"John.Locke - Toleration" - читать интересную книгу автора (Locke John)

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. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the
controversies that will be always arising between those that have,
or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the
interest of men's souls, and, on the other side, a care of the
commonwealth.
The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only
for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil
interests.
Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body;
and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses,
furniture, and the like.
It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial execution
of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general and to every
one of his subjects in particular the just possession of these
things belonging to this life. If anyone presume to violate the laws
of public justice and equity, established for the preservation of
those things, his presumption is to be checked by the fear of
punishment, consisting of the deprivation or diminution of those civil
interests, or goods, which otherwise he might and ought to enjoy.
But seeing no man does willingly suffer himself to be punished by
the deprivation of any part of his goods, and much less of his liberty
or life, therefore, is the magistrate armed with the force and
strength of all his subjects, in order to the punishment of those that
violate any other man's rights.
Now that the whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only to
these civil concernments, and that all civil power, right and
dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting
these things; and that it neither can nor ought in any manner to be
extended to the salvation of souls, these following considerations
seem unto me abundantly to demonstrate.
First, because the care of souls is not committed to the civil
magistrate, any more than to other men. It is not committed unto
him, I say, by God; because it appears not that God has ever given any
such authority to one man over another as to compel anyone to his
religion. Nor can any such power be vested in the magistrate by the
consent of the people, because no man can so far abandon the care of
his own salvation as blindly to leave to the choice of any other,
whether prince or subject, to prescribe to him what faith or worship
he shall embrace. For no man can, if he would, conform his faith to
the dictates of another. All the life and power of true religion
consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is
not faith without believing. Whatever profession we make, to
whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied
in our own mind that the one is true and the other well pleasing
unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any
furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation. For in
this manner, instead of expiating other sins by the exercise of
religion, I say, in offering thus unto God Almighty such a worship