Chapter 3.
Milton's Writings on Liberty
The purpose of this chapter is to survey some of Milton's writings (except Areopagitica, which will be considered in the next chapter) to discover his thought on civil and religious liberty. We hope at the same time to find some progression in his work from Milton the Zealot for Liberty in his early writings up to the execution of Charles I (1649), to the Patrician Politician in the writings of his mid-career to the Restoration of Charles II (1660), and then to Milton the Mature Poet and Political Realist until his death in 1674.
No person progresses in a regular and consistent fashion in a single direction throughout his or her life. Think about your own life and experience. There are usually zigs and zags, going first one way then another, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly. Perhaps you can identify with the Apostle Paul's autobiographical motto, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me" (1 Cor 13:11, New International Version, hereafter NIV).
Milton, like all persons, progressed from childhood, through the various stages of adulthood, into old age (which in Milton's case included the loss of his eyesight). In his thought he was a man of his time, as well as a man who influenced his time. In many ways he was ahead of his time, especially in his literary genius but also as a profound thinker about liberty and freedom.
Because you are interested in reading such a book as this you must care rather deeply about liberty and freedom, about religious liberty and personal and civil or political liberty as well as about personal freedom. Welcome to the world of the 17th century in England as viewed through the writings and thought of John Milton.
Many influential 17th century English citizens were growing weary of the oppression of a monarch who failed to understand their strong yearnings for freedom. Those who had the education and talent took up the pen to write many pamphlets on all aspects of freedom, but many writers were concerned most of all for religious freedom. The Reformation was now one hundred years on, but few fruits of that mighty European movement had filtered down to the people of England. The reasons for this are too many and complex to examine in depth in this book. It is sufficient to say that many Englishmen felt that the work of the Reformation had not gone far enough in England, and much remained to be done to enjoy its benefits to the fullest possible extent. They viewed an oppressive state church and a despotic monarch as the source of many of the ills and burdens of the nation, and, like many world citizens then and now, they knew they could "do better" and bring in far happier days. As far as the oppression was concerned, they felt they "weren't going to take it anymore."
The Early Period of Milton's Writings: Milton the Zealot for Freedom
John Milton was one of many in England in the 17th century who felt that the corrupt church hierarchy, united with a harsh monarchy, was a source of much of the trouble of the land. In 1641 and 1642 he wrote two prose pamphlets which set forth his position on these church-state matters: Of Reformation in England and The Reason of Church-Government.
1641, Of Reformation in England
The full title of the first pamphlet was Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England: and the Causes that Hitherto Have Hindered It. With this little pamphlet Milton entered the fray on the matter of the "abolishment of the Episcopacie" or the disestablishment of the official state Church of England and granting religious freedom to all religions and religious groups. It was considered a radical position for anyone to take, for in those days many persons believed in the Apostolic Authority of the Episcopacy just as strongly as they believed in the Divine Right of Kings. Others on the state-church side of the argument responded to Milton's pamphlet, and he, in turn, responded to their response, in "ding-dong" fashion.
Milton could write very eloquent prose when he wanted to. In one passage in Of Reformation in England he describes "Mother England" appearing in mourning clothes, with ashes on her head, and "tears abundantly flowing from her eyes," weeping because so many of her children are oppressed "because their conscience could not assent to things which the Bishops had commanded."
Even at this early date in his career Milton indicated that patriotism motivated much of his thought and activity. In the same pamphlet Milton includes a prayer to the God who preserved "This Britannick Empire" through five bloody wars, and "freed us from the Antichristian thraldom," to grant them felicity "not only to have saved us from greatest miseries past, but to have reserved us for the greatest happiness to come" (Daiches 104). Milton sincerely expected that a new and regenerate England would arise when the Reformation was complete there, and "the Eternal and shortly-expected King shall open the Clouds to judge the several Kingdoms of the world," and that this would "put an end to all earthly tyrannies" and result in "the Common good of Religion and the Country." Passages such as this show the "boundless optimism" and "the patriotic utopianism of the English Puritan reformer" (Daiches 106).
