favourer of those Proteftants, then opprobrioufly called by the name of Puritans.59 In his middle years he was best pleased with the Independents and Anabaptifts, as allowing of more liberty than others, and coming nearest in his opinion to the primitive practice. But in the latter part of his life he was not a profeffed member of any particular fect, among Chriftians; he frequented none of their affemblies, nor made use of their peculiar rites in his family. Whether this proceeded from a dislike of their uncharitable and endless disputes, and that love of dominion, or inclination to perfecution, which he said was a piece of popery, infeparable from all churches, or whether he thought one might be a good man without fubfcribing to any party, and that they had all in fome things corrupted the institutions of Jefus Chrift, I will by no means adventure to determine: for conjectures on fuch occafions are very uncertain, and I never met with any of his acquaintance who could be positive in affigning the true reafons of his conduct."

Of this treatise, it is by all acknowledged, that it is written with a calm and confcientious defire for truth, like that of a man who had forgotten or difmiffed the favourite animofities of his youth, and who had retired within himself, in the dignity of age, to employ the unimpaired energies of his intellect on the most important and awful fubject of inquiry. The haughtinefs of his temper, the defiance of his manner, his fevere and ftoical pride, are no longer feen. He approaches the book of God with

blindnefs, ceafed to communicate with any public congregations of Chriftians. (See Bishop Burgefs's Proteftant Union, p. xxiii.) But it appears that he did not think himself excluded from the bleffing bestowed by God on the Churches. See Book I. c. xxix.

59 On the different meanings affixed to the word "Puritan," fee Heylin's Cert. Epiftol. p. 1. See Hume's Character of the Independents and their Churches, in Scott's Dryden, vol. x. p. 140.

an humble and reverential feeling: and with fuch a dispofition of piety, united to fo powerful an intellect, and fuch immense stores of learning, who would not have expected to have seen the "ftar bright form" of Truth appear from out the cloud; but wherever we look, the pride of man's heart is lowered, and the weakness of humanity displayed. With all his great qualifications for the removal of error, and the discovery of truth, he failed. His views appear too exalted, his creed too abstract and imaginative for general ufe. The religion which he fought was one that was not to be attached to any particular church, to be grounded on any fettled articles of belief, to be adorned with any external ceremonies, or to be illuftrated by any stated forms of prayer. It was to dwell alone in its holy meditations, cloistered from public gaze, and fecluded within the humbler fanctuary of the adoring heart. If the believer felt it to be his duty to attach himself to any particular church, that church was to be unconnected with the state. The minifters, if fuch were neceffary, were to be unpenfioned, perhaps unpaid by their congregations.60 The facraments were to be administered, and the rites of burial and baptism performed, by private and laick hands. Instead of receiving inftruction from the preacher, each individual, even the weakest, according to the measure of his gifts, might instruct and exhort his brethren. The opinions advanced in this work differ not only widely from those of the Church of England, but, I believe, from all the fectarian churches that exift. With regard to his theological tenets, the most remarkable are those which he avows on what is called the anthropopathy of

co See Confiderations on removing Hirelings, ed. Burnet, vol. i. p. 169; it were to be wished the ministers were all tradesmen, &c. . . ... On the different opinions held by the Sectaries on the subject, on the fupport of their ministers. See Warton's Milton, p. 348; and Todd's

Milton, vol. v. p. 483.

God; attributing to " 'God, a Spirit," human paffions, and a human form. "If (he fays) God habitually affigns to himself the members and forms of a man, why should we be afraid of attributing to him what he attributes to himself." To which I presume the answer would be, that fuch expreffions are used in the revelations of God's will, to make it intelligible to man ;61 that the form of the revelation is accommodated to the narrowness of man's understanding, and the limited circle of his knowledge; that it speaks to him through analogy, and that it is not defigned to acquaint him abfolutely with the nature of God.

