 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke. Part 2 In the next place. As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rights and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rights and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practiced by any church. Because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself. The end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom after its own manner. You will say, by this rule, if some congregations should have a mind to sacrifice infants or, as the primitive Christians were falsely accused, lustfully pollute themselves in promiscuous uncleanliness or practice any other such heinous enormities, is the magistrate obliged to tolerate them because they are committed in a religious assembly? I answer, no. These things are not lawful in the ordinary course of life, nor in any private house, and therefore neither are they so in the worship of God or in any religious meeting. But indeed, if any people congregated upon a count of religion should be desirous to sacrifice a calf, I deny that this ought to be prohibited by a law. Melloboius, whose calf it is, may lawfully kill his calf at home and burn any part of it that he thinks fit, for no injury is thereby done to any one, no prejudice to another man's goods. And for the same reason, he may kill his calf also in a religious meeting. Whether the doing so be well pleasing to God or no, it is their part to consider that do it. The part of the magistrate is only to take care that the commonwealth receive no prejudice and that there be no injury done to any man either in life or estate, and thus what may be spent on a feast may be spent on a sacrifice. But, if per adventure, such were the state of things that the interest of the commonwealth required all slaughter of beasts should be foreborn for some while, in order to the increasing of the stock of cattle that had been destroyed by some extraordinary moraine. Who sees not that the magistrate, in such a case, may forbid all his subjects to kill any calves for any use whatsoever? Only it is to be observed that, in this case, the law is not made about a religious, but a political matter, nor is the sacrifice but the slaughter of calves thereby prohibited. By this we see what difference there is between the church and the commonwealth. Whatsoever's lawful in the commonwealth cannot be prohibited by the magistrate in the church. Whatsoever is permitted unto any of his subjects for their ordinary use, neither can nor ought to be forbidden by him to any sect of people for their religious uses. If any man may lawfully take bread or wine, either sitting or kneeling in his own house, the law ought not to abridge him of the same liberty in his religious worship, though in the church the use of bread and wine be very different and be there applied to the mysteries of faith and rights of divine worship. But those things that are prejudicial to the common wheel of a people in their ordinary use and are, therefore, forbidden by laws, those things ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. Only the magistrate ought always to be very careful that he do not misuse his authority to the oppression of any church under pretense of public good. It may be said, What if a church be idolatrous? Is that also to be tolerated by the magistrate? I answer, What power can be given to the magistrate for the suppression of an idolatrous church, which may not, in time and place, be made use of to the ruin of an orthodox one? For it must be remembered that the civil power is the same everywhere, and the religion of every prince is orthodox to himself. If, therefore, such a power be granted unto the civil magistrate in spirituals as that at Geneva, for example, he may extirpate by violence and blood the religion which is their reputed idolatrous, by the same rule another magistrate in some neighbouring country may oppress the reformed religion, and in India the Christian. The civil power can either change everything in religion according to the prince's pleasure, or it can change nothing. If it be once permitted to introduce anything into religion by the means of laws and penalties, there can be no bounds put to it, but it will in the same manner be lawful to alter everything according to that rule of truth which the magistrate has framed unto himself. No man whatsoever ought, therefore, to be deprived of his terrestrial enjoyments upon account of his religion. Not even Americans, subjected unto a Christian prince, are to be punished either in body or goods for not embracing our faith and worship. If they are persuaded that they please God in observing the rites of their own country, and that they shall obtain happiness by that means, they are to be left unto God in themselves. Let us trace this matter to the bottom. Thus it is an inconsiderable and weak number of Christians destitute of everything arrive in a pagan country. These foreigners beseech the inhabitants by the bowels of humanity that they would sucker them with the necessaries of life. Those necessaries are given them, habitations are granted, and they all join together and grow up into one body of people. The Christian religion by this means takes root in that country and spreads itself, but does not suddenly grow the strongest. While things are in this condition, peace, friendship, faith, and equal justice are preserved amongst them. At length the magistrate becomes a Christian, and by that means their party becomes the most powerful. Then immediately all compacts are to be broken, all civil rites to be violated, that idolatry may be extirpated, and unless these innocent pagans, strict observers of the rules of equity and the law of nature, and no ways of fending against the laws of society, I say, unless they will forsake their ancient religion and embrace a new and strange one, they are to be turned out of the lands and possessions of their forefathers and perhaps deprived of life itself. Then at last it appears what zeal for the church, joined with the desire of dominion, is capable to produce, and how easily the pretense of religion and the care of souls serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition. Now whosoever maintains that idolatry is to be rooted out of any place by laws, punishments, fire, and sword, may apply this story to himself, for the reason of the thing is equal both in America and Europe, and neither pagans there nor any dissenting Christians here can, with any right, be deprived of