Our limited space is now drawing to a close; and, in good truth, we are weary of passing censure. It is time that we lift up our eyes from the right honourable lecturer to fix them for a few moments on the more noble and majestic proportions of the great poet himself. When we contemplate that venerable figure, as it stands forth to view on the canvas of history, if we speak in the language of censure, it must be blended with the language of genuine love and veneration. His errors we cannot defend; his faults we do not wish to extenuate; we are obliged to protest against his principles, and those who eulogise them. But amidst the varied fortunes of his chequered career he displayed many great qualities, which cannot fail to win the admiration of every generous heart.
Of his public conduct as a statesman we cannot indeed speak with approval. It seems to us that all the arguments advanced in his defence carry with them also his condemnation. He sided with the parliament against the king, because, it is said, he wished to uphold the constitution of his country; and yet he defended the trial and execution of the king, which were conducted in defiance of that same constitution. He abandoned his lawful sovereign to support the fortunes of Cromwell, because he believed that Charles was a despot; and yet he clung to the cause of Cromwell when Cromwell was not only a despot but an usurper. If the constitution was to be upheld, then the execution of the king was indefensible. If a tyrant should forfeit the allegiance of his subjects, then Cromwell had no claim to be obeyed. Yet however much he erred, it must be ever borne in mind that those who took a part in the turbulent events of the great rebellion, had not the same opportunities to form a calm and impartial judgment which we now possess. Men distinguished by great vigour of mind and great public spirit, were to be found on opposite sides in the senate and in the camp. None could have told, when the breach first appeared between Charles and his parliament, that it would lead to civil war and end in the crime of regicide. It was necessary to make a choice; and the choice once made, it required more than ordinary virtue, more than ordinary courage, to recede; virtue and courage with which Milton was not endowed.
Those, however, who would form a just estimate of Milton's character must seek him far away from the din of war and the strife of parties. He had borne a conspicuous part in a memorable political struggle; his fame had been carried abroad to distant lands; and yet he retires without regret from public life, to commune with his own mind in the obscurity of an humble lodging. The world admires the magnanimity of the old Roman who, having saved his country from destruction, returned again [pg 462] to his plough and to the simple pleasures of his rustic home. But there is far more to admire in the closing period of Milton's career. The hour of his prosperity had passed away; the vigour of youth was gone. Disappointed in his hopes, neglected by an age unworthy of his genius, poor, and blind, and old, his splendid mind rose superior to all these calamities, which would have crushed a less noble spirit. As if now, at length, released from the captivity of earthly bonds, he soars aloft to higher thoughts, and pours forth from an overflowing soul the lofty strains of his unrivalled poem, the glory of English literature, the wonder and delight of every succeeding age. Not often does the history of the world present to us a spectacle so sublime.
Yet how little does genius avail in the one great and important affair of religion, unless guided and controlled by that infallible authority which God has established in His Church! The great doctrinal errors of Milton cannot be imputed to any want of intellectual power; for, in the natural gifts of intellect, he was eminently conspicuous. Much rather must they be ascribed to the erroneous system he employed in the search of Revealed truth. Starting from false principles, the more boldly he advanced, the more deeply did he plunge into error. In common with other Protestants, he accepted the doctrine of private judgment; but he was distinguished from others by the logical consistency and inflexible resolution with which he ever clung to this fundamental principle. Having been taught not to subject his reason to the authority of a Church which claimed to be infallible, he refused to submit to the teaching of a Church which had renounced that claim. His errors were more extravagant than those of other Protestant writers, only because he was more fearless in his speculations, more consistent in his principles, more honest in his speech. Others are often saved from error because they hesitate to follow the light of reason, when reason would lead them too far from the beaten track of received opinions. But such timidity and inconsistency were little in harmony with the spirit of Milton. He had learned in early youth, as a first principle, that, in the matter of religion, Scripture should be his only authority, reason his only guide; and in after life he was ever prepared to follow that guide whithersoever it might conduct.
The religious career of Milton appears to us, therefore, in a remarkable manner, at once to illustrate and to disprove the Protestant Rule of Faith. In him it was fairly tried, and it was found wanting. It would be difficult, we believe, to select from the whole range of Protestant writers any one who possessed in a higher degree, those qualities which are [pg 463] favourable to the exercise of private judgment. His distinguished biographer, Mr. Mitford, who was himself a Protestant clergyman, has spoken on this subject with great candour and ability. Referring to the treatise De Doctrina Christiana, he says:—
“It is acknowledged by all that it is written with a calm and conscientious desire for truth, like that of a man who had forgotten or dismissed the favourite animosities of his youth, and who had retired within himself, in the dignity of age, to employ the unimpaired energies of his intellect on the most important and awful subject of inquiry. The haughtiness of his temper, the defiance of his manner, his severe and stoical pride, are no longer seen. He approaches the book of God with an humble and reverential feeling, and with such a disposition of piety, united to so powerful an intellect, and such immense stores of learning, who would not have expected to have seen the ‘star-bright form’ of truth appear from out the cloud; but wherever we look, the pride of man's heart is lowered, and the weakness of humanity displayed. With all his great qualifications for the removal of error and the discovery of truth, he failed”.[14]
He not only failed, but he seems to have been a perfect type of that unsteadiness in error which St. Paul describes in his Epistle to the Ephesians: he was as a little child “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine”. He wandered, we are told, “from Puritanism to Calvinism, from Calvinism to an esteem for Arminius, and finally, from an accordance with the Independents and Anabaptists to a dereliction of every denomination of Protestants”.[15] When this was the fate of his gigantic intellect, how can humbler minds hope to attain success if they employ the same means?
It seems to us, therefore, that we can find some excuse for the errors of Milton in the false principles which he had imbibed in his youth. And, with all his faults, we cannot but revere the magnanimity of his spirit, the splendour of his genius. But we have no sympathy with those who, having the rich inheritance of an infallible authority for their guide in matters of religion, would yet claim for themselves the right to launch forth into the boundless sea of thought without restriction or restraint; who blindly embrace the conclusions of Milton, while they reject his premises; and who imitate him in his wanderings, while they cannot imitate that nobility of sentiment and that loftiness of eloquence which shed a lustre even around his errors.