He denies the eternal filiation of the Son, his felf-exiftence, his co-equality, and co-effentiality with the Father. He believes that the Son existed in the beginning, and was the first of the whole creation, by whose delegated power all things were made in heaven and earth; begotten, not by natural neceffity, but by the decree of the Father within the limits of time; endued with the divine nature and fubftance, but diftinct from the Father, and inferior to him. 62 One with the Father, in Love and

61 In the Edinburgh Rev. No. cvii. Sept. 1831. In a note in their review" of the State of Proteftantifm in Germany," a paffage is quoted from Jortin, "declaring that they who uphold the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity must be prepared to affert, that Jefus Chrift is his own Father and his own Son.' The confequence will be fo, whether they like it, or whether they like it not."-Be the words of Jortin what they may, and without any reference to his authority; I must beg the reviewer to confider that the words Father and Son are used in an analogous and figurative fenfe: and that the "greateft caution is neceffary not to connect with the terms Father and Son, when applied to the perfons of the Holy Trinity, any ideas fimilar to those of human derivation." Milton has guarded and qualified his language by the expreffion

"We do not fay that God is in fashion like unto man in all his parts and members, but that (as far as we are concerned to know) he is of that form which he attributes to himself in the facred writings." p. 18.

62 The doctrine of the primitive church, of the catholic verity of our

unanimity of will; and receiving every thing, in his filial as well as in his mediatorial character, from the Father's gift. 63 Thus his Arian herefies are divulged: but he fully acknowledges the fatisfaction and atonement made by the death of Chrift, for the fins of men. The Holy

Ghoft he confiders as inferior to the Father and the Son. Matter, he says, is imperishable and eternal, because it not only is from God, but out of God, "Non folum a Deo, fed ex Deo." Hence the body is immortal as the foul. His argument on the lawfulness of polygamy is fingular indeed. What but the line which he adopted, of reasoning on the fimple text and literal words of the Scriptures, could have prevented his acknowledging, that from a manner of life peculiar to the nations of the East, from the scantinefs of population, from the safety and ftrength derived from the unifon of large families, from the non-existence of civilized communities, from the patriarchal authority of the father of the family, and the acknowledged inferiority and dependence of the other mem

communion, is to reprefent the Deity as one effence, with a threefold perfonal fubfiftence and agency. See British Critic, Hind's Three Temples, p. 365. No language, however cautious, on a fubject beyond our comprehenfion, can be unimpeachably correct, it fhould be met therefore with indulgence, and interpreted with a ferious feeling of its mystery, and with an acknowledgment that no form of fpeech is adequate to explain it. "All religion," fays Bp. V. Mildert, "is myfterious to our faculties, and the self-existence, the spiritual nature, the agency, and the attributes of the Deity, all conftitute an impenetrable mystery!" See Sermons, vol. i. p. 479. "I praise the faying of Irenæus.-If any one shall tell us how the Son was produced of the Father, we will tell him his generation is ineffable, and no man knows it." Bafil and Nazianzen speak in like manner, and fo Rufinus. See H. Grotius's Judgment in fundry Points controverted, p. 100, ed. Barksdale. Juftin Martyr in his Apology, xxx. fays, "He was begotten of God in a manner far different from ordinary generation."

63 See Dr. Sumner's Preface, p. xxxiv.

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64

bers; from the advantage or neceffity of increafing the numbers of mankind, permiffion was granted to "the grey fathers of the world," extending even to a connection between brothers and fifters; which in later ages, in higher civilization, in the sweeter charities of life, in purer morals, with more refined ideas, more tender fympathies, and under a holier and more spiritual religion, could not be entertained without finfulness, nor established without degradation and diforder.63 That which was harmless in the Arabian deserts, or among Chaldean tents, could not be transplanted into the luxurious cities of the modern world, nor exift among the enlightened communities, the clofer affinities, and the diverfified relations of an advanced fociety. The divine laws were made fuitable to the nature of humanity, which they were defigned to amend; hence, in order to exalt it, they often bent to it; they stepped back, as it were, only to gain a stronger hold. But Milton should have remembered the early and imperious demands which God made for a purer and more perfonal religion through the voice of his prophets; and that the too easy divorces which the laws of Mofes allowed to the Jews, as the practice of ufury permitted to the Canaanite, were explained by our Saviour, as not forming a part of the perfect law, or holy will of God; but as an unwilling allowance "to the hardness of their hearts."

"The Pride of Reafon 65 (it has been very judiciously obferved), though disclaimed by Milton with remarkable, and probably with fincere earnestness, formed a principal ingredient in his character, and would have presented,

63 See Dr. Channing's remarks on this part of Milton's work, in his Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, p. 37.

64 See Niebuhr's Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 172, (Heron's Tranfl.) on Plurality of Wives in the Eaft.

65 v. Dr. Sumner's Preface, p. xxxv.