infirmities of prayer, or rather the infections of Arian and Pelagian Heresies, neglecting that ordain'd and promis'd help of the spirit, betook them, almost four hundred years after Christ, to Liturgie thir own invention,... * Ibid., G .E *, Y, 224:21-24.

1650

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67*

Yictory depends not on military strength or skill but upon the favor shown by God to him who under­ takes war. Finaly, therefore,, did Trajan, when in command, say to Emperor Yalens who used abusive language to him because, when sent against the Goths, he had fought with no success: 'Hot I, 0 King, have been defeated; it is you who lost the victory, you who war against God.' For Yalens was an Arian* Theodorit. hist. 1. 4.C.29. vide at e*30. Commonplace Book, C*E*, XYIII, 212:1-7.

68.

Basil tells us that poetry was given by God to rouse in human souls the love of virtue. 'For when the Holy Spirit saw that mankind could be led with diffi culty to virtue and was careless about upright living because of its inclination toward pleasure, what did it do? It mixed with the dogmas the pleasure of poetry in order that through the charm and smoothness of the sounds we might unconsciously receive the benefit of the words.' Homil. in Psal* 1* proem. Ibid., C*E*, XYIII, 139:17-24*

Jl

255

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i

69.

(On Romans IV, 6. "glorify God, even the Rather of our Lord Jesus Christ") the God and father. Marginalia, C.E., IVIII, 875.

70.

It is the orthodox belief that any remission of sins there ever was, was but by the blood of the lamb that was offered up from the beginning of the world. Defensio Prima, CUE.., VII, 199:4-7.

71.

. . . remember that this mocking of God's Holy Ghost is the unpardonable sin, . . . Ibid., G.E., VII, 461:25-26.

1653 72

And fierce we trouble them; but I saith hee Anointed have my King (though ye rebell) In Sion my holi' hill. A firm decree I will declare; the Lord to me hath say'd Thou art my Son I have begotten thee This day; ask of me, and grant is made; As thy possession I on thee bestow Thf Heathen, and as thy conquest to be sway'd Earths utmost bounds: Psalm 2, 11. 11-19, G.E., 1, Part 1, 124: 11-125:19.

1654 73.

L

Maniac I and do you, a minister of Christ, make so light of the horrible c^Lme committed against Christ, As whatever might have been 'the intention* or 'the effects,' to dare to pronounce, that to kill any king is equally sinful? The Jews, from the clear­ est signs, might certainly have recognized the Son of God; but it was impossible that we, in any way, should have been made to comprehend that Charles was not a tyrant. Defensio Secunda, C.E., 'VIII, 92:23-95:4.

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256

74*

When it is well known, that the patriarch Isaac himself, than whom no mortal was ever more.dear to God, lived blind no small number of years; and for some time, perhaps Jacob also his son, of God, no less beloved; when, in fine, it is beyond all doubt, from the divine testimony of Christ our Saviour, that the man whom he healed had been blind even from the womb, for no sin either of himself or of his parents* Ibid** C*E., ¥1X1, 67:5-12*

1655 75*

fYe good gods I (you exclaim) if we are to believe Salmas ins, how black is that Milton! . . . pro se Defensio* C.E*, IX, 63:10-11. Holy Writ teaches that there is only one good God* Ibid*. C.E*, IX, 62:23*

1655-1665

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76*

. . . With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Paradise Lost, 1:4-5, C.E., II, Part 1, 8.

77*

And chiefly Thou, 0 Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th* upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad*st it pregnant; What in me is dark Illumin, what is low raise and support; That to the hlghth of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men. Say first, for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view. . . Ibid., 1:17-27, C.E., II, Part 1, 9.

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78.

So stretcht out huge la length the Arch-fiend lay Chain’d on the burning Lake, nor ever thence Had risrn, or Heav’d his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enrag’d might see How all his malice serv’d but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shewn . . . Ibid., It209-218, G.E., II, Part 1, 25-16,

79.

him to unthrone we then May hope when everlasting Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos Judge the strifei The former vain to hope argues as vain The latter: for what place can be for us Within Heav’ns bound* unless Heav’ns Lord supream We overpower? Ibid.* lit231-238, C.E*, II, Part 1, 46.

