USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. I > Part 30
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Another Convocation was held in the intermediate time, as will be seen hereafter; but the primary "Con- vention of the Bishop, Clergy and Laity of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church in Connecticut," forty-four mem- bers in all, and twenty-four laymen, assembled in Trin- ity Church, New Haven, the first week in June, 1792, and the chief business of the session was to frame and agree upon an Ecclesiastical Constitution, "to be laid" in a printed form "before the several parishes in the Diocese for their approbation and adoption." But this was not the only important action taken previous to the adjournment. The lay members re- solved to send Delegates to the next General Con- vention, which was appointed to be held at New York; and accordingly they chose four and the clergy four, the full number of each order allowed to a Dio- cese or State.
When the annual Convention met at Middletown, June 5th, 1793, twenty clergymen, besides the Bishop, were present, and twenty-one lay Delegates, the latter representing the Church in every county of Connect- icut. It appeared by the report of their doings, and
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by the certificates exhibited, that the Constitution had been fully approved and accepted by the majority of the parishes; but those in Litchfield, New Preston, Northbury, and Redding had acted upon it and only adopted it in part. They were urged to give it a second consideration, and make returns to the next annual Convention; and thus the Constitution was approved and became henceforth the law for the gov- ernment of the Church throughout the Diocese, ex- cept in one or two parishes where some dissatisfaction was still manifested. As yet, no definite provision had been made for the support of the Bishop. He was chiefly dependent upon his people at New London for the bread that maintained his family. A few of the parishes made him donations. Trinity Church, New Haven, in the autumn of 1785, directed the sum of ten pounds to be paid him; and two years afterwards a like amount was voted by the Vestry, provided, how- ever, that this donation should not be considered as a precedent for any future claims upon the parish by the Bishop. Steps were early taken by the Conven- tion to establish a fund, and application was made to the General Assembly to incorporate a certain num- ber of Trustees for the purpose of receiving and hold- ing donations for the support of the Bishop; but Sea- bury was in his grave before the prayer of the peti- tioners was granted.
The Protest of the Rev. Mr. Sayre against the ap- proval of the proceedings of the General Convention in Philadelphia placed him in uncomfortable relations to his Bishop and brethren, and involved the parishes over which he presided for a time in perplexity and trouble. Since the resignation and retirement of Dr.
1
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Leaming, at Easter 1790, he had been in charge of the Church at Stratford; and being fresh in the field, and full of Christian earnestness, he gained an influ- ence over the people which he unhappily used to their disadvantage. He accompanied his opposition to the new Prayer Book and the General Constitution with much bitterness of feeling and personal abuse, -traits of character which he had shown at Newport, Rhode Island, where the displeasure of a divided parish fell upon him before he came to Connecticut. Speedy ef- forts were made by the Bishop and clergy to neutralize his influence, and bring the people under his care into harmonious action with the Diocese. At a Convoca- tion in East Haddam, February 15, 1792, this per- emptory vote was passed: "That unless the Wardens and Vestrymen of Christ Church in Stratford shall transmit to the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Connecticut, within fourteen days after Easter Monday next, a noti- fication that the congregation of said Church have adopted the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as settled by the General Convention at Phil- adelphia in October, 1789, they (the congregation) will be considered as having totally separated them- selves from the Church of Connecticut." That godly man, the Rev. Mr. Shelton of Bridgeport, acting as Secretary to the Convocation, was charged with the duty of communicating this vote to the Church in Stratford. The counsels of Dr. Johnson, a layman worthy of the days of Ignatius and of Cyprian, appear not to have been very influential at this time, in the venerable parish which his father had gathered and served, and to which he had left a sacred legacy of peace and Christian moderation. But he had been
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largely occupied in his profession and in national affairs, and his duties had separated him from scenes of local interest. Besides, after the revival of Colum- bia College, which had fallen into decay during the war, he accepted the Presidency of that Institution, to which he was chosen in 1787, and removed to New York. He filled this station with great dignity and usefulness until 1800, when the infirmities of advanc- ing age compelled him to resign it, and he retired to his native village. In this connection it is proper to mention that he died at Stratford on the 14th of November, 1819, in the ninety-third year of his age; and his departure was soon followed by that of the venerable Dr. Mansfield of Derby, in the ninety- seventh year of his age, and the seventy-second of his ministry. Both these men, of varied and event- ful experience, had lived to see the Church in Connect- icut carried through long periods of persecution, peril, and poverty, and finally settled in peace, and with cheering prospects, under the Episcopate of him1 around whose bier we have so lately gathered, and whose wise and paternal administration will ever live in the recollections of a grateful Diocese.
