love of holy reformation, what can be said more against these importunate clients of antiquity, than she herself, their patroness, hath said?" He exposes the drift of those who call for antiquity:-" they fear the plain field of the Scriptures; the chase is too hot; they seek the dark, the bushy, the tangled forest; they would imbosk: they feel themselves strook in the transparent streams of divine truth; they would plunge, and tumble, and think to lie hid in the foul weeds and muddy waters, where no plummet can reach the bottom. But let them beat themselves like whales, and spend their oil till they be dragged ashore: though wherefore should the ministers give them so much line for shifts and delays? wherefore should they not urge only the gospel, and hold it ever in their faces like a mirror of diamond, till it dazzle and pierce their misty eyeballs? maintaining it the honour of its absolute sufficiency and supremacy inviolable."

the

The Libertines, the second class of hinderers, as they would object to all discipline,dear and tender discipline of a father, the sociable and loving reproof of a brother, the bosom admonition of a friend,”—he leaves them with the merry friar in Chaucer, and refers the political discourse of episcopacy to a second book, which we will proceed to examine. It is throughout one strain of wisdom and eloquence. In it we shall find set forth the evils which compel subjects to chastise rulers. The springs of a series of past and approaching disasters to church and king, and people, are laid bare. The wisdom of the sage and the poet is upon him. If ever the noble language of Cowper, his warmest admirer, were applicable to humanity, it is to our author.

A terrible sagacity informs
The poet's heart.

The introductory remarks upon the art of governing and ruling nations, and its general perversion in Christian commonwealths, will well repay the attention of our countrymen at the present time; and the principles throughout this book, by which he tries the third and last hinderers of reformation, namely, the Politicians, who assert that it stands not with "reasons of state," are not affected by the lapse of centuries, and though intended for the right reverend fathers in God, the bishops, will apply as well now as heretofore, both to them, and to every thing else that requires reform. "Alas, sir! a commonwealth ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body; for look what the grounds and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same ye shall find them to a whole state, as Aristotle, both in his Ethics and Politics, from the principles of reason, lays down: by consequence, therefore, that which is good and agreeable to monarchy, will appear soonest to be so, by being good and agreeable to the true welfare of every Christian; and that which can be justly proved hurtful and offensive to every true Christian, will be evinced to be alike hurtful to monarchy: for God forbid that we should separate and distinguish the end and good of a monarch from the end and good of the monarchy, or of that, from Christianity. How then this third and last sort that hinder reformation, will justify that it stands not with reason of state, I much muse; for certain I am, the Bible is shut against them, as certain that neither Plato nor Aristotle is for their turns."

The schools of Loyola, with his Jesuits, are then summoned into the field; and out of them, the "Politicians" allege, 1. That the church-government must be conformable to the civil polity; next, That no form of church-government is agreeable to monarchy, but that of bishops. The first objection is annihilated in a single paragraph, which it would be well for the peace of the country, for our statesmen, who have ever so much at heart the honour of the church, to take note of. The second falls to pieces naturally, the first being confuted. Yet "to give them," says our author," play, front and rear, it shall be my task to prove, that episcopacy, with that authority which it challenges in England, is not only not agreeable,

