The first half of the time of great transition represented by the seventeenth century is already characterized by an abundance of intel-

139 monstrate the supremacy of the crown over the church by referring to

2. The first half of the time of great transition represented by the seventeenth century is already characterized by an abundance of intel-

152

The Crisis over the Authority of the Bible in England

be so indifferent to dogmatic doctrines that he exclaims: ‘This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality... is and has been the only fountain of all the schisms of the church..

.’

He continues: ‘Take away these walls of separation, and all will quickly be one... Require of Christians only to believe Christ, and call no man master but him only... ‘54 If we read these remarks with Erasmus in mind, we can see that the same ethics of discipleship lies at the heart of the whole ap- proach. The preference for the New Testament over the Old, and within the New Testament for the Gospels of Luke and Matthew with their moral tone, matches this well.55 In addition, there is a clear rationalism, coupled with the confidence that everyone could understand the argu- ments, if only they were clothed in a simple form. Chillingworth shares many of these views with his predecessor Hooker. Orr has noticed a difference between them:56 whereas Hooker regards the testimony of the Fathers and the church to the inerrancy of the biblical text as adequate, Chillingworth leaves the final examination of the testimony and teaching of the Bible to the reason of the individual Christian.57 This was the line to be found at Great Tew: thus John Hales can also admonish his audience in his sermon ‘Of Private Judgement in Reli- gion

.‘a5*

‘That faculty of reason which is in every one of you, even in the meanest that hears me this day, next to the help of God, is your course of integrity and sanctity; you may no more refuse or neglect the use of it, and rest yourselves upon the use of other men’s reason, than neglect your own..

. ‘59

This mixture of rationalism and moralism would necess- arily have an effect on the enormous significance of the Bible for Prot- estants in the direction of a more critical attitude towards scripture.

2. The first half of the time of great transition represented by the

The Crisis over the Authority of the Bible in England The Age of the Puritans 155 was

committed, were called Presbyters.‘n However, he could demon- strate that the institution of the office of bishop was necessary once the communities had multiplied and their numbers had increased, in order to put an end to the differences of opinion between the presbyters and to avoid schism and disorder. For this argument he referred to the church father Jerome.78 Patrology was still the more familiar area for an Anglican theologian.

We can see the Puritan reaction particularly clearly from Prynne’s change of attitude. Whereas earlier, as an Erastian, he had revered as models the bishops of the century of the Reformation who were faithful to the kings, in his work

The Antipathie of the English Lordly Prelacie, Both to Regal1 Monarchy, and Civil1 Unity

of July 1641 he no longer attacks the bishops’ claim to secular rule, but calls for the abolition of the episcopal office generally, ‘root and branch’. The year 1641 is an important turning point. The committed Puritan party79 now becomes absolutely opposed to the bishops. This becomes clear outwardly from the abundance of anti-episcopal pamphlets which were put on the market in this year.

They include the work by Smectymnuus”,

An answer to a book entituled,

‘An Humble Remonstrance’

(by J.Hall), and also the anti-episcopal writings of Milton (which were barely noted when they first appeared). The Presbyterian party in (the Long) Parliament** took the same line: follow- ing a petition supported by the signatures of numerous London citi- zens,** a proposal was made to abolish the office of bishop completely (the ‘root and branch bill’). Contrary to the expectations of its sup- porters, this was given a majority on the second reading.= One of the reasons for Laud’s failure certainly lay in the fact that he had linked his fortunes with those of the absolutist king Charles and was therefore inevitably drawn into his fall. Another reason was that he did not recognize the mood of the people,83a which was still dominated by the fear of renewed catholicization. W.Prynne, for example, had fuelled hate against Rome over many years by his untiring literary activity.

