USA > Connecticut > The records of convocation, 1790-1848 > Part 13
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The final action of the Committee was to report a resolution that, for the better promotion of an union with the deputies from the Eastern
1 Pp. 167, 168, Memoirs of the Churck. William White, D.D. Edition of 1880. New York : E. P. Dutton & Co.
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Churches," the General Constitution previously established was open to amendment.
Upon its report to the Convention the resolution, after a division had been called for, passed in the affirmative. The Rev. Dr. William Smith, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, the Rev. Dr. Robert Smith, Rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, South Carolina, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Moore, of Trinity Church, New York, the Hon. Richard Harison, of New York City, and the Hon. Tench Coxe of Philadelphia, were appointed a Committee of Conference with the Eastern representa- tives.
The chief objection of Bishop Seabury and the New England clergy was to the impairment of the rights of the Episcopal office. They con- tended that the Bishops should deliberate by themselves, have the right to originate business, and the power to veto any proposition from the lower house, and that no act should be valid without the concurrence of the two houses. The proposed Book of Common Prayer was too very objectionable.
It was hoped that the Convention would remedy its defects and return to the sounder presentation of doctrine in the English Book.
A spirit of harmony and conciliation was apparent at the formal con- ference held on Thursday evening, October I. The full Episcopal negative was granted and a House of Bishops was to be organized when there were three Bishops or more.
Dr. William Smith drew up the report in which these changes in Article III of the Constitution were proposed. The Episcopal negative was said to be "desirable in itself," and would have "a tendency to give greater stability to the Constitution without diminishing any security that is now possessed by the clergy or laity."
In the course of the debate there was manifest reluctance to yield all power to the upper house, although every one admitted the necessity of a union of the Church in the United States. Finally the article was amended so as to require that the Episcopal veto should be subject to revision by the lower house, and any act could be passed over the veto by four-fifths of the house of clerical and lay deputies. The Bishops were also to send in writing the reasons for their disapproval.
To this modification, which was largely due to the attitude and argu- ment of Mr. Robert Andrews of Virginia, who said that the full negative would not be allowed or upheld in his State, "the Eastern gentle- men acquiesced, but reluctantly,"1
The granting of the full negative was left to the consideration of the several dioceses for action at the next General Convention.
The amended Constitution was submitted to Bishop Seabury and the Eastern deputies, who gave their assent in this brief document :
1 P. 170. Memoirs of the Church. Bishop White.
II
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We do hereby agree to the Constitution of the Church as Modified this Day in the Convention-2d October 1789
Samuel Seabury, D.D. Bp. Epl Ch'ch Connect.
Connecticut- Abraham Jarvis A. M. Rector of Christ's Church, Middletown Bela Hubbard, A.M.
Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven. Samuel Parker, D.D.
Rect" Trinty Church Boston
Massachusetts & Clerical Deputy for Massachusetts & New Hampshire.
The original is written on a half sheet of letter paper, five and three- quarters by seven inches in size. It is among the most precious docu- ment preserved in the archives of the General Convention and is the witness to the final union of the Church in America.1
Bishop Seabury and the Eastern deputies then took their seats as members of the Convention, amid general rejoicing.
After adding Dr. Parker and Mr. Jarvis to the committee on the revision of the Canons, the Convention adjourned for the day.
Upon Saturday the Convention met, and after prayers read by the Rev. Uzal Ogden of Newark, New Jersey, and listening to some letters from the Rt. Rev. Dr. Provoost of New York, who was detained by illness, resolved that there was now in this Convention, agreeably to the revised Constitution, a separate House of Bishops. The Bishops withdrew to another room in the State House, where the sessions had been held since Friday. Both houses considered the revision of the Prayer Book, or rather the setting forth of a new book. By general consent the proposed Book was not mentioned. The lower house proceeded on the assumption that they were preparing an entirely distinct form of Common Prayer according to their resolutions. In the House of Bishops, over which the Bishop of Connecticut presided, the English Book served as the basis with such modifications as seemed necessary to adapt it to the circum- stances of the American Church. It is not intended to detail here what was then done. The work of the Convention gave to the American Church the Prayer Book as it was until the revision of 1892. In that work Bishop Seabury and the Connecticut deputies had an influential part.
