Mr Simson’s Knotty Case: Divinity, Politics, and Due Process in Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland

415 Pages·2001·8.367 MB·English

by  Anne Skoczylas

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MR SIMSON’S KNOTTY CASE:
Divinity, Politics, and Due Process
in Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland
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McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Ideas
1 Problems of Cartesianism 9 The Jena System, 1804–5:
Edited by Thomas M. Lennon, Logic and Metaphysics
John M. Nicholas, and John W. G.W.F. Hegel
Davis Translation edited by
John W. Burbidge and
2 The Development of the Idea George di Giovanni
of History in Antiquity Introduction and notes by
Gerald A. Press H.S. Harris
3 Claude Buffier and Thomas
10 Consent, Coercion, and Limit
Reid
The Medieval Origins of
Two Common-Sense
Parliamentary Democracy
Philosophers
Arthur P. Monahan
Louise Marcil-Lacoste
11 Scottish Common Sense in
4 Schiller, Hegel, and Marx
Germany, 1768–1800
State, Society, and the
A Contribution to the History
Aesthetic Ideal of Ancient
of Critical Philosophy
Greece
Manfred Kuehn
Philip J. Kain
12 Paine and Cobbett
5 John Case and Aristotelianism
The Transatlantic Connection
in Renaissance England
David A. Wilson
Charles B. Schmitt
13 Descartes and the
6 Beyond Liberty and Property
Enlightenment
The Process of Self-
Peter A. Schouls
Recognition in Eighteenth-
Century Political Thought
14 Greek Scepticism
J.A.W. Gunn
Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient
7 John Toland: His Methods, Thought
Manners, and Mind Leo Groarke
Stephen H. Daniel
15 The Irony of Theology and
8 Coleridge and the Inspired the Nature of Religious
Word Thought
Anthony John Harding Donald Wiebe
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16 Form and Transformation 24 Kierkegaard as Theologian
A Study in the Philosophy of Recovering My Self
Plotinus Arnold B. Come
Frederic M. Schroeder
25 An Enlightenment Tory in
Victorian Scotland
17 From Personal Duties
The Career of Sir Archibald
towards Personal Rights
Alison
Late Medieval and Early
Michael Michie
Modern Political Thought,
1300–1600 26 The Road to Egdon Heath
Arthur P. Monahan The Aesthetics of the Great in
Nature
18 The Main Philosophical Richard Bevis
Writings and the Novel Allwill
27 Jena Romanticism and Its
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Appropriation of Jakob
Translated and edited by
Böhme
George di Giovanni
Theosophy – Hagiography –
Literature
19 Kierkegaard as Humanist
Paolo Mayer
Discovering My Self
Arnold B. Come
28 Enlightenment and
Community
20 Durkheim, Morals, and
Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and the
Modernity
Quest for a German Public
W. Watts Miller
Benjamin W. Redekop
21 The Career of Toleration 29 Jacob Burckhardt and
John Locke, Jonas Proast, and the Crisis of Modernity
After John R. Hinde
Richard Vernon
30 The Distant Relation
Time and Identity in Spanish-
22 Dialectic of Love
American Fiction
Platonism in Schiller’s
Eoin S. Thomson
Aesthetics
David Pugh 31 Mr Simson’s Knotty Case
Divinity, Politics, and Due
23 History and Memory in Process in Early Eighteenth-
Ancient Greece Century Scotland
Gordon Shrimpton Anne Skoczylas
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MR SIMSON’S KNOTTY CASE
Divinity, Politics, and Due Process in
Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland
Anne Skoczylas
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2001
isbn 0-7735-1029-x
Legal deposit third quarter 2001
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding has
also been received from the J.B. Smallman Fund, Faculty
of Social Sciences, University of Western Ontario.
McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for its activities. It also acknowledges the support
of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing
program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Skoczylas, Anne, 1938-
Mr. Simson’s knotty case: divinity, politics, and due
process in early eighteenth-century Scotland
(McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of ideas; 31)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-7735-1029-x
1. Simson, John, 1667-1740. 2. Church of Scotland –
Doctrines – History – 18th century. 3. Church of Scotland
– Discipline – History – 18th century. i. Title. ii. Series.
bx9225.s46s59 2001 230′.5233′092 c00-901078-5
This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc.
in 10/12 Baskerville.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations Used in the Notes xi
1 Introduction: Scotland after 1707 3
2 John Simson: Historiography and Significance 13
part one: simson, glasgow, and calvinism
3 My Great Unfitness for Discharging such ane Office Aright:
John Simson and Glasgow University 29
4 I Profess myself only a Student: Simson as Teacher 52
5 So Unspotted a Church: Challenges to Scottish Calvinism 70
part two: simson’s first case
6 A General Inclination to Novelties in Doctrine: Letters, Negotiations,
Skirmishes, 1711–1715 103
7 A Speedy Trial: Libel, Committee, Trial, 1715–1717 128
part three: simson and the struggles in scotland,
1717–1726
8 Adiew to the Piece and Unity of this place: Simson and Glasgow
Politics 177
9 Further Gulps of Error: Simson and Religious Turmoil 210
part four: simson’s second case and after
10 A Crime Deeper than Crimson: From Letter to Suspension,
1726–1727 243
11 The Brink of a Rupture: Depose? Acquit? 1727–1729 288
12 Quit of him at last: Descent into Obscurity, 1729–1740 322
13 Conclusion: Scotland Transformed 341
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viii Contents
Appendix A: Documents re Simson’s First Case 355
Appendix B: Documents re Simson’s Second Case 362
Glossary 371
Bibliography 377
Index 399
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Acknowledgments
Many libraries and librarians provided me with bibliographical assis-
tance, for which I am grateful. The staff in the libraries of the University
of Western Ontario deserve my special thanks, with particular apprecia-
tion going to David Murphy for his efforts at locating eighteenth-cen-
tury material for me.
I wish to thank the Church of Scotland for permission to quote from
various presbytery, synod, and assembly records and manuscripts; Sir
John Clerk of Penicuik, for letters in the Clerk of Penicuik Collection;
the Duke of Montrose, for letters in the Montrose Muniments; and Miss
P. Skelton, for correspondence in the Lawrie Papers. For giving me per-
mission to quote from documents in their collections, I am also grateful
to the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, the Trustees of the National
Library of Scotland, the archivists of the Glasgow University Archives
and Business Records Centre, the librarians in the Department of Spe-
cial Collections, Glasgow University Library, and the librarians of Edin-
burgh University Library. Permission is granted by the Director of Dr
Williams’s Library to use and quote from the The Wodrow–Kenrick Cor-
respondence. Quotations from the Benson Papers are reproduced by
courtesy of the Director and University Librarian, the John Rylands Uni-
versity Library of Manchester.
While I enjoyed the advice and assistance given by many members of
the History Department at the University of Western Ontario, I owe my
deepest thanks to Professor Roger L. Emerson, whose expertise was my
main stay in all areas of my work. His encyclopaedic knowledge of both
manuscript and published sources was an invaluable bibliographical aid
to my research. Through him I received further useful suggestions on
unprinted sources from Professors M.A. Stewart, J. Moore, and Paul
Wood, which I much appreciated.
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x Acknowledgments
My husband, Henry, read, commented on, and edited my second
draft, which helped me to clarify many of my ideas. I pay tribute to the
consistent and generous way in which he endorsed my efforts and to the
friendly moral support offered by my children.
Finally, in appreciation of her influence, I dedicate this book to the
memory of my mother, Frances De Vere Key, who encouraged me to
study history.