But the parish at Stratford had a judicious adviser in the Rev. John Bowden. The loss or feebleness of his voice had obliged him to relinquish the public ex- ercise of the ministry, and he removed with his fam- ily to Stratford, as a suitable place to open and con- duct a school of a higher order for boys. The ex- traordinary course pursued by Mr. Sayre, and the misapprehensions which he had been the means of
1 Right Rev. Thomas Church Brownell, D. D., LL. D. He died at Hartford, January 13th, 1865, and was buried Tuesday the 17th.
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disseminating, forced him, in defence of himself and of the Church, late in the autumn of 1791, to prepare an Address to the people, which was afterwards printed and circulated in the parish. "Take, I beseech you," are nearly his first words, "what I shall say to you in good part. I do not mean to offend, but to inform. Excuse the word inform. I do not use it from vanity, but from a conviction that you do not view the sub- ject in its true light; that you are not acquainted with the principles and reasonings and facts by which the conduct of the Bishop and clergy of this State, in adopting the proceedings of the Convention, may be triumphantly vindicated. You ought, indeed, to have presumed that they acted upon the best reasons, and from the purest motives; for, let me say it, no body of clergy have ever given more clear and uniform proofs of their zeal for the Church than the clergy of Connecticut. I know them well; they are excel- lent men, too honest to sacrifice the Church to any worldly motive whatsoever, and too well acquainted with its constitution to be led into error unwittingly. You, I fear, have had them and their conduct held up in a very different light. God forgive those who have done them this wrong!"
To the Address was appended "a Letter to the Rev. Mr. James Sayre,"-the two making a pamphlet of thirty-nine pages; and in this Letter Mr. Bowden showed the violent spirit of the refractory clergyman, and his disregard of the peace, unity, and authority of the Church, endeavoring, as he had, both from the pulpit and in private, to impress the people with an idea that the Bishop and his clergy had subverted the foundations of faith, and opened the way for the in-
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troduction of dangerous heresies. "I am curious to know," said the writer, in conclusion, "what a man can say for himself who opposes the sense and author- ity of the whole Episcopal Church in America; who has led a congregation into a separation that must in a few years end in their ruin; who has, in a variety of instances, most shamefully misrepresented; who has treated his brethren with the utmost contempt, and poured upon them the most profuse abuse. You have, I know, sir, an excellent talent at coloring; but whether your colors will be fit for the public eye on this occasion, the trial alone can determine."
Mr. Sayre finally withdrew from the unhappy con- troversy, after having been put under the ban of ecclesiastical censure, and denied by the clergy of the Diocese the use of their pulpits. The members of the parish, influenced by better counsels, returned to their duty; and on the 1st of April, 1793, the Rev. Ashbel Baldwin, then of Litchfield, was invited to the Rectorship, which he accepted, -officiating two thirds of the time in Stratford, and devoting the remainder to the Church at Tashua.
But Mr. Sayre sowed the seeds of discontent in an- other parish with which he had connection, and where the evil effects lingered longer. At Woodbury the people were partial to his ministrations; and sympa- thizing with him in his troubles, and believing in the sincerity of his course, they refused to adopt the Con- stitution of the Diocese, and thus became isolated and without pastoral care. For the clergy, at a Convoca- tion held in New Milford on the 25th of September, 1793, decided, that in the execution of their minis- terial office they could not pay any attention to them
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until they acceded to the Constitution of the Church in Connecticut.