80.

Hail holy Light, offspring 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 inereate. Ibid., Illt1-6, C.E., II, Part 1, 77.

81.

So much the rather thou Celestial light Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. Ibid., 111:51-55, C.E., II, Part 1, 79.

82.

on his right The radiant image of his Glory sat, His onely Son. Ibid., 111:62-64, C.E*, II, Part 1, 79.

258

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83*

Thus to his onely Son forseeing spake. Onely-'begotten Son, seest thou what rage . . Ibid,, III;79-80, CUE,., II, Part 1, 80.

84,

. , • in him all his Father shon Substantially express’d, and in his face Divine compassion visibly appeerd, Love without end, and without measure Grace, Ibid., 111:139-143, C.E*, II, Part 1, 82.

85.

.. , 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: Ibid,, 111:169-172, CUE., II, Part 1, 83.

86.

Man shall not quite be lost, but saved 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, Ibid., 111:173-179, C.E., II, Part 1, 83,

87.

Dye hee or Justice must; unless for him Som other able,, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. Say, Heav’nly powers, where shall we find such love, Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Mans mortal crime, and Just, th’ unjust to save, Ibid., 111:210-215, CUE*, II, Part 1, 85.

88.

. . , the Son of God, In whom the fulness dwells of love divine, Ibid., 111:224-225, C.E., II, Part 1, 85.

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89.

. . . once dead in sins and lost; Attonement for himself or offering meet, Indebted and undon, hath none to bring: Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life, I offer; on mee let thine anger fall; Account Ma&anan; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glorie next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly dye Well pleas'd; on me let Death wreak all his rage; Under his gloomie power I shall not long Lie vanquisht; thou hast given me to possess Life in myself for ever, by thee I live, Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,. All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid, Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule For ever with corruption there to dwell; But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoile. Ibid., 111:233-251, C.E., II, Part 1, 86.

90.

Thou therefore whom, thou only canst redeem, Thir Nature also to thy Nature joyn; Ibid., 111:281-282, C.E*, II, Part 1, 87.

91.

thy merit Imputed shall absolve them who renounce Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds, And live in thee transplanted, and from thee Receive new life. Ibid... 111:290-294, C.E*, II, Part 1, 87-88.

92*

Because thou hast, though Thron'd in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition, quitted all to save A World from utter loss, and hast been found By Merit more than Birthright Son of God, Found worthiest to be so by being Good, Far more then Great or High; because In thee Love hath abounded more than Glory abounds, Therefore thy Humiliation shall exalt With thee thy Manhood also to this Throne; Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shall Reign

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1

Both God and Man,. Son both of God and Man, Anointed universal King* Jill Power I give thee, reign for ever, and assume Thy Merits; under thee,, as Read Supream Thrones, Princedoms, Powers,'Dominions, I reduce; Ibid., 111:305-320, C*E., II, Part 1, 88-89.

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93*

God shall be All in All. But all ye Gods, Adore him, who* to compass all this dies, Adore the Son, and honour him as me. Ibid., Ill, 341-343, C.E*, II, Part 1, 89

94*

Thee next they sang of all Creation first, Begotten Son, Divinedimilitude. In whose conspicuous countnance, without cloud Made visible, thT Almighty Father shines, Whom else no Creature can behold; Ibid., 111:383-387, C.E*, II, Part 1, 91.

95.

Evil into the mind of God or Man May come and go* so unapprov'd, and leave Ho spot or blame behind: Ibid., Y:117-119, G.E., II, Part 1, 148,

96*

. . . the Father infinite, By whom in bliss imbosom'd sat the Son . . * Ibid*, Y:596-597, 0 .E., II, Part 1, 165,

97.

This day I have begot whom. I declare My onely Son, and on this holy Hill Him have anointed, whom ye now behold At my right hand; your Head I him. appoint; And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow All knees in Heavrn, and shall confess him Lord: Under his great Yice-gerent Reign abide United as one individual Soule For ever happie: Ibid*, Y:603-611, G*E*, II, Part 1, 165,

261

98.

