FRQM THE LIBRARY OF TRJT^ITY COLLEGE vn fw> *w> - iw w w w tw tw> cw w w - in Qlmertra : : itogtaptncal, of tl)e Btsl)opfi of tl)e American C^urcl), tottl) a #reltminatp ssap on t^e Historic 6piscopate and 2Documentarj> Annals ofti)efntrotiucttonof tl)e Anglican itne of succession into America tiitam of and t;t6tortogrnpl)fr of tljr American Cl;urcl) w> TO fTO fOT w> w w> w> *m w w $> i T T - TT CDttfon OT ^ fTO tg W> fffi fW> CT> W> W> fTO C^ttjstfan JLftet^atwre Co Copyright, 1895, BY THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMPANY. 128S45 OCi > 9 ia88 CONTENTS. PAGE ADVERTISEMENT vii PREFACE ix INTRODUCTION . xi BIOGRAPHIES: Samuel Seabury i William White 5 Samuel Provoost 9 James Madison 1 1 Thomas John Claggett 13 Robert Smith 15 Edward Bass 17 Abraham Jar vis 19 Benjamin Moore 21 Samuel Parker 23 John Henry Hobart 25 Alexander Viets Griswold 29 Theodore Uehon 31 Richard Channing Moore 33 James Kemp 35 John Croes 37 Nathaniel Bowen 39 Philander Chase 4 ! Thomas Church Brownell 45 John Stark Ravenscroft 47 Henry Ustick Onderdonk 49 William Meade 5 William Murray Stone 53 Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk 55 Levi Silliman Ives 57 John Henry Hopkins 59 Benjamin Bosworth Smith 63 Charles Pettit Mcllvaine 65 George Washington Doane 67 James Hervey Otey 69 Jackson Kemper 7 1 Samuel Allen McCoskry 73 Leonidas Polk 75 William Heathcote De Lancey 77 Christopher Edwards Gadsden 79 iii iv CONTENTS. PAGE William Rollinson Whittingham 81 Stephen Klliott 83 Alfred Lee 85 John Johns 87 M:mt<m Kast1>urn 89 John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw 91 Carlton Chase 93 Nicholas I lamner Cobbs 95 Cicero Stephens Hawks 97 William Jones Boone 99 George Washington Freeman 101 Horatio Southgate 103 Alon/o Potter 105 George Burgess 107 George Upfold ... 109 William Mercer Green Ill John Payne 113 Francis 1 1 uger Rutledge 115 John Williams 117 Henry John Whitehouse 119 Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright 121 Thomas Frederick Davis 123 Thomas Atkinson 125 William Ingraham Kip 127 Thomas Fielding Scott 129 Henry Washington Lee 131 Horatio Potter 133 Thomas March Clark. Samuel Bowman 135 .... 137 Alexander Gregg 130, William Henry Odenheimer 141 Gregory Thurston Bedell 143 Henry Benjamin Whipple 145 Henry Champlin Lay 147 Joseph Cruikshank Talbot 140, William Bacon Stevens jci Richard Hooker Wilmer ice Thomas Hubbard Vail 157 Arthur Cleveland Coxe ICQ Charles Todd Quintard 163 Robert I larper Clarkson j6c George Maxwell Randall l6y John Barrett Kerfoot ifcq Channing Moore Williams l ^ l Joseph I ere Bell Wilmer jy, George I >avid Cummins l ,, William F.dmond Armitage jyy Henry Adams Ncely !-q Daniel Sylvester Tuttle . 181 CONTENTS. v PAGE John Freeman Young jgj John Watrus Beckwith 185 Francis McNeece Whittle 187 William Henry Augustus Bissell 189 Charles Franklin Robertson 191 Benjamin Wistar Morris 193 Abram Newkirk Littlejohn 195 William Croswell Doane 197 Frederic Dan Huntington 199 Ozi William Whitaker 201 Henry Niles Pierce 203 William W oodruff Niles 205 William Pinkney 207 William Bell White Howe 209 Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe 211 William Hobart Hare 213 John Gottlieb Auer 215 Benjamin Henry Paddock 217 Theodore Benedict Lyman 219 John Franklin Spalding 221 Edward Randolph Welles 223 Robert Woodward Barnwell Elliott 225 John Henry Ducachet Wingfield 227 Alexander Charles Garrett 229 William Forbes Adams 231 Thomas Underwood Dudley 233 John Scarborough 235 George De Normandie Gillespie 237 Thomas Augustus Jaggar 239 William Edward McLaren 241 John Henry Hobart Brown 243 William Stevens Perry 245 Charles Clifton Penick 249 Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky 251 Alexander Burgess 253 George William Peterkin 255 George Franklin Seymour 257 Samuel Smith Harris 259 Thomas Alfred Starkey 261 John Nicholas Galleher 263 George Kelly Dunlop 265 Leigh Richmond Brewer 267 John Adams Paddock 269 Cortlandt Whitehead 271 Hugh Miller Thompson 273 David Buel Knickerbacker 275 Henry Codman Potter 277 Alfred Magill Randolph 279 William David Walker. . . 281 CONTENTS, TAGB Alfred Augustin Watson 28 3 William Jones Hoone 28 5 Nelson Soinerville Rulison 287 William Paret 28 9 George Worthington 2 9 r Samuel I )avid Ferguson 2 93 Edwin Gardner Weed 2 95 Mahlon Norris Gilbert 2 97 Elisha Smith Thomas 2 99 Ethelbert Talbot 3 01 James Steptoe Johnston 33 Abiel Leonard 35 Leighton Coleman 37 John Mills Kendrick 39 Boyd Vincent 3 11 Cyrus Frederick Knight : 3*3 Charles Chapman Grafton 3 5 William Andrew Leonard 3 7 Thomas Frederick Davies 3 J 9 Anson Rogers Graves 3 21 William Ford Nichols i 323 Edward Robert Atwill 3 2 5 I lenry Melville Jackson . 327 Davis Sessums 3 2 9 Phillips Brooks 33* Isaac Lea Nicholson 335 Cleland Kinloch Nelson 337 Charles Reuben Hale : 339 George Herbert Kinsolving 34 1 Lemuel Henry Wells 343 William Crane Gray 345 Francis Key Brooke 347 William Morris Barker 349 John McKim 35* Frederick Rogers Graves 353 Ellison Capers 355 Thomas Frank Gailor 357 William Lawrence 359 Joseph Blount Cheshire 361 Arthur Crawshay Alliston Hall 363 John Brockenbrough Newton 3^5 John Hazen White 367 Frank Rosebrook Millspaugh 369 ADVERTISEMENT. THE interest surrounding the first complete collection of photo graphs of American bishops published warrants a brief recital of the difficulties involved in gathering them. The aim to secure the best, as well as the latest, likeness had frequently to be limited to securing any likeness at all ; for certain of the bishops never sat for portraits. It is generally believed, for example, that no portrait was ever made of Bishop Dehon, al though a very rare silhouette exists. By diligent searching, how ever, a poor photograph was discovered, from which a pen-and-ink drawing was made, which is reproduced on page 30. Neither Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan s very full collection, nor any other that we know of, possesses a photograph of this prelate. Bishop Madison was never known to have sat for a portrait, and tradition says that the painting of that diocesan now in the possession of Mrs. S. M. Chamberlayne, of Richmond, Va. (through whose kind permission we secured a photograph from this painting), is in reality a portrait of his daughter, who strongly resembled him, taken after her father s death. Bishop Whittingham s portrait was not painted during his lifetime, although a daguerreotype was taken about 1845. ^ rs - Rollinson Colburn, of Washington, D. C., a personal friend of Bishop Whittingham, made pencil-sketches of him in 1871, while he was visiting at her home, from which a large (copyright) portrait was painted after his death, in 1879. Huntington painted his portrait from the old daguerreotype ; but as this represents the bishop in his younger days, it has been thought well to photograph the very ex cellent likeness by Mrs. Colburn, which she has generously allowed us to do. The painting was praised by Archbishop Trench and Bishop Pirikney, and is now reproduced for the first time, Brand, in his biography of Whittingham, having made use of Huntington s work. We are also indebted to another member of this family Miss Colburn for our photographs of Bishops Green and Pinkney, taken from portraits painted by her, and truer in representation than hitherto published ones. Bishop C. M. Williams was one of viii ADVERTISEMENT. those who \\otild never sit for a portrait. His likeness appears in a group; hut as the reproductions were unsatisfactory, a pen-and-ink sketch was made from the photograph. Besides our portraits of Madison, Whittingham, Green, and Pinkney, taken from oil-paintings by photography, six others were produced in the same way, viz., those of Robert Smith, Jarvis, Kemp, H. U. Onderdonk, Stone, and Gadsden. In cases where photographs are not known, or where they lack merit, we have, wherever it has been possible, made use of engrav ings. Twenty-nine of our portraits have been so taken. Of these the following were engraved by J. C. Buttre: White (from Sully s painting), Provoost, Claggett, Bass, Hobart, Griswold, R. C. Moore, Croes, Bowen, P. Chase, Brownell, Ravenscroft, Mcllvaine, Otey, De Lancey, Henshaw, Freeman, Wainwright (from Brady s paint ing), and Cummins. The portrait of the senior Boone is from an engraving by Sartain, from Mooney s painting, and the likeness of Bishop Polk is also from an engraving by Sartain, and is used by permission of Dr. William H. Polk, of New York. The portraits of Bishops Meade and B. T. Onderdonk are from engravings by Neil and Ormsby respectively. The following are from engravings by unknown artists: Seabury, Benjamin Moore, Parker, Ives, Davis, and Hopkins. All other illustrations are from photographs furnished by the bishops themselves, by members of their families, or by authorized photographers. We are under obligations to the Rev. F. D. Jaudon, of Manston, Wis.,and to the Rev. E. H. Porter, of Newport, R. I., for the loan of photographs and engravings from their collections, and to Mr. Rollinson Colburn, of Washington, D. C., for material assistance in many ways. Acknowledgments should also be made to the Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis, of Brooklyn, Conn., for the use of the large por trait of Bishop Jarvis, taken from the only painting of that prelate in existence; to Mr. D. E. Huger Smith, of Charleston, S. C., for a photograph of Bishop Smith, taken from the painting in possession of his brother, Mr. Robert Tilghman Smith ; to the Rev. F. Chase, of Scarsdale, N. Y., for our likeness of Bishop Carlton Chase ; and to the Rev. Montgomery Schuyler, of St. Louis, Mo., for that of Bishop Hawks. PREFACE. THE story of the introduction of the Anglican episcopate into America is full of incident. The lives of the men who have rilled the office of bishop in the American Church are at once interest ing and instructive. The contributions they have made to Ameri can literature, even in the midst of absorbing labors and constant cares, are both creditable and important. To tell the story of the struggle for the episcopate, to record briefly the lives of the bish ops of the United States, and to furnish comprehensive lists of their literary works, is the object of this work. The dry skeleton of dates and facts has been clothed with such incidents and remarks as shall afford to the reader an understanding of their characters and the circumstances molding and influencing their lives. This has been attempted in the spirit of historical impartiality. The effort has been made to supply the means for correctly estimating both the men and the measures marking their official careers. Besides the biographical sketches of the nearly two hundred priests who have been called to the office and administration of a bishop in the Church of God, we give, somewhat in detail, the story of the efforts, dating back to the early days of American discovery and settlement, made in this land and across the sea to secure for the colonial Church the completion of the three orders of the min istry, and the privilege and power of self- reproduction and self-rule. To this we add the documents which give the succession of the American bishops, connecting them through Aberdeen and Lam beth with the see of Canterbury, and back to the apostles and to the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. An essay on " The His toric Episcopate " is added, embracing in simple statement and in the briefest possible compass the results of the latest scholarship respecting this question. The purpose of this paper is to give to those who are seeking a basis for Church unity an authoritative presentation of the Chicago- Lambeth propositions, and a defense of the position taken therein. There are papers on the episcopal suc cession in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and on the Methodist " superintendency " of America, of which latter Thomas X THE El lSCOr. /77; I\ AMERICA. Coke, LL.D., and Francis Asbury were the first appointments by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The intelligent reader will find in these pages much to convince him that the episcopate in the United States, like that of other days and in other lands, has maintained the dignity of the order, and by labors, devotion, and consecrated lives has well and wisely ruled that portion of the Holy Catholic Church committed to its charge. Of these men of God it can truly be affirmed that their learning, their labors, their lives, will be found to have been freely, fully given pro salute howinnm et pro ecclesia Dei. BISHOP S HOUSE, DAVENPORT, I.\., Feast of the Ascension, A.D. 1895. INTRODUCTION. i. THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. THE critical examination of the New Testament writings for notices of the polity of the kingdom of heaven Christ set up when tabernacled in the flesh plainly indicates that the ultimate earthly authority there recognized was that exercised by the apostles, in the name of, and as representing, their Master, their Lord, their King, and that the means for the transmission of this authority was by the imposition of apostolic hands. The Church already existed. The kingdom of heaven had long had its rulers and its rules. In other words, the principle of individual overseership or episcopacy, exercised by the apostles first, and by apostolic delegates afterward, and gradually taking shape in most easily recognized and definite form, is found in the New Testament Scriptures as an existing fact, while we may search their pages in vain for any indication of the principle of presbyterian parity or of congregational democracy. Few and scattered as are the New Testament allusions to the polity of the Church in the days in which the apostles were still present on the earth, the trend of each and all of these passages is evident. The source of power in the Church was not from the people or of the people ; it was from above ; and in these scanty notices we see apostolic rule gradually merging into episcopal authority and power. The exercise of the commission of their Master " As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you "-by the Twelve, chosen not by the company of believers, but by the Lord Himself; the solemn in vestiture of Matthias not by the people, but by the Eleven acting under divine guidance with the office from which Judas fell ; the choice of the great apostle to the Gentiles by the Head of the Church Himself " an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father"; ] the headship of the Church at Jerusalem, as well as the title of " apostle," so plainly accorded i Galatians i. I. xi x ii / //A KriSCOI .lTE IN AMERICA. by St. Paul to "James, the Lord s brother," who was evidently not one of the Twelve ; the absence of any hint that the apostolate was to be limited to the Twelve, and, on the other hand, the application of the title to Barnabas, 1 to Andronicus and Junia, 2 probably to Sil- vaiuis, :; and to others by St. Paul ; the condemnation of " false apos tles " ; the committal by St. Paul of the charge of the Churches he had founded to Timothy and Titus ; the latest messages of the Head of the Church, not to the people, but to the rulers, the " angels," the individually responsible heads of the apocalyptic Churches these are each and all parts of that vast network of scriptural testimony uniting with its countless meshes the Church s chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls with the threefold ministry and the polity of the kingdom of heaven which, ere the death of the last of the apostles, St. John, was universally established throughout the Church of Christ. It is the judgment of Dr. Lightfoot, late bishop of Durham, that " history seems to show decisively that before the middle of the second century each church or organized Christian community had its three orders of ministers its bishop, its presbyters, and its dea cons. On this point there cannot reasonably be two opinions." 