"Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will, * * * * Upheld by me, that he may know how frail - Paradise Lost, III. 173. This, if translated into the strictness of theological phraseology, will convey the doctrine of personal election, as held by moderate Calvinists *. But it by no means agrees with the mature belief of our sublime poet, who defines predestination to be that "Whereby God in pity to mankind, though foreseeing that they would fall of their own accord, predestinated to eternal salvation, before the foundation of the world, those who should believe and continue in the faith, for a manifestation of the glory of his mercy, grace, and wisdom, according to his purpose in Christ." P. 44. Here is not the most distant allusion to the doctrine of Reprobation, a doctrine which he indignantly disclaims, asserting that whenever Predestination is mentioned in the Scriptures, election alone is uniformly intended, and that Reprobation having in view the destruction of unbelievers, a thing in itself ungrateful and odious, God could never have predestinated it, or proposed it to himself as an end. Nor is this definition consistent with the Calvinistic notion of the predestination of a chosen few to eternal life. It implies no particular predestination or election, but only general, extending to all those who should believe and continue in the faith." He declares that "None are predestinated or elected irrespectively, e.g., that Peter is not elected as Peter, or John as John, but inasmuch as they are believers, and continue in their belief, and that thus the general decree of election becomes personally applicable to each particular believer, and is ratified to all who remain stedfast in the faith." P. 51. Agreeably to the whole tenour of the sacred Scriptures, salvation and eternal life are offered equally to all on the conditions of Faith and Repentance. The divine decree of Election is uniformly represented as conditional;-a truth which our * See Bishop Newton's Note on the passage just quoted. NO. V. VOL. III. author establishes at length, by adducing a variety of passages from the inspired writings, and by the aid of the plainer texts explaining some others which are confessedly difficult, and at first sight seem to favour an opposite conclusion. All this is effected with great clearness and over-powering force of argument; the result of which is that God predestinated from etermity all those who should believe and continue in the faith; while none are predestinated to destruction except through their own fault. From this sound and Scriptural view of Election, as applying to all, not to a chosen few, it follows that Grace sufficient for salvation is freely offered to all. The universality of the decree requires that an adequate portion of saving grace should be given to every man. If God predestinates to eternal life all who comply with the conditions, and excludes none but those who despise and reject them, it is evident that sufficient power is imparted to all for salvation, otherwise those who perish would not perish through their own fault. "If God, says he, reject none but the disobedient and unbelieving, he undoubtedly gives grace to all, though not in equal measure, yet sufficient for attaining knowledge of the truth and final salvation. It is owing to his supreme will that God does not vouchsafe equal grace tó all, but it is owing to his justice that there are none to whom he does not vouchsafe grace sufficient for their salvation." P. 68. In so admirable a manner does Milton treat the intricate question of the Divine Décrees. It would be too much to assert that he has unravelled the mazes in which so many of the acutest minds have been perplexed, or that he has with entire success handled a subject with which the greatest adepts in reasoning have been unable to grapple; but he has, perhaps, gone as far as is permitted to the ability of man in solving a question which seems calculated to excite curiosity for ever, and for ever to elude the grasp of the human intellect. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? Job. ii. 7, 8. Shrouded as the counsels of Deity are by darkness impervious to mortal ken, let all presumptuous inquiries be repressed; and, putting full confidence in the immensity of benevolence from which the divine dispensations originate, let us pay to God the homage of grateful hearts by a meek and prostrate adoration. Milton, it should seem, does not allow Baptismal Regeneration; and, indeed, scarcely any spiritual grace can be associated with his degrading notion of the rite of Baptism: but respecting the doctrines of Justification, Adoption, Assurance, and final Perseverance, while he expresses himself with the guarded caution of a man. conscious that he is treading on slippery ground, his ideas are, generally speaking, correct and rational. In some places, it is not to be denied, a penetrating eye may discern an apparent, if not real, contradiction, something at least in doubtful accordance with his system, and here and there sentiments which the sound divine will be reluctant to approve, together with some of those metaphysical and scholastic distinctions which he is perpetually abjuring, yet perpetually using. On the questions just mentioned, however, he is neither Calvinistic nor Pelagian, but appears to agree with the general principles of the Established Church; the evidence of which arises from his uniformly and distinctly asserting both the necessity of the influence of the Spirit, and the unconstrained freedom of the will. It is constantly and explicitly avowed by him, that divine grace and human co-operation are requisite in the great work of salvation. It has hitherto been our pleasing task to commend; but a sacred regard to truth and duty compels us, however reluctant, to denounce whatever will not stand the test of impartial criticism. He who assumes, voluntary and unbidden, the consecrated office of promulging Scripture truth, must be content, however splendid his success in minstrelsy and song, to lay aside his other glories, and to be tried by his sole merits and defects in discharging that office. Enthusiastic as our admiration of "Paradise Lost" has been, even from our boyish days, we shall, as far as possible, forget our early prepossessions in favour of the author, and fairly point out that which, as Churchmen and Reviewers, we conscientiously believe deserving of reprehension. It is the remark of Dr. Johnson, that Milton appears "to have been untainted with any heretical peculiarity of opinion;" in which Mr. Todd coincides; and Dr. Symmons observes that his "theological opinions, as far as it appears, were orthodox and consistent with the creed of the Church of England*.” Whether his conduct and the writings given to the world during his life, and under his own auspices, warrant such a conclusion, is, to say the least, a questionable point. But the recently discovered manuscript affords the most incontestable evidence of unsound opinions, not hastily formed, and published on the spur of the moment, but adopted in age, in the maturity of his judgment, after serious and deliberate inquiry. It is deeply to be lamented that he who can reason so judi * See their respective Lives of Milton. ciously on the Divine Decrees, should have erred widely from the truth respecting the ever-blessed Trinity. It might appear a dream to suppose that he would ever speak disparagingly of the essential divinity of Christ, who could thus solemnly invoke his aid: "Thou 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, illuminating Spirit, the joy and solace of created beings! one tri-personal Godhead, look upon, &c.*" The reader of "Paradise Lost," while contemplating the sublime representations of the Son's glory, majesty, and dominion, and the sweet description of the influences and operations of the Holy Spirit, with which that transcendant poem abounds, would never, in the enthusiasm of his delight, suspect the author's orthodoxy on the subject of the Trinity. Some, indeed, who have been able to dispel the mists which poetic imagery spread before their eyes, have perceived real contradictions in the language of Milton on this subject; yet they were considered as the licences of the poet rather than the sentiments of the man, and were at once lost sight of in the intrancement in which the reader was involved by the magic power of poetry and imagination. But this, however pleasing, is all a mere delusion. His opinions, as collected from the work before us, approached nearer to those of the Arians, than to any other sect; yet he occasionally uses expressions scarcely removed from undisguised Socinianism. The proof of this melancholy truth is no difficult task: the evidence is too copious and too distinct to be mistaken. He absolutely denies the self-existence and eternal generation of the Son, as well as his co-equality and consubstantiality with the Father. This, it is true, is not inconsistent with SemiArianism, the least erroneous form of that heresy, (for the Arians differ as much among themselves as they do from the Omoousians); but he also avers that all the passages where the. name and attributes and works of God, as well as divine honours, are supposed to be ascribed to the Son, are misunderstood. He labours to prove— "First, that in every passage each of the particulars abovementioned is attributed in express terms only to one God the Father, as well by the Son himself as by his apostles. Secondly, that wherever they are attributed to the Son, it is in such a manner that they are easily understood to be attributable in their original and proper sense to * Treatise of Reformation, sub finem, the Father alone; and that the Son acknowledges himself to possess whatever share of Deity is assigned to him, by virtue of the peculiar gift and kindness of the Father; to which the apostles also bear their testimony. And, lastly, that the Son himself and the apostles acknowledge throughout the whole of their discourses and writings, that the Father is greater than the Son in all things.' P. 98. These propositions he tries with all his strength to substantiate; and it is obvious that such a construction may be put upon this "share of Deity assigned to the Son," as to render the whole representation of his nature and character perfectly consonant to the amphibious Christianity of the Unitarians. Yet at other times he approaches the very confines of a purer faith, asserting that the Son existed in the beginning; that by a delegated power he created all things; that he has the power of conversion, of remission of sins, of renovation, of the mediatorial office; and that he was endued with the divine nature and substance, though distinct from, and inferior to the Father. In short, he seems to represent the Redeemer as omnipotent and omniscient, yet a creature; as a God, yet without participating in the essence of Deity. Into such inconsistencies do those fall who once desert the unvaried and unvarying faith of the orthodox Church of Christ! With respect to the Third Person in the Trinity, he acknowJedges the personality of the Holy Ghost; at the same time, since he rejects his essential divinity, it is only the personality of a created being. The sum of his doctrine on this point is, briefly, "That the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is a minister of God, and therefore a creature, was created or produced of the substance of God, not by a natural necessity, but by the free-will of the agent, probably before the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the Son, and far inferior to him." P. 171. Such is Milton's creed upon that all-important subject, the sacred Trinity: we shall not, however, waste our reader's time and our own, by staying to point out its absurdities and inconsistencies. Those who are but moderately read in the Trinitarian controversy will meet with nothing to repay the trouble of perusal; no recondite learning, no happy illustration of the subject, no ingenious exposition of disputed texts. They will only find scholastic subtilties which have been long exploded, sophistry which has been again and again refuted, and misinterpretations which have been a thousand times corrected. Through the whole of the discussion there is nothing characteristic of the cautious divine, but every where a precipitancy of |