I am sure
that Bellarmine would have had small difficulty in turning Locke round his
fingers' ends upon this ground. A _right_ to protection I can understand;
but a _right_ to toleration seems to me a contradiction in terms. Some
criterion must in any case be adopted by the state; otherwise it might be
compelled to admit whatever hideous doctrine and practice any man or number
of men may assert to be his or their religion, and an article of his or
their faith. It was the same Pope who commanded the Romanists of England to
separate from the national church, which previously their own consciences
had not dictated, nor the decision of any council,--and who also commanded
them to rebel against Queen Elizabeth, whom they were bound to obey by the
laws of the land; and if the Pope had authority for one, he must have had
it for the other. The only true argument, as it seems to me, apart from
Christianity, for a discriminating toleration is, that _it is of no use_ to
attempt to stop heresy or schism by persecution, unless, perhaps, it be
conducted upon the plan of direct warfare and massacre. You _cannot_
preserve men in the faith by such means, though you may stifle for a while
any open appearance of dissent. The experiment has now been tried, and it
has failed; and that is by a great deal the best argument for the
magistrate against a repetition of it.
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