but tending to the destruction of monarchy." He accordingly deduces the history of it down from its original, and amply shows what Prynne calls "the antipathie of the English lordly prelacie, both to regal monarchy and civil unity." The title of one of poor Prynne's works, published in the same year as this of Milton's, runs out into an indictment.—In addition to what we have above, he entitles his work, " An historical collection of several execrable treasons, conspiracies, rebellions, seditions, state-schisms, contumacies, antimonarchical practices, and oppressions, of our English, British, French, Scottish, and Irish lordly.prelates, against our kingdoms, laws, liberties; and of the several warres, and civil dissensions, occasioned by them in or against our realm, in former and latter ages. Together with the judgment of our own ancient writers, and most judicious authors, touching the pretended divine jurisdiction, the calling, lordliness, temporalities, wealth, secular employments, trayterous practices, unprofitablenesse, and mischievousnesse of lordly prelates, both to king, state, church; with an answer to the chief objections made for the divinity or continuance of their lordly function." The cry of "no bishop, no king," which we still hear, was a "fetch" from the Jesuits. "They feeling the axe of God's reformation, hewing at the old and hollow trunk of papacy, and finding the Spaniard their surest friend and safest refuge, to soothe him up in his dream of a fifth monarchy, and withal to uphold the decrepid papalty, have invented this superpolitic aphorism, as one terms it, one pope and one king." It is plain, that this worthy motto "no bishop, no king," "is of the same batch, and infanted out of the same fears."-" But" (the following passage does not discover a republican leaning) " what greater debasement can there be to royal dignity, whose towering and stedfast height rests upon the unmoveable foundations of justice and heroic virtue, than to chain it in a dependance of subsisting or ruining, to the painted battlements and gaudy rottenness of prelaty, which want but one puff of the king's to blow them down like a pasteboard house built of court-cards?" After the gentle digression, which he calls a tale, (and it is one of the "curiosities of literature,") he returns to this important subject, and argues it out in terrible earnest. The throne of a king being established, as Solomon says, in justice, he maintains that "the fall of prelacy, whose actions are so far distant from justice, cannot shake the least fringe that borders the royal canopy "—and three reasons are adduced from the many secondary and accessory causes, that support monarchy, and all other states, "to wit, the love of the subject, the multitude and valour of the people, and store of treasure," to show that the standing of this order is dangerous to regal safety. The whole nation, as the innumerable and grievous complaints of every shire cried out, was a willing witness under each of these heads, and our author thunders into the ears of prelates and king, what all the people were panting to have uttered. Each topic becomes a formidable redoubt of argument and declamation, and each paragraph is worthy of attention. Every page, as we approach the close of the work, thickens with interest, and is crowded with all the burning rays of the most impassioned oratory. The apostrophe to England is at once affecting and sublime. He runs over the remainder of his task with such extreme rapidity, sentence after sentence, pealing like thunder, smiting like lightning, driving like a whirlwind, against the proud tops of the lordly hierarchy, that we must fain give up the task we had undertaken into the hands of the reader. The reference to the drift of the "bishop's war (as one of their own order called it) with Scotland, is tremendous,-" to make a national war of a surplice-brabble, a tippet-scuffle, and engage the untainted honour of English knighthood, to unfurl the streaming red-cross, or to rear the horrid standard of those fatal guly dragons, for so unworthy a purpose as to force upon their fellow-subjects that which themselves are weary of, the skeleton of a mass book."—And the exhortation to England and Scotland to pursue their begun contest for liberty together, is an admonitory conclusion worthy of this magnificent page. On the high and holy ground of discipline he calls for immediate reformation, and after placing this point in a variety of lights, and surrounding it with a vast assemblage of argument, and

answering the objections of the bit by bit reformers of those days, the piece closes in a peroration in the form of a prayer, piously laying the sad condition of England before the greatest of beings, than which there is not a more sublime patriotic ode in any language. We insert the prayer, not merely to save the trouble of reference, but to excite the curiosity of those who are unacquainted with these works, when it is not gratified by drawing at once, as in this instance, upon our author. We omit the anathema, with which the petition concludes, it is a curse which Walter Scott could have extended to three volumes.

"Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory unapproachable, Parent of angels and men! next, thee I implore, omnipotent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose nature thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting Love! and thou, the third subsistence of divine infinitude, illumining Spirit, the joy and solace of created things! one Tripersonal Godhead! look upon this thy poor and almost spent and expiring church, leave her not thus a prey to these importunate wolves, that wait and think long till they devour thy tender flock; these wild boars that have broken into thy vineyard, and left the print of their polluting hoofs on the souls of thy servants. O let them not bring about their damned designs, that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless pit, expecting the watchword to open and let out those dreadful locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the sun of thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird of morning sing. Be moved with pity at the afflicted state of this our shaken monarchy, that now lies labouring under her throes, and struggling against the grudges of more dreadful calamities.

