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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN:
kingship, stressed four times in his second edition of
readie and easie, is also given prominent attention by his
adversaries who charged him with rendering civilly a
passage they claimed was intended for faith alone.
Their focus also attests to its political importance in
Milton’s constitutional proposals.
To stress Milton’s use of this text, and the liberties he
took in altering its language to press his point of
“gentilism,” his larger quotations are inserted. The
Matthew text is first found in The tenure of kings and
magestrates, where Milton clarifies Christ’s perpetual
proscription against exercising gentile-like lordship, or
tyrannical rule:
Wee may pass therefore hence to Christian
times. And first our Saviour himself, how
much he favoured Tyrants, and how much
intended they should be found or honoured
among Christians, declares his mind not
obscurely; accounting thir absolute autority no
better than Gentillim, yea though they
flourish’d it over with the splendid name of
Benefactors; charging those that would be his
Disciples to usurp no such dominion; but that
they who were to bee of most autoritie among
them, should esteem themselves Ministers and
Servants to the public. Matt. 20:25. The
Princes of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them,
and Mark 10:42. They that seem to rule, saith he,
either slighting or accounting them no lawful
rulers, but yee shall not be so, but the greatest
among you shall be your Servant. 184
Milton departs from the AV in his resort to the terms
“Princes” as opposed to rulers, “Lordship” as opposed
to dominion, and “Servant” instead of “minister,”
indicating his personal translation from the Greek Text.
What is clear is that he read the text as a civil
prescription, and not an ecclesiastical one, the reasons
for which he relates in The readie and easie way.
Milton resorts again to the Zebedee narrative in his A
defence of the people of England, and extends his political
analysis to include Christ’s prescription of a “form of
Civil Government” among his disciples — he
categorically maintained that “absolute Lordship and
Christianity are inconsistent.” He combines Christ’s
admonition against “gentilism” with the Israelites’
settlement upon a king in 1 Samuel 8, a similar political
combination found in The readie and easie. Milton
understood Christ’s warning as epitomising the Jewish
experience of “gentile” like tyranny. “Our Saviour, lest
Christians should desire a King, such a one at least, as
might Rule as, he says, the Princes of the Gentiles did,
prevents them with an Injunction to the contrary; but it
shall not be so among you.” Milton concludes, “What can
be said plainer than this? That stately, imperious Sway
and Dominion that Kings use to exercise, shall not be
amongst you.” In this regard, “Christians either must
have no King at all, or if they have, that King must be
the People’s Servant.” 185 The sort of “gentile” king the
Jews demanded was no different than the sort of gentile
princes Christ admonished against. Christ’s directive
against establishing a rule reminiscent of the “Princes of
the Gentiles” represents a condensed summary of Israel’s
destructive experience in desiring a king, which God
reluctantly consented to. The continuity of commands
regarding civil rule from the Father and the Son also
seemed politically authoritative to Milton.
The Matthew passage is also found in De Doctrina
Christiana, under Milton’s discussion “Of Public Duties
Towards Our Neighbour” and the nature and form of
Christian government. Again, Milton uses terms of
authority other than the AV, and is strikingly colloquial
in his paraphrasing. 186
The readie and easie way to establish a
free commonwealth (1660):
Political Gentilism versus a Perpetual
Senate of Servant Leadership
Milton’s more systematic constitutional proposals of
1659/1660 must be contextualised within the fast paced
events of the Interregnum’s finale. His first three, A
Letter to a Friend (October 1659), Proposalls of Certain
Expedients (November 1659), and A Letter to Monck
(March-April 1660), are considerably shorter than his
two editions of The readie and easie way to establish a free
commonwealth (1659, 1660), and represent distillations
of his constitutional views devoid of scriptural texts.
Nevertheless, human-lordship is found nowhere in these
three earlier Interregnum proposals, which contain the
main features and larger outlines of his republican
model commonwealth. Milton proposes that the Rump
Parliament be re-crafted into a grand council, or senate,
and in most instances, called to sit perpetually as his
first preference. Subordinate bodies and local councils
were delineated to deal with local judicial matters while
electors were to adhere to liberty of conscience in their
choice of magistrates, all the while denying a king and
House of Lords as a constitutional option. Milton’s
republican model was somewhat federal in nature; the
perpetual senate he envisioned was unicameral with
specific powers, along with a standing council, and
subordinate local judicial bodies.
185
Milton, A defence of the people of England, 58-59.
184
Milton, The tenure of kings and magistrates, 23-24.
186
Milton, De Doctrina, CPW, vol. 6, 795.
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