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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN:
Historical Overview of the Political Use of the Bible
in the Seventeenth Century
But the Book which hath furnished my
Enemies with matter of Reviling (which none
must dare to answer) is my Holy
Commonwealth: The Occasion of it was this;
when our Pretorian Sectarian Bands had cut
all Bonds and pull’d down all Government,
and after the Death of the King had twelve
Years kept out his Son, few Men saw any
probability of his Restitution; and every selfconceited
Fellow was ready to offer his Model
for a new Form of Government: Mr. Hobbs
his Leviathan had pleased many: Mr. Tho.
White the great Papist, had written his
Politicks in English for the Interest of the
Protector, to prove that Subjects ought to
submit and subject themselves to such a
Change; And now Mr. James Harrington (they
say by the help of Mr. H. Nevill) had written a
Book in Folio for a Democracy called Oceana,
seriously describing a Form near to the
Venetian, and setting the People upon the
Desires of Change: And after this Sir H. Vane
and his Party were about their Sectarian
Democractical Model, which Stubbs defended;
and Rogers and Needham (and Mr. Bagshaw
had written against Monarchy before).
Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae (London,
1696). 7
Early Modern Political Use of Classical,
Renaissance and Biblical Texts
When discussing the nature of political philosophy,
including constitutional forms and the scope and
province of civil government, it is acceptable for
modern scholars to celebrate and rehearse the political
contributions of the early modern period (1500-1800
AD) by highlighting their use of classical and
Renaissance writers. A review of the political pamphlet
literature alone out of Great Britain’s seventeenth
century reveals readings representative of Greek and
Roman philosophers, and of especial importance are
the contributions of Plato (428-348 BC), Aristotle (384-
322 BC), and Cicero (106-43 BC). The Florentine
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527AD), considered the
most influential Renaissance political theorist,
7
Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, or, Mr. Richard Baxters
narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully
publish’d from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester
(London, 1696), Book 1, 118.
established his mark with The Prince (Il principe, 1513).
Nevertheless, as invaluable as classical and Renaissance
texts were, they were not the sole political influences
upon the minds of early moderns; the Scriptures also
played a profound political role. British, European and
American seventeenth-century political thought and
development is also representative of a Protestant
political theology. Unfortunately, current scholarship
tends to either marginalise such biblical political
readings or overlook them entirely.
Varied motivations lie behind current historiography’s
consistent and extensive neglect of the connections
between biblical hermeneutics, political theology, and
constitutional visions. Despite clear textual evidence of
biblical use within the vast political literature of
Britain’s early modern period, historians continue to
ransack this period for the imprint of classical and
Renaissance authors. Some conclude that such political
readings of the Bible are simply too diverse, obtuse, and
unintelligible, and a consistent hermeneutic impossible
to locate. Others assert that these religious
constitutional contributions are politically
predetermined and opportunistic, and intended to
satisfy a biblically literate audience only. These
professions render the study of the political reading of
the Scriptures less than inspiring or simply irrelevant.
These radical and dismissive appraisals of the political
reading of the Bible during Britain’s early modern
period can be linked to the late and highly respected
Oxford historian Christopher Hill. In his chapter “The
Revolutionary Bible,” in The English Bible and the
Seventeenth-Century Revolution (1993), Hill asserts rather
emphatically that the Bible was “used as a rag-bag of
quotations which could justify whatever a given
individual or group wanted to do.” 8 Such injudicious
and pragmatic political use of the Scriptures is
undeniable, and Hill’s work contains an element of
truth. Even Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536),
complained that the Scriptures were read politically “as
if they were of wax.” 9 Nevertheless, statements such as
Hill’s act as the definitive judgment upon an entire era
rich in sundry scriptural political readings, and
inadvertently justifies a scholarly disregard for the
political relevance of the Scriptures during Great
8
Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century
Revolution (London: Allen Lane, 1993; Penguin Group, 1994),
188.
9
H.C. Porter, “The Nose of Wax: Scripture and the Spirit from
Erasmus to Milton,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th
ser., 14 (November 1963): 155.
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