Although the only literary work by Laud of any size is devoted to a controversy with Catholicism,84

a supporter of Rome.%”

he was condemned for high treason as 3. Evidence for the attitude of Puritans in this phase comes in the five contributions with which Milton entered the dispute over the bish- ops in 1641/1642.85~86 It is worth singling out Milton’s earlier prose works

from

the enormously extensive pamphlet literature of this periods7 to illustrate the situation in the years 164111642, above all because in his

open

approach the various intellectual trends which determined the climate in church politics and literature before and during the Puritan revolution come together. The change between the various phases of the controversy is reflected in the surprising contrast between the periods of his prose-writing, which follow in rapid succession. It has are so called by some men, they are no innovations, but restorations of

the ancient approved ceremonies, in, and from the beginning of the Reformation, and settled either by law or custom.‘65 Here we have above all the practical man,@ the pastor,67 speaking. Alongside this there is also a feeling for the beauty of liturgical forms (‘some beauty of holiness’). Theologically, by contrast, Laud was more broad-minded, and as we can see from his support of Chillingworth, was not far removed from the rational tendency in Anglicanism.

On the other hand, even the staunchest defenders of Laud concede that he made his greatest mistake in the way in which he acted and his choice of means, and in so doing contributed not so much to the consolidation of the church as to its collapse.68 Among the measures which Laud took, his action against Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne in 1637, which ended with them being condemned to having their ears cut off by the executioner at the pillory in the court of the Palace of Westminster, 69 was the most notorious, and contributed most to the final failure of his policy. While the punishment was being carried out, those involved made the event a piece of large-scale propa- ganda for their cause, which was taken up by those who accompanied them on the way to their distant places of exile. However, this was only the spectacular result of a situation which had developed more and more to the detriment of the state church.70 Puritan polemic had long been addressed to the ‘abuses’ within the church;71 moreover, insofar as it was directed against the bishops, as a precautionary measure7* it was usually limited to accusations that they had appropriated secular power. However, in his persecuting zeal Laud had also mistaken the intrinsic moderation which could be found among some of his oppo- nents .

⁷³

The situation became substantially more tense as a result of some over-zealous partisans who were championing the role of bishops (though in church politics they were considerably more liberal than Laud): in 1640/41, with Laud’s specific backing,74 Joseph Hall published a series of writings in defence of episcopacy75 which prompted as the Puritan reaction the demand for the complete abolition of bishops.

Hall’s works are significant because they indicate a fundamental

change of position in Anglican apologetic: by suddenly seeking to base

the divine right of the episcopate on scripture (and additionally on the

testimony of the Fathers), 76 Hall moved on to the level at which the

Puritans were arguing. The difficulties which the Presbyterians already

had in demonstrating from the New Testament a binding model for the

church order they sought inevitably proved even greater for Hall. While

he could refer to the appointment of community leaders like Timothy

and Titus by the apostles, who later exercised the functions which

accrued to bishops, these were not called bishops, while on the other

hand, in the early church ‘all to whom the Dispensation of the Gospel1

156

The Crisis over the Authority of the Bible in England

become increasingly clear in the history of Milton scholarship that his prose writings can only be understood in the context of the literary struggle which flared up between the different church political parties over the question of power in state and church: first between Laudians and Presbyterians, and then after a few years, on a different front, between the latter, with their basis in Parliament, and the Independents with their roots in Cromwell’s army. Finally, after the Independents had seized power and thus taken over responsibility for the Common- wealth, there were disputes between them and the Levellers, who were even further on the left wing. ** Precisely because Milton’s influence on the outward course of events was small to begin with, his contributions to the discussion could develop with an intrinsic consistency in which we can see simultaneously both the reaction of an outside observer to events and quite personal developments in his own life.

More important than the reactive element 89 is the intrinsic connection which can be noted between the various aspects in Milton’s comments.

The most important Milton scholars have pointed out that two main trends were determinative for Milton’s intellectual background: Hu- manism, which dominated his days as a student in Cambridge; and Puritanism, to which he was introduced by his teacher, T.Young.90,v*

We have still to see whether these two elements can be separated; it is sometimes worth considering Barker’s comment that the confidence in man and human reason which emerges in Milton’s

Areopagifica

was not without precedent in the pamphlets of contemporary Puritans.v2

Some poetic passages from Milton’s early works are already illumi- nating for our understanding of the position from which he started, as in them we already find indications of a number of elements in his basic attitude which were continually to prove normative throughout his later work. In the light of the main themes of his late works, the great epics

Paradise Lost

and

Paradise Regained,

it seems natural to regard Milton as a typical Puritan: thus e.g. Barker adduces as specifically Puritan the themes of Fall and Original Sin, the renewal of the Christian by grace and the freedom of the redeemed.93 However, Handford’s claim is legitimate: ‘These postulates are the postulates not of Puritanism alone but of the total humanism of the Renaissance.‘” They are also presup- posed by Milton as traditional

loci,

though his heart is really elsewhere.