Son* thou In whom my glory I behold In full resplendence, Heir of all my might, Heerly it now concerns us to be sure Of our Omnipotence, Ibid. i, Y: 719-722, G.E., II, Part 1, 159.

99h

Thy self though great and glorious dost thou count, Or all Angelic Uature 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 Heavrn By him created in their bright degrees, Ibid. * Y:833-838, CUE., IX, Part 1, 173-174.

100.

To honour his Anointed Son, avengfd Upon his enemies, and to declare All power on him transferred:: whence to his Son Th* Assessor of his Throne he thus began. Effulgence of my Glorie, Son belovrd, Son in whose face invisible is beheld Yisibly, what by Deitie I am, And in whose hand what by Decree I doe, Second Omnipotence, Ibid., YI::676-684, C.E., IX, Part 1, 202.

101.

Into thee such Yirtue and Grace Immense I have transfused, that all may know In Heaven and Hell thy.' Power above compare, And this perverse Commotion governd thus, To manifest thee worthiest to be Heir Of all things, to be Heir and to be King By Sacred Unction, thy deserved right. Ibid., YI:7Q3-7Q8, C.E., IX, Part 1, 203. There let them learn, as likes them, to despise God, and Messiah his anointed King. Ibid., YI:.717-718, C.E., 'IX, Part 1, 203,

102.

He said, and on his Son with Hayes direct Shon full, he all his Father full expresst Ineffably into his face receivtd, And thus the filial Godhead answering spake. Ibid., YI:719-722, C.E., IX, Part 1, 203.

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103*

. . * 13a.au alwayes seekst To glorifie thy Son, I alwayes thee, As is most Just. Ibid., ¥1:724-726, C.E*, II, Part 1, 203*

104*

Scepter and Power, thy giving, I assume, And gladlier shall resign* when in the end Thou shalt be All in Hee and I in thee for ever, and in mee all whom thou lov'st: Ibid*, ¥1:730-733, C.E*, II, Part 1, 204.

105*

. . ♦ but. Heav'nlie borne, Before the Hills appeered, or Fountain flow'd, Thou with Eternal wisdom didst converse, Wisdom thy Sister, and with her didst play In presence of thr Almightie Father, pleas'd With thy Celestial Song* Ibid.* ¥11:7-12, C.E*, II, Part 1, 211-212

106*

And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee This I perform, speak thou, and be it don: My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee I send along, ride forth, and bid the Beep Within appointed bounds be Heaven and Earth, Ibid** ¥11:163-167, C.E., II, Part 1, 217.

107.

Boundless the Beep, because I am who fill Infinitude, nor vacuous the space, Though I uncircumserib'd my self retire, And put not forth my goodness, which is free To act or not, necessities and Chance Approach not mee, and #iat I will is Fate. Ibid*, ¥11:168-173, C.E., II, Part 1, 217.

108*

So spake th* Almightie, and to what he spake His Word, the filial Godhead, gave effect. Ibid* * ¥11:174-175, G*E., II, Part 1, 217.

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263

i 109.

.

110

Mean while the Son On his great Expedition now appear'd, Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crown’d Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love Immense, and all his Father- in him shon. Ibid.,, ¥11:192-196, C.E., II, Part 1, 218.

Heavfn op*ned wide Her ever during Gates, Harmonious sound On golden Hinges moving, to let forth The King of Gloria in his powerful Word And Spirit coming to create new Worlds. On Heav’nly ground they stood* and from the shore They view’d the vast immeasurable Abyss. . . Ibid., ¥11:205-211, C.E., II, Part 1, 218219.

111. Thus God the Heav’n created, thus the Earth, Matter unform’d and void: Darkness profound Covered th* Abyss; but on the watrie calme His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspred, And vital vertue infus’d, and vital warmth Throughout the fluid Mass, Ibid., ¥11:232-237, C.E., II, Part 1, 220.

112

.

113.

