John Locke on Tolerating "Papists"

From the Smithsonian Magazine website:

Every so often an unknown letter or document signed by Locke is found, but identifying a substantive work is extremely rare. The manuscript also reveals something new about Locke. “Locke is supposed to have never tolerated Catholics,” Walmsley tells Alison Flood at The Guardian. “All his published work suggested that he would never even consider this as a possibility. This manuscript shows him taking an initial position that’s startling for him and for thinkers of his time—next to no one suggested this at this point. It shows him to be much more tolerant in certain respects than was ever previously supposed.”

This work was written before “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” one of the essays that led Thomas Jefferson to advocate for the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution. Many of the ideas found in the letter are proposed in the newly discovered manuscript. “This manuscript is the origin and catalyst for momentous and foundational ideas of western liberal democracy – which did include Catholics,” Walmsley argues.

Political scientist Cole Simmons says that the manuscript, which is in the form of two lists, shows Locke brainstorming. “Everyone kind of has down that Locke doesn’t and isn’t willing to tolerate Catholics, so the surprising thing is that he entertained tolerating Catholics for some time,” Simmons explains in the press release. “But the reasons for tolerating and not tolerating are very Lockean, in either respect: When he gives reasons for tolerating Catholics, all of the reasons are to the prince’s interest—basically, if [toleration] can benefit the Commonwealth or the prince, you should tolerate Catholics. And the second list is ‘if not tolerating Catholics will benefit the prince or the Commonwealth, you shouldn’t tolerate Catholics.’”

Here is an image of the document from St. John's College. Here is a link to an article about the document in The Historical Journal published by Cambridge University Press. National Review provides more context in calling for a revival in "Lockean Liberalism".

Some materials to read and ponder. 

505 Years Ago Today at Cambridge

St. John's College was established on April 9, 1511 through the efforts of Margaret Beaufort and St. John Fisher. According to the college website:

St John's was founded in 1511. Its foundation charter, dated 9 April that year, was sealed by the executors of the foundress, Lady Margaret Beaufort mother of King Henry VII, who had died in 1509. She had begun the process of transforming the ancient hospital of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge (founded c. 1200), into a college for students in the liberal arts and theology. From a small nucleus of fellows and scholars subsisting in First Court (1511-16) on the College's endowments the numbers grew by 1545 to one hundred and fifty-two. Subsequently the admission of more undergraduates paying for their own board and tuition created pressure on existing accommodation. This led eventually to the building of Second Court 1599-1601, the first major expansion of the College. Other landmarks were the endowment of a new Library building by John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and Keeper of the Great Seal to Charles I, in 1624-8, strikingly enlarged and complemented by a modern technically-enhanced extension in 1990-3; the bridging of the river and building of New Court 1826-31; the great chapel, designed by George Gilbert Scott, in 1863-9; and the provision of extensive undergraduate accommodation in the Cripps Building, straddling Bin Brook, in 1964-7.

Successive codes of statutes for the government of the College made by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and executor of the Foundress, between 1516 and 1530 were superseded by those given by the Crown in 1545 and 1580, until the nineteenth-century Royal Commissions ushered in a period of frequent reform and reorganization. The College is now governed by statutes made in 1926-7, under powers given to the Universities Commission in 1923, as amended by the Governing Body of the College and approved by the Privy Council, and as recently modified by Order of the University Commissioners in 1995.

Because Margaret Beaufort had just "begun the process of transforming the ancient hospital of St. John the Evangelist", Bishop John Fisher had to complete the process, gaining approvals from Henry VIII (who wanted the money), the Pope, and the Bishop of Ely. Beaufort had died in 1509 after serving briefly as Henry VIII's regent before he turned 18 (the son, Henry VII, predeceased the mother).

In his biography of St. John Fisher, Vincent McNabb OP describes how the bishop deeded his library to the College of St. John, with the proviso he should use them during his lifetime. After his arrest, however, one of Thomas Cromwell's men, Sir Richard Morrison went to Rochester and seized all of the poor bishops goods, including his fine library--so St. John's did not receive the books as promised.

The College of St John's honors its foundress in its grace after meals:

Infunde, quaesumus, Domine Deus, gratiam tuam in mentes nostras, ut his donis datis a Margareta Fundatrice nostra aliisque Benefactoribus ad tuam gloriam utamur; et cum omnibus qui in fide Christi decesserunt ad caelestem vitam resurgamus, per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Deus pro sua infinita clementia Ecclesiae suae pacem et unitatem concedat, augustissimam Reginam nostram Elizabetham conservet, et pacem universo Regno et omnibus Christianis largiatur.

(Pour forth, we beseech thee, Lord God, thy grace into our minds, that we may use these gifts, given by Margaret our Foundress and other Benefactors, to thy glory, and together with all who have died in the faith of Christ rise again to life in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. May God, of his infinite mercy, grant his Church unity and peace, preserve our most august queen, Queen Elizabeth, and grant peace to the whole Realm and to all Christians.)