The parish in Woodbury addressed a formal com- munication to the Bishop and clergy respecting their vote; but without answering it, at their next meeting in New Haven, June 5th, 1794, they appointed the "Rev. Messrs. Ives, Marsh, and Perry a Committee for the purpose of accommodating matters with the Epis- copal congregation at Woodbury, and reconciling them to a union with the Protestant Episcopal Church." In the fulfilment of their appointment, this Committee met the people in their church on the 7th of the en- suing month, and suspending, for the time, the opera- tion of the original vote, went into a review of the Constitution, and explained it in a manner so satisfac- tory that all former objections were removed, and the parish with great unanimity adopted it, and thus re- gained its old position in the Diocese. If Mr. Sayre had attached himself to the ministry of another de- nomination, he could have been of little service in it, for his mind was diseased, a fact hitherto unknown, and "actual insanity"1 terminated his life in 1798. He left in Fairfield, of which place his wife was a native, seven children, most of whom continued "zealous and useful Episcopalians." He was a brother of the Rev. John Sayre, the Missionary in that place when it was burnt by the British troops, and he appears to have had, like him, a very checkered history. He was educated to the law, and admitted to its practice at New York in 1771; but abandoning this profession, he entered the sacred ministry, and became a chaplain in one of the King's battalions. He resigned in 1777,
1 Hitchcock's History of the Church in Woodbury.
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"impelled by distress, severity of treatment, and by duty."1 The professors of the Church of England in Stratford and Milford, "having long been destitute of the regular administration of God's word and sacra- ments in the manner in which their consciences di- rected them to worship the Father of spirits," peti- tioned the General Assembly in 1782 for the favor of permitting Mr. Sayre, then at Brooklyn, Long Island, to come among them, and "preach on proba- tion for the space of three or four months, under such inspection and observation as their Honors should think proper;" but such had been his course during the war that the favor was refused.
Not a ripple was now left upon the surface of the Church in Connecticut. All was peace. "Jerusalem was builded as a city that is compact together," and the united action and energy of the clergy and laity fore- tokened under God the blessing of "prosperity within her palaces." The care to admit to Holy Orders none but fit and godly persons; the watchfulness to preserve a body of ministers with pure characters and strict devotion to their sacred office; the efforts to establish an Institution of classic learning, begun before the final settlement of the Church in the State, and which ended in the erection of the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire in 1795; the enlargement of the old churches and the building of new ones, and furnishing others with organs to make public worship more attractive and soul-inspiring; the Christian benevolence of the laity in thus giving for the house of God when their own dwellings were low and narrow; the Missionary zeal of the clergy, their learning, their piety, their
1 Sabine, Vol. II. p. 265.
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faith, their spirit of self-sacrifice,-all these are feat- ures' which rise to view in contemplating the Church shaking herself from the dust, putting on her beauti- ful garments, and going forth into the waste places of the land to gather those who "with the heart believe unto righteousness and with the mouth make confes- sion unto salvation."
A point in relation to the general interests of the Church must not be passed over without some notice. In the autumn of 1792 the second Triennial Conven- tion assembled in the city of New York, and Bishop Seabury, agreeably to a previous request, preached the sermon. Since the last meeting the House of Bishops had received an accession to its members. The Church in Virginia having elected the Rev. James Madison, D. D., to be their Bishop, he pro- ceeded immediately to England, and was consecrated on the 19th of September, 1790, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London and Roches- ter. Thus the scruples of the two American prelates, referred to in a former chapter, were set at rest, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country was furnished with three Bishops in the Anglican line of succession. The courtesies of private life are often interrupted by official acts; and the Bishop of Con- necticut had not exchanged visits with the Bishop of New York since the validity of the Scottish consecra tions had been called in question. But etiquette now required that he should wait upon him, and through the intervention of mutual friends the way was pre- pared, and Bishop Provoost received him civilly and gave him an invitation to dinner on the same day, which was accepted.
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But "there was another matter," says Bishop White; "which threatened the excitement of personal resent- ments." At the Convention of 1789 it had been es- tablished as a rule for the government of the House of Bishops that the senior Bishop present should pre- side,-seniority to be reckoned from the dates of the letters of consecration. But the two prelates, Pro- voost and Madison, now to sit for the first time in the House, were dissatisfied with this rule; and when Bishop Seabury became convinced that the object was not to exclude him from any share in the approach- ing consecration, he gracefully waived his right, and allowed the rule to be altered so as to give the Presi- dency in rotation, beginning from the north,1 and hav- ing reference to the last Convention.
