USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the settlement of the colony to the death of Bishop Seabury > Part 27
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ities, however, opened the way for a free and inter- esting correspondence, conducted on the one side by Bishop Seabury and the venerable Dr. Chandler, -who by this time had returned to the scene of his early labors in New Jersey, to await the last summons,- and on the other by the Rev. Dr. William White and the Rev. Dr. William Smith. The latter gentleman, who was himself not without desire for a mitre, had been opposed to the nonjuring Bishops in Scotland communicating the Episcopate to Connecticut; and he had said some things not very complimentary to the candidate from this State, in his steps to reach the Apostolic office. The change which came over him will be seen in a later chapter. Dr. Chandler, though clearly of opinion that the Laity ought to be consulted in the matter of organizing the Church, still thought that it was "contrary to the established maxims of ecclesiastical polity" to admit them to vote in councils, and he particularly objected to the prominence which had been given them in the Con-
vention of Virginia. He accepted the constitution of the Church in Connecticut, and believed that the Christian world could not afford one, all things con- sidered, more conformable to the primitive pattern. Bishop Seabury, in a long and closely reasoned letter to Dr. Smith, set forth the various objections which rose to his view, and in reference to the Laity said: "I have as great a regard for them as any man can have. It is for their sake that ministers are ap- pointed in the Church. I have no idea of aggran- dizing the clergy at the expense of the Laity, or, in- deed, of aggrandizing them at all. Decent means of living is all they have a right to expect. But I can-
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not conceive that the Laity can, with any propriety, be admitted to sit in judgment on Bishops and Pres- byters, especially when deposition may be the event, because they cannot take away a character which they cannot confer. It is incongruous to every idea of Episcopal government." This sentiment accorded with the arrangement of the Church in Scotland. He was willing to admit them into a participation of the government as far as the external or temporal state of things might require, but he was opposed to their meddling with matters strictly ecclesiastical. In concluding his frank and admirable letter, which he expected Dr. Smith to lay before the Convention, to- gether with a copy of his letters of consecration which he enclosed, Bishop Seabury gave utterance to his "most earnest wish to have our Church in all the States so settled that it may be one Church, united in government, doctrine, and discipline; that there may be no divisions among us, no opposition of inter- ests, no clashing of opinions." "Human passions and prejudices," said he, "and, if possible, infirmities, should be laid aside. A wrong step will be attended with dreadful consequences. Patience and prudence must be exercised; and should there be some circumstances that press hard for a remedy, hasty decisions will not mend them. In doubtful cases they will probably have a bad effect. May the Spirit of God be with you at Philadelphia; and as I persuade myself the sole good of His Church is the sole aim of you all, I hope for the best effects from your meeting."
Not satisfied with this communication, and fearful that his request might still be disregarded, he wrote a few days later to Dr. White, expressing the hope
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that the several matters which he had pointed out might be reconsidered, and said: "It is a grief to me that I cannot be with you at your ensuing Conven- tion. Neither my circumstances nor my duty will permit it. I am utterly unprovided for so long a journey, not being at present master even of a horse." He sent him also, as he had sent Dr. Smith, a copy of the alterations which it had been thought proper to make in the Liturgy to accommodate it to the dif- ferent condition of the civil state, and intimated that, should other changes be made, they must be the "work of time and great deliberation."
A similar spirit was evinced by the clergy in Mas- sachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire; and, with eleven laymen, they assembled at Boston, a month after the meeting at Middletown, and delib- erating in one body, but voting separately, assented substantially to the omissions and alterations in the Liturgy agreed upon by Bishop Seabury and his cler- ical associates. Mr. Parker, in communicating their action to him, said: "The only material ones that we have not agreed to, are the omitting the Second Les- son in the Morning Service, and the Gospel and Ex- hortation in the Baptismal Office. The additional alterations in some of the offices are such as were mentioned at Middletown, but which we had not time to enter upon then. The churches in these States appear very desirous of maintaining a uniformity in divine worship, and for that purpose have voted that the alterations agreed to shall not be adopted till the Convention meet again, that we may have an oppor- tunity of comparing our proposed alterations with those that shall be adopted and enjoined in Connec- ticut, and at the Convention at Philadelphia. . .
