A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings (The Thomas Hollis Library) by John Locke

Author:John Locke [Locke, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liberty Fund Inc.
Published: 2013-05-22T06:00:00+00:00

6. That toleration conduces no otherwise to the settlement of a government than as it makes the majority of one mind and encourages virtue in all, which is done by making and executing strict laws concerning virtue and vice, but making the terms of church communion as large as may be, i.e., that your articles in speculative opinions be few and large, and ceremonies in worship few and easy. Which is latitudinism.

7. That the defining and undertaking to prove several doctrines which are confessed to be incomprehensible and to be no otherwise known but by revelation,67 and requiring men to assent to them in the terms proposed by the doctors of your several churches, must needs make a great many atheists.

But of these when I have more leisure:

Sic Cogitavit Atticus68 166769

Additions to the Essay

A. I must only remark before I leave this head of speculative opinions that the belief of a deity is not to be reckoned amongst purely speculative opinions, for it being the foundation of all morality, and that which influences the whole life and actions of men, without which a man is to be counted no other than one of the most dangerous sorts of wild beasts, and so incapable of all society.

B. ’Twill be said that if a toleration shall be allowed as due to all the parts of religious worship it will shut out the magistrate’s power from making laws about those things over which it is acknowledged on all hands that he has a power, viz., things indifferent, as many things made use of in religious worship are, viz., wearing a white or a black garment, kneeling or not kneeling, etc. To which I answer, that in religious worship nothing is indifferent, for it being the using of those habits, gestures, etc., and no other, which I think acceptable to God in my worshipping of him, however they may be in their own nature perfectly indifferent, yet when I am worshipping my God in a way I think he has prescribed and will approve of, I cannot alter, omit, or add any circumstance in that which I think the true way of worship. And therefore if the magistrate permit me to be of a profession or church different from his, ’tis incongruous that he should prescribe any one circumstance of my worship, and ’tis strange to conceive upon what grounds of uniformity any different profession of Christians can be prohibited in a Christian country, where the Jewish religion (which is directly opposite to the principles of Christianity) is tolerated; and would it not be irrational, where the Jewish religion is permitted, that the Christian magistrate, upon pretence of his power in indifferent things, should enjoin or forbid anything, or any way interpose in their way or manner of worship?70

C. And that which may render them yet more incapable of toleration is when, [in addition] to these doctrines dangerous to government, they have the power of a neighbour prince of the same religion at hand to countenance and back them upon any occasion.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.