That nearly a year should have elapsed before any action was taken by this Diocese is to be explained by the fact that the new standard Prayer
1 For the action of the Convention, see pp. 70-74, Bioren's reprint of Journals of the General Convention ; also pp. 356-359, Connecticut Church Documents. Il. For the agree- ment, see p. 74, Bioren's reprint of Journals ; also p. 355, Connecticut Church Documents II. It is given in reduced fac-simile in Fac-Similes of Church Documents. Papers issued by the Historical Club of the American Church. 1874-1879, privately printed.
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Book was not issued from the press of Hall & Sellers in Philadelphia until August, 1790.
The Rev. Dr. Samuel Farmar Jarvis has preserved this interesting statement taken from the manuscripts of his father, Bishop Jarvis, one of the proctors of the Connecticut clergy :
"With respect to the extent of the proposed alterations the Convention was equally divided. The delegates from five of the States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, were averse from any alterations, except the omission or adaptation of particular prayers in the daily service to the Government of the United States. Of the two Bishops present (Bishops Seabury and White), the former advocated the alteration in the Communion Service and the addition of some occasional prayers; in all other particulars he strenu- ously opposed even such as were verbal. Strong impressions that a disunion would work ruin to the American Church induced that part of the Convention most attached to her interest and sound doctrine to submit to a compromise, in hopes that at some future day the real friends of the Church would be enabled to correct these defects to which the want of right principles and the fervor for innovation in their opponents had obliged them reluctantly to consent.
This may account for all the departures from the English Prayer Book, and for the latitude given in many rubrics to the officiating minister which laid the foundation of diversity in the use of the Liturgy."1
Dr. Jarvis adds to these written words of his father the substance of many conversations in which he learned fully the events of the critical period of the American Church, and states "the remarkable fact that notwithstanding all the prejudice against Bishop Seabury which existed in the minds of some of the deputies, principally of the laity from the State of Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina, all the alterations which he advocated were passed without a dissenting voice. I look with devout thankfulness to God that the Prayer of Consecration from the Connecticut Liturgy, modelled as I have said on that of 1549, was admitted without opposition and in silence, if not in reverence. In common with the clergy and laity of the five Northern States the Bishop lamented the exclusion of the Athanasian Creed, the displacement of the Nicene as the Creed of Communion and the false views of absolution which broke down the distinction between Communicants and Non-Com- municants."2
1 Pp. 25, 26, A Voice from Connecticut.
2 Pp. 26, 27, A Voice from Connecticut.
For an account of the alterations see : pp. 104-107, Bp. Perry's "Early American Prayer Books" in "The Genesis of the American Prayer Book," edited by C Ellis Stevens, LL.D., D.C.L. New York : James Pott & Co. 1893. 12mo, pp. xi, 169.
Liturgiae Americanae, or the Book of Common Prayer as used in the United States of America, compared with the Proposed Book of 1786 and with the Prayer Book of the Church of England, and An Historical Account and Documents . . . by William McGarvey, B.D. 8vo, pp. 1xxxiii, 490 + 90. Philadelphia : MDCCCXCV.
Note VI.
St. James's Church (now St. John's), Waterbury, was then vacant by the final removal of the Rev. James Scovill to Kingston, New Brunswick. He seems to have officiated in Connecticut for the last time in May, 1788. Mr. Scovill served Kingston for twenty years, building up a strong and extensive parish. He died on December 19, 1808, in the seventy-sixth year of his age and the fiftieth year of his ministry. It is an interest- ing fact that he was succeeded in turn by his son and grandson, their united ministry extending over a period of ninety years. St. Paul's Church, Woodbury, was then vacant by the death of that gentle scholar, benevolent friend, and conscientious parish priest, the Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, on January 21, 1789, in the nineteenth year of his ministry and the forty-fifth of his age.
St. Michael's Church had been established in that part of Salem Society (now Naugatuck) known as Gunntown, on February 16, 1786, by fourteen persons at the house of Jobannah Gunn. It was visited monthly by Mr. Scovill as long as he remained in Waterbury, and on the other Sundays Mr. Gunn or some other layman acted as lay reader. A church forty-four by thirty-four feet was built on the hill fifty feet west of Mr. Gunn's in 1803.
The advice of the Convocation seems to have been followed, as the records of St. John's, Waterbury, show services for brief periods held in that parish at that time by the Rev. Chauncy Prindle, the Rev. David Foote and the Rev. Solomon Blakeslee. The records of St. Paul's, Woodbury, mention these clergymen as officiating.
The services at Gunntown were maintained until 1806 in connection with Waterbury, when the Rev. Chauncy Prindle took charge of the parish, giving it one-half of his time.
