Toleration is the liberty conceded, especially where a particular form of religion is established by law, to those of other religious beliefs to publicly teach and defend their theological and ecclesiastical opinions, and to worship whom and how they please, or not at all. But no permission is thereby given to violate the rights of others, or to infringe laws designed for the protection of decency, morality, and good order, or for the security of the governing power. In Britain there are still in force certain statutes imposing penalties on opinions and practices, once regarded as criminal because of their offensiveness to God, such as Blasphemy (q.v.); but these laws are seldom executed now, the opinion having become prevalent that, except when the religious feelings of the public are so wantonly outraged as to make the perpetrator a nuisance, theological error is best opposed by refuting it, and that when those accused of Heresy (q.v.) are men of piety and earnest conviction any degree of severity short of extirpation tends rather to diffuse than to suppress their tenets. The right of private judgment in matters of faith and worship is now more generally recognised in practice than it used to be, though even yet many resent the exercise by their neighbours who differ from them of the freedom which they claim for themselves. In a church claiming infallibility, and believing that salvation is unattainable beyond her pale, it is not only consistent, but to her more earnest members must seem a duty, to prevent by force the spread of what is accounted a fatal heresy; and, in fact, toleration has never been either professed or practised by the Church of Rome. The Reformers, as a whole, while claiming freedom for themselves, by no means accepted the principle of tolerating what they regarded as pernicious doctrines: a notable case to the contrary is Calvin's treatment of Servetus (q.v.). The peace of Westphalia (1648), which closed the fearful Thirty Years' War, secured a religious and civil freedom in Germany for Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, but for no others. Even the English Puritans, though long oppressed themselves, were so blind to the right of others to differ from them that in their own brief day of power they eagerly repudiated, by word and deed, as a monstrous and impious error, the principle of a universal toleration. In the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-46) the Presbyterian members fought successfully against the proposal of the Independents that all sects should alike be tolerated. 'We hope,' wrote Baillie to his Presbyterian friends in Scotland, 'that God will assist us to demonstrate the wickedness of such a toleration.' George Gillespie's view was similar. We accordingly find in the 23d chapter of the Westminster Confession an assertion of the duty of the magistrate to promote the true religion, and to restrain and punish heterodoxy—a principle which, soon after the Restoration, was found to work very inconveniently for the Presbyterians themselves, the magistrate being then one who differed from them as to what the true religion was. The Inde- pendents, on the other hand, had learned the lesson of toleration in Holland—that nursery of liberty in modern Europe—whither they had fled from oppression in the reign of James I. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that they were the first to understand and practise the principles of religious freedom, for in the 16th century Zwingli and some of the Hungarian reformers disclaimed, by word and action alike, the notion that any man is entitled to assume, in his dealings with others, that his own interpretations of Scripture are true, and those of other men, if different, false and culpable.
The English sectaries who founded the American colonies, fleeing from religious intolerance, brought with them no larger toleration for others. In most New England states dissent was punished as heresy, though Roger Williams insisted that 'to punish a man for any matter of his conscience is persecution.' In Pennsylvania no man could hold office who did not acknowledge the deity of Christ; and in Maryland Quakers were fined and variously punished from 1659 onwards. To the keen discussions in Holland and England during the century which followed the Restoration; to the moderation or indifference which characterised the Protestant churches a hundred years ago; to the ever-increasing number and power of dissenters; to the enormous impulse given to the notion of personal rights by the French Revolution; and to that wider mental culture which enables men to see that diversity of mental gifts and acquirements naturally leads to diversity of opinion, it is that we must ascribe the tolerant spirit now generally diffused, especially in England and the United States. Not only is the right of free thought and discussion now generally recognised, but its necessity to the well-being of mankind is asserted by eminent thinkers. And in most civilised countries, though churches may be limited in their privileges, private freedom is accorded to all religious belief: Russia is of great Christian nations the most intolerant.
See Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying; Milton's Areopagitica, his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, and his treatise Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, &c.; John Owen's Indulgence and Toleration Considered; Barclay's Apology for the Quakers; Locke's Letters concerning Toleration; Paley's Moral Philosophy; Sydney Smith's Letter to the Electors on the Catholic Question; Martineau's Rationale of Religious Enquiry; Guizot's History of Civilisation in Europe; Buckle's History of Civilisation; Mill On Liberty; Lecky, Rise of Rationalism and History of European Morals; Bancroft, History of the United States; the church histories; and in this work the articles CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, JEWS, PERSECUTION, works cited at FRIENDS, &c.; also SIDNEY (ALGERNON).
The ACT OF TOLERATION was an act passed after the English Revolution of 1689, with the hearty support of William III. It repealed the persecuting acts of Charles II.'s reign against conventicles, &c., and practically gave religious toleration to Protestant dissenters and Quakers, but expressly excluded Roman Catholics or anti-Trinitarians.