Controversies Concerning Religion

Harrington very deliberately engaged in a number of high-profile religious debates during the late 1650s in order to defend and advance the vision of a civil religion that was central to his account of an equal commonwealth as set out in Oceana. Alongside debates concerning the nature of the commonwealth of Israel discussed previously, Harrington engaged in religious controversies over ordination within the early church and the proper relationship between church and state, clergy and laity. This last debate even led him to coin the modern meaning of the term ‘priestcraft’. His position in these debates paralleled and interacted with his engagement in political and historical issues. Once more he offered a distinctive ‘middle way’, this time balancing Erastianism and the establishment of a national church with liberty of conscience, and his commitment to popular government or democracy was again crucial.