VII. Use or Scripture.

In the seventeenth century, Scripture and reason
were the touchstones for Puritan arguments on
nearly every subject. It was the common custom
to prove anything from the Bible, sometimes with
the consent of reason, sometimes in defiance of com-
mon sense. The poet Waller, for instance, made a
speech in the House of Commons in objection to
the bill to enforce the burial of the dead in woollen
shrouds, and thought he had proved his case when
he cited the evangelist who has recorded that Christ
was buried in linen. And if the Bible was used with
advantage as an authority on general subjects, it was
believed by Milton, and all Puritans, that no one could
impose, believe, or obey aught in religion, but from

1 See note on 51. 25.

Use of Scripture xxvii

the word of God only.! Inasmuch as the subject's
relation to his prince involved questions of conduct,
the Bible was regarded as an authority on such themes
as the divine right of kings and the legitimacy of
armed resistance to tyrar‘s The translation of the
Old Testament by Lu*i:cr sapptied his followers, and
the Calvinists also, v ‘th an arsenai of arguments on
political questions. ‘he stormy h story of the Jews
afforded precedents tc the uvholders of divine right,
of passive resistance, and of tyrannicide. Needless
to say, the teachings of the law and the prophets
were regarded as of equal authority with the precepts
of Jesus and the apostles. ‘Calvin had set forth in his
lectures,’ says Weill, ‘that it would be chimerical to
wish to transform all the laws of Moses into laws for
modern society. Yet in spite of his objection, the
political government of the Hebrews seemed to the
religionists of the reformed party a model to copy in
all its details; and the example of the monarchy of
Israel, so often denounced by the prophets and over-
thrown by insurrectionists inspired by God himself,
fortified their hatred of despotism, and their con-
fidence in ultimate siccess.2 The Protestants, how-
ever, were in two camps, as far as political theory
was concerned. Although Luther and Calvin were
somewhat ambiguous, the former was more a defender
of the theory of the divine right of kings than of
civil liberty; the latter advised passive resistance, but
by his utterances against tyranny encouraged such
disciples as Knox and Goodman in more revolutio-
nary principles. The Lutheran defenders of despotism
naturally attached more weight to the teachings of
the New Testament, especially the Pauline and

* Of True Religion, etc. (Bohn 2. 518).
* Les Théortes sur le Pouvoir Royal en France, p. 82.

XXViii Introduction

Petrine dicta on unreserved submission to magistrates.
The Protestant defenders of civil liberty, Knox, Buchan-
an, and Milton, for example, emphasized the rebell-
ions and cases of tyrannicide in the history of Israel,
and did their best to explain away the awkward pas-
sages in the New Testament.

Certain texts and instances in both the old and the
new Scriptures became loci classici for controversialists.
The friends of monarchy advanced the following leading
arguments from the Bible :—(1) When David had Saul
at his mercy, he refused to kill the Lord's anointed;
(2) God punished Israel because of her revolt against
Nebuchadnezzar, her lawful sovereign : (3) when David,
in Psalm 51, confessed the murder of Uriah, he did
not admit that he had sinned against his subject, but
only against God: (4) according to 1 Sam. 8. 11-18,
God conferred certain rights upon kings; (5) in the
New Testament they relied mainly upon three texts—
Rom. 13.1; 1 Pet. 2. 13,14; Tit. 8.1; (6) Luke 20. 25,
and the fact that Jesus submitted to Pilate, were also
often cited. On the other hand, the opponents of the
theory of divine right justified rebellion to tyrannical
princes on these Biblical grounds :—(1) Ehud, Jael,
Jehu, and Judith killed tyrants, being sent by the Lord
as liberators; (2) David did not kill Saul, for their
quarrel was a matter of private enmity; but at any
rate the Lord approved his armed resistance to the
forces of the king; (8) the priestly town of Libnah re-
volted against Jehoram! (Weill says that Libnah was
a sort of La Rochelle to the Protestant writers);
(4) the tribes of Israel fell away from Rehoboam ;
(5) the Maccabees repelled the Syrian tyrant.

This searching of the Scriptures for arguments to
support political theories had been in full swing for

1 See 1 Kings 8, 22.

Use of Scripture xxix

over a century when Milton undertook to review the
well-worn citations in this treatise. He dwells upon
the rebellion of Jeroboam against Rehoboam (16. 6),
the deposition of Samuel (16. 12), and the three cases
of tyrannicide—by Ehud (20. 29), by Samuel (22. 33),
and by Jehu (23. 6). In all these citations he uses
Scripture fairly, but in other places, where the plain
sense of the text or incident is against him, he does
not hesitate to wrest the Scripture to his purpose as
unscrupulously as any of his opponents. When he
quotes Deut. 17. 14, ‘I will have a king set over me,’
he interprets these words as referring solely to the
people's right of choice, thus deliberately ignoring the
words in the next verse, ‘Thou shalt in any wise set
him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall
choose’ (15. 20). The Royalist argument from Psalm
51, though it seems absurd to the modern mind, was
hard to meet with a direct answer, so Milton brushes
it aside with the remark that, after all, these are only
‘the patheticall words of a Psalme’ (14. 18). The New
Testament texts are also treated with a high degree
of ingenuity. He cannot get round the simple words
of 1 Pet. 2. 13, 16, where Christians are enjoined to
obey superior powers, so he adds the phrase ‘as free
men,’ a refinement used by Christopher Goodman in
1558.! Paul’s dictum in Rom. 18. 1, ‘For there is no
power but cf God,’ is explained as referring not to
tyrannical, but to just power only, This gloss upon
the text had also been used by Goodman. The use
which Milton makes of Rev. 13.2 is an excellent
example of how eagerly he strained after any text
which might seem to uphold his argument (17. 26).
Other New Testament texts quoted by him are also
arbitrary, and seem ineffective to present-day readers,

1 See note on 17, 11,

XXX Introduction

but were no doubt regarded as forceful citations by
Milton’s contemporaries.t The pamphlets of such
writers as Prynne, Walker, and Filmer, and indeed all
the Stuart controversialists, abound in what seems to
us a tiresome and even ludicrous use of Scripture.
Compared with these and other pamphleteers, Milton
is very sane in his exegesis, and moderate in his
citation of texts. A grotesque use* of Scripture in
this pamphlet should also be mentioned, namely, the
allusion to Adonibezek’s sufferings (55. 21), and the
story of the priests of Bel (56.35). These iilustrations
are characteristic of Milton's prose.