of Liberty, which occur in his Prose Works. They may be said to be
variations on the saying of the Saviour (John viii. 31, 32), 'If ye
abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free':
'What though the brood of Belial, the draff of men, to whom no
liberty is pleasing, but unbridled and vagabond lust without
pale or partition, will laugh broad perhaps, to see so great a
strength of scripture mustering up in favour, as they suppose,
of their debaucheries; they will know better when they shall
hence learn, that honest liberty is the greatest foe to
dishonest licence.'
—_The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce._
'Real and substantial liberty is rather to be sought from
within than from without; its existence depends, not so much
on the terror of the sword, as in sobriety of conduct and
integrity of life.'
—_Second Defence of the People of England._
'The exposition here alleged is neither new nor licentious, as
some now would persuade the commonalty, although it be nearer
truth that nothing is more new than those teachers themselves,
and nothing more licentious than some known to be, whose
hypocrisy yet shames not to take offence at this doctrine for
licence, whereas indeed they fear it would remove licence, and
leave them few companions.'
—_Tetrachordon._
'In every commonwealth, when it decays, corruption makes two
main steps: first, when men cease to do according to the
inward and uncompelled actions of virtue, caring only to live
by the outward constraint of law, and turn this simplicity of
real good into the craft of seeming so by law. To this
hypocritical honesty was Rome declined in that age wherein
Horace lived, and discovered it to Quinctius':
'Whom do we count a good man, whom but he
Who keeps the laws and statutes of the Senate?
Who judges in great suits and controversies?
Whose witness and opinion wins the cause?
But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood
Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.'
'The next declining is, when law becomes now too strait for
the secular manners, and those too loose for the cincture of
law. This brings in false and crooked interpretations to eke
out law, and invents the subtle encroachments of obscure
traditions hard to be disproved.'
—_Tetrachordon._
'If men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not
generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny of
custom from without, and blind affections within, they would
discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a
nation. But, being slaves within doors, no wonder that they
strive so much to have the public state conformably governed
to the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves.
For, indeed, none can love freedom heartily but good men; the
rest love not freedom but licence, which never hath more scope
or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence is it that
tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad
men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and
true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by
right their masters; against them lies all their hatred and
suspicion. Consequently, neither do bad men hate tyrants, but
have been always readiest, with the falsified names of loyalty
and obedience, to colour over their base compliances.'
—_The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates._
'He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires,
and fears, is more than a king.'
'For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a
corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a further
slavery; for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to
be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it
becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it
completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know
what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it
wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them
substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they
merit, and the bad, the curb which they need. But to do this,
and to know these exquisite proportions, the heroic wisdom
which is required, surmounted far the principles of these
narrow politicians: what wonder then if they sunk as these
unfortunate Britons before them, entangled and oppressed with
things too hard and generous, above their strain and temper?'
—_The History of Britain_, Book iii.
'But when God hath decreed servitude on a sinful nation,
fitted by their own vices for no condition but servile, all
estates of government are alike unable to avoid it.'
—_The History of Britain_, Book v.
_Peroration of 'The Second Defence of the People of England'_
'It is of no little consequence, O citizens, by what
principles you are governed, either in acquiring liberty, or
in retaining it when acquired. And unless that liberty which
is of such a kind as arms can neither procure nor take away,
which alone is the fruit of piety, of justice, of temperance,
and unadulterated virtue, shall have taken deep root in your
minds and hearts, there will not long be wanting one who will
snatch from you by treachery what you have acquired by arms.
