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This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in Its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: GALLAGHER, MASON TITLE: A CHAPTER OF UNWRITTEN HISTORY . H ■ PLACE: PHILADELPHIA DA TE: 1883 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MTCROFORM TARHFT Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 1 1 ■ Restrictions on Use: TD:NYCG93~B914 CC:9665 BLTram CP:pau PC:s MMO: 010 040 050 100 1 245 12 RTYP:a DCF: CSC: INT: GPC: REP: DM: RR ST:s MOD: BIO: CPI:0 FRN SNR FIC FSI COL MS: EL:u ATC CON ILC EML AD:01-28~93 U0:01~28-93 11:0 GEN: BSE 260 300 610 LOG QO 20 L:eng P0:1883/ OR: POL: 235054 DLCt^cNIC{:dCStRLIN BX5881^:b.G3 Gallagher, Mason. A chapter of unwritten history{:h[niicrof orm] .{:bThe Protestant Episcopac y of the revolutionary patriots. Lost and restored. A centennial offerin g,rCby Rev. Mason Gallagher. . _ , - ' Philadelphia, {^bReformed Episcopal Rooms, rCl883. / iv, 102 p-rc23 cm. Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. - .' RLIN 01-28-93 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: / / >( FILM SIZE:„^3)J21KVt IMAGE PLACEMENT: IA'(^UA^IB IIB DATE FILMED: SzT^±3 INITIALS. J/i>^£S> FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS, INC WOODBRIDGE. CT " c Association for Information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100. Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 Mil llllilllllllllilllllllllilllMI Ml 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 n miIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiImiiIimiIiimIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIimiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiii Inches I I I Ml 1.0 1.1 1.25 TTT fl 12 13 14 15 mm iiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiil ¥■' |2.8 m 1- IIP-2 |63 Ir m 23 2.2 2.0 la 1.8 1.4 1.6 I I II I 5 I MPNUFflCTURED TO RUM STRNDRRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE. INC. ^- 93?.73 QI3 itt the ©ttM of Ucw UovTi %xhxnxv^ Hi (S-Uapier of '^niptiifcn -S)isforg. The Protestant Episcopacy OF THE J-lEVOLUTIONARY PATRIOTS. LOST AND RESTORED. r/-^ ^Xr> i^HU T^f^<^i^h (^s^^' ' ¥ nxm%^ zzi^- Rev, MASOM GALLAGHER, Author of True Cluu-cliiuiuislii]) A'iuflifatcd : The Primitive Eirenicon Iievisiou ;i Duly and Necessity. 1 Have Somewhat AsainstThec Beoan?e Thou II ii=t Lieft Thy First Love. Kemcmber Therefore From Whence Thou art Fallen. AjkI Repent, And Do The First Works. . . . What The Spirit Saith Unto TheC-hurcher;."' Ukvelatioa, II. 4, 5, 7. PHILADELPHIA: REFORiMED EPISCOPAL ROOMS. 931 ARCH STREET, 1883. / m Hi (SUapiev of '^nwviiien Sii&iorv. 937.73 (}|3 Itt tUt ©itjj of 3tw ^ovti gibrarij The Protestant Episcopac \.r OF THE Revolutionary Patriots. LOST AN'D RESTORED Q^5 Cx-^ ^r*', neriiig, RsY. MASOH GALLAGHER, Author of True Churciiiiianship Abjudicated : The Primitive Eirenicon Revision a Duty and Necessity. I Have Somewhat Asrainst Thee Bocansc Thoii H i?t Left Thy First Love. Remember Therefore From Whence Thou art Fallen, And Repent. And Do The First Works. . . . What The Spirit Saith Unto The Churches." Revelation, II. 4, 5, 7. ^'• PHILADELPHIA: REFORMED EPISCOPAL ROOMS. 931 ARCH STREET, 1883. / ^ * i WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SCHISM ? WHAT'THB BISHOPS SAY I '* Bodie:^ of coiitessions and arlicles do imudi liui't, l)>^i)c*coiiiin«r instrunicnt- of separating and dividing communions, and making nncortain and unneccssarv propositions a certain means of schism and disunion. Whether of the two is the greatest schismatic, he that nudxes unnecessary and incotivenient iuipo- sitions, or lie that disobeys them, because he cannot witiiout (loiuestowing the title of schismatics and heretics on those who diHer from them in Fuaftei's of religion, juid re[)n's('iiting titciii as dangerous to the State. The contrary is the truth. Those who are upiKrinost and have the power are the men who do the mischief; the schis- matics only <\\%'\' and complain, and are often tliouiiht worthy of punislsnient for that reason. BLSIIOP SFIIPLKY. '• The stipulations which are made in I>aj)tism as well as in Ordinaticn, do only bind a man to the Christian faith, or to the faithful dispensing of that (i(»sp;f f )rfttm%, SY R2V. MASON GALLAGHER, Author of True Churchnianship \'indicated : The rriinitive Eirenicon Revision a Duty and Necessity. ■■'1 Have Somewhat Aprainst Thee Ilccaiise Thou II:ist lA-ft Thy First Love. Remember Therefore From Whence Thou art Fallen, And Repent. An.l Do The First Works. . . . What The Si)int Saith Unto The ('hurche.<." Revelation, II. 4, 5, 7. PHILlADELPHIA : REFORMED EPISCOPAL ROOMS, 931 ARCH STREET, 1883. WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE POR SCHISM ? WHAT^HE BISHOPS SAY \ ** Bodies of confessions and arjicles do much liurt, l)>^i>ecomin<'^ instrumentf^ of separating and dividing communions, and making uncv'itain and unnecessary [iropositions a certain means of schism and disunion. Wliether of the two is. tlie greatest schismatic, he that makes unnecessary and inconvenient im[H)- sitions, or he that disobeys them, because he cannot witliout doinave led to the unhappy condition of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to the disastrous events which followed its radical and indefensible change of base. It has been necessary in presenting Historic Truth, to strip from some noted names of the past, somewhat of the admiration which has been bestowed upon them, but which has not been their rightful due. Of those who, on the other hand, have deserved higher honor from posterity, the facts we have presented have rightfully vindicated the reputation. Where imsound doctrines and erroneous pi-actices have been sustained and defended, through the influence of a name which has carried a weight to which it was not entitled, the interests of Gospel truth, and of souls, justifies a full presentation of the facts in the case. And when individuals have suffered from obloquy and misrepresentation; where there has been a loss of much that w^as dear to them, as in the case of Bishop Cummins and liis friends, surely it was. in view of the verdict of posterity, an imperative duty, to establish beyond contradiction, that the separation from the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the restoration of the Old Revolutionary Episcopal Church, by the organization of the Reformed Episcopal Church ; is fully vindicated, and was clearly the work of the Spirit of Truth. The author has written with the deeper interest from the fact, that for a while he was beguiled by the seductive influence of the exclusive, sacerdotal system, and the Divine Right delusion. He knows by personal experience its effect upon the mind. He has also had extensive opportunity of witnessing its pernicious effect upon others. He is painfully aware of the immense difficulty of impressing by means of facts and logic, minds that have been narrowed andVarped by a slavish submis- sion to authority and tradition. May the Lord greatly bless to those thus affected, the truth here presented in all kindness and love I M. G. Brooklyn, N. Y. July 4, 1883. W .. . ., a a 3 • • • • • • •' *J »j > 3 J J • • • « • • • * • » a J I ) 3 1 ••••••••••• »Jjj'>) ' • •. • • • t t t t I '3 • •,»•• • • 1 • •«••#« » ■» » * t 3 * • • • * * • • • • • • i * t, t * • » • • • • I » » J • 3 ■> ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. DELIVERED IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 3d, 1882. BY REV. MASON GALLAGHER. I take great pleasure to-night, on this the ninth anniversary celebration of the organization of the Retormed Episcopal Church, in meeting with our brethren and friends in this old historic city, to which fled as a refuge, two centuries and a half ago, multitudes of brave spirits, who abandoned the old Mother Church of England, for causes similar to those which led ministers and members of the same Communion, planted in this country, to forsake their ecclesiastical home, and to reorganize, on December 2d, 1873, the same Church, with its exclusive priestly hierarchy, curbed and reduced ; and its liturgy, deteriorated and defaced by the followers of Archbishop Laud, puri- fied and scripturally revised. I am reminded, too, by grand historic monuments, that the struggle here, commenced for civil liberty, which issued in the establishment of a nation of freemen, who form the beacon-light to all the downtrodden and oppressed people of the worM ; and whose moral influence in behalf of all that is desir- able in national life, far excels in the aggregate, that of any people upon whom the sun has shone. This is not a mere idle boast, for by every sincere advo- cate of civil and religious liberty, America is admired, resi)ected and loved, in a measure greater than has fallen to the lot of any nation of the past. And all this notwithstanding the many confessed imperfections of a young Com- monwealth working out new and untried principles of government. As an American, the descendant of an Englishman w^ho struggled and suf- fered on this very jrround in securing these transcendent blessines, I claim a , right here, on this spot, to recall the scenes, and the Crisis with which thia city is so grandly associated; an era, the most important since the Reforma- tion of the sixteenth century, p REFORMED EPISCOPAL SYMPATHY WITH ENGLISH EXILES. We of the Reformed Episcopal Church, are in the closest sympathi with those exiles from the tyranny of Laud, the father of our modern Ritualism, which has compelled us in like manner to forsake the Church of our affec- tions, when corrupted by the same novel, unscriptural devices. We are m / V « ' « « « t • , • • I • • I t • • • • • • • « i ( C ( t c , 1 • * • • • • • • • • • • • • » •• • • i 2 • . • ^jj^i^kr^ary ade»ress. sympathy, also, with bje'.tjrgty? >a^^ their descendants, who then dared, in weakness, to defy a mighly dpptesSon'antJ blessed by Providence, have secured dn these shores, forever, freedom from tyrants in Church and State. Little thanks to the ministry of the Church of Laud and his successors, for those results, and for the blessings which we now enjoy! That ministry, almost to a man, took part with the enemies of the Revolu- tion. Tlie doctrine of the Divine right of Bishops, was first allowed among professed Protestants, by King James I, in return for the acknowledgment by Bancroft, Laud, and others, of the Divine right of Kings. Both claims are in their intrinsic character, the inherent and essential antagonists of the Divine rights of the people. They have no legitimate sympathy with the principles and results of the American Revolution. They must be watched wherever they are embraced, and carried out in action; whether in the Church of Rome, or in any other Hierarchical organization. THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RIGHT DANGEROUS. The bond which links together the ministers and members of the same ecclesiastical organization wliich has embraced this unreasonable and unscriptural doctrine, of the exclusive divine right of an order of avowed priests, with sole power to convey spiritual gifts relating to the future eternal state, is closer far than that which binds a man to the civil state. It is of an undefined, mysterious nature, breeds superstition, discourages independence of thought, and is the natural foe of free institutions, however it may disguise itself. Fully developed in the Church of Rome, it is the ob- ject of anxiety and constant vigilance on the part of the governments of the old world, and in this land forms the source of the greatest danger to our lib- erties. Any institution among us, which born out of this Papal Corporation, has retained ita leading features; an absolving priesthood, and the exclusive Divine ricrht of Bishops, with the denial of a ministry and sacraments to other Protestant Cimrches, must necessarily remain a sect with limited num- bers and influence, spurned by Rome, and the object of distrust to the Com- munions with whom it arrogantly refuses fellowship. ITS BANEFUL INFLUENCES. The religious strife and separations it occasions in households where * Christian unity should be especially nurtured ; the false views of Chris- tian truth it necessarily engenders; the disrespect it casts upon the work of ttie Holy Spirit through the agency of devoted and successful Christian teachers, whose position and office it asperses and contemns, while ascribing unreasonable and false prerogatives and gifts to men often vastly inferior in mental and moral qualitiea; are enough to impel men whose religion is based upon the Word of God alone, to reject and oppose this parasite of Protestantism, the creation of the Stuarts, and of Archbishop Laud. Its proper home is in a monarchical country. In commu- ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. * nities where a social and ecclesiastical Caste is allowed, based on something besides brains, character, or learning, it may flourish; but in a land where the Divine right of Kings has been spurned and rejected, the Divine right of Bishops, with its offensive and dangerous adjuncts, has no legitimate place; and as an American citizen, and a sincere, loyal Protestant, I honestly and openly resist it. THE LAUDEAN BISHOPS THE CAUSE OF THE PURITAN EXODUS. In divine Providence, we owe to the tyranny of Laud and the Stuarts, the freedom and the independence which now we so greatly enjoy. If the noble men whom these tyrants subjected to prison, to fine, to mutila- tion, and other forms of persecution, even to death, had not been driven from the mother country, and their ecclesiastical home, never would there have been reared in this land, a people willing and able to fight for seven years, as the descendants of the Pilgrims did, for the privileges of civil and religious liberty, which, thanks to God and to these patriots, we are privileged now to possess. In an able article on **The Causes which drove the Puritans from England," the New Enylander for November, 1882, says: "It was the bishops wlio drove the Puritans into Holland; it was the bishops who hung the sword of Damocles over them as They sailed to Plymouth; it was the bishops who compelled the founding of Xew England, and the great Puritan exodus. "When fifty years afterwards Archbishop Tillotson and other bishops of England expressed with such energy to Increase Mather, their just resentment to the injury which had been done to the first planters of New England, the old Puritan exclaimed: 'If such had been the bishops there had never been a New England.' " We may with equal justice remark: "If the Protestant Episcopal Church had possessed such bishops as Tillotson, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Tennison, Patrick, and their associates. Bishop Cummins and his friends would not have been compelled to sever their ecclesiastical ties, and to organize the Reformed Episcopal Church. THE PATRIOTISM OF THE NON-EPISCOPAL CLERGY. The same* spirit which led the Puritans, under Elizabeth and James, to struggle and suffer for freedom of conscience, and for the unadulterated truths of Holy Scripture, animated the Congregational, Presbyterian, Dutch, and Lutheran pastors of the Revolution, and were it not for their incessant, stirring, patriotic appeals from the pulpit and the rostrum, and their presence in the army, where they both fought and prayed, I feel assured that the War of Independence would never have issued in the success of the Colonists. I am aware that there were noble exceptions to the course of the Protestant Episcopal Clergv in espousing the cause of the mother country. The names ^jf Bishops Wnite and Provoost, Dr. William Smith of Philadelphia, 4 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. Peter Muhlenberj?, and Dr. Griffith, (Bishop-elect) of Virginia, and Robert Smith of South Carolina, afterwards a bishop, were foremost among those who sympathized with the struggles of the patriot army; while Bishop. Seabury of Connecticut, and his disloyal friends were exiled or imprisoned for giving aid and comfort to the oppressors of our grandsires. THE PRAYEB BOOK OF 1785 THE WORK OF THE PATRIOTS OF THE REVO- LUTION. But it is eminently fitting for us Reformed Episcopalians to remember, and for me, on this anniversary occasion, to remind you, in this city of Revo- lutionarv fame, that Bishops White and Provoost, with Dr. Wm. Smith, and Dr. Griffiths, were among the fraraers of the Prayer Book of 1785, (a Book associated with the names of William III., and his galaxy of Reforming bishops,) on whose principles this country first received its Episcopacy, and on which our Communion, the true, legitimate, Protestant Episcopal Church is based; while Bishop Seabury, a non-juror in principle aud orders, and a pensioner of the British Government till his death, has impressed his principles cf Episcopal and Sacerdotal exclusiveness, and of Sacramental, mechanical grace, upon the Liturgy and Rites of the Church we have been forced to abandon. That there is a noble body of sound and intelligent Christian men still re- maining in that Church, we well know; but that they are tolerated, and that they have received fair and courteous treatment in Conventions, of late, and only within a brief period, is owing to the fact that there is with us, for them at all times, a welcome, safe, and peaceful haven and retreat from their incon- sistent and uncomfortable alliance with men in whose principles they have no confidence, and with whose meiisures they have no sympathy. Sooner or later the separation of these antagonistic elements must occur. We rejoice that the main work has been accomplished, and though the inauguration of the firsL pure. Liturgical, Episcopal Reformation occasioned the early demise of our beloved leader, who had the grace and courage to effect it, it is done for all time; to the glory of God, in the spread of the truth, and to the great com- fort and joy of many of the Lord's children. THE PATRIOTIC OPPOSITION TO HIGH CHURCH EPISCOPACY, AND ESPE- CIALLY TO BISHOP SEABURY. It is well known that the fear of the Establishment of an Episcopal Hier- archy on these shores, was one of the causes which led the Colonists to desire separation from the mother country. The inherent nature of this intolerant system was thoroughly appreciated by the descendants of those who had so greatly suffered by it. The diocese of South Carolina united with the other dioceses on the con- dition that no bishop should be placed over them. It afterwards elected Robert Smith, who had served as private in the siege of Charleston. The conventions of Virginia were at first presided over by a layman. It is well known, also, thnt John Jay and James Duane, with Provoost and others, earnestly endeavored to prevent all eccl;?siastical connection with. T ANNIVERSARY ADDRESG. O^ Bishop Seabury after the Revolution. But these wise patriots were over- powered by the insane passion for uniformity, and a hollow, unscriptural unity, which has been the bane of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Seabury leaven of Sacerdotalism, exclusive Divine right and sacramen- tal grace, was allowed admittance. The Prayer Book of 1785 was essentially ^ changed. The Romish alterations of Elizabeth and Charles were reintro- duced. The leaven has spread through the lump, and most significantly, though White survived Seabury a generation, the latter has thoroughly sup- planted the patriotic Low Churchman, as the acknowledged Father of that Church, among those who control and direct its affairs, and wield predomi- nating influence therein. It is, moreover, worthy of note, that in the city where the patriotic White^ and Smith labored, our Church has been most kindly welcomed, and has widely flourished; while in the metropolis where the principles of Seabury and his followers have long had predominating influence, the soil has been unfav- orable and uncongenial to the spread of a legitimate. Reformed Episcopacy. That in this community, so long favored by the influence or the Apostolic Griswold, there is a future of great prosperity to our Communion, there ia ample reason for most encouraging hope. By a singular coincidence, the grandson and namesake of Bishop Seabury, an honest, able and learned sacerdotalist, more than any other man, impressed the principles of Laud and the non-jurors upon the minds of his generation, as those principles have been revived and powerfully set forth by Newman, Pusey, and other writers of the Oxford Tracts. At the time the writer was a student at the General Theological Seminary in New York; the friend and