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"Following the way which is called heresy": Milton and the Heretical Imperative.(John Milton)(Critical essay)

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From: Journal of the History of Ideas
Date: 20080701
Author:Myers, Benjamin

John Milton is widely regarded as a forerunner of Lockean liberalism, and so of the political thought of the English Enlightenment. (1) Indeed, already in 1698, Milton's biographer John Toland had constructed a unified tradition of English liberalism running from Milton through Locke, and had exclaimed that "nothing can be imagin'd more reasonable, honest, or pious" than Milton's advocacy of religious toleration. (2)

This picture of Milton as an "apostle of toleration" (3) has continued to shape interpretations of his place in intellectual history. Milton is viewed ...

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