Of Reformation is typical of Milton's early Anti-Prelatical pamphlets.  The prose, as in much of Milton's early writing, is torturously latinate and labrynthine. (Much of what appears below is an attempt to condense what are otherwise windingly long and sometimes nearly incomprehensible sentences--a sin for which I am sure to go to Hell one day.) He rehearses arguments against the episcopalian form of Church government that were a staple of his day.  Episcopacy (often referred to as prelacy) is pictured as a corruption of the egalitarian practices of the primitive church.  According to Milton, the defenders of episcopacy rely on the corrupt traditions of men rather than on the guidance of the Scriptures.  The defenders of episcopacy also rely on arguments based on antiquity (in a sort of "we've been doing it this way since the beginning" kind of move); Milton argues that antiquity and tradition are no substitute for the plain words of Scripture. Milton points to the Emperor Constantine as the origin of the church's corruption (the Church of England viewed Constantine favorably as the prototypical Christian monarch), and he suggests that prelacy has its origin then as well.  Prelates are financially and spiritually corrupt, dangerous to monarchy (a curious position, given Milton's later politics), and greedy for secular power.   Milton joins in the raging pamphlet wars of the late 1630s and early 1640s on the side of the Presbyterians (specifically on the side of the Smectymnuus group) against the Episcopalian defenders of the Church of England.  He argues for the dismantling of the episcopal system of bishops and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and argues for what he pictures as a restoring of the church to its original, egalitarian state.   Click here if the button isn't working for you.

Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in

Opening

I do not know of anything more worthy than to consider first, the foul and sudden corruption, and then after many a tedious age, the long-deferred, but much more wonderful and happy reformation of the Church. Sad it is to think that such a Doctrine should through the grossness and blindness of her Professors, and the fraud of deceivable traditions, drag so downwards as to backslide one way into the Jewish beggary and stumble forward another way into the new-vomited Paganism of sensual Idolatry.

The superstitious man by his good will is an Atheist; but being scarred from thence by the pangs and gripes of a boyling conscience, all in a pudder shuffles up to himself such a God and such a worship as is most agreeable to remedy his fear. Fear fixed only upon the Flesh renders likewise the whole faculty of his apprehension carnal, and all the inward acts of worship issuing from the native strength of the Soul run out lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden into a crust of Formality. Hence men came to scan the Scriptures by the Letter, and in the Covenant of our Redemption magnified the external signs more than the quickening power of the Spirit.

How should it come to pass that England, having had this grace and honor from God to be the first that should set up a Standard for the recovery of lost Truth, and blow the first Evangelic Trumpet to the Nations, holding up, as from a Hill, the new Lamp of saving light to all Christendom, should now be last, and most unsettled in the enjoyment of that Peace, whereof she taught the way to others? For, albeit in purity of Doctrine we agree with our Brethren, yet in Discipline we are no better than a Schism from all the Reformation. For while we hold Ordination to belong only to Bishops, as our Prelates do. we must of necessity hold also their Ministers to be no Ministers, and shortly after their Church to be no Church.

I shall chiefly endeavor to declare those Causes that hinder the forwarding of true Discipline. Orderly proceeding will divide our inquiry into our Fore-Fathers days, and into our Times.

Henry the 8th was the first that rent this Kingdom from the Pope's subjection totally; but his Quarrel being more about Supremacy than other faultiness in Religion that he regarded, it is no marvel if he stuck where he did. The next default was in the Bishops, who though they had renounced the Pope, they still hugged the Popedome, and shared the Authority among themselves, by their six bloody Articles persecuting the Protestants no slacker than the Pope would have done.

From hence then I pass to Queen Elizabeth... in whose Days why Religion attained not a perfect reducement in the beginning of her Reign, I suppose the hindering Causes will be found to be common with some formerly alleged for King Edward 6: the greenness of the Times, the weak Estate which Queen Mary left the Realm in, the great Places and Offices executed by Papists, the Judges, the Lawyers, the Justices of Peace for the most part Popish, the Bishops firm to Rome, from whence was to be expected the furious flashing of Excommunications, and absolving the People from their Obedience. Next, her private Councilors persuaded her that the altering of Ecclesiastical Policy would move sedition. As for the Queen herself, she was made believe that by putting down Bishops her Prerogative would be infringed.

