1689.
Books and pamphlets were not the only nor the main agencies which brought about the Religious Revolution of 1689. It is remarkable, that the first of Locke’s famous letters on Toleration was printed in Holland, in the Latin language, in the year 1689, and was not translated into English and circulated in this country time enough to assist in the passing of the Toleration Bill. It threw into form, and it made plain to the common sense of humanity, those sentiments which were almost universal amongst the Dutch, and were beginning to be common amongst the English. It rather justified what was being done at the time by the Legislature, than prompted or supported the Legislature in its career. It formulated the reasons of a conclusion at the moment practically reached; it expounded principles just being embodied in an Act of Parliament.
TOLERATION.
John Locke brought out the philosophy of Toleration. Toleration had become the genius of his character. Men whose minds have many sides, and who, from large human sympathies, tolerate those who differ from them, are made what they are by wide intercourse with the world. Born of Puritan parents, educated at Oxford under Dr. Owen, attached to the preaching of Whitecote, intimate with Cudworth’s family, connected with Lord Shaftesbury, friendly with Le Clerc, Limborch, and other Divines of the Remonstrant school, Locke caught and, in the advocacy of Toleration, reflected influences emanating from diversified sources. Reduced to a simple formula, the basis of his scheme was this: The State and the Church are essentially distinct. The Law recognized a Jewish commonwealth; the Gospel recognizes no Christian commonwealth. He repudiated all connection between the State and the Church; but he did not repudiate all connection between the State and Religion, for he excluded Atheists from Toleration. He also excluded Papists, not however on religious, but on political grounds.
Locke’s principle, followed out, would have made him a Dissenter; and it is a fact that he wrote a defence of Nonconformity, which he never published. Though nominally in communion with the Establishment to the day of his death, he generally attended the ministry of a lay preacher.[147]
1689.
A paper by John Howe—in which he stated the case of Protestant Dissenters—came nearest, in point of time, to the position of a manifesto in advance, clearing ground for the new law. His paper was drawn up in the beginning of 1689, yet it may be doubted whether it had any wide influence in consummating the change.
Amongst the immediate causes of the Bill being passed must be numbered old promises made to Dissenters by men in power, again and again; the pledges of political parties of all sorts, Whigs and Tories, Low Churchmen and High Churchmen, given amidst struggles against Popery in the preceding summer, all originating in religious impulses; and especially the influences of William, who honestly advocated liberty on a wide scale. Beyond this, and more effectual still, there existed a state of public feeling which, although most reasonable, had not been produced by reasoning and, though it could be victoriously defended by argument, had not really been reached by logical formulas. It is only one of a number of instances in which a change comes over the legislative enactments of a nation through a change wrought in the minds of rulers, wrought also in the minds of a people,—the Zeit-Geist, or spirit of the age,—produced by the discipline of circumstances, and by sympathetic impulses, in which pious men recognize the finger of Providence. What the Earl of Nottingham said in defence of his measure when he laid his Bill upon the table, I do not know; but I apprehend that, as a High Churchman he must have found it difficult to show how his advocacy could be reconciled with his antecedents. He might have been unable to explain how, by reasoning, he had passed from his former to his present position. He and others might be fairly charged with inconsistency; a suspicion of it might even now and then cross their own minds. But, like all mankind, they were the subjects of influences more powerful than syllogisms, they bent beneath a force mightier than logic. Sophistical theories ingeniously spun, fondly watched, and for a time vigilantly guarded, get blown to the winds by the breath of inexorable facts, and of the spirit which throbs at the heart of them. False systems and ideas are found to be impracticable; as such they are given up by everybody. It is of no use to preserve them; they must be thrown away. So with the doctrine of religious intolerance. Englishmen could endure it in its old form no longer. A new spirit had taken possession of the age, and ancient restrictions must at last be sacrificed. But for such facts, men like Leonard Busher and John Goodwin might have gone on arguing for ever in vain.
TOLERATION.
1689.