6

tical principles, Milton imbibed, in common with the Puritans, such notions of discipline and church polity, as precluded one, distinguished like him by independence of character and thinking, from swearing by any master. Or, as he himself expresses it, Coming to some maturity of years, I had seen what tyranny pervaded the church, and that he who would take orders, must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must either strain, perforce, or split his faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence, before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.' He was indeed no less remarkable for freedom of speech, than that of thought; and in his travels in Italy we are told, that he fearlessly vindicated his religious principles, at the very seat, and almost in the presence of the papal power. After his return from his travels, which were of short duration, he employed himself in teaching a few scholars. And this might have been the commencement of his Treatise on Christian Doctrine; for it was his custom to instruct his pupils every Sunday in religion, dictating a short system collected from writers then fashionable in the Dutch Universities. The principal authors whom he is said to have consulted, were Ames and Wollebius; and there are traces of both in the Treatise now published.

The manuscript is not all in the same hand writing. Nearly half of the Treatise is in a small and beautiful Italian hand, and though evidently transcribed with great care, is by no means free from mistakes; for compared with the remaining part, the errors are as fourteen to one. Mr Lemon, whose knowledge of the handwritings of the period when the manuscript was written, is said by Mr Sumner to be very extensive, pronounces the part that is so carefully transcribed to be in a female hand, and thinks it that of Mary, the younger daughter of Milton. The last and larger part is in a very different hand, supposed by Mr Lemon to be that of Philipps, nephew of Milton. The numerous corrections and interlineations of this part are in two distinct hands, different from the body of the manuscript; but it is confidently believed, that most of them were written by the person who transcribed the first part of the Treatise. If Mr Lemon's opinions concerning the handwriting in the manuscript be well founded, we have additional evidence of the authenticity of the work.

We have compared Mr Sumner's translation with the original

so far as to be satisfied of his fidelity, and as to its style we have no objection to make. The coincidences which he has industriously pointed out in the notes, between thoughts and expressions throughout this treatise, and those in the printed works of Milton, both in his poetical and prose writings, are frequently striking, and might have been mentioned among the strongest proofs of the authenticity of the Treatise.

Milton's introduction to his Treatise, which begins with a salutation to all who profess the Christian faith throughout the earth, describes, we have no doubt honestly, the state of mind in which the work was composed. It breathes the same spirit of independence, which everywhere pervades his political and ecclesiastical writings, while at the same time it is free from their polemical zeal and sarcasm. He acquainted himself with the prevailing systems of theology, and was dissatisfied with all; and while reading the bible in the original languages, it was his practice to class under different heads, such passages of Scripture as he might afterwards have occasion to use. It seems that his original intention was to compile a manual for his own use, which he might always have at hand; and he speaks hypothetically of communicating the result of his labors to the Christian world. But in case he should publish his Treatise, he claims for it all the indulgence which is shown to scholastic systems of theology, since he everywhere takes the broad Protestant ground, asserting the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and acknowledging no other tribunal.

It is not our purpose to show the truth or error of the doctrinal views of this Treatise in general. Wedded to no system in theology, either in regard to the dogmas or ceremonial observances of the Christian church, the author, in his views, will satisfy no party, as a whole, though all will regard the results with some interest, as proceeding from a great mind, a mind distinguished by independence, to a degree remarkable at the period when the work was written. On many of the controverted points, he appears to belong to the orthodox school, particularly on the effects of the fall of our first parents, and on the But the Calvinistic doctrines are not brought together by a metaphysical concatenation, and they are everywhere accompanied with the heartiest defence of free, moral agency; so that, if God decrees every thing, yet when his decrees affect moral agents, they are attended, according to his theory, with a condition.

atonement.

All our readers, probably, have learned before this time, that Milton was a Unitarian; or at least that he was not, in any acknowledged use of the term, a Trinitarian. Though in some of his earlier poetical writings his belief in a Trinity is strongly implied, yet some, who have been curious to discover his theological opinions from his Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained, have suspected, not without reason, his antitrinitarian bias. In the work before us, his views are so clear and explicit, that they cannot be misunderstood. He denies both the self existence and the eternal generation of the Son, while he admits, in the strictest sense of the words of Scripture, all that relates, or seems to relate, to his preexistence. He is not appalled by those passages, even if the readings are all genuine, which speak of Jesus Christ as God, or ascribe to him any of the attributes of the Deity; considering the appellation and the attributes as applied to him always in a subordinate sense. The arguments by which he opposes the commonly received doctrine, both from reason and Scripture, are stated in their full strength, and, except for the infinite variety of illustration they admit, are nearly exhausted. But, as we remarked before, it is not our design to enter into any of the common controversies on Christian doctrine, which divide the church. There are in this Treatise other speculations of a different kind, some of which are on subjects very abstruse and almost intangible, and some on subjects either curious or uncommon, which have nothing to do with the distinctions of orthodox and heterodox, or liberal, as the words are now understood.

