“The So-called Council of State” 1649–1652ity whose excessive wealth and luxury often leads them to abnegate those duties,
but from “the middle class, which produces the greatest number of men of good
sense and knowledge of affairs” (471). The scrivener’s son quite approves of the
English bourgeois republic.
In justifying the restrictions his government is imposing on citizenship, Milton
appeals beyond pragmatism to the classical ideal of government by the best and
worthiest who are, by his further definition, the men who love, support, and de-
fend religious liberty and republican freedoms. On the authority of Aristotle and
Cicero Milton admits, reluctantly, that “those who long for liberty or can enjoy it
are but few – only the wise, that is, and the brave; while most men prefer just
masters so long as they are in fact just” (343). On the authority of nature’s law he
concludes that government exists for the good of all but especially to promote “the
well-being of the better citizens” (533), those liberty-lovers who may, when neces-
sary, act for the good of all. On this understanding he can defend the lords’ expul-
sion from parliament and Pride’s Purge as actions of and for “the people”:
The soldiers to whom you ascribe the act were themselves not foreigners but citizens,
forming a great part of the people, and they acted with the consent and by the will of
most of the rest, supported by Parliament.... I say it was the people; for why should
I not say that the act of the better, the sound part of the Parliament, in which resides
the real power of the people, was the act of the people? If a majority in Parliament
prefer enslavement and putting the commonwealth up for sale, is it not right for a
minority to prevent it if they can and preserve their freedom? (457)Though he is hesitant about justifying military force used against the legislature, he
concludes that the citizen army “which was ever brave and loyal to the state” acted
at the behest of the “uncorrupted” part of the Commons and even temporarily
replaced that body as the people’s representative: “In this affair my belief is, though
I hesitate to express it, that our troops were wiser than our legislators, and saved
the commonwealth by arms when the others had nearly destroyed it by their
votes” (332–3). Similarly, the Independents of the truncated Rump, by seizing
power and bringing the king to trial, “stood by their trust in protecting the state,
which... had been particularly entrusted to their loyalty, wisdom, and courage by
the whole people” even though they were deserted by “a great part of the people
[who]... desired peace and slavery with inaction and comfort upon any terms.”^185
He still hopes, however, that living in a republic will teach this populace better
values:
I can still say that their sins were taught them under the monarchy, like the Israelites
in Egypt, and have not been immediately unlearned in the desert, even under the
guidance of God. But there is much hope for most of them, not to enter on the praises
of our good and reverent men who follow eagerly after truth, of whom we have as
many as you can imagine anywhere. (386–7)