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 10
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expressed regret over the fact that any of the expressions in his pastoral letter should have seemed to indicate a lack of confi- dence in the motives, truthfulness or faith of his clergy-further assuring them that he had entire confidence in their affection, charity and firm adherence to the faith and discipline of the Church. He then went on to declare that he did not hold to the doctrine of private confession and absolution "in the Romish sense," nor did he teach that the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, in the Eucharist, was to be believed in the sense of transubstantiation, or that the bread and wine should be "reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped," and that he considered prayers or invocations to the Blessed Virgin, saints or angels "clearly derogatory to Christ and opposed to God's Word." In conclusion he made the statement : "I do not teach or hold that our branch of the Catholic Church is, from any cause, either in heresy or schism, or that she is destitute of the sacramental system." Apparently wishing to leave no means unused for the purpose of a complete reconciliation, the Bishop also addressed the Convention in a note as follows :
BRETHREN OF THIS CONVENTION: Aware that the difficulties in the Diocese, to which I have alluded in my address, still threaten the peace of the same, and being anxious to do all in my power to restore harmony and good will, I hereby ask of you a Committee of Clergymen and Laymen, to investigate all the circumstances connected therewith, and report to a future meeting of this body.
L. SILLIMAN IVES,
May 31, 1850. Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.
This recommendation by the Bishop was adopted, and the following committee was elected: the Reverend Messrs. Jarvis B. Buxton, Robert Brent Drane and Richard Sharpe Mason. of the clergy, and Messrs. Augustus Moore, Josiah Collins and George W. Mordecai, of the laity. The Reverend Doctor Mason and Mr. Mordecai asked to be excused by the Convention from serving on this committee, but their request was not complied with. This about completed the preliminary efforts for recon- ciliation between the Bishop and the Diocesan Convention which
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was held in the Spring of 1850. Some months later (in October of the same year) the General Convention of the Church met in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, Bishop Ives being present in person as representative of North Carolina in the House of . Bishops. The clerical deputies present from North Carolina were the Reverend Messrs. Richard Sharpe Mason, Jarvis B. Buxton and Alfred A. Watson. Among the lay deputies was only one representative from the Diocese of North Carolina, Mr. John S. Eaton, of the town of Henderson. In the report on the State of the Church in North Carolina brief reference was made to the appointment of the above committee at the request of Bishop Ives, with the further statement that its in- vestigations were then in progress. It was added: "The re- port of the Committee will be made to the next annual [dio- cesan] convention. In the meantime it is consoling to add that, whatever may be the result, the Diocese, true to the Prayer Book as the embodiment of the Church mind, remains unshaken on ground hitherto occupied."
In the spring of 1851 (May 30th) the Reverend Jarvis Barry Buxton, Rector of Saint John's Church in Fayetteville, passed from his earthly labors. During the following year a hand- some edition of his sermons, with portrait, was published by his son, the Reverend Jarvis Buxton, of Asheville.