their worldly goods by the predominating faction of a court church, nor are any civil rights to be either changed or violated upon account of religion in one place more than another. But idolatry, say some, is a sin, and therefore not to be tolerated. If they said it were therefore to be avoided, the inference were good, but it does not follow that because it is a sin it ought therefore to be punished by the magistrate, for it does not belong unto the magistrate to make use of his sword in punishing everything indifferently that he takes to be a sin against God. Covetousness, uncharitableness, idleness, and many other things are sins by the consent of man, which yet no man ever said were to be punished by the magistrate. The reason is because they are not prejudicial to other men's rights, nor do they break the public peace of societies. Nay, even the sins of lying and perjury are nowhere punishable by laws unless, in certain cases, in which the real turpitude of the thing and the offence against God are not considered, but only the injury done unto men's neighbours and to the Commonwealth. And what if, in another country, to a Mohammedan or a pagan prince, the Christian religion seemed false and offensive to God? May not the Christians for the same reason and, after the same manner, be extirpated there? But it may be urged farther that, by the law of Moses, idolaters were to be rooted out. True indeed, by the law of Moses. But that is not obligatory to us Christians. Nobody pretends that everything generally enjoined by the law of Moses ought to be practiced by Christians. But there is nothing more frivolous than that common distinction of moral, judicial, and ceremonial law, which men ordinarily make use of. For no positive law whatsoever can oblige any people but those to whom it is given. Here, O Israel, sufficiently restrains the obligations of the law of Moses only to that people. And this consideration alone is answer enough unto those that urge the authority of the law of Moses for the inflicting of capital punishment upon idolaters. But, however, I will examine this argument a little more particularly. The case of idolaters, in respect of the Jewish Commonwealth, falls under a double consideration. The first is of those who, being initiated in the mosaical rites, and made citizens of that Commonwealth, did afterwards apostasise from the worship of the God of Israel. These were preceded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the Commonwealth of the Jews, different in that from all others, was an absolute theocracy. Nor was there or could there be any difference between that Commonwealth and the Church. The laws established there concerning the worship of one invisible deity were the civil laws of that people and a part of their political government, in which God himself was the legislator. Now, if anyone can show me where there is a Commonwealth at this time constituted upon that foundation, I will acknowledge that the ecclesiastical laws do there unavoidably become a part of the civil and that the subjects of that government both may and ought to be kept in strict conformity with that Church by the civil power. But there is absolutely no such thing under the Gospel as a Christian Commonwealth. There are indeed many cities and kingdoms that have embraced the faith of Christ, but they have retained their ancient form of government, and which the law of Christ hath not at all meddled. He indeed hath taught men how by faith and good works they may obtain eternal life, but he instituted no Commonwealth. He prescribed unto his followers no new and peculiar form of government, nor put he the sword into any magistrate's hands with commission to make use of it in forcing men to forsake their former religion and receive his. Secondly, foreigners and such as were strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel were not compelled by force to observe the rights of the Mosaic law. But, on the contrary, in the very same place where it is ordered that an Israelite that was an idolater should be put to death, there it is provided that strangers should not be vexed nor oppressed. I confess that the seven nations that possessed the land which was promised to the Israelites were utterly to be cut off. But this was not singly because they were idolaters, for, if that had been the reason, why were the Moabites and other nations to be spared? No, the reason is this. God being in a peculiar manner the king of the Jews, he could not suffer the adoration of any other deity, which was properly an act of high treason against himself, in the land of Canaan, which was his kingdom. For such a manifest revolt could no ways consist with his dominion, which was perfectly political in that country. All idolatry was therefore to be rooted out of the bounds of his kingdom because it was an acknowledgment of another God, that is to say, another king against the laws of empire. The inhabitants were also to be driven out, that the entire possession of the land might be given to the Israelites. And for the like reason the Emmemes and the Horimes were driven out of their countries by the children of Esau and Lot and their lands upon the same grounds given by God to the invaders. But though all idolatry was thus rooted out of the land of Canaan, yet every idolator was not brought to execution. The whole family of Rahab, the whole nation of the Gibeonites, artigled with Joshua and were allowed by treaty. And there were many captives amongst the Jews who were idolaters. David and Solomon subdued to many countries without the confines of the land of promise and carried their conquests as far as Euphrates. Amongst so many captives taken, so many nations reduced under their obedience, we find not one man forced into the Jewish religion and the worship of the true God and punished for idolatry, though all of them were certainly guilty of it. If anyone indeed becoming a proselyte desired to be made a denizen of their commonwealth, he was obliged to submit to their laws, that is, to embrace their religion. But this he did willingly on his own accord, not by constraint. He did not unwillingly submit to show his obedience, but he sought and solicited for it as a privilege. And as soon as he was admitted, he became subject to the laws of the commonwealth, by which all idolatry was forbidden within the borders of the land of Canaan. But that law, as I have said, did not reach to any of those regions, however subjected unto the Jews that were situated without