[1] Milton argues that the defense of truth makes one vulnerable to personal attacks and emphasizes that role of personal integrity, especially his own:[2] "as a member incorporate into that truth whereof I was perswaded".
[3] Milton defends his own integrity when he later writes:[4] "that indeed according to art is most eloquent, which returns and approaches neerest to nature from whence it came; and they expresse nature best, who in their lives least wander from her safe leading, which may be call'd regenerate reason".
[5] This idea is expanded further when he says: he who would not be frustrated of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought him selfe to bee a true Poem, that is, a composition, and patterne of the best and honourable things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroick men, or famous Cities, unlesse he have in himselfe the experience and the practice of all that which is praise-worthy.
[6]The Apology, like many of Milton's other tracts, praises Parliament and emphasizes that they are reformers and the basis of the country.
[8] In particular, Elizabeth Wheeler points out that the tract contains "Milton's understanding of Aristotle's definition of man as a political animal.