Locke

by Thomas Fowler

Of The Letters on Toleration, though deeply interesting to the generation in which they were written, a very brief account will here suffice. Their main thesis is, that the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate does not extend to the regulation of religious worship or to controlling the expression of religious beliefs, except so far as that worship or those beliefs may interfere with the ends of civil government. The respective provinces of a commonwealth and a church are strictly defined, and are shown to be perfectly distinct. "The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable. He jumbles heaven and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in everything, perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each other." But it may be asked, are there no speculative opinions, no tenets, actual or possible, of any religious community which should be restrained by the Civil Magistrate? The answer is, yes,—

"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."

Secondly, after speaking of those who maintain such positions as that "faith is not to be kept with heretics," that "kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms," that "dominion is founded in grace," he proceeds:

"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 pretence 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 magistrates so long until they find themselves strong enough to effect it?"

"Thirdly, That church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter upon 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."

"Lastly, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all."

The practical result of Locke's exceptions, at the time at which he wrote, would have been to exclude from toleration Roman Catholics, Atheists, and perhaps certain sects of Antinomians. Roman Catholics, however, would not have been excluded on the ground of their belief in Transubstantiation, as was actually the case, but because of those tenets which, in Locke's judgment, made them bad or impossible subjects.

Locke was not by any means the first of English writers who had advocated a wide toleration in religion. Bacon, in his remarkable Essay on Unity in Religion, had laid down, in passing, a position which is almost identical with that developed at length in the Letters on Toleration. During the Civil Wars, the Independents, as a body, had been led on by their theories of Church Government and of individual inspiration to maintain, on principle, and accord, in practice, a large measure of religious toleration. Amongst divines of the Church of England, Hales of Eton, Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor, had honourably distinguished themselves above the mass of their brethren by expressly advocating, or unmistakably suggesting, the same humane doctrines. The practical conclusions at which Taylor arrives, in his noble work on the Liberty of Prophesying, bear a close resemblance to those of Locke's Letters on Toleration, while the theoretical considerations on which he mainly founds them, namely, the difficulty of discovering religious truth, and the small number of theological propositions of which we can entertain anything like certainty, might be regarded as anticipating, to no small extent, some of the views expressed in the Reasonableness of Christianity. Locke's attention had been turned to these questions at an early period of his life by the religious dissensions which accompanied the Civil Wars, and, during the years immediately preceding the publication of the first Letter on Toleration, his interest in them must have been sustained not only by the events which were then happening in England, but by the common topics of conversation amongst his Arminian or Remonstrant friends in Holland. The peculiarities of their position and the tendencies of their doctrines had, at an early date, forced on the Dutch Remonstrants, just as on the English Independents, the necessity of claiming and defending a wide toleration. What, perhaps, mainly distinguishes Locke's pamphlets is their thorough outspokenness, the political rather than the theological character of the argument, and the fact that they are expressly dedicated to the subject of Toleration, instead of treating of it incidentally.

The sharp line of demarcation which Locke draws between the respective provinces of civil and religious communities seems to lead logically to the inexpediency of maintaining a state establishment of religion. The independence which he claims for all religious societies would be inconsistent with the control which the State always has exercised, and always must exercise, in the affairs of any spiritual body on which it confers special privileges. This conclusion, we can hardly doubt, he would have readily accepted. As far back as 1669, he had objected to one of the articles in the "Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina," providing for the establishment and endowment of the Church of England in that colony. Even at the present day, men who adopt the most liberal and tolerant opinions on religious questions are divided as to the expediency or inexpediency of recognizing a State-Church; but those who embrace the latter alternative may, perhaps, fairly claim Locke as having been on their side.

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The system contained in the Reasonableness of Christianity had been constructed solely on an examination of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. In addition to the difficulties of interpretation attaching to the Epistles, Locke had urged that "they were writ to them who were in the faith and true Christians already, and so could not be designed to teach them the fundamental articles and points necessary to salvation." But to one who accepted the divine inspiration and infallibility of all parts of Scripture, it was essential to establish the consistency and coherence of the whole. Accordingly, in the later years of his life, Locke set himself the task of explaining the Epistles. This work seems to have been undertaken more for his own satisfaction and that of Lady Masham and his more immediate friends, than with any distinct design of publication. Nor did his commentaries see the light till after his death.

The commentatorial work accomplished by Locke consists of paraphrases and notes on the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians, together with An Essay for the understanding of St. Paul's Epistles by consulting St. Paul himself.