War has made many great whom peace makes small. If after being
released from the toils of war, you neglect the arts of peace,
if your peace and your liberty be a state of warfare, if war
be your only virtue, the summit of your praise, you will,
believe me, soon find peace the most adverse to your
interests. Your peace will be only a more distressing war; and
that which you imagined liberty will prove the worst of
slavery. Unless by the means of piety, not frothy and
loquacious, but operative, unadulterated, and sincere, you
clear the horizon of the mind from those mists of superstition
which arise from the ignorance of true religion, you will
always have those who will bend your necks to the yoke as if
you were brutes, who, notwithstanding all your triumphs, will
put you up to the highest bidder, as if you were mere booty
made in war; and will find an exuberant source of wealth in
your ignorance and superstition. Unless you will subjugate the
propensity to avarice, to ambition, and sensuality, and expel
all luxury from yourselves and your families, you will find
that you have cherished a more stubborn and intractable despot
at home, than you ever encountered in the field; and even your
very bowels will be continually teeming with an intolerable
progeny of tyrants. Let these be the first enemies whom you
subdue; this constitutes the campaign of peace; these are
triumphs, difficult indeed, but bloodless; and far more
honorable than those trophies which are purchased only by
slaughter and by rapine. Unless you are victors in this
service, it is in vain that you have been victorious over the
despotic enemy in the field. For if you think that it is a
more grand, a more beneficial, or a more wise policy, to
invent subtle expedients for increasing the revenue, to
multiply our naval and military force, to rival in craft the
ambassadors of foreign states, to form skillful treaties and
alliances, than to administer unpolluted justice to the
people, to redress the injured and to succour the distressed,
and speedily to restore to every one his own, you are involved
in a cloud of error; and too late will you perceive, when the
illusion of those mighty benefits has vanished, that in
neglecting these, which you now think inferior considerations,
you have only been precipitating your own ruin and despair.
The fidelity of enemies and allies is frail and perishing,
unless it be cemented by the principles of justice; that
wealth and those honours, which most covet, readily change
masters; they forsake the idle, and repair where virtue, where
industry, where patience flourish most. Thus nation
precipitates the downfall of nation; thus the more sound part
of one people subverts the more corrupt; thus you obtained the
ascendant over the royalists. If you plunge into the same
depravity, if you imitate their excesses, and hanker after the
same vanities, you will become royalists as well as they, and
liable to be subdued by the same enemies, or by others in your
turn; who, placing their reliance on the same religious
principles, the same patience, the same integrity and
discretion which made you strong, will deservedly triumph over
you who are immersed in debauchery, in the luxury and the
sloth of kings. Then, as if God was weary of protecting you,
you will be seen to have passed through the fire that you
might perish in the smoke; the contempt which you will then
experience will be great as the admiration which you now
enjoy; and, what may in future profit others, but cannot
benefit yourselves, you will leave a salutary proof what great
things the solid reality of virtue and of piety might have
effected, when the mere counterfeit and varnished resemblance
could attempt such mighty achievements, and make such
considerable advances towards the execution. For, if either
through your want of knowledge, your want of constancy, or
your want of virtue, attempts so noble, and actions so
glorious, have had an issue so unfortunate, it does not
therefore follow that better men should be either less daring
in their projects or less sanguine in their hopes. But from
such an abyss of corruption into which you so readily fall, no
one, not even Cromwell himself, nor a whole nation of
Brutuses, if they were alive, could deliver you if they would,
or would deliver you if they could. For who would vindicate
your right of unrestrained suffrage, or of choosing what
representatives you liked best, merely that you might elect
the creatures of your own faction, whoever they might be, or
him, however small might be his worth, who would give you the
most lavish feasts, and enable you to drink to the greatest
excess? Thus not wisdom and authority, but turbulence and
gluttony, would soon exalt the vilest miscreants from our
taverns and our brothels, from our towns and villages, to the
rank and dignity of senators. For should the management of the
republic be entrusted to persons to whom no one would
willingly entrust the management of his private concerns; and
the treasury of the state be left to the care of those who had
lavished their own fortunes in an infamous prodigality? Should
they have the charge of the public purse, which they would
soon convert into a private, by their unprincipled
peculations? Are they fit to be the legislators of a whole
people who themselves know not what law, what reason, what
right and wrong, what crooked and straight, what licit and
illicit means? who think that all power consists in outrage,
all dignity in the parade of insolence? who neglect every
other consideration for the corrupt qualification of their
friendships, or the prosecution of their resentments? who
disperse their own relations and creatures through the
provinces, for the sake of levying taxes and confiscating
goods; men, for the greater part, the most profligate and
vile, who buy up for themselves what they pretend to expose to
sale, who thence collect an exorbitant mass of wealth, which
they fraudulently divert from the public service; who thus
spread their pillage through the country, and in a moment
emerge from penury and rags to a state of splendour and of
wealth? Who could endure such thievish servants, such
vicegerents of their lords? Who could believe that the masters
and the patrons of a banditti could be the proper guardians of
liberty? or who would suppose that he should ever be made one
hair more free by such a set of public functionaries, (though
they might amount to five hundred elected in this manner from
the counties and boroughs,) when among them who are the very
guardians of liberty, and to whose custody it is committed,
there must be so many, who know not either how to use or to
enjoy liberty, who neither understand the principles nor merit
the possession? But, what is worthy of remark, those who are
the most unworthy of liberty are wont to behave most
ungratefully towards their deliverers. Among such persons, who
would be willing either to fight for liberty, or to encounter
the least peril in its defence? It is not agreeable to the
nature of things that such persons ever should be free.