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"We have voted not to send any delegate from these States to the Convention at Philadelphia, but only to acquaint them with our proceedings; and I flatter myself that no other alterations will be adopted by them than those we proposed at Middletown, and have agreed to here. If they are so prudent as to pursue the same steps, the desired object of a general uniformity will thereby be obtained. As to any fur- ther revision of the Book of Common Prayer, I shall strenuously oppose it, till there are three or more Bishops in these States, and then let the power of revising the Prayer Book be vested solely with them and the clergy. Should the alterations now pro- posed take place, the laity, I have no doubt, will be perfectly contented."
But the laity in Connecticut were not "contented," and seemed indisposed to adopt any changes except those which were required by their new civil rela- tions. For Bishop Seabury, replying to the Rev. Mr. Parker from Wallingford, near the end of November, mentioned, "Between the time of our parting at Mid- dletown and the clerical meeting at New Haven, [Sep- tember 14,] it was found that the churchpeople in Connecticut were much alarmed at the thoughts of any considerable alterations being made in the Prayer Book; and, upon the whole, it was judged best that no alterations should be attempted at present, but to wait till a little time shall have cooled down the tempers and conciliated the affections of people to each other."
When the General Convention assembled at Phil- adelphia on the 27th of September, no delegate from any of the New-England States appeared; but all the other old thirteen States, except Georgia and North
1
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Carolina, were represented, embracing the names of sixteen clergymen and twenty-six laymen. The Rev. Dr. William White was chosen chairman, and the ses- sion continued for ten days. Attention was directed mainly to these three leading subjects: the General Ecclesiastical Constitution of the meditated union; the formation or adoption of a Common Liturgy; and the measures to be taken to secure an American Episco- pate in the Anglican line of succession. The Eccle- siastical Constitution, and the draught of "an Address to the Most Reverend the Archbishops, and the Right Reverend the Bishops of the Church of England," were first disposed of, and then their care was directed to the revisal and amendment of the Liturgy. "If they touched it with trembling hands," very graphically wrote a New - England Presbyter afterwards to a friend, "I fancy their hands were paralytic during the whole session." When they had completed their work, which was attended with warm controversy, they had not only made the changes necessary to the new and independent relations of the States, but had thoroughly revised the Liturgy, omitting entirely some cherished forms, such as the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, and reducing the Articles of Religion from thirty-nine to twenty. The Book of Common Prayer, thus "revised and proposed to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church," was published under the direction of a committee of the Convention, "ac- companied with a proper Preface or Address, setting forth the reason and expediency of the alterations." It is known in the early history of the American Church as "THE PROPOSED BOOK," and it was received with evident distrust in England, and by the true
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friends of Episcopacy in this country. Bishop Sea- bury, whose letter to Dr. Smith was laid before the Convention to little purpose, spoke of it, and of the authority by which it was set forth, in very temper- ate, yet decided terms, when he delivered his Second Charge to the clergy of Connecticut, at Derby, in 1786. After an unfavorable allusion to the merit of the al- terations, he added: "But the authority on which they have acted is unknown in the Episcopal Church. The government of the Church by Bishops we hold to have been established by the Apostles acting under the commission of Christ and the direction of the Holy Ghost, and therefore is not to be altered by any power on earth, nor indeed by an angel from
heaven. This government they have degraded by lodging the chief authority in a convention of clerical and lay delegates, making their Church Episcopal in its orders, but Presbyterian in its government. Lit- urgies are left more to the prudence and judgment of the governors of the Church; and the primitive practice seems to have been that the Bishop did, with the advice no doubt of his Presbyters, provide a Lit- urgy for the use of his diocese. This ought to have been the case here. Bishops should first have been obtained to preside over those churches. And to those Bishops, with the Proctors of the clergy, should have been committed the business of compiling a Liturgy for the use of the Church through the States. This would have insured unity in doctrine, worship, and discipline through the whole, which upon the present plan will either not be obtained, or, if ob- tained, will not be durable."
