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The Political Thought of John Milton

Although John Milton (1608-1674) is best know for his epic poem Paradise Lost he was also an accomplished and influential political writer who was active during the tumultuous period of the English Civil War and revolution. In this reading list we will explore some aspects of Milton’s political thought concerning the right to divorce, religious freedom, the right to overthrow a tyrannical king, freedom of speech, and the nature of freedom under a Commonwealth.

The readings below are in chronological order of year of first publication.

For further reading see:

• Topic: the English Revolution
• Forum: John Alvis’s introduction to Milton’s Political Writings
• see also the timeline of the life and works of Milton

• Back to Top

  1: The right to divorce: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)

  Milton had an unhappy first marriage which made his theoretical defence of the right to divorce quite personal. Milton took the radical view that marriage required the happiness and consent of both parties.

  John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 1. Chapter: THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE;

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1209/78044 on 2008-03-12

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE;

  RESTORED TO THE GOOD OF BOTH SEXES, FROM THE BONDAGE OF CANON LAW, AND OTHER MISTAKES, TO THE TRUE MEANING OF SCRIPTURE IN THE LAW AND GOSPEL COMPARED. WHEREIN ALSO ARE SET DOWN THE BAD CONSEQUENCES OF ABOLISHING, OR CONDEMNING AS SIN, THAT WHICH THE LAW OF GOD ALLOWS, AND CHRIST ABOLISHED NOT.

  NOW THE SECOND TIME REVISED, AND MUCH AUGMENTED, IN TWO BOOKS: TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, WITH THE ASSEMBLY.

  Matth. xiii. 52. “Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, which bringeth out of his treasury things new and old.”

  Prov. xviii. 13. “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”

  [FIRST PUBLISHED 1643, 1644.]

  TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, WITH THE ASSEMBLY.

  If it were seriously asked, (and it would be no untimely question,) renowned parliament, select assembly! who of all teachers and masters, that have ever taught, hath drawn the most disciples after him, both in religion and in manners? it might be not untruly answered, Custom. Though virtue be commended for the most persuasive in her theory, and conscience in the plain demonstration of the spirit finds most evincing; yet whether it be the secret of divine will, or the original blindness we are born in, so it happens for the most part, that custom still is silently received for the best instructor. Except it be, because her method is so glib and easy, in some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel rolling up her sudden book of implicit knowledge, for him that will to take and swallow down at pleasure; which proving but of bad nourishment in the concoction, as it was heedless in the devouring, puffs up unhealthily a certain big face of pretended learning, mistaken among credulous men for the wholesome habit of soundness and good constitution, but is indeed no other than that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and literature, which not only in private mars our education, but also in public is the common climber into every chair, where either religion is preached, or law reported: filling each estate of life and profession with abject and servile principles, depressing the high and heaven-born spirit of man, far beneath the condition wherein either God created him, or sin hath sunk him. To pursue the allegory, custom being but a mere face, as echo is a mere voice, rests not in her unaccomplishment, until by secret inclination she accorporate herself with error, who being a blind and serpentine body without a head, willingly accepts what he wants, and supplies what her incompleteness went seeking. Hence it is, that error supports custom, custom countenances error: and these two between them would persecute and chase away all truth and solid wisdom out of human life, were it not that God, rather than man, once in many ages calls together the prudent and religious counsels of men, deputed to repress the encroachments, and to work off the inveterate blots and obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle insinuating of error and custom; who, with the numerous and vulgar train of their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry down the industry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour and innovation; as if the womb of teeming truth were to be closed up, if she presume to bring forth aught that sorts not with their unchewed notions and suppositions. Against which notorious injury and abuse of man’s free soul, to testify and oppose the utmost that study and true labour can attain, heretofore the incitement of men reputed grave hath led me among others; and now the duty and the right of an instructed Christian calls me through the chance of good or evil report, to be the sole advocate of a discountenanced truth: a high enterprise, lords and commons! a high enterprise and a hard, and such as every seventh son of a seventh son does not venture on. Nor have I amidst the clamour of so much envy and impertinence whither to appeal, but to the concourse of so much piety and wisdom here assembled. Bringing in my hands an ancient and most necessary, most charitable, and yet most injured statute of Moses; not repealed ever by him who only had the authority, but thrown aside with much inconsiderate neglect, under the rubbish of canonical ignorance; as once the whole law was by some such like conveyance in Josiah’s time. And he who shall endeavour the amendment of any old neglected grievance in church or state, or in the daily course of life, if he be gifted with abilities of mind, that may raise him to so high an undertaking, I grant he hath already much whereof not to repent him; yet let me aread him, not to be the foreman of any misjudged opinion, unless his resolutions be firmly seated in a square and constant mind, not conscious to itself of any deserved blame, and regardless of ungrounded suspicions. For this let him be sure, he shall be boarded presently by the ruder sort, but not by discreet and well-nurtured men, with a thousand idle descants and surmises. Who when they cannot confute the least joint or sinew of any passage in the book; yet God forbid that truth should be truth, because they have a boisterous conceit of some pretences in the writer.

  But were they not more busy and inquisitive than the apostle commends, they would hear him at least, “rejoicing so the truth be preached, whether of envy or other pretence whatsoever:” for truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch, as the sunbeam; though this ill hap wait on her nativity, that she never comes into the world, but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth; till time, the midwife rather than the mother of truth, have washed and salted the infant, declared her legitimate, and churched the father of his young Minerva, from the needless causes of his purgation. Yourselves can best witness this, worthy patriots! and better will, no doubt, hereafter: for who among ye of the foremost that have travailed in her behalf to the good of church or state, hath not been often traduced to be the agent of his own by-ends, under pretext of reformation? So much the more I shall not be unjust to hope, that however infamy or envy may work in other men to do her fretful will against this discourse, yet that the experience of your own uprightness misinterpreted will put ye in mind, to give it free audience and generous construction. What though the brood of Belial the draff of men, to whom no liberty is pleasing, but unbridled and vagabond lust without pale or partition, will laugh broad perhaps, to see so great a strength of Scripture mustering up in favour, as they suppose, of their debaucheries; they will know better when the shall hence learn, that honest liberty is the greatest foe to dishonest license. And what though others, out of a waterish and queasy conscience, because ever crazy and never yet sound, will rail and fancy to themselves that injury and license is the best of this book? Did not the distemper of their own stomachs affect them with a dizzy megrim, they would soon tie up their tongues and discern themselves like that Assyrian blasphemer, all this while reproaching not man, but the Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, whom they do not deny to have belawgiven his own sacred people with this very allowance, which they now call injury and license, and dare cry shame on, and will do yet a while, till they get a little cordial sobriety to settle their qualming zeal. But this question concerns not us perhaps: indeed man’s disposition, though prone to search after vain curiosities, yet when points of difficulty are to be discussed, appertaining to the removal of unreasonable wrong and burden from the perplexed life of our brother, it is incredible how cold, how dull, and far from all fellow-feeling we are, without the spur of self-concernment. Yet if the wisdom, the justice, the purity of God be to be cleared from foulest imputations, which are not yet avoided; if charity be not to be degraded and trodden down under a civil ordinance; if matrimony be not to be advanced like that exalted perdition written of to the Thessalonians, “above all that is called God,” or goodness, nay against them both; then I dare affirm, there will be found in the contents of this book that which may concern us all. You it concerns chiefly, worthies in parliament! on whom, as on our deliverers, all our grievances and cares, by the merit of your eminence and fortitude, are devolved. Me it concerns next, having with much labour and faithful diligence first found out, or at least with a fearless and communicative candour first published to the manifest good of Christendom, that which, calling to witness every thing mortal and immortal, I believe unfeignedly to be true. Let not other men think their conscience bound to search continually after truth, to pray for enlightening from above, to publish what they think they have so obtained, and debar me from conceiving myself tied by the same duties. Ye have now, doubtless, by the favour and appointment of God, ye have now in your hands a great and populous nation to reform; from what corruption, what blindness in religion, ye know well; in what a degenerate and fallen spirit from the apprehension of native liberty, and true manliness, I am sure ye find; with what unbounded license rushing to whoredoms and adulteries, needs not long inquiry: insomuch that the fears, which men have of too strict a discipline, perhaps exceed the hopes that can be in others, of ever introducing it with any great success. What if I should tell ye now of dispensations and indulgences, to give a little the reins, to let them play and nibble with the bait a while; a people as hard of heart as that Egyptian colony that went to Canaan. This is the common doctrine that adulterous and injurious divorces were not connived only, but with eye open allowed of old for hardness of heart. But that opinion, I trust, by then this following argument hath been well read, will be left for one of the mysteries of an indulgent Antichrist, to farm out incest by, and those his other tributary pollutions. What middle way can be taken then, may some interrupt, if we must neither turn to the right, nor to the left, and that the people hate to be reformed? Mark then, judges and lawgivers, and ye whose office it is to be our teachers, for I will utter now a doctrine, if ever any other, though neglected or not understood, yet of great and powerful importance to the governing of mankind. He who wisely would restrain the reasonable soul of man within due bounds, must first himself know perfectly, how far the territory and dominion extends of just and honest liberty. As little must he offer to bind that which God hath loosened, as to loosen that which he hath bound. The ignorance and mistake of this high point hath heaped up one huge half of all the misery that hath been since Adam. In the gospel we shall read a supercilious crew of masters, whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye, grieving that God should be so facile to man, was to set straiter limits to obedience, than God hath set, to enslave the dignity of man, to put a garrison upon his neck of empty and over-dignified precepts: and we shall read our Saviour never more grieved and troubled, than to meet with such a peevish madness among men against their own freedom. How can we expect him to be less offended with us, when much of the same folly shall be found yet remaining where it least ought, to the perishing of thousands? The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. What greater weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our Christian warfare, when besides the gross body of real transgressions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy menacing of faults that are not? When things indifferent shall be set to overfront us under the banners of sin, what wonder if we be routed, and by this art of our adversary, fall into the subjection of worst and deadliest offences? The superstition of the papist is, “touch not, taste not,” when God bids both; and ours is, “part not, separate not,” when God and charity both permits and commands. “Let all your things be done with charity,” saith St. Paul; and his master saith, “She is the fulfilling of the law.” Yet now a civil, an indifferent, a sometime dissuaded law of marriage, must be forced upon us to fulfil, not only without charity but against her. No place in heaven or earth, except hell, where charity may not enter: yet marriage, the ordinance of our solace and contentment, the remedy of our loneliness, will not admit now either of charity or mercy, to come in and mediate, or pacify the fierceness of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied loneliness of this remedy. Advise ye well, supreme senate, if charity be thus excluded and expulsed, how ye will defend the untainted honour of your own actions and proceedings. He who marries, intends as little to conspire his own ruin, as he that swears allegiance: and as a whole people is in proportion to an ill government, so is one man to an ill marriage. If they, against any authority, covenant, or statute, may by the sovereign edict of charity, save not only their lives but honest liberties from unworthy bondage, as well may he against any private covenant, which he never entered to his mischief, redeem himself from unsupportable disturbances to honest peace, and just contentment. And much the rather, for that to resist the highest magistrate though tyrannizing, God never gave us express allowance, only he gave us reason, charity, nature, and good example to bear us out; but in this economical misfortune thus to demean ourselves, besides the warrant of those four great directors, which doth as justly belong hither, we have an express law of God, and such a law, as whereof our Saviour with a solemn threat forbid the abrogating. For no effect of tyranny can sit more heavy on the commonwealth, than this household unhappiness on the family. And farewell all hope of true reformation in the state, while such an evil as this lies undiscerned or unregarded in the house: on the redress whereof depends not only the spiritful and orderly life of our own grown men, but the willing and careful education of our children. Let this therefore be now examined, this tenure and freehold of mankind, this native and domestic charter given us by a greater lord than that Saxon king the confessor. Let the statutes of God be turned over, be scanned anew, and considered not altogether by the narrow intellectuals of quotationists and common places, but (as was the ancient right of councils) by men of what liberal profession soever, of eminent spirit and breeding, joined with a diffuse and various knowledge of divine and human things; able to balance and define good and evil, right and wrong, throughout every state of life; able to show us the ways of the Lord straight and faithful as they are, not full of cranks and contradictions, and pitfalling dispenses, but with divine insight and benignity measured out to the proportion of each mind and spirit, each temper and disposition created so different each from other, and yet by the skill of wise conducting, all to become uniform in virtue. To expedite these knots, were worthy a learned and memorable synod; while our enemies expect to see the expectation of the church tired out with dependencies, and independencies, how they will compound, and in what calends. Doubt not, worthy senators! to vindicate the sacred honour and judgment of Moses your predecessor, from the shallow commenting of scholastics and canonists. Doubt not after him to reach out your steady hands to the misinformed and wearied life of man; to restore this his lost heritage, into the household state; wherewith be sure that peace and love, the best subsistence of a Christian family, will return home from whence they are now banished; places of prostitution will be less haunted, the neighbour’s bed less attempted, the yoke of prudent and manly discipline will be generally submitted to; sober and well ordered living will soon spring up in the commonwealth. Yet have an author great beyond exception, Moses; and one yet greater, he who hedged in from abolishing every smallest jot and title of precious equity contained in that law, with a more accurate and lasting Masoreth, than either the synagogue of Ezra or the Galilæan school at Tiberias hath left us. Whatever else ye can enact, will scarce concern a third part of the British name: but the benefit and good of this your magnanimous example, will easily spread far beyond the banks of Tweed and the Norman isles. It would not be the first or second time, since our ancient druids, by whom this island was the cathedral of philosophy to France, left off their pagan rites, that England hath had this honour vouchsafed from heaven, to give out reformation to the world. Who was it but our English Constantine that baptized the Roman empire? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrode, and Winifride of Devon, with their followers, were the first apostles of Germany? Who but Alcuin and Wickliff our countrymen opened the eyes of Europe, the one in arts, the other in religion? Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.

  Know, worthies; and exercise the privilege of your honoured country. A greater title I here bring ye, than is either in the power or in the policy of Rome to give her monarchs; this glorious act will style ye the defenders of charity. Nor is this yet the highest inscription that will adorn so religious and so holy a defence as this: behold here the pure and sacred law of God, and his yet purer and more sacred name, offering themselves to you, first of all Christian reformers to be acquitted from the long-suffered ungodly attribute of patronizing adultery. Defer not to wipe off instantly these imputative blurs and stains cast by rude fancies upon the throne and beauty itself of inviolable holiness: lest some other people more devout and wise than we bereave us this offered immortal glory, our wonted prerogative, of being the first asserters in every great vindication. For me, as far as my part leads me, I have already my greatest gain, assurance and inward satisfaction to have done in this nothing unworthy of an honest life, and studies well employed. With what event, among the wise and right understanding handful of men, I am secure. But how among the drove of custom and prejudiced this will be relished by such whose capacity, since their youth run ahead into the easy creek of a system or a medulla, sails there at will under the blown physiognomy of their unlaboured rudiments; for them, what their taste will be, I have also surety sufficient, from the entire league that hath ever been between formal ignorance and grave obstinacy. Yet when I remember the little that our Saviour could prevail about this doctrine of charity against the crabbed textuists of his time, I make no wonder, but rest confident, that whoso prefers either matrimony or other ordinance before the good of man and the plain exigence of charity, let him profess papist, or protestant, or what he will, he is no better than a Pharisee, and understands not the gospel: whom as a misinterpreter of Christ I openly protest against; and provoke him to the trial of this truth before all the world: and let him bethink him withal how he will sodder up the shifting flaws of his ungirt permissions, his venial and unvenial dispenses, wherewith the law of God pardoning and unpardoning hath been shamefully branded for want of heed in glossing, to have eluded and baffled out all faith and chastity from the marriage-bed of that holy seed, with politic and judicial adulteries. I seek not to seduce the simple and illiterate: my errand is to find out the choicest and the learnedest, who have this high gift of wisdom to answer solidly, or to be convinced. I crave it from the piety, the learning, and the prudence which is housed in this place. It might perhaps more fitly have been written in another tongue: and I had done so, but that the esteem I have of my country’s judgment, and the love I bear to my native language to serve it first with what I endeavour, made me speak it thus, ere I assay the verdict of outlandish readers. And perhaps also here I might have ended nameless, but that the address of these lines chiefly to the parliament of England might have seemed ingrateful not to acknowledge by whose religious care, unwearied watchfulness, courageous and heroic resolutions, I enjoy the peace and studious leisure to remain,

  The Honourer and Attendant of their noble Worth and Virtues,

  John Milton.

  BOOK I.

  THE PREFACE.

  That man is the occasion of his own miseries in most of those evils which he imputes to God’s inflicting. The absurdity of our canonists in their decrees about divorce. The Christian imperial laws framed with more equity. The opinion of Hugo Grotius and Paulus Fagius: And the purpose in general of this discourse.

  Many men, whether it be their fate or fond opinion, easily persuade themselves, if God would but be pleased a while to withdraw his just punishments from us, and to restrain what power either the devil or any earthly enemy hath to work us wo, that then man’s nature would find immediate rest and releasement from all evils. But verily they who think so, if they be such as have a mind large enough to take into their thoughts a general survey of human things, would soon prove themselves in that opinion far deceived. For though it were granted us by divine indulgence to be exempt from all that can be harmful to us from without, yet the perverseness of our folly is so bent, that we should never lin hammering out of our own hearts, as it were out of a flint, the seeds and sparkles of new misery to ourselves, till all were in a blaze again. And no marvel if out of our own hearts, for they are evil; but even out of those things which God meant us, either for a principal good, or a pure contentment, we are still hatching and contriving upon ourselves matter of continual sorrow and perplexity. What greater good to man than that revealed rule, whereby God vouchsafes to show us how he would be worshipped? And yet that not rightly understood became the cause, that once a famous man in Israel could not but oblige his conscience to be the sacrificer; or if not, the jailer of his innocent and only daughter: and was the cause ofttimes that armies of valiant men have given up their throats to a heathenish enemy on the sabbath day; fondly thinking their defensive resistance to be as then a work unlawful. What thing more instituted to the solace and delight of man than marriage? And yet the misinterpreting of some scripture, directed mainly against the abusers of the law for divorce given by Moses, hath changed the blessing of matrimony not seldom into a familiar and coinhabiting mischief; at least into a drooping and disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or redemption. So ungoverned and so wild a race doth superstition run us, from one extreme of abused liberty into the other of unmerciful restraint. For although God in the first ordaining of marriage taught us to what end he did it, in words expressly implying the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evil of solitary life, not mentioning the purpose of generation till afterwards, as being but a secondary end in dignity, though not in necessity: yet now, if any two be but once handed in the church, and have tasted in any sort the nuptial bed, let them find themselves never so mistaken in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure, that through their different tempers, thoughts, and constitutions, they can neither be to one another a remedy against loneliness, nor live in any union or contentment all their days; yet they shall, so they be but found suitably weaponed to the least possibility of sensual enjoyment, be made, spite of antipathy, to fadge together, and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomeness, and despair of all sociable delight in the ordinance which God established to that very end. What a calamity is this, and as the wise man, if he were alive, would sigh out in his own phrase, what a “sore evil is this under the sun!” All which we can refer justly to no other author than the canon law and her adherents, not consulting with charity, the interpreter and guide of our faith, but resting in the mere element of the text; doubtless by the policy of the devil to make that gracious ordinance become unsupportable, that what with men not daring to venture upon wedlock, and what with men wearied out of it, all inordinate license might abound. It was for many ages that marriage lay in disgrace with most of the ancient doctors, as a work of the flesh, almost a defilement, wholly denied to priests, and the second time dissuaded to all, as he that reads Tertullian or Jerom may see at large. Afterwards it was thought so sacramental, that no adultery or desertion could dissolve it; and this is the sense of our canon courts in England to this day, but in no other reformed church else: yet there remains in them also a burden on it as heavy as the other two were disgraceful or superstitious, and of as much iniquity, crossing a law not only written by Moses, but charactered in us by nature, of more antiquity and deeper ground than marriage itself; which law is to force nothing against the faultless proprieties of nature, yet that this may be colourably done, our Saviour’s words touching divorce are as it were congealed into a stony rigour, inconsistent both with his doctrine and his office; and that which he preached only to the conscience is by canonical tyranny snatched into the compulsive censure of a judicial court; where laws are imposed even against the venerable and secret power of nature’s impression, to love, whatever cause be found to loath: which is a heinous barbarism both against the honour of marriage, the dignity of man and his soul, the goodness of Christianity, and all the human respects of civility. Notwithstanding that some the wisest and gravest among the Christian emperors, who had about them, to consult with, those of the fathers then living, who for their learning and holiness of life are still with us in great renown, have made their statutes and edicts concerning this debate far more easy and relenting in many necessary cases, wherein the canon is inflexible. And Hugo Grotius, a man of these times, one of the best learned, seems not obscurely to adhere in his persuasion to the equity of those imperial decrees, in his notes upon the Evangelist; much allaying the outward roughness of the text, which hath for the most part been too immoderately expounded; and excites the diligence of others to inquire further into this question, as containing many points that have not yet been explained. Which ever likely to remain intricate and hopeless upon the suppositions commonly stuck to, the authority of Paulus Fagius, one so learned and so eminent in England once, if it might persuade, would straight acquaint us with a solution of these differences no less prudent than compendious. He, in his comment on the Pentateuch, doubted not to maintain that divorces might be as lawfully permitted by the magistrate to Christians, as they were to the Jews. But because he is but brief, and these things of great consequence not to be kept obscure, I shall conceive it nothing above my duty, either for the difficulty or the censure that may pass thereon, to communicate such thoughts as I also have had, and do offer them now in this general labour of reformation to the candid view both of church and magistrate: especially because I see it the hope of good men, that those irregular and unspiritual courts have spun their utmost date in this land, and some better course must now be constituted. This therefore shall be the task and period of this discourse to prove, first, that other reasons of divorce, besides adultery, were by the law of Moses, and are yet to be allowed by the Christian magistrate as a piece of justice, and that the words of Christ are not hereby contraried. Next, that to prohibit absolutely any divorce whatsoever, except those which Moses excepted, is against the reason of law, as in due place I shall show out of Fagius with many additions. He therefore who by adventuring, shall be so happy as with success to light the way of such an expedient liberty and truth as this, shall restore the much-wronged and over-sorrowed state of matrimony, not only to those merciful and life-giving remedies of Moses, but as much as may be, to that serene and blissful condition it was in at the beginning, and shall deserve of all apprehensive men, (considering the troubles and distempers, which, for want of this insight have been so oft in kingdoms, in states, and families,) shall deserve to be reckoned among the public benefactors of civil and human life, above the inventors of wine and oil; for this is a far dearer, far nobler, and more desirable cherishing to man’s life, unworthily exposed to sadness and mistake, which he shall vindicate. Not that license, and levity, and unconsented breach of faith should herein be countenanced, but that some conscionable and tender pity might be had of those who have unwarily, in a thing they never practised before, made themselves the bondmen of a luckless and helpless matrimony. In which argument, he whose courage can serve him to give the first onset must look for two several oppositions; the one from those who having sworn themselves to long custom, and the letter of the text, will not out of the road; the other from those whose gross and vulgar apprehensions conceit but low of matrimonial purposes, and in the work of male and female think they have all. Nevertheless, it shall be here sought by due ways to be made appear, that those words of God in the institution, promising a meet help against loneliness, and those words of Christ, “that his yoke is easy, and his burden light,” were not spoken in vain: for if the knot of marriage may in no case be dissolved but for adultery, all the burdens and services of the law are not so intolerable. This only is desired of them who are minded to judge hardly of thus maintaining, that they would be still, and hear all out, nor think it equal to answer deliberate reason with sudden heat and noise; remembering this, that many truths now of reverend esteem and credit, had their birth and beginning once from singular and private thoughts, while the most of men were otherwise possessed; and had the fate at first to be generally exploded and exclaimed on by many violent opposers: yet I may err perhaps in soothing myself that this present truth revived will deserve on all hands to be not sinisterly received, in that it undertakes the cure of an inveterate disease crept into the best part of human society; and to do this with no smarting corrosive, but with a smooth and pleasing lesson, which received hath the virtue to soften and dispel rooted and knotty sorrows, and without enchantment, if that he feared, or spell used, hath regard at once both to serious pity and upright honesty; that tends to the redeeming and restoring of none but such as are the object of compassion, having in an ill hour hampered themselves, to the utter dispatch of all their most beloved comforts and repose for this life’s term. But if we shall obstinately dislike this new overture of unexpected ease and recovery, what remains but to deplore the frowardness of our hopeless condition, which neither can endure the estate we are in, nor admit of remedy either sharp or sweet. Sharp we ourselves distaste; and sweet, under whose hands we are, is scrupled and suspected as too luscious. In such a posture Christ found the Jews, who were neither won with the austerity of John the Baptist, and thought it too much license to follow freely the charming pipe of him who sounded and proclaimed liberty and relief to all distresses: yet truth in some age or other will find her witness, and shall be justified at last by her own children.

  CHAPTER I.

  The position proved by the law of Moses. That law expounded and asserted to a moral and charitable use, first by Paulus Fagius, next with other additions.

  To remove therefore, if it be possible, this great and sad oppression, which through the strictness of a literal interpreting hath invaded and disturbed the dearest and most peaceable estate of household society, to the overburdening, if not the overwhelming of many Christians better worth than to be so deserted of the church’s considerate care, this position shall be laid down, first proving, then answering what may be objected either from Scripture or light of reason.

  “That indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindering, and ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace; is a greater reason of divorce than natural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and that there be mutual consent.”

  This I gather from the law in Deut. xxiv. 1. “When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her, let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house,” &c. This law, if the words of Christ may be admitted into our belief, shall never while the world stands, for him be abrogated. First therefore I here set down what learned Fagius hath observed on this law; “the law of God,” saith he, “permitted divorce for the help of human weakness. For every one that of necessity separates, cannot live single. That Christ denied divorce to his own, hinders not; for what is that to the unregenerate, who hath not attained such perfection? Let not the remedy be despised, which was given to weakness. And when Christ saith, who marries the divorced commits adultery, it is to be understood if he had any plot in the divorce.” The rest I reserve until it be disputed, how the magistrate is to do herein. From hence we may plainly discern a twofold consideration in this law: first, the end of the lawgiver, and the proper act of the law, to command or to allow something just and honest, or indifferent. Secondly, his sufferance from some accidental result of evil by this allowance, which the law cannot remedy. For if this law have no other end or act but only the allowance of sin, though never to so good intention, that law is no law, but sin muffled in the robe of law, or law disguised in the loose garment of sin. Both which are too foul hypotheses, to save the phænomenon of our Saviour’s answer to the Pharisees about this matter. And I trust anon by the help of an infallible guide, to perfect such Prutenic tables, as shall mend the astronomy of our wide expositors.

  The cause of divorce mentioned in the law is translated “some uncleanness,” but in the Hebrew it sounds “nakedness of aught, or any real nakedness:” which by all the learned interpreters is referred to the mind as well as to the body. And what greater nakedness or unfitness of mind than that which hinders ever the solace and peaceful society of the married couple; and what hinders that more than the unfitness and defectiveness of an unconjugal mind? The cause therefore of divorce expressed in the position cannot but agree with that described in the best and equallest sense of Moses’ law. Which being a matter of pure charity, is plainly moral, and more now in force than ever; therefore surely lawful. For if under the law such was God’s gracious indulgence, as not to suffer the ordinance of his goodness and favour through any error to be seared and stigmatised upon his servants to their misery and thraldom; much less will he suffer it now under the covenant of grace, by abrogating his former grant of remedy and relief. But the first institution will be objected to have ordained marriage inseparable. To that a little patience until this first part have amply discoursed the grave and pious reasons of this divorcive law; and then I doubt not but with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten thousand tears out of the life of man. Yet thus much I shall now insist on, that whatever the institution were, it could not be so enormous, nor so rebellious against both nature and reason, as to exalt itself above the end and person for whom it was instituted.

  CHAPTER II.

  The first reason of this law grounded on the prime reason of matrimony. That no covenant whatsoever obliges against the main end both of itself, and of the parties covenanting.

  For all sense and equity reclaims, that any law or covenant, how solemn or strait soever, either between God and man, or man and man, though of God’s joining, should bind against a prime and principal scope of its own institution, and of both or either party covenanting: neither can it be of force to engage a blameless creature to his own perpetual sorrow, mistaken for his expected solace, without suffering charity to step in and do a confessed good work of parting those, whom nothing holds together but this of God’s joining, falsely supposed against the express end of his own ordinance. And what his chief end was of creating woman to be joined with man, his own instituting words declare, and are infallible to inform us what is marriage, and what is no marriage; unless we can think them set there to no purpose; “it is not good,” saith he, “that man should be alone, I will make him a help meet for him.” From which words, so plain, less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God’s intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and the noblest end of marriage: for we find here no expression so necessarily implying carnal knowledge, as this prevention of loneliness to the mind and spirit of man. To this, Fagius, Calvin, Pareus, Rivetus, as willingly and largely assent as can be wished. And indeed it is a greater blessing from God, more worthy so excellent a creature as man is, and a higher end to honour and sanctify the league of marriage, whenas the solace and satisfaction of the mind is regarded and provided for before the sensitive pleasing of the body. And with all generous persons married thus it is, that where the mind and person pleases aptly, there some unaccomplishment of the body’s delight may be better borne with, than when the mind hangs off in an unclosing disproportion, though the body be as it ought; for there all corporal delight will soon become unsavoury and contemptible. And the solitariness of man, which God had namely and principally ordered to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, but lies under a worse condition than the loneliest single life: for in single life the absence and remoteness of a helper might inure him to expect his own comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope; but here the continual sight of his deluded thoughts, without cure, must needs be to him, if especially his complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily trouble and pain of loss, in some degree like that which reprobates feel. Lest therefore so noble a creature as man should be shut up incurably under a worse evil by an easy mistake in that ordinance which God gave him to remedy a less evil, reaping to himself sorrow while he went to rid away solitariness, it cannot avoid to be concluded, that if the woman be naturally so of disposition, as will not help to remove, but help to increase that same God-for-bidden loneliness, which will in time draw on with it a general discomfort and dejection of mind, not beseeming either Christian profession or moral conversation, unprofitable and dangerous to the commonwealth, when the household estate, out of which must flourish forth the vigour and spirit of all public enterprises, is so illcontented and procured at home, and cannot be supported; such a marriage can be no marriage, whereto the most honest end is wanting: and the aggrieved person shall do more manly, to be extraordinary and singular in claiming the due right whereof he is frustrated, than to piece up his lost contentment by visiting the stews, or stepping to his neighbour’s bed; which is the common shift in this misfortune: or else by suffering his useful life to waste away, and be lost under a secret affliction of an unconscionable size to human strength. Against all which evils the mercy of this Mosaic law was graciously exhibited.

  CHAPTER III.

  The ignorance and iniquity of canon law, providing for the right of the body in marriage, but nothing for the wrongs and grievances of the mind. An objection, that the mind should be better looked to before contract, answered.

  How vain therefore is it, and how preposterous in the canon law, to have made such careful provision against the impediment of carnal performance, and to have had no care about the unconversing inability of mind so defective to the purest and most sacred end of matrimony; and that the vessel of voluptuous enjoyment must be made good to him that has taken it upon trust, without any caution; whenas the mind, from whence must flow the acts of peace and love, a far more precious mixture than the quintescence of an excrement, though it be found never so deficient and unable to perform the best duty of marriage in a cheerful and agreeable conversation, shall be thought good enough, however flat and melancholius it be, and must serve, though to the eternal disturbance and languishing of him that complains! Yet wisdom and charity, weighing God’s own institution, would think that the pining of a sad spirit wedded to loneliness should deserve to be freed, as well the impatience of a sensual desire so providently relieved. It is read to us in the liturgy, that “we must not marry to satisfy the fleshly appetite, like brute beasts, that have no understanding;” but the canon so runs, as if it dreamed of no other matter than such an appetite to be satisfied; for if it happen that nature hath stopped or extinguished the veins of sensuality, that marriage is annulled. But though all the faculties of the understanding and conversing part after trial appear to be so ill and so aversely met through nature’s unalterable working, as that neither peace, nor any sociable contentment can follow, it is as nothing; the contract shall stand as firm as ever, betide what will. What is this but secretly to instruct us, that however many grave reasons are pretended to the married life, yet that nothing indeed is thought worth regard therein, but the prescribed satisfaction of an irrational heat? Which cannot be but ignominious to the state of marriage, dishonourable to the undervalued soul of man, and even to Christian doctrine itself: while it seems more moved at the disappointing of an impetuous nerve, than at the ingenuous grievance of a mind unreasonably yoked; and to place more of marriage in the channel of concupiscence, than in the pure influence of peace and love, whereof the soul’s lawful contentment is the only fountain.

  But some are ready to object, that the disposition ought seriously to be considered before. But let them know again, that for all the wariness can be used, it may yet befall a discreet man to be mistaken in his choice, and we have plenty of examples. The soberest and best governed men are least practised in these affairs; and who knows not that the bashful muteness of a virgin may ofttimes hide all the unliveliness and natural sloth which is really unfit for conversation; nor is there that freedom of access granted or presumed, as may suffice to a perfect discerning till too late; and where any indisposition is suspected, what more usual than the persuasion of friends, that acquaintance, as it increases, will amend all? And lastly, it is not strange though many, who have spent their youth chastely, are in some things not so quick-sighted, while they haste too eagerly to light the nuptial torch; nor is it therefore that for a modest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him: since they who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches, because their wild affections unsettling at will, have been as so many divorces to teach them experience. Whenas the sober man honouring the appearance of modesty, and hoping well of every social virtue under that veil, may easily chance to meet, if not with a body impenetrable, yet often with a mind to all other due conversation inaccessible, and to all the more estimable and superior purposes of matrimony useless and almost lifeless: and what a solace, what a fit help such a consort would be through the whole life of man, is less pain to conjecture than to have experience.

  CHAPTER IV.

  The second reason of this law, because without it, marriage as it happens oft is not a remedy of that which it promises, as any rational creature would expect. That marriage, if we pattern from the beginning, as our Saviour bids, was not properly the remedy of lust, but the fulfilling of conjugal love and helpfulness.

  And that we may further see what a violent cruel thing it is to force the continuing of those together, whom God and nature in the gentlest end of marriage never joined; divers evils and extremities, that follow upon such a compulsion, shall here be set in view. Of evils, the first and greatest is, that hereby a most absurd and rash imputation is fixed upon God and his holy laws, of conniving and dispensing with open and common adultery among his chosen people; a thing which the rankest politician would think it shame and disworship that his laws should countenance: how and in what manner that comes to pass I shall reserve till the course of method brings on the unfolding of many scriptures. Next, the law and gospel are hereby made liable to more than one contradiction, which I refer also thither. Lastly, the supreme dictate of charity is hereby many ways neglected and violated; which I shall forthwith address to prove. First, we know St. Paul saith, It is better to marry than to burn. Marriage therefore was given as a remedy of that trouble; but what might this burning mean? Certainly not the mere motion of carnal lust, not the mere goad of a sensitive desire: God does not principally take care for such cattle. What is it then but that desire which God put into Adam in Paradise, before he knew the sin of incontinence; that desire which God saw it was not good that man should be left alone to burn in, the desire and longing to put off an unkindly solitariness by uniting another body, but not without a fit soul to his, in the cheerful society of wedlock? Which if it were so needful before the fall, when man was much more perfect in himself, how much more is it needful now against all the sorrows and casualties of this life, to have an intimate and speaking help, a ready and reviving associate in marriage? Whereof who misses, by chancing on a mute and spiritless mate, remains more alone than before, and in a burning less to be contained than that which is fleshly, and more to be considered; as being more deeply rooted even in the faultless innocence of nature. As for that other burning which is but as it were the venom of a lusty and over-abounding concoction, strict life and labour, with the abatement of a full diet, may keep that low and obedient enough: but this pure and more inbred desire of joining to itself in conjugal fellowship a fit conversing soul (which desire is properly called love) “is stronger than death,” as the spouse of Christ thought; “many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown it.” This is that rational burning that marriage is to remedy, not to be allayed with fasting, nor with any penance to be subdued: which how can he assuage who by mishap hath met the most unmeet and unsuitable mind? Who hath the power to struggle with an intelligible flame, not in Paradise to be resisted, become now more ardent by being failed of what in reason it looked for; and even then most unquenched, when the importunity of a provender burning is well enough appeased; and yet the soul hath obtained nothing of what it justly desires. Certainly such a one forbidden to divorce, is in effect forbidden to marry, and compelled to greater difficulties than in a single life: for if there be not a more humane burning which marriage must satisfy, or else may be dissolved, than that of copulation, marriage cannot be honourable for the meet reducing and terminating lust between two; seeing many beasts in voluntary and chosen couples live together as unadulterously, and are as truly married in that respect. But all ingenuous men will see that the dignity and blessing of marriage is placed rather in the mutual enjoyment of that which the wanting soul needfully seeks, than of that which the plenteous body would joyfully give away. Hence it is that Plato, in his festival discourse, brings in Socrates relating what he feigned to have learned from the prophetess Diotima, how Love was the son of Penury, begot of Plenty in the garden of Jupiter. Which divinely sorts with that which in effect Moses tells us, that Love was the son of Loneliness, begot in Paradise by that sociable and helpful aptitude which God implanted between man and woman toward each other. The same also is that burning mentioned by St. Paul, whereof marriage ought to be the remedy: the flesh hath other mutual and easy curbs which are in the power of any temperate man. When therefore this original and sinless penury or loneliness of the soul cannot lay itself down by the side of such a meet and acceptable union as God ordained in marriage, at least in some proportion, it cannot conceive and bring forth love, but remains utterly unmarried under a former wedlock, and still burns in the proper meaning of St. Paul. Then enters Hate, not that hate that sins, but that which only is natural dissatisfaction, and the turning aside from a mistaken object: if that mistake have done injury, it fails not to dismiss with recompense; for to retain still, and not be able to love, is to heap up more injury. Thence this wise and pious law of dismission now defended, took beginning: he therefore who lacking of his due in the most native and humane end of marriage, thinks it better to part than to live sadly and injuriously to that cheerful covenant, (for not to be beloved, and yet retained, is the greatest injury to a gentle spirit,) he, I say, who therefore seeks to part, is one who highly honours the married life and would not stain it: and the reasons which now move him to divorce, are equal to the best of those that could first warrant him to marry; for, as was plainly shown, both the hate which now diverts him, and the loneliness which leads him still powerfully to seek a fit help, hath not the least grain of a sin in it, if he be worthy to understand himself.

  CHAPTER V.

  The third reason of this law, because without it, he who has happened where he finds nothing but remediless offences and discontents, is in more and greater temptations than ever before.

  Thirdly, Yet it is next to be feared, if he must be still bound without reason by a deaf rigour, that when he perceives the just expectance of his mind defeated, he will begin even against law to cast about where he may find his satisfaction more complete, unless he be a thing heroically virtuous; and that are not the common lump of men, for whom chiefly the laws ought to be made; though not to their sins, yet to their unsinning weaknesses, it being above their strength to endure the lonely estate, which while they shunned they are fallen into. And yet there follows upon this a worse temptation: for if he be such as hath spent his youth unblameably, and laid up his chiefest earthly comforts in the enjoyments of a contented marriage, nor did neglect that furtherance which was to be obtained therein by constant prayers; when he shall find himself bound fast to an uncomplying discord of nature, or, as it oft happens, to an image of earth and phlegm, with whom he looked to be the copartner of a sweet and gladsome society, and sees withal that his bondage is now inevitable; though he be almost the strongest Christian, he will be ready to despair in virtue, and mutiny against Divine Providence: and this doubtless is the reason of those lapses, and that melancholy despair, which we see in many wedded persons, though they understand it not, or pretend other causes, because they know no remedy; and is of extreme danger: therefore when human frailty surcharged is at such a loss, charity ought to venture much, and use bold physic, lest an overtossed faith endanger to shipwreck.

  CHAPTER VI.

  The fourth reason of this law, that God regards love and peace in the family, more than a compulsive performance of marriage, which is more broke by a grievous continuance, than by a needful divorce.

  Fourthly, Marriage is a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace: and of matrimonial love, no doubt but that was chiefly meant, which by the ancient sages was thus parabled; that Love, if he be not twin born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros; whom while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning desires, that wander singly up and down in his likeness: by them in their borrowed garb, Love though not wholly blind, as poets wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being born an archer aiming and that eye not the quickest in this dark region here below, which is not love’s proper sphere, partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to him, often deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and suborned striplings, as if they were his mother’s own sons; for so he thinks them, while they subtilly keep themselves most on his blind side. But after a while, as his manner is when soaring up into the high tower of his Apogæum, above the shadow of the earth, he darts out the direct rays of his then most piercing eyesight upon the impostures and trim disguises that were used with him, and discerns that this is not his genuine brother as he imagined; he has no longer the power to hold fellowship with such a personated mate: for straight his arrrows lose their golden heads, and shed their purple feathers, his silken braids untwine, and slip their knots, and that original and fiery virtue given him by fate all on a sudden goes out, and leaves him undeified and despoiled of all his force; till finding Anteros at last he kindles and repairs the almost faded ammunition of his deity by the reflection of a coequal and homogeneal fire. Thus mine author sung it to me: and by the leave of those who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no mere amatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful in these matters, men heretofore of greatest name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest arcs, that human contemplation circling upwards can make from the globy sea whereon she stands): but this a deep and serious verity, showing us that love in marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual; and where love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy. So far is his command from tying men to the observance of duties which there is no help for, but they must be dissembled. If Solomon’s advice be not over-frolic, “live joyfully,” saith he, “with the wife whom thou lovest, all thy days, for that is thy portion.” How then, where we find it impossible to rejoice or to love, can we obey this precept? How miserably do we defraud ourselves of that comfortable portion, which God gives us, by striving vainly to glue an error together, which God and nature will not join, adding but more vexation and violence to that blissful society by our importunate superstition, that will not hearken to St. Paul, 1 Cor. vii. who, speaking of marriage and divorce, determines plain enough in general, that God therein “hath called us to peace, and not to bondage.” Yea God himself commands in his law more than once, and by his prophet Malachi, as Calvin and the best translations read, that “he who hates, let him divorce,” that is, he who cannot love. Hence it is that the rabbins, and Maimonides, famous among the rest, in a book of his set forth by Buxtorfius, tells us, that “divorce was permitted by Moses to preserve peace in marriage, and quiet in the family.” Surely the Jews had their saving peace about them as well as we, yet care was taken that this wholesome provision for household peace should also be allowed them: and must this be denied to Christians? O perverseness! that the law should be made more provident of peace-making than the gospel! that the gospel should be put to beg a most necessary help of mercy from the law, but must not have it; and that to grind in the mill of an undelighted and servile copulation, must be the only forced work of a Christian marriage, ofttimes with such a yokefellow, from whom both love and peace, both nature and religion mourns to be separated. I cannot therefore be so diffident, as not securely to conclude, that he who can receive nothing of the most important helps in marriage, being thereby disenabled to return that duty which is his, with a clear and hearty countenance, and thus continues to grieve whom he would not, and is no less grieved; that man ought even for love’s sake and peace to move divorce upon good and liberal conditions to the divorced. And it is a less breach of wedlock to part with wise and quiet consent betimes, than still to foil and profane that mystery of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper: for it is not the outward continuing of marriage that keeps whole that covenant, but whatsoever does most according to peace and love, whether in marriage or in divorce, he it is that breaks marriage least; it being so often written, that “Love only is the fulfilling of every commandment.”

  CHAPTER VII.

  The fifth reason, that nothing more hinders and disturbs the whole life of a Christian, than a matrimony found to be incurably unfit, and doth the same in effect that doth an idolatrous match.

  Fifthly, As those priests of old were not to be long in sorrow, or if they were, they could not rightly execute their function; so every true Christian in a higher order of priesthood, is a person dedicate to joy and peace, offering himself a lively sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and there is no Christian duty that is not to be seasoned and set off with cheerishness; which in a thousand outward and intermitting crosses may yet be done well, as in this vale of tears: but in such a bosom affiction as this, crushing the very foundation of his inmost nature, when he shall be forced to love against a possibility, and to use a dissimulation against his soul in the perpetual and ceaseless duties of a husband; doubtless his whole duty of serving God must needs be blurred and tainted with a sad unpreparedness and dejection of spirit wherein God has no delight. Who sees not therefore how much more Christianity it would be to break by divorce, that which is more broken by undue and forcible keeping, rather than “to cover the altar of the Lord with continual tears, so that he regardeth not the offering any more,” rather than that the whole worship of a Christian man’s life should languish and fade away beneath the weight of an immeasurable grief and discouragement? And because some think the children of a second matrimony succeeding a divorce would not be a holy seed, it hindered not the Jews from being so; and why should we not think them more holy than the offspring of a former ill-twisted wedlock, begotten only out of a bestial necessity, without any true love or contentment, or joy to their parents? So that in some sense we may call them the “children of wrath” and anguish, which will as little conduce to their sanctifying, as if they had been bastards: for nothing more than disturbance of mind suspends us from approaching to God; such a disturbance especially, as both assaults our faith and trust in God’s providence, and ends, if there be not a miracle of virtue on either side, not only in bitterness and wrath, the canker of devotion, but in a desperate and vicious carelessness, when he sees himself, without fault of his, trained by a deceitful bait into a snare of misery, betrayed by an alluring ordinance, and then made the thrall of heaviness and discomfort by an undivorcing law of God, as he erroneously thinks, but of man’s iniquity, as the truth is: for that God prefers the free and cheerful worship of a Christian, before the grievance and exacted observance of an unhappy marriage, besides that the general maxims of religion assure us, will be more manifest by drawing a parallel argument from the ground of divorcing an idolatress, which was, lest she should alienate his heart from the true worship of God: and what difference is there whether she pervert him to supersition by her enticing sorcery, or disenable him in the whole service of God through the disturbance of her unhelpful and unfit society; and so drive him at last, through murmuring and despair, to thoughts of atheism? Neither doth it lessen the cause of separating, in that the one willingly allures him from the faith, the other perhaps unwillingly drives him; for in the account of God it comes all to one, that the wife loses him a servant: and therefore by all the united force of the Decalogue she ought to be disbanded, unless we must set marriage above God and charity, which is the doctrine of devils, no less than forbidding to marry.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  That an idolatrous heretic ought to be divorced, after a convenient space given to hope of conversion. That place of 1 Cor. vii. restored from a two-fold erroneous exposition; and that the common expositors flatly contradict the moral law.

  And here by the way, to illustrate the whole question of divorce, ere this treatise end, I shall not be loth to spend a few lines in hope to give a full resolve of that which is yet so much controverted; whether an idolatrous heretic ought to be divorced. To the resolving whereof we must first know, that the Jews were commanded to divorce an unbelieving Gentile for two causes: First, because all other nations, especially the Canaanites, were to them unclean. Secondly, to avoid seducement. That other nations were to the Jews impure, even to the separating in marriage, will appear out of Exod. xxxiv. 16, Deut. vii. 3, 6, compared with Ezra ix. 2, also chap. x. 10, 11, Neh. xiii. 30. This was the ground of that doubt raised among the Corinthians by some of the circumcision; whether an unbeliever were not still to be counted an unclean thing, so as that they ought to divorce from such a person. This doubt of theirs St. Paul removes by an evangelical reason, having respect to that vision of St. Peter, wherein the distinction of clean and unclean being abolished, all living creatures were sanctified to a pure and Christian use, and mankind especially, now invited by a general call to the covenant of grace. Therefore saith St. Paul, “the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband;” that is made pure and lawful to his use, so that he need not put her away for fear lest her unbelief should defile him; but that if he found her love still towards him he might rather hope to win her. The second reason of that divorce was to avoid seducement, as is proved by comparing those two places of the law to that which Ezra and Nehemiah did by divine warrant in compelling the Jews to forego their wives. And this reason is moral and perpetual in the rule of Christian faith without evasion; therefore saith the apostle, 2 Cor. vi., “Misyoke not together with infidels,” which is interpreted of marriage in the first place. And although the former legal pollution be now done off, yet there is a spiritual contagion in idolatry as much to be shunned; and though seducement were not to be feared, yet where there is no hope of converting, there always ought to be a certain religious aversion and abhorring, which can no way sort with marriage: Therefore saith St. Paul, “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” And in the next verse but one he moralizes, and makes us liable to that command of Isaiah; “Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord; touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive ye.” And this command thus gospelized to us, hath the same force with that whereon Ezra grounded the pious necessity of divorcing. Neither had he other commission for what he did, than such a general command in Deut. as this, nay not so direct; for he is bid there not to marry, but not bid to divorce, and yet we see with what a zeal and confidence he was the author of a general divorce between the faithful and the unfaithful seed. The gospel is more plainly on his side, according to three of the evangelists, than the words of the law; for where the case of divorce is handled with such severity, as was fittest to aggravate the fault of unbounded license; yet still in the same chapter, when it comes into question afterwards, whether any civil respect, or natural relation which is dearest, may be our plea to divide, or hinder, or but delay, our duty to religion, we hear it determined that father, and mother, and wife also, is not only to be hated, but forsaken, if we mean to inherit the great reward there promised. Nor will it suffice to be put off by saying we must forsake them only by not consenting or not complying with them, for that were to be done, and roundly too, though being of the same faith, they should but seek out of a fleshly tenderness to weaken our Christian fortitude with worldly persuasions, or but to unsettle our constancy with timorous and softening suggestions; as we may read with what a vehemence Job, the patientest of men, rejected the desperate counsels of his wife; and Moses, the meekest, being thoroughly offended with the profane speeches of Zippora, sent her back to her father. But if they shall perpetually, at our elbow, seduce us from the true worship of God, or defile and daily scandalize our conscience by their hopeless continuance in misbelief; than even in the due progress of reason, and that ever equal proportion which justice proceeds by, it cannot be imagined that his cited place commands less than a total and final separation from such an adherent; at least that no force should be used to keep them together; while we remember that God commanded Abraham to send away his irreligious wife and her son for the offences which they gave in a pious family. And it may be guessed that David, for the like cause, disposed of Michal in such a sort as little differed from a dismission. Therefore against reiterated scandals and seducements, which never cease, much more can no other remedy or retirement be found but absolute departure. For what kind of matrimony can that remain to be, what one duty between such can be performed as it should be from the heart, when their thoughts and spirits fly asunder as far as heaven and hell; especially if the time that hope should send forth her expected blossoms, be past in vain? It will easily be true, that a father or a brother may be hated zealously, and loved civilly, or naturally; for those duties may be performed at distance, and do admit of any long absence: but how the peace and perpetual cohabitation of marriage can be kept, how that benevolent and intimate communion of body can be held, with one that must be hated with a most operative hatred, must be forsaken and yet continually dwelt with and accompanied; he who can distinguish, hath the gift of an affection very oddly divided and contrived: while others both just and wise, and Solomon among the rest, if they may not hate and forsake as Moses enjoins, and the gospel imports, will find it impossible not to love otherwise than will sort with the love of God, whose jealousy brooks no co-rival. And whether is more likely, that Christ bidding to forsake wife for religion, meant it by divorce as Moses meant it, whose law, grounded on moral reason, was both his office and his essence to maintain; or that he should bring a new morality into religion, not only new, but contrary to an unchangeable command, and dangerously derogating from our love and worship of God? As if when Moses had bid divorce absolutely, and Christ had said, hate and forsake, and his apostle had said no communication with Christ and Belial; yet that Christ after all this could be understood to say, divorce not, no not for religion, seduce or seduce not. What mighty and invisible remora is this in matrimony able to demur and to contemn all the divorcive engines in heaven or earth! both which may now pass away, if this be true, for more than many jots or tittles, a whole moral law is abolished. But if we dare believe it is not, then in the method of religion, and to save the honour and dignity of our faith, we are to retreat and gather up ourselves from the observance of an inferior and civil ordinance, to the strict maintaining of a general and religious command, which is written, “Thou shalt make no covenant with them,” Deut. vii. 2. 3: and that covenant which cannot be lawfully made, we have directions and examples lawfully to dissolve. Also 2 Chron. ii. 19, “Shouldest thou love them that hate the Lord?” No doubtless; for there is a certain scale of duties, there is a certain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion.

  Upon these principles I answer, that a right believer ought to divorce an idolatrous heretic, unless upon better hopes: however, that it is in the believer’s choice to divorce or not.

  The former part will be manifest thus first, that an apostate idolater, whether husband or wife seducing, was to die by the decree of God, Deut. xiii. 6, 9; that marriage therefore God himself disjoins: for others born idolaters, the moral reason of their dangerous keeping, and the incommunicable antagony that is between Christ and Belial will be sufficient to enforce the commandment of those two inspired reformers Ezra and Nehemiah, to put an idolater away as well under the gospel.

  The latter part, that although there be no seducement feared, yet if there be no hope given, the divorce is lawful, will appear by this; that idolatrous marriage is still hateful to God, therefore still it may be divorced by the pattern of that warrant that Ezra had, and by the same everlasting reason: neither can any man give an account wherefore, if those whom God joins no man can separate, it should not follow, that whom he joins not, but hates to join, those men ought to separate. But saith the lawyer, “That which ought not to have been done, once done, avails.” I answer, “this is but a crotchet of the law; but that brought against it is plain Scripture.” As for what Christ spake concerning divorce, it is confessed by all knowing men, he meant only between them of the same faith. But what shall we say then to St. Paul, who seems to bid us not divorce an infidel willing to stay? We may safely say thus, that wrong collections have been hitherto made out of those words by modern divines. His drift, as was heard before, is plain; not to command our stay in marriage with an infidel, that had been a flat renouncing of the religious and moral law; but to inform the Corinthians, that the body of an unbeliever was not defiling, if his desire to live in Christian wedlock showed any likelihood that his heart was opening to the faith; and therefore advises to forbear departure so long till nothing have been neglected to set forward a conversion: this I say he advises, and that with certain cautions, not commands, if we can take up so much credit for him, as to get him believed upon his own word: for what is this else but his counsel in a thing indifferent, “to the rest speak I, not the Lord?” for though it be true, that the Lord never spake it, yet from St. Paul’s mouth we should have took it as a command, had not himself forewarned us, and disclaimed; which notwithstanding if we shall still avouch to be a command, he palpably denying it, this is not to expound St. Paul, but to outface him. Neither doth it follow, that the apostle may interpose his judgment in a case of Christian liberty, without the guilt of adding to God’s word. How do we know marriage or single life to be of choice, but by such like words as these, “I speak this by permission, not of commandment; I have no command of the Lord, yet I give my judgment.” Why shall not the like words have leave to signify a freedom in this our present question, though Beza deny? Neither is the Scripture hereby less inspired, because St. Paul confesses to have written therein what he had not of command: for we grant that the Spirit of God led him thus to express himself to Christian prudence, in a matter which God thought best to leave uncommanded. Beza therefore must be warily read, when he taxes St. Austin of blasphemy, for holding that St. Paul spake here as of a thing indifferent. But if it must be a command, I shall yet the more evince it to be a command that we should herein be left free; and that out of the Greek word used in the 12th ver., which instructs us plainly, there must be a joint assent and good liking on both sides: he that will not deprave the text must thus render it; “If a brother have an unbelieving wife, and she join in consent to dwell with him,” (which cannot utter less to us than a mutual agreement,) let him not put her away from the mere surmise of judaical uncleanness: and the reason follows, for the body of an infidel is not polluted, neither to benevolence, nor to procreation. Moreover, this note of mutual complacency forbids all offer of seducement, which to a person of zeal cannot be attempted without great offence: if therefore seducement be feared, this place hinders not divorce. Another caution was put in this supposed command, of not oringing the believer into “bondage” hereby, which doubtless might prove extreme, if Christian liberty and conscience were left to the humour of a pagan staying at pleasure to play with, and to vex and wound with a thousand scandals and burdens, above strength to bear. If therefore the conceived hope of gaining a soul come to nothing, then charity commands that the believer be not wearied out with endless waiting under many grievances sore to his spirit; but that respect be had rather to the present suffering of a true Christian, than the uncertain winning of an obdurate heretic. The counsel we have from St. Paul to hope, cannot countermand, the moral and evangelic charge we have from God to fear seducement, to separate from the misbeliever, the unclean, the obdurate. The apostle wisheth us to hope; but does not send us a wool-gathering after vain hope; he saith, “How knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” that is, till he try all due means, and set some reasonable time to himself, after which he may give over washing an Ethiop, if he will hear the advice of the gospel; “Cast not pearls before swine,” saith Christ himself. “Let him be to thee as a heathen. Shake the dust off thy feet.” If this be not enough, “hate and forsake” what relation soever. And this also that follows must appertain to the precept, “Let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God,” v. 24, that is, so walking in his inferior calling of marriage, as not by dangerous subjection to that ordinance, to hinder and disturb the higher calling of his Christianity. Last, and never too oft remembered, whether this be a command, or an advice, we must look that it be so understood as not to contradict the least point of moral religion that God hath formerly commanded; otherwise what do we but set the moral law and the gospel at civil war together? and who then shall be able to serve these two masters?

  CHAPTER IX.

  That adultery is not the greatest breach of matrimony: that there may be other violations as great.

  Now whether idolatry or adultery be the greatest violation of marriage, if any demand let him thus consider; that among Christian writers touching matrimony, there be three chief ends thereof agreed on: godly society, next civil, and thirdly, that of the marriage-bed. Of these the first in name to be the highest and most excellent, no baptized man can deny, nor that idolatry smites directly against this prime end; nor that such as the violated end is, such is the violation: but he who affirms adultery to be the highest breach, affirms the bed to be the highest of marriage, which is in truth a gross and boorish opinion, how common soever: as far from the countenance of Scripture, as from the light of all clean philosophy or civil nature. And out of the question the cheerful help that may be in marriage towards sanctity of life, is the purest, and so the noblest end of that contract: but if the particular of each person be considered, then of those three ends which God appointed, that to him is greatest which is most necessary; and marriage is then most broken to him when he utterly wants the fruition of that which he most sought therein, whether it were religious, civil, or corporal society. Of which wants to do him right by divorce only for the last and meanest is a perverse injury, and the pretended reason of it as frigid as frigidity itself, which the code and canon are only sensible of. Thus much of this controversy. I now return to the former argument. And having shown that disproportion, contrariety, or numbness of mind may justly be divorced, by proving already the prohibition thereof opposes the express end of God’s institution, suffers not marriage to satisfy that intellectual and innocent desire which God himself kindled in man to be the bond of wedlock, but only to remedy a sublunary and bestial burning, which frugal diet, without marriage, would easily chasten. Next, that it drives many to transgress the conjugal bed, while the soul wanders after that satisfaction which it had hope to find at home, but hath missed; or else it sits repining, even to atheism, finding itself hardly dealt with, but misdeeming the cause to be in God’s law, which is in man’s unrighteous ignorance. I have shown also how it unties the inward knot of marriage, which is peace and love, (if that can be untied which was never knit,) while it aims to keep fast the outward formality: how it lets perish the Christian man, to compel impossibly the married man.

  CHAPTER X.

  The sixth reason of this law; that to prohibit divorce sought for natural cases is against nature.

  The sixth place declares this prohibition to be as respectless of human nature, as it is of religion, and therefore is not of God. He teaches, that an unlawful marriage may be lawfully divorced: and that those who have thoroughly discerned each other’s disposition, which ofttimes cannot be till after matrimony, shall then find a powerful reluctance and recoil of nature on either side, blasting all the content of their mutual society, that such persons are not lawfully married, (to use the apostle’s words,) “Say I these things as a man or saith not the law also the same? For it is written, [Deut. xxii.] Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with different seeds, lest thou defile both. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together;” and the like. I follow the pattern of St. Paul’s reasoning; “Doth God care for asses and oxen,” how ill they yoke together, “or is it not said altogether for our sakes? for our sakes no doubt this is written.” Yea the apostle himself, in the forecited 2 Cor. vi. 14, alludes from that place of Deut. to forbid misyoking marriage, as by the Greek word is evident; though he instance but in one example of mismatching with an infidel, yet next to that, what can be a fouler incongruity, a greater violence to the reverend secret of nature, than to force a mixture of minds that cannot unite, and to sow the sorrow of man’s nativity with seed of two incoherent and incombining dispositions? which act being kindly and voluntary, as it ought, the apostle in the language he wrote called eunoia, and the Latins, benevolence, intimating the original thereof to be in the understanding, and the will; if not, surely there is nothing which might more properly be called a male-volence rather; and is the most injurious and unnatural tribute that can be extorted from a person endued with reason, to be made pay out the best substance of his body, and of his soul too, as some think, when either for just and powerful causes he cannot like, or from unequal causes finds not recompense. And that there is a hidden efficacy of love and hatred in man as well as in other kinds, not moral but natural, which though not always in the choice, yet in the success of marriage will ever be most predominant, besides daily experience, the author of Ecclesiasticus, whose wisdom hath set him next the Bible, acknowledges, xiii. 16, “A man, saith he, will cleave to his like.” But what might be the cause, whether each one’s allotted Genius or proper star, or whether the supernal* influence of schemes and angular aspects, or this elemental crasis here below; whether all these jointly or singly meeting friendly, or unfriendly in either party, I dare not, with the men I am like to clash, appear so much a philosopher as to conjecture. The ancient proverb in Homer less abstruse, entitles this work of leading each like person to his like, peculiarly to God himself: which is plain enough also by his naming of a meet or like help in the first espousal instituted; and that every woman is meet for every man, none so absurd as to affirm. Seeing then there is a twofold seminary, or stock in nature, from whence are derived the issues of love and hatred, distinctly flowing through the whole mass of created things, and that God’s doing ever is to to bring the due likenesses and harmonies of his works together, except when out of two contraries met to their own destruction, he moulds a third existence; and that it is error, or some evil angel which either blindly or maliciously hath drawn together, in two persons ill embarked in wedlock, the sleeping discords and enmities of nature, lulled on purpose with some false bait, that they may wake to agony and strife, later than prevention could have wished, if from the bent of just and honest intentions beginning what was begun and so continuing, all that is equal, all that is fair and possible hath been tried, and no accommodation likely to succeed; what folly is it still to stand combating and battering against invincible causes and effects, with evil upon evil, till either the best of our days be lingered out, or ended with some speeding sorrow! The wise Ecclesiasticus advises rather, xxxvii. 27, “My son, prove thy soul in thy life, see what is evil for it, and give not that unto it.” Reason he had to say so; for if the noisomeness or disfigurement of body can soon destroy the sympathy of mind to wedlock duties, much more will the annoyance and trouble of mind infuse itself into all the faculties and acts of the body, to render them invalid, unkindly, and even unholy against the fundamental law book of nature, which Moses never thwarts, but reverences: therefore he commands us to force nothing against sympathy or natural order, no not upon the most abject creatures; to show that such an indignity cannot be offered to man without an impious crime. And certainly those divine meditating words of finding out a meet and like help to man, have in them a consideration of more than the indefinite likeness of womanhood; nor are they to be made waste paper on, for the dulness of canon divinity: no, nor those other allegoric precepts of beneficence fetched out of the closet of nature, to teach us goodness and compassion in not compelling together unmatchable societies; or if they meet through mischance, by all consequence to disjoin them, as God and nature signifies, and lectures to us not only by those recited decrees, but even by the first and last of all his visible works; when by his divorcing command the world first rose out of chaos, nor can be renewed again out of confusion, but by the separating of unmeet consorts.

  CHAPTER XI.

  The seventh reason, that sometimes continuance in marriage may be evidently the shortening or endangering of life to either party; both law and divinity concluding, that life is to be preferred before marriage, the intended solace of life.

  Seventhly, The canon law and divines consent, that if either party be found contriving against another’s life, they may be served by divorce: for a sin against the life of marriage is greater than a sin against the bed; the one destroys, the other but defiles. The same may be said touching those persons who being of a pensive nature and course of life, have summed up all their solace in that free and lightsome conversation which God and man intends in marriage; whereof when they see themselves deprived by meeting an unsociable consort, they ofttimes resent one another’s mistake so deeply, that long it is not ere grief end one of them. When therefore this danger is foreseen, that the life is in peril by living together, what matter is it whether helpless grief or wilful practice be the cause? This is certain, that the preservation of life is more worth than the compulsory keeping of marriage; and it is no less than cruelty to force a man to remain in that state as the solace of his life, which he and his friends know will be either the undoing or the disheartening of his life. And what is life without the vigour and spiritual exercise of life? How can it be useful either to private or public employment? Shall it therefore be quite dejected, though never so valuable, and left to moulder away in heaviness, for the superstitious and impossible performance of an ill-driven bargain? Nothing more inviolable than vows made to God; yet we read in Numbers, that if a wife had made such a vow, the mere will and authority of her husband might break it: how much more then may he break the error of his own bonds with an unfit and mistaken wife, to the saving of his welfare, his life, yea his faith and virtue, from the hazard of overstrong temptations? For if man be lord of the sabbath, to the curing of a fever, can he be less than lord of marriage in such important causes as these?

  CHAPTER XII.

  The eighth reason, It is probable, or rather certain, that every one who happens to marry, hath not the calling; and therefore upon unfitness found and considered, force ought not to be used.

  Eighthly, It is most sure that some even of those who are not plainly defective in body, yet are destitute of all other marriageable gifts, and consequently have not the calling to marry, unless nothing be requisite thereto but a mere instrumental body; which to affirm, is to that unanimous covenant a reproach: yet it is as sure that many such, not of their own desire, but by the persuasion of friends, or not knowing themselves, do often enter into wedlock; where finding the difference at length between the duties of a married life, and the gifts of a single life, what unfitness of mind, what wearisomeness, scruples, and doubts, to an incredible offence and displeasure, are like to follow between, may be soon imagined; whom thus to shut up, and immure, and shut up together, the one with a mischosen mate, the other in a mistaken calling, is not a course that Christian wisdom and tenderness ought to use. As for the custom that some parents and guardians have of forcing marriages, it will be better to say nothing of such a savage inhumanity, but only thus; that the law which gives not all freedom of divorce to any creature endued with reason so assassinated, is next in cruelty.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  The ninth reason; because marriage is not a mere carnal coition, but a human society: where that cannot reasonably be had, there can be no true matrimony. Marriage compared with all other covenants and vows warrantably broken for the good of man. Marriage the Papists’ sacrament, and unfit marriage the Protestants’ idol.

  Ninthly, I suppose it will be allowed us that marriage is a human society, and that all human society must proceed from the mind rather than the body, else it would be but a kind of animal or beastish meeting: if the mind therefore cannot have that due company by marriage that it may reasonably and humanly desire, that marriage can be no human society, but a certain formality; or gilding over of little better than a brutish congress, and so in very wisdom and pureness to be dissolved.

  But marriage is more than human, “the covenant of God,” Prov. ii. 17, therefore man cannot dissolve it. I answer, if it be more than human, so much the more it argues the chief society thereof to be in the soul rather than in the body, and the greatest breach thereof to be unfitness of mind rather than defect of body: for the body can have least affinity in a covenant more than human, so that the reason of dissolving holds good the rather. Again, I answer, that the sabbath is a higher institution, a command of the first table, for the breach whereof God hath far more and oftener testified his anger than for divorces, which from Moses to Malachi he never took displeasure at, nor then neither if we mark the text; and yet as oft as the good of man is concerned, he not only permits, but commands to break the sabbath. What covenant more contracted with God and less in man’s power, than the vow which hath once passed his lips? yet if it be found rash, if offensive, if unfruitful either to God’s glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not error and unwillingness irksomely to keep it, but counsels wisdom and better thoughts boldly to break it; therefore to enjoin the indissoluble keeping of a marriage found unfit against the good of man both soul and body, as hath been evidenced, is to make an idol of marriage, to advance it above the worship of God and the good of man, to make it a transcendent command, above both the second and first table; which is a most prodigious doctrine.

  Next, whereas they cite out of the Proverbs, that it is the covenant of God, and therefore more than human, that consequence is manifestly false: for so the covenant which Zedekiah made with the infidel king of Babel, is called the Covenant of God, Ezek. xvii. 19, which would be strange to hear counted more than a human covenant. So every covenant between man and man, bound by oath, may be called the covenant of God, because God therein is attested. So of marriage he is the author and the witness; yet hence will not follow any divine astriction more than what is subordinate to the glory of God, and the main good of either party: for as the glory of God and their esteemed fitness one for the other, was the motive which led them both at first to think without other revelation that God had joined them together; so when it shall be found by their apparent unfitness, that their continuing to be man and wife is against the glory of God and their mutual happiness, it may assure them that God never joined them; who hath revealed his gracious will not to set the ordinance above the man for whom it was ordained; not to canonize marriage either as a tyranness or a goddess over the enfranchised life and soul of man; for wherein can God delight, wherein be worshipped, wherein be glorified by the forcible continuing of an improper and ill-yoking couple? He that loved not to see the disparity of several cattle at the plough, cannot be pleased with vast unmeetness in marriage. Where can be the peace and love which must invite God to such a house? May it not be feared that the not divorcing of such a helpless disagreement will be the divorcing of God finally from such a place? But it is a trial of our patience, say they: I grant it; but which of Job’s afflictions were sent him with that law, that he might not use means to remove any of them if he could? And what if it subvert our patience and our faith too? Who shall answer for the perishing of all those souls, perishing by stubborn expositions of particular and inferior precepts against the general and supreme rule of charity? They dare not affirm that marriage is either a sacrament or a mystery, though all those sacred things give place to man; and yet they invest it with such an awful sanctity, and give it such adamantine chains to bind with, as if it were to be worshipped like some Indian deity, when it can confer no blessing upon us, but works more and more to our misery. To such teachers the saying of St. Peter at the council of Jerusalem will do well to be applied: “Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the necks of” Christian men, which neither the Jews, God’s ancient people, “nor we are able to bear;” and nothing but unwary expounding hath brought upon us?

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Considerations concerning Familism, Antinomianism; and why it may be thought that such opinions may proceed from the undue restraint of some just liberty, than which no greater cause to contemn discipline.

  To these considerations this also may be added as no improbable conjecture, seeing that sort of men who follow Anabaptism, Familism, Anti-nomianism, and other fanatic dreams, (if we understand them not amiss,) be such most commonly as are by nature addicted to religion, of life also not debauched, and that their opinions having full swing, do end in satisfaction of the flesh; it may be come with reason into the thoughts of a wise man, whether all this proceed not partly, if not chiefly, from the restraint of some lawful liberty, which ought to be given men, and is denied them? As by physic we learn in menstruous bodies, where nature’s current hath been stopped, that the suffocation and upward forcing of some lower part affects the head and inward sense with dotage and idle fancies. And on the other hand, whether the rest of vulgar men not so religiously professing, do not give themselves much the more to whoredom and adulteries, loving the corrupt and venial discipline of clergy-courts, but hating to hear of perfect reformation; whenas they foresee that then fornication shall be austerely censured, adultery punished, and marriage, the appointed refuge of nature though it hap to be never so incongruous and displeasing, must yet of force be worn out, when it can be to no other purpose but of strife and hatred, a thing odious to God? This may be worth the study of skilful men in theology, and the reason of things. And lastly, to examine whether some undue and ill-grounded strictness upon the blameless nature of man, be not the cause in those places where already reformation is, that the discipline of the church, so often, and so unavoidably broken, is brought into contempt and derision? And if it be thus, let those who are still bent to hold this obstinate literality, so prepare themselves, as to share in the account for all these transgressions, when it shall be demanded at the last day, by one who will scan and sift things with more than a literal wisdom of equity: for if these reasons be duly pondered, and that the gospel is more jealous of laying on excessive burdens than ever the law was, lest the soul of a Christian, which is inestimable, should be over-tempted and cast away; considering also that many properties of nature, which the power of regeneration itself never alters, may cause dislike of conversing, even between the most sanctified; which continually grating in harsh tune together, may breed some jar and discord, and that end in rancour and strife, a thing so opposite both to marriage and to Christianity, it would perhaps be less scandal to divorce a natural disparity, than to link violently together, an unchristian dissension, committing two insnared souls inevitably to kindle one another, not with the fire of love, but with a hatred irreconcileable; who, were they dissevered, would be straight friends in any other relation. But if an alphabetical servility must be still urged, it may so fall out, that the true church may unwittingly use as much cruelty in forbidding to divorce, as the church of Antichrist doth wilfully in forbidding to marry.

  BOOK II.

  CHAPTER I.

  The ordinance of sabbath and marriage compared. Hyperbole no unfrequent figure in the gospel. Excess cured by contrary excess. Christ neither did nor could abrogate the law of divorce, but only reprieve the abuse thereof.

  Hitherto the position undertaken has been declared, and proved by a law of God, that law proved to be moral, and unabolishable, for many reasons equal, honest, charitable, just, annexed thereto. It follows now, that those places of Scripture, which have a seeming to revoke the prudence of Moses, or rather that merciful decree of God, be forthwith explained and reconciled. For what are all these reasonings worth, will some reply, whenas the words of Christ are plainly against all divorce, “except in case of fornication?” to whom he whose mind were to answer no more but this, “except also in case of charity,” might safely appeal to the more plain words of Christ in defence of so excepting. “Thou shalt do no manner of work,” saith the commandment of the sabbath. Yes, saith Christ, works of charity. And shall we be more severe in paraphrasing the considerate and tender gospel, than he was in expounding the rigid and peremptory law? What was ever in all appearance less made for man, and more for God alone, than the sabbath? yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we hear that voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that “sabbath was made for man, and not man for sabbath.” What thing ever was more made for man alone, and less for God, than marriage? And shall we load it with a cruel and senseless bondage utterly against both the good of man, and the glory of God? Let whoso will now listen; I want neither pall nor mitre, I stay neither for ordination nor induction; but in the firm faith of a knowing Christian, which is the best and truest endowment of the keys, I pronounce the man, who shall bind so cruelly a good and gracious ordinance of God, hath not in that the spirit of Christ. Yet that every text of Scripture seeming opposite may be attended with a due exposition, this other part ensues, and makes account to find no slender arguments for this assertion, out of those very scriptures, which are commonly urged against it.

  First, therefore, let us remember, as a thing not to be denied, that all places of Scripture, wherein just reason of doubt arises from the letter, are to be expounded by considering upon what occasion every thing is set down, and by comparing other texts. The occasion which induced our Saviour to speak of divorce, was either to convince the extravagance of the Pharisees in that point, or to give a sharp and vehement answer to a tempting question. And in such cases, that we are not to repose all upon the literal terms of so many words, many instances will teach us: wherein we may plainly discover how Christ meant not to be taken word for word, but like a wise physician, administering one excess against another, to reduce us to a permiss; where they were too remiss, he saw it needful to seem most severe: in one place he censures an unchaste look to be adultery already committed; another time he passes over actual adultery with less reproof than for an unchaste look; not so heavily condemning secret weakness, as open malice: so here he may be justly thought to have given this rigid sentence against divorce not to cut off all remedy from a good man, who finds himself consuming away in a disconsolate and unenjoined matrimony, but to lay a bridle upon the bold abuses of those overweening rabbies; which he could not more effectually do, than by a countersway of restraint curbing their wild exorbitance almost in the other extreme; as when we bow things the contrary way, to make them come to their natural straightness. And that this was the only intention of Christ is most evident, if we attend but to his own words and protestation made in the same sermon, not many verses before he treats of divorcing, that he came not to abrogate from the law “one jot or tittle,” and denounces against them that shall so teach.

  But St. Luke, the verse immediately foregoing that of divorce, inserts the same caveat, as if the latter could not be understood without the former; and as a witness to produce against this our wilful mistake of abrogating, which must needs confirm us, that whatever else in the political law of more special relation to the Jews might cease to us; yet that of those precepts concerning divorce, not one of them was repealed by the doctrine of Christ, unless we have vowed not to believe his own cautious and immediate profession; for if these our Saviour’s words inveigh against all divorce, and condemn it as adultery, except it be for adultery, and be not rather understood against the abuse of those divorces permitted in the law, then is that law of Moses, Deut. xxiv. 1, not only repealed and wholly annulled against the promise of Christ, and his known profession not to meddle in matters judicial; but that which is more strange, the very substance and purpose of that law is contradicted, and convinced both of injustice and impurity, as having authorized and maintained legal adultery by statute. Moses also cannot scape to be guilty of unequal and unwise decrees punishing one act of secret adultery by death, and permitting a whole life of open adultery by law. And albeit lawyers write, that some political edicts, though not approved, are yet allowed to the scum of the people, and the necessity of the times; these excuses have but a weak pulse: for first, we read, not that the scoundrel people, but the choicest, the wisest, the holiest of that nation have frequently used these laws, or such as these, in the best and holiest times. Secondly, be it yielded, that in matters not very bad or impure, a human lawgiver may slacken something of that which is exactly good, to the disposition of the people and the times: but if the perfect, the pure, the righteous law of God, (for so are all his statutes and his judgments,) be found to have allowed smoothly, without any certain reprehension, that which Christ afterward declares to be adultery, how can we free this law from the horrible indictment of being both impure, unjust, and fallacious?

  CHAPTER II.

  How divorce was permitted for hardness of heart, cannot be understood by the common exposition. That the law cannot permit, much less enact a permission of sin.

  Neither, will it serve to say this was permitted for the hardness of their hearts, in that sense as it is usually explained: for the law were then but a corrupt and erroneous schoolmaster, teaching us to dash against a vital maxim of religion, by doing foul evil in hope of some certain good.

