son of Church Government," and the change with Milton to have been from the holding of the Divinity of the Spirit, in "The Reason of Church Government," to the denial of the same in Christian Doctrine; whereas, the change was the other way. From the passages now brought forward, and the whole of the works from which they are taken, there is no doubt that, at this period, Milton shrank from all denial of the essential and supreme Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and held the tri-unity of the Godhead. Indeed, the evidence is so full and positive, that not only Dr. Sumner, but the last editor of the prose works, J. A. St. John, says: "It appears from this and other passages (passages already brought forward from 'Reformation in England'), that the author, in his younger years, was orthodox, as it is called; but he afterwards altered his sentiments, as it is plain from his tract on 'True Religion, Heresy, Schism,' etc., which was the last work he published." - Prose Works, II. 371. To the doctrine of this tract we shall attend in the proper place. "Eikonoclastes," of 1649, is in harmony with the works of 1641. Here Milton, according to scripture, represents the Holy Ghost as He who dictates and inspires prayer. Hypocrisy and irreverence in prayer are sins against Him as against God. He also classes Arianism with Pelagianism, and characterizes them as "infectious heresies."- Prose Works, I. 327, 433. " Of the Son and the Holy Spirit, in The Works of 1659. The works of this year, to be noticed, are " A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," "Likeliest Way to Remove Hirelings out of the Church," and "The Ready and Easy Way," etc. All of these works, especially in their frequent reference to the Holy Spirit, are in harmony with the works of 1641. See Prose Works, II. 133, 523, 524, and especially 537. Also, III. 5, 23, 25, 27, 36, 39. In "The Ready and Easy Way," etc., Milton apostrophizes the Deity, and prays in a way that certainly implies that he then held a plurality of coëqual persons in the Godhead. เ "What I have spoken," he says, "is the language of that which is not called amiss, The Good Old Cause.' . . . Thus much I should, perhaps, have said, though I was sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones; and had none to cry to, but with the prophet: O earth, earth, earth! to tell the very soil itself, what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoke should happen (which Thou suffer not, who didst create mankind free! nor Thou, next, who didst redeem us from being servants of men!) to be the last words of our expiring liberty."— Id. II. 138. Dr. Sumner, though in the end he finds Milton denying the coëquality of the Father and the Son, quotes this passage to show that "so late even as the year 1660, he admitted their coëquality." Prose Works, IV. p. xxx. Keightley, also, refers to this passage, for the same purpose. Keightley's Life of Milton, p. 157, note. Several other passages of "The Ready and Easy Way," etc., go even more strongly to support this opinion. See Prose Works, II., 103, 133, and especially 127.1 In "The Likeliest Way," etc. (1659), there is a passage which Drs. Sumner and Todd both understand as referring to Christian Doctrine. The passage seems to relate to a work then in existence. Milton is speaking of what is necessary to give a people the knowledge of Christianity. Having alluded to the preaching of the word, he goes on: "To these I might add other helps, which we enjoy now, to make more easy the attainment of Christian religion by the meanest : the entire Scripture translated into English, with plenty of notes; and somewhere or other, I trust, may be found some wholesome body of divinity, as they call it, without school-terms and metaphysical notions, which have obscured rather than explained our religion, and made it seem difficult without cause.” — Prose Works, III. 26. See, also, Dr. Sumner and Todd's reference to this passage, IV. 441.- Todd's Life, p. 302. ' Dr. Sumner, Sir E. Brydges, St. John, and Mr. Keightley give 1660 as the date of "The Ready and Easy Way," etc. St. John says it was "first published" in this year. Hollis Catalogue gives 1659. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Mitford agree with Hollis. Of the Doctrine of the Son and the Holy Spirit, in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Paradise Lost was begun, according to Philips, in 1655; completed and published, in 1666. In the very beginning of the great epic we have a passage that must have no little weight in helping us understand all that comes after it. Here, as is well known, Milton invokes that Eternal Spirit, whose aid fourteen years before, when meditating upon his immortal work, he had declared so necessary. "And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Instruct me, for Thou know'st. Thou, from the first, Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark Bk. I. 1. 