those bounds. Thus far concerning outward worship. Let us now consider articles of faith. The articles of religion are some of them practical and some speculative. Now, though both sorts consist in the knowledge of truth, yet these terminate simply in the understanding, those influence the will and manners. Speculative opinions, therefore, and articles of faith, as they are called, which are required only to be believed, cannot be imposed on any church by the law of the land, for it is absurd that things should be enjoined by laws which are not in men's power to perform, and to believe this or that, to be true, does not depend upon our will. But of this enough has been said already. But, will some say, let men at least profess that they believe. A sweet religion indeed that obliges men to dissemble and tell lies both to God and man for the salvation of their souls. If the magistrate thinks to save men thus, he seems to understand little of the ways of salvation. And if he does it not in order to save them, why is he so solicitous about the articles of faith as to enact them by a law? Further, the magistrate ought not to forbid the preaching or professing of any speculative opinions in any church, because they have no manner of relation to the civil rights of the subjects. The Roman Catholic believe that to be really the body of Christ which another man calls bread, he does no injury thereby to his neighbor. If a Jew do not believe the New Testament to be the word of God, he does not thereby alter anything in men's civil rights. If a heathen doubt of both testaments, he is not therefore to be punished as a pernicious citizen. The power of the magistrate and the estates of the people may be equally secure whether any man believe these things or know. I readily grant that these opinions are false and absurd, but the business of laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of the commonwealth and of every particular man's goods and person. And so it ought to be. For the truth certainly would do well enough if she were once left to shift for herself. She seldom has received, and I fear, never will receive much assistance from the power of great men, to whom she is but rarely known and more rarely welcome. She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force to procure her entrance into the minds of men. Errors indeed prevail by the assistance of foreign and borrowed suckers. But if truth makes not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be but the weaker for any borrowed force violence can add to her. Thus much for speculative opinions. Let us now proceed to practical ones. A good life, in which consists not the least part of religion and true piety, concerns also the civil government, and in it lies the safety both of men's souls and of the commonwealth. Moral actions belong, therefore, to the jurisdiction both of the outward and inward court, both of the civil and domestic governor. I mean both of the magistrate and conscience. Here, therefore, is great danger lest one of these jurisdictions entrench upon the other, and discord arise between the keeper of the public peace and the overseer of souls. But if what has been already said concerning the limits of both these governments be rightly considered, it will easily remove all difficulty in this matter. Every man has an immortal soul, capable of eternal happiness or misery. Whose happiness depending upon his believing and doing those things in this life which are necessary to the obtaining of God's favor, and are prescribed by God to that end. It follows from thence, first, that the observance of these things is the highest obligation that lies upon mankind, and that our utmost care, application, and diligence ought to be exercised in the search and performance of them, because there is nothing in this world that is of any consideration in comparison with eternity. Secondly, that seeing one man does not violate the right of another by his erroneous opinions in undue manner of worship, nor is his perdition any prejudice to another man's affairs. Therefore, the care of each man's salvation belongs only to himself. But I would not have this understood as if I meant hereby to condemn all charitable admonitions and affectionate endeavors to reduce men from errors, which are indeed the greatest duty of a Christian. Anyone may employ as many exhortations and arguments as he pleases towards the promoting of another man's salvation, but all force and compulsion are to be foreborn. Nothing is to be done imperiously. Nobody is obliged in that matter to yield obedience unto the admonitions or injunctions of another, further than he himself is persuaded. Every man in that has the supreme and absolute authority of judging for himself, and the reason is because nobody else is concerned in it, nor can receive any prejudice from his conduct therein. But besides their souls, which are immortal, men have also their temporal lives here upon earth, the state whereof, being frail and fleeting, and the duration uncertain, they have need of several outward conveniences to the support thereof, which are to be procured or preserved by pains and industry. For those things that are necessary to the comfortable support of our lives are not the spontaneous products of nature, nor do offer themselves fit and prepared for our use. This part, therefore, draws on another care and necessarily gives another employment. But the privacy of mankind being such that they had rather injuriously prey upon the fruits of other men's labours than take pains to provide for themselves, the necessity of preserving men in the possession of what honest industry has already acquired, and also of preserving their liberty and strength, whereby they may acquire what they farther want, obliges men to enter into society with one another, that by mutual assistance and joint force they may secure unto each other their properties in the things that contribute to the comfort and happiness of this life, leaving, in the meanwhile, to every man the care of his own eternal happiness, the attainment whereof can neither be facilitated by another man's industry, nor can the loss of it turn to another man's prejudice, nor can the hope of it be forced from him by any external violence. But for as much as men thus entering into societies, grounded upon their mutual compacts of assistance for the defence of their temporal goods, may, nevertheless, be deprived of them, either by the rapine and fraud of their fellow citizens, or by