Christopher Hill considers that Milton was somewhat influenced, in the series, by the style of the pamphleteer Martin Marprelate, back in print; and notes that the timing in May 1641 was in the same month as the execution of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, and the fall of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.
He believes that the Reformation would allow for a structuring of the body to something more perfect, and that the Gospel was:[2] refin'd to such a Spirituall height, and temper of purity, and knowledge of the Creator, that the body, with all the circumstances of time and place, were purif'd by the affections of the regenerat Soule, and nothing left impure, but sinne; Faith needing not the weak, and fallible office of the Senses, to be either the Ushers, or Interpreters, of heavenly Mysteries, save where our Lord himselfe in his Sacraments ordain'd.
There is no Civill Government that hath beene known, no not the Spartan, not the Roman, though both for this respect so much prais'd by the wise Polybius, more divinely and harmoniously tun'd, more equally ballanc'd as it were by the hand and scale of Justice, then is the Commonwealth of England: where under a free, and untutor'd Monarch, the noblest, worthiest, and most prudent men, with full approbation, and suffrage of the People have in their power the supreame, and finall determination of highest Affaires.
Milton uses the images to emphasise the need for healing, and argues that the church government, especially the bishops, are the same kind of parasite that interferes with the body.
Milton extends the metaphor towards the idea of commonwealth as a whole:[13] And because things simply pure are inconsistent in the masse of nature, nor are the elements or humor in Mans Body exactly homogeneal, and hence the best founded Commonwealths, and least barbarous have aym'd at a certain mixture and temperament, partaking the several virtues of each other[10]Milton opposed the concept of the establishment of a central Church government.
"[16] Parts of Of Reformation emphasise a conflict present within Milton: he believed that the act of writing the work would take away from the spiritual connection between an individual and God.