1 Sandel, Michael, Liberalism and Its Critics (New York: New York University Press, 1984), p. 1.Google Scholar

2 Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 5.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 6.

4 Locke wrote a total of four Letters: A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689); A Second Letter Concerning Toleration (1690); A Third Letter for Toleration (1692); A Fourth Letter for Toleration (unfinished, 1704). All page references for the Letters refer to Volume Six of The Works of John Locke (London, 1823), with the exception of page references to the first Letter, which are taken from the Tully edition of Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983).Google Scholar Locke's Letters are cited as L. I; L. II; L. Ill; L. IV, followed by the page number (L. I. 1).

Proast's critique of Locke's principle of toleration is presented in three separate letters: The Argument of the Letter Concerning Toleration Briefly Consider'd and Answer'd (1690); A Third Letter Concerning Toleration (1691); A Second Letter to the Author of the Three Letters for Toleration (1704). They have been recently reprinted in Proast, Jonas, Letters Concerning Toleration, ed. Schouls, Peter A. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984)Google Scholar. Proast's letters are cited as A, P, P. Ill, followed by the page number (A. 1).

Citations to Locke's other works are as follows: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Nidditch, Peter H. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)Google Scholar, is cited by book, chapter, paragraph number (1. 1. 1); Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter, Laslett, Student Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, by treatise and paragraph number (IT. 1); and The Reasonableness of Christianity As Delivered in the Scriptures, ed. Ewing, George W. (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1965Google Scholar), by paragraph number (RC. 1).

5 Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Balinski, Rebecca (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. xvii.Google Scholar

6 See Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr, America's Constitutional Soul (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 111.Google Scholar

7 Thus I cannot join Waldron in his claim that the “first point to notice is that” Locke's defense of toleration “does not rest on any religious doubt” or Goldie in his claim that the “battle” between Locke and Proast “was fought on a narrow front, with limited attention paid to the larger question of the inroads of scepticism upon the idea of ‘true religion’” (Waldron, Jeremy, “Locke: Toleration and the Rationality of Persecution”, in Justifying Toleration, ed. Mendus, Susan [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988], p. 69Google Scholar). Goldie, Mark, “The Theory of Religious Intolerance in Restoration England”, in From Persecution to Toleration, ed. Grell, Ole Peter, Israel, Jonathan I., and Tayacke, Nicholas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 364.Google Scholar

8 For an almost identical formulation of this claim see L. III. 144.

9 Kraynak comments that Locke's “goal is to preserve the possibility of orthodoxy, while creating doubt, but not total cynicism, about discovering it”. (Kraynak, Robert P., “John Locke: From Absolutism to Toleration”, American Political Science Review 74 [1980]: 64CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

10 It is worth noting that this is, as far as I have been able to determine, one of the few times Locke in a major work quotes Plato.

11 The quote appears at 985c-d of Plato's Epinomis.

12 The claim of the Athenian Stranger that knowledge of such matters is impossible is, according to Taylor, “a concession to the maxim that harmless popular rites are not to be disturbed” (Taylor, A. E., Plato: The Man and His Work [Humanities Press, 1952; Cleveland, Ohio: Meridian Books, 1956], p. 500, note 1).Google Scholar

13 Locke states this in reference to Matthew 7. 22–23. An indication of Locke's departure from standard Christian teaching can be gleaned by comparing Locke's gloss on this passage to Calvin's. The latter argues in reference to the same passage that “To do the will of the Father [Matthew 7.21] not only means, to regulate their life and manners, (as philosophers talked,) by the rule of virtue, but also to believe in Christ” (Calvin, John, Calvin's Commentaries [Edinburgh, Scotland: Calvin Translation Society; repr.. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984], 16, 1:367Google Scholar).

14 Sandel, , Liberalism and Its Critics, p. 1.Google Scholar

15 Tully, James, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 See Grant, Ruth, John Locke's Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Milton, John, Areopagitica, ed. Sabine, George H. (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1951), p. 50.Google Scholar

18 Madison to William Bradford, 24 January 1774, The Papers of James Madison, ed. Hutchinson, William T. et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962–), 1: 106.Google Scholar

19 See Wolfson, Adam, “Two Theories of Toleration: Locke versus Mill”, Perspectives on Political Science (Fall, 1996).Google Scholar