the hostile violence of foreigners, the remedy of this evil consists in arms, riches, and multitudes of citizens, the remedy of the other in laws, and the care of all things relating both to one and the other is committed by the society to the civil magistrate. This is the original, this is the use, and these are the bounds of the legislative, which is the supreme power in every commonwealth. I mean that provision may be made for the security of each man's private possessions, for the peace, riches, and public commodities of the whole people, and as much as possible for the increase of their inward strength against foreign invasions. These things being thus explained, it is easy to understand to what end the legislative power ought to be directed and by what measures regulated, and that is the temporal good and outward prosperity of the society, which is the sole reason of men's entering into society, and the only thing they seek and aim at in it, and it is also evident what liberty remains to men in reference to their eternal salvation, and that is that everyone should do what he in his conscience is persuaded to be acceptable to the Almighty, on whose good pleasure and acceptance depends their eternal happiness, for obedience is due, in the first place, to God, and afterwards to the laws. But some may ask, what if the magistrate should enjoin anything by his authority that appears unlawful to the conscience of a private person? I answer that, if government be faithfully administered and the councils of the magistrates be indeed directed to the public good, this will seldom happen. But if, perhaps, it do so fall out, I say, that such a private person is to abstain from the action that he judges unlawful, and he is to undergo the punishment which it is not unlawful for him to bear, for the private judgment of any person concerning a law enacted in political matters for the public good does not take away the obligation of that law nor deserve a dispensation. But if the law indeed be concerning things that lie not within the verge of the magistrate's authority, as, for example, that the people or any party amongst them should be compelled to embrace a strange religion, and join in the worship and ceremonies of another church, men are not in these cases obliged by that law against their consciences, for the political society is instituted for no other end, but only to secure every man's possession of the things of this life, the care of each man's soul and of the things of heaven, neither does belong to the commonwealth nor can be subjected to it, is left entirely to every man's self. Thus the safeguard of men's lives and of the things that belong unto this life is the business of the commonwealth, and the preserving of those things unto their owners is the duty of the magistrate, and therefore the magistrate cannot take away these worldly things from this man or party and give them to that, nor change propriety amongst fellow subjects, no, not even by a law, for a cause that has no relation to the end of civil government, I mean for their religion, which, whether it be true or false, does no prejudice to the worldly concerns of their fellow subjects, which are the things that only belong unto the care of the commonwealth, but what if the magistrate believe such a law as this to be for the public good? I answer, as the private judgment of any particular person, if erroneous, does not exempt him from the obligation of law, so the private judgment, as I may call it, of the magistrate, does not give him any new right of imposing laws upon his subjects, which neither was in the constitution of the government granted him, nor ever was in the power of the people to grant, much less if he make it his business to enrich and advance his followers and fellow sectaries with the spoils of others, but what if the magistrate believe that he has a right to make such laws and that they are for the public good and his subjects believe the contrary? Who shall judge between them? I answer, God alone, for there is no judge upon earth between the supreme magistrate and the people. God, I say, is the only judge in this case who will retribute unto everyone at the last day according to his desserts, that is, according to his sincerity and uprightness in endeavouring to promote piety in the public wheel and peace of mankind. But what shall be done in the meanwhile? I answer, the principal and chief care of everyone ought to be of his own soul first, and in the next place, of the public peace. Though yet there are very few will think it is peace there where they see all laid waste. There are two sorts of contests amongst men, the one managed by law, the other by force, and these are of that nature that where the one ends the other always begins. But it is not my business to inquire into the power of the magistrate in the different constitutions of nations. I only know what usually happens where controversies arise without a judge to determine them. You will say then, the magistrate being the stronger will have his will and carry his point. Without doubt. But the question is not here concerning the doubtfulness of the event, but the rule of right, but to come to particulars. I say first, no opinions contrary to human society, or to those moral rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are to be tolerated by the magistrate. But of these indeed, examples in any church are rare, for no sect can easily arrive to such degree of madness as that it should think fit to teach for doctrines of religion such things as manifestly undermine the foundations of society and are therefore condemned by the judgment of all mankind. Because their own interest, peace, reputation, everything would be thereby endangered. Another more secret evil, but more dangerous to the commonwealth, is when men arrogate to themselves and to those of their own sect some peculiar prerogative, covered over with a specious show of deceitful words, but in effect opposite to the civil right of the community. For example, we cannot find any sect that teaches, expressly and openly, that men are not obliged to keep their promise, that princes may be dethroned by those that differ from them in religion, or that the dominion of all things belongs only to themselves. For these things, proposed thus nakedly and plainly, would soon draw on them the eye and hand of the magistrate and awaken all the care of the commonwealth to a watchfulness against the spreading of so dangerous an evil. Nevertheless, we find