“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642studies he was “blissfully” pursuing to write several tracts, led by a strong sense of
duty to God, truth, the common good, and his Smectymnuan friends. He was
aware, he says, of a crisis moment. Parliament was acting “with vigor,” freedom of
speech was restored, “all mouths were opened” against the bishops, and men were
taking the first steps on “the true path to liberty.” He claims for his tracts a large and
effective role in the polemical Bishops’ Wars:
Since, moreover, I had so practiced myself from youth that I was above all things
unable to disregard the laws of God and man, and since I had asked myself whether I
should be of any future use if I now failed my country (or rather the church and so
many of my brothers who were exposing themselves to danger for the sake of the
Gospel) I decided, although at the time occupied with certain other matters, to de-
vote to this conflict all my talents and all my active powers.
First, therefore, I addressed to a certain friend two books on the reformation of the
English church. Then, since two bishops of particularly high repute were asserting
their prerogatives against certain eminent ministers, and I concluded that on those
subjects which I had mastered solely for love of truth and out of regard for Christian
duty, I could express myself at least as well as those who were wrangling for their own
profit and unjust authority, I replied to one of the bishops [Ussher] in two books, of
which the first was entitled, Of Prelatical Episcopacy and the second The Reason of
Church-Government, while to the other bishop [Hall] I made reply in certain Animad-
versions and later in an Apology. I brought succor to the ministers who were, as it was
said, scarcely able to withstand the eloquence of this bishop, and from that time on-
ward, if the bishops made any response, I took a hand. (CPW IV.1, 622–3)In 1640–2 Milton’s self-construction was more complex. In all the antiprelatical
tracts he is concerned with how he sees himself and how he will show himself to
others. He claims several roles, varying the mix as genre and rhetorical purpose
dictate: scholar, humanist critic, rhetorician, teacher, patriot, satirist, reformist poet,
prophet, and bard. In his polemic he uses the various resources of learning, reason,
passion, ardor, delight, invective, metaphor, and sublimity available to those several
roles. At times he represents himself driven to fury over the tyranny, the lavish
lifestyle, and the popish idolatry of the bishops, justifying his vituperation and his
impassioned cries for reformation and apocalypse as the zeal of a prophet, an Eng-
lish Elijah. Like many reformers in 1641–2 he is touched by millenarian expecta-
tion and eager to help prepare for the apocalypse, whose glories he celebrates in
occasional bursts of prophetic and poetic fervor. In his last two tracts, The Reason of
Church-governement and the Apology, he draws extended and revealing self-portraits
that conjoin these several roles.
Milton’s five antiprelatical tracts undertake to defame the bishops by every rhe-
torical means, so as to eradicate them “root and branch” from both civil and eccle-
siastical offices, along with their “popish” liturgy, canons, courts, privileges, property,
and wealth. Though Milton sometimes addresses his episcopal antagonists and their