Toleration | Page 8

to invade the civil rights and
worldly goods of each other upon pretence of religion. Those that are of
another opinion would do well to consider with themselves how
pernicious a seed of discord and war, how powerful a provocation to

endless hatreds, rapines, and slaughters they thereby furnish unto
mankind. No peace and security, no, not so much as common
friendship, can ever be established or preserved amongst men so long
as this opinion prevails, that dominion is founded in grace and that
religion is to be propagated by force of arms.
In the third place, let us see what the duty of toleration requires from
those who are distinguished from the rest of mankind (from the laity, as
they please to call us) by some ecclesiastical character and office;
whether they be bishops, priests, presbyters, ministers, or however else
dignified or distinguished. It is not my business to inquire here into the
original of the power or dignity of the clergy. This only I say, that,
whencesoever their authority be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it
ought to be confined within the bounds of the Church, nor can it in any
manner be extended to civil affairs, because the Church itself is a thing
absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth. The
boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable. He jumbles heaven
and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes
these two societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in
everything perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each other.
No man, therefore, with whatsoever ecclesiastical office he be dignified,
can deprive another man that is not of his church and faith either of
liberty or of any part of his worldly goods upon the account of that
difference between them in religion. For whatsoever is not lawful to the
whole Church cannot by any ecclesiastical right become lawful to any
of its members.
But this is not all. It is not enough that ecclesiastical men abstain from
violence and rapine and all manner of persecution. He that pretends to
be a successor of the apostles, and takes upon him the office of
teaching, is obliged also to admonish his hearers of the duties of peace
and goodwill towards all men, as well towards the erroneous as the
orthodox; towards those that differ from them in faith and worship as
well as towards those that agree with them therein. And he ought
industriously to exhort all men, whether private persons or magistrates
(if any such there be in his church), to charity, meekness, and toleration,
and diligently endeavour to ally and temper all that heat and

unreasonable averseness of mind which either any man's fiery zeal for
his own sect or the craft of others has kindled against dissenters. I will
not undertake to represent how happy and how great would be the fruit,
both in Church and State, if the pulpits everywhere sounded with this
doctrine of peace and toleration, lest I should seem to reflect too
severely upon those men whose dignity I desire not to detract from, nor
would have it diminished either by others or themselves. But this I say,
that thus it ought to be. And if anyone that professes himself to be a
minister of the Word of God, a preacher of the gospel of peace, teach
otherwise, he either understands not or neglects the business of his
calling and shall one day give account thereof unto the Prince of Peace.
If Christians are to be admonished that they abstain from all manner of
revenge, even after repeated provocations and multiplied injuries, how
much more ought they who suffer nothing, who have had no harm done
them, forbear violence and abstain from all manner of ill-usage towards
those from whom they have received none! This caution and temper
they ought certainly to use towards those. who mind only their own
business and are solicitous for nothing but that (whatever men think of
them) they may worship God in that manner which they are persuaded
is acceptable to Him and in which they have the strongest hopes of
eternal salvation. In private domestic affairs, in the management of
estates, in the conservation of bodily health, every man may consider
what suits his own convenience and follow what course he likes best.
No man complains of the ill-management of his neighbour's affairs. No
man is angry with another for an error committed in sowing his land or
in marrying his daughter. Nobody corrects a spendthrift for consuming
his substance in taverns. Let any man pull down, or build, or make
whatsoever expenses he pleases, nobody murmurs, nobody controls
him; he has his liberty. But if any man do not frequent the church, if he
do not there conform his behaviour exactly