those that say the same things in other words. What else do they mean who teach that faith is not to be kept with heretics? Their meaning, forsooth, is that the privilege of breaking faith belongs unto themselves, for they declare all that are not of their communion to be heretics, or at least may declare them so, whatsoever they think fit. What can be the meaning of their asserting that kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms? It is evident that they thereby irrigate unto themselves the power of deposing kings, because they challenge the power of excommunication as the peculiar right of their hierarchy, that dominion is founded in grace, is also an assertion by which those that maintain it do plainly lay claim to the possession of all things, for they are not so wanting to themselves as not to believe, or at least as not to profess themselves to be the truly pious and faithful. These, therefore, and the like who attribute unto the faithful religious and orthodox, that is, in plain terms, unto themselves, any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals in civil concernments, or who upon pretense of religion do challenge any manner of authority over such as are not associated with them in their ecclesiastical communion, I say these have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate, as neither those that will not own and teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of mere religion. For what do all these and the like doctrines signify, but that they may and are ready upon any occasion to seize the government and possess themselves of the estates and fortunes of their fellow subjects, and that they only ask leave to be tolerated by the magistrate so long until they find themselves strong enough to affect it, again. That church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince. For by this means the magistrate would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his own country and suffer his own people to be listed as it were for soldiers against his own government. Nor does the frivolous and fallacious distinction between the court and the church afford any remedy to this inconvenience, especially when both the one and the other are equally subject to the absolute authority of the same person who has not only power to persuade the members of his church to whatever he lists, either as purely religious or in order thereunto, but can also enjoin it them on pain of eternal fire. It is ridiculous for anyone to profess himself to be a Mohammedan only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, while at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure. But this Mohammedan, living amongst Christians, would yet more apparently renounce their government if he acknowledged the same person to be head of his church, who is the supreme magistrate in the state. Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a god. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. Taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all. Besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion can have no pretense of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others or civil impunity to the church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated. It remains that I say something concerning those assemblies which, being vulgarly called and perhaps having sometimes been conventicals and nurseries of factions and seditions, are thought to afford against this doctrine of toleration. But this has not happened by anything peculiar unto the genius of such assemblies, but by the unhappy circumstances of an oppressed or ill-settled liberty. These accusations would soon cease if the law of toleration were once so settled that all churches were obliged to lay down toleration as the foundation of their own liberty and teach that liberty of conscience is every man's natural right equally belonging to dissenters as to themselves and that nobody ought to be compelled in matters of religion either by law or force. The establishment of this one thing would take away all ground of complaints and tumults upon account of conscience, and these causes of discontents and animosities being once removed, there would remain nothing in these assemblies that were not more peaceable and less apt to produce disturbance of state than in any other meetings whatsoever. But let us examine particularly the heads of these accusations. You will say that assemblies and meetings endanger the public peace and threaten the commonwealth. I answer, if this be so, why are there daily such numerous meetings in markets and courts of judicature? Why are crowds upon the exchange and a concourse of people in cities suffered? You will reply, those are civil assemblies. But these we object against are ecclesiastical. I answer, it is a likely thing indeed that such assemblies as are altogether remote from civil affairs should be most apt to embroil them. Oh, but civil assemblies are composed of men that differ from one another in matters of religion. But these ecclesiastical meetings are of persons that are all of one opinion, as if an agreement in matters of religion were in effect a conspiracy against the commonwealth, or as if men would not be so much the more warmly unanimous in religion, the less liberty they had of assembling. But it will be urged still that civil assemblies are open and free for any one to enter into, whereas religious converticles are more private, and thereby give opportunity to clandestine machinations. I answer that this is not strictly true, for many civil assemblies are not open to everyone. And if some religious meetings be private, who are they, I beseech you, that are to be blamed for it, those that desire or those that forbid their being public? Again, you will say that religious communion does exceedingly unite men's minds and affections to one another, and is therefore the more dangerous. But, if this be so, why is not the magistrate afraid of his own church, and why does he not forbid their assemblies as things dangerous to his government? You will say, because he himself is a part and even the head of them. As if he were not also part of the commonwealth, and the head of the whole people, let us therefore deal plainly. The magistrate is afraid of other churches, but not of his own, because he is kind and favourable to the one, but severe and cruel to the other. These he treats like children, and indulges them even to wantonness. Those he uses as slaves, and how blamelessly so