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“Against the Law: Milton's (Anti?) nomianism in De Doctrina Christiana”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2010

Christopher John Donato
Christopher John Donato*
Affiliation:
Lake Mary, Florida
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Extract

This essay seeks to put to rest the notion that John Milton was an antinomian, by offering a concise summation of the relevant chapters of De doctrina Christiana that discuss his views on the covenants, the law and the gospel, and Christian liberty.1 Defining antinomian is a difficult task, as its manifestations throughout history have not been monolithic.2 During the seventeenth century in England, two kinds, broadly speaking, existed: 1) doctrinal antinomianism; and 2) licentious antinomianism.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 104 , Issue 1 , January 2011, pp. 69 - 92
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

……………………………………………… peace

Of Conscience, which the Law by Ceremonies

Cannot appease, nor Man the moral part

Perform, and not performing cannot live.

So Law appears imperfect, and but giv'n

With purpose to resign them in full time

Up to a better Cov'nant, disciplin'd

From shadowie Types to Truth, from Flesh to Spirit,

From imposition of strict Laws, to free

Acceptance of large Grace, from servil fear

To filial, works of Law to works of Faith.

Paradise Lost, XII.296–306

This essay seeks to put to rest the notion that John Milton was an antinomian, by offering a concise summation of the relevant chapters of De doctrina Christiana that discuss his views on the covenants, the law and the gospel, and Christian liberty.Footnote 1 Defining antinomian is a difficult task, as its manifestations throughout history have not been monolithic.Footnote 2 During the seventeenth century in England, two kinds, broadly speaking, existed: 1) doctrinal antinomianism; and 2) licentious antinomianism.

Doctrinal antinomianism: Generally speaking, the majority of English divines in the seventeenth century held that Christ's sacrifice abolished the ceremonial and civil portions of the Mosaic law but left the moral part binding on Christians, the so-called “didactic” or third use of the law.Footnote 3 The first use consisted in its “political” function in society to restrain evil, while the second use focuses in on its “theological” role, which exposes sin, accuses sinners, and drives them to recognize their need for a savior.Footnote 4

In England, we see men such as Tobias Crisp, John Saltmarsh, John Eaton, and Isaac Chauncy holding a slightly different line.Footnote 5 This group stopped short of allowing the old Mosaic code any significant role in the life of the new covenant believer. They did this by stressing the second, “accusatory” use of the law for non-believers exclusively—that is, at the expense of the third, “didactic” use of the law, whereby the law supplies a rule for life to believers. But it goes even further: law and grace are not merely contrasted in scripture; they are absolutely antithetical, so much so that God relates to his creation either by way of law or by grace, with the two never mixing. This view led them to simply parcel out law and gospel between the two Testaments: under the old dispensation of law no grace was shown, and under the new dispensation of the gospel no law is demanded. Moreover, according to its opponents, the doctrinal antinomians exalted divine sovereignty in a way foreign to the scriptures and to the Reformed tradition. Thus, any teaching about human will and responsibility was viewed by the doctrinal antinomians as a threat to imputed righteousness (sola fide), or a concession to moral ability in the non-believer, which they sought to eliminate with their views on eternal justification (see the first point in section one below). The antinomian charge therefore often represented the fear that a given theological position did not lead to the edification of the church or assist its people in leading a holy life. For these and other reasons (which we will soon see), the majority party cast a suspicious eye toward their compatriots.

Licentious antinomianism: According to this group, not only the Mosaic law, but all law has been abrogated. The doctrines of this group tended to erode the authority of the church and its right to prescribe religious practices for the people; it is therefore no wonder that they were often hostile to government and established authority in general. This was exemplified notably in the English Ranters, with a few of the more prominent being Laurence Clarkson, Joseph Salmon and Jacob Bauthumley. They came to prominence mostly around London in the 1640s and existed as an actual (dis)organized sect into the mid-1650s.Footnote 6 Ranters embraced a concept called the “indwelling spirit,” contending that anyone who claimed a personal relationship with God was thereby free from societal conventions. Thus, whatever was done in the Spirit was justified in a Ranter's eyes. Man was free not just from the power of sin but from sin itself, as well as the law—in whatever form. According to their opponents (for that is the source of most of the material we have of their beliefs and practices), they engaged in public nudity, wife swapping, illicit sex, drunkenness, and other wanton activities. Importantly, the Bible was not deemed authoritative or binding on the life of the Christian.

Having briefly looked at two of the major British seventeenth-century views about how the Christian is to relate to law in general, we can begin a more detailed discussion about John Milton's supposed antinomianism. It will be important first to contrast him with the doctrinal antinomians of his day (since he has no connection to the licentious), and then we can move on to see where on the continuum he ought to be placed.

Milton's Relationship to Doctrinal Antinomianism

It is common knowledge that Milton's views regarding the covenants (and thus soteriology, among other things) were not those of the orthodox puritan majority. As a Christian humanist, he would have found himself at odds with scholastic divines on a number of issues. Most everyone agreed that the gift of Christian liberty is limited to the spiritual life of believers, having no bearing upon political or civil matters. But in England (and in most places those days), the magistrates were heavily involved in religious affairs. So Milton, as a contrarian (not to mention a republican and Independent), basically argues that Christ's sacrifice abrogated the entire Mosaic law, moral as well as ceremonial and civil, and bestowed on believers a complete Christian liberty that frees them from the judgments of men and from civil or ecclesiastical coercion in matters of religion.Footnote 7

This humanistic tendency is evident in Milton's pious devotion to God's Word—as it comes to us on the pages of De doctrina. According to Jerald Brauer, one major type of puritan piety can be labeled “evangelical.”Footnote 8 The evangelical emphasized trust and faith, from which obedience flows, which reveals God's self-giving love, over against his law. This made up the center of the evangelical's piety. By subsuming God's law under God's love, evangelicals were often accused of antinomianism. Accordingly, they placed great emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting the scriptures. It is this flair that is prevalent in Milton, at least as much as his rationalistic tendencies (Brauer places Milton in the rationalist camp over against the evangelical one). Yet, as we will see, clearly Milton was not “against the law” any more than other “evangelicals” were (e.g., Sibbes, Preston, and Dent, according to Brauer). But others in the seventeenth century, as we mentioned above, were emphatically accused of antinomianism, and they emphasized teachings that are not easily found among Milton's writings.Footnote 9 A few are worth considering.Footnote 10

First, the state of the elect—from God's vantage point—before they are regenerated. Doctrinal antinomians were accused of believing that the decree of election gave an objective being to the objects decreed. In other words, they saw the elect as justified from all eternity or from the time of the resurrection of Christ (i.e., before faith, as faith was only a manifestation in time of one's eternal justification). As such, they maintained that the sins of believers are accounted only to the old man, and that subsequent prayer for the forgiveness of sins was unnecessary. This is contrary to Milton's own views—not to mention the views espoused in the Reformed confessions (e.g., WCF 11.4–5; Heidelberg Catechism 60). In his chapter on predestination in De doctrina, Milton writes about Christians that “these he predestinated to salvation, and to this end he, in various ways, called all mankind to believe&; those who actually thus believed he justified” [emphasis added].Footnote 11 History—space and time—for Milton, plays a big part in God's redemptive plan. On this first point, then, Milton clearly sees the elect as subject to the wrath and condemnation of God until such a time as they believe.Footnote 12

Second, the covenant of grace—conditional or unconditional? Those accused of antinomianism took the principle of unconditional election a bit further than the majority party. Almost everyone held that the covenant of grace was an intra-Trinitarian agreement in which the elect were seen in Christ, and Christ, on behalf of the elect, promised to fulfill for them both the demands and the punishment for the broken covenant of works. But the antinomians argued that since Jesus fulfilled all conditions, the elect would therefore have none to fulfill. In contrast, according to Milton, “God decreed nothing absolutely, which he left in the power of free agents” (p. 39 [CP 6:155]); and, “In the original annunciation of the gospel repentance and faith are jointly proposed as conditions of salvation” (p. 87 [CP 6:524]; see also WCF 7.3 and its Larger Catechism 32). Thus the promise of eternal life and forgiveness of sins is fulfilled when God's conditions are met, whereby the guilty sinner enters into covenant with him.