The North Carolina Diocesan Convention, for the year 1851, met in the months of May and June at the town of Fayette- ville; and, during the session of that body, it seemed as if a permanent peace with Bishop Ives could be arranged, for he even surpassed his own record in the way of professions of loyalty to the Church over which he presided as chief pastor. In his address, after giving an account of his usual visitations throughout the Diocese, and attendance upon the General Con- vention in Cincinnati, as well as trips to Philadelphia, New York and other Northern cities, he submitted two documents which had been transmitted to him by authorities of the Church of England-one from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
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other from the Bishop and other clergy of the Diocese of Ox- ford. The Archbishop's letter invited all the dioceses of the American Church to join with the Church of England in cele- brating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Bishop Ives signified his desire that the same should be accepted and that appropriate services in connection there- with should also be held throughout North Carolina. We are unable to find any record of such action having taken place within the limits of the State. Elsewhere in America, however, the anniversary was commemorated. Doctor Atkinson (after- wards Bishop of North Carolina) delivered a sermon in Saint Peter's Church, Baltimore, on June 22, 1851, in honor of the anniversary. The other document, referred to above by Bishop Ives, was dated November 22, 1850, and was a formal protest. signed by the Lord Bishop of Oxford, with more than six hun- dred of his clergy, and having reference to what afterwards came to be known among Englishmen as "the new Italian Mis- sion." The protest was called forth by the fact (to use, in part, its own language) that :
"WHEREAS, We have seen or heard that the Bishop of Rome bas pretended to divide this ancient Church and Realm of England into certain new Dioceses, and to appoint over them certain Bishops, to whom he, the said Bishop of Rome, pretends to commit the cure and government of the souls of all Christian people therein dwelling, con- trary to the rights of this Church, and the ancient laws of this Realm -Now we, the said Bishop, Priests, and Deacons, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do utterly protest against any such invasion of this Church and Realm; and we do declare that the Church recog. nized by law in this land is the ancient Apostolic Church thereof. possessing the ancient faith, true sacraments, and a lawful ministry ; and that her Bishops and Clergy are the Bishops and Clergy thereof by unbroken descent from the Holy Apostles; and that the mis- sionaries of the Bishop of Rome within this land, who are striving to withdraw the people from the communion of the English Church, are intrusive and schismatical; and we protest before God and His Church against these schismatical claims and proceedings, as also against their doctrine and teaching, as being, on many points of faith and practice, contrary to God's Word, and the teachings of the Univer-
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sal Church. And we declare that the Church of England did, at the Reformation, make and hath for three hundred years continued its protest against the claim of the said Bishop of Rome to exercise jurisdiction over the Church Universal, and over this Church of Eng- land in particular, and also against the false doctrine of the Church of Rome, and that we do now renew and continue the same protest. And we do solemnly warn all Christian people, committed to our charge, that they yield no obedience to the so-called Bishops now thrust into our land, under pain of incurring all the guilt of willful schism."
In transmitting the above document to the Diocesan Con- vention of North Carolina, Bishop Ives declared that this action by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Diocese of Oxford had his "full, unreserved and hearty approval and concurrence," and that it was his conscientious conviction that "our branch of the Church styled the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, and standing upon the same firm basis with the mother Church of England, belongs to that portion of Christ's body which is the most scriptural, primitive and truly Catholic in its character; and that no one, embraced by holy baptism within its pale, can depart from it without the grievous sin of doing despite to the Holy Ghost."
At the same Diocesan Convention of North Carolina above alluded to (that of 1851) the Committee, which had been ap- pointed for the purpose of endeavoring to reconcile the differ- ences between the Diocese and its Bishop, reported its findings. This report, followed by the Bishop's own certificate of its cor- rectness, was in these words :
"The Bishop said to the Committee that it might be considered humiliating in him to offer to the Committee the statement he was now about to make, but a sense of duty, both to himself and to the Church, compelled him to do so. That it had been at one time a very favorite idea with him to bring about a union of the Roman, the Greek, the Anglican, and the American Churches; and that, in his zeal for Catholic union, he had overlooked the difficulties in the way. which he was now satisfied were insuperable. That this tendency of his mind toward a union of the Churches had been greatly increased, and his ability to perceive the difficulties in the way had been dimin- ished, by a high state of nervous excitement arising either from bodily
