Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

‘Radical heterodoxy’ suggests sharp divergence from orthodox opinions and promotion of change at the root level. Heterodoxy and orthodoxy are relative terms and, like obscenity, defy conclusive definition. Yet it is certainly safe to say that John Milton's characteristic response to social, political and religious authorities was adversarial, as this excerpt from The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce indicates: Custome still is silently receiv'd for the best instructer … a certaine big face of pretended learning … which not onely in private marrs our education, but also in publick is the common climer into every chaire, where either Religion is preach't or Law reported: filling each estate of life and profession, with abject and servil principles; depressing the high and Heaven-born spirit of Man, farre beneath the condition wherein either God created him, or sin hath sunke him … Custome being but a meer face, as Eccho is a meere voice, rests not in her unaccomplishment, untill … shee accorporat her selfe with error, who being a blind and Serpentine body without a head, willingly accepts what he wants, and supplies what her incompleatnesse went seeking. Hence it is, that Error supports Custome, Custome count'nances Error. And these two betweene them would persecute and chase away all truth and solid wisdome out of humane life. (CPW II: 222–3) Addressing an audience that embraced ... log in or subscribe to read full text