“Protestant Principles, Roman Adversaries:” Debates on Roman Catholicism in Print, 1685-1700

Abstract

This thesis considers the nature of the debate surrounding toleration for Roman Catholics in England and Ireland as it was carried out in print in the later seventeenth century. It aims to prove that religious argumentation was central to the discourse of toleration in the period immediately preceding and succeeding the Glorious Revolution (1685-1700) and that concerns for the health and welfare of the Church-State were grounded in interpretations of religious and secular authority as they were encountered in the Roman Catholic tradition. More specifically, arguments against toleration of Roman Catholicism were founded on the perceived dual corruptions of the Roman Catholic faith, which were corrupt theological authority (spiritual corruption) and ecclesiastical or episcopal fraud or artifice (secular corruption). These purported failings and their implications for toleration as a religious as well as a civil measure are traced through the conceptual categories of cults, codes, and religious culture, which feature as major themes in contention within contemporary pamphlet literature. Ultimately, this discourse found Roman Catholicism illegitimate in its theology and its leadership and as such recommended the complete excision of Roman Catholicism from the English state.