518.) Or, to use his own words in " Areopagitica," "Their confuting is the best and surest suppressing." Finally, in this treatise Milton declares of the Trinity in scripture, "it is a plain doctrine." This passage has, indeed, been called ambiguous, by no less an authority than Dr. Sumner, and quoted by him to prove exactly the opposite of what it does really prove. Dr. S. quotes it to prove that Milton, in this his last work, rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as unscriptural. (Prose Works, IV. p. xxxi.) Mitford, also, quotes a part of the passage, for the same purpose. (Mitford's Life of Milton, p. xcix.) We will, therefore, give the passage, in its connection, that each may judge for himself. Milton, as we have already said, is pleading for toleration of all errorists who profess to take the word of God as the rule of faith and doctrine. "It is a human frailty," he says, " to err, and no man is infallible here on earth. But so long as all these profess to set the word of God only before them, as the rule of faith and obedience; and use all diligence and sincerity of heart, by reading, by learning, by study, by prayer for illumination of the Holy Spirit, to understand the rule and obey it, they have done what man can do; God, assuredly, will pardon them, as He did the friends of Jobgood and pious men, though much mistaken, as there it appears, on some points of doctrine. But some will say, With Christians it is otherwise, whom God hath promised, by his Spirit, to teach all things. True all things absolutely necessary to salvation; but the hottest disputes among Protestants, calmly and charitably inquired into, will be found less than such: The Lutheran holds consubstantiation - an error indeed, but not mortal." Notice that Milton here, and in several sentences following, gives his opinion of the doctrines of the sects he calls over, as he says of consubstantiation, the doctrine of the Lutherans: " an error indeed, but not mortal." "The Calvinist," he continues, "is taxed with predestination, and to make God the author of sin; not with any dishonorable thought of God, but it may be over-zealously asserting His absolute power, not without plea of Scripture. The Anabaptist is accused of denying infants their right to baptism; again, they say, They deny nothing but what the Scripture denies them. The Arian and Socinian are charged to dispute against the Trinity. They affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, according to Scripture and the Apostolic Creed; as for terms of trinity, triniunity, coëssentiality, tripersonality, and the like, they reject them as scholastic notions, not to be found in Scripture, which, by a general Protestant maxim, is plain and perspicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words belonging to so high a matter, and so necessary to be known; a mystery indeed, in their sophistic subtleties, but in Scripture a plain doctrine.” What is it, now, that is a mystery in their sophistic subtilties, but in Scripture a plain doctrine? Plainly, not "scholastic notions," as Dr. Sumner asserts; but that to which these scholastic notions and terms relate, and try to describe the Trinity. But this interpretation will be made plainer, if we read on. "Their other opinions," he continues, "are of less moment. They dispute the satisfaction of Christ, or rather the word 'satisfaction,' as not Scriptural; but they acknowledge Him both God and their Saviour. The Arminian, lastly, is condemned for setting up free will against free grace; but that imputation he disclaims, in all his writings, and grounds himself largely upon Scripture only. It cannot be denied that the authors or late revivers of all these sects and opinions were learned, worthy, zealous, and religious men, as it appears by their lives written, and the same of their many eminent and learned followers, perfect and powerful in the Scriptures, holy and unblamable in their lives; and it cannot be imagined that God would desert such painful and zealous laborers in His church, and ftentimes great sufferers for their conscience, to damnable errors and a reprobate sense, who had so often implored the assistance of His Spirit; but rather, having made no man infallible, that He hath pardoned their errors, and accepts their pious endeavors, sincerely searching all things according to the rule of Scripture, with such guidance and direction as they can obtain of God by prayer. What Protestant, then, who himself maintains the same principles, and disavows all implicit faith, would persecute, and not rather charitably tolerate, such men as these, unless he mean to abjure the principles of his own religion? If it be asked, How far they should be tolerated? I answer: Doubtless equally, as being all Protestants; that is, on all occasions to give account of their faith, either by arguing, preaching in their several assemblies, public writing, and the freedom of printing."-Id. p. 511. Further quotation or commentary is needless. Notwithstanding the assertion of Dr. Sumner, if the passage is taken in its connection and scope, there is no ambiguity. It admits of no other interpretation than that we have given. Milton does mean, in this his last work, to represent the Arian and Socinian as sects and errorists, and the doctrine which they deny as a plain scriptural doctrine. He pleads, indeed, for the toleration of Arians and Socinians, notwithstanding their errors, for he would give error even a "fair field," nothing doubting that, in the end, truth will be victorious, though "all the winds of false doctrine be let loose upon her." If any doubt yet remain concerning Milton's intention to represent Arians and Socinians as errorists, and to avow his faith in the peculiar doctrine they deny - the doctrine of the Trinity, it must be all taken away by another passage, near the close of this, his last treatise. The passage has already been cited; but truth and the importance of the subject under discussion, justify us in bringing it forward again. Having quoted 1 Thess. 