4 The same distinguished scholar, in commenting on the position oc cupied by St. James, the brother of the Lord, in the Church of Jerusalem, after expressing his conviction that " he was not one of the Twelve," asserts that " the episcopal office thus existed in the mother-church of Jerusalem from very early days, at least in a rudi mentary form " ; 5 while the government of the Gentile churches, 1 " The apostleship of Barnabas is beyond question. St. Luke records his consecra tion to the office as taking place at the same time with, and in the same manner as, St. Paul s (Acts xiii. 2, 3). In his account of their missionary labors he again names them together as apostles, even mentioning Barnabas first (Acts xiv. 4, 14). St. Paul himself also in two different epistles uses similar language. In the Galatian letter he speaks of Barnabas as associated with himself in the apostleship of the Gentiles (ii. 9) ; in the first to the Corinthians he claims for his fellow-laborer all the privileges of an apostle, as one who, like himself, holds the office of an apostle and is doing the work of an apostle (ix. <J, 6). If, therefore, St. Paul has held a larger place than Barnabas in the gratitude and veneration of the Church of all ages, this is due, not to any superiority of rank or office, but to the ascendancy of his personal gifts, a more intense energy and self-devotion, wider and deeper sympathies, a firmer intellectual grasp, a larger measure of the spirit of Christ." Bishop Lightfoot s " Epistle to the Galatians," pp. 96, 97. " On the most natural interpretation of a passage in the Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 7), Andronicus and Junia, two Christians otherwise unknown to us, are called distinguished members of the apostolate language which indirectly implies a very considerable exten sion of the term." Ibid., p. 95. 3 " In i Theualonians ii. 6, again, where ... he speaks of the disinterested labors of himself and his colleagues, adding, though r,v might have been burdensome to you, being apostles of C,,rist, it is probable that under this term he includes Silvanus, who had labored with him in Thessalonica, and whose name appears in the superscription of the let ter." Ibid. * Bishop I.ightfoot s " Dissertation on the Christian Ministry," appended to his " Com mentary on the Philippines," p. 184. 5 Ibid., p. 196. INTRODUCTION. xiii though presenting no distinct traces of a similar organization, ex hibits " stages of development tending in this direction." Light- foot, who discusses this subject with singular moderation and fair ness, concedes that the position occupied by Timothy and Titus, whom he styles " apostolic delegates," " fairly represents the func tions of the bishop early in the second century." Even admitting with Lightfoot that "James, the Lord s brother, alone, within the period compassed by the apostolic writings, can claim to be re garded as a bishop in the later and more special sense of the term," and that * as late, therefore, as the year 70 no distinct signs of epis copal government have appeared in Gentile Christendom," still it must be acknowledged, in the language of the same authority, that " unless we have recourse to a sweeping condemnation of received documents, it seems vain to deny that early in the second century the episcopal office was firmly and widely established. Thus, dur ing the last three decades of the first century, and consequently during the lifetime of the latest surviving apostle, this change must have been brought about." 3 Again and again does this great scholar refer to the fact of the early and general establishment of episcopacy "from the apostles times." For example, he asserts that " the evidence for the early and wide extension of episcopacy throughout proconsular Asia, the scene of St. John s latest labors, may be considered irrefragable." 4 And again, " These notices, be sides establishing the general prevalence of episcopacy, . . . estab lish this result clearly : that its maturer forms are seen first in those regions where the latest surviving apostles, more especially St. John, fixed their abode, and at a time when its prevalence cannot be dis sociated from their influence or their sanction." 5 And again, " It has been seen that the institution of an episco pate must be placed as far back as the closing years of the first cen tury, and that it cannot, without violence to historical testimony, be dissevered from the name of St. John." 6 "It will appear," continues Lightfoot, " that the pressing needs of the Church were mainly instrumental in bringing about this result, and that this de velopment of the episcopal office was a providential safeguard amid the confusion of speculative opinion, the distracting effects of per secution, and the growing anarchy of social life, which threatened not only the extension but the very existence of the Church of Christ." 7 With this cumulative presentation of the proofs of the historic episcopate from the writings of the leading scholar of the age, we may be prepared for the bishop s summing up of the whole matter among the closing words of his " Dissertation on the Chris tian Ministry " : " If the preceding investigation is substantially cor- i Lightfoot s "Christian Ministry," p. 196. 2 Ibid., p. 197. 3 Ibid., p. 199- 4 Ibid., p. 212. 5 //,/,/., pp. 225, 226. 6 Ibid., p. 232. 7 Ibid. xiv THE En sco PATE IN AMERICA. rect, the threefold ministry can be traced to apostolic direction ; and short of an express statement we can possess no better assurance of a divine appointment, or at least a divine sanction." In even stronger language, in his sermon before the Wolverhampton Church Congress, he asserts that the Church of England has " retained a troni of church government which had been handed down in un broken continuity from the apostles times." With these statements and these proofs the language of the Ordinal of the Book of Common Prayer is in strict accord : " It is evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors that from the apostles time there have been these three orders of ministers in Christ s Church bishops, priests, and dea cons." The full meaning of this statement appears in the fact that it is the requirement of the canon law of the Church, as well as of the Ordinal, that " no man shall be accounted or taken to be a law ful bishop, priest, or deacon, in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto according to the form hereafter following, or hath had episcopal consecration or ordination." In the judgment of Lightfoot, as evidently in the intention of the Ordinal, the " his torical episcopate " includes the apostolical succession the threefold ministry communicated by the imposition of hands and continued "in unbroken continuity from the apostles times." To quote the language of Mr. Gladstone: " In the latter part of the second century of the Christian era the subject" of the apos tolical succession " came into distinct and formal view ; and from that time forward it seems to have been considered by the great writers of the Catholic body a fact too palpable to be doubted, and too simple to be misunderstood." - We have thus far dealt merely with the proofs of the historic episcopate as indicated in the New Testament and as existing dur ing the lifetime of St. John. We turn to the witness of history to the fact that our Lord instituted in His Church, by succession from the apostles, a threefold ministry, the highest order of these minis ters alone having the authority and power to perpetuate this min istry by the laying on of hands. The Church of Jerusalem, the mother of us all, as we have al ready seen, presents the earliest instance of a bishop in the sense in which the word was understood in post-apostolic times. The rule and official prominence of St. James, " the Lord s brother," is recognized both in the Epistles of St. Paul and in the Acts of the Apostles. That which is so plainly indicated in the canonical Scrip tures is supported by the uniform tradition of the succeeding age. 1 Light foot s " Christian Ministry," p. 265. 2 Gladstone s " Church Principles Considered in their Results," p. 189. INTRODUCTION. xv On the death of St. James, which took place immediately before the war of Vespasian, Syrneon succeeded to his place and rule. Hegesippus, who is our authority for this statement, and who rep resents Symeon as holding the same office with St. James, and with equal distinctness styles him a bishop, was doubtless born ere Sym eon died. Eusebius gives us a list of Symeon s successors. In less than thirty years such were the troubles and uncertainties of the times there appear to have been thirty occupants of the see. On the building of yElia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, Mar cus presided over the Church in the holy city as its first Gentile bishop. Narcissus, who became bishop of Jerusalem in the year 190, is referred to by Alexander, in whose favor he resigned his see in the year 214, as still living at the age of one hundred and sixteen thus in this single instance bridging over the period from the time when the Apostle John was still living to the date when, by universal consent, it is conceded that episcopacy was established in all quarters of the world. Passing from the mother-church of Jerusalem to Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, and which may be regarded as the natural center of Gentile Christianity, we find from tradition that Antioch received its first bishop from St. Peter. We need not discuss the probabilities of this story, since there can be no doubt as to the name standing second on the list. Ignatius is mentioned as a bishop by the earliest authors. His own language is conclusive as to his own conviction on this point. He writes to one bishop, Polycarp. He refers by name to another, Onesimus. He contem plates the appointment of his successor at Antioch after his decease. The successor whose appointment Ignatius anticipated is said by Eusebius to have been Hero, -and from his episcopate the list of Antiochian bishops is complete. If the authenticity of the entire catalogue is questionable, two bishops of Antioch at least, during the second century, Theophilus and Serapion, are confessedly his torical personages. With reference to the epistles of Ignatius con troversy has raged for centuries. Their outspoken testimony in favor of episcopacy has been regarded by. the advocates of parity or of independency as a proof of their want of authenticity. But the discussion has been practically settled in our own day, and the judgment of Lightfoot, the latest and greatest commentator on these interesting remains of Christian antiquity, will be received without question by all whose opinion is worthy of consideration. He assigns these epistles to the earliest years of the second century, and he regards the testimony of Ignatius to the existence and uni versality of the threefold ministry at the period in which he lived and wrote as conclusive. The celebrated German critic and scholar, Dr. Harnack, who characterizes Lightfoot s work as " the most xv i ////; l-.riscol .// A l.\ AMERICA. learned and careful patristic monograph of the century," accepts the conclusions of the bishop, and concedes that the genuineness of tin- Ignatian letters is rendered "certain." With such a witness, thus supported by scholars confessedly occupying the foremost place for learning and critical power, we may proceed to details. In the Ignatian letters, the writer, the second bishop of Antioch, appears as a condemned prisoner traveling through Asia to his mar tyrdom at Rome. Though each step of his progress brought him nearer to death ; though the severity of his guard " a maniple of ten soldiers," whom he designates as "leopards" makes his last days wretchedly uncomfortable, still his journey is a triumph. On his arrival at Smyrna representatives of the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles unite with the flock of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, to do him honor. During his stay at Smyrna the aged bishop addresses four of his extant epistles to the Ephesians, to the Magnesians, to the Trallians, and to the Romans. The remaining three epistles, those to the Churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp, the bishop of the latter, were written from Troas, whither a deacon from Ephesus had borne him company. The saint proceeds from Neapolis to Philippi, where he is welcomed by the Church and escorted on his way, and thus he goes toward Rome. Though, in his modesty, choosing to speak of himself as " only now beginning to be a disciple," the nearness to the end evidently bringing to him new revelations of spiritual things and the life to come, he acts and writes as a man advanced in years. Doubtless he was near to man s estate when the great apostle wrote his epistles. He must have been in full maturity when Jerusalem was trodden underfoot of the Gentiles and the Church was driven from its cradle-home. He in whose life all this had transpired was now on his way to death. He fully realized that the end was near at hand. His days were numbered, and in his epistles he appears to have sought to crowd counsels of the highest moment, the dying legacy of one whose voice would soon be forever hushed in death. The points this aged saint chiefly dwells upon are two the doctrine of the Incarnation as an historic fact, as perpetuated in sacraments, as a fundamental principle of the faith ; and the threefold ministry, the divinely given rule for the Church, by which the Church itself would be recognized, and the religion of the Christ made known as something organic, real, lasting, disciplined. In his statements of the prerogative of the threefold ministry Ignatius is emphatic : " It is meet, therefore, . . . that being per fectly joined together in one submission, submitting yourselves to your bishop and presbytery, ye may be sanctified in all things." * Ad Epli.," 2. In our citations we avail ourselves of Bishop Litrhtfoot s transla tion. INTRODUCTION. xvii " I was forward to exhort you, that ye run in harmony with the mind of God ; for Jesus Christ also, our inseparable life, is the mind of the Father, even as the bishops that are settled in the farthest parts of the earth are in the mind of Jesus Christ. So then it be- cometh you to run in harmony with the mind of the bishop, which thing also ye do. For your honorable presbytery, which is worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop, even as its strings to a lyre." 1 " Let no man be deceived. If any one be not within the precinct of the altar, he lacketh the bread [of God]. For, if the prayer of one and another hath so great force, how much more that of the bishop and of the whole Church! . . . Let us therefore be careful not to resist the bishop, that by our submission we may give our selves to God. And in proportion as a man seeth that his bishop is silent, let him fear him the more. For every one whom the Master of the household sendeth to be steward over His own house we ought so to receive as Him that sent him. Plainly, therefore, we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself." 2 " Assemble yourselves together, ... to the end that ye may obey the bishop and the presbytery without distraction of mind ; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die." 3 " Forasmuch, then, as I was permitted to see you in the person of your godly bishop, Damas, and your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius, and my fellow-servant the deacon, Sotion, of whom I would fain have joy, for that he is subject to the bishop as unto the grace of God, and to the presbytery as unto the law of Jesus Christ. Yea, and it becometh you also not to presume upon the youth of your bishop, but according to the power of God the Father to render unto him all reverence ; . . . yet not to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, even to the Bishop of all. . . . For a man does not so much deceive this bishop, who is seen, as cheat that other who is invisible." 