for many years. As late as
1641 he speaks of "the tri-personal Deity." Curiously enough, indeed,
the ecclesiastical freethought of the day was then almost entirely
confined to moderate Royalists, Hales, Chillingworth, Falkland. But he
must have disapproved of the Church's discipline, for he disapproved of
all discipline. He would not put himself in the position of those Irish
clergymen whom Strafford frightened out of their conscientious
convictions by reminding them of their canonical obedience. This was
undoubtedly what he meant when he afterwards wrote: "Perceiving that he
who would take orders must subscribe slave." Speaking of himself a
little further on as "Church-outed by the prelates," he implies that he
would not have refused orders if he could have had them on his own
terms. As regarded Milton personally this attitude was reasonable, he
had a right to feel himself above the restraints of mere formularies;
but he spoke unadvisedly if he meant to contend that a priest should be
invested with the freedom of a Prophet. His words, however, must be
taken in connection with the peculiar circumstances of the time. It was
an era of High Church reaction, which was fast becoming a shameful
persecution. The two moderate prelates, Abbot and Williams, had for
years been in disgrace, and the Church was ruled by the well-meaning,
but sour, despotic, meddlesome bigot whom wise King James long refused
to make a bishop because "he could not see when matters were well." But
if Laud was infatuated as a statesman, he was astute as a manager; he
had the Church completely under his control, he was fast filling it with
his partisans and creatures, he was working it for every end which
Milton most abhorred, and was, in particular, allying it with a king who
in 1632 had governed three years without a Parliament. The mere thought
that he must call this hierarch his Father in God, the mere foresight
that he might probably come into collision with him, and that if he did
his must be the fate of the earthen vessel, would alone have sufficed to
deter Milton from entering the Church.

Even so resolute a spirit as Milton's could hardly contemplate the
relinquishment of every definite calling in life without misgiving, and
his friends could hardly let it pass without remonstrance. There exists
in his hand the draft of a letter of reply to the verbal admonition of
some well-wisher, to whom he evidently feels that he owes deference. His
friend se