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

authority derived from the very apostles, and continued down to the
present times by an uninterrupted succession.
To these I answer: In the first place, let them show me the edict by
which Christ has imposed that law upon His Church. And let not any man
think me impertinent, if in a thing of this consequence I require that
the terms of that edict be very express and positive; for the
promise He has made us,* that "wheresoever two or three are gathered
together" in His name, He will be in the midst of them, seems to imply
the contrary. Whether such an assembly want anything necessary to a
true church, pray do you consider. Certain I am that nothing can be
there wanting unto the salvation of souls, which is sufficient to
our purpose.

* Matt. 18. 20.

Next, pray observe how great have always been the divisions
amongst even those who lay so much stress upon the Divine
institution and continued succession of a certain order of rulers in
the Church. Now, their very dissension unavoidably puts us upon a
necessity of deliberating and, consequently, allows a liberty of
choosing that which upon consideration we prefer.
And, in the last place, I consent that these men have a ruler in
their church, established by such a long series of succession as
they judge necessary, provided I may have liberty at the same time
to join myself to that society in which I am persuaded those things
are to be found which are necessary to the salvation of my soul. In
this manner ecclesiastical liberty will be preserved on all sides, and
no man will have a legislator imposed upon him but whom himself has
chosen.
But since men are so solicitous about the true church, I would
only ask them here, by the way, if it be not more agreeable to the
Church of Christ to make the conditions of her communion consist in
such things, and such things only, as the Holy Spirit has in the
Holy Scriptures declared, in express words, to be necessary to
salvation; I ask, I say, whether this be not more agreeable to the
Church of Christ than for men to impose their own inventions and
interpretations upon others as if they were of Divine authority, and
to establish by ecclesiastical laws, as absolutely necessary to the
profession of Christianity, such things as the Holy Scriptures do
either not mention, or at least not expressly command? Whosoever
requires those things in order to ecclesiastical communion, which
Christ does not require in order to life eternal, he may, perhaps,
indeed constitute a society accommodated to his own opinion and his
own advantage; but how that can be called the Church of Christ which
is established upon laws that are not His, and which excludes such
persons from its communion as He will one day receive into the Kingdom
of Heaven, I understand not. But this being not a proper place to
inquire into the marks of the true church, I will only mind those that
contend so earnestly for the decrees of their own society, and that
cry out continually, "The Church! the Church!" with as much noise, and