USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. I > Part 26
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authority for permission to have a Bishop reside in the State; at the same time offering to surrender his own claims in favor of any Presbyter who might be agreeable to them and less obnoxious to the public. "The State of Connecticut," said he, "may consent that a Bishop should reside among them, though they might not consent that I should be the man."
The clergy lost no time in acting upon this sug- gestion, for, shortly after receiving it, they met in Convention at Wallingford, and "voted that the lead- ing members of both Houses of Assembly, which was then sitting at New Haven, should be conferred with, so far as the proposed difficulties had reference to the civil government; " and they appointed Messrs. Leam- ing, Jarvis, and Hubbard a committee to further the object of this vote. They learned by the conference what they communicated to Dr. Seabury: that no special Act of the Assembly was needed in the case ; that a general law had been passed embracing the Church, and comprehending all the legal rights and powers intended to be given to any denomination of Christians ; and if a Bishop came, he would stand, by the provisions of that law, upon the same ground as the rest of the clergy, or the Church at large. With their communication, which touched upon the other objections that had been raised, the Committee sent certified copies of the law, which were slow in reach- ing their destination ; but the letter did good service, and " enabled me," said Seabury, using a military figure, "to open a new battery, which I will mount with the heaviest cannon and mortars I can muster, and will play them as vigorously as possible."
The " battery," however, did not demolish the oppo-
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sition to his consecration. If it weakened the force of the other objections, it did not remove the great impediment of the State oaths. The American Episco- pate had been a subtle ministerial affair for more than half a century, and nobody in England now seemed willing to risk anything for the sake of the Church, or for the sake of continuing Episcopal ordinations in this country. An Act was passed "to empower the Bishop of London for the time being, and any other Bishop to be by him appointed, to admit to the order of deacon or priest persons being subjects or citizens of countries out of His Majesty's dominions, without re- quiring them to take the oath of allegiance as ap- pointed by law;"1 and a few candidates who embarked for England, soon after the cessation of hostilities, were ordained under this privilege, and returned to their own country. But consecration to the Apostolic office was viewed from another standpoint, and held in abeyance, "partly from an apprehension of giving umbrage to a Power with whom a treaty of peace had but lately been signed." It was, at length, decided to be necessary to apply to Parliament for an Act "to enable the Bishops to proceed without incurring a Premunire ;" and while the incipient measures were concerting, and Seabury was flattered with every pros- pect of success, he wrote to the clergy of Connecti- cut towards the end of July, 1784, and thus fore- shadowed the course that he might yet be compelled to take.
" But everything here is attended with uncertainty till it is actually done. Men or measures, or both, may be changed to-morrow, and then all will be to go
1 Hawkins, p. 403.
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through again. However, I shall wait the issue of the present session of Parliament, which, it is the common opinion, will continue a month longer. If nothing be done, I shall give up the matter here as unattainable, and apply to the North, unless I should receive con- trary directions from the clergy of Connecticut."
He had previously written that there was "nothing not base that he would not do, nor any risk that he would not run, nor any inconvenience to himself that he would not encounter, to carry this business into effect;" and clergymen of influence and extensive acquirements had directed his attention to the Scotch succession, and assured him that "it was equal to any in the world." Among this number was the eldest son of the Bishop of Cloyne, - a prebendary of Can- terbury, - that fast friend to the Church in America who had so long corresponded with the younger John- son, and manifested his interest in both the civil and ecclesiastical relations of the colonies. As early as 1782, while the struggle of the American Revolution was approaching its end, and before any attempt to or- ganize had been undertaken in Connecticut, Berkeley suggested to a Presbyter of Aberdeen, (the Rev. John Skinner, afterwards Bishop Skinner,) "that a most im- portant good might ere long be derived to the suffer- ing and nearly neglected sons of Episcopacy on the other side of the Atlantic from the suffering Church of Scotland." Writing to him again, after his consecra- tion to the higher office, he reinforced his original suggestion, and said: "From the Churches of England and Ireland, America will not now receive the Epis- copate: if she might, I am persuaded that many of her sons would joyfully receive Bishops from Scotland.