biographer of Bishop White; and the most able and voluminous commentator on the Scriptures which his Church has produced, were the Senior Professors. But they were powerless to resist the overflowing tide of the Oxford delusion under its able American champion. Four of the writer's classmates, with other students, joined the Church of Rome. The money donated by departed benefactors for the education of youth in Protestant principles, has been there largely diverted in the sending forth religious teachers, the open opponents and aspersers of the doctrines of the English Martyrs. In like manner the munificent bequest of a member of the Protestant Reformed Dutch Church has been perverted, in the same city, to the open, public propagation of semi-Romish doctrines, which would have been most offensive and abhorrent to the benevolent departed donor. Such sad perversions of religious trusts must necessarily check bequests on the part of Protestant Episcopalians, lor they know not but that their legacies may be used in the process of instilling the most unscriptural views iu the minds of their descendants, and in the sanctuaries where they have themselves worshiped. TRUTH NECESSARY FOR UNITY THE DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMERS. This system blossomed into Ritualism, allowed and extensively embraced in the Protestant ilpiscopal Church, resisting all efforts to suppress or eject it. ^ ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. has compelled us, as true Protestants, holding the doctrines of the British Reformers, to come out and sever our connection with a religious Body thus proved powerless to oppose error. At much cost, but with the approbation of cmscience, and fidelity to the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, here we stand. We could not do otherwise. We commit the matter to Him who has led us. '*If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught; but if it be of God, ye can not overthrow it." That the principles of the English Martyred Reformers were in entire an- tagonism to those which have pervaded tue Protestant Episcopal Church with respect to the comparative importance of unity and sound doctrine, is clear. Said Latimer to Ridley: ^'Hilary saith. *The name of peace is beautiful, and the opinion of unity is fair; but who doubteth that to be the true and only peace of the Church which is Cnrist?' St, Paul, when he requireth unity, he joineth straight withal ^accordiag to Jesus Christ,' no further. Diotrephes, now of late, did ever harp upon Unity, Unity. * Yea,' quoth I, *but in verity, not in Popery. Better is a diversity than a unity in Popery.' " Ridley testi- fies: "As for unicy, the truth is, before God I do believe it and embrace it, so it be with verity, and joined to our Head, Christ, aad such one as Paul speaketh of saying, 'one faith, one God, one baptism.' " John Bradford, of equal fame, writes: '^The Word alloweth not the more part, but the better part. It alloweth not unity except it be in verity. It alloweth no obedience to any which can not be done without disobedience to God." Such views are altogether antagonistic to the course of a Communion which allows the views of Colenso at the one extreme, and those of Pusey at the other, and all views internaediate, to re-echo from her pulpits; while those who hold to the plain doctrines asserted by these martyrs, are held in light estimation, and for years have been barely tolerated. THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CIIUKCH UTTERLY REJECTS THE DOCTRINE OF EPISCOPAL DIVINE RIGHT. Our Reformed Episcopal Caurch has utterly abandoned and cast out this excrescence on the Church of an Episcopacy of exclusive Divine Right, which logically developed into the Papacy, produced there the Inquisition and other abominations, and which, nurture! in the Church of England, exiled the Puritans; drove out of their pulpits two thousand able, devoted, conscientious ministers; persecuted the Methodists, and compelled them to organize that great and successful Communion which now outnumbers the Church they were forced to leave, and has a far brighter prospect for the future. Here reproduced in this land, the same Episcopal Communion has cultivated Church exclusiveness; suppressed all attempts at simple scriptural reform; discouraged sympathy and union with Protestant Churches; recognized the ministry of liome, while utterly ignoring that of the Reformed Communions; ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 7 favored a return to Pre-reformation principles, and after imperiously and flatly rejecting the petitions of numbers of its most intelligent, devout and respected adherents to return to its original principles, compelled them at last to sever their long and intimate Church ties, and go out, like Abraham, into a new home, followed by the deposing curse of their harsh, unsympathizing parent, but led by conscience and the Spirit of God into fairer pastures and by stiller waters. As one who has undergone this experience, after earnestly serving that Communion for twenty-seven years, I feel, dear brethren, a deep sympathy with the spirits of the past, who felt much as we have felt and suffered much as we have suffered. Truly, where our afflictions have abounded, our comforts and joys have much more abounded. Brethren, we have had our mission to accomplish, and I thank God heartily that He has counted us worthy thus to labor and suffer for the truth; to be exposed to obloquy and contempt; to encounter the sneer and the sarcasm of those with whom we were formerly associated. To belong to a religious institution in this age, where there is any self-flenial deynanded or 2yersecution endured, is truly a mark of Divine favor; what are we that God should bless us so highly? I have con- sidered, when bishops claiming exclusive Divine right, have likened us to refugees in the Cave of Adullam, and when our noble leader was the object of calumny and vituperation, that the hunted chief of that band of outcasts was tke Lord's Anointed, and came forth in due time to claim and receive the crown of the nation? Let every Reformed Episcopalian look back on such scenes in the Church's history, take courage, be comforted, endure and march on to final, assured victory. DEPOSITION FROM THE MINISTRY FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE BORROWED FROM THE PAPAL COMMUNION. It is right here to affirm that those who established the Reformed Episcopal Church had faithfully served the Communion which they were forced to leave. In attainments and efficient work they were fully up to the average of their former associates, and candid men among the latter have publicly ac- knowledged the fact. The strange character of the religious organization here arraigned may be gathered from the fact that your speaker, after orgainizing three parishes, and building as many churches; and after having gathered the largest Sunday-school in his diocese, and presented the largest class for Con- firmation known in its history; unchanged in his doctrine, unassailed in repu- tation, was with his brethren piihlicly dewsed from the ministry. And for what cause? For simply doing what the Founder of Christianity and the Re- formers of Eugland did: conscientiously seeking to purify and reform the Church which they loved and had faithfully served, appealing to the Word of God alone. They ceased to co-operate with those who, uncharitably and persistently, refused to effect a scriptural reformation. In all these cases of unjust treatment the spirit was the samt*. Church organization and Church \ 8 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 9 forms were apparently regarded as more important than conscieni ions scruples or adherence to God's Word. In none of these cases were the ecclesiastical censures approved and ratified in heaven; and it is sufficient compensation for the great trials incident to such conscientious acts, that Reformers now are in full sympathy with those who have preceeded them. For history and eternity will assuredly justify their action. We joyfully abide their verdict. But what of the position of those who, by ecclesiastical fellowship, counten- ance ecclesiastical oppressors in their unchristlike, uncharitable treatment of their brethren? Countenancing by organic connection those whose doctrines they repudiate as unscriptural, and by remaining in such relation, participants in the action by which men whom they acknowledge as preachers of a sound Gospel, are publicly stripped by a spiteful and inane enactment of their ministerial commission. No professed Protestant Communion but the Protestant Episcopal assumes to deprive of ministerial authority, those who depart from its ministry to other folds. It is one of the Roman Catholic peculiarities which this denomination has persistently retained. In marked Christian contrast to this presumptuous proceeding, Bisliop Cummins dismissed a Protestant Episcopal minister who joined the Reformed Episcopal Church, when he returned to his former fold, with kind and court- eous words. The Church of England has wisely refrained from such deposi- tions. While such vindictive acts have no validity and are generally esteemed for what they are worth, they are to be regretted for their effect in increasing prejudice against the Gospel. The P. E. Church presumes to depose from the ministry of the Church of God, not simply from its exercise within their own bounds, I have known officials to seek to prejudice the minds of others against Bishop Cummins and his friends on the ground of their being deposed ministers. It is the fear of this impious and futile action which has prevented some timid minds from joining our Communion. BOSTON A GRAND FIELD FOR THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. I am not suprised at the advance of our Church in this city^ under the ac- ceptable and faithful pastorate of our beloved brother. The seed was sown here by a wise and godly man. Brother Cutler laid the foundations deep and strong in faith and prayer, and he, who now as a wise master builder is continuing the work in this grand field, is enjoying the savor of the influence of that man of God whose unflinching testimony in behalf of this Church; whose severance, in his declining years, of his deeply rooted ecclesiastical ties; and whose treatment by that Communion, when refusal was extended to his funeral rites in the church edifice where he had officiated with the Divine blessing for a generation; preaches a sermon in behalf of the necessity of our work and our providential mission, more forcible and convincing than any words that I can utter. Strengthened by the sympathy and praye rs of so many devoted Christians of all names, with the enjoyment of the Divine blessing, this Church will surely advance to its completion, and ere long the top stone will be laid with shoutings of " grace, grace unto it." THE MYSTERIES AND MISERIES OF PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL DEPOSITION. Note.— When the bishop, according to tlie Canon, has authoritatively erased the name of a clergyman from the list in the presence of Avitnesses, and thus officially deposed him, as far as his Communion possesses the power, from the ministry of the Church of God, information is forwarded, to every other bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Canon reads, XXXIX, 1832: " Wiien any minister is degraded from the Holy Ministry, he is degraded therefrom entirely, and not from a higher to a lower order of the same. Deposition, displacing and all like expressions, are the same as degradation. No degraded minister shall be restored to the ministry. Wlienever a clergyman shall be degraded, the bishop wlio pronounces sentence shall, without delav, give notice thereof to every minister and vestry in the diocese, and also to all the bishops of this Church, and where there is no bishop to the standing committee." It will be seen from the above Canon that the act of deposition is widely published. In addition, the transaction is announced in the bishop's annual addre'>s It matters not whetlier the clergyman in his announcement of his determina- tion to withdraw from the Protestant Episcopal Church and ministry, at the same time states that he acts from conscientious reasons, and designs exercising his ministry in another communion; the deposition is absolute. One bishop speaks of it : " as the inflicting of the irrevocable sentence of dis- placing or degradation from the ministry." The Canon appears to be framed with the design of preventing all such conscientious acts, by the stringency of its conditions and the fearful severity of its language. It necessarily acts with great power on the common timidity of the clerical mind, under Episcopal supervision. The writer when withdrawing from the Protestant Episcopal ministry in 1871, gave his reasons in full for his action, and his design to fulfill his ministry in a field outside of the Protestant Episcopal Connection. His bishop courteously requested him to give the matter a week's further con- sideration. But as he had patiently waited for years for that Communion to remove the burdens which had been weighing for a long period on many con- sciences, and the prospect of relief was entirely hopeless, the step was taken with the fullest deliberation, and the experience of twelve years has fully satisfied him that it was wisely done. Recently, while looking at the Catalogue of the General Theological Seminary where he received his education for the ministry, the writer noticed among the names of the alumni, his own, with these words appended, "Deposed in New York 1871." Two of his class-mates, who joined the Church of Rome, have the same addenda to their names, and two others of the alumni, one now a bishop of Rome, the other a Roman vice-chancellor. He noticed also two " deposed" alumni who had joined the Reformed Episcopal Communion, and whose career since their deposition, has been largely attended with the Divine blessing on their ministry. There is nothing to indicate to the reader for what cause the deposing curse was inflicted, whether for carrying out the Seminary teaching, logically, W-i. I. 10 AXNIV'EKSAKV ADDJlEiiiS. and landing in Rome; or for ronscioTitious reai:ons joining a thoroughly Re- formed (,'ommunion ; or, for moral ilelimiuencies. The commonest principles of justice and (charity find ro place in the case of any who leave the Protestant Episcopal ministiy. That Communion acts upon the principle and with the spirit of the mother Church of Rome, from which it came out, and from whose medieval errors it has not yet freed itself. One who had abandoned the Protestant Episc()pal ministry was asked the reason for his action, "Because," he said, '' the conscience is not cultivated in that Commu- nion." This was a very severe char^'e, but entirely just with respect to the course of that Church in the matter of deposition. For it practically teaches that it is a greater offence to exercise ones ministry in another Communion, with a pure conscience, than to remain a Protestant Epis(X)pal clergyman witli that Divine monitor silenced with respect to errors of confessed magnitude. The inference too may be justly drawn from such ecclesiastical action that the call of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is of less importance, and of weaker obligation, than that of the (liurch "through its human ollicials. Thankful should we be that tliere is at last a Church which, while it is Litur- gical and Episcopal, ir. at the same time Scriptural, Charitable, Protestant and Free! Notes to Anniversary Address Delivered in the Re- formed Episcopal Church, Boston, December Sd, 1882. The Protestant Episcopacy of the Revolutionary Patriots. BY REV. MASON GALLAGHER. It has been seen from what has preceded that the circumstances attending the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1785, were of deep interest from the character of the men who were en- gaged in the work. Their enterprise was hallowed by the savor of the Kevolution in which they had taken a prominent part, and had greatly suffered. That their task was delicate and difficult all know. With few exceptions the clergy of the Church of Eng- land had taken an active part in behalf of the mother country. Most of them had been compelled to leave the country. The few who remained, protected by English bayonets, had written and preached, and prayed for the success of George III. Here and there was one w^ho realized the nature of the struggle, and the vital principles of liberty and justice which were involved. These at the risk of an ignominious death, stood firmly with their ministerial brethren of other denominations, and largely aided in securing the grand result. And though the good work they effected in establish- ing their Church on free and broad and liberal prin- ciples, was overthrown by the admission in later years of the men who had labored to keep the colonists in a disgraceful submission to a tyrannical King and Par- liament, still it is our part as free, enlightened American citizens, and intelligent Christians, to honor their memory, and as Keformed Episcopalians, a cen- tury afterwards, to take up their work and to carry it forward to a successful and beneficial result. Claiming as we do, to hold their principles as opposed to those who sympathized with them, neither politically nor (11) ( 12 NOTES. ecclesiastically; it is our part to recall the services they rendered as Christians and patriots. THE MOST PROMINENT ACTORS. The clergymen pre-eminent in the work were Dr. William Smith and Bishop White of Philadelphia, Bishop Samuel Provoost of New York, Dr. David Griffith, Bishop elect of Virginia; Bishop Robert Smith of South Carolina; and Dr. Charles H. Wharton of Delaware. Among the Laity were James Duane and John Jay of New York; Richard Peters and Francis Hopkinson of Pennsylvania; John Page and Cyrus Griffin of Yirginia; Charles Pinckney and John Rutledge of South Carolina. These are national and imperishable names. There were others of distinction: Edward Shippeu and Thomas Hartley of Pennsylvania; David Brearley and John Rutherford of New Jersey; Jacob Reed and John Parker of South Carolina; Sykes of Delaware. These and other noble spirits were associated with the grand Revolutionary heroes I have enumerated, in organizing the Protestant Episcopal Church as a truly free, Scriptural, American Communion. PREDOMINANCE OF LAYMEN. It is eminently worthy of remark, that in the four primary Conventions in which Bishop Seabury was neither allowed preFonce nor influence, the lay demerit largely predominated. In all the suceeding Conventions the clergy icere in the majority. In the First Convention, which settled the Prayer- Book of 1785, three-fifths of the body were laymen. In the Convention of 1789, which decided to admit Bishop Seabury, three-fifths of the number were clergymen. While the power of the laity was in the ascendent, the Church was Protestant and Scriptural in its services. As the Priestly influence became more general the Communion became naturally more sacerdotal, sacra- mental and exclusive. The Church thus, in its infancy, was identical with the Reformed Episcopal Church. Our Reformation is simply a Restoration; a return to the principles of the patriots of the Revolution. In like manner as the fathers of our Protestant Epis- copacy in America, severed their connection with the I NOTKS. 