“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642versions of this fable the people and their representatives are divided into societal
estates (soldiers, clergy, artisans, etc.) or political estates: lords (temporal and spir-
itual) and commons (knights, gentry, and burgesses), but in Milton’s version the
MPs are taken collectively. When they assemble they are alarmed to find next to
the Head (the king) “a huge and monstrous Wen little lesse then the Head it selfe,
growing to it by a narrower excrescency” (583). The Wen claims to merit its place
because it is an ornament and strength to Head and Body, but a wise philosopher
who knew all the Body’s “Charters, Lawes, and Tenures” denounces this “swolne
Tumor”:
Wilt thou (quoth he) that art but a bottle of vitious and harden’d excrements, contend
with the lawfull and free-borne [parliament] members, whose certaine number is set
by ancient, and unrepealable Statute? head thou art none, though thou receive this
huge substance from it, what office bearst thou? What good canst thou shew by thee
done to the Common-weale?... thou containst no good thing in thee, but a heape
of hard, and loathsome uncleannes, and art to the head a foul disfigurment and bur-
den, when I have cut thee off, and open’d thee, as by the help of these implements I
will doe, all men shall see. (584)The Root and Branch allegory is obvious: the lords spiritual are no estate of the
realm but a cancer: “We must... cut away from the publick body the noysom, and
diseased tumor of Prelacie” (598).
Body imagery also supplies the terms for reform. The church order mandated in
scripture is evident if we but “purge with sovrain eyesalve that intellectual ray”
implanted in us by God (566). Preaching exposes sin, but Presbyterian discipline
will lay “the salve to the very Orifice of the wound” (526). Milton says little about
the specifics of Presbyterianism but instead describes an ideal church government
whose ministers are elected by the laity, who are associated together in “brotherly
equality” (549), who are honored as fathers and physicians of the soul, and who are
therefore willingly given a “free and plentifull provision of outward necessaries”
without, it is implied, enforced tithes (600). Church discipline should involve only
“sage and Christianly Admonition, brotherly Love, flaming Charity, and Zeale ...
paternall Sorrow, or Paternall Joy, milde Severity, melting Compassion,” and it should
relinquish all power over the body and the purse such as the prelates wielded, “the
truccage of perishing Coine, and Butcherly execution of Tormentors, Rooks, and
Rakeshames” (591). Milton may not have realized how firmly the Presbyterians
were committed to clerical authority, tithes, and the suppression of dissent, but he
probably hoped to challenge them to adhere more closely to the spirit of the gospel.
In Of Reformation Milton presents himself as conjoining the roles of polemicist,
prophet, and poet. He not only argues by metaphor but also relates reformation to
the highest poetic inspiration, challenging his countrymen to merit the national
epic he might some day sing: “Be the Praise and Heroick Song of all POSTERITY;