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disease or a constitutional infirmity. That, in the pursuit of his favorite idea, he had been insensibly led into the adoption of opinions on matters of doctrine, and to a public teaching of them, of the im- propriety of which he was now fully satisfied; and, upon a review of those opinions, wonders that he should ever have entertained them. That this change in his views has been brought about in part by a return to a more healthy condition of mind and body, but mainly from having perceived the tendency of those doctrines to the Church of Rome, as sad experience has shown in the cases of Arch-Deacon Manning and others. That among the effects of his desire to bring about this union of the Churches, he was induced to tolerate the Romish notion of the Invocation of Saints, as expressed in his letter to the Rev. C. F. McRae, which expressions he now retracts and would denounce as strongly as any one. That on the subject of auric- ular confession and absolution, whatever extravagancies of opinion or expression he may have heretofore indulged, he now holds that con- fession to a priest is not necessary to salvation ; and that he does not believe in judicial absolution, or the power of the priest to forgive sins. Nor does he hold that the absolution recognized by the Protes- tant Episcopal Church is merely declaratory, but that the priest is therein an instrument through whom pardon is transmitted to the penitent, while its efficacy does not in any degree depend upon the volition or intention of the priest. That absolution is not essentially necessary to the forgiveness of sins, but that it is important when practicable to obtain public absolution as contained in the ritual of our Church, which is the only absolution that he holds proper, except in those cases in which that is impracticable. That he had at one time, under the influences before mentioned, entertained doubts whether our branch of the Church was not in a state of schism. That he had never gone so far as to believe that it was, but merely enter- tained doubts. He was now satisfied, beyond a doubt, that she was not in schism. That he had never held the doctrine of the real pres- ence in the Holy Communion, as synonymous with transubstantiation. but, on the contrary, had always abhorred it. He admitted that. on a review of some of his writings, he had become satisfied that he had exposed himself to misconstruction by the use of the term 'real pres- ence,' which was in the Romish Church synonymous with transubstan- tiation. But in the use of the term 'real presence,' he had in mind only the spiritual presence of Christ. That the term spiritual pres. ence was the only one proper to be used, as the general expression 'real presence' was, in the present state of the Christian world, liable to be understood as asserting Christ's bodily presence in the Eucha- rist-being used by the Romish Church to express its idea of transub- stantiation. And that the spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucha- rist is all that our Church teaches, and would recommend the use of that expression instead of real presence."
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Under this report was a signed endorsement by the Bishop in the following words :
"The above is correct. L. S. IVES."
This same Committee also reported that the Bishop had dis- claimed having had anything to do with the authorship of the tract called The Voice of the Anglican Church on Confession; but he admitted that, while in New York, on learning that such a compilation had been made by two clergymen in whom he had entire confidence, he determined (without verifying its quota- tions) to publish it as an appendix to his sermons. When he ascertained its true character, however, he immediately counter- manded its publication, and regretted ever having had anything to do with it. As to the "Order of the Holy Cross," that society had not existed in North Carolina since the Salisbury Con- vention, said the Bishop; and he further declared that, from his observation of past results upon the minds of young men, he was satisfied that no vows ought to be taken in the Protestant Episcopal Church except those expressly allowed or required by its ritual. Valle Crusis, he added, was now only a mission station.
After the adjournment of the Diocesan Convention of 1851, Bishop Ives continued in his ministry, performing the duties of the Episcopate as though no troubles had existed between him and his Church. The next Diocesan Convention met (May, 1852) in Fayetteville, and the Bishop was there present. In his journal he gave the usual account of his visitations through- out the Diocese, prefacing the same with exhortations to the clergy and laity of "our branch of the Church Catholic" to be faithful to the teachings of the Book of Common Prayer, which he declared was based absolutely upon the teachings of Scrip- tures. He added: "But do not misapprehend me. It is far from my intention to teach that the Prayer Book has any truth or value independent of God's Word. For my conviction is that its truth and value are identical with that Word, and come solely from it, as the source of all that is necessary, either to be
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believed or practiced, for the salvation of men. And further. when the Prayer Book is assailed by its enemies as unscriptural, I maintain that we are to go to the Scriptures for its defense."
