LOCKE'S OPINIONS ON RELIGION AND MORALS, AND HIS THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS.
In the _Essay on the Human Understanding_, Bk. IV., ch. x., Locke
attempts to prove the existence of a God, which, though God has given
us no innate idea of Himself, he regards as "the most obvious truth
that reason discerns," and as resting on evidence equal to mathematical
certainty. Morality is, he maintains, entirely based upon the Will
of God. If there were no God, there would, for him, be no morality,
and this is the reason of his denying to Atheists the protection of
the State. In the chapter on the Existence of God he says expressly
that this truth is so fundamental that "all genuine morality depends
thereon," and almost at the beginning of the _Essay_ (Bk. I., ch. iii.,
§ 6), while acknowledging that "several moral rules may receive from
mankind a very general approbation, without either knowing or admitting
the true ground of morality," he maintains that such true ground "can
only be the Will and Law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his
hand rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the
proudest offender." Again, "the Rule prescribed by God is the true and
only measure of Virtue." But how are we to ascertain this rule? "God
has by an inseparable connexion joined Virtue and Public Happiness
together," and hence we have only to ascertain, by the use of the
natural reason, what on the whole conduces most to the public welfare,
in order to know the Divine Will. The rules, when arrived at, have a
"moral and eternal obligation," and are enforced by fear of "the Hell
God has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress them."
This form of Utilitarianism, resting on a theological basis and
enforced by theological sanctions, is precisely that which afterwards
became so popular and excited so much attention, when adopted in
the well-known work of Paley. According to this system, we do what
is right simply because God commands it, and because He will punish
us if we disobey His orders. "By the fault is the rod, and with the
transgression a fire ready to punish it." But, notwithstanding the
divine origin and the divine sanction of morality, its measure and test
are purely human. Each man is required by the Law of God to do all
the good and prevent all the evil that he can, and, as good and evil
are resolved into pleasure and pain, the ultimate test of virtue or
moral conduct comes to be its conduciveness to promote the pleasures
and avert the pains of mankind. Bentham, whose ethical system, it may
be noticed, differed mainly from that of Locke and Paley by not being
based on a theological foundation, extends the scope of morality to all
sentient creatures, capable of pleasure and pain.
I shall not here criticise Locke's theory so far as it is common to
other utilitarian systems of ethics, but shall simply content myself
with pointing out that its influence on subsequent writers has seldom,
if ever, been sufficiently recognized. The theological foundation,
however, on which it rests, and which is peculiar among the more
prominent moralists of modern times to Locke and Paley, is open to an
objection so grave and obvious, that it is curious it did not occur
to the authors themselves. If what is right and wrong, good and evil,
depends solely on the Will of God, how can we speak of God Himself as
good? Goodness, as one of the Divine attributes, would then simply mean
the conformity of God to His own Will. An elder contemporary of Locke,
Ralph Cudworth, so clearly saw the difficulties and contradictions
involved in this view of the nature and origin of morality, that he
devotes a considerable portion of his _Treatise concerning Eternal and
Immutable Morality_ (which, however, was not published till 1731) to
its refutation. And, possibly, Locke himself may have been conscious of
some inconsistency between this theory (the ordinary one amongst the
vulgar, though a comparatively rare one amongst philosophers) and the
attribution of goodness to God. For, in his chapter on our knowledge
of the existence of God, he never expressly mentions the attribute of
goodness as pertaining to the Divine Nature, though in other parts
of the _Essay_ it must be acknowledged that he incidentally does so.
Moralists and philosophical theologians have generally escaped the
difficulties of Locke's theory by making right or moral goodness depend
not on the Will but on the Nature of God, or else by regarding it as an
ultimate fact, incapable of explanation, or, lastly, by resolving it
into the idea of happiness or pleasure, which itself is then regarded
as an ultimate fact in the constitution of sentient beings.
Two other characteristic doctrines of Locke's ethical system ought
here to be mentioned, though it is impossible, within the space at my
command, to discuss them. One is that morality is a science capable of
demonstration. The other, which is elaborately set out in the chapter
on Power in the _Essay_ (Bk. II., ch. xxi.), is that, though the Agent
is free to act as he wills, the Will itself is invariably determined
by motives. This solution of the well-worn controversy on the Freedom
of the Will is almost identical with that offered by Hobbes before and
by Hume afterwards, and is usually known as Determinism.