ever they demean themselves, recompenses them no otherwise than by galleys, prisons, confiscations, and death. These he cherishes and defends. Those he continually scourges and oppresses. Let him turn the tables, or let those dissenters enjoy but the same privileges and civils as his other subjects, and he will quickly find that these religious meetings will be no longer dangerous. For if men enter into seditious conspiracies, it is not religion inspires them to it in their meetings, but their sufferings and oppressions that make them willing to ease themselves. Just and moderate governments are everywhere quiet, everywhere safe. But oppression raises ferments, and makes men struggle to cast off an uneasy and tyrannical yoke. I know that seditions are very frequently raised upon pretense of religion, but it is as true that for religion subjects are frequently ill-treated and live miserably. Believe me, the stirs that are made proceed not from any peculiar temper of this or that church or religious society, but from the common disposition of all mankind, who when they groan under any heavy burden, endeavor naturally to shake off the yoke that galls their necks. Suppose this business of religion were let alone, and that there were some other distinction made between men and men upon account of their different complexions, shapes, and features, so that those who have black hair, for example, or grey eyes, should not enjoy the same privileges as other citizens, that they should not be permitted either to buy or sell or to live by their callings, that parents should not have the government and education of their own children, that all should either be excluded from the benefit of the laws or meet with partial judges. Can it be doubted, but these persons, thus distinguished from others by the colour of their hair and eyes, and united together by one common persecution, would be as dangerous to the magistrate as any others that had associated themselves merely upon the account of religion? Some enter into company for trade and profit, others for want of business have their clubs for claret. Neighborhood joins some and religion others, but there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotions, and that is oppression. You will say, What? Will you have people to meet at a divine service against the magistrate's will? I answer, Why I pray against his will? Is it not both lawful and necessary that they should meet? Against his will, do you say? That is what I complain of, that is the very root of all the mischief. Why are assemblies less sufferable in a church than in a theatre or market? Those that meet there are not either more vicious or more turbulent than those that meet elsewhere. The business in that is that they are ill-used, and therefore they are not to be suffered. Take away the partiality that is used towards them in matters of common right, change the laws, take away the penalties unto which they are subjected, and all things will immediately become safe and peaceable. Nay, those that are averse to the religion of the magistrate will think themselves so much the more bound to maintain the peace of the commonwealth as their condition is better in that than elsewhere. And all the several separate congregations, like so many guardians of the public peace, will watch one another. That nothing may be innovated or changed in the form of the government, because they can hope for nothing better than what they already enjoy, that is an equal condition with their fellow subjects under their just and moderate government. Now if that church, which agrees in religion with the prince, be esteemed the chief support of any civil government, and that, for no other reason as has already been shown, than because the prince is kind and the laws are favourable to it, how much greater will be the security of government where all good subjects of whatsoever church they be, without any distinction upon account of religion, enjoying the same favour of the prince and the same benefit of the laws, shall become the common support and guard of it, and where none will have any occasion to fear the severity of the laws but those that do injuries to their neighbours and offend against the civil peace, that we may draw towards a conclusion. The sum of all we drive at is that every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others. Is it permitted to worship God in the Roman manner? Let it be permitted to do it in the Geneva form also. Is it permitted to speak Latin in the marketplace? Let those that have a mind to it be permitted to do it also in the church. Is it lawful for any man in his own house to kneel, stand, sit, or use any other posture, and to clothe himself in white or black in short or in long garments? Let it not be made unlawful to eat bread, drink wine, or wash with water in the church. In a word, whatsoever things are left free by law in the common occasions of life, let them remain free unto every church in divine worship. Let no man's life or body or house or estate suffer any manner of prejudice upon these accounts. Can you allow of the Presbyterian discipline? Why should not the Episcopal also have what they like? Ecclesiastical authority, whether it be administered by the hands of a single person or many, is everywhere the same. And neither has any jurisdiction in things civil nor any manner of power of compulsion, nor anything at all to do with riches and revenues. Ecclesiastical assemblies and sermons are justified by daily experience and public allowance. These are allowed to people of some one persuasion. Why not to all? If anything pass in a religious meeting sediciously and contrary to the public peace, it is to be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market. These meetings ought not to be sanctuaries for factious and flagacious fellows. Nor ought it to be less lawful for men to meet in churches than in halls, nor are the one part of the subjects to be esteemed more blamable for their meeting together than others. Everyone is to be accountable for his own actions, and no man is to be laid under a suspicion or odium for the fault of another. Those that are seditious, murderers, thieves, robbers, adulterers, slanderers, etc. of whatsoever church, whether national or not, ought to be punished and suppressed. But those whose doctrine is peaceable, and whose manners are pure and blameless, ought to be upon equal terms with their fellow subjects. Thus if solemn assemblies, observations of festivals, public worship, be