4 " Be ye zealous to do all things in godly accord, the bishop presid ing after the likeness of God, and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the apostles, with the deacons also who are most dear to me, having been intrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ." 5 " When ye are obedient to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, it is evident to me that ye are living, not after men, but after Jesus Christ. ... It is therefore necessary, even as your wont is, that you should do nothing without the bishop ; but be ye obedient also to the presbytery, as to the apostles. . . . And those likewise who are deacons of the mysteries of Jesus Christ must please all men in all ways. ... In like manner let all men respect the deacons as l " Ad Eph.," 3, 4. 2 Ibid., 5, 6. 3 ibid., 20. * " Ad Magn.," 2, 3. 5 Ibid., 6. THE EPISCOPATE IX AMERICA, Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of apostles. Apart from these there is not even the name of a Church." " For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, they are with the bishop ; and as many as shall repent and enter into the unity of the Church, these also shall be of God. ... Be ye careful, there fore, to observe one eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup unto union in His blood; there is one altar, as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants." - " Shun divisions as the beginning of evils. Do ye all follow your bishop as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the apostles; and to the deacons pay respect, as to God s command ment. Let no man do aught of things pertaining to the Church apart from the bishop. Let that be held a valid eucharist which is under the bishop, or one to whom he shall have committed it. Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be ; even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church. It is not lawful apart from the bishop either to baptize or to hold a love- feast, but whatever he shall approve ; this is well pleasing also to God, that everything which ye do may be sure and valid." 3 " It is good to recognize God and the bishop. He that honoreth the bishop is honored of God. He that doeth aught without the knowledge of the bishop rendereth service to the devil." 4 There can be no question that the writer of these extracts held clear and well-defined views both as to the existence of a visible, organized Church of Christ, and a threefold, divinely authorized ministry ruling that Church. This he deems to be the " mind of God " ; this is the " commandment " ; and so fully does he hold this view that in his dying counsels he emphasized the idea that he who would keep the " commandment " and run in accord with the divine mind must lose sight of his very individuality in the fellowship of the Church, and unhesitatingly and without reserve submit himself in action, word, or purpose to the divinely appointed rule and order of the Church. Nor is this all. He regards the threefold ministry as essential to the very being of the Church ; for, to quote his own words, as rendered by Lightfoot, "without these three orders no church has a title to the name." 5 This hierarchy, this monarchical episcopate, this established and divinely authorized rule in the king dom of God, the aged bishop of Antioch regards as " firmly rooted," as " beyond dispute," and as coextensive with the Church. He speaks of bishops as established in " the farthest parts of the earth," 1 " A.I Trail.," 2, 3. 2 " Ad Philacl.," 3, 4. 3 < Ad Smyrn.," 8. 4 M</; 9- 5 " Ad Trail.," 3. " Ad Eph.," 3. INTRODUCTION. xix and it is evident from his language that, in his judgment, the epis copate is not an evolution from the presbyterate, but is from above, the ordering of God Himself. We cannot, in the space at our command, give all of the many and convincing citations from these epistles, which, as translated by Lightfoot, afford the fullest proof of our position. In the language of Canon MacColl, which has the approval of Bishop Lightfoot himself r 1 " The Ignatian epistles place at least two facts plainly be yond dispute, namely, first, that diocesan episcopacy was then the universal and undisputed form of church government ; secondly, that the diocese, under the administration of its bishops, presbyters, and deacons, was the unit of the Church. The bishop stood at the sum mit of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In him the Church was summed up. From him it could be reproduced." In reply to the notion that during the last three decades of the first century, and consequently during the lifetime of St. John, a change had been brought about from a presbyterate governed by apostles to diocesan episcopacy, Canon MacColl interprets Bishop Lightfoot s contention as follows: " If episcopacy was firmly and widely established during the lifetime of the latest surviving apostle, it can hardly be disputed that it is the form of church government which is according to the mind of Christ. The latest surviving apostle the disciple whom Jesus loved must have learned, dur ing the forty days intercourse with the risen Saviour before the ascension, the mind of his Master on so vital a question, and it is simply inconceivable that he should have sanctioned any ecclesiasti cal polity which was not in full harmony with his Lord s instruction while speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. From the words of Ignatius, so clear, so strong, so abundant, we turn to the testimony of Irenaeus, who was born not later than A.D. 130. He asserts that in his youth he " sat at the feet of Poly-- carp, who had been appointed by the apostles a bishop for Asia in the Church of Smyrna," and that he had listened to the discourses in public and private of this venerable man, whose very looks and ways, he assures us, were indelibly impressed upon his mind. Ire naeus further claims that he had opportunities of instruction from Asiatic " elders," some of whom, he tells us, had been disciples of the apostles. With these means of learning the traditions of the Church in Asia Minor, as shaped by no less an authority than St. John himself, the latest living of the apostolic band, Irenaeus, while yet a young man, and probably prior to Polycarp s martyrdom (circa A.D. 155), removed from Asia to Rome. At the latest, in the year 177, when persecution visited the churches of southern Gaul, 1 " Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals," third edition, 1890, pp. xxv., 258. 2 Acts i. 3. vx I HE EPISCOPATE IX AMERICA. Iren.-Eus was a presbyter of Lyons, and was elevated to the see of the martyred bishop Pothinus. There is record of his visiting Rome prior to his entrance upon the episcopal office, as well as aftenvard, his object in each case being to promote the peace of the Church. Thus fitted by circumstances as well as by his character to know and maintain the " traditions of the elders," we find in his writings, to quote the language of the latest authority on this sub ject, the Rev. Charles Gore, in his work on " The Ministry of the Christian Church," " the picture of the universal Church, spread all over the world, handing down in unbroken succession the apostolic truth ; and the bond of unity, the link to connect the generations in the Church, is the episcopal succession." l The language of Irenaeus is clear and determinate with reference to the succession of the bishops to the authority and rule exercised by the apostles in the Church ; and " because it would be tedious . . . to enumerate the succession of all the churches," he gives that of the Church of Rome, and records the committal of the episcopate by the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul to Linus (A.D. 68), and then the succession from him of Anencletus (A.D. 80), Clement (A.D. 92), Evarestus (A.D. 100), Alexander (A.D. 109), Xystus (A.D. 119), Telesphorus the Martyr (A.D. 128), Hyginus (A.D. 139), Pius (A.D. 142), Anicetus (A.D. 157), Soter (A.D. 168), and at length, in his own day, of Eleutherus (A.D. 177)." Certain discrepancies which confessedly exist in the various lists of Roman bishops which have come down to us may be explained by assuming the existence in the very first ages of two distinct Churches, one Jewish and one Gentile, at Rome. Lightfoot, while claiming that " no more can safely be assumed of Linus and Anencletus than that they held some prominent position in the Romish Church," 3 adds that " the reason for supposing Clement to have been a bishop is as strong as the universal tradition of the next ages can make it." It in no way detracts from this admission with respect to Clement that Lightfoot regards him rather as " the chief of the presbyters than the chief over presbyters," and consequently not in the position of irrespon sible authority occupied by his successors, Eleutherus (A.D. 177) and Victor (A.D. 189), or even by his contemporaries, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna. With Victor, apparently the first Latin prelate who held the bish opric of Rome, a new era begins. The line of ecclesiastical descent is now clearly defined, and by the participation in each consecration of three or more of the episcopal order, required by the early can- i (lore s " Ministry of the Christian Church," chap, iii., p. 119. a Iren., iii., 3. The dates we have given to the successive incumbents of the see of Rome are from Lightfoot. 3 " Commentary on the Philippians," " The Christian Ministry," p. 219. INTRODUCTION. xxi ons and continued with scrupulous exactness till the modern view of episcopacy as held by the papacy permitted at times the substi tution of the papal authority for the presence of more than a single consecrator, there have been knitted together the meshes of that vast network which in its comprehensiveness includes the Church s chief rulers from the very first, and by the multitude of interlacing lines of succession makes any serious defect in the direct connection with the apostles of any individual bishop well-nigh impossible. The succession of bishops from the apostles times is not to be regarded as a chain of single links, the whole being of no greater strength than its weakest part, but as a network or web of interwoven strands, now innumerable, which would hold together even if, to venture an impossible supposition, nine tenths of these lines could be proved de fective and therefore invalid. In other words, a possible defect in one or in a hundred of the different lines of succession would in no way affect the consecration of any bishop of our day, so infinite in number are the interlacing strands of the great network uniting one who has been set apart for this office and administration in the Church of God with the apostles, and through the apostles with Christ, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. AUTHORITIES. In addition to the late bishop of Durham s " Dis sertation on the Christian Ministry," appended to his " Commen tary on the Philippians," and the many special treatises on the apostolical succession by Perceval, Haddon, Elrington, Morse, and others, the latest and most conclusive work on the general subject is that of Gore, "The Ministry of the Christian Church" (Riving- tons, London, 1889). A compact treatise by the Rev. Prof. J. H. Barbour, of the Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn., is admirably arranged and deserves general reading. Its title is " The Beginnings of the Historic Episcopate Exhibited in the Words of Holy Scripture and Ancient Authors " (New York, E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1887). Canon Liddon, in his sermon en titled " A Father in Christ " (Riv.ingtons, 1875), effectually disposes of the arguments of the late Dr. Hatch, in his Bampton Lectures on " The Organization of Early Christian Churches," as well as those of a later paper in the " Contemporary Review " from the same source. A scholarly and conclusive volume, written in Latin, of upward of six hundred pages octavo, gives in detail, and with sufficient critical apparatus, both the arguments for the apostolical succession and the lists of bishops from the apostles time to our own day. The title of this work is as follows: " De Successione Apostolica necnon Mis- sione et Jurisdictione Hierarchiae Anglicanae et Catholicae, unacum appendicibus et indicibus : auctore Venerabili Doctore Jacobo Clark, Archidiacono Antiguensi, Sacellano Exam. Dno. Antiguensi Epo Rectore Par. S. Philippi in Antigua. Georgiopoli in Guiana Britan- xxii ////; i-:nscor.\Ti: i\ AMERICA, nica: MDCCCXC." The third edition of a clever compendium of the argument, by the Rev. Andrew Gray, a priest of the diocese of Massachusetts, has been published in Boston. It is entitled " Apos tolical Succession in the English, Scottish, and American Church, from St. John the Apostle to the Present Time, in the Line of Con- secrators, Taken from Authentic Records." A learned work by the present bishop of Oxford, the eminent historian Dr. William Stubbs, gives the succession in the Church of England. The title of this work is " Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum : An Attempt to Exhibit the Course of Episcopal Succession in England from the Records and Chronicles of the Church" (Oxford, University Press, 1858). II. