USA > New Jersey > Memorial of the centennial of the organization of the church in the state of New Jersey > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
D
-
MEMORIAL
Organization of the Church
INTROR NEW JERSEY
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02733 0486
M
1966 Gc 974.9 M511 MEMORIAL OF THE CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE
OF THE
Centennial of the Organization
OF
THE CHURCH
IN
THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.
NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE. 1885.
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
1785
1885
CHRIST CHURCH, NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.,
WHERE THE FIRST CONVENTION OF THE CHURCH IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY WAS HELD.
JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE CENTENNIAL. From the Diocese of New Jersey.
The Rev. B. Franklin, D.D.,
Mr. James Parker,
The Rev. Charles E. Phelps, Mr. Howard Richards,
The Rev. F. Marion McAllister,
Mr. Richard S. Conover,
The Rev. T. Logan Murphy,
Mr. Francis Many.
From the Diocese of Northern New Jersey.
The Rev. J. Nicholas Stansbury, B. D.,
The Rev. Horace S. Bishop,
The Rev. John F. Butterworth,
Mr. Henry W. Miller, Mr. P. Edwards Johnson, Mr. Paul Babcock.
COMMITTEE ON THE MEMORIAL. The Rev. George Morgan Hills, D.D., The Rev. William H. Neilson, Mr. Clifford Stanley Sims.
CENTENNIAL
OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
IN accordance with the suggestion of the Bishop of New Jersey in his Episcopal Address of 1883, with reference to " marking properly" the hundredth anniversary of the organ- ization of the Church in New Jersey, and in pursuance of the plans of the joint committee of the two dioceses now in the State, the Bishops of New Jersey and Northern New Jersey, and a large number of clergymen and laymen from both dio- ceses, together with the Bishop of Pittsburgh and other invited guests, assembled May 5th, 1885, in Christ Church, New Brunswick, where a century ago was held the " first sitting" of the Convention.
The place, the day, and the occasion were all in harmony. The venerable building and its seemly churchyard filled with memorials of the historic dead were never more impressive.
At 9 A.M. there was a celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Rt. Rev. John Scarborough, D.D., Bishop of New Jersey, being celebrant, assisted by the Rev. E. M. Rodman, M.A., Dean of New Brunswick, and the Rev. L. H. Lighthipe, M. A., of Woodbridge.
The Rev. E. B. Joyce, S.T.B., Rector of Christ Church, was also in the sanctuary, and the music was rendered by the parish choir.
· At eleven o'clock there was a second celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the music being Tours in F, Mr. Charles W. Walker, of St. John's Church, Elizabeth, presiding at the organ. The procession formed in the parish building, and
6
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
moved through the churchyard, entering the west door of the nave. First, seventy choristers, in cassocks and cottas, men and boys selected from six of the seven wards of the Choir Guild of the diocese, viz., St. Mary's Church, Burlington ; Christ Church, Elizabeth ; Christ Church, South Amboy ; Trinity Church, Princeton ; Christ Church, Bordentown ; and St. James's Church, Long Branch ; under the direction of the Rev. H. H. Oberly, M.A., Precentor of the Guild ; then, all the vested clergy present, several of whom wore their proper hoods ; and, lastly, the three prelates in their episcopal robes.
The processional hymn was, "Rejoice, ye pure in heart," music by Messiter.
The Rt. Rev. Thomas A. Starkey, D.D., Bishop of Northern New Jersey, was celebrant, the Rt. Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, D.D., Bishop of Pittsburgh, epistoler, and the Rt. Rev. John Scarborough, D.D., Bishop of New Jersey, gospeller. There were also in the sanctuary the Rev. C. C. Tiffany, D.D., of New York, representing the Assistant- Bishop of that diocese ; the Rev. George Morgan Hills, D.D., Dean of Burlington ; the Rev. J. Nicholas Stansbury, B.D., Dean of Newark ; the Rev. B. Franklin, D.D., Chairman of Committee of Arrangements, and the Rev. E. B. Joyce, S.T.B., Rector of Christ Church, New Brunswick. The Nicene Creed was sung in monotone, with obligato accompani- ment on the organ. This was followed by the hymn, " Glori- ous things of Thee are spoken," to the tune of Austria.
