The Appeal to Heaven: Locke, Jephtha, and the Right of Conquest

John Locke repeatedly associates the famous ‘appeal to heaven’ in the Second Treatise of Government with the biblical figure of Jephtha. However the content and circumstances of Jephtha’s appeal as reported in the Book of Judges are notably out of joint with several of the key tenets of Locke’s political thought. I try to account for this anomaly by arguing that Locke was using the Jephtha story to make a subtle but pointed intervention in the Allegiance Controversy (1689‐94), and in particular to respond to those who held that William of Orange had a legitimate claim to the English throne by right of conquest.