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which pressed upon his own title, he admitted all others to unlimited discussion; and while the most equal justice was distributed, under his auspices, through all the ranks of the community, his vigorous arm controlled Europe, and seated Britain, as her queen, upon the throne. His generous policy, that protected the reformed churches against their catholic oppressors, one exertion of which, for the Protestants of Piedmont, has already been mentioned, was alone sufficient to soften the hostility, if it could not entirely engage the affection of Milton.

On the death of Oliver the usurper was no more, but the usurpation survived; and for the vigour and liberality, which he had been accustomed to respect, Milton saw nothing but the weakness and the selfishness of faction, trampling upon the rights and the patience of the nation, and precipitating itself, with the cause which it professed to support, into irretrieveable ruin.

He was not, however, wanting to the community at this crisis of confusion and alarm. Apprehensive of returning intolerance from the increasing influence of the Presbyterians, he published two treatises, one called, “A Treatise of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes;" and the other, "Considerations

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touching the likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church." In the first of these works, which he addressed to the Parliament convened by Richard Cromwell, he asserts the entire liberty of conscience, and, with arguments drawn from the sacred writings, he demonstrates that in matters merely of religion the interference of the magistrate is unlawful: in the second, which he inscribed to the Long Parliament on its revival by the army, he allows the propriety of a maintenance for the christian minister, but, arguing against the divine right as well as the political expediency of tithes, he is of opinion that the pastor ought to be supported by the contributions of his own immediate flock. To the politician who contemplates in this country the advantages of a church establishment, and sees it in union with the -most perfect toleration, or to the philosopher who discovers, in the weakness of human nature, the necessity of present motives to awaken exertion and to stimulate attention, the plan recommended by our author would appear to be visionary or pernicious; and we should not hesitate to condemn it, if its practicability and its inoffensive consequence were not incontrovertibly established by the testimony of America. From Hud

son's Bay, with the small interruption of Canada, to the Mississippi, this immense continent beholds the religion of Jesus, unconnected with the patronage of government, subsisting in independent yet friendly communities, breathing that universal charity which constitutes its vital spirit, and offering, with its distinct yet blending tones, one grand combination of harmony to the ear of its Heavenly Father.

Milton, as a political writer, had now been so long withdrawn from the public observation; and had so long been reposing under the shade of the Protectoral government, that his republican admirers began to suspect him of alienation from their cause, and of hesitation in the race on which he had entered with so much spirit and effect. Their opinion of his consistency was restored, however, by the publications of which we have been speaking; and they now acknowledged him to be still the Milton of former times. In a letter, addressed to him, on the subject of the first of these treatises, by a Mr. Wall of Causham, dated may 29, 1659, that gentleman says, "I I confess I have even in my privacy in the country oft had thoughts of you, and that with much respect for your friendship to truth in your early years and in bad

times. But I was uncertain whether your relation to the Court, (though I think that a commonwealth was more friendly to you than a court) had not clouded your former light: but your last book resolved that doubt."

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As the disorders and the disgraces of the year increased, while the earnest protestations of Monk and the existence of a Parliament, in which the royalists formed an inconsiderable party, still supported the hopes of the republicans against the visible and strong current of the national opinion in favour of monarchy, the solicitous apprehension of Milton for the general result, and his indignation at the outrages of the army are discovered in a letter to a friend, dated october 20th, 1659; which, with another paper, addressed, as it is believed, to Monk, and entitled, "The present Means and brief Delineation of a free Commonwealth," was first published by Toland, and is well worthy of the reader's attention.

After an interval of a few months, he inscribed to Monk, who now seemed to com

Transcribed from the original by Mr. Owen of Rochdale in Lancashire. Birch's Life of Milton, p. xlii. The whole letter is inserted in P. W. vol. ii. 388, and the reader will find it to be deserving of his notice.

mand the issue of things, "The ready and easy Way to establish a free Commonwealth;" a piece intended rather to expose the evils necessarily consequent to the nation's relapse into its old vassalage under kings, and to demonstrate the preference of a republican to a monarchical government, than to propose any just model of a popular constitution. In this work, as well as in his " Brief Delineation," he shows himself to be fearful of an unqualified appeal to the people; and deems them incapable of determining with wisdom for their own interests. "Another way," as

he says, "will be to qualify and refine elections; not committing all to the noise and shouting of a rude multitude; but permitting only those of them who are rightly qualified to nominate as many as they will, and out of that number others of better breeding to choose a less number more judiciously, till, after a third or fourth sifting and refining of exactest choice, they only be left chosen, who are the due number, and seem, by most voices, the worthiest." With the strong prepossession of a party-zealot, he deserts his general principle for the attainment of his particular object; and thinks that his own opinions

P. W. v. iii. 416.

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