Nothing of especial note happened at the above Convention, but some months later (September 27, 1852) Bishop Ives ad- dressed a communication to the Standing Committee of the Diocese, stating that, on account of the ill health of both Mrs. Ives and himself, he wished to obtain a leave of absence from the Diocese for six months after the 1st of October, with an advance of $1,000 on his salary, his intention being to spend that time in travel. This request being granted, he placed in the hands of the same committee the following communication :
I hereby authorize the Standing Committee of North Carolina, in my absence from the Diocese, to invite any Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States to perform Episcopal duty in my place.
L. SILLIMAN IVES,
Raleigh, September 30, 1852. Bishop of North Carolina.
Shortly after writing the communication just quoted Bishop Ives embarked for Europe; and, almost immediately after his arrival, repaired to the city of Rome, where, on Christmas day, 1852, he formally renounced the Church in which he was Bishop and made submission to the Pope. As has already been shown, he had assigned the ill health of himself and his wife as the reason for wishing to go abroad, and had secured permission to draw $1,000 in advance on his salary for traveling expenses; yet a Roman Catholic paper published in France, L'Univers. stated at the time that he had really gone to Europe with the secret and pre-arranged purpose of taking the course which he did. The statement in this paper-a translation of which ap- peared in the Churchman and which is reproduced in Doctor Seabury's work The Continuity of the Church of England- was as follows :
"Dr. Ives left America some weeks ago, to go and make his solemn abjuration of the errors of Protestantism at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff. Before his departure he gave his retraction into the hands
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of the Archbishop of New York, and participated in the sacraments of the Church; but the venerable convert wished this act to be kept secret in order to procure from Pius IX. the sweet consolation of him- self receiving him into his flock. However, considering the possibility that he might be lost on his voyage, Dr. aves gave to Archbishop Hughes his abjuration in writing, furnished with the most incontesti- ble characters of authenticity, in order that this document might be made public in case of accident."
Three days before formally making his submission to the Pope, Bishop Ives addressed a letter to the Diocese of North Carolina in these words :
ROME, December 22d, 1852.
For the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of North Carolina:
DEAR BRETHREN : Some of you, at least, are aware that, for years, doubts of the validity of my office as Bishop have at times harassed my mind and greatly enfeebled my action. At other times, it is true, circumstances have arisen to overrule these doubts and to bring to my mind temporary relief. But it has been only temporary, for, in spite of my resolutions to abandon the reading and use of Catholic books, in spite of earnest prayers and entreaties that God would pro- tect my mind against the disturbing influence of Catholic truth, and in spite of public and private professions and declarations, which, in times of suspended doubt, I sincerely made to shield myself from suspicion and win back the confidence of my Diocese, which had been well nigh lost; in spite of all this and of many other considerations, which would rise up before me as the necessary consequence of suffer- ing my mind to be carried forward in the direction in which my doubts pointed, these doubts would again return with increased and almost overwhelming vigor-goading me at times to the very borders of derangement. Under these doubts I desired temporary repose from duties that had become disquieting to me, and determined to accom- pany Mrs. Ives, whose health demanded a change of climate, in a short absence abroad. But absence has brought no relief to iny mind. Indeed, the doubts that disturbed it have grown into clear and settled convictions-so clear and settled that, without a violation of con- science and honor and every obligation of duty to God and His Church, I can no longer remain in my position. I am called upon. therefore, to do an act of self-sacrifice, in view of which all other self-sacrificing acts of my life are less than nothing-called upon to sever the ties, which have been strengthened by long years of love and forbearance, which have bound my heart to many of you as was David's to that of Jonathan, and make that heart bleed as my hand traces the sentence which separates all pastoral relation between us
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and conveys to you the knowledge that I hereby resign into your hands my office as Bishop of North Carolina ; and, further, that I am determined to make my submission to the Catholic Church.
In addition, my feelings will allow me only to say that, as this act is earlier than any perception of my own, and antedates by some months the expiration of the time for which I asked leave of absence, and for which I so promptly received from members of your body an advance of salary, I hereby renounce all claim upon the same, and acknowledge myself bound, on an intimation of your wish, to return whatever you may have advanced to me beyond this 22d day of December.