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The question, then, shortly is, Can any proper per- sons be found who, with the spirit of confessors, would convey the great blessing of the Protestant Episcopate from the persecuted Church of Scotland to the strug- gling, persecuted Protestant Episcopalian worshippers in America? If so, is it not the duty of all and every Bishop of the Church in Scotland to contribute to- wards sending into the New World Protestant Bishops, before general assemblies can be held and covenants taken for their perpetual exclusion? Liberari animam meam."
Bishop Skinner returned a discouraging answer to this letter, and correctly observed: "Nothing can be done in the affair, with safety on our side, till the in- dependence of America be fully and irrevocably rec- ognized by the Government of Great Britain; and even then the enemies of our Church might make a handle of our correspondence with the colonies, as a proof that we always wished to fish in troubled waters; and we have little need to give any ground for an imputation of that kind."
The Bishops of the Church in Scotland were non- jurors, successors of those English prelates who, at the Revolution1 of 1688, were deprived of their reve- nues and dignity by the civil power, because they refused to disown submission to James the Second and swear allegiance to William the Third. The validity of their orders was undoubted, and the only objection to them was on the score of their political principles. With these the Church in this country, of course, had nothing to do; for, separated from all the entangling alliances of the State, she was hence-
1 Anderson's Colonial Church, Vol. II. p. 531, et seq.
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forth to depend, under God, for prosperity upon the zeal, the energy, the prudence, and the piety of her clergy and laity. Seeing no prospect of accomplish- ing his object with the English prelates, "the Ministry having refused to permit a Bishop to be consecrated for Connecticut, or for any other of the thirteen States, without the formal request, or at least consent of Congress," and unwilling to be longer detained in London at an expense inconvenient to himself, Dr. Seabury turned his face towards Scotland, where he found the way prepared for his cordial reception, and the nonjuring Bishops ready to bestow on him the gift of the Episcopate, in spite of all obstacles raised to his person or to the manner of his election. Ac- cordingly he was consecrated in an upper room at Aberdeen, November 14, 1784, by Robert Kilgour, Primus Bishop of Aberdeen, assisted by Arthur Petrie, the Bishop of Ross and Moray, and John Skinner, the coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen. " Anciently no Bishop in Scotland had the style of Archbishop, but one of them had a precedency under the title of Primus Scotic Episcopus; and after the Revolution they re- turned to their old style, which they still retain, one of them being entitled Primus, to whom precedency is allowed and deference paid in the Synod of Bishops."
Thus then three prelates of the Church in Scotland granted what the British Government, from views of political expediency, at first denied,-a valid Epis- copacy to this Western World. "Unacquainted with the politics of nations," said they, in their letter to the clergy of Connecticut, "and under no temptation to interfere in matters foreign to us, we have no other object in view but the interest of the Mediator's king-
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dom, no higher ambition than to do our duty as mes- sengers of the Prince of Peace. In the discharge of this duty, the example which we wish to copy after is that of the Primitive Church, while in a similar situation, unconnected with, and unsupported by the temporal powers." They shared the sentiment so fearlessly expressed by Bishop Skinner in his conse- cration sermon, which was afterwards published, that, "as long as there are nations to be instructed in the principles of the Gospel, or a church to be formed in any part of the inhabited world, the successors of the Apostles are obliged, by the commission which they hold, to contribute, as far as they can, or may be re- quired of them, to the propagation of those principles, and to the formation of every church upon the most pure and primitive model. No fear of worldly censure ought to keep them back from so good a work; no connection with any State, nor dependence on any government whatever, should tie up their hands from communicating the blessings of that 'kingdom which is not of this world,' and diffusing the means of salva- tion, by a valid and regular ministry, wherever they may be wanted."