13 mother country, when it departed from its Constitu- tional principles of Anglo-Saxon freedom; on similar grounds with equal right and justice. Bishop Cum- mins and his friends separated fi'om the Protestant Episcopal Church when it went back on its founders and departed from its original free, Biblical. Constitu- tional principles. We have no doubt that as light is dififused within the P. E. Church, with respect to its own history, that American laymen who partake of the spirit of the American Revolution, will in time, decide favorably as to the claims of our Reformed Communion on theii' respect, nffection and support. r.isnop WHITE. In a brief notice of the men who laid the foundations of American Protestant Episcopacy, Bishop White naturally claims prominent attention. To the cause of the colonists, Bishop VVhite's attachment was intelli- gent and uncompromising. While his friend Rev. Dr. Duche, returned to his former allegiance, Bishop White was firm to the end. An incident which oc- curred illustrates the risk which clergymen who became revolutionists were aware they incurred. While Bishop White w^as taking the oath of alle- giance after the Declaration of Independence, an acquaintance made a significant motion of his hand at his throat. Said the Bishop to him afterwards: ''I perceive by your gesture, that you thought I was ex- posing myself to great danger by the step I have taken. But I have not taken it without full deliberation. I know my danger and that it is the greater on account of being a clergyman of the Church of England. But I trust in Providence. The cause is a just one, and I trust will be protected." When appointed chaplain by Congress at the period of deepest gloom during the Revolution, he at once proceeded to Yorktown to discharge the duties of his office. When tlie British evacuated Philadelphia he was the only Protestant Episcopal clergyman who remained in the State. With regard to the organization of the P. E. Church he was connected with every step of the undertaking. lie presided in tlie Convention of 1785, was Chairman of the Committee to publish the Prayer Book, was the '•a/ 14 NOTES. first to read it in public service; was conaecrate of those who framed the Book of 1785, and though he allowed himself to be overcome and out- witted by the High Churchmen around him, had he lived to this day, he would have been an outspoken and earnest antagonist of those errors which have '/ I I] NOTES. 15 occasioned the establishment of the Reformed Epis- copal Church. For what he suffered for his Country, for what he did for Christianity, let us honor him. That he failed to see the consequences of his concessions to the urgent and fiery spirits around him, was an error of his head, and not the fault of his loving, patient, conciliatory, pure and honest heart. PROVOST WILLI A3I SMITH OF PHILADELPHIA. Dr. William Smith, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, had as prominent a part in establishing the P. E. Church as Bishop White. As an accom- plished Theologian and a voluminous and eloquent wTiter he excelled all his associates. The Convention of 1789, requested him to publish his sermons, and endorsed his sentiments. He was a member of the Conventions of 1785,-86,-89. When the service of the New Book was first read. Dr. Smith i)reached the sermon. He wrote the able preface to the Book. He presided in the House of Deputies from 1789 to 1799. He was Chairman of the Committee for revising the Liturgy. Bishop White styles him ''the most promi- nent clergyman of his Church." His sermons in behalf of Colonial liberty were widely distributed throughout England. The Tory Governor Tryon called the attention of the authorities to his trea- sonable utterances. The sublimely eloquent language in which he de])icts the coming grandeur of America; his urgent charge to love, and union among all denomi- nations; his clear unfolding of the principles of civil and religious liberty; give great value and attractiveness to his discourses, which remain a rich legacy to the American iieople. In his first Convention address. Bishop Cummins quotes largely from the candid and valuable preface of the Prayer Book of 1785, composed by Dr. Smith, and also from the sermon by Dr. Smith on the occasion when it was first read by Bishop White. There is room but for one extract from his sermons. "How long, alas! how long shall the divided sentiments of Christians be a reproach to their name? How^ long shall circumstantials prevail over essentials ? embitter- ing the followers of the lowly Jesus and inflaming their breasts with a madness even unto death. A sense of 16 NOTE.-.. this made the mild Melancthou, when he came to die^ thank God that he was going to be removed from temi)- tation to sin, and the fierce rage of religious zealots. Surely, my brethren, I will repeat it again. There is greater weight and moment of Christianity in charity, than in all the doubtful (luestions about which the Protestant Churches have been puzzling themselves and biting and devouring each other since the days of the Reformation. ^ •• -■■ It will not be so much a ques- tion at the last day of what Church we were, nor whether we were of Paul or Apollos, but whether wo were of Christ Jesus and had the true mark of Chris- tianity in our lives." \^oI. 1 1, pp. 63, 640, 1)11. CHARLES II. WHARTON. Dr. Charles II. Wharton was born in Maryland. Ordained a Roman Catholic priest, God opened his eyes. and he embraced the truths of the Bible. He ardentlv sympathized with the friends of American liberty. He combined great theological leaniing and wide scholar- ship with a poetic genius. His tribute to Genoa! Washington is among the l^est poetic productions of the Revolution. Dr. Wharton was present and active in the Conven- tions of 17Kj, and of 1786. He was on the committee to publish the Prayer-Book with Bishop White and Br. Smith. Bishoi> White says of him, ^4n all the impor- tant measures relative to the organization of the Church in this country, and especially in the Revision of the Liturgy, his learning, wisdom, and moderation were most effective and valuable." One sentence from his works will reveal his liberal, loving spirit. '^In this country, where the Christian is the only established religion, where tests and subscrip- tions are unknown; where refined speculations are not likely to deform the simplicity or interrupt the harmo- ny of the Gosi>el, I look forward with rapture to that auspicious day, when Protestants opening their eyes upon their mutual agreement in all the essentials of belief, will forget past animosities, and cease to regard each other as of different Communions. "Vol. II, p. 36K BR. WHARTON'S VIEWS OF APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. Dr. AVharton, like all the English Refonners, rejected the doctrine of an exclusive Episcopal succession. We NOTES. 17 have had no divine in our Church more capable of judging of this question. A convert from Popery, he had given the subject full investigation. The learned Dr. Thomas Hartwell Home says of him: "I have long had his masterly treaties in controversy with Dr. Car- roll, and value them among my choicest books against Popery." Dr. Wharton writes: ''The pretence of trac- ing up the Roman Church to the times of the Apostles, is grounded on mere sophistry. The succession which Roman Catholics unfairly ascribe to their Church, be- longs to every other, and exclusively to none. But that portion of the Christian Church is surely best entitled to this claim, which teaches in the greatest purity, the doctrine of the Apostles. . . . They have not the inheritance of Peter {stiffs St. Am- brose.Ub. l^de pan. )\\ho\m\e not Peter's faith." Works, vol. 2, p. 313. A few lines from the poem alluded to will indicate the patriotism of this learned, liberal-minded framer of the Prayer Book of 1785, a true Reformed Episcopalian. In his introduction he says, "His sole view in permmg this epistle was to express in the best manner he wai4 able, the warm feelings of a grateful individual toward the best of men, to whom he, and every American, will, in all likelihood be principally indebted for the estab- lishment of the independence and commercial prosperity of his country." "W^hile many a servile mu?e her succor tends To flatter tyrant.s, or a tyrant'e friends, While thousands slauglitered at Ambition's shrine Are made a plea to court the tuneful nine; W^hile Whitehead* lifts his hero to the skies, Foretells his conquests twice a year, and lies; Damns half-starAcd rebels to eternal shame, Or paints them treniblinir at rfrittJinia's name; Permit an humble bard, great Chief, to raise One truth-erected trophy to thy praise. Oreat without i>omp, without ambition brave, Proud not to conquer fellow-men but save; Friend to the weak, to none a foe but those Who plan their greatness on their brethren's woes; Awed by no titles, faithless to no trust. Free without faction, obstinately just. « Warned by Religion's pure and heavenly ray, That points to future bliss the certain way,— Such be my country! W^hat her sons should be, O, may they learn, Great Washington from thee!'' * Poet I^aureate. 18 NOTES. THE REFORMED EPISCOPACY OF THE REVOLUTION-^ ARY PATRIOTS. The history of the Protestant Episcopal Church resembles in one respect, that of its mother Church of England. The first six years of the latter, were its purest and best years. The days of its glory, were those when King Edward was its earthly head, and when Cranmer, Latimer, Rid- ley and Hooper where engaged in the establislmient of the Church and its formularies. The brightest period in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Chmch is that of its organization by White and Provoost, Smith and Wharton, and the framing by these divines, of its first and only Protestant Prayer Book, that of 178-'). To a Reformed Episcopalian, the study of both these periods is an investigation of intense interest. He is in full sympathy with these good men, and their mea- sures. He becomes assured that the Communion to which he is attached, is the legitimate successor of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which they, with the co- operation of other revolutionaiy patriots, so wisely es^ tablished. The work of both these periods of Ecclesiastical con- struction , was pen^erted , respectively, by two individuals, of temperaments somewhat similar. I refer to Queen EUzabeth and Bishop Seabury. Both these characters were equally tenacious of their respective prerogatives, Royal and Episcopal. Both were finn believers in Di- vine Right ; the first in that of Kings, the other equally in that of Bishops. Both by a successful interference changed materially, and for the woree, the character of the Communions in which, resi^ectively, they held the highest offices. Both greatly retarded the reforming work of their predecessors, and infused a Romish leaven into professedly Protestant Institutions, a leaven whicli neither Institution has been since able to expel. The growth and influence for good of both the Communions referred to, has been greatly and sadly retarded by the unhappy but successful interference of these earnest and strong willed characters. Of the men who took part in the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and framed its first Prayer Book, I have briefly de,scril)ed three of the most NOTES. 19 prominent. Bishop White; Provost William Smith, of Philadelphia ; Dr. Charles H. Wharton, of Delaware; large minded, and liberal Churchmen, and earnest, loyal American Patriots. BISHOP SAMUEL PROVOOST. I proceed willi the list of worthies whom the Re- formed Episcopalians claim as their rightful ecclesias- tical predecessors. Samuel Provoost, first bishop of New York, for rea- sons which will appear as we proceed, has not received from his Church the reverential regard to which his memory is j ustly entitled. Dr. Jolm W. Francis, in his **01d New York," p. o2, writes : ''I introduce Bishop Provoost in this place, because I think our Episcopal brethren have too niucii overlooked the man, his learn- ing, his liberality and his patriotism." Rev. Dr. Schroeder, Minister of Trinity Church, in his memoir of Bishop Hobart, p. liii, writes : ^'Dr. Pro- voost was a man of cultivated mind and manners. His deep interest, and numerous acts of self denial, in pro- moting the good cause of our civil liberties, and his prominent agency in organizing the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, may well preserve his name and perpetuate his memory. The motto of his ancient family escutcheon pro lihertate, declared at once the sentiments of his Huguenot forefathers, and the feelings which they had transmitted to him, through five generations, from the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury to the year 1742, when he was born at New York." The Evergreen, 1844, p. 199, says : "-The character of Bishop Provoost is one which the enlightened Christian will estimate at no ordinary standard." A graduate of the first class which passed through King's (now Columbia) College, he spent five years in study at Cambridge, England, and was ordained Deacon and Presbyter in 176G. Returning to New York, he was at once chosen assistant minister of Trinity Church. He served the parish four years, when, on account of political troubles, his opinions being utterly antagonis- tic to those of liis clerical associates, and the leading members of his parish, he resigned his position, and on a small farm in Duchess County, awaited the issue of the coming conflict. 'tl 20 NOTES. NOTES. 21 THE ]^IAGNANIMITY OF BISHOP PROVOOST. r ' il! Br. Schroeder remarks: ''He resolutelv refused all preferment that might l.e attributed to his sentiments, saying: 'as I entertained political opniions diametri- cally opposite to those of ni} brethren, I was apprehen- sive that a profession of these opinions might be imputed , to mercenary views, and an ungenerous desire to rise on their ruin.' He adds. 'To obviate any suspicion of this kind, I formed a resolution never to accept of anv i)re- ferment during the present contest. Although"^ as a private person, I have t»een and shall be alwavs ready to encounter any danger that may I^e involved in the defense of our invaluable nghts and lil^erties.' '' Ilanassed by debts, necesstuily incurred, without "a salary or income of any kind.' his -'estate at New- York in the hands of the enemy," a '^part of his furni- ture sold to provide the necessaries of life," and pre- vented by the Constitution of the State, and the Canons of the Church, from entering into any secular employ- ment; this patrioti." clergyman spent iiis time in study, in deeds of quiet usefulness, and in earnest pravers for the success of Washington and his dcvotcfl a-iiiy, and for the triumph of his country. He declined invitations to the leaosed the introduc- tion of bishops before the Revolution. It is not neces- sary here to relate how offensive the idea of Episcjopal supervision was to tlie minds of the colonists generally. The hostility was not confined to New England. No- where was it more determined than in the colony of South Carolina. John Adams states: "Where is the man to be found at this day, when we see Methodistical Bishops, Bishops of the Church of England, and Bishops, Arclibishops, and Jesuits oi" the Church of Rome with indifference, that the apprehension of Episcopacy contributed fifty years ago (1815), as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention, not only of the Virginia mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over the colo- nies? This, nevei'tlieless, was a fact as certain as any in the history of North America." Dr. Morse's Ani.ials of the Am. Rev. pp. 197. The ministers of the synod of New York and Phila- delphia, held in concert with the consociated Churclies of Connecticut, from 1766 to 1775, adopted resolutions with respect to this determined hostility to the introduc- tion of the Ehglish prelacy on these shores. Among the members we have the eminent names of John Witherspoon, Drs. Rodgers and Allison, McWhorter, Caldwell, Tennent, Mather, Bellamy and Brainerd. In one of their annual letters to their English Breth- ren, they remark: "Tlie late attempts of the Episcopal clergy among us to introduce an American Episcopate, have gi\ en a general alarm to our Churches, who lied from the unmerciful reign and persecution of diocet^an bishops in our mother country, to settle inanuncniti- vated wilderness; the recollection of the cruelties niul hardships which our fathers, before this peaceful re- treat was opened for them, fillsour minds witli an utter abhorrence of every species of ecclesiastical tyranny and persecution. "Besides all this, we can assure you that the Episco- pal Provinces of Maryland and Virginia do not appear to desire bishops among them; it is only the request of a few discontented missionaries in the Middle Colonies; the laity of theur communion (a few high officers ex- 1 26 NOTES. «epted), dread tlie power of a Bishop's Court as much as any other denomination, and have a liigh sense of liberty, civil and religious.'' See minutes of Conven- tion, republished 1843. The Ilouse of Burgesses in Virginia, composed almost fniirely of Protestant Epis^:opalians, in 1771, by aunaui- irious vote, thank fonr clergymen by name, "for the wise and well-timed opposition they have made to the pernicious projects of a few mistaken clergymen for in- troducing an American Bishop, a measure by which much disturbance, great anxiety and apprehension, would certainly take place among His Majesty's faith- ful American subjects; and that Mr. Richard Henry Lee and Mr. Bland do acquaint them therewith. '^ The writer here quoted remarks: ''The circumstances which we have just detailed, unfortunately produced a ijoldness l)etween the Episcopalians of Virginia and those of the Northern Provinces." See Prot. Epis. Hist. Col. 1851, p. im. James Madison in a letter 1774, testifies to the same predominant feeling: ''If the Church of England had been the established and general religion in all the Northern Colonies, as it has been among us here, and uninterrupted harmony had prevailed throughout the Continent, it is clear to me that slavery and subjection might and would have been gradually insinuated among us." Rives' Life of Madison, vol. 1. p. 43. THE PATRIOTISM OF DR. GRIFFITH. Dr. Griffith preached before the house of Burgesses in stirring patriotic strains, and entered the anny as chaplain, in 1776. His regiment was commanded by C^ol. Hugh Mercer, who fell mortally wounded at Princeton. Of Chaplain Griffith's army life we have an interest- ing incident narrated : "The evening before the battle of Monmouth found the army encamped on Mattapan Creek, near the Court House. Late at night a stranger suddenly appeared before AVashington^s quarters. He wore no uniform and was instantly challenged. He replied that he was Dr. Griffith, chaplain and surgeon in the Virginia line, on business of great importance to the Commander-in-chief. The officer of the General was called, but refused admittance. Washington's orders were T>eremptor>': he wiis not to be seen on any NOTES. 27 account. 'Go and say,' replied the visitor, 'that Dr. Griffith waits upon him \\'ith secret and important in- telligence, and craves an audience of only five mm- utes.' The General ordered him to be admitted. En- tering the Chief's presence. Dr. Griffith said: 'The nature of my intelligence must be my apology for in- trusion upon you at this hour. I cannot di^^ge the names of my authorities, but I can assure you that they are of the very first order, whether in point of charac- ter or attachment to the cause. I warn your Excel- lency against the conduct of Major General Lee, in to-morrow's battle.' So saying, he withdrew as sud- denly as he came." Lee's treacherj^ in that battle, and Washington's ter^ rific rebuke of him on the field, which was followed by Lee's withdrawal from the service, are well known. Sec Independent, Sept. 2, 1880, article by Rev. Charles H. Woodman. Lossing's Hist. Am. Rev., II, p. 623, states that Hamilton and others were present. In May, 1785, at the First Convention in Richmond, "when thirty-five clergymen and sixty-five laymen met to consider the question of union as proposed to tliem," Dr. Griffith was appointed a delegate to the General Convention, wliicli met at Philadelphia in the Autumn. At that meeting he took an active part in framing the Prayer Book of 1785. At the next Convention in Virginia, he was elected Bishop. THE LAITY OF VIRGINIA. Dr. Griffith represented an illustrious constituency. With reference to the Virginia laity. Rives, in his life of Madison, Vol. 1, p. 50, writes: "The vestrymen of that day, we shall find, were the Washingtons, the Lees, the Randolphs, the Masons, the Blands, the Pen- dletons, the Nelsons, the Nicholas', the Harrisons, the Pages, the Madisons, and other names far too numerous to re-capitulate in detail, which stand among the first on the role of our Revolutionary worthies. In these men, and such as these, were the eifective and con- trolling powers of the Church, for the laity and not the clergy were the rulers here." So impoverished had the Church become by the War, that the money required for Dr. Griffith's journey to England was not raised by the year 1789, and Dr. G. 28 NOTES. finally declined the appointment of Bishop. If Dr. Griffith had been consecrated with White and Provoost, and his life had been prolonged, for he died in his forty-ninth year, lie would have been the first bishop, as first elected, and been the Father of the American Church. He might have been its Preserver. In the sermon preached at his funeral, before the General Convention by Provost Smitli, he is thus des- cribed: "In the service of his country, during our late contest for liberty and independence, he was near and dear to our illustrious Commander-in-chief. He was also his neighbor, and honored and cherished by him as a pastor and friend. A\'hen on the conclusion of the War, he returned to his pastoral charge, and our Church, in these States, in the coui-se of Divine Provi- dence, w*ere called to organize themselves as inde- pendent of all foreign authority, civic and ecclesiasti- cal, he was from the beginning elected the chief cleri- cal member to represent the churches of Virginia in our General Conventions, and highly estimable he was among us. He was a sound, noble divine; a true son, and afterwards a father as a bishop-elect of our Church, with his voice always, with his pen occasionally, sup- porting and maintaining her just rights, and yieldhig his constant and zealous aid in carrying on the great work for which we are assembled at this time, with Christian patience and fortitude, though at a distance from his family and his nearest relatives and friends, he sustained his short but severe illness." The loss of such a man in that critical period, to his diocese and to his whole Communion was irreparable. The death of Dr. Griffith, and the admission of Bishop Seabury and his j-arty, on conditions which radically changed the principles of the primary constitution, and the doctrine of the prayer book of 178o, ai)pears to have discouraged the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vir- ginia. The work of its wisest men had been set aside. It is true a bishop was elected and consecrated in 1790, Dr. James Madison. He attendeil but two Con- vention. His wise moderation was there unavailing. For twenty.five years, and for nine General Conven- tions, the Diocese of Virginia was represented by but two clergymen and by one layman, who had renounced the ministiT. At four General Conventions no Virginia bishop, presbyter or layman was present. NOTES. 