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE EPISCOPATE INTO THE UNITED STATES. THE American branch of the Holy Catholic Church recognizes the order of bishops as existing from the apostles time. She has not defined the functions pertaining to this order of the sacred min istry, or expressly marked out the limitations of its powers. She refers to Scripture and ancient authors for the fact of the existence " from the apostles time " of this order and office. In other words, the episcopate, sought for and at length secured by our fathers, was the historic episcopate; and in the absence of any definition, in con stitution, canons, liturgy, or symbols, of the nature of this office and administration, it may be inferred that whatever the bishop was, in the judgment and acknowledged practice of the Church, the Ameri can bishop was to be ; so that all rights, powers, and privileges in hering in this office or appertaining to the same were sought for and secured in obtaining the episcopate. In the efforts made for the episcopate we see at the outset, and throughout the struggle, even to the moment of success, the hand and head of him who, as his distinguished successor 1 rightly claimed, " will be recognized as the founder and wise master builder of a system of ecclesiastical polity which, though not faultless, is as perfect as the condition of things then admitted, and of which the essential excellence is likely to be demonstrated by the progress of events." In " The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered " Wil liam White had argued that " it may fairly be inferred that Episco palians on this continent will wish to institute among themselves an 1 Bishop Alonzo Potter. INTRODUCTION. xxiii episcopal government as soon as it shall appear practicable, and that this government will not be attended with the danger of tyranny, either temporal or spiritual." The proposition " to include in the proposed frame of government a general approbation of episcopacy, and a declaration of an intention to procure the succession as soon as conveniently may be, but in the meantime to carry the plan into effect without waiting for the succession," was happily rendered unnecessary, and the writer of this pamphlet became most actively concerned in securing this " succession " for the Church of which he was already a leading spirit. At the meeting of clergy and laity convened in Philadelphia on the 24th of May, 1784, at which Dr. White was chosen chairman, the fourth of the " instructions or fundamental principles " adopted provided " that the succession of the ministry be agreeable to the usage which requireth the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons ; that the rights and powers of the same, respectively, be ascertained ; and that they be exercised according to reasonable laws, to be duly made." In this provision it is easy to recognize the hand of White. Out of the meeting of May, 1 784, there grew, under the fostering care of White, the organization or " association " of the " Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania," which was effected on the 24th of May, 1785. The important document relating to this named as the objects had in view by the clergy and congregations in this " act of association" the following: " For maintaining uniformity in divine worship, for procuring the pozvers of ordination, and for establishing and maintaining a system of ecclesiastical government." In the active correspondence kept up by White with the leading Churchmen North and South we find evidence of his purposes con cerning the "succession." In a letter addressed, in 1784, to the Rev. Samuel Parker, of Trinity Church, Boston, the exact date of which is unfortunately lost, Dr. White thus expresses his views on this important matter: " On the subject of procuring the succession, I shall only observe that if any private measures said to have been undertaken for this end should prove successful, I think the whole Church should gladly avail itself of the acquisition. 2 If not, an application to our Mother-Church from representatives of the Episcopal Church generally will be, surely, too respectable to be slighted ; and such an application might be easily framed by corre spondence among ourselves." 3 Writing again on the loth of August, 1784, to the same corre spondent, White observes: " The Fundamental Principles which you have seen were merely meant as instructions to a committee in their consultations with our brethren in the other States for the form- 1 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," p. 40. 2 This evidently refers to the election of Seabury by the Connecticut clergy and the efforts already made abroad to secure his consecration. 3 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," p. 60. xx j v THE EPISCOPATE IN AMERICA. ing a general constitution for the continent, which we think should be attempted before \\e \i-iiturr to form a constitution for this State in particular. . . . The independence asserted is intended in the most unlimited sense ; but we do not think this precludes us from procuring a bishop from England, he becoming on his arrival a citizen of the United, States. Proper measures for procuring an episcopate we wish to see taken at the ensuing meeting in New York; but as to his support, I know no source for it but a parochial living." ! The clergy of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, under the gui dance of Parker, adopted the Pennsylvania Fundamental Principles with slight additions, the first of these expressing " the opinion of the Convention that this independence be not construed or taken in so rigorous a sense as to exclude the churches in America, separately or collectively, from applying for and obtaining from some regular episcopal foreign power an American episcopate." 2 In the letter accompanying the minutes of this Convention, which, though signed by the moderator, the Rev. J. Graves, is in the hand writing and is evidently the composition of Parker, the position respecting the episcopate expressed in the resolution is further emphasized: " As to the mode of obtaining what we stand in such need of, we wish above all things to procure it in the most regular manner, and particularly from our mother-church in England. Whether any of the bishops in England or Ireland would consecrate a per son chosen among ourselves and sent there for that purpose, without a mandate from the king of England or the authority of her Parliament, we are at a loss to determine ; but we have no doubt that a regular application made by a representative body of the Episcopal churches in America would easily obtain a consecrated head, and in order to do this we earnestly wish a mode of applying in some such way as may be immediately adopted by the American, churches. " We are of the opinion that we ought to leave no means untried to procure a regular succession of the episcopacy before we think of obtaining it in an irregular manner. To accomplish this we have chosen a committee of our body to correspond with you upon this, and adopt such measures for the same as may be expedient or necessary." 3 The letter from the Massachusetts and Rhode Island clergy ex pressed the sentiments prevailing in Connecticut, and which seem to have been current throughout New England. The conservative elements in the North were alarmed, not only at the proposition, in " The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered," for " a tempo rary departure from episcopacy, "but by the radical measures adopted at the southward, where, in Virginia, anticipatory canons were en acted defining and circumscribing the exercise of the episcopal office, and making the bishop not only amenable to trial by the Conven tion, but even liable to " suspension or dismission " from office at its will ; while in South Carolina it was stipulated that bishops should not be introduced at all. Prior to the meeting of the Convention of the churches in the Middle and Southern States in 1785, the efforts of the Connecticut clergy to secure an episcopal head had resulted in success. On the 1 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," p. 61. 2 Ibid., p. 63. 3 ibid., pp. 65, 66. %? 8 1 1 \f * 5 N V $m\& $ hnjpj- iJLil sJ. iwr ^*i INTRODUCTION, xxv I4th of November, 1784, at Aberdeen, the Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D. Oxon., was consecrated the first American bishop by the bish ops of the Catholic remainder of the Church in Scotland. Entering into a concordat with the Church from which he received his epis copal character, Seabury lost no time in beginning his work, and was joyfully received by his clergy, the formal welcome being ex tended in Convocation in Middletown, August, 1785. At this Convocation in Middletown the churches in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were represented by the Rev. Samuel Parker, while the conservative element in New York was represented by the Rev. Benjamin Moore. Both of these gentlemen were friends and correspondents of White, and each had taken part in the prelimi nary measures and meetings of 1784, which had prepared the way for the Convention in Philadelphia in September, 1785. To this meeting Bishop Seabury and his clergy were invited ; but as there was no provision in the Fundamental Principles adopted in New York at the preliminary meeting of I 784 for the proper recog nition of his office, Seabury courteously declined the invitation, as the clergy at the southward did his suggestion that they should attend the meeting at Middletown. It is in evidence that had there been the provision that one of the episcopal order, if present, should preside, as was originally intended by White, Bishop Seabury would have gone to Philadelphia in I 785, as he did later, in 1789; but there can be little doubt that such a step would have been premature, and might have absolutely pre vented, in place of furthering, the unity so greatly desired by both White and himself. There was no little to be done by the states manship and wise, conciliatory measures of White ere the conflict ing elements in the Church could be calmed, and order arise out of chaos. Prior to the meeting in Philadelphia, letters from Bishop Seabury to Drs. William White and William Smith, the leading spirits in the Convention, frankly communicated information respecting the re jection of the Connecticut application in England, and offered the bishop s services for the ordination of candidates until a bishop was secured at the southward. At the same time the bishop objected to the policy which had obtained in the Conventions at the South of encumbering their plans for organization by establishing so many and such precise fundamental rules. He claimed that the powers of the bishop were too much circumscribed, since " government as essentially pertains to bishops as ordination." He denied that " the laity can with any propriety be admitted to sit in judgment on bish ops and presbyters, especially when deposition may be the event ; because they cannot take away a character which they cannot con fer." The bishop was careful to state that he did not think it req- xxv i THE EPISCOPATE L\ AMERICA. uisite that the churches at the southward should be modeled on the Church in Connecticut ; but he earnestly urged that, " in so essential a matter as church government is, no alterations should be made that affect its foundations." The bishop professed himself ready " to assist in procuring bishops in America " so far as he could do this consistently. His desire is stated as follows: " I do most earnestly wish to have our Church in all the States so settled that it may be one Church, united in government, doctrine, and discipline ; that there may be no divisions among us, no opposition of interests, no clashing of opinions." l The objections raised by the bishop of Connecticut, and repeated by the venerable Thomas Bradbury Chandler, of New Jersey, were answered by the indefatigable William White. On the very eve of the meeting in Philadelphia, Parker wrote to his correspondent, in reply to a letter which indicates that the fatal defect of withhold ing the presidency of the Convention from the episcopal order was adopted in opposition to the wish of the far-seeing White. " I am sorry," White writes to Parker, " to find that those measures have been so construed by some of our friends in England as if we had refused to the episcopal order the right of precedency in our Con ventions. Probably you will recollect that in the original draft it was provided the senior bishop present should preside ; and that this was erased, not from the idea that any other than a bishop ought to be president, but from an observation of Dr. S[mith] that to restrain it to the senior bishop might be sometimes inconvenient. I wish that the clause had stood." Parker s letter throws further light on this unfortunate action : " I am, with you, equally sensible that the fifth of the Fundamental Principles in the paper printed at New York has operated much to the disadvantage of that Convention. Had it stood as I proposed, that a bishop (if one in any State) should be president, I make no doubt there would have been one present. You will be at no loss to conclude that I mean Dr. Seabury, who, you must ere this have heard, is arrived and entered upon the exercise of his office in Connecticut. Being present in Convocation at Middletown the 4th of August last, I much urged his attending the Convention at Phil adelphia this month ; but that very article discouraged him so much that no arguments I could use were sufficient to prevail with him. Had that article stood as proposed, the gentleman who moved the amendment would not have suffered by it, nor the Convention been stigmatized as anti- Episcopalian. " 2 The opening pages of the " Journal " of the Convention at Phil adelphia in i 785 bring to our notice a proposed " Plan for Obtaining the Consecration of Bishops, together with an Address to the Most 1 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," pp. 76-82. 2 Ibid., pp. 89, 90. J3 3 1 *^ s r-v* ii<Uiml* w *>.^ri:51T^j ij ?i >ii * - * x^^ #&&# M^^ ^^^>^^^<^?^ dfotrt/f, Ja*aes&~ INTRODUCTION. xxvii Reverend the Archbishops and the Right Reverend the Bishops of the Church of England, for that purpose." 1 The Plan and the Address attest the wide-spread desire of the Churchmen represented in this Convention for the episcopate as a necessary bond of union. They further prove the preference of the churches of the Middle and Southern States for the succession in the English line. Recognizing as the acknowledged hindrance to the success of Dr. Seabury s application to the English prelates the lack of evidence of the concurrence of the civil authorities and the cooperation of the laity in the effort for the succession, they di rected the attention of the State Conventions to measures for the removal of this obstacle. Proofs of the desire of the laity for the introduction of the episcopate were to be provided, and documents certifying the concurrence of the State authorities in the proposed measures, or at least attesting the absence of any constitutional or legislative bar to the introduction of episcopacy, were to be obtained from the various civil rulers. In true republican simplicity, and for the removal of popular prejudices, the framers of the Plan sought to prevent, in the concluding paragraph, the assumption on the part of future bishops of the lordly titles of the English prelates a prop osition not infrequently, though erroneously, quoted as of authority at the present day. The Address to the English prelates was manly and dignified. Bishop White informs us 2 that this paper and the Plan itself, "as they stand on the Journals, " were his own composition, " with the exception of a few verbal alterations." It expressed the " earnest desire and resolution " of " the members of our communion " " to retain the venerable form of episcopal government, handed down to them, as they conceived, from the time of the apostles; and en deared to them by the remembrance of the holy bishops of the primitive Church, of the blessed martyrs who reformed the Church of England, and of the many great and pious prelates who have adorned that Church in every succeeding age." Its plea was summed up in these words : " The petition which we offer to your venerable body is that, from a tender regard to the religious inter ests of thousands in this rising empire, professing the same religious principles with the Church of England, you will be pleased to con fer the episcopal character on such persons as shall be recommended by this Church in the several States here represented ; full satisfac tion being given of the sufficiency of the persons recommended, and of its being the intention of the general body of the Episcopalians in the said States, respectively, to receive them in the quality of bishops." 