Report Template - Jubilee Centre

More documents

Recommendations

Info

THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN: Such freedom and liberty, innate within every human being, is the “fountain or root,” from which “all just human powers take their original.” Overton claims that this power to protect and preserve these original rights is not derived “immediately from God (as Kings usually plead their prerogative)”; but rather, from “the hand of nature, as from the represented to the representors.” God instilled such power within every individual, who alone can consent to lawfully delegate it to those best able to secure these original rights. “Every man by nature being a King, Priest and Prophet in his owne naturall circuite and compasse, whereof no second may partake, but by deputation, commission, and free consent from him, whose naturall right and freedom it is.” 326 Overton derived from the divine creation of man, both male and female, the original of government. Ecclesiastical Polity to Civil Polity: Consent and Delegation It appears that both Lilburne and Overton were attracted to Separatism early on, and had been members of Separatist churches, while Walwyn was a fellow traveller. 327 Perez Zagorin notes that Lilburne, “when he first began to write,” was “a pious and enthusiastic Separatist who held no considered political theory.” 328 The Separatists were known for removing themselves from the established Church of England, and their nonconformity rested in their reading of the New Testament church structure from which they extracted consent in establishing church leadership, decentralisation in terms of church authority, and liberty of conscience in matters of religious worship and faith. Separatists also extended these ecclesiastical principles to civil structuring, and it appears the Levellers similarly read this New Testament ecclesiastical pattern as constitutionally relevant. Zagorin claims that Lilburne’s “view on the church were pregnant with possibilities for the redefinition of the political order,” and precisely because he “emphasized the voluntary and contractual character of church government.” 329 One of Lilburne’s first tracts, A light for the ignorant (1638), reveals his separatist sympathies. He considered “The true definition of a true visible Church of Iesus Christ,” as “a company of people called and separated out of the world”; “Ioyned together in the fellowship of the Gospell by volentary profession of fayth and obedience of Christ”; “an independent body of itself”; “hath power 326 Ibid., 4. 327 See Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1978, 2002), 68-69, 118. 328 Zagorin, A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution, 8. 329 Ibid., 9. from Christ her head,” and contains “sufficient ordinary Officers.” 330 In another tract titled An answer to nine arguments (1638), Lilburne again emphasises the voluntary nature of consent in establishing a church: “I affirme that the forme of a true Church is for a company of believers who are washed in the blood of Christ by a free and voluntary Consent or willingnesse to enter into that heavenly and holy State, City or Kingdome, which in the word of God is plentifully described.” 331 His 1639 Fleet prison tract Come out of her my people, printed in Amsterdam, represents a direct attack upon the “Anti-Christian” nature of the Anglican Church. He marshals numerous passages from the Book of Revelation to equate the Church with the “Beast,” and its Clergy more in the Devil’s line of succession as opposed to the Apostles,’ exclaiming “that all Gods people are bound in duty & conscience, to separate from it, & have no communion with it.” 332 Richard Overton attacked the gentile-like tyranny of the House of Lords by emphasising consent with his An alarum to the House of Lords: against their insolent usurpation of the common liberties and rights of this nation (1646), and which landed him in Newgate Prison. He accused the Lords of valuing too highly “Titles and Honours,” calling them “markes of the Gentiles.” By invoking the narrative of the Sons of Zebedee in Matthew 20: 22-28, Overton, like Milton, equated Christ’s warning of gentile rule and lordship with the rule of the House of Lords; a pattern which Christ condemned and admonished his disciples against modelling. “Wee have our Saviours own Warrant for it, who saith, The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them, &c. But it shall not be so among you: Whosover will be chief among you, (Christians,) let him be your servant: Gracious LORDS, or Favourable LORDS, titles that could not be propper amongst Christians; with whom there was no Ruler, nor Government, but by common Election and consent, agreeable to Our House of Commons: every Ruler had his Rule.” 333 There was no constitutional role for a House of Lords in Leveller political philosophy because its presence violated the principle of consent. 330 John Lilburne, A light for the ignorant, A treatise shewing, that in the New Testament, is set forth three kingly states or governments (London, s.n., 1638 but printed in 1641), 20. The word ‘ordinary,’ is misspelled in the text. 331 John Lilburne, An answer to nine arguments (London: [s.n.], 1645), 28. 332 John Lilburne, Come out of her my people (Amsterdam, 1639), 35. 333 Richard Overton, An alarum to the House of Lords: against their insolent usurpation of the common liberties, and rights of this nation (London: s.n, 1646), 3. 64