  This only text is not to be matched again throughout the whole Scripture, whereby God in his perfect law should seem to have granted to the hard hearts of his holy people, under his own hand, a civil immunity and free charter to live and die in a long successive adultery, under a covenant of works, till the Messiah, and then that indulgent permission to be strictly denied by a covenant of grace; besides, the incoherence of such a doctrine cannot, must not be thus interpreted, to the raising of a paradox never known till then, only hanging by the twined thread of one doubtful scripture, against so many other rules and leading principles of religion, of justice, and purity of life. For what could be granted more either to the fear, or to the lust of any tyrant or politician, than this authority of Moses thus expounded; which opens him a way at will to dam up justice, and not only to admit of any Romish or Austrian dispenses, but to enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate vice, to make sin itself, the ever alien and vassal sin, a free citizen of the commonwealth, pretending only these or these plausible reasons? And well he might, all the while that Moses shall be alleged to have done as much without showing any reason at all. Yet this could not enter into the heart of David, Psal. xciv. 20, how any such authority, as endeavours to “fashion wickedness by a law,” should derive itself from God. And Isaiah says, “Woe upon them that decree unrighteous decrees,” chap. x. 1. Now which of these two is the better lawgiver, and which deserves most a woe, he that gives out an edict singly unjust, or he that confirms to generations a fixed and unmolested impunity of that which is not only held to be unjust, but also unclean, and both in a high degree; not only as they themselves affirm, an injurious expulsion of one wife, but also an unclean freedom by more than a patent to wed another adulterously? How can we therefore with safety thus dangerously confine the free simplicity of our Saviour’s meaning to that which merely amounts from so many letters, whenas it can consist neither with its former and cautionary words, nor with other more pure and holy principles, nor finally with a scope of charity, commanding by his express commission in a higher strain? But all rather of necessity must be understood as only against the abuse of that wise and ingenuous liberty, which Moses gave, and to terrify a roving conscience from sinning under that pretext.

  CHAPTER III.

  That to allow sin by law is against the nature of law, the end of the lawgiver, and the good of the people. Impossible therefore in the law of God. That it makes God the author of sin more than any thing objected by the Jesuits or Arminians against predestination.

  But let us yet further examine upon what consideration a law of license could be thus given to a holy people for their hardness of heart. I suppose all will answer, that for some good end or other. But here the contrary shall be proved. First, that many ill effects, but no good end of such a sufferance can be shown; next, that a thing unlawful can, for no good end whatever, be either done or allowed by a positive law. If there were any good end aimed at, that end was then good either to the law or to the lawgiver licensing; or as to the person licensed. That it could not be the end of the law, whether moral or judicial, to license a sin, I prove easily out of Rom. v. 20, “The law entered, that the offence might abound,” that is, that sin might be made abundantly manifest to be heinous and displeasing to God, that so his offered grace might be the more esteemed. Now if the law, instead of aggravating and terrifying sin, shall give out license, it foils itself and turns recreant from its own end: it forestalls the pure grace of Christ, which is through righteousness, with impure indulgences, which are through sin. And instead of discovering sin, for “by the law is the knowledge thereof,” saith St. Paul; and that by certain and true light for men to walk in safety, it holds out false and dazzling fires to stumble men; or, like those miserable flies, to run into with delight and be burnt: for how many souls might easily think that to be lawful which the law and magistrate allowed them? Again, we read, 1 Tim. i. 5, “The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” But never could that be charity, to allow a people what they could not use with a pure heart, but with conscience and faith both deceived, or else despised. The more particular end of the judicial law is set forth to us clearly, Rom. xiii. That God hath given to that “law a sword not in vain, but to be a terror to evil works, a revenge to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.” If this terrible commission should but forbear to punish wickedness, were it other to be accounted than partial and unjust? but if it begin to write indulgence to vulgar uncleanness, can it do more to corrupt and shame the end of its own being? Lastly, if the law allow sin, it enters into a kind of covenant with sin; and if it do, there is not a greater sinner in the world than the law itself. The law, to use an allegory something different from that in Philo-Judæus concerning Amalek, though haply more significant, the law is the Israelite, and hath this absolute charge given it, Deut. xxv. “To blot out the memory of sin, the Amalekite, from under heaven, not to forget it.” Again, the law is the Israelite, and hath this express repeated command, “to make no covenant with sin, the Canaanite,” but to expel him lest he prove a snare. And to say truth, it were too rigid and reasonless to proclaim such an enmity between man and man, were it not the type of a greater enmity between law and sin. I speak even now, as if sin were condemned in a perpetual villanage never to be free by law, never to be manumitted: but sure sin can have no tenure by law at all, but is rather an eternal outlaw, and in hostility with law past all atonement: both diagonal contraries, as much allowing one another, as day and night together in one hemisphere. Or if it be possible, that sin with his darkness may come to composition, it cannot be without a foul eclipse and twilight to the law, whose brightness ought to surpass the noon. Thus we see how this unclean permittance defeats the sacred and glorious end both of the moral and judicial law.

  As little good can the lawgiver propose to equity by such a lavish remissness as this: if to remedy hardness of heart, Paræus and other divines confess it more increases by this liberty, than is lessened: and how is it probable, that their hearts were more hard in this, that it should be yielded to, than in any other crime? Their hearts were set upon usury, and are to this day, no nation more; yet that which was the endamaging only of their estates was narrowly forbid; this which is thought the extreme injury and dishonour of their wives and daughters, with the defilement also of themselves, is bounteously allowed. Their hearts were as hard under their best kings to offer in high places, though to the true God: yet that, but a small thing, it strictly forewarned; this, accounted a high offence against one of the greatest moral duties, is calmly permitted and established. How can it be evaded, but that the heavy censure of Christ should fall worse upon this lawgiver of theirs, than upon all the scribes and Pharisees? For they did but omit judgment and mercy to trifle in mint and cummin, yet all according to law; but this their lawgiver, altogether as punctual in such niceties, goes marching on to adulteries, through the violence of divorce by law against law. If it were such a cursed act of Pilate a subordinate judge to Cæsar, overswayed by those hard hearts, with much ado to suffer one transgression of law but once, what is it then with less ado to publish a law of transgression for many ages? Did God for this come down and cover the mount of Sinai with his glory, uttering in thunder those his sacred ordinances out of the bottomless treasures of his wisdom and infinite pureness, to patch up an ulcerous and rotten commonwealth with strict and stern injunctions, to wash the skin and garments for every unclean touch; and such easy permission given to pollute the soul with adulteries by public authority, without disgrace or question? No, it had been better that man had never known law or matrimony, than that such foul iniquity should be fastened upon the Holy One of Israel, the Judge of all the earth; and such a piece of folly as Belzebub would not commit, to divide against himself, and prevent his own ends: or if he, to compass more certain mischief, might yield perhaps to feign some good deed, yet that God should enact a license of certain evil for uncertain good against his own glory and pureness, is abominable to conceive. And as it is destructive to the end of law, and blasphemous to the honour of the lawgiver licensing, so is it as pernicious to the person licensed. If a private friend admonish not, the Scripture saith, “he hates his brother, and lets him perish;” but if he soothe him and allow his faults, the Proverbs teach us “he spreads a net for his neighbour’s feet, and worketh ruin.” If the magistrate or prince forget to administer due justice, and restrain not sin, Eli himself could say, “it made the Lord’s people to transgress.” But if he countenance them against law by his own example, what havoc it makes both in religion and virtue among the people may be guessed, by the anger it brought upon Hophni and Phineas not to be appeased “with sacrifice nor offering for ever.” If the law be silent to declare sin, the people must needs generally go astray, for the apostle himself saith, “he had not known lust but by the law:” and surely such a nation seems not to be under the illuminating guidance of God’s law, but under the horrible doom rather of such as despise the gospel; “he that is filthy, let him be filthy still.” But where the law itself gives a warrant for sin, I know not what condition of misery to imagine miserable enough for such a people, unless that portion of the wicked, or rather of the damned, on whom God threatens, in Psal. xi. “to rain snares;” but that questionless cannot be by any law, which the apostle saith is “a ministry ordained of God for our good,” and not so many ways and in so high a degree to our destruction, as we have now been graduating. And this is all the good can come to the person licensed in his hardness of heart.

  I am next to mention that, which because it is a ground in divinity, Rom. iii. will save the labour of demonstrating, unless her given axioms be more doubted than in other hearts, (although it be no less firm in precepts of philosophy,) that a thing unlawful can for no good whatsoever be done, much less allowed by a positive law. And this is the matter why interpreters upon that passage in Hosea will not consent it to be a true story, that the prophet took a harlot to wife: because God, being a pure spirit, could not command a thing repugnant to his own nature, no not for so good an end as to exhibit more to the life a wholesome and perhaps a converting parable to many an Israelite. Yet that he commanded the allowance of adulterous and injurious divorces for hardness of heart, a reason obscure and in a wrong sense, they can very favourably persuade themselves; so tenacious is the leaven of an old conceit. But they shift it; he permitted only. Yet silence in the law is consent, and consent is accessory: why then is not the law being silent, or not active against a crime, accessory to its own conviction, itself judging? For though we should grant, that it approves not, yet it wills: and the lawyers’ maxim is, that “the will compelled is yet the will.” And though Aristotle in his ethics calls this “mixed action,” yet he concludes it to be voluntary and inexcusable, if it be evil. How justly then might human law and philosophy rise up against the righteousness of Moses, if this be true which our vulgar divinity fathers upon him, yea upon God himself, not silently, and only negatively to permit, but in his law to divulge a written and general privilege to commit and persist in unlawful divorces with a high hand, with security and no ill fame? for this is more than permitting and contriving, this is maintaining: this is warranting, this is protecting, yea this is doing evil, and such an evil as that reprobate lawgiver did, whose lasting infamy is engraven upon him like a surname, “he who made Israel to sin.” This is the lowest pitch contrary to God that public fraud and injustice can descend.

  If it be affirmed, that God, as being Lord, may do what he will, ye we must know, that God hath not two wills, but one will, much less two contrary. If he once willed adultery should be sinful, and to be punished with death, all his omnipotence will not allow him, to will the allowance that his holiest people might as it were by his own antinomy, or counter-statute, live unreproved in the same fact as he himself esteemed it, according to our common explainers. The hidden ways of his providence we adore and search not, but the law is his revealed will, his complete, his evident and certain will: herein he appears to us as it were in human shape, enters into covenant with us, swears to keep it, binds himself like a just lawgiver to his own prescriptions, gives himself to be understood by men, judges and is judged, measures and is commensurate to right reason; cannot require less of us in one cantle of his law than in another, his legal justice cannot be so fickle and so variable, sometimes like a devouring fire, and by and by connivent in the embers, or, if I may so say, oscitant and supine. The vigour of his law could no more remit, than the hallowed fire upon his altar could be let go out. The lamps that burned before him might need snuffing, but the light of his law never. Of this also more beneath, in discussing a solution of Rivetus.

  The Jesuits, and that sect among us which is named of Arminius, are wont to charge us of making God the author of sin, in two degrees especially, not to speak of his permission: 1. Because we hold, that he hath decreed some to damnation, and consequently to sin, say they: next, because those means, which are of saving knowledge to others, he makes to them an occasion of greater sin. Yet considering the perfection wherein man was created and might have stood, no degree necessitating his freewill, but subsequent, though not in time, yet in order to causes which were in his own power; they might methinks be persuaded to absolve both God and us. Whenas the doctrine of Plato and Chrysippus, with their followers, the Academics and the Stoics, who knew not what a consummate and most adorned Pandora was bestowed upon Adam, to be the nurse and guide of his arbitrary happiness and perseverance, I mean his native innocence and perfection, which might have kept him from being our true Epimetheus; and though they taught of virtue and vice to be both the gift of divine destiny, they could yet give reasons not invalid, to justify the councils of God and fate from the insulsity of mortal tongues: that man’s own freewill self-corrupted, is the adequate and sufficient cause of his disobedience besides fate; as Homer also wanted not to express, both in his Iliad and Odyssee. And Manilius the poet, although in his fourth book he tells of some “created both to sin and punishment;” yet without murmuring, and with an industrious cheerfulness, he acquits the Deity. They were not ignorant in their heathen lore, that it is most godlike to punish those who of his creatures became his enemies with the greatest punishment; and they could attain also to think, that the greatest, when God himself throws a man furthest from him; which then they held he did, when he blinded, hardened, and stirred up his offenders, to finish and pile up their desperate work since they had undertaken it. To banish for ever into a local hell, whether in the air, or in the centre, or in that uttermost and bottomless gulf of chaos, deeper from holy bliss than the world’s diameter multiplied; they thought not a punishing so proper and proportionate for God to inflict, as to punish sin with sin. Thus were the common sort of Gentiles wont to think, without any wry thoughts cast upon divine governance. And therefore Cicero, not in his Tusculan or Campanian retirements among the learned wits of that age, but even in the senate to a mixed auditory, (though he were sparing otherwise to broach his philosophy among statists and lawyers,) yet as to this point, both in his oration against Piso, and in that which is about the answers of the soothsayers against Clodius, he declares it publicly as no paradox to common ears, that God cannot punish man more, nor make him more miserable, than still by making him more sinful. Thus we see how in this controversy the justice of God stood upright even among heathen disputers. But if any one be truly, and not pretendedly zealous for God’s honour, here I call him forth before men and angels, to use his best and most advised skill, lest God more unavoidably than ever yet, and in the guiltiest manner, be made the author of sin: if he shall not only deliver over and incite his enemies by rebuke to sin as a punishment, but shall by patent under his own broad seal allow his friends whom he would sanctify and save, whom he would unite to himself and not disjoin, whom he would correct by wholesome chastening, and not punish as he doth the damned by lewd sinning; if he shall allow these in his law, the perfect rule of his own purest will, and our most edified conscience, the perpetrating of an odious and manifold sin without the least contesting. It is wondered how there can be in God a secret and revealed will; and yet what wonder, if there be in man two answerable causes. But here there must be two revealed wills grappling in a fraternal war with one another without any reasonable cause apprehended. This cannot be less, than to ingraft sin into the substance of the law, which law is to provoke sin by crossing and forbidding, not by complying with it. Nay this is, which I tremble in uttering, to incarnate sin into the unpunishing and well-pleased will of God. To avoid these dreadful consequences, that tread upon the heels of those allowances to sin, will be a task of far more difficulty, than to appease those minds, which perhaps out of a vigilant and wary conscience except against predestination. Thus finally we may conclude, that a law wholly giving license cannot upon any good consideration be given to a holy people, for hardness of heart in the vulgar sense.

  CHAPTER IV.

  That if divorce be no command, no more is marriage. That divorce could be no dispensation, if it were sinful. The solution of Rivetus, that Goa dispensed by some unknown way, ought not to satisfy a Christian mind.

  Others think to evade the matter by not granting any law of divorce, but only a dispensation, which is contrary to the words of Christ, who himself calls it a “Law,” Mark x. 5: or if we speak of a command in the strictest definition, then marriage itself is no more a command than divorce, but only a free permission to him who cannot contain. But as to dispensation, I affirm, the same as before of the law, that it can never be given to the allowance of sin: God cannot give it, neither in respect of himself, nor in respect of man; not in respect of himself, being a most pure essence, the just avenger of sin; neither can he make that cease to be a sin, which is in itself unjust and impure, as all divorces they say were, which were not for adultery. Not in respect of man, for then it must be either to his good, or to his evil. Not to his good; for how can that be imagined any good to a sinner, whom nothing but rebuke and due correction can save, to hear the determinate oracle of divine law louder than any reproof dispensing and providing for the impunity and convenience of sin; to make that doubtful, or rather lawful, which the end of the law was to make most evidently hateful? Nor to the evil of man can a dispense be given; for if “the law were ordained unto life,” Rom. vii. 10, how can the same God publish dispenses against that law, which must needs be unto death? Absurd and monstrous would that dispense be, if any judge or law should give it a man to cut his own throat, or to damn himself. Dispense therefore presupposes full pardon, or else it is not a dispense, but a most baneful and bloody snare. And why should God enter covenant with a people to be holy, as “the command is holy, and just, and good,” Rom. vii. 12, and yet suffer an impure and treacherous dispense, to mislead and betray them under the vizard of law to a legitimate practice of uncleanness? God is no covenant-breaker; he cannot do this.

  Rivetus, a diligent and learned writer, having well weighed what hath been written by those founders of dispense, and finding the small agreement among them, would fain work himself aloof these rocks and quicksands, and thinks it best to conclude, that God certainly did dispense, but by some way to us unknown, and so to leave it. But to this I oppose, that a Christian by no means ought to rest himself in such an ignorance; whereby so many absurdities will straight reflect both against the purity, justice, and wisdom of God, the end also both of law and gospel, and the comparison of them both together. God indeed in some ways of his providence is high and secret, past finding out: but in the delivery and execution of his law, especially in the managing of a duty so daily and so familiar as this is whereof we reason, hath plain enough revealed himself, and requires the observance thereof not otherwise, than to the law of nature and equity imprinted in us seems correspondent. And he hath taught us to love and extol his laws, not only as they are his, but as they are just and good to every wise and sober understanding. Therefore Abraham, even to the face of God himself, seemed to doubt of divine justice, if it should swerve from the irradiation wherewith it had enlightened the mind of man, and bound itself to observe its own rule; “wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? that be far from thee; shall not the judge of the earth do right?” Thereby declaring, that God hath created a righteousness in right itself, against which he cannot do. So David, Psalm cxix., “the testimonies which thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful; thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.” Not only then for the author’s sake, but for its own purity. “He is faithful,” saith St. Paul, “he cannot deny himself;” that is, cannot deny his own promises, cannot but be true to his own rules. He often pleads with men the uprightness of his ways by their own principles. How should we imitate him else, to “be perfect as he is perfect?” If at pleasure he can dispense with golden poetic ages of such pleasing license, as in the fabled reign of old Saturn, and this perhaps before the law might have some covert; but under such an undispensing covenant as Moses made with them, and not to tell us why and wherefore, indulgence cannot give quiet to the breast of an intelligent man? We must be resolved how the law can be pure and perspicuous, and yet throw a polluted skirt over these Eleusinian mysteries, that no man can utter what they mean: worse in this than the worst obscenities of heathen superstition; for their filthiness was hid, but the mystic reason thereof known to their sages. But this Jewish imputed filthiness was daily and open, but the reason of it is not known to our divines. We know of no design the gospel can have to impose new righteousness upon works, but to remit the old by faith without works, if we mean justifying works: we know no mystery our Saviour could have to lay new bonds upon marriage in the covenant of grace which himself had loosened to the severity of law. So that Rivetus may pardon us, if we cannot be contented with his nonsolution, to remain in such a peck of uncertainties and doubts, so dangerous and ghastly to the fundamentals of our faith.

  CHAPTER V.

  What a Dispensation is.

  Therefore to get some better satisfaction, we must proceed to inquire as diligently as we can what a dispensation is, which I find to be either properly so called, or improperly. Improperly so called, is rather a particular and exceptive law, absolving and disobliging from a more general command for some just and reasonable cause. As Numb. ix. they who were unclean, or in a journey, had leave to keep the passover in the second month, but otherwise ever in the first. As for that in Leviticus of marrying the brother’s wife, it was a penal statute rather than a dispense; and commands nothing injurious or in itself unclean, only prefers a special reason of charity before an institutive decency, and perhaps is meant for lifetime only, as is expressed beneath in the prohibition of taking two sisters. What other edict of Moses, carrying but the semblance of a law in any other kind, may bear the name of a dispense, I have not readily to instance. But a dispensation most properly is some particular accident rarely happening, and therefore not specified in the law, but left to the decision of charity, even under the bondage of Jewish rites, much more under the liberty of the gospel. Thus did “David enter into the house of God and did eat the shewbread, he and his followers, which was” ceremonially “unlawful.” Of such dispenses as these it was that Verdune the French divine so gravely disputed in the council of Trent against friar Adrian, who held that the pope might dispense with any thing. “It is a fond persuasion,” saith Verdune, “that dispensing is a favour; nay, it is as good distributive justice as what is most, and the priest sins if he gives it not, for it is nothing else but a right interpretation of law.” Thus far that I can learn touching this matter wholesomely decreed. But that God, who is the giver of every good and perfect gift, Jam. i., should give out a rule and directory to sin by, should enact a dispensation as long-lived as a law, whereby to live in privileged adultery for hardness of heart, (and this obdurate disease cannot be conceived how it was the more amended by this unclean remedy,) is the most deadly and scorpion-like gift, that the enemy of mankind could have given to any miserable sinner, and is rather such a dispense as that was, which the serpent gave to our first parents. God gave quails in his wrath, and kings in his wrath, yet neither of these things evil in themselves: but that he whose eyes cannot behold impurity, should in the book of his holy covenant, his most unpassionate law, give license and statute for uncontrolled adultery, although it go for the received opinion, I shall ever dissuade my soul from such a creed, such an indulgence as the shop of Antichrist never forged a baser.

  CHAPTER VI.

  That the Jew had no more right to this supposed dispense than the Christian hath, and rather not so much.

  But if we must needs dispense, let us for a while so far dispense with truth, as to grant that sin may be dispensed; yet there will be copious reason found to prove, that the Jew had no more right to such a supposed indulgence than the Christian; whether we look at the clear knowledge wherein he lived, or the strict performance of works whereto he was bound. Besides visions and prophecies, they had the law of God, which in the Psalms and Proverbs is chiefly praised for sureness and certainty, both easy and perfect to the enlightening of the simple. How could it be so obscure then, or they so sottishly blind in this plain, moral, and household duty? They had the same precepts about marriage; Christ added nothing to their clearness, for that had argued them imperfect; he opens not the law, but removes the pharisaic mists raised between the law and the people’s eyes: the only sentence which he adds, “What God hath joined, let no man put asunder,” is as obscure as any clause fetched out of Genesis, and hath increased a yet undecided controversy of clandestine marriages. If we examine over all his sayings, we shall find him not so much interpreting the law with his words, as referring his own words to be interpreted by the law, and oftener obscures his mind in short, and vehement, and compact sentences, to blind and puzzle them the more, who would not understand the law. The Jews therefore, were as little to be dispensed with for lack of moral knowledge as we.

  Next, none I think will deny, but that they were as much bound to perform the law as any Christian. That severe and rigorous knife not sparing the tender foreskin of any male infant, to carve upon his flesh the mark of that strict and pure covenant whereinto he entered, might give us to understand enough against the fancy of dispensing. St. Paul testifies, that every “circumcised man is a debtor to the whole law,” Gal. v., or else “circumcision is in vain,” Rom. ii. 25. How vain then, and how preposterous must it needs be to exact a circumcision of the flesh from an infant into an outward sign of purity, and to dispense an uncircumcision in the soul of a grown man to an inward and real impurity! How vain again was that law, to impose tedious expiations for every slight sin of ignorance and error, and to privilege without penance or disturbance an odious crime whether of ignorance or obstinacy! How unjust also inflicting death and extirpation for the mark of circumstantial pureness omitted, and proclaiming all honest and liberal indemnity to the act of a substantial impureness committed, making void the covenant that was made against it! Thus if we consider the tenor of the law, to be circumcised and to perform all, not pardoning so much as the scapes of error and ignorance, and compare this with the condition of the gospel, “believe and be baptized,” I suppose it cannot be long ere we grant, that the Jew was bound as strictly to the performance of every duty, as was possible; and therefore could not be dispensed with more than the Christian, perhaps not so much.

  CHAPTER VII.

  That the Gospel is apter to dispense than the Law.—Parœus answered.

  If then the law will afford no reason why the Jew should be more gently dealt with than the Christian, then surely the gospel can afford as little why the Christian should be less gently dealt with than the Jew. The gospel indeed exhorts to highest perfection, but bears with weakest infirmity more than the law. Hence those indulgences, “all cannot receive this saying, every man hath his proper gift,” with express charges not “to lay on yokes, which our fathers could not bear.” The nature of man still is as weak, and yet as hard; and that weakness and hardness as unfit and as unteachable to be harshly used as ever. Ay but, saith Paræus, there is a greater portion of spirit poured upon the gospel, which requires from us perfecter obedience. I answer, this does not prove, that the law might give allowance to sin more than the gospel; and if it were no sin, we know it were the work of the spirit to “mortify our corrupt desires and evil concupiscence;” but not to root up our natural affections and disaffections, moving to and fro even in wisest men upon just and necessary reasons, which were the true ground of that Mosaic dispense, and is the utmost extent of our pleading. What is more or less perfect we dispute not, but what is sin or no sin. And in that I still affirm the law required as perfect obedience as the gospel: besides that the prime end of the gospel is not so much to exact our obedience, as to reveal grace, and the satisfaction of our disobedience. What is now exacted from us, it is the accusing law that does it, even yet under the gospel; but cannot be more extreme to us now than to the Jews of old; for the law ever was of works, and the gospel ever was of grace.

  Either then the law by harmless and needful dispenses, which the gospel is now made to deny, must have anticipated and exceeded the grace of the gospel, or else must be found to have given politic and superficial graces without real pardon, saying in general, “do this and live,” and yet deceiving and damning underhand with unsound and hollow permissions; which is utterly abhorring from the end of all law, as hath been showed. But if those indulgences were safe and sinless, out of tenderness and compassion, as indeed they were, and yet shall be abrogated by the gospel; then the law, whose end is by rigour to magnify grace, shall itself give grace, and pluck a fair plume from the gospel; instead of hastening us thither, alluring us from it. And whereas the terror of the law was a servant to amplify and illustrate the mildness of grace; now the unmildness of evangelic grace shall turn servant to declare the grace and mildness of the rigorous law. The law was harsh to extol the grace of the gospel, and now the gospel by a new affected strictness of her own shall extenuate the grace which herself offers. For by exacting a duty which the law dispensed, if we perform it, then is grace diminished, by how much performance advance, unless the apostle argue wrong: if we perform it not, and perish for not performing, then are the conditions of grace harder than those of rigour. If through faith and repentance we perish not, yet grace still remains the less, by requiring that which rigour did not require, or at least not so strictly. Thus much therefore to Paræus; that if the gospel require perfecter obedience than the law as a duty, it exalts the law and debases itself, which is dishonourable to the work of our redemption. Seeing therefore that all the causes of any allowance, that the Jews might have, remain as well to the Christians; this is a certain rule, that so long as the causes remain, the allowance ought. And having thus at length inquired the truth concerning law and dispense, their ends, their uses, their limits, and in what manner both Jew and Christian stand liable to the one or capable of the other; we may safely conclude, that to affirm the giving of any law or law-like dispense to sin for hardness of heart, is a doctrine of that extravagance from the sage principles of piety, that whoso considers thoroughly cannot but admire how this hath been digested all this while.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  The true sense how Moses suffered divorce for hardness of heart.

  What may we do then to salve this seeming inconsistence? I must not dissemble, that I am confident it can be done no other way than this:

  Moses, Deut. xxiv. 1, established a grave and prudent law, full of moral equity, full of due consideration towards nature, that cannot be resisted, a law consenting with the wisest men and civilest nations; that when a man hath married a wife, if it come to pass, that he cannot love her by reason of some displeasing natural quality or unfitness in her, let him write her a bill of divorce. The intent of which law undoubtedly was this, that if any good and peaceable man should discover some helpless disagreement or dislike either of mind or body, whereby he could not cheerfully perform the duty of a husband without the perpetual dissembling of offence and disturbance to his spirit; rather than to live uncomfortably and unhappily both to himself and to his wife; rather than to continue undertaking a duty, which he could not possibly discharge, he might dismiss her whom he could not tolerably and so not conscionably retain. And this law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov. xxx. 21, 23, testifies to be a good and a necessary law, by granting it that “a hated woman,” (for so the Hebrew word signifies, rather than “odious,” though it come all to one,) that “a hated woman, when she is married, is a thing that the earth cannot bear.” What follows then, but that the charitable law must remedy what nature cannot undergo? Now that many licentious and hardhearted men took hold of this law to cloak their bad purposes, is nothing strange to believe. And these were they, not for whom Moses made the law, (God forbid!) but whose hardness of heart taking ill-advantage by this law he held it better to suffer as by accident, where it could not be detected, rather than good men should lose their just and lawful privilege of remedy: Christ therefore having to answer these tempting Pharisees, according as his custom was, not meaning to inform their proud ignorance what Moses did in the true intent of the law, which they had ill cited, suppressing the true cause for which Moses gave it, and extending it to every slight matter, tells them their own, what Moses was forced to suffer by their abuse of his law. Which is yet more plain, if we mark that out Saviour, in Matt. v. cites not the law of Moses, but the pharisaical tradition falsely grounded upon that law. And in those other places, chap. xix. and Mark x. the Pharisees cite the law, but conceal the wise and humane reason there expressed; which our Saviour corrects not in them, whose pride deserved not his instruction, only returns them what is proper to them: “Moses for the hardness of your heart suffered you,” that is, such as you, “to put away your wives; and to you he wrote this precept for that cause,” which (“to you”) must be read with an impression, and understood limitedly of such as covered ill purposes under that law; for it was seasonable, that they should hear their own unbounded license rebuked, but not seasonable for them to hear a good man’s requisite liberty explained. But us he hath taught better, if we have ears to hear. He himself acknowledged it to be a law, Mark x., and being a law of God, it must have an undoubted “end of charity, which may be used with a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned,” as was heard: it cannot allow sin, but is purposely to resist sin, as by the same chapter to Timothy appears. There we learn also, “that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” Out of doubt then there must be a certain good in this law, which Moses willingly allowed, and there might be an unlawful use made thereof by hypocrites; and that was it which was unwillingly suffered, foreseeing it in general, but not able to discern it in particulars. Christ therefore mentions not here what Moses and the law intended; for good men might know that by many other rules; and the scornful Pharisees were not fit to be told, until they could employ that knowledge they had less abusively. Only he acquaints them with what Moses by them was put to suffer.

  CHAPTER IX.

  The Words of the institution how to be understood; and of our Saviour’s Answer to his Disciples.

  And to entertain a little their overweening arrogance as best befitted, and to amaze them yet further, because they thought it no hard matter to fulfil the law, he draws them up to that unseparable institution, which God ordained in the beginning before the fall, when man and woman were both perfect, and could have no cause to separate: just as in the same chapter he stands not to contend with the arrogant young man, who boasted his observance of the whole law, whether he had indeed kept it or not, but screws him up higher to a task of that perfection, which no man is bound to imitate. And in like manner, that pattern of the first institution he set before the opinionative Pharisees, to dazzle them, and not to bind us. For this is a solid rule, that every command, given with a reason, binds our obedience no otherwise than that reason holds. Of this sort was that command in Eden; “therefore shall a man cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh;” which we see is no absolute command, but with an inference “therefore:” the reason then must be first considered, that our obedience be not misobedience. The first is, for it is not single, because the wife is to the husband, “flesh of his flesh,” as in the verse going before. But this reason cannot be sufficient of itself: for why then should he for his wife leave his father and mother, with whom he is far more “flesh of flesh, and bone of bone,” as being made of their substance? and besides, it can be but a sorry and ignoble society of life, whose inseparable injunction depends merely upon flesh and bones. Therefore we must look higher, since Christ himself recalls us to the beginning, and we shall find, that the primitive reason of never divorcing was that sacred and not vain promise of God to remedy man’s loneliness by “making him a meet help for him,” though not now in perfection, as at first; yet still in proportion as things now are. And this is repeated, verse 20, when all other creatures were fitly associated and brought to Adam, as if the Divine Power had been in some care and deep thought, because “there was not yet found any help meet for man.” And can we so slightly depress the all-wise purpose of a deliberating God, as if his consultation had produced no other good for man, but to join him with an accidental companion of propagation, which his sudden word had already made for every beast? nay a far less good to man it will be fouud, if she must at all adventures be fastened upon him individually. And therefore even plain sense and equity, and, which is above them both, the all-interpreting voice of charity herself cries aloud, that this primitive reason, this consulted promise of God, “to make a meet help,” is the only cause that gives authority to this command of not divorcing, to be a command. And it might be further added, that if the true definition of a wife were asked at good earnest, this clause of being “a meet help” would show itself so necessary and so essential, in that demonstrative argument, that it might be logically concluded: therefore she who naturally and perpetually is no “meet help,” can be no wife; which clearly takes away the difficulty of dismissing such a one. If this be not thought enough, I answer yet further, that marriage, unless it mean a fit and tolerable marriage, is not inseparable neither by nature nor institution. Not by nature, for then Mosaic divorces had been against nature, if separable and inseparable be contraries, as who doubts they be? and what is against nature is against law, if soundest philosophy abuse us not: by this reckoning Moses should be most unmosaic, that is, most illegal, not to say most unnatural. Nor is it inseparable by the first institution; for then no second institution of the same law for so many causes could dissolve it; it being most unworthy a human, (as Plato’s judgment is in the fourth book of his laws,) much more a divine lawgiver, to write two several decrees upon the same thing. But what would Plato have deemed, if one of these were good, and the other evil to be done? Lastly, suppose it to be inseparable by institution, yet in competition with higher things, as religion and charity in mainest matters, and when the chief end is frustrate for which it was ordained, as hath been shown; if still it must remain inseparable, it holds a strange and lawless propriety from all other works of God under heaven. From these many considerations, we may safely gather, that so much of the first institution as our Saviour mentions, for he mentions not all, was but to quell and put to nonplus the tempting Pharisees, and to lay open their ignorance and shallow understanding of the Scriptures. For, saith he, “have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man cleave to his wife?” which these blind usurpers of Moses’s chair could not gainsay: as if this single respect of male and female were sufficient against a thousand inconveniences and mischiefs, to clog a rational creature to his endless sorrow unrelinquishably, under the guileful superscription of his intended solace and comfort. What if they had thus answered? Master, if thou mean to make wedlock as inseparable as it was from the beginning, let it be made also a fit society, as God meant it, which we shall soon understand it ought to be, if thou recite the whole reason of the law. Doubtless our Saviour had applauded their just answer. For then they had expounded his command of Paradise, even as Moses himself expounds it by the laws of divorce, that is, with due and wise regard to the premises and reasons of the first command; according to which, without unclean and temporizing permissions, he instructs us in this imperfect state what we may lawfully do about divorce.

  But if it be thought, that the disciples, offended at the rigour of Christ’s answer, could yet obtain no mitigation of the former sentence pronounced to the Pharisees, it may be fully answered, that our Saviour continues the same reply to his disciples, as men leavened with the same customary license which the Pharisees maintained, and displeased at the removing of a traditional abuse, whereto they had so long not unwillingly been used: it was no time then to contend with their slow and prejudicial belief, in a thing wherein an ordinary measure of light in Scripture, with some attention, might afterwards inform them well enough. And yet ere Christ had finished this argument, they might have picked out of his own concluding words an answer more to their minds, and in effect the same with that which hath been all this while intreating audience: “All men,” saith he, “cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given; he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” What saying is this which is left to a man’s choice to receive, or not receive? what but the married life? Was our Saviour so mild and so favourable to the weakness of a single man, and is he turned on the sudden so rigorous and inexorable, to the distresses and extremities of an ill-wedded man? Did he so graciously give leave to change the better single life for the worse married life? Did he open so to us this hazardous and accidental door of marriage, to shut upon us like the gate of death, without retracting or returning, without permitting to change the worst, most insupportable, most unchristian mischance of marriage, for all the mischiefs and sorrows that can ensue, being an ordinance which was especially given as a cordial and exhilarating cup of solace, the better to bear our other crosses and afflictions? Questionless this was a hard-heartedness of divorcing, worse than that in the Jews, which they say extorted the allowance from Moses, and is utterly dissonant from all the doctrine of our Saviour. After these considerations therefore, to take a law out of Paradise given in time of original perfection, and to take it barely without those just and equal inferences and reasons which mainly establish it, nor so much as admitting those needful and safe allowances, wherewith Moses himself interprets it to the fallen condition of man; argues nothing in us but rashness and contempt of those means that God left us in his pure and chaste law, without which it will not be possible for us to perform the strict imposition of this command: or if we strive beyond our strength, we shall strive to obey it otherwise than God commands it. And lamented experience daily teaches the bitter and vain fruits of this our presumption, forcing men in a thing wherein we are not able to judge either of their strength or their sufferance. Whom neither one voice nor other by natural addiction but only marriage ruins, which doubtless is not the fault of that ordinance, for God gave it as a blessing, nor always of man’s mischoosing, it being an error above wisdom to prevent, as examples of wisest men so mistaken manifest: it is the fault, therefore, of a perverse opinion, that will have it continued in despite of nature and reason, when indeed it was never so truly joined. All those expositors upon the fifth Matthew confess the law of Moses to be the law of the Lord, wherein no addition or diminution hath place; yet coming to the point of divorce, as if they feared not to be called least in the kingdom of heaven, any slight evasion will content them, to reconcile those contradictions, which they make between Christ and Moses, between Christ and Christ.

  CHAPTER X.

  The vain shift of those who make the law of divorce to be only the premises of a succeeding law.

  Some will have it no law, but the granted premises of another law following, contrary to the words of Christ, Mark x. 5, and all other translations of gravest authority, who render it in form of a law, agreeably to Mal. ii. 16, as it is most anciently and modernly expounded. Besides, the bill of divorce, and the particular occasion therein mentioned, declares it to be orderly and legal. And what avails this to make the matter more righteous, if such an adulterous condition shall be mentioned to build a law upon without either punishment or so much as forbidding? They pretend it is implicitly reproved in these words, Deut. xxiv. 4, “after she is defiled;” but who sees not that this defilement is only in respect of returning to her former husband after an intermixed marriage? else why was not the defiling condition first forbidden, which would have saved the labour of this after-law? Nor is it seemly or piously attributed to the justice of God and his known hatred of sin, that such a heinous fault as this through all the law should be only wiped with an implicit and oblique touch, (which yet is falsely supposed,) and that his peculiar people should be let wallow in adulterous marriages almost two thousand years, for want of a direct law to prohibit them: it is rather to be confidently assumed, that this was granted to apparent necessities, as being of unquestionable right and reason in the law of nature, in that it still passes without inhibition, even when the greatest cause is given to us to expect it should be directly forbidden.

  CHAPTER XI.

  The other shift of saying divorce was permitted by law, but not approved. More of the institution.

  But it was not approved. So much the worse that it was allowed; as if sin had over-mastered the word of God, to conform her steady and straight rule to sin’s crookedness, which is impossible. Besides, what needed a positive grant of that which was not approved? It restrained no liberty to him that could but use a little fraud; it had been better silenced, unless it were approved in some case or other. But still it was not approved. Miserable excusers! he who doth evil, that good may come thereby, approves not what he doth; and yet the grand rule forbids him, and counts his damnation just if he do it. The sorceress Medea did not approve her own evil doings, yet looked not to be excused for that: and it is the constant opinion of Plato in Protagoras, and other of his dialogues, agreeing with that proverbial sentence among the Greeks, that “no man is wicked willingly.” Which also the Peripatetics do rather distinguish than deny. What great thank then, if any man, reputed wise and constant, will neither do, nor permit others under his charge to do, that which he approves not, especially in matter of sin? but for a judge, but for a magistrate the shepherd of his people, to surrender up his approbation against law, and his own judgment, to the obstinacy of his herd; what more unjudgelike, unmagistratelike, and in war more uncommanderlike? Twice in a short time it was the undoing of the Roman state, first when Pompey, next when Marcus Brutus, had not magnanimity enough but to make so poor a resignation of what they approved, to what the boisterous tribunes and soldiers bawled for. Twice it was the saving of two of the greatest commonwealths in the world, of Athens by Themistocles at the sea-fight of Salamis, of Rome by Fabius Maximus in the Punic war; for that these two matchless generals had the fortitude at home against the rashness and the clamours of their own captains and confederates, to withstand the doing or permitting of what they could not approve in their duty of their great command. Thus far of civil prudence. But when we speak of sin, let us look again upon the old reverend Eli; who in his heavy punishment found no difference between the doing and permitting of what he did not approve. If hardness of heart in the people may be an excuse, why then is Pilate branded through all memory? He approved not what he did, he openly protested, he washed his hands, and laboured not a little ere he would yield to the hard hearts of a whole people, both princes and plebeians, importuning and tumulting even to the fear of a revolt. Yet is there any will undertake his cause? If therefore Pilate for suffering but one act of cruelty against law, though with much unwillingness testified, at the violent demand of a whole nation, shall stand so black upon record to all posterity; alas for Moses! what shall we say for him, while we are taught believe he suffered not one act only both of cruelty and uncleanliness in one divorce, but made it a plain and lasting law against law, whereby ten thousand acts accounted both cruel and unclean might be daily committed, and this without the least suit or petition of the people, that we can read of?

  And can we conceive without vile thoughts, that the majesty and holiness of God could endure so many ages to gratify a stubborn people in the practice of a foul polluting sin? and could he expect they should abstain, he not signifying his mind in a plain command, at such time especially when he was framing their laws and them to all possible perfection? But they were to look back to the first institution; nay rather why was not that individual institution brought out of Paradise, as was that of the sabbath, and repeated in the body of the law, that men might have understood it to be a command? For that any sentence that bears the resemblance of a precept, set there so out of place in another world, at such a distance from the whole law, and not once mentioned there, should be an obliging command to us, is very disputable; and perhaps it might be denied to be a command without further dispute: however, it commands not absolutely, as hath been cleared, but only with reference to that precedent promise of God, which is the very ground of his institution: if that appear not in some tolerable sort, how can we affirm such a matrimony to be the same which God instituted? in such an accident it will best behoove our soberness to follow rather what moral Sinai prescribes equal to our strength, than fondly to think within our strength all that lost Paradise relates.

  CHAPTER XII.

  The third shift of them who esteem it a mere judicial law. Proved again to be a law of moral equity.

  Another while it shall suffice them, that it was not a moral but a judicial law, and so was abrogated: nay rather not abrogated because judicial; which law the ministry of Christ came not to deal with. And who put it in man’s power to exempt, where Christ speaks in general of not abrogating “the least jot or tittle,” and in special not that of divorce, because it follows among those laws which he promised expressly not to abrogate, but to vindicate from abusive traditions? which is most evidently to be seen in the 16th of Luke, where this caution of not abrogating is inserted immediately, and not otherwise than purposely, when no other point of the law is touched but that of divorce. And if we mark the 31st verse of Matt. v. he there cites not the law of Moses, but the licentious gloss which traduced the law; that therefore which he cited, that he abrogated, and not only abrogated, but disallowed and flatly condemned; which could not be the law of Moses, for that had been foully to the rebuke of his great servant. To abrogate a law made with God’s allowance, had been to tell us only that such a law was now to cease: but to refute it with an ignominious note of civilizing adultery, casts the reproof, which was meant only to the Pharisees, even upon him that made the law. But yet if that be judicial, which belongs to a civil court, this law is less judicial than nine of the ten commandments: for antiquaries affirm, that divorces proceeded among the Jews without knowledge of the magistrate, only with hands and seals under the testimony of some rabbies to be then present. Perkins, in a “Treatise of Conscience,” grants, that what in the judicial law is of common equity binds also the Christian: and how to judge of this, prescribes two ways: if wise nations have enacted the like decree; or if it maintain the good of a family, church, or commonwealth. This therefore is a pure moral œconomical law, too hastily imputed of tolerating sin; being rather so clear in nature and reason, that it was left to a man’s own arbitrement to be determined between God and his own conscience; not only among the Jews, but in every wise nation: the restraint whereof, who is not too thick-sighted, may see how hurtful and distractive it is to the house, the church, and commonwealth. And that power which Christ never took from the master of a family, but rectified only to a right and wary use at home; that power the undiscerning canonist hath improperly usurped in his court-leet, and bescribbled with a thousand trifling impertinences, which yet have filled the life of man with serious trouble and calamity. Yet grant it were of old a judicial law, it need not be the less moral for that, being conversant as it is about virtue or vice. And our Saviour disputes not here the judicature, for that was not his office, but the morality of divorce, whether it be adultery or no; if therefore he touch the law of Moses at all, he touches the moral part thereof, which is absurd to imagine, that the covenant of grace should reform the exact and perfect law of works eternal and immutable; or if he touch not the law at all, then is not the allowance thereof disallowed to us.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  The ridiculous opinion, that divorce was permitted from the custom in Egypt. That Moses gave not this law unwillingly. Perkins confesses this law was not abrogated.

  Others are so ridiculous as to allege, that this license of divorcing was given them because they were so accustomed in Egypt. As if an ill custom were to be kept to all posterity; for the dispensation is both universal and of time unlimited, and so indeed no dispensation at all: for the overdated dispensation of a thing unlawful, serves for nothing but to increase hardness of heart, and makes men but wax more incorrigible; which were a great reproach to be said of any law or allowance that God should give us. In these opinions it would be more religion to advise well, lest we make ourselves juster than God, by censuring rashly that for sin, which his unspotted law without rebuke allows, and his people without being conscious of displeasing him have used: and if we can think so of Moses, as that the Jewish obstinacy could compel him to write such impure permissions against the word of God and his own judgment; doubtless it was his part to have protested publicly what straits he was driven to, and to have declared his conscience, when he gave any law against his mind: for the law is the touchstone of sin and of conscience, and must not be intermixed with corrupt indulgences: for then it loses the greatest praise it has of being certain, and infallible, not leading into error as the Jews were led by this connivance of Moses, if it were a connivance. But still they fly back to the primitive institution, and would have us re-enter Paradise against the sword that guards it. Whom I again thus reply to, that the place in Genesis contains the description of a fit and perfect marriage, with an interdict of ever divorcing such a union: but where nature is discovered to have never joined indeed, but vehemently seeks to part, it cannot be there conceived that God forbids it; nay, he commands it both in the law and in the prophet Malachi, which is to be our rule. And Perkins upon this chapter of Matthew deals plainly, that our Saviour here confutes not Moses’ law, but the false glosses that depraved the law; which being true, Perkins must needs grant, that something then is left to that law which Christ found no fault with; and what can that be but the conscionable use of such liberty, as the plain words import? so that by his own inference, Christ did not absolutely intend to restrain all divorces to the only cause of adultery. This therefore is the true scope of our Saviour’s will, that he who looks upon the law concerning divorce, should also look back upon the institution, that he may endeavour what is perfectest: and he that looks upon the institution shall not refuse as sinful and unlawful those allowances, which God affords him in his following law, lest he make himself purer than his Maker, and presuming above strength, slip into temptations irrecoverably. For this is wonderful, that in all those decrees concerning marriage, God should never once mention the prime institution to dissuade them from divorcing, and that he should forbid smaller sins as opposite to the hardness of their hearts, and let this adulterous matter of divorce pass ever unreproved.

  This is also to be marvelled, that seeing Christ did not condemn whatever it was that Moses suffered, and that thereupon the Christian magistrate permits usury and open stews, and here with us adultery to be so slightly punished, which was punished by death to these hard-hearted Jews; why we should strain thus at the matter of divorce, which may stand so much with charity to permit, and make no scruple to allow usury esteemed to be so much against charity? But this it is to embroil ourselves against the righteous and all-wise judgments and statutes of God; which are not variable and contrarious as we would make them, one while permitting, and another while forbidding, but are most constant and most harmonious each to other. For how can the uncorrupt and majestic law of God, bearing in her hand the wages of life and death, harbour such a repugnance within herself, as to require an unexempted and impartial obedience to all her decrees, either from us or from our Mediator, and yet debase herself to faulter so many ages with circumcised adulteries by unclean and slubbering permissions?

  CHAPTER XIV.

  That Beza’s opinion of regulating sin by apostolic law cannot be found.

  Yet Beza’s opinion is, that a politic law (but what politic law I know not, unless one of Machiavel’s) may regulate sin; may bear indeed, I grant, with imperfection for a time, as those canons of the apostles did in ceremonial things: but as for sin, the essence of it cannot consist with rule; and if the law fail to regulate sin, and not to take it utterly away, it necessarily confirms and establishes sin. To make a regularity of sin by law, either the law must straighten sin into no sin, or sin must crook the law into no law. The judicial law can serve to no other end than to be the protector and champion of religion and honest civility, as is set down plainly, Rom. xiii., and is but the arm of moral law, which can no more be separate from justice, than justice from virtue. Their office also, in a different manner, steers the same course; the one teaches what is good by precept, the other unteaches what is bad by punishment. But if we give way to politic dispensations of lewd uncleanness, the first good consequence of such a relax will be the justifying of papal stews, joined with a toleration of epidemic whoredom. Justice must revolt from the end of her authority, and become the patron of that whereof she was created the punisher. The example of usury, which is commonly alleged, makes against the allegation which it brings, as I touched before. Besides that usury, so much as is permitted by the magistrate, and demanded with common equity, is neither against the word of God, nor the rule of charity; as hath been often discussed by men of eminent learning and judgment. There must be therefore some other example found out to show us wherein civil policy may with warrant from God settle wickedness by law, and make that lawful which is lawless. Although I doubt not but, upon deeper consideration, that which is true in physic will be found as true in policy, that as of bad pulses those that beat most in order, are much worse than those that keep the most inordinate circuit; so of popular vices those that may be committed legally will be more pernicious, than those that are left to their own course at peril, not under a stinted privilege to sin orderly and regularly, which is an implicit contradiction, but under due and fearless execution of punishment.

  The political law, since it cannot regulate vice, is to restrain it by using all means to root it out. But if it suffer the weed to grow up to any pleasurable or contented height upon what pretext soever it fastens the root, it prunes and dresses vice, as if it were a good plant. Let no man doubt therefore to affirm, that it is not so hurtful or dishonourable to a commonwealth, nor so much to the hardening of hearts, when those worse faults pretended to be feared are committed, by who so dares under strict and executed penalty, as when those less faults tolerated for fear of greater, harden their faces, not their hearts only, under the protection of public authority. For what less indignity were this, than as if justice herself, the queen of virtues, (descending from her sceptred royalty,) instead of conquering, should compound and treat with sin, her eternal adversary and rebel, upon ignoble terms? or as if the judicial law were like that untrusty steward in the gospel, and instead of calling in the debts of his moral master, should give out subtile and sly acquittances to keep himself from begging? or let us person him like some wretched itinerary judge, who to gratify his delinquents before him, would let them basely break his head, lest they should pull him from the bench, and throw him over the bar. Unless we had rather think both moral and judicial, full of malice and deadly purpose, conspired to let the debtor Israelite, the seed of Abraham, run on upon a bankrupt score, flattered with insufficient and ensnaring discharges, that so he might be haled to a more cruel forfeit for all the indulgent arrears which those judicial acquittances had engaged him in. No, no, this cannot be, that the law whose integrity and faithfulness is next to God, should be either the shameless broker of our impunities, or the intended instrument of our destruction. The method of holy correction, such as became the commonwealth of Israel, is not to bribe sin with sin, to capitulate and hire out one crime with another; but with more noble and graceful severity than Popilius the Roman legate used with Antiochus, to limit and level out the direct way from vice to virtue, with straightest and exactest lines on either side, not winding or indenting so much as to the right hand of fair pretences. Violence indeed and insurrection may force the law to suffer what it cannot mend; but to write a decree in allowance of sin, as soon can the hand of justice rot off. Let this be ever concluded as a truth that will outlive the faith of those that seek to bear it down.

  CHAPTER XV.

  That divorce was not given for wives only, as Beza and Paræus write. More of the institution.

  Lastly, if divorce were granted, as Beza and others say, not for men, but to release afflicted wives; certainly, it is not only a dispensation, but a most merciful law; and why it should not yet be in force, being wholly as needful, I know not what can be in cause but senseless cruelty. But yet to say, divorce was granted for relief of wives rather than of husbands, is but weakly conjectured, and is manifestly the extreme shift of a huddled exposition. Whenas it could not be found how hardness of heart should be lessened by liberty of divorce, a fancy was devised to hide the flaw, by commenting that divorce was permitted only for the help of wives. Palpably uxurious! who can be ignorant, that woman was created for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured as insufferably in marriage as a wife? What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved! what to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of house-rule who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but out of a female pride! “I suffer not,” saith St. Paul, “the woman to usurp authority over the man.” If the apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is he mortified that can? Solomon saith, “that a bad wife is to her husband as rottenness to his bones, a continual dropping. Better dwell in the corner of a house-top, or in the wilderness,” than with such a one. “Whoso hideth her, hideth the wind, and one of the four mischiefs which the earth cannot bear.” If the Spirit of God wrote such aggravations as these, and (as may be guessed by these similitudes) counsels the man rather to divorce than to live with such a colleague; and yet on the other side expresses nothing of the wife’s suffering with a bad husband: is it not most likely that God in his law had more pity towards man thus wedlocked, than towards the woman that was created for another? The same Spirit relates to us the course, which the Medes and Persians took by occasion of Vashti, whose mere denial to come at her husband’s sending, lost her the being queen any longer, and set up a wholesome law, “that every man should bear rule in his own house.” And the divine relater shows us not the least sign of disliking what was done; how should he, if Moses long before was nothing less mindful of the honour and pre-eminence due to man? So that to say divorce was granted for woman rather than man, was but fondly invented. Esteeming therefore to have asserted thus an injured law of Moses, from the unwarranted and guilty name of a dispensation, to be again a most equal and requisite law, we have the word of Christ himself, that he came not to alter the least title of it; and signifies no small displeasure against him that shall teach to do so. On which relying, I shall not much waver to affirm, that those words, which are made to intimate as if they forbad all divorce, but for adultery, (though Moses have constituted otherwise,) those words taken circumscriptly, without regard to any precedent law of Moses or attestation of Christ himself, or without care to preserve those his fundamental and superior laws of nature and charity, to which all other ordinances give up their seal, are as much against plain equity and the mercy of religion, as those words of “Take, eat, this is my body,” elementally understood, are against nature and sense.

  And surely the restoring of this degraded law hath well recompensed the diligence was used by enlightening us further to find out wherefore Christ took off the Pharisees from alleging the law, and referred them to the first institution; not condemning, altering, or abolishing this precept of divorce, which is plainly moral, for that were against his truth, his promise, and his prophetic office; but knowing how fallaciously they had cited and concealed the particular and natural reason of the law, that they might justify any froward reason of their own, he lets go that sophistry unconvinced; for that had been to teach them else, which his purpose was not. And since they had taken a liberty which the law gave not, he amuses and repels their tempting pride with a perfection of Paradise, which the law required not; not thereby to oblige our performance to that whereto the law never enjoined the fallen estate of man: for if the first institution must make wedlock, whatever happen, inseparable to us, it must make it also as perfect, as meetly helpful, and as comfortable as God promised it should be, at least in some degree; otherwise it is not equal or proportionable to the strength of man, that he should be reduced into such indissoluble bonds to his assured misery, if all the other conditions of that covenant be manifestly altered.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  How to be understood, that they must be one flesh; and how that those whom God hath joined, man should not sunder.

  Next he saith, “they must be one flesh;” which when all conjecturing is done, will be found to import no more but to make legitimate and good the carnal act, which else might seem to have something of pollution in it; and infers thus much over, that the fit union of their souls be such as may even incorporate them to love and amity: but that can never be where no correspondence is of the mind; nay, instead of being one flesh, they will be rather two carcasses chained unnaturally together; or, as it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead corpse; a punishment too like that inflicted by the tyrant Mezentius, so little worthy to be received as that remedy of loneliness, which God meant us. Since we know it is not the joining of another body will remove loneliness, but the uniting of another compliable mind; and that it is no blessing but a torment, nay a base and brutish condition to be one flesh, unless where nature can in some measure fix a unity of disposition. The meaning therefore of these words, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife,” was first to show us the dear affection which naturally grows in every not unnatural marriage, even to the leaving of parents, or other familiarity whatsoever. Next, it justifies a man in so doing, that nothing is done undutifully to father or mother. But he that should be here sternly commanded to cleave to his error, a disposition which to his he finds will never cement, a quotidian of sorrow and discontent in his house; let us be excused to pause a little, and bethink us every way round ere we lay such a flat solecism upon the gracious, and certainly not inexorable, not ruthless and flinty ordinance of marriage. For if the meaning of these words must be thus blocked up within their own letters from all equity and fair deduction, they will serve then well indeed their turn, who affirm divorce to have been granted only for wives; whenas we see no word of this text binds women, but men only, what it binds. No marvel then if Salomith (sister to Herod) sent a writ of ease to Costobarus her husband, which (as Josephus there attests) was lawful only to men. No marvel though Placidia, the sister of Honorius, threatened the like to earl Constantius for a trivial cause, as Photius relates from Olympiodorus. No marvel any thing, if letters must be turned into palisadoes, to stake out all requisite sense from entering to their due enlargement.

  Lastly, Christ himself tells who should not be put asunder, namely, those whom God hath joined. A plain solution of this great controversy, if men would but use their eyes; for when is it that God may be said to join? when the parties and their friends consent? No surely, for that may concur to lewdest ends. Or is it when church rites are finished? Neither; for the efficacy of those depends upon the presupposed fitness of either party. Perhaps after carnal knowledge: least of all; for that may join persons whom neither law nor nature dares join. It is left, that only then when the minds are fitly disposed and enabled to maintain a cheerful conversation, to the solace and love of each other, according as God intended and promised in the very first foundation of matrimony, “I will make him a help meet for him;” for surely what God intended and promised, that only can be thought to be his joining, and not the contrary. So likewise the apostle witnesseth, 1 Cor. vii. 15, that in marriage “God hath called us to peace.” And doubtless in what respect he hath called us to marriage, in that also he hath joined us. The rest, whom either disproportion or deadness of spirit, or something distasteful and averse in the immutable bent of nature renders conjugal, error may have joined, but God never joined against the meaning of his own ordinance. And if he joined them not, then is there no power above their own consent to hinder them from unjoining, when they cannot reap the soberest ends of being together in any tolerable sort. Neither can it be said properly that such twain were ever divorced, but only parted from each other, as two persons unconjunctive are unmarriable together. But if, whom God hath made a fit help, frowardness or private injuries hath made unfit, that being the secret of marriage, God can better judge than man, neither is man indeed fit or able to decide this matter: however it be, undoubtedly a peaceful divorce is a less evil, and less in scandal than hateful, hard-hearted, and destructive continuance of marriage in the judgment of Moses and of Christ, that justifies him in choosing the less evil; which if it were an honest and civil prudence in the law, what is there in the gospel forbidding such a kind of legal wisdom, though we should admit the common expositors?

  CHAPTER XVII.

  The sentence of Christ concerning divorce how to be expounded. What Grotius hath observed. Other additions.

  Having thus unfolded those ambiguous reasons, wherewith Christ (as his wont was) gave to the Pharisees that came to sound him, such an answer as they deserved, it will not be uneasy to explain the sentence itself that now follows; “Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.” First therefore I will set down what is observed by Grotius upon this point, a man of general learning. Next, I produce what mine own thoughts gave me before I had seen his annotations. Origen, saith he, notes that Christ named adultery rather as one example of other like cases, than as one only exception; and that is frequent not only in human but in divine laws, to express one kind of fact, whereby other causes of like nature may have the like plea, as Exod. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 26; Deut. xix. 5. And from the maxims of civil law he shows, that even in sharpest penal laws the same reason hath the same right; and in gentler laws, that from like causes to like the law interprets rightly. But it may be objected, saith he, that nothing destroys the end of wedlock so much as adultery. To which he answers, that marriage was not ordained only for copulation, but for mutual help and comfort of life: and if we mark diligently the nature of our Saviour’s commands, we shall find that both their beginning and their end consists in charity; whose will is, that we should so be good to others, as that we be not cruel to ourselves: and hence it appears why Mark, and Luke, and St. Paul to the Corinthians, mentioning this precept of Christ, add no exception, because exceptions that arise from natural equity are included silently under general terms: it would be considered therefore, whether the same equity may not have place in other cases less frequent. Thus far he.

  From hence is what I add: First, that this saying of Christ, as it is usually expounded, can be no law at all, that a man for no cause should separate but for adultery, except it be a supernatural law, not binding us as we now are: had it been the law of nature, either the Jews, or some other wise and civil nation, would have pressed it: or let it be so, yet that law, Deut. xxiv. 1, whereby a man hath leave to part, whenas for just and natural cause discovered he cannot live, is a law ancienter and deeper engraven in blameless nature than the other: therefore the inspired lawgiver Moses took care, that this should be specified and allowed; the other he let vanish in silence, not once repeated in the volume of his law, even as the reason of it vanished with Paradise. Secondly, this can be no new command, for the gospel enjoins no new morality, save only the infinite enlargement of charity, which in this respect is called the new commandment by St. John, as being the accomplishment of every command. Thirdly, it is no command of perfection further than it partakes of charity, which is “the bond of perfection.” Those commands therefore, which compel us to self-cruelty above our strength, so hardly will help forward to perfection, that they hinder and set backward in all the common rudiments of Christianity, as was proved. It being thus clear, that the words of Christ can be no kind of command as they are vulgarly taken, we shall now see in what sense they may be a command, and that an excellent one, the same with that of Moses, and no other. Moses had granted, that only for a natural annoyance, defect, or dislike, whether in body or mind, (for so the Hebrew word plainly notes,) which a man could not force himself to live with, he might give a bill of divorce, thereby forbidding any other cause, wherein amendment or reconciliation might have place. This law the Pharisees depraving extended to any slight contentious cause whatsoever. Christ therefore seeing where they halted, urges the negative part of the law, which is necessarily understood, (for the determinate permission of Moses binds them from further license,) and checking their supercilious drift, declares that no accidental, temporary, or reconcileable offence (except fornication) can justify a divorce. He touches not here those natural and perpetual hinderances of society, whether in body or mind, which are not to be removed; for such as they are aptest to cause an unchangeable offence, so are they not capable of reconcilement, because not of amendment, they do not break indeed, but they annihilate the bands of marriage more than adultery. For that fault committed argues not always a hatred either natural or incidental against whom it is committed; neither does it infer a disability of all future helpfulness, or loyalty, or loving agreement, being once past and pardoned, where it can be pardoned: but that which naturally distastes, and “finds no favour in the eyes” of matrimony, can never be concealed, never appeased, never intermitted, but proves a perpetual nullity of love and contentment, a solitude and dead vacation of all acceptable conversing. Moses therefore permits divorce, but in cases only that have no hands to join, and more need of separating than adultery. Christ forbids it, but in matters only that may accord, and those less than fornication. Thus is Moses’ law here plainly confirmed, and those causes which he permitted not a jot gainsaid. And that this is the true meaning of this place, I prove by no less an author than St. Paul himself, 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11; upon which text interpreters agree, that the apostle only repeats the precept of Christ: where while he speaks of the “wife’s reconcilement to her husband,” he puts it out of controversy, that our Saviour meant chiefly matters of strife and reconcilement; of which sort he would not that any difference should be the occasion of divorce, except fornication. And that we may learn better how to value a grave and prudent law of Moses, and how unadvisedly we smatter with our lips, when we talk of Christ’s abolishing any judicial law of his great Father, except in some circumstances which are judaical rather than judicial, and need no abolishing, but cease of themselves; I say again, that this recited law of Moses contains a cause of divorce greater beyond compare than that for adultery: and whoso cannot so conceive it, errs and wrongs exceedingly a law of deep wisdom for want of well fathoming. For let him mark, no man urges the just divorcing of adultery as it is a sin, but as it is an injury to marriage; and though it be but once committed, and that without malice, whether through importunity or opportunity, the gospel does not therefore dissuade him who would therefore divorce; but that natural hatred whenever it arises, is a greater evil in marriage than the accident of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater injustice, and yet not blameable, he who understands not after all this representing, I doubt his will like a hard spleen draws faster than his understanding can well sanguify: nor did that man ever know or feel what it is to love truly, nor ever yet comprehend in his thoughts what the true intent of marriage is. And this also will be somewhat above his reach, but yet no less a truth for lack of his perspective, that as no man apprehends what vice is so well as he who is truly virtuous, no man knows hell like him who converses most in heaven; so there is none that can estimate the evil and the affliction of a natural hatred in matrimony, unless he have a soul gentle enough and spacious enough to contemplate what is true love.

  And the reason why men so disesteem this wise-judging law of God, and count hate, or “the not finding of favour,” as it is there termed, a humourous, a dishonest, and slight cause of divorce, is because themselves apprehend so little of what true concord means: for if they did, they would be juster in their balancing between natural hatred and casual adultery; this being but a transient injury, and soon amended, I mean as to the party against whom the trespass is: but that other being an unspeakable and unremitting sorrow and offence, whereof no amends can be made, no cure, no ceasing but by divorce, which like a divine touch in one moment heals all, and (like the word of God) in one instant hushes outrageous tempests into a sudden stillness and peaceful calm. Yet all this so great a good of God’s own enlarging to us is, by the hard reins of them that fit us, wholly diverted and embezzled from us. Maligners of mankind! But who hath taught you to mangle thus, and make more gashes in the miseries of a blameless creature, with the leaden daggers of your literal decrees, to whose ease you cannot add the tithe of one small atom, but by letting alone your unhelpful surgery. As for such as think wandering concupiscence to be here newly and more precisely forbidden than it was before; if the apostle can convince them, we know that we are to “know lust by the law,” and not by any new discovery of the gospel. The law of Moses knew what it permitted, and the gospel knew what it forbid; he that under a peevish conceit of debarring concupiscence, shall go about to make a novice of Moses, (not to say a worse thing, for reverence sake,) and such a one of God himself, as is a horror to think, to bind our Saviour in the default of a downright promise-breaking; and to bind the disunions of complaining nature in chains together, and curb them with a canon bit; it is he that commits all the whoredom and adultery which himself adjudges, besides the former guilt so manifold that lies upon him. And if none of these considerations, with all their weight and gravity, can avail to the dispossessing him of his precious literalism, let some one or other entreat him but to read on in the same 19th of Matth. till he comes to that place that says, “Some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” And if then he please to make use of Origen’s knife, he may do well to be his own carver.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Whether the words of our Saviour be rightly expounded only af actual fornication to be the cause of divorce. The opinion of Grotius, with other reasons.

  But because we know that Christ never gave a judicial law, and that the word fornication is variously significant in Scripture, it will be much right done to our Saviour’s words, to consider diligently whether it be meant here, that nothing but actual fornication proved by witness can warrant a divorce; for so our canon law judges. Nevertheless, as I find that Grotius on this place hath observed the Christian emperors, Theodosius the IId and Justinian, men of high wisdom and reputed piety, decreed it to be a divorcive fornication, if the wife attempted either against the knowledge, or obstinately against the will of her husband, such things as gave open suspicion of adulterizing; as the wilful haunting of feasts, and invitations with men not of near kindred; the lying forth of her house, without probable cause; the frequenting of theatres against her husband’s mind; her endeavour to prevent or destroy conception. Hence that of Jerom, “where fornication is suspected, the wife may lawfully be divorced:” not that every motion of a jealous mind should be regarded, but that it should not be exacted to prove all things by the visibility of law witnessing, or else to hoodwink the mind: for the law is not able to judge of these things but by the rule of equity, and by permitting a wise man to walk the middle way of prudent circumspection, neither wretchedly jealous, nor stupidly and tamely patient. To this purpose hath Grotius in his notes. He shows also, that fornication is taken in Scripture for such a continual headstrong behaviour, as tends to plain contempt of the husband, and proves it out of Judges xix. 2, where the Levite’s wife is said to have played the whore against him; which Josephus and the Septuagint, with the Chaldean, interpret only of stubborness and rebellion against her husband: and to this I add, that Kimchi, and the two other rabbies who gloss the text, are in the same opinion. Ben Gersom reasons, that had it been whoredom, a Jew and a Levite would have disdained to fetch her again. And this I shall contribute, that had it been whoredom, she would have chosen any other place to run to than to her father’s house, it being so infamous for a Hebrew woman to play the harlot, and so opprobrious to the parents. Fornication then in this place of the judges is understood for stubborn disobedience against the husband, and not for adultery. A sin of that sudden activity, as to be already committed when no more is done, but only looked unchastely: which yet I should be loth to judge worthy a divorce, though in our Saviour’s language it be called adultery. Nevertheless, when palpable and frequent signs are given, the law of God, Numb. v., so far gave way to the jealousy of a man, as that the woman, set before the sanctuary with her head uncovered, was adjured by the priest to swear whether she were false or no, and constrained to drink that “bitter water,” with an undoubted “curse of rottenness and tympany” to follow, unless she were innocent. And the jealous man had not been guiltless before God, as seems by the last verse, if having such a suspicion in his head, he should neglect his trial; which if to this day it be not to be used, or be thought as uncertain of effect as our antiquated law of Ordalium, yet all equity will judge, that many adulterous demeanours, which are of lewd suspicion and example, may be held sufficient to incur a divorce, though the act itself hath not been proved. And seeing the generosity of our nation is so, as to account no reproach more abominable than to be nicknamed the husband of an adulteress; that our law should not be as ample as the law of God, to vindicate a man from that ignoble sufferance, is our barbarous unskilfulness, not considering that the law should be exasperated according to our estimation of the injury. And if it must be suffered till the act be visibly proved, Solomon himself, whose judgment will be granted to surpass the acuteness of any canonist, confesses, Prov. xxx. 19, 20, that for the act of adultery it is as difficult to be found as the “track of an eagle in the air, or the way of a ship in the sea;” so that a man may be put to unmanly indignities ere it be found out. This therefore may be enough to inform us, that divorcive adultery is not limited by our Saviour to the utmost act, and that to be attested always by eyewitness, but may be extended also to divers obvious actions, which either plainly lead to adultery, or give such presumption whereby sensible men may suspect the deed to be already done. And this the rather may be thought, in that our Saviour chose to use the word Fornication, which word is found to signify other matrimonial transgressions of main breach to that covenant besides actual adultery. For that sin needed not the riddance of divorce, but of death by the law, which was active even till then by the example of the woman taken in adultery; or if the law had been dormant, our Saviour was more likely to have told them of their neglect, than to have let a capital crime silently scape into a divorce: or if it be said, his business was not to tell them what was criminal in the civil courts, but what was sinful at the bar of conscience, how dare they then, having no other ground than these our Saviour’s words, draw that into the trial of law, which both by Moses and our Saviour was left to the jurisdiction of conscience? But we take from our Saviour, say they, only that it was adultery, and our law of itself applies the punishment. But by their leave that so argue, the great Lawgiver of all the world, who knew best what was adultery, both to the Jew and to the Gentile, appointed no such applying, and never likes when mortal men will be vainly presuming to outstrip his justice.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  Christ’s manner of teaching. St. Paul adds to this matter of divorce without command, to show the matter to be of equity, not of rigour. That the bondage of a Christian may be as much, and his peace as little, in some other marriages besides idolatrous. If those arguments therefore be good in that one case, why not in those other? Therefore the apostle himself adds, ἐν το[Editor: illegible character]ς τοιούτοις.

  Thus at length we see both by this and other places, that there is scarce any one saying in the gospel but must be read with limitations and distinctions to be rightly understood; for Christ gives no full comments or continued discourses, but (as Demetrius the rhetorician phrases it) speaks oft in monosyllables, like a master scattering the heavenly grain of his doctrine like pearls here and there, which requires a skilful and laborious gatherer, who must compare the words he finds with other precepts, with the end of every ordinance, and with the general analogy of evangelic doctrine: otherwise many particular sayings would be but strange repugnant riddles, and the church would offend in granting divorce for frigidity, which is not here excepted with adultery, but by them added. And this was it undoubtedly, which gave reason to St. Paul of his own authority, as he professes, and without command from the Lord, to enlarge the seeming construction of those places in the gospel, by adding a case wherein a person deserted (which is something less than divorced) may lawfully marry again. And having declared his opinion in one case, he leaves a further liberty for Christian prudence to determine in cases of like importance, using words so plain as not to be shifted off, “that a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases;” adding also, that “God hath called us to peace” in marriage.

  Now if it be plain, that a Christian may be brought into unworthy bondage, and his religious peace not only interrupted now and then, but perpetually and finally hindered in wedlock, by misyoking with a diversity of nature as well as of religion, the reasons of St. Paul cannot be made special to that one case of infidelity but are of equal moment to a divorce, wherever Christian liberty and peace are without fault equally obstructed: that the ordinance which God gave to our comfort may not be pinned upon us to our undeserved thraldom, to be cooped up, as it were in mockery of wedlock, to a perpetual betrothed loneliness and discontent, if nothing worse ensue. There being nought else of marriage left between such, but a displeasing and forced remedy against the sting of a brute desire: which fleshly accustoming without the soul’s union and commixture of intellectual delight, as it is rather a soiling than a fulfilling of marriage rites, so is it enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit, and sinks him to a low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in all his actions; or, (which is worse,) leaves him in a despairing plight of abject and hardened thoughts: which condition rather than a good man should fall into, a man useful in the service of God and mankind, Christ himself hath taught us to dispense with the most sacred ordinance of his worship, even for a bodily healing to dispense with that holy and speculative rest of sabbath, much more then with the erroneous observance of an ill-knotted marriage, for the sustaining of an overcharged faith and perseverance.

  CHAPTER XX.

  The meaning of St. Paul, that “charity believeth all things.” What is to be said to the license which is vainly feared will grow hereby. What to those who never have done prescribing patience in this case. The papist most severe against divorce, yet most easy to all license. Of all the miseries in marriage God is to be cleared, and the faults to be laid on man’s unjust laws.

  And though bad causes would take license by this pretext, if that cannot be remedied, upon their conscience be it who shall so do. This was that hardness of heart, and abuse of a good law, which Moses was content to suffer, rather than good men should not have it at all to use needfully. And he who to run after one lost sheep left ninety-nine of his own flock at random in the wilderness, would little perplex his thoughts for the obduring of nine hundred and ninety such as will daily take worse liberties, whether they have permission or not. To conclude, as without charity God hath given no commandment to men, so without it neither can men rightly believe any commandment given. For every act of true faith, as well that whereby we believe the law, as that whereby we endeavour the law, is wrought in us by charity, according to that in the divine hymn of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xiii. “Charity believeth all things;” not as if she were so credulous, which is the exposition hitherto current, for that were a trivial praise, but to teach us that charity is the high governess of our belief, and that we cannot safely assent to any precept written in the Bible, but as charity commends it to us. Which agrees with that of the same apostle to the Eph. iv. 14, 15; where he tells us, that the way to get a sure undoubted knowledge of things, is to hold that for truth which accords most with charity. Whose unerring guidance and conduct having followed as a loadstar, with all diligence and fidelity, in this question; I trust (through the help of that illuminating spirit which hath favoured me) to have done no every day’s work, in asserting after many the words of Christ, with other scriptures of great concernment, from burdensome and remorseless obscurity, tangled with manifold repugnances, to their native lustre and consent between each other; hereby also dissolving tedious and Gordian difficulties, which have hitherto molested the church of God, and are now decided not with the sword of Alexander, but with the immaculate hands of charity, to the unspeakable good of Christendom. And let the extreme literalist sit down now, and revolve whether this in all necessity be not the due result of our Saviour’s words, or if he persist to be otherwise opinioned, let him well advise, lest thinking to gripe fast the gospel, he be found instead with the canon law in his fist: whose boisterous edicts tyrannizing the blessed ordinance of marriage into the quality of a most unnatural and unchristianly yoke hath given the flesh this advantage to hate it, and turn aside, ofttimes unwillingly, to all dissolute uncleanness, even till punishment itself is weary of and overcome by the incredible frequency of trading lust and uncontrolled adulteries. Yet men whose creed is custom, I doubt not will be still endeavouring to hide the sloth of their timorous capacities with this pretext, that for all this it is better to endure with patience and silence this affliction which God hath sent. And I agree it is true, if this be exhorted and not enjoined; but withal it will be wisely done to be as sure as may be, that what man’s iniquity hath laid on be not imputed to God’s sending, lest under the colour of an affected patience we detain ourselves at the gulf’s mouth of many hideous temptations, not to be withstood without proper gifts, which (as Perkins well notes) God gives not ordinarily, no not to most earnest prayers. Therefore we pray, “Lead us not into temptation;” a vain prayer, if, having led ourselves thither, we love to stay in that perilous condition. God sends remedies as well as evils, under which he who lies and groans that may lawfully acquit himself, is accessory to his own ruin; nor will it excuse him though he suffer through a sluggish fearfulness to search thoroughly what is lawful, for fear of disquieting the secure falsity of an old opinion. Who doubts not but that it may be piously said, to him who would dismiss his frigidity, Bear your trial: take it as if God would have you live this life of continence? if he exhort this, I hear him as an angel, though he speak without warrant; but if he would compel me, I know him for Satan. To him who divorces an adulteress, piety might say, pardon her; you may show much mercy, you may win a soul: yet the law both of God and man leaves it freely to him: for God loves not to plough out the heart of our endeavours with overhard and sad tasks. God delights not to make a drudge of virtue, whose actions must be all elective and unconstrained. Forced virtue is as a bolt overshot: it goes neither forward nor backward, and does no good as it stands. Seeing therefore that neither Scripture nor reason hath laid this unjust austerity upon divorce, we may resolve that nothing else hath wrought it but that letter-bound servility of the canon doctors, supposing marriage to be a sacrament, and out of the art they have to lay unnecessary burdens upon all men, to make a fair show in the fleshly observance of matrimony, though peace and love with all other conjugal respects fare never so ill. And indeed the papists, who are the strictest forbidders of divorce, are the easiest libertines to admit of grossest uncleanness; as if they had a design by making wedlock a supportless yoke, to violate it most, under colour of preserving it most inviolable; and withal delighting (as their mystery is) to make men the day labourers of their own afflictions, as if there were such a scarcity of miseries from abroad, that we should be made to melt our choicest home blessings, and coin them into crosses, for want whereby to hold commerce with patience. If any therefore who shall hap to read this discourse, hath been through misadventure ill engaged in this contracted evil here complained of, and finds the fits and workings of a high impatience frequently upon him; of all those wild words which men in misery think to ease themselves by uttering, let him not open his lips against the providence of Heaven, or tax the ways of God and his divine truth: for they are equal, easy, and not burdensome: nor do they ever cross the just and reasonable desires of men, nor involve this our portion of mortal life into a necessity of sadness and malecontent, by laws commanding over the unreducible antipathies of nature, sooner or later found, but allow us to remedy and shake off those evils into which human error hath led us through the midst of our best intentions, and to support our incident extremities by that authentic precept of sovereign charity, whose grand commission is to do and to dispose over all the ordinances of God to man, that love and truth may advance each other to everlasting. While we, literally superstitious, through customary faintness of heart, not venturing to pierce with our free thoughts into the full latitude of nature and religion, abandon ourselves to serve under the tyranny of usurped opinions; suffering those ordinances which were allotted to our solace and reviving, to trample over us, and hale us into a multitude of sorrows, which God never meant us. And where he sets us in a fair allowance of way, with honest liberty and prudence to our guard, we never leave subtilizing and casuisting till we have straightened and pared that liberal path into a razor’s edge to walk on; between a precipice of unnecessary mischief on either side, and starting at every false alarm, we do not know which way to set a foot forward with manly confidence and Christian resolution, through the confused ringing in our ears of panic scruples and amazements.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  That the matter of divorce is not to be tried by law, but by conscience, as many other sins are. The magistrate can only see that the condition of the divorce be just and equal. The opinion of Fagius, and the reasons of this assertion.

