For such an end as the cure of souls, he argues, the magistrate has no divine legation.

He cannot, on other grounds, use force for the simple reason that it does not produce internal conviction.

But even if that were possible, force would still be mistaken; for the majority of the world is not Christian, yet it would have the right to persecute in the belief that it was possessed of truth.

Nor can the implication that the magistrate has the keys of heaven be accepted.

"No religion," says Locke finely, "which I believe not to be true can be either true or profitable to me." He thus makes of the Church an institution radically different from the ruling conceptions of his time.