Without lingering now over these general topics,
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we may return to look at the condition and advance- ment of the Church in Connecticut under her com- plete organization. Though her members numbered at least 20,000 persons, the long and exhausting war had spread desolation in many of the parishes, so that she was poor, and had little, if anything, in the way of support, to offer her newly consecrated Bishop. But it had been expected from the first that he would become the Rector of the parish at New London, the parish which his father had served many years before, and which at the time of his arrival was proceeding, to quote the language of the record, to "reestablish their sacred dwelling," burnt, when the town was burnt by the British troops, under the command of that traitor to his country - Benedict Arnold. New London, therefore, was henceforth the residence of Bishop Seabury, and it was convenient for him to exercise his office in Rhode Island, a State which subsequently came under his Episcopal jurisdiction. Through the influence of this zealous and accom- plished prelate, the churchmen of Connecticut were inspired with fresh hopes and more earnest efforts. The parishes rose from their depression, and qualified according to the law of the State. New ones were formed in favorable localities, and the number of can- didates for Holy Orders increased.
Of those set apart to the sacred office at the first ordination in Middletown, the Rev. Ashbel Baldwin had been sent to Litchfield, his native place, and the Rev. Philo Shelton had returned to Fairfield, where he had acted in the capacity of a lay reader since the burning of the town by General Tryon in 1779; both were graduates of Yale College. Steps were taken
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shortly after the acknowledgment of Independence to erect a new church at Fairfield ; and though divisions and disagreements among the members of the parish as to the location prevented their accomplishment for many years, yet Mr. Shelton was employed to read one third part of the time at a private dwelling in Greenfield, and the remaining two thirds at Stratfield and North Fairfield, where churches had long drawn within their walls faithful worshippers. So deter- mined were the people to have no interruption in their religious services, that when Mr. Shelton, two years after his ordination, was disabled by protracted sickness, they held a legal meeting to adopt measures to supply his place. The quaintness of the original records may provoke a smile; for the meeting being warned "to hire some person to carry on instead of Mr. Shelton, until he should get better," it was voted that the moderator of the meeting should "carry on"; and still later a definite arrangement was authorized with the contiguous churches to "hire a man to carry on for three months." 1
At Norwalk, another of the burnt fields of the Church, signs of returning life were early visible. Immediately after the conflagration which destroyed that town, and before they had reconstructed their own dwellings, the Episcopalians erected a temporary edifice in which to resume the public worship of God; and the Rev. Mr. Dibblee, the Missionary at Stamford, frequently officiated therein, and strengthened and encouraged the unfortunate flock. When the Con- gregationalists petitioned the General Assembly for assistance to rebuild their meeting-house, and received
1 Rev. N. E. Cornwall's Historical Discourse, 1851, p. 42.
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£500, which was chiefly, if not wholly, paid out of the confiscated property of churchmen who had re- moved to the British Provinces, a similar petition was preferred in 1785 by the members of the Episcopal parish, but refused. Nothing daunted by this par- tiality, they proceeded, under the administration of the Rev. John Bowden, who had been called to the Rectorship, to "rebuild their church in an elegant manner, the foundation and dimensions continuing the same as before the fire." So great were their unanimity and zeal, that, with the aid of a generous donation from friends in New York, they accomplished their work without recourse to taxation. The Rectory was also rebuilt, and a lot of four acres added to the already spacious glebe. But while the old church and parsonage have both disappeared, and a later hand1 has been seen guiding the liberality of the people to "good deeds for the house of God and for the offices thereof," the sapling elms which Bowden planted, having struck their roots deep into the earth, and thrown aloft their spreading branches, still grace- fully shade the pleasant avenues that conduct to the new church, and to the finest rural Rectory in Con- necticut.