Third, God's attitude toward sin committed by the elect. Doctrinal antinomians were accused of believing that God's attitude to believers is always love; he takes no displeasure in them. To be sure, he might deal with them so that they might consider their ways, but this is not displeasure; rather, God's seeming anger is a “fruit of his unchangeable loving-kindness to them.”Footnote 13 This notion apparently stemmed from an extreme view of imputation, as well as a fatalistic view of perseverance. Given that the elect's sins were imputed to Christ, Christ himself becomes personally a sinner. In like manner, since the righteousness of Christ was imputed to the believer, that righteousness makes the believer personally righteous (in contradistinction to Luther's concept of a perpetual “alien” righteousness). Therefore, God can see no sin among his elect at all. To this, we need only mention Milton's doctrine of perseverance, the very doctrine that flows out of the greater doctrine of the covenant. We have already seen that Milton considers the covenant of grace to be primarily conditional. Doctrinal antinomians, however, would say no such thing.Footnote 14 They further argued that God does not see sin in the elect because God gives his saving grace unconditionally to the point that they who receive it will be preserved unto the end no matter what. In other words, they could not go to hell if they tried. Milton thinks otherwise. In his chapter on imperfect glorification (i.e., sanctification in this life), he argues that the final perseverance of the saints is a gift of God, and that the saints will never entirely fall away through any power outside of themselves, “so long as nothing is wanting on their own parts, and they continue to the utmost in the maintenance of faith and love” (p. 63 [CP 6:505]).Footnote 15 It follows, then, that if one neglects the maintenance of faith and love, then he or she will be subject to the holy displeasure of God. If the neglect continues, God will cut off the dead branch (Milton cites John 15:2, 6, 10, and Rom 11:22 as proof). Clearly, Milton's God does not turn a blind eye to sin.

The fourth and final point sees the doctrinal antinomians maintaining that, since Christ bore the full penalty for sin, but also met the positive demands of the Mosaic law, the believer is free from the obligation to observe it. At first glance, it might seem Milton falters on this point. In his rebuttal of Polanus in chapter 27, “Of the Gospel and Christian Liberty,” Milton writes, “Since to be free from the restraint of the law can mean nothing but that for which I contend, an entire exemption from the obligation of the law.”Footnote 16 Like the doctrinal antinomians Milton is here speaking specifically of the Mosaic law—not of all law in each of its manifestations. Law is significant in his thought, especially the law of nature, which, Milton himself believes, is written “by [Christ's] Spirit on the hearts of believers, and leads them as willing followers” (p. 104 [CP 6:535]). But Milton's main reason for denying obligatory status to the Mosaic law differs dramatically from that of the doctrinal antinomian. Jesus' meeting the positive demands of Torah is beside the point, for Milton, as we shall see, does not espouse a “covenant of works,” or at least he does not associate a works covenant with the Mosaic law.Footnote 17 To Milton, the entire old covenant code, as a parenthetic dispensation in the course of God's dealings with the human race, was always intended to end. Its literal purpose was fulfilled in the dawning of the gospel. It is on this basis that Milton argues for complete abrogation of the Torah. Whether or not he would still receive the charge of “antinomianism” at this point is moot. As we will see, he clearly champions the notion that new covenant believers fulfill God's law, as the Spirit upon their hearts writes its sum and essence.Footnote 18 Thus, for Milton, while good works stem from faith, not from the Decalogue, they are nonetheless still a result of saving faith.

The above points, and the fact that the entirety of Book II of De doctrina (pp. 237–445, [CP 6:637–794] seventeen chapters in all) deals with the service of God and the virtues and duties man has to him and his neighbor (not to mention he employs the Old Testament throughout), ought to clear Milton of the doctrinal antinomian charge. He might have been a doctrinal (and ecclesiastical and political) libertarian, but he was not against the law. “Good works are those which we perform by the Spirit of God working in us through true faith, to the glory of God, the assured hope of our own salvation, and the edification of our neighbor” (p. 238 [CP 6:638]). Not only was he entirely at odds with the licentious “Ranter” antinomians,Footnote 19 he was also at odds with the (as he perceived them) hyper-Calvinistic antinomians that surrounded him during the 1640s and beyond.

Despite all this, Milton critics still tend to view him as an antinomian. Joan S. Bennett, about twenty-five years ago, placed Milton firmly in what she called “humanist antinomianism,” which indicates “that these thinkers [the Arminian John Goodwin and John Milton] descend in the Christian humanist line that reaches from Saint Thomas Aquinas through Richard Hooker in the seventeenth century.”Footnote 20 Her analysis immediately manifests the precise error we hope to rectify throughout this essay, namely, maintaining Milton's distinctions in his use of the word law. Most times, when speaking of the law he simply means “Torah,” the old covenant Mosaic code in its entirety, as opposed to the “law of nature” or “of God.” Missing this will only lead to imprecision and confusion when discussing Milton's covenantal theology. He may not have written it like this, but the unwritten covenant or law of God binds Christians. Its sum and essence—love—explodes into liberty. Bennett's biggest mistake was disassociating the one vital aspect of Miltonic liberty—“the believer's freedom to work confidently in an ethical situation with the divine spirit that dwells in his or her heart”—from the law of nature that “in the regenerate, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is daily tending towards a renewal of its primitive brightness.”Footnote 21 Further, according to Bennett, Milton and Goodwin based their antinomianism on free will. Correctly surmising that the biggest obstacle to this notion lay in the fact that ArminianismFootnote 22 seems to directly contradict antinomianism (in that Arminian theology tends toward the opposite of antinomianism), she confronted this issue first. While Bennett did make a good case for the intrinsic relationship between freedom and Christian humanism, she never justified her “humanist antinomian” as a viable category of persons who, apart from special grace and God's Word, looked primarily to an ambiguous natural law to order their moral visions.Footnote 23 Virtuous pagans may have done this, but Christian humanists? Broadly speaking, Aquinas, Erasmus, Hooker, and even Milton, saw themselves entrenched in anthropological Augustinianism. As such, the freedom they proclaimed was limited. Even a regenerate person's freedom, according to Milton in De doctrina, is bound by at least one thing: “We should give no just cause of offence to a weak brother,” an injunction, we might add, not clearly discerned from nature alone but from scripture.Footnote 24 Thus Milton arguably sees himself as a free theologian working within the parameters of the Word. He constantly binds himself to it throughout De doctrina unlike rationalists Locke, Biddle, or Goodwin, who accepted no paradoxes at all, opting for skepticism first. Milton, on the other hand, was more than happy to “discard reason in sacred matters, and follow the doctrine of Holy Scripture exclusively” (p. 115 [CP 6:213]).Footnote 25 In the end, even if Bennett's articulation of Milton's views on this subject hold up under scrutiny, she undermines the argument by labeling him antinomian.

The Possible Influence upon Milton's Covenant Theology, and by Extension, His Doctrine of Christian Liberty

In 2000, Paul Sellin contributed an essay to a book on various interpretations of Milton titled, “‘If Not Milton, Who Did Write the DDC?': The Amyraldian Connection.”Footnote 26 Sellin discusses in detail the doctrine of predestination, employing the original manuscript of De doctrina—one of the few scholars in recent years to make the effort to re-translate the passages he used. Basically, he calls into question Milton's lone commitment to De doctrina. He does so by successfully comparing (primarily) Moïse Amyraut's Brief traité de la predestination (1634) and chapters 3 and 4 of De doctrina Christiana, “Of the Divine Decrees” and “Of Predestination.” Not only does he show the affinities of Amyraut's thought with De doctrina, he shows exactly how a number of the latter's pertinent features differ from Arminianism (which Milton supposedly held according to most critics). It is, in short, a much needed and clarifying work in Milton theological studies.