We have seen that the main sanctions of morality, with Locke, are the
rewards and punishments of a future state. But how are we assured of
future existence? Only by Revelation. "Good and wise men," indeed,
"have always been willing to believe that the soul was immortal;"
but "though the Light of Nature gave some obscure glimmering, some
uncertain hopes of a future state, yet Human Reason could attain to
no clearness, no certainty about it, but it was Jesus Christ alone
who brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (Third
Letter to the Bp. of Worcester.) But if the main sanctions of morality
are those of a future state, and if it is Christians alone who feel
anything approaching to an assurance of such a state, surely morality
must come with somewhat weak credentials to the rest of mankind. And
Locke doubtless believed this to be the case. But then, if this be
so, Christians ought to be prepared to tolerate a much lower morality
than their own in dealing with men of other faiths--one of the many
inconvenient consequences which result from founding morality on a
theological basis.
* * * * *
Under the head of Locke's theological writings may be included
the _Treatise on the Reasonableness of Christianity_ with the two
_Vindications_ of it--the _Essays on Toleration_, and the _Commentaries
on some of the Epistles of St. Paul_. _The Reasonableness of
Christianity_ was published in 1695, and may be taken as expressing
Locke's most matured opinions on the questions of which it treats,
though, in reading it, we must always bear in mind the caution and
reticence which any writer of that time who diverged from the strict
path of orthodoxy was obliged to observe. There can be no doubt
that his object in this work was to commend what he regarded as the
fundamental truths of Christianity to the attention of reflecting men,
and to vindicate to the Christian religion what he conceived to be its
legitimate influence over mankind. But, in trying to effect this his
main object, he seems also to have wished to correct what he regarded
as certain popular errors, and to bring back Christianity to the norm
of the Scriptures, instead of implicitly following the Fathers, the
Councils, and the received theology of the Churches and the Schools. He
attempted, he tells us, to clear his mind of all preconceived notions,
and, following the lead of the Scriptures, of which he assumed the
infallibility, to see whither they would lead him. We may certainly
trust his own assertion that he had no thoughts of writing in the
interest of any particular party, though, at the same time, it was
evidently his aim to extract from the Scriptures a theory as much as
possible in accordance with the requirements of human reason, or, in
other words, to reconcile the divine light with the natural light of
man. The main results at which he arrived may be stated very briefly,
as follows. Adam had been created immortal, but, by falling from the
state of perfect obedience, "he lost paradise, wherein was tranquillity
and the tree of life; that is, he lost bliss and immortality." "In Adam
all die," and hence all his descendants are mortal. But this sentence
is to be taken in its literal sense, and not in the signification that
"every one descended of him deserves endless torment in hell-fire."
For it seems "a strange way of understanding a law, which requires the
plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant eternal
life in misery." Much less can death be interpreted as a necessity of
continual sinning. "Can the righteous God be supposed, as a punishment
of our sin, wherewith He is displeased, to put man under the necessity
of sinning continually, and so multiplying the provocation?" Here it
will be seen Locke strikes at the root of the doctrines of the taint
and guilt of original sin, doctrines which had long been stoutly
opposed by the Arminians or Remonstrants with whom he had associated
in Holland. But though it would have been an injustice to condemn men,
for the fault of another, to a state of misery "worse than non-being,"
it was no wrong to deprive them of that to which they had no right,
the exceptional condition of immortality. Adam's sin, then, subjected
all men to death. But in Christ they have again been made alive, and
"the life which Jesus Christ restores to all men is that life which
they receive again at the resurrection." Now the conditions of our
obtaining this gift are faith and repentance. But repentance implies
the doing works meet for repentance; that is to say, leading a good
life. And faith implies a belief not only in the one invisible,
eternal, omnipotent God, but also in Jesus as the Messiah, who was
born of a virgin, rose again from the grave, and ascended into heaven.
When Christ came on earth, the minds of men had become so far blinded
by sense and lust and superstition that it required some visible and
unmistakable assertion of God's majesty and goodness to bring them back
to true notions of Him and of the Divine Law which He had set them.
"Reason, speaking ever so clearly to the wise and virtuous, had never
authority enough to prevail on the multitude." For the multitude were
under the dominion of the priests, and the "priests everywhere, to
secure their empire, had excluded reason from having anything to do
in religion." "In this state of darkness and error, in reference to
the 'true God,' our Saviour found the world. But the clear revelation
he brought with him dissipated this darkness, made the 'one invisible
true God' known to the world; and that with such evidence and energy,
that polytheism and idolatry have nowhere been able to withstand it."