The sermon was by the Rev. J. F. Garrison, M.D., D.D., of Camden, as follows :
GENESIS 32 : 10 .- " And Jacob said, I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant ; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan ; and now I am become two bands."
Thus spake the patriarch Jacob as he came back, after long years of toil and struggle, and, with a goodly company of
7
THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
flocks, and tents, and followers, and children, stood again beside the river which in his early manhood, going out from his father's house, fearful and troubled, he had passed over, poor, doubtful, and unattended, with his staff alone.
So, too, though in a far different sphere and with a far wider meaning, may the Church in New Jersey speak of her- self to-day.
As she now gathers, in this large and impressive assembly, her clergy and laity from every portion of the State, with her two noble sister dioceses, their more than two hundred par- ishes, their large and rapidly-increasing influence and com- munion, and looks back through the century since her first organization in this State to the poor, weak, burdened handful who were scarce able in those struggling years to keep her services alive, she, with devout thanksgiving, yet in a spirit of humility, may truly say, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant ; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan ; and now I am become two bands."
One hundred years ago, on July 6th, 1785, three clergy- men and lay deputies from eight parishes met in this city, in this venerable church, and organized the first regular conven- tion of the " Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey."
Its president was the Rev. Abraham Beach, who at this time was the assistant-minister of Trinity Church, New York, but who had been the missionary and rector of Christ Church, New Brunswick, from September, 1767, until the previous year, 1784, when he transferred his labors to New York, but continued to maintain, for several years after, his connection with the Convention of New Jersey, and with this, the parish of his first ministerial service and his life-long love.
. This Convention of 1785 was the first of that long series which, in the one hundred and thirteenth meeting of the orig- inal, and the eleventh of the younger diocese, has met for the centennial commemoration of to-day ; and from it the Church
1
8
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
in New Jersey dates the beginning of her diocesan history and of the exercise of her privileges as a self-governing branch of the one Catholic Church.
This same year, 1785, is equally memorable also to us in the larger movements for the national organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
The constitution and standards of the National Church were not finally established until four years after, in 1789, but the work was begun in 1785, and the centennial of the decisive event in which the organization of the "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States" had its actual com- mencement dates from a convention held in Christ Church, Philadelphia, from September 27th to October 7th, 1785.
This was a meeting of deputies (seventeen clerical and twenty-six lay), sent by " the Church" in each of the several States which were willing to take part in it, and it called itself "a Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina."
The general principles on which the churches could be united took here a definite shape, and the work of bringing this " to good effect" went on continuously from this begin- ning ; but this meeting was not itself a mere spontaneous gathering : it had come together in answer to a call prepared in two consultations of clergy and laymen held in the previous year, 1784. The first of these was on May 11th, 1784. This had its origin in the suggestions and efforts of the then rector of this parish, Rev. Dr. Beach, and was held, in accordance with his arrangements, in this city. And, as was eminently fitting, this event, which exercised so great an influence on the future of the Church in both the nation and the State, was commemorated last year, at the request of our bishops, in our diocesan conventions and most of the parishes throughout the State. But the object of these meetings of 1784 was only preparatory and suggestive ; the work of organizing the churches in the separate States as one in the Church of the
9
THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
United States, was really begun in the Philadelphia Conven- tion of 1785 ; and the centennial of the present year thus calls back to us not only the " hundred years ago" of the Church in New Jersey, but also the wider range and more important interests of the Church in the United States.
The movements for ecclesiastical organization, both local and general, which mark this period, were made necessary by the conditions in which the Church in this country found itself at the close of the Revolution, and by the mode in which its affairs had been conducted during the previous century or more of its colonial government. Hence, if we desire to un- derstand the work on which the Church was entering in 1785, or the character of the new era of its history which was pre- pared for by this work, we must recall some of the more im- portant relations of the Church, both at the termination of the War of Independence and during its earlier existence in the colonies.
