The Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty

Last updated

The Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty is an essay by English poet John Milton distributed as one of a series of religious pamphlets by the writer. Published in 1642, the political work details Milton's preference for a Presbyterian approach to the Church of England over approaches favoured by the episcopal organization of the time. Milton states that this form of worship stems from Hebrew scriptures. The essay was meant as a response to the beliefs of Bishop Joseph Hall and Archbishop James Ussher.

Contents

Background

Milton published The Reason for Church-Government Urged against Prelaty in January/February 1642. The tract was the fourth of his five antiprelatical tracts and was produced 6 months after Animadversions . The work is a response to an attack on his previous works which was titled Certain Briefe Treatises, Written by Diverse Learned Men, Concerning the Ancient and Moderne Government of the Church. Unlike Milton's previous three, he included his name upon the tract and he emphasised himself within the text. [1]

Tract

Milton begins his tract with a discussion on language. In particular, Milton discusses the form of truth and the nature of forms: [1]

if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very visible shape and image of vertue, whereby she is not only seen in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she walkes, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortal eares. [2]

Milton emphasises the need for an open dialogue on these matters, and claims that religious sects are an important part of understanding truth because they serve as reformers. If there is a freedom of speech on religious topics, then the problems of the past can be fixed and the people will be religiously healthy. However, the defence of sects transitions into a defence of his own writing and his own being. [3]

Milton attacks those who ignore scripture and instead emphasise the traditions of the church government: [4]

But let them chaunt while they will of prerogatives, we shall tell them of Scripture; of custom, we of Scripture; of Acts and Statutes, stil of Scripture, til the quick and the pearcing word enter to the dividing of their soules, & the mighty weaknes of the Gospel throw down the weak mightnes of mans reasoning. [5]

Milton believed that ministry was an important focus, and tries to connect his own action to that of a minister. He reveals his personal connection to ministering by relating to his early calling towards such an occupation when he says, [6] "the difficult labours of the Church, to whose service by the intentions of my parents and friends I was destin'd of a child, and in mine own resolutions". [7] In particular, he believed that "tyranny had invaded the Church". [8] and he was called to ministering and claims for himself a connection to a Puritan reform tradition. However, he does not put forth a system that would replace the episcopal government. [9]

In the preface of Book II, Milton gives many of his views about literature and genres: [10]

Time servs not now, and perhaps I might seem to profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home in the spacious circuits of her musing hath liberty to propose to her self, though of highest hope, and hardest attempting, whether that Epick form whereof the two poems of Homer , and those other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief model: or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be follow'd... Or whether those Dramatick constitutions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides raigne shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a Nation, the Scripture also affords us a divine pastoral Drama in the Song of Salomon constiting of two persons and a double Chorus, as Origen rightly judges. And the Apocalyps of Saint John is the majestick image of a high and stately Tragedy, shutting up and intermingly her solemn Scenes and Acts with a sevenfold Chorus of halleluja's and harping symphonies... Or if occasion shall lead to imitat those magnifick Odes and Hymns wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are in most things worthy, some others in their frame judicious, in their matter most an end faulty: But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition may be easily made appear over all the kinds of Lyrick poesy, to be incomparable. [11]

Themes

Milton's views on forms and the nature of truth and virtue were developed later in his Areopagitica . [1] Also, his views on poetry and art, contained within the preface of Book II, served as a basis for his later poetry. [12] Milton agreed with those like Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson that literature required an ethical function, but he believed that their views were corrupted by their support of traditional power structures. [13]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Wheeler 2003 p. 272
  2. ↑ Milton 1953 pp. 751–752
  3. ↑ Wheeler 2003 pp. 272–273
  4. ↑ Schwatz 2003 p. 49
  5. ↑ Milton 1953 p. 827
  6. ↑ Brown 2003 p. 110
  7. ↑ Milton 1953 p. 822
  8. ↑ Milton 1953 p. 823
  9. ↑ Keeble 2003 p. 128
  10. ↑ Lewalski 2003 p. 3
  11. ↑ Milton 1953 pp. 812–816
  12. ↑ Lewalski 2003 p. 18
  13. ↑ Guibbory 2003 p. 73

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Milton</span> English poet and civil servant (1608–1674)

John Milton was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.

<i>Samson Agonistes</i>

Samson Agonistes is a tragic closet drama by John Milton. It appeared with the publication of Milton's Paradise Regained in 1671, as the title page of that volume states: "Paradise Regained / A Poem / In IV Books / To Which Is Added / Samson Agonistes". It is generally thought that Samson Agonistes was begun around the same time as Paradise Regained but was completed after the larger work, possibly very close to the date of publishing, but there is no certainty.

