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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN:
Taxonomy of Early Modern Protestant and Puritan Methodologies
Early modern British political theorists, typically
Protestants (including Puritans and Anglicans),
employed different hermeneutical methods, and even
different ‘languages,’ or terms from their non-Christian
counterparts, by which to convey their political ideas
and models. These interpretive methodologies, with
their separate languages, can be teased out, in part, by
examining the relationship between their political
reading of the Bible and political use (or refusal to use)
of non-biblical or ‘pagan’ writers, especially the classical
authors. Scripture was not necessarily quoted alongside
the classics as decorative window dressing to render a
political model more acceptable to a biblically literate
audience. Some writers were convinced that it was
hermeneutically acceptable to include classical authors
because all truth, even political truth discerned by a
pagan, is God’s truth, and able to confirm scriptural
concepts.
J.P. Sommerville in his Royalists and Patriots: Politics and
Ideology in England 1603-1640 (1999), identifies the
language of the “law of nature” as incorporating not just
a rational enlightened concept, but identified with
“God’s law since it consisted of a set of instructions
which God had imprinted in human nature at the
Creation.” 11 An author cannot be tagged as a classical or
Aristotelian thinker simply because he employs “law of
nature” language, nor, for that matter, identified solely
as a “classical republican.”
It might be supposed that the Protestant
emphasis on the corruption of human nature
would have led to a rejection of natural law. In
fact, Protestants believed that corruption had
not entirely obliterated people’s ability to
distinguish between good and evil. The
doctrine of natural law was held to be
compatible with a Calvinist theology of grace. .
. . Human nature was totally corrupted in the
sense that on their own people could do
nothing to achieve salvation. Yet nature was
not so corrupt that pagans, lacking grace, were
wholly blind to God’s laws. 12
The historiography of natural law and law of nature
theories is interestingly immense, and largely outside
the scope of this work. Nevertheless, there exists a
Protestant approach to the law of nature argument that
simply cannot be neatly confined to classical categories.
One Republican representative examined here is John
Milton (1608-1674), though often considered only for
his poetry, wrote an impressive quantity of political
prose in both English and Latin, 13 which includes a very
liberal use of classical Greek and Roman authors. Since
Milton employs classical authors politically, he is
typically categorised as a classical republican, despite his
simultaneous and consistent engagement with the
Scriptures for political purposes. Milton even wrote his
own theological treatise in Latin titled De Doctrina
Christiana (1655-1674). A careful reading of Milton
indicates that he even utilised the law of nature
argument outside the Aristotelian tradition, believing
that despite the Fall, all men were created in God’s
image, and could still understand truth. This view
assists us in understanding his use of classical texts
alongside biblical ones. Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) not
only testifies to liberty of conscience in publishing and
reading, but represents a dress rehearsal for the
appropriate literary use of classical authors from a
biblical perspective.
Another political thinker who typically employed the
classics in tandem with the Scriptures was James
Harrington (1611-1677), but for different reasons than
Milton. Harrington, considered one of the greatest early
modern republican thinkers, marshalled the most
significant segments of the Hebrew polity into his
republican theory, even using it paradigmatically.
Unfortunately, such use is often neglected by scholars
determined to read only his employment of classical
texts, and especially Machiavelli. Suffice to say, the
writings of Harrington and Milton, along with others
mentioned throughout this work, lead us to conclude
that the early modern period also consisted of the
language of biblical republicanism, with its various
vocabularies, concepts and constructs. In this regard,
some early moderns wrote their politics out of Israel as
if it were the paradigm, or divine template of political
revelation, Harrington being the leading political
thinker in this regard.
Various aspects of biblical republicanism and the
manner in which the Bible was read politically, turned
on schemes of classification which include or question
the use of classical authors alongside biblical ones;
schemes such as those which adopted various
combinations of the relationship between Nature and
Grace, or incorporated aspects of Christian humanism.
Still others emphasised the use of Jewish and rabbinical
political thought.
11
J.P. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in
England 1603-1640, 2d ed. (London: Longman, 1999), 14.
12
Ibid., 17.
13
Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 8 vols., ed. D. M. Wolfe
(New Haven, CN: Yale University Press), 1953-1982.
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