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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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thefr regeneration by the Holy Spirit and their union with Christ in his death , burial , and resurrection / ' His able and impartial translator , Dr . Stunner , says in a note , "Inpro /
Iuentem aquam , —by the admission of this word into the definition , it is evident that Milton attributed some importance to this circumstance , probably considering that the superior
purity of running water was peculiarly typical of the thing signified ! Hence it appears that the same epithet employed in Paradise Lost in a passage very similar to the present , is not merely a poetidai
ornament———Them who shall believe , Baptizing in the proflaent stream , the sign Of washing them from guilt of sin to life , Pure and in mind prepared , if so befall , For death like that which the Redeemer died ! " B . xii . 441 .
Milton expresses himself decisively on the Perpetuity of Baptism , so strangely questioned in the present day . Indeed the writer of this article cannot refrain from saying , that
Milton , were he still living in the metropolis , could join himself to the General Baptist Churches at Worship Street alone , in perfect consistency with his leading religious sentiments . There he would be admitted into free
and full communion , indulging the most unreserved love and charity towards all the other professors of Christianity . Pardon my honest enthusiasm . Methinks I behold this venerable man , this distinguished friend of civil and religious liberty ,
sitting down along with us around the Lord ' s table , and though bereft of bodily sight , yet " ihly irradiate , " ruminating on the blessed truths of the Christian revelation , whose beams light him onward in his darkling path to the regions of eternal day ! In this his immortal work he
says , " Although it is the duty of believers to join themselves if possible to a church duly constituted , Heb . xi . ~ 5 , not forsaking' the assembling of ourselves together , as the manner of some is , but exhorting one another ; yet such as cannot do this conveniently or with full satisfaction of conscience , are not to be considered as excluded from the blessing bestowed
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by God on t&e churchesl * l ? lie feet is , that Mijlton in his latter ! days attended no place of worship ; probably there was in his time no church in the metropolis to which he could be conscientiousl y united . Nothing except rigid Puritanism or loose
Churchof-Englandism at that period predominated ! Hence Bishop Newton remarks of the poet , that €€ in the latter part of his life he was not a professed member of any particular sect of Christians ; he frequented no public worship , nor used any religious rite , in his family . Whether so many
different forms of worship as he had seen had made him indifferent to all forms , or whether he thought that all Christians had in some things corrupted the purity and simplicity of the gospel , or whether he disliked their endless and uncharitable disputes , and that love of dominion and inclination
to persecution which he said was a piece of Popery inseparable from all churches ^ or whether he believed that a man might be a good Christian without joining in any communion , or whether he did not look upon himself as inspired , as wrapt up in God , an 4
above all forms and ceremonies , it is not easy to determine ; to his own Master he standeth or falleth : but if he was of any denomination he was a sort of Quietist , and was , though he so little regarded the exterior , full of the interior of religion . " Another
editor of Milton ' s JVorks > Mr . Hawkins , justly observes , " The reproach that has been thrown upon him of frequenting no place of public worship in his latter days , should be received , as Dr . Symmons observes , with some caution . His blindness
and other infirmities might be in part liis excuse , and it is certain that his daily employments were always ushered in by devout meditation aud study of the Scriptures . ' * Such , with all his peculiarities , was the author of
Paradise Lost—most pious , most conscientious , altogether unlike the general herd of professors—a sincere believer of scriptural Christianity . This he fearlessly avows in his work . I glory in the fact ; it is indeed most honourable to his inemorv .
But beside the heresies of Milton concerning Arianism and Adult Baptism , the Evangelical critic charges
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On Milton ?* New Ww& . 3 711
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1825, page 711, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2543/page/7/
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