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John Glas and the Development of Religious Pluralism in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2019

ALASDAIR RAFFE
ALASDAIR RAFFE*
Affiliation:
School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article discusses John Glas, a minister deposed by the Church of Scotland in 1728, in order to examine the growth of religious pluralism in Scotland. The article begins by considering why Glas abandoned Presbyterian principles of Church government, adopting Congregationalist views instead. Glas's case helped to change the Scottish church courts’ conception of deposed ministers, reflecting a reappraisal of Nonconformity. Moreover, Glas's experiences allow us to distinguish between church parties formed to conduct business, and those representing theological attitudes. Finally, Glas's case calls into question the broadest definitions of the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’, drawing attention to the emergence of pluralism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 527 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

For helpful comments on drafts of this article, I am grateful to Michael Riordan, Stewart J. Brown and this Journal's anonymous reviewer.

References

1 The biographical information in this paragraph is drawn from: John Thomas Hornsby, ‘John Glas (1695–1773)’, unpubl. PhD diss. Edinburgh 1936, pt i, and Derek B. Murray, ‘Glas, John (1695–1773)’, ODNB, <https://www.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10798>.

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8 RPS 1690/4/43.

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19 Glas, A narrative, 3.

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22 Glas, A narrative, 7–8.

23 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 60–4, 65–6.

24 [Hog, James], A letter, wherein the scriptural grounds and warrants for the Reformation of Churches by way of Covenant, are succinctly considered and cleared, Edinburgh 1727, esp. pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

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28 [Adams], Independent ghost conjur'd, 67–8, 78; [John Willison], A defence of national Churches, Edinburgh 1729, 188–214; Hoadly, Benjamin, The nature of the kingdom, or Church, of Christ, London 1717Google Scholar; Starkie, Andrew, The Church of England and the Bangorian controversy, 1716–1721, Woodbridge 2007Google Scholar.

29 Mullan, ‘Royal law of liberty’, 255–62.

30 [Willison], Defence of national Churches, 50.

31 See especially Schmidt, Leigh Eric, Holy fairs: Scotland and the making of American revivalism, 2nd edn, Grand Rapids, Mi 2001Google Scholar.

32 Glas, A narrative, 11–15, 52–62; [Maxwell, Hugh], Memorial concerning the affair of Mr John Glas, Edinburgh 1730, 13Google Scholar; Wodrow, Robert, Analecta: or, Materials for a history of remarkable providences (Maitland Club, 1842–3), iii. 323Google Scholar.

33 Glas, A narrative, 15–17, 79–80; synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 94–5.

34 Book of membership lists, letters and hymns, UoD, Acc409, Box 6/22, pp. 152–9; cf. Hornsby, ‘John Glas’, 12–13, and McMillon, Restoration roots, 21.

35 Glas, A narrative, 166–76, 222–3; synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 62–3.

36 For a fuller narrative of the process see Hornsby, ‘Case of Mr John Glas’, 121–33.

37 Glas, A narrative, 75–6; [Maxwell], Memorial, 13–14.

38 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 66–8.

39 Presbytery of Dundee, minutes, 1725–31, NRS, CH2/103/10, pp. 127–35, 159–64; commission of the general assembly, minutes, 1726–32, NRS, CH1/3/19, pp. 147–8.

40 Presbytery of Dundee, NRS, CH2/103/10, pp. 171–4; Glas, A narrative, 212–14.

41 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 87–8, 89–93, 98–100, 102–3.

42 [Glas, John], A continuation of Mr Glass's narrative, Edinburgh 1729, 10–23Google Scholar; commission of the general assembly, NRS, CH1/3/19, pp. 199, 214; presbytery of Dundee, NRS, CH2/103/10, pp. 197–200, 201–24, 228–36.

43 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 117, 118, 122–4.

44 [Glas], Continuation of Mr Glass's narrative, 144–5, 154–71; commission of the general assembly, NRS, CH1/3/19, pp. 367–9.

45 Membership lists of the Glasite Churches, 1760s–80s, UoD, Acc409, bundle 25/1.

46 See especially Smith, Perfect rule of the Christian religion, chs iv–v.

47 Wodrow, Analecta, iv. 71; The correspondence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, ed. Thomas M'Crie (Wodrow Society, 1842–3), iii. 459.

48 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 102, 122; [Maxwell], Memorial, 43, 57–9.

49 For discussion see Walsham, Alexandra, Charitable hatred: tolerance and intolerance in England, 1500–1700, Manchester 2006, esp. pp. 54–5Google Scholar; and Coffey, John, Persecution and toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689, Harlow 2000, ch. iiGoogle Scholar.

50 Acts of the general assembly, 308 (quotation), 386 (where there was a minor verbal amendment).

51 Presbytery of Kirkcudbright, minutes, 1700–7, NRS, CH2/526/1a, p. 206. See also synod of Dumfries, minutes, 1691–1717, NRS, CH2/98/1, p. 469; presbytery of Dumfries, minutes, 1710–26, NRS, CH2/1284/5, p. 215.

