Catholic theologians had employed for some generations past, as their
best weapon against their adversaries. In these infamous productions,
hatched by celibate pedants in the foul atmosphere of the Jesuit
colleges, the gamut of charges always ranges from bad grammar to
unnatural crime. The only circumstance which can be alleged in
mitigation of the excesses of the _Regii sanguinis clamor_ is that
Milton had provoked the onfall by his own violence. He who throws dirt
must expect that dirt will be thrown back at him, and when it comes to
mud-throwing, the blackguard has, as it is right that he should have,
the best of it.
The author of the _Clamor_ was Peter Du Moulin, a son of the
celebrated French Calvinist preacher of the same name. The author not
daring to entrust his pamphlet to an English press, had sent it over
to Holland, where it was printed under the supervision of Alexander
Morus. This Morus (More or Moir) was of Scottish parentage, but born
(1616) at Castres, where his father was principal of the Protestant
college. Morus fitted the _Clamor_ with a preface, in which Milton was
further reviled, and styled a "monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens,
cui lumen ademtum." The secret of the authorship was strictly kept,
and Morus having been known to be concerned in the publication, was
soon transformed in public belief into the author. So it was reported
to Milton, and so Milton believed. He nursed his wrath, and took
two years to meditate his blow. He caused inquiries to be made into
Morus's antecedents. It happened that Morus's conduct had been wanting
in discretion, especially in his relations with women. He had been
equally imprudent in his utterances on some of the certainties of
Calvinistic divinity. It was easy to collect any amount of evidence
under both these heads. The system of kirk discipline offered a
ready-made machinery of espionage and delation. The standing jest of
the fifteenth century on the "governante" of the curé was replaced, in
Calvinistic countries, by the anxiety of every minister to detect his
brother minister in any intimacy upon which a scandalous construction
could be put.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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