Religious toleration can be profitable
Religious pragmatism in the Early Modern Period, part 3: how 17th Century Netherlands and England discovered that religious toleration can make nations prosperous.
In essence, pragmatic thinking about religious toleration gradually developed from:
The existence of multiple faiths in one country is apparently inevitable. So be it. (France, from 1560).
Hey, it actually turns out to work quite nicely (The Netherlands, from 1580)
In fact, religious toleration even has advantages (Netherlands and England, from 1600-1640).
This episode is about that last step: the realisation that religious toleration can also have advantages. In this newsletter we explore the pragmatic argument par excellence: religious toleration is good for money. We benefit financially if we respect each other's religious beliefs. This argument was put forward very hesitantly from the 17th century onwards.
Trading with pagans
The Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company, VOC) recognised early on that merchants benefited from religious open-mindedness. From 1602 onwards, this VOC quickly grew into a multinational trading company, a world power with trading posts in Africa and throughout Asia. But trading in the East was not for the faint of heart. Regular battles had to be fought with rival European trading nations, especially the Portuguese. And doing business with the local monarchs in the East required a delicate mixture of show of muscle flexing and flattery.
The VOC also felt bound by ethical and legal principles. Partly in their own interest: reputation counted, and allegations of privateering, for example, would have serious consequences in diplomatic relations between European nations. The VOC regularly called upon the lawyer and diplomat Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) for serious brainwork. I wrote about him before. Grotius's international law thinking was strongly influenced by Roman law, especially ius gentium, the law of all peoples, and the natural law theories of Tomasso of Aquino.
One of the first issues presented to Grotius was whether Christians should be allowed to maintain trade relations and conclude treaties with non-Christians. He discussed this in his unpublished manuscript De societate publica cum infidelibus (on the public association with unbelievers, ca. 1605). First, he established that property rights also apply to pagans. One cannot simply take away someone's land because the owner alleges an error in fide. If property rights also apply to non-Christians, one will also have to recognise the sovereignty of pagan rulers. Their will is law in their domain, so you will need the permission of the local ruler to enter or do business in their land.
Many Spaniards and Portuguese thought differently about this at the time. This often led to military conflicts between the VOC and the Portuguese: they adhered to the doctrine of discovery: whoever 'discovered' the country first can claim it as their own. The Portuguese appealed to papal bulls that had given them the right to take ownership of undiscovered areas. The Protestant Dutch, of course, did not care about this. Furthermore, the Portuguese unabashedly committed themselves to the conversion of all natives, which was accompanied by the necessary compulsion.
Anyway, recognising pagan sovereignty does not mean that one may cooperate with pagan monarchs. Grotius makes a difficult argument here. Just as property rights are a universal right, so too is the right to self-defence. A right to self-defence means that one cannot simply attack someone. If we agree that we will not simply attack each other, we do nothing other than agree on what already follows from natural law. A trade agreement is in fact nothing more than an agreement to buy and sell property while remaining peacefully disposed towards each other. In that sense, a trade agreement is just the combination of two natural rights. Since these natural rights apply to both Christians and pagans, there is no objection to entering into trade relations with pagan monarchs. As long as we do not do anything that undermines the glory of God or true religion, Grotius piously added. And we should keep heretics at a distance anyway.
The VOC did not need to ask it twice. Trade and alliances with pagan monarchs flourished to their mutual benefit. The VOC did send ministers to every colony, but with the express instruction to limit themselves to pastoral care for their own community. An exception were the natives who were already converted to Catholicism by Portuguese predecessors. In them, the preachers were allowed to indulge. Otherwise, any local religion was to be left untouched. In fact, when it suited them, the Dutch would sometimes help finance the construction of a mosque on site, or politely visit festivities around a pagan temple. For commerce and diplomacy one has to remain a little pliable.
Not every pastor could handle that well. Johannes Ruiterus was one of those. Ruiterus was originally a rural pastor from Garsthuizen (Groningen), where he had left after an argument. The classis had complained about his overbearing behaviour and his limited knowledge. Due to financial difficulties, he now stood on the pulpit in the VOC trading post in Nagapattinam, now in Tamil Nadu, India. There, the VOC mainly traded in carpets. Ruiterus was very annoyed. About the fact that the Catholic natives were not sensitive to Calvin's teachings. The drunken excesses of the Dutch in his community. The stuffy climate. The dominant presence of Hindus and Muslims in the city. The cooperative attitude of the VOC towards those pagan religions. He also felt he was paid too little. He got into an argument with the head of the trading post, Willem van Dielen, and in 1684 he complained to his boss, the governor. The cause was the presence of Hindu dancing girls at a diplomatic dinner between Van Dielen and the local chieftain. Ruiterus:
and with only 9 days left to enjoy the holy supper, Dielen and the chieftain have summoned the presence of the other councillors with their wives, appointing for this purpose a Belzazar meal with playing cards, dice, drinking and allowing the pagan whores and devil artists with drums, bells and other pagoda instruments sounding, singing accursed songs and congratulatory songs that they had performed to the devil the day before, mixed with the filthiest harlot dances, ballets, masquerades and devilish displays.
