The taking away of God,
though but even in thought, dissolves all. Besides also, those that by
their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence
of religion to challenge the privilege of a Toleration."
Thus Locke is not free from the prejudices of his time. These exceptions
contradict his own principle that "it is absurd that things should be
enjoined by laws which are not in men's power to perform. And to believe
this or that to be true does not depend upon our will." This applies to
Roman Catholics as to Protestants, to atheists as to deists. Locke,
however, perhaps thought
[104] that the speculative opinion of atheism, which was uncommon in his
day, does depend on the will. He would have excluded from his State his
great contemporary Spinoza.
But in spite of its limitations Locke's Toleration is a work of the
highest value, and its argument takes us further than its author went.
It asserts unrestrictedly the secular principle, and its logical issue
is Disestablishment. A Church is merely "a free and voluntary society."
I may notice the remark that if infidels were to be converted by force,
it was easier for God to do it "with armies of heavenly legions than for
any son of the Church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons." This
is a polite way of stating a maxim analogous to that of the Emperor
Tiberius (above, p. 41). If false beliefs are an offence to God, it is,
really, his affair.
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