for the obtaining the favour and forgiveness of the Deity, the chief part of what man could do consisted in a holy life, and little or nothing at all was left to outward ceremony, which was therefore almost wholly cashiered out of this true religion, and only two very plain and simple institutions introduced, all pompous rites being wholly abolished, and no more of outward observances commanded but just so much as decency and order required in the actions of public assemblies. This being the state of this true religion coming immediately from God himself, the ministers of it, who also call themselves priests, have assumed to themselves the parts both of the heathen priests and philosophers, and claim a right, not only to perform all outward acts of the Christian religion in public, and to regulate the ceremonies to be used there, but also to teach men their duties of morality towards one another and towards themselves, and to prescribe to them in the conduct of their lives."1

Thus connecting the Christian priests or clergy with the priests and philosophers of ancient times, and separating their methods from the simple rules of Christianity as he understood it, Locke severely blamed them for so perverting the religion they professed, that "it hath been the cause of more disorders, tumults and bloodshed than all other causes put together." "But far be it from any one," he added, "to think Christ the author of these disorders, or that such fatal mischiefs are the consequence of his doctrine, though they have grown up with it. Antichrist has sown those tares in the field of the church, the rise whereof hath been only hence that the clergy by

1 Lord King, pp. 285, 286. I have somewhat abridged the earlier part of the above extract, using only Locke's words, however, and not altering his sense.

1660-6.

Et. 28-34.

PRIESTCRAFT AND CHRISTIANITY.

159

degrees, as Christianity spread, affecting dominion, laid claim to a priesthood derived by succession from Christ, and so independent from the civil power, receiving, as they pretend, by the imposition of hands and some other ceremonies agreed upon, but variously, by the priesthoods of the several factions, an indelible character, particular sanctity, and a power immediately from heaven to do several things which are not lawful to be done by other men."1

Locke stoutly denied the authority of these insolent assumptions, and forcibly set forth their mischievous nature. "The clergy, as they call themselves, of the Christian religion, in imitation of the Jewish priesthood, having almost ever since the first ages of the church laid claim to this power, separate from civil government, as received from God himself, have-wherever the civil magistrate hath been Christian, and of their opinion, and superior in power to the clergy, and they not able to cope with himpretended this power only to be spiritual, and to extend no farther; but yet still pressed as a duty on the magistrate to punish and persecute those whom they disliked and declared against; and so when they excommunicated, their underofficer, the magistrate, was to execute. And to reward princes for thus doing their drudgery they have, whenever princes have been serviceable to their ends, been careful to preach up monarchy jure divino; but, notwithstanding the jus divinum of monarchy, when any prince hath dared to dissent from their doctrines or forms, or been less apt to execute the decrees of the hierarchy, they have been the first and forwardest in giving check to his authority and disturbance to his government. And princes, on the other side, being apt to hearken to such as seem to advance 1 Lord King, p. 288.

their authority and bring in religion to the assistance of their absolute power, have been generally very ready to worry those sheep who have ever so little straggled out of those shepherds' folds where they were kept in order to be shorn by them both. Hence have come most of those calamities which have so long disturbed and wasted Christendom. Whilst the magistrate, being persuaded it is his duty to punish those the clergy pleases to call heretics, schismatics or fanatics, or else taught to apprehend danger from dissension in religion, thinks it his interest to suppress them, and persecute all who observe not the same forms in the religious worship which is set up in his country, the people on the other side finding the mischiefs that fall on them for worshipping God according to their own persuasion, enter into confederacies and combinations to secure themselves as well as they can; so that oppression and vexation on one side, self-defence and desire of religious liberty on the other, create dislikes, jealousies, apprehensions, and factions, which seldom fail to break out into downright persecution or open war."1

66

Those being the bad effects of priestly influence when the clergy have to truckle to the king, Locke found the evil greater when they can openly exercise temporal as well as spiritual authority. Though Christ declares himself to have no kingdom of this world, his successors have, whenever they can but grasp the power, a large commission to execute, and that a rigorously civil dominion. The popedom hath been a large and lasting instance of this. And what presbytery could do, even in its infancy, when it had a little humbled the magistrates, let Scotland show."2 Though in these early writings on religious affairs Locke 2 Ibid., p. 290.

1 Lord King, pp. 289, 290.

1660-7.

Et. 28-34.

THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

161

concerned himself especially with ecclesiastical questions, it would be easy to construct from them a very clear account of his theological opinions at this time, opinions which he appears to have held with remarkable consistency all through his life. Here, however, it is sufficient to note that, while he most conspicuously condemned all efforts of self-appointed priests of every sect to usurp and pervert the functions of the civil power, or by cunning devices to induce the civil power to become their agent in coercing or attempting to coerce any who differed from them in modes of worship, he also entirely repudiated their audacious claims as spiritual guides, apart from the civil power, to dictate to any the arbitrary systems of belief that were implied in those modes of worship. He was opposed to the dogmas of puritans and episcopalians, presbyterians and catholics alike. Let each man do his utmost to live up to the ideal of a Christian life as set forth in the Bible, but let no man dare to force upon another his own notions as to what even the Bible teaches.

This was the purport of an eloquent little essay, written in Latin in 1661, which he endorsed, 'Infallibilis Scripturae Interpres non Necessarius.' Here he made short work of the question whether the church-and he spoke primarily, though not exclusively, of the church of Rome -had any right to claim infallibility in explaining the doctrines of the Bible. He seems to have considered that logic would be almost wasted in handling a dogma that rhetoric could sufficiently dispose of. "It cannot be," he exclaimed, "that what God himself said on Mount Sinai, and what Christ appointed on the Mount of Olives, is to be overruled by a voice from sevenhilled Rome. It would be strange indeed, if God, who made the tongue and the organs of speech, who gave us VOL. I.-11

all the use of language, cannot be understood, when he declares his will to man, without the help of an interpreter, who thus must know the thoughts of God better than God himself. As if, the words of God being obscure, man could throw light on them! as if the minds of creatures could be more erudite than the mind that formed them!"1

Though we know that during these years Locke was devoting much of his time to medicine, chemistry, and other sciences, it is perhaps less strange that none of his observations thereupon, save such as have been already referred to in our notices of his correspondence, have come down to us, than that we have so few records of his passing thoughts on philosophical subjects. That he made many such can hardly be doubted; but if so, they have nearly all been lost. Only two passages in his common-place book, coming under this category, seem important enough to be here quoted. But these two are very important, as throwing remarkably clear light on the state of his mind at this period.

The first, which appears to have been written in 1661 or soon after, helps to show, not only that Locke had largely imbibed and greatly improved upon the utilitarian views of Hobbes, but also that he had made enough practicable observation of some perplexing social problems to form a juster estimate of them than the world, after learning so much from him, is yet quite ready to adopt.

"Virtue, as in its obligation it is the will of God, discovered by natural. reason, and thus has the force of a law, so in the matter of it it is nothing

1 Shaftesbury Papers, series viii., no. 30.