The VOC governor didn’t bother:
All annoyances are not of one and the same nature, but special occasions, customs, places, times and peoples may cause great changes, which if they are not treated with all due care, it unfortunately happens that it becomes an annoyance. However, not all recreations are impermissible, as this sometimes relaxes the spirits a little so that afterwards they can serve God with a clearer mind and follow His commands with more openness.
Ruiterus did not let it go and appealed to the governors-general in Batavia, who pulled his ears and had him put on the boat back to Groningen. Once in the Netherlands, Ruiterus even had the matter referred to the Heren XVII, the highest council of the VOC. He fell on deaf ears there. Ruiterus was told that “different maxims” applied in the Indies than at home. He had to make do with that.
In colonial trade one had to be a little flexible with foreign customs and religions, that's what it came down to.
Merchants knew to what they owed their prosperity
In the previous episode I wrote that the religious beliefs of the merchants who ruled the Dutch cities were lukewarm. They didn't shout that from the rooftops, because they didn't seek a confrontation with Calvinist dogmatisers. Because the ministers had every Sunday in the pulpit to preach fire and brimstone about the impiety of the libertines. Which they regularly did.
Explicit expressions of religious flexibility for the sake of prosperity are therefore rare. A regent who publicly propagated that, would incur the wrath of the pastors. The regents were careful, they discussed those decisions privately like gentlemen among themselves.
Indications for the pragmatism of the regents can therefore be found mainly in their actions and in the Calvinist allegations. For example in Dordrecht, where the regents around 1600 were still quite obedient in Calvinist doctrine. The Calvinist consistory fulminated against the small group of Catholics who still lived in the city. They also insisted that the city council take measures against dancing, gambling and drinking on Sundays.
Despite their Calvinism, however, the magistrates proved unwilling to suppress Catholic worship so long as it remained small-scale and discreet, and so long as members of the city patriciate — their own relatives often — were supporting or participating in it. Even their initiatives to reform popular culture were quite tentative. All in all, the regents apparently found the political and economic cost of taking the kind of action they would have liked to take simply too high.
Benjamin Kaplan, Calvinists and libertines, Confession and Community in Utrecht 1578—1620 (1995)
It was not until 1662 that a thinker dared to publicly make the connection between religious toleration and prosperity.1 It is no coincidence that the author was an erudite and wealthy merchant, the Leiden textile trader Pieter de la Court. Those kinds of people had the knowledge, the time, and the contacts to publish treatises such as on where Dutch prosperity came from and how to further expand it. In his publication Interest van Holland (1662) he made a SWOT analysis avant la lettre of Holland's economy. In the passages below, he argues that restricting freedom of religion would place unbearable burdens on the merchant community, and that religious persecution would force many wealthy residents to leave the country.
First of all, it is very much worth considering that at the time of that development, in all the surrounding countries there were much greater obstacles to commerce than in Holland. Namely, among all Monarchs who bear intolerable burdens mentioned above, without freedom of religion, except in Poland.
On the other hand, it is also true that to persecute them would exclude most foreigners from the country, and drive away most of the dissenting old Residents, Farmers, Rentiers, and Nobles, which cruelty is not only very harmful, but would also be completely unreasonable.
— Pieter de la Court, Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands-Welvaren (1662)
Religious toleration is good for trade and can create prosperity
Van Wesembeeck, De la Court
England wakes up
While the debate about religious toleration broke out in France and the surrounding area around 1550, it remained mostly silent in England. Only a century later English thinkers began to take an interest in the issue. The cause was mainly the bold decision of King Henry VIII in 1534 to establish a general English church. It became a broad church with Protestant and Catholic features, where the Pope had no say. Those who remained Roman Catholic in England had some explaining to do. This discrimination of Papists had broad support; the influence of the Pope and his allies was (rightly) seen as foreign, politically motivated interference. Whoever would stand up for religious freedom from the Papists would put their head on the chopping block, so it remained remarkably quiet.
This remained the status quo for about a century, but things started to stir in the mid-17th century. Because only one church was allowed, it naturally attracted people from all kinds of denominations. Just as the Calvinists had caused unrest in France and the Netherlands, they now also began to stir in England, partly because many Scots were under the influence of Calvin. All kinds of movements emerged within the Church of England, including the (mainly Scottish, Calvinist) Presbyterians and a movement that we now mainly know by their nickname: the Puritans, also with significant Calvinist influences. The list of dissident groups is much longer, and can be summarised as the English dissenters, most of whom eventually sought refuge in North America.