With continued affection and esteem, I pray you to allow me still to subscribe myself,
Your faithful friend, L. SILLIMAN IVES.
In due time the above communication was laid before the Diocesan Convention which assembled in Christ Church, in the city of Raleigh, during the month of May, 1853. That body, upon receipt of the Bishop's letter, elected a successor in the person of the Reverend Thomas Atkinson, D. D .- Doctor At- kinson receiving twenty out of the twenty-seven votes cast on the last ballot, which occurred on May 28th. A committee was also appointed to report the circumstances, connected with the defection of Bishop Ives, to the next General Convention of the Church. This General Convention assembled in the city of New York in the month of October, 1853, and received official notice, in due form, of the above matter. Before consecrating a successor to Bishop Ives-whose resignation did not fulfill. in its form, the requirements of the canon law of the Church- the General Convention proceeded formally to vacate his office by a sentence of deposition as follows :
"WHEREAS, Levi Silliman Ives, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, in the Diocese of North Care- lina, in a communication under his proper hand, bearing date 'Rome. December twenty-second, one thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two.' avowed his purpose to resign his office as Bishop of North Carolina' and further declared that he was determined to make his submission to the Catholic [meaning the Roman] Church';
"AND WHEREAS, There is before the Bishops of the Protestant Epis- copal Church in the United States, acting under the provision of Canon First of 1853, satisfactory evidence that the said Levi Silliman
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Ives, D. D., has publicly renounced the communion of the Church, and made his submission to the Bishop of Rome, as Universal Bishop of the Church of God and Vicar of Christ upon earth, thus acknowledg- ing these impious pretensions of that Bishop, thereby violating the rows solemnly made by him, the said Levi Silliman Ives, D. D., at his consecration as a Bishop of the Church of God, abandoning that por- tion of the flock of Christ committed to his oversight, and binding himself under anathema to the anti-Christian doctrines and practices imposed by the Council of Trent upon all the Churches of the Roman 1 Obedience :
"BE IT THEREFORE KNOWN, That on this fourteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and fifty-three, I, Thomas Church Brownell, D. D., LL. D., by Divine permission, Bishop of the Diocese of Connecticut, and Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, with the consent of a majority of the members of the House of Bishops, as hereinafter enumerated, to-wit, William Meade, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia ; John Henry Hopkins, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Ver- mont; Benjamin Bosworth Smith, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky ; Charles Pettit M'Ilwaine, D. D., D. C. L., Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio; George Washington Doane, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey ; James Hervey Otey, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Tennessee; Jackson Kemper, D. D., Missionary Bishop of Wisconsin and the Northwest; Samuel Allen McCoskry, D. D .. D. C. L., Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan; William Heathcote DeLancey, D. D., LL. D., D. C. L., Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York; William Rollinson Whittingham, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland; Stephen Elliott, Jr., D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Georgia ; Alfred Lee, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Dela- ware; John Johns, D. D., Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Vir- ginia ; Manton Eastburn, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Massachu- setts ; Carlton Chase, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of New Hamp- shire; Nicholas Hanmer Cobbs, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Alabama ; Cicero Stephens Hawks, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri ; George Washington Freeman, D. D., Missionary Bishop of the Southwest ; Alonzo Potter, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania ; George Burgess, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Maine; George Upfold, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Indiana ; William Mercer Green, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Mississippi; Francis Huger Rutledge, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Florida ; John Williams, D. D., Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Connecticut ; Henry Jolm Whitehouse, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Illinois ; and Jonathan Mayhew Wainright, D. D., D. C. L., Provisional Bishop of the Diocese of New York, and in the terms of the Canon in such cases made and provided, do pronounce the said Levi Silliman Ives, D. D., ipso facto deposed. to all intents and purposes, from the office
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of a Bishop of the Church of God, and from all the rights, privileges, powers, and dignities thereunto appertaining.
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