ABSTRACT
John Toland gathered ideas from many different sources, digested them and appropriated them for himself, and like many of his contemporaries, he often advocated contradictory positions or concealed his true opinion. From his early years in London onwards, Toland frequented the haunts of Huguenot refugees. Toland assiduously frequented two of coffee houses, the Grecian and the Rainbow, the latter being the meeting place of preference for Huguenot refugee scholars, journalists and intellectuals when visiting London. Toland knew several victims of religious persecution and intolerance closely and personally. The problem of tolerance, in all its aspects, is a major issue in much of what Toland contributed. In his theological, or rather, anti-theological writings, he is preoccupied with religious tolerance and in his political writings with civil tolerance. Toland's great innovation was to argue that the national religion must tolerate all particular religions as the expressions of distinct consciousness because the national religion is in perfect harmony with the freedom of conscience.
