A Letter Concerning Toleration

Summary

A Letter Concerning Toleration is John Locke's argument that the civil government and the church are two distinct societies with different ends, and that the magistrate has no authority to compel belief or worship. Locke wrote it in Latin, as Epistola de Tolerantia, during the winter of 1685–86 while living in exile in the Dutch Republic, addressing it to his friend the Remonstrant theologian Philipp van Limborch. It was printed anonymously at Gouda in 1689. William Popple's English translation appeared in London the same autumn, licensed on 3 October 1689, a few months after Parliament passed the Toleration Act. The library text is that first English edition, with Popple's preface To the Reader, which calls for absolute, just and impartial liberty, and the bookseller's advertisements. Locke opens by calling toleration the chief mark of the true church: anyone who persecutes others for their souls while indulging vice in his own flock shows that he seeks another kingdom than Christ's. He then sets the bounds of the two societies. The commonwealth exists only to secure civil interests, which he lists as life, liberty, health, freedom from bodily pain, and outward possessions. The care of souls does not belong to the magistrate, for three reasons: God has given no man such authority over another; the magistrate's power is outward force, while true religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind; and if princes could impose religion, salvation would depend on the accident of birthplace. A church, by contrast, is a voluntary society that men join to worship God as they judge acceptable to him; it may make rules and expel members, but excommunication must not touch a person's civil goods. Locke goes on to the duties of churches, private persons and clergy toward those who differ from them, and to the magistrate's power over rites and doctrines. Things indifferent cannot be made part of worship by human authority; whatever is lawful in ordinary life, such as Meliboeus killing his calf, is lawful in a religious meeting, and what is unlawful in ordinary life is unlawful there too. The Mosaic commonwealth, an absolute theocracy, offers no model for Christian states. Speculative articles of faith cannot be imposed by law. Toleration has limits. The magistrate need not tolerate opinions contrary to the moral rules that hold society together; churches that claim authority over the property of heretics or that deliver their members to the service of a foreign prince, an example Locke illustrates with a Muslim who obeys the mufti of Constantinople; or those who deny the being of God, since oaths and covenants cannot bind an atheist. Within these limits Locke argues that Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Arminians and Quakers, and also pagans, Muslims and Jews, should hold civil rights, and that religious assemblies grow seditious only when they are treated unequally. A postscript defines heresy and schism.

Plot or Argument

• Popple's preface: To the Reader

  The translator notes that the Letter had already appeared in Latin, Dutch and French, and argues that England, after decades of religious conflict, needs neither Declarations of Indulgence nor schemes of comprehension but a full and impartial liberty for all parties.

• Toleration as the mark of the true church

  Locke tells his correspondent that the claims of antiquity, reformed discipline or orthodoxy are marks of men contending for power. A Christian must make war first on his own vices; persecutors who torment dissenters while overlooking fornication, fraud and malice in their own communion cannot claim to act from charity toward souls.

• The commonwealth and its civil interests

  To end the controversies between those who care for souls and those who care for the commonwealth, Locke sets their bounds. The commonwealth is a society constituted to secure civil interests: life, liberty, health, indolency of body and outward possessions. The magistrate's jurisdiction reaches these alone, for three reasons: no such authority was given by God or could be given by the people's consent; his only instrument is outward force, which cannot produce belief; and compelled religion would make salvation depend on the religion of one's prince.

• The church as a voluntary society

  A church is a free and voluntary society for public worship. No one is born a member of a church; each joins the one he believes true and may leave it. It must have laws and officers, and it may expel the obstinate, but excommunication carries no civil penalty and must involve no rough usage of body or estate. Churches owe toleration to one another, private persons owe charity and justice to dissenters, and clergy should preach peace rather than persecution.

• The magistrate, rites and doctrines

  The care of each man's soul belongs to himself; the law no more forces men to be pious than it forces them to be rich or healthy. Things indifferent cannot be made part of worship by human command. Rites lawful in common life, like Meliboeus sacrificing his own calf, are lawful in worship, and things forbidden in common life, like the sacrifice of infants, are forbidden everywhere. Idolatry, though a sin, is not punishable by the magistrate merely as sin; the theocracy of ancient Israel, where God was the legislator, provides no precedent. Speculative opinions cannot be imposed, and practical morals belong to both the magistrate and conscience.