It may not be unwelcome to our readers to have some account of the author's notions concerning Creation. It is, we should think, the general belief, that God is purely a spiritual being, and that the world was created by him out of nothing. Notwithstanding the corporeal terms made use of, particularly in the Old Testament, when Deity is the subject of discourse, besides the difficulty of conceiving of a being without the aid derived from imagining material parts, still there is an abstract belief of existence independent of matter, and of power by which matter is created. But here arises the difficulty which the philosophic mind experiences in conceiving of a creation out of nothing; a difficulty which has driven some into atheism or Pantheism, and others into the belief that the world was created not only by God, but of God. It has been maintained by some divines, that the Hebrew word translated create, in the Mosaic

history, means producing out of nothing. But this is a mere inference from their preconceived notions. We do not affirm, that the exigency of the case may not require this restriction in the meaning of the term; but it is certain, that the usual meaning is to fashion or alter, to make or to form in any way. Milton believes neither that matter was created out of nothing, nor that it had an independent and eternal existence; consequently he maintains that there is but one solution of the difficulty, namely, that all things are of God.

6

'There are,' says he, four kinds of causes, efficient, material, formal, and final. Inasmuch then as God is the primary, and absolute, and sole cause of all things, there can be no doubt but that he comprehends and embraces within himself all the causes abovementioned. Therefore the material cause must be either God, or nothing. Now nothing is no cause at all; and yet it is contended that forms, and above all, that human forms were created out of nothing. But matter and form, considered as internal causes, constitute the thing itself; so that either all things must have had two causes only, and those external, or God will not have been the perfect and absolute cause of everything. Secondly, it is an argument of supreme power and goodness, that such diversified, multiform, and inexhaustible virtue should exist, and be substantially inherent in God (for that virtue cannot be accidental, which admits of degrees, and of augmentation or remission, according to his pleasure), and that this diversified and substantial virtue should not remain dormant within the Deity, but should be diffused and propagated, and extended as far and in such manner as he himself may will. For the original matter of which we speak, is not to be looked upon as an evil or trivial thing, but as intrinsically good, and the chief productive stock of every subsequent good. It was a substance, and derivable from no other source than from the fountain of every substance, though at first confused and formless, being afterwards adorned and digested into order by the hand of God.' Vol. 1. pp. 238, 239.

This theory is considered by the author consonant not only with reason, but with Scripture. It is grounded in the supposed impossibility of Creation in the commonly received sense of the word; and therefore it is intended only to deny what in its very nature is deemed incredible. Hence it is that he declares so plainly what has been less directly intimated by other theologians, that creation is not strictly the production of existence of any kind from nothing, but from the boundless fullness of the self

existent Being himself. In correspondence with this kind of mixture of the spiritual and material, some of the thoughts and expressions of the author concerning the conceptions that we may form of Deity, seem to approximate too nearly to anthropomorphism. Such kind of representations may be expected in poetry, and they are found sufficiently prominent in the great poem of our author. But it seems this was not with him a mere poetic license, helping out the machinery of his great Epic. His principle on this subject is, that it is safest to form such a conception of God, as shall best agree with the representations he has given of himself in the sacred writings. Passing over what he says of grief, anger, repentance &c, as referring to God, we come nearer to what we have alluded to above, when he speaks of the form and parts attributed to Deity.

If God,' says he, 'be said to have made man in his own image, after his likeness, and that too not only as to his soul, but also as to his outward form, and if God habitually assign to himself the members and form of man, why should we be afraid of attributing to him what he attributes to himself, so long as what is imperfection and weakness, when viewed in reference to ourselves, be considered as most complete and excellent, whenever it is imputed to God.' Vol. 1. pp. 22, 23.

There can be no doubt that when the attributes of God are represented by the aid of sensible objects, as his power by an outstretched arm, his omniscience by his eyes being in every place, and the like, it is done for wise purposes, to give us some faint notions of his perfections. But we cannot but agree with those divines, who consider such representations as merely auxiliary, or illustrative, and not intended to be associated with our purest and most intellectual conceptions of the invisible Jehovah. Some of the most sublime descriptions of his attributes and Providence, in the prophetic writings, are conveyed through the instrumentality of sensible objects, which are made to give us more lively and exalted impressions of them, than we should derive from purely abstract notions; but it is, as it were, merely a dense medium, through which we see something darkly, and magnified to an immeasurable extent. And the more we can

rid ourselves of what is merely sensible, the nearer we shall approach to the idea of God, which the Scriptures, in their general tenor, aim to convey; namely, of a perfect, invisible spirit, requiring a true, spiritual worship.