of the continuance of Tithes, and it is dubious whether some in that half of the House which voted against Tithes would not have been for preserving a Church Establishment or Preaching Ministry by some other form of state-maintenance.  Nor can one imagine, even in those eager and revolutionary times, an utter disregard of that principle of compensation for life-interests which any Parliament now, contemplating a scheme of Disestablishment, would consider binding in common equity.  The old Bishops, and the Prelatic Clergy, indeed, had been disestablished without much consideration of life-interests; but the procedure in their case had been of a penal character, and it is unlikely that it would have been equally unceremonious with the new clergy of Presbyterians and Independents, allowed generally to be orthodox.  From any hesitation on that score Milton is absolutely free.  He sees no difficulties, takes regard of none.  It is not with a flesh-and-blood world that he deals, a world of men, and their wives, and their families, and their yearly incomes, and their fixed residences and household belongings.  It is with a world of wax, or of flesh and blood that must be content to be treated as wax.  It is thought right to disestablish the Church:  well, then, let the Clergy go!  Abolish tithes; provide no substitute; proclaim that, after this day week, or the first day of the next year, not a penny shall be paid to any man by the State for preaching the Gospel, or doing any other act of the ministry:  and what then?  Why, there will be a flutter of consternation, of course, through some ten thousand or twelve thousand parsonages; ten thousand or twelve thousand clerical gentlemen will stare bewilderedly for a while at their wives’ faces:  but do not be too much concerned!  They will all shift very well for themselves when they know they must; the best of them will find congregations where they are, or in other places, and will work all the harder; and, if the drones and dotards go threadbare and starve for the rest of their lives, that is but God’s way with such since the beginning of the world!  Be instant, be rapid, be decisive, be thoroughgoing, O ye statesmen!  What are vested interests in the Church of Christ?

As the Restored Rumpers had already decreed that an Established Church should be kept up in England, and had gone no farther on the Tithes question than to say that Tithes must be paid, as by use and wont, until some substitute should be provided, it is not likely that, however long they had sat, Milton’s views would have had much countenance from them.  There were individuals among them of Milton’s way of thinking on the whole; but he had probably made a mistake in fancying that he had materially improved his influence, or the chances of his notions of Church-polity, by his public re-adhesion to the Rump.  In fact, the continued existence of the Rump was more precarious than he had thought.  In August 1659, while his pamphlet was in circulation, Lambert was away in the