Catalogue Entry: THEM00302

Book I: Chapter 2

Author: John Milton

Source: A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Compiled from the Holy Scriptures Alone, vol. 1 (Boston: 1825).

[Normalized Text] [Diplomatic Text]

[1]

Unless there be, who think not God at all:

If any be, they walk obscure;

For of such doctrine never was there school,

But the heart of the fool,

And no man therein doctor but himself —Samson Agonistes, 295.

[2]

........ that Power

Which erring men call Chance-. Comus, 588.

In allusion to the doctrines of the Stoicks, &c. seneca De Beneficiis, iv. 8.'Sic hunc naturam vocas, fatum, fortunam; omnia ejusdem Dei nomina sunt, varie utentis sua potestate.' Nat. Quæst. ii.45. 'Vis ilium fatum vocare? non errabis.' The next clauses of this sentence contain in the original two of those conceits which are so frequent in Milton's works, and which can scarcely be preserved in a translation. The passage stands thus —'sed natura natam se fatetur, &c........ et fatum quid nisi effatum divinum om nipotentis enjuspiam numinis potest esse?'

[3]

Since thy original lapse, true liberty

Is lost, which always with right reason dwells

Twinn'd Paradise Lost, XII. 83.

'Rectae rationi obtemperare discite.' Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicane, Prose Works, V. 266.

[4]

Left only in those written records pure,

Though not but by the Spirit understood. Paradise Lost, XII. 513.

'It will require no great labour of exposition to unfold what is here meant by matters of religion; being as soon apprehended as defined, such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God, and are either above the reach and light of nature without revelation from above, and therefore liable to be variously understood by human reason,' &c. Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. Prose Works, III. 320. 'True religion is the true worship and service of God, learnt and believed from the word of God only. No man or angel can know how God would be worshipped and served, unless God reveal it.' Of True Religion, &c. IV. 259.

[5]

Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid:

Leave them to God above; him serve and fear.

Paradise Lost, VIII. 166.

....... Heaven is for thee too high

To know what passes there; so, lowly wise,

Think only what concerns thee, and thy being;

Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there

Live, in what state, condition, or degree —172.

[6]

Two ways then may the Spirit of God be said to be grieved, in Himself, in his saints; in Himself, by an anthropopathie, as we call it; in his Saints by a sympathie; the former is by way of allusion to human passion and carriage. Bp. Hall's Rem. p.106.

[7]

The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having really a human form. See Clarke's Sermons, Vol. I. p. 26. fol. edit. The drift of Milton's argument leads him to employ language which would appear at first sight to verge upon their doctrine, but it will be seen immediately that he guards himself against the charge of having adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the Church. The reasoning of Milton on this subject throws great light on a passage in Paradise Lost, put into the mouth of Raphael:

...... What surmounts the reach

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporal forms,

As may express them best; though what if Earth

Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein

Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

Here Newton observes the artful suggestion that there may be a greater similitude and resemblance between things in Heaven and things in Earth than is generally imagined, and supposes it may have been intended as an apology for the bold figures which the Poet has employed. We now see that his deliberate opinion seems to have leaned to the belief that the fabrick of the invisible world was the pattern of the visible. Mede introduces a hint of a similar kind in his tenth discourse, as Newton remarks.

[8]

The original of this passage presents considerable difficulty. It is thus written in the manuscript: 'Cap. iii. 14. אהיה Ehie, qui sum vel ero, et persona prima in tertiam affinis verbi mutatur Jehovae, qui est vel erit, idem quod Jehova, ut quidam putant illisque vocabulis rectius prolatum.' In the translation I have considered Ehie qui sum vel ero, as an absolute sentence; and conceiving the next clause to have been incorrectly transcribed, I have rendered it as if it had been written —et si persona prima in tertiam affinis verbi mutatur, Jave, qui est, vel erit, &c. Simon in his Hebrew Lexicon has the following remark on the word יהוה: 'יהוה' nomen proprium Dei, a Mose demum introductum, eum qui re præstiturus sit, quod olim promiserit, ex ipsa loci Mosaici authentica explicatione, Exod. iii. 14. significans, adeoque יהוה vel יַוה proprie efferendum, ut ex veteribus Theodoretus et Epiphanius Jahe, h. e. Jave scripserunt. If the sense of the passage has been rightly conceived, the kindred verb will be הוה sidit, fuit vel factus est. See Simon in voce. See also Buxtorf's Lexicon ad Rad. הוה and Cappelli Vindic. Arcani Punctuationis, lib. 1 §, 20.

[9]

χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστασέως αὐτοῦ. the express image of his person. Authorized Transl. exact image of his substance. Macknight. 'Concerning the word ὑποστασέως, rendered in our Bibles, person, it hath been observed by comentators, that it did not obtain that signification till after the Council of Nice. Our translators have rendered ὑπόστασις, Heb. xi. 1. by the word substance.' Mackn. in loc.

[10]

Imago essentae ejus. Tremellius.

[11]

Thee, Father, first they sung Omnipotent,

Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King. Paradise Lost, III. 372.

Another expression of great beauty is used in Samson Agonistes to denote the same attribute:

As if they would confine the Interminable,

And tie him to his own prescript. 307.

[12]

The disputes among the schoolmen respecting the proper definition of eternity could not have been forgotten by Milton. It appears therefore that at this time the famous definition of Boëthius was generally rejected —æternitas est interminabilis vitæ tota simul et perfecta possessio. According to these term God would not necessarily have been without a beginning.

[13]

'Sic etiam Deus dicitur qui est, qui erat, et qui futurus est, Apoc. i. 8. et iv. 8. Deo lamae ævum sive æternitas, non tempus, attribui solet: quid autem est ævum proprie, nisi duratio perpetua, Græce, αὶὼν, quasi ἀσὶ ὼν, semper existens.' Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio, &c. Prose Works, VI. 224.

[14]

ἀφθαρτῷ incorruptibili. Tremellius. qui non corrumpitur. Beza.

[15]

Fortis omnipotens. Tremellius. Shaddai. Hebr. qui sum sufficiens.

[16]

See Aristot. Metaph. lib. 1. cap. ix. &c. lib. 14. cap. vi. Cudworth's Intellectual System, Vol. II. p. 322. Birch's Edit.

[17]

Can he make deathless death ? That were to make

Strange contradiction, which to God himself

impossible is held; as argument

Of weakness, not of power. Paradise Lost, X. 798.

'Cum autem dico potentiæ Dei objectum omne esse possibile, per possibile intelligo illud quod non implicat contradictionem ut fiat. Nam quod contradictionem implicat, ne Deus quidem ipse potest. Curcellæi Institutio II. 2.

[18]

[ אחה אלהים לבדך Psalm lxxxvi. 10. ]

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