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

are carried away by their own irregular passions. But, however, that
some may not colour their spirit of persecution and unchristian
cruelty with a pretence of care of the public weal and observation
of the laws; and that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek
impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness; in a word, that
none may impose either upon himself or others, by the pretences of
loyalty and obedience to the prince, or of tenderness and sincerity in
the worship of God; I esteem it above all things necessary to
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