The Rev. Seth Hart, deacon, was placed in charge of St. John's, Waterbury, in October, 1791.
The Rev. James Sayre became the incumbent of St. Paul's, Woodbury, in the spring of 1793.
Note VII
The earliest degrees in divinity were conferred by the University of Paris in 1150. The first recipients of that of doctor in divinity were the famous Peter Lombard Gilbert de la Portree according to the authority of the learned English antiquarian, Antony de Wood.
Other continental universities soon followed its example.
Divinity degrees were introduced into England either during the reign of King John (1199-1216), or that of King Henry III (1216-1272), the actual date being uncertain. They were conferred only by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
King Henry VIII (1509-1547), bestowed upon the Archbishop of Canterbury the right of conferring such degrees. It has been exercised by the various Archbishops infrequently and discreetly, for a "Lambeth degree" has not in England the same significance as one conferred by a university.
It was the theory of the middle ages that the Pope was the head of the Visible Church. An outcome of that theory was the acknowledgment of him as the head of all the universities of learning. This gave to him the power to bestow degrees, which he sometimes exercised, but usually delegated to the universities.
This was a perversion of the Episcopal prerogative by which each Bishop in his own Diocese exercised authority over both religion and learning.
The manner in which the Bishops in Scotland governed their dioceses greatly impressed Bishop Seabury. The Bishops formed a college and acted as one body, but in their respective jurisdictions they called upon three or four of the most learned of their clergy to advise them in matters of diocesan interests or controversy.
It was evidently the intention of the Bishop of Connecticut to have the College of Doctors perform similar duties, and especially to approve and examine candidates for Holy Orders. The "Records" bear witness to the activity and usefulness of the college. Each one of the four chosen for this honor received afterward the degree of Doctor in Divinity from an incorporated university, Dr. Mansfield, Dr. Jarvis, Dr. Hubbard from Yale College and Dr. Dibblee from Columbia College.
Note VIII
This canon provides for the recommendation to the Bishop "by a Standing Committee of the Convention of the State wherein he resides" of every candidate for Holy Orders, and gives a form of the testimonial to be signed by at least a majority of the Standing Committee. It also makes necessary the presentation by the candidate to the Standing Committee of testimonials of "good morals and orderly conduct" from the minister and rector of the parish in which he lives.1
The essential features of this Canon are embodied in the present Title I, Canon 3 "Of Candidates for Holy Orders" of the Digest of Canons.2 More detailed information is now required to be given, and there are various additional regulations which the experience of more than a century have shown to be prudent.
Note IX
A careful search of the files of the Journal shows that the publica- tion here ordered was never made.
1 P. 95, Bioren's Reprint of the Journals of the General Convention.
2 Pp. 19-25, Digest of the Canons. appended to the Journal of the General Convention of TOOI.
Note X
THE REVEREND SETH HART, M.A.
Seth Hart was born at Berlin, Connecticut, on June 21, 1763. After his preliminary course in the common schools and privately, he entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1784. During his period of waiting for ordination he probably acted as lay reader under the direction of the Rev. Chauncy Prindle. He was made deacon in Christ Church, Westbury (now Watertown), on Sunday, October 9, 1791.1 He was at once placed in charge of St. James's Church (now St. John's), Waterbury, which served with Salem (now Naugatuck) until 1793. The "Records" give an account of his ordination as priest in St. Paul's Church, Huntington, on Sunday, October 14, 1792.2
In 1794 he became Rector of St. Paul's Church, Wallingford, and St. John's Church, North Haven. He served these parishes with abun- dant zeal. In 1798 he resigned St. John's Church and took charge of the churches in Worthington (now New Britain) and Wethersfield (now Newington). With three parishes to care for, he found leisure to instruct several young men in the classics and mathematics, and prepare them for college. The old Colonial parish of St. George, Hemp- stead, Long Island, where the Rev. Samuel Seabury, father of the Bishop, had served for many years, became vacant in the fall of 1800 by the resignation of the Rev. John Henry Hobart after a brief incumbency. Mr. Hobart was willing to delay his departure for New York until his successor was appointed. Mr. Hart was commended by Bishop Jarvis, the Rev. Dr. Beach of Trinity Church, New York, and the Rev. Ambrose Hull, to the Vestry of St. George's. Mr. Hart was duly elected, and entered upon his new duties on the feast of St. Thomas, Sunday, December 21, 1800. The parish was an extensive one, its boundaries stretching for fourteen miles in one direction and with two places of worship some miles apart. It was estimated by Mr. Hobart that one thousand souls were under his pastoral care, and the number had increased when the new rector came to Hempstead. During his incum- bency, Christ Church, Manhansett, was built and set off as a separate parish, and a new church erected in Hempstead.