Sellin refers to three authors that made mention of Amyraut but did not draw any connections between his theology and De doctrina. One of them, Dennis Danielson, in Milton's Good God,Footnote 27 does mention the “founder” of Amyraut's thought, the Scot John Cameron (1580?–1625), but only in connection with John Owen as Calvinists who sought to reclaim Calvinism from the clutches of hyper-Calvinism. Danielson does not make a distinction between the two, an oversight that would cause both Cameron and Owen to spin in their graves. However, Danielson does go on to mention the possibility that Milton's soteriology ought to be taken as a middle position between the two major competing systems of his day.Footnote 28 He cites Richard Baxter as an example, which at first glance appears to be headed in the right direction, but upon closer comparison is found wanting. The better choice is Cameron, as we shall see throughout this essay.

Independently of Sellin, and of these other Milton scholars, I began to see the similarities between Salmurian theologyFootnote 29 and the epic poem, Paradise Lost, particularly in the Father's somewhat puzzling speech in Book 3.183–202. Ironically, Sellin based his judgment that De doctrina is “a disproportionate collection of associated ideas”—some Miltonic, others not—on what he saw as, among other things, an Amyraldian influence upon the text,Footnote 30 whereas I deemed the epic poem heavily influenced by Salmurian ideas. Thus, if Sellin distances Milton from sole authorship of De doctrina based on its disjointed entelechy—of which the Amyraldian connection remains a part—and if my conclusion stands that PL is essentially Salmurian, does that not bring the authorship question back to square one (in that Sellin regards the Amyraldian portions as non-Miltonic)? Maybe the only reconciliation between Sellin and myself, then, would be to suggest that all the overtly radical portions of De doctrina are actually inauthentic, leaving the moderately conservative streak throughout original to Milton's own thoughts.Footnote 31 My tentative conclusions regarding PL came more or less as a result of my being a student in Reformed theological history, whereas Sellin came to the “larger picture&[by] questioning the small points in the Latin” [of the original MS of De doctrina].Footnote 32 Sellin thus concludes that the treatise is at best a patchwork theology with Amyraldian ideas crammed in, juxtaposed with other ideas that “are sometimes coherent and consistent, sometimes loosely related&sometimes misplaced, sometimes heterogeneous, and sometimes even self-contradictory.”Footnote 33 I, too, continue to see this “Amyraldian connection” very often within the pages of De doctrina, and in that same spirit, I want to briefly speculate about a possible connection between Milton and this Calvinistic “heresy,” though my reasons for doing so have little to do with the authorship question. I am much more concerned with De doctrina's theology, but if the question of authorship is also clarified, so much the better.

Around 1620, at the age of twelve, Milton arrived at the academy of St. Paul's, London, where he quickly befriended Charles Diodati, son of a prominent Italian (now naturalized Englishman) doctor named Theodore Diodati. Theodore's reputation hinged not only on his profession but on his being the brother of the famous Protestant theologian, Giovanni Diodati of Geneva.Footnote 34 Charles, headed for his father's profession, eventually matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1623. Milton followed suit in 1625, entering Christ's College, Cambridge, only to be briefly suspended a year later. In due course, he returned and then graduated cum laude in 1632, at which point he embarked on a five-year studying hiatus at his father's expense. In 1630, young Diodati entered the University of Geneva, undoubtedly spending much time with his famous uncle. Milton and he corresponded regularly during this decade. Several years later, while traveling abroad in western Europe, Milton cancelled a planned trip to Greece in 1638 upon hearing rumors of civil war in England. Before he got home, however, Milton, while visiting Charles's uncle Giovanni on his way through Geneva,Footnote 35 received news of the young Diodati's death. He then immediately returned to London, commemorating his friend's demise in Lament for Damon (1640).

Our concern at this point is the relationship between Giovanni Diodati and another, infamous theologian, namely, the Scot John Cameron of the Saumur Academy in France. Cameron studied under Diodati at Geneva in 1605–1606. Apparently, Diodati was a high Calvinist, and, according to Brian Armstrong, despite this, he remained friendly with Cameron throughout his life.Footnote 36 Now, Milton makes mention of Cameron in De doctrina at least once: “I have also observed that Cameron somewhere expresses the same opinion respecting the abolition of the whole Law” (p. 101 [CP 6:534]). Charles R. Sumner, the treatise's first translator, wrote a footnote at this point, which is quoted in full:

Cameron appears to have been a favourite author with Milton. He elsewhere calls him a “late writer much applauded,” and characterizes an observation which he makes on Matt. xix.3. as “acute and learned.” (Tetrachordon. Prose Works, II. 174)

Mr. Todd also, in noticing that Cameron was one of the few contemporary authors whom Milton has mentioned in terms of respect, quotes another passage in praise of him from the treatise cited above, where he is spoken of as “an ingenious writer, and in high esteem.” (Tetrachordon. II. 210. Life of Milton, p. 153)

Appeals to Cameron occur five times in Tetrachordon, and each time Milton lavishes him with deference.Footnote 37 The reason for this is simple: Cameron was not an impeccably orthodox logician and dogmatist; rather, he was a “restless, original-thinking, broad-minded exegete and theologian.”Footnote 38 One glance at De doctrina and the reader will see the reverence Milton gives to biblical exegesis, whether or not the result is self-perceived ingenuity.Footnote 39 For our purposes, it is worth noting that during Milton's impressionable years at St. Paul's, where he and Charles Diodati became the best of friends, Cameron was reading private lectures on divinity in London between 1620–22. The Scottish theologian had relocated to England in 1620 because of the growing civil unrest in France. Surely it is not too incredible to suggest the possibility that Milton, who after the age of twelve was known for studying well into the night, was introduced to Cameron at this time, if not indirectly through study, then directly through his friend Diodati, nephew of the Genevan reformer, Giovanni (who, we might add, just returned from combating the Remonstrants at Dordrecht).

If this is so, and if Milton did indeed start writing portions of De doctrina in the 1640s (around the same time that Cameron shows up in Milton's Tetrachordon), then maybe Milton had been a fledgling ‘Cameronite’ for quite some time before his greatest works were even begun?Footnote 40 Those who are skeptical of Milton's supposed antinomianism,Footnote 41 but still find him no orthodox puritan, can find a touchstone in John Cameron, the forerunner of what would eventually be called in Britain “New Methodism,” “the Middle-Way,” or “neonomianism” (though this latter school was much more of an adaptation).

At the outset, it should be noted that we are of the opinion that even by seventeenth-century standards, Milton was not “against the law.” Rather, his concern was to highlight the superiority of the gospel age over all previous ages, and to rebut the legalism he found to be implicit in the popular orthodox harmonization of the old Mosaic law and the gospel.Footnote 42

De Doctrina Christiana, Chapter XXVI, “Of the Manifestation of the Covenant of Grace; Including the Law of God”Footnote 43

The more specific question of the role of the law in the life of the believer, from both biblical and systematic perspectives, is always (or ought to be!) couched in the larger context of covenant.Footnote 44 How one answers the (dis)continuity question between the old and the new covenants often dictates the answer to the more specific law-gospel distinction and whether that distinction is really an opposition (e.g., doctrinal antinomians and, some would say, Lutherans) or just a pedagogical categorization that retains a certain ambiguity (e.g., in various degrees, the Reformed, if not a few Lutherans too). Before we attend to that particular matter as well as to Milton's supposed antinomianism in the treatise, we must first briefly discuss the covenantal contours of chapter 26 of De doctrina, which precedes the chapter on the gospel and its ramifications for Christian liberty. Given our space limitations, we will have to focus mainly on those points of intersection between Milton and Cameron.

