ABSTRACT
Much of the confusion and debate surrounding Lockean toleration rests on the assumption that Locke seeks to convince a single, sovereign authority to tolerate dissenters. Yet this is not Locke’s goal. In this chapter I argue that the Letters Concerning Toleration can best be understood as part of a challenge to emerging notions of sovereignty in the early modern period. Locke rejects what he calls the ‘sovereign remedy’ of persecution because he believes that individuals, while often fallible and self-interested, are nonetheless able to decipher God’s reasonable intentions for humanity, and thus work out their own salvation and the limits of political authority.