In Branford, the churchmen, and those who indi- cated their preference for the Episcopal form of wor- ship, became so numerous that a parish was organized June 2d, 1784, and an ill-proportioned edifice erected and occupied as early as May, 1786. Farther back from the shore, the revival of affection for the Church was seen; and at Hartford, the land which had re- mained in the possession of a hostile party during the
1 Rev. William Cooper Mead, D. D.
25
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Revolution, was recovered by legal process, and re- stored to the "associated brethren." At Woodbury, that energetic and faithful Presbyter, John R. Mar- shall, no longer willing to be straitened for room in the Town House, directed the efforts of his parish- ioners to the erection of a church, immediately upon the close of the war, and bore himself a liberal pro- portion of the first expense. The edifice is still stand- ing, and is now one of the oldest Episcopal houses of worship in the Diocese, though so much improved and beautified within the last few years as to have the appearance and freshness of youth.
These were among the movements which sprung from the hopes and prayers of churchmen awakening to a sense of their responsibilities under a new form of civil government, and with the Apostolic office se- cured and accepted. Up to September 21st, 1786, Bishop Seabury had admitted twenty candidates to the Diaconate, and nineteen of this number to the Priesthood; and on that day, at Derby, he clothed with authority as Deacons, Philo Perry, David Belden, Tillotson Bronson, and Reuben Ives, -all natives of Connecticut and graduates of Yale College. The first was elected a successor to the lamented Beach at New- town; Mr. Bronson was sent as a pioneer into Ver- mont and New Hampshire; and Mr. Ives was taken for a time as his own assistant at New London. Mr. Belden exercised the ministry for a short time in Fairfield County, but ill health compelled him to relinquish it before he was advanced to the Priest- hood, and his name disappeared from the list of the parochial clergy. He retired upon a farm, and passed the remainder of his days without dishonor-
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ing the Communion at whose altar he had begun to serve.
The clergy and laity were entirely united in their efforts to promote the prosperity of the Church, and if any fears or doubts had existed in regard to the election or qualifications of their Episcopal Head, they were dissipated by personal intercourse with him, and by the ability, frankness, prudence, and firmness with which he exercised his office, and weighed all the measures that were to assimilate our communion to Jerusalem of old, "builded as a city that is compact together."
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHANGES IN THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, AND THEIR RE- CEPTION IN ENGLAND; CONSECRATION OF DRS. PROVOOST AND WHITE; THE CHURCH IN CONNECTICUT, AND CORRE- SPONDENCE OF BISHOPS AND CLERGY.
A. D. 1786-1789.
IT has been stated that Bishop Seabury and his clergy at first made no other changes in the Book of Common Prayer except those which were necessary to adapt it to the new and independent relations of the Government. But in 1786 he set forth "The Communion Office, or, Order for the Administration of the Holy Eucharist," for the use of the Episcopal churches in Connecticut. It followed, with a few ver- bal alterations, the form in the Scottish Liturgy, rather than the arrangement of the office in the Eng- lish Liturgy; and the Connecticut clergy of that period became very much attached to it, not only from the recommendation of their Bishop, but from the convic- tion that this order was in more exact conformity with the earliest usage of the Christian Church. By an article of the Concordate, Bishop Seabury "agreed to take a serious view of the Communion Office recom- mended by the Scottish prelates, and if found agree- able to the genuine standards of antiquity, to give his sanction to it, and by gentle methods of argument and persuasion to endeavor, as they had done, to intro-
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duce it by degrees into practice, without the com- pulsion of authority on the one side, or the prejudice of former customs on the other."
The reception in England of "the Proposed Book" of Common Prayer, as set forth by the General Con- vention assembled at Philadelphia in the autumn of 1785, was unfavorable; and the application for an Epis- copate in the Anglican line was prudently held for fu- ture disposal. A letter, full of Christian affection and kindly regard for their Episcopal brethren in Amer- ica, was signed and sent over by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the seventeen Bishops of England, in answer to the formal address of that body. While they evinced a desire to further the prayer of the Address, and were disposed to make every proper allowance for the difficulties which surrounded the Church in this country, these prelates at the same time suggested their fears "that in the proceedings of the Convention some alterations had been adopted or intended which those difficulties did not seem to justify." They waited for an explanation upon this point, and closed their letter by saying, "We cannot but be extremely cautious, lest we should be the in- struments of establishing an Ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterwards may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially, either in doctrine or discipline."
