“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660As he observed the course of events over the next few months, Milton had
reason to fear an imminent, severe retrenchment of religious liberty, now that Oliver’s
personal commitment to broad toleration could no longer serve as counterweight.
Richard was thought to support moderate Presbyterianism, and from September
through March he was deluged with petitions – including a letter from General
Monk in Scotland – urging him to settle a national Presbyterian church, protect the
universities and ministers’ tithes, and suppress idolatry, blasphemy, profaneness,
“damnable Heresies,” and “seducing spirits,” i.e. popery, Independency, and the
sects.^9 Many conservative Independents were actively seeking accommodation with
the Presbyterians in a national church and dissociating themselves from the broader
tolerationist ideal of the “heretical” or “erroneous” sects. Their Savoy Declaration,
published on October 12, 1658, set forth doctrinal norms closely paralleling the
Westminster Assembly’s Articles of Faith,^10 and recommended toleration only for
those “holding the foundation” though differing in church organization. Many of
those doctrinal foundations – the Trinity, predestination, the soul’s immediate pas-
sage to heaven or hell after death, and the magistrate’s duty to defend orthodoxy so
that “men of corrupt mindes and conversations do not licentiously publish and
divulge Blasphemy and Errors”^11 – were contested by Milton in De Doctrina Christiana,
his ongoing theological project.
During December and January Milton had little diplomatic correspondence,^12
and could give his attention to developing a forceful argument for religious liberty,
Of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. It was registered with the Stationers on Febru-
ary 16 and probably published soon after.^13 Ignoring Richard Cromwell, who was
still in office, he addressed his treatise “To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of
England” and stated in his preface that he had prepared it “against the much ex-
pected time of your sitting”(CPW VII, 239). By this gesture Milton pointedly
looks to the parliament – which he terms “supream Councel” – as the sole locus of
government power. He offers this tract as the first installment of a projected two-
part treatment of church–state relations, dealing with, respectively, two forces “work-
ing much mischief to the church of God, and the advancement of truth; force on
the one side restraining, and hire on the other side corrupting the teachers thereof”
(241). The argument and rhetoric of both treatises are discussed on pages 382–9.
There was little tolerationist polemic during Richard’s reign before Of Civil
Power, but the major positions and arguments had been worked out over several
years. Tolerationist Independents like Cromwell accepted that the magistrate had
some responsibility toward religion but held that Christ’s lordship over the indi-
vidual Christian conscience requires toleration of almost all Christians except Catho-
lics, Laudians, Ranters, Quakers, and antinomians – groups variously seen as
blasphemers, idolaters, or threats to the government or to public order. A few
Levellers, Baptists, and Quakers held that the magistrate has jurisdiction only over
civil affairs and can have nothing to do with enforcing religious laws against blas-
phemy, idolatry, and heresy, or with supporting ministers.^14 But very few drew the