And, as he revealed to mankind a clear knowledge of the one true God,
so also he revealed to them a clear knowledge of their duty, which was
equally wanting.
"Natural religion, in its full extent, was nowhere that I know taken
care of by the force of natural reason. It should seem, by the little
that has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task for
unassisted reason to establish morality in all its parts, upon its
true foundation, with a clear and convincing light. And it is at
least a surer and shorter way to the apprehensions of the vulgar and
mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with
visible authority from him, should, as a king and law-maker, tell
them their duties and require their obedience, than leave it to the
long and sometimes intricate deductions of reason to be made out
to them. Such trains of reasoning the greater part of mankind have
neither leisure to weigh, nor, for want of education and use, skill
to judge of.... You may as soon hope to have all the day-labourers
and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy-maids, perfect mathematicians,
as to have them perfect in ethics this way. Hearing plain commands is
the sure and only course to bring them to obedience and practice. The
greater part cannot learn, and therefore they must believe."
It is true that reason quickly apprehends and approves of these truths,
when once delivered, but "native and original truth is not so easily
wrought out of the mine as we, who have it delivered already dug and
fashioned into our hands, are apt to imagine;" moreover, "experience
shows that the knowledge of morality by mere natural light (how
agreeable soever it be to it) makes but a slow progress, and little
advance in the world."
The evidence of Christ's mission is to be found in the miracles, the
occurrence and the divine origin of which Locke, both here and in the
paper on Miracles published among his Posthumous Works, appears to have
thought it impossible to gainsay. "The miracles he did were so ordered
by the divine providence and wisdom, that they never were nor could be
denied by any of the enemies or opposers of Christianity." And "this
plain matter of fact being granted, the truth of our Saviour's doctrine
and mission unavoidably follows." But once acknowledge the truth of
Christ's mission, and the rule of life is evident. "To one who is once
persuaded that Jesus Christ was sent by God to be a King, and a Saviour
of those who do believe in him, all his commands become principles;
there needs no other proof for the truth of what he says, but that he
said it. And then there needs no more, but to read the inspired books,
to be instructed; all the duties of morality lie there clear, and
plain, and easy to be understood."
This, then, is Locke's scheme of a plain and reasonable Christianity.
"These are articles that the labouring and illiterate man may
comprehend. This is a religion suited to vulgar capacities, and the
state of mankind in this world, destined to labour and travail." "The
writers and wranglers in religion," indeed, "fill it with niceties, and
dress it up with notions, which they make necessary and fundamental
parts of it, as if there were no way into the church but through the
academy or lyceum;" but the religion which he had enunciated was,
Locke conceived, the religion of Christ and the Apostles, of the New
Testament and of Common-Sense.
That Locke, though he had no respect for the dogmas of the Church,
never seriously questioned the supernatural birth of Christ, the
reality of the Christian miracles, or the infallibility of the
Scriptures, is abundantly evident. On the last point his testimony
is quite as emphatic as on the former two. In the _Reasonableness
of Christianity_, speaking of the writers of the Epistles, he
says:--"These holy writers, inspired from above, writ nothing but
truth." And, to the same effect, in his Second Reply to Stillingfleet,
he writes:--"My lord, I read the revelation of the holy scripture with
a full assurance that all it delivers is true." The word "infallible"
is applied, without any misgiving or qualification, to the contents of
Scripture, though he assumes to each individual believer full liberty
of interpretation. During his residence in Holland, as we have already
seen, he appears to have entertained some doubts on this subject, but,
at a later period, those doubts appear to have been finally laid.
Notwithstanding, however, the sincerity and simplicity of Locke's
religious faith, the doctrines which he maintained must have
represented but a very attenuated Christianity to the partisans of
the two great religious parties which were at that time nominally
the strongest in England. A Christianity which did not recognize the
hereditary taint of original sin, and which passed over the mystery of
the Atonement in silence, must have been as distasteful to one party
as a Christianity which ignored Church authority and the exclusive
privileges of the apostolical succession must have been to the other.
