A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings. John Locke

biblical citations are incorporated in the text.

      Proast’s principal claim was that compulsion can indirectly achieve religious conversion and that the function of laws for conformity was to make people reconsider their beliefs. State and church were obliged to ensure that civil penalties were accompanied by evangelizing effort. It is these arguments that Locke sets out to refute.

       An Essay Concerning Toleration

      The Essay Concerning Toleration was written in 1667, shortly after Locke joined the household of Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury. It remained in manuscript during Locke’s lifetime and was not published until the nineteenth century, though a number of its arguments later appeared in the Letter: the parallels are numerous and I have not sought to record them in the notes. The Essay registers Locke’s conversion to the principle of toleration and his break with the position he took in his earlier Two Tracts on Government (1660–62).

      There are four surviving manuscripts, whose interrelationship is complex, and no attempt has been made to record textual variants: there are over a thousand of them. The version printed here derives from the manuscript in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California (HM 584). With the generous permission of J. R. Milton and Philip Milton, I have used their authoritative transcription (2006) but have modernized the text. To clarify the structure, I have slightly adjusted Locke’s numeration of paragraphs and introduced a few section breaks. Some of the more significant variants in the version in MS Locke c. 28 are recorded in notes, as are also a couple of variants within the Huntington MS. Some other modern editions have preferred to use MS Locke c. 28 as their copy-text. An Essay Concerning Toleration is Locke’s own title, but in one part of the Huntington MS he gives an alternative: “The Question of Toleration Stated.”

      Additions to the Essay.

      The version in MS Locke c. 28 contains three additional passages not found in any other: these are Additions A to C (fols. 22, 28). Another of the manuscripts contains two further additions, which also have no counterpart: D and E (the notebook called “Adversaria 1661,” pp. 125, 270–71). A to C are probably contemporaneous with the Essay; D probably dates from ca. 1671–72, and E from ca. 1675. I have indicated in the notes the places where A to C belong; D and E have no placements, since they follow at the end of the main body of the manuscript.

      In the final two additions Locke sketches the corruption of Christianity by the ambition of priests, and the rise of the persecution of heresy and dissent. He suggests there has often been an unholy alliance between priests and princes, the former preaching the divine right of kings, the latter persecuting those deemed unorthodox. Locke notes the propensity of all priesthoods to domineer over civil society.

      Fragments on Toleration

      This is a collection of Locke’s essays, notes, and memoranda on topics relating to toleration, composed at various times between the 1660s and 1690s. With the exception of The Constitutions of Carolina, none was published in Locke’s lifetime. Some items carry the title Locke gave them; other titles are editorially supplied.

      Infallibility (1661).

      Untitled. The National Archives: PRO 30/24/47/33. Written in Latin, with the title “An necesse sit dari in ecclesia infallibilem sacro sanctae scripturae interpretem? Negatur.” (Is it necessary that an infallible interpreter of Holy Scripture be granted in the church? No.) The translation used here is from J. C. Biddle, “John Locke’s Essay on Infallibility: Introduction, Text, and Translation,” Journal of Church and State 19 (1977): 301–27. The format of this essay—a question posed for disputation—is simi lar to that of Locke’s Essays on the Law of Nature (1663–64).

      Locke addresses the topic of scriptural hermeneutics and evinces a conventional Protestant hostility to Catholicism. He perhaps borrows from William Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants (1638) and Jeremy Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying (1647). He affirms the principle of sola scriptura (the self-sufficiency of the Bible), in opposition to the Catholic claim that Scripture is often obscure and must be understood in the light of the church’s tradition of authoritative teaching. Catholics believed that the church’s authority to interpret the Bible was infallible (but did not necessarily place that infallibility in the pope). Locke warns against clogging the mysteries of faith with vain philosophy.

      The Constitutions of Carolina (excerpt) (1669–70).

      Published as The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1670) and dated 1 March 1670. A manuscript (1669) in the National Archives, PRO 30/ 24/ 47/ 3, is almost identical, except for the absence of clause 96. There is uncertainty about Locke’s role in drafting this document.¹ The manuscript opening and a number of corrections are in Locke’s hand, and a colleague of his referred to “that excellent form of government in the composure of which you had so great a hand” (Sir Peter Colleton, October 1673). However, Locke cannot have been the sole author, for he was serving his masters, Lord Ashley and the other proprietors of Carolina. Only the clauses relating to religion are reproduced here.

      Against Samuel Parker (1669–70).

      MS Locke c. 39, fols. 5, 7, 9. Endorsed: “Q [uerie]s on S.P.’s discourse of toleration. 69.” A commentary on Samuel Parker’s Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie: wherein the authority of the civil magistrate over the consciences of subjects in matters of religion is asserted; the mischiefs and inconveniences of toleration are represented, and all pretences pleaded on behalf of liberty of conscience are fully answered (“1670,” in fact 1669). This book was one of the most influential and virulent attacks on the dissenters (though its sentiments are not dissimilar from Locke’s now abandoned position in his early Tracts). It was encouraged by Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon and was part of the inaptly styled “friendly debate” between churchmen and dissenters, which spanned the years 1666 to 1674. The Congregationalist John Owen and Andrew Marvell took part on the dissenters’ side. Locke’s patron, Lord Ashley, hoped to persuade the king to grant toleration, while Sheldon and Parker worked with the Anglican gentry in Parliament to implement further coercive legislation. Excerpts from Parker’s book (pp. 11–12, 12, 21–22, 24, 25–26, 29, 144–47, 153) are supplied to make sense of Locke’s comments and to indicate the contemporary case for intolerance. Locke’s page citations are omitted.

      Civil and Ecclesiastical Power (1674).

      MS Locke c. 27, fol. 29. The title is a modern attribution: the manuscript is endorsed “Excommunication 73/ 4.” Partly in Locke’s hand. Locke is emphatic that the civil magistrate has no business to enforce religious conformity. He allows that churches have the right to discipline their members by excommunication, but without civil penalties attached.

      Philanthropy (1675).

      MS Locke c. 27, fol. 30. “Philanthropoy [ sic ] or The Christian Philosopher’s” [ sic ]; endorsed “Philanthropy 75.” A paper not certainly of Locke’s authorship: the manuscript is in an unknown hand but has corrections by Locke and the endorsement is his. Possibly a statement of intent for a philosophical club. It is a reflection on the things that distort the pursuit of truth, a theme Locke pursued in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. 4. There is a strong anticlerical strain.

      

      Infallibility Revisited (1675).

      MS Locke c. 27, fols. 32–33. Headed “Queries”; endorsed “Queries Popery 75.” Not in Locke’s hand; the authorship is not certain. These notes again show Locke’s distaste for the Catholic doctrine of infallibility. He believes that the intolerance of Rome is built on implausible claims. The topic of church councils is discussed. The Church of England accepted the authority of genuine councils of the Christian church but did not believe there had been any such councils since the fourth century; later councils were deemed partisan and papistical.

      Religion in France (1676–79).

      Excerpts from MS Locke f. 1–3 (1676–78), and British Library, Add. MS 15642 (1679); omissions within the excerpts are marked […]. These manuscripts are Locke’s journals during his sojourn in France. They illustrate his