Milton, in chapters 16–25 of De doctrina, has been discussing renovation (renewed humanity) as it is developed in this life. He then turns to show how the covenant of grace has been manifested in space and time. Indeed, for Milton, there does not seem to be any covenant in which God has accommodated himself in establishing a means for his restored relationship with man outside of space and time. There is no mention of an eternal “covenant of redemption” from which this covenant of grace flows. However, there is much talk about general absolute decrees and special conditional decrees “from all eternity” in De doctrina, chapters 3 and 4. But again, note that “God decreed nothing absolutely, which he left in the power of free agents” (ch. 3, p. 39 [CP 6:155]). Thus, “law of God” in the chapter title—which includes the law of nature, Torah, and the law of faith—falls under the rubric of conditionality. It should be pointed out additionally that this notion of contingent decrees is a major facet of Cameron's covenant theology. Armstrong describes it thus: “In [Cameron's] hypothetical covenant God does what he has promised because the creature fulfills the requirements thereto. Yet&this response itself proceeds from [God's] antecedent love which produces whatever good there may be in that [creature]. It is this foedus hypotheticum which has to do with God's redemptive activity.”Footnote 45

God first declared the covenant of grace in the course of pronouncing judgment on the serpent after the fall in the garden. Both the exhibition and ratification of the covenant of grace existed under the old covenant (“though obscurely and indistinctly,” p. 75 [CP 6:515]), and both continue under the gospel, except that under the gospel both the Redeemer and the truth of his redemption are more explicitly understood.Footnote 46

The law of God itself can be either written or unwritten. It was delivered to Adam as the “law of nature&of which a certain remnant, or imperfect illumination, still dwells in the hearts of all mankind” (p. 76 [CP 6:516]).Footnote 47 The regenerate, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are daily moving toward a renewal of its “primitive brightness” (ibid.). As proof, Milton cites Rom 2:14–15, wherein new covenant Gentile believers are said to do Torah despite not having the Torah by heritage, which shows that it has been written on their hearts (see Jer. 31:33; remember, again, that the law of nature is summed up in the law of Moses). Interestingly, most Reformed exegetes had treated the Gentiles in this passage as unregenerate people who nonetheless know the difference between right and wrong, because it eases the burden of making sense of the apostle's matter-of-fact statement that “the doers of the law shall be justified” if the whole pericope (vv. 12–16) is treated as a hypothetical postulation: since no one can do Torah, no one can be justified in that way.Footnote 48 Maybe Milton is alluding to the (perfectly unpopular in most Protestant circles) notion that the apostle is speaking of a future justification to be declared on judgment day (anticipated in present justification)?Footnote 49 At any rate, it is no small point that Milton interprets the passage in this manner. His chapter on justification in the treatise would not suit the Gnesio-Lutheran, and his covenantal theology in general separates him from Francis Turretin and his heirs. At this point, Milton sees the use of the word law in this passage in Romans in its all-inclusive sense: “heavenly doctrine in the abstract, or the will of God, as declared under both covenants.”Footnote 50 It is very interesting that he uses the word covenants to describe both the law of nature and the law of Moses. Was he not discussing the one covenant of grace that included both of these? Yes, which is why his use here refers to the old and new covenants. Nonetheless, as we shall soon see, the old covenant was explicitly intended to be temporary and must therefore be juxtaposed with what is consequent to it. In keeping with our previous presuppositions, we must also assume that the law of nature is included under the rubric of “covenant.” Milton's use of it here might presuppose Cameron's view of the foedus naturae.Footnote 51 Basically, in this covenant God works strictly on justice: Adam, already in communion with God (no mediator needed), was simply required to obey, and God would deal with him accordingly. This is the closest Milton comes to a covenant of works.

The discussion then moves on to the written law of God. The old administration exhibited in shadowy form the covenant of grace in the liberation from Egyptian bondage and in the brazen serpent (see John 3:14–16). The symbols of expiation and redemption, both before and under Moses, were the sacrifices and the priests, Melchizedek and Aaron with his posterity. However, the written Mosaic code was intended for the Israelites alone, with a promise of temporal life in the promised land (it decisively did not promise—either symbolically or typologically—eternal life, so Milton) to those who kept it, and a curse of exile on those who broke it.

This striking parallel to Cameron's covenant theology must not be overlooked. Consider Armstrong's description of it: “[Cameron] strikes at the very roots of any idea that eternal life was attainable through the law. Namely, [the Mosaic covenant] was a covenant of bondage and not of spiritual deliverance. It promised simply a blessed life in Canaan. Therefore one would not be saved by its observance even if perfect obedience were possible (which it is not).”Footnote 52 This thought was intended by Cameron—and Milton seems to agree—to correct the tendency of the orthodox toward the legalism to which we alluded to above (the conflating of law and gospel).

In due time, “this wall of partition between the Gentiles and the Israelites,” Milton writes, “was at length broken down by the death of Christ, Eph. ii.14, until which time the Gentiles were aliens from the whole of the covenant” (p. 79 [CP 6:517–18]).Footnote 53 The main goal of Torah was that the Israelites would be faced with mankind's depravity, and consequently their own, so they might find refuge in the righteousness of the promised Savior. The law of nature mentioned above is also intended to serve this same purpose for those who are not yet regenerate and do not have the law of Moses. The redemptive purposes of Torah also include the notion that the Israelites would (along with all other nations in due time) be led by the gospel out from under the “weak and servile rudiments of this elementary institution to the full strength of the new creature, and a manly liberty worthy the sons of God” (p. 78 [CP 6:517]).

This liberty is found, of course, in the righteousness of the promised Savior, and it springs forth from God's power and mercy into a spontaneous inclination to do good. But the letter of the law of Moses kills; it does not lead to liberty; it cannot justify the ungodly; it does not promise eternal life. That the Mosaic law kills and works wrath is especially important to Milton. Apparently, it was also important to Cameron. So Armstrong: “Cameron even seems to ‘out-Luther’ Luther, for he discusses no other use of the law than as a ‘killer.’ ”Footnote 54 The importance of this in Milton's theology is clear: the new covenant is radically supreme in that it accomplishes what the old could not. As an example of this, Milton focuses on Romans 7, where the “conflict in the mind” of the apostle Paul expands to include the position of those who have Torah but not the right “stuff” with which to work it out, that is, the “flesh,” or, put differently, the natural man in Adam as yet unregenerate without the power of the Spirit.Footnote 55 The “conflict in the mind” of the apostle is abstract, reflective, even analogical, so as to teach his fellow countrymen about the weakness of Torah through the flesh and the supremacy of the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” so that the promises of God in Christ are received through the “righteousness of faith” (Rom 8:2; 4:13).Footnote 56 Thus the weakness of the flesh, the imperfection of the old law, “was manifested in the person of Moses himself; for Moses, who was a type of [Torah], could not bring the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, that is, into eternal rest; but an entrance was given to them under Joshua, or Jesus” (De doctrina, ch. 26, p. 81 [CP 6:519]). Hence Saint Peter preaches that through the second Joshua alone, eternal salvation came under the old covenant, equally as under the gospel, although the Redeemer was not then revealed. Once again, Milton reiterates that the promise of Torah only extended to happiness in this life, that it could not save. “But what neither [Torah] itself nor the observers of it could attain, faith in God through Christ has attained, and that even to eternal life” (p. 82 [CP 6:520]). It is important to note here that Milton is not speaking of the Mosaic law in terms of a covenant of works, as if one was expected to earn his or her own salvation by fulfilling it. He would not, after once again reminding the reader that the promise of the law of Moses involved only temporal life, immediately proceed to describe God's intent in giving that law as a means for people to attempt to achieve their own righteousness, or eternal salvation. The point here for Milton is that Torah could not even do what it promised (long life in the land of Canaan) because of sinful sarx: covenant renewal cannot come if we are still in Adam. Rather, it is only through Christ and the Spirit that the promise (eternal life on the renewed earth) is attained.

