John Locke brought out the philosophy of Toleration. Toleration had become the genius of his character. Men whose minds have many sides, and who, from large human sympathies, tolerate those who differ from them, are made what they are by wide intercourse with the world. Born of Puritan parents, educated at Oxford under Dr. Owen, attached to the preaching of Whitecote, intimate with Cudworth’s family, connected with Lord Shaftesbury, friendly with Le Clerc, Limborch, and other Divines of the Remonstrant school, Locke caught and, in the advocacy of Toleration, reflected influences emanating from diversified sources. Reduced to a simple formula, the basis of his scheme was this: The State and the Church are essentially distinct. The Law recognized a Jewish commonwealth; the Gospel recognizes no Christian commonwealth. He repudiated all connection between the State and the Church; but he did not repudiate all connection between the State and Religion, for he excluded Atheists from Toleration. He also excluded Papists, not however on religious, but on political grounds. Locke’s principle, followed out, would have made him a Dissenter; and it is a fact that he wrote a defence of Nonconformity, which he never published. Though nominally in communion with the Establishment to the day of his death, he generally attended the ministry of a lay preacher.[147] [Sidenote: 1689.] A paper by John Howe--in which he stated the case of Protestant Dissenters--came nearest, in point of time, to the position of a manifesto in advance, clearing ground for the new law. His paper was drawn up in the beginning of 1689, yet it may be doubted whether it had any wide influence in consummating the change.