As he puts it, there was no choice for him. He could not help himself,
at this critical juncture, "when the Church of God was at the foot
of her insulting enemies;" he would never have ceased to reproach
himself, if he had refused to employ the fruits of his studies in her
behalf. He saw also that a generation inflamed by the passions of
conflict, and looking in breathless suspense for the issue of battles,
was not in a mood to attend to poetry. Nor, indeed, was he ready to
write, "not having yet (this is in 1642) completed to my mind the full
circle of my private studies."

But though he is drawn into the strife against his will, and in
defiance of his genius, when he is in it, he throws into it the whole
vehemence of his nature. The pamphlet period, I have said, is an
episode in the life of the poet. But it is a genuine part of Milton's
life. However his ambition may have been set upon an epic crown, his
zeal for what he calls the church was an equal passion, nay had, in
his judgment, a paramount claim upon him, He is a zealot among
the zealots; his cause is the cause of God; and the sword of the
Independents is the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He does not
refute opponents, but curses enemies. Yet his rage, even when most
delirious, is always a Miltonic rage; it is grand, sublime, terrible!
Mingled with the scurrilities of the theological brawl are passages
of the noblest English ever written. Hartley Coleridge explains the
dulness of the wit-combats in Shakspeare and Jonson, on the ground
that repartee is the accomplishment of lighter thinkers and a less
earnest age. So of Milton's pamphlets it must be said that he was not
fencing for pastime, but fighting for all he held most worthy. He had
to think only of making his blows tell. When a battle is raging, and
my friends are sorely pressed, am I not to help because good manners
forbid the shedding of blood?