L

lhat thinkst thou then of mee, and this my State, Seem I to thee sufficiently possesst Of happiness, or not? who am alone From all Eternitie, for none I know Second to me or like, equal much less. How have I then with whom to hold converse, Save with the Creatures which I made, and those To me inferiour, infinite descents Beneath what other Creatures are to thee? Ibid.. ¥111:403-411, C.E., II, Part 1, 250.

Ho need that thou Shouldst propagat, already infinite; And through all numbers absolute, though One; Ibid., ¥111:419-421, C.E., II, Part 1, 250.

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114.

But whom send I to Judge them? whom hut thee Vicegerent Son, to thee I have transferr'd All Judgment whether in Heaven, or Earth, or Hell. D i d . , X:55*57, G.E., II, Part II, 306.

115>

So spake the Father, and uafoulding bright Toward the right hand his Glorie, on. the Son Blaz'd forth unclouded Beitie; he full Resplendent all his Father manifest Expressed, and thus divinely answered milde. Ibid., X:63-67, G.E., II, Part II, 306-307.

116.

Thus saying, from his radiant Seat he rose Of high collateral glorie: Ibid., X:85-86, G.E., II, Part II, 307.

117.

Came the mild Judge and Intercessor both, To sentence Man: the voice of God they heard How walking in the Garden, by soft windes Brought to their Ears, while day declin'd, they heard, And from his presence hid themselves among The thickest Trees, both Man and Wife, till God, Approaching, thus to Adam call'd aloud;. Ibid., X:96-102, G.E., II, Part II, 308.

118.

Which when the Lord God heard, without' delay To Judgment he proceeded . . . Ibid.. X: 163-164, C.E., II, Part II, 310.

119 .

So spake this Oracle, then verified ® len Jesus, son of Mary„ second Eve, Saw Satan fall like Lightening down from Heav'n, Ibid., X: 182-184, G.E., II, Part II, 311.

120.

Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above, Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd The stony from their hearts, and made.new flesh Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breath'd j

265

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n Inutterable, which the Spirit of prayer Inspir'd, and wing'd for Heaven with speedier.flight Than loudest Oratorie. Ibid., XI:2-8, G.E., II, Part II, 345-346.

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121.

And Prayers, which in this Golden Censer, mixt With Incense, I thy Priest before thee bring, Ibid., XI;24-25, G.E., II, Part II, 346.

122.

Unskillful with what words to pray, let mee Interpret for him, mee his Advocate And Propitiation* all his works on mee Good or not good ingraft, my Merit those Shall perfect, and for these my Beath shall pay. Ibid.» XI:32-36, G.E. ,, II, Part II, 346-347.

123.

All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss, Made one with me, as I with thee am one. Ibid.. XI, 43-44, G.E., II, Part II, 347.

124.

Some bloud more precious must be paid for Man, JUst for unjust, that in such righteousness To them by Faith imputed, they may finde Justification towards God, and peace . . . Ibid., XII;293-296, G.E., II, Part 11,389.

125.

. . . and from thy Womb the Son Of God Most High; So God with Man unites. Ibid., XII:381-382, G.E., II, Part II, 392. Hot therefore joynes the Son Manhood to God-head, with more strength to foil Thy enemie; nor so is overcame . . . Ibid., XII:388-390, C.E., II, Part II, 392.

126.

Proclaiming Life to all who shall believe In his redemption, and that his obedience Imputed becomes theirs by Faith, his merits To save them, not thir own, though legal, works. Ibid., XII:407-410, C.E,, II, Part II, 393. J

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127.

Kee to M s own a Comforter will send, The promise of the Father, who shall dwell His Spirit within them, and the Law of Faith Working through love, upon thir hearts shall write, Ibid., XII.i486-489, C.E., II, Part II, 396.

128.

for the Spirit Powrd first on his Apostles, Ibid., XII:497-498, G.E., II, Part II, 396,

1659 129 *

Whence I here mean by conscience or religion, that full perswasion whereby we are assured that our beleef and practise, as far as we are able to apprehend and probably make appeer, is according to the will of God and his Holy Spirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather then any law of man, as not only his word everywhere bids us, but the very dictate of reason tells us. Act.. 4. 19 ’whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken to you more then to God, Judge ye.* Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, C.E* YI, 5:17-25.