permitted to any one sort of professors, all these things ought to be permitted to the Presbyterians, independents, Anabaptists, Arminians, Quakers, and others with the same liberty. Nay, if we may openly speak the truth, and as becomes one man to another, neither pagan nor Mohammedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion. The gospel commands no such thing. The church which, judges not those that are without, wants it not. And the commonwealth, which embraces indifferently all men that are honest, peaceable, and industrious, requires it not. Shall we suffer a pagan to deal and trade with us, and shall we not suffer him to pray unto and worship God? If we allow the Jews to have private houses and dwellings amongst us, why should we not allow them to have synagogues? Is their doctrine more false, their worship more abominable, or is the civil peace more endangered by their meeting in public than in their private houses? But if these things may be granted to Jews and pagans, surely the condition of any Christians ought not to be worse than theirs in a Christian commonwealth. You will say perhaps, yes, it ought to be, because they are more inclinable to factions, tumults, and civil wars. I answer, is this the fault of the Christian religion? If it be so, truly the Christian religion is the worst of all religions, and ought neither to be embraced by any particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth. For if this be the genius, this the nature of the Christian religion to be turbulent and destructive to the civil peace, that church itself, which the magistrate indulges, will not always be innocent. But far be it from us to say any such thing of that religion which carries the greatest opposition to covetousness, ambition, discord, contention, and all manner of inordinate desires, and is the most modest and peaceable religion that ever was. We must therefore seek another cause of those evils that are charged upon religion, and if we consider right, we shall find it to consist wholly in the subject that I am treating of. It is not the diversity of opinions, which cannot be avoided, but the refusal of toleration to those that are of different opinions, which might have been granted, that has produced all the bustles and wars that have been in the Christian world upon account of religion. The heads and leaders of the church, moved by avarice and insatiable desire of dominion, making use of the immoderate ambition of magistrates and the credulous superstition of the giddy multitude, have incensed and animated them against those that dissent from themselves, by preaching unto them contrary to the laws of the gospel and to the precepts of charity, that schismatics and heretics are to be outed of their possessions and destroyed, and thus have they mixed together and confounded two things that are in themselves most different, the church and the commonwealth. Now as it is very difficult for men patiently to suffer themselves to be stripped of the goods, which they have got by their honest industry, and contrary to all the laws of equity, both human and divine, to be delivered up for a prey to other men's violence and rapine, especially when they are otherwise altogether blameless, and that the occasion for which they are thus treated does not at all belong to the jurisdiction of the magistrate, but entirely to the conscience of every particular man for the conduct of which he is accountable to God only. What else can be expected, but that these men, growing weary of the evils under which they labour, should in the end think it lawful for them to resist force with force and to defend their natural rights, which are not forfeitable upon account of religion, with arms, as well as they can, that this has been hitherto the ordinary course of things is abundantly evident in history, and that it will continue to be so hereafter is but too apparent in reason. It cannot indeed be otherwise, so long as the principle of persecution for religion shall prevail as it has done hitherto, with magistrate and people, and so long as those that ought to be the preachers of peace and concord shall continue with all their art and strength to excitement to arms and sound the trumpet of war. But that magistrate should thus suffer these incendiaries and disturbance of the public peace might justly be wondered at, if it did not appear that they have been invited by them unto a participation of the spoil, and have therefore thought fit to make use of their covetousness and pride as means whereby to increase their own power. For who does not see that these good men are indeed more ministers of the government than ministers of the gospel, and that by flattering the ambition and favoring the dominion of princes and men and authority they endeavor with all their might to promote that tyranny in the commonwealth, which otherwise they should not be able to establish in the church? This is the unhappy agreement that we see between the church and state, whereas if each of them would contain itself within its own bounds, the one attending to the worldly welfare of the commonwealth, the other to the salvation of souls, it is impossible that any discord should ever have happened between them. said Pudet Hoek Aprobia, etc. Direct all their councils and endeavors to promote universally the civil welfare of all their children, except only of such as are arrogant, ungovernable, and injurious to their brethren, and that all ecclesiastical men who boast themselves to be successors of the apostles, walking peaceably and modestly in the apostles' steps, without intermeddling with state affairs. They may apply themselves wholly to promote the salvation of souls farewell. Perhaps it may not be a miss to add a few things concerning heresy and schism. A Turk is not, nor can be, either heretic or schismatic to a Christian, and if any man fall off from the Christian faith to Mohammedism, he does not thereby become a heretic or schismatic, but an apostate and an infidel. This nobody doubts of, and by this it appears that men of different religions cannot be heretics or schismatics to one another. We are to inquire therefore what men are of the same religion, concerning which it is manifest that those who have one in the same rule of faith and worship are of the same religion, and those who have not the same rule of faith and worship are of different religions. For since all things that belong unto that religion are contained in that rule, it follows necessarily that