29 None of her great laymen had a voice in the action which removed the Church from the foundations upon which Jay, Duane, Pinckney, Peters, Page, Ruttledge, Griffin and bhippen had so grandly established it. It was left to weak and unwise hands to mar the work which had been so nobly inaugurated. BISHOP MADISON OF VIRGINIA. Bishop Madison of Virginia was briefly alluded to in the last note. This good and learned man deserves a full consideration in this connection, as he was in fuU sympathy with the liberal American principles which characterize the Reformed Episcopal Church, as dis tmgmshed from the religious Body, which its founders were compelled to abandon. THE LOYALIST CLERGY. To the anti-revolutionary principles, which were held by the loyalist clergy, through whose influence the con stitution and Prayer Book of the original Protestant Episcopal Church were radically changed, we have the testimony of one of the most noted of that company R^v Dr. Thomas B. Chandler, rector of St. John's Church* Ehzabeth, who retired to England at the beginning of the Revolution. In his "Appeal on behalf of the Chiich of England in America," Dr. C. writes: "Episcopacy can never thrive in a republican government; norV^ publican principles in an Episcopal Church. For the same reasons, in a mixed monarchy, no form of eccle siastical government can so exactly harmonize with the .^tate, as that of a qualified Episcopacy. And as thev are mutually adapted to each other, so they are mutually mtroductive of each other." THE WISDOM OF THE REVOLUTIONARY FATHERS. It was the avowal of such sentiments, and the obloquy occasioned by them, that led men like Jay and B^J and Shippen and Page, and Pinckney, to cast aside the teudal principles of the mother Church, and to frame a constitution imbued with the spirit of the Revolu- tion, and therefore acceptable to a free people. THE HOSTILITY TO EPISCOPACY. Bishop White states in his Memoir of Protestant Episcopal Church, page 48, that the opinion was gener- 80 NOTES. ally entertained, "that Episcopacy itself was unfriendly to the political principles of our Republican Govem- iiient." Dr. Hawks in his work on the Constitution and Canons of the P. E. Church, remarks: ''The effect of the American Revolution upon the Church, had been to attach to it no small share of odium, and few cared to enroll themselves among the clergy of a Communion, small in numbers, and the object also of popular dis- like." The reasons for this we have before presented^ and Mr. William B. Reed, an Episcopalian, in an ad- dress before the Pennsylvania Historical Society con- firms the statement. He says: ''Patriotic clergymen of the Established Church were exceptions to general conduct. ... It is a sober judgment which cannot be questioned, that had independence and its maintenance depended on the approval clearly sanctioned of the Colo- nial Episcopal Clergy, misrule and oppression must have become far more intense before they would have seen a case of justifiable revolution." Had the P. E. Bishops and clergy generally been men of the moderation and wisdom of Provoost, Griffith and Madison, these prejudices would gradually have been removed, and the names of the patriotic heroes who had reformed the Church, and revised the Prayer Book for a free country, would have established general confidence, and the result would have been a powerful, numerous and widely influential commimion. . THE MODERATION OF BISHOP MADISON. Bishop Madison who had been elected President of William and Mary College at the age of 28, presided at the first Convention in Virginia, consisting of thirty- live clergymen and sixty-five laymen. Consecrated in 1790— in the House of Bishops, he introduced a re- markable resolution which passed that Body. Bishops Provoost and White, probably voting for it. It ex- hibits the Catholic nature of the man, and was undoubt- edly an index to the principles of his Diocese, which has remained so generally faithful to the charitable and moderate views of its noble founders. HIS EFFORT TO PR03I0TE CHRISTIAN UNION. "The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America ever bearing in mind the sacred NOTES. 31 t)bligations which attends all the followers of Christ, to -avoid divisions among themselves; and anxious to pro- mote that union for which our Lord and Saviour so earn- estly prayed, do hereby declare to the Christian world, that uninfluenced by any other considerations than those of duty as Christians, and an earnest desire for the pros- perity of pure Christianity, and the furtherance of our holy religion, they are ready and willing to unite and form one body with any religious society, which shall be influenced by the same Catholic spirit. "And in order that this Christian end may be the more easily effected, they further declare that aU things in which the great essentials of Christianity and the characteristic principles of their Church are not con- cerned, they are willing to leave to future discussion; being ready to alter or modify those points, which in the opinion of the Protestant Episcopal Church, are subject to human alterations. And it is hereby recom- mended to the State Conventions to adopt such meas- ures or propose such Conferences with Christians of other denominations, as to themselves may be thought most prudent; and report accordmgly to the ensuing General Convention." Bh. White's Mem. Prot. Epis. Ch., p., 168. Perry's Hist. Gen. Con., p. 80. Dr. Sprague in his Annals of Epis. Pulpit, p. 320, writes of Bishop Madison: "At this period his heart seems to have been intensely fixed on uniting as far as possible, all sincere Christians. 'There is no one,' he says, 'but must cordially wish for such a union, pro- vided it did not require a sacrifice of those points which are deemed essentials by our Church; from them we have not power to retreat.' He introduced a proposi- tion to this effect in the General Convention held in New York in 1792; but it met with no favor, and was silently withdrawn. ' ' IIIS CHARITABLE EFFORTS DEFEATED. The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, which con- tained few of its original founders among the laity, and none of like eminence, appears to have felt the reac- tionary influence of the new regime. They rejected the proposition as "preposterous," and it was not permit- ted to be recorded in the journal. The same treatment has at times since been extended to the various petitions for relief, from burdens on the 32 NOTES. conscience, presented by numerous venerable and de- voted clergymen and laymen. Bishop ]Madison in the remaining twenty-three years^ of his life, attended but one more General Convention. He found the important educational field to which he had early devoted his deep and varied learning, more congenial. He was the regularly officiating minister of the ancient church at Jamestown, five miles from his College, and on a salary of only one hundred pounds a year. BISHOP MADISON AS A PREACHER. With respect to his pulpit talent, President John Tyler, who had been his pupil, remarks: ''Bishop Madison in the pulpit, was regarded in his day as strikingly eloquent; his style w^as copious and Cicero- nian, and his manner strikingly impressive. Tlie deep tones of his voice and its silvery cadence were incom- parably fine. It has been my fortune to hear our first and most distinguished orators, as well in our public assemblies, as in the pulpit; but I recollect nothing to equal the voice of Bishop Madison." President Tyler continues in his letter to Dr. Sprague: ''It was as President of William and Mar>', that the chiefest value of his life was exhibited. The hundreds who went ou into the world, the light of his teaching, the greut and exalted names which were given to fame by several of those, who under hiin became the disciples of Locke and Sidney, speak more loudly in his praise than any words I can utter and write. Well may his relative and namesake, James Madison, have said of him in the language quoted by you in your letter that, 'he was one of the most deserving men that ever lived.' I could have said no less of one, the memory of whose virtues is indelibly impressed upon my heart and mind— Exem- plar vitae inm-umque. As such I regarded him when living, and as such I cherish his memory, now that he is dead." Sprague 's Annals, p. 323. As a specimen of the earnestness which characterized Bishop Madison's addresses to the clergy, Dr. Sprague gives the following extnicts: "I do not think that I should discharge my duty in the manner which my conscience and my inclination dictate, were I not to speak upon this occasion with all that plainness and freedom which the importance of the subject demands. NOTES. 33 I know that our Church is blessed with many truly pious and zealous pastors,— pastors from whose exam- ple the greatest advantage might be derived by all of us; but at the same time I fear that there is too much reason to apprehend that the great dereliction sustained by our Church has arisen, in no small degree, from the want of ihiii fervent Christian zeal which such exam- ples ought more generally to have inspired. Had the sacred fire committed to our trust been everywhere at xill times cherished by us with that watchful and jealous attention which so holy a deposit required;— had it been tlius cherished, might not the ancient flame which once animated and enlightened the members of our Church, still have diffused its warmth? * * * ♦ What minister, what priest, what bishop is there, who will not. with pious awe, reflect most seriously upon the momeiitous charge committed unto him; and while he profoundly meditates upon the extent of his duties, ardently supplicate at the throne of grace the renewal of that fervent zeal without which the great ends of His mhiistry can never be accomplished." It is due to us Beformed Episcopalians, to give right- ful honor to this first bishop of Virginia, who like Provoost, was more eminent for learning and charity, than for ecclesiastical partizanship, and arrogant, sectarian exclusiveness. His fame, as his history is more fully known, as an eminent Christian scholar and educator, Avill shine like that of Arnold and Wa viand, and Muhlenberg, with ever increasing lustre. THE ACTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. We enter upon an intensely interesting theme when we refer to South Carolina and her relation to the American Kevolution. The names of her magnificent heroes Marion, Sumpter, Pickens, Moultrie, Laurens; of him who lead them on to final victory, Greene, the beloved and trusted of Washington; together with the Pickneys and the Rutledges, rise up before us to arouse our highest admiration for patriotism, valor, and virtue exhibited in their highest possible perfection. And when we state that Robert Smith, first bishop of South Carolina, served under these leaders as a private soldier, in the Siege of Charieston, and that the honored names of Pinckney and of Rutledge are associated mth his in the formation of the first Prayer Book and the 34 NOTES. NOTES. 35 first Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Churchy so radically, so unwisely, and so needlessly changed in aft^r times, we claim as Reformed Episcopalians, an especial interest in the lives of Carolina's noble Chris- tian Patriots. No State, except Virginia, w^as so hostile to the in- troduction of the Hierarchy from England as South Carolina. The South Carolina Episcopalians w^re largely descendants of the Huguenots. Their ancestors had been driven from their native country, after the mas- sacre of St. Bartholomew, by the influence of merciless bishops. The Protestantism of the descendants of these martyrs and confessors was not of the later German- silver variety but had the ring of the true metal. The brave officers w^ho won the battles in the Car- olinas were largely Christian men— Generals Morgan and Sumpter who commanded at the Cowpens; Colonels Campell, Williams, Cleveland, Shelby, and Sevier, with Major Morrow at King's :Mountain; as well as Colonel Bratton and Major Dickson, at Huck's Defeat, were all Presbyterian elders. Marion too was a Christian man. It required such men to face and repair the repeated disasters of those memorable campaigns. Ramsey, Hist. S. Carolina, ii, p. 38, says; "Great numbers of French Protestants sought an asylum in South Carolina, at different periods, who were Presby- terians." The number of Episcopalians was compam- tively small. Dr. Smyth in article. Southern Review on "The Revolution," p. 43, states; "In South Carolina, the great body of the people were non-Episcopalians. Epis- copalianism was indeed the established religion, but not, as has been recently affirmed, 'the predominant religion.' * * * The establishment of the Episcopalian religion in South Carolina was the act of a small minor- ity—obtained surreptitiously,— by sui-prise,- and by a majority, even then of only one vote. It never ex- pressed the views of the Colonists, and was never regarded othenvise than as unjust, tyrannical, and unchristian." When, therefore, the invitation was extended to the Episcopalians of South Carolina to unite in the forma- tion of an American Protestant Episcopal Church, the chief obstacle in the way of the project, was the matter of Bishops, as in Yirgijiia. The history of the order had not commended the institution to mankind; its human origin being apparent from its general results. The office can only be safely allowed when curbed and reduced as in the Primitive Church, when the Bishop was simply a presiding Presbyter and belonging to that order. Such was his position immediately after the Revolution, the same as now allowed m the Re- formed Episcopal Church, whose Constitution and Prayer Book have been modelled closely after the wise arrangements of the great men of that period, and are consequently truly American, free and safe. South Carolina and Virginia were extremely cautious in entering upon the work of Ecclesiastical organization. South Carolina came into the Union of the Churches in the Middle, and Southern States on the condition that no Bishop should be appointed over her. The Laity were to have a share in the Councils of the Church, their negative was to give them co-ordinate privileges in matters of ecclesiastical legislation with tlie clergy. So Democratic were these early assemblies, that in Virginia and South Carolina at the meetings for reorganizing the Church, laymen were appointed chairmen. See Church Monthly^ October 1865, White's Memoirs, p. 95. In the Convention of 1785 South Carolina appointed a distinguished delegation consisting of Hon. Charles Pinckney, Hon. Jacob Read, Hon. John Bull and Hon. John Kean. Messrs. Pinckney and Read were enabled to attend. The General Convention of 1786 had as delegates, Hon. John Parker and Edward Mitchel, At its adjourned meeting in October of the same year, John Rutledge, son of the eminent War Governor and states- men of the same name, and nephew of the celebrated Edward Rutledge, represented the State. Rev. Robert Smith appointed delegate in 1785, was unable to attend on account of the condition of his family. Rev. Henry Purcell, D. D., was representative that year. In the two Conventions of 1786 Dr. Robert Smith was present, to confirm the wise action of the previous year. ROBERT SMITH OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Of the distinguished men who thus laid the fair foundations of that Church, we can speak but brietiy of the two most eminent, Dr. Smith and Colonel Pinckney, both truly Reformed EpiscopaliaiLS. / NOTES. Robert Smith was educated in England, at Cambridge University. He was born the same year with Wash- ington, 1732. He became assistant minister of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, in 1757. He was buried in the cemetery of that Church m 1801. " Mr. Smith, as his predecessors had done, took a deep interest in the negro school establislied under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and he made it a part of his duty to visit the school and ascertain the proficiency of the children twice a week." Oiu: Reformed Episcopal Bishop wlio has imbibed theecclesiasticalprinciplesof this Revolutionary Father, as his legitimate successor, has taken up his Gospel work in this department, as in his other Episco- pal labors. " At the seige of Charleston by tlie British troops under Sir Henr>' Clinton, ]\Ir. Smith preached as he felt the crisis to require, and encouraged liis people by his own example in the defense of their liberties and homes, by going himself into the lines armed as a common soldier." Dalcho's Ch. Hist., S. Carolina, p. 216. We are not surprised to read that : " Upon the fall of Charleston he was marked by the enemy for persecu- ^ tion ; for falling ill shortly after its surrender, and even when his recovery was doubtful he was placed under double sentinels. Banished m 1780 to Philadelphia, he returned in 1783 and labored till his death, largely in education, having established the Academy which afterward became Charleston College." See Sprague's Annals, p. 172. But troubles came upon the Church in the South, as in the North, by the admission to predominating power and influence of Bishop Seabury and his part^% who were imbued with the feudal principles to which our Revolutionary fathers were so uncompromisingly and so rightfully hostile. Dalcho writes, p. 218. "The Church would not so easily (if they would for many years) have joined the General Association of the P. E. Church in the United States, had not Dr. Smith been at this period their principal counsellor and guide." The Constitution of the Churcli as originally care- fully framed by such first class minds, as Judges Jay, Duane, Shippen, and Peters; Governors Pinckney and Page; Griffin, President of Congress, and Senator Rutherford; in conjunction with Bishop Provoost, NOTES. 