The Puritans in particular would cause trouble in England. As early as 1550, they began to occupy posts in the Church of England. You could recognise their pastors because they preferred to preach in a black robe, and not in the white robes that the Anglicans had adopted from the Church of Rome. Puritan clergy also formed underground networks, which were broken up in 1580. In the first half of the 17th century, the Puritans made several attempts to radically reform the Church of England, but largely in vain. In the meantime, support for the Puritans and Presbyterians increased, including among the elite, who saw themselves represented in parliament.
In 1640 the fireworks started. King Charles I had made himself unpopular with absolutist tendencies, religious intransigence and a costly war with the Scots. Parliament no longer accepted its tax increases. In 1642 the conflict culminated in a civil war between the parliamentarians (or roundheads) and the king's troops. The king was eventually defeated and ended up on the scaffold in 1649. In 1649, England became a republic under the leadership of the moderate Puritan Oliver Cromwell. After his death in 1660, the monarchy was restored; Charles' son Charles II became king. He put an end to the Puritan severity under Cromwell and led a relatively tolerant regime; censorship was limited and some religious diversity was allowed. Shortly before his death he even converted to Roman Catholicism. But politically Charles was less open-minded; the parliamentary opposition was not given any room, and from 1681 he no longer allowed parliament to meet. His costly wars with the Netherlands also caused bad blood. Charles died in 1685 and was succeeded by his Catholic brother James II. James continued his brother's policy, but he only lasted three years; then he was deposed by parliament and succeeded by his daughter Mary and her Protestant Dutch husband William III of Orange. Orange had to make significant concessions to parliament before qualifying. The resulting Act of Toleration of 1688 would later have major consequences for the rise of England as a world power. But that's another chapter.
As before in France, the discussion about religious toleration in England only really got going when religious divisions resulted in armed conflicts: around 1640. The discussion would reach its peak with a polemic between John Locke and Jonas Proast around 1690, but that discussion was mainly dogmatic in nature, not pragmatic. So we will go into that later; now we look at pragmatic arguments for toleration. In particular, we are now looking for economic arguments for religious toleration in 17th century England. They can be found.
John Owen and William Penn
The first ones I found were by John Owen (1616-1683). Owen was a clergyman, a moderate Puritan, a Presbyterian, and an ally of Cromwell. In 1667, seven years after Cromwell's death, he published Indulgence and toleration considered, a plea for more religious toleration. In his writing, he warned that those who face religious persecution are imprisoned, hungry and in extreme poverty, with negative economic consequences:
The hands that are thus withdrawn from work (...), the poverty that their families suffer: all this has no small impact on the general interest.
John Owen, Indulgence and toleration considered in a letter unto a person of honour (1667)
Dutch prosperity was viewed with some envy in 17th-century England. Could that perhaps have had something to do with the religious toleration there? William Penn (1644-1718), the founder of the English colony and later American state of Pennsylvania, thought so. In his plea for religious toleration The great case of liberty of conscience (1670) he wrote the following about it:
Holland, then which, what place is there so improved in Wealth, Trade and Power, chiefly owes it to her Indulgence in matters of Faith and Worship.
And laws against religious freedom:
are so far from benefiting the Country, that the Execution of them will be the assured ruin of it, in the Revenues, and consequently in the Pow∣er of it; For where there is a decay of Families, there will be of Trade; so of Wealth, and in the end of Strength and Power.
— William Penn, The great case of liberty of conscience (1670)
Bernard Mandeville
The next contribution came from the Dutch-English thinker Bernard Mandeville in his writing The fable of the bees (1714). By the way, that is still a remarkably fun book to read, just skip that lengthy poem at the beginning. Mandeville argued that humans are naturally incapable of adhering to demanding Christian morals. Ascetic zealots may find this annoying, but it also gives joy to life. Mandeville then proceeds, with delight, to digress on human sins. He disapproves of them of course, but judging by his description he actually loves the vanity, lust, greed and profligacy. And, he argues, we also owe a lot to our sinfulness. Without that sinfulness our lives would be joyless, austere and boring. In fact, our economy depends on our sins.
No society can become so rich and powerful a kingdom, or grow so large, that it can continue in its wealth and power for any length of time, without the vices of man.
Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees (1714)
These vices probably also include theological error. Because Mandeville does not think highly of the influence of the pastors:
The Reformation has scarce been more instrumental in rendering the kingdoms and states that have embraced it, flourishing beyond other nations, than the silly and capricious invention of hooped and quilted petticoats.
Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees (1714)
Like Penn, he then refers to the Dutch with “the unlimited liberty of conscience that is enjoyed among them.” For example, he lists conditions under which a nation can prosper economically. He ends his list with an admonition:
The multitude must be awed, no man’s conscience forced, and the clergy allowed no greater share in state affairs, than our Saviour has bequeathed in his testament.
Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees (1714)
The conclusion is clear: when pastors start interfering in state affairs, this is bad for prosperity. When people are given some space to sin, then nations will thrive best.
Although religious freedom was often only put into practice in large parts of Europe in the 19th century, the relationship between religious freedom and prosperity became an idée reçue in the 18th century, as evidenced by this passage from 1734 by the great populariser of religious toleration, Voltaire:
Take a view of the Royal-Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian transact together as tho' they all professed the same religion, and give the name of Infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptised in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: That man has his son's foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.
— Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques: letter VI, Sur les Presbytériens (1734)
The economic effects of religious freedom
It is still common to establish a relationship between toleration and prosperity. In a separate series I will later address the question of whether that connection is really that strong. To lift a corner of the veil: with most forms of toleration this connection is not very easy to demonstrate. However, there are good indications for a positive relationship between freedom of expression and prosperity. And if by religious toleration we mean that it must be possible to have an open discussion about religion, then the positive effects are obvious.
Furthermore, one doesn’t have to be an economic genius to recognise that the social exclusion of religious groups is bad for the economy. And we don't have to think long about the fact that free trade between foreign cultures and religions has economic benefits.
In conclusion
This brings us to the end of a short series on pragmatic arguments for religious toleration. In the next newsletter we will start with the dogmatic arguments for religious toleration that were exchanged between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Peace and stability outweigh the morality of the sovereign.
Machiavelli, Bodin
You can't force someone to change their mind.
Erasmus, L’Hospital, Castellio
If things don't go the way they should, then it has to be the way it goes.
Pasquier, L’Hospital
National unity is more important than religious unity.
Castellio
Repression will not achieve your goal; it is counterproductive and it leads to a spiral of violence.
Castellio, Bodin
The king must stand above the parties, so if necessary he must also remain religiously neutral.
Bodin
We need religious toleration to cooperate in the interest of the country.
Duplessis-Mornay
Religious toleration is good for trade and can create prosperity.
De la Court
In the next newsletter we will start with the dogmatic arguments for religious tolerance that were exchanged between the 16th and 18th centuries.
For further reading
Pieter de la Court, Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands-Welvaren (1662)
John Owen, Indulgence and toleration considered in a letter unto a person of honour (1667)
William Penn, The great case of liberty of conscience once more briefly debated & defended ... which may serve the place of a general reply to such late discourses as have oppos'd a tolleration (1670)
Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees: or, private vices, publick benefits (1714)
Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques: letter VI, Sur les Presbytériens (1734), also available in English.
Jurriën van Goor, Een Groninger Predikant op de Kust van Coromandel, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (1972)
Benjamin Kaplan, Calvinists and libertines: confession and community in Utrecht 1578—1620 (1995)
Peter Borschberg, Hugo Grotius, East India trade and the king of Johor, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (1999)
Perez Zagorin, How the idea of religious toleration came to the West (2003)
Rainer Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt. Geschichte, Gehalt und Gegenwart eines umstrittenen Begriffs (2003)
Andrew Murphy, The emergence of William Penn, 1668–1671, Journal of Church and State (2014)
Noel Johnson, Mark Koyama, Persecution and toleration. The long road to religious freedom (2019)
Marc de Wilde, Hugo Grotius’s De societate publica cum infidelibus, Justifying overseas expansionism or religious toleration?, The Legal History Review (2020)
This was the fifteenth newsletter in a long series on Toleration and Christianity. An overview of all articles in this series can be found in the overview article Toleration in the history of Christianity.
In the next episode we will start with dogmatic arguments for religious toleration.
Heraklion, 17 December, 2023
After the publication of this article, I came across (in Martin van Gelderen, The political thought of the Dutch revolt 1555-1590 (1992)) an earlier thinker who made a connection between freedom and prosperity: the Antwerp merchant and regent Jacob Van Wesembeeck, in his book De beschriivinge van den gheschiedenissen inder religien saken toeghedragen in den Nederlanden (1569). The freedom he defended concerned both the autonomy of the Netherlands and their cities in the Habsburg empire and the individual freedom of its subjects. He did not explicitly mention the connection between religious freedom and prosperity, but since the major controversy of that time was precisely about religious freedom, and that subject was the reason for his book, that connection was obvious.
KJ, 20 January, 2024.