those who agree in one rule are of one in the same religion, and vice versa. Thus Turks and Christians are of different religions, because these take the holy scriptures to be the rule of their religion, and those the Alcaran. And for the same reason, there may be different religions also, even amongst Christians. The Papists and Lutherans, though both of them profess faith in Christ and are therefore called Christians, yet are not both of the same religion, because these acknowledge nothing but the holy scriptures to be the rule and foundation of their religion. Those take in also traditions and the decrees of Popes, and of these together make the rule of their religion. And thus the Christians of Saint John, as they are called, and the Christians of Geneva are of different religions, because these also take only the scriptures, and those I know not what traditions for the rule of their religion. This being settled, it follows first that heresy is a separation made in ecclesiastical communion between men of the same religion, for some opinions, no way contained in the rule itself. And secondly, that amongst those who acknowledge nothing but the holy scriptures to be their rule of faith, heresy is a separation made in their Christian communion, for opinions not contained in the express words of scripture. Now this separation may be made in a twofold manner. First, when the greater part, or by the magistrate's patronage the stronger part of the church, separates itself from others by excluding them out of her communion because they will not profess their belief of certain opinions, which are not the express words of the scripture. For it is not the paucity of those that are separated nor the authority of the magistrate that can make any man guilty of heresy, but he only is a heretic who divides the church into parts, introduces names and marks of distinction, and voluntarily makes a separation because of such opinions. Second, when anyone separates himself from the communion of a church because that church does not publicly profess some certain opinions which the holy scriptures do not expressly teach, both these are heretics because they err in fundamentals and they err obstinately against knowledge. For when they have determined the holy scriptures to be the only foundation of faith, they nevertheless lay down certain propositions as fundamental which are not in the scripture. And because others will not acknowledge these additional opinions of theirs, nor build upon them as if they were necessary and fundamental, they therefore make a separation in the church, either by withdrawing themselves from others or expelling the others from them. Nor does it signify anything for them to say that their confessions and symbols are agreeable to scripture and to the analogy of faith. For if they be conceived in the express words of scripture, there can be no question about them because those things are acknowledged by all Christians to be of divine inspiration and therefore fundamental. But if they say that the articles which they require to be professed are consequences deduced from the scripture, it is undoubtedly well done of them who believe and profess such things as seem unto them so agreeable to the rule of faith. But it would be very ill done to obtrude those things upon others unto whom they do not seem to be the indubitable doctrines of the scripture. And to make a separation for such things as these, which neither are nor can be fundamental, is to become heretics. For I do not think there is any man arrived to that degree of madness as that he dare give out his consequences and interpretations of scripture as divine inspirations, and to compare the articles of faith that he has framed according to his own fancy with the authority of scripture. I know there are some propositions so evidently agreeable to scripture that nobody can deny them to be drawn from thence. But about those, therefore, there can be no difference. This only, I say, that however clearly we may think this or the other doctrine to be deduced from scripture, we ought not, therefore, to impose it upon others as a necessary article of faith, because we believe it to be agreeable to the rule of faith, unless we would be content also that other doctrines should be imposed upon us in the same manner, and that we should be compelled to receive and profess all the different and contradictory opinions of Lutherans, Calvinists, Remonstrants, Anabaptists, and other sects, which the contrivers of symbols, systems, and confessions are accustomed to deliver to their followers as genuine and necessary deductions from the holy scripture. I cannot but wonder at the extravagant arrogance of those men who think that they themselves can explain things necessary to salvation more clearly than the Holy Ghost, the eternal and infinite wisdom of God. Thus much concerning heresy, which word in common use is applied only to the doctrinal part of religion, let us now consider schism, which is a crime near akin to it. For both these words seem unto me to signify an ill-grounded separation in ecclesiastical communion made about things not necessary. But since use, which is the supreme law in matter of language, has determined that heresy relates errors in faith and schism to those in worship or discipline, we must consider them under that distinction. Schism, then, for the same reasons that have already been alleged, is nothing else but a separation made in the communion of the church upon account of something in divine worship or ecclesiastical discipline that is not any necessary part of it. Now nothing in worship or discipline can be necessary to Christian communion, but what Christ, our legislator, or the apostles by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have commanded in express words. In a word, he that denies not anything that the Holy Scriptures teach in express words, nor makes a separation upon occasion of anything that is not manifestly contained in the sacred text. However, he may be nicknamed by any sect of Christians and declared by some or all of them to be utterly void of true Christianity. Yet, indeed, and in truth, this man cannot be either a heretic or schismatic. These things might have been explained more largely and more advantageously, but it is enough to have hinted at them, thus briefly, to a person of your parts. And part two. A letter concerning toleration by John Locke. And a letter concerning toleration by John Locke. This recording is in the public domain.