“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674with the Danites after the officer departs, he distinguishes between religious acts
and the duties of citizenship: he will not participate in their “Idol-worship,” but he
will perform “Honest and lawful” labor at the mill, “to deserve my food / Of those
who have me in thir civil power” (1,365–7) – a distinction that denies the Anglican
construction of dissent as in itself seditious. The chorus suggests outward conform-
ity, a position accepted by some erstwhile Puritans as a way to accommodate to the
new regime: “Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not” (1,368). But
Samson rejects that rationalization, as did John Owen, who insisted that conscience
involves not only inward opinions but also an obligation “to act accordingly,”
especially in regard to the worship of God.^140 Samson distinguishes between sub-
mitting to actual overwhelming force and obeying commands, claiming that the
latter amounts to acceptance of and complicity in one’s own slavery: “Commands
are no constraints. If I obey them, / I do it freely; venturing to displease / God for
the fear of Man” (1,372–4).
Finally, Samson locates the highest authority in divine illumination, affirming
God’s power to dispense from religious laws “for some important cause,” and claiming
a sudden, inward experience of “rouzing motions” that disposes “To something
extraordinary my thoughts” (1,377–83). These words indicate to the Danite chorus
why he has decided to go voluntarily to the feast of Dagon, though his words to the
officer imply acceptance of the ideology of civil absolutism: “Masters commands
come with a power resistless / To such as owe them absolute subjection; / And for
a life who will not change his purpose?” (1,404-6). But that statement is dense with
ironies and deliberate ambiguities: in Samson’s, and Milton’s, view only the divine
master is owed absolute subjection, and it is the life of the spirit that must be saved.
Samson now acts as an antinomian, but he is no Ranter: his version of antinomianism
parallels Milton’s in De Doctrina Christiana.^141 Samson insists that in moving beyond
the Judaic Law he will yet fulfill its spirit, and will be seen to do so by his country-
men, in the public arena: “Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour / Our Law,
or stain my vow of Nazarite” (1,385–6); “in nothing to comply / Scandalous or
forbidden in our Law” (1,408–9); “of me expect to hear / Nothing dishonourable,
impure, unworthy / Our God, our Law, my Nation, or myself” (1,423–5).^142 Like
Jesus going out to the desert, Samson senses that he is under God’s direction, and he
is open to those further insights that come to Milton’s heroes when they are pre-
pared for them by their own moral and intellectual struggles.
The chorus’s ode is a simple prayer that God may be with Samson at need. They
now credit his inner illumination, they sense that God is leading him, and they
hope he will again enjoy divine protection. The poetic language of this prayer is a
far cry from their earlier formulas and maxims, suggesting that their vicarious expe-
rience of Samson’s struggle has worked some change in them, though perhaps only
temporary (1,427–37).
In the Exodos the focus shifts to Samson’s cataclysmic act of pulling down the
theater, destroying the Philistines as well as himself. The episode has apocalyptic