TOLERATION, in matters of religion, is either civil or ecclesiastical. Civil toleration is an impunity and safety granted by the state to every sect that does not maintain doctrines inconsistent with the public peace: and ecclesiastical toleration is the allowance which the church grants to its members to differ in certain opinions, not reputed fundamentals. See NON-CONFORMISTS.
On the subject of religious toleration, we have the
following observations in Dr Robertson's history of Toleration. Charles V. "Among the ancient heathens, all whose deities were local and tutelary, diversity of sentiments concerning the objects or rites of religious worship seems to have been no source of animosity; because the acknowledging veneration to be due to one God, did not imply a denial of the existence or the power of any other god; nor were the modes and rites of worship established in one country incompatible with those which other nations approved and observed. Thus the errors in their system of theology were of such a nature as to be productive of concord; and notwithstanding the amazing number of their deities, as well as the infinite variety of their ceremonies, a sociable and tolerating spirit subsisted almost universally in the Pagan world.
"But when the Christian revelation declared one Supreme Being to be the sole object of religious veneration, and prescribed the form of worship most acceptable to him, whoever admitted its truth, held every other mode of religion to be absurd and impious. Hence the zeal of the first converts to the Christian faith in propagating its doctrines, and the ardour with which they laboured to overturn every other form of worship. They employed, however, for this purpose, no methods but such as suited the nature of religion. By the force of powerful arguments, they convinced the understandings of men; by the charms of superior virtue, they allured and captivated their hearts. At length the civil power declared in favour of Christianity, and though numbers, imitating the example of their superiors, crowded into the church, many still adhered to their ancient superstitions. Enraged at their obstinacy, the ministers of religion, whose zeal was still unabated, though their sanctity and virtue were much diminished, forgot so far the nature of their own mission, and of the arguments which they ought to have employed, that they armed the imperial power against these unhappy men; and as they could not persuade, they tried to compel them to believe.
"At the same time, controversies concerning articles of faith multiplied, from various causes, among Christians themselves; and the same unhallowed weapons which had first been used against the enemies of their religion were turned against each other. Every zealous disputant endeavoured to interest the civil magistrate in his cause, and each in his turn employed the secular arm to crush or to exterminate his opponents. Not long after, the bishops of Rome put in their claim to infallibility in explaining articles of faith, and deciding points in controversy; and, bold as the pretension was, they, by their artifices and perseverance, imposed on the credulity of mankind, and brought them to recognize it. To doubt or to deny any doctrine to which these unerring instructors had given the sanction of their approbation, was held to be not only a resisting of truth, but an act of rebellion against their sacred authority; and the secular power, of which, by various arts, they had acquired the absolute direction, was instantly employed to avenge both.
"Thus Europe had been accustomed, during many centuries, to see speculative opinions propagated or defended by force, the charity and mutual forbearance which Christianity recommends with so much warmth, were forgotten, the sacred rights of conscience and of private
Toleration private judgment were unheard of; and not only the idea of toleration, but even the word itself, in the sense now affixed to it, was unknown. A right to extirpate error by force, was universally allowed to be the prerogative of those who possessed the knowledge of truth; and as each party of Christians believed they had got possession of this invaluable attainment, they all claimed, and exercised, as far as they were able, the rights which it was supposed to convey. The Roman Catholics, as their system rested on the decisions of an infallible judge, never doubted that truth was on their side, and openly called on the civil power to repel the impious and heretical innovators who had risen up against it. The Protestants, no less confident that their doctrine was well-founded, required with equal ardour the princes of their party to check such as presumed to impugn or oppose it. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, the founders of the reformed church in their respective countries, inflicted, as far as they had power and opportunity, the same punishments which were denounced against their own disciples by the church of Rome, on such as called in question any article in their creeds. To their followers, and perhaps to their opponents, it would have appeared a symptom of dissidence in the goodness of their cause, or an acknowledgment that it was not well-founded, if they had not employed in its defence all those means which it was supposed truth had a right to employ.
“It was towards the close of the 17th century, before toleration, under its present form, was admitted first into the republic of the United Provinces, and from thence introduced into England. Long experience of the calamities of mutual persecution, the influence of free government, the light and humanity acquired by the progress of science, together with the prudence and authority of the civil magistrate, were all requisite in order to establish a regulation so repugnant to the ideas which all the different sects had adopted from mistaken conceptions concerning the nature of religion and the rights of truth.”