37 < Griffith, the Smiths, Wharton, Bishop White and other noble Christian legislators, was destined to be radically changed and the grand w^ork to be marred and defaced, in order to gratify a band of men who had no sympathy with the principles of the American Revolution, but had earnestly sought to keep the colonists in subjection to an imperious and tyrannical King and Parliament. We do not believe that since Apostolic times, any Christian Church, in its organization has ever been blessed with a more distinguished and competent band of laborers, than those who constructed the ecclesiasti- cal Constitution, whose overthrow it is our painful task to describe in detail. It was a cardinal principle with Bishop Seabury that laymen had no right to legislate in ecclesiastical affairs. THE CONSTITUTION RADICALLY CHANGED. The Constitution as primarily framed read: "In every State where there shall be a Bishop duly consecra- ted and settled, and who shall have acceded to the articles of this general Ecclesiastical Constitution, he shall be considered as a member of the Convention ex officio.'''' At the next Convention to please Bishop White, uix)n his motion, there was added to this section, these w^ords: "and a Bishop shall always preside in the General Convention, if any of the Episcopal order be present." At the primary Convention of 1789, with the design of conciliating Bishop Seabury, the Constitution was changed: "The Bishops of this Church when there shall be three or more, shall, whenever General Conven- tions are held, form a House of Revision, and when any proposed act shall have passed in the General Conven- tion, the same shall be transmitted to the House of Revision for their concurrence. And if the same shall be sent back to the Convention, with the negative or non-concurrence of the House of Revision, it shall be again considered in the General Convention, and if the Convention shall adhere to the same act, by a majority of three-fifths of their body, it shall become a law^ to all intents and puiposes, notwithstanding the non-concur- rence of the House of Revision." This radical departure from the primary Constitu- tion, in thus erecting a separate deliberative body, sim- ilar to the House of Lords, a second order of clergy / / '/ 88 NOTES. elected for life, was not a sufficient concession to Bishops Seabury and the Eastern clergy, and therefore an ad- journed Convention was held the same year, at which still further arid more radical concessions were made^ whose disastrous results in South Carolina, V^ginia, and other portions of the Church, we shall proceed to relate. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE PRIMARY P. E. CONSTITUTION. "It is well knowTi that our Church was formed after the Revolution, with an eye to what was then believed to be the truth and simplicity of the Gospel; and tliere appears to be some reason to re^et that the motives which then governed have since been less operative." Such was the wise, but mild rebuke administered by John Jay, near three-quarters of a century ago, in a letter to the vestry of Trinity Church, when refusal was made by him to tlie use of the Institution Office in the parisli at Bedford, New York. See Life of Jay, Vol. 1, p. 442. "This document" writes his biographer, "evinces the same inflexible opposition to assumed authority in the Church, which he had so illustriously displayed to usur- pations in the State." It is indeed a memorable docu- . ment to which we shall refer again in the course of our investigation into the work of the Revolutionary Fathers, in constructing the primary Constitution, and the original Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church. As John Jay was the most illustrious architect of that Constitution, and fully endorsed the Prayer Book of 1785, it is interesting to read his statement of the sound principles upon which that grand work was based; principles whic^j have governed Reformed Epis- copalians, who are now engaged in restoring the same Christian work, so nobly inaugurated a century ago. OPPOSITION TO THE EPISCOPATE. The hostility to "the assumed authority and the usur- pations" which had been characteristic of the Episco- pal order, which prevaded South Carolina, was equally shared by Jay and Duane, and others at the North. It was to protect the Church from the encroachment of that Order, that the First Constitution was so care- fully framed, and if there had been wisdom and states- NOTES. )». inanship in those who assumed to guide the Protestant Episcopal Church, adequate to the undertaking in thfr years succeeding; that Church might have kept pace ia its growth with the nation, whose foundations had been laid by the same hands. There was good reason for the anxiety felt on the sub- ject of Episcopal domination, by the Episcopalians of Virginia and South Carolina, and by their patriotic- brethren in New York. REASONS FOR ANXIETY. It was well known that a clergyman of extreme High' Church, sacerdotal and exclusive views had been re-^ quested by half a score of clergymen in Connecticut^ to cross the ocean for consecration, and that such con- secration had been conferred by the successors of bishops who had been In open hostility to the authorities of their nation, and had sympathized with and prayed for the^ restoration of the Popish heir of James II. Their very existence as a sect was based on their opposition to- William III., whom the people of England, when wearied with the tyranny and usurpations of their Roman Catholic Monarch, had placed on the throne. And it was because the King and Parliament of Great Britain had violated the principles of constitu- tional liberty, re-established in the time of William III.,, that the colonists in America had revolted, and had been forced to establish themselves as a free and inde- I)endent nation. And now the clergyman, the ablest of the company ^ who in America, had labored to frustrate the plans, and to prevent the success of the Revolutionary patriots^ had returned to his country as a ruler in the Church, to shape and fashion the infant Communion according to a "concordat" arranged by those who had conferred on. him Episcopal power. When we consider this marked fact in connection with the deep-seated general hostility to Episcopal rule in the colonies, we are not surprised at the action taken by the Protestant Episcopalians of South Carolina in refusing to accept a bishop for their Church. TESTIMONY OF JOHN ADAMS. John Adams wrote to Mr. Niles, February 13th,, 1818: "This controversy spread an universal alarm. A /, 40 NOTES. \ against the authority of Parliament. It excited a gen- eral and just apprehension, that bishops and dioceses, and churches and priests, and titlies, were to be im- posed on us by Parliament. It was known that neither King, nor ministry, nor archbishops, could appoint bishops in America, without an act of Parliament; and if Parliament could tax us, they could establish the Church of England with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies and tithes, and prohibit all other churches, as conventicles and schism shops." It was the consciousness of the general feeling which had prevailed with respect to Episcopacy, which led Provoost, Jay and Duane, and other patriots to frame their wise, safe and acceptable Constitution. Before proceeding further with the narrative of the complete abandonment of the principles of this original Constitution, it is proper to call attention to another patriotic bishop of the South, Rev. Charles Pettigrew. REV. CHARLES PETT.IGREW\ In the Appendix to the Life of Judge James Iredell, Vol. II. p. 591, we have the "Biographical notice of the Et. Rev. Charles Pettigrew; First Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina." He is thus styled, inasmuchas he was elected to that office, and was faithful in the over- sight of the Church in the State. And inasmuch as an honest and fair election constitutes a presbyter a bishop; Consecration being simply an orderly and seemly ceremony, such as the Coronation of a King, not conveying iK)wer, already possessed, but affirming it; and moreover as Mr. Pettigrew was received as a bishop of the churches of all denominations, he could justlv claim the official title which he so universally received. ^ He appears indeed to have been more fully a true Swiptural Overseer, than any of his contemporaries. We read that— '^During all this period he seems to have been not so much at the head of the Episcopal Church, as of religion in general, for there are various letters to him from Edward Dromgoole, and other Methodists, who either resided in or traveled through that region, and also from Lutherans, &c., giving him an account of their movements, and requesting an attendance at their meetings. Indeed the Clunvh Establishment having been dissolved, and all religious organizations broken down, the enemies of the evil one fought NOTES. 41 together, with no other bond of union than a common foe." PETTIGREW A PATRIOT. "In his politics he was a Whig," that is a patriot. "After the peace he received various invitations from the neighboring parts of Virginia, which were de^ clined." Born in Pennsylvania, he removed to South Carolina^ with his father's family. His father was of Huguenot extraction. His ancestors came to Scotland; from thence emigrating to County Tyrone, Ireland, and from the latter country to America. The father, James Pet- tigiew, converted under the preaching of Whitfield^ abandoned the Church of En|land. Educated under two Presbyterian ministers, one of them the famous James Waddel, (Wirt's blind preacher); "uniting to a devout spirit a vigorous intellect, and highly respecta- ble mental acquirements; and having returned to the faith from whicli his father had withdrawn, and to which, for several preceding generations his ancestors had belonged, he determined to devote himself to the ministry." Ue was ordained by the Bishop of London in 1775. THE CHURCH IN NORTH CAROLINA. • In 1789 Bishop White suggested to Governor John- son of North Carolina, the propriety of organizing the P. E. Church in that State. The latter referred the matter to Rev. Mr. Pettigrew, who did not succeed in securing a Convention until May, 1794. On that occasion a con- stitution was framed and adopted, and Mr. Pettigrew elected Bishop. "With regard to this honor he sincerely said, Nolo Episcopari; the state of his health seemed absolutely to forbid it; but in the depressed state of the Church, and the scattered situation of its ministers, the acceptance of this part was deemed by his fellow Christians a duty^ and he yielded. Various alarms of yellow fever at *Norfolk and Philadelphia, with their accompanying quarantine, cutting off all communication, prevented him from meeting the General Convention for some years, and in the latter part of his life declining health rendered him unequal to the exertion. Though he was thus unable to put the finishing stroke to the founda- A ww^ ^ si « NOTES. tion, yet his labore in rescuing tlie ministers and their parishes from the disconnected state in which they were disposed to continue, and in increasing and diffu- sing a zeal for religion, were of great service, not only in the cause of the Church, but of Christianity in general." Life of Iredell, II., 592. HIS ZEAL FOR EDUCATION. Mr. Pettigrew, like the two neighboring Bisliops, Smith and Madison, entered warmly into the matter of education. He was greatly instrumental in establish- ing the University. Such was his conviction of the im- portance of the measure, and his zeal for its success, that once being compelled to choose between the General Convention, anfl a meeting of the Friends of the University, he preferred the latter. Moore in his Hist. North Carolina, 1,494, writes: ^*In 1776 not more than six established ministei-s were to be fomid in the State. Kev. Charles Earll of Edenton, and Adam Boyd of Wilmington, were devoted Wliigs. . . . Bishop Pettigrew won the esteem and confidence of all Christians, and was their earnest co-adjutor in -every good work. Edward Dromgoole, the JSIethodist Missionary, then planting the earliest churches of that faith in North Carolina, and othei-s bore testimony to the noble charity of liis creed and practice.'' His duties as a minister were very onerous; as he had three or four counties under liis charge, and was ex- pected to preach a funeral sermon for every res])ectable parishioner. He had, also, to exercise his ministry under the disadvantage of a sickly climate. The death of Rev. Mr. Earll cast upon him the care of that whole section. In 1794 he built Pettigrew Chapel near Lake Scu[>- pernong which he presented to the Church. From this time till his death in 1807, he refused to receive any compensation for his services. ''An enlightened, cheerful and consistent Christianity i)ervaded his whole life, and particularly characterized him in his domestic relations." * AN ELOQUENT AND FITTING EULOGY. The Edenton Gazette notices: ''The death of that zealous and venerable disciple of the blessed Jesus, the Bev. Charles Pettigrew, Bishop of the Protestant Epis- \ NOTES. 4G copal Church in this State, who died at his house in Tyrrel County on the 7th of April last, (1807). To do justice to the character of this pious and excellent man would require talents which we have not ihe happiness to possess, and far exceeds the narrow limits of this paper. His public ministrations in this place for many years render eulogv unnecessary. His chaste and classical discourses, his fervid and animated devo- tion, his irreproachable and evangelical life, will long, very long, be remembered with melancholy regret by those who enjoyed the advantage of his public admoni- tions and instructions. In him were exemplified that ^simplicity and godly sincerity' which are the perfec- tion of Christian character. Oppressed by the infirm- ities of a feeble constitution and frequent disease, his cheerfulness did not desert him. As the world and its Ueeting joys receded from his view his faith in Christ and hope of immortal glory acquired additional vigor. * * * * 'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.' " A TRUE REFOHMED EPISCOPALIAN. We have quoted the greater part of this striking and beautiful eulogium on this true Apostolic bishop, that his memory may receive that veneration from the Re- formed Episcopal Church which is his due. In his pat- riotic devotion to his Country; in his unbounded affec- tion for Christians of all names; in his fraternal inter- course with the Church universal; in his unceasing devotion to the preaching of the Gospel, rather than to human forms of worship; in his successful furtherance of Gospel unity, we justly claim him as a Reformed Episcopalian. He stands forth a beautiful model to all Christian ministers. AVliile the zealous champions of a boasted Episcopal, Digital Succession, and an undeviating adherence to the phrases of a human Liturgy, are held up to admira- tion; this eminent man of God, this Revolutionary l)atriot, this zealous evangelist and successful preacher, like others, has not received from the Communion he so faithfully served, the honored remembrance which is his due. NEGLECT OF THE SOUTHERN CHURCH. 5o much absorbed was the Church in its recent union 44 NOTES. with the High Church Loyalists, that its more important interests in other portions of the land were neglected. White, in his Memoirs, p. 172, referring to the applica- tion from North Carolina, in 1794, and the failure of Mr. Pettigrew to appear, writes, "Why notliing was done afterwards for the carrying the design into effect, is not known, unless it be the decease of the Reverend person in question, which must have happened not long alter. " As the bishop-elect survived thirteen years, the want of interest manifested in the matter on the part of the Presiding Bishop, is of a marked character. But the ne^v departure of 1789, had impressed a new charac- ter upon the Church. A geneml decline pervaded the Church at the South. When at length, sixteen years after the death of the Ai)ostolic Pettigrew, the Church in North Carolina received a new bishop, unfortunately he belonged to the new regime. His views may be gathered from a single paragraph from a sermon— "On the doctrine of Divine right in the ministry, I hold and teach, that it can l)e derived only from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, by succession in the Church, through the line of Bishops as distinct from Presbyters; that it is essential to the validity of the Sacraments, and from its very nature incapable of any graduation. Tt is either Divine right or no right at all." See Bishop Ravenscroft's Works, Vol. 1. And when a regularly consecrated successor to Rav- enscroft was afterwards sent, imbued witli Non-juring sentiments, that system was carried out to its logical conclusion, and the bishop landed in the Church of Rome. In a sermon delivered shortly after the sad persersion of this bishop, Rev. Charles C. Pinckney, of diarles- ton, S. C, a worthy member of an illustrious family, remarks: "Bishop Ives used to boast that ho was a Churchman of the Hobart and Ravenscroft school." We admit his claim; and apprehend that lie had only learned too well the lessons taught in that High Church Semmary. "He rebaptized all who entered our Chur.!. from other denominations, though baptized as adults else- where; once giving as a reason to the writer that he had no respect for Sectarian baptism. All non-Episcopal NOTES. 45 , bodies he despised, counting the loss of Episcopacy enough to cut them off from God^s favor. "May this fall of one of our bishops, recall to the remembrance of the Church, the warning voice of a wiser, and an older man; with wonderful forecast, Bishop White often protested against misunderstanding the word 'Priest,' in the Levitical and Romish sense. He declares it to be synonymous with ^Presbyter,' and in no wise a mediating, or sacrificing, or absolving officer." Yet with a strange inconsistency, and inexplicable weakness, to please Bishop Seabury, Bishop White re- stored the word "priest," after he had banished it fioin the Prayer Book of the Revolution. It has been left to the Reformed Episcopal Church, following the example of the English Reformers, and the Revolutionary Fathers, again to eject the fatal word, with other expressions, necessarily promotive of Roman, Mediaeval and Anti-Christian errors and prac- tices, as history has abundantly shown. We are calling attention to the original Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to the First Prayer Book as framed by the Patriots of the Revolu- tion, and to the extraordinary and radical changes made a few years afterwards in the grand work of this distinguished company of ecclesiastical legislatoi-s. An account has been given of the more eminent of the clergymen wiio took part in this important transac- tion. Of twenty-two who were present in the Conven- tions, we have noticed the six most prominent, five of whom were bishops or bishops-elect. The laymen who were engaged in the work of laying the ecclesiastical foundations, which they believed were to be permanent, were forty-two in number, twelve of whom on account of their eminence as states- men and jurists we shall proceed briefly to describe. In intellect and reputation, as well as fitness for their mission, they were equal, if not superior, to their cleri- cal co-laborers. DEPUTIES FROM NEW JERSEY. New Jersey was represented by a veiy distinguished deputy. Hon. David Brearley served with distinction as Lt. Colonel in the War of the Revolution. He rose rapidly in the legal profession, was appointed U. S- 46 NOTES. District Judge, and soon reached the highest honor, that of Chief Justice of his State, which he held for nine years. He is especially deserving of record as be- ing a member of that famous body by whom the Con- stitution of our Republic was framed. He was also a member of the State Constitutional Convention. No American has held more distinguished positions at such an early age. He died when forty-four years old, ere he had reached the full maturity of his powers. John Rutherford may properly be noticed among the eminent men of New Jersey, though at the time a delegate from New York. Rutherford, who was a nephew of General Lord Stirling, had served as Colonel in the Revolution. He was Presidential elector for New Jei-sey on several occasions, and also U. S. Senator. Appointed by the Council of the State a vestryman of Trinity Church, in 1784, and made Clerk of the Corpo- ration, he resigned in 1787, on moving from the State. The thanks of the Board were presented him for ''the utmost attention paid by him to the interests of the Corporation, and the duties of his station as clerk." 13errians' Hist, of Trinity Church, p. 185. THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION. From Pennsylvania came more than one-third of the entire lay delegations, and among them were men of national reputation. Thomas Hartley was a distinguished lawjer, a Colo- nel in the War, and in Congress from 1789 to 1800. Edward Shippen,a very eminent jurist, after holding many distinguished positions, became the Chief Justice of the State. A biographer thus sums up his character: •'As a valuable citizen, an accomplished lawyer and judge, remarkable for the great extent and minute ac- curacy of his knowledge, he must ever be conspicuous among those worthies who have won, by their virtues and their talents, an imperishable name." National Portraits, Vol. 1. Richard Peters was Captain in the Revolution, and Secretary of War, from 1776 to 1781. He retired with the express thanks of Congress. Returning as Repre- sentative, he served several yeai-s, and declining a Fis- cal oflice tendered by Washington, was appointed U. S. Judge, an office which he filled with great distinction for thirty-six years. Lossing writes: "Next to Rob- \ NOTES. 