Catalogue Entry: THEM00338

^[1]

..... Thou know'st the magistrates

And princes of my country came in person,

Solicited, commanded, threaten'd, urg'd,

Adjur'd by all the bonds of civil duty

And of religion, press'd how just it was,

How honourable, how glorious to entrap

A common enemy, who had destroyed

Such numbers of our nation.....

.....

..... At length that grounded maxim

So ripe and celebrated in the mouths

Of wisest men, that to the public good

Private respects must yield, with grave authority,

Took full possession of me, and prevail'd;

Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty so enjoin'd.

Sampson Agonistes, 850

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..... How soon

Would height recal high thought, how soon unsay

What feign'd submission swore? ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void. Paradise Lost, IV. 94.

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See the treatise Of true Religion, where after describing the twofold power, ecclesiastical and political, claimed by the Roman Catholics, Milton proceeds thus: 'Whether therefore it be fit or reasonable to tolerate men thus principled in religion towards the state, I submit it to the consideration of all magistrates, who are best able to provide for their own and the public safety. As for tolerating the exercise of their religion, supposing their state-activities not to be dangerous, I answer, that toleration is either public or private; and the exercise of their religion, as far as it is idolatrous, can be tolerated neither way: not publicly, without grievous and unsufferable scandal given to all conscientious beholders; not privately, without great offence to God, declared against all kind of idolatry, though secret. Ezek. viii. 7, 8..... Having shown thus, that popery, a being idolatrous, is not to be tolerated either in public or in private, it must now be thought how to remove it,' &c. &c. Prose Works, IV. 264.

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'They will not go about to prove their idolatries by the word of God, but turn to shifts and evasions, and frivolous distinctions; idols they say are laymen's books, and a great means to stir up pious thoughts and devotion in the learnedest.' Ibid. IV. 266.

^[5]

...That he may dispense with me, or thee,

Present in temples at idolatrous rites,

For some important cause, thou need'st not doubt.

Samson Agonistes. 1377.

^[6]

Thus our Saviour in Paradise Regained, IV. 486.

..... what they can do as signs

Betok'ning, or ill boding, I contemn

As false portents, not sent from God, but thee:

compared with the words of Satan, v. 379, &c.

Now contrary, if I read aught in heav'n,

Or heav'n write aught of fate, by what the stars

Voluminous, or single characters,

In their conjunction met, give me to spell,

Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate,

Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,

Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death.

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,

Real or allegoric, I discern not.

These last words probably allude to the star, mentioned below, by which the birth of Christ, as 'King of the Jews,' was announced to the wise men.