"O thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five bloody inundations, and the succeeding sword of intestine war, soaking the land in her own gore, didst pity the sad and ceaseless revolution of our swift and thick-coming sorrows; when we were quite breathless, of thy free grace didst motion peace, and terms of covenant with us; and having first well-nigh freed us from antichristian thraldom, didst build up this Britannic empire to a glorious and enviable height, with all her daughter-islands about her; stay us in this felicity, let not the obstinacy of our half-obedience and will-worship bring forth that viper of sedition, that for these fourscore years has been breeding to eat through the entrails of our peace; but let her cast her abortive spawn without the danger of this travailing and throbbing kingdom: that we may still remember in our solemn thanksgivings, how for us, the northern ocean even to the frozen Thule was scattered with the proud shipwrecks of the Spanish armada, and the very maw of hell ransacked, and made to give up her concealed destruction, ere she could vent it in that horrible and damned blast.

"O how much more glorious will those former deliverances appear, when we shall know them not only to have saved us from greatest miseries past, but have reserved us for greatest happiness to come! Hitherto thou hast but freed us, and that not fully, from the unjust and tyrannous claim of thy foes; now unite us entirely, and appropriate us to thyself, tie us everlastingly in willing homage to the prerogative of thy eternal throne.

"And now we know, O thou our most certain hope and defence, that thine enemies have been consulting all the sorceries of the great whore, and have joined their plots with that sad intelligencing tyrant that mischiefs the world with his mines of Ophir, and lies thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that have larded our seas: but let them all take counsel together, and let it come to nought; let them decree, and do thou cancel it; let them gather themselves, and be scattered; let them embattle themselves, and be broken; let them embattle, and be broken, for thou art with us.

"Then amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one may perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measures, to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages; whereby this great and warlike nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and continual practice of truth and righteousness,

and casting far from her the rags of her old vices, may press on hard to that high and happy emulation to be found the soberest, wisest, and most Christian people at that day, when thou, the eternal and shortly-expected King, shalt open the clouds to judge the several kingdoms of this world, and distributing national honours and rewards to religious and just commonwealths, shalt put an end to all earthly tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal and mild monarchy through heaven and earth; where they, undoubtedly, that by their labours, counsels, and prayers, have been earnest for the common good of religion and their country, shall receive above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal addition of principalities, legions, and thrones into their glorious titles, and in supereminence of beatific vision, progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp inseparable hands with joy and bliss, in overmeasure for ever."

To this and other attacks from puritan pens, bishop Hall, and, about the same time, archbishop Usher, replied; the former in "An humble Remonstrance to the high court of Parliament," and the latter in the "Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy." Milton's answers to these very learned and able works were produced in the same year.

To continue our extracts from the Second Defence:-" Afterwards," (that is, after the first pamphlet,)" when two bishops of superior distinction vindicated their privileges against some principal ministers, I thought that on those topics, to the consideration of which I was led solely by my love of truth, and my reverence for Christianity, I should not probably write worse than those, who were contending only for their own emoluments and usurpations. I therefore answered the one in two books, of which the first is inscribed, Concerning Prelatical Episcopacy, and the other Concerning the Mode of Ecclesiastical Government; and I replied to the other in some Animadversions, and soon after in an Apology."

It is not too much to say that Milton was a match for the learned Usher at his own weapons, and his superior in other respects. The first of the replies, so far from justifying Dr. Johnson's snarl, is a model in style, of simplicity and moderation, and in argument, of logic and sound learning. The archbishop's forte lay in his erudition, and here he was one of the strongest men of his time; but his discomfiture is complete, when his adversary carries the controversy before a higher tribunal than that of antiquity. The insufficiency, inconveniency, and impiety of quoting the fathers and excluding the apostles,—the method adopted by the episcopalians (as formerly by the papists) to establish any parts of Christianity, is plainly, strongly, and fully shown. "Whatsoever," says our author, " either time or the heedless hand of blind chance, has drawn down to this present in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea-weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked and unchosen, those are the fathers." And so he chides the good prelate for divulging useless treatises, stuffed with the specious names of Ignatius and Polycarpus, with fragments of old martyrologies, to distract and stagger the multitude of credulous readers. The piece is highly worthy of perusal, as an exposure of the claims of tradition. It is a complete dispersion of antiquity's “cloud, or rather petty fog, of witnesses."

