378 TOLERATION. AN enlightened. toleration is a blessing of the last age-it would seem to have been practised by the Romans, when they did not mistake the primitive Christians for seditious members of society; and was inculcated even by Mahomet, in a passage in the Koran, but scarcely practised by his followers. In modern history, it was condemned, when religion was turned into a political contest, under the aspiring house of Austriaand in Spain-and in France. It required a long time before its nature was comprehended-and to this moment it is far from being clear, either to the tolerators, or the tolerated. It does not appear, that the precepts or the practice of Jesus and the apostles inculcate the compelling of any to be Christians*; yet an expression employed in the nuptial parable of the Bishop Barlow's "Several miscellaneous and weighty Cases of Conscience resolved, 1692." His "Case of a Toleration in Matters of Religion," addressed to Robert Boyle, p. 39. This volume was not intended to have been given to the world, a circumstance which does not make it the less curious. great supper, when the hospitable lord commanded the servant, finding that he had still room to accommodate more guests, "to go out in the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled," was alleged as an authority by those catholics, who called themselves "the convertors," for using religious force, which, still alluding to the hospitable lord, they called "a charitable and salutary violence." It was this circumstance which produced Bayle's "Commentaire philosophique sur ces Paroles de Jesus Christ," published under the supposititious name of an Englishman, as printed at Canterbury in 1686, but really at Amsterdam. It is curious that Locke published his first letter on "Toleration" in Latin at Gouda, in 1689-the second in 1690-and the third in 1692. Bayle opened the mind of Locke, and sometime after quotes Locke's Latin letter with high commendation*. The caution of both writers in publishing in foreign places, however, indicates the prudence which it was deemed necessary to observe in writing in favour of Toleration. * In the article Sancterius. Note F. These were the first philosophical attempts; but the earliest advocates for Toleration may be found among the religious controversialists of a preceding period; it was probably started among the fugitive sects who had found an asylum in Holland. It was a blessing which they had gone far to find, and the miserable, reduced to human feelings, are compassionate to one another. With us the sect called "the Independents" had, early in our revolution under Charles the First, pleaded for the doctrine of religious liberty, and long maintained it against the presbyterians. Both proved persecutors when they possessed power. The first of our respectable divines who advocated this cause was Jeremy Taylor, in his "Discourse on the liberty of Prophesying," 1647, and Bishop Hall, who had pleaded the cause of moderation in a discourse about the same period*. * Recent writers among our sectarists assert that Dr. Owen was the first who wrote in favour of toleration, in 1648! Another claims the honour for John Goodwin, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, who published one of his obscure polemical tracts in 1644, among a number of other persons, who at that crisis did not venture to prefix their names to pleas in favour of Toleration, so delicate and so obscure did this subject then appear! In 1651, they translated the liberal treatise Locke had no doubt examined all these writers. The history of opinions is among the most curious of histories; and I suspect that Bayle was well acquainted with the pamphlets of our sectarists, who, in their flight to Holland, conveyed those curiosities of theology, which had cost them their happiness and their estates: I think he indicates this hidden source of his ideas, by the extraordinary ascription of his book to an Englishman, and fixing the place of its publication at Canterbury! Toleration has been a vast engine in the hands of modern politicians. It was established in the United Provinces of Holland, and our numerous non-conformists took refuge in that asylum for disturbed consciences; it attracted a valuable community of French refugees; it conducted a colony of Hebrew fugitives from Portugal: conventicles of Brownists, quakers' meetings, French churches, and Jewish synagogues, and (had it of Grotius de imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra; under the title of "The authority of the highest powers about sacred things," London, 8vo. 1651. To the honour of Grotius, the first of philosophical reformers, be it recorded, that he displeased both parties! been required) Mahometan mosques, in Amsterdam, were the precursors of its mart and its exchange; the moment they could preserve their consciences sacred to themselves, they lived without mutual persecution, and mixed together as good Dutchmen. The excommunicated part of Europe seemed to be the most enlightened, and it was then considered as a proof of the admirable progress of the human mind, that LOCKE and CLARKE and NEWTON Corresponded with LEIBNITZ, and others of the learned in France and Italy. Some were astonished that philosophers, who differed in their religious opinions, should communicate among themselves with so much toleration *. It is not, however, clear, that had any one of these sects at Amsterdam obtained predominance, which was sometimes attempted, they would have granted to others the toleration they participated in common. The infancy of a party is accompanied by a political weakness, which disables it from weakening others. The catholic in this country pleads for tole * J. P. Rabaut, sur la Revolution Français, p. 27. |