John Lilburne – the Man, Who Believed Too Much in Freedom

Abstract

The Levellers was a political movement during the English Civil War that advocated radical political reforms because, in those Agreements of the People, arguably for the first time, contemporary democratic ideas had been formally framed and adopted by a political movement. One of the Levellers’ leaders was John Lilburne – also known as Freeborn John – an influential political agitator and officer of the New Model Army. In this Article, the Author tries to reconstruct Lilburne’s coherent political doctrine from his speeches, letters and political manifestoes. He argues that Freeborn John’s thought is rooted in Baptist theology because his political and social argument is a secularisation of Baptist concepts of the origin of the Church. As the congregational government called for and expressed the equality and responsibility of believers under the Lordship of Christ, and that in Jesus Christ, all people are equal and everyone is free to be in a relationship with God and to express his faith voluntarily, Lilburne infers universal and natural rights, the conventional origin of society, extended suffrage, general equality before the law, and religious tolerance.