judgment which cannot be too much condemned, and a flippancy of argument, evidently arising from a presumptuous confidence in human reason on matters which human reason can never" search out to perfection." Since the pride of reason seems to be the root of Milton's predominant errors on this fundamental subject, it may be well to give a specimen. Arguing against the eternal generation of the Son, he observes— "Him who was begotten from all eternity the Father cannot have begotten, for what was made from all eternity was never in the act of being made; him whom the Father begat from all eternity he still begets; he whom he still begets is not yet begotten, and therefore is not yet a son; for an action which has no beginning can have no completion. Besides, it seems to be altogether impossible that the Son should be either begotten or born from all eternity. If he is the Son, either he must have been originally in the Father, and have proceeded from him, or he must always have been as he now is, separate from the Father, self-existent and independent. If he was originally in the Father, but now exists separately, he has undergone a certain change at some time or other, and is therefore mutable. If he always existed separately from, and independently of the Father, how is he from the Father, how begotten, how the Son, how separate in subsistence, unless he be also separate in essence?" P. 133. With such reasoning as this he seeks to demolish the doctrine of the Son's filiation; reasoning which has been often used both before and since the author's time, but which is obviously nothing better than applying to the Creator notions derived from, the generative process of created beings. It proceeds also upon the fallacy of confounding Personality with Essence. A distinction of the former is perfectly compatible with an unity in the latter. If the Son be a Person in an eternal and immutable Godhead, his Personality must have been from eternity; for an origination of it in time is incompatible with the immutability of God. The perfections of the Deity require us to believe that what he now is, he always was, being always Father as always God. Little dependance, it is granted, can be placed in metaphysical reasonings upon the nature and attributes of the Trinity: our ideas on this abstruse subject have no other firm foundation to rest upon than the Scriptures; and, as this important, though mysterious doctrine of the Son's eternal filiation is revealed in them, we ought to receive it as an infallible truth, without presumptuously attempting to explain or reject a subject so far above finite understandings *. See Holden's Scripture Testimonies to the Divinity of Christ, cap viii. Instances of rash judgment and weak reasoning on the Tripersonality of the Godhead are innumerable; so that in turning from the sublime strains of "Paradise Lost" to this tissue of error and heresy, we are tempted to exclaim, "If thou beest he; but O how fall'n! how changed Clothed with transcendant brightness, didst outshine On the subject of Divorce, Milton's doctrine coincides with that which he had so zealously advocated in his "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," and other tracts relating to this question *. He endeavours to prove, that unalterable dislike, con+ trariety of temper, and whatever hinders that peace and solace which are the chief ends of the conjugal union, are greater reasons of divorce than adultery. Our Saviour unequivocally confines divorce to the single case of adultery: Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, el μǹ Éπì Togveía, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. Matt. xix. 9.; v. 32. In order to evade the force of this, Milton is compelled to explain our Lord's declaration to signify not so much adul tery as the constant enmity, faithlessness, and disobedience of the wife, arising from the manifest and palpable alienation of the mind, rather than of the body. P. 258. In all this our author treads closely in the steps of Selden. It would have been well, however, if he had paid due attention to the formidable, we may say insuperable objections advanced by Dr Hammond against the extensive meaning attributed to our Lord's expressions by that profound scholar. Milton has propounded the same doctrine in a more popular manner, though with less erudition, but he has added no strength to the, arguments of Seldent. Yet Dr. Symmons is bold enough to declare, that "on the subject of divorce he makes out a strong case, and fights with arguments which are not easily to be repelled." (Life, p. 248.) This is rather too much, even in the most panegyrical of all the poet's biographers: but, referring our readers to Hammond's learned and convincing refutation of Selden, we shall only observe that, if such laxity of interpretation be admitted, any given sense may be extracted from any given text. The Bible, so far from being an unerring standard See Milton's Prose Works, edit. Burnett, where they are conveniently arranged according to their subjects. ९ Selden's Uxor Hebraica 1. 3. c. 23. also c. 27. and Hammond's "Of resolving Controversies," Qu. ii. cap, 2. This tract was published in 1653, almost twenty years before Milton's death. of faith and manners, would be the most pliable of all rules, and might be easily made to accommodate itself to all the circumstances and conditions of life, to the whims and caprices, and even the vices of mankind. As our Saviour is speaking of married women, the plain and strict meaning of the expression Topvɛía, rendered "fornication" by our translators, is "adultery," as understood by Schleusner, Kuinoel, Rosenmüller, Koecher, Schott, &c., and for this cause alone does he grant the permission of divorce. In this treatise Milton advocates another dangerous doctrine, of which his former works afford no suspicion, namely, the lawfulness of Polygamy. Many of the texts which are usually adduced against this practice, are brought under review, and tortured to serve his purpose with considerable dexterity. But his great argument is derived from the practice of the patriarchs and worthies recorded in the Old Testament. He cannot believe either that so many holy men should have sinned through ignorance, or that their hearts should have been so hardened, or that God should have tolerated such conduct in his people, if polygamy were morally wrong. "The practice of the saints, then, is the best interpretation of the commandments." But this will not be allowed to have much weight when it is