“For the Sake of Liberty” 1652–1654this great confidence reposed in you.... Honor too what foreign nations think and
say of us, the high hopes which they have for themselves as a result of our liberty, so
bravely won, and our republic, so gloriously born.... Finally, honor yourself, so that,
having achieved that liberty in pursuit of which you endured so many hardships and
encountered so many perils, you may not permit it to be violated by yourself or in any
degree diminished by others. Certainly you yourself cannot be free without us, for it
has been so arranged by nature that he who attacks the liberty of others is himself the
first of all to lose his own liberty and learns that he is the first of all to become a slave.
And he deserves this fate... if that man than whom no one has been considered more
just, more holy, more excellent, shall afterwards attack that liberty which he himself
has defended, such an act must necessarily be dangerous and well-nigh fatal not only to
liberty itself but also to the cause of all virtue and piety. (673)He lays out in the clearest terms the temptations and pitfalls, moral and political,
that beset one who exercises such large powers. If Cromwell were to be “capti-
vated” by the title of king, he would become that worst of evils, an idolater, wor-
shipping “the gods that you had conquered” (672). Cromwell should also fear that
he may not be up to the almost superhuman challenge:
You have taken upon yourself by far the heaviest burden, one that will put to the test
your inmost capacities, that will search you out wholly and intimately, and reveal
what spirit, what strength, what authority are in you, whether there truly live in you
that piety, faith, justice, and moderation of soul which convince us that you have
been raised by the power of God beyond all other men to this most exalted rank. To
rule with wisdom three powerful nations, to desire to lead their peoples from base
customs to a better standard of morality and discipline than before... to refuse no
toil, to yield to no allurements of pleasure, to flee from the pomp of wealth and
power, these are arduous tasks compared to which war is a mere game. These trials
will buffet you and shake you, they require a man supported by divine help and
instructed by all-but-divine inspiration. (673–4)Milton then takes upon himself to instruct Cromwell how to avoid these dan-
gers, so that he can “restore to us our liberty, unharmed and even enhanced” (674)
- presumably when a more representative government is possible. His first recom-
mendation refigures the government from a quasi-monarchy to an aristocratic re-
public: Cromwell should share power with “a great many other citizens of
pre-eminent merits” (677–8) on the basis of virtue and devotion to liberty’s cause,
not social rank. Most of these worthies are “citizens of the better stamp” with
“ample or moderate means,” but some are to be “more highly valued because of
their very poverty” (674). His chief proposition – again – is separation of church
and state, assuring toleration and the abolition of public maintenance for the clergy.
Milton hopes to persuade Cromwell to rethink his compromises on these matters
and to adopt Milton’s impolitic but hardly unreasonable proposal for a nation torn
by religious strife: