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Liberal Political Philosophy · Letter
A Letter Concerning Toleration
by John Locke · The Philosopher of Consent · Enlightenment, 1632-1704
Locke's argument for religious toleration and limits on coercive authority.
- Intermediate
- ~1 hr 30 min read
- 5 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the What a Church Is guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
The Limits of Force
John Locke wrote this letter while living in exile in the Dutch Republic. Religious allegiance could determine whether people were allowed to worship publicly, retain property or live safely in their own country. Published anonymously in 1689, the letter reached English readers through William Popple's translation. Its opening asks what Christians owe to people whose beliefs they reject, then confronts the claim that persecution can be an act of care for another person's soul.
Locke distinguishes two forms of association. Civil government protects life, liberty, health and possessions. A church is a voluntary community formed for worship and salvation. Each has authority suited to its purpose: the magistrate may restrain injury through law and punishment; a church may teach, admonish and exclude members. Neither religious disagreement nor a ruler's confidence that his faith is true supplies a right to seize another person's goods or force a profession of belief.
The argument is Christian without requiring agreement on every Christian doctrine. Locke appeals to Scripture and reason, testing his distinctions through ordinary examples: medicine, buying and selling, caring for property, sharing bread and wine. ‘Indifferent things’ means acts that are not inherently commanded or forbidden; their civil use and their place in worship raise different questions. His recurring point is that sincere conviction cannot be replaced by obedience to someone else's judgment.
The breadth of his defence has explicit limits. He refuses toleration to atheists, whom he considers unable to sustain binding promises, and to churches that place their members under a foreign prince. These exclusions expose the distrust within his account of civil peace. The letter ends with religious assemblies; the following addendum examines heresy and schism, asking when disputed interpretations have been made into conditions of communion.
The opening pages
Civil Authority and the Care of Souls
Honoured Sir, Since you are pleased to inquire what are my thoughts about the mutual toleration of Christians in their different professions of religion, I must needs answer you freely that I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristic mark of the true Church. For whatsoever some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the pomp of their outward worship; others, of the reformation of their discipline; all, of the orthodoxy of their faith — for everyone is orthodox to himself — these things, and all others of this nature, are much rather marks of men striving for power and empire over one another than of the Church of Christ. Let anyone have never so true a claim to all these things, yet if he be destitute of charity, meekness, and good-will in general towards all mankind, even to those that are not Christians, he is certainly yet short of being a true Christian himself. "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them," said our Saviour to his disciples, "but ye shall not be so." The business of true religion is quite another thing. It is not instituted in order to the erecting of an external pomp, nor to the obtaining of ecclesiastical dominion, nor to the exercising of compulsive force, but to the regulating of men's lives, according to the rules of virtue and piety. Whosoever will list himself under the banner of Christ, must, in the first place and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name of Christian, without holiness of life, Purity of Manners, and Benignity and Meekness of spirit. "Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ, depart from iniquity." "Thou, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren," said our Lord to Peter. It would, indeed, be very hard for one that appears careless about his own salvation to persuade me that he were extremely concerned for mine. For it is impossible that those should sincerely and heartily apply themselves to make other people Christians, who have not really embraced the Christian religion in their own hearts. If the Gospel and the apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian without charity and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love. Now, I appeal to the consciences of those that persecute, torment, destroy, and kill other men upon pretence of religion, whether they do it out of friendship and kindness towards them or no? And I shall then indeed, and not until then, believe they do so, when I shall see those fiery zealots correcting, in the same manner, their friends and familiar acquaintance for the manifest sins they commit against the precepts of the Gospel; when I shall see them persecute with fire and sword the members of their own communion that are tainted with enormous vices and without amendment are in danger of eternal perdition; and when I shall see them thus express their love and desire of the salvation of their souls by the infliction of torments and exercise of all manner of cruelties. …
Chapter guides · 5
What a Church Is
Authority Suited to Its Purpose
Locke separates protection of civil interests from a voluntary community's care for salvation.
The claim of charity
Locke begins by testing persecutors against their professed concern for souls. Why punish religious dissent with exceptional cruelty while tolerating acknowledged moral offences within one's own church? His challenge is theological as well as political: a forced profession cannot replace the sincere belief and conduct Christianity requires.
What government can secure
The commonwealth exists to protect worldly interests by equal laws. Locke denies that God or popular consent gives the magistrate power over salvation. Force cannot produce inward conviction; even if it could, rulers disagree, so following them would make salvation depend on birthplace. Persuasion remains open to a magistrate as to anyone else, but argument and punishment are different instruments.
A society one may leave
A church, by contrast, is joined voluntarily and may be left when its teaching or worship ceases to seem acceptable. It needs agreed rules and officers, yet its discipline remains confined to its religious purpose. Admonition may end in exclusion from the society; it gives no authority over civil goods or a power to compel belief.
Why Force Cannot Make Faith
Truth Does Not Confer the Sword
Locke tests the duties of churches, clergy and magistrates even when they believe themselves right.
Rights survive disagreement
Excommunication ends membership, not ownership, liberty or bodily security. Private people and churches must preserve one another's civil rights, with charity added to justice. Locke's two churches in Constantinople make the test reciprocal: each calls itself orthodox, yet neither gains coercive authority from its own claim or from the ruler's favour.
The preacher's duty
Clergy should restrain hostility and teach toleration, not merely abstain from violence themselves. Locke contrasts their intervention in a neighbour's worship with the freedom commonly allowed in household affairs. Arguments may challenge error; asking the magistrate to supply force converts a spiritual office into a claim to worldly dominion.
Even a correct command fails
The magistrate has neither a special guarantee of religious knowledge nor a means to repair another person's loss of salvation. Delegating judgment to a favoured church leaves subjects dependent on his choice. Locke finally grants the strongest case—that the prescribed religion is true—and still rejects coercion: outward compliance without inward persuasion cannot save. Religious societies must therefore be allowed to worship together.
Idolatry and the Jewish Commonwealth
The Same Act, a Different Jurisdiction
Rites and alleged idolatry test whether government is preventing civil injury or prescribing religion.
Conscience and the Limits of Toleration
Conscience Meets Civil Power
Locke distinguishes harmless belief from obligations and doctrines he considers destructive of society.
Heresy and Schism
Persecution Makes a Common Cause
Locke closes the letter on assemblies and adds a separate account of heresy and schism.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read A Letter Concerning Toleration?
- About 1 hr 30 min in total.
- How difficult is A Letter Concerning Toleration?
- Intermediate. A mid-length letter; about 2 hours of reading.
- Which translation is this?
- The William Popple translation from the Latin, first published in 1689. The text follows A Letter Concerning Toleration: Humbly Submitted, &c., Awnsham Churchill edition (1689).
- Can I read A Letter Concerning Toleration for free?
- A Letter Concerning Toleration is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and two chapter guides on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 5 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. Two open in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About John Locke
John Locke was an English philosopher whose writings on knowledge, government, toleration, and rights helped shape liberal political thought and the American founding.
“What makes political power legitimate?”
Locke is one of the central sources for modern arguments about rights, liberty, property, and constitutional government.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. A Letter Concerning Toleration is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.