Milton and the Rhetoric of Zeal

Six. Kerygmatic Authority in The Reason of Church-Government

The Reason of Church-Government 163 163 SIX Kerygmatic Authority in The Reason of Church-Government The Reason of Church-Government Urg’d against Prelaty is the longest of the antiprelatical tracts, the first to be acknowledged by its author, and the most carefully read of Milton’s early prose pieces. The autobiographical essay at the head of book 2, with its resplendent promises for the future, suggests a new stage of awareness of his career, a public declaration of the writing self. Ralph A. Haug, editor of the Yale edition, dates the piece as between August 4, 1641, and January 1, 1642, and conjectures that Milton signed it “because he felt that here, at length, he had written something that might live” (CPW, 1:736). I would add that it is a “signing off,” planned as a termination of the prelatical matter, as well as a “signing in” and announcement of things to come. This intended exit from the tract wars was disrupted by the attack from the Modest Confuter, necessitating An Apology. So Reason, for all its dignity and control, shows Milton’s 164 Milton and the Rhetoric of Zeal equilibrium under unusual stress. He wants to terminate his part in the Smectymnuan campaign and announce his plans for the future. And he wants to fulfill his duty in the present, urgent arena. The role of Proclaimer that Milton has been envisaging as his personal destiny is at issue. In Reason, two often conflicting yet vital functions of that role are discussed— poet and prophet of the national destiny and pamphleteer in the Wars of Truth. There is no clearly maintained demarcation between the two roles. There are conflicts, contradictions, imbrications—and delays. The intended conclusion of the antiprelatical tracts becomes penultimate; the lofty tone is impaired. But the thrust toward a definition of kerygmatic authority, and a powerful claim on that role by the speaker, is clear enough to make the piece a major work of intellectual autobiography. The advertisement of the great poet to come is a finial on the end of the antiprelatical struggle. Critical attention has looked rather intently at Milton’s failure to respond adequately to the collection Certain Briefe Treatises, Written by Diverse Learned Men, Concerning the Ancient and Moderne Government of the Church (Oxford, 1641). It is true that Milton assays “to prove” Presbyterianism ; that he assures us he will bring “reason,” that the “question . . . is so needfull to be known at this time chiefly by every meaner capacity” (CPW, 1:749). But it is also true that Milton’s attitude toward the five bishops is a little unserious, and condescendingly good-natured. These “profound Clerks . . . are so earnestly meting out the Lydian proconsular Asia . . . whilest good Brerewood as busily bestirres himselfe in our vulgar tongue to divide precisely the three Patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and whether to any of these England doth belong” (748–49). This view of the Bishops as benign Laputans subverts the claim for serious response, as does the statement at the end of the Preface that the reasons—here clearly the particulars of evidence— for Church government are not “formally, and profestly set downe, because to him that heeds attentively . . . they easily imply themselves” (750). Milton’s failure to address the arguments of the bishops has been overemphasized. The main The Reason of Church-Government 165 purpose of The Reason of Church-Government is, first, to proclaim “a heavenly structure of evangelick discipline so diffusive of knowledge and charity,” and then to argue Milton’s right to proclaim that structure. Milton claims and proclaims kerygmatic authority. Animadversions had brilliantly chanted the praises of the great office: “there is no imployment more honourable, more worthy to take up a great spirit, more requiring a generous and free nurture, then to be the messenger, and Herald of heavenly truth from God to man, and by the faithfull worke of holy doctrine, to procreate a number of faithfull men, making a kind of creation like to Gods” (721). This glowing conception of ideological procreation pervades both of the last two tracts in the series. Both proclaim closure, and both exhibit a quite elaborate defense of self. Yet the autobiographical digression in An Apology is occasional; in Reason, it is clearly a set piece, a transitional mechanism announcing what was expected to be the next phase of the career of...