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

put under an obligation of following their princes in the ways that
lead to destruction; and that which heightens the absurdity, and
very ill suits the notion of a Deity, men would owe their eternal
happiness or misery to the places of their nativity.
These considerations, to omit many others that might have been urged
to the same purpose, seem unto me sufficient to conclude that all
the power of civil government relates only to men's civil interests,
is confined to the care of the things of this world, and hath
nothing to do with the world to come.
Let us now consider what a church is. A church, then, I take to be a
voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own
accord in order to the public worshipping of God in such manner as
they judge acceptable to Him, and effectual to the salvation of
their souls.
I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is born a member of
any church; otherwise the religion of parents would descend unto
children by the same right of inheritance as their temporal estates,
and everyone would hold his faith by the same tenure he does his
lands, than which nothing can be imagined more absurd. Thus,
therefore, that matter stands. No man by nature is bound unto any
particular church or sect, but everyone joins himself voluntarily to
that society in which he believes he has found that profession and
worship which is truly acceptable to God. The hope of salvation, as it
was the only cause of his entrance into that communion, so it can be
the only reason of his stay there. For if afterwards he discover
anything either erroneous in the doctrine or incongruous in the
worship of that society to which he has joined himself, why should
it not be as free for him to go out as it was to enter? No member of a
religious society can be tied with any other bonds but what proceed
from the certain expectation of eternal life. A church, then, is a
society of members voluntarily uniting to that end.
It follows now that we consider what is the power of this church and
unto what laws it is subject.
Forasmuch as no society, how free soever, or upon whatsoever
slight occasion instituted, whether of philosophers for learning, of
merchants for commerce, or of men of leisure for mutual conversation
and discourse, no church or company, I say, can in the least subsist
and hold together, but will presently dissolve and break in pieces,
unless it be regulated by some laws, and the members all consent to
observe some order. Place and time of meeting must be agreed on; rules
for admitting and excluding members must be established; distinction
of officers, and putting things into a regular course, and suchlike,
cannot be omitted. But since the joining together of several members
into this church-society, as has already been demonstrated, is
absolutely free and spontaneous, it necessarily follows that the right
of making its laws can belong to none but the society itself; or, at
least (which is the same thing), to those whom the society by common
consent has authorised thereunto.
Some, perhaps, may object that no such society can be said to be a
true church unless it have in it a bishop or presbyter, with ruling