From this Period I count to begin our Times. I shall distinguish such as I esteem to be the hinderers of

To the votarists of Antiquity I shall think to have fully answered, if I shall be able to prove out of Antiquity, First, that if they will conform our Bishops to the purer times, they must mew their feathers, and their pounces, and make but curtailed Bishops out of them. Secondly, that those purer times were corrupt, and their Books corrupted soon after. Thirdly, that the best of those that then wrote, disclaim that any man should repose on them, and send all to the Scriptures.

If those that over-affect Antiquity will follow the square thereof, their Bishops must be elected by the hands of the whole Church. The ancientest of the extant Fathers Ignatius, writing to the Philadelphians saith that it belongs to them as to the Church of God to choose a Bishop. Let no man cavil, but take the Church of God as meaning the whole consistence of Orders and Members.

Thus the people vilified and rejected give over the earnest study of virtue and godliness as a thing of greater purity than they need, and the search of divine knowledge as a mystery too high for their capacities, and only for the Churchmen to meddle with, which is that the Prelates desire, that when they have brought us back to Popish blindness we might commit to their dispose the whole managing of our salvation.

1. The best times were spreadingly infected. 2. The best men of those times foully tainted. 3. The best writings of those men dangerously adulterated.

Who is ignorant of the foul errors, the ridiculous wresting of Scripture, the Heresies, the vanities thick sown through the volumes of Justin Martyr, Clemens, Origen, Tertullian and others of eldest time? Who knows not how many surreptitious works are engrafted into the legitimate writings of the Fathers, and of those Books that pass for authentic who knows what hath been tampered withal, what hath been razed out, what hath been inserted?

They extol Constantine because he extolled them. Of his Arianism we heard, his deferring to be baptized so many years, the excessive devotion, that I may not say Superstition both of him and his Mother Helena, to find out the Cross on which Christ suffered. And what reformation he wrought for his own time it will not be amiss to consider. He appointed certain times for Fasts, and Feasts, built stately Churches, gave large Immunities to the Clergy, great Riches and Promotions to Bishops, gave and ministered occasion to bring in a Deluge of Ceremonies, thereby either to draw in the Heathen by a resemblance of their rites, or to set a gloss upon the simplicity, and plainness of Christianity.

There is just cause therefore that when the Prelates cry out Let the Church be reformed according to Constantine, it should sound to a judicious ear no otherwise than if they should say Make us rich, make us lofty, make us lawless.

The last point wherein the Antiquary is to be dealt with at his own weapon, is to make manifest, that the ancientest, and best of the Fathers have disclaimed all sufficiency in themselves that men should rely on, and sent all comers to the Scriptures

The very essence of Truth is plainness, and brightness; the darkness and crookedness is our own.

Libertines suggest that the Discipline sought would be intolerable: for one Bishop now in a Diocese we should then have a Pope in every Parish. It is not any Discipline that they could live under, it is the corruption, and remissness of Discipline that they seek.

This is the masterpiece of a modem politician, how to qualify, and mould the sufferance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on their necks.

Seeing that the Churchman's office is only to teach men the Christian Faith, to exhort all, to encourage the good, to admonish the bad, privately the less offender, publicly the scandalous and stubborn; to censure, and separate from the communion of Christ's flock the contagious, and incorrigible, to receive with joy and fatherly compassion the penitent; all this must be done, and more than this is beyond any Church authority. What is all this either here or there to the temporal regiment of Wealpublic, whether it be Popular, Princely, or Monarchical? If therefore the Constitution of the Church be already set down by divine prescript; as all sides confess, then can she not be a handmaid to wait on civil commodities and respects: and if the nature and limits of Church Discipline be such as are either helpful to all political estates indifferently, or have no particular relation to any, then is there no necessity, nor indeed possibility, of linking the one with the other in a special conformation.