In addition to his parish work Mr. Hart continued to receive and educate pupils in his own house. He was considered a successful teacher.
A stroke of paralysis in January, 1829, caused Mr. Hart to resign the rectorship of St. George's on February 16, 1829. He was given a small retiring annuity, and lived in Hempstead until his death on March 14, 1832, in the sixty-ninth year of his age and the forty-first of his ministry.
Mr. Hart was a sound and practical preacher and a careful pastor. He was "a good classical scholar and an amiable man of a cheerful and almost jovial temperament."3
1 P. 8, Registry of Ordinations. 2 P. 43, ante.
3 P. 197, History of St. George's Church, Hempstead, Long Island, N. Y., by the Rev. Wm H. Moore, D.D., Rector of St. George's Church, Hempstead, N. Y. E. P. Dutton & Company. 1881. 12mo, pp. 308.
Note XI
THE REVEREND RUSSELL CATLIN.
The personal history of Mr. Catlin is almost unknown. He was born in Harwinton, Connecticut. He became after his ordination the incum- bent of St. James's Church, Arlington, Vermont. The Church in that State had received in the Colonial period and after the Revolution the services of several Connecticut clergymen, notably the Rev. Dr. Mans- field, the Rev. Samuel Peters, the Rev. Samuel Andrews, and the Rev. Gideon Bostwick. Arlington was largely settled from Litchfield County. The first Convention of clergymen and laymen was held at Arlington in September, 1790, with the Rev. Daniel Barber of Arlington, who had been ordained by Bishop Seabury, and the Rev. James Nichols of Sandgate, and representatives from eight towns in attendance.
Mr. Catlin was ordained priest on Sunday, June 9, 1793, by Bishop Seabury in Christ Church, Middletown. Mr. Catlin seems to have succeeded Mr. Barber when that ardent missionary removed to Clare- mont, New Hampshire, and been a laborious and successful clergyman. In the Convention of Vermont Mr. Catlin was prominent, serving upon the Standing Committee, acting as its President, and being appointed upon important committees.
Previous to 1804 Mr. Catlin removed to Hartland, Vermont, and organized a parish at Plainfield, New Hampshire. In 1804 he was recognized by the diocesan convention of New Hampshire and declared to be entitled to the leases of the glebe lands in that town.1 Mr. Catlin was the preacher at the Convention of Vermont held at Man- chester on September 24, 1806.2 The last mention of Mr. Catlin is in August, 1808, when he is censured by the New Hampshire Convention as acting in "an irregular and improper manner" concerning the glebe lands. The Convention does "not consider him as a clergyman of this State, he not having a parish or curé within the same."" This makes it probable that the organization at Plainfield was only temporary.
There appears to be no definite information as to his subsequent life, and there is no record of his deposition.
THE REVEREND DAVID BUTLER, D.D.
David Butler was born in Harwinton, Connecticut, in 1763. While a very young man he learned a mechanical trade which he abandoned temporarily to serve in the Connecticut line of the American army
1 P. 13, Journals of the first Twenty Eight Conventions of the Diocese of New Hamp- shire . . Tilton : George Burnham Munsey. MDCCCLXXXIII. 8vo, pp. 290.
2 P. 103, The Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont. New York : Pott & Amey. 1870. 8vo, pp. 418.
3 P. 23, Journals of the first Twenty Eight Conventions.
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during the later months of the Revolution. At its close he resumed his trade with every prospect of success. He had been much impressed with the beauty of the church service, although a member of the "Standing Order," and his intimacy with the Rev. Ashbel Baldwin caused him to examine the claims of the Church, and especially the origin of the Episcopate. He became convinced of the truth of her doctrines and polity, and soon conformed. He became a candidate for holy orders and was made deacon by Bishop Seabury, as noted in the "Records." Mr. Butler immediately began his work as incumbent of Christ Church, Guilford, St. John's, North Guilford, and the Church at Killingworth (now Clinton). There are no details of his ministra- tions available. We only know that Mr. Butler lived in the new parsonage at North Guilford, and that he was diligent in his visiting every portion of his hard and laborious mission field, Killingworth (now Clinton) being sixteen miles southeast of his home.
