Scottish religion in the eighteenth century
Scottish religion in the eighteenth century includes all forms of religious organisation and belief in Scotland in the eighteenth century. This period saw the beginnings of a fragmentation of the
In 1743, the
The Kirk had considerable control over the lives of the people, with a major role in the Poor Law and schools and over the morals of the population. Strict Sabbatarianism was vital to Presbyterianism. The sermon was seen as central and the only participation by the congregation the singing of the psalms. Communion was the central occasion of the church, conducted infrequently, at most once a year, often taking a week of festivals as part of a communion season. In the second half of the century there were a series of reforms of church music connected to a choir movement. Episcopalians installed organs and hired musicians, following the practice in English parish churches. Catholic worship was deliberately low key, with musical accompaniment prohibited.
Church of Scotland
The religious settlement after the
There were growing divisions between the
Secession
The eighteenth century saw the beginnings of a fragmentation of the Church of Scotland that had its foundation in the Reformation. These fractures were prompted by issues of government and patronage, but reflected a wider division between the Evangelicals and the Moderate Party over fears of fanaticism by the former and the acceptance of Enlightenment ideas by the latter.[4] Ecclesiastical patronage, the right of local lairds or other notables to appoint ministers to a parish, had been abolished at the Glorious Revolution, but it was reintroduced in the Patronage Act of 1711, resulting in frequent protests from the kirk.[8]
The
The second break from the kirk was also prompted by issues of patronage. Minister
Episcopalianism
Episcopalianism had retained supporters through the civil wars and regime changes in the seventeenth century. Although the bishops had been abolished in the settlement that followed the Glorious Revolution, becoming "
This period saw the establishment of Qualified Chapels, where worship was conducted according to the English Book of Common Prayer and where congregations, led by priests ordained by Bishops of the Church of England or the Church of Ireland, were willing to pray for the Hanoverians.[14] Such chapels drew their congregations from English people living in Scotland and from Scottish Episcopalians who were not bound to the Jacobite cause. These two forms of episcopalianism existed side by side until 1788 when the Jacobite claimant Charles Edward Stuart died in exile. Unwilling to recognise his brother Henry Benedict Stuart, who was a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, as his heir, the non-juror Episcopalians elected to recognise the House of Hanover and offer allegiance to George III. At the repeal of the penal laws in 1792 there were twenty-four Qualified Chapels in Scotland.[15]
Cameronians
The Society People, known after one of their leaders as the Cameronians, who had not accepted the restoration of episcopacy in 1660, remained outside of the established kirk after the Revolution settlement, refusing to rejoin an "un-Covenanted" kirk. However, most of their remaining ministers re-entered the Church of Scotland. After years of persecution their numbers were few and largely confined to the southwest of the country.[1] In the period 1714–43 they had only one minister and were unable to form a presbytery and ordain new clergy. Many joined the Secession Church in order to avoid extinction. In 1743, having obtained the services of a second minister from the Secession Church, they established themselves as the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Roughly 10,000 in number, they remained separate from other denominations and abstained from political involvement, refusing even to vote.[16]
Independent churches
In the mid-seventeenth century, the extension of toleration to
Scotland appeared to be fertile ground for Methodism in the 1740s and 1750s, when visits from figures such as
Minor sects
As well as the series of secessionist movements, the eighteenth century saw the formation of a number of minor sects. These included the
The
Catholicism
By the eighteenth century, Catholicism had been reduced to the fringes of the country, particularly the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands. Numbers probably reduced in the seventeenth century and organisation had deteriorated.
