USA > North Carolina > Lives of the bishops of North Carolina from the establishment of the episcopate in that state down to the division of the diocese > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02400 7905
LIVES OF THE BISHOPS
OF
NORTH CAROLINA
FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EPISCOPATE IN THAT STATE DOWN TO THE DIVISION OF THE DIOCESE.
BY MARSHALL DELANCEY HAYWOOD
HISTORIOGRAPHER OF THE DIOCESE OF NORTH CAROLINA, AUTHOR OF "GOVERNOR WILLIAM TRYON AND HIS ADMINISTRATION IN THE PROVINCE OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1765-1771," ETC.
Public Library IG2 + 1957 Dallas, Texas
PUBLISHED BY -
ALFRED WILLIAMS & COMPANY RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA 1910
1
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/livesofbishopsof00hayw_0
1940112
JOHN STARK RAVENSCROFT FIRST BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA
Reca Feb 23, 1997
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COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY ALFRED WILLIAMS & COMPANY.
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PRESSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY RALEIGH, N. C.
R975.6 H427L
DEDICATED TO
THE VENERABLE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS,
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT FOR ITS LABORS IN DISSEMINATING AMONG OUR COLONIAL FOREFATHERS THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND,
"TO WHICH THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THESE STATES IS INDEBTED, UNDER' GOD, FOR HER FIRST FOUNDATION AND A LONG CONTINUANCE OF NURSING CARE AND PROTECTION."
[5799447][173
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
OFFICE OF BISHOP, THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA DURING COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPATE .
9
JOHN STARK RAVENSCROFT
37
First Bishop.
LEVI SILLIMAN IVES
91
Second Bishop.
THOMAS ATKINSON
143
Third Bishop.
THEODORE BENEDICT LYMAN .
207
Fourth Bishop.
INDEX
255
PORTRAITS. PAGE.
BISHOP RAVENSCROFT
Frontispiece.
BISHOP IVES
91
BISHOP ATKINSON
143
BISHOP LYMAN
207
.
"Patriots informed with apostolic light Were they, who, when their country had been freed, Bowing with reverence to the ancient creed, Fixed on the frame of England's Church their sight, And strove in filial love to reunite What force had severed."
-William Wordsworth.
1
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Office of Bishop, the Anglican Church in North Carolina During Colonial and Revolutionary Times, and the Founda- tion of the American Episcopate.
1
DIOCESE
SEAL OF THE
OF
NORTH
CAROLINA
1
OFFICE OF BISHOP, THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA DURING COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES, AND THE FOUN- DATION OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPATE.
Were the welfare of the dead alone to be considered, history would be a useless study. If just men be forgotten, and "mem- ory o'er their tomb no trophies raise," they still have an all- sufficient reward, and from their home on high may view with complacency the scant respect paid to the deeds wrought by them-
"When they passed by the gateway of this world On their immortal quest."
As an inspiration to the living, however, history has a noble use. It is an incentive to high thoughts and great efforts toward well-doing. This is especially true of that class of history called biography. The lives of the great and good in all ages may be studied with profit when faithfully recorded. Hence it is the purpose of the present work to tell something of four Bishops who have served God and His Church in the Diocese of North Carolina. Ere we enter upon a narrative of their ministerial work, however, it may be well to consider the authority by which they exercised the duties of their high and sacred office.