And to the zealots of both parties alike, a statement of doctrine which
was silent on the mystery of the Trinity, or rather which seemed to
imply that the Son, though miraculously conceived, was not co-equal or
co-eternal with the Father, and which, by implication, appeared to
suggest that, though the righteous would be endowed with immortality,
the torments of the wicked would have an end, might well seem not
to deserve the name of Christianity at all. We need feel no wonder,
then, that the appearance of Locke's work was followed by a bitter
theological controversy which lasted during the rest of his life, and
beyond it. Of these attacks upon him, and his _Vindications_, I have
spoken in a previous chapter.
Whether Locke's presentation of Christianity is really more
"reasonable" than the ancient and venerable creeds which it attempted
to replace, is a question which might be debated now with fully as
much vigour as in his own day. On the one hand, it might be maintained
that a religion which has no mysteries, which has been pared down
to the requirements of human reason, has ceased to be a religion
altogether. That which is behind the veil can only be partially
revealed in our present condition and to our present faculties. Now
we know, and can know, only in part. On the other hand, it might be
said that the "reason" is quite as much offended by the doctrines
which Locke retained as by those which he rejected. It is necessary,
however, to recollect, in estimating his position, that the theological
difficulties of his age were moral and metaphysical rather than
scientific and critical. The moral consciousness of many reflecting men
was shocked by doctrines like those of original sin, predestination,
the atonement, and everlasting punishment. Nor could they reconcile to
their reason the seeming contradictions of the doctrine of a Triune
God. But the study of nature had not advanced sufficiently far, or
been sufficiently widely spread, to make the idea of supernatural
intervention in the ordinary course of affairs, such as is constantly
presented to us in the Biblical history, any serious or general
stumbling-block. Much less had the criticism of the Sacred Text, or
the comparison of it with the sacred books of other religions, become
sufficiently common, or been carried out with sufficient rigour, to
disturb, to any great extent, the received opinion that the Bible was
literally, or, at least, substantially, the Word of God. Hence the
_via media_ on which Locke took his stand, though it might have been
impossible to a philosopher of the next generation, seemed reasonable
and natural enough to speculative men among his contemporaries. And
for him it had at least this advantage, that it enabled him honestly
to reconcile the conclusions of his philosophy with the singular piety
and devoutness of his disposition. Had his religious doubts proceeded
further than they did, there would probably have ensued a mental
struggle which, besides causing him much personal unhappiness, might
have deprived posterity of the more important of his works.
* * * * *
Of _The Letters on Toleration_, though deeply interesting to the
generation in which they were written, a very brief account will here
suffice. Their main thesis is, that the jurisdiction of the civil
magistrate does not extend to the regulation of religious worship or
to controlling the expression of religious beliefs, except so far as
that worship or those beliefs may interfere with the ends of civil
government. The respective provinces of a commonwealth and a church
are strictly defined, and are shown to be perfectly distinct. "The
boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable. He jumbles heaven
and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes
these societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in
everything, perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each
other." But it may be asked, are there no speculative opinions, no
tenets, actual or possible, of any religious community which should be
restrained by the Civil Magistrate? The answer is, yes,--
"First, No opinions contrary to human society, or to those moral
rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are
to be tolerated by the magistrate."
Secondly, after speaking of those who maintain such positions as that
"faith is not to be kept with heretics," that "kings excommunicated
forfeit their crowns and kingdoms," that "dominion is founded in
grace," he proceeds:
"These, therefore, and the like, who attribute unto the faithful,
religious, and orthodox, that is, in plain terms, unto themselves,
any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals in civil
concernments, or who, upon pretence of religion, do challenge any
manner of authority over such as are not associated with them in
their ecclesiastical communion: I say these have no right to be
tolerated by the magistrate, as neither those that will not own and
teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of mere religion. For
what do all these and the like doctrines signify, but that they may,
and are ready upon any occasion to seize the government, and possess
themselves of the estates and fortunes of their fellow-subjects, and
that they only ask leave to be tolerated by the magistrates so long
until they find themselves strong enough to effect it?"
"Thirdly, That church can have no right to be tolerated by the
magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those
who enter upon it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to
the protection and service of another prince. For by this means the
magistrate would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction
in his own country, and suffer his own people to be listed, as it
were, for soldiers against his own government."
"Lastly, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of
God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human
society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God,
though but even in thought, dissolves all."
The practical result of Locke's exceptions, at the time at which he
wrote, would have been to exclude from toleration Roman Catholics,
Atheists, and perhaps certain sects of Antinomians. Roman Catholics,
however, would not have been excluded on the ground of their belief
in Transubstantiation, as was actually the case, but because of those
tenets which, in Locke's judgment, made them bad or impossible subjects.