We now come to Milton's view of the gospel and Christian liberty.

De Doctrina Christiana, Chapter XXVII, “Of the Gospel and Christian Liberty”

1. On the gospel dispensation

Milton begins this chapter as follows:

The gospel is the new dispensation of the covenant of grace, far more excellent and perfect than Torah, announced first obscurely by Moses and the prophets, afterwards in the clearest terms by Christ himself, and his apostles and evangelists, written since by the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers, and ordained to continue even to the end of the world, containing a promise of eternal life to all in all nations who shall believe in Christ when revealed to them, and a threat of eternal death to such as shall not believe.

But the “already” of the gospel dispensation still looks forward to the “not yet.” Thus this present dispensation will continue as it has until the “end of the world.” And, like the previous dispensations of God's revelation, it contains promises and conditions: to those who believe, eternal life; to those who do not, eternal death. Just as believers are those who trust Christ “when [he is] revealed to them,” “unbelievers” refer only to those to whom Jesus has been announced in the gospel (p. 88 [CP 6:521]). This crack in the door to redemption outside of a saving knowledge of Christ Milton ignores for now, that is, because he already mentions it elsewhere:

For the same reason it ought not to appear wonderful if many, both Jews and others, who lived before Christ, and many also who have lived since his time, but to whom he has never been revealed, should be saved by faith in God alone; still however through the sole merits of Christ, inasmuch as he was given and slain from the beginning of the world, even for those to whom he was not known, provided they believed in God the Father. (ch. 20, “On Saving Faith,” p. 22 [CP 6:475])

Whoever else is included among these, the Old Testament patriarchs serve as the only examples for Milton. Interestingly, while Cameron was never accused of this, his star pupil, Moïse Amyraut (1596–1664), often was.Footnote 57 From this perspective, hypothetically, natural revelation gives what is necessary to be saved. Whether or not anyone ever actually has been saved in this way post-Christus is not the point; rather, the point is that those who have never heard the gospel must be given all the necessary means of salvation so that God is not accused of injustice (one of the major points in the theodicy of Paradise Lost, incidentally). At any rate, to those who hear and reject the proclamation that the Messiah came to set the world aright, eternal death awaits. These are those who, according to Milton, sin willfully (“with a high hand”) after having received the knowledge of the truth (Heb 10:26–31).

2. On the abolition of the law of Moses

Next we come to the most intriguing portion of this chapter, a portion that has undoubtedly led some to conclude that Milton was an antinomian. “On the introduction of the gospel, or new covenant through faith in Christ,” he writes, “the whole of the preceding covenant, in other words the entire Mosaic law, was abolished” (p. 89 [CP 6:525–26]). As proof-texts, Milton refers the reader to Luke 26:16, Acts 15:10, and Rom 3:21, 6:14, 7:4, 6–7, respectively. This last reference (Rom 7:7) Milton argues is very telling with respect to the new covenant believer's relationship to the old law. For when Saint Paul writes that he had not known sin but by Torah, the whole law is intended here, because the expression is unlimited. And when the apostle further quotes from the Mosaic law, he quotes specifically from the Decalogue (Rom 7:7b). Thus we are “absolved from subjection to the Decalogue as fully as to the rest of [Torah]” (p. 90 [CP 6:526]). Here Milton makes plain that in his opinion it was inconsistent with the liberty of the gospel to consider the Decalogue as a rule binding on new covenant believers. If any would contend, Milton offers a litany of scriptural texts that speak of the newly found freedom for those in union with Christ (pp. 90–91 [CP 6:526–27]). The wall between Jews and Gentiles was not just contained in the ceremonial code, either. According to Milton, the whole positive law of Moses was a law of commandments and contained in ordinances. “Nor was it the ceremonial law which formed the sole ground of distinction between the Jews and Gentiles, as ZanchiusFootnote 58 on this passage [Eph 2:15] contends, but the whole law” (p. 92 [CP 6:527]). For the Gentiles were previously “strangers from the covenant of promise” (Eph 2:12), which promise, Milton writes, “was made to the works of the whole law, not to those of the ceremonial alone; nor was it to these latter only, that the enmity between God and us was owing” (ibid.). Milton then turns his attention to the general rebuttal that all of the passages he has offered thus far are to be understood as pertaining only to the abolition of the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic law.

This refutation itself is refuted, according to Milton, primarily by the definition of Torah itself. The definition of the Torah specifies the various reasons for its enactment, and if all the causes of its enactment (considered as a whole) have been revoked or rendered obsolete, then “it follows that the whole law itself must be annulled also” (p. 93 [CP 6:528]). The principal reasons Milton gives for the enactment of the law of Moses are as follows (ibid.): 1) to make us mindful of our depravity, so that it might work wrath; 2) to impress upon us a “slavish fear through consciousness of divine enmity”; 3) to bring us, as a schoolmaster, to the righteousness of Christ, and other reasons of similar description. Thus the old law ends up condemning only the unregenerate, for now it gives way to the gospel of grace, believers of which find no condemnation whatsoever (fatherly displeasure [Hebrews 12], yes, but not accusation).

We might at first glance be inclined to associate this fully with the doctrinal antinomian's law-gospel divide. And we would be right. He does share this concern with them. But as we continue discussing Milton's views regarding the relationship of the old law to the new covenant believer, we must keep in mind that the ends for which he makes his case is not shared by the antinomians, namely, to accentuate the necessity of the works of faith (see n. 56 above), not law. He is making a sharp distinction between the two administrations, so much so that one could say that the law of Moses is another (third) covenant, maybe a “covenant under the service of grace” that came alongside the Abrahamic covenant (of grace) as a preparatory covenant on the way to the revelation of God's kingdom in Christ.Footnote 59 At any rate, Milton's theme here must be restated: the redemptive-historical reading of the old is that the new is radically superior. As such, it ought to be no surprise that the old covenant was always intended to be abrogated. This controlling paradigm dictates much of what follows in the treatise at this point. Milton then goes on to give seven reasons why the whole of Torah, not just its ceremonial part, is abolished (pp. 93–95 [CP 6:528–30]).

First, the whole law was a law of works and was always intended to give place to the “law of grace” (p. 93 [CP 6:528]). Second, whereas Torah worked wrath because of the wholesale failure of Israel to keep covenant, no law means no breach of that law (Rom 4:15). Third, it is written that Christ redeemed his people from the whole law and its curse (Gal 3:13). Fourth, the apostle teaches us that the Mosaic law “written and engraven in stones” was “the ministration of death,” and therefore “was done away” (2 Cor 3:7). The “engraven” law here, Milton points out, was not the ceremonial aspect of the law but the Decalogue itself. Fifth, the law in view here is certainly not just a part of the law but the whole law. It is a “law of sin” because it provokes sin; it is a “law of death” because it is in opposition to the law of the spirit of life (Milton points the reader to Rom 8:2, where the sum and essence of Torah is said to impart life). Sixth, it was undoubtedly not the ceremonial aspect alone that the “motions of sin which were by the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Rom 7:5). But of the law that does this it is said that we “are become dead unto” (Rom 7:4). Seventh, since all believers are justified by God through faith, then all are undoubtedly reckoned righteous. In contrast, the apostle asserts that “the law is not made for a righteous man” (1 Tim 1:9; see also Gal 5:22–23), and “the ceremonial law alone was so far from justifying, that even the entire Mosaic law had not power to effect [justification]” (p. 95 [CP 6:529]). Therefore, Milton argues, the whole law, not just the ceremonial aspect, has been abrogated by reason of its inability to justify.