Scriptural authority for the existence of the office of Bishop was formerly conceded by all Christians; and hence we find on that subject few, if any, arguments among the writings of the pre-Reformation period. The early theologians thought it use- less to defend a doctrine which no one in a Christian land had ever questioned. In later times, however, the validity of the office of Bishop, as a distinct order in the sacred ministry, has been called into question by some denominations of Christians on the alleged grounds that the terms "Bishop" and "Presbyter" (or priest) were synonymous in the days of the Apostles; and that,
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
after the twelve Apostles had all died, the Bishops who claimed to exercise apostolic powers were in reality only presbyters. It is true that the terms Bishop and Presbyter are sometimes used synonymously in Holy Scriptures; yet it is equally apparent, from the same high authority, that the Apostles filled up and increased their own ranks by the election of associates and suc- cessors in addition to those whom Christ had commissioned after He sent the first twelve. From the records of the early Church it also appears that the successors of the Apostles were later called Bishops. In his work entitled Reasons for Being a Churchman, the Reverend Arthur W. Little quotes Theodoret, a Syrian Bishop and a disciple of the great Saint Chrysostom, writing about the year 440, who says: "The same persons were in ancient times called indifferently Presbyters or Bishops, at which time those who are now called Bishops were called Apostles." There is ample authority in the Scriptures for the fact that successors of the twelve Apostles were chosen to carry on their work. At Christ's ascension only eleven Apostles were present. After the ascension it was said of the traitor Judas : "His bishoprick [i. e. apostleship] let another take," and Mat- thias was chosen by lot and thereafter numbered with the re- maining eleven Apostles (Acts I, 20). By force of a miracle, after His ascension, Christ converted Saul, and later added him to the band of Apostles under the name of Paul (Acts IX and XIII). Barnabas was also added to the Apostles by divine command (Acts XIII, 2-3). While Paul was before Nero in Rome the second time, he sent his Second Epistle to Timothy (not one of the original twelve), whom he had ordained Bishop of the Church at Ephesus, exhorting him to "stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands" (II Tim- othy, I, 6), charging him furthermore that "the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also" (II Timothy, II, 2). Here, then, is the scriptural beginning of apostolic succession, for Christ chooses and commissions the
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
original twelve; after His ascension into heaven He calls Paul, by a direct revelation, to the same apostleship; Paul ordains Timothy as Bishop of Ephesus, charging him that he should commit the teachings which he had received "to faithful men who should be able to teach others also." Then, too, it will be remembered, Paul sent Titus (who was not one of the original twelve) to Crete, charging him to "ordain elders" (i. e. presby- ters) in every city (Titus, I, 5). Of Timothy's ordination as Bishop of Ephesus it has been written by a former Presbyterian clergyman whose studies finally led him into the Anglican Church : "We care not by what name you call him-Priest, Presbyter, Bishop, Suffragan, Superintendent, Ruler, Governor, Evangelist, Missionary, Moderator, Primus-Presbyter, Apostle, Assistant of the Apostle, Messenger, Prelate, Angel, Antistes, Princeps, Præses, Præpositus, Archon, Proestos, or Præfect (as Calvin styles James in the Church at Jerusalem)-call him by what name you please; write it in Latin, Greek or Hebrew; read it forward, read it backward; it comes to the same thing : Timothy succeeds to the powers and prerogatives of Paul."*
But the Apostles worked miracles, it has been said, and hence no Bishop can prove the apostolic origin of his office without demonstrating a similar power. "If that argument proves any- thing," says Doctor Little, "it proves too much; for the early Presbyters worked miracles, and the Deacons too-notably SS. Stephen and Philip. Ergo, nobody can be a Presbyter or a Deacon unless he can work miracles.""
The American Episcopal Church, as every one knows, is a direct, legitimate and acknowledged descendant of the ancient Church of England. Concerning the early history of the Church of England we cannot do better than to quote the words of John Stark Ravenscroft, first Bishop of North Carolina, who
* A Presbyterian Clergyman Looking for the Church, by the Rev- erend Flavel S. Mines, concluding volume, p. 413.
t Reasons for Being a Churchman, by the Reverend Arthur W. Little (edition of 1894), p. 100, notc.
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
says: "The Bishop of Rome had, personally, little or nothing to do with it up to the seventh century. It was an independent apostolical church under its own Bishops. Its connection with the Church of Rome commenced with Augustine, the monk, who was consecrated the first Archbishop of Canterbury, not by the Bishop of Rome, but by the Archbishop of Arles, in France, early in the seventh century. And I notice this not because there is any real force in the objection derived from the suc- cession passing through even the person of the Bishop or Pope of Rome, but in order to remove the prejudices so studiously instilled into the minds of the ignorant on this subject."* The same writer further remarks: "Perhaps not a single Bishop who reformed from Popery in the sixteenth century received his consecration by the imposition of the Pope's hands ; perhaps not one in a hundred of the existing Bishops in the Latin or Western Church during any Pontificate, from the rise of Papacy, was thus consecrated. And it is not an unreasonable or unfounded assumption that, in the wide and extended boun- dary of the Western Church, the ordaining power was canoni- cally transmitted, in the regular succession, from Bishop to Bishop, without contracting any fancied contamination from the person of the Pope."t When it was averred that the line of apostolic succession in the Church of England had been broken at the time that the Reforming Bishops were excommunicated by the Pope, Bishop Ravenscroft's answer was: "That the su- premacy claimed by the Bishop of Rome was an usurpation, and no part of his original and rightful Episcopal authority, can require no proof to a Protestant; nor yet is it needful to show that such of his equals, in spiritual office, as had submitted to this usurpation in the darkness of the middle ages, were not thereby precluded from shaking off this lawless authority usurped over them, and from resuming the independence of
* Works of Bishop Ravenscroft (edition of 1830), Vol. I., p. 277. t Ibid, Vol. I., pp. 276-277.
C
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
their character, and the exercise of their just and equal rights, as the spread of knowledge and the investigations of inquiry laid open and exposed the corruptions on which this anti-chris- tian domination was built up." * In brief, the Anglican con- tention is that the Church of England, having resumed its orig- inal rights, and no longer holding itself subject to foreign domi- nation, could not legally be excommunicated by the Pope and his Cardinals-Italians and other outsiders-any more than the Church of England could issue an effective bull of excom- munication against those self-same Italians or any other aliens who were not within its ecclesiastical jurisdiction. And it may also be mentioned that even if the apostolic succession of the Church of England had been broken at the time of the Reforma- tion, such defect would have been healed in the next century when the three lines of English, Irish and Italian successions were united in the consecration of Bishop Laud, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, from whom (with his co-consecra- tors) are episcopally descended all the Bishops of the present American Church.
The territory now embraced within the State of North Caro- lina holds the proud distinction of being the cradle of the Angli- can Church in America, its history antedating by a score of years that of Jamestown. In 1584, when Queen Elizabeth granted letters patent to the good knight Sir Walter Raleigh, authorizing him to extend her dominions throughout the New World, he was expressly charged that in the lands settled by him no law should be passed to the disadvantage of the "true Christian faith now professed in the Church of England." The first baptism under the authority of the Church of England in America occurred on Roanoke Island in what is now Darc County, North Carolina, when Raleigh's explorers and colonists made at that place the earliest English settlement in the western hemisphere. It was there that Manteo, the "Lord of Roanoke," a friendly Hatorask Indian, was converted to Christianity and
* Works of Bishop Ravenscroft (edition of 1830), Vol. I., p. 278.
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
baptized in August, 1587. Another baptism, a few days later, was that of little Virginia Dare, the first child born of English parents in America. But shortly after this, the sturdy old Eng- lish sailors, who were beginning to colonize the western conti- nent, were called home to take the part of their country against the great Armada which had been sent by Spain to wipe out Protestantism. Then it was that Drake, Grenville, Raleigh, Hawkins and Frobisher, with other adventurous sea-fighters, were kept so busy in the waters surrounding Britain that they could not relieve their countrymen at Roanoke at the time prom- ised. When the next English voyagers came to America, Ra- leigh's colony had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth, for not one of its members was ever heard of again; but the Armada had been destroyed, English vessels could now pur- sue their course unmolested, and Anglo-Saxon civilization pre- vailed in North America. It was at Jamestown, Virginia, that the English race and English Church gained their first perma- nent foothold on American soil, in 1607, but it was nearly a hundred years later before any effort was made to spread Angli- can doctrines throughout the scattered settlements of Albemarle in the northern division of Carolina. All of the Royal Govern- ors of North Carolina," and a great majority of those who con- stituted the ruling classes in the province, were members of the Church of England, and many were the faithful missionaries who unselfishly labored for the moral uplift of the colonists. But the Church had strong prejudices to encounter, the best grounded of these being due to the fact that it was established by law. In the early charters granted by the King, the Church of England was legally recognized, but religious liberty was in every instance guaranteed. In the first charter issued by Charles II, March 24, 1663, that monarch authorized the Lords Proprietors to give to religious worship by non-conformists "full
* This term does not include Governors of the undivided Colony of Carolina, for John Archdale was a Quaker.
