to repent; and there can be no sort of excuse for him, except the candid reader will make some allowance for the prejudices which he might possibly receive from the gloomy divinity of that enthusiastic age in which he lived.” -Quoted from Brydges.

The evidence is full and positive that Milton did hold what are called Calvinistic doctrines. The only questions are - When? How long? There is but little evidence that he had any special affection for them in his youth, though he was educated in Puritan principles. His earliest tutor, Young, has been called a "rigid and zealous Puritan." Notwithstanding his early education -

"There are many traits in his early taste and early poems," says Sir E. Brydges, "which make us hesitate as to his boyish attachment to this sect." "There is evidence that, at this time," says Prof. Masson, "he had not given so much attention, on his own personal account, to matters of religious doctrine, as he afterwards bestowed." . . . . His seriousness was rather a constitutional seriousness, ratified and nourished by rational reflection than the assumed temper of a sect.” - Essays on English Poets, p. 38. Camb. 1856. "It does not seem to me," to quote again from Brydges, "that there are any traces of these Calvinistic prejudices at the time he visited Italy, unless his friendship to Charles Diodati be a sign of it, which I think (looking at the poetical address) is not." - Brydges' Life of Milton, p. 11. Bost. 1855.

There is the same progress and coming into the light, on these doctrines, as on that of the Son of God and the Spirit of God. If he denied them in youth and early manhood, he came to hold them and embrace them, in later years, as is seen in "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,” in 1644, in Paradise Lost, and, as might be shown by an appeal to "True Religion, Heresy, etc.," in 1673, the year before his death.

Of the Son of God in The Christian Doctrine.

The next subject, in the order of Christian doctrine, is "The Son of God." In entering upon the discussion of this fundamental doctrine, Milton gives warning beforehand, that he is about to maintain opinions obnoxious to the church generally. He also shows not a little anxiety to conciliate favor and get a fair hearing. He likewise shows much

manliness in facing the opprobrium which he knows he shall draw upon himself in advocating his views of the Son of God.

"I cannot enter," he says, " upon subjects of so much difficulty as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, without again premising a few introductory remarks. If indeed I were a member of the church of Rome, which requires implicit obedience to its creed, on all points of faith, I should have acquiesced, from education or habit, in its simple decree and authority, even though it denies that the doctrine of the Trinity, as now received, is capable of being proved from any passage of Scripture. But since I enrol myself among the number of those who acknowledge the Word of God alone as the rule of faith, and freely advance what appears to me much more clearly deduced from the Holy Scriptures than the commonly received opinion, I see no reason why any one who belongs to the same Protestant or Reformed Church, and professes to acknowledge the same rule of faith as myself, should take of fence at my freedom, particularly as I impose my authority on no one, but merely propose what I think more worthy of belief than the creed in general acceptation."— Prose Works, IV. 78.

Having thus premised, Milton devotes the largest and most elaborate chapter of Christian Doctrine to his views of the character and offices of the Son of God. Outright he rejects the supreme divinity of the Son, and maintains that He is a dependent, created being created within the limits of time, not by any necessity, but by the will and decree of the Father. He is endued, by the Father, with the divine nature and substance, but distinct from the Father and inferior, yet one with Him in affection and will. He further maintains that the Son existed in the beginning, and was the first of the whole creation. By power delegated from the Father, He created the heavens, and the earth, and all things. With these views, Milton of course denies the eternal generation of the Son, His self-existence, coëquality, and coëssentiality with the Father. But we must not leave the subject with this synopsis. We must show the manner in which these opinions are supported.

In the chapter on decrees, Milton divides the efficiency of God into internal and external. Internal efficiency is independent of all extraneous agency. "Such," he says, "are His decrees." External efficiency shows itself in the execution of the divine decrees. It is that

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Whereby He carries into effect, by external agency, whatever decrees He hath purposed within Himself. It may be comprised under the heads of Generation, Creation, and the Government of the Universe."

"First, Generation, whereby God, in pursuance of His decree, has begotten His only Son, whence He chiefly derives His appellation of Father.”. Id. 30. 79.

Milton now, to establish what he has laid down, argues like a schoolman, for several pages. He argues to show that the Son was not eternally begotten, but begotten within the limits of time. He admits the truth of the holy scriptures:

"Whatever some of the moderns allege to the contrary, that the Son existed in the beginning, under the name of the Logos or Word, and was the first of the whole creation; by whom, afterwards, all other things were made, both in heaven and earth.”

Having quoted John 1:1—3, "In the beginning,” etc.; 17:5," And now, O Father, glorify Me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was;" and many other passages, in which not only existence before the world, but even the creation of the world, is ascribed to the Son, he says:

"All these passages prove the existence of the Son before the world was made, but they conclude nothing respecting His generation from all eternity.