17-26. It is not at all doubtful what Being and Person the poet addresses. Milton himself, as if guarding against all misunderstanding, definitely informs us. It is He who, at creation, "moved upon the face of the waters." Gen. 1:2. He also, who inspired Moses to write the Genesis of Creation, and tuned the harp of David to sing, and touched the lips of prophets to speak of a new creation, fairer than the first; who prefers "Above all temples the upright heart and pure." Poets indeed are wont, at the beginning of their effusions, without much seriousness or meaning, to court the aid of the muse. But the Spirit of God that moved upon the face of the waters at creation, that inspired prophets and apostles, and sanctifies the heart, was not of the Nine. His is too sacred a name, and John Milton too devout and reverential a person, to use so hallowed a name in so irreverent a manIt does violence to his whole character to suppose that ner. he would here so solemnly invoke the illumination of the Spirit for the mere purpose of ornament; and much more that he would ascribe to an "empty dream," as he calls the muse, in the beginning of the seventh book of Paradise Lost, attributes and acts that belong to God only. Lest however there should be, after all, any doubt whose aid Milton invokes, even after he has designated the Holy Spirit by such significant words and attributes; or, lest it should be forgotten as his great work unfolds, and any should at length come to say, as some now do, he only conformed to ordinary poetic usage, and courted the presence of some fabled heathen divinity—in the beginning of the seventh book he specifies again, and denies any such impu tation. Milton does indeed, even here, begin : "Descend from heaven, Urania; " but, in the lines following, he denies that the Divine Voice he had followed was thus rightly named. "The meaning, not the name I call; for Thou, Can it be that John Milton, "magnum et venerabile no men," here ascribes the really Divine attribute of eternity to a fabled heathen goddess, and represents her whom, a little further on, he calls an "empty dream," as a companion, fit and coëqual of the Almighty Father? Nay, nay; he hastens, as we have already said, to forbid such an unjust imputation. "For Thou, Nor of the muses Nine, nor on the top The poet in this passage, had in mind, without doubt, the Divine description of Wisdom in Prov. 8:22-32, where, as Newton says, "the phrase of Wisdom always 'rejoicing before God,' is 'playing,' according to the Vulgate Latin: ludens coram eo omni tempore." And so Milton quotes it also in his Tetrachordon, written nearly a quarter of a century before: "I was, saith the Eternal Wisdom, daily his delight, playing always before Him."- Newton in Todd, Vol. III. p. 6. Milton felt, in his inmost soul, the awfulness of his subject, and the greatness of his work. He felt too, equally, the need of illumination and aid, as he was about to adventure so high a flight; and, witn childlike confidence and meek humility, he bowed down before the Spirit of all grace, that Eternal Spirit of whom he had spoken before, when meditating this work, and whose aid he had then declared necessary, then, when there is no doubt that he held the essential Divinity of the Spirit, and His coëquality with the Father and Son. Then, as now, he calls Him the "Illumining Spirit." This prayer, then, is incontrovertible evidence that now, as then now, as well as a quarter of a century before, John Milton shrunk from all denial of the essential Divinity of the Holy Spirit, and held to an equality of persons in the Godhead. This prayer, note too, is in direct contradiction to Milton's views of the Holy Spirit in Christian Doctrine. Paradise Regained, published in 1671, is in harmony with Paradise Lost. In the beginning of this work, too, Milton invokes the Spirit, not now in any other than His own proper name and person, the Spirit that led Jesus into the wilder ness. "Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st Him thence, the same note, too, that was "wont to inspire his prompted song." This prayer, more than the former, if possible, forbids us to suppose that Milton's invocations of the Divine Spirit are merely "exordia pro forma." In short, such are |