However much they may brawl about liberty, they are slaves,
both at home and abroad, but without perceiving it; and when
they do perceive it, like unruly horses that are impatient of
the bit, they will endeavour to throw off the yoke, not from
the love of genuine liberty, (which a good man only loves and
knows how to obtain,) but from the impulses of pride and
little passions. But though they often attempt it by arms,
they will make no advances to the execution; they may change
their masters, but will never be able to get rid of their
servitude. This often happened to the ancient Romans, wasted
by excess, and enervated by luxury: and it has still more so
been the fate of the moderns; when, after a long interval of
years, they aspired, under the auspices of Crescentius
Nomentanus, and afterwards of Nicolas Rentius, who had assumed
the title of Tribune of the People, to restore the splendour
and reëstablish the government of ancient Rome. For, instead
of fretting with vexation, or thinking that you can lay the
blame on any one but yourselves, know that to be free is the
same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and
just, to be frugal and abstinent, and, lastly, to be
magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is
the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens, by the
appointment, and as it were retributive justice, of the Deity,
that that people which cannot govern themselves, and moderate
their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts,
should be delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor,
and made to submit to an involuntary servitude. It is also
sanctioned by the dictates of justice and by the constitution
of nature, that he who from the imbecility or derangement of
his intellect, is incapable of governing himself, should, like
a minor, be committed to the government of another; and least
of all should he be appointed to superintend the affairs of
others or the interest of the state. You, therefore, who wish
to remain free, either instantly be wise, or, as soon as
possible, cease to be fools; if you think slavery an
intolerable evil, learn obedience to reason and the government
of yourselves; and, finally, bid adieu to your dissensions,
your jealousies, your superstitions, your outrages, your
rapine, and your lusts. Unless you will spare no pains to
effect this, you must be judged unfit, both by God and
mankind, to be entrusted with the possession of liberty and
the administration of the government; but will rather, like a
nation in a state of pupilage, want some active and courageous
guardian to undertake the management of your affairs. With
respect to myself, whatever turn things may take, I thought
that my exertions on the present occasion would be serviceable
to my country; and, as they have been cheerfully bestowed, I
hope that they have not been bestowed in vain. And I have not
circumscribed my defence of liberty within any petty circle
around me, but have made it so general and comprehensive, that
the justice and the reasonableness of such uncommon
occurrences, explained and defended, both among my countrymen
and among foreigners, and which all good men cannot but
approve, may serve to exalt the glory of my country, and to
excite the imitation of posterity. If the conclusion do not
answer to the beginning, that is their concern; I have
delivered my testimony, I would almost say, have erected a
monument, that will not readily be destroyed, to the reality
of those singular and mighty achievements which were above all
praise. As the epic poet, who adheres at all to the rules of
that species of composition, does not profess to describe the
whole life of the hero whom he celebrates, but only some
particular action of his life, as the resentment of Achilles
at Troy, the return of Ulysses, or the coming of Æneas into
Italy; so it will be sufficient, either for my justification
or apology, that I have heroically celebrated at least one
exploit of my countrymen; I pass by the rest, for who could
recite the achievements of a whole people? If, after such a
display of courage and of vigour, you basely relinquish the
path of virtue, if you do anything unworthy of yourselves,
posterity will sit in judgment on your conduct. They will see
that the foundations were well laid; that the beginning (nay,
it was more than a beginning) was glorious; but with deep
emotions of concern will they regret, that those were wanting
who might have completed the structure. They will lament that
perseverance was not conjoined with such exertions and such
virtues. They will see that there was a rich harvest of glory,
and an opportunity afforded for the greatest achievements, but
that men only were wanting for the execution; while they were
not wanting who could rightly counsel, exhort, inspire, and
bind an unfading wreath of praise round the brows of the
illustrious actors in so glorious a scene.'
