the inspiration of faith and hope, telling us of the abiding
presence of the Lord with His Church, carrying us back to those
two unfailing promises: "I will pray the Father and He shall give
you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever"; "Lo, I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world!" In very truth,
in that day of doubt and dismay this Church was "as a cottage in a
vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged
city." To-day we look upon her as "she hath sent out her boughs
unto the sea and her branches unto the river," and we bless God
for the greatness of "His goodness" and the greatness of "His
beauty."
Do we rejoice, dear brethren, in all this with trembling? Do we
seem to hear, from the not distant horizon, the muttering of
storms which are gathering around us and may burst upon us? Do we
see tokens not only of assault from without, but of betrayal from
within? Then let us take courage from our past; let us do what
those who went before us did; let us, like them, "keep that which
is committed to our trust"; and if "evil men and seducers wax
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," let us, as they
did, "continue in the things which we have learned, knowing of
whom we have learned them."
And finally, let us give these thoughts--the lesson of the one and
the inspiration, not without warning, of the other--shape and
utterance in the prayer, more full of meaning to us than it could
have been to the people of the elder covenant:
"The Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers; let Him
not leave us nor forsake us; that He may incline our hearts unto
Him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep His commandments, and
His statutes, and His judgments which He commanded our fathers."
The Bishop then proceeded with the Communion-office, being
assisted in the service by the Rev. William Jones Seabury, D.D.,
Professor in the General Theological Seminary and Rector of the
Church of the Annunciation, New York, great-grandson of Bishop
Seabury, and in the administration by the Rev. Drs. Beardsley,
Harwood, and Seabury, and the Rev. Dr. W. E. Vibbert, Rector of
St. James's Church, Fair Haven. Among the sacred vessels used in
the service were the Paten and Chalice used by Bishop Seabury in
St. James's Church, New London.
CENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP SEABURY.
1884.
THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D.
WAS CONSECRATED FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT AT ABERDEEN,
NOVEMBER 14, 1784.
The Diocesan Convention of 1884 met on the tenth day of June in
St. James's Church, New London.
Morning Prayer was read at 9 o'clock by the Rev. William B.
Buckingham, Rector of the Parish, the Rev. Samuel H. Giesy, D.D.,
Rector of Christ Church, Norwich, and the Rev. Storrs O. Seymour,
Rector of Trinity Church, Hartford. At 10-1/2 o'clock, after the
singing of the 138th Hymn, the service of the Holy Communion was
begun. The Bishop was assisted in the service by the Rector of the
Parish, the Rev. E. E. Beardsley, D.D., LLD., Rector of St.
Thomas's Church, New Haven, the Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis, Rector of
Trinity Church, Brooklyn, and the Rev. James Stoddard, Rector of
Christ Church, Watertown. After the Nicene Creed the Bishop
preached the Sermon as follows:
THE STONES REVIVED. NEHEMIAH IV. 2.
What do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they
sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the
stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
It is difficult to imagine a more hopeless undertaking--as men's
eyes looked on it--than the attempt to rebuild Jerusalem and the
Temple at the close of the captivity. For seventy years their
ruins had lain in the condition which Isaiah describes in such
impressive words: "Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation;
our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee,
is burned up with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid
waste." Jerusalem was indeed "a heap of stones."
And who were they that should undertake to bring beauty, strength,
and order out of all this ruin and desolation? A small and
despised remnant of a once powerful people straggling back, as it
might seem, in handfuls, from their seventy years' captivity.
Follow Nehemiah in his lonely night-ride as he makes his solitary
circuit around the broken walls. Look at the scattered companies
of the re-builders as they set about their work; so separated from
each other, on that long line of ruined towers and bulwarks, that
a trumpet must be sounded to gather them together, should they be
attacked by enemies. Think of the sinking of heart with which the
first stone to be relaid must have been lifted; think of the scorn
with which they who hoped to see the failure of the forlorn
attempt must have looked on him who lifted it; and you can then
make real to yourselves the greatness of the undertaking and the
apparently hopeless inadequacy of the means at hand for its
accomplishment. No wonder that the enemies of Judah and Jerusalem
cried, "What do these feeble Jews?" No wonder that "Judah said,
The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed and there is
much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall." No
wonder that the provincial Jews--as they have been termed--sent
"ten times" to recall their brethren aiding those who were
laboring at Jerusalem, No wonder that Nehemiah "made his prayer
unto God," and said, "Hear, O our God, for we are despised!"
