USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the settlement of the colony to the death of Bishop Seabury > Part 30
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But the parish at Stratford had a judicious adviser the Rev. John Bowden. The loss or feebleness of s voice had obliged him to relinquish the public ex- cise of the ministry, and he removed with his fam- to Stratford, as a suitable place to open and con- ict a school of a higher order for boys. The ex- aordinary course pursued by Mr. Sayre, and the isapprehensions which he had been the means of
! Right Rev. Thomas Church Brownell, D. D., LL. D. He died at rtford, 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, ind 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 his occasion, the trial alone can determine."
Mr. Sayre finally withdrew from the unhappy con- roversy, after having been put under the ban of cclesiastical censure, and denied by the clergy of he Diocese the use of their pulpits. The members f the parish, influenced by better counsels, returned o 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 f the time in Stratford, and devoting the remainder o the Church at Tashua.
But Mr. Sayre sowed the seeds of discontent in an- ther parish with which he had connection, and where he evil effects lingered longer. At Woodbury the eople were partial to his ministrations; and sympa- hizing with him in his troubles, and believing in the incerity of his course, they refused to adopt the Con- titution of the Diocese, and thus became isolated and ithout pastoral care. For the clergy, at a Convoca- on held in New Milford on the 25th of September, 793, decided, that in the execution of their minis- erial 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 ad New York in 1771; but abandoning this profession, he lity 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 uty." 1 The professors of the Church of England in tratford and Milford, "having long been destitute of e regular administration of God's word and sacra- ents in the manner in which their consciences di- cted them to worship the Father of spirits," peti- oned the General Assembly in 1782 for the favor permitting Mr. Sayre, then at Brooklyn, Long land, to come among them, and "preach on proba- on for the space of three or four months, under such spection and observation as their Honors should ink proper;" but such had been his course during e war that the favor was refused.
Not a ripple was now left upon the surface of the urch in Connecticut. All was peace. "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together," and the ited action and energy of the clergy and laity fore- kened under God the blessing of "prosperity within r palaces." The care to admit to Holy Orders none t fit and godly persons; the watchfulness to preserve body of ministers with pure characters and strict votion to their sacred office; the efforts to establish Institution of classic learning, begun before the al settlement of the Church in the State, and which ded in the erection of the Episcopal Academy at eshire in 1795; the enlargement of the old churches d the building of new ones, and furnishing others sth organs to make public worship more attractive t & soul-inspiring; the Christian benevolence of the ety in thus giving for the house of God when their non dwellings were low and narrow; the Missionary il 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- ents." At the Convention of 1789 it had been es- blished as a rule for the government of the House Bishops that the senior Bishop present should pre- de,-seniority to be reckoned from the dates of the tters of consecration. But the two prelates, Pro- post and Madison, now to sit for the first time in e House, were dissatisfied with this rule; and when ishop Seabury became convinced that the object was ot to exclude him from any share in the approach- g consecration, he gracefully waived his right, and lowed the rule to be altered so as to give the Presi- ncy in rotation, beginning from the north,1 and hav- g reference to the last Convention.
This made Bishop Provoost the presiding officer on e present occasion, and the consecrator of the Rev. homas John Claggett, D. D., who had been elected Ishop of Maryland; and the Deputies from that State w applied for his elevation to the Apostolic office. e four assembled Bishops joined in the solemn act the 17th of September; and thus the English and ottish lines of succession were blended in this first nsecration of a Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal urch on the soil of America.
Connecticut was represented in the General Con- ntion of 1792 by two lay Delegates, and her influ- ce was felt in every important measure relating to Canons, the Liturgy, or the Articles of religion. e American Church was at length complete in all parts and functions, and able to expand itself as The first rule was readopted in 1804, and has ever since been fol- ed.
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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 th Communion upon their readiness and desire to be cor firmed. It was a fitting regard to historic association that the first Episcopal visit should be made to the ver erable parish at Stratford,1 but we can find neither th names nor the number of those confirmed. A Con mittee was chosen by the parish at Waterbury, May 1s 1786, "to wait on the Bishop at Stratford, and desir him to visit them;" and he complied with their desire and on the 1st day of October in the same year it recorded that he confirmed in that parish two hundre and fifty-six persons. Mr. Hubbard entered in h Parochial Register the baptism of a child in Trinit 1 Paddock's Hist. Dis. Stratford, 1855, p. 35.
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hurch by Bishop Seabury on the 4th of June, 1786; it no mention is anywhere made of the rite of Con- rmation.
