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God Before Mammon? William Robertson, Episcopacy and the Church of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2003

ALEXANDER DU TOIT
Affiliation:
102 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3NE; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

William Robertson, Scottish historian, Presbyterian minister and leader of the Moderate church party, has been credited with a position regarding episcopacy that differed markedly from the sectarian suspicion shown by earlier Scottish Presbyterians. This article examines Robertson's attitude to episcopacy in the light of an early episode in his career, when he apparently had a chance to enter the Church of England (which offered greater rewards in terms of money and status than the Scottish Kirk), but did not take the opportunity. This examination, taking into account the views of episcopacy and the Church of England expressed in Robertson's histories and elsewhere, suggests that his personal position was in fact closer to the traditional hostility of older Scottish Presbyterianism than to the tolerant and even Latitudinarian views normally associated with the Enlightenment.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

DNB=Dictionary of national biography; NLS=National Library of Scotland