The author J.M.London, Printed by Tho.

Newcomb, Anno_ 1659." The tract consists of an address "To the Parlament of the Commonwealth of England with the Dominions thereof," occupying ten of the small pages, and signed "John Milton" in full, and then of eighty-three pages of text.[1] [Footnote 1: The little book was duly registered at Stationers' Hall, under date Feb.

16, 1658-9, thus: "Mr.Tho.

Newcomb entered for his copy (under the hand of Mr.Pulleyn, warden) a book called A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes by John Milton."] After intimating that this was but the first of two tracts and that the other would follow, and also that his argument is to be wholly and exclusively from Scripture, Milton propounds the argument itself under four successive heads or propositions .-- The first is that, there being, by the fundamental principle of Protestantism, "no other divine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one another as a common ground, but the Holy Scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantable only to ourselves and to such whose consciences we can so persuade," it follows that "no man or body of men in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters of religion to any other men's consciences but their own." Having reasoned this at some length by quotations of Scripture texts and explanations of the same, he proceeds to "yet another reason why it is unlawful for the civil magistrate to use force in matters of Religion: which is, because to judge in those things, though we should grant him able, which is proved he is not, yet as a civil magistrate he hath no right." Under this second head, and also by means of Scripture quotations, there is an exposition of Milton's favourite idea of the purely spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom and of the instrumentalities it permits.

The third proposition advances the argument by maintaining that not only is the civil magistrate unable, from the nature of the case, to determine in matters of Religion, and not only has he no right to try, but he also does positive wrong by trying.