This Testimony, which was immediately published, [Footnote: London: Printed by A. M. for Tho. Underhill at the Bible in Wood Street: 1648.] bore the signatures of 58 London ministers in all, of whom 41 signed to the whole document, while 17, being members of Assembly, abstained from signing to those parts that related particularly to the Confession of Faith and the Directory of Worship, not because they did not thoroughly approve of those parts, but because they thought themselves precluded, by constitutional etiquette, from publicly affirming portions of the Assembly's work which still waited full Parliamentary sanction. All the 58, however, subscribed to that main portion of the Testimony which consisted in an enumeration, and condemnation of certain "abominable errors, damnable heresies, and horrid blasphemies." Among the seventeen members of Assembly so subscribing were Dr. Lazarus Seaman of Allhallows, Bread Street (Milton's native parish), then Prolocutor of the London Provincial Synod; Dr. Gouge of Blackfriars, ex-Prolocutor of the same; Dr. Hoyle of Stepney, Dr. Tuckney, and Messrs. Gataker, Calamy, Ashe and Case; and among the forty-one others were Samuel Clarke of Benetfink, Christopher Love of Anne's, Aldersgate, John Downam of Allhallows, Thames Street, Henry Roborough, one of the scribes of the Assembly and minister of Leonard's, Eastcheap, and John Wallis, sub-clerk of the Assembly, now uniting as well as he could the duties of that office and the parish-cure of Gabriel's, Fenchurch Street, with his mathematical proclivities and his association with the "physicists" of the Invisible College. And what were the errors, heresies, and blasphemies, thus publicly certified against by these London divines and the rest? They were classified with great punctuality under nineteen heads, each head being subdivided into specific varieties of error, and the chief heretics under each openly named. First came Anti-Scripturism, or "Errors against the divine authority of Holy Scriptures," associated with the names of John Goodwill and Laurence Clarkson; then, in four heads and their subdivisions, came Anti-Trinitarianism, or "Errors against the nature and essence of God, against the Trinity, against the Deity of the Son of God, and against the Deity and divine worship of the Holy Ghost," the culprits named for chief condemnation in this department being Biddle and Paul Best; and so on the catalogue proceeds through various forms of Arminianism, Antinomianism, Seekerism, Anti-Sabbatarianism, Antipædobaptism, Anabaptism, Materialism or Mortalism, ending in Tolerationism. Among the Arminians denounced as notorious are Paul Best again, Paul Hobson, but especially John Goodwin again, and the Episcopalian and Royalist Dr. Henry Hammond, whose Practical Catechism, published in 1644, is cited as full of Arminian error. Among the Antinomians are denounced Randall, Simson, Eaton, Crisp, and Erbury; among the Seekers, Saltmarsh and Jos. Salmon; among the Anti- Sabbatarians, Saltmarsh again; among the Antipædobaptists and Anabaptists, Saltmarsh again, Tombes, and Webb. In a special group, as opposing magistracy and lawful oaths, are mentioned Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton, and Dr. Henry Hammond again; the chief representative of the tremendous doctrine of Materialism or the Denial of the Immortality of the Soul is R. O., the anonymous author of the tract on Man's Mortality; and among the leading Tolerationists or representatives of the grand error of Liberty of Conscience, "patronizing and promoting all other errors, heresies, and blasphemies whatsoever," are named Roger Williams again and Paul Best again.—One head or department in this long black list we have reserved. It is the 17th in order, including "Errors touching Marriage and Divorce." Here the anonymous author of a pamphlet called Little Nonsuch, published in 1646, bears the brunt of the obloquy, on account of the opinion that, as "that marriage is most just which is made without any ambitious or covetous end," so, "if this liking and mutual correspondency happen betwixt the nearest of kindred, then it is also the most natural, the most lawful, and according to the primitive (Patriarchal) purity and practice." But Milton comes in company with this Little Nonsuch, as hardly less worthy of execration on account of his Divorce Doctrine. The main proposition of his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce is extracted textually from page 6 of the Second or 1644 Edition of that treatise, to show what a dreadful doctrine had been there maintained; but, in case this should not seem enough, the Testifying Divines, in the marginal note where they give the reference, add the words, "Peruse the whole book." They do not name Milton fully, but only by his initials "J. M.," as on the title-page of his Treatise. [Footnote: There is a general account of this Testimony of the London ministers in Dec. 1647 in Neal's Puritans, III. 359-363; but the account in the text is from the published copy of the Testimony itself.]