Upon the 3d Psalm and those kindred passages that speak of the Son as begotten, we must give a specimen of Milton's argumentation.

"It is evident," he says, " upon a careful comparison and examination of all these passages, that however the generation of the Son may have taken place, it arose from no natural necessity, as is generally contended, but was no less owing to the decree and will of the Father than His priesthood or kingly power, or His resuscitation from the dead. Nor is it any objection to this, that He bears the title of Begotten, in whatever sense that expression is to be understood; or of God's own Son, Rom. 8:32. For He is called the own Son of God merely because He had no other Father besides God; whence He Himself said, that God was His Father. (John 5:18.) For to Adam God stood less in the relation of Father than of Creator, having only formed him from the dust of the earth; whereas He was properly the Father of the Son, made of His own substance. Yet it does not follow from

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hence that the Son is coessential with the Father; for then the title of Son would be least of all applicable to Him, since He who is properly the Son is not coeval with the Father, much less of the same numerical essence, otherwise the Father and the Son would be one person; nor did the Father beget Him from any natural necessity, but of His own free will, a mode more agreeable to the paternal dignity. . . For questionless it was in God's power, consistently with the perfection of His own essence, not to have begotten the Son, inasmuch as generation does not pertain to the nature of the Deity, Who stands in no need of propagation; but whatever does not pertain to His own essence or nature, He does not affect, like a natural agent, from any physical necessity. If the generation of the Son proceeded from a physical necessity, the Father impaired Himself by physically begetting a coequal; which God could no more do than He could deny Himself; therefore the generation of the Son cannot have proceeded otherwise than from a decree, and of the Father's own free will. Thus the Son was begotten of the Father in consequence of His decree, and therefore within the limits of time; for the decree itself must have been anterior to the execution of the decree." Id. p. 82.

Again :

"When the Son is said to be the first born of every creature, and the beginning of the creation of God, nothing can be more evident than that God of His own will created, or generated, or produced the Son before all things, endued with the Divine nature, as in the fulness of time, He miraculously begat Him in His human nature, of the virgin Mary. The generation of the Divine nature is described by no one with more sublimity and copiousness than by the apostle to the Hebrews, 1: 2, 3, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things; by Whom, also, He made the worlds; Who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, etc. It must be understood from this, that God imparted to the Son as much as He pleased of the Divine nature, nay of the Divine substance itself, care being taken not to confound the substance with the whole essence, which would imply that the Father had given to the Son what He retained, numerically, the same Himself; which would be a contradiction of terms, instead of a mode of generation." Id. p. 85.

Having reasoned in this style through many pages, Milton lays down the following propositions, to be proved from the scriptures:

"1st. That the name, attributes, and works of God are attributed, in the Scriptures, only to one God, the Father, as well by the Son Himself as by his apostles. 2d. That whenever they are attributed to the Son, it is in such a manner that they are easily understood to be attributable, in their original, proper sense, to 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; as the apostles also testify. And, Lastly, that the Son Himself, and His apostles, acknowledge throughout the whole of their discourses and writings, that the Father is greater than the Son, in all things."— Id. p. 96.

Milton admits that the Son is God; but denies that He is supreme God, or equal with the Father.

"He ascribes to the Son as high a share of Divinity," says Dr. Sumner, as was compatible with the denial of His self-existence and eternal generation. Had he avoided the calling Christ a creature, he might have been ranked with that class of semi-Arians who were denominated Hoemoiousians, among whom Dr. Samuel Clarke must be reckoned. On the whole, his chapter on the Son of God may be considered as more nearly coincident with the opinions of Whitby, in his Last Thoughts, than of any other modern divine. Both acknowledge Christ to be Verus Deus, though not Summus Deus; both admit His true dominion and His Godhead, though not original, independent, and underived; both assert His right to honor and worship, in virtue of the Father's gift; both deny His sameness of individual essence with the Father; and both maintain that He derives all His excellences and power from the Father, and consequently is inferior to the Father."— Id.

p. XXIX.

This is, as must be confessed, according to Dr. Channing, "strong reasoning against the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ." To it, however, bishop Bull has made the only fitting reply. "The Unitarians," he says, "own Christ to be God, but a made God, such as is a mere creature, such as had no existence before his birth of the virgin. O great God!" · Bull's Works.

Milton closes the discussion of this subject by declaring "Such was the faith of the saints respecting the Son of God; such is the tenor of the celebrated confession of that faith; such is the doctrine which, alone, is taught in scripture, which is acceptable to God, and has the promise of eternal salvation. Finally, this is the faith proposed to us in the Apostle's Creed, the most ancient and universally received compendium of belief in the possession of the church."-Id. pp. 149, 150.