Some of the English Bishops were not entirely pleased with all the steps attending the consecration of Dr. Seabury, but they could do no less than com- mend him in their hearts for his zeal in so good a cause; and believing Episcopacy to be a divine insti- tution, they could not really censure its transmission through so pure a channel to the Western World. His friends vindicated his course; and Dr. Horne, Dean of Canterbury and the Commentator on the Psalms, writ- ing to him a few weeks after his consecration, said: "1
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am truly sorry that our Cabinet here would not save you the trouble of going to Scotland for it. There is some uneasiness about it, I find, since it is done. It is said you have been precipitate. I should be in- clined to think so too, had any hopes been left of obtaining consecration from England. But if none were left, what could you do but what you have done ?" And Bishop Seabury replied: "God grant that I may never have greater cause to condemn myself than in the conduct of this business. I have endeavored to get it forward easily and quietly, with- out noise, party, or heat; and I cannot but be pleased that no fault but precipitancy is brought against me. That implies that I have needlessly hurried the mat- ter, but is an acknowledgment that the measure was right in itself." His consecration was the means of opening a correspondence between Bishop Skinner and several eminent men of England, which after- wards proved of essential benefit to the Church of Scotland.
Having completed his business at Aberdeen, the newly consecrated Bishop retraced his steps to Lon- don, and prepared to embark for the shores of his native land. Before he set sail, he addressed a noble and Christian communication to the Secretary of the Venerable Society, reciting briefly the origin and cir- cumstances of his journey to England, and then to Scotland, and adding what most intimately concerned both himself and the clergy who were to come under his Episcopal oversight. "How far," said he, "the Venerable Society may think themselves justifiable in continuing me their Missionary, they only can deter- mine. Should they do so, I shall esteem it as a favor.
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Should they do otherwise, I can have no right to com- plain. I beg them to believe that I shall ever retain a grateful sense of their favors to me during thirty- one years that I have been their Missionary, and that I shall remember with the utmost respect the kind attention which they have so long paid to the Church in that country for which I am now to embark. Very happy would it make me, could I be assured they would continue that attention; if not in the same, yet in some degree; if not longer, yet during the lives of their present Missionaries, whose conduct in the late commotions has been irreproachable, and has pro- cured esteem to themselves and respect to that Church to which they belong.
"The fate of individuals is, however, of inferior mo- ment when compared with that of the whole Church. Whenever the Society shall wholly cease to interest itself in the concerns of religion in America, it will be a heavy calamity to the Church in that country."
To this manly and ingenuous communication he received an official answer after he had reached New London, the substance of which is contained in the following brief paragraph: "I am directed by the So- ciety to express their approbation of your service as their Missionary, and to acquaint you that they can- not, consistently with their charter, employ any Mis- sionaries except in the plantations, colonies, and fac- tories belonging to the kingdom of Great Britain: your case is of course comprehended under that gen- eral rule."
This answer decided the future relations of the Con- necticut clergy to the Venerable Society; and those who had not removed or did not afterwards remove
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into the British Provinces, resigned their office as Mis- sionaries, and fell back upon their parishes entirely for support. The churchmen, though impoverished by the war, met, as far as they were able, this new demand upon their generosity. Trinity Church, New Haven, voted to add to the salary of Mr. Hubbard an amount equal to the annual stipend which he had re- ceived from the Society; and in other places provision and promises were made to supply the deficiency.
Dr. Seabury was absent from this country full two years; and in the letter which he wrote from London to the clergy of Connecticut, after his return from Scotland, he said: "My own poverty is one of the greatest discouragements I have. Two years' absence from my family, and expensive residence here, have more than expended all I had. But in so good a cause, and of such magnitude, something must be risked by somebody. To my lot it has fallen: I have done it cheerfully, and despair not of a happy issue." The next letter, dated June 29th, 1785, announced to the Rev. Mr. Jarvis his arrival at New London, and solicited the favor of an early interview with him, to consult upon the time and place of holding a Conven- tion of the clergy. No noise attended this first and undisguised entrance of a Protestant Bishop upon the soil of New England. He came as a simple Christian citizen, and not in any outward pomp and dignity such as the adversaries of the Church had apprehended before the war for independence was commenced. They could well afford to leave him to the quiet pur- suit of his Apostolic office, for the political power was now in their hands, and if the hated hierarchy that once flitted before their vision threatened to inter-
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fere with the prerogatives of the State, it could be easily crushed. "The Presbyterian ministers," says Wilberforce,1 "appeared to be rather alarmed; and, in consequence of his arrival, assumed and gave one another the style and title of Bishops, which formerly they reprobated as a remnant of Popery." He was present at the Annual Commencement of Yale Col- lege in 1785; and when some one mentioned the fact to President Stiles, and suggested that he should be invited to a seat among the distinguished personages, he replied that "there were already several Bishops upon the stage, but if there was room for another he might occupy it."
