The Moderate Party as a church term normally refers to an important group of
clerics in the
Church of Scotland in the 18th century. It is often contrasted with the
Evangelicals, but that is very much a simplification. Most members of both parties considered themselves orthodox
Christians and the leaders
Principal Robertson for the Moderates and his
Edinburgh University colleague,
John Erskine for the
Evangelicals, had a very warm and mutually respectful relationship.
They were characteristically very much part of the
Scottish Enlightenment contributing to and deriving intellectual nourishment from an impressive range of scholarly activities of the time: literary, philosophical, historical and scientific.
Their
preaching concentrated, too much so in some eyes, on
Christian conduct, rather than the details of
creed. “It was of great importance”, said one, “to discriminate between the artificial virtues and vices, formed by ignorance and superstition, and those that are real".
Lastly, they had profound respect for the established
hierarchies of both
Church and
Government. That attitude was shared with
Lutheranism and indeed cited
scriptural authority for it. It was also congenial to the Scottish ruling class, which appointed ministers by using the
Patronage Acts.
The right of the landowning
gentry to nominate ministers to parishes and its consequent influence on church matters underlay the various
Secessions (of
1733 and 1752, in particular) from the
Church of Scotland, which took place in the 18th century. However, the
theological differences between Moderates and
Evangelicals were significant indeed. For example,
James Meek was a typical Moderate who had been nominated by the
Duke of Hamilton and opposed by his
Cambuslang parishioners on aspects of his preaching.
As one later evangelical minister (WH Porter in References below) said, the Moderates "gave us our Paraphrases; Campbell, who replied to
Hume, M'Knight the communicator, Hill the theologian, and Blair the preacher, were Moderates. Though in 1796, the Moderates were mainly, not entirely, responsible for the defeat of Foreign Missions proposals, yet in 1829, the Mission to India was founded by Dr Inglis, a Moderate. Principles Blair and M'Farlane were both moderates, yet to the one the Church of Scotland owes her Education Scheme, to the other her Colonial scheme".
References
I D L Clark From Protest to Reaction: The Moderate Regime in the Church of Scotland, 1752 - 1805 in Phillipson, N. T. &
Mitchison, Rosalind.Scotland in the age of improvement: essays in Scottish history in the eighteenth century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996. originally published, 1970. xi,270p: map; 22cm.
ISBN0-7486-0876-1 Press F: Age of improvement
Porter, Wm Henry Cambuslang and its Ministers (in
Mitchell Library - Glasgow Collection, reference GC941.433 CAM 188520 Box 952
Richard B Sher Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985; paperback edition, Edinburgh University Press, 1991
ISBN0-691-05445-2).