The Bishop visited the parishes on October 17, 18 and 19, 1792, when seven persons were confirmed in North Guilford, one in Guilford, and five in Killingworth; a second visitation was made in June, 1794, when twenty-four were confirmed in North Guilford, four in Guilford, and twenty-seven in Killingworth. This shows honest and faithful work. Mr. Butler was ordained priest on Sunday, June 9, 1793, in Christ Church, Middletown, at the same time with the Rev. Solomon Blakeslee, the Rev. Edward Blakeslee, and the Rev. Russell Catling.1
The parishes felt keenly the loss of such an energetic pastor, when in the fall of 1794 Mr. Butler resigned to accept St. Michael's Church, Litchfield, which had been without a rector for a year, as Mr. Baldwin had gone to Stratford in November, 1793.
Mr. Butler found the people cordial and pleasant, the work exacting and the results gratifying. The secession of some families in 1797 who built a church at Bradleyville (now Bantam) rendered it expedient for him to resign, which he did on February 21, 1799. He had already been called to Christ Church, Reading. In this position he served with great fidelity, doing much missionary work for five years.
In 1804 he received an urgent request from the Hon. Mr. Buel and other churchmen in the new village of Troy, six miles above Albany, New York, to be their pastor.
Mr. Eliakim Warren and other men of ability and wealth were removing from Norwalk to Troy. Mr. Butler was earnestly desired by them to be the pioneer priest in Troy and the region round about. They sailed in a sloop from Norwalk through the Sound, the East River, and the Hudson River to Troy. The services of the Church had been com- menced twelve years before by the Rev. Thomas Ellison, Rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany. During his residence with Mr. Ellison, from 1796 to 1798, as a student in divinity, Philander Chase, afterwards Bishop of Ohio, officiated as lay reader.
No parochial organization, apparently, was effected until Mr. Butler arrived, when St. Paul's Church was organized, of which Mr. Warren
1 P. 9, Registry of Ordinations.
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became the senior warden. Mr. Butler showed in his labors for the Church in Troy, Lansingburgh and Waterford, sound judgment, patient tact, persevering energy. Under him the Church, both in the growing village and neighboring towns, was firmly established. In 1827 the present spacious Gothic church of St. Paul's parish was built. He became recognized in the town as a leader in every good work and his missionary zeal led him into many places remote from Troy. His intense application had undermined his health, and in 1834 he resigned his rectorship, retaining, however, a fatherly interest in the rapid expansion of the Church in Troy and watching with interest the moral and material growth of the city.
Dr. Butler died in his eighty-first year and the fiftieth of his ministry, on July 11, 1842.
A parishioner who knew him well gives this description: "His personal appearance was at once commanding and attractive. He had a well built, well proportioned frame, indicating a habit of activity and more than common power of endurance. His eye was large and dark, and his whole visage indicative at once of a vigorous intellect and an amiable and genial temper." 1
Mr. Butler received the degree of Doctor in Divinity from Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, in 1832. Dr. Butler published several sermons, including one delivered before a Masonic Lodge in St. Paul's Church, Woodbury, on the feast of St. John, December 27, 1804.
A son of Dr. Butler, the Rev. Clement M. Butler, D.D., filled many positions of eminence in the Church, and died recently while Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Philadelphia Divinity School.
1 Letter of Judge David Buel of Troy in sketch of the Rev. Dr. Butler on p. 390, Annals of the American Pulpit, V, by the Rev. William B. Sprague, D.D. New York : Robert Carter & Brothers. 1861. 8vo, pp. xxi, 822.
Note XII
No action seems to have been taken under this vote. The only editions of the American Book of Common Prayer known to have been published in the eighteenth century are those by Hall & Sellers in Philadelphia, which included the standard already noticed and a "twenty-fourmo" (24mo) book in 1791 and 1794; the second standard published by Hugh Gains in New York in 1793, an octavo volume, and a folio Prayer Book in 1795, and a "twenty-fourmo" edition in 1798; Thomas & Andrews in Boston published a "twelvemo" edition in 1794 and a "sixteenmo" edition in 1800; Young & Omrod of Philadelphia published a "twenty- fourmo" book in 1795; T. Allen of New York published a "twenty-four mo" book in 1797; and Peter Brynberg of Wilmington a "twenty- fourmo" book in 1800.1 Other editions may have escaped the research of the custodian of the Standard Prayer Book, Dr. Samuel Hart, and his able coadjutors, the Rev. Dr. L. C. Manchester and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.
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