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First Letter Concerning Toleration/13 


from the right way, it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee; nor there- 
fore art thou to punish him in the things of this life because thou supposest 
he will be miserable in that which is to come. 

What I say concerning the mutual toleration of private persons dif- 
fering from one another in religion, I understand also of particular 
churches which stand, as it were, in the same relation to each other as 
private persons among themselves: nor has any one of them any manner 
of jurisdiction over any other; no, not even when the civil magistrate (as 
it sometimes happens) comes to be of this or the other communion. For 
the civil government can give no new right to the church, nor the church 
to the civil government. So that, whether the magistrate join himself to 
any church, or separate from it, the church remains always as it was 
before — a free and voluntary society. It neither requires the power of 
the sword by the magistrate’s coming to it, nor does it lose the right of 
instruction and excommunication by his going from it. This is the fun- 
damental and immutable right of a spontaneous society — that it has 
power to remove any of its members who transgress the rules of its 
institution; but it cannot, by the accession of any new members, acquire 
any right of jurisdiction over those that are not joined with it. And there- 
fore peace, equity, and friendship are always mutually to be observed 
by particular churches, in the same manner as by private persons, with- 
out any pretence of superiority or jurisdiction over one another. 

That the thing may be made clearer by an example, let us suppose 
two churches — the one of Arminians, the other of Calvinists — residing 
in the city of Constantinople. Will anyone say that either of these churches 
has right to deprive the members of the other of their estates and liberty 
(as we see practised elsewhere) because of their differing from it in 
some doctrines and ceremonies, whilst the Turks, in the meanwhile, si- 
lently stand by and laugh to see with what inhuman cruelty Christians 
thus rage against Christians? But if one of these churches hath this power 
of treating the other ill, I ask which of them it is to whom that power 
belongs, and by what right? It will be answered, undoubtedly, that it is 
the orthodox church which has the right of authority over the erroneous 
or heretical. This is, in great and specious words, to say just nothing at 
all. For every church is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or hereti- 
cal. For whatsoever any church believes, it believes to be true and the 
contrary unto those things it pronounce; to be error. So that the contro- 
versy between these churches about the truth of their doctrines and the 
purity of their worship is on both sides equal; nor is there any judge.