This made Bishop Provoost the presiding officer on the present occasion, and the consecrator of the Rev. Thomas John Claggett, D. D., who had been elected Bishop of Maryland; and the Deputies from that State now applied for his elevation to the Apostolic office. The four assembled Bishops joined in the solemn act on the 17th of September; and thus the English and Scottish lines of succession were blended in this first consecration of a Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church on the soil of America.
Connecticut was represented in the General Con- vention of 1792 by two lay Delegates, and her influ- ence was felt in every important measure relating to the Canons, the Liturgy, or the Articles of religion. The American Church was at length complete in all its parts and functions, and able to expand itself as
1 The first rule was readopted in 1804, and has ever since been fol. lowed.
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God might give it grace and opportunity. But no- where in our land were the parishes rising more rap- idly from the depressions consequent upon the Revo- lutionary War than in this primal Diocese. Her clergy at this period outnumbered those of her sister Dio- cese (New York); and at an ordination held in Mid- dletown on the 5th of January, 1793, six persons were admitted to the Diaconate and Priesthood, -among whom were the two Blakeslees, Burhans, Butler, and Charles Seabury, a son of the Bishop, all then, or sub- sequently, exercising their ministry in Connecticut.
It is to be lamented that no complete record of the earliest confirmations is to be found. The number to whom Bishop Seabury administered the Apostolic rite must have been large, embracing not only the "suffi- ciently instructed" among the youth, but all the com- municants of the Church at the time of his first visita- tion. For there had been no opportunity in this coun- try to ratify and confirm baptismal vows, and persons, in the absence of a Bishop, had been admitted to the Communion upon their readiness and desire to be con- firmed. It was a fitting regard to historic associations that the first Episcopal visit should be made to the ven- erable parish at Stratford,1 but we can find neither the names nor the number of those confirmed. A Com- mittee was chosen by the parish at Waterbury, May 1st, 1786, "to wait on the Bishop at Stratford, and desire him to visit them;" and he complied with their desire; and on the 1st day of October in the same year it is recorded that he confirmed in that parish two hundred and fifty-six persons. . Mr. Hubbard entered in his Parochial Register the baptism of a child in Trinity
1 Paddock's Hist. Dis. Stratford, 1855, p. 35.
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Church by Bishop Seabury on the 4th of June, 1786; but no mention is anywhere made of the rite of Con- firmation.
A third church, of wood, to take the place of that in which the venerated Beach had lifted up his loyal voice to the end of the Revolution, was finished at Newtown in 1792, and was long the largest house of Episcopal worship in the State. It is standing yet, in good condition, "an ensign on a hill;" and though sanctuaries have been built in the neighboring dis- tricts, and have gathered their attendants, still this is the Christian home on earth of a great multitude who arise at the sound of the "Sabbath bell" and move towards its hallowed portals,-
" Till pressing thickly through the village street,
Around the church from far and wide they meet."
..
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CHAPTER XXXII.
INFIDELITY; THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EPISCOPAL ACADEMY OF CONNECTICUT; THIRD GENERAL CONVENTION; AND DEATH OF BISHOP SEABURY.
A. D. 1792-1796.
THE frequent convocations of the clergy, sometimes three in a year, kept them informed of the state of the parishes and of the work which each was doing in the service of his Divine Master. Old prejudices against the Church, her forms, and her doctrines had not all disappeared, and it was needful occasionally to defend her from unjust attacks, but the bitterness of former controversies was not revived. The battle now was rather of another kind. For upon our eman- cipation from the mother-country, everything seemed to be turned into a new channel, even thoughts and opinions. A body of speculators in morals, religion, and politics arose and threatened to entail mischief upon the rising generation. The school of French philosophers was just looked into, and in some places received with evident favor. "My own memory," said the late Chief Justice Church, in a centennial address delivered at Litchfield in 1851, "runs back to a divid- ing point of time, when I could see something of the old world and new. Infidel opinions came in like a flood. Mr. Paine's 'Age of Reason,' the works of Voltaire, and other deistical books, were broadcast,
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and young men suddenly became, as they thought, wiser than their fathers; and even men in high places among us here were suspected of infidel opinions. At the same time came the ardent preachers of Mr. Wes- ley's divinity, who were engaged in doing battle with Infidelity on the one hand, and Calvinistic theology on the other."