With joy did the clergy of Connecticut assemble in Convention at Middletown, on the 3d day of August, 1785, and publicly welcome and recognize their Bishop. A Concordate "established in mutual good faith and confidence" at Aberdeen, and the pastoral letter of the Scottish Bishops, were laid before the clergy, and "excited in them the warmest sentiments of grati- tude and esteem." At the risk of repeating some things which have already been stated, we cannot pass on without quoting a portion of the Address to BISHOP SEABURY, unanimously and voluntarily accept- ing him as "supreme in the government of the Church, and in the administration of all ecclesiastical affairs."
"The experience of many years had long ago con- vinced the whole body of the clergy, and many lay members of our communion, of the necessity there was of having resident Bishops among us. Fully and publicly was our cause pleaded, and supported by such arguments as must have carried conviction to the
1 History of the American Church, p. 168.
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minds of all candid and liberal men. They were, however, for reasons which we are unable to assign, neglected by our superiors in England. Some of those arguments were drawn from our being members of the National Church, and subjects of the British Gov- ernment. These lost their force upon the separation of this country from Great Britain by the late peace. Our case became thereby more desperate, and our spiritual necessities were much increased. Filial af- fection still induced us to place confidence in our par- ent Church and country, whose liberality and benevo- lence we had long experienced, and do most gratefully acknowledge. To this Church was our immediate ap- plication directed, earnestly requesting a Bishop, to collect, govern, and continue our scattered, wandering, and sinking Church; and great was, and still continues to be, our surprise that a request so reasonable in itself, so congruous to the nature and government of that Church, and begging for an officer so absolutely ne- cessary in the Church of Christ, as they and we be- lieve a Bishop to be, should be refused. We hope that the successors of the Apostles in the Church of England have sufficient reasons to justify themselves to the world and to God. We, however, know of none such, nor can our imagination frame any."
Bishop Seabury replied to this passage of the Ad- dress thus: "The surprise you express at the rejec- tion of your application in England is natural. But where the ecclesiastical and civil constitutions are so closely woven together as they are in that country, the first characters in the Church for station and merit may find their dispositions rendered ineffect- ual by the intervention of the civil authority: and VOL. I. 24
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whether it is better to submit quietly to this state of things in England, or to risk that confusion which would probably ensue should an amendment be at- tempted, demands serious consideration."
The Providence which orders all events in infinite wisdoni, may have withheld the Episcopate from America in mercy to the Church, until it could be separated in the popular mind and feeling from all ideas of regal power and oppression. The blending of the civil and ecclesiastical relations in any form would have excited the jealousy of the sects, and re- tarded the restoration and growth of our communion. The Church would not have been organized in such complete harmony with the primitive model; and en- tangling alliances with the State would have enclosed, as in a net, all the efforts of the clergy to advance the cause of pure and undefiled religion.
At this primary Convention in Middletown, Bishop Seabury held his first ordination, which was the first Protestant Episcopal ordination in this country, and admitted to the Diaconate four candidates, -two of them from Connecticut, and long, faithful, and honored servants here in the work of the Church. The Rev. Mr. Leaming, then, from the 18th of April, 1784, the Rector of Christ Church, Stratford, preached the ser- mon before the Convention; and this and the Ad- dresses and First Charge of the Bishop were printed and stitched together in the same pamphlet, from a copy of which another quotation is made, to show his forgiving spirit, and his grateful sense of the future prospects of the Church.
