should presume to ride over.

And if I were more

warm than was meet in any passage of that book, which yet I do not yield, I might use therein the patronage of no worse an author than Gregory Nyssen, who mentioning his sharpness against Eunomius in the defence of his brother Basil, holds himself irreprovable in that "it was not for himself, but in the cause of his brother; and in such cases," saith he, "perhaps it is worthier pardon to be angry than to be cooler."

Another reason, it Remonstrant were.

8. And whereas this confuter taxes the whole discourse of levity, I shall show ye, readers, wheresoever it shall be objected in particular, that I have answered with as little lightness as the Remonstrant hath given example. I have not been so light as the palm of a bishop, which is the lightest thing in the world when he brings out his book of ordination for then, contrary to that which is wont in releasing out of prison, any one that will pay his fees is laid hands on. would not be amiss though the told, wherefore he was in that unusual manner beleaguered; and this was it, to pluck out of the heads of his admirers the conceit that all who are not prelatical, are gross-headed, thick-witted, illiterate, shallow. Can nothing then but episcopacy teach men to speak good English, to pick and order a set of words judiciously? Must we learn from canons and quaint sermonings, interlined with barbarous Latin, to illumine a period, to wreathe an enthymema with masterous dexterity? I rather incline, as I have heard it observed, that a Jesuit's

Italian when he writes, is ever naught, though he be born and bred a Florentine, so to think, that from like causes we may go near to observe the same in the style of a prelate.

9. For doubtless that indeed according to art is most eloquent, which turns and approaches nearest to nature from whence it came; and they express nature best, who in their lives least wander from her safe leading, which may be called regenerate reason. So that how he should be truly eloquent who is not withal a good man, I see not. (') Nevertheless, as oft as is to be dealt with men who pride themselves in their supposed art, to leave them inexcusable wherein they will not be bettered; there be of those that esteem prelacy a figment, who yet can pipe if they can dance, nor will be unfurnished to show, that what the prelates admire and have not, others have and admire not. The knowledge whereof, and not of that only, but

(5) Milton here alludes to the question, much debated among rhetoricians, whether an orator can attain to the highest reaches of his art without virtue; and he decides it in the negative. Aristotle, who saw what men of imperfect moral habits had, both at Athens and elsewhere, been able to effect by mere force of art, seems to admit a different conclusion; but at the same time maintains that the appearance of virtue carries along with it great weight, even when simply put on for the occasion, like the dress of a tragedian. This is yielding all that is demanded. For, if to give due force to their arguments even the vicious find it necessary to mimic virtue, he who in uttering noble sentiments has nothing but his heart to consult, who finds his habitual preferences marshalled on the side of what is good and honourable, will unquestionably, all other things being equal, possess a great advantage over the man who derives from others whatever he knows of great and heroic feelings.

of what the Scripture teacheth us how we ought to withstand the perverters of the gospel, were those other motives, which gave the Animadversions no leave to remit a continual vehemence throughout the book. For as in teaching doubtless the spirit of meekness is most powerful, so are the meek only fit persons to be taught: as for the proud, the obstinate, and false doctors of men's devices, be taught they will not, but discovered and laid open they must be.

10. For how can they admit of teaching, who have the condemnation of God already upon them for refusing divine instruction? That is, to be filled with their own devices, as in the Proverbs we may read therefore we may safely imitate the method that God uses; "with the froward to be froward, and to throw scorn upon the scorner," whom, if any thing, nothing else will heal. And if the "righteous shall laugh at the destruction of the ungodly," they may also laugh at the pertinacious and incurable obstinacy, and at the same time be moved with detestation of their seducing malice, who employ all their wits to defend a prelacy usurped, and to deprave that just government, which pride and ambition, partly by fine fetches and pretences, partly by force, hath shouldered out of the church. And against such kind of deceivers openly and earnestly to protest, lest any one should be inquisitive wherefore this or that man is forwarder than others, let him know that this office goes not by age or youth, but to whomsoever God shall give apparently the will,

the spirit, and the utterance. (6) Ye have heard the reasons for which I thought not myself exempted from associating with good men in their labours towards the church's welfare; to which, if any one brought opposition, I brought my best resistance. If in requital of this, and for that I have not been negligent toward the reputation of my friends, I have gained a name bestuck, or as I may say, bedecked with the reproaches and reviles of this modest confuter; it shall be to me neither strange nor unwelcome, as that which could not come in a better time.

11. Having rendered an account what induced me to write those Animadversions in that manner as I writ them, I come now to see what the confu

(6) The Puritans of Milton's age appear, in many instances, to have laid claim to immediate inspiration; but it is difficult to discover with clearness the nature of their ideas on the subject. Baxter, an eloquent and philosophical writer, observes:-"There is a great difference between that light which showeth us the thing itself, and that artificial skill by which we have right notions, names, definitions, and formed arguments and answers to objections. This artificial, logical, organical kind of knowledge is good and useful in its kind, if right, like speech itself; but he that hath much of this may have little of the former; and unlearned persons, that have little of this, may have more of the former; and may have those inward perceptions of the verity of the promises and rewards of God, which they cannot bring forth into artificial reasonings to themselves or others; who are taught of God by the effective sort of teaching which reacheth the heart or will, as well as the understanding, and is a giving of what is taught, and a making us such as we are told we must be. And who findeth not need to pray hard for this effective teaching of God when he hath got all organical knowledge; and words and arguments in themselves most apt at his fingers' ends, as we say?"-Dying Thoughts, in Sacred Classics, vol. vi. p. 24, 25:

tation hath to say against them; but so as the confuter shall hear first what I have to say against his confutation. And because he pretends to be a great conjector at other men by their writings, I will not fail to give ye, readers, a present taste of him from his title, hung out like a tolling sign-post to call passengers, not simply a confutation, but a modest confutation," with a laudatory of itself obtruded in the very first word. Whereas a modest title should only inform the buyer what the book contains without further insinuation; this officious epithet so hastily assuming the modesty which others are to judge of by reading, not the author to anticipate to himself by forestalling, is a strong presumption that his modesty, set there to sale in the frontispiece, is not much addicted to blush. A surer sign of his lost shame he could not have given, than seeking thus unseasonably to prepossess men of his modesty. And seeing he hath neither kept his word in the sequel, nor omitted any kind of boldness in slandering, it is manifest his purpose was only to rub the forehead of his title with this word modest, that he might not want colour to be the more impudent throughout his whole confutation.

12. Next, what can equally savour of injustice and plain arrogance, as to prejudice and forecondemn his adversary in the title for "slanderous and scurrilous," and as the Remonstrant's fashion is, for frivolous, tedious, and false, not staying till the reader can hear him proved so in the following discourse? Which is one cause of a suspicion

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