  Another act of papal encroachment it was, to pluck the power and arbitrement of divorce from the master of the family, into whose hands God and the law of all nations had put it, and Christ so left it, preaching only to the conscience, and not authorizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between man and wife, as a thing most improperly answerable to any such kind of trial. But the popes of Rome, perceiving the great revenue and high authority it would give them even over princes, to have the judging and deciding of such a main consequence in the life of man as was divorce; wrought so upon the superstition of those ages, as to divest them of that right, which God from the beginning had entrusted to the husband: by which means they subjected that ancient and naturally domestic prerogative to an external and unbefitting judicature. For although differences in divorce about dowries, jointures, and the like, besides the punishing of adultery, ought not to pass without referring, if need be, to the magistrate; yet that the absolute and final hindering of divorce cannot belong to any civil or earthly power, against the will and consent of both parties, or of the husband alone, some reasons will be here urged as shall not need to decline the touch. But first I shall recite what hath been already yielded by others in favour of this opinion. Grotius and many more agree, that notwithstanding what Christ spake therein to the conscience, the magistrate is not thereby enjoined aught against the preservation of civil peace, of equity, and of convenience. And among these Fagius is most remarkable, and gives the same liberty of pronouncing divorce to the Christian magistrate as the Mosaic had. “For whatever,” saith he, “Christ spake to the regenerate, the judge hath to deal with the vulgar: if therefore any through hardness of heart will not be a tolerable wife to her husband, it will be lawful as well now as of old to pass the bill of divorce, not by private but by public authority. Nor doth man separate them then, but God by his law of divorce given by Moses. What can hinder the magistrate from so doing, to whose government all outward things are subject, to separate and remove from perpetual vexation, and no small danger, those bodies whose minds are already separate; it being his office to procure peaceable and convenient living in the commonwealth; and being as certain also, that they so necessarily separated cannot all receive a single life?” And this I observe, that our divines do generally condemn separation of bed and board, without the liberty of second choice; if that therefore in some cases be most purely necessary, (as who so blockish to deny?) then is this also as needful. Thus far by others is already well stepped, to inform us that divorce is not a matter of law, but of charity: if there remain a furlong yet to end the question, these following reasons may serve to gain it with any apprehension not too unlearned or too wayward. First, because ofttimes the causes of seeking divorce reside so deeply in the radical and innocent affections of nature, as is not within the diocese of law to tamper with. Other relations may aptly enough be held together by a civil and virtuous love: but the duties of man and wife are such as are chiefly conversant in that love which is most ancient and merely natural, whose two prime statutes are to join itself to that which is good, and acceptable, and friendly; and to turn aside and depart from what is disagreeable, displeasing, and unlike: of the two this latter is the strongest, and most equal to be regarded; for although a man may often be unjust in seeking that which he loves, yet he can never be unjust or blameable in retiring from his endless trouble and distaste, when as his tarrying can redound to no true content on either side. Hate is of all things the mightiest divider, nay is division itself. To couple hatred therefore, though wedlock try all her golden links, and borrow to her aid all the iron manacles and fetters of law, it does but seek to twist a rope of sand, which was a task they say that posed the devil: and that sluggish fiend in hell, Ocnus, whom the poems tell of, brought his idle cordage to as good effect, which never served to bind with, but to feed the ass that stood at his elbow. And that the restrictive law against divorce attains as little to bind any thing truly in a disjointed marriage, or to keep it bound, but serves only to feed the ignorance and definitive impertinence of a doltish canon, were no absurd allusion. To hinder therefore those deep and serious regresses of nature in a reasonable soul, parting from that mistaken help, which he justly seeks in a person created for him, recollecting himself from an unmeet help which was never meant, and to detain him by compulsion in such an unpredestined misery as this, is in diameter against both nature and institution: but to interpose a jurisdictive power over the inward and irremediable disposition of man, to command love and sympathy, to forbid dislike against the guiltless instinct of nature, is not within the province of any law to reach; and were indeed an uncommodious rudeness, not a just power: for that law may bandy with nature, and traverse her sage motions, was an error in Callicles the rhetorician, whom Socrates from high principles confutes in Plato’s Gorgias. If therefore divorce may be so natural, and that law and nature are not to go contrary; then to forbid divorce compulsively, is not only against nature, but against law.

  Next it must be remembered, that all law is for some good, that may be frequently attained without the admixture of a worse inconvenience; and therefore many gross faults, as ingratitude and the like, which are too far within the soul to be cured by constraint of law, are left only to be wrought on by conscience and persuasion. Which made Aristotle, in the 10th of his Ethics to Nicomachus, aim at a kind of division of law into private or persuasive, and public or compulsive. Hence it is, that the law forbidding divorce never attains to any good end of such prohibition, but rather multiplies evil. For if nature’s resistless sway in love or hate be once compelled, it grows eareless of itself, vicious, useless to friends, unserviceable and spiritless to the commonwealth. Which Moses rightly foresaw, and all wise lawgivers that ever knew man, what kind of creature he was. The parliament also and clergy of England were not ignorant of this, when they consented that Harry the VIII. might put away his queen Anne of Cleve, whom he could not like after he had been wedded half a year; unless it were that, contrary to the proverb, they made a necessity of that which might have been a virtue in them to do: for even the freedom and eminence of man’s creation gives him to be a law in this matter to himself, being the head of the other sex which was made for him: whom therefore though he ought not to injure, yet, neither should he be forced to retain in society to his own overthrow, nor to hear any judge therein above himself. It being also an unseemly affront to the sequestered and veiled modesty of that sex, to have her unpleasingness and other concealments bandied up and down and aggravated in open court by those hired masters of tongue-fence. Such uncomely exigences it befel no less a majesty than Henry the VIII. to be reduced to, who, finding just reason in his conscience to forego his brother’s wife, after many indignities of being deluded, and made a boy of by those his two cardinal judges, was constrained at last, for want of other proof, that she had been carnally known by prince Arthur, even to uncover the nakedness of that virtuous lady, and to recite openly the obscene evidence of his brother’s chamberlain. Yet it pleased God to make him see all the tyranny of Rome, by discovering this which they exercised over divorce, and to make him the beginner of a reformation to this whole kingdom, by first asserting into his familiary power the right of just divorce. It is true, an adulteress cannot be shamed enough by any public proceeding; but the woman whose honour is not appeached is less injured by a silent dismission, being otherwise not illiberally dealt with, than to endure a clamouring debate of utterless things, in a business of that civil secrecy and difficult discerning, as not to be overmuch questioned by nearest friends. Which drew that answer from the greatest and worthiest Roman of his time, Paulus Emilius, being demanded why he would put away his wife for no visible reason? “This shoe,” said he, and held it out on his foot, “is a neat shoe, a new shoe, and yet none of you know where it wrings me;” much less by the unfamiliar cognizance of a feed gamester can such a private difference be examined, neither ought it.

  Again, if law aim at the firm establishment and preservation of matrimonial faith, we know that cannot thrive under violent means, but is the more violated. It is not when two unfortunately met are by the canon forced to draw in that yoke an unmerciful day’s work of sorrow till death unharness them, that then the law keeps marriage most unviolated and unbroken; but when the law takes order, that marriage be accountant and responsible to perform that society, whether it be religious, civil, or corporal, which may be conscionably required and claimed therein, or else to be dissolved if it cannot be undergone. This is to make marriage most indissoluble, by making it a just and equal dealer, a performer of those due helps, which instituted the covenant; being otherwise a most unjust contract, and no more to be maintained under tuition of law, than the vilest fraud, or cheat, or theft, that may be committed. But because this is such a secret kind of fraud or theft, as cannot be discerned by law but only by the plaintiff himself; therefore to divorce was never counted a political or civil offence, neither to Jew nor Gentile, nor by any judicial intendment of Christ, further than could be discerned to transgress the allowance of Moses which was of necessity so large, that it doth all one as if it sent back the matter undeterminable at law, and intractable by rough dealing, to have instructions and admonitions bestowed about it by them whose spiritual office is to adjure and to denounce, and so left to the conscience. The law can only appoint the just and equal conditions of divorce, and is to look how it is an injury to the divorced, which in truth it can be none, as a mere separation; for if she consent, wherein has the law to right her? or consent not, then is it either just, and so deserved; or if unjust, such in all likelihood was the divorcer: and to part from an unjust man is a happiness, and no injury to be lamented. But suppose it to be an injury, the law is not able to amend it, unless she think it other than a miserable redress, to return back from whence she was expelled, or but entreated to be gone, or else to live apart still married without marriage, a married widow. Last, if it be to chasten the divorcer, what law punishes a deed which is not moral but natural, a deed which cannot certainly be found to be an injury; or how can it be punished by prohibiting the divorce, but that the innocent must equally partake both in the shame and in the smart? So that which way soever we look, the law can to no rational purpose forbid divorce, it can only take care that the conditions of divorce be not injurious. Thus then we see the trial of law, how impertinent it is to this question of divorce how helpless next, and then how hurtful.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  The last reason why divorce is not to be restrained by law, it being against the law of nature and of nations. The larger proof whereof referred to Mr. Selden’s book, “De Jure Naturali et Gentium.” An objection of Paræus answered. How it ought to be ordered by the church. That this will not breed any worse inconvenience, nor so bad as is now suffered.

  Therefore the last reason, why it should not be, is the example we have, not only from the noblest and wisest commonwealths, guided by the clearest light of human knowledge, but also from the divine testimonies of God himself, lawgiving in person to a sanctified people. That all this is true, whoso desires to know at large with least pains, and expects not here overlong rehearsals of that which is by others already so judiciously gathered; let him hasten to be acquainted with that noble volume written by our learned Selden, “Of the Law of Nature and of Nations,” a work more useful and more worthy to be perused by whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity, and justice, than all those “decretals and sumless sums,” which the pontifical clerks have doted on, ever since that unfortunate mother famously sinned thrice, and died impenitent of her bringing into the world those two misbegotten infants, and for ever infants, Lombard and Gratian, him the compiler of canon iniquity, the other the Tubalcain of scholastic sophistry, whose overspreading barbarism hath not only infused their own bastardy upon the fruitfullest part of human learning, not only dissipated and dejected the clear light of nature in us, and of nations, but hath tainted also the fountains of divine doctrine, and rendered the pure and solid law of God unbeneficial to us by their calumnious dunceries. Yet this law, which their unskilfulness hath made liable to all ignominy, the purity and wisdom of this law shall be the buckler of our dispute. Liberty of divorce we claim not, we think not but from this law; the dignity, the faith, the authority thereof is now grown among Christians, O astonishment! a labour of no mean difficulty and envy to defend. That it should not be counted a faultering dispense, a flattering permission of sin, the bill of adultery, a snare, is the expense of all this apology. And all that we solicit is, that it may be suffered to stand in the place where God set it, amidst the firmament of his holy laws, to shine, as it was wont, upon the weaknesses and errors of men, perishing else in the sincerity of their honest purposes: for certain there is no memory of whoredoms and adulteries left among us now, when this warranted freedom of God’s own giving is made dangerous and discarded for a scroll of license. It must be your suffrages and votes, O Englishmen, that this exploded decree of God and Moses may scape and come off fair, without the censure of a shameful abrogating: which, if yonder sun ride sure, and means not to break word with us to-morrow, was never yet abrogated by our Saviour. Give sentence if you please, that the frivolous canon may reverse the infallible judgment of Moses and his great director. Or if it be the reformed writers, whose doctrine persuades this rather, their reasons I dare affirm are all silenced, unless it be only this. Paræus on the Corinthians would prove, that hardness of heart in divorce is no more now to be permitted, but to be amerced with fine and imprisonment. I am not willing to discover the forgettings of reverend men, yet here I must: what article or clause of the whole new covenant can Paræus bring, to exasperate the judicial law upon any infirmity under the gospel? I say infirmity, for if it were the high hand of sin, the law as little would have endured it as the gospel; it would not stretch to the dividing of an inheritance; it refused to condemn adultery, not that these things should not be done at law, but to show that the gospel hath not the least influence upon judicial courts, much less to make them sharper and more heavy, least of all to arraign before a temporal judge that which the law without summons acquitted. “But,” saith he, “the law was the time of youth, under violent affections; the gospel in us is mature age, and ought to subdue affections.” True, and so ought the law too, if they be found inordinate, and not merely natural and blameless. Next I distinguish, that the time of the law is compared to youth and pupilage in respect of the ceremonial part, which led the Jews as children through corporal and garish rudiments, until the fulness of time should reveal to them the higher lessons of faith and redemption. This is not meant of the moral part; therein it soberly concerned them not to be babies, but to be men in good earnest: the sad and awful majesty of that law was not to be jested with: to bring a bearded nonage with lascivious dispensations before that throne, had been a lewd affront, as it is now a gross mistake. But what discipline is this, Paræus, to nourish violent affections in youth, by cockering and wanton indulgences, and to chastise them in mature age with a boyish rod of correction? How much more coherent is it to Scripture, that the law as a strict schoolmaster should have punished every trespass without indulgence so baneful to youth, and that the gospel should now correct that by admonition and reproof only, in free and mature age, which was punished with stripes in the childhood and bondage of the law? What therefore it allowed then so fairly, much less is to be whipped now, especially in penal courts: and if it ought now to trouble the conscience, why did that angry accuser and condemner law reprieve it? So then, neither from Moses nor from Christ hath the magistrate any authority to proceed against it. But what, shall then the disposal of that power return again to the master of a family? Wherefore not, since God there put it, and the presumptuous canon thence bereft it? This only must be provided, that the ancient manner be observed in the presence of the minister and other grave selected elders, who after they shall have admonished and pressed upon him the words of our Saviour, and he shall have protested in the faith of the eternal gospel, and the hope he has of happy resurrection, that otherwise than thus he cannot do, and thinks himself and this his case not contained in that prohibition of divorce which Christ pronounced, the matter not being of malice, but of nature, and so not capable of reconciling; to constrain him further were to unchristian him, to unman him, to throw the mountain of Sinai upon him, with the weight of the whole law to boot, flat against the liberty and essence of the gospel; and yet nothing available either to the sanctity of marriage, the good of husband, wife, or children; nothing profitable either to church or commonwealth, but hurtful and pernicious in all these respects. But this will bring in confusion: yet these cautious mistrusters might consider, that what they thus object lights not upon this book, but upon that which I engage against them, the book of God and Moses, with all the wisdom and providence which had forecast the worst of confusion that could succeed, and yet thought fit of such a permission. But let them be of good cheer, it wrought so little disorder among the Jews, that from Moses till after the captivity, not one of the prophets thought it worth the rebuking; for that of Malachi well looked into will appear to be not against divorcing, but rather against keeping strange concubines, to the vexation of their Hebrew wives. If therefore we Christians may be thought as good and tractable as the Jews were, (and certainly the prohibitors of divorce presume us to be better,) then less confusion is to be feared for this among us than was among them. If we be worse, or but as bad, which lamentable examples confirm we are, then have we more, or at least as much, need of this permitted law, as they to whom God therefore gave it (as they say) under a harsher covenant. Let not therefore the frailty of man go on thus inventing needless troubles to itself, to groan under the false imagination of a strictness never imposed from above; enjoining that for duty, which is an impossible and vain supererogating. “Be not righteous overmuch,” is the counsel of Ecclesiastes; “why shouldst thou destroy thyself?” Let us not be thus overcurious to strain at atoms, and yet to stop every vent and cranny of permissive liberty, lest nature wanting those needful pores and breathing-places, which God hath not debarred our weakness, either suddenly break out into some wide rupture of open vice and frantic heresy, or else inwardly fester with repining and blasphemous thoughts, under an unreasonable and fruitless rigour of unwarranted law. Against which evils nothing can more beseem the religion of the church, or the wisdom of the state, than to consider timely and provide. And in so doing let them not doubt but they shall vindicate the misreputed honour of God and his great lawgiver, by suffering him to give his own laws according to the condition of man’s nature best known to him, without the unsufferable imputation of dispensing legally with many ages of ratified adultery. They shall recover the misattended words of Christ to the sincerity of their true sense from manifold contradictions, and shall open them with the key of charity. Many helpless Christians they shall arise from the depth of sadness and distress, utterly unfitted as they are to serve God or man: many they shall reclaim from obscure and giddy sects, many regain from dissolute and brutish license, many from desperate hardness, if ever that were justly pleaded. They shall set free many daughters of Israel not wanting much of her sad plight whom “Satan had bound eighteen years.” Man they shall restore to his just dignity and prerogative in nature, preferring the soul’s free peace before the promiscuous draining of a carnal rage. Marriage, from a perilous hazard and snare, they shall reduce to be a more certain haven and retirement of happy society; when they shall judge according to God and Moses, (and how not then according to Christ,) when they shall judge it more wisdom and goodness to break that covenant seemingly, and keep it really, than by compulsion of law to keep it seemingly, and by compulsion of blameless nature to break it really, at least if it were ever truly joined. The vigour of discipline they may then turn with better success upon the prostitute looseness of the times, when men, finding in themselves the infirmities of former ages, shall not be constrained above the gift of God in them to unprofitable and impossible observances, never required from the civilest, the wisest, the holiest nations, whose other excellences in moral virtue they never yet could equal. Last of all, to those whose mind is still to maintain textual restrictions, whereof the bare sound cannot consist sometimes with humanity, much less with charity; I would ever answer, by putting them in remembrance of a command above all commands, which they seem to have forgot, and who spake it: in comparison whereof, this which they so exalt is but a petty and subordinate precept. “Let them go” therefore with whom I am loth to couple them, yet they will needs run into the same blindness with the Pharisees; “let them go therefore,” and consider well what this lesson means, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice;” for on that “saying all the law and prophets depend,” much more the gospel, whose end and excellence is mercy and peace. Or if they cannot learn that, how will they hear this? which yet I shall not doubt to leave with them as a conclusion, That God the Son hath put all other things under his own feet, but his commandments he hath left all under the feet of charity.

  [* ]The first edition has supernatural.

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  2: Freedom of Speech: Areopagitica (1644)

  Milton’s famous defense of freedom of speech. It was a protest against Parliament’s ordinance to further restrict the freedom of print. Milton issued his oration in an unlicensed form and courageously put his own name, but not that of his printer, on the cover. In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of Areopagitica (1644):

  By a decree of Charles’s Star Chamber July 11, 1637, the licensing of all printed works was deputed to the two archbishops, the chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Bishop of London, thereby insuring that control would ultimately fall to Archbishop Laud. Although Milton expected prior censorship to be relaxed under the revolutionary regime, on June 14, 1643, Parliament passed an ordinance providing for licensing the press. Milton composed Areopagitica as an appeal to Parliament to reconsider its recent decision, arguing that England now deserved a press freed from most of the restraints that the king had imposed. Milton published his pamphlet in 1644 under a title intended to recall the usages of ancient Greece. The Areopagus was a court and senate of oldest Athens composed of about three hundred members elected by the entire body of free Athenian citizens. Its name derives from the site of assembly, a hill within the city dedicated to the god Ares. Although Milton writes the appeal in the form of a public address to the legislative body in the manner of the Greek orator Isocrates, he never intended that it be delivered as an actual speech before Parliament. The argument failed of its practical purpose - Parliament continued to impose constraints of prior licensing upon authors.

  In the edition by Jebb there is a lengthy introduction and analysis of the text which is useful.

  John Milton, Areopagitica, with a Commentary by Sir Richard C. Jebb and with Supplementary Material (Cambridge at the University Press, 1918).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/103 on 2008-03-12

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  Note by A. R. W.

  The Commentary on Milton’s Areopagitica here printed (Introduction, Analysis and Notes) was privately printed by Sir R. C. Jebb for the use of a course of lectures given at Cambridge in the Lent Term of 1872. It is here reprinted by permission of Lady Jebb. A few trifling misprints have been corrected: otherwise, the commentary is reproduced as it was originally printed.

  It may be conjectured that what attracted Sir R. C. Jebb specially to Areopagitica was its wealth of classical and historical allusions, and this, obviously, is the aspect of the treatise which received his particular attention. It was thought by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press that the Commentary should be made accessible to students; and that it might be made more helpful, and be brought more directly into line with the other Pitt Press editions of Milton, if some notes were added on points of directly Miltonic interest, such as the language, parallel passages and so forth; and, at the request of the Syndics, Mr Verity has compiled a short appendix of comments, drawn mainly from his own editions of Milton published by the University Press, and has added the brief Life.

  The text of Areopagitica has been slightly modernised in spelling and punctuation.

  A. R. W.

  Cambridge, May 1918

  LIFE OF MILTON¹

  Milton’s life falls into these clearly defined divisions. The first period ends with the poet’s return from Italy in 1639; the second at the Restoration in 1660, when release from the fetters of politics enabled him to remind the world that he was a great poet; the third is brought to a close with his death in 1674. We propose to summarise the main events of the three periods.

  John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London. He came, in his own words, ex genere honesto. A family of Miltons had been settled in Oxfordshire since the reign of Elizabeth. The poet’s father had been educated at an Oxford school, possibly as a chorister in one of the College choir-schools, and imbibing Anglican sympathies had conformed to the Established Church. For this he was disinherited by his Roman Catholic father. He settled in London, following the profession of scrivener. A scrivener combined the occupations of lawyer and law-stationer. It appears to have been a lucrative calling; certainly John Milton (the poet was named after the father) attained to easy circumstances He married about 1600, and had six children, of whom several died young. The third child was the poet.

  The elder Milton was evidently a man of considerable culture, in particular an accomplished musician, and a composer whose madrigals were deemed worthy of being printed side by side with those of Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and other leading musicians of the time. To him, no doubt, the poet owed the love of music of which we see frequent indications in the poems¹ . Realising, too, that in his son lay the promise and possibility of future greatness, John Milton took the utmost pains to have the boy adequately educated; and the lines Ad Patrem show that the ties of affection between father and child were of more than ordinary closeness.

  Milton was sent to St Paul’s School about the year 1620. Here two influences, apart from those of ordinary school-life, may have affected him particularly. The headmaster was a good English scholar; he published a grammar containing many extracts from English poets, notably Spenser; it is reasonable to assume that he had not a little to do with the encouragement and guidance of Milton’s early taste for English poetry² . Also, the founder of St Paul’s School, Colet, had prescribed as part of the school-course the study of certain early Christian writers, whose influence is said to be directly traceable in Milton’s poems and may in some cases have suggested his choice of sacred themes² . While at St Paul’s, Milton also had a tutor at home, Thomas Young, a Scotchman, afterwards an eminent Puritan divine—the inspirer, doubtless, of much of his pupil’s Puritan sympathies. And Milton enjoyed the signal advantage of growing up in the stimulating atmosphere of cultured home-life. Most men do not realise that the word “culture” signifies anything very definite or desirable before they pass to the University; for Milton, however, home-life meant, from the first, not only broad interests and refinement, but active encouragement towards literature and study. In 1625 he left St Paul’s. Of his extant English poems¹ only one, On the Death of a Fair Infant, dates from his school-days; but we are told that he had written much verse, English and Latin. And his early training had done that which was all-important: it had laid the foundation of the far-ranging knowledge which makes Paradise Lost unique for diversity of suggestion and interest.

  Milton went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, in the Easter term of 1625, took his B.A. degree in 1629, proceeded M.A. in 1632, and in the latter year left Cambridge. The popular view of Milton’s connection with the University will be coloured for all time by Johnson’s unfortunate story that for some unknown offence he “suffered the public indignity of corporal correction.” For various reasons this story is now discredited by the best judges. It is certain, however, that early in 1626 Milton did have some serious difficulty with his tutor, which led to his removal from Cambridge for a few weeks and his transference to another tutor on his return later in the term. He spoke of the incident bitterly at the time in one of his Latin poems, and he spoke of Cambridge bitterly in after years On the other hand he voluntarily passed seven years at the University, and resented strongly the imputations brought against him in the “Smectymnuus” controversy that he had been in ill-favour with the authorities of his college. Writing in 1642, he takes the opportunity “to acknowledge publicly with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect, which I found above any of my equals at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the fellows of that college wherein I spent some years: who at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how much better it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters full of kindness and loving respect, both before that time, and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection towards me¹ .” And if we look into those uncomplimentary allusions to Cambridge which date from the controversial period of his life we see that the feeling they represent is hardly more than a phase of his theological bias. He detested ecclesiasticism, and for him the two Universities (there is a fine impartiality in his diatribes) are the strongholds of what he detested: “nurseries of superstition”—“not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages”—given up to “monkish and miserable sophistry,” and unprogressive in their educational methods. But it may fairly be assumed that Milton the scholar and poet, who chose to spend seven years at Cambridge, owed to her more than Milton the fierce controversialist admitted or knew. A poet he had proved himself before leaving the University in 1632 The short but exquisite ode At a Solemn Music, and the Nativity Hymn (1629), were already written

  Milton’s father had settled at Horton in Buckinghamshire. Thither the son retired in July, 1632. He had gone to Cambridge with the intention of qualifying for some profession, perhaps the Church² . This purpose was soon given up, and when Milton returned to his father’s house he seems to have made up his mind that there was no profession which he cared to enter He would choose the better part of studying and preparing himself, by rigorous self-discipline and application, for the far-off divine event to which his whole life moved.

  It was Milton’s constant resolve to achieve something that should vindicate the ways of God to men, something great that should justify his own possession of unique powers—powers of which, with no trace of egotism, he proclaims himself proudly conscious. The feeling finds repeated expression in his prose; it is the guiding-star that shines clear and steadfast even through the mists of politics. He has a mission to fulfil, a purpose to accomplish, no less than the most fanatic of religious enthusiasts; and the means whereby this end is to be attained are devotion to religion, devotion to learning, and ascetic purity of life

  This period of self-centred isolation lasted from 1632 to 1638 Gibbon tells us among the many wise things contained in that most wise book the Autobiography, that every man has two educations: that which he receives from his teachers and that which he owes to himself, the latter being infinitely the more important. During these five years Milton completed his second education, ranging the whole world of classical¹ antiquity and absorbing the classical genius so thoroughly that the ancients were to him what they afterwards became to Landor, what they have never become to any other English poet in the same degree, even as the very breath of his being, pursuing, too, other interests, such as music, astronomy² and the study of Italian literature; and combining these vast and diverse influences into a splendid equipment of hard-won, well-ordered culture. The world has known many greater scholars in the technical, limited sense than Milton, but few men, if any, who have mastered more things worth mastering in art, letters and scholarship¹ . It says much for the poet that he was sustained through this period of study, pursued ohne Hast, ohne Rast, by the full consciousness that all would be crowned by a masterpiece which should add one more testimony to the belief in that God who ordains the fates of men. It says also a very great deal for the father who suffered his son to follow in this manner the path of learning.

  True, Milton gave more than one earnest of his future fame. The dates of the early pieces—L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus and Lycidas—are not all certain; but probably each was composed at Horton before 1638. Four of them have great autobiographic value as an indirect commentary, written from Milton’s coign of seclusion, upon the moral crisis through which English life and thought were passing, the clash between the careless hedonism of the Cavalier world and the deepening austerity of Puritanism. In L’Allegro the poet holds the balance almost equal between the two opposing tendencies. In Il Penseroso it becomes clear to which side his sympathies are leaning. Comus is a covert prophecy of the downfall of the Court-party, while Lycidas openly “foretells the ruine” of the Established Church. The latter poem is the final utterance of Milton’s lyric genius. Here he reaches, in Mr Mark Pattison’s words, the highwater mark of English verse; and then—the pity of it—he resigns that place among the lyrici vates of which the Roman singer was ambitious, and for nearly twenty years suffers his lyre to hang mute and rusty in the temple of the Muses.

  The composition of Lycidas may be assigned to the year 1637. In the spring of the next year Milton started for Italy. It was natural that he should seek inspiration in the land where many English poets, from Chaucer to Shelley, have found it. Milton remained abroad some fifteen months. Originally he had intended to include Sicily and Greece in his travels, but news of the troubles in England hastened his return. He was brought face to face with the question whether or not he should bear his part in the coming struggle; whether without self-reproach he could lead any longer this life of learning and indifference to the public weal. He decided as we might have expected that he would decide, though some good critics see cause to regret the decision. Milton puts his position very clearly in his Defensio Secunda: “I thought it base to be travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home.” And later: “I determined to relinquish the other pursuits in which I was engaged, and to transfer the whole force of my talents and my industry to this one important object” (i.e. the vindication of liberty).

  The summer of 1639 (July) found Milton back in England. Immediately after his return he wrote the Epitaphium Damonis, the beautiful elegy in which he lamented the death of his school friend, Diodati. Lycidas was the last of the English lyrics: the Epitaphium, which should be studied in close connection with Lycidas, the last of the long Latin poems. Thenceforth, for a long spell, the rest was silence, so far as concerned poetry. The period which for all men represents the strength and maturity of manhood, which in the cases of other poets produces the best and most characteristic work, is with Milton a blank. In twenty years he composed no more than a bare handful of Sonnets, and even some of these are infected by the taint of political animus. Other interests claimed him—the question of Church-reform, education, marriage, and, above all, politics.

  Milton’s first treatise upon the government of the Church (Of Reformation in England) appeared in 1641. Others followed in quick succession. The abolition of Episcopacy was the watchword of the enemies of the Anglican Church—the delenda est Carthago cry of Puritanism, and no one enforced the point with greater eloquence than Milton. During 1641 and 1642 he wrote five pamphlets on the subject. Meanwhile he was studying the principles of education. On his return from Italy he had undertaken the training of his nephews. This led to consideration of the best educational methods; and in the Tractate of Education, 1644, Milton assumed the part of educational theorist. In the previous year, May, 1643, he married¹ . The marriage proved unfortunate. Its immediate outcome was the pamphlets on divorce. Clearly he had little leisure for literature proper.

  The finest of Milton’s prose works, Areopagitica, a plea for the free expression of opinion, was published in 1644. In 1645¹ appeared the first collection of his poems. In 1649 his advocacy of the anti-royalist cause was recognised by the offer of a post under the newly appointed Council of State. His bold vindication of the trial of Charles I, The Tenure of Kings, had appeared earlier in the same year. Milton accepted the offer, becoming Latin² Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. There was nothing distasteful about his duties. He drew up the despatches to foreign governments, translated state papers, and served as interpreter to foreign envoys. Had his duties stopped here his acceptance of the post would, I think, have proved an unqualified gain. It brought him into contact with the first men in the state, gave him a practical insight into the working of national affairs and the motives of human action; in a word, furnished him with that experience of life which is essential to all poets who aspire to be something more than “the idle singers of an empty day.” But unfortunately the secretaryship entailed the necessity of defending at every turn the past course of the revolution and the present policy of the Council. Milton, in fact, held a perpetual brief as advocate for his party. Hence the endless and unedifying controversies into which he drifted; controversies which wasted the most precious years of his life, warped, as some critics think, his nature, and eventually cost him his eyesight.

  Between 1649 and 1660 Milton produced no less than eleven pamphlets. Several of these arose out of the publication of the famous Eikon Basilike. The book was printed in 1649 and created so extraordinary a sensation that Milton was asked to reply to it; and did so with Eikonoklastes. Controversy of this barren type has the inherent disadvantage that once started it may never end. The Royalists commissioned the Leyden professor, Salmasius, to prepare a counterblast, the Defensio Regia, and this in turn was met by Milton’s Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, 1651, over the preparation of which he lost what little power of eyesight remained¹ . Salmasius retorted, and died before his second farrago of scurrilities was issued: Milton was bound to answer, and the Defensio Secunda appeared in 1654. Neither of the combatants gained anything by the dispute; while the subsequent development of the controversy in which Milton crushed the Amsterdam pastor and professor, Morus, goes far to prove the contention of Mr Mark Pattison, that it was an evil day when the poet left his study at Horton to do battle for the Commonwealth amid the vulgar brawls of the market-place:

  • Not here, O Apollo,
  • Were haunts meet for thee.

  Fortunately this poetic interregnum in Milton’s life was not destined to last much longer. The Restoration came, a blessing in disguise, and in 1660¹ the ruin of Milton’s political party and of his personal hopes, the absolute overthrow of the cause for which he had fought for twenty years, left him free. The author of Lycidas could once more become a poet.

  Much has been written upon this second period, 1639—60. We saw what parting of the ways confronted Milton on his return from Italy. Did he choose aright? Should he have continued upon the path of learned leisure? There are writers who argue that Milton made a mistake. A poet, they say, should keep clear of political strife fierce controversy can benefit no man who touches pitch must expect to be, certainly will be, defiled: Milton sacrificed twenty of the best years of his life, doing work which an underling could have done and which was not worth doing: another Comus might have been written, a loftier Lycidas: that literature should be the poorer by the absence of these possible masterpieces, that the second greatest genius which England has produced should in a way be the “inheritor of unfulfilled renown,” is and must be a thing entirely and terribly deplorable. This is the view of the purely literary critic.

  There remains the other side of the question. It may fairly be contended that had Milton elected in 1639 to live the scholar’s life apart from “the action of men,” Paradise Lost, as we have it, or Samson Agonistes could never have been written. Knowledge of life and human nature, insight into the problems of men’s motives and emotions, grasp of the broader issues of the human tragedy, all these were essential to the author of an epic poem; they could only be obtained through commerce with the world; they would have remained beyond the reach of a recluse. Dryden complained that Milton saw nature through the spectacles of books: we might have had to complain that he saw men through the same medium. Fortunately it is not so: and it is not so because at the age of thirty-two he threw in his fortunes with those of his country; like the diver in Schiller’s ballad he took the plunge which was to cost him so dear. The mere man of letters will never move the world. Æschylus fought at Marathon: Shakespeare was practical to the tips of his fingers; a better business man than Goethe there was not within a radius of a hundred miles of Weimar.

  This aspect of the question is emphasised by Milton himself The man, he says, “who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy¹ .” Again, in estimating the qualifications which the writer of an epic such as he contemplated should possess, he is careful to include “insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs² .”

  Truth usually lies half-way between extremes: perhaps it does so here. No doubt, Milton did gain very greatly by breathing awhile the larger air of public life, even though that air was often tainted by much impurity. No doubt, too, twenty years of contention must have left their mark even on Milton. In one of the very few places where he “abides our question,” Shakespeare writes (Sonnetcxi.):

  • “O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
  • The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
  • That did not better for my life provide,
  • Than public means, which public manners breeds:
  • Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
  • And almost thence my nature is subdued
  • To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand”

  Milton’s genius was subdued in this way. If we compare him, the Milton of the great epics and of Samson Agonistes, with Homer or Shakespeare—and none but the greatest can be his parallel—we find in him a certain want of humanity, a touch of narrowness. He lacks the large-heartedness, the genial, generous breadth of Shakespeare; the sympathy and sense of the lacrimæ rerum that even in Troilus and Cressida or Timon of Athens are there for those who have eyes wherewith to see them. Milton reflects in some degree the less gracious aspects of Puritanism, its intolerance, want of humour, one-sided intensity; and it seems natural to assume that this narrowness was to a great extent the price he paid for twenty years of ceaseless special pleading and dispute. The real misfortune of his life lay in the fact that he fell on evil, angry days when there was no place for moderate men. He had to be one of two things: either a controversialist or a student: there was no via media. Probably he chose aright; but we could wish that the conditions under which he chose had been different. And he is so great, so majestic in the nobleness of his life, in the purity of his motives, in the self-sacrifice of his indomitable devotion to his ideals, that we could wish not even to seem to pronounce judgment at all.

  The last part of Milton’s life, 1660-74, passed quietly. At the age of fifty-two he was thrown back upon poetry, and could at length discharge his self-imposed obligation. The early poems he had never regarded as a fulfilment of the debt due to his Creator. Even when the fire of political strife burned at its hottest, Milton did not forget the purpose which he had conceived in his boyhood. Of that purpose Paradise Lost was the attainment. Begun about 1658, it was finished in 1663, the year of Milton’s third¹ marriage; revised from 1663 to 1665; and eventually issued in 1667. Before its publication Milton had commenced (in the autumn of 1665) its sequel Paradise Regained, which in turn was closely followed by Samson Agonistes. The completion of Paradise Regained may be assigned to the year 1666—that of Samson Agonistes to 1667. Some time was spent in their revision; and in January, 1671, they were published together, in a single volume.

  In 1673 Milton brought out a reprint of the 1645 edition of his Poems, adding most of the sonnets¹ written in the interval² . The last four years of his life were devoted to prose works of no particular interest³ . He continued to live in London. His third marriage had proved happy, and he enjoyed something of the renown which was rightly his. Various well-known men used to visit him—notably Dryden¹ , who on one of his visits asked and received permission to dramatise²Paradise Lost. It does not often happen that a university can point to two such poets among her living sons, each without rival in his generation.

  Milton died in 1674, November 8th. He was buried in St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate. When we think of him we have to think of a man who lived a life of very singular purity and devotion to duty; who for what he conceived to be his country’s good sacrificed—and no one can well estimate the sacrifice—during twenty years the aim that was nearest to his heart and best suited to his genius; who, however, eventually realised his desire of writing a great work in gloriam Dei.

  INTRODUCTION

  In June, 1643, came forth an Order of the Lords and Commons for the Regulating of Printing. In November, 1644, Milton’s Areopagitica was published as a protest against this Order.

  It is a pamphlet in the form of a speech supposed to be addressed to the Parliament. Near the beginning, Milton says—“I could name him who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament of Athens that perswades them to change the forme of Democraty which was then establisht.” The Areopagiticus of Isokrates (355 bc) is a speech, supposed to be made in the ekklesia, about the Areiopagos—urging the restoration of its old powers. The Areopagitica of Milton is a speech to the English Areiopagos—the Parliament of the Commonwealth.

  1471—1557.From the introduction of printing into England, the liberty of the press had been modified from time to time by royal proclamations.1557. In 1557 the Stationers’ Company of London was formed. The exclusive privilege of printing and publishing in the English dominions was given to 97 London stationers and their successors by regular apprenticeship. All printing was thus centralised in London under the immediate inspection of the Government. No one could legally print, without special license, who did not belong to the Stationers’ Company. The Company had power to search for and to seize publications which infringed their privilege.

  1558.In the next year Elizabeth came to the throne. It was resolved to continue the restrictions on the freedom of printing; but, as the Stationers’ Company, incorporated in Mary’s reign, was not thought a fit body to decide, under a Protestant Queen, what should or should not be published, it was determined to put the licensing power in other hands.

  1559.In 1559 the 51st of the Injunctions Concerning Religion provided that no book in any language—schoolbooks and certain classics excepted—should be printed without license from one of the following persons or bodies: (i) the Queen: (ii) Six Members of the Privy Council: (iii) the Chancellor of the University of Oxford: (iv) the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge: (v) the Archbishop of Canterbury: (vi) the Archbishop of York: (vii) the Bishop of London: (viii) the Bishop, being Ordinary, and the Archdeacon, of the place of publication.

  1566.In 1566 this order was ratified by a decree of the Star-Chamber.

  1586.In 1586 a new decree of the Star-Chamber provided: 1. That, in addition to the presses under the control of the London Company of Stationers, there should be one press at Oxford and another at Cambridge. (Hitherto the privilege claimed, through their Chancellors, by the Universities had sometimes been disputed by the London printers.) 2. That the power of licensing, formerly shared by eight different persons or bodies, should belong to two persons only, viz. the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, jointly or severally. Certain papers and books, however, were excepted from their censorship; viz. (1) official documents sent to the Queen’s printer: (2) law-books, which were to be licensed by the Chief Justices and the Chief Baron.

  It was part of the duty of the Archbishop’s and the Bishop’s Chaplains to examine books intended for printing. If the book was approved, the licenser endorsed it, and the printing then began. Before the book was published, the publisher registered it, for 6d., in the books of the Stationers’ Company. He then had the copyright; or, in other phrase, the book was his “copy.” The book appeared with the words cum privilegio on the title-page, or with a copy of the licenser’s certificate. This is a translation of the Latin certificate prefixed to a book by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, printed in England in 1632: “I have read through the Treatise entitled ‘On Truth, as distinguished from Revelation, from the Probable, the Possible and the False.’ The book contains 227 pages already printed, and about 17 in ms.; in which I find nothing contrary to morals or to the truth of the Faith, to hinder it from being printed to the public advantage. William Haywood, Domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of London, Dec. 31, 1632.” [The book must have been licensed before one of the 227 pages could have been printed; though this formal certificate was not written until the printing was nearly completed.]

  1603—1637.During the reign of James I and the earlier part of the reign of Charles I, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London continued to be the sole licensers. From about 1627 to 1632 Laud, then Bishop of London, appears to have done almost all the work of the censorship, leaving little of it to Archbishop Abbot. About 1632 a division of the work seems to have been admitted. At that time books to be printed at the University presses were licensed by the Vice-Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge; in certain cases, licenses were granted by the Judges or the Secretary of State; plays and poems could be licensed by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels. It appears, however, that by 1637 either the licensing regulations had come to be less strictly enforced, or means had been found to evade them by the establishment of private presses.

  37 (illegible) 11).On July 11, 1637, the Star-Chamber published a decree for the purpose of confirming, with additions and explanations, the Star-Chamber decree of 1586. The new decree was framed by the Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the High Treasurer, the Chief Justices and the Chief Baron: it was proposed to the Court by the Attorney-General, Sir John Bankes. The preamble sets forth that “divers libellous, seditious and mutinous books have been unduly printed, and other books and papers without licence, to the disturbance of the peace of Church and State.” The decree of 1586 is to stand in force, “with these Additions, Explanations and Alterations” contained in 33 clauses. The most important of these are: (i) Clause 3. The licensers in general shall be the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, or their deputies: for books to be printed at Oxford or Cambridge, the Vice-Chancellor of the University. To certain special classes of books special licensers are assigned. (ii) Clause 4. Each licenser is to receive two ms. copies. One is to be returned (if the book is approved) to the publisher; the other kept by the licenser, as a guarantee against alteration of the text. (iii) Clause 6. No imported books shall be passed at the Custom House until they have been visited by the licenser. (iv) Clause 5. The right of keeping a printing-press shall be restricted to twenty master-printers of London, the King’s printer and the two University printers. (v) Clause 17. No one of the twenty-three licensed printers shall keep more than two presses, unless he has been Master or Upper Warden of the Stationers’ Company—in which case he may keep three, but no more. (vi) Clause 20. In order to keep down “secret printing in corners,” the Master and Wardens of the Stationers’ Company shall take care that, as far as possible, all journeymen printers are kept employed. (vii) Clause 25. The officers of the Company, or any two licensed master-printers appointed for the purpose, shall have power to search houses and shops; to see anything that may be printing there; and to demand the license. (viii) Clause 27. There shall be four, and only four, licensed type-founders.

  When the Star-Chamber was abolished in 1641, the censorship of the press passed to the Parliament; and a board of twenty licensers, called the Committee of Examinations, was appointed. So long as the Presbyterians and the Independents had been making common cause against Prelacy, the Presbyterians had been loud in their complaints of the restrictions on the liberty of the press. But when Prelacy had been overthrown, and when the rivalry between Presbyterians and Independents in and out of Parliament had become pronounced, the Presbyterians, in their turn, became impatient for some control over authors and printers. The most advanced thinkers and writers, the men most able and most likely to make effective use of the press, were the friends of the Independents. The Presbyterians had still a majority in Parliament; and the result is seen in three Orders published between January, 1642, and June, 1643.

  1642 (Jan. 29).I. Order of the Commons, January 29, 1642. This merely directs the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers to see that no printer print or reprint anything without the name and consent of the author, under penalties.

  1642 (March 9).II. Order of the Commons, March 9, 1643. The Committee of Examinations, or any four members of it, shall have power to appoint searchers of any places where they suspect presses to be kept and employed in printing any “Pamphlet scandalous to his Majesty or the proceedings of both or either Houses of Parliament”; to seize the pamphlet and the printing-apparatus; and to bring the printers before the Committee.

  1643 (June 14).III. Order of the Lords and Commons, June 14, 1643. This is a fuller and stronger expression of the last order. The preamble refers to “the great late abuses and frequent disorders in printing many false, forged, scandalous, seditious, libellous, and unlicensed Papers, Pamphlets, and Books, to the great defamation of Religion and Government.” No book, pamphlet or paper shall henceforth be published or imported without license or without registration in the register of the Stationers’ Company. “The Master and Wardens of the said Company, the Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers, the Sergeant of the Commons House and their deputies, together with the persons formerly appointed by the Committee of the House of Commons for Examinations” are authorised to make diligent search for unlicensed presses; “and likewise to apprehend all Authors, Printers, and other persons whatsoever imployed in compiling, printing, stitching, binding, publishing and dispersing of the said scandalous, unlicensed, and unwarrantable papers, books and pamphlets as aforesaid, and all those who shall resist the said Parties in searching after them, and to bring them afore either of the Houses or the Committee of Examinations, that so they may receive such further punishments, as their Offences shall demerit.”

  1644 (November).The Areopagitica appeared in November, 1644. Milton’s protest was ineffectual. The Order of June, 1643, remained in force under the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, the Star-Chamber decree of July, 1637, was taken as the basis of the Licensing Act.1660. In 1685, the first year of James II, the Act was renewed, without debate, for eight years. In 1693, the fourth year of William and Mary, it was renewed, but after a debate, and only for two years;1685. its use having been lately discredited by the fact that Bohun, the licenser, had given his imprimatur to an anonymous book called King William and Queen Mary Conquerors—a snare laid for him by his enemy Blount.1693. It was an odd fate for the Areopagitica that, having failed in its own day, it should afterwards have become a weapon in the hands of Blount; who, in the course of his quarrel with Bohun, brought out two pamphlets both formed in great part of garbled extracts from the Areopagitica—“A Just Vindication of Learning and of the Liberty of the Press, by Philopatris”; and “Reasons for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.”1695. In 1695, after some resistance on the part of the Lords, the Act was allowed to expire and the press was finally emancipated.

  ANALYSIS

  The Areopagitica falls into six divisions:

  • I. Introduction.
  • II. The Origin of Restrictions on Printing.
  • III. The Use of Books generally.
  • IV. The Negative Argument against the Order.
  • V. The Positive Argument.
  • VI. Conclusion.

  I. Introduction

  Pp. 1-6. They who to states and governors... religious and civil wisdom.

  No one, whether he is a public or a private man, can undertake anything for the general good without being strongly moved—by misgivings, or by hope, or by confidence. The very thought of this attempt has wrought the power within me to a passion—to the joy felt by all who try to advance their country’s freedom. The very fact that such an appeal as this is possible proves that already England has come on far towards a reasonable civil liberty; a liberty due, under God, to the Parliament; who can hear this praise without suspecting it of flattery. Let the supreme Council of the Commonwealth show how it differs from Prelates and Cabinet Ministers by listening in the spirit of old Greece to a sincere adviser, private man though he is, who has worked and thought. The new Order for regulating Printing is retrograde. I will discuss (1) the origin of the licensing-system: (2) the use of books generally: (3) the uselessness of the present Order: (4) its positive harmfulness.

  II. Origin of the Restrictions on Printing

  Pp. 6-15. I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment... the harm that thence proceeds.

  I grant that the behaviour of books, like that of men, must be watched. Books are not absolutely dead things; they have a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are. But then they are more than living; a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. The destruction of a good book ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself,—slays an immortality rather than a life.

  In old Athens and Rome, two kinds of writings only were kept down: (1) the blasphemous and atheistical: (2) the libellous:—while philosophy, though sceptical, and general satire had free scope. After the Emperors became Christian, heretical books, condemned by General Councils, were sometimes burned by their authority. Against other books no interdict is heard of till about 400 ad, when the Council of Carthage forbad Bishops themselves to read the works of heathens. But, as a rule, the early Bishops and Councils only recommended or censured books—they did not prohibit. About 800 ad the Popes began to claim the power of burning or forbidding books. Martin V [1417-1431 ad] was the first Pope who punished with excommunication the reading of heretical books, having been driven to a stricter policy by Wicliff and Huss. Leo X [1513-1521 ad] followed this policy. Then the Council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition perfected the system by establishing the Index Expurgatorius and like catalogues. Lastly, they forbad the printing of any book which had not received the imprimatur of several censors.” A book by the Florentine Davanzati bears four such imprimaturs. This system was borrowed by the English Prelates—not from any ancient State, nor from the modern practice of any reformed Church or City, but from the Council of Trent and the Inquisition. Under this system a book is in a worse plight than the souls who after death come before Rhadamanthus: it is judged before its birth, and has to pass the ferry backward into light. It may be said—The origin of licensing is bad; the thing itself may be good. But the contrivance is so obvious that, if it had been good, it would not have been overlooked by the best and wisest Commonwealths in all ages.

  III. The Use of Books generally

  Pp. 15-25. Not to insist upon the examples... while thus much hath been explaining.

  Moses and Daniel and Paul were skilled in all manner of heathen learning; yet the lawfulness, or advantage, of such learning was at least debated by the Fathers of the early Church; though a great majority of them were in favour of allowing it. At last Julian the Apostate forbad Christians to study heathen learning, and then it was felt that this was a greater blow to the Church than the persecutions of Decius or Diocletian. Jerome, in a feverish dream, fancied himself chastised for reading Cicero. On the other hand Dionysius of Alexandria, a Father of the Church in the third century, was bidden to read all books that came to his hands, and to judge for himself. The command—“Rise, Peter, kill and eat”—is for the food of the mind as well as the body. The knowledge of error, as John Selden has taught, helps the knowing of truth. Temperance in material things is of the greatest moment to human life; and yet God has entrusted this temperance to every man’s own judgment. Good and evil grow together in this world almost inseparably; and, as Psyche had the task of sorting the seeds, man has the task of sundering the good from the evil. Untried virtue is not pure, it is only blank. Spenser, a better teacher than even Scotus or Thomas Aquinas, makes Guion pass through the Cave of Mammon. Three objections are made to unrestricted reading. (1) First, the danger of infection. To this it may be answered that some of the best books are the frankest, and some of the worst the most plausible. A wise man can get gold out of dross; why should he lose the gain of his wisdom, in order to give the foolish a safeguard which will not hinder his folly? (2) It is said—We must not incur needless temptation; and (3) We must not employ ourselves with vanities. One answer will serve for both objections: to wise men hurtful books are not temptations nor vanities, but drugs which temper wholesome medicines.

  IV. The Negative Argument against the Present Order

  Pp. 25-33. See the ingenuity of Truth...whereof it bears the intention.

  It has been shown that there is no good precedent for licensing; and if it is said that it is a newly invented precaution, the answer is that it is so obvious an one that it can have been neglected only because it was disapproved. Plato, indeed, was for restricting reading in his ideal Commonwealth. But in practice he did not keep his own precept: he saw that this particular restriction would be useless without all the other restrictions of his imaginary City. It is vain to shut one gate while others stand open. If reading is regulated, then music, conversation, every incident of social life must be regulated too. The real art of government, elsewhere than in an Utopia or an Atlantis, is to discern where coercion and where persuasion should be used. Passions have been implanted in human nature because, rightly tempered, they are ingredients of virtue; and it is vain for human government to affect a rigour contrary to the manner of Providence and of Nature.

  Everything we hear or do is our book. But, supposing that the restriction of printed books were enough in itself to keep out evil, the Order of Parliament cannot even do this. Writings which it aims at repressing are still circulated. If the Order is to be effectual, a complete list must be made of unlicensed books already in circulation, an index on the model of Trent and Seville. Yet even then the Order would be fruitless. It could not prevent sects or schisms; had not Christianity spread itself over Asia before a written Gospel or Epistle was seen? It cannot mend manners; for what are the manners of Italy and of Spain? Lastly, there is this practical difficulty:—No man, studious, learned, judicious enough to be a competent licenser will endure the drudgery. The present Licensers make no secret of their weariness. Future Licensers will be either ignorant, imperious and remiss, or venal.

  V. The Positive Argument against the Order

  Pp. 33-50. I lastly proceed from the no good it can do...cold, and neutral, and inwardly divided minds.

  a. Learning is discouraged.—When Prelacy was threatened at first, its friends urged that, with it, learning would fall. But this Order is the real downfall of learning. No really learned man, with any spirit, could brook being made a schoolboy again and put under the ferule of a tutor. When a man writes for the world, he puts forth his strength and strives to master his subject: is he, in spite of years, industry, proved knowledge and ability, to be baffled, unless he approves himself to the hasty glance of a licenser without leisure and perhaps without knowledge? Or if, after his book has been licensed, a new thought strikes him—as happens to all writers—shall he be debarred from improving his own work, unless he make a new trip to the licenser? No one would read these licensed books, which would necessarily be made up of hackneyed commonplaces. Then, if the work of a deceased author is to be reprinted, must this too be revised? Would John Knox’s works, for instance, have to pass the licenser?

  b. Next, the whole nation is insulted.—Are twenty men enough to estimate all the genius and the good sense of England? Is there to be a monopoly of knowledge; are the products of all English brains to be stamped like broadcloth and woolpacks? The affront is not to the educated alone: the common people are just as much wronged by the notion that they are too giddy to be trusted with a flighty tract.

  c. The Ministry is discredited.—Is it the result of all their labours that the people for whom they work are so unprincipled that the whiff of every new pamphlet can stagger them out of their catechism? Are the Ministers afraid to face a single adverse tract, unless they are entrenched in the stronghold, the St Angelo, of an imprimatur?

  (This picture of the discouragement which learned men will suffer is not fanciful. In Italy learning is oppressed in the same way: in Italy I saw Galileo grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition; and I heard Italians lamenting the servile state of letters, and congratulating me for living in a land of philosophic freedom—just when England was groaning most under the prelatical yoke: but these congratulations seemed omens. And when the deliverance did begin, men of letters here called to me, as the Sicilians invoked the upright quaestor against Verres, to stand up for them against this tyranny. And now that the yoke is being put on again, it is the common talk that the Presbyters are going to become new Prelates. The evils of Prelacy have been taken off the land at large only to be heaped upon its literature; for now the Licenser is Archbishop over a great Province of books. So it seems now that the press was to be free only till the Bishops had been overthrown; that done, it is to be in bondage again. Nor can the Presbyters say that this Order keeps down sects; on the contrary, by stirring up opposition, it becomes a nursing mother of sects.)

  d. The Order is hostile to truth:—(i) First, as tending to efface knowledge already gained. The waters of truth have been likened to a fountain; but they will stagnate now into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. The man of business, chiefly anxious to keep up appearances, and the man of pleasure, anxious to be saved trouble, will give up the attempt to think in religion and will become the merest formulists. The clergy will sink into indolence, secured by the Licenser from any assault upon received opinions. But men with a good conscience and a real love of truth ought to wish for open discussion. (ii) Secondly—the Order is hostile to truth as preventing any addition to knowledge. Truth was once incarnate on earth; but it has been hewn in pieces by Falsehood, and the pieces have been cast to the four winds; and as Isis sought for the limbs of Osiris, slain and mangled by Typhon, so the friends of truth are even now looking for the scattered members. Do not be hinderers of the search. We boast of our light: but the sun keeps the stars from being seen: and there is danger lest we have looked so long on the splendour of Zuinglius and Calvin that we are blinded to other lights of truth. The golden rule in Theology, as in other sciences, is to look for what we know not by the light of what we know.

  VI. Conclusion

  Pp. 50-65. Lords and Commons of England...whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.

  a. The character and present spirit of the English nation.—Let the Lords and Commons of England consider what a nation it is whereof they are the governors; a nation of high genius and great energy. From far-back times until now the people of this island have been honoured by other peoples. And what is above this, the favour and love of Heaven seem to have been with England. The Reformation was begun in Europe by an Englishman; and if the Prelates had not put down Wicliff as a schismatic, perhaps neither Huss nor Jerome of Prague, no, nor Luther or Calvin would ever have been known. Now a second epoch of reformation is beginning, and again the opportunity of leading it is offered to Englishmen. For behold this great city; the forges of the armourers are not busier in it than the brains of the toilers for truth. Let us not give the names of sect and schism to this new, manifold eagerness for light. While the temple is in building, the stones must be hewn in many shapes. The Enemy watches, and hopes that our divisions and subdivisions will undo us. He knows not that these are but branches springing from one strong root. When I see this city, beset with the perils of war, full within of men quietly following great thoughts, I feel how thoroughly they trust their rulers, and I recognise an omen of victory and of renewed youth for this great nation.

  b. A plea for toleration.—If you would crush the knowledge thus daily springing up, you must first suppress yourselves. It is your free government which has made this free spirit. If you would have us slaves, you must be tyrants. And then,—who will stand by you? Not the men who are now fighting against unjust taxation. Remember the advice—rather, the dying charge—of one who died for the Church and the Commonwealth. Lord Brook bids us to bear with all men who would live purely, however much they are spoken against and how widely soever they differ from us. And this is the very time when the battle between Truth and Falsehood must be fought out: the temple of Janus is open. Leave Truth free to fight, and do not doubt the issue. What means the freedom given by Christianity but a deliverance from slavish care for forms? Some schisms may be too lightly made; some doctrines are not to be tolerated; but there are other differences which need not hinder the unity of spirit if only the bond of peace were found. A system of suppression is always apt to put down truth. When a kingdom is shaken to its foundations, then false teachers, it is true, are busiest; but great teachers also are raised up. If, enslaved to a rigid system, we stop the mouths of these, we shall prove ourselves not defenders but persecutors of truth. Since this Parliament met, many unlicensed books have been published—some by Presbyterians. If any authors of such books are among those who seek to re-establish the licensing system, these suppressors ought first to be suppressed themselves.

  c. The Order of the House in 1643 compared with its former Order in 1642.—The Order of 1642 provided merely that no book should be printed unless the name of the printer and of the author, or at least the printer’s, were registered. Nothing could be fairer than this. If a book comes out in breach of this rule, let it be burned by the hangman. But the new Order is in the very image of the Star-Chamber decree—one of the worst tyrannies of the late court. As to the means by which this Order was made to supersede the former, those who ought to know hint that trade-interests were at work. Booksellers who wished to keep up a monopoly misled the House by a pretence of securing copyright to poor members of their guild. In these tricks, however, I am not skilled; I only know that a good government is hardly more safe from mistakes than a bad one; but a good government will be sooner moved to redress a wrong by a plain warning than a bad government by a bribe; and to give such redress, is a virtue in which none can share but the greatest and wisest men.

  AREOPAGITICA
  
  A SPEECH OF Mr JOHN MILTON For the Liberty of Unlicensed PRINTING To the Parliament of ENGLAND

  • Τοὐλεύθερον δ’ ἐκεɩ̂νο· εἴ τις θέλει πόλει
  • Χρηστόν τι βούλευμ’ εἰς μέσον ϕέρειν ἔχων.
  • Καὶ ταν̂θ’ ὁ χρῄζων λαμπρός ἐσθ’, ὁ μὴ θέλων
  • Σιγᾳ̑. τί τούτων ἔστ’ ἰσαίτερον πόλει;

  • Euripid. Hicetid.

  • This is true Liberty when free born men
  • Having to advise the public may speak free,
  • Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise,
  • Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace;
  • What can be juster in a State than this?

  • Euripid. Hicetid.

  THEY who to states and governors of the commonwealth direct their speech, high court of parliament, or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds; some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a preface. Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall10 be blameless, if it be no other than the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish and promote their country’s liberty ; whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a trophy . For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth: that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. To which if I now20 manifest, by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of God, our deliverer; next, to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, lords and commons of England. Neither is it in God’s esteem the diminution of his glory, when honourable things are spoken of good men,30 and worthy magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do, after so fair a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned among the tardiest and the unwillingest of them that praise ye. Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship and flattery: first, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise; next, when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascribed; the10 other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impair your merits with a trivial and malignant encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, that whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to20 declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kind of praising; for though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if one of your published orders, which I should name, were called in, yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas30 private persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice than other statists have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a triennial parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late, whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories and successes more gently brooking written exceptions against a voted order,10 than other courts, which had produced nothing worth memory but the weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike at any sudden proclamation. If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, lords and commons, as what your published order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of20 Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders, I could name himwho from his private house wrote that discourse to the parliament of Athens, that persuades them to change the form of democracy which was then established. Such honour was done in those days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, not only in their own country, but in other lands, that cities andsigniories heard30 them gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusæus, a stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a former edict; and I abound with other like examples, which to set here would be superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious labours, and those natural endowments haply not the worst for two and fifty degrees of[ ] northern latitude, so much must be derogated, as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I would obtain to be thought not so inferior,1 as yourselves are superior to the most of them who received their counsel; and how far you excel them, be assured, lords and commons, there can no greater testimony appear, than when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason, from what quarter soever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any act of your own setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors.

  If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to shew both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves; by judging over again that order which ye have ordained “to regulate printing: that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and licensed by such,” or at least one of such, as shall be thereto appointed. For that part which preserves justly every man’s copy to himself, or provides for the poor, I touch not; only wish they be not made pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful men, who offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause of licensing books, which we thought had died with his brother quadragesimal and matrimonial when the prelates expired, I shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first, the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be loath to own; next, what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and10 that this order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed. Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities, in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made, both in religious and civil wisdom.

  I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye20 how books demean themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth : and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed30 men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can restore a life, whereof, perhaps, there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want10 of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life. But lest20 I should be condemned of introducing licence, while I oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much historical, as will serve to shew what hath been done by ancient and famous commonwealths, against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licensing crept out of the Inquisition, was catched up by our prelates, and hath caught some of our presbyters.

  In Athens , where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take30 notice of: those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libellous. Thus the books of Protagoras were by the judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himself banished the territory for a discourse, begun with his confessing not to know “whether there were gods, or whether not.” And against defaming, it was agreed that none should be traduced by name, as was the manner of Vetus Comœdia, whereby we may guess how they censured libelling; and this course was quick10 enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the desperate wits of other atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event showed. Of other sects and opinions, though tending to voluptuousness, and the denying of divine Providence, they took no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and20 that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes, the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar, Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom, as is reported, nightly studied so much the same author, and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon. That other leading city of Greece, Lacedæmon, considering that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet30Thales from Crete, to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all but their own laconic apophthegms, and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus out of their city, perhaps for composing in a higher strain than their own soldierly ballads and roundels could reach to; or if it were for his broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, but they were10 as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing; whence Euripides affirms, in Andromache, that their women were all unchaste. Thus much may give us light after what sort of books were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans also for many ages trained up only to a military roughness, resembling most the Lacedæmonian guise, knew of learning little but what their twelve tables and the pontific college with their augurs and flamens taught them in religion and law; so unacquainted with other learning, that when20[ ]Carneades and Critolaus, with the Stoic Diogenes, coming ambassadors to Rome, took thereby occasion to give the city a taste of their philosophy, they were suspected for seducers by no less a man than Cato the Censor, who moved it in the senate to dismiss them speedily, and to banish all such Attic babblers out of Italy. But Scipio and others of the noblest senators withstood him and his old Sabine austerity; honoured and admired the men; and the censor himself at last, in his old age, fell to the study of that whereof before he was so30 scrupulous. And yet, at the same time, Nævius and Plautus, the first Latin comedians, had filled the city with all the borrowed scenes of Menander and Philemon. Then began to be considered there also what was to be done to libellous books and authors; for Nævius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, and released by the tribunes upon his recantation: we read also that libels were burnt, and the makers punished, by Augustus. The like severity, no doubt, was used, if10 aught were impiously written against their esteemed gods. Except in these two points, how the world went in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning. And therefore Lucretius, without impeachment , versifies his Epicurism to Memmius, and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero, so great a father of the commonwealth; although himself disputes against that opinion in his own writings. Nor was the satirical sharpness or naked plainness of Lucilius, or Catullus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters20 of state, the story of Titus Livius, though it extolled that part which Pompey held, was not therefore suppressed by Octavius Cæsar, of the other faction. But that Naso was by him banished in his old age, for the wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere covert of state over some secret cause; and besides, the books were neither banished nor called in. From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we may not marvel, if not so often bad as good books were silenced. I shall therefore deem to30 have been large enough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write, save only which, all other arguments were free to treat on.

  By this time the emperors were become Christians, whose discipline in this point I do not find to have been more severe than what was formerly in practice. The books of those whom they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the general councils; and not till then were prohibited, or burnt, by authority of the emperor. As for the writings of heathen authors, unless they were plain invectives10 against Christianity, as those of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no interdict that can be cited, till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian council, wherein bishops themselves were forbid to read the books of Gentiles, but heresies they might read; while others long before them, on the contrary, scrupled more the books of heretics, than of Gentiles. And that the primitive councils and bishops were wont only to declare what books were not commendable, passing no further, but leaving it to each one’s conscience to read20 or to lay by, till after the year 800, is observed already by Padre Paolo, the great unmasker of the Trentine council. After which time the popes of Rome, engrossing what they pleased of political rule into their own hands, extended their dominion over men’s eyes, as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read what they fancied not; yet sparing in their censures, and the books not many which they so dealt with; till Martin the Fifth, by his bull, not only prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated30 the reading of heretical books; for about that time Wicklef and Husse growing terrible, were they who first drove the papal court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which course Leo the Tenth and his successors followed, until the council of Trent and the Spanish inquisition, engendering together, brought forth or perfected those catalogues and expurging indexes, that rake through the entrails of many an old good author, with a violation worse than any could10 be offered to his tomb. Nor did they stay in matters heretical, but any subject that was not to their palate, they either condemned in a prohibition, or had it straight into the new purgatory of an index. To fill up the measure of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain that no book, pamphlet, or paper should be printed (as if St Peter had bequeathed them the keys[ ] of the press also out of Paradise) unless it were approved and licensed under the hands of two or three glutton friars. For example:

  20 Let the chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this present work be contained aught that may withstand the printing

  Vincent Rabbata, Vicar of Florence.

  I have seen this present work, and find nothing athwart the Catholic faith and good manners: in witness whereof I have given, &c.

  Nicolo Cini, Chancellor of Florence.

  Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present work of Davanzati may be printed.

  30 Vincent Rabbata, &c.

  It may be printed, July 15.

  Friar Simon Mompei d’Amelia, Chancellor of the

  Holy Office in Florence.

  [ ] Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomless pit had not long since broke prison, that this quadruple exorcism would bar him down. I fear their next design will be to get into their custody the licensing of that which they say Claudius intended¹ , but went not through with. Voutsafe to see another of their forms, the Roman stamp:

  Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend master of the Holy Palace.

  Belcastro, Vicegerent. 10

  Imprimatur,

  Friar Nicolò Rodolphi, Master of the Holy Palace.

  Sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue wise, in the piatza of one titlepage, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge . These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our prelates and their chaplains with the goodly echo they20 made; and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly imprimatur, one from Lambeth-house, another from the west end of Paul’s; so apishly Romanizing, that the word of command still was set down in Latin; as if the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latin; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our English , the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption Englished. And thus ye have the inventors and the original of book-licensing ripped up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later; nor from the modern custom of any reformed city or church abroad; but from the most antichristian10 council, and the most tyrannous inquisition that ever inquired. Till then books were ever as freely admitted into the world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man’s intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster, who denies but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea? But that a book, in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to stand before a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo20 yet in darkness the judgment of Radamanth and his colleagues, ere it can pass the ferry backward into light, was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity, provoked and troubled at the first entrance of reformation, sought out new limboes and new hells wherein they might include our books also within the number of their damned. And this was the rare morsel so officiously snatched up, and so illfavouredly imitated by our inquisiturient bishops, and the attendant minorites, their chaplains. That ye like not now these most30 certain authors of this licensing order, and that all sinister intention was far distant from your thoughts, when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who know the integrity of your actions, and how ye honour truth, will clear ye readily.

  But some will say, what though the inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good. It may so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but obvious and easy for any man to light on, and yet best and wisest commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use it, and falsest seducers and oppressors10 of men were the first who took it up, and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of reformation; I am of those who believe, it will be a harder alchymy than Lullius ever knew, to sublimate any good use out of such an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves, for the tree that bore it, until I can dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to20 be thought in general of reading books, whatever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit or the harm that thence proceeds.

  Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel, and Paul, who were skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their books of all sorts, in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into holy scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian, the question was[ ]30[ ] notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirmed it both lawful and profitable, as was then evidently perceived, when Julian the Apostate, and subtlest enemy to our faith, made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning; for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our own arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this10 crafty means, and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance, that the two Appollinarii were fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberal sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of orations, poems, dialogues, even to the calculating of a new Christian grammar. But, saith the historian, Socrates, the providence of God provided better than the industry of Appollinarius and his son, by taking away that illiterate law with the life of him who devised it. So great an injury they then held it to be deprived20 of Hellenic learning; and thought it a persecution more undermining, and secretly decaying the church, than the open cruelty of Decius or Diocletian. And perhaps it was with the same politic drift that the devil whipped St Jerome in a lenten dream, for reading Cicero; or else it was a phantasm, bred by the fever which had then seized him. For had an angel been his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much on Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading, not the vanity, it had been plainly partial, first, to correct him for grave30 Cicero, and not for scurril Plautus, whom he confesses to have been reading not long before; next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies, without the lash of such a tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not now extant, writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante, an Italian romance much to the same purpose? But if it be agreed we shall be tried by visions, there is a vision[ ] recorded by Eusebius, far ancienter than this tale of10 Jerome, to the nun Eustochium, and besides, has nothing of a fever in it. Dionysius Alexandrinus was, about the year 240, a person of great name in the church, for piety and learning, who had wont to avail himself much against heretics, by being conversant in their books; until a certain presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he durst venture himself among those defiling volumes. The worthy man, loath to give offence, fell into a new debate with himself, what was to be thought; when suddenly a vision sent20 from God (it is his own Epistle that so avers it) confirmed him in these words: “Read any books whatever come to thy hands, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter.” To this revelation he assented the sooner, as he confesses, because it was answerable to that of the apostle to the Thessalonians: “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same author: “To the pure, all things are pure”; not only meats and drinks, but all kind of30 knowledge, whether of good or evil: the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled. For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil substance; and yet God in that unapocryphal vision said without exception, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat”; leaving the choice to each man’s discretion. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not10 unapplicable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Whereof what better witness can ye expect I should produce, than one of your own now sitting in parliament, the chief of learned men reputed in this land, Mr Selden; whose volume of natural and national laws proves, not only by great authorities brought together,20 but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically demonstrative, that all opinions, yea, errors, known, read, and collated, are of main service and assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest. I conceive, therefore, that when God did enlarge the universal diet of man’s body, saving ever the rules of temperance, he then also, as before, left arbitrary the dieting and repasting of our minds; as wherein every mature man might have to exercise his own leading capacity. How great a virtue is temperance,30 how much of moment through the whole life of man! Yet God commits the managing so great a trust, without particular law or prescription, wholly to the demeanour of every grown man. And therefore when he himself tabled the Jews from heaven, that omer, which was every man’s daily portion of manna, is computed to have been more than might have well sufficed the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. For those actions which enter into a man, rather than issue out of him, and therefore defile not, God uses not to captivate under a perpetual childhood of prescription, but10 trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own chooser; there were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should grow so fast upon those things which heretofore were governed only by exhortation. Solomon informs us that much reading is a weariness to the flesh; but neither he, nor other inspired author, tells us that such or such reading is unlawful; yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein, it had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful, than what was wearisome. As for the burning20 of those Ephesian books by St Paul’s converts, it is replied, the books were magic, the Syriac so renders them. It was a private act, a voluntary act, and leaves us to a voluntary imitation: the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own; the magistrate by this example is not appointed; these men practised the books, another might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully. Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven30 with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon [ ]Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil; that is to say, of10 knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal20 garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world , we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness; which was the reason why our sage and [ ] serious poet Spenser, whom I dare be known to think30 a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, describing true temperance under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit10 which may be had of books promiscuously read. But of the harm that may result hence, three kinds are usually reckoned. First, is feared the infection that may spread; but then, all human learning and controversy in religious points must remove out of the world, yea, the Bible itself; for that ofttimes relates blasphemy not nicely , it describes the carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes20 it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader; and ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv. For these causes we all know the Bible itself put by the papist into the first rank of prohibited books. The ancientest Fathers must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of evangelic preparation, transmitting our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the gospel. Who30 finds not that Irenæus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and others discover more heresies than they well confute, and that oft for heresy which is the truer opinion? Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen writers of greatest infection, if it must be thought so, with whom is bound up the life of human learning, that they wrote in an unknown tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are both most able and most diligent to instil the poison they10 suck, first into the courts of princes, acquainting them with the choicest delights, and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Petronius, whom Nero called his arbiter, the master of his revels; and that notorious ribald of Arezzo, dreaded and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name not him, for posterity’s sake, whom Harry the 8 named in merriment his vicar of hell. By which compendious way all the contagion that foreign books can infuse will find a passage to the people far easier and shorter than an Indian voyage,20 though it could be sailed either by the north ofCataio eastward , or of Canada westward, while our Spanish licensing gags the English press never so severely. But, on the other side, that infection which is from books of controversy in religion, is more doubtful and dangerous to the learned than to the ignorant; and yet those books must be permitted untouched by the licenser. It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath been ever seduced by papistical book in English, unless it were commended and expounded to30 him by some of that clergy; and indeed all such tractates, [ ] whether false or true, are as the prophecy of Isaiah was to the eunuch, not to be “understood without a guide.” But of our priests and doctors how many have been corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists, and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people, our experience is both late and sad. 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. Seeing therefore that10 those books, and those in great abundance, which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppressed without the fall of learning, and of all ability in disputation, and that these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned, from whom to the common people whatever is heretical or dissolute may quickly be conveyed, and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopped, and evil doctrine not with books can propagate, except a20 teacher guide, which he might also do without writing, and so beyond prohibiting, I am not able to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licensing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts. And he who were pleasantly disposed, could not well avoid to liken it to the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park gate. Besides another inconvenience, if learned men be the first receivers out of books, and dispreaders both of vice and error, how shall the30 licensers themselves be confided in, unless we can confer upon them, or they assume to themselves, above all others in the land, the grace of infallibility and uncorruptedness? And again, if it be true, that a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea, or without book; there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from10 a fool that which being restrained will be no hindrance to his folly. For if there should be so much exactness always used to keep that from him which is unfit for his reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle not only, but of Solomon, and of our Saviour, not voutsafe him good precepts, and by consequence not willingly admit him to good books; as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, than a fool will do of sacred scripture. ’Tis next alleged, we must not expose ourselves to temptations20 without necessity, and next to that, not employ our time in vain things. To both these objections one answer will serve, out of the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are not temptations, nor vanities; but useful drugs and materials wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong medicines, which man’s life cannot want . The rest, as children and childish men, who have not the art to qualify and prepare these working minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear; but hindered forcibly they cannot be, by all30 the licensing that sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive; which is what I promised to deliver next: that this order of licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it was framed; and hath almost prevented me by being clear already while thus much hath been explaining. See the ingenuity of Truth, who, when she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself faster than the pace of method and discourse can overtake her. It was the task which I began with, to shew that no nation, or well instituted state, if they valued books at all, did ever use this way of licensing; and it might10 be answered, that this is a piece of prudence lately discovered. To which I return, that as it was a thing slight and obvious to think on, so if it had been difficult to find out, there wanted not among them long since, who suggested such a course; which they not following, leave us a pattern of their judgment that it was not the not knowing, but the not approving, which was the cause of their not using it. Plato, a man of high authority indeed, but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no city ever yet20 received, fed his fancy with making many edicts to his airy burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him, wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an academic night sitting. By which laws he seems to tolerate no kind of learning, but by unalterable decree, consisting most of practical traditions, to the attainment whereof a library of smaller bulk than his own dialogues would be abundant. And there also enacts, that no poet should so much as read to any private man what he had written, until the30 judges and law keepers had seen it, and allowed it; but that Plato meant this law peculiarly to that commonwealth which he had imagined, and to no other, is evident. Why was he not else a lawgiver to himself, but a transgressor, and to be expelled by his own magistrates, both for the wanton epigrams and dialogues which he made, and his perpetual reading of Sophron Mimus and Aristophanes, books of grossest infamy; and also for commending the latter of them,10 though he were the malicious libeller of his chief friends, to be read by the tyrant Dionysius, who had little need of such trash to spend his time on? But that he knew this licensing of poems had reference and dependence to many other provisoes there set down in his fancied republic, which in this world could have no place; and so neither he himself, nor any magistrate or city, ever imitated that course, which, taken apart from those other collateral injunctions, must needs be vain and fruitless. For if they fell upon one kind of20 strictness, unless their care were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric . There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture,30 motion, or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? The windows also, and the Balcones, must be thought on;[ ] there are shrewd books, with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale: who shall prohibit them, shall twenty10 licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to enquire what lectures the bagpipe and therebbeck reads even to the ballatry and the gammuth of every municipal fiddler; for these are the countryman’s Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors. Next, what more[ ] national corruption, for which England hears ill[ ] abroad, than household gluttony? Who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting? And what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses where drunkenness is sold and harboured? Our garments20 also should be referred to the licensing of some more sober workmasters, to see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation[ ] of our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of this country? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil company? These things will be, and must be: but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the grave and governing wisdom30 of a state. To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Eutopian polities, which never can be drawn into use, will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato’s licensing of books will do this, which necessarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining10 laws of virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of the commonwealth, the pillars and the sustainers of every written statute; these they be, which will bear chief sway in such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded. Impunity and remissness for certain are the bane of a commonwealth; but here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. If every action which is20 good or evil in man at ripe years were to be under pittance, and prescription, and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to well doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent? Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that30 obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force; God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? They are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin, by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a10 time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is required to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could20 expel sin by this means; look how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of them both is the same: remove that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he command us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which30 books freely permitted are, both to the trial of virtue, and the exercise of truth? It would be better done, to learn that the law must needs be frivolous which goes to restrain things, uncertainly and yet equally working to good and to evil. And were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evil doing. For God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious.10 And albeit, whatever thing we hear or see, sitting, walking, travelling, or conversing, may be fitly called our book, and is of the same effect that writings are, yet grant the thing to be prohibited were only books, it appears that this order hitherto is far insufficient to the end which it intends. Do we not see, not once or oftener, but weekly, that continued court-libel against the parliament and city, printed, as the wet sheets can witness, and dispersed among us for all that licensing can do? Yet this is the prime service a man would20 think wherein this order should give proof of itself. If it were executed, you will say. But certain, if execution be remiss or blindfold now, and in this particular, what will it be hereafter, and in other books? If then the order shall not be vain and frustrate, behold a new labour, lords and commons, ye must repeal and proscribe all scandalous and unlicensed books already printed and divulged; after ye have drawn them up into a list, that all may know which are condemned, and which not; and ordain that no foreign books be30 delivered out of custody, till they have been read over. This office will require the whole time of not a few overseers, and those no vulgar men. There be also books which are partly useful and excellent, partly culpable and pernicious; this work will ask as many more officials, to make expurgations and expunctions, that the commonwealth of learning be not damnified. In fine, when the multitude of books increase upon their hands, ye must be fain to catalogue all those printers who are found frequently offending, and forbid the importation of their whole suspected typography.10 In a word, that this your order may be exact, and not deficient, ye must reform it perfectly, according to the model of Trent and Sevil, which I know ye abhor to do. Yet though ye should condescend to this, which God forbid, the order still would be but fruitless and defective to that end whereto ye meant it. If to prevent sects and schisms, who is so unread or so uncatechised in story, that hath not heard of many sects refusing books as a hindrance, and preserving their doctrine unmixed for many ages, only by unwritten20 traditions? The Christian faith, for that was once a schism, is not unknown to have spread all over Asia, ere any gospel or epistle was seen in writing. If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy and Spain, whether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books.

