Changes

==Resignation from Politics, devotion to God's Word==

==Resignation from Politics, devotion to God's Word==

The Gospels had been carefully studied when he was preparing his Reasonableness of Christianity. He now turned to the Epistles of St Paul, and applied the spirit of the Essay and the ordinary rules of critical interpretation to a literature which he venerated as infallible, like the pious Puritans who surrounded his youth. The work was ready when he died, and was published two years after. A tract on Miracles, written in 17oz, also appeared posthumously. Fresh adverse criticism of the Essay was re-ported to him in his last year, and the book was formally condemned by the authorities at Oxford. " I take what has been done rather as a recommendation of the book," he wrote to his young friend Anthony Collins, " and when you and I next meet we shall be merry on the subject." One attack only moved him. In 1704 his adversary, Jonas Proast, revived their old controversy. Locke in consequence began a Fourth Letter on Toleration. A few pages, ending in an unfinished paragraph, exhausted his remaining strength; but the theme which had employed him at Oxford more than forty years before, and had been a ruling idea throughout the long interval, was still dominant in the last days of his life.

The Gospels had been carefully studied when he was preparing his Reasonableness of Christianity. He now turned to the Epistles of St Paul, and applied the spirit of the Essay and the ordinary rules of critical interpretation to a literature which he venerated as infallible, like the [[Piety|pious]] Puritans who surrounded his youth. The work was ready when he died, and was published two years after. A tract on Miracles, written in 17oz, also appeared posthumously. Fresh adverse criticism of the Essay was re-ported to him in his last year, and the book was formally condemned by the authorities at Oxford. " I take what has been done rather as a recommendation of the book," he wrote to his young friend Anthony Collins, " and when you and I next meet we shall be merry on the subject." One attack only moved him. In 1704 his adversary, Jonas Proast, revived their old controversy. Locke in consequence began a Fourth Letter on Toleration. A few pages, ending in an unfinished paragraph, exhausted his remaining strength; but the theme which had employed him at Oxford more than forty years before, and had been a ruling idea throughout the long interval, was still dominant in the last days of his life.

All the summer of 1704 he continued to decline, tenderly nursed by Lady Masham and her step-daughter Esther. On the 28th of October he died, according to his last recorded words, in perfect charity with all men, and in sincere communion with the whole church of Christ, by whatever names Christ's followers call themselves." His grave is on the south side of the parish church of High Laver, in which he often worshipped, near the tombs of the Mashams, and of Damaris, the widow of Cudworth. At the distance of 1 m. are the garden and park where the manor house of Otes once stood.

All the summer of 1704 he continued to decline, tenderly nursed by Lady Masham and her step-daughter Esther. On the 28th of October he died, according to his last recorded words, in perfect charity with all men, and in sincere communion with the whole church of Christ, by whatever names Christ's followers call themselves." His grave is on the south side of the parish church of High Laver, in which he often worshipped, near the tombs of the Mashams, and of Damaris, the widow of Cudworth. At the distance of 1 m. are the garden and park where the manor house of Otes once stood.