[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

ROFL! So the most damning and heretical error in the piece was Ralston's quotation of the Puritan (ergo, Calvinist) John Milton's Paradise Lost?

No, my little schoolboy; the most damning and heretical error in the piece was Ralston's quotation of the Arminian John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Milton's God reacts to Man's foreseeable fall by his plan of grace, and it is by this action that we understand more clearly Milton's disagreement with Calvinism. Milton's idea of grace is not “irresistible,” but “conditional” upon Man's choice to accept or refuse it. Milton's God says to the Son in Book III, “Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will, / Yet not of will in him, but grace in me” (ll.173-74). There seems to be an element of Calvinism here, since we are told that “Yet not of will in him, but grace in me.” However, this does not neglect Man choice to make a decision to be saved by the grace of God. For Milton, Man does not have the “will” to save himself, but can choose to be “saved” by a will that can save him. This of course only pertains to Adam and Eve after the fall and not before. ~~ Free will and necessity in Milton's Paradise Lost. Gilbert McInnis

Milton's Fall from Presbyterian Calvinism is well-known enough.

Milton’s position after the battle of Naseby may be easily understood. Though his first tendency on the Church question had been to some form of a Presbyterian constitution for the Church, he had parted utterly now from the Scots and Presbyterians, and become a partisan of Independency, having no dread of “sects and schisms,” but regarding them rather as healthy signs in the English body-politic. He was, indeed, himself one of the most noted sectaries of the time, for in the lists of sects drawn out by contemporary Presbyterian writers special mention is made of one small sect who were known as Miltonists or Divorcers.

Now go do your homework.

[The Grammarian]

No, my little schoolboy; the most damning and heretical error in the piece was Ralston's quotation of the Arminian John Milton's Paradise Lost.

I stand corrected. I have my own copy, however, and Ralston abridged it. The full text is less open to your attacks. Book III, lines 103-128:

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere

Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,

Where only what they needs must do, appear'd,

Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

What pleasure I from such obedience paid,

When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,

Made passive both, had serv'd necessity,

Not mee. They therefore as to right belong'd,

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Their maker, or their making, or their Fate;

As if Predestination over-rul'd

Their will, dispos'd by absolute Decree

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed

Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,

Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.

So without least impulse [impelling] or shadow of Fate,

Or aught by me immutably foreseen,

They trespass, Authors to themselves in all

Both what they judge and what they choose; for so

I form'd them free, and free they must remain,

Til they enthrall themselves: I else must change

Their nature, and revoke the high Decree

Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd

Their freedom, they themselves ordain'd their fall.