ABSTRACT
Jonas Proast was the son of a Dutch Calvinist minister who served Dutch Reformed congregations in England. He was educated at Oxford and remained there for the rest of his life; there he acquired the beliefs and allegiances of a high-flyer in the Church of England, among them, that the use of civil force in support of the state religion was proper. This gave him motive to respond to Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration in 1690. In this ongoing controversy, which lasted intermittently until Locke’s death, he proved himself an insightful controversialist and held his own.