  Another reason, whereby to make it plain that this order will miss the end it seeks, consider by the quality30 which ought to be in every licenser. It cannot be denied but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious; there may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable or not; which is also no mean injury. If he be of such worth as behoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work,10 a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes. There is no book that is acceptable unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoined the reading of that at all times, and in a hand scarce legible , whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print, is an imposition which I cannot believe how he that values time, and his own studies, or is but of a sensible nostril, should be able to endure. In this one thing I crave leave of the present20 licensers to be pardoned for so thinking: who doubtless took this office up, looking on it through their obedience to the parliament, whose command perhaps made all things seem easy and unlaborious to them; but that this short trial hath wearied them out already, their own expressions and excuses to them who make so many journeys to solicit their licence, are testimony enough. Seeing therefore those who now possess the employment, by all evident signs wish themselves well rid of it, and that no man of worth, none that is not30 a plain unthrift of his own hours, is ever likely to succeed them, except he mean to put himself to the salary of a press corrector, we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary. This is what I had to show, wherein this order cannot conduce to that end whereof it bears the intention.

  I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men. It was the complaint and lamentation10 of prelates, upon every least breath of a motion to remove pluralities, and distribute more equally church revenues, that then all learning would be for ever dashed and discouraged. But as for that opinion,[ ] I never found cause to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any churchman who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning,20 but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study and love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of[ ] praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind, then know, that so far to distrust the judgment and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in learning, and never yet offended, as not to count him fit to print his mind30 without a tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a schism, or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him. What advantage is it to be a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferular to come under the fescu of an imprimatur? if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the10 cursory eves of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? He who is not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself reputed in the commonwealth wherein he was born for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which done, he20 takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that wrote before him; if in this, the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities, can bring, him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and[ ] expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never30 knew the labour of bookwriting; and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a punie with his guardian, and his censor’s hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot or seducer, it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning. And what if the author shall be one so[ ] copious of fancy, as to have many things well worth the adding, come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers; and that10 perhaps a dozen times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond his licensed copy; so often then must the author trudge to his leave-giver, that those his new insertions may be viewed; and many a jaunt will be made, ere that licenser, for it must be the same man, can either be found, or found at leisure: meanwhile either the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author lose his accuratest thoughts, and send the book forth worse than he had made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy20 and vexation that can befall. And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? When every acute reader, upon the first sight of a pedantic licence, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit’s distance from him,30 “I hate a pupil teacher; I endure not an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist. I know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance; who shall warrant me his judgment?” “The state, sir,” replies the stationer: but has a quick return, “The state shall be my governors, but not my critics; they may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this licenser may be mistaken in an author. This is some common stuff;”10 and he might add from Sir Francis Bacon, that “such authorized books are but the language of the times.” For though a licenser should happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very office and his commission enjoins him to let pass nothing but what is vulgarly received already. Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased author, though never so famous in his lifetime, and even to this day, comes to their hands for licence to be printed, or reprinted, if20 there be found in his book one sentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine Spirit? yet, not suiting with every low decrepit humour of their own, though it were Knox himself, the reformer of a kingdom, that spake it, they will not pardon him their dash; the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be lost, for the fearfulness, or the presumptuous rashness of a perfunctory licenser. And to what an author this violence hath been lately done, and in30 what book, of greatest consequence to be faithfully published, I could now instance, but shall forbear till a more convenient season. Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, but that such iron moulds as these shall have authority to gnaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will belong to that hapless race of men, whose misfortune it is to have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to10 learn, or care to be more than worldly wise; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life, and only in request.

  And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person alive, and most injurious to the written labours and monuments of the dead, so to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole nation. I cannot set so light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid judgment which is in England, as20 that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities, how good soever; much less that it should not pass except their superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strained with their strainers, that it should be uncurrent without their manual stamp. Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized[ ] and traded in by tickets, and statutes, and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broad-cloth and our woolpacks. What is it but a30 servitude like that imposed by the Philistines , not to be allowed the sharpening of our own axes and coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licensing forges? Had any one written and divulged erroneous things and scandalous to honest life, misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men, if after conviction this only censure were adjudged him, that he should never henceforth write, but what were first examined by an appointed officer, whose hand10 should be annexed to pass his credit for him, that now he might be safely read, it could not be apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailor in their title. Nor is it to the common people less20 than a reproach; for if we be so jealous over them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people; in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licenser? That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in those popish places where the laity are most hated and despised the same strictness is used over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach of30 licence, nor that neither: whenas those corruptions, which it seeks to prevent, break in faster at other doors which cannot be shut.

  And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of our ministers also, of whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should be still frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism10 and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turned loose to three sheets of paper without a licenser; that all the sermons, all the lectures preached, printed, vended in such numbers, and such volumes, as have now well-nigh made all other books unsaleable , should not be armour enough against one single Enchiridion, without the castle of St Angelo of an imprimatur. 20

  And lest some should persuade ye, lords and commons, that these arguments of learned men’s discouragement at this your order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned men, for that honour I had, and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing30 but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition,[ ] for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under10 the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those worthies were then breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among learned men of other parts uttered against the Inquisition, the same I should hear, by as20 learned men at home, uttered in time of parliament against an order of licensing; and that so generally, that when I had disclosed myself a companion of their discontent, I might say, if without envy, that he whom an honest quæstorship had endeared to the Sicilians, was not more by them importuned against Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and persuasions, that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should30 bring into my mind, toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning. That this is not therefore the disburdening of a particular fancy, but the common grievance of all those who had prepared their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch, to advance truth in others, and from others to entertain it, thus much may satisfy. And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the general murmur is; that if it come to inquisitioning again, and licensing, and that we are so timorous of ourselves, and so suspicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the10 shaking of every leaf, before we know what the contents are, if some who but of late were little better than silenced from preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, except what they please, it cannot be guessed what is intended by some but a second tyranny over learning: and will soon put it out of controversy, that bishops and presbyters are the same to us, both name and thing. That those evils of prelaty which before from five or six and twenty sees were distributively charged upon the whole people will now light wholly20 upon learning, is not obscure to us: whenas now the pastor of a small unlearned parish, on the sudden shall be exalted archbishop over a large diocese of books, and yet not remove, but keep his other cure too, a mystical pluralist. He who but of late cried down the sole ordination of every novice bachelor of art, and denied sole jurisdiction over the simplest parishioner, shall now, at home in his private chair, assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books, and ablest authors that write them. This is not, Yee Covenants30 and Protestations that we have made, this is not to put down prelacy; this is but to chop an episcopacy; this is but to translate the palace metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; this is but an old canonical sleight of commuting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a mere unlicensed pamphlet will, after a while, be afraid of every conventicle , and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain, that a state governed by the10 rules of justice and fortitude, or a church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While things are yet not constituted in religion, that freedom of writing should be restrained by a discipline imitated from the prelates, and learned by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the breast of a licenser, must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men. Who cannot but discern the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers; that while20 bishops were to be baited down, then all presses might be open; it was the people’s birthright and privilege in time of parliament, it was the breaking forth of light. But now the bishops abrogated and voided out of the church, as if our reformation sought no more, but to make room for others into their seats under another name, the episcopal arts begin to bud again; the cruse of truth must run no more oil; liberty of printing must be enthralled again, under a prelatical commission of twenty; the privilege of the people nullified; and,30 which is worse, the freedom of learning must groan [ ] again, and to her old fetters: all this the parliament yet sitting. Although their own late arguments and defences against the prelates might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at: instead of suppressing sects and schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation: “The punishing of wits enhances their authority,” saith the Viscount St Albans; “and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in (illegible) the faces of them who seek to tread it out.” This order, therefore, may prove a nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily shew how it will be a stepdame to truth: and first, by disenabling us to the maintenance of what is known already.

  Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of (illegible) conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another, than the charge and care of their religion. There be, who knows not that there be? of protestants and professors, who live and die in as errant an implicit faith, as any lay papist of Loretto. A wealthy (illegible) man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic so entangled, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he do? Fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of10 his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole[ ] warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He entertains20 him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep; rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well-spiced bruage, and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion.

  Another sort there be, who when they hear that all30 things shall be ordered, all things regulated and settled; nothing written but what passes through the custom-house of certain publicans that have the tunaging and poundaging of all free-spoken truth, will straight give themselves up into your hands, (illegible) ’em, and cut ’em out what religion ye please: there be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes, that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream. What need they torture their heads with that which others have taken so strictly, and so unalterably into their own purveying?10 These are the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people. How goodly, and how to be wished were such an obedient unanimity as this! What a fine conformity would it starch us all into! Doubtless a staunch and solid piece of framework, as any January could freeze together.

  Nor much better will be the consequence even among the clergy themselves: it is no new thing never heard of before, for a parochial minister, who has his reward,20 and is at his Hercules’ pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily inclinable, if he have nothing else that may rouse up his studies, to finish his circuit in an English Concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings and savings of a sober graduateship, a Harmony and a Catena, treading the constant round of certain common doctrinal heads, attended with their uses, motives, marks, and means, out of which, as out of an alphabet or sol-fa, by forming and transforming, joining and disjoining variously, a little bookcraft, and two hours’30 meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more than a weekly charge of sermoning: not to reckon up the infinite helps of interlinearies, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear. But as for the multitude of sermons ready printed and piled up, on every text that is not difficult, our London trading St Thomas in his vestry, and add to boot St Martin and St Hugh, have not within their hallowed limits more vendible ware of all sorts ready made: so10 that penury he never need fear of pulpit provision, having where so plenteously to refresh his magazine. But if his rear and flanks be not impaled, if his back door be not secured by the rigid licenser, but that a bold book may now and then issue forth, and give the assault to some of his old collections in their trenches, it will concern him then to keep waking, to stand in watch, to set good guards and sentinels about his received opinions, to walk the round and counter-round with his fellow-inspectors, fearing lest any of his flock20 be seduced who also then would be better instructed, better exercised, and disciplined. And God send that the fear of this diligence, which must then be used, do not make us affect the laziness of a licensing church.

  For if we be sure we are in the right, and do not hold the truth guiltily, which becomes not, if we ourselves condemn not our own weak and frivolous teaching, and the people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout, what can be more fair, than when a man judicious, learned, and of a conscience, for aught we know,30 as good as theirs that taught us what we know, shall not privily from house to house, which is more dangerous, but openly by writing, publish to the world what his opinion is, what his reasons, and wherefore that which is now thought cannot be sound? Christ urged it as wherewith to justify himself, that he preached in public; yet writing is more public than preaching; and more easy to refutation if need be, there being so many whose business and profession merely it is to be the champions of truth; which if they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth or inability? 10

  Thus much we are hindered and disinured by this course of licensing towards the true knowledge of what we seem to know. For how much it hurts and hinders the licensers themselves in the calling of their ministry, more than any secular employment, if they will discharge that office as they ought, so that of necessity they must neglect either the one duty or the other, I insist not, because it is a particular, but leave it to their own conscience, how they will decide it there. 20

  There is yet behind of what I purposed to lay open, the incredible loss and detriment that this plot of licensing puts us to, more than if some enemy at sea should stop up all our havens, and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the importation of our richest merchandise, truth: nay, it was first established and put in practice by antichristian malice and mystery, on set purpose to extinguish, if it were possible, the light of reformation, and to settle falsehood; little differing from that policy wherewith the Turk upholds30 his Alcoran, by the prohibition of printing. ’Tis not denied, but gladly confessed, we are to send our thanks and vows to heaven, louder than most of nations, for that great measure of truth which we enjoy, especially in those main points between us and the pope, with his appurtenances the prelates: but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attained the utmost prospect of reformation that the mortal glass wherein we contemplate can shew us, till we come to10beatific vision , that man by this very opinion declares that he is yet far short of truth.

  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, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris , took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them20 to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, lords and commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master’s second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of30 opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint. We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward10 things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop, and the removing him from off the presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy nation: no; if other things as great in the church, and in the rule of life both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin have beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that20 any man dissents from their maxims. ’Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be suppressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of truth. To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and30 proportional), this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a church; not the forced and outward union of cold, and neutral, and inwardly divided minds.[ ]

  Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any10 point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity and ablest judgment have been persuaded that even the school of Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom, took beginning from the old philosophy of this island. And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for Cæsar, preferred the natural wits of Britain before the laboured[ ] studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that[ ]20the grave and frugal Transylvanian sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynianwilderness, not their youth, but their staid men, to learn our language and our theological arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heaven, we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first30 tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerome, no, nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been completely ours. But now, as our obdurate clergy have with violence demeaned the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest scholars, of whom God offered to have10 made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his church, even to the reforming of reformation itself; what does he then but reveal Himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen ? I say, as his manner is, first to us, though we mark not the method of his counsels, and are unworthy. Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, the20 mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguered Truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement.30 What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much10 writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding, which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the ill-deputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these20 diligencies to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth; could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did,30 admiring the Roman docility and courage, “If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or kingdom happy.” Yet these are the men cried out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irrational men, who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is10 laid artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world: neither can every piece of the building be of one form; nay, rather the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in spiritual architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems20 come, wherein Moses, the great prophet, may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, but all the Lord’s people, are become prophets. No marvel then though some men, and some good men too perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour, when they have branched themselves out,30 saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches; nor will beware, until he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude, honest perhaps, though overtimorous, of them that vex in this behalf, but shall laugh in the10 end at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to persuade me.

  First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance and battle oft rumoured to be marching up, even to her walls and suburb trenches, that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing,20 discoursing, even to a rarity and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singular good will, contentedness, and confidence in your prudent foresight, and safe government, lords and commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bravery and well-grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was who, when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hannibal30 himself encamped his own regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is; so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and10 new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, but casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible[ ] locks: methinks I see her as an eagle muingher mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the20 full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

  What should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this city? Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a30 famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, lords and commons, they who counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will soon shew how. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which10 your own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us, liberty which is the nurse of all great wits; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven ; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now leas capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish,20 as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that, unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may dispatch at will their own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye and excite others? Not he who30 takes up arms for coat and conduct , and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

  What would be best advised then, if it be found so hurtful and so unequal to suppress opinions for the newness or the unsuitableness to a customary acceptance, will not be my task to say; I only shall repeat what I have learned from one of your own honourable number, a right noble and pious lord, who had he not10 sacrificed his life and fortunes to the church and commonwealth, we had not now missed and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument. Ye know him, I am sure; yet I for honour’s sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall name him, the Lord Brook . He writing of episcopacy, and by the way treating of sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or rather now the last words of his dying charge, which I know will ever be of dear and honoured regard with ye, so full of meekness and breathing charity, that next to his last20 testament, who bequeathed love and peace to his disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peaceful. He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those, however they be miscalled, that desire to live purely, in such a use of God’s ordinances, as the best guidance of their conscience gives them, and to tolerate them, though in some disconformity to ourselves. The book itself will tell us more at large, being published to the world, and dedicated to the parliament by him, who both for his30 life and for his death deserves, that what advice he left be not laid by without perusal.

  And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus, with his two controversal faces , might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to10 misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricated already to our hands. Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements. What a20 collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence, “to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures” early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute. When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only30 that he may try the matter by dint of argument, for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments , to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did,10 who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than one? What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike herself? What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of “those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross ”?20 What great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of? His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble, and are impatient30 at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover, any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment10 of “wood and hay and stubble” forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think well of every light separation; or that all in a church is to be expected “gold and silver, and precious stones:” it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the[ ] angels’ ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be?20 this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring30 differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt ‘the unity of Spirit,’ if we could but find among us ‘the bond of peace.’ In the meanwhile, if any one would write, and bring his helpful hand to the slow-moving reformation which we labour under, if Truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking licence to do so worthy a deed? and not consider this, that if it come10 to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose first appearance to our eyes, bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to . And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief cause why sects and schisms do so much20 abound, and true knowledge is kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger which is in it. For when God shakes a kingdom with strong and healthful commotions to a general reforming, ’tis not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing; but yet more true it is, that God then raises to his own work men of rare abilities, and more than common industry, not only to look back and revive what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further, and go on some new enlightened steps in30 the discovery of truth. For such is the order of God’s enlightening his church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place these his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as man sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set places and assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the old10 convocation house, and another while in the chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized, is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry the 7 himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead to swell their20 number. And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes yet for our own? seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who, not contented with stale receipts, are able to manage and set forth new positions30 to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the priests, nor among the pharisees, and we, in the haste of a precipitant zeal, shall make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly10 forejudge them ere we understand them, no less than woe to us, while, thinking thus to defend the gospel, we are found the persecutors.

  There have been not a few since the beginning of this parliament, both of the presbytery and others, who by their unlicensed books to the contempt of an imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day: I hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much20 good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is, if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the church by this let of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade and30 execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors themselves; whom the change of their condition hath puffed up, more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise.

  And as for regulating the press, let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better than yourselves10 have done in that order published next before this : “That no book be printed, unless the printer’s and the author’s name, or at least the printer’s be registered.” Those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy that man’s prevention can use. For this authentic Spanish policy of licensing books, if I have said aught, will prove the most unlicensed book itself within a short while; and was the immediate image of a star-chamber20 decree to that purpose made in those very times when that court did the rest of those her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer. Whereby[ ] ye may guess what kind of state prudence, what love of the people, what care of religion or good manners there was at the contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pretended to bind books to their good behaviour. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent order so well constituted before, if we may believe those men whose profession gives them cause30 to inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of bookselling; who, under pretence of the poor in their company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid, brought divers glosing[ ]colours to the House, which were indeed but colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours, men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other10 men’s vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them in procuring by petition this order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier escape abroad, as the event shews. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not: this I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what magistrate may not be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of printing be reduced into the power of a few? But to redress willingly and speedily what20 hath been erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a sumptuous bribe, is a virtue (honoured lords and commons) answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.

  NOTES

  APPENDIX¹

  cambridge: printed by j. b. peace, m.a., at the university press.

  [1 ] By A. W. Verity

  [1 ] Milton was very fond of the organ; see Il Penseroso, 161. During his residence at Horton Milton made occasional journeys to London to hear, and obtain instruction (probably from Henry Lawes) in, music. It was an age of great musical development. See “Milton’s Knowledge of Music” by Mr W. H. Hadow, in Milton Memorial Lectures (1908).

  [2 ] See the paper “Milton as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster” by Mr A. F. Leach, read before the British Academy, Dec 10, 1908.

  [2 ] See the paper “Milton as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster” by Mr A. F. Leach, read before the British Academy, Dec 10, 1908.

  [1 ] His paraphrases of Psalms cxiv. cxxxvi. scarcely come under this heading. Aubrey says in his quaint Life of Milton: “Anno Domini 1619 he was ten yeares old, as by his picture [the portrait by Cornelius Janssen]: and was then a poet.”

  [1 ]An Apology for Smectymnuus, Prose Works, Bohn’s edn, iii. 111. Perhaps Cambridge would have been more congenial to Milton had he been sent to Emmanuel College, long a centre of Puritanism. Dr John Preston, then Master of the college, was a noted leader of the Puritan party.

  [2 ] Cf. Milton’s own words: “the church, to whose service, by the intentions of my parents and friends, I was destined of a child, and in my own resolutions” (The Reason of Church Government, P. W.ii. 482). What kept him from taking orders was primarily his objection to Church discipline and government: he spoke of himself as “Church-outed by the prelates”

  [1 ] He was closely familiar too with post-classical writers like Philo and the neo-Platonists, nor must we forget the mediæval element in his learning, due often to Rabbinical teaching.

  [2 ] Science—“natural philosophy,” as he terms it—is one of the branches of study advocated in his treatise On Education. Of his early interest in astronomy there is a reminiscence in Paradise Lost,ii. 708-11: where “Milton is not referring to an imaginary comet, but to one which actually did appear when he was a boy of 10 (1618), in the constellation called Ophiuchus. It was of enormous size, the tail being recorded as longer even than that of 1858. It was held responsible by educated and learned men of the day for disasters. Evelyn says in his diary, ‘The effects of that comet, 1618, still working in the prodigious revolutions now beginning in Europe, especially in Germany’ ” (Professor Ray Lankester).

  [1 ] Milton’s poems with their undercurrent of perpetual allusion are the best proof of the width of his reading; but interesting supplementary evidence is afforded by the Common-place Book discovered in 1874, and printed by the Camden Society, 1876. It contains extracts from about 80 different authors whose works Milton had studied. The entries seem to have been made in the period 1637-46.

  [1 ] His wife (who was only seventeen) was Mary Powell, eldest daughter of Richard Powell, of Forest Hill, a village some little distance from Oxford. She went to stay with her father in July, 1643, and refused to return to Milton; why, it is not certain. She was reconciled to her husband in 1645, bore him four children, and died in 1652, in her twenty-seventh year. No doubt, the scene in P. L. x. 909-36, in which Eve begs forgiveness of Adam, reproduced the poet’s personal experience, while many passages in Samson Agonistes must have been inspired by the same cause.

  [1 ] i.e. old style. The volume was entered on the registers of the Stationers’ Company under the date of October 6th, 1645. It was published on Jan. 2, 1645-46, with the following title-page:

  “Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, Compos’d at several times. Printed by his true Copies. The Songs were set in Musick by Mr. Henry Lawes Gentleman of the Kings Chappel, and one of His Majesties Private Musick. ‘— Baccare frontemCingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.’ Virgil,Eclog. 7. Printed and publish’d according to Order. London, Printed by Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at the signe of the Princes Arms in Pauls Churchyard. 1645.”

  From the prefatory Address to the Reader it is clear that the collection was due to the initiative of the publisher. Milton’s own feeling is expressed by the motto, where the words “vati futuro” show that, as he judged, his great achievement was yet to come. The volume was divided into two parts, the first containing the English, the second the Latin poems. Comus was printed at the close of the former, with a separate title-page to mark its importance. The prominence given to the name of Henry Lawes reflects Milton’s friendship.

  [2 ] A Latin Secretary was required because the Council scorned, as Edward Phillips says, “to carry on their affairs in the wheedling, lisping jargon of the cringing French.” Milton’s salary was £288, in modern money about £900.

  [1 ] Perhaps this was the saddest part of the episode. Milton tells us in the Defensio Secunda that his eyesight was injured by excessive study in boyhood: “from twelve years of age I hardly ever left my studies or went to bed before midnight.” Continual reading and writing increased the infirmity, and by 1650 the sight of the left eye had gone. He was warned that he must not use the other for book-work. Unfortunately this was just the time when the Commonwealth stood most in need of his services. If Milton had not written the first Defence he might have retained his partial vision, at least for a time. The choice lay between private good and public duty. He repeated in 1650 the sacrifice of 1639. All this is brought out in his Second Defence. By the spring of 1652 Milton was quite blind. He was then in his forty-fourth year. Probably the disease from which he suffered was amaurosis. See the Appendix on P. L.iii. 22-26. Throughout P. L. and Samson Agonistes there are frequent references to his affliction.

  [1 ] Milton probably began Paradise Lost in 1658; but it was not till the Restoration in 1660 that he definitely resigned all his political hopes, and became quite free to realise his poetical ambition.

  [1 ]An Apology for Smectymnuus, P. W.iii. 118.

  [2 ]The Reason of Church Government, P. W.ii. 481.

  [1 ] Milton’s second marriage took place in the autumn of 1656, i.e. after he had become blind. His wife died in February, 1658. Cf. the Sonnet, “Methought I saw my late espoused saint,” the pathos of which is heightened by the fact that he had never seen her.

  [1 ] The number of Milton’s sonnets is twenty-three (if we exclude the piece “On the New Forcers of Conscience”), five of which were written in Italian, probably during the time of his travels in Italy, 1638, 1639. Ten sonnets were printed in the edition of 1645, the last of them being that entitled (from the Cambridgems.) “To the Lady Margaret Ley.” The remaining thirteen were composed between 1645 and 1658. The concluding sonnet, therefore (to the memory of Milton’s second wife), immediately preceded his commencement of Paradise Lost. Four of these poems (xv. xvi. xvii. xxii.) could not, on account of their political tone, be included in the edition of 1673. They were published by Edward Phillips together with his memoir of Milton, 1694 (Sonnetxvii. having previously appeared in a Life of Vane). The sonnet on the “Massacre in Piedmont” is usually considered the finest of the collection, of which Mr Mark Pattison edited a well-known edition, 1883. The sonnet inscribed with a diamond on a window pane in the cottage at Chalfont where the poet stayed in 1665 is (in the judgment of a good critic) Miltonic, if not Milton’s (Garnett, Life of Milton, p. 175).

  [2 ] The 1673 edition also gave the juvenile piece On the Death of a Fair Infant and At a Vacation Exercise, which for some reason had been omitted from the 1645 edition.

  [3 ] The treatise on Christian Doctrine (unpublished during Milton’s lifetime and dating, it is thought, mainly from the period of his theological treatises) is valuable as throwing much light on the theological views expressed in the two epic poems and Samson Agonistes. See Milton Memorial Lectures (1908), pp. 109-42. The discovery of the ms. of this treatise in 1823 gave Macaulay an opportunity of writing his famous essay on Milton, which has been happily described as a Whig counterblast to Johnson’s Tory depreciation of the poet.

  Milton’s History of Britain, though not published till 1670, had been written many years earlier; four of the six books, we know, were composed between 1646 and 1649.

  [1 ] The lines by Dryden which were printed beneath the portrait of Milton in Tonson’s folio edition of Paradise Lost published in 1688 are too familiar to need quotation; but it is worth noting that the younger poet had in Milton’s lifetime described the great epic as “one of the most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced” (prefatory essay to The State of Innocence, 1674). Further, tradition assigned to Dryden (a Roman Catholic and a Royalist) the remark, “this fellow (Milton) cuts us all out and the ancients too.”

  [2 ] See Marvell’s “Commendatory Verses,” 17-30.

  [1 ] Quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi. Sueton. in Claudio.

  [Page 3, line 16.] a trivial and malignant encomium.

  i.e. Bishop Hall’s A Modest Confutation of a Slanderous and Scurrilous Libel intituled Animadversions upon the Remonstrant’s Defence against Smectymnuus. (Exact date uncertain: earlier than Feb. 1642.) The third of Milton’s pamphlets on the Church question (Animadversions, &c., 1641) was a criticism of Bishop Hall’s reply to Smectymnuus. In the Confutation Bishop Hall attacked Milton. Dr Hall says of the Parliament:

  “The sun looks not on a braver, nobler Convocation than is that of King, Peers and Commons, whose equal justice and wise moderation shall eternally triumph, in that they have hitherto deferred to do what the sour exorbitancies on the one hand and eager solicitations on the other, not permitting them to consult with reason, would have prompted them to.”

  Milton calls this praise “trivial” since it deals in commonplaces; “malignant” (disloyal to the Commonwealth) since it assumes that the Parliament is inseparable from the Crown.

  [P. 4, l. 5.] the magnanimity of a triennial parliament.

  After the dissolution of Parliament in 1629 (4th of Charles I) 11 years had elapsed till the long Parliament met in 1640. The Triennial Act, passed in 1641, enacted that there should never be an interval of more than three years between Parliament and Parliament; and that, if writs were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers should, without writs, call the constituencies together to elect.

  [P. 4, l. 6.] prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late.

  i.e. the Committee of Council to which Charles had entrusted a great part of the public business before the Long Parliament. Laud and Strafford were the chief members. Speaking of the whole body, Clarendon says:—“These persons made up the Committee of State which was reproachfully after called the Junto, and enviously then in the Court the cabinet” (Hist. Rebel.i. 233). Cf. Eikonoklastes: “the politic cabin at Whitehall.”

  [P. 4, l. 23.] I could name him who from his private house, &c.

  Isokrates in the Areopagiticus (355 bc) supposes himself to be speaking in the ekklesia; and urges the people to restore that severer form of the democracy under which the Areiopagos possessed a general censorial power.

  [P. 4, l. 29.] cities and signiories.

  In reference to ancient Greece, democracies and oligarchies—alluding to the correspondence of Isokrates, in particular, with despots and with oligarchical states.

  [P. 5, ll. 1-3.] Thus did Dion Prusæus. . . . . .counsel the Rhodians.

  Dion Chrysostomos, the rhetorician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia about 50 ad Milton alludes to his Rhodian Discourse (Ῥοδιακὸς λόγος)—in which he remonstrates with the people of Rhodes on their practice of making old memorial statues serve again by altering the inscription (Phot. cod. 209, p. 166).

  [P. 5, l. 7.] haply not the worst.

  The two examples just cited of genius making itself heard from a private station were furnished by natives of a southern climate. Milton means that, though he be not equal to these men—though his genius have not all the fire of the south—yet it is “haply not the worst for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude”;—i.e. it is ardent—for England. The reading worse (instead of worst) is defensible, but less good. Milton would then mean that his genius owes to the bracing climate in which it was bred some qualities less common in the south.

  [P. 5, l. 29.] that part which preserves justly every man’s copy to himself.

  A book, when licensed, was entered on the register of the Stationers’ Company, with the name of the printer or publisher. It was then the “copy” of the printer or publisher; i.e. he had the copyright. The Order of the Lords and Commons, June 14, 1643, provided against the infringement of such copyright: “And that no person or persons shall hereafter print, or cause to be reprinted any Book or Books, or part of Book, or Books heretofore allowed of and granted to the said Company of Stationers for their relief and maintenance of their poore, without the licence or consent of the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the said Company; Nor any Book or Books lawfully licenced and entred in the Register of the said Company for any particular member thereof, without the licence and consent of the owner or owners thereof. Nor yet import any such Book or Books, or part of Book or Books formerly Printed here, from beyond the Seas, upon paine of forfeiting the same to the Owner, or Owners of the Copies of the said Books, and such further punishment as shall be thought fit.” (Arber’s edn of Areopagitica, p. 27.)

  [P. 6, l. 5.] quadragesimal and matrimonial.

  The book license might have been supposed to have expired with the quadragesimal licence and the marriage-licence. (1) The “quadragesimal,” i.e. Lenten, licence—a dispensation from fasting in Lent. Even after the Reformation such formal dispensations were often asked and given. (2) Under the Commonwealth marriages were ordinarily contracted before the civil magistrate, without a licence. For “quadragesimal”, as = lenten, cf. Cartwright’s Ordinary (1651):

  • —quadragesimal wits and fancies lean
  • As ember weeks.

  [P. 7, l. 19.] that ethereal and fifth essence.

  Alluding to the hypothesis of four elements which compose the material world, and a fifth element peculiar to God and to the human soul. Par. L.iii. 714:

  • Swift to their several quarters hasted then
  • The cumbrous elements, earth, flood, air, fire;
  • And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
  • Flew upward.

  [P. 8, l. 4.] a discourse.

  The treatise of Protagoras entitled Truth, or concerning the Real, which began—“As to the gods, I cannot say whether they are or are not” (Diog. Laert. ix. 51).

  [P. 8, l. 8.] Vetus Comœdia.

  (1) “Old Comedy” of Athens, about 458-404 bc: characteristic—personal political satire: (2) “Middle Comedy,” 404-338: general satire, political and literary: (3) “New Comedy,” 338-260: social comedy of manners and character.

  [P. 8, ll. 15, 16.] Epicurus—Cyrene—the Cynic impudence.

  (1) The Cyrenaics. Aristippos, their founder, a pupil of Sokrates, taught that Happiness consists in the temperate use of Pleasure. His philosophy was summed in the practical maxim, “to subdue circumstances to himself, not himself to circumstances” (Hor. Ep.i. 1. 18). (2) The Cynics. Antisthenes, another pupil of Sokrates, was the founder of the school, but Diogenes was its chief representative. The Cynic ideal, like that of the ascetics, was a war of the mind against the body. Milton’s phrase refers to the contempt of the Cynics for the decencies as well as for the pleasures of life. (3) Epicurus (342-272 bc) defined Happiness as Pleasure, but with a higher meaning than that of Aristippos. He understood by Pleasure the equable enjoyment of a whole life: and, with a view to this, enjoined strict self-control.

  [P. 8, l. 21.] his royal scholar, Dionysius.

  Dionysios the Elder, despot of Syracuse, 405-376 bc

  [P. 8, l. 29.] the scattered works of Homer.

  The story that Lykurgos was the first who collected the Homeric poems is taken by Milton from Aelian, Varia Historia,xiii. 14.

  [P. 8, l. 30.] Thales.

  Thales (or Thaletas) of Crete. His lyric poems were chiefly paeans and hymns for use in the choral worship of Apollo and Zeus. But he was remembered chiefly as the founder at Sparta of a new school of music—in which the solemnity of the old Apollinar ritual was blended with the animation and passion which belonged to the worship of Zeus as practised by the Curetes, his Cretan priests, and to the Asiatic worship of the Great Mother. The story that Lykurgos brought Thales to Sparta is doubtful. Lykurgos flourished about 770 bc; Thales probably about 670.

  [P. 9, ll. 5, 6.] their own laconic apophthegms.

  Alluding to Plutarch’s collection, under that title, of pithy sayings by Lacedaemonians.

  [P. 9, l. 7.] Archilochus.

  Milton’s authority for the expulsion of Archilochos is Plutarch, Instituta Laconica, p. 239 b: “Archilochus the poet, on arriving in Lacedaemon, was driven out that very hour, on being recognised as the poet who had said that it is better to throw away one’s shield than to be killed.” The account of another writer (Valerius Maximus, vi. 3) is simply that the poems of Archilochos were forbidden at Sparta.

  [P. 9, ll. 8, 9.] soldierly ballads and roundels.

  In “soldierly ballads” the reference is probably to the poems of Tyrtaeos. The term “roundel” (a song which comes round, or back, to a refrain) might be properly applied to some of the old Greek drinking-songs, with a burden or chorus.

  [P. 9, ll. 20-22.] Carneades and Critolaus, with the Stoic Diogenes, coming ambassadors to Rome.

  In 155 bc, to pray for the remission of a fine imposed on Athens by the Roman Senate for having seized Oropos. As Diogenes (sometimes called “the Babylonian,” to distinguish him from Diogenes of Smope, the Cynic) represented the Stoic school, so Critolaos represented the Peripatetic school (the philosophy of Aristotle), and Carneades, the New Academy—the school of general scepticism. At this time the influence of Hellenism was only beginning to be faintly felt at Rome: and this was the début at Rome of Greek philosophy. “The young men who were masters of the Greek language were attracted in crowds by the scandal as well as by the lively and emphatic delivery of the celebrated man [Carneades]; but on this occasion at least Cato could not be found fault with, when he not only bluntly enough compared the dialectic arguments of the philosophers to the tedious dirges of the waiting-women, but also insisted on the senate dismissing a man who understood the art of making right wrong and wrong right, and whose defence was in fact nothing but a shameless and almost insulting confession of injustice. But such dismissals had no great effect, more especially as the Roman youth could not be prevented from hearing philosophic discourses at Rhodes and Athens.” (Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, Book iv. c. xii.: vol. iii. p. 429 in Dickson’s transl.)

  [P. 10, l. 1.] at the same time.

  Naevius began to exhibit comedies about 235 bc (i.e. 80 years before the embassy of Carneades); Plautus, about 224 bc

  [P. 10, l. 3.] Menander and Philemon.

  Poets of the New Comedy of Athens: see above, note on Vetus Comœdia.

  [P. 10, ll. 14, 15.] to be set forth the second time by Cicero.

  The story that the poem of Lucretius was edited after the poet’s death by Cicero is given by Jerome (probably on the authority of Suetonius) in his additions to the Eusebian chronicle. Jerome appears to mean that the poem was first published by Cicero—not “the second time,” as Milton assumes. “The poem must have been given to the world exactly as it was left by the author, with nothing added or taken from it to all appearance. If Cicero then was editor, he probably put it into the hands of some of his own amanuenses or entrusted it to the large copying establishment of Atticus; and he may have spent only a few hours in looking over it or hearing it read to him; his name rather than his time was probably wanted by the friends of Lucretius.” (Munro, Lucretius, vol. ii. p. 95.)

  [P. 10, ll. 18, 19.] Lucilius—Catullus—Flaccus.

  Lucilius (flourished about 110 bc?), the first great Roman satirist: only fragments of his satires remain. Catullus (60 bc) has left 116 poems in various metres and styles, some of which show the power of invective which has led Milton to name him here. The Satires of Horace are rather what satura properly meant—Miscellanies—essays in verse on social subjects.

  [P. 10, l. 20.] the story of Titus Livius.

  Those books of Livy’s History in which he related the civil war between the parties of Pompeius and of Octavius Caesar are lost. The bare epitomes which remain convey no hint of partiality. But Milton had in mind a passage of Tacitus (Annals,iv. 34): “Titus Livius, eminently distinguished for eloquence and for honesty, praised Cn. Pompeius so highly that Augustus called him a Pompeian; but that did not hurt their friendship.” Yet Livy, if incapable of flattering, was not backward in complimenting, Augustus: see, for instance, iv. 20.

  [P. 10, l. 23.] banished in his old age.

  Ovid was banished by Augustus, for an uncertain cause, in 8 ad; the poet being then 51, the emperor 68.

  [P. 11, l. 3.] By this time.

  Milton passes over the first three centuries of the Christian era—during which there was “little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire,” and during which, therefore, any prohibition of books must be regarded merely as part of a despotic system. He takes up his sketch again at the Christian Emperors. The first Christian Emperor was Constantine the Great (306-337 ad).

  [P. 11, l. 11.] Porphyrius and Proclus.

  Porphyrios (270 ad) and Proklos (450 ad) were leaders of the Neoplatonic school—the last form in which pagan philosophy made a stand against Christianity.

  [P. 11, l. 13.] about the year 400.

  This Council of Carthage was held in 412 ad

  [P. 11, l. 22.] Padre Paolo.

  Pietro Sarpi (1552-1623) took the name of Padre Paolo on entering the order of Dei Servi. He became suspected of heresy early in his priesthood, and withdrew from Rome to Venice. During the disputes between the Venetian Republic and the Holy See at the beginning of the 17th century he was prominent on the Venetian side. His History of the Council of Trent occupied the last years of his life. The first English translation was published at London in 1619.

  [P. 12, ll. 2-5.] Wicklef and Husse—the council of Trent.

  Wicliff’s writing against ecclesiastical abuses began with his tract, “The Last Age of the Church,” in 1356: he died in 1384. Huss was the disciple of Wicliff: he met with Wicliff’s books during a visit to England, and brought them back with him to Prague in 1382. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) gave the first distinct expression to the alarm excited at Rome by Wicliff and Huss. It was ordered that Wicliff’s bones should be exhumed and burned—with his writings: Huss was condemned to the stake (1415). Two years later, while the Council was still sitting, Martin V became Pope, and, in view of these cases, strictly forbad the reading of heretical books. Sixtus IV (1417-1431) first established an inquisition of the press.

  Milton gives Leo X (1513-1521) a prominent place in the history of the prohibitive system; but he was very unlike the Popes before and after him both in the spirit and in the measure of his restrictions. He was a liberal patron of letters—whether it be true or not that, as Ranke says of him, “his life passed in a sort of intellectual intoxication”; and his merely prudential censorship of the press appears to have been widely different from the stolid tyranny of his immediate predecessors and successors.

  Paul III (1534-1549) was the institutor of that strict supervision which became more and more systematic as the Council of Trent continued its sittings. On the advice of Cardinal Caraffa, he resolved to revive the ancient Dominican Inquisition—long fallen into decay, though a special branch of it was still active under a Spanish Supreme Tribunal. A Bull of July 21, 1542, established an Universal Supreme Tribunal at Rome, designed to be the centre of a general organisation. Every branch of literature was now subjected to a rigorous inquiry. In 1543 Caraffa ordered that no book, old or new, should be printed without licence of the Inquisition; that booksellers should send their catalogues to the Holy Office, and should sell nothing without its authority; and that the officers of the customs should submit to it all packages of manuscript or printed books, before consigning them to their address. This was the origin of the Index Expurgatorius. The first of such catalogues appeared at Paris. The first Italian index, containing about 70 books, was printed by Giovanni della Casa, an intimate friend of Caraffa, at Venice. More complete catalogues appeared in 1552 at Florence and in 1554 at Milan. In 1559 a catalogue was printed at Rome in the form which long remained the model: it included the writings of Cardinals, and Casa’s own poems.

  Meanwhile the Council of Trent continued its sittings (1545-1563); and the progressive severity of the enactments must have been partly due to its influence. Not only printers and booksellers were subject to these enactments; it was enjoined as a duty of conscience on all persons to inform against forbidden books. These rules were enforced with successful rigour. In 1540 a book by Aonio Paleario was published called—Of the Benefits of the Death of Christ. It gave offence to the Inquisition by appearing to depreciate works relatively to faith. The circulation was great; but very few copies seem to have escaped. (See Ranke, i. pp. 210-216: cf. pp. 140 f.)

  [P. 12, l. 29.] Davanzati.

  Bernardo Davanzati Bostichi, of Florence (1529-1606), best known for his translation of Tacitus.

  [P. 13, l. 22.] one from Lambeth-house, another from the west end of Paul’s.

  i.e. either from the Archbishop of Canterbury or from the Bishop of London. The Star-Chamber decree of 1586 had ordered that no book should be published without a license from both or at least from one of these prelates. The Star-Chamber decree of 1637 re-enacted this (Clause iii); reserving special classes of books, viz. (a) law-books, to be licensed by the Chief Justices and Chief Baron: (b) books relating to contemporary history or to state-affairs, to be licensed by the Secretaries of State, or by one of them: (c) books on heraldry, to be licensed by the Earl Marshal.

  [P. 14, l. 28.] the attendant minorites, their chaplains.

  i.e. Chaplains who resemble monks in the service of the Inquisition. The Franciscans were called friars minor, or minorites, because it was a rule of their order: “Let no one be called prior, but let all be called lesser brethren.”

  [P. 15, l. 14.] Lullius.

  Raymond Lully, (the “doctor illuminatus,”) famous for his skill in the occult sciences (1234-1315).

  [P. 15, l. 29.] the sentences of three Greek poets.

  (1) Acts xvii. 28, “As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring”—a quotation from Aratos (about 270 bc), the author of two physical poems in hexameter verse: (2) 1 Cor. xv. 33, “Evil communications corrupt good manners”—from Euripides: (3) Titus i. 12, “The Cretians are alway liars,” &c.,—from Epimenides of Crete (about 600 bc).

  [P. 16, ll. 11-15.] the two Appollinarii—the historian, Socrates.

  Sokrates “the Scholastic,” of Constantinople, [379-450 ad?] wrote in Greek the history of the Church during a period of 133 years (306-439 ad), from the reign of Constantine to the reign of the younger Theodosios.

  The story of the two Apollinarii, to which Milton refers here, is thus told by Sokrates, Eccl. Hist.iii. 16:

  “Howbeit, the law of the king [Julian the Apostate, 361-363 ad], which forbad the Christians to participate in the Hellenic culture, gave to the Apollinarii, who have already been named, a yet greater lustre. Each had skill in literature; the father as a grammarian, the son as a rhetorician: and both did good service to Christianity at this crisis. The father, in his quality of grammarian, promptly reduced the Art of Grammar to a form specially designed for Christians. At the same time he translated the Books of Moses, with the other historical portions of the Old Testament, into hexameters; he also rendered them dramatically in tragedies; and, indeed, used every manner of metre, that no fashion of Hellenic utterance might be strange to the ear of Christians. The younger Apollinarius, using his rhetorical accomplishments, put forth the Gospels and the teaching of the Apostles in the form of dialogues resembling Plato’s among the Greeks. Thus did they show themselves serviceable to Christianity, and baffle by their private labours the stratagem of the emperor.”

  [P. 16, l. 12.] all the seven liberal sciences.

  i.e.

  1.	Grammar }	The Trivium.
  2.	Logic }
  3.	Rhetoric }
  4.	Arithmetic }	The Quadrivium.
  5.	Geometry }
  6.	Astronomy }
  7.	Music }

  [P. 16, l. 23.] whipped St Jerome in a lenten dream.

  St Jerome himself relates the story to his disciple Eustochium, to deter her from reading the writers of pagan Rome. After describing the fascination which the classical writers had for him, and the distaste with which he turned from them to the Scriptures, he goes on: “While the old serpent was thus fooling me, about midlent a fever entered my marrow and seized on my wornout body; and without respite so preyed upon my unhappy limbs that scarce did I cleave to my bones. Meanwhile my funeral was being made ready; and, as the chill crept over my whole frame, a vital heat now throbbed only in my poor lukewarm breast;—when suddenly, caught up in the spirit, I was dragged before the tribunal of the Judge: where there was so much light, such splendour from the brightness of those who stood round about, that I cast myself to the earth and dared not look up. Asked of my state, I answered that I was a Christian. Thou liest, He saith, thou art a Ciceronian, not a Christian. For where thy treasure is, there will be thy heart also. Straightway I was dumb, and under the lash (for He had commanded me to be scourged), was tormented yet more by the fire of conscience, thinking over that verse in my heart, Who shall confess to Thee in hell? Then began I to cry and to wail, Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy. Those words resounded amid the blows.” (Hieronym. tom. iv. p. 42. Benedict. ed.)

  [P. 17, l. 5.] Basil.

  Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (b. 329: d. 379).

  [P. 17, l. 6.] Margites.

  A mock-heroic poem, so called after its hero, Margites (“a mad, silly fellow”)—who seems to have been represented as a stupid man with a great belief in his own powers. Plato (Second Alkibiades, p. 147 c) and Aristotle (Poetics,iv. 10) agree in ascribing it to Homer. Aristotle regards it as the earliest Greek type of comedy, as the Iliad and Odyssey were precursors of tragedy. Only four lines are extant. One of them became proverbial: “He knew many works—but knew them all badly.”

  [P. 17, l. 7.] Morgante.

  Il Morgante Maggiore, a mock-romantic poem by Luigi Pulci (1432-1487), was published at Venice in 1481. It consists of 28 cantos written in the eight-line stanza; and might be described, in Hallam’s words, as a parody by anticipation of the Orlando Furioso; bearing the same relation to the poetry as Don Quixote bears to the prose of chivalrous romance.

  [P. 17, l. 12.] Dionysius Alexandrinus.

  Bishop of Alexandria from 247 to 265, and noted chiefly as antagonist of the Sabellians.

  [P. 18, l. 18.] Mr Selden.

  John Selden (1584-1654), one of the first lawyers and probably the most learned man of Milton’s time. Among his earliest works were (1) Titles of Honour, 1614, still an authority on questions of heraldry, and the occasion of Ben Jonson’s Epistle to Master John Selden containing the couplet

  • Monarch in letters! ’Mongst thy titles shown
  • Of others’ honours, thus enjoy thine own

  (2) De Dis Syris—On the Syrian Gods, 1617: (3) History of Tithes, 1618—of which two works the former excited the admiration, and the second the displeasure, of the clergy. Selden was summoned before the High Commission Court, and required to recant. He submitted “with grim facility”; and from that time became more decidedly “a leader among the English liberals, as well in ecclesiastical as in secular politics.” (Masson, Life of Milton,i. p. 484.)

  The “volume of natural and national laws” to which Milton refers here was published in 1640. It was entitled De Jure Naturali et Gentium, juxta disciplinam Hebraeorum, On Natural Law and the Law of Nations, according to the system of the Hebrews. In the last chapter of Milton’s Essay on The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643) the book is cited: “That all this is true, whoso desires to know at large with least pains, and expects not overlong rehearsals of that which is by others already so judiciously gathered, let him hasten to be acquainted with that noble volume written by our learned Selden, Of the Law of Nature and of Nations, a work more useful and more worthy to be perused by whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity, and justice than all those ‘decretals and sumless sums’ which the pontifical clerks have doted on.”

  [P. 20, l. 3.] Psyche.

  Venus was jealous of Cupid’s love for Psyche; and, Psyche having come into her power, treated her as a slave, and set her many tasks; under which she would have died, had not Cupid helped her to do them, and at last to vanquish the hatred of Venus. (Apuleius, Metamorphoses,iv. 28.)

  [P. 20, l. 30.] Scotus.

  Duns Scotus, the schoolman (1265-1308).

  [P. 20, l. 30.] Aquinas.

  Thomas Aquinas, “the angelic doctor” (1224-1274).

  [P. 21, l. 2.] the cave of Mammon.

  Faerie Queene II. vii. 3:

  • At last he came unto a gloomy glade,
  • Cover’d with boughes and shrubs from heavens light,
  • Whereas he sitting found in secret shade
  • An uncouth, salvage, and uncivile wight,
  • Of griesly hew, and fowle ill-favour’d sight;
  • His face with smoke was tand, & eies were bleard,
  • His head and beard with sout were ill bedight,
  • His cole-blacke hands did seeme to have beene seard
  • In smithes fire-spitting forge, & nayles like clawes appeard.

  [P. 21, l. 22.] Talmudist.

  The Talmud is a code, first committed to writing probably about 550 ad, of those Jewish laws, civil and canonical, which had come down from early times by oral tradition, as distinguished from the written law of the Pentateuch.

  [P. 21, ll. 23, 24.] Keri—Chetiv.

  Keri (pass. part.) “read”; chetiv, “written.” The Rabbinical commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures, when a word seemed to them for any reason to require alteration, avoided changing the written text by putting in the margin the word which was to be read. The latter is the keri: the former is the “chetiv” or cethib. Compare Milton’s Apology for Smectymnuus (1642): “God who is the author both of purity and eloquence, chose this phrase as fittest in that vehement character wherein he spake. Otherwise that plain word might easily have been forborne: which the Masoreths and Rabbinical scholiasts not well attending, have often used to blur the margent with Keri instead of Chetiv, and gave us this insulse rule out of their Talmud”—viz. that all unseemly words in the Law “must be changed to more civil words.”

  [P. 21, l. 28.] that Eusebian book of evangelic preparation.

  A work entitled A Preparation for the Gospel (εὐαγγελικη̂ς ἀποδείξεως προπαρασκευή), by Eusebios the ecclesiastical historian (265-338 ad). It is an attempt to extract from ancient pagan thought everything which can prepare the mind to receive Christianity; and forms a collection, in 15 books, of quotations or facts from old writers, chiefly from philosophers.

  [P. 22, l. 11.] criticisms of sin.

  i.e. subtle varieties, niceties of sin. A criticism is properly an act of discriminating: “criticisms” are here the things discriminated: a use of the word which does not occur elsewhere.

  [P. 22, l. 13.] that notorious ribald of Arezzo.

  Pietro Aretino (1492-1557), a writer of burlesques and satires. “It appears extraordinary that, in an age so little scrupulous as to political or private revenge, some great princes, who had never spared a worthy adversary, thought it not unbecoming to purchase the silence of an odious libeller, who called himself their scourge” (Hallam, Introd. to the Lit. of Eur.ii. 192).

  [P. 22, l. 15.] I name not him.

  It has been supposed that Milton alludes to Skelton, or to Andrew Borde (author of The Madmen of Gotham). Holt White suggests that the reference may be to a certain Gray, of whom Puttenham (writing about 1590) speaks in his Arte of English Poesie as having gained the favour of Henry VIII “for making certaine merry Ballades.”

  [P. 22, l. 20.] by the north of Cataio eastward.

  Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxiv. (vol. viii. p. 10, note 22, ed. Dr Smith): “In Marco Polo and the Oriental geographers the names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern empires [of China], which, from ad 1234 to 1279, were those of the great Khan and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth century in their attempts to discover the north-east passage.” Milton alludes to this quest in Paradise Lost,x. 291:

  • Mountains of ice, that stop the imagined way
  • Beyond Petsora eastward, to the rich
  • Cathaian coast.

  [P. 23, l. 5.] Sorbonists.

  Robert de Sorbonne founded at Paris in 1252 the college which took its name from him; a society of ecclesiastics devoted to study and to gratuitous teaching. As a faculty of theology the Sorbonne had a wide reputation from the 14th to the 17th century. It was dissolved in 1789.

  [P. 23, l. 8.] Arminius.

  James Arminius, a Dutch theologian (1560-1609), was commissioned by Martin Lydius, Professor of Divinity at Franeker, to answer a book in which certain ministers of Delft had impugned Beza’s doctrine of predestination. Arminius undertook the task; but, in the course of preparation for it, became a convert to the opinion which he had been engaged to refute.

  [P. 25, l. 18.] Plato.

  “Music [in the Greek sense—including poetry] and Gymnastic are regarded by Plato mainly as they bear upon and influence the emotional character of his citizens. Each of them is the antithesis, and at the same time the supplement, to the other. Gymnastic tends to develope exclusively the courageous and energetic emotions:—anger and the feeling of power—but no others. Whereas Music (understood in the Platonic sense) has a far more multifarious and varied agency: it may develope either those, or the gentle and tender emotions, according to circumstances. In the hands of Tyrtaeus and Aeschylus it generates vehement and fearless combatants: in the hands of Euripides and other pathetic poets it produces tender, amatory, effeminate natures, ingenious in talk but impotent for action.” (Grote, Plato, vol. iii. p. 177.)

  It was from a fear of a demoralising influence in some forms of Poetry and Music, and of the power which they might, in other forms, give to the fancy over the reason, that Plato so strictly regulated Poetry and Music in his ideal Commonwealth. He proscribed especially (1) fictions which impute bad deeds to the gods: (2) fictions which portray vice in men: (3) fictions which impress on the mind the terror of death. Of the four “modes” or styles of music, he tolerated the Phrygian, expressive of lofty passion or inspiration, and the Dorian, with its stirring military strains; but banished the plaintive Lydian and the soft Ionian (Republic,i. p. 195).

  [P. 27, ll. 11—13.] The villages also must have their visitors to enquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebbeck reads even to the ballatry.

  Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury in August, 1633. In 1634, at his instance, the king issued to the bishops a new edition of the royal instructions of 1629; requiring, among other matters, that every bishop should exercise a strict censorship over all lecturers in his diocese, and should annually report the state of his diocese to his metropolitan. The bishops now began to hold strict visitations; and in every parish the church-wardens were bound by special oaths to assist in procuring exact information on certain questions, of which lists, called Articles of Visitation, were drawn up by the bishops.

  Laud’s ecclesiastical system for every parish must now, says Milton, be applied to the literature and poetry of every village. There must be inspectors to scrutinize the discourse with which the bagpipe and the fiddle accompany the rustic ballads sung to them.

  [P. 27, l. 12.] rebbeck.

  An instrument like the violin; it had three strings tuned in fifths, and was played with a bow. The “rebeb” was brought into Spain by the Moors; Chaucer and Lydgate call it the “ribible”: then it came to be called “rebeck” (French “rebec,” Italian “ribecca”).

  [P. 27, ll. 14, 15.] these are the countryman’s Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors.

  (1) Sir Philip Sidney’s prose romance, Arcadia, (published in part in 1590, and complete in 1593,) was the only good contribution which England made to the romantic literature of the 16th century. (2) George de Montemayor (1520-1562), a Castilian poet, was the author of the Diana, a pastoral romance in prose, intermingled with lyric verse. The Diana is said to have been, in its own department, a model almost as popular as Amadis in the romance of chivalry.

  [P. 27, l. 16.] hears ill.

  Is ill spoken of.

  [P. 28, l. 2.] Atlantic and Eutopian polities.

  (1) Atlantis, the Island of Atlas, is first mentioned in Plato’s Timaeos (pp. 24 e-25 a). Solon and a priest of Sais in Egypt are conversing about ancient history. To prove that Egyptian records go back further than Athenian, the priest tells Solon that, 9000 years before that time, Europe and Asia had been threatened with enslavement by invaders from the Atlantic. Before the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. just to the W. of the Straits of Gibraltar) lay an island called Atlantis, larger than Africa and Asia put together. In this island arose a great dynasty of kings, who became masters of the neighbouring islands, of Africa up to Egypt and of Europe up to Tyrrhenia. Then they gathered their forces to conquer the rest of the countries on the Mediterranean: but the Athenians drove them back and freed all the peoples east of the Pillars of Hercules. The victory was followed by great earthquakes and floods: the earth swallowed up the victorious Athenians: the sea engulphed the island of Atlantis.

  It has often been asked whether this legend was a pure fiction, or was suggested by dim rumours of a western continent. A passage in Seneca’s Medea is said to have made a deep impression on the mind of Columbus:

  • An age shall come with late years
  • When Ocean shall loosen the chains of things,
  • And the earth be laid open in vastness,
  • And Tethys shall bare new worlds
  • And Thule no longer be limit of lands.

  In his unfinished New Atlantis Bacon made the fabled island the seat of an imaginary Commonwealth.

  (2) Sir Thomas More (1480-1535) had described another imaginary Commonwealth in his Utopia—so called from a king Utopus,—a name itself formed from οὐ and τόπος (place), so that Utopia means the Land of Nowhere; not the Happy Land, the meaning implied by the spelling Eutopia. The Utopia has no resemblance to Plato’s Republic or Laws; and it was only in the most general sense that More owed to Plato the idea of his perfect society.

  [P. 28, ll. 28, 29.] such an Adam as he is in the motions.

  “Motion” = puppet-show. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona,ii. 1, “O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!”—Winter’s Tale,iv. 3, “then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son,” i.e. succeeded in re-enacting his vagrant life.

  [P. 30, l. 16.] that continued court-libel.

  The Mercurius Aulicus (“Court Mercury”), a periodical which appeared weekly from the beginning of 1643 to the end of 1645; afterwards occasionally. It was written chiefly by Sir John Berkenhead, and was designed to support the cause of the King against the Parliament.

  [P. 31, l. 5.] officials.

  At this time a technical term:—officers of those Ecclesiastical Courts to which the Bishops delegated the cognizance of spiritual offences. In 1641 Sir Edward Dering presented to the Long Parliament a “bill for the utter eradication of Bishops, Deans and Chapters; with all Chancellors, Officials, and all Officers and other Persons belonging to either of them” (Clarendon, Hist. Rebell.i. 368, 8vo. 1807). In his tract Of Reformation, &c. (1641), Milton contends that the true function of a Bishop is not “to go about circled with a band of rooking Officials with cloke-bagges full of Citations.”

  [P. 31, l. 13.] the model of Trent and Sevil.

  Compare p. 12, where Catalogues and Indexes are said to have been devised jointly by the Council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition. When the Holy Office was reestablished in Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella (1480), Seville became its chief seat.

  [P. 32, l. 28.] wish themselves well rid of it.

  In 1649 Gilbert Mabbot actually sought, and obtained, discharge from the office of licenser, on the grounds that the licensing system was wrong in principle and ineffectual in practice (Symmons’s Life of Milton, p. 220 note).

  [P. 35, l. 1.] a punie.

  A minor. Compare the tract Of Reformation, &c.: “how the puny law may be brought under the wardship and controul of lust [pleasure] and will.”

  [P. 35, l. 26.] his patriarchal licenser.

  The epithet “patriarchal” contains a special allusion. According to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Henry VIII sent the Duke of Norfolk to Francis I “offering aid for a war in Piedmont, if he would suffer no more monies to go out of his Realm to Rome, and instead of the Pope to erect a Patriarch, which it seems was one of the private Articles treated betwixt them at the interview” (of 1520: Herbert, p. 386, fol. 1682). Compare A true Delineation, or rather Parallel, between Cardinal Wolsey, Arch-bishop of York, and Wm. Laud, Arch-bishop of Canterbury (1641): “They both favored the See of Rome and respected his holinesse in it: the Cardinal did professe it publickly, the Arch-bishop did professe it privately. The Cardinal’s ambition was to be Pope: the Arch-bishop strove to be Patriarch: they both bid fairly for it; yet lost their aime.” A copy of satirical verses called Lambeth Faire (1641) had on the title-page:

  • These tricks & whimseys have been long conceal’d,
  • But now the pack’s laid open, al’s reveal’d,
  • The little Patriarcke frets & fumes to heare
  • How cheap his knacks are sold in Lambeth faire.

  [P. 36, l. 10.] from Sir Francis Bacon.

  The reference is to a piece of Lord Bacon’s entitled An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England (in the common 10 vol. edition, vol. ii. p. 505: in Spedding’s Letters and Life of Bacon, vol. i. p. 78): “And indeed we see it ever falleth out that the forbidden writing is thought to be certain sparks of a truth that fly up in the faces of those that seek to choke it and tread it out; whereas a book authorized is thought to be but temporis voces, the language of the time.”

  [P. 36, l. 24.] Knox.

  John Knox, the Scottish reformer (1505-1572).

  [P. 36, ll. 28, 29.] to what an author this violence hath been lately done.

  Milton probably alludes to the posthumous volumes of Coke’s Institutes. Sir Edward Coke died in 1634. Parts ii., iii., iv. of his Institutes were published in 1641. Holt White notices that Prynne, on the title-page to his Animadversions on Part iv. of the Institutes, speaks of that portion of the work as having been printed “with some disadvantage” after the author’s death. Bishop Nicholson, referring to Prynne’s severe criticism, says: “The learned Authour [Coke] is more severely reflected on than he ought to have been for a posthumous Work, wherein we know not what injustice might be done him by the Publishers of his orphan labours” (Engl. Hist. Library, p. 199, fol. 1714). It has also been conjectured that Milton alludes to the three last books of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity. These, too, were posthumous; but they were first published in 1648-62, some years later than the Areopagitica.

  [P. 37, l. 26.] monopolized.

  For the metaphor, comp. Cowley’s verses to Lord Falkland:

  • How could he answer ’t, should the State think fit
  • To question a monopoly of wit?

  [P. 37, l. 27.] traded in by tickets, and statutes, and standards.

  (1) Tickets: acknowledgements for goods received but not paid for: “to take on ticket” = to take on credit. Now “go on tick.” Comp. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Scornful Lady,iii. i.—“I am but new come over: direct me with your ticket to your tailor, and then I shall be fine.” (2) statutes: bonds or securities given for debts contracted by the purchase of merchandise. Blount’s Glossographia (5th ed. 1681) accounts for the name by the fact that such bonds “are made according to the form of certain statutes.” Comp. Hamlet,v. i, “This fellow might be in ’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries.” See, too, Sonnet,cxxxiv. (3) standards: weights and measures; perhaps with an allusion to the rates called “tunnage and poundage” which had been so great a grievance in the late reign.

  [P. 39, l. 19.] Enchiridion.

  With an allusion to the double meaning of the word—(1) hand-knife: (2) hand-book.

  [P. 40, l. 6.] Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition.

  Galileo, born in 1564 (Shakespeare’s birth-year), was 74 years old when Milton saw him at his villa near Florence in 1638.

  In 1616 Galileo’s writings had been condemned by the Inquisition, as involving the scientific heresies of Copernicus. In 1632 he published his Dialogues on the Ptolemaicand Copernican Systems. This was the cause of his second condemnation and imprisonment. In Dec 1633 he was released from confinement and allowed to return to Tuscany; but under restrictions imposed by the Holy Office, which justify Milton in calling him its “prisoner.” The last eight years of his life were passed at the Villa d’Arcetri, near Florence, on the south side; where a tower which was his observatory, and the house in which he lived, are still shown. “Here, in a select circle, when graver subjects were not on hand, his strong old face would relax, and he would be as charming as a child On such occasions he would recite poems of his own which were asked for, or play his own music, or descant on the Latin and Italian poets, and especially on his favourite Ariosto.......On fine evenings he would still be in his observatory using his telescope. At last, in 1637, when he was in his seventy-fourth year, blindness came suddenly over him, and the eyes that had so long scanned the heavens could see their orbs no more Precisely at the time when Milton arrived in Italy, Galileo’s blindness had become total.” (Masson, Life of Milton,i. p 716.)

  [P. 40, l. 23.] if without envy.

  i.e. “if I may say so much without incurring jealousy—without presumption”: modo invidia absit verbo.

  [P. 41, ll. 24, 25.] a mystical pluralist.

  A covert pluralist.

  [P. 41, l. 30.] Covenants and Protestations.

  Alluding to (1) The Solemn League and Covenant, 1638: (2) The Covenant or League between England and Scotland—a modification of the former Covenant—adopted by the Parliament, Sept. 25, 1643. (3) The “Protestation” (= Declaration) by which, in 1641, the Lords and Commons bound themselves to maintain constitutional liberties.

  [P. 43, l. 4.] this obstructing violence.

  Alluding especially to the indignation excited by the barbarous sentences inflicted by the Star-Chamber (1) in 1630 on Leighton, author of Zion’s Plea against Prelacy: (2) in 1634 on Prynne, author of the Histriomastix: (3) in 1637 on Prynne again, and on Bastwick and Burton, two other Puritan pamphleteers. Clarendon says, speaking of the feeling excited by these measures, “Men begun no more to consider their [the sufferers’] manners, but the Men; and each Profession with anger and indignation enough, thought their education and degrees and quality would have secured them from such infamous judgments, and treasured up wrath for the time to come.” (Hist. Rebelli. 146. 8vo. 1807.)

  [P. 43, ll. 7-9.] “The punishing of wits enhances their authority,” saith the Viscount St Albans.

  “The Viscount St Albans”—Bacon The reference is to the same Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England for which, as “Sir Francis Bacon,” he is quoted above (p. 36): “Wherein I might advise that side out of a wise writer, who hath set it down that punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas” (“when men of genius are punished, their influence gathers new force”). The “wise writer” is Tacitus, Annals,iv. 35. For the rest of Milton’s quotation from Bacon, see the note at p. 36

  [P. 43, l. 29.] professors.

  Those who profess a pure and strict Christianity: a term especially applied to Puritans, and used here of rigid Protestants, or Puritans, as opposed to devout Roman Catholics. Compare May’s History of the Parliament, p. 55, 4to, “a Diocese in which there were as many strict Professors of Religion (commonly called Puritans) as in any part of England.”

  [P. 44, l. 17.] dividual.

  divisible, separable. Par. Lost,xii. 83:

  • true liberty
  • Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
  • Twinn’d, & from her hath no dividual being.

  [P. 45, ll. 2, 3.] tunaging and poundaging.

  The levying of rates called Tunnage and Poundage on every tun of wine and on every pound of other goods, imported or exported, began in England about 1350, and was the origin of the “Customs.” One of the grievances urged by the Parliament which Charles I dissolved in 1629 was that these rates were then levied by the King on his own authority.

  [P. 45, l. 21.] at his Hercules’ pillars.

  At the goal of his ambition. The two rocks—“Calpe” on the Spanish side, “Abyla” on the African side—which guard the entrance of the Mediterranean at the eastern extremity of the Straits of Gibraltar were fabled to be pillars set up by Hercules to mark the limit of his wanderings into the far west. Pindar says of Theron, a victor in the Olympian games: “Now Theron reaches the utmost limit in deeds of prowess, and in his own strength touches the Pillars of Hercules.” (Ol.iv. 44.)

  [P. 45, l. 24.] a topic folio.

  A book of commonplaces (τόποι, topi = loci communes).

  [P. 45, ll. 28, 29.] alphabet or sol-fa.

  Guido Aretino (1020?) is said to have given this name to two notes of the gamut from the two first words of a Latin hymn, Sol facit.

  [P. 46, l. 4.] loitering gear.

  appliances, helps, to indolence.

  [P. 46, ll. 7, 8.] trading St Thomas—St Martin—St Hugh.

  London parish-churches, notorious, apparently, for the sale of sermons in the vestry-room.

  [P. 47, l. 27.] antichristian malice and mystery.

  “Mystery” here = “fraud.” “Mystery” was first used to denote the close guild of a trade. Then, like “craft” and “art,” it came to imply secret dealing, trickery.—Par. Regained,iii. 248:

  • so apt, in regal arts
  • And regal mysteries.

  [P. 48, l. 8.] the mortal glass.

  Milton is thinking first of 1 Cor. xiii. 12, “for now we see through a glass, darkly”; and then also of the magic mirror of medieval romance—like that in which Surrey on his travels was shown Geraldine (then in England) by Cornelius Agrippa. In Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale the mysterious knight who gives to Canace “the virtuous ring and glass” (Il Penseroso, 113) describes the power of the mirror; it can foreshow calamities to the kingdom and to Canace; it can discover friends and foes; it can reveal the falseness of lovers.

  [P. 48, l. 16.] as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon.

  “Osiris...civilized the Egyptians, taught them the culture of the fields and of the grape, gave them law and the worship of the gods; then went the world over, and after his return, by a trick of Typhon, who had conspired against him with twelve accomplices and the Ethiopian king Aso, was shut up in a coffin. The searching and sorrowful Isis is now delineated exactly like Demeter, the stories running parallel word for word. At last she finds the coffin, that had been thrown into the sea, cast upon the shore at Byblos, and hides it; but Typhon comes at the moment and cuts up the body of Osiris into fourteen pieces and throws them away....Isis sought for and found the pieces and buried them; and thus there are so many graves of Osiris, namely fourteen. The mutilation of the corpse of Osiris is a feature plainly indebted for its origin to the existing number of the tombs of Osiris and their pretensions to the possession of the real body.” (Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew, transl. by Darnell, vol. i. p. 445.)

  The application of the story was perhaps suggested to Milton by a passage in Plutarch’s treatise On Isis and Osiris: “Now Isis is a Greek name [Plutarch connects ἴσις with Ἶσημι, as if the name meant Knowledge], and Typhon is hostile to the goddess, being puffed up [τετυϕωμένος—whence Τυϕω̂ν] with ignorance and falseness; who rends asunder and puts out of sight that sacred wisdom which the goddess collects and puts together and delivers to those who are initiated into the divine nature.”

  [P. 49, l. 5.] combust.

  A planet, when in conjunction with the sun, or apparently very near to it, was said to be combust, “burnt up.” Compare the Reliquiae Wottonianae (Remains of the writings of Sir Henry Wotton), It is not wise “to build too near a great neighbour, which were, in truth, to be as unfortunately seated on the Earth as Mercury is in the Heavens, for the most part ever in combustion or obscurity under brighter beams than his own.”

  [P. 49, l. 18.] Zuinglius.

  Zwingli, the Swiss reformer (1484-1531).

  [P. 49, l. 18.] Calvin.

  1509-1564.

  [P. 50, l. 14.] Pythagoras.

  Drayton in his Polyolbion, Song 1, ascribes to the Druids the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls:

  • If, as those Druides taught, which kept the British rites,
  • And dwelt in darksome groves, there counsailing with sprites
  • (But their opinions fail’d, by error led awry,
  • As since cleere truth hath shew’d to their posteritie)
  • When these our soules by death our bodies doe forsake,
  • They instantlie again doe other bodies take.

  Selden, in his “Illustrations” of the Polyolbion (1612), says on this passage: “Lipsius [Justus Lipsius the critic, 1547-1606] doubts whether Pythagoras received it [this doctrine] from the Druids, or they from him, because in his travels he converst as well with Gaulish as Indian Philosophers.”

  [P. 50, l. 15.] the Persian wisdom.

  Pliny the Elder, commenting on resemblances between the Druidic and the Persian theology, says—“To this day Britain observes that religion with such solemn rites, that the Persians might be supposed to have got it from Britain.” Natural History,xxx. 4.

  [P. 50, l. 20.] the grave and frugal Transylvanian.

  Nothing seems to be known from other sources about this mission (to judge from Milton’s words, regularly annual) of theological students from Transylvania to England.

  [P. 50, l. 22.] the Hercynian wilderness.

  The “Hercynian Wood” was in antiquity a general name for nearly all the mountains of Southern and Central Germany, from the sources of the Danube to Transylvania—including the Schwarzwald, the Thüringer Wald and the Harz.

  [P. 51, l. 5.] Jerome.

  Jerome of Prague (1378-1416).

  [P. 51, ll. 17, 18.] first to his Englishmen.

  Milton, who himself had much of the spirit of a Hebrew prophet, delighted to think that his countrymen were, like the Hebrews, a chosen people. See his tract Of Reformation, &c. (1641): “England had this Grace and Honour from God to be the first that should set up a Standard for the recovery of lost Truth and blow the first Evangelick Trumpet to the Nations.” Again, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643): “It would not be the first or second time since our ancient Druides (by whom this Island was the Cathedrall of Philosophy to France) left off their Pagan Rites, that England hath had this Honour vouchsaft from Heav’n to give out Reformation to the world. Who was it but our English Constantine that baptiz’d the Roman Empire? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrode, and Winifride of Devon with their followers, were the first Apostles of Germany? Who but Alcuin and Wiclef our Countrymen open’d the eyes of Europe, the one in Arts, the other in Religion? Let not England forget her precedence of teaching Nations how to live.”

  [P. 51, l. 24.] the plates and instruments of armed Justice.

  In illustration of “plates” it may be remembered that in the year in which the Areopagitica was published (1644) the cuirassiers of the Parliament were prominent in the battle of Marston Moor.

  [P. 51, l. 27.] notions and ideas.

  Milton perhaps intends the same distinction between these words which was afterwards drawn by Bolingbroke; notions being general in their nature and particular only by their application; ideas particular in their nature and general only by their application.

  [P. 52, l. 22.] this prelatical tradition.