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and free license, liberty and authority, by such legal ways and means as they shall think fit." * A year or more later, in 1665, the Lords Proprietors expressly agreed that "no person or per- sons shall be any way molested, punished, dis- quieted or called into question for any difference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concernment, who do not actu- ally disturb the civil peace of the said province or counties; but that all and every such person or persons may, from time to time, and at all times, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences, in matters of religion, through- out all the said province, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others."t This guarantee had been authorized, in almost the same language, by the second charter from King Charles to the Lords Proprietors, also dated 1665.+ In Locke's "Grand Model," or Fundamental Constitution of Carolina, drawn up in 1669, the ninety-seventh article provided that "seven or more persons, agreeing in any religion, shall constitute a church or profession, to which they shall give some name to distinguish it from others." While referring to Locke's constitution we may add that in the one hundred and seventh section of that instrument we find a pro- vision, illustrative of the Church's interest in slaves, as fol- lows: "Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and thereof be as fully members as any freemen ; but yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before."
* Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. I., p. 32.
t Ibid, Vol. I., p. S0.
# Ibid, Vol. I., p. 114.
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BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
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The general history of the Church of England in the province , of North Carolina, during the days of royal rule, is one of the greatest interest; but to trace all the legislative enactments made in its favor, and to tell of their provisions, would require too much space for the limits of the present work. Parishes were laid out in the various counties, glebes erected, and taxes for ecclesiastical purposes collected from all the people-Dis- senters as well as Churchmen-yet little progress was made. When a church is supported in any degree at the public expense and not left to its own resources, it is not likely to enjoy a healthy growth; but, when dependent only upon the zeal and devotion of its members, it will generally meet with success if it deserves it. Hence the work of the Church of England was really hindered by the well-meaning efforts of the Governor's Council and Colonial Assembly, while the American Church has made marvelous and merited progress since Church and State were separated during the War of the Revolution.
From what has been said it must not be inferred that the colonial legislature or any other civil power absolutely controlled the Church in North Carolina prior to the Revolution. The province was under the episcopal jurisdiction of the Lord Bishop of London, who was materially aided by a great body of Chris- tian workers known as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The right of advowson, or power to recommend a clergyman for a parochial charge, seems to have rested with the Governor, but it was necessary for such clergy- man to be licensed by the Bishop of London before he could officiate in the Established Church. The instructions to the Governor of North Carolina from the Crown contained this order: "You are not to prefer any minister to any ecclesiastical benefice in that province without a certificate from the Right Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of London, of his being conformable to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and of good life and conversation; and if any per- sou, already preferred to a benefice, shall appear to you to give
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scandal, either by his doctrine or manners, you are to use the proper and usual means for the removal of him, and to supply the vacancy in such manner as we have directed."*
By a short-sighted policy the Church of England never per- mitted the consecration of any Bishop for work in America prior to the Revolution, though it is believed by many that the Reverend Richard Welton, of Pennsylvania, and the Reverend John Talbot, of New Jersey, received clandestine consecration to the Episcopate by the successors of the Non-juring Bishops about the year 1722. The need of Bishops was deeply felt by both the clergy and laity of the Church of England in America. In a petition from the clergy of New Jersey and New York to the Bishop of London it was said: "The expediency of Bishops in the English American Colonies is a point which has been, from the very beginning of this present century, frequently as- serted on the one hand and generally admitted on the other."t In 1738, one clergyman proposed a somewhat extensive Archi- episcopal See for the Bishop of London, when he wrote a letter from New York to that dignitary, saying: "We heartily wish that, by the good providence of God, your Lordship may be appointed Archbishop of this New World, the Continent of America, and the Islands Adjacent, and invested with authority and a fullness of power to send Bishops among us."# On four different occasions, between 1760 and 1764, Governor Arthur Dobbs, of North Carolina, wrote to the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel and to the Board of Trade, begging that they use their influence to have Bishops sent to America, with all necessary episcopal powers, though the writer always took pains to state that he did not wish these Bishops to have civil powers in ecclesiastical courts, etc., such as they exercised in England.§
* Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. V., p. 1136.
t Early English Colonies in America, by the Bishop of London, p. S1. # Ibid, p. 74.
§ Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. VI., pp. 222, 971, 1026, 1040.
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As is well known, all of these efforts came to naught, and no Bishops could be secured for America until after the War of the Revolution, when the colonies had become independent States. As there were no Bishops in America, the opportunity for con- firmation was limited to those who could afford a voyage to Great Britain. Church members were therefore usually ad- mitted to the Holy Communion under the rubrical provision which accords that privilege to those who are "ready and de- sirous to be confirmed."
In 1762 an estimate of the population of North Carolina was sent to the Lord Bishop of London as follows: White inhabi- tants, 36,000; negroes, 10,000-46,000 in all. In the matter of religious affiliations it was stated that the province contained 18,000 adherents of the Church of England; 9,000 Presbyterians and Independents; and 9,000 Quakers, German and Dutch of various sects, Jews, Papists, etc .* As these statistics fall short, to the number of ten thousand, of the estimated population, white and black, probably only the white race was included in the religious tables. The population of the entire province, given as 46,000, was probably inaccurate and under-estimated; for, two years earlier, Governor Dobbs had sent a statement to the home government that there were within the province S0,000 white people, exclusive of negroes.t When the first official census of the United States was taken in 1790, North Carolina had an aggregate population of 393,751-whites, 2SS,204; free negroes, 4,975; slaves, 100,572. The heads of families then numbered a little upwards of 50,000. By this same census of 1790 North Carolina had a much greater population than the State of New York, and this, too, after Tennessee had been severed from the former.
Not only did missionaries of the Church of England labor for the white race but for Indians and negroes as well. Mention
* Early English Colonies in America, by the Lord Bishop of Loudou, p. 106.
t Colonial Records of North Carolina. Vol. VI., p. 223.
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has already been made of the baptism of Manteo, on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, in 1587, and also the provision by Locke's Constitution, concerning the christianization of slaves, in 1669. Writing from Chowan Precinct on July 25, 1712, the Reverend Giles Rainsford said: "On June 22d, I preached at Mr. Garrett's, in the upper end of Chowan, but had such num- bers that I was obliged to go under a large mulberry tree, where most of the people, to my great satisfaction, seemed very devout the whole part of the service and very ready in their responses, as also in their method of singing praises to God. Here I bap- tized two girls of the age of sixteen and one boy ten, children of one Mr. Adams; and, by much importunity, prevailed on Mr. Martin to let me baptize three of his negroes-two women and a boy." " A few months later Mr. Rainsford wrote that on one of his missionary journeys he had been captured by the Indians but afterwards released. He adds: "On account of my late indisposition I have been able only to catechize children and baptize six negroes." We may add that this indisposition of Mr. Rainsford was evidently not chronic; for, about the end of 1714, he sums up a year's exploits in triumphant strains as fol- lows : "I shall only add that I have brought over to the Church one Patrick Lawler, on Bennett's Creek, from a rank, violent papist, to a sound, orthodox believer. I have baptized upwards of forty negroes in this and the neighboring government [Vir- ginia] in the past year, besides (which is almost an impossi- bility here) christened three children of one Peirce, a Quaker, by the consent of the mother, though seemingly of that persu- asion. In Nansemond County, bordering on Carolina, I have saved upwards of two hundred souls from embracing Quaker- ism, by my preaching and conference among them; and have made the ignorance of their great apostle, Joseph Gloster, in a dispute, appear to whole multitudes, and yet their prejudice to our establishment is such that I fear there is no possibility to win upon them. I found myself obliged, in conscience, to con-
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