Religious Toleration

About this Collection

The French King, Louis XIV, revoked the laws that granted religious toleration to the Calvinists - also known as the the Huguenots - the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. This sparked a debate throughout Europe about the benefits and costs of a tolerant religious policy. John Locke wrote a series of “letters on toleration” and he was joined by the German jurist Samuel Pufendorf. The wars and revolutions in England from the 1640s to 1689 were concerned with questions of the religious persecution and toleration of Protestants and Catholics. William Penn was active in the 1670s and 1680s in arguing for religious liberty.

Key People

Mustafa Akyol

Pierre Bayle

John Lilburne

William Penn

Christian Thomasius

Titles & Essays

Group by Category

THE READING ROOM

Anne Dowriche: War, Treason and Shakespeare.

By: Joanne Paul October 1, 2024

Thirty years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a small book appeared in the London market. The frontispiece identified it as ‘The French Historie’ and noted that it was ‘published by A. D.’. Only when the reader perused the…

THE READING ROOM

Daniel Defoe: Religious Liberty in An Age of Militant Sectarianism

By: Walter Donway January 17, 2023

The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe made a lasting impression on me as a boy. But I seem to have missed the theme, which historians view as religious salvation—“deliverance”—and religious tolerance.

Nor did I get around, back then, to…

THE READING ROOM

How To Live Amid Falling Walls

By: Daniel Ross Goodman December 8, 2023

During the past few weeks, as Jews in America, Europe, and Israel have been experiencing an upsurge an antisemitism unlike anything the world has seen since the Holocaust—an increase in Jew-hatred so alarming that it prompted Senate…

A Letter concerning Toleration and Other Writings

John Locke (author)

Part of the Thomas Hollis Library published by Liberty Fund. This volume contains A Letter Concerning Toleration, excerpts of the Third Letter, An Essay on Toleration, and various fragments.

Of the Nature and Qualification of Religion, in Reference to Civil Society

Samuel von Pufendorf (author)

In this work Pufendorf argues for the separation of politics and religion. Written in response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the French king, Louis XIV, Pufendorf contests the right of the sovereign to control the…

Observations on “The Two Sons of Oil” (1812 ed.)

William Findley (author)

Observations on “The Two Sons of Oil” was written in 1811 in response to the Reverend Samuel B. Wylie’s work, The Two Sons of Oil, which was published in 1803. Wylie pointed out what he considered to be deficiencies in the…

THE READING ROOM

OLL’s November Birthday: Pierre Bayle (November 22, 1647-December 28, 1706)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel November 28, 2022

November’s OLL Birthday essay is in honor of Pierre Bayle, a philosopher and theologian who exercised a profound influence on Enlightenment thinkers. His works regarding toleration, in particular, were at least as important as those…

The Political Writings of William Penn

William Penn (author)

This volume illuminates the origins and development of Penn’s thought by presenting complete and annotated texts of all his important political works. Penn’s early political writings illuminate the Whig understanding of English…

The Works, vol. 5 Four Letters concerning Toleration

John Locke (author)

Locke was an early advocate of religious toleration. Collected in this volume are his letters or essays on this topic.

Quotes

Natural Rights

Herbert Spencer on the right of political and economic “dissenters” to have their different beliefs and practices respected by the state (1842)

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Religion & Toleration

John Locke believed that the magistrate should not punish sin but only violations of natural rights and public peace (1689)

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Religion & Toleration

John Stuart Mill on the “religion of humanity” (c. 1858)

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Religion & Toleration

Pierre Bayle begins his defence of religious toleration with this appeal that the light of nature, or Reason, should be used to settle religious differences and not coercion (1708)

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Religion & Toleration

Voltaire argued that religious intolerance was against the law of nature and was worse than the “right of the tiger” (1763)

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Science

Voltaire laments the destruction of Lisbon in an earthquake and criticises the philosophers who thought that “all’s well with the world” and the religious who thought it was “God’s will” (1755)

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Religion & Toleration

Voltaire notes that where Commerce and Toleration predominate, a Multiplicity of Faiths can live together in Peace and Happiness (1764)

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