ROYALISTS, REPUBLICANS, FIFTH MONARCHISTS AND LEVELLERS David Wooton asserts that “the Levellers never claimed that their political philosophy derived from separatist religious principles,” and if it did, the movement’s “support” may have been isolated “to those who were separatist in religion.” 334 Separatist assumptions about the origin and organisation of church government as understood from the New Testament did impact their constitutional theory; consent in the church led to consent in the civil polity. If consent was required for the church covenant─if this was the pattern left by Christ and His disciples─then consent should be applied to the creation of a civil polity, or, a civil covenant. Levellers never drew a fine and tight distinction between the godly and the ungodly in regards to civil leadership and incorporation, and the franchise, and possibly because all men have been made in God’s image, and thus should reap the benefits of natural rights. One could not be ‘put out’ of a political community for being a sinner, as they would be from a church. Political Supremacy of the People: Consent and Delegation One of the first significant Leveller manifestos which contained the heart of their political agenda was A remonstrance of many thousand citizens . . . to their owne House of Commons (1646), crafted by Overton and Walwyn while Lilburne languished in prison for slandering the Earl of Manchester. A remonstrance highlighted the leading Leveller principles of the sovereignty of the people, consent, annual parliaments, and liberty of conscience. The authors vent their accusatory assault against the House of Commons, now dominated by Presbyterians, for failing to “preserve the Common-wealth in Peace and Happiness,” the grand objective with which they were entrusted by way of delegation via the people’s consent. Instead, their actions and policies were reminiscent of an unelected King and House of Lords bent on preserving their own interests at the expense of the peoples’. They claimed the Commons had been governing outside its legitimate authority since it over extended its sitting beyond the lawfully established annum to five years. Their argument rested in a doctrine of the supremacy of the consent of the people by way of lawful delegation. Since the original authority to govern is inherent within each individual, and entrusted to magistrates by way of delegation and voluntary consent, that original grant of authority cannot lawfully continue beyond its established sitting, and thus revokable. “We possessed you with the same 334 David Wooton, “Leveller Democracy and the Puritan Revolution,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought (1450- 1700), eds. J.H. Burns and Mark Goldie (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 436. Power that was in our selves, to have done the same; For wee might justly have done it our selves without you, if we had thought it convenient.” 335 They also accused the Commons of exercising authority over matters of religious worship and conscience, though “neither you nor none else can have any into power at all to conclude the People in matters that concerne the Worship of God, for therein every one of us ought to be fully assured in our owne mindes, and to be sure to Worship him according to our Consciences.” Such a power could never have been lawfully delegated; “for wee could not conferre a Power that was not in our selves, there being none of us, that can without wilfull sinne, binde our selves to worship God after any other way, then what (to a tittle,) in our owne particular understandings, wee approve to be just.” 336 Three times the authors exclaim that the workings of the Commons are tantamount to the work of evil, and part of the “mystery of iniquity” which Paul warns of in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8. 337 Liberty of Conscience: Separation of Church and State All three Leveller theorists stressed the illegitimate role of magistrates in matters of conscience and religious worship, and warned of the inevitable persecution which accompanies such intrusive civil authority. Lilburne stressed the priority of the Gospel over the Old Testament law in this regard; that “the Law and the Testimony of Christ” was the “straight Rule,” which guided men in matters of worship, not “the Ordinance, Lawes, Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of the Jewes,” which “were types, and figures,” now irrelevant since Christ’s “death did abolish,” them. To “persecute for conscience is not of nor from God, but of and from the Divell, and Antichrist.” 338 William Walwyn was especially outspoken in regards to liberty of conscience. In Tolleration justified, and persecution condemn’d (1646), he claimed that the very “ground of Freedome consists” in men’s “practice and exercise of their Religion.” Parliament is to provide for the “safety and Freedome” of the people, “whereof Liberty of conscience is the principall branch.” 339 In A 335 Richard Overton and William Walwyn, A remonstrance of many thousand citizens, and other free-born people of England to their owne House of Commons (London, July 7, 1646), 3. 336 Ibid., 12. 337 Ibid., 10, 14, 17. 338 John Lilburne, A copie of a letter, written by John Lilburne Leut. Collonell. To Mr. William Prinne Esq (London, January, 7, 1645), 1, 3. 339 William Walwyn, Tolleration justified, and persecution condemn’d (London, 1646), 7, 15. 65
Page 1:
T h e P o l i t i c a l U s e o f t
Page 4 and 5:
Copyright © Jubilee Centre 2013 Th
Page 6 and 7:
Editorial Method and Style All cite
Page 8 and 9:
scholarly precision with accessibil
Page 10 and 11:
THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN E
Page 12 and 13:
Page 14 and 15:
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23: THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN E
show all

Report Template - Jubilee Centre

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?