A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings. John Locke

XIV opens Toleration Act: freedom of worship for Protestant dissenters Returns to England; declines an ambassadorship Appointed Commissioner of Appeals in Excise Publication of A Letter Concerning Toleration Publication of Two Treatises of Government Publication of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690 Battle of the Boyne: William defeats Jacobites in Ireland Letter Concerning Toleration attacked by Jonas Proast Publication of A Second Letter Concerning Toleration 1691 Publication of Some Considerations of the … Lowering of Interest Settles at Oates in Essex in Damaris Masham’s household 1692 Publication of A Third Letter for Toleration Memorandum on the naturalization of immigrants 1693 Publication of Some Thoughts Concerning Education 1694 Founding of the Bank of England; invests £500 Triennial Act, requiring regular parliamentary elections 1695 Advises on the ending of press censorship and the recoinage Publication of The Reasonableness of Christianity The Reasonableness attacked by John Edwards; publishes Vindication Publication of Further Considerations Concerning … Money 1696 Appointed a member of the Board of Trade and Plantations (to 1700) The Essay attacked by Bishop Edward Stillingfleet John Toland, Christianity not Mysterious Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary 1697 Treaty of Ryswick: temporary peace with France Publication of Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity Publication of two replies to Stillingfleet in defense of the Essay Composes An Essay on the Poor Law Composes report on the government of Virginia Composes The Conduct of the Understanding Thomas Aikenhead hanged at Edinburgh, Britain’s last heresy execution 1698 Molyneux’s Case of Ireland cites Two Treatises in defense of Ireland Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (posthumous) 1701 Act of Settlement, ensuring Protestant (Hanoverian) succession Renewal of war against France 1702 Final visit to London Composes A Discourse on Miracles Death of William III; accession of Queen Anne World’s first daily newspaper, in London 1703 First major critique of Two Treatises, by Charles Leslie 1704 Completes A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul Battle of Blenheim: Duke of Marlborough’s victory over France Capture of Gibraltar begins Britain’s Mediterranean naval dominance Dies at Oates, 28 October; buried in High Laver churchyard, Essex 1705–7 Publication of A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul 1706 Publication of the unfinished Fourth Letter for Toleration 1710 First French and German editions of A Letter Concerning Toleration 1714 First edition of the Works of Locke 1743 First American edition of A Letter Concerning Toleration 1764 Voltaire’s edition of A Letter Concerning Toleration 1765 Thomas Hollis’s edition of the Letters Concerning Toleration

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      In preparing this volume I am extremely grateful for the help of David Armitage, Clare Jackson, Dmitri Levitin, Joseph Loconte, John Marshall, John Milton, Philip Milton, Homyar Pahlan, Mark Parry, Delphine Soulard, Timothy Stanton, Stephen Thompson, and David Womersley. I also wish to thank most warmly Richard Fisher and Peter Momtchiloff, respectively of Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, for facilitating the availability of texts, earlier versions of which were published by their presses.

      Many Lockeans have gone before me: I am particularly indebted to the editions of Locke’s writings on toleration published by Raymond Klibansky and J. W. Gough in 1968, J. C. Biddle in 1977, Victor Nuovo in 2002, and J. R. Milton and Philip Milton in 2005. With characteristic generosity, David Armitage, the brothers Milton, Tim Stanton, and David Womersley made available transcriptions of Locke manuscripts.

      I have benefited from the resources of the Bodleian Library in Oxford; the Cambridge University Library; the British Library, London; the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; and the National Archives, Kew, London.

      The text of Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration is set from the copy in St. John’s College Library, Cambridge.

       A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other