47 «rt Morris, Mr. Peters was one of the most efficient men in providing the ways and means of carrying on the war. In the summer of 1781, Washington pre- pared to attack the British in New York, and was ex- pecting the aid of the Count De Grasse., with his squad- ron of French ships of war. He received notice that De Grasse's aid could not be given. Washington was greatly disappointed, but instantly he conceived the ex- pedition to Virginia, which resulted in the capture of Cornwallis. Peters and Morris were both in Wash- ington's camp on the Hudson. At the moment when he conceived the Virginia expedition he turned to Petere, and said, 'What can you do for me?' 'With money everything— without it, nothing,' Peters re- plied, at the same time casting an anxious look toward Morris the great financier. 'Let me know the sum you desire,' said Morris. Before noon, Washington had completed his plans and estimates. Morris promised the money and raised it upon his individual security." Mr. Peters superintended the provision and preparation of the necessary supplies for this important and decisive enterprise. "Our Countrymen," p. 170. EMINENT SOUTH CAROLINAINS. South Carolina was ably represented in these Con- ventions. Hon. John Parker was a member of Con- gress at the time he assisted in founding the Protest- ant Episcopal Church. Hon. John Rutledge, son of the eminent statesman of the same name, distinguished himself both in the Legislature of his State and in the U. S. Congress. Hon. Jacob Read, a member of Con- gress, while in the Convention, became U. S. Senator, presided over that body, and for many years held the office of U. S. District Judge. The most distinguished delegate from the State was Hon. Chas. Pinckney. The name of Charles Pinckney is so identified with the era of the Revolution and the Constitution, that it is not necessary here to recall his history. As mem- ber of Congress, of the Senate, as a framer of this country's Constitution, and repeatedly Governor of his native State, and as Minister Plenipotentiary, he occu- pies a pre-eminent position in the national annals. Curtis, in his Hist, of Constitution U. S., 1. p. 486, enumerates him among the "men of great distinction and ability, -celebrated, before and since the Convention, in that \ 48 NOTES. period of the political history of America which com- menced with the Revolution, and closed with the eighteenth century." VIRGINIA NOBLY REPRESENTED. Virginia, whose early Diocesan Conventions were re- splendent with great lievolutionary names, sent two of her most prominent statesmen to organize the American Episcopal Church. Hon. Cyrus Griffin, honorably connected with fami- lies in England, entered warmly into the defense of the just rights of the colonies, and pledged his life and property on the momentous struggle. He took a dis- tinguished part in Congress, and during the formation of the Constitution, was President of that Body. The unanimity with w^hich he was selected by the Diocesan Convention of Virginia for such a responsible position, indicates the great respect which was felt for his ability and character, by that distinguished assembly. He was President of the Supreme Court of Admi- ralty, and Judge of U. S. Court from 1789 to 1810. Washington when appointing him Indian Commissioner styles him "a regular student of law, having filled an important office in the Union in the line of it, and be- ing besides a man of competent abilities and pure char- acter." GOVERNOR JOHN PAGE. Hon. John Page, one of Virginia's most noted sons, was among the most efficient and prominent in the work of the Convention. Bishop White's mention of him indicates the active part he took in Committees and on the floor of the House. No one in the Conven- tion, from ability and study of the matters involved, was more fully fitted for the great Christian work in which these master minds were engaged. Mr. Page's residence was Rosewell, on the York river, one of the most capacious and extensive resi- dences in the State; built by an eminent ancestor of the same name. Jefferson and Page were schoolmates and most intimate friends through life. Howe, in his His- torical Annals, describes the two honored statesmen enjoying from the roof of the mansion the magnificent prospect of ten miles in extent, and discoursing on matters pertaining to the welfare of that Nation, ' NOTES. 49 which both had been greatly instrumental in calling into existence. Mr. Page at once embraced ardently the side of the Colonists, and like Cyrus Griffin, risked his great estates and his life on the issue. At an early period, when Lord Dunmore, the Governor, had seized the powder and arms of tlie Commonwealth in order to cut off the means of military defense, Mr. Page was the only member of his Council who stood out against his arbi- trary measures. In his autobiography, Mr. Page writes, "I advised the Governor to give up the powder and arms he had removed from the magazine. But he flew into an outrageous passion, smiting his fist on the table, and saying, 'Mr.. Page, I am astonished at you.' I calmly replied I had done my duty and had no otiier advice to give." Rives' Life of Madison, L, p. 94. BISHOP 3IEADE'S EUL0Gir3I. Col. Page was with Washington on one of his expe- ditions against the Indians, and commanded the militia to oppose the invasion of Gen. Arnold. Bishop Meade writes: "He was the associate and intimate friend of Mr. Jefferson at college, and his follower in politics afterwards, though always differing with him on relig- ious subjects, endeavoring to his latest years, by corres- pondence, to convince him of his errors. He was a zealous friend of the Episcopal Church, and defended in the Legislature, wiiat he conceived, w'ere her rights, against those political friends with whom he agreed on other points. So zealous was he in her cause that some wished him to take Orders, with a view to being Bishop of Virginia. His name may be seen on the journals of the earliest Conventions of Virginia. I have a pamphlet in my possession in which his name is in connection with those of Robert C. Nicholas, and Colonel Bland, as charging one of tlie clergy in or about Williamsburg with false views on the subject of the Trinity, and of the eternity of the punishment of the damned. His theological library was well stored for that day. The early fathers of Greek and Latin, with some other val- uable books, were presented to myself by one of his sons, and form a part of my library. It may not be amiss to rejieat what I have said in a preface to the little volume written as a legacy by the first of this name to his posterity,— that seven of them are now fiO NOTES. ministers of the Episcopal Church, and two who were such are deceased." "Old Churches of Virginia," I. 148. Bishop Meade says further, p. 333: "Mr. Page was not only the patriot, soldier, and politician, the well-read theologian, and zealous Churchman — so that, as I have said before, some asked him to take Orders^ with a view to being the tirst Bishop of Virginia,— but he was a most affectionate domestic character. His tenderness as a father and attention to his children is seen in the fact tliat, when attending Congress held ia New York in 1789, he was continually writing very short letters to his little ones, even before they could read them." In one of these letters Mr. Page writes of Xew York: "This town is not half as large as Phila- delphia, nor in any manner to be compared to it in beauty and elegance. Philadelphia, I am well assured, has more inhabitants than Boston and New York together. The streets here are badly paved, very dirty, narrow as well as crooked, and filled up with a strange variety of wooden, stone and brick buildings, full of hogs and mud." Mr. Page was one of tlie most conspicuous mem- bers of the Convention which formed the Virginia Constitution; member of the first U. S. Congress, and Governor of the State from 1802 to 1805. He held other public offices till his death in 1808. President Madison thus warmly eulogizes him: "The memory of Governor Page will always be classed with that of the most distinguishetl patriots of the Revolu- tion. Nor was he less endeared to his friends, among whom I had an intimate pla(;e, by the interesting accomplishments of his mind and the warmth of his social affections, than he was to his country by the evidence he gave of devotion to the republicanism of its institutions." Rives' Life, I. 76. Pre-eminently com|)etent was this great and good man for the work in which with Griffith and Griffin of his State he was associated, and we may, from a knowledge of the admirable fitness of these remark- able men, appreciate the jistonishment and grief with which the Churchmen of Virginia beheld in a few years the summary abandonment and overthrow of their Constitution and Prayer Book, in order to pro- pitiate a few clerical loyalists, of the most extreme eo- NOTES. 51 I clesiastical stripe, and therefore doubly obnoxious to liberal-minded patriotic Americans. THE SAD RESULT. That the Church in Virginia, staggered by such wholly unexpected and utterly inconsistent action, should have lost hope of success, and ceased further to progress, was the legitimate, logical result of the marvelous blunders of the ecclesiastical legislation of the Conventions of 1789. It was reserved for Bishops Moore and Meade, men of the stamp of Griffith and Griffin and Page; of Jay and Duane; of P<^ters and Pinckney, in later years, to re- cover in some measiu-e, the ground so hopelessly and rashly lost. That Diocese is suffering now from its continued organic connection with a Body hoi^elessly infected with mediaeval error in its Lituriiy and Offices, and with feudal principles imbedded in its Constitu- tion and Laws. If forty years ago, when in General Convention it failed in its earnest efforts to check the irresistible development of the semi-Romish elements within the Church, through the agency of the Oxford Tract move- ment; it had then asserted its independent, inalienable. Christian rights, and had severed its connection with an organization drifting away from the Word of God, and pure Gospel truth; a nobler, purer, and more ex- tensive Communion would have been the happy result of such a courageous return to the sound doctrine, pure worship, and manly, liberal spirit of the pioneer ec- clesiastical architects of the Revolution. No delegation exercised a more powerful influence upon the General Conventions of 1785 and 1786 than the one from New York. The position, patriotism, and learning of Bishop Provoost, the exalted services and character of John Jay, the great ability and influence of James Duane, with the attendance of Colonel John Rutherford, ves- tryman and clerk of Trinity Corporation, wlio also ap- peared as a Representative from the same State, con- tributed greatly to the efficiency and success of the work. The result was the free, American Episcopal Consti- tution of which that of the Reformed Episcopal Church is the counterpart. The revision of the Prayer Book 52 NOTES. on a sound Scriptural and Protestant basis was largely due to these eminent Christian statesmen. Born in :New York city in February, 1732, the same year and month with Washington, and educated for tlie Law in the office of the eminent Colonial counsel, James Alexander, father of Lord Stirling, Duane was admitted as attorney in 1754. In 1759 he married the eldest daughter of Colonel Robert Livingston, propri- etor of Livingston Manor. From this connection, and the large estate inherited from his father, and his own native talent he soon attained extensive practice and influence in his profession. His offices before the war were Clerk in Chancery, and temporarily, Attorney General. PUBLIC SERVICES OF JAMES DUANE. The people of New York city and the neighborhood, elected Mr. Duane to the Congress of 1774 when the Colonial authorities refused to act. From the journal of John Adams it appears .tliat Duane was the most prominent man in that delegation. Duane and Jay were appointed to the Committee to state the rights of the Colonies. Duane was re-elected to the Congress of 1775. Recalled home with Mr. Jay to assist in framing a State Constitution, he was thereby prevented with his illustrious co-patriot from signing the Decla- ration of Independence, passed during their absence. His name is appended to the Articles of Confederation of 1781. Leaving New York on the 8th of June, 1774, he never returned until he entered it in triumph on the evacuation of the British in 1783. In the same year he served as a Senator in the State Legislature, and also as one of the Council for the Government of the Southern District of New l^'ork. When Duane entered his native city, "he found his houses in King (now Pine) street, and at the comer of Water and Fly streets, almost entirely destroyed. His farm, as he calls it, consisting of about twenty acres, at what is now called Gramercie Park, and its vicinity, was in pretty good order, the house having been occu- pied by one of the British Generals." Jones' Mem. Doc. Hist. N. Y., lY., 1077. In 1784, the Common Council petitioned the Gov- ernor to make Mr. Duane mayor, "as no one," they NOTES. 53 say, "is better qualified, so none will be more accepta- ble to us and our constituents at large than Mr. Du- ane. Few have sacrificed more or deserve better from their country." Under him in the Mayor's Court where he presided for six years, were trained to eminence, Hamilton, Burr, Tronp, the Livingstons, Hoffman and others. His decisions were all confirmed by the Supreme Court. During a portion of this period Duane also served as State Senator, and w^as in the Convention of New Y'^ork, which adopted the U. S. Constitution in 1788. General Washington appointed him the First District Judge for New York when the new Government went into operation. After holding this office for five years, he retired to his extensive estates at Duanesburgh, where he died in February, 1797. IIIS INTEREST IN CHRISTIAN WORK. The immense amount of business transacted by Mr. Duane would seem to preclude him from taking part in ecclesiastical affairs, but we learn from Judge Jones that, "no layman of the Episcopal Church was more instrumental than himself in uniting all its members under one Constitution, and in obtaining the Conse- cration of her first Bishops." Mem. p. 1083. "We find him taking an active part on the side of the Church ^ * * * in tlie disputes about taxation by authority of Parliament alone, when such au- thority was first exercised. He was a decided Church- man, but like his friends Jay and Chancellor Living- ston, he was a strenuous advocate both for civil and re- ligious liberty." "In 1784, the Council took possession of the property of Trinity Church, set aside an election of vestrymen that had been held just before the Americans regained New York, and ordered a new election, in which Mr. Duane was chosen one of the Church Wardens, and other Whigs, vestrymen. This election w^as afterwards confirmed by Act of Legislature,- and the persons elected chose as rector of the Church, the Rev. Samuel Provoost, a Whig, who had left New York after the British took possession, and who was Afterwards the Bishop of the Diocese. The property was afterwards restored, and Mr. Duane continued the elected Church 54 NOTES. NOTES. SS' Warden so long as he remained a resident of the City of New York." Jones' Mem., p. 1077. In April, 1794, Mr. Duane resigned the Wardenship which he had held for ten years, having been also a vestryman of the Corporation for several years previous to the Revolution. Resolutions highly expressive of respect were transmitted by the vestry to Mr. Duane, through his intimate friend of congenial ecclesiastical and civil views, Bishop Provoost. Before his death Mr. Duane erected a church edifice at his individual expense, which he presented to the pai'ish at Duanes- burgh. THE STANDING AND INFLUENCE OF JAMES DUANE. His biographer tells us that he was a man of genial nature and much beloved l)y his friends. This fact comes out incidentally in a letter from Robert Morris to John Jay, written Feb. 5, 1777. Morris was second only to Washington in services during the Revolution. Botta,inliis" War of Independence," III. 343, writes of Morris: ''The Americans certainly owed, and still owe, as much acknowledgment to the financial operations of Robert Morris, as to the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin, or even to the arms of Washington." In his letter to Jay, Morris writes: "I hate to pay compli- ments, and would avoid the appearance of doing it, but I cannot refrain from saying I love Duane, admire Livingston, and have an epithet for you if I had been writing to another." Jay's Life I, 60. On October 8th, nai, at a Convention of Clergy and Laity, while Chancellor Livingston was Warden of Trinity Church, he was appointed Trustee of the Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of the Episcopal Church, together with Jay and Morris. To the same Board were appointed Duer, Rutherford, Governor Lewis, Hamilton, Alsop, and Walter Livingston, to- gether with Governor Morris, of Philadelphia. In the Convention which apiwinted them sat Col. Marinus Willett, of New York, and Richard Willing, of Phila- delphia. Such were some of the eminent names con- nected with the infancy of the American Episcopal Church. With reference to the general view of the conspicu- ous ability and services of James Duane, we will con- fine ourselves to the testimony of Alexander Hamilton^ himself confessedly the most commanding intellect of his time. Hamilton, in a memorable letter written to- Duane while in Congress, in 1780, in which he outlines with extraordinary power the future Constitution of our Country, closes thus: ''My dear sir, this letter is hastily written, and with a confidential freedom, not as- to a member of Congress, whose feelings may be sore at the prevailing clamor, but as to a friend who is in a situation to remedy public disorders, — who wishes for nothing so much as truth, and who is desirous for in- formation even from those less capable of judging than himself." Hamilton's Life I, pp. 284-305. It remains to present a notice of John Jay, and then there will be stated the intelligent and earnest efforts of Jay and Duane in connection with Bishop Provoost and others to organize the Episcopal Church on a free. Scriptural, American basis, and to preserve it from the attempts of Bishop Seabury and his party to substitute the feudal, illiberal, and Semi-Romish principles of the* Non- Jurors, which have ever proved such a blight to the Church. While interesting, it is a melancholy his- tory full of warning; but at the same time it is satis- factory and strengthening to Reformed Episcopalians- to be assured that they are in the fullest sympathy with the great Revolutionary Patriots, whose services to the Church, as well as the State, we have been privileged briefly to notice. THE MOST EMINENT OF REFORMED EPISCOPALIANS. We have reserv^ed for the last notice of the founders of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Revolution, the most eminent of that illustrious assembly of Chris- tian legislators, regarded by many as the purest states- man, of the first order of that unrivalled company of heroes, who founrinciple set forth in the preliminary meeting of 1784, as folk)ws: ''That the Clergy and Laity assembled in Convention, shall delib- erate in one body, but shall vote separately; and the concurrence of Ix^th shall be necessary to give validity to every measure." Thus, two j)rincip1efl were clearly established. That there sliould not be two peparate Houpea to legislate; and moreover that Clergy and Laity should have co- ordinate powers. This was the Rational, Republican, 62 NOTES. and Primitive System adopted by the Revolutionary Episcopalians. And that this was deliberately done, with admirable forethought, becomes more evident from the action of Duane and Jay, evidently with the concurrence of Bishop Provoost, when these distinguished statesmen were both Wardens of Trinity Church, and Bishop Provoost was Rector. MR. jay's resolution FOR PROTECTION OF THE LAITY. In the meeting of the Vestry, October, 1789, to ap- point delegates to the General Convention of that year, Mr. Jay moved that the Corporation would adopt the following resolution, viz.: *'That the delegates now chosen to represent this congregation at the next Con- vention be, and they hereby are, instructed not to con- sent to, but on the contrary', to oppose every proposed Constitution for the American Episcopal Church, and every propos^ alteration in the one of 1786, that shall not give to the laity equal powers with the clergy in the making of all acts, laws, and regiilations binding on the Church." The patriotic vestry of 1784 having been removed, and a new one from the old loyalist element who had returned to the city, having been chosen, the wardens were overborne, and the consideration of the resolution postponed. Berrian's Hist, of Trinity Church, p. 176. Jay and Duane sought by this vigorous resolution to forestall the efforts of the party who desired to unite with Bishop Seabury and the Kew England Loyalists, who demanded as a condition of union, that the Bishops should legislate as a separate order, with the veto power on the Lower House, thus giving to the clergy a duplicated power over the laity, through the votes of two distinct clerical orders. THE PATRIOT CHURCHMEN DEFEATED. How Seabury and his party triumphed, and how the feudal system was stamped upon the Protestant Epis- copal Church by the abandonment of the Constitution framed by the eminent statesmen of the Revolution, will be narrated in its proper place. NOTES. ANOTHER DANGER. 