Holland was in that day the one secure asylum of free thought, and thither, in 1675, the year following Milton's death, the manuscripts were taken or sent by Daniel Skinner, a nephew of Cyriack's, to Daniel Elzevir, who agreed to publish them.

Before publication could take place, however, a clandestine but correct edition of the State letters appeared in London, probably by the agency of Edward Phillips.

Skinner, in his vexation, appealed to the authorities to suppress this edition: they took the hint, and suppressed his instead.

Elzevir delivered up the manuscripts, which the Secretary of State pigeon-holed until their existence was forgotten.

At last, in 1823, Mr.Robert Lemon, rummaging in the State Paper Office, came upon the identical parcel addressed by Elzevir to Daniel Skinner's father which contained his son's transcript of the State Letters and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine." Times had changed, and the heretical work was edited and translated by George the Fourth's favourite chaplain, and published at his Majesty's expense.
The "Treatise on Christian Doctrine" is by far the most remarkable of all Milton's later prose publications, and would have exerted a great influence on opinion if it had appeared when the author designed.
Milton's name would have been a tower of strength to the liberal eighteenth-century clergy inside and outside the Establishment.