1 Perry s " Reprinted Journals," i., 19. 2 " Memoirs of the Church," second edition, p. 101. xxviii THK EPISCOPATE IN AMERICA. Reference is felicitously made to the possibility of obstacles aris ing from political complications; and stress is laid on the fact that in view of the separation of Church and State the civil rulers of the United States cannot unite officially in the application for the epis copal succession. The Address closes with a graceful as well as grateful acknowledgment of the kind offices rendered by the Eng lish hierarchy and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to the American Church, to which, under God, its " prosperity is in an eminent degree to be ascribed." It was in this Address that, as Bishop White asserts, " a foundation was thus laid for the procuring of the present episcopacy." " To have abandoned the episcopal succession," writes Bishop White in his " Memoirs of the Church," " would have been in opposition to primitive order and ancient habits, and, besides, would at least have divided the Church. To have had recourse to Scotland, indepen dently of the objections entertained against the political principles of the nonjurors of that country, would not have been proper, without previous disappointment on a request made to the mother-church. Another resource remained, in foreign ordination ; which had been made the easier by the act of the British Parliament, passed in the preceding year, to enable the bishop of London to ordain citizens or subjects of foreign countries without exacting the usual oaths. But besides that this would have kept the Church under the same hardships which had heretofore existed, and had been so long complained of, dependence on a foreign country in spirituals, when there had taken place independence in temporals, is what no pru dent person would have pleaded for." The reply of the English prelates was courteous but cautious, and, in fact, non-committal. It was prepared by the archbishop of Canterbury, and was signed by the two archbishops and the bish ops of London, Chichester, Bath and Wells, St. Asaph, Salisbury, Peterborough, Ely, Rochester, Worcester, Oxford, Exeter, Lincoln, Bangor, Lichfield and Coventry, Gloucester, St. David s, and Bris tol. The letter expresses the wish of the English prelates to pro mote the spiritual welfare of their " Episcopal brethren in America," and their desire to be instrumental in procuring for them " the complete exercise of our holy religion, and the enjoyment of that ecclesiastical constitution " which they believed " to be truly apos tolical," and for which the letter of request expressed " so unreserved a veneration." The archbishop did not conceal his satisfaction that " this pious design " was " not likely to receive any discountenance from the civil powers " in America, and promised " the best endea vors " of the English prelates " to acquire a legal capacity of com plying with the prayer" of the American Address. At the same time, and with every allowance for the difficulties of the situation, INTRODUCTION. xxix the fear is expressed that in the proceedings of the Convention " some alterations may have been adopted or intended which those difficulties do not seem to justify." In view of the fact that these alterations are not mentioned in the Address, and that the know ledge of their nature possessed by the bishops in England had reached them " through private and less certain channels," the bish ops thought it but just to "wait for an explanation." "Anxious to give every proof," not only of " brotherly affection," but also of facility in forwarding the wishes of their American brethren, they felt that they could not " but be extremely cautious lest " they " should be the instruments of establishing an ecclesiastical system " which " could be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterward" might "possibly appear to have departed from it essen tially, either in doctrine or discipline." The correspondence between the Philadelphia Convention and the primate had been carried on through the kindly intervention of the celebrated John Adams, the American minister at the court of St. James. Mr. Adams, although connected with the Congrega tional body of Massachusetts, and coming from a State where the opposition to the introduction of episcopacy into America had been more decided than elsewhere the aversion to the measure being occasioned by religious as well as political prejudices undertook this office of furthering the object which the celebrated Samuel Adams had declared to be a moving cause of the war for indepen dence with an alacrity and enthusiasm most honorable to the man and to his freedom from religious or political prejudices. He de livered the Address to the archbishop in person, and by his personal efforts in public and private greatly facilitated the progress of the measure. It was through Mr. Adams that the reply of the arch bishops and bishops was transmitted to Dr. White. That the office thus kindly undertaken was one liable to misconception, and that the prejudices against the introduction of the episcopate were not wholly allayed, making the service rendered by the American min ister the more valuable and effective, may be inferred from the lan guage used by Mr. Adams nearly thirty years afterward, when re ferring to his share in the successful effort for securing the episcopate for America. "There is no part of my life," writes ex-President Adams to Bishop White, under date of October 29, 1814, "on which I look back and reflect with more satisfaction than the part I took, bold, daring, and hazardous as it was to myself and mine, in the introduction of the episcopacy into America." There had been an active correspondence kept up by William White and prominent English friends from the very moment of the cessation of hostilities between Great Britain and the independent States of America. The letters which passed between Dr. Inglis, xxx THE EPlSCOr.lTE IN AMERICA. formerly of Trinity, New York, and later the first British colonial bishop, the celebrated Philadelphia refugee clergyman, the Rev. Jacob Duche, together with the Rev. Dr. Alexander Murray, who had, for a time, been the missionary of the Venerable Society at Reading, in Pennsylvania, and Dr. White, the leading spirit in the measures now rife for the organization and perpetuation of the American Church, are full of interest and throw no little light on the inner workings of the plan to secure the episcopate. Beginning with the appearance of " The Case of the Episcopal Churches Con sidered," the letters from these English correspondents became most important in acquainting White, informally and often confidentially, with difficulties arising from misapprehensions of the steps taken in America, or from fears entertained of the doctrinal unsoundness or moral unfitness of some who were known, or supposed, to be can didates for the office of bishop in the American Church. The loyalist clergy in London, who were naturally in the confi dence of the archbishop and the leading dignitaries of the Establish ment, were soon able to assure their correspondent in Philadelphia that a proper application for the episcopate would be favorably re garded. The passage of the act of Parliament authorizing the dis pensing with the usual oaths in the case of American candidates for orders gave further assurance of a kindly interest in the rising American Church. The needs of the Church in the United States became a matter of interest and discussion in the public press. Pamphlets were published on the subject by leading men, such as the celebrated philanthropist, Granville Sharp, Esq., a grandson of a former archbishop of York. The offices not alone of Mr. Adams, the American minister, but also of the celebrated Benjamin Frank lin, then in Paris, were invoked. The proper foundation of the in dependent American Church, and its completion, by the gift of the succession, seem to have occupied the thoughts, the labors, and the prayers of the leading men in Church and State at this critical period. At length the correspondents of William White were able to write definitely as well as encouragingly. Murray begins his com munication of the nth of March, 1786, with the prophetic words: " I would fain hope the day is not far distant when I shall have the honor of addressing you as Right Reverend." He proceeds: " Mr. Adams has finally obviated all political objections to your application, and reconciled the king, the members, and the whole bench of bishops to it." It was a relief to find that the alterations in the Prayer-book, comprising what is now known as the Proposed Book, were " not yet approved, but only proposed and recom mended." As Bishop White informs us, it was "the omission of Christ s descent into hell, in the Apostles Creed," as given in the INTRODUCTION. xxxi Proposed Book, that was specially distasteful to the English prel ates, though this objection was urged only by the bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Moss. The failure of the archbishops and bishops to receive the advance sheets of the Proposed Book (which, though sent to them from time to time as the work was hurried through the press, failed, through some mischance, to reach their destination) occasioned the " caution " which Bishop White notices as character izing the English prelates reply. Even in the United States there was a lack of unanimity in this effort to remove the reference to the descent into hell from the Apostles Creed. Both at the North and the South it was felt that such radical changes were likely to prejudice the success of the application in England for the episco pate, and also imperil the unity of the Church in the United States. A very large number of Churchmen sympathized with the bishop of Connecticut and the conservative element in New England, New York, and New Jersey. All these deprecated any liturgical changes from the English book, or doctrinal departure from the standards of the mother-church. This was deemed, to quote the language of Parker, of Boston, addressed to Dr. White, " in direct violation of the fourth Fundamental Principle agreed on by the Convention in New York" in 1784. This principle provided that the American Church should maintain the doctrines of the Church of England, and adhere to the liturgy of that Church so far as consistent with the American Revolution and the constitutions of the respective States. A confidential letter from the Rev. Dr. Inglis, to whom alone the archbishop s letter had been communicated, to Dr, White, under date of June 6, I 786, expressed the satisfaction of the English bish ops at finding, on the receipt of the Proposed Book, " that the great essential doctrines of Christianity " were " preserved ; particularly the doctrine of the holy Trinity and our Saviour s atonement." The archbishop of Canterbury had now " taken up the business with greater zeal," and was about to apply for an act of Parliament authorizing the consecration of bishops for America. The condi tions required by the archbishops and bishops, as stated by Dr. Inglis, were these: " (i) A restoration of the article which has been expunged out of the Apostles Creed. (2) A restoration of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, so far, at least, as to leave the use of them discretional. (3) Securing to the future bishops that just and permanent authority which is not only necessary for the right discharge of their duty and the benefit of the Church, but which is warranted by Holy Scripture and the practice of the Christian Church in every period of its existence. And (4) proper testi monials, such as the peculiarity of the case demands, of the compe tency in point of learning, the unblemished moral character, and the xxx ii ////; j-:rjscorA n-: AV AMERICA. soundness in the faith, of those who may be sent over for consecra tion." Proceeding to discuss these conditions, Dr. Inglis gives us some light on the action taken in New York, to which, as we have seen, Dr. Parker, of Boston, so strenuously excepted : " With regard to your future bishop s permanent authority, I consider it as absolutely necessary to the peace, order, and good government of your churches. V\ hen I first saw the regulation made on this head I was astonished how any people professing themselves members of an Episcopal church could think of degrading their bishop in such a manner. No episcopal power whatever is reserved for him but that of ordination, and perhaps con firmation. He is only a member, ex officio, of the Convention where he resides, but is not to take the chair, or preside, unless he is asked ; whereas such presidency is as essential to his character as ordination. St. Paul s bishop was to receive and judge of accusations brought against presbyters, as hath been the case of bishops ever since; but your bishop has nothing to do with such matters the Convention, consisting mostly of laymen, are to receive and judge of accusations against him. In short, his barber may shave him in the morning, and in the afternoon vote him out of his office. " I was astonished, I say, at this regulation, and could not account for the clergy s agreeing to it ; but my astonishment ceased when I was assured by a letter from America that all the clergy except one opposed it, but were outvoted, or overawed into a compli ance, by the laity. This accounted for the matter ; it is only one of the evils which I fore saw would attend the introduction of so many laymen into Conventions ; and be assured it will be followed by many others." The Convention of the Episcopal churches of the Middle and Southern States met in Philadelphia in June, 1786. It assembled, Bishop White informs us, " under circumstances which bore strong appearances of a dissolution of the union in this stage of it." There contributed to this state of affairs several circumstances. The " in terfering instructions from the churches in the different States " each of these churches being independent of the others and each cherishing its own notions as to the organization and perpetuation of the Church afforded one source of danger. The " embarrass ment which had arisen from the rejection of the Proposed Book in some of the States and the use of it in others," together with the almost universal disposition to revise still further this revision and amend its proposed amendments, afforded another source of appre hension. There had grown up in the minds of some, notably through the influence of the patriot Provoost, the \Yhig rector of Trinity, New York, a spirit of opposition to the bishop of Connecti cut, and a disposition to discredit the source whence he had received the episcopate ; and the warmth of feeling thus engendered threat ened the lasting separation of the Churchmen in America. The un willingness of the Church in South Carolina to receive a bishop at all, and the growing indifference in Virginia to the adoption of mea sures for securing the succession, indicated a lack of Churchly senti ment and an indifference to religion itself most discouraging. The attempts of the able but erratic Dr. William Smith, of Maryland, to obtain the episcopate of the Church in that State, and the attitude 1 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," p. 302. INTRODUCTION. xxxiii of Provoost, of New York, toward those of his brethren who were in sympathy with Seabury and the New England Churchmen, were elements of weakness in the union of the churches of the Middle and Southern States. Remonstrances from the conserva