THE JUDGMENT OF MARTIN BUCER, T may be convenient, before we proceed with our IT Selections from the Treatise on Education, and the Areopagitica, which follow next in chronological order, to pass on to the three parasitical Treatises, which grow out of, and are intimately connected with the elaborate work which has just been before us, namely the Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion, for under such uncouth and repelling titles did Milton put forth his several performances. They were published in the year 1645, the following year to that in which the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce appeared; and together they exhaust all that can be said on the subject, and we may ask, What are all these reasonings worth, whereas the words of Christ are plainly against all divorce, "except in case of fornication"? We believe that no one would care to read more of these Treatises than we have here set down. We light upon few sentences of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal indeed, but not of a zeal according to knowledge, and therefore shall dismiss this part of our subject very quickly. The first Treatise is said in the title to be "written to Edward the Sixth, and now Englished; wherein a late book, restoring the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," is here confirmed and justified by the authority of Martin Bucer." It is not our purpose to transcribe any of Bucer's arguments, and we care not any more for his opinion on Divorce than we do for Milton's; the preface and postscript of the latter are all that we have to do with. "Certainly if it be in man's discerning to sever providence from chance, I could allege many instances wherein there would appear cause to esteem of me no other than a passive instrument under some power and counsel higher and better than can be human, working to a general good in the whole course of this matter. For that I owe no light or leading received from any man in the discovery of this truth, what time I first undertook it in the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," and had only the infallible grounds of scripture to be my guide, He who tries the inmost heart, and saw with what severe industry and examination of myself I set down every period, will be my witness. When I had almost finished the first edition, I chanced to read in the notes of Hugo Grotius upon the fifth of Matthew. Glad, therefore, of such an able assistant, however at much distance, I resolved at length to put off into this wild and calumnious world. For God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I durst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of disesteem, and found I durst." "Thus far Martin Bucer:-others may read him in his own phrase on the First to the Corinthians, and ease me who never could delight in long citations, much less in whole traductions; whether it be natural disposition or education in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker of what God made mine own, and not a translator." He had epitomized his author, not "giving an inventory of so many words, but weighing their force." TETRACHORDON : EXPOSITIONS UPON THE FOUR CHIEF PLACES IN SCRIPTURE WHICH TREAT OF MARRIAGE, OR NULLITIES IN MARRIAGE. ON GEN. 1. 27, 28, COMPARED AND EXPLAINED by Gen. 11. 18, 23, 24. DEUT. XXIV. 1, 2. MATT. v. 31, 32, with MatT. XIX. 3-11. 1 COR. VII. 10-16. To the Parliament. HE immediate cause of his writing this Treatise THE was the clamour which was raised on the publication of his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; and a sermon appears to have been preached before the Lords and Commons on a day of humiliation, in which it was said that there was a wicked book abroad'' uncensured, and deserving to be burnt;' and 'inpudence' was charged upon the author, who durst set his name to it and dedicate it to Parliament.' To this Milton replies, but not very forcibly. He seems also to have had recourse to his Muse, and wrote his eleventh and twelfth sonnets, entitled, "On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises." The one begins, "A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon, The rest of this sonnet is poor, as he attempts humour, of which he was utterly destitute; the other is far more interesting, and we insert it entire, as illustrative of his unpopularity. "I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs Which after held the sun and moon in fee. And still revolt when truth would set them free. GEN. I. 27, 28. "It is enough determined, that this image of God, wherein man was created, is meant wisdom, purity, justice, and rule over all creatures. All which, being lost in Adam, was recovered with gain by the merits of Christ." 66 Man, the portraiture of God." "Had the image of God been equally common to them both, it had no doubt been said, "In the image of God created He them." But St. Paul ends the controversy by explaining that the woman is not |