Four Letters on Toleration (Classic Reprint)

Toleration, first printed in Latin this very year, in Holland, has already been translated both into Dutch and French. So general and speedy an approbation may therefore bespeak its favourable reception in England. I think indeed there is no nation under heaven, in which so much has already been said upon that subject as ours. But yet certainly there is no people that stand in more need of having something further both said and done amongst them, in this point, than we do.. Our government has not only been partial in matters of religion ;but those also who have suffered under that partiality, and have there fore endeavoured by their writings to vindicate their own rights and liberties, have for the most part done it upon narrow principles suited only to the interests of their own sects. This narrowness of spirit on all sides has undoubtedly been the principal occasion of our miseries and confusions. But whatever have been the occasion, it is now high time to seek for a thorough cure. We have need of more generous remedies than what have yet been made use of in our distemper. It is neither declarations of indulgence, nor acts of comprehension, such have as yet been practised or projected amongst us, that can do the work. The first will but palliate, the second increase our evil ABSOLUTE LIBERTY, JUST AND TRUE LIBERTY, EQUAL AND IM PARTIAL LIBERTY, IS THE THING THAT WE STAND IN NEED OF. Now, though this has indeed been much talked of, I doubt it has not been much understood ;I am sure not at all practised, either by our governors towards the people in general, or by any dissenting parties of the people towards one another. I cannot therefore but hope that this discourse, which treats of that subject, however briefly, yet more exactly than any we have yet seen, demonstrating both the equitableness and practicableness of the thing, will be esteemed highly season
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)