A third church, of wood, to take the place of that which the venerated Beach had lifted up his loyal Dice to the end of the Revolution, was finished at ewtown in 1792, and was long the largest house of piscopal worship in the State. It is standing yet, good condition, "an ensign on a hill;" and though nctuaries have been built in the neighboring dis- icts, and have gathered their attendants, still this is e Christian home on earth of a great multitude who ise at the sound of the "Sabbath bell" and move wards 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 on pr 1 . 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 e not all disappeared, and it was needful occasionally heir to defend her from unjust attacks, but the bitterness ept of former controversies was not revived. The battle bub now was rather of another kind. For upon our eman cal cipation from the mother-country, everything seemedte ( to be turned into a new channel, even thoughts an re light Ferv bde opinions. A body of speculators in morals, religion and politics arose and threatened to entail mischiel upon the rising generation. The school of French philosophers was just looked into, and in some place or b received with evident favor. "My own memory," sai ctrit hong s re hich see. the late Chief Justice Church, in a centennial addre delivered at Litchfield in 1851, "runs back to a divi ing point of time, when I could see something of th old world and new. Infidel opinions came in like flood. Mr. Paine's 'Age of Reason,' the works daglan Voltaire, and other deistical books, were broadcas fe, wil
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d young men suddenly became, as they thought, iser than their fathers; and even men in high places nong us here were suspected of infidel opinions. At te same time came the ardent preachers of Mr. Wes- y's divinity, who were engaged in doing battle with fidelity on the one hand, and Calvinistic theology the other."
The Church, with her Liturgy and Order, was a wer between these "antagonistic forces and influ- ces." She advised and drew to "the old paths and e good way." She was a defender of "the faith ce delivered to the saints." Built on "the founda- n of the Prophets and Apostles, with Jesus Christ : the chief corner-stone," she spurned the teachings infidel casuistry; and her clergy, finding access to e works of the best English Divines, learned to feed eir flocks with food that nourished their souls and pt them from wandering into the dry pastures of ubt and speculation. It has been recorded of Bishop abury, that, as he approached nearer and nearer to e conclusion of his faithful ministry, he frequently ected the attention of his clergy and people to that ghty mystery of Faith-the Holy Trinity-which ery true believer is required to keep "whole and defiled." And when the question was put to him y he thought it needful to insist so much upon a trine whose importance was nowhere in the land, ong professedly Christian men, doubted or denied, reply contained a prediction, the fulfilment of ich has passed into our religious history. "I seem see," said he, "that a time will come when, in New gland, this very doctrine, which now appears so ce, will be extensively corrupted and denied. and I.
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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- tra vention, and throws light upon points which would otherwise remain in obscurity. The clergy, at their ad meeting in the autumn of 1792, took the preliminary steps to revise the Articles of Religion in the English eld Prayer Book; and Bowden, Mansfield, Hubbard, an ta lis ette Fact led ere Id i fice Fred Jarvis were empowered to make the revision, an present it for their approval at the next Convocation It does not appear what alterations they made; br their revision at the appointed time was examine and, with a few changes, approved as far as to th seventeenth Article,-the consideration of which, wi those that follow, was referred to a future meetin Bishop Seabury had expressed his doubts, at the fin General Convention in Philadelphia, about the expatf diency of having any Articles, believing that the Ld t
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gy comprehended all necessary doctrine; and whether deference to his wishes or not, no further action, which any record can be found, was taken in the atter during his Episcopate.
He wrote a letter, in obedience to the wishes of the ergy assembled at Cheshire in November, 1794, ad- onishing the Rev. David Perry of Ridgefield for "his glect to attend the meetings of his brethren, and account of the apparent contempt" which he there- threw on them and on his Bishop. He stated, in nclusion, that they "wished to inquire of him con- rning several reports which were circulating in the untry to his disadvantage as a clergyman, and unless did attend on their next meeting, according to the tification of their Secretary, a suspension from his rical office would be issued against him."