• The limits of toleration

  Locke names those the magistrate need not tolerate: teachers of opinions contrary to the moral rules necessary to civil society; those who claim special prerogatives for their own sect, such as that faith need not be kept with heretics or that dominion is founded in grace; churches whose members deliver themselves to the protection and service of a foreign prince, as a Muslim professing obedience to the mufti of Constantinople; and those who deny the being of God, on whom oaths and covenants have no hold.

• Religious assemblies and equal liberty

  Locke answers the objection that conventicles breed sedition: men conspire not because of religion but because of their sufferings. If dissenters held the same civil rights as other subjects, their meetings would cease to be dangerous. He extends equal liberty to Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Arminians and Quakers, and argues that pagans, Muslims and Jews should not be denied civil rights on account of religion.

• Postscript on heresy and schism

  Heresy and schism can exist only among those of the same religion. Heresy is a separation over doctrines not expressly contained in Scripture; schism a separation over worship or discipline on grounds Scripture does not require. Whoever denies nothing Scripture teaches in express words, and separates on nothing not expressly in the sacred text, is neither heretic nor schismatic.

Characters

• Philipp van Limborch, addressee

  Remonstrant (Arminian) theologian in Amsterdam and Locke's friend during his exile, to whom the Latin Epistola was addressed as 'Honoured Sir'.

• William Popple, translator

  English merchant and writer on religious liberty who translated the Letter in 1689 and wrote its preface To the Reader.

• Meliboeus, illustrative figure

  A name from Virgil's Eclogues used for the man who may lawfully kill his own calf at home and therefore also in a religious meeting.

• The Mufti of Constantinople, illustrative figure

  Invoked as the religious authority, himself obedient to the Ottoman emperor, whose followers could not be faithful subjects of a Christian magistrate.

Lessons

• Belief cannot be compelled

  Locke's central argument is that faith is the inward persuasion of the mind, and force can produce only outward conformity. A worship offered against conscience is not pleasing to God but an added sin. The magistrate's sword is therefore the wrong instrument for the care of souls.

  • Locke says faith is not faith without believing. Why does this make compulsion useless for salvation?
  • Can laws ever shape belief indirectly, for example through education or example, even if they cannot compel it?
  • How does Locke distinguish the magistrate's force from the clergy's teaching, admonishing and persuading?

• Two societies with two different ends

  The commonwealth secures life, liberty, health and property; the church exists for the worship of God and the salvation of souls. Locke holds that confusion between the two has produced endless controversy, and that each keeps its proper authority only by staying within its bounds.

  • What does Locke include among civil interests, and why does he leave the soul out of the list?
  • Why does Locke say excommunication may expel a member but must not touch his estate or body?
  • Is a strict separation of the two societies possible when both make claims about morality?

• Charity as the test of zeal

  Locke challenges persecutors on Christian grounds: if they truly loved souls, they would first correct the open vices of their own flocks. Zeal that burns dissenters while ignoring fraud and fornication among friends reveals a desire for dominion rather than love.

  • Which Scripture passages does Locke draw on in his opening pages, and how does he use them?
  • Why does Locke think a careless man about his own salvation cannot be trusted to care for someone else's?
  • How might a defender of a national church in 1689 have answered this argument?

• Toleration with stated limits

  Locke does not argue that every opinion must be allowed. He excludes teachings destructive of civil society, churches that place members under a foreign prince, and atheists, whose word he believes cannot be secured by oath. These limits rest on his view of what holds a commonwealth together, and readers have debated them since the 1690s.

  • Why does Locke think oaths and covenants depend on belief in God?
  • What reasons does he give for excluding a church whose members owe obedience to a foreign prince?
  • Are Locke's limits consistent with his argument that the magistrate cares only for civil interests?

Context

Locke wrote amid a century of religious conflict in England: the civil wars, the Restoration settlement of 1662 with its penal laws against Protestant dissenters, the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, and the Catholic James II's Declarations of Indulgence in 1687–88. On the Continent Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, sending Huguenot refugees into the Dutch Republic, where Locke was then in exile. The Toleration Act of May 1689 granted freedom of worship to Trinitarian Protestant dissenters but kept religious tests for office; Locke's Letter argued on wider principles.

