Sunday, December 11, 2011
The New England Milton
I haven't yet read this book but it seems worthwhile. The Founders were influenced by a great many minds and Milton was certainly one. John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, John Milton -- those are, in my opinion, the "rational Christians" of the early British Whig era who most influenced the Founders. All were also, likely, not religiously correct on matters of orthodoxy or Trinity. But were also closeted about that, giving more orthodox figures, like Timothy Dwight, grounds for "claiming" them. That's one thing I got from gleaning this book -- Milton was one of those figures both sides wanted to claim.
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But were also closeted about that, giving more orthodox figures, like Timothy Dwight, grounds for "claiming" them. That's one thing I got from gleaning this book -- Milton was one of those figures both sides wanted to claim.
This suggests that the personal beliefs of the thinkers [unitarianism in this case] in question are irrelevant in the greater study.
For instance, "Common Sense" rallied the nascent republic, but Tom Paine's own unorthodoxy, which came out later, is a footnote. [Except that it was rejected by the vast majority, which tells us something.]
For Locke in particular, let alone Milton, this is worth keeping in mind. Clearly uberCalvinist Samuel Adams didn't cite Locke on anything regarding the Trinity one way or the other, just as Madison cited Samuel Clarke on metaphysics, not Christian doctrine.
We touched, slightly, on this in one of my seminars a few weeks ago. Less Milton the Unitarian (though someone did point out the degree of non-orthodoxy in his depiction of the Trinity/Father-Son) than tracking Milton's beliefs alongside the development of the early Quaker movement.
That session, in essence, could have been labelled: "Milton: Even More Radical Than You Thought."
As for Milton and the Founders -- something I'd never particularly thought much about, but it does seem like there should be something, somewhere, there. Another item for the list of, "Things I Wish I Had Time to Think About in Depth."
Milton wrote several political tracts, so I assume the Founders' mentions of him refer to that more than Paradise Lost or even his tracts on church government, IOW the relevant part of Milton and not the whole canon.
Here is something that looks interesting.
https://ncur.ithaca.edu/ncur/search/Display_NCUR.aspx?id=53133
And this.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1094-348X.2006.00141.x/abstract
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