considered, that, however particular virtues in these worthies may be represented as patterns, they are not held up to us for universal imitation: some things, too, were permitted for the hardness of their hearts (Matt. xix. 8.); and the Mosaic religion itself was not designed to be a complete dispensation, it being only complete as introductory to a more pure and spiritual law. Nor should it be forgotten that, either in consequence of the teaching of the prophets, or of clearer views of the Levitical code, polygamy gradually ceased during the latter period of the Jewish polity; for in the New Testament we meet with no trace of any such practice being tolerated. That Polygamy is contrary to the intention of the Creator is apparent from the equality in the number of males and females born into the world; from his having created only one woman for the first man; from the injurious effects which result from a plurality of wives; and from the prohibitions delivered in the Scriptures of the New Testament. These arguments against polygamy are so strong that the sagacity of Milton, it may be presumed, would not have resisted their force, had he not been influenced by the circumstances of his first marriage. Dr. Sumner, indeed, appears to be of a different judgment *; but, if Mil * See his note (4.) in p. 255. ton had not been blinded by self-partiality, if he had not been anxious to vindicate his conduct in an affair which sober reason can never approve, it cannot be supposed that a mind like his would ever have entertained opinions so groundless and so mischievous. Such is the intimate union between faith and practice, that error in the former is generally accompanied with obliquities in the latter. Our judgments are affected by the feelings; our reasonings are biassed by our prejudices. The most effectual way to hold the balance of reason firm and steady, is to purify the heart and life from all the vices and follies, which, wherever they exist, will have an undue influence over our better judgment. Let all who are sincere in the desire to penetrate the recesses of truth, and especially of sacred truth, guard their conduct with a vigilant eye. Every moral aberration will, though unperceived perhaps by themselves, warp more or less their intellectual powers. To the same cause may be attributed Milton's lax notions respecting the ministerial authority, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He is said to have first been a favourer of the Presbyterians, then of the Independents, and lastly to have been a professed member of no particular sect of Christians. changes from opinion to opinion, who wanders from sect to sect, subjects himself to the imputation of weakness and frivolity; but imbecility was not the character of Milton's mind; his Erastian notions, therefore, can only be attributed to his having imbibed a portion of the malignant spirit of the age which subverted the altar and the throne. His disregard of external religion cannot be vindicated, notwithstanding the apologies offered by some of his annotators and biographers. If the Almighty have constituted a visible Church on earth, it must be the duty as well as the interest of every Christian to prove himself a member of it by openly and outwardly complying with the terms of its communion. Listen to the judgment of a writer who was as much superior to Milton in gigantic force of intellect, as he was below him in imaginative invention: "To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, bv stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example." Such is the sentiment of Dr. Samuel Johnson; and it is likely it would have found an echo in the bosom of Milton, for he expressly owns the duty of joining internal and external worship in practice (p. 557.) But having deserted the outward ordinances of religion, he lived on, like too many others, in the neglect of what, in all probability, his better judgment approved. His opinions on the authority and government of the Church' as recorded in this treatise, are as loose as can well be imagined. He seems to carry his notions of individual liberty, or rather' licence, in matters of religion, to an extent scarcely compatible with the institution of a Christian ministry. A toleration of all the different sects of Christians is now universally acknowledged: not so the right of private opinion to the extent claimed by some; for such an unlimited right is inconsistent with the very idea of an ecclesiastical establishment. He maintains that the visible Church consists of all believers in any place whatever, either individually, or in conjunction with others; (p. 457.) that any believer is competent to act as an ordinary minister, provided he be endowed with the necessary gifts, these gifts constituting his mission; (p. 461.) that any believer furnished with the requisite gifts may administer the rites of baptism and the Lord's supper; (pp. 463, 464.) that every believer has a right to interpret the Scriptures for himself; (p. 472.) that the choice of ministers belongs to the people; (p. 483.) that, though a certain recompence to ministers is reasonable and sanctioned by the law of God, yet it is better to render an unpaid service to the Church; (p. 484.) that, where this is impracticable, ministers should look for their support, not from the edicts of the civil power, but from the spontaneous liberality of the Church; (p. 486.) that to bargain for tithes or other stipendiary payments, or to have recourse to legal processes for the recovery of allowances purely ecclesiastical, is the part of wolves rather than of ministers of the Gospel; (p. 487.) that ministers are to live on their own private resources, by the exercise of some calling, by honest industry; (p. 489.) that Church discipline consists in a mutual agreement among the members to fashion' their lives according to the Christian doctrine, and to regulate every thing in their public meetings decently and with order; (p. 497.) that the custom of holding assemblies is to be maintained according to the apostolical institution, which did not ordain that an individual, and he a stipendiary, should have the sole right of speaking, but that each believer in turn should be authorized to speak, or prophesy, or teach, or exhort, according to his gifts. (p. 498.) Were it possible to effect the universal adoption of these conceits, for they deserve no better designation, what an admirable confusion would thence arise? Every man might become his own Church; and every man might broach whatso |