A Letter Concerning Toleration
Epistola de Tolerantia
Locke’s plea for religious toleration, written in Latin in Dutch exile in 1685 and published at Gouda in 1689, then in Popple’s English the same year. The care of souls, Locke argues, does not belong to the civil magistrate, whose power extends only to civil interests—life, liberty, health and possessions—and cannot compel the inward persuasion on which salvation depends. A church is a free and voluntary society. Toleration is denied only to atheists, to those who will not tolerate others, and to churches that owe allegiance to a foreign prince.
- Edition
- William Popple’s English translation as first printed (London: Awnsham Churchill, 1689; Wing L2747), from the EEBO-TCP transcription A48884, checked against archive.org OCR of microfilm scans of the 1689 printing and the corrected second edition of 1690, with the 1796 reprint as a tie-breaker. Popple’s preface “To the Reader” is included; the original spelling, capitals and italics are kept, and the marginal Scripture references are given as author’s notes.
- Source
- EEBO-TCP (A48884)
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Contents
- To the Reader 3 min 5
William Popple’s preface to his 1689 English translation. England, he says, has talked more about toleration than any nation and practised it least; persecuted sects have pleaded only for themselves. Neither royal Declarations of Indulgence nor schemes of Comprehension will cure the disease: what is needed is “Absolute Liberty, Iust and True Liberty, Equal and Impartial Liberty”.
- A Letter Concerning Toleration 2 h 10 min 49
Locke argues that the civil magistrate’s power extends only to civil interests (life, liberty, health and possessions) and not to the salvation of souls, which neither God nor the people entrusted to him and which force cannot reach, since belief cannot be compelled. A church is a free, voluntary society whose only sanction is expulsion. The magistrate may neither impose nor forbid rites that are lawful in ordinary life. Toleration is refused to doctrines subversive of society, to those who will not tolerate others, to churches owing allegiance to a foreign prince, and to atheists. A postscript defines heresy and schism.