Taking up, as I am to do to-day, the narrative of the events which
followed on, and were the outcome of, the election of our first
Bishop of which I spoke to you last year, and which gather round,
and centre in, his consecration at Aberdeen a hundred years ago, I
seem, as I try to reproduce those days and make them real to our
minds, to hear Words uttered so like to those which have just been
brought together that they appear to be the very echoes of that
far distant past. Enemies are crying, "What do these feeble Jews?"
Timid friends are saying, "The strength of the bearers of burdens
is decayed"--we cannot do the work. But brave hearts and loving
hearts murmured to themselves, "Our God shall fight for us"; and
among them all there was no truer, braver heart than that of
Seabury, as, taking up the burden laid on him, he set forth on his
quest--nobler than the knightliest of olden times--for that sacred
Deposit which he was to bear to our western world.
How fared he in his quest? In the answer to this question we shall
find the topic that invites attention now. And first of all,
something must be said of the documents and testimonials which he
carried with him. These were, so far as the clergy of Connecticut
were concerned, prepared by the secretary of the meeting held at
Woodbury (afterwards our second bishop), the Rev. Abraham Jarvis.
They are quite too long for reading here; but it must be said of
them that they are admirably conceived and expressed, and set
forth a much truer and sounder ideal of the Church of God in its
obligation to the State on the one side, and its spiritual duties,
under the one Headship of Him Whose "kingdom is not of this
world," on the other, than seems to have then prevailed in the
mother country. Two passages from the letter of our clergy to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, I venture to quote in proof of what has
just been said.
"America is now severed from the British empire; by that
separation we cease to be a part of the national Church. But,
although political changes affect and dissolve our external
connection, and cut us off from the powers of the State, yet, we
hope, a door still remains open for access to the governors of the
Church; and what they might not do for us, without the permission
of government, while we were bound as subjects to ask favors and
receive them under its auspices and sanctions, they may, in right
of their inherent spiritual powers, grant and exercise in favor of
a Church planted and nurtured by their hand, and now subjected to
other powers.".... "Permit us to suggest, with all deference, our
firm persuasion that a sense of the sacred Deposit committed by
the great Head of the Church to her bishops, is so awfully
impressed on your Grace's mind, as not to leave a moment's doubt
in us of your being heartily disposed to rescue the American
Church from the distress and danger which now, more than ever,
threaten her for want of an Episcopate."
To the same purpose they spoke in their letter to the Archbishop
of York. "This part of America is at length dismembered from the
British empire; but, notwithstanding the dissolution of our civil
connection with the parent State, we still hope to retain our
religious polity, the primitive and evangelical doctrine and
discipline, which at the Reformation were restored and established
in the Church of England." And then they go on to say that, to
complete and perpetuate this polity, "an American Episcopate" must
be secured.
How clearly the men who used this language shewed that they fully
comprehended the position and rights of a National Church; the
obedience which "in all things temporal" the Church owes to the
powers that are ordained of God; her complete independence and
autonomy "in things purely spiritual"; and the great fact that by
no political changes was this Church severed from the Church of
England or from the historic Church of all the ages, so long as
she continued "stedfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship,
and in the breaking of the bread and the prayers!"
The testimonials and letters thus furnished by the clergy of
Connecticut were strengthened by similar documents signed by the
venerable Leaming and by the rector and the assistant minister of
Trinity Church, New York, and others. [Footnote: These testimonials,
bearing date April 21, 1783, have misled some persons into
the idea that Seabury was elected on that day in New York.
This is a mistake easily made if one carelessly glances at
the documents, but impossible if the documents are read.] Armed
with these testimonials, and bearing a letter from the clergy of
Connecticut to the Venerable Society imploring the continuance, at
least for a time, of their stipends, the Bishop-elect reached
London on the seventh day of July, 1783.