1642, The Reason of Church Government
The second pamphlet, The Reason of Church-Government, was a longer and well reasoned work which could not be easily answered. In it Milton carefully covered the ecclesiastical history of England from the time of Henry VIII, while he at the same time provided convincing literary evidences from the extant literature of the period. Some of Milton's earlier pamphlets were published anonymously, but to this work he fearlessly attached his name, thus clearly identifying himself publicly with this cause of religious freedom. Milton presented a logical and scholarly argument that the Presbyterian form of church government by synods and assemblies where laymen were represented was more democratic and much closer to the original New Testament ideal than autocratic church government by the episcopal hierarchy. He also made a very strong and eloquent plea for freedom of conscience.
Autobiographical glimpses are noted amidst the scholarly arguments in The Reason of Church-Government. Milton's submission to God is revealed in the sentence, "But when God commands to take the trumpet and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal." It is in this context of necessary controversial writing that Milton refers to prose as a product "of my left hand." He indicates that normally he would not choose the vehicle of prose, but in
these tumultuous times … I should not choose this manner of writing … led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use … of my left hand.… For although a Poet soaring in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him might without apology speak more of himself than I mean to do, yet for me sitting here below in the cool element of prose … to venture and divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition to the gentler sort …" (Reason of Church Government, The Second Book, Hughes edn. Milton's Complete Poetry and Major Prose 666-67).
Noting the use of "his left hand" in writing the prose form which he did not normally choose, and noting that Milton now begins to write on controversial issues rather than on heroic themes, we might well ask why would Milton make this sacrifice of several of the most productive years of his life? The most obvious answer is that he did it for love of freedom, liberty, and country. The ancient documents of these English freedoms in Milton's time were the Magna Charta (1215) and the Charter of Forests (1216) which served as the foundation philosophy for typical English liberties. These fundamental democratic principles were formally assented to in 1628 by King James II in accepting the Petition of Right, but they were not implemented in governmental policy.
Milton charges in The Reason of Church Government that the Anglican Church with its episcopalian form of authoritarian government was the enemy of the monarchy, Parliament, and the whole body of people in England. In the conclusion of this forceful work he appeals to the Lords, peers and commons, to rid the nation of this "enormous misrule that prelaty hath wrought both in the church of Christ and in the state of this kingdom." Yet in a rhetorical flourish he adds,
And yet in the midst of rigor I would beseech ye to think of mercy.… If you can find after due search but only one good thing in prelaty, either to religion or civil government, to king or parliament, to prince or people, to law, liberty, wealth, or learning, spare her.… But on the contrary, if she be found to be malignant, hostile, destructive to all these, … then let your severe and impartial doom imitate the divine vengeance; rain down your punishing force upon this godless and oppressing government, and bring such a dead sea of subversion upon her that she may never in this land rise more to afflict the holy reformed church, and the elect people of God. (Reason of Church Government, Conclusion, Hughes edn, Milton's Complete Poetry and Major Prose 689).
1643, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce was first published anonymously in 1643, and the second and larger edition, which identified "J. M." as the author, was published in 1644. The long and complete title to the work reveals that the author believed that divorce is for the good of both sexes, that the canon law prohibiting divorce is a "bondage" and a mistake, that the true meaning of scripture in the Old Testament Law permits divorce, and that Christ in the Gospels did not abolish divorce but spoke against the abuse of divorce.
Milton's prose pamphlet on divorce came partly out of his own unhappy experience in a bad marriage and partly out of his sincere conviction that the church's canon law in this matter needlessly restrained personal freedom and was not founded on a sound interpretation of the Bible as a whole. So here, as in most of his other pamphlets, he was pleading for liberty or freedom, in this case personal freedom rather than religious or civil freedom. Incidentally Milton's position is followed today by most protestant churches and denominations. But in his day he was in a small minority and was vilified for writing such things against the traditional teachings of the churches of that time, Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant.
At age 33, and unmarried, Milton met a 16 year old girl whom some call "flighty" and a member of a royalist family. Her name was Mary Powell, the daughter of an Oxfordshire justice of the peace who supported King Charles I. In 1642, probably in June, they were married. Both Milton and Mary were disillusioned in their expectations, and she returned to her parents' home for a visit and did not return to her new husband for about three years, when they managed a reconciliation. In October 1645 the couple moved to Barbican, Cripplegate, in London where they lived for about seven years.
