“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645On February 2, 1644, the second edition of Doctrine and Discipline appeared,
“revis’d and much augmented,” indeed, almost doubled in size.^57 The subtitle of-
fers to restore “the true meaning of Scripture in the Law and Gospel compar’d,”
pointing to the tract’s new emphasis on the harmony of Law and Gospel and espe-
cially on the meaning of Deuteronomy 24:1.^58 Milton’s initials appear on the title
page and the preface is signed in full, “John Milton.” Anonymity, he explains in
Bucer, did not serve his intended purpose: his style gave him away and “some of the
Clergie began to inveigh and exclaim on what I was credibly inform’d they had not
read,” so he determined to show his detractors “a name that could easily contemn
such an indiscreet kind of censure” (CPW, II, 434). He evidently attempted to get
DDD 2 licensed and was denied;^59 also, neither printer nor bookseller cared to affix
his name or even his initials to this unlicensed, scandalous tract. This edition is
presented in a more orderly form than the first: two books divided into chapters,
each headed by a brief summary of topics. It also comes across as a more temperate
tract: it retains the appeals to common experience, the rhetoric of disgust and deni-
gration, and the barely concealed personal testimony, but here their impact is de-
fused by the more elaborate apparatus. While it makes substantially the same case, it
adds some new arguments, more exegesis of scripture, and new authorities.
The title page and a new epistle direct this revision “To the parliament of Eng-
land, with the Assembly,” but Milton focuses entirely on parliament, to whose
wisdom and piety he appeals from “the clamor of so much envie and imperti-
nence” (224), and whose protection he gratefully acknowledges (233).^60 Now writ-
ing under his own name, he presents himself as citizen–adviser to the parliamentary
“Worthies” (CPW II, 232), locating himself with other reformers attacked “by the
ruder sort, but not by discreet and well nurtur’d men” (224) such as, he presumes,
the MPs are. He also casts himself as a new Josiah who has recovered a “most
necessary, most charitable, and yet most injur’d Statute of Moses” buried “under the
rubbish of Canonicall ignorance: as once the whole law was... in Josiahs time.”^61
As well, he portrays himself again as a courageous solitary hero who, with the aid of
the “illuminating Spirit,” has undertaken a romance quest, “a high enterprise and a
hard, and such as every seventh Son of a seventh Son does not venture on” (224).
Primarily, he is a learned scholar and teacher, “gifted with abilities of mind that may
raise him to so high an undertaking” (224). He explains his decision to write in
English rather than Latin, because of “the esteem I have of my Countries judge-
ment, and the love I beare to my native language,” but despite this appeal to a
wider audience (which he came to regret)^62 he especially addresses “the choisest
and the learnedest” (233). And, as he did in the antiprelatical tracts, he insists that as
“an instructed Christian” (224) he has as much right to address religious matters as
any cleric: “I want neither pall nor mitre, I stay neither for ordination nor induc-
tion, but in the firm faith of a knowing Christian, which is the best and truest
endowment of the keyes” (281–2).
In a skillful and bold rhetorical move Milton identifies his own case with