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

laws, does discover this way that leads to heaven more certainly to
the magistrate than every private man's search and study discovers
it unto himself. I have a weak body, sunk under a languishing disease,
for which (I suppose) there is one only remedy, but that unknown. Does
it therefore belong unto the magistrate to prescribe me a remedy,
because there is but one, and because it is unknown? Because there
is but one way for me to escape death, will it therefore be safe for
me to do whatsoever the magistrate ordains? Those things that every
man ought sincerely to inquire into himself, and by meditation, study,
search, and his own endeavours, attain the knowledge of, cannot be
looked upon as the peculiar possession of any sort of men. Princes,
indeed, are born superior unto other men in power, but in nature
equal. Neither the right nor the art of ruling does necessarily
carry along with it the certain knowledge of other things, and least
of all of true religion. For if it were so, how could it come to
pass that the lords of the earth should differ so vastly as they do in
religious matters? But let us grant that it is probable the way to
eternal life may be better known by a prince than by his subjects,
or at least that in this incertitude of things the safest and most
commodious way for private persons is to follow his dictates. You will
say: "What then?" If he should bid you follow merchandise for your
livelihood, would you decline that course for fear it should not
succeed? I answer: I would turn merchant upon the prince's command,
because, in case I should have ill-success in trade, he is
abundantly able to make up my loss some other way. If it be true, as
he pretends, that he desires I should thrive and grow rich, he can set
me up again when unsuccessful voyages have broken me. But this is
not the case in the things that regard the life to come; if there I
take a wrong course, if in that respect I am once undone, it is not in
the magistrate's power to repair my loss, to ease my suffering, nor to
restore me in any measure, much less entirely, to a good estate.
What security can be given for the Kingdom of Heaven?

Perhaps some will say that they do not suppose this infallible
judgement, that all men are bound to follow in the affairs of
religion, to be in the civil magistrate, but in the Church. What the
Church has determined, that the civil magistrate orders to be
observed; and he provides by his authority that nobody shall either
act or believe in the business of religion otherwise than the Church
teaches. So that the judgement of those things is in the Church; the
magistrate himself yields obedience thereunto and requires the like
obedience from others. I answer: Who sees not how frequently the
name of the Church, which was venerable in time of the apostles, has
been made use of to throw dust in the people's eyes in the following
ages? But, however, in the present case it helps us not. The one
only narrow way which leads to heaven is not better known to the
magistrate than to private persons, and therefore I cannot safely take
him for my guide, who may probably be as ignorant of the way as
myself, and who certainly is less concerned for my salvation than I
myself am. Amongst so many kings of the Jews, how many of them were