It is extremely difficult for us, after a hundred years of the ever-deepening sense of nationality and union, to realize how utterly the colonies on this continent were separate and independent of each other during almost the whole of their colonial history.
They were diverse in their several forms of government, unlike in the character of their settlers and in the principles and purposes that moulded their legislation. And upon several matters, some of very considerable importance, their interests came strongly into conflict ; and on these the feelings of the respective communities were not only opposed, but often bitterly antagonistic.
The subject on which these antagonisms were the most intense and lasting was the difference of the ecclesiastical rela- tions and the religious characteristics of the various provinces.
The New England colonies were composed of Puritans, who had left England because of the harsh measures of its government and Church against the Non-Conformists, and had come to America for the double purpose of exercising their
10
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
own mode of worship undisturbed and establishing common- wealths which should be free from the intrusion of any wor- ship that was not agreeable to their opinions.
Hence they provided, as a fundamental principle in their legislation, for the summary expulsion of all who had any taint of false doctrine, of whatever sort it might be, and with quite impartial determination drove out, under manifold pains and penalties, the dreaded Papist, the levelling Quaker, the abhorred Anabaptist, and-what, perhaps, they loathed more than any others-the pampered and corrupted Formalist of the hated old Church of England, from whose oppressions they had fled as voluntary exiles to this far-off land.
The Holland Dutch around New York and in North Jersey showed a less active hostility to the Church of England, but they were quite as averse from its ecclesiastical organiza- tion, and quite as ready to oppose it in the exercise of any special privileges which it might happen at any time to ob- tain from the favor of the royal authorities, or the Acts of the Colonial Assembly.
The Quakers of Pennsylvania and Southern Jersey, under the garb of a placid and unwarlike passivity, were yet intensely hostile to the Church, and opposed its growth among them as determinedly as the most violent Puritan of Connecticut or Boston.
Hence throughout the northern provinces the Church of England, during a considerable portion of the colonial period, was a nullity as to real power, and at the same time was both hated and feared by a very large number in almost every com- munity.
There was somewhat of a change in the relations of these northern colonies to the Church after the beginning of the eighteenth century. Earnest and painful representations of the spiritual condition * and needs of many parts of the
* " So plain had become the features of moral and religious evil in our transatlantic colonies at the close of the seventeenth century, that the
11
THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
colonies had awakened an interest in a large number of the clergy and laity of the Church in England, and in 1701 these organized the venerable "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts."
This society entered at once, with zeal and with admirable wisdom, on the work of providing suitable ministers for both the native inhabitants and the English settlers in America. Some of their missionaries were sent to North and South Carolina, but the greater part located themselves in the Middle and Northern provinces ; and so wisely were most of these ministers chosen throughout all these colonies, that wherever they established a congregation it very soon made its impres- sion, and in half a century the Church had attained a largely- increased consideration and influence in all those portions of the Northern provinces which had come in the range of the missions of this society.
But notwithstanding this improvement, there was in all this region, from the Potomac to the St. Lawrence, only a bare handful of the clergy of the Church .* These were mainly in the large towns or their immediate neighborhood, while among the general population of the country it was looked on rather as an intruder from outside than as a part of themselves, and the English Church in many parts of the northern colonies was hardly more acceptable throughout all this period to the popular sentiment than the Puritans and Quakers themselves had formerly been to the feelings of the Churchmen in Eng- land.
The relations of the Church in the southern colonies were widely different to this. In most of them it had been, from a very early date, established by law. It was in some the only
slightest observation of them at once startled good men at home and led them to immediate action." -- History of the American Church, by Wilberforce, ch. iv., p. 73.
* " To the north and east of Maryland there were, in 1729, but eighty parochial clergymen."-History of the American Church, Wilberforce, ch. iv., p. 103.