  For tradition in this bad sense, compare Ben Jonson, The Alchemist,iii. 2: Ananias (a Puritan), “I hate traditions, I do not trust them......they are Popish all.”

  [P. 52, l. 29.] would cry out as Pyrrhus did.

  After his victory at Heraclea, on the gulf of Tarentum, in the first year of his war with the Romans (280-275 bc), Pyrrhus is said to have exclaimed “How easy it would be to seize the empire of the earth—for me, with Roman soldiers—for the Romans, with me for King!” (Florus, i. 18).

  [P. 54, l. 15.] marching up, even to her walls and suburb trenches.

  In Nov. 1642 the King advanced suddenly from Colnbrook—took possession of Brentford—and appeared to intend an attack on London. This was the occasion of Milton’s 8th sonnet. The forces of the Parliament marched out to Turnham Green: and after the two armies had faced each other awhile, the King drew off to Reading. Next summer (1643), in view of this warning, the “suburb trenches” were dug. See May’s History of the Parliament, p. 214 (ed. 1812): “London was then [summer of 1643] altogether unfortified; no Works were raised; nor could they, if their Enemies (who were then Masters of the field) had come upon them, have opposed any Walls but such as old Sparta used for their Guard, the hearts of courageous Citizens. But at that time London begun her large entrenchments; which encompassed not onely the City but the whole Suburbs on every side, containing about twelve miles in circuit. That great work was by many hands compleated in a short time, it being then a custome every day to go out by thousands to digge, all Professions Trades and Occupations taking their Turnes.”

  [P. 54, ll. 28, 29.] bought that piece of ground.

  Livy, xxvi. 11: “Other things, too—a small one and a great one—began to lessen his hope. The great one was this—that when he was himself encamped under arms before the walls of Rome, he heard that a detachment of troops had set out to reinforce the army in Spain. The trivial discouragement was this: it was learned from a captive that during those days the very ground (as it happened) on which he himself was encamped had been sold without any depreciation of its value on that account. Now this seemed such haughtiness—such insolence—that a buyer should have been found at Rome for soil which he himself occupied and possessed by right of conquest—that he immediately summoned an auctioneer and ordered that the money-changers’ shops, which then stood about the Roman forum, should be sold.”

  [P. 55, ll. 19, 20.] muing her mighty youth.

  To mew or mue [French muer, German mausen: connected, like Lat. moveo, muto, mutus, with a Sanskrit root mê, to change] “to cast feathers or slough.” To “mue her youth” is to renew her youth by casting old feathers. Dryden uses the word as = “change”:

  Nine times the moon had mewed her horns.

  [P. 56, ll. 29, 30.] Not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt.

  Milton says to the Parliament: “If you turn away from the real friends of liberty, who will be your ally? Not the men who have rebelled on account of oppressive taxes—such as (1) the tax for clothing troops and conducting them to their destination, and (2) ‘Danegelt’—shipmoney.”

  (1) Coat and conduct. Rates levied by the county assessment for clothing new levies of men and maintaining them on their march to join the corps to which they were attached. Clarendon says that in 1641 petitions were presented to the Long Parliament “against Lord Lieutenants of Counties and their Deputy Lieutenants, for having levied money upon the country for conducting and clothing of soldiers.” (Hist. Rebell.i. 279. 8vo. 1807.)

  (2) Danegelt. Shipmoney was first levied about 1007, to form a navy to oppose the Danes. “This impost, levied by Charles I in 1634-6, was much opposed, and led to the revolution. He assessed London in seven ships of 4000 tons, and 1560 men; Yorkshire in ships of 600 tons, or £12,000; Bristol in one ship of 100 tons; Lancashire in one ship, of 400 tons. John Hampden refused to pay the tax, and was tried in the Exchequer in 1636. The judges declared the tax illegal, 12 June, 1637. Shipmoney was included in a redress of grievances in 1641.” (Haydn’s Dict. of Dates, 13th edit. ed. Vincent, 1871.)

  The Counsel for the Crown in Hampden’s case had expressly cited the old Danegelt as a precedent. A noble was 6s. 8d. Four nobles (= £1. 6s. 8d.) is named here as the amount levied on the individual taxpayer.

  [P. 57, l. 15.] the Lord Brook.

  Robert Grevil, Lord Brooke [not the son of Sir Fulke Greville, as Mr Arber says, p. 80, but his cousin’s son]: the most prominent of the extreme Puritans among the Peers. In Nov. 1641 he published a pamphlet called A Discourse opening the nature of Episcopacy, dedicated to the Parliament; and containing (see ii. ch. 6, 7) precepts of toleration for which Milton praises it here. He was killed March 2, 1642, while commanding the forces of the Parliament in an attack on the Cathedral-close at Lichfield, by a shot fired from the roof of the Cathedral.

  [P. 58, ll. 5, 6.] The temple of Janus, with his two controversal faces.

  “The war between Authority and Inquiry has now fairly broken out: it cannot be arrested until it has been decided: the temple of Janus must stand open until Truth has conquered, or has been conquered by Falsehood.”

  “Controversal faces”—faces looking opposite ways. “The double head of this god’s image was significant of his peculiar province as god of opening, the most ancient gateways being constructed with two arches and a chamber between them, and the shape of his temple was probably that of a gateway chamber open at both ends. Hence the word ianus was generally applied in Latin to all archways....... The well-known custom of keeping the doors of Janus’s temple open during war, and shut during peace, was usually explained by the story of a repulse inflicted on the Sabines by the god’s interference. A deeper meaning may be found in the idea that Janus was the power who presided over the beginning of every act, and who gave his blessing to the troops marching out through the city gate to war.” (Burn, Rome and the Campagna, p. 87.)

  [P. 59, l. 20.] that hand-writing nailed to the cross.

  Epistle to the Colossians ii. 14.

  [P. 60, l. 28.] manners.

  here = morals: as in “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. xv. 33).

  [P. 62, ll. 9-11.] one while in the old convocation house, and another while in the chapel at Westminster.

  The powers of Convocation—the general assembly of the national clergy—were transferred (with enlargements) by the Long Parliament to the Westminster Assembly of divines and laymen (149 in all), which met for the first time in July, 1643, empowered to consider all questions relating to the Church, and to report on them to the Parliament. The place of meeting was Henry VII’s Chapel and afterwards the Jerusalem Chamber.

  [P. 64, l. 10.] that order published next before this.

  i.e. the Order of the Commons of Jan. 29, 1642 (for the Order of the Commons of Mar. 9, 1643, is here treated as one with the Order of the Lords and Commons of June 14, 1643, which was merely a stronger and fuller expression of it). The Order of 1642 directed “that the Printers doe neither print, nor reprint anything without the name and consent of the Author: And that if any Printer shall notwithstanding print or reprint any thing without the consent and name of the Author, that he shall then be proceeded against, as both Printer and Author thereof, and their names to be certified to this House.” (Arber, p. 24.)

  [P. 64, l. 16.] this authentic Spanish policy.

  This genuinely Spanish policy; the policy of the Spanish Inquisition (see p. 12 &c.), and the policy of Philip and Mary, in whose reign (1557) the privilege of printing and publishing books was restricted to the Stationers’ Company. For authentic = genuine, comp. Par. L.iv. 719:

  On him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire.

  [P. 64, l. 22.] fallen from the stars.

  The court of Star-Chamber is usually said to have taken its name from the camera stellata, a chamber of which the ceiling was adorned with stars, in the palace at Westminster. (Hume, note a to Bk iv. c. xix.) Others have derived it from the slarra or Jewish covenants deposited with the court by order of Richard I.

  [P. 65, l. 5.] glosing.

  = flattering (Gk glossa, a tongue: to gloze, to deal in mere phrases): comp. Comus 161, “words of glozing courtesy.”

  [P. 65, l. 15.] sophisms and elenchs of merchandise.

  Plots and counterplots of tradesmen:—tricks of trade. Sophism—a fallacious argument: elench—a refutation of it. Compare Bacon, Advancement of Learning: “the more subtile forms of Sophisms and Illaqueations with their Redargutions, which is that which is termed Elenches.”

  [1 ] By A. W. Verity

  [Page 2, line 12.]liberty. The guiding-star of Milton’s life. He fought for liberty all his life. The seventeenth century writer Aubrey (reflecting, no doubt, what he had heard from Milton’s nephew Edward Phillips and others acquainted with the poet) tells us that Milton’s intense “zeal to the liberty of mankind,” and his republicanism, came largely from his admiration of the Roman writers and Roman Commonwealth. And for Milton the great enemies, in their respective spheres, of liberty are “tyranny and superstition” (l. 22). Cf. his treatise A Defence of the People of England,xii., “the two greatest mischiefs of this life, and most pernicious to virtue, tyranny and superstition”; and The Ready Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, “the most prevailing usurpers over mankind, superstition and tyranny” (Prose Works, Bohn’s ed. i. 212, ii. 113). There is a good deal about “tyrants” and “tyranny” in a Commonplace Book of Milton’s which is extant. Tyrannicide is justified in his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  [P. 2, l. 13.]trophy. In the etymological sense “monument, memorial.” Cf. Hamlet,iv. 5. 214, Coriolanus,i. 3. 43. Literally “a monument of an enemy’s defeat” = Gk τρόπαιον, from τροπή, “a turning, putting to flight” (τρέπειν, “to turn”).

  [P. 4, l. 2.]statists, statesmen; an obsolete use, the word now being limited to the sense “statistician,” i.e. one who deals with statistics. Milton speaks of the Greek “statists” (i.e. statesmen) in the great passage on Greece in Paradise Regained,iv. 354. Cf. Hamlet,v. 2. 33, 34:

  • “I once did hold it, as our statists do,
  • A baseness to write fair.”

  [P. 4, l. 23.]I could name him. Isocrates is, of course, “that old man eloquent” of Milton’s Sonnet (x.), “To the Lady Margaret Ley,” and his λόγος Ἀρεοπαγιτικός supplied obviously the title of this treatise. In On Education Milton speaks of “those ancient and famous schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle.” A small portion of the orations of Isocrates is extant.

  The Areopagus, Gk Ἄρεος πάγος, “hill of Ares” (= Mars), was “a hill at Athens where the highest judicial court of the city held its sittings; hence used for the court itself, and [so] of any important tribunal”—New English Dictionary.

  [P. 4, l. 29.]signiories. “Principalities, provinces”; cf. The Tempest,i. 2. 71. In Richard II.,iii. 1. 21, the sense is “manor, estate” = the legal term seignory, from O.F. seignorie, “the property of a seigneur” (Ital. signore, Lat. senior).

  [P. 5, l. 7.] The second interpretation (with the reading worse) mentioned but rejected by Professor Jebb is clearly opposed to other passages of Milton. Thus in his poem Mansus (1638) he apologises for his Latin poems on the ground that he was reared in the chill north; while in the History of Britain he complains that the English lack “the sun [which] ripens wits as well as fruits” (Prose Works,v. 240). We find the same idea in The Reason of Church Government, Preface to book ii., “if there be nothing adverse in our climate,” i.e. adverse to the composition of a great poem, and in Paradise Lost,ix. 44, 45. Illustrations might be quoted from Pope’s Essay on Criticism,ii., and Gray’s Alliance of Education and Government Yet, oddly enough, we know from Phillips’s Memoir of Milton, 1694, and from other sources, that during the years he was engaged over Paradise Lost Milton could only compose freely during the cold months of the year.

  [P. 6, l. 5.]the prelates. Milton’s feeling is summed up in his words that he was “Church-outed by the prelates,” i.e. debarred from taking Holy Orders by his dissent from episcopacy. See the brief Life of Milton prefixed to this volume.

  [P. 6, l. 28.]dragon’s teeth. See the story of Cadmus.

  [P. 7, l. 13.]spill; in the sense of O.E. spillan, “to destroy.” Cf. Chaucer’s phrase to “save or spill,” i.e. “to save the life of or kill,” The Clerk’s Tale, 503; used by Spenser, The Faerie Queene,i. 3. 43, “Herself a yielded prey to save or spill.” See King Lear,iii. 2. 8. That spill has this sense here may be inferred from the general wording of the passage; cf. “a kind of homicide,” “a kind of massacre,” “slays an immortality.” In diction, Milton was essentially Elizabethan—“the last of the Elizabethans.”

  [P. 7, l. 28.]Athens. The theme of one of his most famous passages—Paradise Regained,iv. 237-80; “the eye of Greece, mother of arts,” etc. A good deal in that book (iv.) serves to illustrate more or less the Greek references here.

  [P. 8, l. 12.]event. In the common Elizabethan sense “issue, result” = Lat. eventus. Par. Lost,i. 624, ii. 82.

  [P. 8, l. 16.] Cf. the reference to “the Cynic tub” (of Diogenes) in Comus, 708.

  [P. 9, l 18.]pontific. “The collegium of the Pontifices was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome”; presided over by a Pontifex Maximus. Probably Milton intends also a sarcastic allusion to the sense “belonging to the Supreme Pontiff,” i.e. the Pope. There may be the same purpose in “pontifical,” used quibblingly, in Par. Lost,x. 313. Milton often satirises in this way the technicalities of Roman Catholicism. Thus in Par. Lost,i. 795, he applies the ecclesiastical word “conclave” to the assembly of the fallen angels in Hell: that being the title of “the Meeting or Assembly of the Cardinals for the Election [of the Pope], or for any important affair of the Church” (Blount). So with “consistory” in Par. Regained,i. 42.

  [P. 10, l. 13.]impeachment, i.e. hindrance (F. empêcher, Low Lat. impedicare, “to fetter”). “And these perhaps were the chief impeachments of a more sound rectifying the church in the Queen’s time” (Of Reformation in England,i.,Prose Works,ii. 374). So in Henry V.,iii. 6. 137. The verb meant originally “to hinder, stop”; then “to stop a man and charge him with a crime.”

  [P. 12, l. 16.]St Peter . . . the keys. Lycidas, 108-12:

  • “Last came, and last did go,
  • The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
  • Two massy keys he bore of metal twain
  • (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain);
  • He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake.”

  The doctrines based by the Roman Catholic Church upon St Matthewxvi. 18, 19, are discussed in Milton’s Christian Doctrine,xxix., his views upon the special point of “the power of the keys, as it is called, or the right of binding or loosing,” being such as might be expected from a strong Puritan. It is of course a favourite poetic allusion; cf. Comus, 13, 14; Par. Lost,iii. 484, 485. In one of his Latin poems he mentions the Apostolicae custodia clavis (In Quintum Novembris, 101).

  [P. 13, l. 1.] In Paradise Lost “the bottomless pit” is the lowest region of Hell—“the fiery gulf” on which the fallen angels are depicted as tossing in i. 52. In the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 3, Milton calls it “that uttermost and bottomless gulf of chaos, deeper from holy bliss than the world’s diameter multiplied.” Similar allusions occur in The Tenure of Kings (end), and Of Reformation in England,ii. (Prose Works,ii. 47, 417).

  [P. 13, l. 6.]voutsafe; cf. again p. 24, l. 14. One of the peculiarities of Milton’s spelling which ought, I now think, to be retained. So in Par. Lost,ii. 332, vii. 80, viii. 8. Milton probably wished to avoid the awkward sound ch before s, just as in proper names he always avoids sh; cf. “Basan,” “Hesebon,” “Beërsaba,” “Silo,” “Sittim”; in each case he followed the form of the name in the Septuagint or Vulgate (or both) to get rid of the cacophony sh. In such matters his ear was delicately fastidious.

  [P. 13, l. 14.]piatza; a reminiscence of his Italian visit. What follows reads like a hit at foreign ecclesiastics.

  From the numerous quotations in the New English Dictionary it is clear that “piazza” had become a familiar word to English readers. By the spelling “piatza” Milton probably intended to reproduce the Italian pronunciation. Properly “a public square or marketplace”; hence “any open space surrounded by buildings.”

  [P. 13, l. 18.]the spunge; cf. Par. Regained,iv. 329; referring to the Roman way of writing on wax-tablets.

  [P. 13, ll. 19, 20.]our prelates and their chaplains. We may remember that Paradise Lost had to pass this ordeal. According to tradition, the chaplain of the Archbishop of Canterbury to whom it was submitted hesitated to give his imprimatur on account of the lines in the first book about eclipses perplexing monarchs with fear of change (i. 596-99). The Licenser of the poem might well have objected to Milton’s attacks on the Church, e.g. in xii. 507-37; and Samson Agonistes must have presented difficulties. But Milton was treated with consideration at the Restoration. We are told that the influential poet-politician Andrew Marvell, who had been Milton’s assistant as Secretary to the Council, and whose own poetry shows Milton’s influence clearly (see Lycidas, 40, note), “acted vigorously in his behalf and made a considerable party for him” (Phillips, Memoir).

  [P. 13, l. 29.]our English. Compare his early poem the Vacation Exercise, commencing “Hail, native language,” and his Epitaphium Damonis (162-71), where he declares his intention of giving up Latin verse for English. Still more significant is a passage in the long piece of autobiography in his pamphlet on The Reason of Church Government (1641) e.g. “I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed . . . to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue . . . not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British Islands as my world” (Prose Works,ii. 478). It is a clear announcement of his ambition to rank as a great national poet, and to do for his own country and tongue what Dante had done for his. A strain of autobiography runs through all Milton’s works: you feel it constantly in this treatise, e.g. in his picture of the ideal student (p. 33, ll. 21-27).

  [P. 14, l. 4.]original. Used twice as a noun = “originator” or “origin” in Par. Lost,ii. 375, ix. 150. “Run questing up as high as Adam to fetch their original,” Church Government,i. 3.

  [P. 14, l. 24.]limboes. Referring to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Limbus Patrum and the Limbus Infantium, regions on the outskirts of hell in which dwelt respectively the souls of the just who died before Christ and the souls of infants who die in original sin. Later arose the popular belief, used with grim satire in Paradise Lost,iii. 444-97, in a third region, the Limbus Fatuorum, the “Paradise of Fools” (iii. 496) after death and receptacle of all foolish things. Lat. limbus, “a fringe.”

  [P. 15, l. 7.]obvious In Milton the word has always something of its literal Latin sense “lying in the way” (obvius), and so “easy for any man to light on.”

  [P. 15, ll. 14, 15.] Alchemy (“the Egyptian art”) and its partner astrology were so much studied in the early seventeenth century that technical terms like “sublimate” (= “to raise a solid substance into vapour by heat”—a chemist’s word still) were more familiar to readers then. The locus classicus, of course, in alchemy is Ben Jonson’s play, The Alchemist. The foundation of the Royal Society later in Milton’s life must have dealt a blow at pseudo-science. The parallel forms alchemy and alchymy are due to confusion about the origin of this difficult word; one still sometimes sees the old-fashioned form chymist.

  [P. 15, ll. 29, 30.] Milton has the same reference to Euripides (?), with the same purpose, in the Preface to Samson Agonistes. Actually the quotation (which has also been assigned to the Thais of Menander) is not given as a pure iambic line in any of the mss. of 1 Cor.xv. 33; so that sentence here (= Lat. sententia, “a maxim, aphorism”) is perhaps more precise than “verse” in S.A. It occurs often in patristic writings as a proverbial saying, without any mention of its author; e.g. in Tertullian’s Latin version, bonos corrumpunt mores congressus mali. “Sentence” is specially applicable to Euripides, so famous for his γνω̂μαι—“brief sententious precepts,” Par. Regained,iv. 264. We know that Euripides (“sad Electra’s poet,” Sonnetviii.) was one of Milton’s favourite authors.

  [P. 16, l. 11.] The elder Apollinarius has been thought (but it is improbable) by some writers to be the author of the famous post-classical tragedy Christus Patiens mentioned in the Preface to Samson Agonistes but there attributed, as commonly then, to Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople.

  [P. 17, l. 9.] There is a great deal in old writers about the distinction between “vision,” the highest channel of divine illumination, and “dream,” a less certain form. “I fell at last into this vision; or if you please to call it but a dream, I shall not take it ill, because the father of poets [Homer, Iliad,i. 63] tells us even dreams, too, are from God” (Cowley, Essays, p. 21, Pitt Press ed.). Adam was vouchsafed a vision (Par. Lost,xi. 377), Eve only a dream (xii. 611), a characteristic mark of Milton’s view of the relation of the sexes.

  [P. 20, l. 3.]Psyche. See the beautiful allusion in Comus, 1003-1011. The story of Cupid and Psyche is applied similarly in The Faerie Queene,iii. 6. 49, 50. Compare also Keats’s Ode. An allegory of the soul (ψυχή) which, after undergoing trials and tortures, is purified by pain and eventually reaches happiness and rest.

  [P. 20, l. 20.]not without dust. Lat. non sine; a classical turn of phrase (meiosis); cf. Par. Lost,v. 178. For the Horatian reminiscence cf. Odes,i. 1.

  [P. 20, l. 21.]we bring not innocence into the world. The exact opposite of Wordsworth’s teaching in the Ode on Intimations of Immortality?

  [P. 20, l. 27.]excremental. “Of the nature of an outgrowth or excrescence,” and so here “merely superficial.” Lat. excrementum, “outgrowth,” from ex + crescere, “to grow.”

  [P. 20, l. 29.] Cf. the reference to “our admired Spenser” in the Animadversions (Prose Works,iii. 84), where Milton quotes at some length from the Shepheards Cal. Maye. He was, says Dryden, “the poetical son of Spenser. Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.” And this relation was emphasised in the publisher’s preface to the first edition (1645) of Milton’s minor poems: “I shall deserve of the age by bringing into the light as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth since our famous Spenser wrote; whose poems in these...are as rarely imitated as sweetly excelled.” Spenser, of course, is meant in Il Penseroso, 116-20. The notice of Spenser in the Theatrum Poetarum (1675) of Milton’s nephew Edward Phillips is very significant in this connection. Spenser has been called aptly “the poets’ poet.” Cowley e.g. in the essay Of Myself, says that his first impulse to write verses came from reading Spenser. Keats was another Spenserian.

  [P. 21, l. 1.]temperance. A word of very frequent occurrence in Milton’s writings; embodying an idea very dear to him—“perhaps pre-eminently the Miltonic idea,” says Masson. Comus is an allegory of the beauty of temperance. There is a striking passage in one of Milton’s Latin poems, the sixth Elegy, on the relation of temperance to the ideal that should inspire and regulate the poetic life.

  [P. 21, l. 8.]scout into the regions. But for the dates, any one would have said that he had in mind his own Satan voyaging through Chaos on his quest of the new-created world (Par. Lost,ii. 629 et seq.).

  [P. 21, l. 17.]not nicely, i.e. in a plain-spoken manner. In Milton’s works nice has always something of its common Elizabethan sense—“fastidious, dainty, finicking”: derived from Lat. nescius, “ignorant,” it often meant “foolish,” and so “foolishly particular.” “Nothing will please the difficult and nice” = people too hard to please (French difficiles)—Paradise Regained,iv. 157.

  [P. 22, l. 20.]Cataio. Cathay is a corruption of Kitai, the name by which China proper is still known in Russia and in many Asiatic countries. But in those days China was supposed to extend right up to the Arctic Ocean. The references to Cathay in Milton’s History of Moscovia show that for him it included what we call Eastern Siberia. See notes on Paradise Lost,x. 292, 293, xi. 388, 390.

  [P. 23, ll. 3-7.] The secret proselytism carried on then by the Roman Catholics in England underlies the allusion in the lines in Lycidas about “the grim wolf” (128, 129). This Roman Catholic reaction was strong at Cambridge. See Birrell’s Life (pp. 12-14) of Marvell, who joined the Roman Church about 1639, though he was soon reconverted. Another convert was the poet Crashaw, Milton’s contemporary at Cambridge, who died under mysterious circumstances at Loretto (see p. 43, l. 30). Milton’s brother Christopher and one of his Phillips nephews became Roman Catholics. The Milton family had R.C. traditions (see Life, p. vii).

  [P. 23, l. 27.]pound up. A village-pound or pinfold (King Lear,ii. 2. 8) (an enclosure for strayed cattle) was more familiar then than now. Old English pyndan, “to pen up.” Milton speaks of human beings as “Confined and pester’d [= shackled] in this pinfold here” (i.e. the world)—Comus, 7.

  [P. 24, l. 26.]want, i.e. do without.

  [P. 25, l. 3.]prevented. “Anticipated”; a common Scriptural sense. “Mine eyes prevent the night watches,” Psalm cxix. 148. Literally “to come before,” Lat. praevenire.

  [P. 25, l. 22.]airy. “Imaginary.”

  [P. 26, l. 22.]fond; in its usual Elizabethan sense “foolish.” “I am a very foolish fond old man,” King Lear,iv. 7. 60. It is still quite common as a dialect-word = “daft.”

  [P. 26, ll. 28, 29.]grave and Doric. See the great description of the warrior-music of Satan’s host, Paradise Lost,i. 549-59:

  • “Anon they move
  • In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
  • Of flutes and soft recorders, etc.;”

  where Milton has in mind the account in Thucydides (v. 70) of the Spartans advancing at the battle of Mantinea ὑπὸ αὐλητω̂ν πολλω̂ν, “to the strains of many flute-players” (Keightley). The Dorian mode (= mood) is called by Plato “the true Hellenic mode,” and “the strain of courage” (ἀνδρεία). Many old German chorales are written in this mode. For its opposite, the Lydian mode, see L’Allegro, 136, note. Milton himself was an accomplished musician, especially on the organ, and delights in the use of musical terms (cf. “madrigals,” p. 27, l. 7). The importance of the teaching of music is emphasised in his treatise On Education.

  [P. 27, l. 7.]madrigal; strictly, “a pastoral song.” Ital. madrigale, from Gk μάνδρα, “a fold, stable.” Cf. Comus, 495, where he is paying a compliment to his friend the musician Henry Lawes, a master of the madrigal. It was one of the most characteristic forms of old English music. See the chapter on “Music” in Shakespeare’s England, 1916, vol. ii.; also that on “Ballads,” which shows the immense popularity and social importance of the ballad in the England of Shakespeare and Milton.

  [P. 27, l. 8.] Probably many of Milton’s readers had never seen a balcony. It was essentially a feature of Italian architecture, suitable to the Italian climate. The earliest instance of the use of the word given in the New English Dictionary dates from 1618, and its spelling is balcone (Ital.), as here. Literally “a structure supported by balks” (i.e. beams, pillars).

  [P. 27, l. 15.] It is commonly thought that Shakespeare owed something to “Monte Mayor” both in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the love-juice part). The earliest extant English version of Diana, by Bartholomew Yong, was not published till 1598, too late a date to be assigned to either of these plays, but Shakespeare may have known “the French copies” of the romance to which the English translator Yong refers in his preface. A play called The History of Felix and Philiomena, based probably upon Diana (in which these names occur), was acted in 1585. And Sidney’s Arcadia is said to show unmistakably the influence of Diana. There is indeed no class of work in which “family-resemblance” is more conspicuous than in the pastoral romance, verse or prose (often combined).

  [P. 27, l. 16.]hears ill. Milton uses this classicism (male audit, κακω̂ς κλύει) in Par. Lost,iii. 7, as in his Latin poems, e.g. the Epitaphium Damonis, 209.

  [P. 27, ll. 23, 24.] One form of “mixed conversation” was certainly not to Milton’s taste, viz. mixed dancing, a practice greatly disliked by the Puritans. “Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,” Par. Lost,iv. 768. In Of Reformation in England he had united “gaming, wassailing, and mixed dancing” in one condemnation (Prose Works,ii. 402).

  [P. 28, ll. 26, 27.]reason...freedom. One of the dominant thoughts, naturally, of Par. Lost; cf. especially iii. 96-128, v. 524-40, and ix. 351, 352:

  • “But God left free the will; for what obeys
  • Reason is free, and Reason he made right.”

  There is of course much bearing on the subject in chapters 3 and 4—on “The Divine Decrees” and “Predestination”—of Milton’s theological treatise, The Christian Doctrine,i.

  [P. 29, ll. 28, 29.]Why...affect a rigour? Milton argues a little like his own Magician (Comus).

  [P. 31, l 18.]many sects. Perhaps later he would have instanced the Waldenses or Vaudois, whose terrible sufferings a few years later (1655) evoked the Sonnet (xviii.) “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints,” commonly considered the finest of the series; “a Collect in verse,” as Macaulay said. It was believed that this sect reached back to almost Apostolic times, and in his later prose works Milton speaks more than once of its extreme antiquity and purity of doctrine.

  [P. 32, ll. 14, 15.]in a hand scarce legible. Milton’s own beautifully clear handwriting survives in the Trinity mss., a thin volume of 54 pages which had served Milton as a note-book and contains the original drafts of several of his early poems, notably Arcades, Lycidas and Comus, with many of the Sonnets. The greatest treasure of the library of Trinity College, it may be studied in the fine facsimile published by the Cambridge University Press. The original transcript of Paradise Lost submitted to the Licenser is also extant, but this of course was in the handwriting of an amanuensis, probably Milton’s devoted nephew Edward Phillips. It is one of the many literary treasures that have gone to America.

  For the different types of old English handwriting see the chapter on “Handwriting” in Shakespeare’s England, 1916.

  [P. 32, l. 18.]sensible. “Sensitive,” a common Shakesperian meaning, cf The Tempest,ii. 1. 174. Bacon says “be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in conversation” (Essay Of Great Place) The word occurs only once in Milton’s poetry and then as a noun—“the sensible of pain,” Par. Lost,ii. 278. “Sensibly” in Samson Agonistes, 913, means “sensitively.”

  [P. 33, l. 14.] The verb “dash” here has practically the same sense as “discourage”; in fact they form together a single alliterative phrase. “I see this hath a little dash’d your spirits” (i.e. depressed, cast down), Othello,iii. 3. 214. Milton uses the word, which has perhaps lost something of its dignity, several times in his poetry; cf. Comus, 451; Par. Lost,x. 577.

  [P. 33, ll. 24, 25.] The oft-quoted sentiment of Lycidas, 70-72:

  • “Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
  • (That last infirmity of noble mind)
  • To scorn delights, and live laborious days.”

  Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur (Tacitus, Histories,iv. 6).

  [P. 34, l. 3.]a free...spirit. Shakespeare’s favourite epithet; and Ben Jonson spoke of Shakespeare’s “open and free nature.” “Free” seems, in all its shades of meaning, peculiarly descriptive of the Anglo-Saxon character.

  [P. 34, l. 6.]ferular...fescu. Ferular (to keep the seventeenth century spelling) is Lat. ferula, “giant hemlock,” the stalk of which was used by the Romans as a cane for whipping. Fescu (now fescue) is Lat. festuca, “a straw, rush, twig”; hence “a small stick or pointer,” used in pointing out the letters to children learning to read. The New English Dictionary quotes aptly from Milton’s pamphlet the Animadversions, “fescu’d to a formal injunction of his rote-lesson.” Milton speaks as an ex-schoolmaster; on his return from Italy he had kept a small school for his nephews and a few other boys: hence his treatise On Education.

  [P. 34, ll. 26, 27.] Cf. Il Penseroso, 85, 86. Palladian. “Pertaining to Pallas, the goddess of wisdom,” and so “pertaining to knowledge, study.” The word, of course, is much commoner as an architectural term, with quite different associations.

  [P. 35, ll. 6-20.] An essentially autobiographic touch. Milton spent three years, 1663-65, on the revision of Paradise Lost. And the mss. of his early poems are full of corrections and changes.

  [P. 35, l. 30.]ding. This vigorous old word (“to strike heavily,” and so “to dash, fling”) now practically obsolete, was once in quite common use, as the numerous quotations in the New English Dictionary show.

  [P. 37, l. 26.]Monopoly was a word of peculiarly odious associations in the early seventeenth century when it came first into general use, as may be seen from the quotations in the New English Dictionary. One of the greatest social abuses of those days was the system of Monopolies by which a “Company” or high-placed individual obtained from the Crown, at a price, the exclusive right of dealing in an article. “Many of the commonest necessaries of life were the subjects of monopolies, by which their price was grievously enhanced.” Shakespeare glances satirically at the system in King Lear,i. 4, but the passage was cautiously omitted by the editors of the First Folio, published in 1623, when the scandal and public indignation were at their height. The champion monopolist, Sir Giles Mompesson, is commonly thought to be the original of Massinger’s famous character Sir Giles Overreach, “a cruel extortioner,” in A New Way to pay Old Debts (1633). A sketch of the whole business is given in the chapter on “Commerce” in Shakespeare’s England, 1916. Gk μονοπωλία, “exclusive sale” (μόνος, “only, sole” + πωλεɩ̂ν, “to sell”).

  [P. 38, l. 1.]Philistines. The original edition has the peculiar form Philistims. Similarly Milton has Cherubims in Of Reformation in England (Prose Works,ii. 406), but the correct Cherubim in his poetry (Heb. Kherūbhīm). Cherubims is obviously a sort of Anglicised plural, and the remark applies to Philistims. The Revised Version of the Bible gives Cherubim.

  [P. 38, l. 14.]diffident; in the etymological sense “distrustful.” Milton’s diction is, of course, full of these Latinisms.

  [P. 39, l. 18.]made all other books unsaleable. Milton’s early poems, first printed in a collected form in 1645, a year after Areopagitica, were not reprinted till 1673. From the Preface to the Poems, it is clear that the initiative was due to the publisher rather than the poet, less hopeful of success in times of such stress.

  [P. 39, l. 20.]the castle of St Angelo. The Castello S. Angelo, the great fortress at Rome; near the Vatican.

  [P. 40, l. 6.] Galileo is the only one of Milton’s contemporaries alluded to directly in Paradise Lost; cf. i. 287-291 (“the Tuscan artist”) and v. 262 (where his name occurs). A similar but indirect reference is iii. 588-590. There is true pathos in those passages: Milton was revisiting in memory scenes associated with what was perhaps the happiest period of his life, viz. his stay in Italy—“times when...I tasted bliss without alloy” (Letter, 1647). He always spoke of Italy with the deepest affection, like so many of our poets, e.g. Shelley and Browning.

  [P. 41, ll. 17, 18.]bishops and presbyters are the same. The best commentary on Milton’s bitter feeling towards the Presbyterians is his satirical piece, a sort of burlesque Sonnet, On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament, which closes with the couplet:

  • “When they shall read this clearly in your charge:
  • New ‘Presbyter’ is but old ‘Priest’ writ large;”

  the word priest being a contraction of presbyter, from Gk πρεσβύτερος, “elder.” As episcopacy represents priesthood, he says here that “bishop” is practically identical in “name” with presbyter = priest.

  [P. 42, l. 5.]Commute is a word with marked religious and legal associations = “to change a hard obligation or sentence into a lighter one.”

  [P. 42, l. 8.]conventicle; another touch of his bitterness against the Presbyterians with their “packed” meetings; see On the New Forcers of Conscience.

  Conventiculum, “a little meeting” (diminutive of conventus, “a meeting”), was the regular mediaeval term for a meeting of sectaries, i.e. Dissenters from the Church; and conventicle kept this idea and its associations.

  [Pp. 43, 44.] The sketches of “a wealthy man” and “a parochial minister” (pp. 45, 46) are quite in the style of that favourite class of seventeenth century literature called “Characters” (i.e. portraits of types), of which Earle’s Microcosmographie is the best known example.

  [P. 44, ll. 11-28.] It is generally recognised that humour was not one of Milton’s gifts. The typical illustration is the scene of the introduction of artillery in Paradise Lost,vi. 558-67. The humour of his controversial writings is always very grim.

  [P. 48, l. 10.]beatific vision. Visio Beatifica was the phrase used by the Schoolmen to express “seeing” God (Mat.v. 8); rendered literally by Milton in his Ode on Time, 18, as “happy-making sight.” Cf. Par. Lost,i. 684. The Cherubim, representing Contemplation (Il Penseroso, 54), were supposed to enjoy this faculty in a peculiar degree.

  [P. 48, ll. 16-24.]the Egyptian Typhon...Osiris...Isis. Milton’s interest in Egyptology is conspicuous in The Nativity Ode, 211-20, Par. Lost,i. 476-82. Other illustrations might be given from his prose-works and Latin poems.

  [P. 49, ll. 17-19.]the blaze...stark blind. Cf. Gray’s fine lines (The Progress of Poesy) on Milton’s blindness:

  • “The living Throne, the sapphire blaze,
  • Where Angels tremble, while they gaze,
  • He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
  • Clos’d his eyes in endless night;”

  where there is an echo of Par. Lost,iii. 380-82.

  [P. 50, ll. 3, 4.] He is probably glancing at his own ill-assorted marriage. He uses very similar language in his Divorce pamphlets.

  [P. 50, ll. 18, 19.] Milton’s debt to the Italian poets was immense, especially, of course, to Dante; see Dr Paget Toynbee’s Dante in English Literature,i. 2, 120, 486, ii. 587. The only French writer, as far as I know, to be mentioned in connection with Milton is the poet Du Bartas. His long poem on the Creation and the early history of the Jews, in the exceedingly Spenserian translation of John Sylvester (1563-1618) entitled The Divine Weeks and Works, had great influence on Milton and is certainly one of the works of which account must be taken in considering the genesis of Paradise Lost and the literary references that moulded Milton’s style. Spenser himself admired Du Bartas greatly; and Dryden confessed that he had once preferred Sylvester to Spenser. “That Poem [i.e. The Divine Weeks] hath ever had great admirers among us,” is the suggestive comment of Milton’s nephew in his Theatrum Poetarum (1675).

  [P. 50, ll. 19-24.] This allusion seems connected with Milton’s friend Samuel Hartlib, a Pole born in Germany who settled in England as a merchant and achieved some note as an educational theorist. Milton dedicated his treatise On Education, published in the same year (1644) as Areopagitica, to Hartlib. Though the visit was not ‘yearly,’ Milton may have had in mind the visit to London of John Amos Comenius, a native of Moravia, in September 1641-August 1642, on Hartlib’s invitation, in furtherance of a scheme whereby “men might be called from various parts of the world and maintained in residence while prosecuting their learned researches.” S. S. Laurie, John Amos Comenius, p. 75.

  [P. 50, l. 22.]Hercynian. Not to be confused with Shakespeare’s Hyrcanian (Hamlet,ii. 2. 472, Macbeth,iii. 4. 101), referring to Hyrcania, a province of the ancient Persian Empire.

  [P. 53, l. 1.]despair, i.e. despair of. “Peace is despaired” (pax desperatur) Par. Lost,i. 660; so in vi. 495. “Despair thy charm,” Macbeth,v. 8. 13.

  [P. 53, l. 18.]considerate, i.e. considering, reflecting; as in Par. Lost,i. 603.

  [P. 55, l. 8.]its. I know but one other instance of its in Milton’s prose, viz. in The Reason of Church Government (Prose Works,ii. 471). There are three instances in his poems, viz. the Nativity Ode, 106, Par. Lost,i. 254 (“the mind is its own place”), and iv. 813. The regular neuter possessive pronoun was his up till about 1600: “it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis iii. 15). About 1600 its came into use, but slowly. Bacon has its rarely; the Bible of 1611 never; there are only nine examples in the posthumous First Folio (1623) of Shakespeare, whose normal idiom is shown in Julius Caesar,i. 2. 123, 124, “that same eye...did lose his lustre.” Milton, being an Elizabethan in his diction, clearly avoids its: either by retaining the old neuter use of his, or by personifying the noun, e.g. with abstract words like “virtue,” “truth,” etc., and then using her. “The modern its first appears, so far as is known, in Florio’s Italian Dictionary of 1598, and Florio uses its also in his translation of Montaigne,” Shakespeare’s England, 1916, ii. 557 (“Shakespeare’s English”).

  [P. 55, ll. 18, 19.] His own Samson Agonistes.

  [P. 55, l. 19,]muing; properly a term of falconry, as the metaphor here indicates; O.F. mue = (1) “a moulting” (Lat. mutare), (2) “the cage where the hawk was kept during the time of mewing or moulting.” Hence Shakespeare’s use = “to shut up,” A Midsummer Night’s Dream,i. 1. 71, “For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d.” Milton in Of Reformation has “they must mew their feathers” (Prose Works,ii. 375). The word only survives in the plural mews, a range of stabling, so called “because the royal stables were rebuilt (1534) in a place where the royal falcons had been kept” (Skeat). How popular falconry was is shown by the number of terms (mostly of French origin) peculiar to the sport which Shakespeare and the poets of the 16th-17th centuries use. “Pitch” (p. 41, l. 4) was one, signifying the height to which a hawk soars. See the chapter on falconry in Shakespeare’s England, 1916.

  [P. 56, l. 13.]the influence of heaven. In Milton generally (if not always) the word influence has its astrological idea of the power supposed to descend from the celestial bodies and to affect the character and fortunes of men; “planetary influence,” King Lear,i. 2. 136; “skyey influences,” Measure for Measure,iii. 1. 9. For instances in Paradise Lost, see ii. 1034, iv. 669, vii. 374, 375, etc. Late Lat. influentia = “a flowing in upon.”

  [P. 56, l. 30.]coat and conduct. “It was the custom from the reign of Henry the Seventh to give a recruit of the levies of the shire what was called ‘coat and conduct money,’ that is to say, a fixed sum to enable him to obtain a white smock with a red cross upon it, and to pay the expenses of his journey to the rendezvous”—Shakespeare’s England, 1916, i. 125 (“The Army”). A footnote there states that the odd word “cassock” (F. casaque) “displaced the simpler name of the soldier’s uniform” (cf. All’s Well that Ends Well,iv. 3. 192). In the famous recruiting-scene in 2 Henry IV,iii. 1, Falstaff (311) bids Bardolph give “coats” to the “pressed” (i.e. impressed and reluctant) soldiers.

  [P. 59, l.]i.to lay ambushments. The Civil War left its mark on Milton’s writings: witness the military metaphors that occur in this treatise. So in Paradise Lost, especially in bk vi., describing the great contest in Heaven. These war-touches must have appealed with the force of personal experience to many of his readers. The same thing is felt in reading Bunyan, especially the Holy War. To us at home such phrases are still phrases.

  [P. 59, l. 10.]old Proteus. Par. Lost,iii. 604. The prophetic old man of the sea—ἅλιος γέρων; “the Carpathian wizard” of Comus, 872 (because the island of Carpathos, between Crete and Rhodes, was his dwelling-place, according to one tradition).

  [P. 59, ll. 29, 30.]a linen decency; a hit at the use of the surplice?

  [P. 60, l. 7.]affect; always used by Milton in the Latin sense “to aim at, seek to obtain” (affectare), e.g. in Par. Lost,v. 763, “Affecting all equality with God.”

  [P. 61, l. 15.]slight. Milton himself was rather below the middle height, but of a notable refinement of appearance and complexion which won for him in his Cambridge days the nick-name “The Lady of Christ’s.” In after years it was a consolation to him that his blindness (amaurosis)—the weakness of sight was inherited from his mother—made no external change. Cf. his second Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner, and his pamphlet the Second Defence: “so little do they [his eyes] betray any external appearance of injury, that they are as unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who most distinctly see” (Prose Worksi. 235).

  [P. 61, l. 16.]contemptible to see to. A biblical turn of phrase: “all of them princes to look to,” Ezekiel xxiii. 15; “a great altar to see to,” Joshua xxii. 10. Cf. Comus, 619, 620:

  • “a certain shepherd lad,
  • Of small regard to see to.”

  [P. 61, ll. 17-19.] For the idiom here, so common in Greek, cf. The Reason of Church Government,i. 7, “the Englishman of many other nations is least atheistical” (Prose Works,ii. 469). So in the famous couplet of Par. Lost (iv. 323, 324):

  • “Adam the goodliest man of men since born
  • His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.”

  It is common in our old writers; Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors,i. 1, refers to Adam as (in the opinion of some) “the wisest of all men since.” Bacon might be quoted, e.g. The Advancement of Learning,i. 4. 8, and 5. 11.

  [P. 63, l. 28.]let; i.e. hindrance. “By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!” Hamlet,i. 4, 85. So in the Bible: “oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was let hitherto,” Romans i. 13. O.E. lettan, “to hinder,” literally “to make late.”

  [P. 64, l. 22.] The biblical reference, of course, is to Isaiah xiv. 12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,” where, however, the Revised Version should be consulted. Cf. Par. Lost,vii. 131-35.

  [P. 65, l. 5.]glosing. The word glose or gloze got the idea of falsehood, deception (especially false, flattering speech) from the Late Lat. glossa, “an explanation of a word”—too often a false explanation!

  [P. 65, l. 6.]colours; in the common Elizabethan sense “pretexts” (Lat. colores); cf. Samson Agonistes, 901, 902:

  • “These false pretexts and varnish’d colours failing,
  • Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear!”

  (i.e. Dalila).

  [P. 65, l. 22.]advertisement. In the Elizabethan sense “advice, instruction”; cf. 1 Henry IV,iv. 1. 36, 37:

  • “Yet doth he give us bold advertisement
  • That with our small conjunction we should on;”

  and Much Ado about Nothing,v. 1. 31, 32:

  • “Therefore give me no counsel:
  • My griefs cry louder than advertisement.”

  [P. 65, l. 24.]answerable to; corresponding with, in harmony with; cf. Par. Lost,ix. 20, xii. 582.

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  3: On Education (1644)

  Milton drew upon his reading of Renaissance humanism and his personal experience as a tutor to formulate his own ideas about education.

  John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 1. Chapter: OF EDUCATION.

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1209/78041 on 2008-03-12

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  OF EDUCATION.

  TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB.

  Master Hartlib,—I am long since persuaded, that to say or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us than simply the love of God, and of mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the reforming of education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes; I had not yet at this time been induced, but by your earnest entreaties and serious conjurements; as having my mind for the present half diverted in the pursuance of some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which cannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of truth, and honest living with much more peace. Nor should the laws of any private friendship have prevailed with me to divide thus, or transpose my former thoughts, but that I see those aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem of a person sent hither by some good providence from a far country to be the occasion and incitement of great good to this island. And, as I hear, you have obtained the same repute with men of most approved wisdom, and some of the highest authority among us; not to mention the learned correspondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence, which you have used in this matter both here and beyond the seas; either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar sway of nature, which also is God’s working. Neither can I think that so reputed and so valued as you are, you would to the forfeit of your own discerning ability, impose upon me an unfit and overponderous argument; but that the satisfaction, which you profess to have received from those incidental discourses which we have wandered into, hath pressed and almost constrained you into a persuasion, that what you require from me in this point, I neither ought nor can in conscience defer beyond this time both of so much need at once, and so much opportunity to try what God hath determined. I will not resist therefore whatever it is, either of divine or human obligement, that you lay upon me; but will forthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary idea, which hath long in silence presented itself to me, of a better education, in extent and comprehension far more large, and yet of time far shorter, and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavour to be; for that which I have to say, assuredly this nation hath extreme need should be done sooner than spoken. To tell you therefore what I have benefited herein among old renowned authors, I shall spare; and to search what many modern Januas and Didactics, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my inclination leads me not. But if you can accept of these few observations which have flowered off, and are as it were the burnishing of many studious and contemplative years altogether spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge, and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I here give you them to dispose of.

  The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful; first, we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year. And that which casts our proficiency therein so much behind, is our time lost partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities; partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention. These are not matters to be wrung from poor striplings, like blood out of the nose, or the plucking of untimely fruit; besides the ill habit which they get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms, odious to be read, yet not to be avoided without a well-continued and judicious conversing among pure authors digested, which they scarce taste: whereas, if after some preparatory grounds of speech by their certain forms got into memory, they were led to the praxis thereof in some chosen short book lessoned thoroughly to them, they might then forthwith proceed to learn the substance of good things, and arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into their power. This I take to be the most rational and most profitable way of learning languages, and whereby we may best hope to give account to God of our youth spent herein. And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old error of universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with arts most easy, (and those be such as are most obvious to the sense,) they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics; so that they having but newly left those grammatic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under another climate to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do for the most part grow into hatred and contempt of learning, mocked and deluded all this while with ragged notions and babblements, while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge; till poverty or youthful years call them importunately their several ways, and hasten them with the sway of friends either to an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous divinity; some allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees; others betake them to state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery and courtshifts and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest points of wisdom; instilling their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery; if, as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit, retire themselves (knowing no better) to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in feast and jollity; which indeed is the wisest and the safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. * And these are the errors, and these are the fruits of mispending our prime youth at the schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned.

  I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire of such a happy nurture, than we have now to hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of sowthistles and brambles, which is commonly set before them as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age. I call therefore a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war. And how all this may be done between twelve and one-and-twenty, less time than is now bestowed in pure trifling at grammar and sophistry, is to be thus ordered.

  First, to find out a spacious house and ground about it fit for an academy, and big enough to lodge a hundred and fifty persons, whereof twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all under the government of one, who shall be thought of desert sufficient, and ability either to do all, or wisely to direct and oversee it done. This place should be at once both school and university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship, except it be some peculiar college of law, or physic, where they mean to be practitioners; but as for those general studies which take up all our time from Lilly to commencing, as they term it, master of art, it should be absolute. After this pattern, as many edifices may be converted to this use as shall be needful in every city throughout this land, which would tend much to the increase of learning and civility every where. This number, less or more thus collected, to the convenience of a foot company, or interchangeably two troops of cavalry, should divide their day’s work into three parts as it lies orderly; their studies, their exercise, and their diet.

  For their studies; first, they should begin with the chief and necessary rules of some good grammar, either that now used, or any better; and while this is doing, their speech is to be fashioned to a distinct and clear pronunciation, as near as may be to the Italian, especially in the vowels. For we Englishmen being far northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold air wide enough to grace a southern tongue; but are observed by all other nations to speak exceeding close and inward; so that to smatter Latin with an English mouth, is as ill a hearing as law French. Next, to make them expert in the usefullest points of grammar; and withal to season them and win them early to the love of virtue and true labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education would be read to them; whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other Socratic discourses. But in Latin we have none of classic authority extant, except the two or three first books of Quintilian, and some select pieces elsewhere. But here the main skill and groundwork will be, to temper them such lectures and explanations upon every opportunity, as may lead and draw them in willing obedience, enflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages. That they may despise and scorn all their childish and ill-taught qualities, to delight in manly and liberal exercises; which he who hath the art and proper eloquence to catch them with, what with mild and effectual persuasions, and what with the intimation of some fear, if need be, but chiefly by his own example, might in a short space gain them to an incredible diligence and courage; infusing into their young breasts such an ingenuous and noble ardor, as would not fail to make many of them renowned and matchless men. At the same time, some other hour of the day, might be taught them the rules of arithmetic, and soon after the elements of geometry, even playing, as the old manner was. After evening repast, till bedtime, their thoughts would be best taken up in the easy grounds of religion, and the story of Scripture. The next step would be to the authors of agriculture, Cato, Varro, and Columella, for the matter is most easy; and if the language be difficult, so much the better, it is not a difficulty above their years. And here will be an occasion of inciting, and enabling them hereafter to improve the tillage of their country, to recover the bad soil, and to remedy the waste that is made of good; for this was one of Hercules’s praises. Ere half these authors be read (which will soon be with plying hard and daily) they cannot choose but be masters of any ordinary prose. So that it will be then seasonable for them to learn in any modern author the use of the globes, and all the maps; first with the old names, and then with the new; or they might be then capable to read any compendious method of natural philosophy. And at the same time might be entering into the Greek tongue, after the same manner as was before prescribed in the Latin; whereby the difficulties of grammar being soon overcome, all the historical physiology of Aristotle and Theophrastus are open before them, and, as I may say, under contribution. The like access will be to Vitruvius, to Seneca’s natural questions, to Mela, Celsus, Pliny, or Solinus. And having thus passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography, with a general compact of physics, they may descend in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, and from thence to fortification, architecture, enginery, or navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living creatures, as far as anatomy. Then also in course might be read to them out of some not tedious writer the institution of physic; that they may know the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and how to manage a crudity; which he who can wisely and timely do, is not only a great physician to himself and to his friends, but also may at some time or other save an army by this frugal and expenseless means only; and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young men rot away under him for want of this discipline; which is a great pity, and no less a shame to the commander. To set forward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries; and in the other sciences, architects, engineers, mariners, anatomists; who doubtless would be ready, some for reward, and some to favour such a hopeful seminary. And this will give them such a real tincture of natural knowledge, as they shall never forget, but daily augment with delight. Then also those poets which are now counted most hard, will be both facile and pleasant, Orpheus, Hesiod, Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius, and in Latin, Lucretius, Manilius, and the rural part of Virgil.

  By this time, years, and good general precepts, will have furnished them more distinctly with that act of reason which in ethics is called Proairesis; that they may with some judgment contemplate upon moral good and evil. Then will be required a special reinforcement of constant and sound indoctrinating to set them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge of virtue and the hatred of vice; while their young and pliant affections are led through all the moral works of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and those Locrian remnants; but still to be reduced in their nightward studies wherewith they close the day’s work, under the determinate sentence of David or Solomon, or the evangels and apostolic Scriptures. Being perfect in the knowledge of personal duty, they may then begin the study of œconomics. And either now or before this, they may have easily learned at any odd hour the Italian tongue. And soon after, but with wariness and good antidote, it would be wholesome enough to let them taste some choice comedies, Greek, Latin or Italian; those tragedies also, that treat of household matters, as Trachiniæ, Alcestis, and the like. The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but stedfast pillars of the state. After this, they are to dive into the grounds of law, and legal justice; delivered first and with best warrant by Moses; and as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian law-givers, Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas, and thence to all the Roman edicts and tables with their Justinian; and so down to the Saxon and common laws of England, and the statutes. Sundays also and every evening may be now understandingly spent in the highest matters of theology, and church-history ancient and modern; and ere this time the Hebrew tongue at a set hour might have been gained, that the Scriptures may be now read in their own original; whereto it would be no impossibility to add the Chaldee, and the Syrian dialect. When all these employments are well conquered, then will the choice histories, heroic poems, and attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument, with all the famous political orations, offer themselves; which if they were not only read, but some of them got by memory, and solemnly pronounced with right accent and grace, as might be taught, would endue them even with the spirit and vigour of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles. And now lastly will be the time to read them with those organic arts, which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fitted style of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic, therefore, so much as is useful, is to be referred to this due place with all her well-couched heads and topics, until it be time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of the rule of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aristotle’s poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castlevetro, Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-writers be; and show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in divine and human things. From hence, and not till now, will be the right season of forming them to be able writers and composers in every excellent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an universal insight into things. Or whether they be to speak in parliament or council, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips. There would then also appear in pulpits other visages, other gestures, and stuff otherwise wrought than what we now sit under, ofttimes to as great a trial of our patience as any other that they preach to us. These are the studies wherein our noble and our gentle youth ought to bestow their time in a disciplinary way from twelve to one-and-twenty; unless they rely more upon their ancestors dead than upon themselves living. In which methodical course it is so supposed they must proceed by the steady pace of learning onward, as at convenient times, for memory’s sake, to retire back into the middle ward, and sometimes into the rear of what they have been taught, until they have confirmed and solidly united the whole body of their perfected knowledge, like the last embattling of a Roman legion. Now will be worth the seeing, what exercises and recreations may best agree, and become these studies.

  THEIR EXERCISE.

  The course of study hitherto briefly described is, what I can guess by reading, likest to those ancient and famous schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and such others, out of which were bred such a number of renowned philosophers, orators, historians, poets, and princes all over Greece, Italy, and Asia, besides the flourishing studies of Cyrene and Alexandria. But herein it shall exceed them, and supply a defect as great as that which Plato noted in the commonwealth of Sparta; whereas that city trained up their youth most for war, and these in their academies and Lycæum all for the gown, this institution of breeding which I here delineate shall be equally good both for peace and war. Therefore about an hour and a half ere they eat at noon should be allowed them for exercise, and due rest afterwards; but the time for this may be enlarged at pleasure, according as their rising in the morning shall be early. The exercise which I commend first, is the exact use of their weapon, to guard, and to strike safely with edge or point; this will keep them healthy, nimble, strong, and well in breath, is also the likeliest means to make them grow large and tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage, which being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to them of true fortitude and patience, will turn into a native and heroic valour, and make them hate the cowardice of doing wrong. They must be also practised in all the locks and gripes of wrestling, wherein Englishmen were wont to excel, as need may often be in fight to tug, to grapple, and to close. And this perhaps will be enough, wherein to prove and heat their single strength. The interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient rest before meat, may both with profit and delight be taken up in recreating and composing their travailed spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of music heard or learned; either whilst the skilful organist plies his grave and fancied descant in lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well-studied chords of some choice composer; sometimes the lute or soft organ stop waiting on elegant voices, either to religious, martial, or civil ditties; which, if wise men and prophets be not extremely out, have a great power over dispositions and manners, to smooth and make them gentle from rustic harshness and distempered passions. The like also would not be unexpedient after meat, to assist and cherish nature in her first concoction, and send their minds back to study in good tune and satisfaction. Where having followed it close under vigilant eyes, till about two hours before supper, they are by a sudden alarum or watchword, to be called out to their military motions, under sky or covert, according to the season, as was the Roman wont; first on foot, then as their age permits, on horseback, to all the art of cavalry; that having in sport, but with much exactness and daily muster, served out the rudiments of their soldiership, in all the skill of embattling, marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging, and battering with all the helps of ancient and modern stratagems, tactics, and warlike maxims, they may as it were out of a long war come forth renowned and perfect commanders in the service of their country. They would not then, if they were trusted with fair and hopeful armies, suffer them for want of just and wise discipline to shed away from about them like sick feathers, though they be never so oft supplied; they would not suffer their empty and unrecruitable colonels of twenty men in a company, to quaff out, or convey into secret hoards, the wages of a delusive list, and a miserable remnant; yet in the mean while to be overmastered with a score or two of drunkards, the only soldiery left about them, or else to comply with all rapines and violences. No certainly, if they knew aught of that knowledge that belongs to good men or good governors, they would not suffer these things. But to return to our own institute; besides these constant exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won from pleasure itself abroad; in those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature, not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, after two or three years that they have well laid their grounds, but to ride out in companies with prudent and staid guides to all the quarters of the land; learning and observing all places of strength, all commodities of building and of soil, for towns and tillage, harbours and ports for trade. Sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge of sailing and of sea-fight. These ways would try all their peculiar gifts of nature, and if there were any secret excellence among them would fetch it out, and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation, and bring into fashion again those old admired virtues and excellencies with far more advantage now in this purity of Christian knowledge. Nor shall we then need the monsieurs of Paris to take our hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies, and send them over back again transformed into mimics, apes, and kickshows. But if they desire to see other countries at three or four and twenty years of age, not to learn principles, but to enlarge experience, and make wise observation, they will by that time be such as shall deserve the regard and honour of all men where they pass, and the society and friendship of those in all places who are best and most eminent. And perhaps, then other nations will be glad to visit us for their breeding, or else to imitate us in their own country.

  Now lastly for their diet there cannot be much to say, save only that it would be best in the same house; for much time else would be lost abroad, and many ill habits got; and that it should be plain, healthful, and moderate, I suppose is out of controversy. Thus, Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in writing, as your desire was, of that, which at several times I had discoursed with you concerning the best and noblest way of education; not beginning as some have done from the cradle, which yet might be worth many considerations, if brevity had not been my scope; many other circumstances also I could have mentioned, but this, to such as have the worth in them to make trial, for light and direction may be enough. Only I believe that this is not a bow for every man to shoot in, that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses; yet I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay, than it now seems at distance, and much more illustrious; howbeit, not more difficult than I imagine, and that imagination presents me with nothing but very happy, and very possible according to best wishes; if God have so decreed, and this age have spirit and capacity enough to apprehend.

  [* ]Thus it is in the first edition.

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  4: The right of the people to overthrow a Tyrant: The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)

  Written during the English Revolution, Milton’s pamphlet argues that there exists a voluntary contract between free men and their rulers, and that if a ruler becomes a tyrant then the people have the right to depose him if the ordinary magistrates have not done so. In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1648):

  The first edition of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was published in February 1648, a second in February 1649. From the argument itself one can perceive easily enough the political stimulus that impelled Milton to write the tract. Milton envisions two opponents: on the one hand, those who would blame the parliamentary forces for having taken up arms against their legitimate king; on the other hand, those (generally Presbyterians) who, having stood against Charles initially, experienced misgivings subsequently and drew back from executing the defeated monarch. Against the first, Milton, employing a very broad survey of authors who defended the justice of opposing and of killing bad rulers, draws upon classical authorities and Christian writers. Against the rebels who turned back at the point of regicide Milton conducts a much more circumstantial argument that turns upon several contested issues attached to particular events during the Civil War. The chief of these events were the negotiations conducted between Charles and the Presbyterian faction in Parliament that resulted in the king’s subscribing to the Presbyterian concept of church government embodied in their “covenant.” The resultant softening of Presbyterian opposition to Charles, Milton along with other Independents interpreted as a bid on the part of Presbyterians to make a separate peace for the benefit of their sect and for the purpose of combating the rising influence of Independents who found their strength in the army.

  John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, edited with Introduction and Notes by William Talbot Allison (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1911).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/271 on 2008-03-12

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  WEIMAR: PRINTED BY R. WAGNER SOHN.

  PREFACE

  It is not a little surprising, when one considers the amount of attention that has been bestowed on Milton’s poetry, that his prose tracts, with a very few exceptions, have lain so neglected in recent times. The present edition is an attempt to remedy this neglect, so far as one of these treatises is concerned. Others, it is hoped, will follow: indeed, The Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth has already been taken in hand.

  A portion of the expense of printing this book has been borne by the Modern Language Club of Yale University, from funds placed at its disposal by the generosity of Mr. George E. Dimock, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a graduate of Yale in the Class of 1874.

  Albert S. Cook.

  Yale University,
  January, 1911.

  INTRODUCTION.

  I.

  Date and Authorship.

  To George Thomason, bookseller of the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Church Yard, friend of Rushworth, Calamy, and Milton, and keen observer of religious and political affairs, we owe the British Museum collection of tracts which bears his name. From 1640 to 1661 Thomason collected each day’s output of tracts, broadsides, newspapers, books, even fly-leaves of doggerel verse, and stored them away for the edification of future ages. Few of the publications relating to the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration eluded his vigilance. As the flood of this voluminous period bore in upon him, he carefully noted the exact date of each publication in his catalogue, and often wrote out the full name of the author where the treatise or book gave only the initials. On this account, Thomason is the sole authority for the dates of first and second editions of many books now regarded as classics of English literature.

  Among eight publications which came into Thomason’s hands from the presses of London on Feb. 13, 1649, one small quarto, the work of a friend, must have been noted by him with special pleasure. The entry was as follows;—‘The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: proving that it is Lawfull for any who have the Power to call to account a Tyrant or wicked King and after due conviction to depose, and put him to death. The Author, J. M. [i. e. John Milton.] Printed by Matthew Simmons (13 Feb).’ A year later, on Feb. 15, 1650, he notes the arrival at the Rose and Crown of a copy of the second edition:—‘The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, proving that it is Lawfull to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and put him to death. Published now the second time with some additions. The author J. M. [i. e. John Milton] pp. 60. Printed by Matthew Simmons (15 Feb.).’

  We are thus certain of the exact date of publication of this treatise, the first apology for the Commonwealth. Thanks to another contemporary witness, we have most interesting information as to the place of composition, the author’s motive, his political sympathies, and the effect of the publication on his own personal fortunes. Our authority is Milton’s nephew, Edward Philips, who gives a more extended reference to this pamphlet than might have been expected in the brief compass of his charming sketch of the life of the poet. ‘It was not long after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell through the city of London with the whole army, to quell the insurrections, Brown and Massey, now malecontents also, were endeavoring to raise in the city against the armies proceedings, ere he left his great house in Barbican, and betook himself to a smaller in High Holbourn, among those that open backward into Lincolns-Inn Fields. Here he liv’d a private and quiet life, still prosecuting his studies and curious search into knowledge, the grand affair perpetually of his life; till such time as, the war being now at an end, with compleat victory to the Parliament’s side, as the Parliament then stood purg’d of all its dissenting members, and the king after some treaties with the army re infecta, brought to his tryal; the form of government being now chang’d into a free state, he was hereupon oblig’d to write a treatise, call’d The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.’

  ‘After which his thoughts were bent upon retiring again to his own private studies, and falling upon such subjects as his proper genius prompted him to write of, among which was the history of our own nation from the beginning till the Norman Conquest, wherein he had made some progress. When (for this his last treatise, reviving the fame of some other things he had formerly published) being more and more taken notice of for the excellency of his stile, and depth of judgement, he was courted into the service of this new Commonwealth, and at last prevail’d with (for he never hunted after preferment, nor affected the tintimar and hurry of publick business) to take upon him the office of Latin secretary to the Counsel of State.’¹

  According to this statement, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was written subsequent to the execution of Charles I and the proclamation of the Republic. The book was published, it is true, exactly a fortnight after the king’s death, and a week after the official setting-up of the republican form of government, but Philips is in error as to the date of composition. Milton himself, in an autobiographical passage in the Second Defence, distinctly states that he wrote this pamphlet when the House of Commons was arranging for the trial of the king: ‘On the last species of civil liberty, I said nothing, because I saw that sufficient attention was paid to it by the magistrates; nor did I write anything on the prerogative of the crown, till the king, voted an enemy by the parliament, and vanquished in the field, was summoned before the tribunal which condemned him to lose his head. But when at length, some Presbyterian ministers, who had formerly been the most bitter enemies to Charles, became jealous of the growth of the Independents, and of their ascendancy in the parliament, most tumultuously clamoured against the sentence, and did all in their power to prevent the execution, though they were not angry so much on account of the act itself, as because it was not the act of their party; and when they dared to affirm, that the doctrine of the Protestants, and of all the reformed churches was abhorrent to such an atrocious proceeding against kings, I thought that it became me to oppose such a glaring falsehood; and accordingly, without any immediate or personal application to Charles, I shewed, in an abstract consideration of the question, what might lawfully be done against tyrants: and in support of what I advanced, produced the opinions of the most celebrated divines; while I vehemently inveighed against the egregious ignorance or effrontery of men, who professed better things, and from whom better things might have been expected. That book did not make its appearance till after the death of Charles; and was written rather to reconcile the minds of the people to the event, than to discuss the legitimacy of that particular sentence which concerned the magistrates, and which was already executed’ (Bohn 1. 259). Aside from this direct evidence, a careful reading of the treatise itself might have convinced Philips of his mistake. Milton refers to the trial of the king (5. 12 ff.) as a matter still under discussion: ‘They plead for him, pity him, extoll him, protest against those that talke of bringing him to the tryall of Justice, etc.’ He alludes to those Independents who hesitate to take such a course, who ‘begin to swerve, and almost shiver at the Majesty and grandeur of som noble deed’ (6. 10). The king is spoken of as one still alive (8. 20), ‘the Sword of Justice is above him’ (8. 34), a prisoner, he should not ‘think to scape unquestionable’ (21. 21). He also speaks of ‘the proceedings now in Parlament against the King’ (27. 31). In 38. 16 ff. the Presbyterians are denounced, ‘who now, to the stirring up of new discord, acquitt him: . . . absolve him, unconfound him, though unconverted, unrepentant,’ etc. He speaks of the king’s trial as a future event (40. 16), and of the likelihood of his punishment by the Parliament and Military Council ‘if it appeare thir duty’ (40. 22), while in 42. 8 he refers to ‘what remaines to doe,’ and warns the Presbyterian divines to ‘beware an old and perfet enemy,’ if they put him in his place of old-time power (42. 2 ff.).

  Internal evidence, therefore, especially the mention of ‘the proceedings now in Parlament against the King,’ and the reference to those who shivered at the prospect of becoming judges at the trial, make it certain that Milton wrote these pages during the month of January, 1649. On Jan. 1 the Commons appointed commissioners and judges to try the king. The proceedings against him were debated until the passing of the Resolution and Ordinance of Jan. 6. It was also during this momentous week that various members of the House swerved and shivered. Bulstrode Whitelocke, the great lawyer, found it convenient to retire into the country; the clerk of the House, Mr. Elysyng, discovered that his health had suddenly failed him; nearly half of the commissioners failed to attend any of the meetings of the trial court. Lord General Fairfax himself, an arch-leader of the Independents, was at the first meeting on Jan. 8, but never attended a second session. As Milton’s allusion (6. 7 ff.) points to these faint-hearts, the treatise must have been written after Jan. 8. The reference to Prynne’s pamphlet, A Briefe Memento to the PresentUnparliamentary Junto (6. 30), which was published on Jan. 19, would make the date of composition later still, unless the sneer at Prynne was inserted when Milton was revising the first sheets of his manuscript. The pamphlet then must have been written between Jan. 8 and Jan. 27, the date on which sentence was pronounced against the king. If it was written before the trial of Charles, the period of composition would be narrowed to an interval of twelve days, between Jan. 8 and Jan. 20. The former time-limit seems to be the more probable, but even nineteen days was a wonderfully short space of time for the production of such a piece of work.

  II.

  Historical Situation.

  The historical situation, which forms the background to this hurriedly written book, and with which it deals in the boldest manner, was intensely dramatic. From the serene pages of Philips, with his talk of the prospect of Lincolns-Inn Fields from the High Holborn retreat, and his references to the private life of Milton while he was ‘prosecuting his curious search into knowledge,’ we gain only a partial view of the great writer’s interests. It is true that he still kept up his studies, and this is one of the strange and wellnigh unaccountable things about so many of the scholars, statesmen, and soldiers of that age of commotion and upheavel, that they could turn so easily from the turmoil of events to ‘the still air and quiet of delightful studies,’ and prosecute all kinds of laborious, and what seem to us trivial researches. Considerable material in this pamphlet reveals the ‘private’ scholar, the curious student of ancient laws and historical precedents. We must also remember that in these days of revolution Milton did considerable work towards a history of England. But if there was the studious side to his life, bearing witness to a strength of mind that would not be upset by the storms in the real England at his door, he was also a child of his time, an intensely interested observer of every move in politics and religious controversy. He sat there in his study at High Holborn, but he looked not towards Lincolns-Inn Fields, but towards Westminster, where the House of Commons was hastening to the condemnation of Charles Stuart.

  The historical situation at the beginning of the year 1649 can best be depicted by explaining the attitude of various parties in England and Scotland towards King Charles. He was at this time a prisoner in the hands of the English army, whose leaders were Fairfax, Ireton, and Cromwell. As far back as March or April, 1648, the army officers had decided in their famous prayer-meeting at Windsor Castle that the only way in which to promote liberty and to secure peace for England was ‘to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed and mischief he had done to his utmost against the Lord’s Cause and People in these poor Nations.’¹ Fairfax weakened at the last, as we have seen, but Cromwell, Ireton, and the bulk of the officers and men never receded from their stern prayer-meeting resolve. While other parties treated with the king, they issued manifesto after manifesto, the burden of each and all being a demand for justice on the king. In November the democratic ideals of the regiments found expression in the Grand Army Remonstrance, in which all attempts to treat with the King were denounced, and he himself was declared to be guilty of the highest treason, incapable of penitence or common honesty.¹ On Dec. 1 the army seized Charles as their own prisoner; and on the following day Fairfax led his troops into London, where they closed in upon Parliament, to overawe it into submission with their wishes. Pride’s Purge took place on Dec. 6, by which all opposers of the army, some 143 members of the Commons, were excluded from their places, leaving 78 members to carry out the orders of their masters. Of this number, some 28 withdrew from the house of their own accord, leaving what Prynne called the ‘unparliamentary Junto’ to bring the king to the scaffold.

  The second political group, closely allied with the army, was composed of Independents—Puritans who had gradually come to believe in the separation of church and state, and were now willing to grant toleration to all religious freethinkers, except prelatists, papists, and atheists. At the close of the year 1648 this party in parliament and in the nation was divided into two classes—first, the ultra-radicals, who were determined to compass the king’s death, and set up a republic; and, secondly, the great majority, who were willing to visit the king with deposition, but who shrank from the army’s proposed cure for the ills of the nation. Of the large number of Independent divines, only two, so far as is known, expressed approbation of the trial of the king.

  A third party, strongest in London, Lancashire, and Scotland, was made up of Presbyterians who were doing their utmost to save the royal prisoner from the army and the Independents. In the earlier years of the great rebellion the Presbyterians had been supreme; they had ruled with a high hand, had established their form of church government in England on the ruins of the prelacy, had passed severe laws against other sectaries, and had prosecuted the war against the king with energy. In spite of their jealous, persecuting zeal, the Independents rapidly increased in numbers and in power. Owing to Cromwell’s tolerance, the army became a hotbed of radicalism in politics and theology, and was regarded as the greatest foe of the Presbyterians. Actuated no doubt by genuine fear of the regimental preachers, and alarmed at the rapid growth of the Independent faction in the House of Commons, and feeling that their one chance to force England to remain Presbyterian lay in the rehabilitation of the king, the followers of the kirk both in Scotland and in England labored from the days of the first imprisonment at Newcastle in Aug., 1646, to the close of Nov., 1648, to negotiate a treaty with Charles which would be satisfactory, at least to themselves. The curious spectacle was now presented of former enemies converted into warm advocates of the king. A party among the Presbyterians of Scotland, headed by the Scottish Commissioners to England and the Hamiltonians, had even entered into a secret engagement with the king, in Jan. 1648, to invade England with a Scotch army, for the purpose of restoring him to his full royalty, on the understanding that he would guarantee the Presbyterian form of church government in England for three years, and suppress the Independents and all other sects and heresies. Although the Hamiltonian party did succeed in leading an army into England in the Second Civil War, it must be remembered that Argyle and other Scotch nobles, the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, and the vast majority of their congregations, were entirely out of sympathy both with the treaty and the invasion. Yet in spite of the fact that there were two classes among the Presbyterians of the realm, just as there were divisions among the Independents, all the Presbyterians of Scotland and England were averse to the army’s proposal to bring the king to trial. One and all they pitied the fallen monarch, and would have been glad to restore him to his crown and royal dignity at no slight compromise of liberties hardly won in the bloody struggles of the Civil War. Wherefore not a Presbyterian layman sat on the court of trial, not a Presbyterian minister in London approved the course of the army chiefs. Hugh Peters, Cromwell’s chaplain, was sent to discuss the subject amicably with the Westminster Assembly of Divines, but they declared unanimously for the king’s release. Peters was then authorized by the army leaders to invite to a friendly conference several London divines who all along had preached in favor of armed rebellion—Marshall, Calamy, Whitaker, Sedgewick, Ashe, and others prominent in Presbyterian circles. They refused point blank, and, instead of peaceful talk of compromise, assembled in Sion College, and drew up a fiery criticism of Cromwell and his supporters in Parliament, their Serious and Faithfull Representation. The change of policy among the Presbyterians is clearly seen by comparing even the texts of their earlier and later sermons, and perhaps best of all in the change of front shown in the writings of the most voluminous of Presbyterian pamphleteers, William Prynne. It was these inconsistent sermons, protestations, and tracts which excited the contempt of Milton, and partly inspired his treatise.

  The last group, numerous but at this time unimportant, was composed of the Royalists or Cavaliers—courtiers, clergymen of the old church deprived of their livings, country squires, nobles and soldiers in exile, a great mass of country people who had to a large extent remained untouched by sectarianism or by the struggle for constitutional rights; all these, deprived of power, looked on helplessly at the ‘royal martyr’ moving to his doom.

  Few men in England, and none in Scotland, expected or desired that the leaders of army and parliament would bring the king to the block. Until the last moment thousands refused to believe that Charles would really die upon the scaffold; there was to be the pageantry of an execution, but nothing more.¹ ‘Only some fifty or sixty governing Englishmen, with Oliver Cromwell in the midst of them, were prepared for every reponsibility, and stood inexorably to their task.’² Milton was at one with Cromwell and the other forward spirits in this business. From his careful study of events he had come to the conclusion that Charles was a faithless tyrant, responsible for whole massacres committed on his faithful subjects, guilty of a deluge of innocent blood (9. 3ff.), a malefactor deserving of punishment as a common pest and destroyer of mankind (20.3). Neither Milton nor Cromwell had any superstitious reverence for the divinity that was supposed to hedge a king. ‘What hath a native king to plead,’ he cries, ‘bound by so many covenants, benefits and honours to the welfare of his people, why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parlaments, the onely tie of our obedience to him, for his owne wills sake, and a boasted praerogative unaccountable, after sev’n years warring and destroying of his best subjects, overcom, and yeilded prisoner, should think to scape unquestionable, as a thing divine, in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroy’d, should lye unaccounted for, polluting with their slaughterd carcasses all the land over, and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them’ (21. 14ff.). Entertaining such views of his king, to whom loyalty and obedience would now mean only a base compliance, Milton was very strongly of opinion that the sword of justice above the king ought to do its work. Convinced in his own mind of the king’s guilt and well merited punishment, he ranged himself in the most uncompromising allegiance on the side of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, who had long since resolved upon the tyrant’s death.

  III.

  Purpose.