From here Milton forges ahead, discussing how the sum and essence of Torah has not been abrogated. In so doing, he indirectly attacks the legalistic tendencies he perceives in his fellow puritans, slowly building his case for Christian liberty, at which point the whole chapter finally ends.

3. On the continuation of the spirit of [Torah]

So, then, while the Mosaic law has been abolished by the gospel, the essence of it has not been abolished, given that its purpose was attained in that love of God and our neighbor, which is born of the Spirit through faith. How, then, does Milton explain Christ's assertion that he did not come to destroy the law (Matt 5:17)? That which Jesus did not come to destroy was the essence and sum of the law, not the written Mosaic code. Another way to describe it is that Torah as fulfilled by the Christ continues on, not the law in its original form. Milton then imagines a legalistic interlocutor: “Will this not lead to licentiousness?” No, for the apostle Paul himself anticipates this objection in Rom 6:14–15, where he “expressly teaches that by this abrogation of the law, sin, if not taken away, is at least weakened rather than increased in power” (p. 99 [CP 6:532]). Thus, the sum of Torah—the love of God and neighbor—is not abolished, for the believer is not under sin but under grace. In other words, licentiousness will not result from the abolition of Torah because the Spirit's work necessarily results in obedient fulfillment of God's (natural) law. Just the tablet of the law is changed (in a manner of speaking); the Spirit has now written its precepts upon the heart. Even though Milton sees the Spirit to be at variance with the letter of the Mosaic law on certain points,Footnote 60 “a regard to the law of love is declared to be better than a compliance with the whole written law” (ibid.). But if the reader deems this even a “qualified” antinomianism, consider Milton's argument that the two precepts (loving God and neighbor) represent Torah in totem. Love fulfilling the law is not only the telos of the Mosaic code; it is the goal of the evangelic, as well (see Jas 2:8). Thus all “rational interpreters” have explained Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as an exposition of Torah—not according to its letter but according to the spirit of the old law in love, so that there is “no transgression in disregarding the letter of the law, provided that under the direction of the Spirit the end of the institution be attained in the love of God and our neighbor” (p. 100 [CP 6:533]). In other words, love transcends, indeed, supersedes, the old Mosaic code.

Milton then stops to bring up a few “noble” confirmations, starting with Zanchius, for the Italian Reformer in his commentary on the second chapter of Ephesians seems to agree, despite his previous comments, that the old law is abrogated. But, like so many divines that surround him, Milton laments his excessive qualifying and subsequent vacillation over the issue, that it leads the reader “if not extremely attentive, in a state of uncertainty” (p. 101 [CP 6:533–34]). He then ends this section with what we can only consider the clincher: “I have also observed that Cameron somewhere expresses the same opinion respecting the abolition of the whole law.”Footnote 61 Milton's very next sentence is telling. Throughout De doctrina, he almost always refers to his theological antagonists (the high Calvinists) in a particular way: “It is asserted&by divines in general&” ([emphasis added]; the Yale edition unfortunately renders this “But all the rest,” 6:534). Cameron, too, indulged in this practice, always referring to the orthodox as “the divines.”Footnote 62

At any rate, all of this, according to Milton, is contrary to the general opinion of most divines. They argue (as did the Pharisees) that those under the gospel must observe the old law (those abrogated ceremonial parts notwithstanding) for two main reasons: 1) that it is useful in various ways, even to Christians, in that through it they are led to a truer conviction of sin; and 2) that it consequently brings a more thankful acceptance of grace, as well as a more perfect knowledge of the will of God. To the first point, Milton responds that he is not speaking of the sinners, of those who stand in need of a preliminary impulse to cast themselves on God's mercy through Christ (i.e., “pre-evangelism”). Rather, he speaks of those already believing the gospel and consequently those who are in most intimate union with Christ. Thus, when a Christian sins, the Spirit gives him or her that true conviction. To the second point Milton argues that the will of God “is best learnt from the gospel itself under the promised guidance of the Spirit of truth, and from the divine law written in the hearts of believers” (p. 102 [CP 6:534]).Footnote 63 Further, he adds, doing the law will not lead to conviction and a subsequent acceptance of the grace of Christ, for this is effected by a knowledge of the law itself. Doing the works of the Mosaic law, as noted above, will only lead us further from Christ.

Quite clearly for Milton, greater holiness is required in the new covenant, but along with that greater requirement comes the God-given grace to fulfill its holiness.Footnote 64 While those who believed under the law were justified by faith, they still out of necessity lived according to the Mosaic law's precepts. Contrarily, the gospel justifies by faith apart from Torah. Thus, new covenant believers, being freed from the outward marks of the Mosaic code, no longer follow the letter, but the spirit, doing works of faith, not of the law. For Milton, love, just as much as circumcision, is a work. The difference between the two, however, is great: “love” is the sum and essence of the Mosaic law, and it is the sum and essence—not the old commandments—through which God always intended to justify his people. Just as faith is not compulsory, neither are the works of faith, which brings us to Milton's doctrine of Christian liberty.

On Christian Liberty

The dawning of the new covenant age marked the abrogation of the law of servitude, and from this springs Christian liberty. Though liberty for Milton, strictly speaking, is the peculiar fruit of the believer's adoption, and consequently was not unknown during the time of the old administration of the law.Footnote 65 However, given that liberty was unable to be perfected or made fully manifest until the coming of the Messiah, liberty must therefore be considered as belonging especially to the gospel age. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) Because truth is principally known by the proclamation of the good news (see, e.g., John 1:17; 8:31–32, 36); and 2) Because the peculiar gift of the gospel is the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:17). His subsequent summary statement on Christian liberty is worth quoting in full:

Christian liberty is that whereby we are loosed as it were by enfranchisement, through Christ our deliverer, from the bondage of sin, and consequently from the rule of [Torah] and of man; to the intent that being made sons instead of servants, and perfect men instead of children, we may serve God in love through the guidance of the Spirit of truth. (p. 105 [CP 6:537])Footnote 66

We ourselves are to withstand the opinions of others if their motives are unworthy of the gospel. So it follows that the weaker brother ought to, in all humility, give himself up to be instructed by the stronger faith of the fully free Christian. “Neither this reason, therefore, nor a pretended consideration for the weaker brethren, afford a sufficient warrant for those edicts of the magistrate which constrain believers, or deprive them in any respect of their religious liberty” (p. 110 [CP 6:541]). When the civil magistrate infringes upon this liberty, he seizes the gospel itself; he deprives the good and the bad indiscriminately of their privilege of free judgment, contrary to the spirit of the well-known precept found in Matt 13:29–30: “lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them: let both grow together until the harvest.”Footnote 67

Here concludes Milton's discussion of Christian liberty.Footnote 68

Conclusion

Throughout this essay, we have sought to make clear Milton's views in De doctrina on the law and the gospel, and the role the former plays in the life of the new covenant believer. We have also attempted as an aside to reveal the more obvious parallels between his theology and Cameron's, with hopes of further clarifying what connection, if any, may be drawn between the Scot's redemptive-historical covenantal theology and Milton's theological treatise. Thus, we might say, in line with the thoughts of Isaac Chauncy, that he at first appears to be a “superlative antinomian,” but his subsequent defense of the role of the works of faith and love in justification on the day of judgment show that his allegiance lies elsewhere.Footnote 69

John Milton, at least on this count, may not have been striving toward ingenuity so much as he was simply reacting to the increasingly overt legalistic and authoritarian strain within the puritan revolution (not least in soteriological and ecclesiological matters), as well as to those whose “Life, Learning, Faith, and pure intent / Would have been held in high esteem” if not for their “plots and packing” that are “wors then those of Trent.” In the end, therefore, we can be certain that Milton only expresses virile antipathy toward a singular law, the one that dares “adjure the Civill Sword / To force our Consciences that Christ set free, / And ride us with a classic Hierarchy.”Footnote 70

References

1 This author assumes Milton's authorial commitment to De doctrina, if for no other purpose than to dispense with the formality of disclaiming my position.