While Mary was still separated from her husband and living with her parents, in August 1943, Milton wrote his ideas on divorce and published them under the title The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce with a second and enlarged edition in February, 1644. He explained that since marriage was intended to be a perfect companionship, if by an unfortunate mistake in judgment it turned out to be miserable for both spouses, some provision should be made for release and liberty of divorce. In his own words, "Nor is it therefore that for a modest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him" (Divorce Chapter III, Hughes edn. 708). Milton felt that his plea for a more liberal divorce law was another step in his campaign for personal liberty and for public policy to carry it out.
1649, The Tenure of Kinqs and Maqistrates
Milton made one of his boldest strikes for freedom, and another effort strongly condemned by many, in his defense of the trial and execution of King Charles I. He and many other of his revolutionary Civil War associates were convinced that their king was a tyrant and deserved to be resisted with arms, captured and imprisoned, then tried and, if convicted, executed. To the royalist sympathizers and many others in England and Europe this was shocking. According to Milton's philosophy all men are by nature free, and their political relation to their rulers was based on a voluntary contract that could be altered or terminated by the will of the people or their representatives or magistrates. This underlying philosophy, according to Hanford, "is in line with the main development of liberal political theory throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and Milton says nothing that not been said a hundred times." This does not mean, however, that everyone agreed with it.
The title to this work justifying the trial and execution of Charles I is The Tenure of Kinqs and Magistrates. In this work Milton presented a logical progression of thought concluding that Parliament could "if they saw cause, take all power, authority, and the sword out of the hand" of a tyrant ruler and "proceed to punish him." If parliamentary forces may defy and meet the tyrant in battle, "why may they not as well prosecute him by justice?" Milton asks. Using arguments based on scripture and reason, he continues to assert that
the law of nature justifies any man to defend himself, even against the King in person. Let them show us then why the same law may not justify much more a state or whole people, to do justice upon him against whom each private man may lawfully defend himself.… Justice done upon a tyrant is no more but the necessary self-defense of a whole commonwealth (Tenure of Kinqs, Hughes edn. 778).
Thus did Milton contend for political liberty and democratic equality versus blind obedience and unquestioning subjection to a tyrant's unjust rule.
The meaning of the word "tenure" is the act of holding something (property, or an office of some kind). In this case it applies to the act of the king in holding the office of king of a realm or nation. The word "tenure" is probably most widely known to modern people as applied to the tenure of a teacher or professor. Once this tenure is granted, after a probationary period, it cannot be taken away except for notorious misconduct or incompetence, and then only after a formal hearing or trial in which all normal rights are granted to the charged teacher or professor. It is easier for most people to think of Milton's use of the term "tenure" in connection with the monarchy if we consider the idea that, for Milton and many others, the king was not necessarily king for life, regardless of the way he treated his subjects. For them the king did not have absolute lifetime "tenure."
And he was definitely not above the law. He could be charged and tried by a lawfully constituted and representative Parliament, and, after due process, if convicted he could be subjected to punishment up to and including death if deemed appropriate for crimes against his people. Kings were deposed all the time, usually by a coup instigated by a rival (not a very democratic process!), yet the de facto results were accepted (perhaps reluctantly) by the nobles, the church, and people.
If this is one acceptable way to transfer political power in a nation, then certainly such a democratic transfer of power, and consequent punishment of a bad king, could be accomplished by a representative Parliament duly elected by the electorate of a democratic country. This is a legal way to demonstrate that the king or any ruler of a country is not above the law. Impeachment is another way for democratic nations to demonstrate the same thing. In the United States presidents have been impeached, and others (such as Richard M. Nixon) have been forced to resign under threat of impeachment.
Of course, in England in the 17th century this doctrine proposed by the Commonwealth Government, the Parliament, Milton, and many others, was fiercely contested by other Tories and Royalists on the theory of the divine right of kings. They felt that kings and queens received their authority and right to rule from God, not from the people or from any human agreement between king and people. This belief in the divine right of kings had been widely held for centuries, but it was now, in the 17th century, becoming harder to defend in light of advancing ideas of individualism, human rights, democracy, and liberty. Milton, and those who stood with him on liberty, represented the wave of the future.