  The main purpose of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is therefore very plain. It is a justification of the thoughts and intents of all those in England who hated tyranny, and who held it to be simple justice that a perfidious monarch should, after fair trial, receive due punishment for high crimes and misdemeanors. The long title of this treatise lays down Milton’s thesis ‘that it is lawfull to call to account a Tyrant or wicked King and after due conviction to depose, and put him to death.’ It was not the intention of Milton to disparage monarchy, however, although he combats the theory of divine right, and maintains that the original of power is in the people. He puts the case of the people against a wicked king, with special reference to Charles I, and gives illustrations from past ages of the overthrow and deposition of tyrants. But his purpose was not to glorify the republican form of government, nor to derogate from the fair fame of good kings. In his reference, in the Second Defence, to his motives in writing this treatise, he says, ‘Without any immediate or special application to Charles, I shewed in an abstract consideration of the question, what might lawfully be done against tyrants’ (Bohn I. 260). While this statement must be discounted, for Milton did make immediate and special application to Charles, as we have already pointed out, still it remains true that he had no quarrel with the monarchic principle itself. In later years he was delighted because Queen Christina of Sweden praised his reply to Salmasius. In his panegyric of the Queen of Sheba of the North, he says: ‘When the critical exigencies of my country demanded that I should undertake the arduous and invidious task of impugning the rights of kings, how happy am I that I should meet with so illustrious, so truly a royal evidence to my integrity, and to this truth, that I had not written a word against kings, but only against tyrants, the spots and pests of royalty’ (Bohn 1. 249). Whatever Milton’s honest purpose may have been, his contention that ‘all men naturally are born free,’ his theory of the contractual origin of society and government, his enunciation of the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, of the derivative character of all kingly rule, of the equality of all persons before the law, and his declaration of the right of ‘any who have the power’ to depose or put to death a wicked king, give the general reader the impression that he was a republican of the most thorough-going kind. Aubrey, one of his earliest biographers, so understood him: ‘Whatever he wrote against monarchie was out of no animositie to the king’s person, or out of any faction or interest, but out of a pure zeale to the Liberty of Mankind, which he thought would be greater under a free state than under a monarchiall government. His being so conversant in Livy and the Roman authors, and the greatnes he saw donne by the Roman commonwealth, and the vertue of their great commanders [captaines] induc’t him to it.’¹ When he wrote this treatise Milton seems to have been indifferent to the form of government, so long as liberty was insured to the subject. If he welcomed the republic, he did so because it meant to him the dawn of a new day of political and individual freedom in England. In his former writings he had not used a single expression against royalty; on the contrary, he had defended the rights of the crown against the pretensions of the Anglican prelates. In proposing a plan for the reform of the church, his model had been monarchical government. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was written, therefore, not as a protest against the institution of royalty, but as a protest against a wicked king and as a defence of resolute upholders of human liberty, not because they were democrats and republicans, but because they were earnest and vigorous in the putting down of tyranny, and in the setting up of a righteous rule in England.

  IV.

  Leading Ideas.

  When we attempt to analyze the ideas set forth in this treatise, and now for the first time applied with astonishing vigor and frankness to a great political crisis in English history, we find that Milton is developing his philosophy of freedom. In his previous writings, all of them timely performances, he had contended for religious and domestic freedom, for a free interpretation of the Bible, for free education, for liberty of investigation, of speech, of the press;¹ in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates he was to re-emphasize most of these ideas, and to make his first plea for civil liberty, to anticipate modern thought in the statement and defence of great and generous principles. In the compact and weighty pages of this pamphlet, he presents the following leading ideas, which were to command such attention from the whole of Europe in their elaborated form, in the Latin periods of the replies to Salmasius and Morus:—(1) All men naturally were born free (9. 24); (2) as a result of a voluntary compact, kings and magistrates were appointed by the people as deputies and commissioners, repositories of communicated and entrusted power (9. 31 ff.); (3) laws were invented by the people as checks to confine and limit the authority of magistrates (10. 21 ff.); (4) bonds or covenants were also imposed upon rulers to compel them to observe the laws which the people had made (11. 9 ff.); (5) the power of kings and magistrates remains fundamentally in the people as their natural birthright (11. 7 ff.); (6) the king or magistrate may be chosen or rejected, retained or deposed by the people (15. 11 ff.); (7) men should be governed by the authority of reason (1. 1, et passim). Commenting on these political maxims for a new society, Geffroy says: ‘Milton was not a practical statesman, and his plans for a future social fabric were too often pure Utopias, but he loved liberty passionately, he consecrated to her defence his entire life, with an elevation of spirit, a generosity of soul, which distinguished him from all his compatriots and all his contemporaries. He is worthy of being numbered with the precursors of our eighteenth century, and his writings offer to the historian and the philosopher the curious and sublime spectacle of a new society commencing to be born.’¹

  But if Milton’s main purpose in writing this attack on tyranny was to lay down the program of constitutional liberty, his secondary aim was to chastise his former friends the Presbyterians, and to pour out the bitterest vials of his wrath upon their inconsistent divines. The controversial character of his treatise is indeed very marked. Stern calls the acrimonious attack on the Presbyterians the shell of the pamphlet, of which the abstract argument on the origin of government, and the right to depose and punish a tyrant, is the kernel.² According to the Second Defence (Bohn 1. 260), it was the inconsistent conduct of the ministers which impelled Milton to write this exposure of their inconstancy and effrontery. Not only as the greatest opponents of his goddess, Liberty, but as his own personal foes, did Milton eagerly embrace the opportunity to reveal their various shortcomings of thought and life. In a sermon preached before the Houses of Parliament in 1644 by the Rev. Herbert Palmer, Milton’s tractate on divorce had been openly called ‘a wicked booke which deserves to be burnt.’³ The Westminster Assembly, displeased from the same cause, had the ‘libertine’¹ summoned before the House of Lords. It was not the nature of the poet to accept these strictures in a spirit of Christian forgiveness; from the date of the publication of his Colasterion, references to the Presbyterians in Milton’s prose and verse are bitter in tone. ‘From that time,’ says Orme, ‘he never failed to abuse the Presbyterians and the Assembly. It is painful to detract from the fair fame of Milton, but even he is not entitled to vilify the character of a large and respectable body of men, to avenge his private quarrel.’² Whether he was actuated by personal reasons or not, whether he loved himself rather than truth, in thus turning upon his former party, as Doctor Johnson avers,³ it was not necessary for the author of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates to invent charges against the Presbyterian preachers and writers. No party ever laid itself more helplessly open to attack. And no controversialist ever fell more mercilessly upon a vulnerable enemy than Milton upon the men who were preaching and writing in a vain effort to save ‘the Lord’s anointed.’⁴

  In addition to their sermons in the pulpits of London, the Presbyterian divines expressed their new-found loyalty to the king by sending out two tracts from Sion College. The first, which we have already mentioned, was signed by 47 ministers, including Case, Gataker, Gower, Rowborough, and Wallis of the Westminster Assembly, and was addressed to Lord Fairfax and the Council of War, Jan. 18, 1649. A few days later, another pamphlet was issued as a defence against charges of inconsistency. It was entitled, A Vindication of the London Ministers from the unjust Aspersions upon their former Actings for the Parliament, and was signed by 57 ministers. Still a third deliverance came from the Presbyterian ministers of Lancashire, entitled, The Paper called the Agreement of the People taken into Consideration. William Prynne and Clement Walker, for the laymen, issued a Declaration and Protestation, and the former made a very long speech in Parliament on Dec. 4, 1648, and now returned to the subject in his Briefe Memento. In all these writings, the Presbyterians used the most forceful language in denouncing the course of the Army and Independents as utterly opposed to the Solemn League and Covenant, that to depose or to put to death the king would be contrary to all legal precedent, to Scripture, and to the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance. It was easy for Milton to throw himself upon this literature, and to compare the sentiments of the present with those of the past, to show that these very men, in sermon and in pamphlet, had formerly cursed the king as a tyrant, as one worse than Nero (5. 25; 8. 7; 38. 10 ff.); that they had commended the war against the king (7. 27 ff.); that they themselves had broken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance (32. 26 ff.), and by making war on the king and denying his authority had absolutely deposed him (32. 34 ff.); and that they had broken the Covenant (34. 30 ff.), and had really taken the life of the king by robbing him of his office and dignity (36. 25 ff.).

  V.

  The Covenant.

  It was useless, he held, for the Presbyterians to defend their former actions by appealing to a certain clause in the Covenant. But to understand Milton’s contemptuous reference to the ‘fine clause’ of the ‘riddling Covenant,’ it is necessary to pause for a moment to consider this bone of contention among all parties in the last year of Charles’ reign. The Solemn League and Covenant of August, 1643, was based upon the Scottish National Covenant of 1638, which in its turn had been imported from France. A religious pact between England and Scotland, it was not only a league between two kingdoms to defend their civil liberties, but paved the way for uniformity in church matters, for the abolition of episcopacy, and the establishment of Presbyterianism in England. On its acceptance by the English parliament, copies of the document were signed at Westminster,¹ and in nearly all the parishes of England and Scotland. The text of the Covenant² was easy to understand, but it contained one clause which was afterwards to be interpreted according as a man turned to the support of king or parliament. This offending clause read as follows:—‘We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King’s Majesty’s person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty’s just power and greatness.’¹ In the first Sion House tract the Presbyterian ministers accused Cromwell’s party of esteeming the Covenant (referring of course to the above clause) no more than ‘an almanack out of date.’ In their second protestation they held that ‘the taking away the life of the King, in the present way of Trial is, not only not agreeable to any word of God, the principles of the Protestant Religion (never yet stained with the least drop of bloud of a King) or the fundamental constitution and government of this Kingdom, but, contrary to them, as also to the Oath of Allegiance, the Protestation of May 5, 1641, and the Solemn League and Covenant: from all, or any of which Engagements, we know not any power on earth, able to absolve us or others.’ The ambiguous clause of the Covenant follows, and the citizens are exhorted to hold to it rather than to commit the sin of perjury, and so draw upon themselves and the kingdom the blood of their sovereign.² Prynne also quotes the ‘fine clause’ and thus continues: ‘This Covenant you have all taken yourselves (some of you often)³ and imposed it on all three Kingdomes: And will it not stare in your faces your consciences, and engage God himselfe, and all three Kingdomes, as one man against you, if you should proceed to depose the King, destroy his person or disinherit his posterity? yea, bring certaine ruine upon you and yours as the greatest Covenant breakers, and most perjured Creatures under Heaven.’¹ Again he says: ‘Consider that Scotland and Ireland are joynt tenants, at least wise tenants in Common with us in the King, as their lawfull Soveraigne and King, as well as ours: and that the Scots delivered and left his person to our Commissioners at Newcastle, upon this expresse condition: That no violence should be offered to his Person, etc., according to the Covenant.’² The Presbyterians supported their constant quotation of this clause by trying to prove from Scripture that oaths, trusts, and covenants were broken only by sinful men. Yet, however dogmatic the divines and Prynne were on this question, others construed the loyal clause in quite a different sense. John Price reflects this difference of opinion. ‘The Presbyterian,’ he observes, ‘pleads Covenant-engaging conformity (as they urge) with the Church of Scotland: The Parliamenteer pleads Covenant, engaging to preserve the rights and priviledges of Parliament: The Royalist pleads Covenant, engaging to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority: The Armists plead Covenant, engaging to preserve the liberties of the Kingdome, etc. So that you have made the Covenant a meere contradictious thing, like unto one of the Diabolicall Oracles of the Heathens, speaking nothing certaine but ambiguities.’³ Another critic, this time a textual expert, complains that the Presbyterians make ‘a stop at Authority,’ ‘And thus our English sentences are read with Scotch comma’s and periods, and the Covenant made to speak what it never meant, and Covenanters to undertake absolutely what they promise but conditionally, by the Scotch Artificers, who make it a nose of wax.’¹ That Milton was fully justified in heaping contempt upon the Presbyterians for using Scotch commas and periods in their cavilous reading of the ‘unnecessariest clause’ (6. 1; 33. 1; 33. 27; 35. 19; 36. 9; 36. 16), we have it on the evidence of Whitelocke that the Scotch themselves had changed their minds as to its meaning. In Dec., 1645, the Parliament of Scotland voted ‘that the clause in the covenant, for the defence of the king’s person, is to be understood in defence and safety of the kingdom.’² Yet in the very next month they made a declaration to the English Parliament that the king was to remain prisoner with ‘safety to his person.’³ On July 27, 1647, the Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland ordered a public fast, for the danger to religion and reformation by sectaries in England, ‘and that the Covenant may be kept.’⁴ In August, 1647, when Fairfax moved on London, and the Independents gained the upper hand in parliament, Whitelocke mentions the increased emphasis with which the pulpits in Scotland urged ‘the necessity of that kingdom to maintain the ends of the covenant against all violation.’⁵ After this brief review of the controversy, the plain reader will agree that Milton’s many criticisms of the riddling Covenant were well founded.⁶

  VI.

  The Presbyterian Divines.

  When we turn to his attack on the Presbyterian party, we are also constrained to admit that Queen Truth was on his side. Alluding to their sins in general, he accuses them of intolerance to other sects (41. 19), of rendering assistance to the Royalists whom they themselves had called reprobates and enemies to God and his church (41. 25), and of opposing the Independents, who are, he declares, their best friends and associates (41. 32).

  In his criticism of the life and conduct of the Presbyterian divines, however, we realize that Milton is prejudiced and unfair. His severest accusation is that these men, who formerly denounced the prelatists for being pluralists, are guilty of the same offence. He charges that ‘pluralities greas’d them thick and deep’ (7. 26); it would be good if they ‘hated pluralities and all kind of Simony’ (43. 28); they have gorged themselves ‘like Harpy’s on those simonious places and preferments of their outed predecessors, . . . not to pluralitie onely but to multiplicitie’ (51. 18 ff.); they have followed ‘the hot sent of double livings and Pluralities,’ etc. (56. 31 ff.). In his History of England, a work begun at this time, Milton roundly declared that the Presbyterian ministers did not scruple ‘to seize into their hands, or not unwillingly to accept (besides one, sometimes two or more, of the best livings), collegiate masterships in the universities, rich lectures in the city, setting sail to all winds that might blow gain into their covetous bosoms.’¹ Neal, in his History of the Puritans, is silent on this question, nor does Shaw in the latest and most complete work on the history of the English church during this period¹ mention any instances of Presbyterian pluralism. Marsden resents these charges with asperity. They are, he says, simply the result of Milton’s harsh and vindictive mood, his attempt to avenge himself upon the Westminster Assembly.² Masson, while he criticizes Milton for his ‘somewhat ungenerous summary (43. 26 ff.) of the history of the Westminster Assembly,’³ adduces several instances where leading Presbyterian divines accepted lectureships at the universities or in the city,⁴ but makes no mention of ordinary cases, where two or more benefices were held by Presbyterian ministers. Owing to his prejudices, Milton may have unduly magnified a few cases of this kind, yet, in spite of exaggeration, there was some ground for his repeated accusations. Attached to a proclamation of Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1647,⁵ there is a statement that according to ‘the petition of many thousands of the poore sequestered clergie of England and Wales,’ ‘those who are put into our places [Presbyterian divines] labour by all means to stir up the people, and to involve this kingdom in a new war, and are generally men ignorant and unable to instruct the people, and many of them are scandalous in their practices, if impartially examined; and divers of them hold three or four of the best benefices, whilst divers other churches are void and without any constant preachers.’ In a tract published in 1646, Thomas Tookey, M. A., charges Mr. John Yaxley with exacting ‘the worldly sweet of two distinct congregations.’ Yaxley, he says, ‘had peeped into much logic, so that, tho once he could not,’ now ‘he can account both nonresidency and sacred thievery dearly lawful, gainful, hopeful, and needful.’¹ In another pamphlet, specific instances are not given, but the general charge is boldly made. ‘I could instance in many places,’ says this anonymous foe of the Presbyterian clergy, ‘where superstitious and blind buzzards were put out of their livings, and some of the orthodox men [Presbyterians] put in their roomes, and when they had got good livings were they, or are they contented? Some hold livings in the country, and some in London, hardly ever coming to the flock but to take the fleece. Some hold two or three livings apiece: some leave one and run to another when they can find a greater, nay, they will fight for a better living rather than lose it.’² In view of this contemporary evidence, however prejudiced some of it may be, we must agree that it bears out Milton’s general assertion that the Presbyterian ministers were not altogether free from the pleasant vice of pluralism.

  When Milton calls these clergymen ‘mutinous ministers’ (56. 28), ‘dancing divines’ (7. 15), ‘doubling divines’ (9. 17), ‘prevaricating divines’ (35. 27), ‘a covetous and ambitious generation’ (51. 9), ‘disturbers of the civil affairs’ (43. 9), he may also be well within the truth, but when he denounces them as being ‘clov’n tongues of falshood and dissention’ (38. 15), ‘ministers of sedition’ (38. 28) ‘firebrands’ (39. 2), it must be said that he is descending to coarse abuse. In the most scandalous passage of this treatise (43. 8 ff.) he accuses them of meddlesomeness, of neglecting their studies, of laziness, of being tyrants over other men’s consciences, of covetousness, of simony, of pride, of gluttony, of hypocrisy, of being pulpit firebrands. Not content with saying all these things, he returns to the charge in the second edition of his book, repeats his accusation of pluralism (51. 18 ff.) and formulates a new indictment in the amusing passage (55. 7 ff.) in which the ministers are called ‘nimble motionists,’ time-servers, careless of all considerations except their own material advantage. In the year which elapsed between the publication of the first and the second edition, he also happened upon a Presbyterian pamphlet written as far back as 1643, which he used as a postscript text for further abuse of his clerical foes.¹ The title of this tract, Scripture and Reason, is a fitting introduction to our next topic, Milton’s Use of Scripture.

  VII.

  Use of Scripture.

  In the seventeenth century, Scripture and reason were the touchstones for Puritan arguments on nearly every subject. It was the common custom to prove anything from the Bible, sometimes with the consent of reason, sometimes in defiance of common sense. The poet Waller, for instance, made a speech in the House of Commons in objection to the bill to enforce the burial of the dead in woollen shrouds, and thought he had proved his case when he cited the evangelist who has recorded that Christ was buried in linen. And if the Bible was used with advantage as an authority on general subjects, it was believed by Milton, and all Puritans, that no one could impose, believe, or obey aught in religion, but from the word of God only.¹ Inasmuch as the subject’s relation to his prince involved questions of conduct, the Bible was regarded as an authority on such themes as the divine right of kings and the legitimacy of armed resistance to tyrants. The translation of the Old Testament by Luther supplied his followers, and the Calvinists also, with an arsenal of arguments on political questions. The stormy history of the Jews afforded precedents to the upholders of divine right, of passive resistance, and of tyrannicide. Needless to say, the teachings of the law and the prophets were regarded as of equal authority with the precepts of Jesus and the apostles. ‘Calvin had set forth in his lectures,’ says Weill, ‘that it would be chimerical to wish to transform all the laws of Moses into laws for modern society. Yet in spite of his objection, the political government of the Hebrews seemed to the religionists of the reformed party a model to copy in all its details; and the example of the monarchy of Israel, so often denounced by the prophets and overthrown by insurrectionists inspired by God himself, fortified their hatred of despotism, and their confidence in ultimate success.’² The Protestants, however, were in two camps, as far as political theory was concerned. Although Luther and Calvin were somewhat ambiguous, the former was more a defender of the theory of the divine right of kings than of civil liberty; the latter advised passive resistance, but by his utterances against tyranny encouraged such disciples as Knox and Goodman in more revolutionary principles. The Lutheran defenders of despotism naturally attached more weight to the teachings of the New Testament, especially the Pauline and Petrine dicta on unreserved submission to magistrates. The Protestant defenders of civil liberty, Knox, Buchanan, and Milton, for example, emphasized the rebellions and cases of tyrannicide in the history of Israel, and did their best to explain away the awkward passages in the New Testament.

  Certain texts and instances in both the old and the new Scriptures became loci classici for controversialists. The friends of monarchy advanced the following leading arguments from the Bible:—(1) When David had Saul at his mercy, he refused to kill the Lord’s anointed; (2) God punished Israel because of her revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, her lawful sovereign; (3) when David, in Psalm 51, confessed the murder of Uriah, he did not admit that he had sinned against his subject, but only against God; (4) according to 1 Sam. 8. 11-18, God conferred certain rights upon kings; (5) in the New Testament they relied mainly upon three texts—Rom. 13. 1; 1 Pet. 2. 13, 14; Tit. 3. 1; (6) Luke 20. 25, and the fact that Jesus submitted to Pilate, were also often cited. On the other hand, the opponents of the theory of divine right justified rebellion to tyrannical princes on these Biblical grounds:—(1) Ehud, Jael, Jehu, and Judith killed tyrants, being sent by the Lord as liberators; (2) David did not kill Saul, for their quarrel was a matter of private enmity; but at any rate the Lord approved his armed resistance to the forces of the king; (3) the priestly town of Libnah revolted against Jehoram¹ (Weill says that Libnah was a sort of La Rochelle to the Protestant writers); (4) the tribes of Israel fell away from Rehoboam; (5) the Maccabees repelled the Syrian tyrant.

  This searching of the Scriptures for arguments to support political theories had been in full swing for over a century when Milton undertook to review the well-worn citations in this treatise. He dwells upon the rebellion of Jeroboam against Rehoboam (16. 6), the deposition of Samuel (16. 12), and the three cases of tyrannicide—by Ehud (20. 29), by Samuel (22. 33), and by Jehu (23. 6). In all these citations he uses Scripture fairly, but in other places, where the plain sense of the text or incident is against him, he does not hesitate to wrest the Scripture to his purpose as unscrupulously as any of his opponents. When he quotes Deut. 17. 14, ‘I will have a king set over me,’ he interprets these words as referring solely to the people’s right of choice, thus deliberately ignoring the words in the next verse, ‘Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose’ (15. 20). The Royalist argument from Psalm 51, though it seems absurd to the modern mind, was hard to meet with a direct answer, so Milton brushes it aside with the remark that, after all, these are only ‘the patheticall words of a Psalme’ (14. 18). The New Testament texts are also treated with a high degree of ingenuity. He cannot get round the simple words of 1 Pet. 2. 13, 16, where Christians are enjoined to obey superior powers, so he adds the phrase ‘as free men,’ a refinement used by Christopher Goodman in 1558.¹ Paul’s dictum in Rom. 13. 1, ‘For there is no power but of God,’ is explained as referring not to tyrannical, but to just power only. This gloss upon the text had also been used by Goodman. The use which Milton makes of Rev. 13. 2 is an excellent example of how eagerly he strained after any text which might seem to uphold his argument (17. 26). Other New Testament texts quoted by him are also arbitrary, and seem ineffective to present-day readers, but were no doubt regarded as forceful citations by Milton’s contemporaries.¹ The pamphlets of such writers as Prynne, Walker, and Filmer, and indeed all the Stuart controversialists, abound in what seems to us a tiresome and even ludicrous use of Scripture. Compared with these and other pamphleteers, Milton is very sane in his exegesis, and moderate in his citation of texts. A grotesque use² of Scripture in this pamphlet should also be mentioned, namely, the allusion to Adonibezek’s sufferings (55. 21), and the story of the priests of Bel (56. 35). These illustrations are characteristic of Milton’s prose.

  VIII.

  Background of Political Thought.

  Before discussing the special sources of Milton’s political doctrines, it will be necessary to pass in review several of the main ideas which he inherited from the theorists of the sixteenth century, and which had their roots in the writings of the Middle Ages. The contractual origin of society and government, the sovereignty of the people, the authority of reason, the divine right of kings—all these topics had engaged the argumentative powers of sixteenth century pamphleteers. Certain great movements of thought had contributed to the furtherance of civil and religious liberty in that age—(1) the struggle between the papacy and the rising power of kings, (2) the Protestant Reformation, with its appeal to the Bible and reason as the sole authorities of life and conduct, (3) the influence of the Renascence in resurrecting the classics of Greece and Rome, with their republicanism, their passion for liberty, and their approval of tyrannicide, (4) the increased study of Roman law, and (5) the rise of the historical spirit, and of the modern historical method. All these currents of thought converge in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  ¹ It is one of the remarkable facts of history that the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people came from the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, the archfoe of modernism, and the determined obstructer of civil and religious liberty. Upholders of this church, however, both in the Middle Ages and in the sixteenth century, emphasized the power of the people, in order to check the growing independence of the king. They were not actuated by any desire to promote democracy, but simply and solely to belittle the dangerous rivals of the pope. ‘Civil power,’ so wrote Pope Gregory VII to Bishop Hermann of Metz, ‘was the invention of worldly men, ignorant of God and prompted by the devil; it needed not only the assistance, but the authorization, of the church.’ In conformity with this teaching, Marsiglius of Padua declared that the king might be restrained or deposed if he overpassed his prescribed bounds. In order to exalt the church, this pioneer of political theory recognized the people as the origin of all power in the state.² From the time of Augustine, the origin of civil government had been ascribed to Adam’s fall, and Cain and Nimrod were asserted to be its first founders. ‘The church was therefore ready to admit any form of civil government that would listen to her claims. Theoretically she had no preference for monarchical institutions; rather, it should seem, she was inclined to promote a democratic sentiment.’¹ This principle, then, that the people is supreme, so wellknown in the Middle Ages, was eagerly seized upon by the opponents of the Reformation, which was itself furthered and protected by the princes of Germany and the kings of England and Sweden. A school of Jesuit writers arose to battle for the theory that mankind is naturally at liberty to choose its form of government. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, they had even become defenders of tyrannicide, and argued that it was not a sin to depose or put to death a heretical monarch—for the church held that it was a fundamental law of all countries that a sovereign must be a Roman Catholic. Mariana, the Spanish Jesuit, openly approved the assassination of Protestant rulers.² In his able exposition of the political teachings of the Jesuits, Figgis sums up this doctrine as follows:—‘Power is in the people, for nature made all men free and equal, and there is no reason why one should have one jurisdiction rather than another. The whole community, then, is the immediate depositary of political power. But it cannot exercise it directly. It must delegate its power to a king or ruling body, under such conditions as shall please it.’³

  In opposition to this purely utilitarian and secular theory of the state advanced by the defenders of the papacy, the early Protestant reformers set up the theory of the divine right of kings. This also is one of the anomalies of history, that those great religious leaders, who put in motion all the forces of modern liberty, should have been at the outset the upholders of despotism. It was owing to the force of circumstances, however, that Luther, Calvin, Bucer, and others became supporters of the regal power. Kings were their sole protectors against the persecuting rage of the papacy, and it was but natural and reasonable that they should magnify kingly authority, in order to combat the claims of the church to absolute sovereignty. Luther, therefore, and his successors searched the Scriptures for divine sanction to the rule and right of kings. As we have seen, they found many texts to support their views; hence the dogma, which was destined to become such a weapon of tyranny in the hands of the Stuarts, that the king is appointed directly by God, that he is solutus legibus, that he is responsible to God alone, and that the perpetual duty of the subject is obedience. But Luther’s followers, such men as Knox, Gilby, and Poynet, learned that divine right was a doctrine that could mean hindrance and oppression, instead of progress and liberty, and that the Bible also authorized resistance to idolaters and tyrants. In the seventeenth century, Protestant teachers agreed with the Jesuits in asserting the sovereignty of the people. We should remember, however, that when Milton says the power of kings is derivative and transferred (12. 8); when the author of the Case of the Army Truly Stated (Oct. 15, 1647) says, ‘All power is originally and essentially in the whole body of the people of this nation’; or when, in January, 1649, the committee of the House of Commons, ultra-Protestant and Rome-hating as it was, voted ‘that the people, under God, are the original of all just power; that the Commons of England have the supreme authority of this nation,’ they were each and all indebted to Hildebrand, and an army of Romanist writers, for such a theory of civil liberty. We can understand, therefore, that there was a substratum of truth in the declarations of the Royalists that the revolutionary opinions of Cromwell’s soldiers were the result of the propaganda of Jesuit priests, who entered the ranks of the army on purpose to sow their anti-monarchical opinions. The Jesuits were not there in the flesh, but the writings of Molina, Mariana, and Bellarmine had come to full flower in The Grand Army Remonstrance, in the fierce democracy of the Levelers, and in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  The chief buttress of the theory of popular sovereignty is the idea of the social contract, the contention that the origin of kingship is to be traced to the remote occasion when the multitude, of their own accord, transferred to one of their own number the rights and powers of the magistrate. In this treatise, Milton states this opinion, not as a theory, but as a commonly accepted fact (9.31). Although this notion of the contractual origin of society and government was an inheritance from Epicurus, Polybius, and others,¹ it was adopted by the mediæval upholders of the papacy as a valuable argument for their purposes. Manegold, a priest of Lutterbach in Alsatia, who wrote in defence of Hildebrand, clearly states the famous theory: ‘Since no one can create himself emperor or king, the people elevates a certain one person over itself to this end that he govern and rule it according to the principle of righteous government; but if in any wise he transgresses the contract by virtue of which he is chosen, he absolves the people from the obligation of submission, because he has first broken faith with it.’² This plain statement was accepted by almost all the political theorists of the sixteenth century, but the defenders of monarchy argued that by this agreement the people surrendered their power to the ruler and his heirs. Towards the close of the century, after the question had become very thoroughly discussed, we find the contractual idea imbedded in the maxims of the Three Estates in 1584: ‘La royauté est un office, non un héritage.—C’est le peuple souverain qui dans l’origine créa les rois.—L’État est la chose du peuple; la souveraineté n’appartient pas aux princes, qui n’existent que par le peuple.—Un fait ne prend force de loi que par la sanction des États, rien n’est saint ni solide sans leur aveu.’¹ Milton is therefore following closely in the footsteps of a long line of thinkers in founding royalty on a primitive contract, the conditions of which were dictated by the people. And, like others who had gone before him, he finds a sanction for such a league in the covenants of the chosen people, and, in later history, in coronation oaths and pledges.² On this theory he bases his arguments (1) that titles of ‘Sovran Lord, natural Lord, and the like, are either arrogancies or flatteries’ (12. 17), (2) that the king has not a hereditary right to his crown and dignity (12. 27), (3) that kings are accountable, not only to God, but to the people (13. 11), (4) that the people may choose or reject, retain or depose the king, as they see fit (15. 11).

  Out of these doctrines proceeds his outspoken declaration that the people may take up arms against a tyrant, ‘as against a common pest, and destroyer of mankind, that it is lawful and has been so through all ages, for any who have the power to convict, depose, and put him to death.’ Because this is his thesis, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates occupies a unique place in English literature, for it contains the first attempt in our language to trace even partially the history of tyrannicide, and it might also be added that until the present no later writer in English has supplemented the material gathered in this treatise and in the First Defence of the English People.¹ Although Milton was indebted to Buchanan’s dialogue, De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579), for some references on this topic, and possibly to Bodin’s De Republica (1576), he did research-work on his own account, and has cited here, and elsewhere in his writings, principally in his First Defence, many quotations from the ancients on the subject of tyranny.

  In this pamphlet, Milton pays most attention to instances of tyrannicide from Jewish history, but he draws one important quotation from Seneca (22. 17) and makes a general statement concerning the practice among the Greeks and Romans (20. 10). His definition of a tyrant shows his knowledge of Aristotle’s opinions on the subject (12. 13). He also cites Euripides (14. 22), Dio Cassius (14. 29), Livy (16. 20), and St. Basil (19. 27). In the second edition he added a formidable array of quotations from the Protestant theologians.

  This pamphlet, however, was written hurriedly, and he did not have time to make an exhaustive study of the subject. In the days when he toiled over the pages of the First Defence he was able to go into the question more deeply, and perhaps nothing in Milton’s prose reveals the vast extent of his reading more than his citations on this theme. He quotes Aristotle (Bohn 1. 37, 38, 46), Sallust (ib. 1. 38, 39), Cicero (ib. 1. 39), M. Aurelius (ib. 1. 49); he refers to Tiberius as ‘a very great tyrant’ (ib. 1. 49); the senate and people of Rome would have been justified in proceeding against Domitian ‘according to the custom of their ancestors,’ and in giving judgment of death against him, as they did once against Nero’ (ib. 1. 81); he calls attention to Cicero’s praise of Brutus as a saviour and preserver of the Commonwealth (ib. 1. 90). ‘All men’ he says, ‘blame Domitian, who put to death Epaphroditus, because he had helped Nero to kill himself’ (ib. 1. 93). He points out that Valentinian was slain by Maximus (ib. 1. 105), Avitus was deposed by the Roman senate (ib.), Gratian was killed by the soldiers (ib.). Diodorus and Herodotus are quoted as authorities for the stories of the deposition of Egyptian tyrants, and the former also yields examples from Persian and Ethiopian history (ib. 1. 121 ff.). Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cicero, and Polybius are all cited in rapid succession (ib. 1. 125). Of the poets, he quotes Æschylus (ib. 1, 126), Euripides, and Sophocles (ib. 1. 127). In a review of the Roman historians, he cites Sallust (ib.), Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, Dio Cassius (ib. 1. 128), Pliny (ib. 1. 131), and Capitolinus (ib. 1. 133). After quoting Seneca, he continues: ‘By what has been said it is evident, that the best of the Romans did not only kill tyrants as oft as they could, and howsoever they could; but that they thought it a commendable and a praiseworthy action so to do, as the Grecians had done before them’ (ib. 1. 132). In the Second Defence he declares that the Greeks and Romans ‘are the objects of our admiration because of their resistance to tyrants and their treatment of tyrannicides, whose brows they bound with wreaths of laurel and consigned their memories to immortal fame’ (ib. 1. 217). The poets are also eulogized; for ‘I know that the most of them, from the earliest times to those of Buchanan, have been the strenuous enemies of despotism’ (ib. 1. 241).

  Although he uses Protestant opinions, he was obliged to pass by the sixteenth century Roman Catholic writers on this subject, for citations from their pages would have been offensive to his readers. Indeed, he takes care to abuse the Jesuit doctrine in favor of tyrannicide, in these words: ‘And let him ask the Jesuits about him [Ormond], whether it be not their known doctrine and also practice, not by fair and due process of justice to punish kings and magistrates, which we disavow not, but to murder them in the basest and most assassinous manner, if their church interest so require.’¹ But this criticism of the Jesuits comes with bad grace from the eulogist of Harmodius, Brutus, and the other glorified assassins of Greece and Rome.

  IX.

  Sources.

  Turning now to the special sources of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, we find that Milton’s chief debt is to George Buchanan, author of the celebrated revolutionary treatise, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, which was published in Edinburgh in 1579. Buchanan and Knox were students at St. Andrews, and imbibed their passion for popular rights and hatred of tyranny from their teacher, John Muir, who held that kings derived their power from the people, could be controlled by them, and, if tyrannical, might be deposed. Knox expressed these views in his argument against Lethington, to which Milton refers (28. 21); in his famous interview with Mary, Queen of Scots; and in the treatise which gave such offence to Queen Elizabeth, The Monstrous Regiment of Women. Milton was familiar with the opinions of Knox. but he found them systematized in the dialogue of Buchanan. We have indicated in the notes the parallels between Milton’s treatise and that of his Scottish mentor, and the reader will observe what a large number of passages have been paraphrased. Leading ideas, and, indeed, many facts, quotations, and illustrations, were appropriated by the English apologist for the Commonwealth. Buchanan clearly owes more inspiration to the ancient republicans than to the Bible, but he draws his arguments from both sources, and in this respect was followed by Milton. In his dialogue he gives the origin of the name tyrant,¹ summarizes various definitions of tyranny,² refers to the fears which beset tyrants,³ and to their punishment, and praises the tyrannicides of antiquity.⁴ He bases his argument for the sovereignty of the people on the social contract.⁵ Buchanan also lays great stress upon the appeal to reason, as does Milton. this treatise on the rights of the crown, dedicated, perhaps ironically, to the young James IV of Scotland, Buchanan’s royal pupil, was destined to have a profound influence on English politics. The hatred which it inspired in royalists, and the popular conception of its close connection with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, were amply expressed in 1683, when both works were publicly burned by the ever loyal prelates of the University of Oxford.

  The second source of Milton’s first work in political theory is to be found in his own youthful compilation of quotations, his Commonplace Book.¹ When he came to write his protest against Charles and other tyrants, he turned to this storehouse for illustrations and authorities. This book is, in fact, not only a guide to his early reading, but shows the political theory which he had already formulated. Gooch remarks that Milton’s earliest political views were merely those of a liberal constitutionalism,² and that the Commonplace Book reveals his conception of the state as an organism, his comprehensive view of rational well-being, his aristocratical tendencies, his reverence for the thinkers of antiquity, and, in short, the whole spirit of his political thinking. There are in this remarkable book the names of upwards of eighty authors read by the young scholar—English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Along with the instances and conclusions drawn from the original authors, we have a few original observations on political theory. He wrote the facts and quotations in English, French, Italian, or Latin, as the humor seized him. In those earlier years he read the following authors, whose names he mentions, and whose thought he was afterwards to incorporate in his first apology for the Commonwealth: ancient writers—Aristotle, Tertullian, Basil, Chrysostom; French—De Thou, Bodin, Girard, Gilles, Seysell; English—Holinshed, Camden, Gildas, Stow, Speed, Fynes Morison, Raleigh, Sir Thomas Smith, Selden; Scotch—Buchanan; German—Sleidan; theologians—Luther, Calvin, Peter Martyr, proceedings of the Council of Trent; jurists—the Justinian and Byzantine codes. This long array of authors proves that the Commonplace Book lay at Milton’s elbow when he wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. This treatise is more heavily indebted to that learned scrap-book than any other prose work of Milton, the History of England, however, being a close second. In our notes the reader will observe how many seed-thoughts, quotations, and illustrations were transferred from one book to the other by our provident writer, and what embellishment they received in the process. A comparison of the Commonplace Book with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is a most interesting study in literary evolution. Milton’s prose masterpiece, The First Defence, shows the completion of the process. If the Commonplace Book is the blade, The Tenure is the ear, and the First Defence is the full corn in the ear.¹

  In discussing the subject of tyrannicide, we have already indicated some of Milton’s indebtedness to ancient authorities. It was in reality owing to the influence of the Renascence that he was enabled to bring into this work citations from Aristotle and Euripides, from Cicero and Livy, from Seneca and Dio, from Trajan and Theodosius; the new learning also made it possible for him to support his argument with quotations from the Justinian and Byzantine codes of law.

  It is to the French historians of the sixteenth century, however, that we trace perhaps the most novel feature of Milton’s contribution to the cause of civil liberty. Francis Hotman has the distinction of being the first modern historian to search the annals of his own land in an endeavor to discover in the practices of earlier generations proofs that the people had set up and deposed kings at pleasure, and had instituted parliament to be a bridle to monarchs. On this account, his Franco-Gallia was an epoch-making book. Milton’s debt to Hotman is seen in his statements regarding the coronation and election of early French, German, Scottish and Arragonian kings,¹ the origin and meaning of parliaments, which were intended to be bridles to the kings,² instances of the deposition of Frankish kings,³ his assertion that the people is the original of power,⁴ and that the titles of dukes, peers, and great officers of the crown were at first not hereditary, but purely complimentary.⁵ Milton also drew considerable material for this treatise from the French historians, Claude de Seysell, Bernard Girard, sometimes called Seigneur du Haillan, and J. A. de Thou (Thuanus). Girard’s Histoire des Rois de France is often quoted in the Commonplace Book. The great Latin tomes of Thuanus also afforded Milton a comprehensive knowledge of the histories of Denmark, Scotland, Belgium, France, and Germany during the sixteenth century. It was these tremendous folios, the Historia sui Temporis, that Dr. Johnson regretted he had never translated, and that Froude, Milton’s modern disciple in thorough-going hatred of clericalism, read with unflagging interest. The Latin folio of Sleidan’s History of the Reformation was a source, not only for Milton’s knowledge of German history, but also for his citations from the writings of Luther, and his references to the connection of the reformer with the Peasants’ Revolt. Pastor Peter Gilles’ simple, yet touching recital, of the sufferings of the Piedmontese Protestants was also read by Milton in those industrious youthful days, and lies behind the great sonnet and the references in this tract to the persecutions and struggles of the Waldenses.

  Another work of the sixteenth century, whole pages of which are transcribed in the Commonplace Book, and to which we have already referred in our sketch of the literature on tyrannicide, was Jean Bodin’s De Republica. This treatise on government became a classic almost as soon as it was published, and its author was mentioned as one of a triumvirate, the other members of which were Aristotle and Macchiavelli. We cannot be certain that Milton borrowed any specific statements for this treatise from Bodin, but we know that he had read his pages devoutly, and it cannot be doubted that the De Republica helped to form the mental background of the Miltonic argument for constitutional monarchy.

  Somewhere about three years after the appearance of Bodin’s book, there came forth from a secret press a work over the significant pseudonym of Junius Brutus, the real authorship of which is still in doubt,¹ a book which was to be the authority of all radicals and tyrant-haters for centuries. Six editions of the Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos appeared between 1579 and 1599, and six between 1600 and 1648; in the latter year it was translated into English, and in this form was read by Milton, for he refers to it as The Defence against Tyranny,¹ and says it is commonly ascribed to Beza. At the Oxford inquisition party in 1683, this notable work was burned with the political works of Buchanan and Milton. As we have already mentioned the place of this book in the history of tyrannicide, and have made many references in the notes to Milton’s use of it for a source of political theory, we shall add nothing here except to point out that he follows it particularly in his method of appeal to sacred history against tyranny.

  For the facts of English history, Milton turned to early authorities, whom he had already been consulting for his proposed History of England. He applies to the history of bis own land the method of Hotman, examines coronation oaths and ceremonies, cases of deposition of kings, and of punishment meted out to tyrants, and tries to deduce therefrom that the sovereign power is in the people. The weakness in Milton’s argument respecting the deposition of Richard II, for example, lay in the fact that it was in the nature of a palace-revolution rather than a concerted movement on the part of the people. Among English historians cited by Milton in this treatise are Gildas, Matthew Paris, Sir Thomas Smith, Camden, Holinshed, Stow, Speed, and Rushworth. His debt to them is indicated in the notes. For the history of Scotland he consulted Buchanan, Knox, and de Thou.²

  Like all Puritan scholars, Milton was well versed in the church fathers and councils, in the commentaries and treatises of the Protestant reformers, and in those of subsequent expositors and pamphleteers. Owing to his disparagement of the patristic writers,¹ he refers only to Tertullian, Chrysostom, and Basil in this treatise, but his list of Protestant authors is lengthy, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bucer, Martyr, Paræus, Cochlæus, Cartwright, Fenner, Gilby, Goodman, Knox, and Whittingham. His use of the names of Luther and Calvin in support of his argument in favor of deposing tyrants is scarcely honest. His misuse of Luther’s words out of their connection is particularly open to criticism.² He also wrests Calvin to his purpose, for that stern theologian was far from being an upholder of popular government.³ On the contrary, he advocated submission to the worst tyrant. ‘Let no man here deceive himself,’ says he, ‘since he cannot resist the magistrate without resisting God. We must be subject not only to good princes, by whatever means they have so become, although there is nothing they less perform than the duty of princes.’⁴ Milton must have read these words, yet he was unscrupulous enough to try to induce his readers to believe that Calvin was on his side of the controversy. In quoting other Protestant writers, Milton often suppresses a word or phrase, as will be seen by comparing the text with that given in the notes. In general, it may be said that while the early Protestant theologians uttered brave words in condemnation of wicked princes, their counsel was passive obedience; at a later period they stipulated that, if the people were to take action against the powers, they should act through the inferior magistrates, and avoid individual or disorderly uprisings.

  X.

  Style.

  Although Milton once confessed that he wrote prose with his left hand, he did not entertain too poor an opinion of his power in that respect. He prided himself upon ‘this just and honest manner of speaking.’ He tells us that he loves ‘the sober, plain, and unaffected style of the Scripture,’ and compares it with the ‘crabbed and abstruse writing, knotty Africanisms, the pampered metaphors, the intricate and involved sentences of the fathers, besides the fantastic and declamatory flashes, the cross-jingling periods, which cannot but distrub, and come athwart a settled devotion, worse than the din of bells and rattles.’¹ He disliked a ‘coy, flirting style,’ and would not be ‘girded with frumps and curtal gibes, by one who makes sentences by the statute, as if all above three inches long were confiscate.’² He did not, however, approve a style utterly devoid of humor. He would mix, here and there, ‘such a grim laughter, as may appear at the same time in an austere visage,’ but which would avoid levity or insolence, ‘for even this vein of laughing hath ofttimes a strong and sinewy force in teaching and confuting.’³ Regarding the use of quotations and authorities, he criticizes an opponent for ‘cutting out large docks and creeks into his text to unlade the foolish frigate of his unreasonable authorities.’¹ To sum up, Milton holds that a good prose style should be sober, plain, and unaffected, free from foreign idioms, overdrawn metaphors, flashy rhetoric; the periods should be well-sized, but not intricate or involved; humor, an element of force, should be used, so long as it does not shade over into levity; ‘paroxysms of citations’² should be avoided.

  Measuring the style of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates by his own standard, we are of opinion that he fails to uphold it in only two respects: his sentences are frequently intricate and involved, and he uses occasional Latinisms. The modern reader may be inclined to believe that Milton has transgressed the bounds set up for himself in the matter of citations of Scripture, of sentences from the pamphlet Scripture and Reason, and quotations from the Protestant theologians and from the ancients. But one has only to read the First Defence to see how moderate he has been in comparison with himself, and such a work as Dr. Ferne’s Conscience Satisfied, or any of Prynne’s volumes, to receive the impression that Milton has been very sparing in his use of citations in this treatise. It was the fashion of every writer of the seventeenth century to support his claim to learning by much quoting, by long parentheses, and by lugging in ‘scholastical trash,’ as Milton once called it in a moment of loathing of syllogisms. If he seems to indulge somewhat in these sins in this treatise,³ let us be thankful that, on the whole, even in conducting an argument on a theme which is by nature heavy and abstruse, he contrives to be so easy to understand, and so forceful. For in spite of numerous assertions to the contrary, we agree with Professor Trent that Milton is a writer of lucid prose.¹ The first part of this treatise, where he takes up ‘the original of kings,’ is highly praised by Tulloch as being ‘one of the most clear and consistent arguments in Milton’s controversial writings.’² To clearness Milton has added force in the style of this treatise. Except in his failure to explain in whom the power of the people was legitimately vested, whether in the majority of the members of the House of Commons, or in what Prynne called an ‘unparliamentary junto,’ he has shaped a powerful, even an overwhelming argument against tyrannical rulers, Presbyterian divines, and all opponents of the Independent party. Masson speaks of the ‘hammer-like force’ of this piece of writing, and it is easy to gather that a great deal of this vigor is due to Milton’s power as a maker of striking phrases, such as ‘apostate scar crowes,’ ‘dancing divines,’ ‘barking monitories,’ ‘the spleene of a frustrated faction,’ ‘greas’d them thick and deepe,’ ‘presumptuous Sion,’ and scores of others of equal merit. The freshness of his metaphors appeals to us on nearly every page, and his style is loaded with color in all passages of personal description, and in those which deal with the events of history. There are no purple patches in this treatise, no ‘fits of eloquence,’ but plenty of pen-portraits, often thumb-nail sketches, (‘apostate scar crowes,’ for example), of his enemies, and numerous fits of indignation. Milton’s satire, although sharp enough, is less objectionable in this pamphlet than in the majority of his prose pieces. What more delightful specimen of his mordant humor, the grim humor in an austere visage, as he would himself describe it, can be found than his description of the postures and motions of the Presbyterian drill-company of divines?¹ If we find in his prose ‘the real Milton,’ as Seeley declares² —his fire, his sympathy with heroism, his ardor of spirit, his enthusiasm for liberty, and his uncompromising courage—these personal qualities are all fused in the forceful style of this pamphlet. But we find no tenderness in the midst of his strictures, and of his revilings of tyrants on the throne and in the pulpit, no sensible appreciation of the fact that there was some merit in the arguments of his adversaries, and some goodness in their hearts. For this reason, his style in this prose work lacks grace, the tolerant grace of Comus, of L’Allegro, and Il Penseroso; and surely the real Milton was also sending forth his soul in those lovely poems. Iron vigor he shows in abundance in this first apology for the Commonwealth, a noble passion for freedom, a splendid courage, and vast learning, but, alas, a spirit of cruel disdain for fellow-Christians and fellow-countrymen, who also had souls, and who also loved England.

  XI.

  Orthography.

  Francis Peck was the first critic to remark the singularity of Milton’s spelling.³ He notes that he used bee, hee, shee, mee, wee, livlyhood, then for than, ther for there, thir for their, vertue for virtue, yeild for yield, ancient for antient. Milton lived in what is called the early modern period of English literature, when the language was being reorganized. In spelling, as in sentence-building and paragraphing, each writer was a law unto himself. But just as Milton had decided ideas as to the proper length of sentences, so he tried to spell by rule in a day when there was no rule. In the system which he devised, and to which he was generally faithful, the main purpose seems to have been simplicity. There is an approach to the modern practice of phonetic spelling in dropping the weak final e, as hear for heare, soon for soone, son for sonne. He often omits a mute e, as cov’nant, spok’n, ev’n, alleg’d, certainly for certainely, or a useless consonantal termination, as general for generall, equal for equall, gospel for gospell, stil for still, especial for especiall. The suffix ate he shortens to at, as subordinat, privat, prelat. The spelling of preterites and past participles is unsettled in Milton’s writings, as is that of words ending in y and ie. He often changed the final d into t after the dropping of e in verbs ending in a surd consonant, as stopt, profest, banisht, punisht.

  In this treatise we find that the spelling of the personal pronouns varies. There is such individual orthography as vertue for virtue, thir for their, meer for meere, onely for only, then for than, goverment for government, ly for lie, furder for further, and sent for scent. The present text of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates possesses special interest for the student of Milton’s system of orthography. It is a copy of the actual spelling of the first edition, collated with the second edition, and including the numerous additions made in the new issue of the pamphlet in 1650. By comparing the text of the first with that of the second edition, we find many alterations in the spelling. Nearly all these changes tend toward simplicity, and are in accord with the principles explained above, and with the spelling in his earlier divorce pamphlet, Colasterion, published in 1645. We are of opinion, therefore, that Milton was too much occupied with personal affairs, or with current events, to correct the proof-sheets of the first edition. The first copy may have been the work of an amanuensis, or the compositor may have set at naught this finical advocate of spelling reform; at any rate, the first edition was not satisfactory to the author. In his careful revision of the spelling for the later issue, we discover Milton’s carefulness in the details of the writer’s art, and his devotion to his own way of doing things. The following table shows some of the more important changes made in the spelling of the second edition:

  First Edition.	Second Edition.
  Gentilisme	Gentilism
  still	stil
  mischiefe	mischief
  prelates	prelats
  sonne	son
  Britanes	Britans
  worse	wors
  soone	soon
  betooke	betook
  certainely	certainly
  generall	general
  learned	lerned
  againe	again
  alleag’d	alleg’d
  equall	equal
  sinceritie	sincerity
  therefore	therfore
  patheticall	pathetical
  drawne	drawn
  plaine	plain
  mortall	mortal
  custome	custom
  wee	we
  hee	he
  fitt	fit
  kingdomes	kingdoms
  devill	devil
  private	privat
  subordinate	subordinat
  sinne	sin
  schismes	scisms

  XII.

  A Contemporary Criticism.

  So far as is known, there is only one contemporary criticism of The Tenure of Kings Magistrates. It is from the pen of a Presbyterian parliamentarian and pamphleteer, Clement Walker, a literary partner of William Prynne; and therefore one who resented Milton’s gibes at apostate scarecrows and inconsistent divines. As Walker’s book is not accessible to the general reader, we reproduce his diatribe. It reads as follows: ‘There is lately come forth a book of John Meltons (a Libertine, that thinketh his Wife a Manacle, and his very Garters to be Shackles and Fetters to him: one that (after the Independent fashion) will be tied to no obligation to God or man) wherein he undertaketh to prove, That it is lawful for any that have power to call to account, Depose, and put to Death wicked Kings and Tyrants (after due conviction) if the ordinary Magistrate neglect it. I hope then it is lawful to put to death wicked Cromwels, Councels of State, corrupt Factions in Parliament: for I know no prerogative that usurpation can bestow upon them. He likewise asserteth, That those, who of late so much blame Deposing, are the men that did it themselves, (meaning the Presbyterians). I shall invite some man of more leisure and abilities than myself, to Answer these two Paradoxes: But shall first give him these cautions:

  1. That for the Polemick part he turn all his Arguments into Syllogismes, and then he will find them to be all Fallacies, the froth of wit and fancy, not the Dictates of true and solid Reason.

  2. That for the Historical or narrative part, he would thoroughly examine them, and he will find few of them consonant to the plumbline of truth.

  3. That he would consider that from the beginning of this Parliament there were three Parties or Factions in it:

  • 1. The Royalists.
  • 2. The Presbyterians.
  • 3. The Independents.’¹

  Without further reference to Milton. Walker proceeds to declare that the Independents have been the inconsistent troublers of Israel, and that the Presbyterians have been laboring to deliver them from their errors.

  THE TEXT
  
  A REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST EDITION, WITH VARIANTS FROM THE SECOND EDITION.

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: Proving, That it is Lawfull, and hath been held so through all Ages, for any who have the Power, to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked KING, and after due conviction, to depose and put him to death; if the ordinary MAGISTRATE have neglected or deny’d to doe it. And that they, who of late, so much blame Deposing, are the Men that did it themselves. The Author, J. M. London, Printed by Matthew Simmons, at the Gilded Lyon in Aldersgate Street, 1649.

  THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.

  If Men within themselves would be govern’d by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyrannie, of Custome from without, and blind affections within, they would discerne better, what it is to favour and uphold the Tyrant of a Nation. But being slaves within doores , no wonder that they strive so much to have the public State conformably govern’d to the inward vitious rule, by which they govern themselves. For indeed none can love freedom heartilie, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence; which never hath more scope or more indulgence then under Tyrants. Hence is it, that Tyrants are not oft offended , nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom vertue and true worth most is eminent, them they feare in earnest , as by right their Masters, against them lies all thir hatred and suspicion. Consequentlie neither doe bad men hate Tirants, but have been alwaies readiest with the falsifi’d names of Loyalty and Obedience, to colour over their base compliances. And although sometimes for shame, and when it comes to their owne grievances, of purse especially, they would seeme good patriots, and side with the better cause, yet when others for the deliverance of their Countrie, endu’d with fortitude and Heroick vertue to feare nothing but the curse writt’n against those That doe the work of the Lord negligently, would goe on to remove, not onely the calamities and thraldomes of a people, but the roots and causes whence they spring, streight these men , and sure helpers at need, as if they hated onely the miseries but not the mischiefes, after they have juggl’d and palter’d with the World , bandied and borne armes against their King, devested him, disanointed him, nay, curs’d him all over in their pulpits and their pamphlets , to the ingaging of sincere and reall men, beyond what is possible or honest to retreat from, not onely turne revolters from those principles, which onely could at first move them, but lay the staine of disloyaltie, and worse, on those proceedings, which are the necessarie consequences of their owne former actions; nor dislik’d by themselves, were they manag’d to the intire advantages of their owne Faction ; not considering the while that he toward whom they boasted new fidelitie, counted them accessory ; and by those Statutes and Laws which they so impotently brandish against others, would have doom’d them to a traytors death, for what they have done alreadie. ‘Tis true, that most men are apt anough to civill Wars and commotions as a noveltie, and for a flash, hot and active ; but through sloth or inconstancie, and weakness of spirit either fainting ere their owne pretences, though never so just, be halfe attain’d, or through an inbred falshood and wickednesse, betray oft times to destruction with themselves, men of noblest temper join’d with them for causes, which they in their rash undertakings were not capable of.¹ If God and a good cause give them Victory, the prosecution whereof for the most part, inevitably drawes after it the alteration of Lawes , change of Goverment, downfall of princes with their Families; then comes the task to those Worthies which are the soule of that Enterprize, to bee swett and labour’d out amidst the throng and noises of vulgar and irrationall men. Some contesting for privileges, customes , formes, and old intanglement of iniquitie, their gibrish Lawes , though the badge of thir ancient slavery. Others who have beene fiercest against their Prince, under the notion of a Tyrant, and no meane incendiaries of the Warre against him, when God out of his Providence and high disposall hath deliver’d him into the hand of brethren, on a suddaine and in a new garbe of Allegiance, which their doings have long since cancell’d; they plead for him, pity him, extoll him , protest against those that talke of bringing him to the tryall of Justice, which is the Sword of God, superiour to all mortall things, in whose hand soever by apparent signes his testified wil is to put it. But certainely, if we consider who and what they are, on a suddaine grown so pitifull, wee may conclude, their pitty can be no true and Christian commiseration, but either levitie and shallownesse of minde, or else a carnall admiring of that worldly pompe and greatness, from whence they see him fall’n; or rather lastly a dissembl’d and seditious pity, fain’d of industry to beget new commotions.¹ As for mercy, if it bee to a Tyrant, under which name they themselves have cited him so oft in the hearing of God, of Angels, and the holy Church assembl’d, and there charg’d him with the spilling of more innocent blood by farre, then ever Nero did, undoubtedly the mercy which they pretend, is the mercy of wicked men; and their mercies , wee read, are cruelties; hazarding the welfare of a whole Nation, to have sav’d one, whom so oft they have tearm’d Agag ; and villifying the blood of many Jonathans, that have sav’d Israel ; insisting with much nicenesse on the unnecessariest clause of their Covnant¹ ; wherein the feare of change, and the absurd contradiction of a flattering hostilitie had hamperd them, but not scrupling to give away for complements, to an implacable revenge, the heads of many thousand Christians more.

  Another sort there is , who comming in the course of these affairs, to have thir share in great actions, above the forme of Law or Custome, at least to give thir voice and approbation, begin to swerve, and almost shiver at the Majesty and grandeur of som noble deed, as if they were newly enter’d into a great sin; disputing presidents , formes and circumstances, when the Commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, don with just and faithfull expedition. To these I wish better instruction, and vertue equall to their calling; the former of which, that is to say, Instruction, I shall endeavour, as my dutie is, to bestow on them; and exhort them not to startle from the just and pious resolution of adhering with all their assistance² to the present Parlament and Army, in the glorious way wherein Justice and Victorie hath set them; the onely warrants, through all ages, next under immediate Revelation, to exercise supreame power in those proceedings, which hitherto appeare equall to what hath been don in any age or Nation heretofore justly or magnanimouslie. Nor let them be discourag’d or deterr’d by any new Apostate Scar crowes , who under show of giving counsell, send out their barking monitories and memento’s , emptie of ought else but the spleene of a frustrated Faction . For how can that pretended counsell bee either sound or faithfull, when they that give it, see not for madnesse and vexation of their ends lost, that those Statutes and Scriptures which both falsly and scandalously, they wrest against their Friends and Associates , would by sentence of the common adversarie fall first and heaviest upon their owne heads. Neither let milde and tender dispositions be foolishly softn’d from their dutie and perseverance with the unmasculine Rhetorick of any puling Priest or Chaplain , sent as a friendly Letter of advice, for fashion-sake in private, and forthwith publish’t by the Sender himselfe, that wee may know how much of friend there was in it, to cast an odious envie upon them, to whom it was pretended to be sent in charitie. Nor let any man be deluded by either the ignorance or the notorious hypocrisie and self-repugnance of our dancing Divines , who have the conscience and the boldnesse to come with Scripture in their mouthes, gloss’d and fitted for thir turnes with a double contradictory sense, transforming the sacred veritie of God to an Idol with two faces, looking at once two several ways; and with the same quotations to charge others, which in the same case they made serve to justifie themselves For while the hope to bee made Classic and Provinciall Lords led them on, while pluralities greas’d them thick and deepe , to the shame and scandall of Religion, more then all the Sects and Heresies they exclaime against, then to fight against the Kings person, and no lesse a Party of his Lords and Commons, or to put force upon both the Houses, was good, was lawfull, was no resisting of Superiour powers; they onely were powers not to be resisted, who countenanc’d the good and punish’t the evill. But now that thir censorious domineering is not suffer’d to be universall, truth and conscience to be freed , Tithes andPluralities to be no more, though competent allowance provided, and the warme experience of large gifts , and they so good at taking them; yet now to exclude and seize on¹ impeach’t Members, to bring Delinquents without exemption to a faire Tribunall by the common Nationall Law against murder, is now to be no lesse then Corah, Dathan and Abiram . He who but erewhile in the pulpits was a cursed Tyrant , an enemie to God and Saints, laden with all the innocent blood spilt in three Kingdomes, and so to bee fought against, is now, though nothing penitent or alter’d from his first principles, a lawfull Magistrate, a Sovrane Lord, the Lords Annointed , not to be touch’d, though by themselves imprison’d . As if this onely were obedience, to preserve the meere uselesse bulke of his person, and that onely in prison, not in the field, and to disobey his commands, denie him his dignitie and office, every where to resist his power but where they thinke it onely surviving in thir owne faction.

  But who in particular is a Tyrant cannot be determind in a generall discourse, otherwise then by supposition; his particular charge , and the sufficient proofe of it must determine that: which I leave to Magistrates, at least to the uprighter sort of them, and of the people, though in number lesse by many , in whom faction least hath prevaild above the Law of nature and right reason, to judge as they finde cause. But this I dare owne as part of my faith, that if such a one there be , by whose Commission whole massachers have been committed on his faithfull subjects, his Provinces offered to pawne oralienation , as the hire of those whom he had sollicited to come in and destroy whole Cities and Countries; be hee King, or Tyrant, or Emperour, the Sword of Justice is above him ; in whose hand soever is found sufficient power to avenge the effusion, and so great a deluge of innocent blood . For if all humane power to execute , not accidentally but intendedly, the wrath of God upon evill doers without exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or if that faile, extraordinary so executing that intent of God, is lawfull, and not to be resisted. But to unfold more at large this whole Question , though with all expedient brevity, I shall here set downe from first beginning, the originall of Kings; how and wherefore exalted to that dignitie above thir Brethren; and from thence shall prove, that turning to tyranny they may bee as lawfully deposd and punished, as they were at first elected: This I shall doe by autorities and reasons, not learnt in corners among Schismes and Heresies , as our doubling Divines are ready to calumniate, but fetch’d out of the midst of choicest and most authentic learning, and no prohibited Authors , nor many Heathen, but Mosaical, Christian, Orthodoxal , and which must needs be more convincing to our Adversaries, Presbyterial.

  No man who knows ought, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free , being the image and resemblance of God himselfe, and were by privilege above all the creatures , borne to command and not to obey: and that they livd so,¹ till from the root of Adams transgression , falling among themselves to doe wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury, and joyntly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement. Hence came Citties, Townes and Common-wealths. And because no faith in all was found sufficiently binding, they saw it needfull to ordaine some authoritie, that might restraine by force and punishment what was violated against peace and common right. This autoritie and power of self-defence and preservation being originally and naturally in every one of them, and unitedly in them all, for ease, for order, and least each man should be his owne partial judge , they communicated and deriv’d either to one, whom for the eminence of his wisdom and integritie they chose above the rest, or to more then one whom they thought of equal deserving: the first was calld a King; the other Magistrates . Not to be thir Lords and Maisters (though afterward those names in som places were giv’n voluntarily to such as had bin authors of inestimable good to the people) but, to be thir Deputies and Commissioners, to execute, by vertue of thir intrusted power, that justice which else every man by the bond of nature and of Cov’nant must have executed for himselfe, and for one another. And to him that shall consider well why among free persons, one man by civill right should beare autority and jurisdiction over another, no other end or reason can be imaginable. These for a while governd well, and with much equitie decided all things at thir owne arbitrement : till the temptation of such a power left absolute in thir hands, perverted them at length to injustice and partialitie. Then did they, who now by tryall had found the danger and inconveniences of committing arbitrary power to any, invent Lawes either fram’d, or consented to by all, that should confine and limit the autority of whom they chose to govern them: that so man of whose failing they had proof, might no more rule over them, but law and reason abstracted as much as might be from personal errors and frailties.¹ When this would not serve but that the Law was either not executed, or misapply’d they were constraind from that time, the onely remedy left them, to put conditions and take Oaths from all Kings and Magistrates at thir first instalment to doe impartial justice by Law: who upon those termes and no other , receav’d Allegeance from the people, that is to say, bond or Covnant to obey them in execution of those Lawes which they the people had themselves made, or assented to . And this oft times with express warning, that if the King or Magistrate prov’d unfaithfull to his trust, the people would be disingag’d. They added also Counselors and Parlaments , not to be onely at his beck , but with him or without him, at set times, or all times, when any danger threatn’d to have care of the public safety. Therefore saith Claudius Sesell² , a French Statesman, The Parlament was set as a bridle to the King; which I instance rather³ , because that Monarchy is granted by all to be farre more absolute then ours. That this and the rest of what hath hitherto been spok’n is most true, might be copiously made appeare throughout all Stories, Heathen and Christian; eev’n of those Nations where Kings and Emperours have sought meanes to abolish all ancient memory of the peoples right by their encroachments and usurpations. But I spare long insertions⁴ , appealing to the German , French , Italian, Arragonian , English, and not the least the Scottish histories: Not forgetting this onely by the way, that William the Norman , though a Conqueror, and not unsworne at his Coronation, was compelld a second time to take oath at S. Albanes, ere the people would be brought to yeild obedience.

  It being thus manifest that the power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is onely derivative, transferrd and committed to them in trust from the people, to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remaines fundamentally, and cannot be tak’n from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright, and seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of Political writers have defin’d a king, him who governs to the good and profit of his people, and not for his owne ends, it follows from necessary causes, that the Titles of Sovran Lord, natural Lord , and the like, are either arrogancies, or flatteries , not admitted by Emperors and Kings of best note, and dislikt by the Church both of Jews, Isai. 26. 13. and ancient Christians, as appears by Tertullian and others. Although generally the people of Asia, and with them the Jews also, especially since the time they chose a King, against the advice and counsel of God, are noted by wise authors much inclinable to slavery.

  Secondly, that to say, as is usual, the King hath as good right to his crown and dignitie, as any man to his inheritance, is to make the subject no better then the Kings slave, his chattell , or his possession that may be bought and sould, And doubtless, if hereditary title were sufficiently inquir’d, the best foundation of it would be found but either in courtesie or convenience . But suppose it to be of right hereditarie, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certaine crimes be to forfet by Law from himselfe and posterity, all his inheritance to the King, then that a King for crimes proportionall , should forfet all his title and inheritance to the people: unless the people must be thought created all for him, he not for them, and they all in one body inferior to him single, which were a kinde of treason against the dignitie of mankind to affirm.

  Thirdly it followes, that to say Kings are accountable to none but God, is the overturning of all Law and goverment. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covnants made with them at Coronation; all Oathes are in vaine, and meer mockeries, all Lawes which they sweare to keep, made to no purpose; for if the King feare not God, as how many of them doe not ? we hold then our lives and estates, by the tenure of his meer grace and mercy, as from a God, not a mortall Magistrate, a position that none but Court parasites or men besotted would maintain.¹ And² no Christian Prince not drunk with high mind, and prouder then those Pagan Cæsars, that deifi’d themselves , would arrogate so unreasonably above human condition, or derogate so basely from a whole Nation of men his brethren, as if for him onely subsisting, and to serve his glory, valuing them in comparison of his owne brute will and pleasure, no more then so many beasts, or vermine under his feet, not to be reasond with, but to be injurd¹ ; among whom there might be found so many thousand men for wisdome, vertue, nobleness of mind and all other respects, but the fortune of his dignity, farr above him. Yet some would perswade us that this absurd opinion was King Davids; because in the 51Psalm he cries out to God, Against thee onely have I sinn’d; as if David had imagind that to murder Uriah and adulterate his Wife, had bin no sinne against his Neighbour, when as that law of Moses was to the king expressly, Deut. 17 . not to think so highly of himself above his Brethren. David therefore by those words could mean no other, then either that the depth of his guiltiness was known to God onely, or to so few as had not the will or power to question him, or that the sin against God was greater beyond compare then against Uriah. What ever his meaning were, any wise man will see that the patheticall words of a Psalme can be no certaine decision to a point that hath abundantly more certaine rules to goe by. How much more rationally spake the Heathen King Demophoon in a Tragedy of Euripides then these interpreters would put upon King David, I rule not my people by tyranny, as if they were Barbarians; but am myself liable, ifI doe unjustly, to suffer justly. Not unlike was the speech of Trajan, the worthy Emperor , to one whom he made General of his Prætorian Forces. Take this drawne sword, saith he, to use for me, if I reigne well, if not, to use against me. Thus Dion relates . And not Trajan onely, but Theodosius the younger , a Christian Emperor and one of the best, causd it to be enacted as a rule undenyable and fit to be acknowledgd by all Kings and Emperors, that a Prince is bound to the Laws; that on the autority of Law the autority of a Prince depends, and to the Laws ought submit. Which Edict of his remaines yet unrepeald¹ in the Code of Justinian . l. 1. tit. 24. as a sacred constitution[ ] to all the succeeding Emperors. How then can any King in Europe maintaine and write himselfe accountable to none but God, when Emperors in thir own imperiall Statutes have writt’n and decreed themselves accountable to Law. And indeed where such account is not fear’d, he that bids a man reigne over him above Law, may bid as well a savage beast.

  It follows lastly, that since the King or Magistrate holds his autoritie of the people, both originally and naturally for their good in the first place, and not his owne, then may the people as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject him, retaine him or depose him though no Tyrant, meerly by the libertie and right of free born men to be govern’d as seems to them best. This, though it cannot but stand with plaine reason, shall be made good also by Scripture, Deut. 17. 14. When thou artcome into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt say I will set a King over mee, like as all the Nations about mee.These words confirme us , that the right of choosing, yea of changing thir owne government is by the grant of God himself in the people. And therfore when they desir’d a King, though then under another forme of goverment, and though thir changing displeasd him , yet he that was himself their King, and rejected by them, would not be a hindrance to what they intended, furder then by perswasion, but that they might doe therein as they saw good, 1 Sam. 8. onely he reserv’d to himself the nomination of who should reigne over them. Neither did that exempt the King, as if hee were to God onely accountable, though by his especiall command anointed. Therefore David first made a Covnant with the elders of Israel, and so was by them anointed King,¹ 1 Chron. 11. And Jehoiada the Priest making Jehoash King, made a Cov’nant between him and the People, 2 Kings 11. 17. Therefore when Roboam at his comming to the Crowne, rejected those conditions which the Israelites brought him, heare what they answer him, what portion have we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse.²See tothine own house David. And for the like conditions not perform’d, all Israel before that time deposd Samuell ; not for his own default, but for the misgovement³ of his Sons. But som will say to both these examples, it was evilly don. I answer, that not the latter, because it was expressely allow’d them in the Law to set up a King if they pleas’d; and God himself joynd with them in the work; though in some sort it was at that time displeasing to him, in respect of old Samuell, who had governd them upringhtly. As Livy praises the Romans, who took occasion from Tarquinius a wicked prince to gaine their libertie, which to have extorted, saith hee, from Numa or any of the good Kings before, had not bin seasonable. Nor was it in the former example don unlawfully; for when Roboam had prepar’d a huge Army to reduce the Israelites, be was forbidd’n by the Prophet, 1 Kings 12. 24. Thus saith the Lord, yee shall not goe up, nor[ ]fight against your brethren, for this thing is from me. He calls them thir brethren, not Rebels, and forbidds to be proceeded against them, owning the thing himselfe , not by single providence , but by approbation, and that not onely of the act, as in the former example, but of the fitt season also; he had not otherwise forbidd to molest them. And those grave and wise Counselors whom Rehoboam first advis’d with, spake no such thing, as our old gray headed Flatterers now are wont, stand upon your birth-right, scorne to capitulate, you hold of God, and not of them; for they knew no such matter, unless conditionally ; but gave him politic counsel, as in a civil transaction. Therfore Kingdom and Magistracy , whether supreme or subordinat, is¹ calld a human ordinance,1 Pet. 2. 13 . etc. which we are there taught is the will of God wee should submitt to, so farr as for the punishment of evill doers, and the encouragement of them that doe well. Submitt² saith he, as free men.³And there is no power butof God, saith Paul,Rom. 13 . as much as to say, God put it into mans heart to find out that way at first for common peace and preservation, approving the exercise therof; else it contradicts Peter who calls the same autority an Ordinance of man. It must also be understood of lawfull and just power, els we read of great power in the affaires and Kingdomes of the World permitted to the Devill: for saith he to Christ, Luke, 4. 6. all⁴this power will I give thee and the glory of them, for it is deliverd to me, and to whomsoever I will,I give it: neither did hee ly, or Christ gainsay what hee affirm’d: for in the thirteenth of the Revelation wee read how the dragon gave to the Beast his power, his seat, and great autority: which beast so autoriz’d most expound to be the tyrannical powers and Kingdomes of the earth. Therfore Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter tells us that such Magistrates hee meanes, as are, not a terror to the good but to the evill, such as beare not the sword in vaine, but to punish offenders, and to encourage the good. If such onely be mentioned here as powers to be obeyd, and our submission to them onely requird, then doubtless those powers that doe the contrary, are no powers ordaind of God, and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey or not to resist them. And it may bee well observd that both these Apostles, whenever they give this precept, express it in termes not concret but abstract , as logicians are wont to speake, that is, they mention the ordinance, the power, the autoritie before the persons that execute it, and what that power is, lest we should be deceavd, they describe exactly. So that if the power be not such, or the person execute not such power, neither the one nor the other is of God, but of the Devill and by consequence to bee resisted. From this exposition Chrysostome also on the same place dissents not , explaining that these words were not writt’n in behalf of a tyrant. And this is verify’d by David, himself a King, and likeliest to bee Author of the Psalm 94. 20. which saith, Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee.¹ And it were worth the knowing, since Kings,² and that by Scripture boast the justness of thir title, by holding it immediately of God , yet cannot show the time when God ever set on the throne them or thir forefathers, but onely when the people chose them ; why by the same reason, since God ascribes as oft to himself the casting down of Princes from the throne, it should not be thought as lawful, and as much from God when none are seen to do it but the people, and that for just causes. For it needs must be a sin in them to depose, it may as likely be a sin to have elected. And contrary if the peoples act in election be pleaded by a King, as the act of God, and the most just title to enthrone him, why may not the peoples act of rejection be as well pleaded by the people as the act of God, and the most just reason to depose him? So that we see the title and just right of reigning or deposing in reference to God, is found in Scripture to be all one; visible onely in the people, and depending meerly upon justice and demerit . Thus farr hath bin considerd briefly the power of Kings and Magistrates; how it was, and is originally the peoples, and by them conferrd in trust onely to bee imployd to the common peace and benefit; with libertie therfore and right remaining in them to reassume it to themselves, if by Kings or Magistrates it be abus’d; or to dispose of it by any alteration, as they shall judge most conducing to the public good.

  We may from hence with more ease, and force of argument determin what a Tyrant is, and what the[ ] people may doe against him. A Tyrant whether by wrong or by right comming to the Crowne, is he who regarding neither Law nor the common good, reigns onely for himself and his faction: Thus St. Basil among others defines him. And because his power is great, his will boundless and exorbitant, the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the people, murthers, massacres, rapes, adulteries, desolation, and subversion of Citties and whole provinces, look how great a good and happiness a just King is, so great a mischeife is a Tyrant; as hee the public Father of his Countrie, so this the common enemie. Against whom what the people lawfully may doe , as against a common pest, and destroyer of mankind, I suppose no man of cleare judgement need goe furder to be guided then by the very principles of nature in him. But because it is the vulgar folly of men to desert thir owne reason, and shutting thir eyes to think they see best with other mens, I shall shew by such examples as ought to have most waight with us, what hath bin don in¹ this case heretofore, The Greeks and Romans,as thir prime Authors witness , held it not onely lawfull, but a glorious and Heroic deed, rewarded publicly with Statues and Garlands , to kill an infamous Tyrant at any time without tryal; and but reason, that he who trod down all Law, should not bee voutsaf’d the benefit of Law. Insomuch that Seneca the Tragedian brings in Hercules the grand suppressor of Tyrants, thus speaking,

  • Victima haud ulla amplior[ ]
  • Potest, magisque opima mactari Jovi
  • Quam rex iniquus
  • There can be slaine
  • No sacrifice to God more acceptable
  • Then an unjust and wicked King

  But of these I name no more lest it bee objected they were Heathen; and come to produce another sort of men that had the knowledge of true Religion. Among the Jews this custome of tyrant-killing was not unusual. First, Ehud , a man whom God had raysd to deliver Israel from Eglon King of Moab, who had conquerd and rul’d over them eighteene years, being sent to him as an Ambassador with a present, slew him in his owne house. But hee was a forren Prince, an enemie, and Ehud besides had special warrant from God. To the first I answer, it imports not whether forren or native: For no Prince so native but professes to hold by Law; which when he himselfe over-turnes, breaking all the Covnants and Oaths that gave him title to his dignity, and were the bond and alliance between him and his people, what differs he from an outlandish King , or from an enemie? For look how much right the King of Spaine hath to govern us at all, so much right hath the King of England to govern us tyrannically. If he, though not bound to us by any league, comming from Spaine in person to subdue us or to destroy us, might lawfully by the people of England either bee slaine in fight, or put to death in captivity, what hath a native King to plead, bound by so many Covnants, benefits and honours to the welfare of his people, why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parlaments , the onely tie of our obedience to him, for his owne wills sake, and a boasted praerogative unaccountable , after sev’n years warring and destroying of his best subjects, overcom and yeilded prisoner , should think to scape unquestionable as a thing divine, in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroy’d, should lye unaccounted for, polluting with thir slaughterd carcasses all the Land over, and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them. Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brother-hood between man and man over all the[ ] World, neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that duty and relation: a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects, neighbours and friends; but when any of these doe one to another so as hostility could doe no worse, what doth the Law decree less against them, then open enemies and invaders? or if the law be not present, or too weake, what doth it warrant us to less then single defence or civil warr? and from that time forward the Law of civill defensive warr, differs nothing from the Law of forren hostility. Nor is it distance of place that makes enmitie, but enmity that makes distance. He therfore that keeps peace with me, neer or remote of whatsoever Nation, is to mee as farr as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a neighbour: but if an Englishman forgetting all Laws, human, civil and religious offend against life and libertie to him offended and to the Law in his behalf, though born in the same womb, he is no better then a Turk, a Sarasin, a Heathen. This is Gospel, and this was ever Law among equals: how much rather then in force against any King whatsoever¹ , who in respect of the people is confessd inferior and not equal: to distinguish therfore of a Tyrant by outlandish, or domestic is a weak evasion. To the second that he was an enemie, I answer, what Tyrant is not? yet Eglon by the Jewes had bin acknowledgd as thir Sovran, they had servd him eighteene yeares, as long almost as wee our William the Conqueror , in all which time he could not be so unwise a Statesman but to have tak’n of them Oaths of Fealty and Allegeance by which they made themselves his proper subjects, as thir homage and present sent by Ehud testifyd. To the third, that he had special warrant[ ] to kill Eglon in that manner, it cannot bee granted, because not expressd; tis plain, that he was raysd by God to be a Deliverer , and went on just principles, such as were then and ever held allowable, to deale so by a Tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with. Neither did Samuell though a Profet, with his owne hand abstain from Agag ; a forren enemie no doubt ; but mark the reason¹ , As thy swordhath made women childless; a cause that by the sentence of Law it selfe nullifies all relations, and as the Law is between Brother and Brother, Father and Son, Maister and Servant, wherfore not between King or rather Tyrant and People? And whereas Jehu had special command to slay Jehoram , a successive and hereditarie Tyrant, it seemes not the less imitable for that; for where a thing grounded so much on natural reason hath the addition of a command from God, what does it but establish the lawfulness of such an act. Nor is it likely that God who had so many wayes of punishing the house of Ahab would have sent a subject against his Prince, if the fact in it selfe as don to a Tyrant had bin of bad example. And if David refus’d to lift his hand against the Lords anointed, the matter between them was not tyranny , but private enmity, and David as a private person had bin his own revenger, not so much the peoples² ; but when any tyrant at this day can shew to be the Lords anointed, the onely mention’d reason why David withheld his hand, he may then but not till then presume on the same privilege.

