Early Enlightenment Shifts

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the tensions concerning doctrinal matters between several Committees for Purity of Doctrine of the Church of Scotland and the three Divinity professors John Simson (1667–1740), Archibald Campbell (1691–1756), and William Leechman (1706–85). It analyses how the themes of innovation, toleration, and rational debate marked theological debates in the early stages of the Scottish Enlightenment. The cases of Simson, Campbell, and Leechman exemplify how in a relatively short time span, the General Assembly and the Kirk started dealing with doctrinal debates concerning orthodoxy and heresy in a more moderate manner, and how the status of the Confession of Faith was subject to discussion, even if there were no proper debates on subscription in eighteenth-century Scotland.