The next meeting was early in the ensuing June, at atford, the time and place appointed for holding the nual Convention of the Diocese. Mr. Perry appeared, d requested of the Bishop and his clergy "liberty resign the pastoral charge of the parishes of Ridge- d, Redding, and Danbury, as well as. to relinquish ally the exercise of the ecclesiastical function." es request was granted, and "the resignation of his tters of Orders accepted;" and he returned to the .ctice of medicine, a profession which he had pur- ne d previous to his ordination. Proper inquiries re made into the state of the cure thus vacated; l in due time, David Butler, who had "used the in fit ce of a Deacon well" in North Guilford, was trans- red to its charge. The Annual Convention in atford at this time numbered nineteen clergymen Il twenty-three lay delegates. The proceedings were
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mainly directed to the final establishment of the Epis- copal Academy, and to the subscription papers which had been issued for the purpose of raising a sufficient fund to carry it into operation. It was the first insti- tution of the kind strictly belonging to the Church in New England, and one of the first in the country; and the agency of the Rev. Reuben Ives was probably beyond that of any other man in securing its location at Cheshire. The care which was shown in "framing a code of laws for its temporary government, and also in forming a constitution upon the most liberal and beneficial plan," proved that it was the design te erect it into a College; and under Bowden, its first honored and accomplished Principal, chosen by the Convention, that design was fostered and ripene ultimately into repeated applications to the Genera Assembly for an enlargement of its charter to colle giate powers.
In the autumn of 1795 the third General Conver tion assembled in Philadelphia, but no representatio: from Connecticut appeared. Three clerical and thre lay delegates had been chosen by the last Diocesa Convention, but not one of them was present, an their absence may have been due to some cause b sides positive inconvenience.
Bishop Seabury forwarded a communication Bishop White, respectfully and affectionately cor plaining of an encroachment upon his Episcopal pr rogatives within the limits of Rhode Island, where ] had jurisdiction. The congregation of Narraganse had attached itself to the Church in Massachuset and the clergy of that Commonwealth had propos to the Bishop of New York to ordain a clergym: 1
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Ir the parish, and he had yielded without consulting e authority of the Bishop of Connecticut. It was needless official act; and when Bishop Provoost was iformed of the complaint, he admitted the impro- iety of individual parishes pursuing such a course, d favored a canon, which was prepared and adopted that very session, "to prevent a congregation in aly Diocese or State from uniting with a church in aly other Diocese or State."
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This was entirely satisfactory; but there was an- her matter which would have been a source of irrita- n had it not been promptly suppressed by the action the Convention. A pamphlet, lately published, en- ed "Strictures on the Love of Power in the Prel- By a Member of the Protestant Episcopal Asso- tion in South Carolina," was "a libel against the use of Bishops," and principally levelled at the hop of Connecticut. The author of this libellous nphlet was present, being a member of the Conven- ; and steps were taken to expel him, which would ve been successful had he not fled for shelter to the use of Bishops. Through the intervention of the sident of that body, (White,) he made an ample logy for his misconduct; but while he was saved n expulsion, which he deserved, he "gave subse- ent evidence that his professed penitence was in- tere, although it had been accompanied by a pro- on of tears."
The clergy of Connecticut, fifteen in number, met Convocation at Bristol, (East Plymouth,) on the t of October, when the Bishop consecrated a new rch by the name of St. Matthew's, and admitted Rev. Mr. Griswold, so long the venerated Bishop
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of the Eastern Diocese, to the Holy Order of Priest That was his last ordination; but the next day th clergy assembled, pursuant to adjournment, in tl adjoining town of Harwinton, where he consecrate another new church by the name of St. Mark's. the recent General Convention a canon had bec adopted empowering the Bishop in each Diocese District to set forth forms of Prayer or Thanksgivir for extraordinary occasions ; and Bishop Seabury w now "requested to compose two Collects for the u of the clergy in this State, - one to be used at tl sitting of the General Assembly, and the other to ] used at the Courts." It was a good fashion whi called in those days for such a provision. The Ge eral Assembly still entertains a lingering respect f it, and invites some clergyman to officiate at the ope ing of its daily sessions, but the Courts in Connec cut, judging from the custom of the present day, ha ceased to believe in the efficacy of prayers.
This was the last gathering of the clergy under t] eye of their beloved prelate, and these were his la official acts in Connecticut of which there is any re ord. Late in the month of February, 1796, “M Jarvis of Middletown was sitting before the fire," says an eye-witness, "his wife near him, engaged some domestic employment, and his little son playi about the room. A messenger entered with a lett sealed with black wax, and handed it to Mr. Jarvis silence. He opened it, and his hand shook like : aspen leaf. His wife, in great alarm, hastened to hi and his son crept between his knees and looked 1 inquiringly into his face. He could not speak i some minutes. At last he said, slowly and conv sively, 'Bishop Seabury is dead!'"
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