The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His TimeMasson, David
Religion
The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
Masson, David
Milton, John, 1608-1674; Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
The Assembly, we have shown, besides still carrying on within itself the
main question between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism, had begun a
wider war against Schism, Sectarianism, the whole miscellany of English
heresies, and especially the all-including heresy of Toleration. They
opened the campaign, by private agreement among themselves, in August
1644; and by the end of that month they had succeeded in rousing
Parliament to some action on the subject, and had directed attention to
at least nine special offenders, deserving to be punished first of all.
These were--the Anabaptists, Picot and Hanserd Knollys; the Antinomians,
Penrose and Simson; the Antinomian and Familist, Randall; the Seeker and
Tolerationist, Roger Williams; the Independent, semi-Socinian, and
Tolerationist, John Goodwin; the Anti-Scripturist and Mortalist, Clement
Wrighter; and Mr. John Milton of Aldersgate Street, author of a Treatise
on Divorce. For, though the Committee of Parliament had been instructed
to inquire out the author of the Divorce Treatise, this was but a form.
The second edition, dedicated to the Parliament and the Assembly, and
with Milton's name to it in full, had been out more than six months. Of
the nine persons mentioned, only Clement Wrighter, the Mortalist (if
indeed the tract on _Man's Mortality_ was from his pen), had to be
found out.
Was there to be no check to this Presbyterian inquisitorship? Whence
could a check come? The few Independents in the Assembly, just because
they were fighting their own particular battle, had to be cautious
against too great an extension of their lines. Not from _them_,
therefore, but from the freer Independency of the Army, which was in fact
by this time a composition of all or many of the sects, could the check
be expected. Thence, in fact, it did come. In short, while the
Presbyterians in London were in the flush of their first success against
the Sectaries and the Tolerationists, in walked Oliver Cromwell.
CROMWELL'S INTERFERENCE FOR TOLERATION: ACCOMMODATION ORDER OF
PARLIAMENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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