“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674Milton occasionally cites scripture himself and makes a few theological comments,
but he does indeed omit “random rules” contrived to suit theologians.
In his preface, Milton designates Ramus as the most worthy logician, character-
istically citing himself as an authoritative judge of that matter, along with “our good
Sidney.” He also explains that he has interwoven into his text explanatory materials
from Ramus’s Lectures on Dialectic and from the commentaries of others, “except
where I disagree with what these commentaries say” (208–10). At this time also, to
make his text more saleable, he likely prepared and appended to it his abridgement
of Freige’s “Life of Ramus,” which cuts away five-sixths of Freige’s diffuse narra-
tive, producing a spare, unornamented account.^48 Conceived as an exemplary
Plutarchian “Life,” Milton presents Ramus in several roles: as an intellectual rebel
who was unafraid to make bold claims such as “Whatever has been said by Aristotle
is fabrication” (399), and in consequence was constantly harassed by his philosophi-
cal critics; as a Protestant scholar who was forced into hiding and exile by his
Roman Catholic enemies but was highly honored and courted by a foreign intelli-
gentsia; and as a Protestant martyr murdered in the massacre on St Bartholomew’s
Day. The analogies in this story with Milton himself are left unstated, but the fit
reader might recognize them.
As he worked over these early treatises for publication, Milton may have heard
rumors about secret agreements between Charles II and Louis XIV of France that
boded ill for English Protestantism, and speculated with friends about the ultimate
purpose of the king’s tolerationist gestures. Few knew of the secret Treaty of Do-
ver, signed on May 22, 1670, in which Charles agreed to join Louis in an invasion
of the United Provinces in consideration of a substantial annual monetary subsidy,
and also agreed to declare himself a Catholic at some auspicious time, as a first step
toward reconciling England with Rome. On December 21, 1671 a bogus treaty
was signed, making public the war terms of the secret treaty but not Charles’s
promise to convert, which would have caused an uproar and possibly open rebel-
lion. On March 17, 1672 Charles joined France in a war against the Dutch – a not
unpopular move in a nation still smarting from the shame of the Medway and
resentful of Dutch prosperity.
Two days earlier Charles made a gesture toward the other commitment by issu-
ing, as a matter of royal prerogative, a Declaration of Indulgence suspending the
penal laws against both Roman Catholics and dissenters and allowing both groups
freedom of worship – Roman Catholics in private homes only, dissenters in li-
censed public meeting-houses. He hoped by this to win the support of dissenters
and that of moderate Anglicans and Latitudinarians who were prepared to accom-
modate vast doctrinal differences within the established church if their adherents
would give outward acknowledgment to the common ritual and the Thirty-nine
Articles. John Hales, for example, had declared his willingness to worship even
with Arians.^49 But Charles’s gesture stirred up widespread opposition: from parlia-
mentarians who saw the suspension of parliamentary acts as a move toward royal