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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN:
the Law, as its “substance . . . love of God and of our
neighbour, should not, . . . be thought of as destroyed.”
Rather, “only the written surface has been changed,” as
the “law is now inscribed on believers’ hearts by the
spirit,” which is outside the province of the
magistrate. 168 The Gospel’s pre-eminence rendered the
Judicials irrelevant as to the enforcement of the “letter,”
while the internal enforcement of its substance was now
a matter of conscience and liberty. “The law of slavery”
has “been abrogated through the gospel,” and “the
result is Christian Liberty.” 169 The primacy of the
Gospel over the Judicials, with its political implications
of “Christian liberty,” required the restriction of civil
power in religious affairs.
Limited Authority of Kings, Popular
Sovereignty and Supremacy of a
Commonwealth — Deuteronomy 17:4-20
Milton’s understanding of the Gospel’s liberty
requirements represents a biblical anchor from which
he directs political contrasts between the liberty of
commonwealths and the slavery of monarchies. His
republican reading of Deuteronomy 17:4-20
contradicted the standard royalist ones. Where he
inferred the limitation and legal accountability of kings,
Royalists reasoned a monarchy as responsible to God
alone. Milton claims the Deuteronomy passage
“confirme us that the right of choosing, yea of changing
thir own Government is by the grant of God himself in
the People.” 170 Royalists did not assume it
communicated any such right of choice regarding
government.
Milton’s civil-liberty theme targeted civil-slavery, which
he commonly associated with monarchy. He forcefully
frames counter-arguments against absolute kingship in
favour of popular sovereignty in Pro populo anglicano
defensio (1651) where he attacks the Royalist Salmasius’
assertion that a king alone is absolute, supreme, above
the law, and accountable only to God. 171 Milton
confidently rested his case in Deuteronomy 17:14,
which bore tremendous political weight because “God
himself” spoke. Though originally directed to the
Hebrews, Milton read this text to mean “that all
Nations are at liberty to erect what form of Government
they will amongst themselves, and to change it when,
and into what they will.” 172 Though God providentially
intervened within the civil affairs of the Hebrews,
Milton claimed that such interposition was unique to
them. 173 God ordains the nature of lawful civil authority
and power while leaving the nations at liberty to decide
their institutional forms. Milton is not dismissing the
Jewish Polity wholesale. Rather, he is simply
highlighting God’s unique political relationship with
Israel, the liberty of civil choice, and the connection
between institutional forms and the moral capacities of
nations. 174
Milton extended the political usefulness of
Deuteronomy 17 beyond popular choice of government
to include the superiority of a commonwealth form
generally. “A Commonwealth is a more perfect form of
Government than a Monarchy, and more suitable to the
condition of Mankind; and in the opinion of God
himself, better for his own people; for himself
appointed it.” God reluctantly permitted the Hebrews
to alter this divine form to a monarchy only after He
was “prevail’d” upon, “and at their own importunate
desire.” God’s response extended a political choice “to
be Govern’d by a single person, or by more.” 175 Milton
posits that “the Gospel . . . that Heavenly Promulgation,
as it were, of Christian Liberty,” does not “reduce us to
a condition of Slavery to Kings and Tyrants,” 176 or to
the clergy for that matter. “Unlimited power,” whether
“in Temporal things,” or “Ecclesiastical” are equally
subversive to liberty. God is just as concerned for “Civil
affairs” as he is ecclesiastical ones, and therefore, “he
would have the same reformation made in the
Commonwealth, that he would have made in the
Church.” Moreover, “God has not so modelled the
Government of the World” to require “any Civil
Community to submit to the Cruelties of Tyrants,”
while leaving the “Church at liberty to free themselves
from Slavery and Tyranny.” 177
Hebrew Commonwealth: A Divinely
Ordained Model for a Reformed
Commonwealth — 1 Samuel 8:1-22
Milton read Israel’s request for a king in 1 Samuel 8 as
signalling their abandonment of a divinely ordained
commonwealth and rejection of God as their supreme
sovereign. By illustrating the disastrous civil choice of
Israel, Milton claimed God was summoning England
168
Milton, De Doctrina, CPW, vol. 6, 532.
169
Ibid., 536-537.
170
Milton, The tenure of kings and magistrates, 15.
171
Milton, Pro populo anglicano defensio (London, 1651) is part of
Milton’s Latin prose corpus, and this quote is from the 1695
English translation A defence of the people of England, 15. I am
employing this translation throughout.
172
Ibid., 18.
173
Ibid., 65.
174
Ibid., 75-76.
175
Ibid., 18.
176
Ibid., 52.
177
Ibid., 84-85.
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