The Convention reassembled at Philadelphia on the 3d Tuesday in June, 1786, and the same States were again represented. The Rev. David Griffith of Vir- ginia was elected President; and the Hon. Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and a grandson in the maternal line of the
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Bishop of Worcester, was chosen Secretary. The let- ter of the English prelates was read, and the draught of an answer adopted, engrossed, and signed by the members present, and delivered to the Committee of Correspondence to be forwarded to England. That Committee had power to call the Convention together at Wilmington, Delaware, when a majority of them should judge it to be necessary. They had learned that political obstacles no longer hindered the success of their application; for the Minister at the Court of St. James, the late President of Congress, and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had all furthered the pious design of securing the Episcopate, and shown to the Primate of England that it was not likely to receive any discountenance from the civil powers of our land. "It was a prudent provision of the Con- vention," says Bishop White, "to instruct the depu- ties from the respective States to apply to the civil authorities existing in them, respectively, for their sanction of the measure, in order to avoid one of the impediments which had stood in the way of Bishop Seabury."
In regard to the doubts of their continuing to hold the same essential articles of faith and discipline, they assured their Lordships that they neither had de- parted, nor proposed to depart from the doctrines of the Church of England. "We have retained," said the Convention, "the same discipline and forms of worship, as far as was consistent with our civil con- stitutions; and we have made no alterations or omis- sions in the Book of Common Prayer, but such as that consideration prescribed, and such as were calcu- lated to remove objections, which it appeared to us
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more conducive to union and general content to ob- viate than to dispute. It is well known that many great and pious men of the Church of England have long wished for a revision of the Liturgy, which it was deemed imprudent to hazard, lest it might be- come a precedent for repeated and improper altera- tions. This is with us the proper season for such a revision. We are now settling and ordering the af- fairs of our Church, and if wisely done, we shall have reason to promise ourselves all the advantages that can result from stability and union." They added, in conclusion: "As our Church in sundry of these States has already proceeded to the election of persons to be sent for consecration, and others may soon proceed to the same, we pray to be favored with as speedy an answer to this our second Address, as in your great goodness you were pleased to give to our former one."
At this June session of the Convention it was found necessary to review the Constitution proposed in 1785; and, besides other changes, the Eighth Article, the tenor of which had been particularly excepted to by the Eastern clergy, and, as we shall see, by the Eng- lish prelates, was so altered as to restrict to a Bishop the power of pronouncing upon any one in Holy Orders sentence of deposition or degradation from the ministry. The different State Conventions had given such instructions to their delegates, in regard to some of the former proceedings, that prudence dictated the propriety of leaving the General Consti- tution and the proposed Liturgy for future settlement. They had indeed no authority to ratify the one, or revise and adopt the other. But the Convention went
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out of its way to strike an unhappy blow at Connec- ticut, a blow which she keenly felt, and which threat- cned to be productive of lasting discord and disunion. The session had no sooner opened than an attempt was made to require "the clergy present to produce their letters of orders, or declare by whom they were ordained;" and, though unsuccessful, it was renewed on the same day, in a more offensive shape, by the Rev. Mr. Provoost, who had already been the originator of a similar movement in his own State. His motion, "That this Convention will resolve to do no act that shall imply the validity of ordinations made by Dr. Seabury," was defeated: New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina voting in the affirmative; and Penn- sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, in the negative. Then it was "resolved unanimously, That, it be recommended to this Church in the States here represented, not to receive to the pastoral charge, within their respective limits, clergymen professing canonical subjection to any Bishop, in any State or country, other than Bishops who may be duly settled in the States represented in this Convention." So good a man as Dr. White was the mover of this reso- lution, which he afterwards explained as intended to reach the alleged fact that those ordained under the Scottish succession and settling in the represented churches were understood by some to be under ca- nonical subjection to the ordaining Bishop. But the only clergyman in the Convention (Joseph Pilmore) who had received his Orders from Dr. Seabury, de- nied that any such canonical subjection had been ex- acted of him; and Dr. White himself, though offering the resolution as a prudent precaution, professed to
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