tive Churchmen of New Jersey had been addressed to the Conven tion, deprecating the radical measures already taken. It was evi dent that there was no prospect of securing any cooperation from New England in their further efforts for organization. Parker, of Boston, had expressed his conviction that the Scotch succession was less likely to excite prejudice than that of England, at this time. " In these Northern States," he wrote to Dr. White, " I much doubt whether a bishop from England would be received, so great is the jealousy still existing of the British nation. Of a Scotch bishop there can be no suspicions, because, wholly unconnected with the civil powers themselves, they could introduce none into these States. Were it not for these reasons I frankly confess I should rather have the succession from the English Church, to which we have always been accustomed to look as children to a parent." x Besides these unpromising circumstances, the caution so evident in the letter of the English prelates, and the question whether the conditions they laid down would be granted by the Convention, added to the difficulties of the situation. One man alone in the midst of these complications pursued the even tenor of his way. William White never lost heart; never remitted his exertions in the interest of the Church of which he was now confessedly the leading spirit. Correcting misapprehensions, overcoming opposition, remov ing prejudices, he labored with one single end and aim in view. It was for the Church of God that he worked untiringly, and we may well bless God for his patient toil and well-deserved success. The conflicting instructions to the deputies accredited to the Convention of June, 1786, from their respective constituencies, were skilfully gotten over by their reference " to the first Conven tion which should meet, fully authorized to determine on a Book of Common Prayer." This adroit use of a rule of parliamentary pro cedure was the suggestion of William White. It was through this expedient that, as White expressed it, " the instructions, far from proving injurious, had the contrary effect, by showing as well the necessity of a duly constituted ecclesiastical body as the futility of taking measures to be reviewed and authoritatively judged of in the bodies of which we were the deputies. Such a system appeared so evidently fruitful of discord and disunion that it was abandoned from this time." : The same judicious delay of definite action with respect to the Proposed Book removed the embarrassment threat- 1 Perry s " Historical Notes and Documents," p. 309. 2 White s " Memoirs of the Church," De Costa s edition, p. 131. XNX j v THE EPISCOPATE IN AMERICA. ened by the acceptance in some quarters, and the rejection in others, of this crude and hasty compilation. In the settlement of the question of the Scotch succession, which was only indirectly at tacked, the conservatism and Christian courtesy of William White were specially apparent. The opposition to the Scottish episcopate was, so far as the clerical deputies were concerned, confined to the Rev. Samuel Provoost, afterward first bishop of New York, and the Rev. Robert Smith, afterward first bishop of South Carolina. Personal and political prejudices seem to have had their influence in this attempt to throw discredit on the source whence Seabury had obtained the episcopate. The Convention was barely organized when the Rev. Robert Smith introduced a resolution " That the clergy present produce their letters of orders, or declare by whom they were ordained." This motion was aimed at the Rev. Joseph Pilmore, a convert from the Methodists, who had received orders from Seabury, and the Rev. William Smith, 1 of Stepney parish, Md., and afterward of Newport, R. I., and Norwalk, Conn., who had been ordained in Scotland by a bishop of the Church from which Seabury had received consecration. The judicious applica tion of the "previous question" prevented the discussion which it was anticipated would grow out of this motion, and the resolution itself w r as lost. Provoost, not satisfied with this expression of the temper of the Convention, offered the following resolution : " That this Convention will resolve to do no act that shall imply the validity of ordinations made by Dr. Seabury." Again the " previous question " cut off dis cussion, and the motion itself was determined in the negative. So determined was the feeling of opposition to Dr. Seabury indicated by these motions that action of some kind could not be avoided, and consequently a compromise resolution offered by Dr. White was unanimously adopted. This motion provided " That it be recommended to this Church, in the States here represented, not to receive to the pastoral charge, within their respective limits, clergy men professing canonical subjection to any bishop in any State or country other than those bishops who may be duly settled in the States represented in this Convention." This resolution, as explained by Dr. White himself, was pressed with a view of meeting the charge, made on the floor of Convention, that clergymen ordained under the Scotch succession were under canonical subjection to the bishop who ordained them, even though they might reside outside of the limits of his see. The Rev. Mr. Pilmore, the only one of the deputies who had received orders from the bishop of Connecticut, " denied that any such thing had been exacted of him," and the resolution (for which, as Bishop W 7 hite is careful to state, there was 1 The compiler of the Institution Office, originally known as the Induction Office. INTRODUCTION. xxxv never "any ground " other than " in the apprehension which has been expressed ") was adopted without opposition. On the following day the Rev. Robert Smith returned to the sub ject and offered the following resolution, which, evidently regarded by the Convention, as Bishop White informs us, as a " temperate guarding " against a possible difficulty, was unanimously adopted : " Resolved, That it be recommended to the Conventions of the Church represented in its General Convention, not to admit any person as a minister, within their respective limits, who shall receive ordination from any bishop residing in America during the ap plication now pending to the English bishops for episcopal consecration." This matter disposed of, the Convention proceeded to the consid eration of the letter from the English bishops. Resolutions express ing the " grateful sense of the Christian affection and condescension manifested in this letter" were adopted, and with this acknowledg ment of the kindness of the English prelates the application for the succession was renewed, coupled with fresh assurances of attach ment to the system of the Church of England. The reply to the archbishops and bishops was originally drafted by Dr. William Smith, but this paper being deemed " too full of compliment," it was, on the motion of the Hon. John Jay, considerably modified in tone and language. As finally adopted, it expressed a grateful ap preciation of the fatherly sentiments contained in this letter of the English prelates ; it reiterated the assurance that there was no pur pose in America " of departing from the constituent principles of the Church of England " ; it claimed that no alterations or omissions had been made in the Book of Common Prayer but such as were neces sary to make it consistent with the civil constitutions, or " such as were calculated to remove objections " on the part of the people of the United States. The " proposed ecclesiastical constitution and Book of Common Prayer " accompanied this renewed request for the succession, and the alterations and modifications of the former made this second application more acceptable. As Bishop White observes, referring particularly to the development of a more conser vative and Churchly spirit, as seen in the fuller recognition of epis copal character and dignity by this Convention : " In the preced ing year the points alluded to were determined on with too much warmth, and without investigation proportioned to the importance of the subjects. The decisions of that day were now reversed, not to say without a division, but without even an opposition." It should not be forgotten that these constitutional changes in the direction of conservative Churchmanship were introduced by Dr. White and carried through his influence. These alterations gave to the bishop, if present, the presidency of the Convention, and re quired the bishop s presence at all ecclesiastical trials, giving to him xxxvi THE EPISCOPATE IX AMERICA. the sole right of pronouncing the " sentence of deposition or degra dation on any clergyman, whether bishop or presbyter or deacon." Bishop White, who gives us in his " Memoirs of the Church " the unwritten history of this period, specifies as among the chief means of securing the moderation in tone and temper for which this Con vention was noticeable the presentation of a memorial from the Convention of New Jersey, drawn up, as was " afterward learned with certainty," by the learned and devout Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, of Elizabethtown, and couched in language both conser vative and conclusive. This memorial urged the General Conven tion to revise the proceedings of the meeting of 1785, and to " re move every cause that may have excited any jealousy or fear that the Episcopal Church in the United States of America have any intention or desire essentially to depart, either in doctrine or disci pline, from the Church of England." Bishop White regards this letter as " among the causes which prevented the disorganizing of" " the American Church," since its arguments must have convinced the deputies " that the result of considerable changes would have been the disunion of the Church." Shortly after the rising of the Convention there came into the hands of Dr. White a communication from the archbishops of Can terbury and York, which was followed by a letter from the arch bishop of Canterbury alone, inclosing a recent act of Parliament authorizing the consecration of bishops for America. On the receipt of these letters the committee appointed for this purpose convened the Convention at Wilmington, Del., on the loth of October. The archbishops prefaced their words with an earnest depreca tion. It is " impossible," write the prelates, " not to observe with concern that if the essential doctrines of our common faith were re tained, less respect, however, was paid to our liturgy than its own excellence, and your declared attachment to it, had led us to expect. Not to mention a variety of verbal alterations, of the necessity or propriety of which we are by no means satisfied, we saw with grief that two of the confessions of our Christian faith, respectable for their antiquity, have been entirely laid aside ; and that even in that called the Apostles Creed an article is omitted which was thought necessary to be inserted, with a view to a particular heresy, in a very early age of the Church, and has ever since had the venerable sanc tion of universal reception." The letter announced the application of the bishops for the passage of an act of Parliament authorizing the consecrations desired. This step was taken in the expectation that their representations would secure the modification of the rad ical action of the American Convention. Great stress was laid upon the necessity of affording " the most decisive proofs of the qualifica tions " of those recommended for consecration. The bishops called */<? f-f t fattnufitt o/ffit t/fl* wfji fittnirt f hf /tit ifamt i.bifirntJlb iia^rna hf&rff fij /fit {?>,/&*<>/+ finif fa fojt* /ft ffittn tfnwtt to -f/ tj,</6frii a fit fe cprryb ffn em Sn:/. %<r /^/< (aiuc 0t St \2fffay /in* fitaeretttJ fifm 770 3nidi~r>rfo ffn em jSn:/. %<r /^/<y (aiuc 0/t/tia* ffffn /ht {(itrtt/pniM <rr te/Htft fit time ft/f vij vcrttvmn i/tur fljtftfhj wnateffTn/tamee fy tftote iS-mr/rr/ t/ rsr/ifnJ tvt /ft .fta/itiS & ->je>in ~,/injJif, ffif) f&&gt; .in// >.ee/iain^A eal. ^ (ItuA /tiAon, jol/ffeti/ tft.JCnearMqr efwfilfh wr eviifa nf/ fvinfumt /o afificy. fit tUaw cttnit ft* nirft \%tft<> 4t (t*e ritsrfoorif fa me iemLftiion cf yotvs. #&* *%r Je^ii> at of/nt G?rfvrft/ifn . atf Mt fi\*/ /on tr^/yttit Jt/<rtqy, ./ */ rie/ u&es a* />fl -rtjftt Mart Are witnmj nf/tt ein nt ertfir 0f. tjoiit flddtrf/! find /f ame ntf-f fafiffcien _cf $t temattitna four/ efif t f><nffofirom flififn*) rrff /nt rctcfe/aii lif-iif. 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" 9"** to Mr fit*/*?iian ltt/irnil ffia/ //a Sn6tJtn Vt-uj <tjfli*fr,/fij uituHwtanceiti JRt* JtJpHrr.ey tn Jlt^nna. /& JLnnJ,, / / fotKt/y O */., & m it-/0 ,/#. /,/ *r,J teliaan ouran.Anit^imatn * *toe*ene m*tm. ta 3//qA/.lteiret fo Se, se/ULVtM ftffm //i& (yjn>coaf{fiauiffct: /re /Mte/ate <fo na/ teaav fnr/fier* i a/iifnfnfn--itn IAi* formf man IIHKO*. q!vtn /*#* Gu /fie 3tmt "f -* t_ * ff*t>ftm0Ti!& u^/&, nr*tr*ttf finfm i fully nit*A**0 /Ka/ /hffje ivfto jin n jtruf Ce. ttteff autote/, ftfiu uua/M ifncfmJu</riite tn fhu /tttfuft mud iffoe tjjttifift an aaff b ft nfita/ea, Jafyfn t/aii fat/* aAe-aJa hn cnffrfl lf/.-an ^ J<i. ti.rri fjiotae at am oivn CKuicn* ettifi a,-/ tncprtdi^Jrli tm/ff.JKa/ linear A*y(*tJ tv&r. ffr feat A iffatti, /fffCtune fiat ea-/>."ti/-tn rlethilfig. f&t/j et//n tffc Qss/ *^ /<tm^ mf,^tehifn ifen ht~t IJffln ,,tm*J ftttftrrt* a&o &, /& Ae^wt/ afanit _.^ *&"*& Mct.t/ ffi, tokrtmnj fc&fyfi*i* ^ 0&/ af /e /, Me \K, e cf& o/ * ffe J^T *^" II HP ""V", &t fn;aft/ t> faZ** fa** ~P&M Wtrij tjOu t*>l(nt fo </6 Jn/eai^/t/ /&. fl/w/&&gt; (!teJ. m lvf,ef$ i/*u ,ueJ tfVfnvufy ai tt*nr4,/m ts1lna/*/Mt/un*i0n am ffnnttn, ftlai tan Sfa/ foe Jfmt frAen ijeti mt ttfjn&fma ttvJ)i/.&/iinent 0f&ut>0fi* in ijaut, ~-j (fntvtett, M etiJ ftaf-j&eniiaj *t(ne*tn/-& t/eu /&/ /&. 8:ahf ft* At ft afffott* -^ Jix fttfenfftn lfjlfoe.a, vtrtjeif-tn CrtSXe jKitJ anef finfJiSaif, ta/i fft t^fur/* yfinZftl cf t^f tftttffif,(m Oftkt OUtvie},, >fin bn&nf/ AnJ fimeti at. and tft Otvt tvmmert Ctomfianiftf. it 4* eiuAltf jUi.miiftiiwytn if, ftia/ fte fttfit otn tn h>f>l to f*nile on tfu> Jlifyee/. / m*t tfler/ me *+mt Jt+ttri fiu /ttrfiSe Viti r+ O^tfit>fr)& It-ilf St-auien tn fht fluviffi wfttit & ttdfeie* en (tn/tiilta., &i Itn fh 3%af H*"/ **i lnafan ttqifion e<rrn fiesta of //test/ h tanem /& Jet* eon 6> It earuitetfiftfi u nninourf*. tZi/tmtfni nfo j/qntrf Otj Jrnsttno (tifinn fn ingfatiJ Ai/mit ef/Sefivtnft-tititLS pn-, anj tft fitar/ft*> 0f/*t*e- tvjff-ijnr*. ffirr* nit mfjtrf M iAtrt4 ny, antf, <i At* df*i *rnfi/Weeti/. So $,nt*bntnf. <Jn t&ofiftA on lit June tflAwfc. tnna* mat t && fAnl. nu /fa/ tfe *r, tuif J/ Ir itt (,J,/. ftnn /& jnfl flf/tjtffn ;7..//wV// /r inni &n,, aJwi o/tvfi, r f& t//irna/tu tutfo Jin mem totm Je*/t>nO ffn Hiri* Oun ht*M>nnfJSnete&e(a ifiiJ of/At CjtnHflfftnvtnfto-n cftfit tyjrJff^>af^^hiitfA HI ffinfttea *n ffi^t inie Me &.<* to at ten.ifma/tit it of a Vitttio iij Jlft aurl soimJ !Jn!/K. f ft ha a Xtm A> tikhnn* !i> fo [jloVtt to It tufJ /(n Via/ fymfifJt* 9natt i/ita /i( WeffiH.ation* mtu/ tit made kj ffii vf/tmun6 Of /hi jlntt>ft>fi fn m firm Ivfiisfi ffit jMfTitt Oflad joi /cnsefta/i frt flu tu/itr/nttKt tetauimtndeel, Men fieufna/ s&iotouJyr afffirm Jf in t mr> Ui ftf. \2onfi of fu fitut /nnr;oit ffieii tton/in ftff OSjce/ieri n> me Orkjftt an rffiir Jf>/a 0f(1 y^Knion! en lahlrA v nrtn*tul. tt-nd fftfHtm tifltn Ke Jau &?!nrtjb&i Antt rin/arnfria J& Imrti t?