And now began the wearisome and wearing delay of all those slowly-
passing months, during which the postulant for the Episcopate was
hoping against hope for an enabling act of Parliament, under which
the bishops of England might proceed to consecrate him to the
office of a Bishop in the Church of God.
It forms no part of my purpose to enter into all the details of
that most unattractive period; but I may not pass by the different
obstacles to action which presented themselves, or were presented
with whatsoever purpose, as those months dragged their slow length
along. I know how difficult it is to carry one's self back into a
distant period of time and to surround one's self with its real
circumstances and conditions, especially when these are connected
with what were then new and perplexing civil and ecclesiastical
relations. But I cannot wonder that, looking back on so many
failures in regard to an American Episcopate, and the apparent
inability of those whose aid was invoked to grasp the issue
presented with all its grand possibilities--I cannot wonder that
the clergy of Connecticut should have said: "We hope that the
successors of the Apostles in the Church of England have
sufficient reasons to justify themselves to the world and to God.
We, however, know of none such, nor can our imagination frame
any." [Footnote: _Address of the Connecticut Clergy to Bishop
Seabury_, 1785.]
I name first, among the difficulties urged, the fear "that there
would be no adequate support for a bishop"; and I name it first
simply because it was, probably, the least. The answer to it that
came from our clergy was dignified and conclusive. "We can
contemplate," they said, "no other support for a bishop than what
is to be derived from voluntary contracts, and subscriptions and
contributions, directed by the good will and zeal of the members
of a Church who are taught, and do believe, that a bishop is the
chief minister in the kingdom of Christ on earth.... A bishop in
Connecticut must, in some degree, be of the primitive style. With
patience, and a share of primitive zeal, he must rest for support
on the Church which he serves, unornamented with temporal dignity,
and without the props of secular power." Whether the English
prelacy did or did not grasp, and acquiesce in, this ideal of a
bishop and his office, I cannot find that they pressed this
objection further.
A second obstacle was thus expressed: "It would be sending a
bishop to Connecticut, which they [the bishops of England] have no
right to do without the consent of the State, and such a bishop
would not be received in Connecticut." The phrase "consent of the
State" is ambiguous. It may refer to the Continental Congress or
to the authorities of the particular State concerned. If, however,
there were any who gave to the phrase the first of these
interpretations, they appear to have speedily abandoned it and to
have adopted the second. Apparently they supposed that the civil
authority in Connecticut might claim the right, and exercise the
power, to forbid a bishop to come within the limits of the State,
and to set him adrift with "the wide world before him where to
choose," a veritable bishop _in partibus_, without home,
habitation, or name. There can be little doubt that these fancies
were pressed by, if they did not originate with, persons belonging
to the so-called "Standing Order" in New England, under the lead
of a prominent minister in Connecticut.
To meet the difficulty, it was stated that a committee of the
Convention of the clergy of Connecticut had consulted with leading
members of both Houses of Assembly touching the "need, the
propriety, or the prudence of an application to government for the
admission of a bishop into the State," and that the result of the
conference showed that no such Act was needed, inasmuch as the
Assembly had already given all needful "legal rights and powers"
to all bodies of Christians of whatever name, and, therefore, to
the Church among them; that, if not needed, there could be no
propriety in applying for it; and, finally, that any such
application would be imprudent and unwise, in that "there were
some who would oppose it, and would labor to excite opposition
among the people, who, if unalarmed by any jealousies, would
probably remain quiet." How far these wise and reasonable
conclusions commended themselves to the bishops of England I am
unable to state.
A third difficulty remained; and this, it must be owned, had more
substance to it than those just considered. It related to the
oaths in the Ordination Office. These could not, of course, be
taken by the person seeking consecration; nor could the
consecrating bishops dispense with them on their own authority;
nor would the dispensation of the sovereign suffice, even should
it be given, unless with, at least, the concurrence of the Privy
Council, or--and this seems to have been the final conclusion--an
Act of Parliament.
