Supreme authority
in itself was not Cromwell's aim; he used it only to secure the
fulfilment of those ideas of religious liberty, civil order, and
Protestant ascendancy in Europe, which filled his whole soul. To
Milton, as to Cromwell, forms, whether of worship or government, were
but means to an end, and were to be changed whenever expediency might
require.
In 1655, then, Milton was an Oliverian, but with reservations. The
most important of these reservations regarded the relation of the
state to the church. Cromwell never wholly dropped the scheme of a
national church. It was, indeed, to be as comprehensive as possible;
Episcopacy was pulled down, Presbytery was not set up, but individual
ministers might be Episcopalian or Presbyterian in sentiment, provided
they satisfied a certain standard, intelligible enough to that
generation, of "godliness". Here Milton seems to have remained
throughout upon the old Independent platform; he will not have the
civil power step over its limits into the province of religion at all.
Many matters, in which the old prelatic church had usurped upon the
domain of the state, should be replaced under the secular authority.
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