James Wodrow, John Witherspoon and the Negotiation of Moderatism in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Abstract

John Witherspoon is well known for his career as principal of the College of New Jersey after his years as a parish minister in Ayrshire, but other Evangelical ministers in the eighteenth-century Church of Scotland are now acknowledged not merely to have had spiritual priorities, but also to have responded to and participated in the Enlightenment project. Their Moderate counterparts, however, are still often characterised as essentially irreligious, or at least unspiritual, intellectuals and power players. This article examines James Wodrow (1730-1810), parish minister of Stevenston, Ayrshire, and his relationships with John Witherspoon and other Ayrshire and Renfrewshire ministers, both Evangelicals (or Popular party adherents) and Moderates. It suggests that Wodrow represented, in one person, the imprint of a Moderate stamp upon a Covenanting and Evangelical heritage; that his friends, and his own modus operandi, illuminate a spectrum of Moderate theology and practice in late eighteenth-century Scotland, rather than a single blueprint; and that there was perhaps a greater proximity between Moderates and Popular party divines than is sometimes represented. It draws on the long and rich correspondence between Rev. James Wodrow (1730-1810) and his friend, the Unitarian banker, Samuel Kenrick (1729-1811) of Bewdley, Worcestershire.