Haller has already referred to

Comus

and

Lycidas,

which he describes as

‘as authentic expressions of the Puritan spirit on the eve of the revo- lution as anything that came from the hand of Prynne’.95 However, it is not enough to characterize Puritanism as a consistent elaboration of Calvinist theology, since the moral idealism which runs through the dramatic poem

Comus

has its roots in a soil far removed from the Reformation. In

Comusv6 we

have the embodiment of the poet’s ideal in the figure of the virgin. Her attitude is interpreted by means of the

The Age of the Puritans

157

figures of the ‘older brother’ and ‘accompanying spirit’, and set off by Comus, the counterpart who commends unlimited zest for life: virtue culminating in chastity beckons as the reward for ascent in a progressive spiritualizationv7 into the heavenly sphere of freedom.98 This is a Neo- platonic pattern of thought, blended with Aristotelian ethics in the notion of the balanced norm; the limitation inherent in it makes possible an enjoyment of the gifts and beauties of nature which is pure because it has been purified.99 The sharp polemic against Christian priests is only apparently far removed from this; in reality it is closely connected with the humanistic world-view in

Comus

because it is based on the same Spiritualist principle. It comes out in the lamentation for his friend Edward King, Lycidas, loo who died early, a lamentation richly adorned with the themes of ancient mythology and powerful imagery: the mod- ern reader is very surprised to find in the context of a pastoral genre typical of this time such words as:

of such as for their bellies sake,

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold...“*

Evidently both the theme and the criticism of liturgical forms was in the air:

. .

.their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw...l’*

Looking back some years later,lo3 Milton could say of

Lycidas

that it sought to announce ‘the ruin of our corrupted clergy’; evidently the allusions were more than passing thoughts for him.

It was precisely as a poet that Milton felt himself called to intervene in the controversy over church politics; he returned home from his grand tour in Italy, by his own account shattered by the news from England:

‘turpe enim exisfimabam, dum mei cives domi de liberfate dimicarent, me animi causa otiose perigrinari.“04

However, more than a year elapsed before the literary feud between Bishop Hall and the Smectymnuus group also made Milton put pen to paper at the beginning of 1641,‘05 and for long years he set aside his poetic plans in favour of political writing.

Precisely because Milton’s early anti-episcopal writings contain ideas which are so unoriginal,“‘j they serve well as a typical example of Presbyterian views in the first phase of the Puritan revolution. In the writings of 1641/42 Milton supports without qualification the demands of the Presbyterian party. That is already the case with the first pam- phlet, Of

Reformation, lo7

of which Milton himself later said that it was

‘written with the Ieft hand’.‘o8 Here Milton consistently follows his

earlier line of thought: right at the beginning of this work we can note

how the attitude taken towards the bishops grows out of hatred against

158

The Crisis over the Authority of the Bible in England

ceremonies, which for its part has its roots in the dualistic view which was determinative of the ethics in Comus. In the sentence with which Milton describes the significance of the Reformation, almost all the key words from Comus recur: ‘..

.

that Doctrine of the Gospel, planted by teachers Divinely inspir’d, and by them winnow’d and sifted, from the chaffe of overdated Ceremonies, and refin’d to such a Spiritual1 height, and temper of purity..

.,

that the body..

.

were purifi’d by the affections of the regenerate Soule, and nothing left impure, but sinne; Faith need- ing not the weak, and fallible office of the Senses..