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The Church, with her Liturgy and Order, was a power between these "antagonistic forces and influ- ences." She advised and drew to "the old paths and the good way." She was a defender of "the faith once delivered to the saints." Built on "the founda- tion of the Prophets and Apostles, with Jesus Christ for the chief corner-stone," she spurned the teachings of infidel casuistry; and her clergy, finding access to the works of the best English Divines, learned to feed their flocks with food that nourished their souls and kept them from wandering into the dry pastures of doubt and speculation. It has been recorded of Bishop Seabury, that, as he approached nearer and nearer to the conclusion of his faithful ministry, he frequently directed the attention of his clergy and people to that mighty mystery of Faith-the Holy Trinity-which every true believer is required to keep "whole and undefiled." And when the question was put to him why he thought it needful to insist so much upon a doctrine whose importance was nowhere in the land, among professedly Christian men, doubted or denied, his reply contained a prediction, the fulfilment of which has passed into our religious history. "I seem to see," said he, "that a time will come when, in New England, this very doctrine, which now appears so safe, will be extensively corrupted and denied; and I VOL. I. 28
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would have it remembered that to the last I lifted up my voice in its defence."
Nineteen clergymen and twenty-two laymen com- posed the Convention which met at New Haven in June, 1794. The chief business of the session was to mature the measures to establish the Episcopal Acad- emy of Connecticut, and renew the application to the General Assembly for an Act incorporating the Trus- tees of the Bishop's Fund. Though the laity had been admitted to a share in the councils and legislation of the Church, and worked harmoniously with the clergy in all that concerned its temporal and spiritual wel- fare, the Convocations were still appointed by the Bishop, and continued to be the source of plans and of discipline, and the agent for receiving, directing, examining, and approving candidates for Holy Orders. The manuscript record of the proceedings of this body is often fuller than the printed Journal of the Con- vention, and throws light upon points which would otherwise remain in obscurity. The clergy, at their meeting in the autumn of 1792, took the preliminary steps to revise the Articles of Religion in the English Prayer Book; and Bowden, Mansfield, Hubbard, and Jarvis were empowered to make the revision, and present it for their approval at the next Convocation. It does not appear what alterations they made; but their revision at the appointed time was examined, and, with a few changes, approved as far as to the seventeenth Article,-the consideration of which, with those that follow, was referred to a future meeting. Bishop Seabury had expressed his doubts, at the first General Convention in Philadelphia, about the expe- diency of having any Articles, believing that the Lit-
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urgy comprehended all necessary doctrine; and whether in deference to his wishes or not, no further action, of which any record can be found, was taken in the matter during his Episcopate.
He wrote a letter, in obedience to the wishes of the clergy assembled at Cheshire in November, 1794, ad- monishing the Rev. David Perry of Ridgefield for "his neglect to attend the meetings of his brethren, and on account of the apparent contempt" which he there- by threw on them and on his Bishop. He stated, in conclusion, that they "wished to inquire of him con- cerning several reports which were circulating in the country to his disadvantage as a clergyman, and unless he did attend on their next meeting, according to the notification of their Secretary, a suspension from his clerical office would be issued against him."
The next meeting was early in the ensuing June, at Stratford, the time and place appointed for holding the Annual Convention of the Diocese. Mr. Perry appeared, and requested of the Bishop and his clergy "liberty to resign the pastoral charge of the parishes of Ridge- field, Redding, and Danbury, as well as to relinquish totally the exercise of the ecclesiastical function." His request was granted, and "the resignation of his Letters of Orders accepted;" and he returned to the practice of medicine, a profession which he had pur- sued previous to his ordination. Proper inquiries were made into the state of the cure thus vacated ; and in due time, David Butler, who had been first at North Guilford, and then at Litchfield, was trans- ferred to its charge. The Annual Convention in Stratford at this time numbered nineteen clergymen . and twenty-three lay delegates. The proceedings were
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