If I'm perfectly honest, I really don't know much about Milton other than what we've read for class, so I'm going to try and not interpolate much. One thing that struck me however, was how Milton talked about the people having the right to overthrow the king or magistrate essentially at will. Like I said, I don't really know how this fits with Milton's ideology as a whole, but in this text it was very interesting. "Since the King or Magistrate holds his authority of the people, both originally and naturally for their good in the first place, and not his own, then may the people as oft as they shall judge it best, either choose him or reject him... merely by liberty and right of freeborn Men." He goes on to talk about several instances in scripture where he thinks this precedent is set. This is the point I don't really agree with Milton on. If I understand this correctly, he understands that because rulers are appointed by God, then when they stray from what is right, the people then assume the right to overthrow that authority. If that is true, then David had every right to kill Saul, yet he didn't. Hopefully this will become clearer as we study more Milton, but I really am not sure about all this rightful rebellion nonsense.
P.S. I commented on Preston Smith's "Milton is my Favorite"
No comments:
Post a Comment