Writings of Milton's Middle Period: Milton the Patrician Politician
1651, Defense of the People of England
The year 1649 and the execution of Charles I by the Commonwealth government of which Milton was a part was an important turning point in his life. In the next decade blindness was to come upon Milton, and he was to witness tremendous disappointment in the strife and division within the Commonwealth. Toward the end of the 1650's public pressure started building for turning away from the perceived chaos and disorganization of Cromwell's rule, toward the restoration of the monarchy and more stability in the nation. Nevertheless, throughout those changing and turbulent times Milton continued to write and speak out at every opportunity for liberty and freedom of every kind.
An important work of Milton's at the beginning of this middle period of his prose writings on freedom is Defense of the People of England, written in Latin and published in 1651. In this work Milton addressed a wide audience throughout Europe, rather than merely an English audience. The exiled Charles II had commissioned a French scholar, Claude Saumaise, known as Salmasius, to write a public attack on those who were responsible for the execution of Charles I. This work was a dangerous attack on the Commonwealth Government, and it was necessary to have a scholarly answer to it. This was Milton's assignment, which he completed very effectively in his Pro Populo Anqllcano Defensio. He used legal, historical, and moral arguments, mingled with a scornful and vindictive tone like the one Salmasius had used against him.
1654, Second Defense of the People of England
Salmasius died soon after this, but other royalist writers anxious to defend the divine right of kings took up the battle and answered Milton in their own way. To these attacks and arguments Milton replied with his Second Defense of the English People (1654). In this Second Defense Milton wrote partly with a high literary style of patriotic eloquence and rich autobiographical passages.
In one significant paragraph Milton writes, "I saw that a way was opening for the establishment of real liberty." He goes on to speak of "religious and civil rights," indicating clearly a sincere motivation for joining in the fray of the Civil War, "to be of use to my country, to the church, and to so many of my fellow-Christians in a crisis of so much danger" (Second Defense of the English People, Hughes edn. Milton's Complete Poems and Malor Prose 828-32).
1659, A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes
In February 1659, Milton wrote an important pamphlet, A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, showing that he still, as always, believed in the separation of church and state. The subtitle "Showing that it is not lawful for any power on Earth to compel in matters of Religion" reveals his conviction on freedom of religion and conscience. Wolfe points out that Milton strongly believed that religion is "an affair of the inner man, the spirit," and therefore "no outward force can effect or change man's spiritual nature against his will; religion must be voluntary to be religion at all" (101). Milton wrote that to force people into the church against their beliefs is to make them hypocrites; "Christ exercised force but once, and that was to drive profane ones out of his temple, not to force them in" (Hughes edn., 853).
1660, The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth
When Milton wrote The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth in 1660 England was almost ready to welcome Charles II back to the throne and with this restoration to re-establish the Anglican Church. Milton's Ready and Easy Way was his final plea for his country and Parliament not to make this, in Milton's view, tragic mistake of re-establishment of the national church. He repeated all the reasons he had advanced in his previous writings for the last twenty years. But the tide was moving so swiftly and forcefully that when he published his second edition of The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth in April, 1660, he dropped his demand for disestablishment. In it he asked only for full liberty of conscience, which, of course, is not the same thing as full religious liberty with its corollary, actual separation of church and state. Milton realized that for the time being he and his colleagues had lost this battle for full religious liberty in England.
After the restoration of Charles II to the throne Milton was for a time a fugitive. He had reason to hide and fear for his life, for he was sought as one who conspired in the execution of King Charles I. With the help of friends, however, Milton escaped any physical harm, imprisonment, or trial. It is possible, too, that his persecutors were led to ease up on their search and punishment out of consideration for Milton's blindness and in recognition of his literary accomplishments. What a tragedy it would have been if not only the nation but the world had been deprived of Milton's great achievements in the remaining fourteen years of his life: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Aqonistes. To these great works of his mature and golden years we now turn.
Milton's Golden Years: The Mature Poet and Political Realist
Up to this point, this book has concentrated on Milton's major prose works concerning liberty or freedom. It is not necessary to devote as much space to Paradise Lost as to the prose pamphlets, partly because this great epic poem is already much better known than the prose pamphlets, and partly because Milton's thought on liberty or freedom in Paradise Lost is peripheral rather than central to its main themes.