5:21, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good," he inquires : "How shall we prove all things, which includes all opinions, at least, founded on Scripture, unless we not only tolerate them, but patiently hear them, and seriously read them? If he who thinks himself in the truth professes to have learnt it, not by implicit faith, but by attentive study of the Scriptures and full persuasion of heart; with what equity can he refuse to hear or read him who demonstrates to have gained his knowledge by the same way? Is it a fair course, to assert truth by arrogating to himself the only freedom of speech, and stopping the mouths of others equally gifted? This is the direct way to bring in that papistical faith, which we all disclaim. They, i. e. those who refuse toleration, pretend it would unsettle the weaker sort; the same groundless fear is pretended by the Romish clergy. At least, then, let them have leave to write in Latin, which the common people understand not; that what they hold may be discussed among the learned only. We suffer the idolatrous books of papists without this fear, to be sold and read as common as our own; why not much rather of Anabaptists, Arians, Arminians, and Socinians? There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies. . . . If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together more evidently appear: it follows, then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth more true." Id. p. 517. - The argument here, is plainly this: we suffer papists to write and publish. Now if we suffer those that hold the greatest error, the Papist, why not those that hold an error, indeed, but one less destructive, the Arian and Socinian? Besides, to place their falsehood or error beside the truth, will make their falsehood appear more false, and the truth more clear. Thus the evidence is full and positive that Milton, in this his last work, abjures and condemns sects and doctrines that he advocates in Christian Doctrine, and died in what he so often, in his Letters of State, calls "the ancient," "the orthodox," the "evangelic faith," viz. that The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, are really Divine and coequal persons, constituting " one Tri-Personal Godhead." Thus it is that John Milton," the man to whom God communicated such measures of light and mental energy, that his name springs up spontaneously, when we think or would speak of the greatness of our nature; thus he shows us "in what conclusions he rested on that subject, which above all others presses upon men of thought and sensibility," rested, "after a life of extensive and profound research, of magnanimous efforts for freedom and his country, and of communion with the most gifted minds of his own and former times." "His theological opinions were the fruits of patient, profound, reverent study of the scriptures. He came to them with a 'mind not narrowed by a technical, professional education, but accustomed to broad views, to the widest range of thought."" "He was shackled by no party connections. He was warped by no clerical ambition, and subdued by no clerical timidity." He came to his conclusions respecting the Son of God, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity, "in the fulness of his strength, with free mind, open to truth, and with unstained purity of life." He came to them from the very force of conviction, and in direct opposition to what he once held and taught; conviction wrought by "patient, reverent, and profound study of the word of God." "And what did this great and good man, whose intellectual energy and love of truth has made him a chief benefactor of the human mind? what, we ask, did he discover in the Scriptures? A triple Divinity? No." But that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are "One Tri-Personal Godhead," and that this doctrine of the "Trinity is, in Scripture, a plain doctrine.” 1 1 It is due the memory of the late Dr. Channing, to transcribe the remark with which he closes his exultation over the discovery he supposed had been ARTICLE II. CHURCH THEOLOGY AND FREE INQUIRY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. BY REV. SETH SWEETSER, D. D., WORCESTER, MASS. It is often the fact that the qualities which mark a particular period in history are seen vividly portrayed in the lives of prominent individuals. The complexion of an age is the result of great moral causes, which are working widely and effectively upon the public mind. A revolutionary idea reaches its dominant energy by slow accretions and by a gradual widening of the sphere of its influence. It agitates many minds. Some men of congenial temperament it awakens; it sets them in motion. At first they are only subjects of a general movement. They identify themselves with it, they go before it, become leaders; and while they themselves are formed by the age, they assume the direction and, through the moral and intellectual force which circumstances have imperatively demanded, give the direction to the movement upon which they were thrown, and shape it after their own pleasure. Cromwell did not originate the historic epoch of which he was the life. He was called up by the political convulsions which shook Great Britain; the spirit of the times gave the direction to his imperious will, till that will seized the reins, and the whole train of events followed his resistless dictation. This representation of an era in a man, this impression of a man upon his age, so that the times produce the individual, and the individual moulds the times, is a fact observable in all marked periods. made respecting John Milton. "Our principal object in these remarks," he says, "has been to show, that as far as great names are arguments, the cause of Anti-trinitarianism, or of God's proper unity, is supported by the strongest. But we owe it to truth to say, that we put little trust in these fashionable proofs. The chief use of great names in religious controversy is, to balance and neutralize one another, that the unawed and unfettered mind may think and judge with a due self-reverence, and with a solemn sense of accountableness to God alone.” -Channing s Works, Vol. I. p. 477. |