The translation of the Epistle on Toleration soon provoked a lively controversy. To one answer, that by Jonas Proast, Locke replied in a _Second Letter concerning Toleration_, signed by Philanthropus, and dated May 27, 1690. Proast, as the manner is in such controversies, replied again, and Locke wrote a _Third Letter for Toleration_, again signed Philanthropus, and dated June 20, 1692. After many years' silence, Proast wrote a rejoinder in 1704, and to this Locke replied in the _Fourth Letter for Toleration_, which, however, he did not live to publish, or, indeed, to complete. It appeared amongst his Posthumous Works. These Letters on Toleration doubtless exercised great influence in their day, and probably contributed, in large measure, to bring about the more enlightened views on this subject which in this country, at least, are now all but universal. The authorship of the Letters on Toleration, though it could hardly fail to be pretty generally known, was first distinctly acknowledged by Locke in the codicil to his will. Limborch, on being hard pressed, had divulged it, in the spring of 1690, to Guenellon and Veen, but they appear, contrary to what generally happens in such cases, to have kept the secret to themselves. Locke, however, was much irritated at the indiscretion of Limborch, and for once wrote him an angry letter. "If you had entrusted me with a secret of this kind, I would not have divulged it to relation, or friend, or any mortal being, under any circumstances whatsoever. You do not know the trouble into which you have brought me." It is not easy to see why Locke should have felt so disquieted at the prospect of his authorship being discovered, but it may be that he hoped to bring about some extension of the limits of the Toleration Act which had been passed in the preceding year, and that he feared that his hands might be tied by the discovery that he entertained what, at that time, would be regarded as such extreme views; or it may have been simply that he was afraid, if his authorship were once acknowledged, of being dragged into a long and irksome controversy with the bigots of the various ecclesiastical parties which were then endeavouring to maintain or recover their ascendancy. CHAPTER V. LIFE AT OATES.--FRIENDSHIPS.--FURTHER PUBLICATIONS.