Catalogue Entry: THEM00340

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.....'the body, with all the circumstances of place and time, were purified by the affections of the regenerate soul.' Of Reformation in England, Prose Works, I. 1. 'Tertius modus est adjunctorum quæ recipiuntur ad subjectum; quæ vulgo circumstantiæ nuncupantur, quia extra subjectum sunt. Hue tempus refertur.' Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio. IV. 224

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Dr. William Ames, a Puritan divine in the time of James and Charles the First, and Professor of Divinity in the University of Franeker, a town of the Netherlands, in Friesland. It was partly from the work quoted above, and partly from The Abridgment of Christian Divinitie by Wolebius, that Milton, according to Phillips, compiled for the use of his pupils a system of divinity, which they wrote on Sundays at his dictation. An English translation of Ames's treatise was published by order of the House of Commons in 1642, under the title of The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, drawne out of the Holy Scriptures and the Interpreters thereof, and brought into method. It is divided into two books, of which the first, entitled On Faith in God, contains forty-one chapters, and the second, On Observance toward God, twenty-two. It is quite evident that Milton has frequently availed himself of this volume, both in the distribution of his subject and arrangement of the chapters, which frequently coincides with that of Ames, and in particular passages and applications of Scripture; though their opinions differ materially on several important points. The translation is very badly executed, as the version of the passage quoted in the text will show. "That rule therefore of interpreting the Scriptures which is wont to be delivered by some, is not universally true; that all those duties [are] morall and immutable, which have morall and immutable reasons joyned to them; except it be thus understood, that those duties doe follow upon those reasons, no special command coming betweene." Milton quotes in his Tetrachordon the definition of marriage given by Ames, and passes a just censure on it. See Prose Works, II. 141. The Treatise of Wollebius is also divided into two parts, On the Knowledge and on the Worship of God, the first comprised in thirty-six, and the second in fourteen chapters. The plan of the latter division is very similar to the corresponding portion of Milton's work, and not only the arguments, but even whole sentences are sometimes almost identically the same.

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See Book I. Chap, xxvii. and the note in p. 90. To what is there said may be added the following passage from A Brief History of Moscovia. Milton is speaking of the Russian church. 'They hold the ten commandments not to concern them, saying that God gave them under the law, which Christ by his death on the cross had abrogated.' Prose Works, IV, 280.

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'What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross? What great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of? His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day, or regards it not, may do either to the Lord.' Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. Prose Works, 1. 327.

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'It would be helpful to us if we might borrow such authority as the rhetoricians by patent may give us, with a kind of Promethean skill to shape and fashion this outward man into the similitude of a body.' Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty. Prose Works, I. 133. 'Malui abs te decerpta transcribere, quæ tu Aristoteli, ut ignem Jovi Prometheus, ad eversionem monarcharum, et perniciem ipsius tuam, surripuisti.' Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, V. 115.

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'They ought to know, or to remember, that not examples, but express commands oblige our obedience to God or man.' The likeliest Means to remove Hirelings, &c. III. 357.

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'God delights not to make a drudge of virtue, whose actions must be all elective and unconstrained.' Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Prose Works, II. 51.

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'What would ye say now, grave fathers, if you should wake and see unworthy bishops, or rather, no bishops, but Egyptian task-masters of ceremonies, thrust purposely upon the groaning church, to the affliction and vexation of God's people?' Of Reformation in England, I. 13.

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'As therefore the seventh day is not moral, but a convenient recourse of worship in fit season, whether seventh or other number —.' The Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church. Prose Works, III. 367.

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Several of these divines are elsewhere mentioned by Milton in terms of commendation. 'Bucer (whom our famous Dr. Rainolds was wont to prefer before Calvin) in his comment on Matthew, and in his second book of the kingdom of Christ... This book he wrote here in England, where he lived the greatest admired man.' Tetrachordon. Prose Works, II. 232. See also the address to the Parliament, prefixed to the Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce, 68-78. Peter Martyr is twice quoted with reference to the same subjects. Ibid. 67, 233. Musculus is also called 'a divine of no mean fame.' Ibid. 233. In proof of Milton's assertion that these divines agree with him on the subject of the sabbath, the following passages may be cited from their respective works. 'Sic de sabbatho. Quod septimo die, illa quæ a Judæis observatur numeratione, ab omni opere servili vacandum erat, præceptum legis externum fuit, solis Judæis, quibus datum exstitit, observandum, &c..... Hæc ergo ad nos pertinent, illa Judæis recte relinquuntur.' BUCER in sacra quatuor Evangelia Enarrat. Perpet. ad Matt. x. 9. 'Cæterum non dubium quin Domini Christi advento, quod cæremoniale hic [in sabbatho] erat, abolitum fuerit. Ipse enim veritas est, cujus præsentia figuræ omnes evanescunt... Ideo sublatam umbram fuisse rei futuræ alibi scribit apostolus; corpus exstare in Christo, hoc est, solidam veritatis substantiam, quam illo loco bene explicavit. Ea non uno die contenta est, sed toto vitæ nostræ cursu, donec penitus nobis-metipsis mortui, Dei vita impleamur. A Christianis ergo abesse debet superstitiosa dierum observatio,' &c. &c. CALVIN. Instit. Christian, cap. viii. Sect. 31. See also Comment. in quinque libros Mosis, nearly at the end of the preface to the remarks on the Mosaic law. 'Deinde quod locum Pauli Heb. iii. et iv. concernit, notandum est illud hodie non esse alligandum septimo diei, sed exigere a nobis perpetuam obedientiam verbo Dei præstandam. Est enim nobis perpetuus sabbathismus, quo coram Deo in spiritu comparentes, majestatem illius celebramus, cum adoratione invocamus, ac vocem illius audimus; verum hic sensus et modus iste mystici sabbathismi non excludit ecclesiasticorum conventuum usum, sicut hodie fanatici quidam homines somniant, ac seipsos una cum aliis ab ecclesiæ conventibus abducunt.' MUSCULUS, Comment. in Psalm. xcv. 8. 'Cum igitur sabbathum septimani diei typus fuerit, admonens populem et de suo officio, sive de pietate erga Deum, et de beneficio Dei erga populum per Christum præstando, una cum aliis cæremoniis, adventu Christi, per quem est impletum quod illa significabant, abrogatum est. Quod etiam Paulus testatur Col. ii.' 1 &c. &c. URSINUS, Tractat. Theolog. in expositione Quarti Præcepti. 'Christiani respondent Judæis... sabbathum abrogatum ratione cæremoniæ et geminæ circumstantiae, &c... deinde observatione septimi illius diei definiti. Quo modo appendix erat legis moralis, ad populum Judaicum solum pertinens.' GOMARUS, Oper. Theolog. in Explicatione Ep. ad Colossenses , cap. ii. PETER MARTYR, however, seems to hold a different opinion. 'Qui autem robustiori fide erant præditi, illi omnes dies perinde habuerunt. Dominicam tamen diem excipimus; pertinet enim ad decalogum, ut ex hebdomada integra unus dies divino cultui consecretur,' &c. Comment, in Ep. ad Romanos, cap. xiv.