52 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, pp. 118, 123.

53 Ibid. pp. 129, 134.

54 Commission of the general assembly, NRS, CH1/3/19, pp. 367–8; Wodrow, Analecta, iv. 187–8, 262.

55 Robert Wallace, ‘A speech in behalf of Mr Glass of Tealing, designed to have been delivered before the Commission of the General Assembly March 1730 but never delivered’, EUL, La.II.62017, fos 52r–55r.

56 Commission of the general assembly, NRS, CH1/3/19, pp. 368–9.

57 Ibid. pp. 463–6, quotation at p. 466. Recognising the innovative nature of this decision, the general assembly of 1731 refused to approve the commission's action: register of the general assembly, 1730–4, NRS, CH1/1/33, pp. 200–1; Wodrow, Analecta, iv. 262.

58 A letter to the honourable ___ ruling elder, containing an argument for the reponing of the Reverend Mr Francis Archibald to his charge, [Edinburgh? 1730].

59 RPS 1695/5/186.

60 Stuart Handley, ‘Garden, George (1649–1733)’, ODNB, <https://www.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10351>.

61 [Glas], Continuation of Mr Glass's narrative, 72–3.

62 Reasons and grounds of protestation and complaint, synod of Angus and Mearns, against the commission of the general assembly, for their conduct and sentence in the affair of Mr Francis Archibald, Edinburgh 1731, esp. pp. 4, 11Google Scholar. Archibald was probably influenced by the concept of ‘indefinite ordination’ developed by radical Presbyterians in the Restoration period: Wodrow, Robert, The history of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the revolution, ed. Burns, Robert, Glasgow 1828–30, ii. 346Google Scholar.

63 Commission of the general assembly, minutes, 1733–9, NRS, CH1/3/22, pp. 69–70.

64 Acts of the general assembly, 654–5, 710.

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74 Glas, A narrative, 15, 45. See also Hornsby, ‘John Glas’, 15.

75 [Glas], Continuation of Mr Glass's narrative, 155, 159, 168, and A further continuation of Mr Glas's narrative, containing his remarks on a late print, entituled, a defence of national Churches, [Edinburgh? 1729], 1.

76 [Gray], Naked truth, 12.

77 [Glas], Continuation of Mr Glass's narrative, 144, 151–3.

78 The representation and petition of several ministers of the Gospel, to the general assembly, Edinburgh 1721Google Scholar; Lachman, Marrow controversy, 278–84; Myers, Scottish federalism and covenantalism in transition, 31–2.

79 [Adams], Independent ghost conjur'd, pp. iv, 54–5.

80 Hummble thoughts, 4, 12.

81 Presbytery of Dundee, NRS, CH2/103/10, pp. 134–5, 162–3.

82 Glas, A narrative, 71; [Maxwell], Memorial, 62–4; John Glas, Remarks upon the memorial of the synod of Angus against Mr Glas, Edinburgh 1730, 8–14. The original letter from Erskine to Glas is in UoD, Acc409, bundle 18.

83 Hummble thoughts, 12.

84 Wodrow, Analecta, iv. 126, 135–6; Hornsby, ‘Case of Mr John Glas’, 132.

85 See Sefton, Henry R., ‘Rev. Robert Wallace: an early moderate’, RSCHS xvi (1966–8), 1–22Google Scholar, and ‘Lord Ilay and Patrick Cuming: a study in eighteenth-century ecclesiastical management’, RSCHS xix (1975–7), 203–16Google Scholar.

86 Hummble thoughts, 4–5.

87 Donaldson, G., ‘Scotland's conservative north in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. xvi (1966), 65–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most recent discussions include Mackillop, Andrew, ‘Riots and reform: burgh authority, the languages of civic reform and the Aberdeen riot of 1785’, Urban History xliv (2017), 402–23 at p. 403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Kelsey Jackson, ‘The network of James Garden of Aberdeen and north-eastern Scottish culture in the seventeenth century’, Northern Studies xlvii (2015), 102–30Google Scholar; and Robertson, Barry, ‘The Covenanting north of Scotland, 1638–1647’, Innes Review lxi (2010), 24–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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90 Raffe, ‘Presbyterians and episcopalians’, 580–8, and ‘Scotland’, 153–5.

91 Glas, A narrative, 2–4.

92 For a narrow definition see Robertson, John, The case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760, Cambridge 2005, ch. iCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a very broad alternative see Ahnert, Moral culture, 13–14.

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96 [Adams], Independent ghost conjur'd, 5.

97 Synod of Angus and Mearns, minutes, NRS, CH2/12/6, p. 95.

98 Robert Wallace, ‘A letter to a reverend clergyman in Scotland concerning submission to the Church’, c. 1730, EUL, La.II.62017, especially fo. 26r. Wallace had reached these views independently long before Glas's case: ‘A little treatise against imposing creeds or confessions of faith on ministers or private Christians as a necessary term of laick or ministeriall communion. Written before the year 1720’, EUL, La.II.62018.

99 [Gray], Naked truth, 39.