“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642less insists that the office of bishop derives from the apostles and that hierarchy was
always present in the church, warranting the evolution of the present episcopal
structure. He ridicules the “free prayer” by unlettered artisans that Puritans would
substitute for the beauty and decorum of a liturgy sanctioned by scripture and
antiquity, and denounces the rebellion of so many “ill-bred sons” against their
mother church. He scoffs especially at Milton’s historical “Postscript” as a plagia-
rized patchwork – a charge which Milton sharply denied.^45 Hall also solicited a
treatise from the respected moderate Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher.^46 Ussher’s
proposal to amalgamate the episcopal and presbyterian systems, with bishops and
archbishops presiding over diocesan and provincial synods, was in private circula-
tion in May and June, 1641; it influenced discussions in the parliament and at-
tracted considerable support from moderates on both sides.^47 Toward the end of
May Ussher responded to Hall’s request with a 16-page tract, The Judgment of
Doctor Rainoldes touching the Originall of Episcopacy. More largely confirmed out of Anti-
quity.^48 Ussher does not claim the divine institution of bishops but rather their
appointment by the apostles, citing the usual scripture passages and a flurry of
ancient texts.
In late May, 1641, shortly after Strafford’s execution, Milton’s Of Reformation
Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have hindred it was
published anonymously. He does not respond to particular tracts, but supports Root
and Branch with a hard-hitting blast against bishops and the Anglican liturgy, em-
ploying a fiery, scornful rhetoric closer to William Prynne than to Smectymnuus.
Milton employs a familiar genre of political commentary, the Letter to a Friend,
which allows him to address an implied sympathetic auditor but one who is perhaps
hesitant about Root and Branch reform and who might be attracted to a compro-
mise. This tract is unlike anything that had yet appeared in the polemic wars. Milton’s
often-criticized scanting of logical argument in favor of the arts of rhetoric and the
rich resources of poetic language^49 – especially, graphic body imagery – is designed
to scuttle compromise by rendering episcopacy disgusting. He does, however, present
himself as a historian reviewing the record of bishops in the early church. Drawing
evidence from his recent readings in English history and his earlier readings in the
Fathers and the Councils,^50 he charges bishops with continually frustrating the cause
of Reformation, weakening monarchs, and abusing the people’s liberties. He briefly
restates Presbyterian scripture-based arguments about church order, but he is al-
ready moving beyond that system and the Smectymnuans as he emphasizes the
laity’s right to exercise all church functions and points to signs of an “extraordinary
effusion of Gods Spirit upon every age, and sexe” (CPW I, 566). He also begins to
conceive England in proto-republican terms.^51 As well, he begins in this tract to
develop and defend a poetics of satire. He excuses his vehement invective by the
need “to vindicate the spotlesse Truth from an ignominious bondage,” and justifies
his daring iconoclastic critique of the Fathers and even the martyred Marian bishops
on the ground that their “faults and blemishes” must be exposed, lest “mens fond