<i>Il Penseroso</i>

Il Penseroso is a poem by John Milton, first found in the 1645/1646 quarto of verses The Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, published by Humphrey Moseley. It was presented as a companion piece to L'Allegro, a vision of poetic mirth. The speaker of this reflective ode dispels "vain deluding Joys" from his mind in a ten-line prelude, before invoking "divinest Melancholy" to inspire his future verses. The melancholic mood is idealised by the speaker as a means by which to "attain / To something like prophetic strain," and for the central action of Il Penseroso – which, like L'Allegro, proceeds in couplets of iambic tetrameter – the speaker speculates about the poetic inspiration that would transpire if the imagined goddess of Melancholy he invokes were his Muse. The highly digressive style Milton employs in L'Allegro and Il Penseroso dually precludes any summary of the poems' dramatic action as it renders them interpretively ambiguous to critics. However, it can surely be said that the vision of poetic inspiration offered by the speaker of Il Penseroso is an allegorical exploration of a contemplative paradigm of poetic genre.

The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is a book by John Milton, in which he defends the right of people to execute a guilty sovereign, whether tyrannical or not.

Of Reformation is a 1641 pamphlet by John Milton, and his debut in the public arena. Its full title is Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England.

Defension Secunda was a 1654 political tract by John Milton, a sequel to his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano. It is a defence of the Parliamentary regime, then controlled by Oliver Cromwell; and also defense of his own reputation against a royalist tract published under the name Salmasius in 1652, and other criticism lodged against him.

The Passion is an unfinished ode by John Milton that was possibly written in 1630 and was first published in 1645 or 1646. The poem connects Christ's Crucifixion with his Incarnation. It is linked to two other poems of Milton: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity and Upon the Circumcision

Arcades is a masque written by John Milton and performed on 4 May 1634. The piece was written to celebrate the character of Alice Spencer, the Countess Dowager of Derby, widow of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, during her 75th birthday. The masque distinguishes Spencer as having a greater far superior to other noble women by titling Spencer as queen of a metaphorical Arcadia that is far superior to any other realm. The piece served as a basis for Milton's later masque, Comus.

Of Prelatical Episcopacy is a religious tract written by John Milton in either June or July 1641.

Animadversions is the third of John Milton's antiprelatical tracts, in the form of a response to the works and claims of Bishop Joseph Hall. The tract was published in July 1641 under the title Animadversions upon The Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnuus.

Apology for Smectymnuus, or An Apology for a Pamphlet, was published by John Milton in April 1642. It was the final of his antiprelatical tracts which criticize the structure of the Church of England.

A Treatise of Civil Power was published by John Milton in February 1659. The work argues over the definition and nature of heresy and free thought, and Milton tries to convince the new English Parliament to further his cause.

The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth was a political tract by John Milton published in London at the end of February 1660. The full title is "The readie & easie way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the excellence therof compar'd with the inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship in this nation. The author J[ohn] M[ilton]". In the tract, Milton warns against the dangers inherent in a monarchical form of government. A second edition, published in March 1660, steps up the prophetic rhetoric against a monarchy. The book can seen as an expression of Milton's own antimonarchism.

John Milton's antiprelatical tracts are a series of five political pamphlets that attack the episcopal form of church leadership.

The religious views of John Milton influenced many of his works focusing on the nature of religion and of the divine. He differed in important ways from the Calvinism with which he is associated, particularly concerning the doctrines of grace and predestination. The unusual nature of his own Protestant Christianity has been characterized as both Puritan and Independent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early life of John Milton</span>

John Milton wrote poetry during the English Renaissance. He was born on 9 December 1608 to John and Sara Milton. Only three of their children survived infancy. Anne was the oldest, John was the middle child, and Christopher was the youngest.

John Milton was involved in many relationships, romantic and not, that impacted his various works and writings.

Politics were an important part of John Milton's life. Milton enjoyed little wide-scale early success, either in prose or poetry, until the production of his later, controversial political works starting with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes.

The reception history of John Milton and his works has been a mixture of positive and negative responses, with his greatest influence being found within his poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Milton's poetic style</span>

The poetic style of John Milton, also known as Miltonic verse, Miltonic epic, or Miltonic blank verse, was a highly influential poetic structure popularized by Milton. Although Milton wrote earlier poetry, his influence is largely grounded in his later poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.