03 These wise statesmen of 1785 sought to guard against another danger. The Church of England in New York, Connecticut and Xew Jersey, had been mostly loyal to the Crown. To the southward its members had more generally espoused the Cause of Liberty, Justice and the Revolu- tion. We have previously shown how that if the Cause of Liberty and Independence had rested with Episcopalians alone, it would have failed. The Convention of 1785 determined to secure to the infant Church a patriotic clergy, who would be in sym- pathy with the new Republic, and would be therefore fitted to be instructors of the rising generation, in the patriotic, American principles of its noble founders. SERVICE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY. Fresh from service and suffering in the State, and in the field, they thus ordered: "On motion, Resolved, That the Fourth of July shall be observed by this Church for ever, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the inestimable blessings of religious and civil lib- erty vouchsafed to the United States of America." "The Rev. Dr. Smith, from the committee to prepare a form of prayer and thanksgiving for the Fourth of July, reported that they had prepared the same. Or- dered, That it now be received and read. Ordered, That the said report be received and read by para- graphs; which being done. Resolved, That the said form of prayer be used in this Church, on the Fourth of July forever." Thus was the Church consecrated to free, American principles, by this careful, deliberate action. SOUTH CAROLINA AND PENNSYLVANIA RESOLU- TIONS. And with respect to this Fourth of July service which is one admirably constructed and eminently suitable, we find that the Convention of South Caro- lina of 1786, reaffirmed a resolution passed by the P. E. Convention of Pennsylvania, viz: "That the Fourth of July shall be observed by this Church forever as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the inesti- mable blessings of religious and civil liberty vouch- 64 NOTES. safecltothe United States of America." In Charles- ton, religious services on that day were attended by- great numbers of rejoicing worshipers. The large churches of St. Philip's and St. Michael's were crowded with attendants. Is it wonderful that when those patriots, with those of Virginia heard that at the Convention of 1789, through the influence of the Loyalists of New York and New England, the Fourth of July senice had been rejected and eliminated, and that the Non-Juring principles had triumphed in the overthrow of the Scripturally revised B«x)k of (Common Prayer, that the Church at the South received a fatal blow from which it has never fully recovered ? OPINION OF JOHN ADAMS. » These Southern patriots whose lands had suffered so grievously in the war that had achieved American In- dependence, felt justly with John Adams, as he wrote to his wife on the 5th of July, 1776: ''The Fourth of July, 1776, will be a memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversar>^ festi- val. It ought to be commemorated as the day of de- liverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almisr'itv God. It ought to be solemnized with pomps, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bon-fires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever." The Protestant Episcopal Church did not fail in its duty of commemorating this grandest of political events; it was only when it was handed over to those who had sought to keep the nation in the hands of its t>Tants, that the celebration which so emphatically condemned their previous history was disallowed, and thereby the confidence of the nation justly and irre- parably forfeited. BISHOP white's defense UNTENABLE. The very reasoninec by which Bishop White would palliate his unjustifiable assent to the destruction of this wise and fitting work of his patriotic fellow-lal)or- ers of 1785 and 1786, canies its own condemnation. He writes, Mem. p. 105: ''Greater stress is laid on this matter, because of the notorious fact, that the majority of the clergy could not have used the sei-vice witliout NOTES. 65 subjecting themselves to ridicule and censure." But what did the American people want with religious teachers who did not accept heartily the principles of the Declaration of Independence ? Were they fitted to be instructors of the rising generation ? Would not the infant Church have been bettor served by fewer ministri-s, but who were in sympathy with the masses of the victorious and triumphant nation, fresh from the sufferings endured in the great struggle? But, as we have before remarked, this insane passion for uniformity, and for an aggregation of utterly uncon- genial elements was then, as it has been since, the bane of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The action of tl:e Convention of 1789 utterly destroyed all prospect of that Church becoming, what it might have been, and was entitled to be, among the largest, most ac- ceptable and most influential of American Churches. As a legitimate and necessary result it has sunk immer- ically to the third class and ranks as seventh. Bishop Provoost writes in 1786; "The thanksgiving for the Fourth of July in all probability, is one princi- pal cause of the opposition to the alterations in the Book." Most unfortunately the opposition of Sejibuiy and his friends prevailed. " Peace at any price," was to be secured, even by a discreditable and disastrous change of base. The public enemies of the Kevolution were admitted to a predominating influence, and with their admission the Constitution and Liturgy of Jay, Duane, Page, Pinckney, GrilTin and Peters, was sacrificed on the altar of a false and hollow union. THE RADICAL CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION. We have seen how carefully the framers of the Constitution of 1785, avoided the evils which had attended the Church in its past experience, from the principle of Divine Right, in a third Order of Ministers, to whom had l)een committed the exclusive power of Ordination, Confirmation, and Jurisdiction. They gave to the Laity a co-ordinate power of Legisla- tion, and reducing the Episcopate to its original Scrip- tural arrangement, an order identical with the Presbyterate, they constituted the General Convention 66 NOTES. NOTES. (>7 witli but one House for the transaction of Ecclesiastial work. At the next Convention of 1786, tliey affirmed the Primitive principle, that the Bishop should be ''primus inter pares,'' and ordered that ''a Bishop shall always preside in the General Convention, if anyof the Episco- pal order be present." Thus the Constitution remained until the year 1780. Drs. Provoost and White in the mean time had been consecrated Bishops. HOW THE CHANGE WAS EFFECTED. But, as we have seen, there was another Bishop who had been consecrated under very different circum- stances. Elected secretly by ten Presbyters, without the knowledge or concurrence of the Laity, refused consecration by the Bishops of the Church of England, Dr. Seaburyhad been consecrated by the Non-juring Bishops of Scotland, whose views of doctrine and discipline were not in accord with the framers of the Constitution and Prayer Book of 1785. The Preface of the Prayer Book of 178*5 states plainly that the principles of the Divines who were loyal to William III. and the amendments proposed by those eminent Reformers, had been incorporated in the primary, American, Episcopal Liturgy. Recognizing no Church not Episcopal, Bishop Sea- bury and the Kew England clergy, were entirely cut off from fraternal ecclesiastical relations with any ecclesiastical body, unless a union was formed with that represented by Bishops Provoost and White. This union was earnestly desired. But the under- standing upon which Bishop Seabury received conse- cration, was that Laymen were not to legislate for the Church, and moreover that the distinct assent of Bishops as a superior order by Divine right was essential to the validity of Ecclesiastical proceed u re. The Constitution and Prayer Book of 178,5 were framed in accordance with the principles of the glorious Revolution of William III. which were in consonance with those of the American Revolution. But the principles of Bishop Seabury and his friends were avowedly the same as those of the Bishops of James II. and these same divines had been outspoken opponents of the patriots who had secured liberty to the American Colonies. They had written, and preached. and prayed, and labored, in the cause of the invading armies. BISHOP W^HITE YIELDS THE MAIN PRINCIPLE. Lamentable and strange is the fact that Bishop White yielded the main pcints in the controversy; allowed the Constitution and Prayer Book of 1785 to be overthrown; and although Laymen were admitted to legislate in Conventions, yet the readmission of the priestly principle of the ministry, and the adoption of a separate House of Bishops, with an absolute negative on the acts of the lower House, destroyed the Siifeguards erected by tlie Revolutionary Fathers, and prepared tlie way for errors and disasters which have naturally followed such a weak, unwise, inconsistent, and inde- fensible surrender of the principles adopted ami athrmed by the great and good men who founded the American Protestant Episcopal Church. In 1789 this radical and revolutionary change was made in the constitution framed in 1785. Article III. of the Constitution of 1789 reads thus : "The Bishops of this Church, when there shall be three or more, shall, whenever General Conventions are held, form a separate House, with a right to originate and propose acts, for the concurrence of the House of Deputies, composed of Clergy and Laity; and when any proposed act shall have passed the House of Deputies, the same shall be transmitted to the House of Bishops, who shall have a negative thereupon, unless ad- hered to by four fifths of the other House; and all acts of the Convention shall be authenticated by both Houses." THE CONVENTION OF 1808. In the later General Convention of 1808, the words: ''unless adhered to by four%fifths of the lower House" was struck out, and thus an absolute veto was given to the House of Bishops upon the proceedings of the entire body of Presbyters and Laymen of the lower House. The feudal system was thus permanently engrafted upon the Protestant Episcopal Church. The sad results which have attended its later history are the simple, logical outcome upon such retrogressive and humiliating legislation. It is very remarkable that when this complete XOTEvS. surrender to the principle of exclusive Episcopal Divine right was made; Bishops White and Claggett alone composed the upper House, and thus it was in the power of Bishop White to have prevented this utter overthrow of a vital, cardinal principleof the Constitu- tion of 17&5, which he had assisted in drafting. In the Convention of 1789, Bishops White and Sea- bury were the sole members of the Houisof Bishops, when the first serious abandonment of the essential principles of the primary Constitution occurred, and thus again, we are sorry to say, is Bishop White to be held responsible for the disastrous changes which were then effected. THE DECLINE OF THE CHURCH. So greatly had the Church declined after the un- happy legislation of 1789, that in the Convention of 1808, when the fundamental change was effected which threw the Church into the power of the Bishops, there w^ere present but fourteen clergymen and thirteen laymen, with scarce a man of eminence among them ; in sad contrast to that remarkable ami moie numerous body of Christian patriots and divinCv^, who framed that admirable Constitution, and that Protestant Prayer Book, upon which the Keformed Episcopal Church has, under Divine Providence, happily re- erected and restored the Church of the Fathers. THE INFLUENCE OF BISHOPS SEABURY AND IIOBART. Dr. Hobart, afterwards consecrated Bishop in 1811, was the most able, influential, and energetic member of that small Convention, which surrendered the principle of co-ordinate lay legislation to the feudal principle of exclusive Divine right of the Episcopal Order. This sound and salutary safeguard of the rights of the people, aflirm^ and re-affirmed in three Conventions by Dr. White as a Presbyter, in co-opera- tion with the Christian statesmen of the Revolution, was abandoned by Bishop White under the influence of the stronger will and more vigorous and energetic na- ture of Seabury and Hobart, both honest and uncom- promising High Churchmen. These two prelates suc- ceeded in overthrowing the work of the Revolutionary pioneers of the Church, constituted essentially a new Church, and thus compelled, in less than a century. / NOTES. a return to the original principles of their Communion, of those Episcopalians who desired to worship God, with a pure Scriptural Liturgy, and by a discipline in consonance with the Church in the days of the Apos- tles. The Reformed Episcopal Cliurch is not a new sect, but the old Church revived. Its history is closely analogous to that of the parent Church of England, which at the time of the Reformation, pi-e- served its Episcopal Order, and simply returned to the primitive doctrines held, when Christianity was first planted in the Apostolic era, in Great Britain. KE VISIONS OF THE PRAYER BOOK, PROTESTANT AND OTHERWISE. There have been eight prominent revisions of tlie Book of Common Prayer ; four in the interest of Tradi- tion, Ritualism, and Low Popery or Semi-Romanism ; four based on Holy Scripture, Spiritual Christianity, and Protestantism. The first four : the Revision of Elizabeth, 1559 ; of James 1, 1604 ; of Charles II, 1662; of Bishop Seabury, 1789 ; which last is the present Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Tlie other four: the Revision of Edward VI, 1552 ; of William III, 1689 ; of Bishop White and the Revolu- tionary statesmen, 1785 ; of Bishop Cummins, 1874; which is the Prayer Book of the Reformed Episcopal Church. This last Revision has had a longer life than all the other Protestant revisions combined. The Reform has been radical, consistent, and complete, and the Book has come to stay. THE REVISIONS OF 1874 AND 1785 IDENTICAL IN PRINCIPLE. We propose to show briefly that the Book of 1874 is identical in principle with that of 1785, and is irrecon- ciliable with that of 1789, which contains the false doc- trines of the Revision of 1662. THE OMISSION OF THE TERM ''PRIEST." First: like the Book of 1785, that of 1874 has elimi- nated entirely from its pages the word priest as applied to a human minister ; in the Prayer Books of 1552 and of 1559, the clergy are designated by the term minister. n NOTES. The term "priest" was substituted for minister in the revision of Charles II, 1662. It was removed by our Revolutionary Fathers in the Book of 1785. It is not introduced in the Reformed Episcopal Book of 1874. Through the influence of Bishop Seabury it was re- inserted in the Book of 1789, and fifteen years later an Institution Service was added, containing the terms "Altar," "Sacerdotal function," Sacerdotal connex- ion," "Sacerdotal relation." Thus the so-called ''''Protestant Episcopal Prayer Book" has been made the most priestly, sacerdotal, and sacramental Liturgy framed since the Reformation. Tlie Ritualism which has abounded, is the simple, natural, logical outcome of the phraseology contained in tlie Book. Its advo- cates hold the fort and can not be dislodged. SIMILARITY OF BAPTISMAL SERVICES. Secondly: The Baptismal Services of the Books of 1785 and of 1874 are in iireconciliable antag- onism to those of 1662 and 1789. In the Book of 1785, as in that of 1874, the declaration "Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerated, &c.," is entirely omitted. In the Book of 17^5, after the Baptism, instead of the words of the Book of 1789, "We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it has pleased Thee to regenerate this infant with the Holy Spmt, &c.," we have this prayer: "We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it has pleased Thee to receive this infant as Thine own child by Baptism, and to in- corporate him into Thy Holy Church. In the Book of 1874, the language is: "We yield Thee humble thanks, O Heavenly Father, that Thou hast inclined us to dedicate this child to Thee in Baptism ; and we humbly pray that Thy grace may enable us to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, i&c." In the Book of 17^5, the Catechism and Confirmation Service were likewise essentially modified, and made to conform in doctrine to the other Scriptural alterations. We give the main i)oints of difference between the Books of 1785 and 1874, which abjure the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration ; and those of 1789 and 1682, which affirm that error unmistakably and designedly. / NOTES. TI The two former Books have affirmed the Protestant and Scriptural Doctrine of Baptism : the two latter have retained the teaching of the Roman Catholic Liturgies. This is another cause of the extensive growth of anti-Protestant error in the Protestant Episcopal Church. AS TO THE lord's SUPPER. Thirdly: With respect to the Lord's Supper. Tliere is an important doctrinal difference between the Books of 1785 and 1874, together with that of 1662; as com- pared with the Protestant Episcopal Book of 1789. In the three former are omitted what is styled the form of Oblation of the elements of Bread and Wine, which is contained in the Scottish Communion Service. Bishop Seabury, as we shall show more fully here- after, held to the doctrine that the Offering of our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind, was made especially at the time He instituted the Lord's Suj>- per, rather than on the Cross, and therefore he in- sisted that the language of the Scotch Communion Service, which may be thus interpreted, should be in- troduced into the Prayer Book of 1789. This "Invo- cation" and "Oblation," were purposely omitted in the Books of 1785 and 1874. As they are not contained in the English Book of 1662, the American Protestant Episcopal Prayer Book favors the Romish doctrine of the Lord's Supper more strongly than the former. So essential did Bishop Seabury regard these words in the- office for Holy Communion, that, according to Bishop White, he refused to lead in the celebration of the Lord's Supper at the General Convention, when they were not used. Not only is the "Oblation," and the "Invocation" by the "Priest" omitted in the Book of 1874, but there is appended this important Rubric: "In. conducting this service, except when kneeling, the minister shall face the people." Moreover, another Rubric similar to that of the Book of 1662 is added : " The Act and Prayer of Consecration do not change the nature of the elements, but merely set them apart for a holy use ; and the reception of them in a kneeling posture is not an act of adoration of the elements." The Commmiion Service of the Book of 1789 is not thus guarded. 