"I have the pleasure to see the day when there is a Bishop here, to act as a true Father towards his
1
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clergy, supporting their dignity, as well as his own; to govern them with impartiality, as well as lenity ; and to admit none to the altar, by ordination, but the wor- thy; to uphold a Church beaten with storms on every side; to support a Church that has been a bulwark against infidelity on the one hand, and Romish super- stition on the other: but by the Divine providence it has continued to this day. And upon this auspi- cious day I cannot forbear to mention (and I do it with pleasure) the conduct of the Civil Rulers of this State respecting our Church: they have not only manifested a spirit of benevolence, but an exalted Chris- tian charity ; for which our gratitude is due, and shall be paid in obeying all their just commands.
"As the same disposition appears in the ministers of our neighboring churches to live in Christian har- mony with us, we are all ready to meet them upon the same ground, with a sincerity like their own." 1
Bishop Seabury's First Charge to the clergy was de- livered the next day, and embraced the points which rose to his mind at that season, as deserving to be spe- cially pressed upon their attention. The consideration of one of them was not more proper then than it is now, and by citing a passage in reference to it, it will be seen how careful the ecclesiastical authority was to guard the entrance to the sacred ministry at a time when it was so necessary to replenish the ranks. "Another matter which my duty requires me to men- tion, relates to a business in which you will probably be soon called upon to act. I mean the very impor- tant one of giving recommendations to candidates for Holy Orders. It is impossible that the Bishop should
1 Sermon, pp. 13, 14.
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be personally acquainted with every one who may present himself for Ordination. He must, therefore, depend on the recommendation of his clergy and other people of reputation, for the character and quali- fications of those who shall be presented to him. By qualifications, I mean not so much literary accom- plishments, though these are not to be neglected, as aptitude for the work of the ministry. You must be sensible that a man may have, and deservedly have, an irreproachable moral character, and be endued with pious and devout affections, and a competent share of human learning, and yet, from want of pru- dence, or from deficiency in temper, or some singu- larity in disposition, may not be calculated to make a good clergyman; for to be a good clergyman implies, among other things, that a man be a useful one. A clergyman who does no good, always does hurt. There is no medium. Not only the moral character and learning and abilities of candidates are to be exactly inquired into, but also their good temper, prudence, diligence, and everything by which their usefulness in the ministry may be affected. Nor should their personal appearance, voice, manner, clearness of ex- pression, and facility of communicating their senti- ments, be overlooked. These, which may by some be thought to be only secondary qualifications, and therefore of no great importance, are, however, those that will require your more particular attention, and call for all your prudence. They who shall apply for recommendations, will generally be such as have passed through a course of academical studies, and must be competently qualified in a literary view." 1 1 First Charge, p. 7.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
PROCEEDINGS OF CONVENTIONS OF DELEGATES FROM SEVERAL STATES, AND ATTEMPTS TO UNITE THE CHURCH IN THE INDEPENDENT COLONIES UNDER ONE GENERAL CONSTITU- TION.
A. D. 1785-1786.
VERY little in the way of business was accomplished at the meeting of the clergy in Middletown. The formal reception of the Bishop, the solemn ordination, and the public services were the chief attractions of the occasion, but some cautious steps were taken to- wards maintaining uniformity of divine worship in the Episcopal Church, and adapting the Book of Com- mon Prayer to the new civil and ecclesiastical rela- tions of the clergy in this country. Two presbyters, not of Connecticut, the Rev. Samuel Parker of Boston, and the Rev. Benjamin Moore, both of whom were afterwards raised to the Episcopate, were in attend- ance, and aided by their counsels, then and subse- quently, the movement to unite the Church in the thirteen States under one Liturgy and Constitution. After appointing Messrs. Bowden, Parker, and Jarvis a committee, to consider and make with the Bishop some alterations in the Prayer Book needful for the present use, the Convocation adjourned to meet again at New Haven in September.
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