Composition

Locke drafted the Epistola de Tolerantia in Latin in the winter of 1685–86, in Amsterdam, and sent it to Philipp van Limborch, who arranged its anonymous publication at Gouda in 1689. William Popple's translation was licensed on 3 October 1689 and printed in London for Awnsham Churchill, also anonymously. Locke privately complained that the translation was made without his knowledge, though he did not disown it; it became the standard English text. The library text reproduces this first English edition from the Text Creation Partnership transcription.

Reception

The Oxford clergyman Jonas Proast replied in 1690 that moderate penalties could lead people to consider the truth; Locke answered with a Second Letter (1690) and a long Third Letter (1692), and left a Fourth unfinished at his death. The Letter became a foundational text for later arguments about religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson's notes on Locke in 1776 drew on it as he worked on religious freedom in Virginia, and its distinction between civil and religious society shaped the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) and the American founding debates. Scholars continue to discuss its limits and its theological basis.

Comparisons

• virginia-statute-for-religious-freedom

  Jefferson's statute of 1786 echoes Locke's premises that God made the mind free and that civil rights should not depend on religious opinions, but it drops Locke's exclusions and declares that no man shall suffer for his religious beliefs.

• second-treatise-of-government

  Published the same year, the Second Treatise defines political power as the protection of life, liberty and estate; the Letter applies that definition to religion and concludes that the care of souls lies outside it.

• areopagitica

  Milton's speech of 1644 against prior licensing of books argues that truth is strengthened by free encounter with error, yet, like Locke, he stops short of tolerating what he calls popery and open superstition.

• spinoza-theologico-political-treatise

  Published in the Dutch Republic in 1670, Spinoza's treatise also argues for freedom of thought, but places outward religious practice under the sovereign's authority, where Locke gives the church its own voluntary sphere.

• dignitatis-humanae

  The Second Vatican Council's declaration of 1965 grounds religious liberty in the dignity of the person and the nature of faith as a free response to God, a theological argument that meets Locke's claim that belief cannot be compelled from different premises.

• an-essay-concerning-human-understanding

  Locke's Essay, also published in 1689, argues that assent should be proportioned to evidence and that the understanding cannot be forced, the epistemology behind the Letter's claim that the magistrate's sword cannot produce belief.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Popple's preface, whose call for absolute, just and impartial liberty goes further in tone than Locke's own text.
• The two definitions placed close together: the commonwealth as a society for civil interests and the church as a voluntary society for worship.
• The three reasons why the care of souls does not belong to the magistrate, each resting on a different kind of argument (from God, from the nature of belief, from the variety of princes).
• The example of Meliboeus and his calf, which shows how Locke tests a religious practice by asking whether it is lawful in ordinary life.
• The list of exclusions near the end, and the long passage that follows extending civil rights to dissenters, pagans, Muslims and Jews.

Key terms and names

Civil interests

Locke's term for life, liberty, health, indolency of body and outward possessions, the goods a commonwealth exists to secure.

Magistrate

Locke's general word for whoever holds civil power, whether king, parliament or city government, whose instrument is outward force.

Voluntary society

A society that persons join and leave of their own accord; Locke's description of a church, which no one is born into.

Things indifferent

Practices neither commanded nor forbidden by God, such as particular ceremonies or garments. Locke argues that human authority cannot make them part of worship.

Speculative and practical opinions

Locke's division of religious articles into those that are only believed, which law cannot impose, and those that govern conduct, which may concern the magistrate if they affect civil society.

Excommunication

A church's expulsion of a member, which Locke allows but insists must carry no civil penalty or bodily harm.

Theocracy

Locke's word for ancient Israel, where God was the legislator and church and commonwealth were one, a case he says has no parallel in Christian states.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Locke list as civil interests, and what is the magistrate's role in relation to them?
2. Comprehension What are Locke's three reasons for saying that the care of souls does not belong to the magistrate?
3. Comprehension Which groups does Locke say the magistrate need not tolerate, and what reason does he give for each?
4. Interpretation Why does Locke open by calling toleration the chief mark of the true church, rather than beginning with political argument?
5. Interpretation How does the example of Meliboeus's calf help Locke separate what the magistrate may forbid from what he may not?
6. Interpretation Locke says the ancient Jewish commonwealth was a theocracy. Why does this matter for his answer to those who cite the Old Testament punishment of idolaters?
7. Big Question If belief cannot be compelled, is there anything a government may rightly do to encourage true religion?
8. Big Question Does a free society depend on shared beliefs that hold its members to their promises, as Locke thought, and if so, which ones?