It shall be my task to prove that Episcopacy with that Authority which it challenges in England is not only not agreeable, but tending to the destruction of Monarchy.

Amongst many secondary and accessory causes that support Monarchy, these are not of least reckoning, though common to other States: the love of the Subjects, the multitude, and valor of the people, and store of treasure. In all these things hath the Kingdome been of late sorely weakened, and chiefly by the Prelates. What numbers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen and good Christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends, and kindred, whom nothing but the wide Ocean, and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the Bishops.

But this I am sure they took the ready way to despoil us . . .that we might have one day. . . setapart whereinto... meditate, and commune of our Faith. . . at such a time that men should be plucked from their soberest and saddest thoughts, and by Bishops the pretended Fathers of the Church instigated by public Edict, and with earnest endeavor pushed forward to gaming, jiggling wassailing, and mixed dancing is a horror to think.

Two Leeches they have that still suck, and suck the Kingdom, their Ceremonies, and their Courts. Now I appeal to all wise men what an excessive waste of Treasury hath been within these few years in this Land not in the expedient, but in the Idolatrous erection of Temples beautified exquisitely to out-vie the Papists, the costly and dear-bought Scandals, and snares of Images, Pictures, rich Coaps, gorgeous Altar-clothes.

What more baneful to Monarchy than a Popular Commotion? And what stirs the Englishmen sooner to rebellion, than violent and heavy hands upon their goods and purses? Yet these devout Prelates for these many years have not ceased in their Pulpits wrenching and spraining the text, proscribing and confiscating from us all the right we have to our own bodies, goods and liberties.

They covet to be expert in Canons and Decretals, which may enable them to judge and interpose in temporal Causes, however pretended Ecclesiastical. Have not some of their devoted Scholars begun, I need not say to nibble, but openly to argue against the Kings Supremacy? A wise and provident King ought to suspect a Hierarchy in his Realm.

Seeing that it hath been inevitably proved that the natural and fundamental causes of political happiness in all governments are the same, and that this Church Discipline is taught in the Word of God, and, as we see, agrees according to wish with all such states as have received it, we may infallibly assure ourselves that it will as well agree with Monarchy.

They allege the antiquity of Episcopacy through all Ages. What it was in the Apostles time, that questionless it must be still. . . But if Episcopacy be taken for Prelacy, all the Ages they can deduce it through will make it no more venerable than Papacy.

Assemblies draw to them the Supremacy of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction. No surely, they draw no Supremacy, but that authority which Christ, and Saint Paul in his name confers on them. . . No, this Ecclesiastical Supremacy draws to it the power to excomunicate Kings, and then follows the worst that can be imagined.

The Atheist Milton Michael Bryson (Ashgate  Press, 2012)

Basing his contention on two different lines of argument, Michael Bryson posits that John Milton–possibly the most famous 'Christian' poet in English literary history–was, in fact, an atheist. First, based on his association with Arian ideas (denial of the doctrine of the Trinity), his argument for the de Deo theory of creation (which puts him in line with the materialism of Spinoza and Hobbes), and his Mortalist argument that the human soul dies with the human body, Bryson argues that Milton was an atheist by the commonly used definitions of the period. And second, as the poet who takes a reader from the presence of an imperious, monarchical God in Paradise Lost, to the internal-almost Gnostic-conception of God in Paradise Regained, to the absence of any God whatsoever in Samson Agonistes, Milton moves from a theist (with God) to something much more recognizable as a modern atheist position (without God) in his poetry. Among the author's goals in The Atheist Milton is to account for tensions over the idea of God which, in Bryson's view, go all the way back to Milton's earliest poetry. In this study, he argues such tensions are central to Milton's poetry–and to any attempt to understand that poetry on its own terms.