Paradise Lost (1667, 10 Books; 1674, 12 Books)
In 1667 Milton published the first edition of Paradise Lost in 10 Books and the second edition in 12 Books in 1674. As we search Paradise Lost for indications of Milton's thought on freedom or liberty, we must adjust our focus away from the emphasis on political, civil, or personal freedoms so prominently discussed and argued in his prose pamphlets. Since the theme of Paradise Lost is "Man's First Disobedience and Fall," rather than political liberty, we should not be surprised to find that when liberty or freedom is discussed there it is spiritual freedom, or freedom of the will, or Christian freedom. There is, however a connection between all of these aspects of freedom as we shall see.
James Holly Hanford stated that "Philosophically … Milton is a Christian idealist" (187). Milton gets his understanding of spiritual freedom or Christian freedom from the scriptures, reformers, other theologians, and his own studies. Milton was quite familiar with the scriptures concerning what Jesus said about freedom,
John 8:32, "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:36, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." (RSV)
This spiritual freedom is the inner freedom from the power of sin, which Jesus Christ gives to all who truly trust in him and follow him in Christian discipleship. It is the same kind of Christian freedom of which the Apostle Paul speaks in Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast in the freedom with which Christ has made you free." Milton undoubtedly had these scriptural ideas in mind when he wrote of spiritual or Christian freedom.
The spiritual liberty of the children of God did not include freedom or license to do whatever one wanted. It meant the freedom to do what God wanted his children to do. It was not a license to sin. To this preposterous idea St. Paul said, "God forbid! Be it not so!" John Milton would have said the same thing in his own high literary style. But Christian freedom did certainly include the freedom of the individual conscience from merely human ordinances. Barker says that Milton's interpretation of Christian liberty, even by 1645, "results in extreme Christian individualism" (107).
This Christian individualism is to be differentiated from the freedom of the will. Individualism as seen by Milton and most Christians included the freedom and the responsibility to decide and act for oneself, without external coercion. And for this function God as creator provided freedom of the will for everyone, arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. Milton, as a good Christian humanist, in Paradise Lost connects the freedom of the will and the power of reason:
But God left free the will, for what obeys Reason, is free, and Reason he made right.
Adam and Eve were free to obey God or to disobey him, free to choose sin and slavery to sin, or to choose obedience and faithfulness to God and with it, spiritual freedom and blessing for mankind. Of course they were capable of making either choice even before the choice was made. They were capable of keeping their original innocent spiritual freedom, and equally capable of losing their spiritual freedom by choosing disobedience to God.
Their loss of spiritual freedom was their own fault, not God's fault. God said:
I formed them free, and free they must remain Till they enthral themselves.
Note here Milton's poetic style which functions to enhance his meaning. First, we notice the alliteration of the "f" sounds in first line, "formed … free … free." We see, too, the repetition of the "m" sound in the end of that line, "must remain." Then we note the "th" sound in the next line: "they enthral themselves." The choice of the word "enthral" denotes the opposite of the word "free." They (Adam and Eve) "enthral" themselves; God doesn't do it; the serpent doesn't do it; they do it voluntarily. God did not make them slaves; God made them free moral beings, with a free will, and freedom to choose either right or wrong.
In Book XII, lines 75-83, Milton explained that when Adam and Eve chose to sin and disobey God their "true Liberty" (spiritual liberty) was lost and their Reason was obscured, and they were reduced to servitude, being "til then free." Reason in man remains partially obscured even after an experience of divine grace in regeneration. It is not always alone a perfect guide; therefore spiritual enlightenment and education of the reasoning function are necessary. Milton often bemoans the fact that this enlightenment and education is not always evident in the masses of people, and not even always in the educated and Christian aristocracy as they perceive themselves. This is one reason why, in the wake of the Restoration of 1660, Milton became disillusioned with ever expecting to see an ideal Christian commonwealth, or society, or nation established on earth. Therefore, he moved in the latter part of his life toward the hope of a spiritual freedom or "Paradise within" and "happier far" than any earthly political liberty could possibly achieve. (Paradise Lost, Bk xii, 585).