J
3 1833 02733 0486
12
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
form of religion legally authorized or generally known among their people .* The first emigrants to Virginia had brought a minister of the Church of England with them as chaplain to their little company. A devout and truly wise man, too, he proved himself to be in more than one terrible emergency, and they consecrated themselves and the settlement they had come to make in the new world by a celebration of the Holy Communion on the day after their landing, May 14th, 1607.
When the affairs of this colony became so assured as to admit of definite legislation, the General Assembly of the province, among its earliest acts in 1619, established by law the doctrine and worship of the Church of England as the only religion that was legally authorized within its limits ; and such statutes as were necessary to sustain and enforce it as the State religion were passed by succeeding assemblies. The territory of the province was divided into parishes ; stipends and glebes were apportioned for the support of the clergy ; taxes were assessed on all the people for the payment of these stipends and the erection of churches ; it was enacted " that all minis- ters whatsoever were to be conformable to the Church of Eng- land and the laws therein established, . . . and not otherwise to be admitted to teach publickly or privately, and that the Non-Conformists should, on due notice, be compelled to de- part from the colony with all convenience," } and the Bishop
* So late as 1750, we are told by a writer from Virginia (Hanover), " there were not above four or five Dissenters within one hundred miles of this place till about six years ago." A few years before the Bishop of Lon- don had written to the clergy of this province " that none be suffered by the governor to officiate but those who are episcopally ordained ;" and so effectually was this enforced for a time that another bishop of London says, in 1759, " Until a few years past . .. all were members of the Church, and there were no Dissenters among them."-Virginia Historical Collections, pp. 201, 368, 461.
+ Anderson's Church in the Colonies, vol. ii., p. 8. A law was also passed in 1629 requiring " that all the people do repaire regularly to their churches on the Saboth day, and that one pound of Tobacco be paid for every ab- sence, and 50 pounds of Tobacco for every month's absence sett down in
1
13
THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
of London was applied to " to find for them a body of pious, learned, and painful ministers." *
The connection thus established with the Bishop of London was soon extended, though in a vague and informal relation, to the churches in all the other colonies, t and what- ever of Episcopal jurisdiction or discipline was exercised over these churches came to be regarded as vested in the bishop, for the time being, of that see. But the authority of a bishop so remote and with power so undefined was wholly ineffective for the proper guidance and control of the Church under the new and complex conditions of these far-off and unregulated communities. And it was but a short time till the Church, in even the most loyal of the colonies, was suffering in every interest from this lack of the head, which was both essential to its completion as a divine organization and vitally necessary to its efficient government and discipline.
The position of the Church of England in those provinces where it was the established mode of worship was, in many respects, very disastrous to its spiritual welfare. The great body of the people, even when strongly attached to the ritual and teachings of the Church, did not intend to have their churches so connected with the State as to make them avail- able for the increase of royal or parliamentary authority in their colonial affairs. Hence, as early as 1642, the General Assembly of Virginia # declined to allow the governor or Bishop of London the right of " presentation and induction of ministers" to the parishes in which they were to serve, but placed this with the vestry of the respective congregations.
the Act of the General Assembly of 1623." This was amended in 1631 to impose " one shilling for every tyme of absence from church, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent."-Anderson, vol. 1, p. 461 ; Wil- berforce, ch. 2.
* Wilberforce's History of the Church in America, ch. 2.
+ Vinton's Canon Law, p. 7.
į Wilberforce's History : Historical Collections of Virginia. Ander- son's Church in the Colonies.
14
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
So, too, the collection and payment of the taxes for the stipend of the rector was given to the officers of each sev- eral parislı, and not appropriated from a general State fund.