.‘*09

The counterpart to the ideal of purity, conceived of on spiritualist lines, is ‘sensual1 Idolatry’, which is embodied in the ceremonial cult that Milton calls

‘the new vomited Paganisme of sensual1 Idolatry’.“’ The present state of the church

means,

as he goes on to explain, a relapse into conditions before the Reformation; alongside

paganism

the phrase ‘Jewish beggery’

is also used for it; this is an indication that Milton has the same feelings against the Old Testament that we already met with in Erasmus and most representatives of the ‘left wing of the Reformation’. The well- known Puritan themes put their stamp on the list of abuses which follows, among which vestments stand at the head.“’ Milton has no good word for the bishops, but only a flood of abuse.ll*

Underlying the various individual arguments in which Milton looks back on history we find the Spiritualist and Humanist view of church history, although it is concealed by the complicated structure and dic- tion of this polemical piece. According to this, the ideal age of the time of the first church was followed by a long period of decline, until the present offers the possibility of a return to pure beginnings. Milton’s attitude to the early church seems ambivalent: on the one hand he seeks to shake the credibility of Anglicans who refer to the testimony of the church fathers to justify the institutions of the church, by pointing to the differences existing between them and the past - on the other hand he uses the argument from the choice of bishops by the people in the early church‘13 as a basis for his Presbyterian demands for the present.114 In passing, he hits out at the Emperor Constantine, specifically because he is used by the episcopal party to legitimate the state church system.‘15 A specific variant‘16 in Milton’s view of history is his retrospect on the most recent history of England, as a result of which he seeks to show the causes of the decline since the Reformation to which he refers;‘17 evidently this is meant to be an answer to the defence of the office of bishop by the Anglicans, who referred to their martyr bishops like Cranmer .

“*

In conclusion, Milton can then again introduce the authority of the church fathers as a basis for his central demand that scripture alone must serve as the source of all truth. He replies to the objection that scripture is difficult to understand, and therefore must be explained by

The Age of the Puritans 159

the Fathers, with the assertion that everything that is necessary to salvation is easy to understand, and anything that is obscure is un- necessary for salvation. Otherwise he trusts in the power of reason (‘that intellectual ray which God hath planted in us’), which need only be wiped clean for scripture to become completely and utterly plain, even to the simplest Christian, ‘foretelling an extraordinary effusion of Gods Spirit upon every age, and sexe, attributing to all men, and requiring from them the ability of searching, trying, examining all things..

.‘]I9

At this point the course from a Spiritualist to a rationalist hermeneutic becomes crystal clear, so that while later positions adopted by Milton mark a further development, they are in no way a break in his approach. The demand that every one can and should be his own interpreter of scripture, which is first meant spiritually, also concealed within itself the germ of further radicalization and secularization, as emerged in what were to an increasing degree the purely political demands of particular groups in the debates over the following years.

We can see the increasing emphasis put on the fact that the laity have come of age in the church from

Animadversions,120

which followed soon after, as Milton’s contribution to the debate between Hall and the Smec- tymnuus group: ‘God who hath promis’d to teach all his Children, and to deliver them out of your hands that hunt and worry their soules:

hence is it that a man shall commonly find more savoury knowledge in one Lay-man, than in a dozen of Cathedral1 Prelates..

.‘I**

The stress on the laity is in turn closely connected with the moral perspective which is also decisive for understanding the Bible: ‘For certainly, every rule, and instrument of necessary knowledge that God has given us, ought to be so in proportion as may bee weilded and manag’d by the life of man without penning him up from the duties of human society, and such a rule and instrument of knowledge perfectly is the holy Bible.‘lz Again the proximity to the moral biblicism of Erasmus is striking.

According to the principle expressed in the preface to the antiprelat-

ical

writing

The Reason of Church Government,

which appeared at the

beginning of the following year,123,124 one might have expected from

Milton a new attempt to establish Presbyterian church order as the

binding form prescribed

in

the New Testament. However, Milton is not

up to this task,lz5 and instead of this he is soon distracted by the polemic

against the bishops, with whom he is also arguing in this work.126 We

need not concern ourselves further here with the usual charges which

appear,

against ‘superstition’, against vestments and other forms, and

against

episcopal jurisdiction, nor even over the poetic programme in the Preface to

Book II, which is usually noted particularly by those

Milton scholars who have a literary orientation.‘27 On the other hand,

in this connection it is important to note the explicit rejection formu-

lated in the controversy with Andrewes,‘** of the view that ;he hier-