//**/a/t tn* 0/firt^aria tl f itf a t- 7> me tMintLj Offnoj* lohMi fenunfttttj mt- ctmevtrifJ tn /fit Q fuiJ ntiieK mfavtffurtuiR/iftiqfi/ h eofnmttmeir/t a> e[#tr tut moat" e a/ jtoetmf... tnffn&nit .b nit* Ipu fotfiut ifrtjennnfttn tU *r* nj tn a** Jn me mean 3mt iK^tftatj (foil fo eiiitff ijoui (Jtiiinjrtti in Hit* tury oieig/i/i/ fflaffa ANKO REGN1 Magntt Britannia, Frand^ & Hibcrni*, VICES1MO SEXTO. At the Parliament began and holdcn at Wtfiminftcr, the Eighteenth Day of May, Anno Domini 1784, in the Twenty- fourth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Brifatn, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, Gfo And frpm thence continued, by feveral Prorogations, to the Twenty- fourth Day of January^ 1786; being the Third SeOJoo of the Six. tccBth Parliament oT Grttt Britain. LONDON : Printed by C. EYRE and the Executors of W. STRAHAN, Printers to the King s moft Excellent Majefty, 1786. [ 15*7 ] ANNO VICESIMO SEXTO Georgii III. Regis. iftiJ>fri*ix&cfr:ct>c CAP. LXXXIV. An Aft to empower the Archbifhop of Canter bury, or the Archbifhop of York, for the Time befog, to confecrate to the Office of a Bifhop, Perfons being Subjects or Citizens of Coun tries out of His Majefty s Dominions. , 6f tbe tatas of tfjffl Bealm, no jpertbn can lie confe* irateDto tfce fiDEKce of a "Biiljop toftb* out tfee BUng * licence fo? $fe OBIec* tton to tjat Office, ano tbe Bogal 80anUatc uftber tfie e??at tfteal fog tte Conunnation no Confecratfon: 3nB toftercais ebcrp jperfon toDo (Iiall fie confecrateD to tfts feiO jSDStcc {0 require^ to tafte ttjc fltetfr* of aHcgiance antt feupiemacj?, ano affo tfie )atft of Due )oeOience to tfte arc&biQjop : ants tDljertas tbere are oiscru perfone, &ub ^ea0{ Citizens of Countrieg out of tyis 00ajeflp Domi* niow, anD inbabitfng ano rcODtng toitfjin the fatD.Coun. tdw, tofto pjcfcftf tfce public^ OJojt^p of aimigWp (BoD. arrowing to tfce jptintiple* of tf>e glmvcb of England, ano fcobo, in o;Der to pjoDiOea regular SucccIKon of ^inifizM fo? ttie feertiice of tftefe Cfturcft, are Deffrouir of Basing certain of toe &ub/eB 01 CUfjena of tpofe Countric0 con* fectateo Bfftoptf, accojDing to tftc JFojm of Confecration lit tfie CDurcb of England: TBe it enafteD 6p tfjc Btng tf moft Crccllcnt g0a/e% bj> antr toitfj tbe aoticc anD Content of tte JLojUs Spiritual anD Ccmpoinl, ano Commonjar, in tbuf pjefene parliament afembleD, anD tg D8 A a) tbe it Arcs * i* il HU . ANNO REGNI VICESIMO SEXTO. &c. Ctp.Z^ tfie autfioiitg of the fame, (Cfjat, from anu after t&c patT*. ing of tb aft, ft (ball ano mag be latoful to an& foj the artbbiftop of Canterbury, o? toe 3rc&bilbop of York, fty tbe Cime being, toget&er tottb futbotijcr TSil!)op0ajt tbep &*n call to tbefc atffftanee, to conteccatc perfan0, being *ubje80 0{ Clti?en0 of <Jountrfe0 out ef tyig qpajett^ S?ominton0, TBifljops, fO| tbe >urpofe0 afo?efaiO, toitbout tbe ftlng Licence fo; tbeic eiettion, o? tbe Bogal ^an> trace, unoer ttie (P?eat fecal, fo| tbeir Confirmation <mb Confeccanon, enDtoitbout requiring tfjem to tafee tbe >at&0 of allegiance ano Supieniacp, ano tbe Dat{) of Out Obeoience to tbe arcbbiQpp fo; tbe Cime being. H. jpioftiDeo alttagiet, Cbst no jper(on5 QjaH be confe. crated BiujopK in tbe Banner herein pjobiDeD, until tbe arcftbiftop of Cantca-bury, o? tbe arcbblQjop of York, fo ? th ^ cime Wn B an ftabe firft applieb foj anb obtainea Jptjs qgajeftg s licence, bg (DHarrant unber ]bui JScgal dig* net ano ign Manual, autftojtQng anb empowering bim to perfoim fucb Confecrarfon, anD erpjedlng tbe jQame o? jQanre* of tbe i?erfon0 To TO br confccratei, no? until tbe faib 3I)biQjop ba0 been fulig arcettaineb of tbefc fufid. encg tn good Learnm^ of tbe dounbneGs of tbeir JFattft, anfi of tbe l?uritg of tbetr Banners. in. piotibeb 8lfo anD be it&erebp DedareO, Cbat no perOjn 0} J?erfon0 tonfecratcb to tfte Office of a %n)op m tbe Banner a&?efat 6 not ang perron o; perfomi oeri&fng tbeir Confecrotion from oj unber an? ttifbop To confe. crateD, not ang i^rrfon ot &erCbn* abmitteb to tbe )8>|be5 of Deacon o? jp^iett bp ang ISiftop o? ToiOjops ft confe. crateD, 0} by tbe ducceffb} 0| &uccefo;0 of an? TBifbop o? BiQjop^ ft ccnCetratetJ, (ball be tberebp enablrb to ererrffe &i0 oj tlieir refpe&ibe >ffice oj IV. jp^otiiDeD ajtoagg, enb be it furtber enafteD, Cfiat a Certificate of fucb Confecratfon (ball be giben uncer tbe IpanD anD deal of tbe 3rcbbi(hop tobo confetrare*, con* taining tbe JQamt of tbe jpecfon fo confectateD, tbe abDition, as toell of tbr <2tounttp toberrof be jpft oj Citijen, a0 of tbe Cburcb in tobicb be i0dpp3intrO ^ifbop, ans tbe furtber SDefcripttcn of biff not taken tbe faib Datb0, being ereqipteb from tbe tion cf To Doing bg birtue of tti!0 aft. 9 F I N J S INTRODUCTION. xxxvii upon the Convention, before the bishops elect should make the sub scription required by the tenth article of the proposed ecclesiastical constitution, to " restore to its integrity the Apostles Creed " ; to " give to the other two creeds a place" in the Prayer-book, "even though the use of them should be left discretional;" and to make some alteration in the eighth article of the ecclesiastical constitution, removing what appeared to the bishops " to be a degradation of the clerical, and still more of the episcopal character." The solicitude of the bishops respecting the " purity of manners " of those recommended for consecration led them to require " the most effectual securities" ; and forms of testimonial, to be signed by the General and State Conventions, accompanied the letter, which have been ever since, and are still, in use in the American Church. These testimonials, Bishop White assures us, gave "general satisfac tion." "The General Convention," continues Bishop White, "had not been without apprehensions that some unsuitable character, as to morals, might be elected ; and yet for them to have assumed a control might have been an improper interference with the churches in the individual States." It is at this point, and evidently calling to mind the grave is sues depending on the proper action at this critical moment, that Bishop White, in his " Memoirs of the Church," interrupts the nar rative with the paragraph we quote : " The question to be determined on at the present session was, Whether the Ameri can Church would avail herself of the opportunity of obtaining the episcopacy, which had been so earnestly desired ever since the settlement of the colonies, the want of which had been so long complained of, and which was now held out in offer. When the author con siders how much, besides the preference due to episcopal government, the continuance or the restoration of divine worship in the almost deserted churches, their very existence as a society, and, of course, the interests of religion and virtue, were concerned in the is sue, he looks back with a remnant of uneasy sensation at the hazard which this question run, and at the probability which then threatened that the determination might be con trary to what took place." l On the assembling of the adjourned Convention at Wilmington, Del., the papers from England were referred to a committee of which Dr. White was evidently the leading member. This com mittee, we are told by Bishop White, " sat up the whole of the succeeding night digesting the determinations in the form in which they appear on the Journal. These conclusions were comprised in a paper entitled " An Act of the General Convention of Clerical and Lay Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South Caro lina, held at Wilmington, in the State of Delaware, on Wednesday, the nth of October, 1786." This act, after reciting the precedent circumstances of the organization and conventional action of the American Church, proceeds to "determine and declare": 1 White s " Memoirs of the Church," De Costa s edition, p. 138. xxxviii T1IK Kl JSCOPATE IN AM1-.KICA. " First, That in the creed commonly called the Apostles Creed these words, He de scended into hell, shall be and continue a part of that creed. " Secondly, That the Nicene Creed shall also be inserted in the said Book of Common Prayer, immediately alter the Apostles Creed, prefaced with the rubric [or this], " And whereas, in consequence of the objections expressed by their lordships to the alterations in the Book of Common Prayer last mentioned, the Conventions in some of the States represented in this General Convention have suspended the ratification and use of the said Book of Common Prayer, by reason whereof it will be improper that persons to be consecrated or ordained as bishops, priests, or deacons, respectively, should sub scribe the declaration contained in the tenth article of the general ecclesiastical constitu tion, without some modification ; " Therefore it is hereby determined and declared, Thirdly, That the second clause so to be subscribed by a bishop, priest, or deacon of this Church in any of the States which have not already ratified or used the last-mentioned Book of Common Prayer, shall be in the words following : " And I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church, according to the use of the Church of England, as the same is altered by the General Convention, in a certain instrument of writing passed by their authority, entitled " Alterations in the Liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in order to render the same conformable to the American Revolution and the constitutions of the respective States," until the new Book of Common Prayer, recommended by the General Convention, shall be ratified or used in the State in which I am (bishop, priest, or deacon, as the case may be), by the authority of the Convention thereof. And I do further solemnly engage that when the said new Book of Common Prayer shall be ratified or used by the authority of the Convention in the State for which I am consecrated a bishop (or ordained a priest or deacon) I will conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as settled and determined in the last- mentioned Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, set forth by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. " And it is hereby further determined and declared: " That these words in the Preface to the new proposed Book of Common Prayer viz., in the creed commonly called the Apostles Creed one clause is omitted as being of un certain meaning, and together with the note referred to in that place, be from hence forth no part of the Preface to the said proposed Book of Common Prayer. " And it is hereby further determined and declared: " That the Fourth Article of Religion in the new proposed Book of Common Prayer be altered to render it conformable to the adoption of the Nicene Creed, as follows : Of the Creeds. The two creeds, namely, that commonly called the Apostle s Creed and the Nicene Creed, ought to be received and believed because they, etc., etc." On the first vote the question being the restoring of the words " He descended into hell " to the Apostles Creed New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were divided. New Jersey and South Carolina voted aye. As the divided States did not count, there were two ayes and no negatives, and the words were restored. The Nicene Creed was restored unanimously. On the question, " Shall the creed commonly called the Athanasian Creed be admitted in the liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America?" New Jersey and Delaware were divided, and New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina voted in the negative. Maryland, represented by a clerical deputy only, the Rev. Dr. Wil liam Smith, was at the outset declared not admitted to the Conven tion, and was allowed no vote on these important matters. A brief address to the archbishops was prepared and adopted. The testimonials of Dr. White, bishop elect of Pennsylvania, Dr. Provoost, bishop elect of New York, and Dr. Griffith, bishop elect INTRODUCTION. xxxix of Virginia, were signed, and a Committee of Correspondence, with power to convene another General Convention, was appointed. Although it does not appear on the "Journals," and no direct ref erence to the circumstance can be found in Bishop White s account of this Convention in his " Memoirs of the Church," the voluminous correspondence of this period, preserved in the archives of the Gen eral Convention, acquaints us with the fact that the Wilmington Convention, while availing itself of the presence and the abilities of Dr. William Smith, bishop elect of Maryland, refused to sign the testimonial required, recommending him for consecration. It ap pears, from letters still on file, that two members only of the Con vention voted in favor of Dr. Smith s application for recommenda tion, and that the opposition was based on moral grounds. The end desired was near at hand. The bishops elect of Penn sylvania and New York set sail for England early in November, 1786, and arrived at Falmouth on the 2ist of that month. We need not trace the story of the successful accomplishment of the long struggle for the episcopate in the English line, as it is detailed at length in the pages of Bishop White s " Memoirs of the Church." It is enough to say that on the fourth day of February, 1787, at Lambeth Chapel, at the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Moore, the archbishop of York, Dr. Markham, the bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Moss, and the bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Hinchcliffe, William White and Samuel Provoost were duly and canonically, by the laying on of hands, made bishops of the Church of God. It was a happy omen for the newly organized American Church that the bishops of Pennsylvania and New York reached their native land amid the Easter festivities of the year 1787. The Church in America was now complete. There only remained the consolidation of the churches of the North with those of the Middle and South ern States in one organization, and the adjustment in the general ecclesiastical constitution of the united churches of those principles and practices which were still unsettled. Directly on the return of the newly consecrated bishops to their homes, the bishop of Connecticut addressed to each letters of con gratulation, adding expressions of his earnest desire to promote " uniformity in worship and discipline among the churches of the different States." Referring to the "present unsettled state of the Church of England in this country, and the necessity of union and concord among all its members in the United States of America, not only to give stability to it, but to fix it on its true and proper foundation," Bishop Seabury proposed that a meeting of the three bishops should be held " before any decided steps be taken," and suggested as a basis of union and comprehension a return to the xl T1IK EPJ SCO PATE IN AMERICA. English Prayer-book, " accommodating it to the civil Constitution of the United States." " The government of the Church," he adds, " is already settled ; a body of canons will, however, be wanted to give energy to the government and ascertain its operation." The terms of union thus suggested were simply an affirmation of the " Fundamental Principle " adopted in New York in October, I 784, respecting the Prayer-book. In the view of Seabury other differ ences could be settled by conference, and this meeting of the bish ops, he was confident, " would promote the great object the union of all the churches." " May God direct us in all things," was his closing prayer. In making these fraternal overtures Seabury was evidently influenced solely by his earnest desire for union and uni formity. He already occupied a position of absolute independence. Welcomed by the clergy and warmly supported by the laity, his episcopal character had been recognized throughout New England, which had become, practically, his province, and through which, from Stamford and Norwalk in Connecticut to Portsmouth, N. H., he journeyed, confirming, ordaining, and setting in order the churches owing allegiance to his office and to himself. He had exercised his episcopate in New York in spite of the secret opposition of the irate Provoost. Candidates for ordination from New Jersey, Pennsyl vania, and the Southern States had sought from him the laying on of hands. There was no dissension among his clergy, no factious opposition among his laity. The Wallingford Convocation of the Connecticut clergy, held in February of this year, resenting the affronts they deemed directed at the bishop at the Philadelphia Convention, had determined to send a representative to Scotland to receive consecration as coadjutor to Seabury ; and Learning and Mansfield were successively chosen to undertake this office, while on their unwillingness, in consequence of age and infirmities, to assume this responsibility, the choice fell on Jarvis, afterward to be the one to fill the place of Seabury. At the same time measures were put in train to secure in Massachusetts the election of Parker as bishop of the Church in that State and in New Hampshire, that thus the college of bishops in the Scottish line of succession might be complete, and any necessity of union with the churches at the southward, for the consecration of bishops in the time to come, re moved. The correspondence of this period affords abundant proof that the great body of the churches and Churchmen of New Eng land shared in this feeling of resentment, and were ready for the initiation of measures for perpetuating the separation and antago nism which seemed inevitable. There was every prospect that there would speedily be in this country two rival Episcopal Churches, each possessing the apostolical succession, but at variance with each other in doctrine, in ritual, and in practices. Had Seabury listened tvi^^ .