the business of civil government is quite distinct from that of
religion, that the State is a society constituted only for preserving
and promoting the civil interests of its members —civil interests
meaning life, liberty, health, and the possession of property. The care
of souls is not committed to magistrates more than to other men. For the
magistrate can only use outward force; but true religion means the
inward persuasion of the mind, and the mind is so made that force cannot
compel it to believe. So too it is absurd for a State to make laws to
enforce a religion, for laws are useless without penalties, and
penalties are impertinent because they cannot convince.

Moreover, even if penalties could change

[102] men’s beliefs, this would not conduce to the salvation of souls.
Would more men be saved if all blindly resigned themselves to the will
of their rulers and accepted the religion of their country? For as the
princes of the world are divided in religion, one country alone would be
in the right, and all the rest of the world would have to follow their
princes to destruction; “and that which heightens the absurdity, and
very ill suits the notion of a deity, men would owe their eternal
happiness or their eternal misery to the places of their nativity.” This
is a principle on which Locke repeatedly insists. If a State is
justified in imposing a creed, it follows that in all the lands, except
the one or few in which the true faith prevails, it is the duty of the
subjects to embrace a false religion. If Protestantism is promoted in
England, Popery by the same rule will be promoted in France. “What is
true and good in England will be true and good at Rome too, in China, or
Geneva.” Toleration is the principle which gives to the true faith the
best chance of prevailing.