  We may pass therfore hence to Christian times . And first our Saviour himself, how much he favourd Tyrants and how much intended they should be found or honourd among Christians, declares his minde not obscurely; accounting thir absolute autoritie no better then Gentilisme, yea though they flourishd it over with the splendid name of benefactors ; charging those that would be his Disciples to usurp no such dominion; but that they who were to bee of most autoritie among them, should esteem themselves Ministers and Servants to the public. Matt. 20. 25. The Princes of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them, and Mark 10. 42. They that seem to rule , saith he, either slighting or accounting them no lawful rulers, but yee shall not be so, butthe greatest among you shall be your Servant. And although hee himself were the meekest, and came on earth to be so, yet to a Tyrant we hear him not voutsafe an humble word: but Tellthat fox , Luc. 13.¹ And wherfore did his Mother, the Virgin Mary give such praise to God in her profetic song , that he had now by the comming of Christ, Cutt downDynasta’s or proud Monarchsfrom the throne, if the Church, when God manifests his power in them to doe so, should rather choose all miserie and vassalage to serve them, and let them still sit on thir potent seats to bee ador’d for doing mischiefe. Surely it is not for nothing that[ ] tyrants by a kind of natural instinct both hate and feare none more then the true Church and Saints of God, as the most dangerous enemies and subverters of Monarchy, though indeed of tyranny ; hath not this bin the perpetual cry of Courtiers, and Court Prelates ? where of no likelier cause can be alleg’d, but that they well discern’d the mind and principles of most devout and zealous men, and indeed the very discipline of Church , tending to the dissolution of all tyranny. No marvel then, if since the faith of Christ receav’d, in purer or impurer times, to depose a King, and put him to death for tyranny hath bin accounted so just and requisit, that neighbour Kings have both upheld and tak’n part with subjects in the action. And Ludovicus Pius , himself an Emperor, and sonne of Charles the great , being made Judge, Du Haillan is my author, between Milegast King of the Vultzes and his Subjects, who had depos’d him, gave his verdit for the subjects, and for him whom they had chos’n in his room. Note here that the right of electing whom they please is by the impartial testimony of an Emperor in the people. For, said he, A just Prince ought to be prefer’d before an unjust, and the end of government before the prerogative. And Constantinus Leo , another Emperor in the Byzantine Laws saith, that the end of a King is for the general good, which he not performing is but the counterfet of a King. And to prove that some of our owne Monarchs have acknowledg’d that thir high office exempted them not from punishment, they had the Sword of St. Edward born before them by an Officer, who was calld Earle of the Palace , eev’n at the times of thir highest pomp and solemnitie¹ , to mind them, saithMatthew Paris , the best of our Historians, that if they errd, the Sword had power to restraine them. And what restraint the Sword comes to at length, having both edge and point, if any Sceptic will needs² doubt, let him feel. It is also affirm’d from diligent search made in our ancient books of Law , that the Peers and Barons of England had a legal right to judge the King: which was the cause most likely, for it could be no slight cause, that they were call’d his Peers, or equals . This however may stand immovable, so long as man hath to deale with no better then man; that if our Law judge all men to the lowest by thir Peers, it should in all equity ascend also, and judge the highest . And so much I find both in our own and forren Storie, that Dukes, Earles, and Marqueses were at first not hereditary , not empty and vain titles, but names of trust and office, and with the office ceasing, as induces me to be of opinion, that every worthy man in Parlament , for the word Baron imports no more, might for the public good be thought a fit Peer and judge of the King; without regard had to petty caveats and circumstances, the chief impediment in high affairs, and ever stood upon most by circumstantial men . Whence doubtless our Ancestors who were not ignorant with what rights either Nature or ancient Constitution had endowd them, when Oaths both at Coronation , and renewd in Parlament would not serve, thought it no way illegal to depose and put to death thir tyrannous Kings. Insomuch that the Parlament drew up a charge against Richard the second , and the Commons requested to have judgement decree’d against him, that the realme might not bee endangerd. And Peter Martyr , a divine of formost rank, on the third of Judges approves thir doings. Sir Thomas Smith also a Protestant and a Statesman, in his Commonwealth of England putting the question whether it be lawfull to rise against a Tyrant, answers, that the vulgar judge of it according to the event, and the lerned according to the purpose of them that do it. But far before these days, Gildas , the most ancient of all our Historians, speaking of those times wherein the Roman Empire decaying quitted and relinquishd what right they had by Conquest to this Iland, and resign’d it all into the peoples hands, testifies that the people thus re-invested with thir own original right, about the year 446, both elected them Kings, whom they thought best (the first Christian British Kings that ever raign’d heer since the Romans) and by the same right, when they apprehended cause, usually depos’d and put them to death. This is the most fundamentall and ancient tenure that any King of England can produce or pretend to; in comparison of which, all other titles and pleas are but of yesterday. If any object that Gildas condemns the Britanes for so doing, the answer is as ready; that he condemns them no more for so doing, then hee did before for choosing such, for, saith he, They anointed them Kings, not of God, but such as were more bloody then the rest. Next hee condemns them not at all for deposing or putting them to death, but for doing it over hastily, without tryal or well examining the cause, and for electing others worse in thir room. Thus we have heer both Domestic and most ancient examples that the people of Britain have deposd and put to death thir Kings in those primitive Christian times. And to couple reason with example, if the Church in all ages, Primitive, Romish, or Protestant held it ever no less thir duty then the power of thir Keyes , though without express warrant of Scripture, to bring indifferently both King and Peasant under the utmost rigor of thir Canons and Censures Ecclesiastical , eev’n to the smiting him with a final excommunion , if he persist impenitent, what hinders but that the temporal Law both may and ought, though without a special text or President , extend with like indifference the civil Sword, to the cutting off without exemption him that capitally offends. Seeing that justice and Religion are from the same God, and works of justice ofttimes more acceptable. Yet because that some lately with the tongues and arguments of Malignant backsliders have writt’n that the proceedings now in Parlament against the King, are without president from any Protestant State or Kingdom, the examples which follow shall be all Protestant and chiefly Presbyterian.

  In the yeare 1546. The Duke of Saxonie, Lantgrave of Hessen , and the whole Protestant league raysd open Warr against Charles the fifth thir Emperor, sent him a defiance, renounc’d all faith and allegeance toward him, and debated long in Counsell whether they should give him so much as the title of Cæsar.Sleidan . l. 17. Let all men judge what this wanted of deposing or of killing, but the power to doe it.

  In the year 1559. the¹ Scotch Protestants claiming promise of thir Queen Regent for libertie of conscience, she answering that promises were not to be claim’d of Princes beyond what was commodious for them to grant, told her to her face in the Parlament then at Sterling, that if it were so, they renounc’d thir obedience; and soone after betook them to Armes. Buch.Hist. l. 16. certainely when allegeance is renounc’d, that very hour the King or Queen is in effect depos’d.

  In the year 1564. John Knox a most famous divine and the reformer of Scotland to the Presbyterian discipline, at a generall Assembly maintaind op’nly in a dispute against Lethington the Secretary of State, that Subjects might and ought execute God’s judgements upon thir King; that the fact of Jehu and others against thir King having the ground of Gods ordinary command to put such and such offenders to death was not extraordinary, but to be imitated of all that preferr’d the honour of God to the affection of flesh and wicked Princes; that Kings, if they offend, have no privilege to be exempted from the punishments of Law more then any other subject; so that if the King be a Murderer, Adulterer, or Idolator, he should suffer not as a King, but as an offender: and this position hee repeates againe and againe before them. Answerable was the opinion of John Craig another learned Divine, and that Lawes made by the tyranny of Princes, or the negligence of people, thir posterity might abrogate and reform all things according to the original institution of Common-welths¹ . And Knox being commanded by the Nobilitie to write to Calvin and other learned men for thir judgements in that question, refus’d; alleging that both himselfe was fully resolv’d in conscience, and had heard thir judgements² , and had the same opinion under handwriting of many the most godly and most learned that he knew in Europe; that if he should move the question to them againe, what should he doe but shew his owne forgetfulness or inconstancy. All this is farr more largely in the Ecclesiastic History of Scotland l. 4. with many other passages to this effect all the book over; set out with diligence by Scotchmen of best repute among them at the beginning of these troubles , as if they labourd to inform us what wee were to doe and what they intended upon the like occasion.

  And to let the world know that the whole Church and Protestant State of Scotland in those purest times of reformation, were of the same beleif, three years after, they met in the feild Mary thir lawful and hereditary Queen , took her prisoner, yeilding before fight, kept her in prison and the same yeare deposd her. Buchan. Hist. l. 18.

  And four years after that , the Scots in justification of thir deposing Queen Mary,sent Embassadors to Queen Elizabeth , and in a writt’n Declaration alleag’d, that they had us’d towards her more lenity then shee deserv’d; that thir Ancestors had heretofore punishd thir Kings by death or banishment; that the Scots were a free Nation , made King whom they freely chose, and with the same freedom, un-Kingd him if they saw cause, by right of ancient laws and Ceremonies yet remaining, and old customes yet among the High-landers in choosing the head of thir Clanns, or Families; all which with many more arguments bore witness that regal power was nothing else but a mutuall Covnant or stipulation between King and people. Buch. Hist. l. 20. These were Scotchmen and Presbyterians; but what measure then have they lately offer’d, to think such liberty less beseeming us then themselves, presuming to put him upon us for a Maister whom thir law scarce allows to be thir own equall? If now then we heare them in another straine then heretofore in the purest times of thir Church, we may be confident it is the voice of Faction speaking in them, not of truth and Reformation.¹

  In the year 1581. the States of Holland , in a general Assembly at the Hague, abjur’d all obedience and subjection to Philip King of Spaine; and in a Declaration justifie thir so doing; for that by his tyrannous goverment against faith so oft’n¹ giv’n and brok’n, he had lost his right to all the Belgic Provinces; that therfore they deposd him and declar’d it lawful to choose another in his stead. Thuan . 1. 74. From that time, to this no State or Kingdom in the World hath equally prosperd: But let them remember not to look with an evil and prejudicial eye upon thir neighbours walking by the same rule.

  But what need these examples to Presbyterians, I mean to those who now of late would seem so much to abhorr deposing, whenas they to all Christendom have giv’n the latest and the liveliest example of doing it themselves. I question not the lawfulness of raising Warr against a Tyrant in defence of Religion, or civil libertie; for no Protestant Church from the first Waldenses of Lyons, and Languedoc to this day but have don it round, and maintaind it lawfull. But this I doubt not to affirme, that the Presbyterians, who now so much condemn deposing, were the men themselves that deposd the King, and cannot with all thir shifting and relapsing, wash off the guiltiness from thir owne hands. For they themselves, by these thir late doings have made it guiltiness, and turnd thir own warrantable actions into Rebellion.

  There is nothing that so actually makes a King of England, as rightful possession and Supremacy in all causes both civil and Ecclesiastical; and nothing that so actually makes a Subject of England, as those two Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy observd without equivocating, or any mental reservation. Out of doubt then when the King shall command things already constituted in Church, or State, obedience is the true essence of a subject, either to doe, if it be lawful, or if he hold the thing unlawful, to submit to that penaltie which the Law imposes, so long as he intends to remaine a subject. Therefore when the people or any part of them shall rise against the King and his autority executing the Law in any thing establishd, civil or ecclesiastical, I doe not say it is rebellion, if the thing commanded, though establishd, be unlawfull, and that they sought first all due means of redress (and no man is furder bound to Law) but I say it is an absolute renouncing both of Supremacy and Allegeance, which in one word is an actual and total deposing of the King, and the setting up of another supreme autority over them. And whether the Presbyterians have not don all this and much more, they will not put mee I suppose, to reck’n up a seven yeares story fresh in the memory of all men. Have they not utterly broke the Oath of Allegeance, rejecting the Kings command and autority sent them from any part of the Kingdom, whether in things lawful or unlawful? Have they not abjur’d the Oath of Supremacy by setting up the Parlament without the King, supreme to all thir obedience, and though thir Vow and Covnant bound them in general to the Parlament, yet somtimes adhering to the lesser part of Lords and Commonsthat remain’d faithful , as they terme it, and eev’n of them, one while to the Commons without the Lords , another while to the Lords without the Commons ? Have they not still declar’d thir meaning, whatever their Oath were, to hold them onely for supreme whom they found at any time most yeilding to what they petitioned? Both these Oaths which were the straitest bond of an English subject in reference to the King, being thus broke and made voide, it follows undeniably that the King from that time was by them in fact absolutely deposd, and they no longer in reality to be thought his subjects, notwithstanding thir fine clause in the Covnant to preserve his person, Crown, and dignitie, set there by som dodging Casuist with more craft then sinceritie to mitigate the matter in case of ill success , and not tak’n I suppose by any honest man, but as a condition subordinate to every the least particle that might more concerne Religion, liberty, or the public peace. To prove it yet more plainly that they are the men who have deposd the King, I thus argue. We know that King and Subject are relatives , and relatives have no longer being then in the relation; the relation between King and Subject, can be no other then regal autority and subjection. Hence I inferr past their defending , that if the Subject who is one relative, takes¹ away the relation, of force he takes away also the other relative; but the Presbyterians,[ ] who were one relative, that is say subjects, have for this sev’n years tak’n away the relation, that is to say, the Kings autoritie, and thir subjection to it, therfore the Presbyterians for these sev’n yeares have removd and extinguish² the other relative, that is to say the King, or to speake more in brief have depos’d him: not onely by depriving him the execution of his autoritie, but by conferring it upon others. If then thir Oathes of subjection brok’n, new Supremacy obey’d, new Oaths and Covnants tak’n, notwithstanding frivolous evasions, have in plaine termes unking’d the King, much more then hath thir sev’n yeares Warr not depos’d him onely, but outlawd him, and defi’d him as an alien, a rebell to Law, and enemie to the State. It must needs be cleare to any man not averse from reason, that hostilitie and subjection are two direct and positive contraries; and can no more in one subject stand together in respect of the same King, then one person at the same time can be in two remote places. Against whom therfore the Subject is in act of hostility we may be confident that to him he is in no subjection: and in whom hostility takes place of subjection, for they can by no meanes consist together, to him the King can bee not onely no King, but an enemie. So that from hence wee shall not need dispute whether they have depos’d him, or what they have defaulted towards him as no King, but shew manifestly how much they have don toward the killing him. Have they not levied all these Warrs against him whether offensive or defensive (for defence in Warr equally offends, and most prudently before hand ) and giv’n Commission to slay where they knew his person could not bee exempt from danger? And if chance or flight had not sav’d him, how oft’n had they killd him, directing thir Artillery without blame or prohibition to the very place where they saw him stand? And converted his revenew to other uses, and detain’d from him all meanes of livelyhood, so that for them long since he might have perisht, or have starv’d?¹ Have they not hunted and pursu’d him round about the Kingdom with sword and fire? Have they not formerly deny’d to treat with him , and thir now recanting Ministers preach’d against him, as a reprobate incurable, an enemy to God and his church markt for destruction, and therfore not to bee treated with? Have they not beseig’d him, and to thir power forbid him Water and Fire, save what they shot against him to the hazard of his life? Yet while they thus assaulted and endangerd it with hostile deeds, they swore in words to defend it with his Crown and dignity; not in order, as it seems now, to a firm and lasting peace, or to his repentance after all this blood; but simply without regard, without remorse or any comparable value of all the miseries and calamities suffer’d by the poore people, or to suffer hereafter through his obstinacy or impenitence. No understanding man can be ignorant that Covnants are ever made according to the present state of persons and of things; and have ever the more general laws of nature and of reason included in them, though not express’d. If I make a voluntary Covnant as with a man to doe him good, and hee prove afterward a monster to me, I should conceave a disobligement. If I covnant, not to hurt an enemie, in favor of him and forbearance, and hope of his amendment, and he, after that, shall doe me tenfould injury and mischief to what hee had don when I so Covnanted, and still be plotting what may tend to my destruction, I question not but that his after actions release me; nor know I Covnant so sacred that withholds mee from demanding justice on him. Howbeit, had not thir distrust in a good cause, and the fast and loos of our prevaricating Divinesoversway’d , it had bin doubtless better, not to have inserted in a Covnant unnecessary obligations, and words not works of a supererogating Allegeance to thir enemy ; no way advantageous to themselves, had the King prevail’d as to thir cost many would have felt; but full of snare and distraction to our friends, useful onely, as we now find, to our adversaries , who under such a latitude and shelter of ambiguous interpretation have ever since been plotting and contriving new opportunities to trouble all againe. How much better had it bin, and more becoming an undaunted vertue to have declard op’nly and boldly whom and what power the people were to hold Supreme, as on the like occasion Protestants have don before, and many conscientious men now in these times have more then once besought the parlament to doe, that they might go on upon a sure foundation, and not with a ridling Covnant in thir mouthes seeming to sweare counter almost in the same breath Allegeance and no Allegeance; which doubtless had drawn off all the minds of sincere men from siding with them, had they not discern’d thir actions farr more deposing him then thir words upholding him; which words made now the subject of cavillous interpretations, stood ever in the Covnant by judgement of the more discerning sort an evidence of thir feare not of thir fidelity. What should I return to speak on, of those attempts for which the King himself hath oft’n charg’d the Presbyterians of seeking his life, whenas in the due estimation of things, they might without a fallacy be sayd to have don the deed outright. Who knows not that the King is a name of dignity and office, not of person: Who therefore kills a King, must kill him while he is a King. Then they certainly who by deposing him have long since tak’n from him the life of a King, his office and his dignity, they in the truest sence may be said to have killd the King: not onely by thir deposing and waging Warr against him, which besides the danger to his personal life, set him in the fardest opposite point from any vital function of a King, but by thir holding him in prison vanquishd and yeilded into thir absolute and despotic power, which brought him to the lowest degradement and incapacity of the regal name. I say not by whose matchless valour next under God, lest the story of thir ingratitude thereupon carry me from the purpose in hand which is to convince them, that they which I repeat againe, were the men who in the truest sense killd the King, not onely as is provd before, but by depressing him thir King farr below the rank of a subject to the condition of a Captive, without intention to restore him, as the Chancellour of Scotlandin a speech told him plainly at Newcastle, unless hee granted fully all thir demands, which they knew he never meant. Nor did they Treat or think of Treating with him, till thir hatred to the Army that deliverd them, not thir love or duty to the King, joyn’d them secretly with men sentencd so oft for Reprobates in thir own mouthes, by whose suttle inspiring they grew madd upona most tardy and improper Treaty . Wheras if the whole bent of thir actions had not bin against the Kinge himselfe, but against his evill Councel ,¹ as they faind, and publishd, wherefore did they not restore him all that while to the true life of a King, his Office, Crown, and Dignity, while he was in thir power , and they themselves his neerest Counselers. The truth therefore is, both that they would not, and that indeed they could not without thir owne certaine destruction, having reduc’d him to such a final pass, as was the very death and burial of all in him that was regal, and from whence never King of England yet reviv’d, but by the new re-inforcement of his own party, which was a kind of resurrection to him. Thus having quite extinguisht all that could be in him of a King, and from a total privation clad him over, like another specifical thing, with formes andhabitudes destructive to the former, they left in his person, dead as to Law and all the civil right either of King or Subject the life onely of a Prisner, a Captive and a Malefactor. Whom the equal and impartial hand of justice finding, was no more to spare then another ordinary man; not onely made obnoxious to the doome of Law by a charge more than once drawn up against him, and his own confession to the first article at Newport , but summond and arraignd in the sight of God and his people, curst and devoted to perdition worse then any Ahab , or Antiochus , with exhortation to curse all those in the name of God that made not warr against him, as bitterly as Meroz was to be curs’d , that went not out against a Canaanitish King, almost in all the Sermons, Prayers, and Fulminations that have bin utterd this sev’n yeares by those clov’n tongues of falshood and dissention, who now, to the stirring up of new discord, acquitt him; and against thir owne discipline, which they boast to be the throne and scepter of Christ, absolve him, unconfound him, though unconverted, unrepentant, unsensible of all thir pretious Saints and Martyrs whose blood they have so oft layd upon his head: and now againe with a[ ] new sovran anointment can wash it all off, as if it were as vile, and no more to be reckn’d for then the blood of so many Dogs in the time of Pestilence: giving the most opprobrious lye to all the acted zeale that for these many years hath filld thir bellies, and fed them fatt upon the foolish people. Ministers of sedition , not of the Gospell, who while they saw it manifestly tend to civil Warr and bloodshed, never ceasd exasperating the people against him; and now that they see it likely to breed new commotion, cease not to incite others against the people that have savd them from him, as if sedition were thir onely aime, whether against him or for him. But God as we have cause to trust, will put other thoughts into the people, and turn them from looking after these firebrands,¹ of whose fury, and fals prophecies we have anough experience; and from the murmurs of new discord will incline them to heark’n rather with erected minds to the voice of our supreme Magistracy, calling us to liberty and the flourishing deeds of a reformed Commonwealth; with this hope that as God was heretofore angry with the Jews who rejected him and his forme of Goverment to choose a King, so that he will bless us, and be propitious to us who reject a King to make him onely our leader and supreme governour in the conformity as neer as may be of his own ancient goverment ; if we have at least but so much worth in us to entertaine the sense of our future happiness, and the courage to receave what God voutsafes us: wherin we have the honour to precede other Nations who are now labouring to be our followers. For as to this question in hand what the people by thir just right may doe in change of goverment, or of governour, we see it cleerd sufficiently; besides other ample autority eev’n from the mouths of Princes themselves. And surely that shall boast, as we doe, to be a free Nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove, or to abolish any governour supreme, or subordinate² with the goverment itself upon urgent causes, may please thir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to coz’n babies; but are indeed under tyranny and servitude; as wanting that power, which is the root and sourse of all liberty, to dispose and oeconomize in the Land which God hath giv’n them, as Maisters of Family in thir own house and free inheritance. Without which natural and essential power of a free Nation, though bearing high thir heads, they can in due esteem be thought no better then slaves and vassals born, in the tenure andoccupation of another inheriting Lord. Whose goverment, though not illegal, or intolerable, hangs over them as a Lordly scourge, not as free goverment; and therfore to be abrogated. How much more justly then may they fling off tyranny or tyrants?¹ who being once depos’d can be no more then privat men, as subject to the reach of Justice and arraignment as any other transgressors. And certainly if men, not to speak of Heathen, both wise and Religious have don justice upon Tyrants what way they could soonest , how much more mild and human then is it to give them faire and op’n tryall? To teach lawless Kings und all that² so much adore them, that not mortal man, or his imperious will, but Justice is the onely true sovran and supreme Majesty upon earth. Let men cease therfore out of faction and hypocrisie to make out-crys and horrid things of things so just and honorable.³ And if the Parlament and Military Councel do what they doe without president, if it appeare thir duty, it argues the more wisdom, vertue, and magnanimity, that they know⁴ themselves able to be a president to others. Who perhaps in future ages if they prove not too degenerat, will look up with honour and aspire toward these exemplary, and matchless deeds of thir Ancestors, as to the highest top of thir civil glory and emulation. Which heretofore in the persuance of fame and forren dominion spent it self vain-gloriously abroad; but henceforth may learn a better fortitude to dare execute highest Justice on them that shall by force of Armes endeavour the oppressing and bereaving of Religion and thir liberty at home: that no unbridl’d Potentate or Tyrant, but to his sorrow for the future, may presume such high and irresponsible licence over mankinde to havock and turn upside-down whole Kingdoms of men as though they were no more in respect of his perverse will then a Nation of Pismires . As for the party calld Presbyterian, of whom I beleive very many to be good and faithful Christians misled by som of turbulent spirit, I wish them earnestly and calmly not to fall off from thir first principles; nor to affect rigor and superiority over men not under them; not to compell unforcible things in Religion especially, which if not voluntary, becomes a sin; nor to assist the clamor and malicious drifts of men whom they themselves have judg’d to be the worst of men , the obdurat enemies of God and his Church; nor to dart against the actions of thir brethren, for want of other argument those wrested Lawes and Scriptures thrown by Prelats and Malignants against thir own sides, which though they hurt not otherwise, yet tak’n up by them to the condemnation of thir own doings, give scandal to all men and discover in themselves either extreame passion, or apostacy . Let them not oppose thir best friends and associats who molest them not at all, infringe not the least of thir liberties; unless they call it thir liberty to bind other mens consciences , but are still seeking to live at peace with them and brotherly accord . Let them beware an old and perfet enemy , who though he hope by sowing discord to make them his instruments, yet cannot forbeare a minute the op’n threatning of his destind revenge upon them, when they have servd his purposes. Let them feare therfore, if they bee wise, rather what they have don already, then what remaines to doe, and be warn’d in time they put no confidence in Princes whom they have provokd, lest they be added to the examples of those that miserably have tasted the event. Stories can inform them how Christiern the second, King of Denmark not much above a hundred yeares past, driv’n out by his Subjects, and receavd againe upon new Oaths and conditions, broke through them all to his most bloody revenge; slaying his chief opposers when he saw his time, both them and thir children invited to a feast for that purpose. How Maximilian dealt with those of Bruges, though by mediation of the German Princes reconcil’d to them by solemn and public writings drawn and seald. How the massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous peace which the French Protestants made with Charles the ninth thir king: and that the main visible cause which to this day hath sav’d the Netherlands from utter ruine, was thir finall not beleiving the perfidious cruelty which as a constant maxim of State hath bin us’d by the Spanish Kings on thir Subjects that have tak’n armes and after trusted them; as no later age but can testifie, heretofore in Belgia it self, and this very yeare in Naples . And to conclude with one past exception, though farr more ancient, David, when once hee had tak’n Armes, never after that trusted Saul, though with tears and much relenting he twise promis’d not to hurt him. These instances, few of many, might admonish them both English and Scotch not to let thir owne ends, and the driving on of a faction betray them blindly into the snare of those enemies whose revenge looks on them as the men who first begun, fomented and carri’d on beyond the cure of any sound or safe accomodation all the evil which hath since unavoidably befall’n them and thir king.

  I have something also to the Divines, though brief to what were needfull; not to be disturbers of the civil affairs, being in hands better able, and more belonging, to manage them; but to study harder and to attend the office of good Pastors , knowing that he whose flock is least among them hath a dreadfull charge, not performd by mounting twise into the chair with a formal preachment huddl’d up at the odd hours of a whole lazy week , but by incessant pains and watching in season and out of season, from house to house over the soules of whom they have to feed. Which if they ever well considerd, how little leasure would they find to be the most pragmatical Sidesmen of every popular tumult and Sedition? And all this while are to learne what the true end and reason is of the Gospel which they teach; and what a world it differs from the censorious and supercilious lording over conscience. It would be good also they liv’d so as might perswade the people they hated covetousness, which worse then heresie, is idolatry ; hated pluralities and all kind of Simony; left rambling from Benefice to Benefice, like rav’nous Wolves, seeking where they may devour the biggest. Of which if som, well and warmely seated from the beginning, be not guilty, twere good they held not conversation with such as are: let them be sorry that being call’d to assemble about reforming the Church, they fell to progging and solliciting the Parlament , though they had renouncd the name of Priests, for a new setling of thir Tithes and Oblations ; and double lin’d themselves with spiritual places of commoditie beyond the possible discharge of thir duty. Let them assemble in Consistory with thir Elders and Deacons, according to ancient Ecclesiastical rule, to the preserving of Church discipline, each in his several charge, and not a pack of Clergie men by themselves to belly cheare in thir presumptuous Sion , or to promote designes, abuse and gull the simple Laity, and stirr up tumult, as the Prelats did, for the maintenance of thir pride and avarice. These things if they observe and waite with patience, no doubt but all things will goe well without their importunities or exclamations: and the Printed letters which they send subscrib’d with the ostentation of great Characters and little moment, would be more considerable then now they are. But if they be the Ministers of Mammon instead of Christ, and scandalize his Church with the filthy love of gaine, aspiring also to sit the closest and the heaviest of all Tyrants , upon the conscience, and fall notoriously into the same sins, whereof so lately and so loud they accus’d the Prelates,[ ] as God rooted out those¹ immediately before, so will he root out them thir imitators: and to vindicate his own glory and Religion will uncover thir hypocrisie to the open world; and visit upon thir own heads that curse ye Meroz, the very Motto of thir Pulpits, wherwith so frequently, not as Meroz, but more like Atheists they have mock’d² the vengeance of God, and the zeale of his people.³ And that they be not what they goe for, true Ministers of the Protestant doctrine, taught by those abroad , famous and religious men, who first reformd the Church, or by those no less zealous, who withstood corruption and the Bishops heer at home, branded with the name of Puritans and Nonconformists, wee shall abound with testimonies to make appeare ; that men may yet more fully know the difference between Protestant Divines and these Pulpit-firebrands.

  Luther.[ ]

  Lib. contra Rusticos apudSleidan. l. 5.[ ]

  Is est hodie rerum status, etc. Such is the state of things at this day, that men neither can, nor will, nor indeed ought to endure longer the domination of you Princes.

  Neque vero Cæsarem , etc. Neither is Cæsar to make warr as head of Christ’ndom, Protector of the Church, Defender of the Faith; these Titles being fals and Windie, and most Kings being the greatest Enemies to religion. Lib. De bello contra Turcas. apud Sleid. l. 14. What hinders then, but that we may depose or punish them?

  These also are recited by Cochlaeus in his Miscellanies to be the words of Luther, or some other eminent Divine, then in Germany, when the Protestants there entred into solemn Covenant at Smalcaldia. Ut ora iis obturem, etc. That I may stop thir mouthes, the Pope and Emperor are not born but elected, and may also be depos’d, as hath bin oft’n don. If Luther, or whoever els thought so, he could not stay there ; for the right of birth or succession can be no privilege in nature to let a Tyrant sit irremoveable over a Nation free born, without transforming that Nation from the nature and condition of men born free, into natural, hereditary and successive slaves. Therefore he saith furder; To displace and throw down this Exactor, thisPhalaris , thisNero , is a work well pleasing to God; Namely, for being such a one: which is a moral reason. Shall then so slight a consideration as his happ to be not elective simply, but by birth, which was a meer accident, overthrow that which is moral, and make unpleasing to God that which otherwise had so well pleasd him? Certainly not: for if the matter be rightly argu’d, Election much rather then chance, bindes a man to content himself with what he suffers by his own bad Election. Though indeed neither the one nor other bindes any man, much less any people to a necessary sufferance of those wrongs and evils, which they have abilitie and strength anough giv’n them to remove.

  Zwinglius. tom. I. articul. 42.[ ]

  Quando vero perfidè , etc. When Kings raigne perfidiously, and against the rule of Christ, they may according to the word of God be depos’d.

  Mihi ergo compertum non est, etc. I know not how it comes to pass that Kings raigne by succession, unless it be with consent of the whole people. ibid.

  Quum vero consensu, etc. But when by suffrage and consent of the whole people, or the better part of them,a Tyrant is depos’d or put to death,God is the chief leader in that action . ibid.

  Nunc cum tam tepidii sumus, etc. Now that we are so luke warm in upholding public justice, we indure the vices of Tyrants to raigne now a dayes with impunity;justly therfore by them we are trod underfoot, and shall at length with them be punisht. Yet ways are not wanting by which Tyrants may be remoov’d, but there wants public justice. ibid.

  Cavete vobis ô tyranni, etc. Beware yee Tyrantsfor now the Gospell of Jesus Christ spreading farr and wide, will renew the lives of many to love innocence and justice; which if yee also shall doe, yee shall be honourd. But if yee shall goe on to rage and doe violence, ye shall be trampl’d on by all men. ibid.

  Romanum imperium imò quodq; etc. When the Roman Empire or any other shall begin to oppress Religion, and wee negligently suffer it, wee are as much guilty of Religion so violated, as the Oppressors themselves. Idem epist. ad Conrad. Somium.

  Calvinon Daniel. c. 4. v. 25.[ ]

  Hodie Monarchae semper in suis titulis, etc. Now adays Monarchs pretend alwayes in thir Titles, to be Kings by the grace of God: but how many of them to this end onely pretend it, that they may raigne withoutcontroule; for to what purpose is the grace of God mentioned in the Title of Kings, but that they may acknowledge no Superiour? In the meane while God, whose name they use, to support themselves, they willingly would tread under thir feet. It is therfore a meer cheat whenthey boast to raigne by the grace of God.

  Abdicant se terreni principes , etc. Earthly Princes depose themselves while they rise against God, yea they are unworthy to be numberd among men: rather it behooves us to spitt upon thir heads then to obey them.On Dan: c. 6. v. 22.

  Buceron Matth. c. 5.[ ]

  Si princeps superior , etc. If a Sovran Prince endeavour by armes to defend transgressors, to subvert those things which are taught in the word of God, they whoare in autority under him, ought first to disswade him; if they prevaile not, and that he now beares himself not as a Prince, but as an enemie, and seekes to violate privilegesand rights granted to inferior Magistrates or commonalities, it is the part ofpious Magistrates , imploring first the assistance of God, rather to try all ways and means, then to betray the flock of Christ, to such anenemie of God: for they also are to this end ordain’d, that they may defend the people of God, and maintain those things which are good and just. For to have supreme power less’ns not the evil committed by that power, but makes it the less tolerable, by how much the moregenerally hurtful. Then certainly the less tolerable, the more unpardonably to be punish’d.

  Of Peter Martyr we have spoke before. Paraeusin Rom. 13.[ ][ ]

  Quorum est constituere magistratus, etc. They whosepart it is to set up Magistrates, may restrain them also from outragious deeds, or pull them down; but all Magistrates are set up either by Parlament, or by Electors, or by other Magistrates; they therfore who exalted them, may lawfully degrade and punish them.

  Of the Scotch Divines I need not mention others then the famousest among them, Knox , and his fellow Labourers in the reformation of Scotland; whose large Treatises on this subject, defend the same Opinion. To cite them sufficiently, were to insert thir whole Books, writt’n purposely on this argument. Knox Appeal ; and to the Reader; where he promises in a postscript that the Book which he intended to set forth, call’d, The second blast of the Trumpet, should maintain more at large, that the same men most justly may depose, and punish him whom unadvisedly they have elected, notwithstanding birth, succession, or any Oath of Allegeance. Among our own Divines, Cartwright and Fenner , two of the Lernedest, may in reason satisfy us what was held by the rest. Fenner in his Book of Theologie maintaining, That they who have power, that is to say, a Parlament, may either by faire meanes or by force depose a Tyrant, whom he defines to be him, that wilfully breakes all, or the principal conditions made between him and the Common-wealth. Fen. Sac. Theolog. c. 13. and Cartwright in a prefix’d Epistle testifies his approbation of the whole Book.

  Gilby de Obedientia. p. 25. and 105.

  Kings have thir autoritie of the people, who may uponoccasion re-assume it to themselves.

  Englands Complaint against the Canons .

  The people may kill wicked Princes as monsters and cruel beasts.

  Christopher Goodmanof Obedience.[ ][ ]

  When Kings or Rulers become blasphemers of God, oppressers and murderers of thir subjects, they ought no more to be accounted Kings or lawfull Magistrates, but as privat men to be examind, accus’d, condemn’d and punisht by the Law of God, and being convicted and punisht by that Law, it is not mans but Gods doing, c. 10. p. 139.

  By the civil laws a foole or Idiot born , and so prov’d, shall loose the lands and inheritance whereto he is born, because he is not able to use them aright. And especially ought in no case be sufferd to have the government of a whole Nation; But there is no such evil can come to the Common-wealth by fooles and idiots as doth by the rage and fury of ungodly Rulers; Such therfore being without God ought to have no autority over Gods people, who by his Word requireth the contrary. c. 11. p. 143, 144.

  No person is exempt by any Law of God from this punishment, be he King, Queene, or Emperor, he must dy the death, for God hath not plac’d them above others, to transgress his laws as they list, but to be subject to them as well as others, and if they be subject to his laws, then to the punishment also, so much the more as thir example is more dangerous. c. 13. p. 184.

  When Magistrates cease to doe thir Duty , the people are as it were without Magistrates, yea worse, and then God giveth the sword into the peoples hand, and he himself is become immediatly thir head. p. 185.

  If Princes doe right and keep promise with you, then doe you owe to them all humble obedience: if not, yee are discharg’d, and your study ought to be in this case how ye may depose and punish according to the Law, such Rebels against God and oppressors of thir Country. p. 190.

  This Goodman was a Minister of the English Church at Geneva, as Dudley Fenner was at Middleburrough, or some other place in that country. These were the Pastors of those Saints and Confessors who flying from the bloudy persecution of Queen Mary, gather’d up at length thir scatterd members into many Congregations; wherof som in upper, some in lower Germany, part of them settl’d at Geneva, where this Author having preachd on this subject, to the great liking of certain lerned and godly men who heard him, was by them sundry times and with much instance requir’d to write more fully on that point. Who therupon took it in hand, and conferring with the best lerned in those parts (among whom Calvin was then living in the same City) with their special approbation he publisht this treatise, aiming principally, as is testify’d by Whittingham in the Preface, that his brethren of England the Protestants, might be perswaded in the truth of that Doctrine concerning obedience to Magistrates. Whittinghamin Prefat .

  These were the true Protestant Divines of England, our fathers in the faith we hold; this was their sense, who for so many yeares labouring under Prelacy, through all stormes and persecutions kept Religion from extinguishing and deliverd it pure to us, till there arose a covetous and ambitious generation of Divines (for Divines they call themselves) who feining on a sudden to be new converts and Proselytes from Episcopacy, under which they had long temporiz’d, op’nd thir mouthes at length, in shew against Pluralities and Prelacy, but with intent to swallow them down both; gorging themselves like Harpy’s on those simonious places and preferments of thir outed predecessors , as the quarry for which they hunted, not to pluralitie onely but to multiplicitie: for possessing which they had accusd them thir Brethren, and aspiring under another title to the same authoritie and usurpation over the consciences of all men.

  Of this faction divers reverend and lerned Divines, as they are stil’d in the Phylactery of thir own Title page, pleading the lawfulness of defensive Armes against this king, in a Treatise call’d Scripture and Reason , seem in words to disclaime utterly the deposing of a king; but both the Scripture and the reasons which they use, draw consequences after them, which without their bidding conclude it lawfull. For if by Scripture , and by that especially to the Romans, which they most insist upon, Kings, doing that which is contrary to Saint Pauls definition of a Magistrat, may be resisted, they may altogether with as much force of circumstance be depos’d or punishd. And if by reason the unjust autority of Kings may be forfeted in part, and his power be reassum’d in part, either by the Parlament or People, for the case in hazard and the present necessitie, as they affirm, p. 34. there can no Scripture be alleg’d, no imaginable reason giv’n, that necessity continuing, as it may alwayes, and they in all prudence and thir duty may take upon them to foresee it, why in such a case they may not finally amerce him with the loss of his Kingdom, of whose amendment they have no hope. And if one wicked action persisted in against Religion, Laws and liberties may warrant us to thus much in part, why may not forty times as many tyrannies, by him committed, warrant us to proceed on restraining him, till the restraint become total. For the ways of justice are exactest proportion; if for one trespass of a king it require so much remedie or satisfaction, then for twenty more as hainous crimes, it requires of him twentyfold; and so proportionably, till it com to what is utmost among men. If in these proceedings against thir king they may not finish by the usual cours of justice what they have begun, they could not lawfully begin at all. For this golden rule of justice and moralitie, as well as of Arithmetic, out of three termes which they admitt, will as certainly and unavoydably bring out the fourth, as any Probleme that ever Euclid , or Apollonius made good by demonstration.

  And if the Parlament, being undeposable but by themselves , as is affirm’d, p. 37, 38, might for his whole life, if they saw cause, take all power, authority, and the sword out of his hand, which in effect is to unmagistrate him, why might they not, being then themselves the sole Magistrates in force, proceed to punish him who being lawfully depriv’d of all things that define a Magistrate, can be now no Magistrate to be degraded lower, but an offender to be punisht. Lastly, whom they may defie, and meet in battell, why may they not as well prosecute by justice? For lawfull warr is but the execution of justice against them who refuse Law. Among whom if it be lawfull (as they deny not, p. 19, 20) to slay the king himself comming in front at his own peril, wherfore may not justice doe that intendedly, which the chance of a defensive warr might without blame have don casually, nay purposely, if there it finde him among the rest. They aske p. 19. By what ruleof Conscience or God, a State is bound to sacrifice Religion, Laws and liberties, rather then a Prince defending such as subvert them, should com in hazard of his life. And I ask by what conscience, or divinity, or Law, or reason, a State is bound to leave all these sacred concernments under a perpetual hazard and extremity of danger, rather then cutt off a wicked prince, who sitts plotting day and night to subvert them: They tell us that the Law of nature justifies any man to defend himself, eev’n against the King in Person: let them shew us then why the same Law may not justifie much more a State or whole people, to doe justice upon him, against whom each privat man may lawfully defend himself; seeing all kind of justice don, is a defence to good men, as well as a punishment to bad; and justice don upon a Tyrant is no more but the necessary self-defence of a whole Common wealth. To Warr upon a king, that his instruments may be brought to condigne punishment, and therafter to punish them the instruments, and not to spare onely, but to defend and honour him the Author, is the strangest peece of justice to be call’d Christian and the strangest peece of reason to be call’d human, that by men of reverence and learning, as thir stile imports them, ever yet was vented. They maintain in the third and fourth Section, that a Judge or inferior Magistrate , is anointed of God, is his Minister, hath the Sword in his hand, is to be obey’d by St. Peters rule , as well as the Supreme, and without difference any where exprest: and yet will have us fight against the Supreme till he remove and punish the inferior Magistrate (for such were greatest Delinquents) when as by Scripture and by reason, there can no more autority be shown to resist the one then the other; and altogether as much, to punish or depose the Supreme himself, as to make Warr upon him, till he punish or deliver up his inferior Magistrates, whom in the same terms we are commanded to obey, and not to resist. Thus while they, in a cautious line or two here and there stuft in , are onely verbal against the pulling down or punishing of Tyrants, all the Scripture and the reason which they bring, is in every leafe direct and rational to inferr it altogether as lawful, as to resist them. And yet in all thir Sermons, as hath by others bin well noted, they went much further. For Divines , if ye observe them, have thir postures and thir motions no less expertly, and with no less variety then they that practice feats in the Artillery-ground . Sometimes they seem furiously to march on, and presently march counter; by and by they stand, and then retreat; or if need be can face about, or wheele in a whole body, with that cunning and dexterity as is almost unperceavable; to winde themselves by shifting ground into places of more advantage. And Providence onely must be the drumm, Providence the word of command, that calls them from above, but always to som larger Benefice, or acts them into such or such figures, and promotions. At thir turnes and doublings no men readier; to the right, or to the left; for it is thir turnes which they serve cheifly; heerin onely singular, that with them there is no certain hand right or left; but as thir own commodity thinks best to call it. But if there come a truth to be defended, which to them, and thir interest of this world seemes not so profitable, strait these nimble motionists can finde no eev’n leggs to stand upon: and are no more of use to reformation throughly performd, and not superficially, or to the advancement of Truth (which among mortal men is alwaies in her progress) then if on a sudden they were strook maime and crippl’d. Which the better to conceale, or the more to countnance by a general conformity to thir own limping, they would have Scripture , they would have reason also made to halt with them for company; and would putt us off with impotent conclusions , lame and shorter then the premises. In this posture they seem to stand with great zeale and confidence on the wall of Sion; but like Jebusites , not like Israelites, or Levites: blinde also as well as lame, they discern not David from Adonibezec ; but cry him up for the Lords anointed, whose thumbs and great toes not long before they had cut off upon thir Pulpit cushions. Therfore he who is our onely King, the root of David, and whose Kingdom is eternal righteousness, with all those that Warr under him, whose happiness and final hopes are laid up in that onely just and rightful kingdom (which we pray incessantly may com soon, and in so praying with hasty ruin and destruction to all Tyrants) eev’n he our immortal King, and all that love him, must of necessity have in abomination these blind and lame Defenders of Jerusalem;as the soule of David hated them , and forbid them entrance into Gods House, and his own. But as to those before them , which I cited first (and with an easie search, for many more might be added) as they there stand, without more in number, being the best and chief of Protestant Divines, we may follow them for faithful Guides, and without doubting may receive them, as Witnesses abundant of what wee heer affirm concerning Tyrants. And indeed I find it generally the cleere and positive determination of them all, (not prelatical, or of this late faction subprelatical ) who have writt’n on this argument; that to doe justice on a lawless King, is to a privat man unlawful, to an inferior Magistrate lawfull : or if they were divided in opinion, yet greater then these here alleg’d, or of more autority in the Church, there can be none produc’d. If any one shall goe about by bringing other testimonies to disable these, or by bringing these against themselves in other cited passages of thir Books, he will not onely faile to make good that fals and impudent assertion of those mutinous Ministers, that the deposing and punishing of a King or Tyrant, is against the constant Judgement of all Protestant Divines, it being quite the contrary, but will prove rather, what perhaps he intended not, that the judgement of Divines, if it be so various and inconstant to it self, is not considerable, or to be esteem’d at all. Ere which be yielded, as I hope it never will, these ignorant assertors in thir own art will have prov’d themselves more and more, not to be Protestant Divines, whose constant judgement in this point they have so audaciously bely’d, but rather to be a pack of hungrie Church-wolves, who in the steps of Simon Magus thir Father, following the hot sent of double Livings and Pluralities, advousons , donatives , inductions and augmentations , though uncall’d to the Flock of Christ, but by the meer suggestion of thir Bellies, like those priests of Bel , whose pranks Daniel found out; have got possession, or rather seis’d upon the Pulpit, as the strong hold and fortress of thir sedition and rebellion against the civil Magistrate. Whose friendly and victorious hand having rescu’d them from the Bishops, thir insulting Lords, fed them plenteously , both in public and in privat, rais’d them to be high and rich of poore and base ; onely suffer’d not thir covetousness and fierce ambition, which as the pitt that sent out thir fellow locusts , hath bin ever bottomless and boundless, to interpose in all things, and over all persons, thir impetuous ignorance and importunity .

  [the end]

  NOTES.

  THE HISTORY OF TYRANNICIDE.

  Milton’s contribution to a history of tyrannicide is, as we have said, the most important that has ever been made by any English author. The subject seems to have escaped the notice of later English students of the classics, so that it becomes necessary for the present writer to add several references to those collected by Milton, and to present the material in a more connected form.

  ¹ In the heroic age the Greeks seem to have been upholders of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, for they believed that the king was the choice of the gods, and to murder him was an act of sacrilege.² In the course of time, however, the Spartans instituted a regular tribunal for the trial and punishment of tyrannical kings. Both Pausanius and Agis were deposed by the ephors and the senate.³ Not alone in Sparta, but throughout Greece, attempts at despotism became common; the isolated districts of a mountainous country, and the isles of the Ægean, saw the rise of numerous small kingdoms governed by tyrants.⁴ The fickleness of the Greek, and his natural love of liberty, made the tenure of these petty tyrants exceedingly precarious, and usually short-lived. They were frequently driven into exile by sudden revolutions; in Athens a law of Solon decreed the more merciful punishment of ostracism, instead of death.⁵

  It was not until the murder of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogiton that tyrannicide became popular in Greece Although this assassination was inspired by motives of private vengeance, the deed of the two friends became one of the great traditions of Greek liberty, and the murderers of the son of the tyrant Pisistratus were henceforth the subjects of the poet’s song and the sculptor’s chisel. ‘To honor them and their descendants became an article of republican faith.’¹ Duruy draws up a list of the honors accorded to the two heroes; it includes a vase, a painting, two monetary types, and marble and brazen statues. ‘The Athenians,’ he says, ‘represented the two friends as martyrs of liberty, they erected statues to them, they granted privileges to their descendants, which the latter enjoyed as late as the time of Demosthenes, and on festival days they chanted:

  ‘I will carry the sword under the myrtle-branch, as did Harmodius and Aristogiton when they slew the tyrant, and established equality in Athens.

  ‘Most dear Harmodius, thou art not dead; doubtless thou livest in the Islands of the Blessed, where are, they say, Achilleus the swift-footed, and Diomedes, the son of Tydeus.

  ‘In the myrtle-branch I will hide the sword, like Harmodius and Aristogiton, when at the festival of Athene they slew the tyrant.

  ‘Thy fame shall for ever endure upon earth, beloved Harmodius, and thine, Aristogiton, because you have slain the tyrant and established equality in Athens.’

  ² Pliny dwells specially on the works of art inspired by this first famous instance of tyrannicide: ‘I do not know whether the first public statues were not erected by the Athenians, and in honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrant; an event which took place in the same year in which the kings were expelled from Rome. This custom, from a most praiseworthy emulation, was afterwards adopted by all other nations.’¹ Praxiteles also executed ‘two figures of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrants.’² Amphicrates made a brazen statue of Leæna. ‘She was a skilful performer on the lyre, and had so become acquainted with Harmodius and Aristogiton, and submitted to be tortured until she expired, rather than betray their plot for the extermination of the tyrants. The Athenians, being desirous of honoring her memory, without at the same time rendering homage to a courtesan, had her represented under the figure of an animal (a lioness), whose name she bore; and, in order to indicate the cause of the honor thus paid her, ordered the artist to represent the animal without a tongue.’³

  So extravagant was the popular estimation of this murder of the son of Pisistratus that the Athenians gave a dowry to a niece of Aristogiton, who was living in poverty in the isle of Lemnos.⁴ Even so distinguished an author as Plato joined in the chorus of approbation: ‘For the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power.’⁵ Callisthenes relates that Philotas, the friend of Alexander, asked him one day what person was most honored by the Athenians. He gave the names of Harmodius and Aristogiton, because they had destroyed tyranny by the murder of one of two tyrants.⁶ Alexander also declared that Athens would be foremost among Greek cities in receiving the murderer of a tyrant. It afterwards happened that the pretended author of Alexander’s death was publicly honored by a decree passed by the Athenians. A decree passed in the year 403 had already authorized any Athenian to kill the citizen who should aspire to the tyranny, betray the republic, or overthrow the constitution. Even down to the days of the Roman empire the memory of the two friends was honored;¹ for, after the assassination of Julius Cæsar, the Athenians dressed the statues of Brutus and Cassius, and placed them beside those of Harmodius and Aristogiton on the Agora.²

  The earliest reference in Greek literature to the evils of tyranny is contained in verses written by Solon (circa 638-558):

  • Truth it is that I declined the bloody desperate career
  • Of tyrannical command, to rule alone and domineer,
  • In my native happy land, with arbitrary force and fear:
  • Neither have I since repented; unreproach’d, without a crime;
  • Placed alone, unparalleled, among the statesmen of the time.³

  Another early poet, Theognis of Megara ( 570-548 or 544) was deprived of his property by a tyrant, and forced into exile. The following fragments express his indignation:

  • • Court not a tyrant’s favor, nor combine
    • To further his iniquitous design!
    • But, if your faith is pledged, though late and loath,
    • If covenants have pass’d between you both,
    • Never assassinate him! keep your oath!
    • But should he still misuse his lawless power,
    • To trample on the people, and devour;
    • Depose or overturn him—anyhow!
    • Your oath permits it, and the gods allow.⁴
  • • The sovereign single person—what cares he
    • For love or hate, for friend or enemy?
    • His single purpose is utility.⁵

  Herodotus ( 484-443[?]) was also forced into exile by a cruel tyrant. In Samos he gathered together his fellowexiles, returned to Halicarnassus, his own city, and expelled the tyrant Lygdamis. His writings show his animus against despotism, a good instance being the speech which he puts into the mouth of Miltiades on the eve of Marathon; he represents the general as appealing to the soldiers to emulate Harmodius and Aristogiton.¹

  Xenophon ( 444-357[?]), in the dialogue entitled Hieron, pictures the miseries of a tyrant’s life, and refers to the great honors conferred upon tyrannicides by Greek cities.²

  Andocides ( 439-399), exiled in 415, was allowed to return to Athens upon the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. In replying to the charge of unlawful participation in the mysteries, he alludes to the exoneration of the tyrannicide by the Athenian law, and gives as a law of Solon the text of an oath which the Athenian was required to take, to the effect that he would himself kill, if able, any one who overthrew the democracy in Athens, or who set himself up for a tyrant, or should aid another to establish tyranny. If another should kill a tyrant, the citizen swore to regard him as one who had killed an enemy of the Athenians. If a citizen should be killed in attempting to destroy a tyrant, or in such an enterprise, he would accord him and his children the same honor as was given to Harmoeius and Aristogiton and their descendants.³

  Plato ( 428-347) was an unfriendly critic of tyrants, although he lived for a time at the court of Dionysius. He did not go to the extent of openly defending tyrannicide, but his intimate friendship with Dion made him sympathize with the latter in his efforts to expel Dionysius. Plato taught that if a man kills another unjustly, he is wretched; if justly, he is not to be envied. He would evidently consider the murder of a tyrant a righteous act, but would not care to be the assassin. He defines tyranny as ‘the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing all things as you like.’ He makes Socrates say that a tyrant has no more real power than a man who runs out into the Agora carrying a dagger.¹ In the ninth book of the Republic, after describing the excesses of a private person, he says: ‘This noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength; assailed by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant.’² Again he says that the tyrant is of all men the most miserable,³ and, in comparing the tyrant with the legitimate monarch, he asserts that one year of the tyrannical equals only twelve hours of the royal life.⁴

  Aristotle ( 384-322) was even more outspoken in his condemnation of tyranny than Plato. His famous definition of tyranny was destined to be quoted by the republican writers of future ages: ‘There is also a third kind of tyranny, which is the most typical form, and is the counterpart of the perfect monarchy. This tyranny is just that arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or betters, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will. No freeman, if he can escape from it, will endure such a government.’⁵

  Demosthenes ( 383-322) quotes the oaths of the Heliasts, which bound them to oppose tyranny.⁶ He explains that the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogiton are exempt from certain services demanded from other citizens,⁷ refers to the brazen statue erected to their memory,¹ and calls them supreme benefactors, to whose memory the people pour libations, and honor them in songs as the equals of heroes and gods.² The great orator feared that tyrannicide might be a political necessity in future ages, when the deed of Harmodius and Aristogiton would have to be repeated. ‘The Syracusans,’ he says, ‘could never have expected that a scribe, Dionysius, would become their tyrant, nor yet that Dion with a few ships would be able to expel him.’³

  Æschines ( 389-314), the rival of Demosthenes in oratory, was at one with him in denunciation of tyranny, and in praise of the love of Harmodius and Aristogiton.⁴

  Polybius ( 204-122) says the following in approval of tyrannicide: ‘To take away the life of a citizen is considered as a most horrid crime, and such as calls for vengeance; yet a man may openly destroy an adulterer or robber, without any fear of being punished for it: and those who rescue their country from a traitor or a tyrant are even thought worthy of the greatest honors.’⁵ Again, he observes that ‘the first conspiracies against tyrants were hat first contrived not by men of obscure or low condition, but by those of noblest birth, and who were the most distinguished by their courage and exalted spirit: for such are at all times most impatient of the insolence of princes.’⁶ Aristomachus, a tyrant of Argos, was put to death in tortures the most cruel and merciless that ever were inflicted upon man; but Polybius was of opinion that ‘the wicked tyranny which he had exercised upon his country might very deservedly have drawn upon him the severest punishment. Because of his great cruelty to others and his perfidy, this tyrant should rather have been led through all the towns of Peloponnesus, exposed to every kind of torture and indignity, and afterwards have been deprived of life.’¹

  Diodorus Siculus (lived during the reign of Augustus) had much to say on the subject of tyranny. He calls Sicily ‘the land of tyranny,’² relates sympathetically the expulsion of Dionysius by Dion,³ describes the assassination of Alexander of Pharos,⁴ of Dion,⁵ of Philip by Pausanius,⁶ and relates the awful story of how Timoleon killed his brother, who aspired to be a tyrant.⁷ In a short chapter which he devotes to the discussion of tyranny, he quotes a saying of Solon to the effect that wealthy men are dangerous to the state, because of their opportunity by means of corruption to set up a tyranny⁸ ; in this book we also find a prolix account of the cruelties perpetrated by the tyrant Agathocles. Harmodius and Aristogiton receive the customary honorable mention.⁹

  Plutarch ( 50-120) is the connecting link between Greek and Latin literature, so far as this subject is concerned. He was equally at home in denouncing the Pisistratidæ or the Tarquins, in praising Thrasybulus or Brutus. His lives of Solon, Publicola, Timoleon, Cato, Cicero, Dion, Brutus, and Galba breathe his passionate hatred of tyranny. He contended that the mildness of the doctrines of the Epicureans rendered the soul incapable of strong deeds, since this school had never produced a tyrannicide.¹⁰ He praised the philosophical teaching of Plato, however, because it had fortified the souls of patriots; for it was owing to this inspiration that Dion had been able to proceed against Dionysius,¹¹ and others had dared to murder King Cotys of Thrace.¹² His parallel lives of Dion and Brutus display Plutarch’s uncompromising republicanism, and his declaration that ‘the greatest glory of both men consists in their abhorrence of tyrants and their criminal measures’ is thoroughly characteristic of the whole body of his political opinions.

  Lucian ( 120 (?)-190 (?) speaks of the hopes and fears which agitate the breast of the tyrant; simply the name of tyrant is sufficient to create hatred in the hearts of the people.¹ The adorers of tyrants are lovers of power and timeservers, and under the rule of a tyrant the citizen is in greater danger than if he were among a foreign foe.² Lucian enters upon a nice discussion as to whether a person who kills the son of a tyrant ought to receive the regular reward of a tyrannicide; he concludes that the law of tyrannicide determines the recompense, i. e., the patriotic deed is its own reward.³ This author also gives some interesting data as to the lives, customs, and violent deaths of tyrants.⁴

  Arrian (flourished in the second century ), besides quoting Callisthenes’ account of the conversation between Philotas and Alexander,⁵ relates that Alexander the Great sent back to Athens bronze statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, which were recovered at Babylon.⁶

  Although we have already anticipated the Roman point of view in quoting the republican sentiments of Plutarch, we find that long before the days of the great biographer the Latin writers were interested in this subject. Rome had no Harmodius and Aristogiton to commit a political murder in her early days, but she produced a stern foe to tyranny in Junius Brutus, who, even if he did not kill the Tarquins, at least established a precedent for the deposition of unjust rulers. Strictly speaking, the Roman republic could not boast a single case of tyrannicide, but the ancient Brutus, Servilius Ahala, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius took their places in Latin literature on a footing of equality with Harmodius and Aristogiton. As in other respects the literary fashions of the conquered became those of the conquerors, so the eulogy of tyrannicide became a popular theme with the Roman poets, orators, and historians. The troublous and corrupt days of the empire saw the cutting-off of numerous tyrants. ‘The experience of the Roman world,’ says Egger, ‘shows on a larger scale that which Greece had proved many times, the powerlessness of murder to regenerate the people and to establish good government. The republican tradition, however, obstinately outlived these proofs, for it was perpetuated in the conscience of mankind, in serious literature, and in the sophistry of the schools.’¹

  Cicero ( 106-43), one of the glories of Latin literature, set his seal of approval upon the Greek custom of honoring tyrannicide. ‘The Greeks,’ he says, ‘give the honors of the gods to those men who have slain tyrants. What have I not seen at Athens? What in the other cities of Greece? What divine honors have I not seen paid to such men? What odes, what songs have I not heard in their praise? They are almost consecrated to immortality in the memories and worship of men.’² Two more quotations from the great orator of Rome must suffice to represent his uncompromising views on this topic; both are from his Offices: ‘What can be greater wickedness than to slay, not only a man, but an intimate friend? Has he then involved himself in guilt who slays a tyrant, however intimate? He does not appear so to the Roman people at least, who of all great exploits deem that the most honorable.’³ Again he says: ‘Now as to what relates to Phalaris [the tyrant of Agrigentum], the decision is very easy; for we have no society with tyrants, but rather the widest separation from them; nor is it contrary to nature to despoil, if you can, him whom it is a virtue to slay—and this pestilential and impious class ought to be entirely exterminated from the community of mankind. For as certain limbs are amputated, both if they themselves have begun to be destitute of blood, and, as it were, of life, and if they injure the other parts of the body, so the brutality and ferocity of a beast in the figure of a man ought to be cut off from the common body, as it were, of humanity.’¹

  Nepos ( 100-24) narrates the deeds of Thrasybulus, Miltiades, Dion, and Timoleon.

  Sallust ( 86- 34) puts a protest against tyranny into the mouth of Caius Memmius.²

  Livy ( 59- 17) describes the revolution led by Brutus against the Tarquins,³ and recites the text of the Valerian Law against those aiming at tyranny.⁴

  Seneca ( 4 (?)— 65) wrote the verses quoted by Milton in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (22. 9).⁵

  Persius ( 34-62), in his third satire, exclaims: ‘Great father of the gods, be it thy pleasure to inflict no other punishment on the monsters of tyranny, after their nature has been stirred by fierce passion, that has the taint of fiery poison—let them look upon virtue, and pine that they have lost her for ever!’ He refers in the same satire to the dread of Phalaris and Damocles, when they heard a voice whispering to their hearts, ‘We are going, going down the precipice.’

  Quintilian ( 35-97 (?) uses as an illustration in his Principles of Oratory the phrase of Cato, ‘Cæsar came sober to destroy the commonwealth.’⁶ He also employs the similitude: ‘As physicians prescribe the amputation of a limb that manifestly tends to mortification, so would it be necessary to cut off all bad citizens.’⁷ The use of all such material in school-exercises reflects the thought of the age; the Roman Senate in the days of Nero and Domitian had become cowardly in its subservience to tyrants, yet the educated classes loved to talk about resistance, even if they had become too effeminate to take up arms against misrule.

  Suetonius (during the reign of Trajan) describes the last days and unhappy deaths of Tiberius,¹ Nero,² and Galba,³ and gives a sympathetic account of the revolt of Vindex.⁴

  Tacitus ( 65 (?)-119 (?), from the opening words of his Annals, wherein he states that ‘liberty was instituted in the consulship of L. Junius Brutus,’ shows his animus against tyrants. His sketch of the life of Tiberius is one of the most terrible exposures of tyranny ever written. His best-known saying on this topic is contained in his description of the funeral of Junia, the niece of Cato: ‘The busts of twenty most illustrious families were borne in the procession, with the names of Manlius, Quinctius, and others of equal rank. But Cassius and Brutus outshone them all, from the very fact that their likenesses were not to be seen.’⁵

  Marcus Aurelius ( 121-180), the republican emperor, was at one with other philosophers of his age in eulogizing Marcus Brutus: ‘From him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed.’⁶ He seems to have imbibed these views from the rhetoricians of the day, who taught their pupils to declaim against tyrants: ‘From Fronto [the rhetorician],’ he says, ‘I learned to observe what envy and duplicity and hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and that generally those among us who are called patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection.’⁷

  Dio Cassius ( 155-?) praises Vindex, who incited the army to rise against Nero, and describes with gusto the latter’s vices, vanities, and miserable death.¹

  Appian (middle of the second century) shows his hatred of tyranny in his relation of the conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius, and their subsequent misfortunes in war.²

  Marius Maximus (reign of Severus) wrote the lives of three tyrants, Avidius, Albin, and Niger.

  Trebellius Pollio (reign of Constantine), in an endeavor to match the roll of the Thirty Tyrants of Greece, whom Thrasybulus overthrew, drew up accounts of the lives of thirty Roman foes of liberty, most of them being military leaders of slight importance.³

  Capitolinus (a contemporary of Pollio) imitated him by writing the lives of the tyrants, Verus, Pertinax, and the Maximins.

  Flavius Vopiscus of Syracuse (flourished circa 300) also produced literature of this kind in his lives of the tyrants, Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus, and Bonosus.

  Lucius Florus (reign of Trajan) has a single reference to this subject in his remark: ‘Brutus and Cassius seemed to have cast Cæsar, like another king Tarquin, from the sovereignty.’⁴

  Libanius ( 314-393 (?) lived in a century when Christianity had inculcated the duty of passive obedience, but his voluminous writings show all the ardor of Plutarch against tyranny. He quotes Socrates and Theognis as authorities against the prevailing practice of poets in praising tyrants, even those despots who surpass all in madness and wickedness. Alluding to the eulogy of Harmodius and Aristogiton by early poets, he says that he has heard that no slave should be given the name of either hero.⁵ In a bold justification of tyrannicide he declares: ‘Whoso kills a tyrant subjects himself to greater dangers, and should receive greater honor, than one who has done equal deeds in war, because the soldier is sustained by the presence of his comrades, while the slayer of a tyrant has to act alone.’¹ After enumerating the causes of hatred of tyrants, he exclaims: ‘Shall we not love any kind of wickedness before tyranny’?² He also treats of the perils of tyrants,³ their punishment,⁴ their infamy,⁵ the cruelty of Echetus and Phalaris,⁶ the Athenian tyrants,⁷ the destruction of the Theban tyrants,⁸ and the proper reward of tyrannicide.⁹

  Among the schoolmen of the Middle Ages this subject received some attention from John of Salisbury, who approved of tyrannicide,¹⁰ and from St. Thomas Aquinas, who disapproved, although he denounced tyranny.¹¹ The murder of the Duke of Orleans in 1407 invested the old question with new and living interest. The assassin, Jean sans Peur, gloated over his crime, and contended that the sixth commandment did not include princes in its prohibition. Had this enthusiast stood alone, his strange plea might have been disregarded, but the Duke of Burgandy was charged with being the instigator of the crime, and the learning of the day came to his assistance. Jean Petit, a doctor of the Sorbonne, publicly maintained the thesis that it is lawful for subjects to slay a tyrant,¹² while his associates in the University of Paris drew up rules or maxims on the policy and justice of taking away the life of any tyrannical person, declaring that natural, moral, and divine laws authorize each person to kill, or cause to be killed, a tyrant, and even to do it by wiles or snares.¹³ This question was not to be decided, however, without the pronouncement of the church. Jean Gerson was the leader of conservative thought on this subject, and, chiefly owing to his denunciation of tyrannicide, it was condemned by the Council of Constance, which decreed in 1415 that it was heretical to assert ‘that any tyrant may be killed by a vassal or subject of his own, even by treachery, in despite of oaths, and without any judicial sentence being passed against him.’¹ The Council, for political reasons, refused to condemn the specific opinions of Petit, and, in spite of the decree, Pope Sixtus V subsequently publicly eulogised the assassination of Henri III by Clement, the Dominican.²

  Throughout the sixteenth century there was a steady development of the theory of the deposing power, and the literature on the question of tyrannicide becomes abundant. The sermons and exegetical works of the Protestant reformers, especially those of the second generation, encouraged resistance to tyrants through the intervention of the Huguenots, and Roman Catholics of France were opposed to the tyrannical monarch, the former invoking the interests of the state, the latter those of religion.³ But the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572 created deeper convictions, and exerted a tremendous effect on thinkers of all shades in politics; the results of that awful event were really most beneficial to the cause of civil and religious liberty. It has been pointed out that within seven years of that seeming calamity were written the most important revolutionary tracts of the century. The following works of that great creative period are especially noteworthy as bearing on the subject of tyranny: Hotman, Franco-Gallia (1573); Bodin, De Republica (1576); Boétie, Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, ou le Contr’un (1576); Languet (or Du Plessis-Mornay) Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos (1579); and Buchanan, De Regni Jure apud Scotos (1579). Of these writers, Bodin seems to have been the first modern to make a search in the writings of Greece and Rome on the subject of tyranny. He draws up a short list of the tyrannicides of antiquity, quotes the law of Solon and the Valerian Law, and admits that if the king be not an absolute sovereign, it is lawful for either the people or the nobility to proceed against a tyrant by way of justice, or even by open force; but if he be an absolute sovereign, as in France, Spain, England, or Scotland, the subjects do not possess even the right to bring him to trial, for they have no jurisdiction over him.¹ ‘But a tyrannical king may by another foreign prince be lawfully slain, as Moses slew the Egyptian, and Hercules destroyed many most horrible monsters, that is to say, tyrants.’ Among the imitators of Hercules he includes Dion, Timoleon, Aratus, Harmodius, and Aristogiton.²

  The author of Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos refined upon Bodin’s curious distinction between princes, contending that there is the tyrant absque titulo and the tyrant ab exercitio, the former being a usurper, and the latter a legitimate prince, but one who has violated the compact, tacit or expressed, between himself and his people. The private citizen may draw his sword against the usurper, but not against the legitimate prince. The magistrate, however, may be appealed to, and is empowered to compel a lawful king to do his duty.³

  The formulation of such views had its natural consequence. They were carried to their logical conclusion by the Roman Catholic party. The articles of the League of Paris in 1584 provided for the suppression of heresy and tyranny, and the assassination of Henri III was the result.⁴ Henceforth the Jesuit writers regarded any tyrant, and particularly a heretical monarch, as a fitting victim of tyrannicide. The ecclesiastical upholders of political murder taught that there were two kinds of tyrants—usurpers, who might of course be slain, and despots, to be regarded as worthy of death at the hands of the individual citizen, after the whole republic had expressly or tacitly condemned them. This doctrine, to be sure, allowed much latitude for individual judgment.¹ Mariana, the Spanish Jesuit, in his famous chapter, De Tyranno, in De Rege et Regis Institutione (1599), gave the frankest exposition of this teaching, and may be regarded as the leading advocate of tyrannicide among the numerous Roman Catholic pamphleteers. He openly justified the assassination of Henri III, and decided that a tyrant might be killed either publicly or by craft. At certain kinds of poisoning he drew the line, but did not object to the poisoning of a tyrant through his clothes or cushions. With the names of Mariana and Buchanan we have completed the historical circle, and have reverted to the views of the Athenians, who chanted the Scolium to the memory of the murderers of the son of Pisistratus.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  I.

  Editions of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  1. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: Proving, That it is Lawfull, and hath been held so through all Ages, for any who have the Power, to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked KING, and after due conviction, to depose and put him to death; if the ordinary MAGISTRATE have neglected, or deny’d to doe it. And that they who, of late, so much blame Deposing, are the Men that did it themselves. The Author, J. M. London, Printed by Matthew Simons, at the Gilded Lyon in Aldersgate Street, 1649.

  2. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates proving, That it is Lawfull and hath been held so through all Ages, for any who have the Power to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked KING, and after due Conviction, to depose, and put him to Death; if the ordinary MAGISTRATE have neglected, or deny’d to doe it. And that they, who, of late, so much blame Deposing, are the Men that did it themselves. Published now the second Time with some additions, and many Testimonies also added out of the best and learnedest among PROTESTANT Divines asserting the position of this book. The Author J. M. LONDON, Printed by Matthew Simmons, next doore to the Gil-Lyon in Aldersgate Street, 1650.

  [Some copies of this edition have the following variation in the title,—‘Printed by Matthew Simmons, at the Gilded Lyon in Aldersgate Street, 1649].

  3. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Originally written by the Celebrated John Milton. Now corrected, and republished with Additional Notes and Observations; and particularly recommended, at This Time, to the Perusal of the Men of Ireland. Dublin 1784.

  [This reprint, on cheap paper, was issued in the form of a 16mo tract, with a short introduction by the anonymous editor. He makes a plea for the sovereignty of the people, and quotes as authorities Strabo, Tacitus, Hotman, Hoadley, Burnet, Locke, Hutcheson, and ‘the Author of the North Britain.’ The notes are few and of no value].

  4. The Rights of Nations to depose Their Kings, an Abridgement of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Ed. William G. Lewis. London, circa 1800.

  5. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, appended to Milton’s History of Britain. Ed. Francis Maseres. London 1818.

  [A reprint of Birch’s version of 1753].

  II.

  Prose Works.

  • Prose Works of John Milton. Amsterdam, 1694.
  • The Works of Mr. John Milton. [No Place] 1697.
  • Complete Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works. 3 vols. [Ed. John Toland]. 1698.
  • A Complete Collection of Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton. Ed. T. Birch. 2 vols. London, 1738.
  • The Works of John Milton, Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous. Ed. T. Birch [and R. Barron]. London, 1753.
  • [In a quarto edition of this publication, which appeared the same year, Birch (or Barron) observes that in 1650 The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was republished by the author with considerable additions, ‘all which, omitted in every former edition of the author’s works, are here carefully inserted in their proper place.’ This boast is not justified, for the edition of 1697 included the additions].
  • The Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. C. Symmons. 7 vols. London, 1806.
  • The Prose Works of John Milton. With an Introductory Review by R. Fletcher. London, 1833.
  • The Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. J. A. St. John. 5 vols. London, 1848-53.
  • [The well-known Bohn edition, the most convenient and, on the whole, the best edition of Milton’s prose ever published].
  • Prose and Poetical Works of Milton. Ed. J. Mitford. 7 vols. London, 1851.

  III.

  Prose Selections.

  • Selections from the Works of Taylor, Hooker, Milton, etc. London, 1807.
  • The Poetry of Milton’s Prose, selected from his Various Writings, with Notes, and an Introductory Essay, [by C.]. London, 1827.
  • The Beauties of Milton, consisting of Selections from his Poetry and Prose by A. Howard. London [1834].
  • Select Prose Works. Ed. J. A. St. John. 2 vols. London, 1836.
  • Extracts from Milton’s Prose Works. Edinburgh, 1836.
  • Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. R. W. Griswold. New York, 1847.
  • Selections from the Prose Writings of John Milton. Ed. S. Manning. London, 1861.
  • Treasures from the Prose Writings of John Milton. Ed. Fayette Hurd. Boston, 1866.
  • Selections from the Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. J. J. G. Graham. London, 1870.
  • John Milton’s Politische Hauptschriften. Uebersetzt von Dr. W. Bernhardi. Berlin, 1870-79.
  • Selected Prose Writings of John Milton, with an Introductory Essay by E. Myers. London, 1884.
  • Readings from Milton, with an Introduction by Bishop H. W. Warren. Boston, 1886.
  • English Prose Writings of Milton. Ed. H. Morley. London, 1889.
  • The Prose of Milton, selected and edited, with an Introduction by R. Garnett. London, 1892.
  • Selections, chiefly Autobiographical, from the Pamphlets and Letters of Milton, with the Tractate on Education and Areopagitica. New York, 1901.
  • Prose Works of Milton. Vol. 1. London, 1905.
  • Introduction to Prose and Poetical Works of Milton. Ed. H. Corson. London, 1899.

  IV.

  Biography, Criticism, etc. bearing on Milton’s Prose.