Sold at the shop of that very Underhill in Wood Street who had been the publisher of three of Milton's own pamphlets in the Smectymnuan Controversy in 1641 (antè, p. 450), this Testimony of the London ministers had an extensive circulation. It was adopted, in fact, as the authorized manifesto of all the English Presbyterianism then most militant for that full right of ecclesiastical and civil control over heresy and its dissemination which Parliament hitherto had refused to recognise. In a short time, accordingly, it received the adhesion of 64 ministers in Gloucestershire, 84 in Lancashire, 83 in Devonshire, and 71 in Somersetshire. Nor was this subscription of the same printed document by 360 of the most active Presbyterian ministers throughout England a mere appeal to public opinion. It was intended as an aid to Presbyterianism in its anxious endeavour to obtain even yet all it wanted from Parliament. One observes, for example, that, within a month after the manifesto of the London ministers had gone forth from Sion College, i.e. on the 12th of January, 1647-8, a petition was presented to Parliament by the London Provincial Synod itself, praying for various extensions and amendments of the Presbyterian system in the City, among which was the better establishment of Church censures for notorious and scandalous offenders. [Footnote: Neal's Puritans, III. 359-363; and Lords Journals, Jan. 12, 1647-8; but see also Halley's Lancashire and its Puritanism (1869), I. 467 et seq.]
At least two of the heretics denounced in the Sion College manifesto published replies. The Royalist Dr. Henry Hammond thought it worth while to defend his Practical Catechism in a tract called Views of some Exceptions, &c. [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 494-5.] John Goodwin of Coleman Street, who had been more largely attacked, and who indeed had reason to believe that the manifesto was mainly directed against himself, replied with his usual cool stoutness in a pamphlet called Sion College Visited. He there rebukes his accusers for their uncharitableness, unfairness, and malice in seeking to "exasperate the sword of the civil magistrate" against pious and peaceable citizens who had done them no injury. [Footnote: Jackson's Life of Goodwin. 172-175.] In effect, this reply of Goodwin's answered for the others as well as for himself. Milton, at all events, let the thing pass unnoticed. Entering his house in High Holborn, it may have been enough for him to repeat to himself, by way of comment, the lines he had already written—
"I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, arid dogs;"
or perhaps, by way of more determinate conclusion, his other and ever famous line,
"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."
ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI: TRANSLATION OF NINE PSALMS FROM THE HEBREW.
Exactly at this time, when the repeated attentions of New Presbyter in England must have been annoying Milton, he had a friendly gleam from the land of the Old Priest. Carlo Dati had duly received his Latin Epistle of the previous April, and had acknowledged it in a long Italian letter, dated Nov. 1, 1647, but which may not have reached Milton till Jan. 1647- 8, or even later. The letter still exists in Dati's own hand, and the following is a translation of as much of it as can interest us here:—
All Illmo. Sig. Gio. Miltoni, Londra [meaning literally "To the most illustrious Signor John Milton, London;" but this is merely the polite Italian form of correspondence, and implies no more than "To Mr. John Milton, London.">[
When all hope of receiving letters from you was dead in me, most keen as was my desire for such, lo! there arrives one to delight me more than I can express with this most grateful pen. O what feelings of boundless joy that little paper raise in my heart—a paper written by a friend so admirable and so dear; bringing to me, after so long a time and from so distant a land, news of the welfare of one about whom I was as anxious as I was uncertain, and assuring me that there remains so fresh and so kind a remembrance of myself in the noble soul of Signor John Milton! Already I knew what regard he had for my country; which reckons herself fortunate in having in great England (separated, as the Poet said, from our world) one who magnifies her glories, loves her citizens, celebrates her writers, and can himself write and discourse with such propriety and grace in her beautiful idiom. And precisely this it is that moves me to reply in Italian to the exquisite Latin letter of my honoured friend, who has such a very singular faculty of reviving dead tongues and making foreign ones his own; hoping that there may be something agreeable to him in the sound of a language which he speaks and knows so well. I will take the same opportunity of earnestly begging you to be please to honour with your verses the glorious memory of Signor Francesco Rovai, a distinguished Florentine poet prematurely dead, and, to the best of my belief, well known to you: this having already been done at my request by the very eminent Nicolas Heinsius and Isaac Vossius of Holland, peculiarly intimate and valued friends of mine, and famous scholars of our age. [Footnote: About Nicolas Heinsius (1620-1681) and his intimacy with Dati and the other Florentine wits, see Vol. I. 721 2. Both he and Isaac Vossius (1618-1688) will reappear in closer connexion with Milton himself.] Signor Francesco was noble by birth, endowed by nature with a genius of the highest kind, which was enriched by culture and by unwearied study of the finest sciences. He understood Greek excellently, spoke French, and wrote Latin and Italian wonderfully. He composed Tragedies, and excelled also in lyrical Canzoni, in which he praised heroes and discountenanced all vice, particularly in one set of seven made against the seven capital sins. He was well-bred, courteous, a favourite with our Princes, or uncorrupted manners, and most religious. He died young, without having published his works: a splendid obituary ceremonial is being prepared for him by his friends, faulty only in the fact that the charge of the funeral oration has been imposed upon me. Should you be pleased to send me, as I hope, some fruit of your charming genius for such a purpose, you will oblige me not only, but all my country; and, when the Poems of Signor Francesco are published, with the eulogisms upon him, I will see that copies are sent you.—But, since I have begin to speak of our language and our poets, let me communicate to you one of the observations which, in the leisure-hours left me from my mercantile business, I occasionally amuse myself with making on our writers. The other day, while I was reflecting on that passage in Petrarch's Triomf' d'Amor, C. 3: