press opinions on subjects of an ecclesiastical and theological nature. Indeed, he had been destined, as he informs us, both by his parents and his own resolution, for the service of the church, and would in all probability have entered upon it, had he not on arriving at maturity become sensible of the tyranny which "had invaded" it; that "he who would take orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that would retch, he must either straight perjure, or split his faith."

It should be observed, however, that the writings from which these opinions are gathered, were all pub. lished by Milton before 1644,* and that instead of receding in the liberality and spirituality of his views he was ever advancing and perfecting them from year to year. During the period now under consideration, he rendered a service not only to that, but to succeeding times, by his "Areopagitica," or "Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing," dedicated to the parliament, and occasioned by the attempts of the presbyterians to restore the practice of "licensing," which had been abolished with the Star Chamber. It is a work of undying fame. Although written in English, it has obtained European celebrity, and is the store-house from which all succeeding advocates of the liberty of the press have drawn their reasonings. ‡ As a composition it is unrivalled in the literature of any age.

* Chiefly from "Reformation in England," "The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty," and "An Apology for Smectymnuus."

†The Areopagitica was published in November, 1644.

See "Introductory Review," prefixed to Milton's Prose Works, by Robert Fletcher, p. xxii.

or country, for elegance and force, grace and fervour, wit and irony, consecutiveness of argument, splendor of imagery, vehemency of declamation, and persuasiveness of eloquence; while over the whole is shed a lustre for which there is no appropriate name,—that radiancy which emanates only from highest genius consecrated to the highest of all aims.

Although the specific subject of this work is limited, the course of argument comprehends the entire question of intellectual and spiritual freedom. Milton becomes the coadjutor of John Goodwin and Williams, and is identified with the advocates of liberty of conscience in their opposition to the pretensions of the presbyterians. His enmity to the Assembly is such as might have been expected from one who held his views, and his voice of warning already falls, but in vain, upon the ears of those who sought to stereotype the religious mind of England after the model of Scotland. In one important respect he is in advance of the thinking men, both of his own and later times. We refer to his high views respecting the means by which the church of Christ is to be brought to unity, through a preliminary process of doctrinal differences and sectarian division consequent upon the superstition and tyranny of past times. To quote all that he has advanced upon this subject, and the whole is worthy of the profoundest study of such as are seeking Christian union,-would occupy too much space. The following passages may serve, as a kind of stepping stones, to lead us through his general meaning.

"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised, and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race,

where that immortal 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."

"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 that 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. Why should we affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature ?”

"Were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as much the forcible hinderance of evil-doing. For God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious."

"If it come to inquisitioning again, and licensing, and that we are so timorous of ourselves, and suspicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the 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."

"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 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 and implicit faith, as any lay papist of Loretto."

"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 Osyris,-took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them 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."

"There be who perpetually complain of schisms

F

and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. It is 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 and 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."

"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrours 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 their pious forwardness among men, to reassume the illdeputed 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 these 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