7 - The Defence of True Religion

Summary

In depicting the Restoration period as ‘the Killing Times’, a vivid and venerable historiographical tradition characterised late-seventeenth century religious culture as bitterly divided between episcopalians and presbyterians. Yet, for all the moments of fanatic violence and extremism and government oppression and brutality, a substantial middle ground always existed that deplored denominational division. For while the majority of the political establishment was prepared to support the re-establishment of episcopalian church government as part of the Restoration settlement, few were convinced that enforcing strict ecclesiastical discipline necessarily served to enhance the spiritual welfare of the Scottish people. As Gilbert Burnet lamented in 1673, it was not ‘by Political Arts, nor by the execution of Penal Laws, that the power of Religion can be recovered from these decays’. Perceiving that a ‘new sort of negative Religion is like to come in fashion in this Generation’, moderate presbyterians, such as William Violant, also worried about the effects of rigorous compulsion on the part of the secular state. In this context, the various government initiatives adopted to promote reconciliation, such as accommodation schemes and prerogative indulgences, were underpinned by a pervasive ideology that has subsequently been termed ‘latitudinarian’ in content. As this chapter reveals, numerous Restoration commentators insisted that religion was as much, if not more, concerned with humane ethics as with adherence to abstruse doctrine. Distinguishing between a few ‘fundamental’ articles of religion and a much larger number of non-fundamental adiaphora, moderate writers were even prepared to envisage a greater toleration of private heterodox opinion if civil harmony could be ensured. In reaction to the violent resistance theories of the more extreme theocratic Covenanting sects, moderate members of the Restoration establishment increasingly espoused a syncretic and eirenic attitude to religious controversy. As with the debates over political resistance in extremis, former divisions between episcopalians and presbyterians were, to some extent, redefined along lines whereby the preservation of civil order was ultimately accorded a higher priority than religious orthodoxy.

Seeking to delineate more clearly the contours of intellectual debate during this period, the chapter begins with a brief examination of the ways in which moderate episcopalians and presbyterians alike feared that the greatest casualty of ecclesiastical division within Restoration Scotland would be religion itself.