The other performance, entitled "The Reason of Church-Government urged against Prelaty," and principally intended against the same archbishop's account of the original of episcopacy, is in every point of view a valuable and powerful production. It is comprised in two Books. In the Preface, (frequently the most interesting portion of his works,) after stating the importance of the subject of church-government, and after referring to the question, or rather uproar, concerning it, he expresses a hope that England will belong neither to see-patriarchal, nor to see-prelatical, but to that ministerial order of presbyters and deacons, which the apostles instituted. There are seven chapters in this Book, of which we shall give the titles, merely premising that there is more in each than meets the eye; but they are so compactly and logically arranged, that any attempt to present the reader with an outline of them, without injuring their cumulative force, would be impossible. In chap. I. it is main

tained, That church government is prescribed in the gospel, and that to say otherwise is unsound. In ch. II. That church government is set down in Holy Scripture, and that to say otherwise is untrue. In ch. III. That it is dangerous and unworthy of the gospel to hold that church government is to be patterned by the law, as bishop Andrews and the primate of Armagh maintain. In ch. IV. That it is impossible to make the priesthood of Aaron a pattern whereon to ground episcopacy. In ch. V. we have a reply to the arguments of bishop Andrews and the primate. In ch. VI. That prelaty was not set up for prevention of schism, as is pretended; or if it were, it performs not what it was first set up for, but quite the contrary. In ch. VII. That those many sects and schisms by some supposed to be among us, and that the rebellion in Ireland, ought not to be a hinderance, but a hastening, of reformation. In proof of our assertion, that there is more in each chapter than the title would appear to warrant us to expect, take these few sentences from the first section, on the importance of " discipline." "What need I instance? He that hath read with judgment, of nations and commonwealths, of cities and camps, of peace and war, sea and land, will readily agree that the flourishing and decaying of all civil societies, all the moments and turnings of human occasions, are moved to and fro as upon the axle of discipline. So that whatsoever power or sway in mortal things weaker men have attributed to fortune, I durst with more confidence (the honour of Divine Providence ever saved) ascribe either to the vigour or the slackness of discipline. Nor is there any sociable perfection in this life, civil or sacred, that can be above discipline; but she is that which with her musical cords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together. And certainly discipline is not only the removal of disorder; but if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very visible shape and image of virtue, whereby she is not only seen in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortal ears. Yea, the angels themselves, in whom no disorder is feared, as the apostle that saw them in his rapture describes, are distinguished and quaternioned into their celestial princedoms and satrapies, according as God himself has writ his imperial decrees through the great provinces of heaven. The state also of the blessed in paradise, though never so perfect, is not therefore left without discipline, whose golden surveying reed marks out and measures every quarter and circuit of New Jerusalem. Yet is it not to be conceived, that those eternal effluences of sanctity and love in the glorified saints should by this means be confined and cloyed with repetition of that which is prescribed, but that our happiness may orb itself into a thousand vagancies of glory and delight, and with a kind of eccentrical equation be, as it were, an invariable planet of joy and felicity; how much less can we believe that God would leave his frail and feeble, though not less beloved church here below, to the perpetual stumble of conjecture and disturbance in this our dark voyage, without the card and compass of discipline !"

There are numerous passages, rising like this, naturally, out of the subject, not thrown in for the sake of ornament, in each of these seven chapters of the 1st Book, every whit equal to this, and of every sort and variety of eloquence. Milton's flights into the regions of imagery are never taken either for the sake of display, or to escape from the pressure of an argument. He is never in the air when he should be on the ground. He resorts to the wings of rhetoric, from the firm summit of a vast pile of argumentation, and though for awhile he may be lost in the solar blaze, he soon comes down with "fell swoop" to his to his quarry. The 2nd Book consists of a preface, three chapters, and a conclusion. Awe-stricken yet are we in perusing the preface to this 2nd Book. More or less than man he must be who can read it without emotion. It is throughout magnificent, a glimpse into the heart and soul of Milton. He opens his bosom-he discourses with his conscience in our presence. He discloses his convictions of duty, and discovers his confidence of rectitude. He divulges his lofty hopes, springing out of his patriotism and his piety. Here we have that remarkable

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