*> * fWVUfe f INTRODUCTION. xli to the urgings of his clergy at home, and his correspondents both in this country and abroad, this deplorable result would have occurred. Union would soon have become impossible, and the Church in the United States a house divided against itself would have been at the mercy of old foes and new, each and all bent alike on its utter overthrow. It is in this connection that we cannot fail to recognize and admire the wise conservatism, the marked self-abnegation, the patient for bearance of the first bishop of Connecticut. He was already prac tically he might soon have been in fact and name the " primus " of the Church in New England. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were through their episcopal head closely affiliated with the Scottish communion, from which their episcopate was derived, and were already reproducing at the out set of the history of the New England Episcopal Church the distinctive principles of the body whence they sprang. It was Seabury s choice, however, for the " great object " he had at heart, " the union of all the churches," to enter into a union in which he was to be from the start in a hopeless minority. We find him, there fore, restraining the impetuosity of his friends and sympathizers outside of Connecticut. We find him making most friendly and courteous overtures to the bishop of New York, who had attacked him in public and in private, and who cherished an unreasonable personal animosity toward him. He renewed again and again these efforts for union and comprehension, and at length God, who maketh men to be of one mind in a house, rewarded his self- denying, self-forgetting endeavors and made him for the last few years of his earthly life the presiding bishop of a united American Church. In these efforts of Seabury for union William White was an ear nest and able seconder. Recognizing from the start the official char acter and the Christian courtesy of Seabury, the bishop of Penn sylvania, while careful to secure the features of our ecclesiastical system he had formulated in "The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered," was ever ready to further the schemes of Seabury for the comprehension of " all the churches " in one organization com prising the churches in every State. Without this seconding Sea bury s efforts would have been of no avail. The personal animosity of Provoost, the machinations of the able and unscrupulous William Smith, the lax Churchmanship and doctrinal unsoundness prevailing in various sections of the Church and uniting in efforts to render the episcopal office as powerless as possible all these obstacles to union were to be overcome, and in the successful struggle it was William White who contributed the most of labor and influence to secure the desired result. It is of interest to note the hand of God xlii THE EPISCOPATE IX AMERICA. hedging up the way to the completion of the episcopal college in the English line until, in His good time, both a disposition for union had become general and measures to effect this end were in train. The amiable and devoted Griffith, the friend of Washington, and doubtless the most worthy of the Virginia clergy, was the choice of the Convention of that State for bishop, and his papers were favorably passed upon by the adjourned General Convention at Wilmington in I 786. But this excellent man found his intended journey to England hindered and finally prevented by the indifference of the parishes, leading them to withhold their contributions for its accomplishment. Even when the generous aid of William White was offered to re move this obstacle, the coldness of the clergy toward their bishop elect made it evident that they feared both his piety and his zeal for the Church, should he ever enter upon the episcopate to which their suffrages had called him. There followed, as appears from the un published correspondence of Dr. Griffith with Bishop White, a series of petty but annoying persecutions which, as detailed in these let ters, reveal a lamentable laxity in doctrine, and even in morals, ex isting in the Virginia Church. It is a pitiful story, and of interest alone in showing a conspiracy of ministers and members of the Epis copal Church designed to destroy the efficiency, if not the very ex istence, of the episcopate, the powers of which they evidently felt would be at once exercised for their punishment. These annoying hindrances at length wore out the patience of Griffith, and wrung from him the resignation of the office he had never sought, but which he would have adorned and honored. It was not till after the death of Griffith and the return of the bishops of Pennsylvania and New York from their successful journey to England that the scholarly Madison, the president of William and Mary College, was chosen to the episcopate of Virginia and sent to England to complete the college in the English line. No obstacle remained to prevent the consecration of a bishop on American soil who should unite the Scottish and English lines of succession. This long-delayed act was finally accomplished when Thomas John Claggett was made a bishop of the Church of God by the laying on of the hands of Provoost, Seabury, \Vhite, and Madison. V <?> ^ " tf OH " c * .J ~4 ~~ - I- "J, 5 * - S 1 % f" 00 "5 ^^ / IT ll I ^ g ^" - "rt v2 ^ S *! 1 B S OO oo oo 35 ^ * ?l S ^ o .. j. c n ;; rt a . ro S 5 ^ OT >*. u "^ P o^ P5 ^ _rt g P J 3 <J 1-1 00 . . C 5T . Sr kT oo < ^ " c >>. . .u oo w j^ t^ (j ^ r5 -~ t^ 2 3 " "** *^ ** ^H ty^ 1 (5 t: >> > " "u U S O vO 1^ S Ei, -S oo a 1) 0> c. a. TJ N c o UH h ~~> i < " " Q ^ rt" 7. W ^A . S.S. " ^ "d" 5 C "S u: * . -i2 IT) 00 kr< "3 >< S LL, r~i CH g 1 ^ S 2- oo -n c V ^S S ? S 73 ^ ~ 0> u -A ^viT . " < 15 X ^ c* S-S c 5 S -^ _c HI OC 00 H **< K* 2 - ;r C rt .._r Q ^ ^ ffi c C/3 !Z J* 5 D O. H CT> p <oo u 3 ^o K^ C/} o H-3 gj 1> 4- iA. ^ ^-t ^. 2 00 - "B & 2 . O t; ^_ H 1 oc *C H 60 - A oo 5o 2 ~ *?> " +~ ^2- 11 <" " G\ t-C^ 5 so >r t^ ^ c^ 5 oo 2 oo c < ^ < M rt 8 ^ <J c o> H r O ^3 U SJ3 C/3 C t i X* L- I C G "" ~ c> X ~ rt ^ ro O - M of ^ w 5 -g & -5 ^ S |.s~ ^1 -^ s C "- 1 *- * - c/2 TJ- c/3 5 oc . S M ro > i-A Q C tA*"" u S g 2 g u jj- g * O^ (y \o 00 5 ~"l3 Q C/2 k> h. 53 2 1^ el 1 " 5 c .a < t. 5 < oo K ^^ w t^* ^* 4^ OJ ^ <_^ ^ h^ OO ~zj i ^^ oc < g I o 4 2 fer " " & c s*.^ *^ ^ ^> c^ D 5r U p , BJ vO ^ e (U H ^ A S ^H "w * oo Jr" 3*i f "8 * oo Q N M 00 ro ,T *^ ^ **"* uT 00 rt "Si tf S w "1 F B rt *** ^ ?, B ? ^ o?^ "~ 4- CT^ r*J J fo & " i s . ^ *~~> 3 u u i" Q W ro . M "00 J-H 0* ?.| < .^ c t^ S^| cT ^- 3 <* _ C - 1 - s C a; S o -SB g a/ rt 3: ICoo 1 S , - g: 00 00 H-,I- < ^ -00 ^ C c" 5: " ..^oo < Ji o g .2 tf ^~ S K^ ^ is ? - ^ ^ ^ ! sT ^ s.s 5 i; ^ .5 aj cT 3 2 INTRODUCTION. x lv III. THE EPISCOPATE OF THE CHURCH IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. THE year of grace 1787 was memorable in ecclesiastical annals as the epoch in which the Church of England gave to the prov inces which had maintained their allegiance to the crown the epis copate so long withheld from the American colonists, who for years had persistently craved this boon in vain. The choice had primarily fallen on the excellent Thomas Bradbury Chandler, D.D. Oxon., of Elizabethtown, N. J., whose acknowledged abilities and deep, ear nest piety had long pointed him out as the one on whom this honor should be bestowed. But the ravages of incurable disease were even then threatening his life ; and although he was spared for several years, and able to render service of inestimable value to the Church in the United States, he was averse to accepting an appointment many of the duties of which it would be impossible to fulfil. It is said that, at the request of the archbishop of Canterbury to suggest one of his brethren to fill the place, he named his friend and former associate in the ministry in America, the late rector of Trinity, New York. On the I2th of August, 1787, Charles Inglis, D.D., some time missionary at Dover, Del., and later catechist, assistant minis ter, and rector of Trinity Church, New York, was consecrated, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, the first colonial bishop of the Eng lish Church. His see was the province of Nova Scotia, with New Brunswick, Canada, and Newfoundland included. The newly con secrated bishop proceeded almost directly to his vast jurisdiction. In a letter addressed to Bishop White, of Philadelphia, soon after the bishop of Nova Scotia had reached America, we have his im pressions of his new field : " HALIFAX, December 10, 1787. " MY GOOD BROTHER WHITE: . . . You have probably heard of my appointment as bishop of Nova Scotia and my arrival at this place. After many delays of office to which my patent was subject, and much fatigue in forming the arrangements for a new diocese, I was consecrated at Lambeth on Sunday, the I2th of August, embarked for America the 28th of the same month, and arrived at Halifax October I5th. I found the state of this province nearly such as I suppose you found that of your diocese in great want of the superintending care and inspection of a bishop ; and much need I have of the divine aid to enable me to discharge the duties of this station much prudence, judgment, temper, and zeal guided by discretion are required. Nova Scotia is properly my diocese. I have the same authority given me over the clergy that bishops have in England over their clergy ; but the temporal powers vested in English bishops by the constitution are withheld ; and this by my own choice, for I drew up the plan that was adopted. By another patent of later date, directed to me as bishop of Nova Scotia, the same authority over the clergy of New Brunswick, Canada, and Newfoundland is given me that was xlvi THE EPISCOPATE IN AMERICA. granted before over the clergy of this province. For there are two patents, which I should have mentioned before one is during my life, by which this province is consti tuted a bishop s see, and I am appointed the first bishop ; the other is during the king s pleasure, and granting me the same authority with the former. This was a prudent mea sure, and intended to facilitate the appointment of bishops in those other provinces when it would be found expedient. . . . My extreme hurry at present prevents me from men tioning several particulars which I wished to communicate. I shall be always ready by every method in my power to convince you that I am, with great esteem and with sincere wishes for your success, " Right Reverend Sir, " Your affectionate brother and humble servant, " CHARLES, NOVA SCOTIA. " RIGHT REVKRKND BISHOP WHITE." The correspondence of the first bishop of Nova Scotia with Bishop White is full of interest, and gives in detail most interesting accounts of the bishop s visitations, his interminable journeys, his founding of King s College, Windsor, N. S., his building of churches and schools, his efforts for the spiritual development of his people, and his earnest desire to resent the encroachments of indifference and infidelity. He died full of years and honors, and the hundred years and more that have passed since the first bishop of the Church of England for the colonies was consecrated have witnessed the sending of these missionary apostles throughout the world. We append from data furnished by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Hale, bishop of Cairo, 111., the succession of bishops in the English line in British North America from Inglis to the present day. IV. THE METHODIST SUPERINTENDENCY OR EPISCOPACY. METHODIST services were first held in America in 1 766, by Philip Cushing in New York, and by Robert Strawbridge in Frederick County, Md. Both Cushing and Strawbridge had been Methodist preachers in their native country, Ireland. In 1769 Mr. Wesley sent over Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore. In 1771 he appointed Francis Asbury, and two years later Thomas Rankin, to represent him in America. None of these men were ordained, and all of them appear to have confined themselves to such work as Mr. Wesley deemed laymen might undertake, except Robert Straw- bridge, who as early as 1769 began to administer the sacraments without any ordination whatever. The minutes of the first Ameri can Conference, held in Philadelphia in 1773, show that the follow ing rules were unanimously agreed upon: x 1 " Minutes of the Annual Conferences," vol. i., p. 5 (New York, 1850). INTRODUCTION. xlvii " (i) Every preacher who acts in connection with Mr. Wesley and the brethren in America is strictly to avoid administering the ordinances of baptism and the Lord s Supper. (2) All the people among whom we labor, to be earnestly exhorted to attend their church, and to receive the ordinance there, but in a particular manner to press the people in Mary land and Virginia to the observance of this minute." Jesse Lee says : " The necessity of this rule appeared in the conduct of Mr. Strawbridge, a local preacher, who had taken on him to administer the ordinance among the Methodists. . . . We were only a religious society, and not a church." * But Strawbridge would not change his convictions or his course. In 1779 some of the preachers ministering in Virginia and North Carolina " concluded that if God had called them to preach He had called them also to administer the ordinances of baptism and the Lord s Supper. They met together at the Conference held at the Broken Back Church this year, and after consulting