Protestant missions
Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders and Islanders clung to a form of Christianity infused with animistic folk beliefs and practices.[30] The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined missionary efforts. The Scottish Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) was founded by royal charter in 1708. Its aim was partly religious and partly cultural, intending to "wear out" Gaelic and "learn the people the English tongue". By 1715, it was running 25 schools, by 1755 it was 116 and by 1792 it was 149, but most were on the edges of the Highlands. The difficulty of promoting Protestantism and English in a Gaelic speaking region, eventually led to a change of policy in the SSPCK, and in 1754 it sanctioned the printing of a New Testament with Gaelic and English text on facing pages. The government only began to seriously promote Protestantism from 1725, when it began to make a grant to the General Assembly known as the Royal Bounty. Part of this went towards itinerant ministers, but by 1764 there were only ten. Probably more significant for the spread of Protestantism were the lay catechists, who met the people on the Sabbath, read Scripture, and joined them in Psalms and prayers. They would later be important in the Evangelical revival.[31]
Evangelical Revival
From the later 1730s Scotland experienced a version of the Evangelical revival that also affected England and Wales and North America. Protestant congregations, usually in a specific locations, experienced intense "awakenings" of enthusiasm, renewed commitment and, sometimes, rapid expansion. This was first seen at Easter Ross in the Highlands in 1739 and most famously in the Cambuslang Wark (work) near Glasgow in 1742,[31] where intense religious activity culminated in a crowd of perhaps 30,000 gathering there to hear English preacher George Whitefield.[32] Scotland was also visited 22 times by John Wesley, the English evangelist and founder of Methodism, between 1751 and 1790.[33]
Most of the new converts were relatively young and from the lower groups in society, such as small tenants, craftsmen, servants and the unskilled, with a relatively high proportion of unmarried women. This has been seen as a reaction against the oligarchical nature of the established kirk, which was dominated by local lairds and heritors. Unlike awakenings elsewhere, the revival in Scotland did not give rise to a major religious movement, but benefited the secession churches.[34] The revival was particularly significant in the Highlands, where the lack of a clear parochial structure led to a pattern of spiritual enthusiasm, recession and renewal, often instigated by lay catechists, known as "the Men", who would occasionally emerge as charismatic leaders. The revival left a legacy of strict Sabbatarianism and local identity.[27]
From the late eighteenth century Scotland gained many of the organisations associated with the revival in England, including
Popular religion
At the beginning of the century, the kirk had considerable control over the lives of the people. It had a major role in the
Strict Sabbatarianism was vital to Presbyterian culture. For members of separatist churches, the Sunday walk to the meeting house, sometimes as much as thirty miles, marked the intensity of dissent and strict keeping of the Sabbath was a mark of true membership. Fast days were also important, particularly in Seeder culture. They often did not involve actual fasting, but focused on stricter observance of the Sabbath. The established kirk had three a year, but the seeders as many as six.[39]
In Presbyterian worship the sermon, which could be several hours long, was seen as central, meaning that services tended to have a didactic and wordy character. There were also Bible readings and the only participation by the congregation was musical, in the singing of the psalms.[40] From the late seventeenth century the common practice was lining out, by which the precentor sang or read out each line and it was then repeated by the congregation. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century it was argued that this should be abandoned in favour of the practice of singing stanza by stanza.[41] These innovations became linked to a choir movement that included the setting up of schools to teach new tunes and singing in four parts.[42]
Among Presbyterians,
Among Episcopalians, Qualified Chapels used the English Book of Common Prayer. They installed organs and hired musicians, following the practice in English parish churches, singing in the liturgy as well as metrical psalms, while the non-jurors had to worship covertly and less elaborately. When the two branches united in the 1790s, the non-juring branch soon absorbed the musical and liturgical traditions of the qualified churches.[43]
Catholic worship was deliberately low key, usually in the private houses of
References
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0140136495, pp. 298–9.
- ^ Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, p. 300.
- ISBN 0300148798.
- ^ ISBN 1-85109-440-7, pp. 416–7.
- ^ a b Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, pp. 303–4.
- ISBN 0-19-211696-7, pp. 515–16.
- ISBN 019977255X, pp. 49–50.
- ^ ISBN 0712698930, p. 399.
- ^ a b Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, p. 302.
- ^ a b Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p. 400.
- ISBN 185728481X, p. 91.
- ^ Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, pp. 252–3.
- ^ Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, pp. 252–3 and 298-9.
- ISBN 1405801611, p. 49.
- ISBN 0567087468, p. 649.
- ISBN 0748608869, pp. 28–9.
- ISBN 0-7486-0233-X, p. 66.
- ^ a b Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, p. 38.
- ISBN 0810862824, p. 508.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, pp. 25 and 36-7.
- ISBN 1134778937, p. 107.
- ISBN 0191622435.
- ISBN 0810873656, p. 52.
- ISBN 0710001916, p. 33.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, p. 16.
- ^ a b c d e f Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p. 365.
- ISBN 0719037611, p. 61.
- ISBN 0719023963, p. 9.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, p. 85.
- ^ a b Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p. 364.
- ISBN 0199575487, p. 5.
- ^ Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland, p. 304.
- ^ Ditchfield, The Evangelical Revival, pp. 53 and 91.
- ^ Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p. 403.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, p. 72.
- ISBN 3-03910-948-0, p. 22.
- ISBN 978-0748620272, pp. 193–4.
- ^ Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, pp. 79–80.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-211696-7, pp. 513–4.
- ISBN 0810869810, pp. 143–4.
- ^ Spinks, A Communion Sunday in Scotland ca. 1780, p. 26.
- ISBN 0198164246, p. 192.
- ISBN 0567031411, p. 94.
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- Bebbington, D. W., Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local and Global Contexts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN 0199575487.
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- Murray, D., "Religious life: 1650–1750" in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-19-211696-7.
- Porter, J., "Introduction" in J. Porter, ed., Defining Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007), ISBN 3-03910-948-0.
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