This informing idea of the Prose Works comes out explicitly in the
second of the sonnets,
_On the Detraction which followed upon my Writing Certain Treatises_
'I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs:
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs 5
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free. 10
Licence they mean when they cry liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.'
Again it appears, and in the most explicit form, in the 'Paradise Lost,'
Book xii. 82-101. The angel Michael, in his discourse with Adam, on the
mount of speculation, says:
'yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being. 85
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government
From Reason, and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits 90
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgment just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords,
Who oft as undeservedly enthral
His outward freedom. Tyranny must be, 95
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice and some fatal curse annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty, 100
Their inward lost.'
In the 'Samson Agonistes,' Samson says to the Chorus (vv. 268-276, and
here Milton may be said virtually to speak, as he does throughout the
drama, in _propria personâ_):
'But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty, 270
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favour raised
As their deliverer? if he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last 275
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?'
In the 'Paradise Regained,' Book ii. 410-486, Satan says to the Saviour:
'all thy heart is set on high designs, 410
High actions; but wherewith to be achieved?
Great acts require great means of enterprise;
Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,
A carpenter thy father known, thyself
Bred up in poverty and straits at home, 415
Lost in a desert here, and hunger-bit.
Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire
To greatness? whence authority derivest?
What followers, what retinue canst thou gain?
Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, 420
Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost?
Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms.
What raised Antipater, the Edomite,
And his son Herod placed on Judah's throne—
Thy throne—but gold that got him puissant friends? 425
Therefore, if at great things thou wouldest arrive,
Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap,—
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me.
Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand;
They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain, 430
While virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.'
To whom thus Jesus patiently replied:
'Yet wealth without these three is impotent
To gain dominion, or to keep it gained;
Witness those ancient empires of the earth, 435
In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved.
But men endued with these have oft attained
In lowest poverty to highest deeds;
Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd-lad,
Whose offspring on the throne of Judah sat 440
So many ages, and shalt yet regain
That seat, and reign in Israel without end.
Among the Heathen—for throughout the world
To me is not unknown what hath been done
Worthy of memorial—canst thou not remember 445
Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?
For I esteem those names of men so poor,
Who could do mighty things, and could contemn
Riches, though offered from the hand of kings.
And what in me seems wanting, but that I 450
May also in this poverty as soon
Accomplish what they did? perhaps and more.
Extol not riches then, the toil of fools,
The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare; more apt
To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge, 455
Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise.
What, if with like aversion I reject
Riches and realms! yet not, for that a crown,
Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns,
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights, 460
To him who wears the regal diadem,
When on his shoulders each man's burden lies;
For therein stands the office of a king,
His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise,
That for the public all this weight he bears. 465
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king;
Which every wise and virtuous man attains:
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule
Cities of men, or headstrong multitudes, 470
Subject himself to anarchy within,
Or lawless passions in him, which he serves.
But to guide nations in the way of truth
By saving doctrine, and from error lead
To know, and knowing, worship God aright, 475
Is yet more kingly: this attracts the soul,
Governs the inner man, the nobler part;
That other o'er the body only reigns,
And oft by force, which to a generous mind
So reigning can be no sincere delight. 480
Besides, to give a kingdom hath been thought
Greater and nobler done, and to lay down
Far more magnanimous, than to assume.
Riches are needless then, both for themselves,
And for thy reason why they should be sought, 485
To gain a sceptre, oftest better missed.'
All this, it may be truly said, is nothing more than the old teaching of
Solomon, 'He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a
city' (Prov. xvi. 32). There has always been truth enough in the world
which, if realized in men's lives, would soon bring about the
millennium. But, unfortunately, it has only been born in their brains.
Great writers owe their power among men, not necessarily so much to a
wide range of ideas or to the originality of their ideas, as to the
vitality which they are able to impart to some one comprehensive
fructifying idea with which, through constitution of mind, or
circumstances, they have become _possessed_. It is only when a man is
really possessed with an idea (that is, if it does not run away with
him), that he can express it with a quickening power, and ring all
possible changes upon it.