130.

That is to say not only above all Judges and magi­ strates, who though they be call’d gods, are far beneath infallible, but also above God himself, by giving law both to the scripture, to the conscience, and to the spirit it self of God within us. Ibid., C.E., YI, 8:6-10*

131.

Secondly, the kings of Juda and those magistrates under the law might have recours, as I said before, to divine Inspiration; which our magistrates under the gospel have not, more then to the same spirit, which those whom they force have oft times in greater measure then themselves: and so, instead of forcing the Christian, they force the. Holy Ghost; and, against that wise forewarning of Gamaliel, fight against God* Ibid.., C.E., YI, 26:6-13,

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132*

And therefore of one beyond expression bold and presumptious, both these Apostles demand, *who art thou* that presum*st to impose other law or judg­ ment in religion then the only lawgiver and Judge Christ, who only can save and can destroy, gives to the conscience? Ibid., CUE** VI, 8:17-22.

133.

. . . how presum1st thou to be his lord, to be whose only Lord, at least in these things, Christ both dy1^ and rose and liv1d again? rWe shall all stand before the Judgment seat of Christ.1 Why then dost thou not only Judge, but persecute in these things for which we are to be accountable to the tribunal of Christ only, our Lord and Lawgiver? 1 Cor. 7.23. rYe are bought with a price; be not made the servants of men.1 Some trivial price belike, and for some frivolous pretences paid in their opinion, if bought and by him redeemed who is God from what was once the service of God, we shall be enthrald again and forerd by men to what now is but the service of men. Ibid., G.E., VI, 30:19-31:2.

134.

Christ hath a government of his own, sufficient of itself to all his ends and purposes in governing his church: . . . Ibid., C.E., VI, 20:14-15.

135.

. . . they may securely be committed to the provi­ dence of God and the guidance of his holy spirit, till God may offer som opportunitie to visit them again and to confirme them: . . . Considerations to remove Hirelings, C.E., VI,78:2-5.

136.

. . . that subjection, which all the faithful, both ministers and people owe to Christ, our high priest and king. Ibid. . C.E.., VI, 56:25-27.

26?

137.

. . * more blasphemous against our Saviour; who hath promis’d, without this condition, both his holy spirit and his own presence with his church to the worlds end: . . . Ibid. CUB., YI, 97:5-8.

138.

. . . the Army, under the working of God’s holy Spirit, as I thought, and still hope well, had bin so far wrought to Christian Humility, and Selfdenial, . . . Letter Concerning the Commonwealth, C.E,, YI, 101:17-19,

1660 139.

. . . even to the coming of our true and rightfull and only to be expected King, only worthie as he is our only Saviour, the Messiah, the Christ, the only heir of his eternal father, the only by him anointed and ordaind since the work of our redemption finish­ ed, Universal Lord of all mankinde. Readie and Easie Way, CUE#-, YI, 133:12-17.

140.

Nay though what I have spoke, should happen (which Thou suffer not, who didst create mankinde free; nor Thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants of menJ) to be the last words of our expiring libertie. Ibid., C.E., VI, 148:22-26.

1665-1667 141.

L

. . , now sing Recover’d Paradise to all mankind, By one mans firm obedience fully tri’d Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil’d . . . Paradise Regained, 1:2-5, C.E., II, Part II, *405.

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142.

Thou Spirit who ledst this glorious Eremite Into the Desert,, his. Victorious Field Against the Spiritual Foe, and broughtst him thence By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted Song, else mute, Ibid.* I *8-12, C.E., II, Part II, 405.

143.

. . . on him baptiz’d Heaven open’d, and in likeness of a Dove The Spirit descended, while the Fathers voice From Heaven pronounc’d him his beloved Son. Ibid.., 1:29-32, G.E., II, Part II, 406,

144.

. . . th’ exalted man, to whom Such high attest was glv*n a while survey’d . . . Ibid., 1:36-37, C.E,, II, Part II, 406,

145.

His first-begot we know, and sore have felt, When his fierce thunder drove us to the deep; Who this is we must learn, for man he seems In all his lineaments, though in his face The glimpses of his fathers glory shine. Ibid., 1*89-93, C.E,, II, Part II, 408,

146.

This man of men, attested Son of God, Ibid., 1:122, C.E., II, Part II, 409,

147.

On Miich I sent thee to the Virgin pure In Galilee, that she should bear a Son Great in Renown, and call’d the Son of God; Then toldst her, doubting how these things could be To her a Virgin, that on her should come The Holy Ghost, and the power of the highest 0»er-shadow her: Ibid., 1:134-140, C.E., II, Part II, 410.

148.

This perfect Man, by merit call’d my Son, Ibid., 1:166, C.E*., II, Part II, 411. J

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149.

And now by some strong motion I am led Into this Wilderness, to what intent I learn not yet, perhaps I need not know; For what concerns my knowledge God reveals* Ibid., 1:290-293, C*E., II, Part II, 415.

150.

And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell In pious Hearts, an inward Oracle To all truth requisite for men to know. Ibid., It462-464, C.E.., IX, Part II, 421.

151.

If he be Man by Mothers side at least With more than humane gifts from Heaven adorn1d, Perfections absolute, Graces divine, And amplitude of mind to greatest Deeds. Ibid., 11:136-139, C*E., II, Part II, 429.

152.

And reason; since his word all things produc’d, Though chiefly not for glory as prime end, But to shew forth his goodness, and impart His good communicable to every soul . . • Ibid., III 1122—125, C.E., II, Part II, 446.

153.

. . . and to themselves All glory arrogate, to God give none, Rather accuse him under usual names, Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite Of mortal things. Ibid., IT:314-318, CUE., IX, Part IX, 470.

154.

True Image of the Father whether thron’d In the bosom of bliss, and light of light Conceiving, or, remote from Heaven, enshrin’d In fleshly Tabernacle and human form, Wandering the Wilderness, whatever place, Habit, or state, or motion, still expressing The Son of God, with Godlike force indu’d « . . Ibid.. I?:596-602, C.E., II, Part II, 480.

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155-

. , . now thou hast aveng'd Supplanted Adam, and by vanquishing Temptation, hast regain’d lost Paradise, Ibid., IV;506-608, G.E., II, Part II, 480^481.

156.

On thy glorious work, Now enter, and begin to save mankind. Ibid., IV:634-635, C.E., II, Part II, 481.

1668-1670 157.

0 first-created beam, and thou great Word, trLet there be light, and light was over all," Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, . And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in every part, why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, . . . Bamson Agonistes, 11. 83-94, £.E., I, Part II, 340.

1670 158.

L

And' I have determined that still less will I cram in those canons of the theologians which are any­ thing but logical; for the theologians fetch out as though from the heart of logic canons about God and about divine hypostases and sacraments as if these had been furnished for their use; yet nothing is more alien from logic or in fact from reason itself than the ground of these canons, as prepared by the theologians. Artis Logicae, C.E., XI, 7:1-7.

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159*

To this place veniently the called first, its genus, as

it seems may be assigned most con­ order of causes in which one is either absolutely, as God, or in the sun and anything of the sort;

Ibid*» C*E*, XI, 39:1-3*

L

160.

Absolute solus Deus libere agit omnia; id est quicquid vult; et agere potest vel non agere; testantur hoc passim saerae litterae. Ibid*, C*E., XI, 42:1-3.

161.

Those causes merely which work according to reason and thought, as angels and men, act freely ex hypothesi -- on the hypothesis of the divine will, which in the beginning gave them the power of acting freely* Ibid*, C.E*, XI, 43:4-7.

162*

Certainly fortune should be placed in heaven, but should be called by the different name of divine Providence. Whence Aristotle (Physics 2.4) says: *There are some to whom fortune indeed seems to be a cause, but unknown to human intelligence as something divine.* And Cicero (Academic Questions 1) writes: *The providence of God which pertains to men they sometimes call fortune, because it brings about many things unforseen and unimagined by us on account of the obscurity of causes and our ignorance of them*1 But providence is the first cause of all things, whether their secondary causes are known or unknown, and if necessity is joined to providence it is usually called fate* But certainly theology will discuss providence better than will logic* Yet this by the way: fate or the decree of God forces no one to do evil; and on the hypothesis of divine prescience all things are certain though not necessary. Ibid*, C.E*, XI, 49:13-51:1.