2 See Cooper's, Tim Fear and Polemic in Seventeenth-Century England: Richard Baxter and Antinomianism (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2001)Google Scholar for a good discussion on how hard the label is to pin down. See also the sweeping overviews of Bozeman's, T.D. The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion and Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)Google Scholar and Como's, David R. Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At this point, we must exercise caution to not equate the Lutheran debates of the 1500s over these issues with the later English Reformed debates. To be sure, there is overlap, but the correlations are not one-to-one.

3 The Westminster Confession—composed while Milton was Latin Secretary for Cromwell—clearly makes use of this method in ch. 19, “Of the Law of God.” See also Calvin's, John Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. McNeill, John T.; trans. Ford L. Battles; 2 vols.; Library of Christian Classics; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960) 2.Google Scholar7.12–13, for a good summation of this use.

4 Again, see WCF 19 and Inst. 2.7.6–11.

5 For representative works on this trajectory, see Crisp's Christ Alone Exalted (1643) in Complete Works of Tobias Crisp (ed. J. Gill; 7th ed.; London: John Beinett, 1832) and Chauncy's Neonomianism Unmask'd (1693). Mark W. Karlberg makes a good case that restraint ought to be practiced, especially in the case of Crisp. See his Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2000) 30–32, 83, on the impropriety of labeling Crisp an antinomian.

6 In 1650, the “Rump Parliament” took aim at the Ranters, passing the Adultery Act and the Blasphemy Act. Eventually, the most infamous Ranters were arrested and brought to trial. Jacob Bauthumley was bored (or burned) through the tongue as punishment for writing his book, The Light and Dark Sides of God (1650); Clarkson and Salmon recanted and were released after a brief stint in prison. By the late 1650s the fervor had faded, and many former Ranters turned to the Quakers after the Restoration.

7 Milton, however, nowhere argues that all law has been abrogated (like the Ranters did); indeed, according to Milton, it is the law of nature to which regenerate persons are being conformed. See more on this under the fourth point below.

8 In Jerald Brauer, “Types of Puritan Piety,” Church History 56 (March 1987) 39–59. Let us attempt to forget at this point everything about the word evangelical that we've come to know.

9 Norman Burns says as much when he writes that “Milton's antinomianism has nothing to do with that of John Eaton, Tobias Crisp, or John Saltmarsh.” See Burns, Norman, “Milton's Antinomianism, and Samson's,” Milton Studies 33 (1997) 27–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 30. Feeling this tension, Barbara K. Lewalski labels Milton's views on this subject a “qualified” antinomianism (The Life of John Milton [Oxford: Blackwell, 2000] xiii, 430, 434–5, 476–7). Whatever can be said of Eaton, Crisp, or Saltmarsh, we will see that it is a categorical mistake to leave Milton in the antinomian camp—“qualified” or otherwise.

10 The following points come largely from Peter Toon's brief but helpful synopsis in Puritans and Calvinism (Seoul, Korea: Westminster Pub. House, 1972) 85–101, and from Louis Berkhof's various discussions on antinomianism in his Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1937) 514–15, 517–26, 534, 543.

11 De doctrina Christiana, ch. 4, p. 72 [CP 6:182]. All quotations from the treatise, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from Milton, John, A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Compiled from the Holy Scriptures Alone (trans. Sumner, Charles R.; 2 vols.; Boston, 1825Google Scholar). I use this translation almost exclusively simply because it better captures the essence of important theological nuances and vocabulary than the standard critical edition—of which, see Complete Prose Works of John Milton (ed. Don M. Wolfe; 14 vols.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973). However, I will cite the corresponding location from the Yale edition in brackets [CP].

12 See De doctrina, ch. 33, pp. 228–31 [CP 6:621–23], for his views about the punishment of the damned.

13 Toon, Puritans, 98. Cited from Isaac Chauncy's Neonomianism Unmask'd, third part, 42.

14 To be sure, neither would most of the orthodox Calvinists of his day, at least not in the manner Milton did.

15 This notion is not unfounded among the majority of divines in Milton's day. Thus, we must be certain of those with whom Milton was contending (not Calvinists but the increasingly explicit hyper-Calvinism of English Nonconformity) to correctly understand his proposed “corrections.”

16 De doctrina, 103 [CP 6:535]. Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561–1610) was the leader of the “conservative” Calvinists in Basel. He also composed commentaries on the books of the Old Testament and produced a German translation of the New Testament.

17 And herein lies the fodder for much current debate in Reformed circles: Was the Mosaic law a kind of recapitulation of the covenant of works (as in, arguably, WCF 19.1–2, and the Larger Catechism 30, 92, 98)? Is it to be associated solely with the covenant of grace (e.g., again, this time clearly in the WCF 7.3, 5–6)? Is there another alternative? Milton thought so. See our discussion in section IV.2 below for more on this.

18 Even though Burns acknowledges this, he still sees Milton's liberty as express radicalism (see “Milton's Antinomianism,” 30–31).

19 “Licence they mean when they cry libertie,” accused Milton in his sonnet XII against the Ranters.

20 Joan S. Bennett, “Milton's Antinomianism and the Separation Scene in Paradise Lost, Book 9” PMLA 98.3 (1983) 388–404, at 390.

21 Bennett, “Milton's Antinomianism,” 396; De doctrina, ch. 26, p. 76 [CP 6:516]. But maybe I presume too much on her silence regarding this point. See Bennett, , Reviving Liberty: Radical Christian Humanism in Milton's Great Poems (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994) 97–109Google Scholar, where she does argue that the “humanist antinomian” is one who apprehends the law of nature only by the “strenuous efforts of the regenerate moral reason” [emphasis mine].

22 In typical fashion, Bennett thinks Milton was Arminian.

23 In other words, she failed to provide a convincing argument that Christian humanism is latently antinomian.

24 De doctrina, 107 [CP 6:539].

25 “Reason,” that is, understood pejoratively—as Luther often used it; cp. Bennett, “Milton's Anti-nomianism,” 403, n. 14.

26 In Living Texts: Interpreting Milton (ed. Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham; Sellinsgrove, Penn.: Susquehanna University Press, 2000) 237–63.

27 Milton's Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 79 nn. 50–52. See also Sellin, “If Not Milton,” 25 n. 7.

28 Now, this is a sentiment with which I agree, but see Benjamin Myers, “Predestination and Freedom in Milton's Paradise Lost,” SJT 59.1 (2006) 64–80, for an attempt to elevate the poet's ingenuity and thus his place in the historical development of this particular doctrine along the lines of Schleiermacher and Barth.

29 In short, the theology produced by Cameron and his student Amyraut at the Saumur academy faced the ire of the orthodox party for flirting with what they deemed to be thinly veiled Arminianism. See the Helvetic Consensus (1675) for a point-by-point defense against this moderate form of Calvinism.

30 Those other sources primarily being William Ames (1576–1633) and Johannes Wollebius (1586–1629)—both of whom fell well within the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy. See Sellin, “If Not Milton,” 253.

31 I am not suggesting I affirm this. Besides, the guardians of Milton's heterodoxy would have my head. See Sellin, “If Not Milton,” 237–38.

32 Paul Sellin, email message to author, 19 March, 2003.

33 Sellin, “If Not Milton,” 253.

34 Diodati (1576–1649), a Calvinist scholar and theologian, of a family of Italian Protestant refugees, succeeded Theodore Beza in 1609 as professor of theology in Geneva. In 1618 he served as a deputy to the Synod of Dort and was chosen to assist in compiling the canons. He was chiefly known for his translation of the Bible into Italian (1603), and Milton mentions Diodati as a Bible translator of “best note” in Tetrachordon (CP 3:615).

35 He may have met him earlier in 1619 and 1627, when Giovanni visited London. See Dorian, Donald C., The English Diodatis (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1950) 3–96Google Scholar, esp. 21.