  • Aubrey, John. Collections for Life of Milton, appended to Lives of Edward and John Philips. Ed. Wm. Godwin. London, 1815.
  • Blackburne, Francis. Remarks on Johnson’s Life of Milton. London, 1790.
  • Chateaubriand, M. de. Essai sur la Littérature Anglaise. Paris 1836.
  • Fry, Alfred. Lecture on the Writings, Prose and Poetic, and the Character, Public and Personal, of John Milton. London, 1838.
  • Geffroy, A. Etude sur les Pamphlets Politiques et Religieux de Milton. Paris 1848.
  • Guerle, Edmond de. Milton: Sa Vie et Ses Oeuvres. Paris, 1868.
  • Hill, G. F. Prize Essay on Prose Style of Milton. London, 1885.
  • Horwood, A. J. Milton’s Commonplace Book. Camden Soc. Pub. London, 1876. Revised edition, Westminster, 1877.
  • Ivimey, Jos. Life and Times of Milton. New York, 1833.
  • Jenks, T. In the Days of Milton. London, 1905.
  • Johnson, Dr. Samuel. Life of Milton. London, 1787.
  • Keightley, Thos. Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. London, 1855.
  • Lowell, J. R. Among My Books. Second Series. London, 1876.
  • Mackenzie, Sir Geo. Jus Regium. Against Buchanan, Dolman, Milton, etc. Edinburgh, 1684.
  • Masson, David. Life of John Milton, narrated in Connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time. 6 vols. London and New York, 1859-80.
  • Mead, L. A. Milton’s England. London, 1903.
  • Milton Memorial Lectures, 1908. Read before the Royal Society of Literature. Ed. P. W. Ames. London, 1909.
  • Mirabeau, Count de. Théorie de la Royauté d’après la Doctrine de Milton. Paris, 1789.
  • Morgan, J. de. Milton considered as a Politician. London, 1875.
  • Mortimer, C. E. An Historical Memoir of the Political Life of John Milton. London, 1805.
  • Of the Monarchy of Scotland against Milton. London, 1684.
  • On Milton as Liable to Just Censure. London, 1709.
  • Pattison, Mark. Milton, an Account of His Life and Works. London, 1879.
  • Peck, Francis. Memoirs of Life and Poetical Works of John Milton, with an Examination of Milton’s Style, etc. London, 1740.
  • Raleigh, W. A. Life of Milton. London, 1900.
  • Seeley, J. R. Lectures and Addresses. London, 1870.
  • Scharf, Ludwig. John Milton and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Braunschweig, 1882.
  • Schmidt, Henricus. Milton considered as a Political Writer. Halle, 1882.
  • Smith, Goldwin. Lectures and Essays. New York, 1881.
  • Stern, Alfred. Milton und seine Zeit. 2 Teile. Leipzig, 1877-79.
  • Toland, J. The Life of Milton, containing, besides the History of His Works, Several Extraordinary Characters of Men, Books, Sects, Parties, and Opinions. London, 1699.
  • Trent, W. J. John Milton, Life and Works. New York, 1899.
  • Tulloch, John. English Puritanism and Its Leaders. Edinburgh, 1861.
  • Weber, Georg. John Milton’s Prosaische Schriften über Kirche, Staat und öffentliches Leben seiner Zeit. Ein historisches Taschenbuch. Leipzig, 1852-53.
  • White, Holt. Milton’s Areopagitica and Review of Johnson’s Criticism of the Style of Milton’s English Prose. London, 1816.
  • Windsor, A. L. Milton, His Politics, Prose Writings, and Biographers. In Ethica. London, 1860.
  • Vodoz, Jules. An Essay on the Prose of Milton. Zürich, 1895.

  V.

  A List of the More Important Works consulted in the Preparation of the Present Edition of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  • Acton, Lord. History of Freedom and Other Essays. London, 1907.
  • Armstrong, E. The French Wars of Religion; Their Political Aspects. London, 1892.
  • — — The Political Theory of the Huguenots. In English Hist. Rev. Vol. 4. London, 1889.
  • Baillie, Robt. Letters and Journals. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1775.
  • Barclay, Robt. Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. London, 1876.
  • Baudrillart, Henri. Jean Bodin et Son Temps. Paris, 1853.
  • Blackey, Robt. History of Political Literature. 2 vols. London, 1855.
  • Bluntschli, J. K. Theory of the State. Oxford, 1885.
  • Bodin, Jean. Les Six Livres de la République. Lyons, 1580.
  • — — De Republica. Paris, 1586.
  • — — The Six Bookes of a Commonweale. Trans. Rich. Knolles. London, 1606.
  • Brown, Hume. Life of George Buchanan. Edinburgh, 1890.
  • Bucer, Martin. Sacra Quatuor Euangelia. 1553.
  • Buchanan, George. De Jure Regni apud Scotos. Edinburgh, 1579.
  • — — Trans. R. Macfarlan. London, 1799.
  • — — History of Scotland. Trans. Watkins. London, 1827.
  • Burnet, Gilbert. History of Own Times. 2 vols. London, 1724-34.
  • Calvin, John. Prælectiones in Librum Prophetiarum Danielis. Amsterdam, 1667.
  • — — Institutes of the Christian Religion. 2 vols. London, 1838.
  • Carlyle, Thos. Letters and Speeches of Cromwell. 4 vols. London, 1904.
  • Cary, Thos. Memorials of the Great Civil War in England. London, 1842.
  • Clarendon, Edward, Earl of. History of the Rebellion. 6 vols. Oxford, 1888.
  • Clergy in Their Colours, or the Pride and Avarice of the Presbyterian Clergy hindering Reformation. London, 1651.
  • Dunning, W. A. A History of Political Theories, Ancient and Mediaeval. New York and London, 1905.
  • — — Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu. New York and London, 1905.
  • Edwards, Thos. Gangræna. London, 1646.
  • Egger, Edward. Sur le Meurtre Politique chez les Grecs et chez les Romans. Turin, 1866.
  • Fenner, Dudley. Sacra Theologia. Vignon, 1586.
  • Ferne, Dr. H. Conscience Satisfied. Oxford, 1643.
  • Figgis, J. N. Theory of the Divine Right of Kings. Cambridge, 1896.
  • — — Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius. Cambridge, 1907.
  • — — Some Political Theories of the Early Jesuits. In Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. Vol. 11. London, 1897.
  • — — Politics at the Council of Constance. In Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. Vol. 13. London, 1899.
  • Filmer, Sir Robt. Observations Concerning the Original of Government. London, 1680.
  • — — Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings. London, 1680.
  • Fortescue, Sir John. His Life, Works, and Family History. Ed. Lord Claremont. London, 1869.
  • Gardiner, S. R. Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. Oxford, 1899.
  • — — History of England, 1603-1642. 10 vols. London, 1884.
  • — — History of the Great Civil War. 1642-1649. 3 vols. London, 1886-91.
  • — — History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. 3 vols. London, 1894-1901.
  • Gauden, Dr. John. Certain Scruples and Doubts of Conscience about Taking the Solemn League and Covenant. London, 1643.
  • Gerard, Seigneur du Haillan. Histoire Générale des Rois de France. Paris, 1576.
  • Gilby, Anthony. An Admonition to England and Scotland to call Them to Repentance. Geneva, 1558.
  • Gildas. Chronicle. Trans. J. A. Giles. London, 1848.
  • Gilles, Peter. Histoire Ecclesiastique des Eglises Vaudoises, 1160-1643. Pignerol, 1881.
  • Gooch, G.P. History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, 1898.
  • Goodman, Christopher. How Superior Powers ought to be obeyd of Their Subjects. Geneva, 1558.
  • Hallam, Henry. Introduction to the Literature of Europe. 3 vols. London, 1839.
  • Halley, Robt. Lancashire and Its Puritanism. London, 1869.
  • Hammond, Henry. On Resisting the Lawfull Magistrate upon Colour of Religion. London, 1643.
  • Harleian Miscellany. Ed. T. Park. London, 1808.
  • Heylyn, Peter. Aerius Redivivus, or the History of the Presbyterians from 1536 to 1647. Oxford, 1670.
  • Hotman, Francis. Franco Gallia. Trans. Molesworth. London, 1721.
  • Irving, D. Life of George Buchanan. Edinburgh, 1817.
  • Janet, Paul. Histoire de la Science Politique dans Ses Relations avec la Morale. 2 toms. Paris, 1887.
  • Jovial Tinker of England, The. London, 1648.
  • Knox, John. Works. Ed. Laing. 6 vols. Edinburgh, 1848.
  • Languet, Hubert, or Du Plessis-Mornay. Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos. ‘Edinhurgh’ [Geneva], 1579.
  • English Trans. London, 1648.
  • Maitland, F. W. Political Theories of the Middle Ages. London, 1900.
  • Marsden, John. History of the Early Puritans. London, 1853.
  • — — History of the Later Puritans. London, 1852.
  • Mariana, Juan de. De Rege et Regis Institutione. Toledo, 1599.
  • Marsiglio of Padua. Defensor Pacis. Frankfort, 1612.
  • McCrie, Thos. Life of John Knox. Edinburgh, 1839.
  • Molina, Louis. De Jure et Justitia. 2 vols. Mainz, 1602.
  • Neal, Daniel. History of the Puritans. 3 vols. New York, 1844.
  • Nicolaus Cusanus. Opera. Basil, 1565.
  • Orme, Wm. Life and Times of Rich. Baxter. 2 vols. Boston, 1831.
  • Osgood, H. L. The Political Ideas of the Puritans. In Pol. Science Quart. Vol. 6. 1891.
  • Owen, David. Herod and Pilate reconciled, or the Concord of Papist and Puritan for the Coercion, Deposition, and Killing of Kings. Cambridge, 1610.
  • Oxenham, N.N. Short Studies, Ethical and Religious. London, 1885.
  • Pagitt, Ephraim, Heresiography, or a Description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of These Latter Times. London, 1651.
  • Pareus, David. Opera Theologica. 2 vols. Geneva, 1642.
  • Paris, Matthew. Chronica Majora, Trans. J.A. Giles. London. 1848.
  • Poole, R.L. Illustrations of the History of Mediæval Thought. London, 1884.
  • Plass, H. G. Die Tyrannis. 2 vols. London, 1884.
  • Political Catechism, A. Printed by Order of the House of Commons. London, 1643.
  • Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century. In Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 3. Cambridge, 1904.
  • Poynet, John. A Shorte Treatise of Political Power, and of the True Obedience which Subjectes owe to Kynges. London, 1556.
  • Price, John. Clerico-Classicum, or the Clergi-allarum to a Third War. London, 1556.
  • Prynn against Prynn. London, 1649.
  • Prynne, W. and Walker, C. Declaration and Protestation. London, 1649.
  • Rushworth, John. Historical Collections. 9. vols. London, 1722.
  • Seyssel, C. La Grand’ Monarchie de France. Paris, 1519.
  • Shaw, W. A. History of the English Church, 1640-1660. London, 1900.
  • Sleidan, John. History of the Reformation. Trans. Bohun. London, 1689.
  • Smith, Sir Thos. De Republica Anglorum, or the English Common Wealth. London, 1583.
  • Somers Tracts. 4 vols. London, 1748.
  • Thomas Aquinas. Opera. Paris, 1871-1880.
  • Thomason, George. Catalogue of the Pamphlets, Books, Newspapers, and Manuscripts relating to the Civil War, the Commonwealth and Restoration, 1640-1661. Printed for the British Museum, 1908.
  • Thuanus (J. A. de Thou). Histoire Universelle, 1543-1607. 16 vols. London, 1734.
  • Tilley, A. A. The Literature of the French Renaissance. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1904.
  • — — Some Pamphlets of the French Wars of Religion. In English Hist. Rev. London, 1899.
  • Treumann, R. M. Die Monarchomachen. Leipzig, 1895.
  • Ure, Percy. The Origin of the Tyrannis. In Journal Hellenic Literature, Vol. 26.
  • Vermigli, Peter Martyr. In Librum Judicum Commentarii. Heidelbergae, 1509.
  • Walker, Clement. A History of Independency. 3 parts. London, 1648-51.
  • Walkeman, H. O. The Church and the Puritans. London, 1892.
  • Weill, Georges. Les Théories sur le Pouvoir Royal en France pendant les Guerres de Religion. Paris, 1891.
  • Wendover, Roger de. Flower of History. Trans. J. A. Giles. London, 1848.
  • Whitelocke, Bulstrode. Memorials of English Affairs. 4 vols. Oxford, 1853.
  • Wycliffe, John. De Civili Dominio. Ed. Poole. London, 1885.
  • Zwingli, Ulrich von. Opera. Ed. Schulerus et Schulthessius. Turin, 1829.

  VI.

  Contemporary Pamphlets referred to or criticised by Milton in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

  • Gauden, Dr. John. Religious and Loyal Protestation against the Declared Purposes and Proceedings of the Army and Others; about the Trying and Destroying Our Sovereign Lord the King. London, 1648.
  • Hammond, Dr. Henry. Humble Addresse to the Right Honourable, the Lord Fairfax, and His Councell of Warre. London, 1649.
  • Prynne, Wm. A Briefe Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Junto. London, 1649.
  • — — Prynne the Member, reconciled to Prynne, the Barrister. London, 1648.
  • — — Speech in the House of Commons, Dec. 4, 1648. London, 1649.
  • Serious and Faithfull Representation of the Judgments of the Gospel within the Province of London. London, 1649.
  • Scripture and Reason pleaded for Defensive Armes; or the Whole Controversie about Subjects taking up Armes. Published by Divers Reverend and Learned Divines. London, 1643.
  • Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to Our Solemn League and Covenant; as also against the Errours, Heresies, and Blasphemies, of These Times. London, 1648.
  • Vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel in, and about London, from the Unjust Aspersions cast upon Their Former Actings for the Parliament. London, 1648.

  [1 ]Godwin, Lives of Edw. and John Philips, app. p. 371.

  [1 ]See Carlyle, Letters and Speeches of Cromwell 1. 236 ff.

  [1 ]Rushworth, Hist. Coll. 7. 1297.

  [1 ]Burnet, Hist. of Own Time 1. 64.

  [2 ]Masson, Life of Milton 3. 718.

  [1 ]Collections for Life of Milton, app. to Lives of Edw. and John Philips, ed. Godwin, p. 341.

  [1 ]See his own statement in Sec. Def. (Bohn 1. 257 ff.).

  [1 ]Étude sur les Pamphlets Politiques et Religieux de Milton, pp. 224, 225.

  [2 ]Milton und seine Zeit 1. 441.

  [3 ]The Glasse of God’s Providence towards his Faithfull Ones. A Sermon preached before the Houses of Parlt., Aug. 13, 1644.

  [1 ]Clement Walker calls Milton ‘a libertine that thinketh his wife a Manacle,’ Hist. of Indep., pt. 2. 199.

  [2 ]Life and Times of Rich. Baxter 1. 70.

  [3 ]Life of Milton, in Works, ed. Hawkins 2. 101.

  [4 ]For a full discussion of Milton’s relations with the Presbyterians, see Masson, Life of Milton 2. 377 and 3. 468 ff.

  [1 ]The event is described by Neale, Hist. of the Puritans 1. 466, See also Whitelocke, Memor. 1. 202.

  [2 ]For a full text of the Covenant see Rushworth, Hist. Coll. 5. 478, 479.

  [1 ]A Serious and Faithf. Repres. etc., p. 7.

  [2 ]A Vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel . . . with a short Exhortation to their People to keep close to their Covenant-Ingagement pp. 5 ff.

  [3 ]Besides the national pledge, there were local voluntary covenants, by which groups of individuals bound themselves to sustain the parliamentary cause and to be faithful to one another. See Mem. of Col. Hutchinson, p. 143.

  [1 ]A Briefe Memento, p. 8.

  [2 ]A Briefe Memento, p. 13. The clause is quoted in full on p. 89. See also his Speech delivered in the House of Commons, Dec. 4, 1648, pp. 17, 18, for a furious attack upon the Covenant-breakers.

  [3 ]Clerico-Classicum, p. 27.

  [1 ]The Jovial Tinker of England, p. 7.

  [2 ]Whitelocke, Memor. 2. 99.

  [3 ]Ibid. 2. 108.

  [4 ]Ibid. 2. 183.

  [5 ]Ibid. 2. 194.

  [6 ]For other references to the Covenant in Milton’s prose, see Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 197), Eikon (1. 488, 390), First Def. (1. 193).

  [1 ]Hist. of Eng. (Bohn 5. 238, 239).

  [1 ]W. A. Shaw, Hist. of Eng. Church.

  [2 ]Hist. of Later Puritans, p. 86.

  [3 ]Masson, Life of Milton 4. 72.

  [4 ]Masson, Life 3. 469.

  [5 ]King’s Pamphlets, Br. Museum, 325, 420 cat. 5.

  [1 ]An Inspection for Spiritual Improvement, etc., p. 5.

  [2 ]The Clergy in their Colors, etc., p. 41.

  [1 ]See note on 51. 25.

  [1 ]Of True Religion, etc. (Bohn 2. 513).

  [2 ]Les Théories sur le Pouvoir Royal en France, p. 82.

  [1 ]See 1 Kings 8. 22.

  [1 ]See note on 17. 11.

  [1 ]See notes on 24. 2, 24. 8, and 24. 12.

  [2 ]For examples of this humorous use of Scripture see Rem. Def. (Bohn 3. 86); Ibid. (Bohn 3. 74); Reas. Ch. Govt. against Prel. (Bohn 2. 463); First Def. (Bohn 1. 41, 211), etc.

  [1 ]Poole, Illust. Hist. Med. Thought, p. 229.

  [2 ]Opera, ed. Goldast, 18. 185.

  [1 ]Poole, Illustr. Hist. Med. Thought, p. 231.

  [2 ]De Rege et Regis Institutione 1. 7.

  [3 ]Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. 11. 104.

  [1 ]See note on 9. 31.

  [2 ]Poole, Illust. Med. Thought, p. 232.

  [1 ]Baudrillart, J. Bodin et Son Temps, p. 10.

  [2 ]See notes on 9. 31; 12. 4.

  [1 ]For a review of the literature on the subject of tyrannicide see the Appendix.

  [1 ]See De Jure Regni apud Scotos, trans. Macfarlan, pp. 146, 147.

  [1 ]De Jure Regni, pp. 140-142.

  [2 ]Ibid., pp. 143, 146.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 148.

  [4 ]Ibid., pp. 161 ff., 198, 199.

  [5 ]Ibid., pp. 91, 95 ff., 103 ff.

  [1 ]Ed. by Horwood, and published for the Camden Society, 1876.

  [2 ]Domocratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century, p. 178.

  [1 ]For the amplification of ideas in the First Defence, see notes on 10. 14, 11. 9, 12. 22, 13. 11, 14. 7, 17. 15, 18. 28, 20. 19, 24. 2. That kings are accountable to none but God is refuted in a few lines in the Tenure, but the argument covers thirty pages in the First Defence (see note on 13. 11). Milton’s treatment of tyrannicide may be traced through the three stages of development—in the Commonplace Book, in the Tenure, and in the First Defence.

  [1 ]Franco-Gallia, trans. Molesworth, pp. 38 ff., 71.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 70.

  [3 ]Ibid., pp. 44 ff.

  [4 ]Ibid., p. 64.

  [5 ]Ibid., pp. 97 ff. It is interesting to remember that Hotman read Buchanan’s revolutionary dialogue with delight, and paid a tribute to his judgment. See Irving, Life of Buchanan, p. 253, and note.

  [1 ]Either Hubert Languet or Du Plessis-Mornay was the real author.

  [1 ]Second Defence (Bohn 1. 280).

  [2 ]For a contemporary estimate of the value of de Thou’s history, see Whitelocke, Memorials, preface to first edition, 1681, p. 11. For a recent appreciation, see Tilley, The Literature of the French Renaissance 2. 221 ff.

  [1 ]See 9. 19, and note.

  [2 ]See note on 45. 12.

  [3 ]See note on 47. 28. See also Janet, Hist. de la Philosophie Morale et Politique 2. 40; 2. 67.

  [4 ]Institutes 4. 20.

  [1 ]Of Reform. in Eng. (Bohn 2. 388).

  [2 ]Apol. for Smect. (Bohn 3. 99).

  [3 ]Animad. Rem. Def. (Bohn 3. 44).

  [1 ]Apol. for Smect. (Bohn 3. 145).

  [2 ]Of Reform. in Eng. (Bohn 2. 388).

  [3 ]See pp. 25 ff.

  [1 ]See his John Milton, Life and Works pp. 155 ff.

  [2 ]English Puritanism and its Leaders, p. 224.

  [1 ]See pp. 54 ff.

  [2 ]‘On Milton’s Political Opinions,’ in Lectures and Addresses, p. 112.

  [3 ]New Memoirs of Life and Poet (Works of Milton, p. 269).

  [1 ]Hist. of Indep. pt. 2, 199 ff.

  [1 ]Second edition omits of. A new paragraph is also indicated here.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. discord.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds wrested.

  [2 ]Sec. ed. strength and assistance.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. upon.

  [1 ]A new sentence begins here in sec. ed.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds: ‘While as the Magistrate was set above the people, so the law was set above the Magistrate.’

  [2 ]Sesel in sec. ed.

  [3 ]Sec. ed. reads: ‘which I instance rather, not because our English Lawyers have not said the same long before, but because that French Monarchy, is granted by all to be a farr more absolute then ours.

  [4 ]In the sec. ed. the sentence is thus expanded: ‘appealing to the known constitutions of both the latest Christian Empires in Europe, the Greek and German, besides the French, Italian, Arragonian, English, and not least, the Scottish Histories.’

  [1 ]The sec. ed.adds: ‘Aristotle, therefore, whom we commonly allow for one of the best interpreters of nature and morality, writes in the fourth of his Politics chap. 10. that Monarchy unaccountable, is the worst sort of Tyranny; and least of all to be endur’d by free born men.’

  [2 ]In sec. ed. surely follows and.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. reads trod on.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. omits unrepeald.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds 2 Sam. 5. 3.

  [2 ]An interrogation mark is used in place of the period in sec. ed.

  [3 ]Sec. ed. reads Misgoverment.

  [1 ]In sec. ed. without difference follows is.

  [2 ]In sec. ed. Alike precedes submitt.

  [3 ]Sec. ed. adds: ‘But to any civil power unaccountable, unquestionable, and not to be resisted, no not in wickedness, and violent actions, how can we submitt as free men?’

  [4 ]Begins with a capital in sec. ed.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. has question mark.

  [2 ]Sec. ed. supplies in these days after Kings.

  [1 ]The text reads is, evidently a misprint.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. whatever.

  [1 ]Sentence ends here in sec. ed.

  [2 ]A period replaces the semicolon in sec. ed.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds: ‘So far we ought to be from thinking that Christ and his Gospel should be made a Sanctuary for Tyrants from justice, to whom his Law before never gave such protection.’

  [1 ]Sec. ed. has plural form.

  [2 ]Sec. ed. omits needs.

  [1 ]The begins a new sentence in sec. ed.

  [1 ]The comma is evidently a misprint; a period takes its place in sec. ed.

  [2 ]The word is singular in sec. ed.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds: ‘What no less in England then in Scotland, by the mouthes of those faithful Witnesses commonly call’d Puritans, and Nonconformists, spake as clearly for the putting down, yea the utmost punishing of Kings, as in thir several Treatises may be read; eev’n from the first raigne of Elizabeth to these times. Insomuch that one of them, whose name was Gibson, foretold James, he should be rooted out and conclude his race, if he persisted to uphold Bishops. And that very inscription stampt upon the first Coines at his Coronation, a naked Sword in a hand with these words, Si mereor, in me, Against me, if I deserve, not only manifested the judgement of that State, but seem’d also to presage the sentence of Divine justice in this event upon his Son.’

  [1 ]Sec. ed. has many times.

  [1 ]Sec ed. take.

  [2 ]Sec ed. extinguished.

  [1 ]The sentence reads thus in sec. ed.: ‘Have they not sequester’d him , judg’d or unjudg’d, and converted his revenew to other uses, detaining from him as a grand Delinquent , all meanes of livelyhood, so that for them long since he might have perisht, or have starv’d?’

  [1 ]Sec. ed. but only against his evill counselers.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. reads: ‘and turn them from giving eare or heed to these Mercenary noisemakers.’

  [2 ]A comma follows subordinate in sec. ed.

  [1 ]The question-mark is replaced by a semicolon in sec. ed.

  [2 ]Sec. ed. who.

  [3 ]The sec. ed. adds: ‘Though perhaps till now no Protestant State or kingdom can be alleg’d to have op’nly put to death thir King, which lately some have writt’n , and imputed to thir great glory ; much mistaking the matter. It is not, neither ought to be the glory of a Protestant State, never to have put thir King to death; It is the glory of a Protestant King never to have deserv’d death.’

  [4 ]Sec. ed. knew.

  [1 ]Sec. ed. adds wicked ones.

  [2 ]The sec. ed. reads: ‘Blasphem’d the vengeance of God, and traduc’d the zeale of his people.’

  [3 ]The first edition ends here.

  [3. 1. If men, etc.]In this opening paragraph Milton has in mind all opponents of the Cromwellian party, and especially the Scotch and English Presbyterians.

  [3. 6. But being slaves within doores.]Living under a domestic tyranny. Alfred Stern (Milton und seine Zeit 1. 438) says that these words will recall to every reader the conflict between Milton and the Presbyterians over his theory of divorce.

  [3. 9. None can love freedom heartilie, but good men.]Milton based both political and artistic excellence on character. Cf. Apol. Smect. (Bohn 3. 118).

  [3. 13. Tyrants are not oft offended, etc.]Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 5. 11. 12: ‘Tyrants are always fond of bad men, because they love to be flattered, but no man who has the spirit of a free man in him will demean himself by flattery.’

  [3. 15. Them they feare in earnest.]Milton probably owes this thought to George Buchanan. Cf. De Jure Regni apud Scotos. Trans. R. Macfarlan, p. 199: ‘But why should we look for a surer witness of what tyrants deserve than their own conscience? Hence springs their perpetual fear of all, and particularly of good men.’ See also Raleigh, The Cabinet-Council (Works, ed. Birch 1. 96): They [tyrants] are also Protectors of impious Persons, and stand in daily doubt of noble and virtuous Men.

  [3. 24. Others.]Cromwell and his supporters.

  [3. 26. The curse.]See Jer. 48. 1.

  [4. 2. These men.]The Presbyterians.

  [4. 4. Juggl’d and palter’d with the World.]A picturesque phrase insinuating that the Presbyterians, especially their ministers, had played the part of patriots because it was to their material advantage to do so. Cf. Shak. Macbeth 5.8.20:

  • Those juggling fiends
  • That palter with us in a double sense.

  [4. 4. Bandied.]The origin of this word is obscure, but it is probably derived from the game of tennis, or bandy, meaning to throw or strike a ball from side to side. The allusion here seems to be to the uncertainty of the Scots in their relation to Charles I. First they were against him, then for him, then they sold him to the English Parliament and finally they cried up loyalty and obedience. Cf. Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn. 2. 195): Conspiring and bandying against the common good.’

  [4. 8. And their pamphlets.]A flood of pamphlets greeted Charles’ attempts to force ritualism upon Scotland. On March 30, 1640, the king issued a proclamation against ‘libellous and seditious Pamphlets and Discourses from Scotland.’ The authors are called ‘factious spirits, and such as do endeavour to cast most unjust and false aspersions and scandals upon His Majesty and His Government, and upon his proceedings with his subjects in Scotland, and to distemperate and alienate from His Majesty the hearts of his well-affected subjects, and such as are in no way inclined to such seditious and disloyal courses.’ For full text of this proclamation see John Rushworth, Hist. Collections 3. 1094. During the course of the war sermons continued to be preached against Charles and thousands of pamphlets by Presbyterian and Independent writers poured from the press.

  [4. 8. To the ingaging of.]By these actions and utterances the Presbyterians had pledged themselves to an anti-royalist policy.

  [4. 14. To the entire advantages of thir owne Faction.]Both the Scotch and English Presbyterians were very jealous of the growing power of the Independents.

  [4. 16. Counted them accessory.]The King loved neither the Presbyterians nor the Independents. For three years (1646-1649) he tried to play off one party against the other. Before his flight from Oxford to the Scottish camp at Newcastle he expressed the hope that he should be able so to draw the Presbyterians or the Independents to side with him for extripating one the other, that he should really be king again. (See his letter to Lord Digby, dated March 26, 1646. Quoted by Masson, Life of Milton 3. 497). Charles hated the Covenant, steadfastly refused to sign it, and looked upon the Presbyterians as rebels who had broken statutes and laws pledging them to obedience to their king. Cf. a similar statement in First Def. (Bohn 1. 192).

  [4. 17. Those Statutes and Laws.]At this time the Presbyterian preachers and writers were constantly accusing the Independents of breaking ‘the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, the Common Law, Stat. 25. Edw. 3. and all other Acts concerning Treason.’ (See Walker, Hist. of Independency, pt. 2, p. 69).

  [4. 22. For a flash, hot and active.]Milton grants that the Presbyterians were active in the good cause for a time. He ascribes their defection to (1) sloth, (2) inconstancy, (3) cowardice, (4) falsehood, or (5) wickedness.

  [4. 23. Inconstancie, and weakness of spirit.]Clarendon supports Milton in his indictment of the Scots and Presbyterian party for fickleness and failure to carry out their policy to its end. See his Hist. of the Rebellion. Ed. Machray, bk. 10. 168 ff.

  [4. 31. Alteration of Lawes, etc.]All these steps ultimately proved necessary to the establishment of the Puritan Commonwealth.

  [5. 2. The throng and noises of vulgar and irrational men.]Milton entertained little respect for the fickle and sweaty populace. See his celebrated passage in P. R. 3. 49-59, and his sonnet to Oliver Cromwell.

  [5. 4. Customes.]Milton had no sympathy with irrational customs. Cf. his attack on prejudices and customs in Areop. (Bohn 2. 98): ‘Our eyes, bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom.’

  [5. 5. Their gibrish Lawes.]Alluding to the jargon in which statutes were written. A variant form of gibber is jabber, to talk nonsense. Gibberish is therefore unintelligible speech, inarticulate chatter.
  
  Under the heading Leges in his Commonplace Book Milton says, ‘Alfred turn’d the old laws into English. I would he liv’d now to rid us of this Norman gibbrish.’ (See Publication of Camden Society for 1876, p. 22).
  
  In 1650 Parliament ordered that all the books of the laws be put into English; and that all writs, processes, indictments, records, and all rules and proceedings in courts of justice be in the English tongue only, and not in Latin or French, or any other language but English. It is possible that Milton’s protest and personal influence may have contributed to this result.

  [5. 12. They plead for him, pity him, extoll him, etc.]London and Lancashire ministers sent in protests against the policy of Parliament towards the king. Letters were addressed to Lord Fairfax and the army by Dr. Henry Hammond and Dr. Gauden. The indefatigable William Prynne, both in Parliament and out, was busy with tongue and pen in pleading the king’s cause. As a sample of these protests see the Declaration and Protestation of Will: Pryn, and Clem: Walker, issued Jan. 19, 1649, against the proposal of the House of Commons to bring the king to capital punishment. Prynne and Walker declare that such a course is ‘highly impious against the Law of God, Nations, and the Protestant Profession, Traitors against the State, of Treason, 25 Edw. 3., and against all Laws and our Statutes, perjurious and perfidious, against all Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, Nationall Covenant, and Protestation; all the Parliaments Declarations and Remonstrances held forth to the world; their Treaties and promises made to the Scots when they delivered the King’s Person into our hands; against our promises made to the Hollanders, and other Nations, and against all the Professions, Declarations, Remonstrances, and Proposals made by this Army; when they made their Addresses to the King at New-Market, Hampton Court, and other places.’ (Walker, Hist. of Independency, pt. 2, p. 83).

  [5. 13. Protest against those, etc.]The Presbyterian minsters of London in their vindication set forth: ‘For when we did first engage with the Parliament, (which we did not till called thereunto) we did it with loyal hearts and affection towards the King, and his posterity. Not intending the least hurt to his Person, but to stop his party from doing further hurt to the Kingdome; not to bring his Majesty to justice (as some now speak) but to put him into a better capacity to doe justice.’ (A Vindication of the London Ministers from the unjust aspersions upon their former actings for the Parliament, p. 3).

  [5. 23. Of industry.]On purpose, intentionally.

  [5. 25. They themselves have cited him.]Milton refers to a treatise, Truths Manifest, said by him to have been written by a Scotchman, ‘in which it is affirmed that there hath been more Christian blood shed by the commission, approbation, and connivance of King Charles and his father, James, in the latter end of their reign, than in the ten Roman persecutions.’ See Eikon (Bohn 1. 383). For a comparison of Charles with Nero see ibid.

  [5. 29. Nero,]Claudius ( 54-68). Milton relates that the Senate required that Nero should be stripped naked, and hung by the neck upon a forked stake, and whipped to death. Cf. First Def. (Bohn 1. 133): ‘Consider now, how much more mildly and moderately the English dealt with their tyrant, though many are of opinion, that he caused the spilling of more blood than even Nero himself did.’

  [5. 30. Their mercies.]See Prov. 12. 10.

  [5. 33. Agag.]Agag was a king of the Amalekites, conquered by Saul and, contrary to the divine command, saved alive, but put to death by Samuel. (1 Sam. 15). Milton is here comparing the compassion of the Presbyterian party with that of Saul who was disobedient to God’s command.

  [5. 33. Villifying.]Making vile, of no account. Cf. P. L. 11. 516.

  [5. 34. Many Jonathans, that have sav’d Israel.]A comparison of the Puritan generals with Jonathan, who led a forlorn hope against a great army of Philistines, and freed his country from invasion. The allusion is to one of the most stirring war stories of the Old Testament (1 Sam. 13).

  [6. 1. Nicenesse.]Subtlety, a tendency to be over particular. Unnecessariest. An interesting use of an obsolete superlative. Cf. famousest (below 59. 3), Apol. Smec. (Bohn 3. 128), elegantest (ibid. 3. 140).

  [6. 1. Clause of their Covnant wrested.]With the mention of the Covenant Milton touches upon one of the leading topics of this pamphlet. For a full discussion of the Covenant, and what was to Milton the unnecessariest and riddling clause, see Introd.

  [6. 4. But not scrupling, etc.]It is difficult to arrive at the meaning of this ambiguous statement. In return for compliments from the king, for his good opinion of their loyalty, the Scots would not scruple to give over to his implacable revenge, if he should succeed in regaining the throne, the heads of many thousand Christians more, meaning the Republicans who were still opposing him. To save one man, the Presbyterians would sacrifice the lives of thousands. This seems to be the leading thought in this obscure sentence.

  [6. 7. Another sort there is.]Milton now turns his attention to the weak-kneed conservatives of his own party. He is glancing at Gen. Fairfax, Ald. Pennington and others, who grew timid at the very last. The trial of the king was carried forward by such Independent army leaders as Cromwell, Harrison and Ireton, but the great bulk of the party shuddered at the task of bringing Charles to justice. On Dec. 23, 1648, the House passed a resolution appointing a committee to consider how to proceed in a way of justice against the king and other capital offenders. ‘Though the Resolution passed without a division, the reluctance of some who were present had appeared in the course of the debate. They argued that there was no precedent in History for the judicial trial of a King, and that if the Army were determined that Charles should be punished capitally, the business should be left to the Army itself as an exceptional and irregular power’ (Masson, Life of Milton 3. 699). Of the 135 Judicial Commissioners appointed by the House to try the King not half the number attended any of the meetings. Fairfax was present at the first sitting of the Commission but never went back. Many more withdrew before the trial was concluded. Milton is writing to encourage these half-hearted Independents, who swerve and shiver, to execute justice, even upon their King, ‘with just and faithful expedition.’

  [6. 13. Presidents.]Precedents. Buchanan also expresses his impatience with those who call for precedents. He denies that whatever is not ordained by some law, or evidenced by some illustrious record, should be instantly reckoned wicked and nefarious (George Buchanan, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, p. 176).

  [6. 19. To startle from.]An obsolete construction. The modern passive form would be not to be startled from.

  [6. 22. In the glorious way, etc.]For a more extended eulogy of the work of the Long Parliament see Apol. Smec. (Bohn 3. 149). Milton’s praise of the campaigns of Cromwell was amplified afterwards in his First Def. (Bohn 1. 143); see also Eikon (Bohn 3. 498 ff.), and Sec. Def. (Bohn 6. 317).

  [6. 28. Any new Apostate Scar-crowes.]A caustic reference to one of the most interesting figures of the age, the irrepressible pamphleteer, William Prynne (1600-1669). Milton calls him a scarecrow, for his ears had been mutilated twice because he had persisted in sending out pamphlets attacking prelacy. He was also branded on both cheeks with the letter S for schismatic. In later years, when he was a popular hero and sat in the House of Commons, he wore a cap to cover his disfigurement. Milton was not the first writer to charge Prynne with being an apostate. He was so called in a pamphlet entitled Prynne against Prynne, published as a reply to Prynne’s Brief Memento. Prynne replied to this charge on the very day of its publication Jan. 29, 1648, in a broadside: Prynne the Member, reconciled to Prynne, the Barrister. Hitherto the most outspoken critic of prelacy and royalty, Prynne had become the most active pamphleteer of the Presbyterian party. He declared that the General, and General Council of Officers of the Army, were ‘the greatest Apostates and Renegadoes from our publick trust and duties’ (See his Speech made in the House of Commons, Dec. 4, 1648, p. 6. London, 1649). In the same publication we have his apology for his later position. He recites the story of his sufferings and imprisonments and asserts that he has never received any reward from anyone for his services to the public, that he has never published any books to scandalise or defame the king, or to alienate the people’s affections from him. Yet he says, ‘I am clear of opinion that Kings are accountable for their Actions to their Parliaments and whole kingdoms.’ In case of absolute necessity he would even allow the deposition of a tyrant, ‘if there be no speciall oaths nor obligations to the contrary (which is our present case).’ Ibid. p. 29. He is here pleading for the observance of ‘the unnecessariest clause of the Covenant,’ the great argument of the Presbyterians, which Milton despises as a quibble.

  [6. 30. Their barking monitories and memento’s.]The reference is to A Briefe Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Junto, by William Prynne (London, 1649).
  
  For another attack of Milton upon Prynne, see To Rem. Hire (Bohn 3. 17).

  [6. 31. The spleene of a frustrated Faction.]This biting phrase hits off the situation exactly. The Presbyterian pamphlets of Prynne, Walker, and the London divines are full of spleen. It was a bitter disappointment to the party, which had hoped to see the Presbyterian system of intolerant church government established in England, to be outmanœuvred and crushed by the Independents in the House with the army at their back.

  [7. 1. Those Statutes and Scriptures . . . they wrest, etc.]This was a common practice among the controversialists of Milton’s day. All arguments were supported by appeals to law or to the Bible. But the freedom of private interpretation, established by the Protestant Reformation, gave rise to all kinds of differences over ambiguous texts. To ‘wrest’ a text against an opponent was a proof of literary skill. Milton himself was guilty of this art; he was an adept in citing Scripture for his purpose, as may be seen in this very pamphlet. See Introd.
  
  In Ref. in Eng. (Bohn 2. 404) he uses an analogous phrase: Wrenching and spraining the text.

  [7. 3. Their Friends and Associates.]The army and the Independents. For the moment Milton uses a milder tone. He reminds all critics of the parliament that the tyrant is after all the common foe. If the king is restored to power, he will revenge himself on both Presbyterians and Independants. Cf. 2. 19, 4. 17. He sounds this warning note repeatedly in this pamphlet, also in First Def. (Bohn 3. 194): ‘Wo be to you in the first place, if Charles’ posterity recover the crown of England; assure yourselves, you are like to be put in the black list.’

  [7. 7. The unmasculine Rhetorick of any puling Priest or Chaplain.]The reference is to letters on the king’s behalf addressed to General Fairfax by Dr. Henry Hammond and Dr. John Gauden.
  
  Henry Hammond, D. D. (1605-1660). Hammond was not only a great scholar and preacher, but a devoted royalist. He acted for some years as chaplain to Charles, and [ ] accompanied him from place to place during his imprisonment by parliament. He was much beloved by the king, who said he was the most natural orator he ever heard. He was a noted theologian and exegete. His most famous works were his Practical Catechism and his Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament. Owing to the fact that he was a personal friend of Fairfax, and of other officers of the army, he made a last effort to save his master by addressing to them a letter on behalf of Charles. Hammond was a man of great piety, learning, and benevolence, and was altogether undeserving of Milton’s sneer. Hammond’s letter was written Jan. 15, 1648, and its published title is as follows: To the Right Honourable, the Lord Fairfax, and his Councell of Warre, the Humble Addresse of Henry Hammond (London, 1649). The writer advises the army officers to test all motives by the true Spirit of God and the Scriptures, not by lying spirits; not to be too sure that God has borne testimony to the justice of their cause by the many victories He has given to them, for the Mahommedans were successful in war, and God often permits His people to suffer defeat. By shedding the king’s blood they will only fill up the measure of the nation’s iniquities and provoke the wrath of God. He concludes by saying that he will intercede daily at the throne of grace that God will mollify their hearts towards the king, or else interpose His hand to rescue his royal person out of their power.
  
  Milton entertained a very poor opinion of chaplains. Cf. To Rem. Hire (Bohn 3. 35) and Rem. Def. (Bohn 3. 47). For his animus against chaplains in general, and a special diatribe against Dr. Hammond as king’s chaplain, see Eikon (Bohn 1. 458 ff.).
  
  John Gauden, D. D., Bishop of Worcester (1605-1662), at first sympathized with the parliamentary cause, but began to have misgivings as the struggle progressed. Although he subscribed to the Covenant, he published in 1643, Certain Scruples and Doubts of Conscience about taking the Solemn League and Covenant. As time passed he grew still more reactionary, and finally at the Restoration was made chaplain to the king and appointed to the bishopric of Exeter, and later to that of Worcester. The celebrated book, which appeared the day after Charles’ execution, entitled Εἰϰὼν βασιλιϰὴ; the Pourtraiture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, has been attributed to Dr. Gauden on very strong grounds. This book, which went through forty-seven editions, called forth a reply from Milton, his Eikon. (1649).
  
  The letter here criticised by Milton bore the following title: The Religious and Loyal Protestation of John Gauden, Dr. in Divinity against the Declared Purposes and Proceedings of the Army and others; about the trying and destroying our Sovereign Lord the King (London, Jan. 5, 1648). In this letter Gauden warns Fairfax and the army officers against the perils of success and prosperous power. He calls the king their ‘Mistaken Parent.’ He appeals to the officers not to forget the common Errours to which all men are subject. ‘O stain not the Renown of your valour by so mercilesse an Act, as the destroying your King.’ In his final exhortation he speaks of the day, ‘When the world shall see your power bounded with Loyalty, sanctified with Pitty, not foolish and feminine, which I would have below you, but masculine, Heroick, truly Christian and Divine,’ etc. This letter is highly rhetorical and in the last period the author, with his talk of feminine and masculine, gave Milton his idea for ‘the unmasculine Rhetorick of any puling Priest or Chaplain.’

  [7. 15. Self-repugnance of our dancing Divines.]Repugnant to themselves, self-contradictory. In the contemptuous epithet Milton is probably insinuating that the Presbyterian ministers were under the influence of a nervous disease epidemic in the sixteenth century, known as the dancing malady. The meaning may be, however, that they danced to different kinds of music; yesterday they were against the king, today they support him.

  [7. 17. Gloss’d and fitted for thir turnes.]He reverts to the thought that his opponents wrest Scripture to their turnes or purposes. A gloss is a comment or explanation upon a word or passage in the text. Cf. Sam. Agon. 1. 948: ‘Bearing my words and doings to the lords, To gloss upon, and censuring frown or smile.’

  [7. 23. Classic and Provinciall Lords.]Under the Presbyterian form of church government in England there were instituted Classical, Provincial, and National Assemblies, corresponding to the three modern Presbyterian church courts, the Presbytery, the Synod, and the General Assembly. When the Westminster Assembly drew up a frame of Presbyterian church-government for England in May, 1645, they provided that the ecclesiastical provinces should be about sixty in number. The number of Classes or Presbyteries in London were to be fourteen. The meetings of the twelve London Presbyteries and the two Presbyteries of the Inns of Court were called Classical Meetings. In his stinging sonnet, On the Forcers of Conscience, Milton speaks of the Presbyterian divines as ‘a Classic Hierarchy.’ For a full description of the establishment of the Presbyterian system in England see W. A. Shaw, Hist. of the Eng. Church, 1640-1660, vol. 2, pp. 1-174. See also Masson, Life of Milton 3. 397, 424 and 469.

  [7. 24. While pluralities greas’d them thick and deepe.]Milton repeats this charge in Sec. Def. (Bohn 1. 268) with more detail. See also First Def. (Bohn 1. 26): ‘As soon as the bishops, and those clergymen whom they daily inveighed against, and branded with the odious names of pluralists and non-residents, were taken out of their way, they presently jump, some into two, some into three, of their best benefices; being now warm themselves, they soon unworthily neglected their charge.’ Cf. To Rem. Hire (Bohn 3. 31). For further discussion of this subject see Introd. p. 26 ff.

  [7. 33. Censorious domineering.]Not an untruthful description of the heat and dogmatism of divines on political measures. Matters before parliament were fully discussed in the pulpits.
  
  When the Independents secured a majority in the House of Commons they dealt a blow at their Presbyterian opponents by ordering on March 26, 1649, that no ministers should teach in their pulpits anything relating to state affairs, but only to preach Christ in sincerity. On July 9 of the same year, parliament declared all ministers delinquents, if they preached or prayed against the government, publicly mentioned Charles or James Stuart, or refused to keep days of public humiliation, or to publish acts and orders of parliament. See Gardiner, Hist. of C. W. and Protectorate 1. 191.

  [7. 34. Truth and conscience to be freed.]Presbyterianism was intolerant of other sects, but the Independents granted liberty of conscience to all except atheists and Papists. Even Richard Baxter, the saintliest of all Presbyterians of his time, would have enslaved truth and conscience. In his sketch of the ideal commonwealth he lays down the principle that none are to be electors, but those who have publicly owned the Baptismal Covenant, in other words those who are Presbyterian church members in good standing. Those who despise public worship are to be deprived of the right to vote, and ministers of the church are to be able to disfranchise members by excommunicating them (See Baxter, A Holy Commonwealth, or Political Aphorisms opening the True Principles of Government, p. 247). Toleration was denounced by the Presbyterian synod at Sion College in 1645 as ‘a root of gall and bitterness both in present and future ages.’ The same decision was reached by the ministers of Lancashire, a section where Presbyterianism was particularly strong. They declared that toleration was the taking away of all conscience, the appointing of a city of refuge in men’s consciences for the devil to fly to. Neale, Hist. of Puritans 2. 382.
  
  The sprightly Edwards has no hesitation in affirming that ‘A toleration is the grand design of the devil.’ He declares that more books have been written and sermons preached on toleration during the last four years (1642-1646) than on any other subject (Gangræna, 1. 3. 121, 122).
  
  For a previous utterance of Milton in behalf of liberty of conscience see Areop. (Bohn 2. 92): ‘Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding, which God hath stirred up in this city.’ See also his sonnet to Cromwell,

  • New foes arise
  • Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains
  • Help us to save free conscience from the paw
  • Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

  Cf. also his vigorous handling of the intolerants in the poem on The New Forcers of Conscience with its famous closing line,
  
  New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.

  [7. 34. Tithes and Pluralities to be no more.]In his anticipation of the Liberal legislative programme Milton prophesies that the tithing system will be abolished.
  
  The actual origin of the payment of tithes is unknown. They were probably paid to the medieval monasteries as oblations. The first legislative action on the subject was taken in the reign of Edward I who ordered that a tenth of the value of the crops should be paid to support the church. Landowners alone were subject to this tax. The law could be enforced by distress and by sale, or by order of a Justice of the Peace. See F. A. Inderwick, The Interregnum, John Selden, Hist. of Tythes, pp. 47-53, also W. Bohun, The Law of Tithes, passim.
  
  As Milton indicates, the Independent party in parliament had an idea of abolishing tithes and providing some competent maintenance for a preaching ministry. Several attempts were made in this direction, but the Commonwealth was really too poor to establish any satisfactory new method. The Presbyterian ministers were naturally averse to any prohibitory legislation regarding tithes, for they had followed their prelatical predecessors in upholding their right to this ancient source of revenue. ‘The Presbyterians preach for their god, viz. the tenth of every man’s estates, and for forms,’ says Whitelocke, Memorials 2. 488. Cf. W. A. Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church 2. 255 ff.
  
  Milton denounces tithes in To Rem. Hire., passim.

  [7. 34. Pluralities.]As early as 1642 the House of Commons recommended five bills to the king as the ground of a treaty. One of these was ‘An act against the enjoying pluralities of benefices by spiritual persons, and nonresidence.’ But the king refused to come to terms and the bill was therefore not passed. On Nov. 8, 1647, a proposition against pluralities was agreed to by both Houses of Parliament (Neale, Hist. of the Puritans 2. 53. Pluralities were never legislated out of existence, however.

  [7. 35. Competent Allowance.]Cf. Sec. Def. (Bohn 1. 275).

  [Warme Experience of large gifts.]When ministers preached before parliament, or sat on commissions, they were liberally paid. In March, 1650, an order was passed to send over six able ministers to preach in Dublin. They were to have £200 per annum apiece out of bishops’ and deans’ and chapters’ lands in Ireland.

  [8. 3. To exclude and seize on impeach’t Members.]On June 14, 1647, the Army sent forth a remonstrance in which they impeached eleven Presbyterian leaders of the Commons, Holles, Stapleton, Waller, Glynn, Massey, etc. and demanded their exclusion from parliament. When the army marched against London nine fled to the continent. Glynn and Maynard, who remained behind, were impeached and sent to the Tower, Sept. 7, 1647.

  [8. 4. Delinquents.]Milton has the king in mind as the chief delinquent. The preamble to an ordinance passed by parliament, April 1, 1643, sets forth ‘that it is most agreeable to common justice that the estates of such notorious delinquents as have been the causes or instruments of the public calamities, should be converted and applied towards the support of the Commonwealth.’ On August 19, 1643, this ordinance was further explained, as including in the number of delinquents such as absented from their usual places of abode or betook themselves to the king’s forces, and such as concealed effects, evaded taxes or disobeyed parliament’s orders in various ways. See Neale, Hist. of the Puritans 1. 453.

  [8. 6. Corah, Dathan and Abiram.]Korah conspired with Dathan and Abiram against Moses and Aaron. See Num. 16. Milton refers to the language of the Sion tract (see below 53. 14): ‘You know the sad examples of Corah, Dathan and Abiram in their mutinuous Rebellion, and Levelling designe against Magistracy and Ministry, in the persons of Moses and Aaron’ (A Serious and Faithful Representation of the Judgment of the Ministers of the Gospel within the Province of London, signed by forty-seven ministers at Sion College, including Case, Gataker, Gower, Roborough, and Wallis, of the Westminster Assembly, and addressed to Fairfax and the Council of War, Jan. 18, 1649, p. 10).

  [8. 7. A cursed Tyrant, etc.]On the preaching of seditious sermons by the ministers of the time, and by Stephen Marshall in particular, see Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, 6. 39 ff., also Robt. Barclay, The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, p. 186. Stephen Marshall preached before Commons, Feb. 23, 1641: ‘He is a cursed man that withholds his hands from shedding of blood, or that shall do it fraudulently, i. e., kill some and save some. If he go not through with the work, he is a cursed man, when this is to be done on Moab, the enemy of God’s church.’ Another divine, named Case, preaching to the Commons on Jer. 48. 10, said: ‘Cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood, that spares when God saith strike, that suffers those to escape whom God hath appointed to destruction’; to the Commons on Nov. 5, 1644, he said: ‘Do justice to the greatest. Saul’s sons are not to be spared; no, nor may Agag, nor Benhadad, tho’ themselves kings: Timri and Cosbi, though princes of the people, must be pursued unto their tents. This is the way to consecrate yourselves to God.’ A Royalist writer says, ‘The pulpit sounded as much as the drum, and the preacher spit as much flame as the cannon. Curse ye Meroz, was the text, and blood and plunder, the comment and the use’ (A Loyal Tear, a Sermon on Sin, p. 30).
  
  Price declares that the London ministers have changed front towards Charles, ‘whom your selves and the Church of Scotland have charged for the greatest Delinquent, guilty of the blood of hundreds of thousands of Protestants, the bloudiest man under heaven’ (Clerico-Classicum, p. 23).
  
  Whitelocke tells the story of a Scotch minister, who preached boldly before the king at Newcastle, and after his sermon called for the 52nd Psalm, which begins, ‘Why dost thou, tyrant, boast thyself thy wicked works to praise?’ (Memor. 2. 94).
  
  The king himself denounced the Presbyterian ministers as being ignorant in learning, turbulent and seditious in disposition, scandalous in life, unconformable to the laws of the land, libellers both of church and state, and preachers of sedition and treason itself. See Neale, Hist. of Puritans 2. 426.

  [8. 10. Though nothing penitent or alter’d.]To the last Charles refused to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant. Through all his negotiations with the Scots and with the English House of Commons, he continually spoke of the royal prerogative and endeavored to make a proviso for the partial establishment of episcopacy. The king was too firm a believer in divine right to be penitent for his past conduct, and too stubborn to relinquish his first principles. Cf. Eikon (Bohn 1. 474): ‘His impenitence and obstinacy to the end.’

  [8. 11. A lawfull Magistrate, a Sovrane Lord, the LordsAnnointed.]Milton is here scornfully repeating the epithets of the Sion tract. See A Serious and Faithful Rep., etc., pp. 12, 13.

  [8. 12. Not to be touch’d, though by themselves imprison’d.]This argument is resumed later, and pushed to its logical conclusion. See pp. 32 ff.

  [8. 22. His particular charge.]The charge which will be brought against Charles by parliament.

  [8. 25. The people, though in number lesse by many.]An obscure statement. The majority of the representatives in parliament must be reckoned for the whole people. Robt. Filmer so understands this sentence. See his Observations concerning the Original of Government, p. 19.

  [8. 29. If such a one there be.]For another arraignment of the king see First Def. (Bohn 1. 59). A committee of the House of Commons drew up a declaration against the king ‘wherein they objected many high crimes against him concerning his Father’s death, the loss of Rochel and the Massacre and Rebellion in Ireland.’ Walker, Hist. of Indep., p. 73. See also The Act for, Trial of the King, Walker, ib. p. 57.

  [8. 30. Whole massachers have been committed, etc.]The Irish insurrection and massacres of Protestants took place in 1641. When the news reached England the nation was horrified. The wildest stories were soon retailed in pamphlet form regarding the awful sufferings of the Protestants. The lowest calculation of contemporary writers gives an estimate of 30,000 English and Scotch Protestants as victims. Gardiner is of opinion, however, that those slain in cold blood at the beginning of the rebellion could hardly have exceeded four or five thousand, whilst about twice that number may have perished from ill-treatment (Hist. of Engl. (1603-1642), 10. 69). In his Eikon. (Bohn 1. 407 ff.), where Milton devotes a whole chapter to the subject, he puts the number of slain at 154,000 in the province of Ulster alone, and estimates the total sum as four times as great. In Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 183) he places the figure at more that 200,000. In First Def. (Bohn 1. 201) he calls Charles a murderer, by whose order the Irish took arms, and put to death with most exquisite torments above a hundred thousand Englishmen. In his Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 180) his estimate is much more moderate. He blames the king for using with tenderness and moderation those bloody rebels after the merciless and barbarous massacre of so many thousand English.
  
  However uncertain he may be as to the number of the slain, Milton is positive that the king was responsible for the Irish horror. Parliament was of the same opinion. In a declaration of parliament issued Feb. 15, 1647, the king was charged with complicity in the Irish massacre, and that he had an agent in Rome to attend to it, for it was to be managed by direction from the Pope.
  
  Referring to the massacre Baxter says: ‘Because of it all England was filled with a fear both of the Irish and Papists at home, and when they saw the English Papists join with the King against the Parliament, it was the greatest thing that ever alienated them from the King’ (Life, Pt. 1, p. 29).
  
  For an examination of the evidence incriminating the king, see Masson, Life 2. 303 ff.; Symmons, Life of Milton, pp. 256 ff.

  [8. 31. His Provinces offer’d to pawne or alienation.]In First Def. (Bohn 1. 201) Milton says that Charles sent a private embassy to the King of Denmark to beg assistance from him of arms, horses, and men, expressly against the parliament. ‘To the English he promised the plunder of London; to the Scots, that the four northern counties should be added to Scotland, if they would but help him to get rid of the Parliament, by what means soever. This aid was coming, when Divine Providence, to divert them, sent a sudden torrent of Swedes into the bowels of Denmark.’ See Eikon. (Bohn 1. 390). Again we read that the king’s letters taken at the battle of Naseby ‘revealed his endeavours to bring in foreign forces, Irish, French, Dutch, Lorraines and our old invaders the Danes upon us’ (ib. 1. 453). So much for Milton’s testimony. Gardiner states that Charles appealed for aid from the Pope, from the Duke of Lorraine, begging him to lead an army into England, and from the German princes. In order to obtain the services of Count Waldemar and his army of mercenaries, he tried to obtain a loan of £50,000 from Amsterdam merchants, pledging the Scilly Islands as security for the repayment of the moncy (Hist. of the Civil War and Protectorate 1. 223). The King and Queen Henrietta Maria hoped to obtain aid from the King of Denmark. On April 11, 1642, the Queen wrote to Christian IV, and it was suspected by parliament that a bribe was offered. Agents of the king were also sent to Denmark, but what proposition was made is unknown. At any rate, it was unsuccessful. See Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. 10. 188.

  [8. 31. Alienation.]Barclay, one of the extreme advocates of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, admits that if a king alienates the kingdom, or brings it into subjection to another, he forfeits it (De Regno et Regum Potestate adversus Monarchomachos 4. 16). In Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 182), Milton accuses Charles of alienating and acquitting the whole province of Ireland from all true fealty and obedience to the Commonwealth of England. Parliament declared that Charles was guilty in that he had given away more than five counties to the Irish rebels, ‘that Irish Popish army raised by Earl of Strafford to reduce the kingdomes.’ (Declaration of Parliament, in Civil War Tracts, Yale University Library, Vol. 21).

  [9. 34. The Sword of Justice is above him.]Did Milton find a pattern for this phrase in Christopher Goodman’s book, How Imperial Powers ought to be Obeyd, etc. p. 184: ‘Be he Kinge, Quene or Emperour he must dye the death’? See below, 60. 21. Cf. the eloquent apostrophe to Justice in Eikon. (Bohn 1. 484): ‘She it is, who accepts no person, and exempts none from the severity of her stroke.’

  [9. 2. So great a deluge of innocent blood.]Milton and his party blamed Charles Stuart ‘that man of blood,’ for all the effusion of blood in the Civil War. In Eikon. (Bohn 1. 388 ff.) Milton gives a stern reply to the question asked by the author of Eikon Basilike, ‘Whose innocent blood he hath shed, what widows’ or orphans’ tears can witness against him?’ See also 5. 28.

  [8. 12. For if all humane power to execute, etc.]Is this a comment on Calvin’s teaching? He advises passive obedience in the presence of the most cruel tyranny, but holds out a hope that God will execute his wrath upon the offending king. ‘For sometimes he raises up some of his servants as public avengers, and arms them with his commission to punish unrighteous domination,’ etc. (Institutes 4. 20. 30). See also Rom. 13. 4.

  [9. 6. Or if that faile, extraordinary.]Prynne and others were questioning the ordinary power of parliament to put the king to death. In this phrase Milton boldly declares that he would go outside the bounds of precedent or statutory law to punish a tyrant.

  [9. 8. But to unfold more at large this whole Question.]The introduction is now complete. In this sentence he announces his theme.

  [9. 16. Not learnt in corners among Schismes and Herisies.]An attempt to anticipate unfavorable criticism. By his divorce pamphlets Milton had earned the reputation of a heretic. The interjection of this clause shows his sensitiveness to the attacks made upon him. Although a freethinker, he scarcely enjoyed being called a schismatic or a heretic.

  [9. 19. Authentic.]Gr. αὐϑεντιϰός, warranted. Cf. Eikon. (Bohn. 1. 485): ‘For it were extreme partiality and injustice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself, to put her own authentic sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked man,’ etc.

  [9. 19. No prohibited authors.]An allusion to the Church Fathers, against whose authority Protestant theologians rebelled. Milton himself had little respect for the Fathers. In a former treatise, Prel. Epis., he had expresses his contempt in these words: ‘They cannot think any doubt resolved, and any Doctrine confirmed, unless they run to that indigested heap and fry of authors which they call antiquity. Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand of blind chance hath drawn down from of old to this present, in her huge drag-net, whether fish, or seaweed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, those are the fathers’ (Bohn 2. 422). Cf. To Rem. Hire. (Bohn 3. 38): ‘The obscure and tangled word of antiquity, fathers and council fighting one against another.’

  [9. 20. Orthodoxal.]This form is used in Eikon. (Bohn. 1. 385), and Prel. Epis. (Bohn 2. 428). Milton also used the word paradoxal in To Rem. Hire. (Bohn 3. 3).

  [9. 24. All men naturally were borne free.]This favorite modern contention first found formal expression in the work of the Roman jurists who instituted the Justinian Code. Ulpian, the greatest of these lawyers, declared in treating of slavery that so far as pertains to natural rights, all men are equal (Digest 50. 17. 32); also by natural law all men are born free (Institutes of Justinian 1. 2. 2); the application of these principles to politics proper, however, dates back to the treatise of Nicholas of Cues, De Concordantia Catholica, the views of which he presented to the Council of Basel in 1565. Almost the exact phrases used by Milton are to be found in this influential and learned work. See Dunning, Pol. Theories Ancient and Mediæval, p. 273. This idea, thus stated by the jurists and by Nicholas of Cues, was given new life by the author of the famous treatise, Vindiciæ Contra Tyrannos. The author of this revolutionary tract says: ‘Men are by nature free, impatient of servitude, prone to rule rather than to obey. It can only be for some great benefit that they renounce the law of their own nature to bear that of another. The inducement was the necessity of security, when the distinction between meum and tuum was introduced, when fellow-citizens began to quarrel for property, and neighboring nations for territory; then the people had recourse to a ruler to protect the weaker from the stronger, the nation from its neighbors’ (Digest by H. Armstrong, Eng. Hist. Rev. 4. 31).
  
  Even the earlier supporters of despotic principles, Barclay and Blackwood, for instance, accepted as a truism the theory that all men were naturally born free, so that Milton feels quite safe in saying that every educated man will agree with him on this point. This theory was to be contested, however, by Filmer in his Patriarcha in the very year this pamphlet was published, and later writers, such as Heylin, Mainwaring, and Hobbes, were to set it at naught. But the pleasing assumption could not be argued out of existence, and, a century afterwards it found its way into the Declaration of Independence, and later still provided a favorite text for the orators of the French Revolution.
  
  In Eikon. (Bohn 1. 455) Milton roundly declares: ‘Men are by naiure free; born and created with a better title to their freedom than any king hath to his crown.’ See also Ready and Easy Way (Bohn 2. 138).

  [9. 25. The image and resemblance of God.]See Gen. 1. 26.

  [9. 26. By privilege above all the creatures.]See Gen. 1. 26, 28.

  [9. 28. The Root of Adam’s transgression.]See the story of the fall and its consequences, Gen. 3 and 4. Milton has in mind theological refinements on the simple story of Genesis, especially the doctrine of imputed sin. See his elaboration of this theme in P. L., Book 10. Augustine, rather than Paul, emphasized the doctrine of imputed guilt, and paved the way for the endless disquisitions of Calvinists on original sin. Augustine and Gregory the Great were the first Christian teachers to advance the argument that human government was introduced among men on account of Adam’s transgression. This view was held by the church until the time of Wycliffe. Thomas Aquinas was probably the first teacher to depart from this belief.
  
  In a pamphlet published anonymously in London in 1644 (Jus Populi, pp. 42, 43) we come upon a passage which seems almost a paraphrase of Milton’s thought: ‘The nature of Man being depraved by the fall of Adam, miseries of all sorts broke in upon us in throngs, together with sin; insomuch that no creature is now so uncivile and untame, or so unfit either to live with or without societie, as Man.’ Todd, in his Life of Milton, pp. 225, 226 (London, 1826), notes this pamphlet, and discusses whether Milton could have written it.

  [9. 12. They agreed by common league.]This is the political theory made popular in later days by Rousseau and called by him the Contrat Social. For the source of this interesting idea we must go back to the writings of the stoics. Lord Acton, in his essay entitled History of Freedom, p. 18, says: ‘The notion that men lived originally in a state of nature, by violence and without laws, is due to Critias. Communism in its grossest form was recommended by Diogenes of Sinope. According to the Sophists there is no duty above expediency, and no virtue apart from pleasure. Epicurus said that all societies are founded on contract, for mutual protection.’
  
  Among the French pamphleteers of the latter half of the sixteenth century, the social contract theory was very popular. It was such a stock idea that it is impossible to ascribe it to any one individual. It is deliberately made the foundation-principle upon which the Vindiciæ Contra Tyrannos rests.
  
  Milton’s idea of contract is that power is only temporarily surrendered, and may be recalled when abused. Suarez and other French theorists held that subjects by compact surrendered their rights once for all, and can never legally recover them. Thus they justified absolutism. Hobbes also adopted this idea: ‘They that are subjects to a monarch, cannot without his leave cast off monarchy, and return to the confusion of a disunited multitude’ (Leviathan, ed Morley, p. 85). It can be seen, therefore, that the ingenuity of the upholders of divine right tried to make even this democratic doctrine serve their own purposes.
  
  For an exposure of the unhistorical character of this theory, see J. Bluntschli, The Theory of the State, pp. 276 ff.

  [10. 9. His owne partial Judge.]Unduly favoring his own side in the controversy.

  [Communicated and deriv’d.]He embodies in this phrase the idea of give and take. He insists upon the notion of a voluntary league or contract, and the derivative power of kings and magistrates. Thus the doctrine of the original contract and that of jure divino are placed in opposition.

  [10. 10. For the eminence of his wisdom and integritie.]Cf. Buchanan, De Jure, p. 99: ‘Now I imagine that the intention of the ancients in creating a king was, according to what we are told of bees in their hives, spontaneously to bestow the sovereignty on him who was most distinguished among his countrymen for singular merit, and who seemed to surpass all his fellows in wisdom and equity.’ Although Milton probably transcribed this view from Buchanan, he may have imbibed it from ancient writers, for Aristotle (Politics, Book 3) and others, following Herodotus, express the same thought. Among ancient writers Polybius (Book 6, Ch. 1) held that the earliest form of government was monarchy based on force. The early men submitted, like animals, to the guidance of the strongest and boldest. See Dunning, Pol. Theories, p. 115.

  [10. 13. Magistrates.]Bodin lays down this definition: ‘A magistrate is a publick officer, which hath power to command in a Commonweale’ (De Republica, p. 293).

  [10. 13. Not to be thir Lords and Maisters.]See Aristotle (Politics 3. 17. 2): ‘It is manifest that, where men are alike and equal, it is neither expedient nor just that one man should be lord of all, whether there are laws, or whether there are no laws, but he himself is in the place of law.’ Cf. First Def. (Bohn 1. 66).

  [10. 26. Arbitrement.]The right or capicity to decide for oneself. Here, free choice. A word rarely used in Milton’s day. Used more frequently since 1830. See P. L. 8. 641:

  • To stand or fall
  • Free in thine own Arbitrament it lies.

  [10. 31. Invent Lawes.]In this fanciful sketch Milton follows Buchanan in this argument: ‘For when kings observed no laws but their capricious passions, and finding their power uncircumscribed and immoderate, set no bounds to their lusts, and were swayed mueh by favor, much by hatred, and much by private interest; their domineering insolence excited an universal desire for laws. On this account statutes were enacted by the people, and kings were in their judicial decisions obliged to adopt not what their own licentious fancies dictated but what the laws sanctioned by the people ordained’ (De Jure p. 105).
  
  Two theories were then prevalent as to the origin of law. Francis Hotman, in his Franco-Gallia, declares that law is the result of the gradual growth of custom. The author of Vindiciæ Contra Tyrannos adopted the theory, which Milton upholds. See also Hooker, Eccles. Polity 1. 10.

  [10 (note). While as the magistrate, etc.]This sentence is quoted from Cicero, De Legibus 3. 1: ‘Ut enim magistratibus leges: ita populo praesunt magistratus: vereque dici potest, magistratum legem esse loquentem, legem autem, mutum magistratum.’
  
  Aristotle was probably father of the saying. See Politics 4. 15. 4. In his turn Buchanan wrote: ‘You see, then, that the magistrate derives his authority from the law, and not the law from the magistrate’ (p. 193). A somewhat similar maxim is that of Étienne Pasquier in his reply to Macchiavelli’s Prince: ‘Les rois sont faits pour les peuples, et non les peuples pour les rois’ (Henry Baudrillart, J. Bodin et Son Temps, p. 77).
  
  In the First Def. (Bohn 1. 70) Milton gives a whole page to the amplification of the thought which is here dismissed in a line. He quotes Pindar, Orpheus, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero to support the contention that the laws ought to govern the magistrates, as they do the people. His conclusion is that the institution of magistracy is jure divino, and the end of it is, that mankind might live under certain laws and be governed by them. See also Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 183).

  [11. 7. Instalment.]Installation.

  [11. 8. Upon these termes and no other.]Milton has the ancient practices of the French nation in mind. In the First Def. (Bohn 1. 107 ff.) he says: ‘For not only Hottoman [Francis Hotman, author of Franco-Gallia], but Guiccard, a very eminent historian of that nation, informs us that the ancient records of the kingdom of France testify that the subjects of that nation, upon the first institution of kingship amongst them, reserved a power to themselves, both of choosing their princes and of deposing them again, if they thought fit; and that the oath of allegiance, which they took, was upon this express condition: to wit, that the king should likewise perform what at his coronation he swore to do. So that if kings, by misgoverning the people committed to their charge, first broke their own oath to their subjects, there needs no pope to dispense with the people’s oaths; the kings themselves by their own perfidiousness, having absolved their subjects.’

  [11. 9. Bond or Covnant.]Covenant is the Biblical synonym for bond, or any solemn agreement. In ancient times a covenant was accompanied by a religious rite. Among the Hebrews the most important covenant was between the people and the Deity. The primitive form of the rite consisted in cutting sacrificial victims in pieces, between which the contracting parties passed. See Gen. 15. 17; Jer. 34. 18, 19. There are many instances of covenants in the Old Testament between God and man, and between man and man. The most celebrated instance of a covenant in modern history is that of the league of the Scots against the introduction of prelacy. See Introduction.

  [11. 9. Those Lawes which they the people had themselves made, or assented to.]Cf. Buchanan: ‘Our kings at their public inauguration solemnly promise to the whole people to observe the statutes, customs, and institutions of our ancestors, and to adhere strictly to that system of jurisprudence handed down by antiquity. This fact is proved by the whole tenour of the ceremonies at their coronation, and by their first arrival in our cities. From all these circumstances it may be easily conceived what sort of power they received from our ancestors, and that it was clearly such as magistrates, elected by suffrage, are bound by oath not to exceed’ (De Jure, p. 158).

  [11. 13. Counselors and Parlaments.]Hotman speaks of ‘the Common Councel of the chosen men in the whole nation’ (Franco-Gallia, p. 69).

  [11. 13. Not to be onely at his beck.]The king calls parliament to meet. The Royalists contended that the later sessions of the Long Parliament were illegal, because it assembled without the king’s consent. Milton argues that, whether with the king or without him, the parliament can meet to devise ways and means to care for the public safety. He resents the imputation of monarchical writers that the parliament is the mere creature of the king.

  [11. 18. Claudius Sesell.]Claude de Seyssel (1450—1520). For fifty years Seyssel was professor of law in the University of Turin. He was also bishop of Laon, later of Marseilles, and archbishop of Turin in 1517. He was also one of the most noted diplomats of his time, serving on various missions for Henry VII and Louis XII. Seyssel was a voluminous author. He translated classical authors and produced many theological works, but is remembered chiefly for his historical writings, the most important of which was La Grand’ Monarchie de France (1519, in Latin 1548). He glorifies the régime of Louis XII, absolute in principle but moderate in practice.
  
  Milton studied Seyssel’s masterpiece very carefully. He was attracted to its pages because the Turin diplomatist laid great stress upon the power of the states-general, and emphasized the limitations of kingly prerogative. Milton stored up in the pages of his Commonplace Book choice passages from La Grand’ Monarchie de France. The entry in the Commonplace Book (p. 33) is as follows: ‘Rex Galliæ parlamenti sui perpetui decretis parare necesse habet, ut scribit Claudius Sesellius, quod ille frænum regis vocat; de repub. Gallor. l. 1: ad quaestores etiam publicos rationes expensarum regiarum referuntur: quas illi potestatem minuendi habent, si immoderatas vel inutiles esse cognoverint; ibid.’ Seyssel, however, copied this saying from Plato. Hotman quotes Plato’s words in Franco-Gallia, p. 69.
  
  This comparison is repeated in First Def. (Bohn 1. 164), and in Notes on Dr. Griffith’s Sermon (Bohn 2. 361): ‘Parliaments, which by the law of this land are his bridle; in vain his bridle, if not also his rider.’ For the general thought, the supremacy of parliament to the king, see Eikon. (Bohn 1. 360, 364).

  [11. 28. German.]Bodin, De Republica, pp. 221, 236, supports this appeal to the history of Germany. He states that the sovereignty of the German empire lay in the hands of ‘three or foure hundred men,’ electors, princes, and ambassadors deputed for the imperial cities.

  [11. 28. French.]See the section entitled Rex Anglicae, etc. in the Commonplace Book, p. 32: ‘Scotland was at first an elective kingdom for a long time: vide Hist. Scot. France an elective kingdom either to choose or to depose. Bernard de Gerard, Hist. France: faut noter che (sic) jusques a Hues Capet, tous les rois de France ont este eleuz par le Francois qui se reserverent ceste puissance d’elire e bannir e chasser leur rois.—By parliament of three estates, first then found out, Charles Martel was chosen Prince of the French. Bern. de Gerard, l. 2, p. 109, and Pepin King, l. 3, p. 134. Afterward Charles the Simple, though of the race of Charles the Great, depos’d and Robert crown’d in his stead by the French.’

  [Arragonian.]Aragon, one of the chief divisions of Spain, formerly an independent kingdom. See Commonplace Book, p. 27.: ‘I re Aragonesi non hanno assoluta l’autorita regia in tutte le cose. Guicciardin. l. 6, Hist. p. 347.’
  
  The favorite formula of the pamphleteers was borrowed, not from England, but from Spain. In the words of the coronation oath administered to Aragonian kings, the people were guaranteed as many rights and more power than the monarch. It was as follows: ‘Nos que valemos tanto come vos, os hazemos nuestro rey y senor con tal que nos guardeis nuestros fueros y libertades: y sino, no.’ See Du Hamel, Hist. Constitutionelle de la Monarchie Espagnole 1. 215. Hotman also describes the election, and gives the coronation oath in full (Franco-Gallia, p. 71).

  [12. 3. William the Norman (1066-1087).]In his Hist. of the Norman Conquest (4. 802 ff.), Freeman makes no mention of the second oath-taking at St. Albans. Either Milton’s memory or authority was at fault. The statement is repeated, however, in First Def. (Bohn 1. 163): ‘When he broke his word, and the English betook themselves again to their arms, being diffident of his strength, he renewed his oath upon the Holy Evangelists to observe the ancient laws of England.’

  [17. 7. Power of kings, etc.]No utterance in this pamphlet is more modern in tone than this sentence. Milton maintains that the people is sovereign by a fundamental and unalterable law. He approaches modern utilitarian theories of government, but confuses natural and positive law. All talk of natural right is contradictory to artificial law. Milton and all political theorists of his day were at one in counseling obedience to the law of the state. The source of law, whether in king or people, was the point at issue. See J. N. Figgis, Divine Right of Kings, p. 241.

  [12. 10. In whom the power, etc.]See a curious argument to the contrary in Walker, Hist. of Indep., 2. 22, note.

  [12. 13. Aristotle.]He is a tyrant who regards his own welfare and profit only, and not that of the people (Ethics, Book 10). The definition of the good king is to be derived from this. Cf. Aristotle’s definition of tyranny: ‘Tyranny is just that arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or betters, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will’ (Politics 4. 10. 4).

  [12. 17. Sovran Lord, naturall Lord.]Kings and nobles.

  [12. 18. Arrogancies, or flatteries.]These titles are either assumed because of pride, or bestowed by courtesy.

  [12. 21. Tertullian.]Date of birth and death unknown. It is conjectured that he was born between A, D. 150 and 160, and that he died between 220 and 240. He was born at Carthage. He was the first of the great Latin Fathers, and chief among them in vigor of style and acuteness of mind. He was the first to create a technical Christian Latinity, and is known almost entirely through his writings.
  
  In the First Def. (Bohn 1. 80), the teaching of Tertullian here referred to is quoted in full.

  [12. 24. Against the advice, etc.]See 1 Sam. 8.

  [12. 25. Wise authors.]In First Def. (Bohn 1. 32) we have it on the authority of Aristotle and Cicero ‘that the people of Asia easily submit to slavery, but the Syrians and the Jews are even born to it from the womb.’
  
  Milton probably first m