Abstract
It is, of course, impossible to indicate in any
fitting way the real power and value of the "Letters on
Toleration ". The style is always pleasant, the argument
complete and closely reasoned, and the whole transformed by
that indefinable quality which only genius gives. For us,
as for that changing England into which the "setters" came
they still remain their own best exposition and defence.
But if we may retain a word which most interpreters have
used and say that Locke enunciates a "theory" of Toleration,
that theory must certainly be sought in the particular
views of civil and religious society which we have tried to
represent above. His views, though frequently denied and
at best but partially adopted, undoubtedly became the
accepted doctrine of the eighteenth century. We may
therefore close this survey with a brief review of what has
gone before in the light of Locke's conclusions.
On the whole, then, in spite of the Occasional
Conformity and Schism Acts, it may be said that the growth
of Toleration in England was continuous if slow throughout
the reigns of William III, Anne and George I. In close on
forty years from 1689 the bare concessions of the Toleration
Act, which granted liberty of worship to Dissenters, were
extended to relieve them from the penalties which
infringement of the Test and Corporation Acts might still
incur. To what must we ascribe the change? The answer
in a general sense would seem to be that persecuting methods,
if they ever had value as social expedients, had not only
lost their value but had become positively dangerous to the
best corporate life. As Mandell Creighton saysl the idea
of Toleration was a greater one than that of persecution
and growing social experience was slowly bringing this home
to the better part of Englishmen.
In the realization of this idea several parties had a
share. In the first place, we must give all praise to the
Dissenters themselves whose very existence, apart altogether
from the intrinsic nature of their claims, compelled
attention to their problem. But beyond the mere fact of their
presence in the State their intrinsic quality was a powerful
argument for liberty and recognition. That they possessed
a spiritual outlook and conserved values of the highest
significance for any community has never been seriously
denied. To grant such people liberty was therefore not to
weaken but greatly to enrich national life.
In the second place, the growth of liberal doctrine in
the Church of England greatly helped to bring about the
change. In the last analysis the rise of Latitudinarianism
meant a changed conception of the very nature of the
Christian faith. All "authority" in the theological sense
was set aside, or had at least to be reconciled with reason
and the greater human values. This attitude which has been
by far the noblest and most fruitful in English religious
life not only took away one of the historic causes of
persecution but freely allowed that inquiry and even divergence of opinion were of the very nature of the
Christian faith.
Finally - and it is here that we perceive the truth and
insight of John Locke's conclusions - the changes brought
about in 1688 established once for all the nature of the
Civil State and 1 i down the lines that it has followed
ever since. It was not merely that religion and opinions
generally were placed outside the power of civil magistracy;
it became abundantly clear that the State which permitted or
indulged in religious persecution was seriously affecting its
own particular function and hampering its true development.
Civil order and material prosperity may still be held by some
to be mundane and secondary considerations, but the wiser
part of men have never held them in disdain. It is not too
much to say that in the end these matters were conclusive
for Toleration. The bigotry of persecuting men destroyed
social peace and stultified commercial enterprise. The
State was fully justified in removing this very real hindrance
to its best and fullest life.
