Summary
In “Of True Religion,” Milton argues for religious tolerance for other Protestants, but not for Catholics. He then outlines a series of policies he believes would be effective for repressing Catholicism in England.
The essay begins by noting that everyone has realized how quickly Catholicism is spreading in England. He says his reader should be reassured that the general reaction has been one of concern, as this proves that people still remember how joyful they were to be freed from Catholic rule during the Reformation. He acknowledges that there are already many arguments circulating that attempt to refute Catholic arguments. However, these arguments are mostly directed at learned men. In his essay, he will instead address the common people.
To begin, Milton describes “True Religion” as having two essential qualities. First, it must be dictated by the word of God, as preserved in the Bible. Second, it must have no beliefs that are not authorized by scripture. He argues that if all Protestants are united by these two central tenants, they can cease focusing on their own internal divisions, and instead focus on the common enemy of the Catholic church.
Milton argues that Catholicism is the only, or at least the greatest, heresy. For him, heresy is any religion whose practices are dictated by human traditions, rather than strictly the word of God. Thus, although the Catholics call themself a universal church, they are really nothing more than a heretical sect that has broken off from the true church.
However, Milton stresses, not all sects are necessarily heretical. Many Protestant sects have errors, and yet are not heretics, because heresy is an intentional choice to disregard scripture, whereas their errors are merely the product of misunderstandings. Making mistakes is natural for human beings, and God will forgive them. Furthermore, God only teaches those things it is entirely necessary to know, while the main points of conflict amongst Protestants are not essential. Milton goes through a catalog of Protestant spiritual debates, and determines that none of them are matters of vital importance.
He affirms that despite their errors, the leaders of all these various sects are truly religious people guided by God. All of them reject what Milton calls “implicit faith,” or faith based on human additions to the content of the scriptures. Indeed, anyone whose faith really does follow from the scriptures should tolerate his fellow man when they disagree with him, because the Bible commands men not to condemn each other for “things indifferent,” or things that God doesn’t deem essential.
However, Milton stresses, Catholicism, which he calls “Popery,” should not be tolerated. First, Popery claims both religious and political power, both of which Milton sees as illegitimate. The structure of the Church really makes it impossible to separate the two. The Pope acts as a political leader, interfering in local politics and collecting money from the countries over which he exerts influence. To tolerate the political arm of the Catholic Church is thus to tolerate a lack of true independence for one’s own country.
Their religious practice should not be any more tolerated, because Catholics are “idolatrous,” or worshippers of things in the place of God. Public idolatry cannot be tolerated, because it will harm those who happen to witness it, while private idolatry cannot be tolerated, because it does offense to God. Here, Milton quotes from the Bible, which harshly condemns idolatry.
Given that Catholicism is not to be tolerated, Milton ends the essay by giving three strategies for repressing it. First, all the items associated with Catholic idolatry, from their images to their traditions, must be banned, because the Bible says such images are forbidden. Though this violates their own sense of religious conscience, Milton states that society has no obligation to respect a religious conscience not based in scripture. He also argues that when Catholics attempt to explain their religious practices, they cannot do so based on scripture, but instead run to complicated arguments that an ordinary person can’t understand. These arguments have a dangerous ability to trick simple people.
The danger of Catholic arguments leads Milton to his next strategy for repressing Popery: widespread reading of the scriptures. Those who know the scripture will be able to orient themselves towards salvation. The Catholic Church forbids men from reading the Bible in their own language, but the Protestants say that all people should do so. Milton argues that even someone who practices Protestantism can fall victim to an implicit faith based on the actions of others, rather than the word of God, if they fail to read the Bible. A good grounding in spiritual knowledge will protect these people from being led astray by Catholics. It will also give them a sense of connection to other Protestants, even those they disagree with.
Finally, people must live better themselves. He laments that in the last few years, people have given themselves up to the vices of “pride, luxury, drunkenness, whoredom, cursing, swearing, [and] bold and open Atheism.” When they feel guilty for these evil behaviors, they are too sinful to face Protestant truth, and instead flee to Catholicism, which offers easy forgiveness for their sins. This, in fact, only guarantees their own damnation. Amending one’s own behavior, then, is the most important thing someone can do to fight Catholicism.
Analysis
“Of True Religion” is a bizarre combination of religious tolerance and extremism. Read in combination with Milton’s more famous essay “Areopagitica,” on the necessity of free speech, it reminds us how different from contemporary worldviews Milton’s politics really are, even though he shares some values with modern democratic society. At the same time, we also see how complex religious extremism can be.
Milton was a Puritan, a particularly radical Protestant sect. They favored the complete rejection of Catholicism, which they saw as idolatrous. Idolatry is one of Milton’s foremost concerns in “Of True Religion.” He means not only worship of images, but any adoration for physical things, rather than the stark word of God. Catholic churches were richly decorated, full of monuments to the saints, holy objects, ornate paintings, and stained glass. For Milton, these objects symbolize the ill-gotten wealth of the Catholic Church. They are also sinful in themselves, because they violate the Biblical prohibition against worshipping or adoring anything other than God himself.
After the English Civil War, a conflict between the monarchy and Parliament, England was briefly without a king. Instead, the nation was ruled by Oliver Cromwell, a commoner and radical Puritan who believed the Reformation had not gone far enough, and sought to ban all Catholic traditions and religious ornaments. When Milton wrote “Of True Religion” in 1673, Cromwell and his government had been gone for almost 15 years, but Milton's push for a policy of no tolerance for Catholic worship clearly harkens back to Cromwell’s dictatorial Puritan policies.
At the same time, elsewhere in “Of True Religion” Milton voices the same support for free speech and cultural pluralism that was the central argument of “Areopagitica.” This is most obvious in his argument for toleration between different Protestant sects. The argument follows Milton’s own strict religious rules: he states that any true religion must be based on scripture, and then uses scripture to defend tolerance between Protestants. Yet Milton is being a bit more strategic than he lets on. The Biblical quotation he includes only states that unimportant matters should not be a source of discord. This requires him to brand a host of major religious issues as unimportant, including whether or not Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and whether babies should be baptized. His exclusive attention to idolatry, which is part of his Puritan intolerance for Catholics, also enables him to embrace Protestant pluralism by marking other religious disagreements that don’t involve idolatry as less important.
Two of his strategies for ousting Catholicism similarly betray a semi-democratic worldview, despite his support for religious repression. Banning idols is a top-down strategy for repressing Catholicism. However, his argument for reading the scripture and holding oneself to a higher moral standard are both bottom-up strategies. Rather than addressing Catholics and demanding they change their behavior, these suggestions speak to fellow Protestants, and advise them to change their own actions.
Indeed, Milton suggests that Protestant faith can itself become “implicit,” or without basis in Scripture, if it is merely the product of force. Someone who is just going through the motions because they know they will be punished by the state or their community if they don’t participate in religion isn’t a true believer, and they aren’t basing their actions on the word of God. Instead, it’s crucial that everyone choose their religion from an informed perspective. Milton believes that the Bible is such an inherently persuasive and powerful document that just reading it ensures that everyone will make what he sees as the only right choice. This conviction is at the heart of Milton’s contradictory-seeming approach to pluralism. He’s comfortable with some level of disagreement largely because he believes no one can genuinely and honestly reject Protestant Christianity.