Locke was not by any means the first of English writers who had
advocated a wide toleration in religion. Bacon, in his remarkable
_Essay on Unity in Religion_, had laid down, in passing, a position
which is almost identical with that developed at length in the _Letters
on Toleration_. During the Civil Wars, the Independents, as a body, had
been led on by their theories of Church Government and of individual
inspiration to maintain, on principle, and accord, in practice, a
large measure of religious toleration. Amongst divines of the Church
of England, Hales of Eton, Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor, had
honourably distinguished themselves above the mass of their brethren
by expressly advocating, or unmistakably suggesting, the same humane
doctrines. The practical conclusions at which Taylor arrives, in his
noble work on the _Liberty of Prophesying_, bear a close resemblance
to those of Locke's _Letters on Toleration_, while the theoretical
considerations on which he mainly founds them, namely, the difficulty
of discovering religious truth, and the small number of theological
propositions of which we can entertain anything like certainty, might
be regarded as anticipating, to no small extent, some of the views
expressed in the _Reasonableness of Christianity_. Locke's attention
had been turned to these questions at an early period of his life
by the religious dissensions which accompanied the Civil Wars, and,
during the years immediately preceding the publication of the first
_Letter on Toleration_, his interest in them must have been sustained
not only by the events which were then happening in England, but by
the common topics of conversation amongst his Arminian or Remonstrant
friends in Holland. The peculiarities of their position and the
tendencies of their doctrines had, at an early date, forced on the
Dutch Remonstrants, just as on the English Independents, the necessity
of claiming and defending a wide toleration. What, perhaps, mainly
distinguishes Locke's pamphlets is their thorough outspokenness, the
political rather than the theological character of the argument,
and the fact that they are expressly dedicated to the subject of
Toleration, instead of treating of it incidentally.
The sharp line of demarcation which Locke draws between the respective
provinces of civil and religious communities seems to lead logically
to the inexpediency of maintaining a state establishment of religion.
The independence which he claims for all religious societies would be
inconsistent with the control which the State always has exercised, and
always must exercise, in the affairs of any spiritual body on which it
confers special privileges. This conclusion, we can hardly doubt, he
would have readily accepted. As far back as 1669, he had objected to
one of the articles in the "Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina,"
providing for the establishment and endowment of the Church of England
in that colony. Even at the present day, men who adopt the most liberal
and tolerant opinions on religious questions are divided as to the
expediency or inexpediency of recognizing a State-Church; but those
who embrace the latter alternative may, perhaps, fairly claim Locke as
having been on their side.
* * * * *
The system contained in the _Reasonableness of Christianity_ had been
constructed solely on an examination of the Gospels and the Acts
of the Apostles. In addition to the difficulties of interpretation
attaching to the Epistles, Locke had urged that "they were writ to
them who were in the faith and true Christians already, and so could
not be designed to teach them the fundamental articles and points
necessary to salvation." But to one who accepted the divine inspiration
and infallibility of all parts of Scripture, it was essential to
establish the consistency and coherence of the whole. Accordingly, in
the later years of his life, Locke set himself the task of explaining
the Epistles. This work seems to have been undertaken more for his own
satisfaction and that of Lady Masham and his more immediate friends,
than with any distinct design of publication. Nor did his commentaries
see the light till after his death.
The commentatorial work accomplished by Locke consists of paraphrases
and notes on the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and
Ephesians, together with _An Essay for the understanding of St. Paul's
Epistles by consulting St. Paul himself_.
It is needless to remark that these commentaries are distinguished by
sound, clear sense, and by a manifest spirit of candour and fairness.
They are often quoted with approbation by commentators of the last
century. But in the present more advanced state of grammatical and
historical criticism, they are likely to remain, as they now are, the
least consulted of all his works.
The method, object, and drift of all Locke's theological writings is
the same. Regardless of ecclesiastical tradition, but assuming the
infallibility of the Scriptures, he attempts to arrive at the true and
essential import of God's Revelation to man. His theoretical conclusion
is that the articles of saving faith are few and simple, and the
practical application of that conclusion is that, not only within the
ample fold of Christianity, but even without it, all men, whose conduct
is consistent with the maintenance of civil society, should be the
objects of our goodwill and charity.