Faith Connections

• Luke 22:25-26 (Scripture)

  Locke quotes Christ's words that the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them but his disciples shall not be so, using them to separate the authority of the church from dominion by force.

• Galatians 5:6, 19-21 (Scripture)

  Locke's opening draws on Paul's faith that works by love and the list of the works of the flesh, arguing that zeal against dissenters should first be zeal against these sins.

• 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (Scripture)

  Locke echoes Paul's question about judging those outside the church when he says the church judges not those that are without.

• Augustine, Letter 93 (to Vincentius) (Church Fathers)

  Augustine defended moderate imperial penalties against the Donatists, citing the parable's compel them to come in; Locke's Letter, and Proast's reply to it, carry on the long debate Augustine's position began.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The commonwealth exists only to secure civil interests, and its only instrument is outward force. True religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, which force cannot produce. Therefore the care of souls does not belong to the magistrate, and churches, as voluntary societies, must be left free to worship as they judge right, provided they do not threaten the civil society that protects everyone.

Rhetorical device: reductio ad absurdum. In the passage on the care of souls, Locke imagines a prince who forces his subjects to consult only Roman physicians and to take only broth prepared in the Vatican or a Geneva shop, or to become merchants so that they will be rich, making compulsion in religion look as absurd as compulsion in health (quote 6).

Debate: Resolved: That Locke's exclusions from toleration are consistent with his own principle that the magistrate cares only for civil interests.

Memory Work

All the Life and Power of true Religion consists in the inward and full perswasion of the mind; and Faith is not Faith without believing.

I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the Business of Civil Government from that of Religion, and to settle the just Bounds that lie between the one and the other.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Locke defines the commonwealth and the church as two societies with different ends. Explain each definition and argue whether Locke's boundary between them can be kept in practice, using his examples of rites, doctrines and assemblies.

Comparison with The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Compare Locke's Letter with Jefferson's Virginia Statute of 1786. Which of Locke's arguments does the statute adopt, which limits does it leave out, and what do the differences show about how the argument developed in a century?

Medical Lens

Locke trained in medicine at Oxford, worked with Thomas Sydenham, and served as Shaftesbury's physician, and the Letter repeatedly argues by medical analogy. Health and indolency of body (freedom from pain) appear in his list of civil interests that the state exists to protect. In the passage on whether the magistrate may care for souls, he asks whether a prince could require his subjects to consult only Roman physicians and take no potion or broth not prepared in the Vatican or a Geneva shop, and answers that no one can be forced to be healthy; the law guards health against the fraud or violence of others, not against a person's own neglect. Readers interested in the history of medical ethics may see here an early statement of the distinction between protecting persons from harm by others and compelling them for their own good, though Locke frames it as a point about religion, not medicine.

• Letter, definition of the commonwealth

  Health and indolency of body listed among the civil interests the magistrate protects.

  Medical Ethics Pain
• Letter, on the magistrate's care of souls

  The analogy of a prince compelling subjects to consult only Roman physicians and take remedies from the Vatican or a Geneva shop; no one forced to be rich or healthful.

  Physicians Doctors Medical Ethics

Creative Prompts

• Dialogue

  Write an exchange of letters in 1690 between Locke and Jonas Proast, in which Proast argues that moderate penalties can bring people to consider the truth and Locke answers from the Letter.

• Classroom

  Make a two-column chart of what belongs to the commonwealth and what belongs to the church according to Locke. Then test five cases (a church's choice of ministers, a sacrifice of a calf, a law about Sunday trading, an oath in court, excommunication) against the chart.

• Essay

  Locke says assemblies become seditious because of their sufferings, not because of their religion. Test the claim against one historical example of a persecuted religious group.

Further Reading

• A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings (ed. Mark Goldie), John Locke

  Liberty Fund edition with the Popple translation, the 1667 Essay on Toleration and related papers.

• John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, John Marshall

  A study of Locke's political and religious thought in its Restoration setting.

• Locke: A Biography, Roger Woolhouse

• The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke

  Published in the same year; supplies the theory of civil government assumed in the Letter.