IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSESSHEWING
THAT IT IS NOT LAWFULL FOR ANY POWER ON EARTH TO COMPELL IN MATTERS OF RELIGION.
TO THE
PARLAMENT
OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND
WITH THE DOMINIONS THEROF.
I have prepar’d, supream Councel, against the much expected time of your sitting, this treatise; which, though to all Christian magistrates equally belonging, and therfore to have bin written in the common language of Christendom, natural dutie and affection hath confin’d and dedicated first to my own nation: and in a season wherin the timely reading therof, to the easier accomplishment of your great work, may save you much labor and interruption: of two parts usually propos’d, civil and ecclesiastical, recommending civil only to your proper care, ecclesiastical to them only from whom it takes both that name and nature. Yet not for this cause only do I require or trust to finde acceptance, but in a two-fold respect besides: first, as bringing cleer evidence of scripture and protestant maxims to the Parlament of England, who in all thir late acts, upon occasion, have professd to assert only the true protestant Christian religion, as it is containd in the holy scriptures: next, in regard that your power being but for a time, and having in yourselves a Christian libertie of your own, which at one time or other may be oppressd, therof truly sensible, it will concern you while you are in power, so to regard other mens consciences, as you would your own should be regarded in the power of others; and to consider that any law against conscience is alike in force against any conscience, and so may one way or other justly redound upon your selves. One advantage I make no doubt of, that I shall write to many eminent persons of your number, alreadie perfet and resolvd in this important article of Christianitie. Some of whom I remember to have heard often for several years, at a councel next in autoritie to your own, so well joining religion with civil prudence, and yet so well distinguishing the different power of either, and this not only voting, but frequently reasoning why it should be so, that if any there present had bin before of an opinion contrary, he might doubtless have departed thence a convert in that point, and have confessd that then both commonwealth and religion will at length, if ever, flourish in Christendom, when either they who govern discern between civil and religious, or they only who so discern shall be admitted to govern. Till then, nothing but troubles, persecutions, commotions can be expected; the inward decay of true religion among our selves, and the utter overthrow at last by a common enemy. Of civil libertie I have written heretofore by the appointment, and not without the approbation of civil power: of Christian liberty I write now; which others long since having don with all freedom under heathen emperors, I should do wrong to suspect that I now shall with less under Christian governors, and such especially as profess openly thir defence of Christian libertie; although I write this not otherwise appointed or induc’d then by an inward perswasion of the Christian dutie which I may usefully discharge herin to the common Lord and Master of us all, and the certain hope of his approbation, first and chiefest to be sought: in the hand of whose providence I remain, praying all success and good event on your publick councels, to the defence of true religion and our civil rights.
JOHN MILTON