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163*

But what is differing in number among themselves except differing in single forms? For a number, as Scaligner rightly says, is an affection follow­ ing an essence. Therefore things which differ in number also differ in essence; and never do they differ in number if not in essence, — Here let the Theologians awake* Ibid,, C.E*, XI, 59:17-23,

164.

The second mode is of the subject containing the adjuncts in itself, that is, the mode of place* Thus the place is the subject of the located thing, or is that in which the located thing is contained. Thus the philosophers attribute place to divine beings though lacking body and magni­ tude. Ibid., C.E*, XI, 81:16-20.

165.

Certainly since place is an external affection of some nature or other, whether corporeal or incorporeal, . . . Ibid., C.E*, XI, 81:27-28.

166*

An exclusive is either of the subject or the predicate. An exclusive of the subject, when the sign of the exclusive is prefixed, excludes all other subjects from the predicate. But reason would in vain dictate this rule if certain modern logicians, among whom Kechermann may be named, are permitted at once to overturn it, completely, by producing a canon for the purpose. "The ex­ clusive^ he says, "does not exclude the.concomi­ tants of the subject, as in the statement: The Father alone is true God. Here ,1 he says, "the concomitant is not excluded, namely the Son and the Holy Spirit," But who does not see that this canon is provided for making sport of that abundant­ ly clear passage John 17,3? Not in the least more useful is that canon of restrictive enunciation which he gives in book 2, chapter 4 (the restrict­ ive is that which shows how far the subject agrees with the predicate) where he says: "By no limita­ tion is a contradictory predicate conciliated with the subject," from Aristotle, Topics 2, the last chapter, section 4. What that is more obvious can be said? And yet they can be found who by inter' posing some little distinction contend that in the

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Lord's supper an accident can exist without a subject, which is contrary to reason. Then there are those who by making up similar little dis­ tinctions commit an equal contradiction in argu­ ing that Christ can have a human nature and an infinite body. But abandoning the paradoxes of the theologians, let us return to the precepts of logic. Ibid., G.E., XI, 315:7-317:4.

167.

. . . set the Word of God only before them as the Rule of faith and obedience; and use all diligence and sincerity of heart, by reading, by learning, by study, by prayer for Illumination of the holy Spirit, . . . Of True Religion. C.E., VI, 168:17-21.

168.

But some will say, with Christians it is otherwise, whom God hath promis’d by his Spirit to teach all things. True, all things absolutely necessary to salvation: But the hottest disputes among Protestants calmly and charitably enquir’d into, will be found less than such. The Lutheran holds Consubstantiation; an error indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinist is taxt with Predestination, and to make God the Author of sin; not with any dishonorable thought of God, but it may be over zealously asserting his absolute power, not with­ out plea of Scripture. The Anabaptist is accus’d of Denying Infants their right to Baptism; again they say, they deny nothing but what the Scripture denies them. The Arian and Soeinian are charg’d to dispute against the Trinity: they affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, according to Scripture, and the Apostolic Creed; as for terms of Trinity, Triunity, Coessentiality, Tri­ personality, and the like, they reject them as Scholastic Notions, not to be found in Scripture, which by a general Protestant Maxim is plain and perspicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words, belonging to so high a Matter and so necessary to be known; a mystery indeed in their Sophistic Subtilties, but in Scripture a plain Doctrinv Their other Opinions are of less Moment, They dispute the satisfaction of Christ, or rather the word, ’Satisfaction’, as not Scriptural: but they acknowledge him both God and their Saviour. The Xrminian lastly is

