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Europe, the American Crisis, and Scottish Evangelism: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in the Kirk?

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The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000

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Abstract

During the early stages of the Seven Years’ War, John Witherspoon lamented that Britain was no longer ‘the arbiter of the fate of Europe’. He did so in a sermon with the full title: ‘Prayer for National Prosperity and for the revival of Religion inseparably connected’.1 As a religious leader, he did not discount the importance of external military interventions, or their primary role in maintaining Britain’s position as ‘arbiter’ of the European balance of power. Rather, he linked recent evidence of the declining power of the British armed forces to domestic ‘irreligion’. Witherspoon asked rhetorically: ‘How numerous and expensive, but how useless and inactive, have been our fleets and armies?’2 A domestic focus on private and worldly interests either made British soldiers ‘useless’ or prevented their deployment altogether (they were ‘inactive’). By 1758, Witherspoon was leader of the evangelical wing of the Scottish Kirk, known as the Popular Party.3 His focus on the necessary link between domestic morality and the success of the British army in foreign affairs did not amount to a watered-down version of Christian humanism; the social gospel writ large. It was a central component of evangelical revival. The ego prevented sociable sympathy with other humans. Acknowledging this fallen predicament would gift the individual with a form of grace that provided true communal connection.’ According to Popular Party members, the rise to prominence of political leaders on the domestic stage was to be legitimated by their ability to transform national covenant into international regeneration; the ability to use their domestic eminence in order to orientate Britain’s political focus towards issues which were not of immediate domestic concern: foreign policy and foreign peoples.

Is not this nation, once in a manner the arbiter of the fate of Europe now become the scorn and derision of her neighbours and all that are around about her?

John Witherspoon, ‘Prayer for National Prosperity’ (1758)

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Notes

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  1. Gideon Mailer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University College Dublin, Ireland

    William Mulligan (Lecturer in Modern History) (Lecturer in Modern History)

  2. University of Cambridge, UK

    Brendan Simms (Professor of the History of International Relations) (Professor of the History of International Relations)

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© 2010 Gideon Mailer

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Mailer, G. (2010). Europe, the American Crisis, and Scottish Evangelism: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in the Kirk?. In: Mulligan, W., Simms, B. (eds) The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289628_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289628_8

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-36547-0

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