These salaries were paid originally in tobacco, each inhabi- tant contributing a certain quota. When there was no minis- ter the tax was not collected, or was considerably lightened ; hence there was a constant tendency to leave the rectorship vacant whenever and as long as possible, and the vestries soon became very ready, many of them, to find causes on which they might dismiss their minister, or make his position so un- happy that he could not remain. After a while the perma- nent, legal induction of life-long rectors was almost universally disused, and a minister was simply hired for a year, or even for a shorter time ; and at the expiration of this term of service either he was discharged or continued for another temporary engagement on a like uncertain tenure. "So that," as one of their own number writes concerning this, " it comes to pass that they are kept in miserably precarious circumstances, like domestic servants, ready to be turned off at pleasure, which makes the better sort leave the country, and the rest so obsequious that they are ready to do whatever may be neces- sary to retain their places." *
But it was not the laity alone who were responsible for this unhappy condition of affairs. Many of the clergy throughout the colony were men of most devoted piety and self-denying labor, and no portion of the Christian world has seen more beautiful examples of patriarchal religion than in the life-long worship together of the minister and people in many of the unknown and quiet little colonial parishes of the " Old Dominion."
* Historical Collections, Virginia, p. 132. Another writes : " The people in general are averse to the induction of the clergy." " Very few are inducted, but are kept on agreements with the vestries under precarious circumstances," pp. 250-255. And like complaints occur continually.
15
THE CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY.
But, besides these, there were, most unfortunately, among the clergy who were sent or voluntarily came over to the colony, a very considerable number who were utterly unsuited for their place, and many wholly unworthy of their office. Some were men of broken character or who had failed at home, and who had obtained a license to preach in the colonies from the ignorance or incautiousness of the Bishop of London or the "home council " of the province. Still more, perhaps, on coming into these remote and as yet unsettled communities, felt themselves freed from the restraining influences of their former lives, and yielding to the temptations of their present condition, fell into bad habits, and in many cases came to be regarded as notorious evil-livers. *
The absence of all episcopal authority made the discipline of the clergy, however great this need, almost impossible. The ecclesiastical authorities in England applied the only palliative that could be devised under the circumstances. The Bishop of London appointed and sent over a commissary to represent him, so far as possible, in his executive capacity. An officer of this kind was also appointed in certain other of the colonies, and in one form or another was continued until the Revolution. But as the commissary had no coercive powers-in fact, no legal authority at all-the mnost that he could do was to give the weight of his title and the influence of his character to the partial mitigation of these manifold disorders .. And the longer this ungoverned condition of the Church continued, the more deeply did all its best interests suffer, and the more difficult the remedy. The reproach that
* Virginia Historical Collections, passim. Wilberforce's Hist., ch. iv. Rev. Dr. Chandler, of Elizabeth, in this State, writes to Rev. Dr. Johnson of the condition of Maryland in 1762 : "Of about forty-five clergy in the province, five or six are of good character, whose names should be men- tioned with honor ; but to hear the character of the rest from the inhabi- tants would make the ears of a sober heathen tingle. You may be sure they are much averse to having an American episcopate."-Life of Dr. Johnson, p. 311.
16
CENTENNIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF
had been brought upon the clergy by the ill-conduct of so many who claimed that title had, of course, produced among the laity a corresponding loss of respect for the clerical office, * and a growing suspicion of those by whom it was represented ; this concurred very fatally with their tendency to regard the connection of minister and people as one dependent wholly on the pleasure or pecuniary interest of their parishioners, and not only did they continue merely to hire their clergy from year to year, or even a shorter period, but the custom began and spread very rapidly of employing t at a cheap rate lay readers for a time, and in some cases almost continuously, instead of settling a rector. Thus the taxpayers were enabled to relieve themselves of the heavier burden of the stipend of the minister, and at the same time to provide for maintaining the services they might desire to have, or were required to keep up by the law, but with the necessary consequence of most serious evils to the Church, and a still further lowering of the character and influence of the clergy.
A number of these lay readers seem, little by little, to have acquired a sort of half-ministerial character, and we find them assuming and exercising the right to officiate whenever the occasion should call for their services. One of the writers of this period says : " Laymen are allowed to usurp the office of ministers, and deacons to thrust out presbyters-in a word, all things are left to the mercy of the people." Another reports that " of fifty parishes there are only twenty-two that have ministers," # while a third complains that "two
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.