It's too bad it doesn't mention the great bishop and founder, St. John Fisher! The college does display his portrait next to Lady Margaret's, and unfortunately also displays some errors in the on-line biography. (He was not canonized by Pope Leo XIII; he was executed on June 22, 1535, etc).

Orlando Gibbons, Archbishop Laud, and St. John's, Oxford

This is really an Advent text, but since today is the Baptism of the Lord by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan River (in the Ordinary Form) it kind of fits--here is Orlando Gibbons' setting of "This is the record of John":

This is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ.

And they asked him, What art thou then? Art thou Elias? And he said, I am not. Art thou that Prophet? And he answered, No.

Then said they unto him, What art thou? that we may give an answer unto them that sent us. What say’st thou of thyself? And he said, I am the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. (John 1: 19-23)

According to the webpage for St. John's College Chapel:

William Laud endowed the college richly during and after his presidency, and the fine pre-Reformation ecclesiastical vestments that he gave are displayed every term. Laud’s friendship with Orlando Gibbons led to the composition of ‘This is the record of John’ for the choir of St John’s, and this superb setting of a text from the first chapter of John’s gospel is sung regularly in chapel: after centuries of neglect, it is now recognised as one of the supreme English anthems.

The St. John's Chapel Choir has also recorded the anthem. Laud was President of St. John's from 1621 to 1633, after being a Fellow and receiving both his B.A. and M.A. degrees from St. John's.

Sir John Cheke, Classical Scholar

Sir John Cheke died on September 13, 1557. He had been a great scholar at University of Cambridge, reformer of the mode of pronouncing Greek, and the tutor to Prince Edward, later Edward VI.

According to this site, he also took part in the change in succession from Princess Mary to Lady Jane Grey, and that clearly got him into some trouble when Mary I came to the throne:

His zeal for the protestant religion induced him to concur, on the death of Edward VI, in the settlement of the crown on the Lady Jane Grey, and he acted as secretary of state during her brief reign. Immediately after Queen Mary's accession he was committed to the Tower on an accusation of treason, 27 July 1553. He was discharged from custody on 13 Sept. 1554, and about the same time obtained a pardon and the royal license to travel abroad. After residing for some time at Basle he went to Italy, and at Padua he met some of his countrymen, to whom he read and interpreted some of the orations of Demosthenes. Subsequently he settled at Strasburg, where he read a Greek lecture for his subsistence.

At the beginning of 1556 he resolved to go to Brussels, where his wife was, chiefly in consequence of a treacherous invitation from Lord Paget and Sir John Mason. As, however, he was a firm believer in astrology, he first consulted the stars to ascertain whether he might safely undertake the journey, and fell into a fatal snare on his return between Brussels and Antwerp, for, by order of Philip II, he and Sir Peter Carew, with whom he was travelling, were suddenly seized by the provost-marshal on 15 May, unhorsed, blindfolded, bound, thrown into a wagon, conveyed to the nearest harbour, put on board a ship, under hatches, and brought to the Tower of London, where they were placed in close confinement. The alleged ground of his committal was, that having obtained license to travel, he had not returned to England by the time specified in his license.

In the Tower he was visited by two of the queen's chaplains, who tried in vain to induce him to alter his religious opinions. The desire of gaining over so eminent a man caused the queen to send to him Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul's, a divine of moderate and obliging temper. Cheke had been acquainted with him in the late king's reign, and had tried to convert him to protestantism when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Cheke's courage began to fail at the prospect of the stake, and he was at his own request carried before Cardinal Pole, who gravely advised him to return to the unity of the church. Cheke dared hold out no longer, and Feckenham had the credit of effecting his conversion. He made in writing a profession of his belief in the real presence, and sent the paper by the dean of St. Paul's to the cardinal, with a letter dated from the Tower on 15 July, praying that he might be spared the shame of making an open recantation.

This request being refused, he addressed to the queen on the same day a letter in which he declared his readiness to obey all laws and orders concerning religion. After this, in order to declare his repentance for his rejection of the pope, he made a formal submission before the cardinal, as the pope's legate, and after being absolved he was received back into the Roman church. He was kept in prison for upwards of two months before he was allowed to make his public recantation. This was done on 4 Oct. in the most public manner before the queen, and for the sake of greater formality the reading of the palinode was preceded by an oration addressed to her majesty by Feckenham. Cheke was also obliged to read a longer form of recantation in presence of the whole court, and to promise to perform whatever penances might be enjoined upon him by the legate. After having submitted to all these humiliations he was released from the Tower, and regained his lands, which, however, he was forced to exchange with the queen for others.

Pining away with shame and regret for his abjuration of protestantism, he died on 13 Sept. 1557 in Wood Street, London, in the house of his friend Peter Osborne, remembrancer of the exchequer.