On the
course of affairs Milton's voice had no influence, as he had no part
in their transaction. Milton was the last man of whom a practical
politician would have sought advice. He knew nothing of the temper of
the nation, and treated all that opposed his own view with supreme
disdain. On the other hand, idealist though he was, he does not
move in the sphere of speculative politics, or count among those
philosophic names, a few in each century, who have influenced, not
action but thought. Accordingly his opinions have for us a purely
personal interest. They are part of the character of the poet Milton,
and do not belong to either world, of action or of mind.
The course of his political convictions up to 1654 has been traced in
our narrative thus far. His breeding at home, at school, at college,
was that of a member of the Established Church, but of the Puritan and
Calvinistic, not of the Laudian and Arminian, party within its
pale. By 1641, we find that his Puritanism has developed into
Presbyterianism; he desires, not to destroy the Church, but to reform
it by abolishing government by bishops, and substituting the Scotch or
Genevan discipline.
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