275

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condemn'd for setting up free will against free grace; but that Imputation he disclaims iii all his writings, and grounds himself largely upon Scripture only. It cannot be deny'd that the Authors or late Revivers of all these Sects or Opinions, were Learned, Worthy* Zealous„ and Religious Men, as appears by their lives written, and the same of their many Eminent and Learned followers, perfect and powerful in the Scriptures, holy and unblameable in their lives; and it can­ not be imagined that God would desert such pain­ ful and zealous laborers in his Church* and often­ times great sufferers for their conscience, to damnable Errors and a Reprobate sense, who had so often implor'd the assistance of his Spirit; but rather having, made no man Infallible, that he hath pardon'd their errors, and accepts their Pious endeavours, sincerely searching all things according to the rule of Scripture, with such guidance and direction as they can obtain of God by Prayer. Ibid., C.E*, VI, 168:27-170:9.

169.

L_

In the name of the most holy and Individual Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A Declaration, C.E., VI, 273:3-4.

ABBREVIATIONS ELH ES HLB HLQ HTR JEGP LTLS MLN MLR MP PMLA RA-A RES SP UTQ

-

Journal of English Literary History Englische Studien Huntington Library Bulletin Huntington Library Quarterly Harvard Theological Review Journal of English and Germanic Philology London Times Literary Supplement Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review Modern Philology Publications of the Modern Language Association Revuew Anglo-Americaine Review of English Studies Studies in Philology University of Toronto Quarterly

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Milton, Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1935.

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John Milton the Elder and His Music, New York, Columbia Univer­ sity Press, 1938.

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The Renaissance and English Humanism, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1939.

Bush,‘Douglas,

Paradise Lost in Our Time, , Illinois, Cornell University Press, 19^5.

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English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, London, Oxford University Press, 19*+6.

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, , 213-280.

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George, Edward, Augustus,

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---

Gilson, Etienne,

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Giovanni, Abbate,

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G ood, John Walter,

Studies in the Milton Tradition, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1915.

Greenlaw, Edwin,

"A Better Teacher than Aquinas,” SP, XIV (1917), 196-217.

Greenlaw, Edwin,

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Hanford, James Holly,

"The Date of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana," SP, XVII TI920I

309-319. Hanford, James Holly,

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(1921), 251-31V.

~~“

Hanford, James Holly,

"The Youth of Milton," University of Michigan Publications in Language and Literature, T ~ (1925) BV-1&5’.------” ---- ’—

Hanford, James Holly,

"That Shepherd, Who First Taught the Chosen Seed: A Note on Mil­ ton's Mosaic Inspiration," UTQ, VIII (1938-1939), 1+03-lH9.

Hanford, James Holly,

A Milton Handbook, New York, F." S. Crofts, 19^7.

Hanford, James Holly,

John Milton, Englishman, New York, Crown Press, 19^9•

Hartwell, Kathleen,

Lactantius and Milton, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1929.

Havens, Raymond D.,

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Havens, Raymond D.,

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Havens, Raymond D.,

“The Influence of Milton on Colonial American Poetry,“ HLB, IX(1936), 63-89. I Manuale Theologiae Dogmaticae, *+ vois., Maryland, Newman, 1^*3 •

HervS, J. M., Canon, Howard, Leon,

"The Invention* of Milton’s ’Great Argument1: A Study of the Logic of 1God *s Ways to Men,’" HLQ, IX (19^6), 1^9-173.

Hunter, William B.,

"Milton’s Materialistic Life Principle," JEGP, XLVIII (19^6),

68-76. Husain, Itrat,

The Dogmatic and Mystical Theol­ ogy of John Donne (Publlshed for the Church Historical Society, London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), New York, The Macmillan Company, 1938.

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Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s "De Rel'i'gione Laici," (Yale Studies in-English, Vol. 98), New Haven, Yale University Press, 19*+^•

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V I T A

Edward Francis Kenrick, son of Edward and Mary Buckley Kenrick, was born May 19, 1917, in New York City, New York.

He attended St. Michael's High School, New

York City, and was graduated in June 193*+• He entered Cathedral College in September 193*+ and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1938. He was ordained priest at St. Joseph's Seminary, New York, in March 19^f• In October 19^+ he was accepted as a graduate student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Fordham University where he entered the Department of English Language and Literature.

In June, 19^7 he received

the degree of Master of Arts.

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