Of the civil magistrate: John Witherspoon’s doubly religious toleration

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn 1788, the newly unified Presbyterian churches in America adopted a version of the Westminster Confession which, in contradistinction to the 1647 version, prohibited the magistrate from ‘giving … preference to any denomination of Christian’. Instrumental to this change was John Witherspoon, whose views on religious toleration became encoded in the revised confession’s insistence on disestablishment. This paper discusses Witherspoon’s idea of religious tolerance, and argues that it is ‘religious’ in a double sense: Witherspoon endorses the toleration of religion for the sake of religion. This paper proceeds in three parts; first, by examining the springs of Witherspoon’s religious toleration through his life and thought in eighteenth-century Scotland; second, by turning to Witherspoon’s mature thoughts and actions in favour of religious toleration in America; and finally, by evaluating the legacy of religious tolerance bequeathed by Witherspoon to the Presbyterian Church and the United States at large.