"A Letter Considering Toleration" - читать интересную книгу автора (Locke John)

furnish unto mankind. No peace and security, no, not so much as common
friendship, can ever be established or preserved amongst men so long
as this opinion prevails, that dominion is founded in grace and that
religion is to be propagated by force of arms.

In the third place, let us see what the duty of toleration
requires from those who are distinguished from the rest of mankind
(from the laity, as they please to call us) by some ecclesiastical
character and office; whether they be bishops, priests, presbyters,
ministers, or however else dignified or distinguished. It is not my
business to inquire here into the original of the power or dignity
of the clergy. This only I say, that, whencesoever their authority
be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it ought to be confined
within the bounds of the Church, nor can it in any manner be
extended to civil affairs, because the Church itself is a thing
absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth. The boundaries
on both sides are fixed and immovable. He jumbles heaven and earth
together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these two
societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in
everything perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each
other. No man, therefore, with whatsoever ecclesiastical office he
be dignified, can deprive another man that is not of his church and
faith either of liberty or of any part of his worldly goods upon the
account of that difference between them in religion. For whatsoever is
not lawful to the whole Church cannot by any ecclesiastical right
become lawful to any of its members.

But this is not all. It is not enough that ecclesiastical men
abstain from violence and rapine and all manner of persecution. He
that pretends to be a successor of the apostles, and takes upon him
the office of teaching, is obliged also to admonish his hearers of the
duties of peace and goodwill towards all men, as well towards the
erroneous as the orthodox; towards those that differ from them in
faith and worship as well as towards those that agree with them
therein. And he ought industriously to exhort all men, whether private
persons or magistrates (if any such there be in his church), to
charity, meekness, and toleration, and diligently endeavour to ally
and temper all that heat and unreasonable averseness of mind which
either any man's fiery zeal for his own sect or the craft of others
has kindled against dissenters. I will not undertake to represent
how happy and how great would be the fruit, both in Church and
State, if the pulpits everywhere sounded with this doctrine of peace
and toleration, lest I should seem to reflect too severely upon
those men whose dignity I desire not to detract from, nor would have
it diminished either by others or themselves. But this I say, that
thus it ought to be. And if anyone that professes himself to be a
minister of the Word of God, a preacher of the gospel of peace,
teach otherwise, he either understands not or neglects the business of
his calling and shall one day give account thereof unto the Prince
of Peace. If Christians are to be admonished that they abstain from