36 Armstrong, , Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969) 47.Google Scholar Armstrong also refers to two letters from Cameron to Diodati that have been printed in the Bulletin of the Society and History of Protestantism in France 50 (1901) 159–63, at 47, n. 134.

37 See Wolfe, CP, 3:647, 656, 660, 684, 687.

38 Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 61. This also highlights what I think is a mistake in Jerald Brauer's categorization of Milton as principally a rationalist (like Biddle or Locke). There is no doubt that Milton displayed rationalistic tendencies, but his piety—that is, his practice when doing theology—was thoroughly evangelical.

39 Milton's disclaimer at the beginning of ch. 5 of De doctrina, “Of the Son of God,” is an example of this: “I enrol myself among the number of those who acknowledge the word of God alone as the rule of faith, and freely advance what appears to me much more clearly deducible from the Holy Scriptures than the commonly received opinion” (p. 104 [CP 6:203]).

40 Note that all of Cameron's works were published after his death in 1625.

41 Or, for that matter, many of the doctrines that Milton is accused of holding. These days, it seems the more radical one can make him, the better. See Milton and Heresy (ed. Stephen B. Dobranski and John P. Rumrich; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) for a good example of this tendency.

42 In this, his desires are not unlike the doctrinal antinomians, but it is how they flesh it out and to what end, so to speak, that greatly differentiates them.

43 Note again the title of this chapter: the law of God—in each of its manifestations—is included under the rubric “covenant of grace.” All page numbers in the text, unless otherwise indicated, are found in this chapter.

44 Throughout the remainder of this essay I will attempt to distinguish between Torah and the “law” (as a general theological category)—from which portions of Torah are derived (according to the classical Christian perspective). This is a very important feature of Milton's argument—one often overlooked by critics discussing this very subject.

45 Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 49–50.

46 The reader will note the preliminary sound of symmetry so common in Reformed theology (but not, as we have seen, a common refrain among doctrinal antinomians): grace existed under the old covenant and continues under the gospel.

47 See Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 53, where Cameron is quoted as writing that knowledge of the covenant of nature “was not completely obliterated from the mind of fallen man, since it was made by God to restrain man from sin and lead him to Christ.” Note for Milton that it is not clearly described in terms of a “works-covenant” in the traditional puritan sense, for it is not separate from the covenant of grace. Is this nothing more than the lex naturae espoused by the early Reformers? Calvin's sensus divinitatus? The way it is used here suggests the affirmative. The law of nature is divinely summed up in the Decalogue and recapitulated by the Christ. As a moral law universally imposed by God within all persons, it either blesses or curses the individual, depending, of course, upon his or her regeneration “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Since it dwells in everyone, it is the basis for both natural law and natural theology.

48 That is, if the apostle Paul is speaking of Gentile Christians in 2:15, then he is quite clearly saying that they are justified on that final day by fulfilling the law that has been written upon their hearts.

49 He clearly speaks of such a future vindication in ch. 22 on justification: The Messiah passes judgment on the final day not with respect to faith, “which is the internal cause of justification, but to the effects and signs of that faith, namely, the works done in faith, that he may thereby make the equity of his judgment manifest to all mankind” (p. 47 [CP 6:493]). As an aside, “internal” cause for Milton means little more than an “instrumental, proximate” cause (i.e., as one of its subsets). Compare with Calvin's Institutes 2.17.2. This also may exhibit a Ramean influence. see Bangs, Carl, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (second edition; Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1985) 56–63Google Scholar; and Howard, Leon, “In Justifying the Ways of God to Man: The Invention of Milton's Great Argument,” in Essays on Puritans and Puritanism (ed. Barbour, James and Quirk, Thomas; Albuquerque. N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1986) 173–203Google Scholar.

50 De doctrina, 76 [CP 6:516].

51 Again, see Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 53–54.

52 Ibid., 56.

53 This very important theme of universal design in the new covenant is integral to understanding Milton's covenant theology. It stems from his concern with the progressive nature of God's revelation, another important theme.

54 Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 56 n. 160.

55 Note that this is distinctively not Greek dualism, as many critics imagine. See Ridderbos's, Herman Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) 120–26Google Scholar.

56 Compare this with Milton's own sentiment in his chapter on justification: “Hence we are justified by faith without the works of [Torah], but not without the works of faith” (p. 43 [CP 6:490]). Boasting is excluded by the law of faith (Rom 3:27–28); and “what is the law of faith, but the works of faith?” (p. 44 [CP 6:491]). See Dennis Berthold's “The Concept of Merit in Paradise Lost,” SEL 15.1 (1975) 153–67 for a good discussion of this topic in the poem.

57 See Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 54–55, 94–95.

58 Jerome Zanchius (1516–90), Italian Protestant clergyman and educator, was the pupil of the famed Peter Martyr Vermigli in the priory of San Frediano in Lucca, Italy. Milton was probably referring to Zanchius's Commentarius in epistolam Sancti Pauli ad Ephesios, last published in Bibliotheca Reformata, vols. 5 and 6 (ed. ed. A.H. de Hartog; Amstelodami: J. A. Wormser, 1888–1899).

59 See Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 55–56.

60 He cites Jesus' Sabbath practices (Mark 2) and the apostle's marriage injunctions (1 Cor 7) as examples. Also note the centrality Milton gives to “love” as the fulfillment of the old covenant law, its sum and essence, the very criterion by which the meaning and application of the Mosaic commandments (like the Sabbath command) are to be evaluated.

61 Ibid. According to Wolfe (CP, 6:534, n. 19), Milton is possibly referring to Cameron's Praelectionum in selectiora quaedam N. Test. loca (4 vols.; Salmurii, 1626–28; Bodleian Library). The only other information offered in Complete Prose we have already discussed—that of Cameron's inclusion in Tetrachordon.

62 Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, 57. As for the Yale edition's translation, see Shawcross, , “Forum: Milton's Christian Doctrine,” SEL 32.1 (1992) 155–62Google Scholar, at 156.

63 Is he suggesting that the believer ought to, in Marcionite fashion, leave-off reading the Old Testament? No; remember that for Milton the gospel can be seen in both eras. Thus the writings of the old era may be employed and profited from, so long as they are understood in light of the gospel, in light of their fulfillment in the Christ. Moreover, the entire historical canon is employed throughout the treatise as its presupposed standard.

64 Might this be construed as a neonomian sentiment (i.e., that the gospel is an easier-to-follow “new law”)? If so, then it is not worded in the likeness of Richard Baxter or Daniel Williams. See their works, Aphorisms on Justification (1649) and A Defence of Gospel-Truth (1693), respectively.

65 See ch. 23 in De doctrina, “Of Adoption” [CP 6:495–97].

66 Milton cites Rom 8:2, 15; 1 Cor 7:23; Gal 4:7, 5:1; and Jas 1:25, 2:12 as proof.

67 Ibid. Milton put this sentiment to verse in his poem “On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament” (1646), wherein he wrote that the “New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large” (l. 20).

68 The next chapter (28) in De doctrina, “Of the External Sealing of the Covenant of Grace,” deals with the sacraments that seal the covenant. Under the law of Moses, they were circumcision and the Passover, but under the gospel, they are baptism and the Lord's Supper. At first glance, it seems Milton's view of the Lord's Supper takes the middle position between Calvin and Zwingli, remembered in the person of Bullinger (he goes on to reject infant baptism, however, pp. 114–126 [CP 6:544–50]).

69 Chauncy wrote about such views: “[He] Asserts the Old Law is abolished, and therein is a superlative Antinomian, but pleads for a New Law, and Justification by the Works of it, and therein is a Neonomian” (Neonomianism, “The Epistle Dedicatory,” A2 + 2 pages). See n. 49 above.

70 “On the New Forcers,” ll. 5–7, 9–10, 14.