“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642conclusion remains unwritten since the fate of Root and Branch is still in doubt:
“what was determin’d I cannot tell you till the end of this Parliament” (716–17).
Animadversions has no overarching argument, though Milton often reiterates his
central point that scripture alone must decide religious controversies (681, 699–
700). He also begins to formulate some characteristic ideas. Anticipating Areopagitica,
he rejoices that removal of the prelates’ “proud Imprimaturs” allows Englishmen
“liberty of speaking, then which nothing is more sweet to man” (669). Anticipating
the divorce tracts, he points to the essential humanistic spirit of the Bible: “every
rule, and instrument of necessary knowledge that God hath given us, ought to be
... weilded and manag’d by the life of man without penning him up from the
duties of humane society, and such... is the holy Bible” (699). Anticipating the
Likeliest Means (1659), he denies ministers any special status by ordination or learn-
ing and hints at church disestablishment.^64 Even without tithes and wealthy livings,
he argues, God can stir up “rich Fathers [like Milton senior] to bestow exquisite
education upon their Children, and so dedicate them to the service of the Gospell”
- as ministers and presumably also as lay-prophets like Milton (721).
As he did in Of Reformation, Milton imagines himself participating in the great
apocalyptic motion of the “renovating and re-ingendring Spirit of God” (703) and
celebrating the new outpouring of God’s spirit in England: God has ever had the
English nation “under the speciall indulgent eye of his providence” and now again
is “manifestly come down among us, to doe some remarkable good to our Church
or state” (703–4). Rising to the high style and assuming a prophetic voice, he offers
a long, passionate, poetic prayer couched in imagery from Revelation – the very
opposite of Hall’s aphoristic Senecan style – for the full perfection of the church in
the Millennial kingdom at hand:
Who is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walke through the midst of thy
Sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks.... Come therefore O thou that hast the
seven starres in thy right hand [Revelation 1:16], appoint thy chosen Preists according
to their Orders, and courses of old, to minister before thee... O perfect, and accom-
plish thy glorious acts;... When thou hast settl’d peace in the Church, and righteous
judgement in the Kingdome, then shall all thy Saints addresse their voyces of joy, and
triumph to thee, standing on the shoare of that red Sea into which our enemies had
almost driven us. (705–6)And he again imagines himself as a prophet–poet singing of and in that Millennial
kingdom:
And he that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnish’t present as a thanke-offering
to thee... may then perhaps take up a Harp, and sing thee an elaborate Song to
Generations... thy Kingdome is now at hand, and thou standing at the dore. Come
forth out of thy Royall Chambers, O Prince of all the Kings of the earth, put on the
visible roabes of thy imperiall Majesty, take up that unlimited Scepter which thy