English Puritanism as he has generalIy been reckoned, he really was only their partial expressor. His was a spirit of intense seriQusness, it is true, like that of Calvin and Bunyan, always acutely aware of tihe responsibility of living "as ever in the great Task-Mzstet's eye,"i yet he departed widely from current Protestant orthodoxy in many important respects. In particular, he could not accept the doctrine of the 6omplete cetruption of human nature and its corollary absolute predestination.

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... he idea that since the Fall man is naturally incapable ofdoing good, his will utferly enslaved and free only to do evil, was quite repellent to Milton. Although fallen, he argues in the (:;eristiut Doctrine. human nature is not radically evil. It is not wholly cortupted; some remnants ofthe divine imzge still exist in us....