72 NOTES. The IX. Article of the R. E. Constitution reads: "Nothing calculated to teach— either directly or ^mbolically-that the Christian Ministry possesses a Sacerdotal character, or that the Lord's Supper is a Sacrifice, shall ever be allowed in the Worship of this Church; nor shall any Communion Table be con- structed in the form of an altar." In the Reformed Episcopal Book every avenue to Romanism has been carefully closed. CHANGES IN THE ORDINAL. Fourthly : In the Fornis of Ordination. Here is a marked and radical difference between the Books of 1789 and 1874. There being no Bishops to confer orders, the prepara- tion of such forms was deferred by the members of the Conventions of 1785 and 1786. The doctrine was then established that there were no human Priests, nor a third order of ministers by Divine right. In the Prayer Book of 1789, the Primitive, Protestant and Scriptural principles were abandoned, and Con- secration and Ordination Offices prepared according to the Non-juring doctrines of Bishop Seabury, which were similar to those of Archbishop Laud. The Offices for the Consecration of Bishoj^s and Ordi- •diyiation of Priests in the Book of 1789, were framed on the model of the Book of 1662. This later Revision diffei-ed from the Reformers' Book of 1552, in that it made Episcopal Consecration and Ordination essential to the ministry, for the first time in the history of the CJhurch of England. Though Bishop White and his co-laborei-s of 1785 did not hold this doctrine, it was inserted to reconcile Bishop Seabury and the Clergy of exclusive and Sacerdotal views. The term '' Priest " was borrowed from the Book of 1662, a term which had been carefully excluded from the Revision of 1552, and from all later Revisions for over a century. This same term of Priest, together with the notion of exclusive. Episcopal, Divine right, as we have seen, was expunged by the Revolutionary Revisers of 1785, -as it was by Bishop Cuuimins, and the framers of the Book of 1874. In the Ordinal lor Priests in the Protestant Episco- pal Prayer Book, the form is this: ^-Receive the Holy ' had been sent. " This was a discreditecT and disfranchised succession from the prelacy of the- old Scotch Church, who at the Revolution would not forswear themselves to the Stuart dynasty by swearing- allegiance to their royal substitutes. There were at the- time of Seabury's errand four bishops of this sort, witht forty-two clergy under them. They were under the- ban, and in ill odor in England, and disesteemed by their brother prelates. By an Act of George II., a penalty of six months' imprisonment with final trans- portation was denounced upon any members of the Communion, more than five, who should meet for wor- ship, and this could only be in a private dwellings They were forbidden to officiate at all in England," Inter. Rev. p. 322. Here certainly was a remarkably appropriate resort for one thus clandestinely elected. Seabury had found at last suitable consecrators. He was consecrated on condition, that the Connecticut Clergy "when in Scotland should not hold Communion in sacred offices with those persons, who, under pretense of ordination by an English or Irish bishop, do or shall take upon themselves to officiate in any part of the National Church of Scotland, and whom the Scottish bishops cannot help looking upon as schismatical intruders^ etc." This condition could not have displeased Seabury, as he looked upon all Non-Episcopal clergymen as schis- matical intruders into the sacred office, and this is also the avowed opinion of his American disciples. The line of secrecy was also carried out with respect to the conse- cration sermon, which was published without the name of the preacher, or of the place where the act was per- formed. HIS CONSECRATION NOT RECOGNIZED IN ENGLAND. We are not surprised to learn *'His consecration was not recognized in London. He was not addressed by his title of bishop, nor invited by any of the clergy to- preach. To a letter to the secretary of the Society of which he had been for thirty-one years a devoted mis- sionary, asking about the continuance of his salary, he received a letter addressed to the *Rev. Dr. Seabury,^ that he was no longer one of its missionaries, its rule- comprehending only British dependencies. " Inter. Rev.. f NOTES. yr p. 323. Are Bishop Provoost and his friends to be con- demned for extending similar treatment to this divine ? We have enumerated these plain facts with respect to Bishop Seabury; his doctrines, his position and acts . during the American Revolution; the manner of his ^ election and consecration ; (and we have furnished the proofs of all our statements), in order to vindicate and justify the action of those who earnestly opposed all ecclesiastical connection with him; who refused to- recognize the validity of his election and consecration, to the Episcopate; and who, on this account, have been widely vilified and abused by the admirei-s and foU owners of this now much magnified prelate. WHY THE FACTS HERE NARRATED ARE NOT GENER^ ALLY KNOWN. The circumstances connected with the early history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this coimtry are not widely known, for the reason that the documents are not easy of access. Few have written concerning these important transactions. Bishop White, who was well qualified to describe them, has furnished but scant materials. His own reputation for wisdom and con- sistency would not be advanced by a minute narration of the early history of the Protestant Episcopal Church^ The best work of Bishop White was the Constitution and Prayer Book of 1785 and 86 ; his clearest and ablest production was his Tract in 1782, urging the organiza- tion of the Church on a Provisional basis ; the noblest body of men with whom he co-operated, were the grand Revolutionary Statesmen and Soldiers of those Primary Conventions. On this pre-eminent period of his life, he has not seen fit to dwell. Through want of wisdom and consistency, through a marvelous weakness of judg- ment and foresight at this critical juncture, he allowed a departure from the sound, Protestant, Republican principles of the Primary Conventions. There has never been exhibited in all history a more remarkable ecclesiastical somerset than the substitution of the Seabury Constitution and Prayer Book, for that of Jay and Duane, Peters, Page, and Pinckney. To this Prayer Book and Constitution, Bishop White and Dr. William Smith had given their hearty, public concur- rence. They had been foremost in their construction* The Preface to the Prayer Book, prepared by Dri. iflC NOTES. ISmith and tlioroucrlily endorsed by Bishop White, had plainly and fully stated that the Protestant Episcopal Church had based its Reforms and Reunion on the plan and principles of William III. and his bishops, as set forth in the Bex'iew of 1689. Bishop White writes to Dr. Smith, February 10, 1786 : "I express my ap- probation of your Preface * * *. I like it both in plan and execution." Dr. Smith writes to Bishop White, April 9, 1786: "In the Scot's and Edward Ylth Liturgy, the prayer was exceptionable, and leaning much to transubstantiation." See Hawks' and Perry's Reprint of Journal . Yet these clergy now surrendered to Bishop Seabury, who represented the party of James II., and while they carefully rejected this prayer from the Book of 1785, they allowed it entrance in the Book of 1789, where it has remained with other erroneous doc- trines thus incorporated, to deface and corrupt the Church; to produce sorrow, contention, and alienation, and finally ecclesiastical separation, among biethren of the same fold. Seabury and the New England Clergy notoriously represented the Non-juring party of James II.; White, Provoost and Griffith, the Reforming Bishops of Wil- liam III. The doctrines of the latter are in the Book of 1785 and in that of 1874; the doctrines of the former in that of 1789, the present Protestant Episcopal Book. These two antagonistic principles are again in conflict. KON-JITRORS, BARRIERS TO REFORM AND FREEDOM IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. And like as the salutary reforms of the Bishops of William III. were rendered nugatory largely on ac- count of the dread entertained of the successful machi- nations of the Non-Jurors, in case the English Liturgy had been changed; so in like manner were White and Smith largely influenced in their surrender to Seabury by the threat that if he was not received on his own terms, Jarvis, of Connecticut, already selected, with Parker, of Boston, would be sent to Scotland for Con- secration. Thus another and similar schism would result by the action of the American Non-Juroi-s. The fear of such consequences triumphed over the demands of con- sistency of doctrme and action, of adhesion to their principles, enunciated distinctly in the Constitution -and Prayer Book of 1785. antl by Bishop White most NOTES. 99 forcibly in his carefully prepared Tract on a Provisional Episcopacy, published December, 1782. THE PREFACE OF 1789 ENDORSES THAT OF 1785. The most marvelously inconsistent feature of this strange transaction, perhaps, is the declaration in the Preface of the Book of 1789, written by Bishop White, as follows : " A commission for a Review was issued in the year 1689, but this great and good work miscarried at that time." Thus, notwithstanding this good Bishop had publicly revised the Book of 1785, on the plan of that "great and good work," and then abandoned it for the work of its avowed enemies, he and the Protestant Episcopal Church have in the words quoted from their authorized Preface, endorsed the first Book, that of 1785, and consequently the Book of 1874, that of the Reformed Episcopal Church. This mem- orable display of a want of consistency in doctrine and action, this want of fidelity to Scriptural Truth, this fear of threats of ecclesiastical division, as were dis- played in the reactionary and humiliating measures of 1789, produced the evil results which constrained Bishop Cummins to withdraw from the Protestant Episcopal Communion, and to establish the Reformed Episcopal Church on the avowed basis of the doctrines and principles of the loyal Episcopalians of the American Revolution, identical with those of William III. INHERENT EVILS IN THE HIGH CHURCH SACERDOTAL SYSTEM. Devotion to uniformity, to the semblance of unity, a hollow union, have ever been the bane of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The evil is inherent in a system of Sacerdotalism, and of exclusive Divine right, with mysterious, undefined prerogatives. The possession of a more than ordinarily level head, and a heart filled with an uncommon degree of humility and love, are required to make an Episcopate a success under the Protestant Episcopal Regimen. Hence the frequent failures even among those who have excelled as Pres- byters. And this evil is often aggravated by the party spirit and selfish schemes which accompany Episcopal elections, when men are chosen not for superior modera- tion, learning and sanctity, but for devotion to particular party measures, and to some powerful ecclesiastical NOTES. clique. But the Episcopal system of that Communion is not that of Scripture nor of the Primitive Church . Hence its comparative failure, and its loss of spiritual power and influence. "^ A GRAND OPPORTUNITY NEEDLESSLY LOST. If the Protestant Episcopal Church had been wisely permitted to remain on the Protestant, Free, Revolu- tionary basis, as primarily arranged by its grand founders, there was nothing to prevent its becoming; with a thoroughly purified Liturgy, and a reduced and safely modified Episcopacy, and such a band of pre- eminent laymen. Christian statesmen and heroes; Washington and Jay, Duane and Rutherford, the Morris's and the Livingstons; Duer, Willett and King, Peters and Shippen, the Lees, the Nicholases, the Nel- sons, the Marshalls and the Randolphs; Page and Griffin, Pinckney and Rutledge; .with clergymen like Provoost and White, William and Robert Smith, Wharton and Pettigrew, Griffith and Madison; the foremost ecclesiastical power in the land. It lost its opportunity, and with that opportunity its crown. This the Methodist Communion has taken, by the su- perlative wisdom of its leaders, its devotion to a pure and living Gospel, its Christian energy and patriotism. The poor and despised sect, without prestige, without wealth, without men of Revolutionary renown, but blessed of God for fidelity to truth and principle and country, has become the first in the land. Its older, more powerful, more famous and more arrogant sister has taken the position of seventh among the Churches. Tradition substituted for Scripture, the Letter for the Spirit, has brought this to pass. "Not by power, nor by might, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRUTH APPROACHING. The present Era is propitious for the restoration and advancement of sound. Scriptural, and timely American principles. Centennial celebrations are calling public attention to the startling but slightly known facts pertaining to the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church of that memorable period. Those who will study with candor and attention the subject handled in these notes, will learn that the Re- formed Episcopal Church alone can rightfully and NOTES. 101 legitimately commemorate the work of these Episcopal Revolutionary Fathers; for this Church alone has inherited their principles, and represents their noble. Scriptural undertaking. While the Constitution and Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church is in direct and irreconcilable antagonism to the published principles, and to the grand work of those great Chris- tian Statesmen; those of the Reformed Episcopal Church are thoroughly identical, being expressly based on the Reform and Revision of the Conventions of 1785 and 1786; made consistent with Scripture; with the Primitive Church; with the Reforming work of William III.; with the principles of the American Revolution. We leave this intensely interestmg subject in confi- dent assurance, that with the growth of Light and Scriptural Truth among Episcopalians in this free land, there will be an ultimate triumph to the true Protestant Episcopacy, as inherited from our venerated Christian Fathers of the American Revolution. This has been restored and re-affirmed in the Consti- tution and Prayer Book of the Reformed Episcopal Cliurch. The hope of the Martyred Reformers of Edward VI., of the wise and charitable Commissioners of William III.; of our patriotic Episcopal Pioneers; of so many departed defenders of Evangelical Truth ; will, under God, be realized in the sure and stable progress of this Primitive, Protestant, Scriptural, American Commu- nion. O, Almighty God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being tlie head Corner Stone ; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doc- trine, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable unto thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 102 NOTES. P. S.— Since tlie preparation of these notes an article appeared in the Episcopal Becorder, from the pen of Kev. Dr. E. D. Neill, the Historian of Minnesota, from which a highly interesting extract connected with our subject is given. " A few years ago there was published for the first time, a remarkable letter in the New York Churchman, written on November 8, 1788, to Abemethy, one of the Bishops of the Scotch Episcopal Church, which is re- called at this time. Seabury writes : ' Bishop White, of Philadelphia, seems disposed to an ecclesiastical union, but will take no action or leading part to bring it about. He will ask nothing, and Bishop Provoost seems so elevated with the honor of an English consecration, that he affects to doubt the validity of mine. This may oblige me to establish the Scotch Succession from the re-organization of Charles the Second to what is called the Kevolution. How this is best to be done, you can judge better than I can.' " How humiliating to see a minister of Jesus Christ laying stress on a tactual and Apostolical Succession which after being set apart as a Bishop, he feels at a loss to prove." EEVISION NECESSARY. OPINION OP THE BISHOPS! " The Church should not be so bound up, as tliat uj)on just and further evidence she may not revise that which in any case hath slipped her." ARCIIBLSHOP LAUD. " It lias never gone well with the Church of Christ since men have been so narrow-minded as to mix the controversies of faitli with their public tbrms of worship, and have made their Litanies, instead of being olHces of devotion to God, become tests and censures of the opinions of their brethi-en." ARC IIBLSllOP AVAKE. '^ Nothing was anciently more usual with the Churches of God, tlian, when times re(piired it, to change the laws made by themselves, to abrogate old ones and substitute others." BLSIIOi* BEVKKIDGP:. " A\ hile tlie internal decency and soU^mnity of worsliip is secured, no wise and good man will think nmch to chauge a clinng('n])le ceremony. And let us heartily pray to God tliat there may be this good and peaceable disposition of mind in all towards a happy union." " BISHOP SIIEHLOCav. '' Surely liis religion is in vain wlio would abandon the substance for want of the ceremonies. Surely he hatli a very ignoraiil mind, wli(» hath not learnt that obedience is better than sacrilice and wliole burnt otferings ; and surelv a very uncharitabh' mind, that would not leave ninety and nine unnecessary ceremonies, to bring one siniul strayed sheep into theVono-rfiration." BlsiioP CROFT. '* I wish something were done to convince^ the world that the clergy of the Churcli are not averse to a reformation of some jiarts of her public service, siu(M> otherwise they may give offence by their obstinacy and seeming infalli- bility, and if a storm should arise, may run a riskof ha^ing the tree torn uj) by the roots, which they miglit have saved by a litth' jn-uninir." BLSHOP CLAYTON. : " The Church of England, both in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer, and in the Articles of her Confession, and in certain j)assages in the Homilies, occasionally hath, in as plain and express terms as can be desired, declared to the world that ;iny of her orders and constitutions maybe retained, abolislied or altered from time to time, and at all times, as the governors for the time being shall judge to serve best unto edification." BISHOP SANDERSON. *' The prejudices in these Eastern States against forms of prayer, and the objections so generally made to some parts of ours particularly, and to the length of our morning service, are powerful obstacles to our increase. . . . When there shall havv^ been a judicious revision of our liturgy, in the manner wisely recommended by our venerable brother. Bishop White, deceased, I dikubt not but our churches will more rapidly increase." BISHOP GRLSWOLD. ] *' One in heart, in Spirit, and in faith with our fathers, who at the very beginning of the existence of this nation sought to mold and fashion the ecclesiastical Polity which they had in- herited from the Reformed Church of England, by a judicious and thorough revision of the Book of Common Prayer, we return to iheir position and claim to be the old and true Pro- testant Episcopalians of the days immediately succeding the American Revolution. And through these, our ancestors, we claim an unbroken historical connection through the Church of England, with the Church of Christ, from the earliest Chris- tian era." Bi'i/toj> (Uniiinins^ Address at the First General Council of the Reformed Ej)iscopal Church. COLUMBIA UNIVERS 0026056984 \ --1 I ^ LU c^ h- >0 ►- >o ¥^ 0* QL <0 3P nO z' o O ro ^•^ LU r- o ►- • a f^ ro < m i-H X 0* o o ■KITTLE DO NOl PH9T0C0P'< PF^* "One in lieart, in 8|»irit. and in laitli vvitli our lathers, who at thf' verv beu'inniiiii; of i\u^ existence of thi> nation souf^rht l « nioM anil ta>liiou tlu^ tM-f!('si;'-ti<'al Polilv wliieh tliev had in- hented from th^- llr-fornif'd ('liurchof Enu-|;uid, \>v a iudicir)U- and tliorougli revision of thu Book ot <'<':innnn Pj-nvcr, \v<' roturn to i heir position and chiini to be tiir old and true I'ro- t^^-tuii ly:--o|>alian> of the days immediately -ricrrdinii; th'- Anierii-an R.'Vohuion. And i!irou<_-li ihi'se, our aiirt slors, w^- '■; Mm an !inl'i"ki'n historical connes-tion throudi tiic Chun .. of Kntrland, with thf Churcli u\ (."hrisi, from the earliest Chris- tian i-ra. ' 'J tin Ut'jin'iite*! Epn>rit^iul i 'hi' I'll'. ^^^1 # r COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0026056984 ^ uJ o »— ^ H- o *■— 0* UL