When we remember how potent an element in bringing on the
Revolution of 1688--a revolution which had placed the House of
Hanover on the throne of Great Britain--the question as to the
sovereign's dispensing power had been; what an engine of tyranny
in the State and of destruction to the Church James II. had
intended to make it; and how offensive, if not dangerous, any
revival of it might well appear, we need not wonder that the
bishops of England should have declined to act under it, or that
the sovereign should have declined to give it, unless it could be
guarded and supported by forms and sanctions of unquestionable
legality.
All this is clear enough. But what does not appear is, why a more
hearty and earnest effort was not made to secure the needed
legislation. No such effort could have been expected from the
authorities of the State. They who cared nothing for an Episcopate
in America before the War of the Revolution, were not likely to
care more for it after the war was ended. If, as they had all
along been led to believe, the idea of an Episcopate was offensive
to the Colonies, it could hardly, they would say, be less
offensive to the States in the first flush of their acknowledged
independence. Nor were influences lacking, either in England or in
America, which were brought to bear in blocking that legislation
without which the English Prelacy declined to act. It is,
therefore, easy to understand the apathy of government. But it is
not so easy to understand, and it is far less easy to justify, the
apparent apathy of those who, it might justly have been thought,
"in view of the sacred deposit committed by the great Head of the
Church to her bishops," would have been heartily disposed to avert
the dangers which darkened the future of the Church in America.
What makes the inaction more inexplicable is, that while these
negotiations were pending, an Act of Parliament was actually
passed which enabled "the Bishop of London to admit foreign
candidates to the order of deacon or priest, but gave no
permission to consecrate a bishop for Connecticut or for any of
the American States." Who can wonder that Seabury was, at last,
driven to say, "This is certainly the worst country in the world
to do business in; I wonder how they get along at any rate"!
[Footnote: Letter to Mr. Jarvis, May 24, 1784.]
As I have read, time and again, the record of that weary waiting,
the story of that hope perpetually deferred, I have always risen
from the reading with the profound impression that I have been
brought into contact with a bravely patient and an utterly
unselfish man.
Alone in what was now to him a foreign land, separated from his
family which had been left here in New London, seeing his worldly
means which were "all embarked in this enterprise" rapidly wasting
away, without any influence to back him but the righteousness of
his cause, with his very loyalty to the crown made an objection to
him where one might have expected the precise opposite, he never
bated one jot of effort--however it may have been as to heart and
hope--but met difficulties, answered objections, dealt with
obstacles with a brave patience that marks him as a veritable
hero. [Footnote: A story was set about by Granville Sharpe, whose
prejudices led him to be unjustly credulous, that at his first
interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Seabury, in answer to
the objections raised by his Grace, turned abruptly on his heel,
saying, "If your Grace will not grant me consecration, I know
where I can get it"; and so set off for Scotland. There is no
truth whatever in the story. Seabury's letters, as well as all the
circumstances, completely disprove it. Nor does the fact that
Sharpe believed it, excuse his biographer, who might have known
better, for giving it currency.]
Nor was this the persistence of a self-seeking and ambitious man,
bent on attaining something for himself. It occurred to him, not
unnaturally, that possibly if the State of Connecticut were to be
asked to give permission for a bishop to reside within its
borders, it might be easier to secure such permission for another
than for one who had been imprisoned in New Haven for his loyalty.
Accordingly he wrote to his friends here: "I beg that no clergyman
in Connecticut will hesitate a moment on my account; the point is
to get the Episcopal authority into that country"; and then he
went on to say that, if another is designated, "he shall have
every assistance in my power." These are not the words of a self-
seeking man--a man of low ambitions. But they are the words of a
man filled with a great purpose, inspired with a great thought,
ready to do and to bear and to wait, so the purpose can be
accomplished and the thought take shape. All is summed up by him
in a single sentence: "Believe me, there is nothing that is not
base that I would not do, nor any risk that I would not run, nor
any inconvenience to myself that I would not encounter, to carry
this business into effect." [Footnote: While these negotiations in
England were in progress, an application was made, without
Seabury's knowledge, to Cartwright of Shrewsbury, an irregular
non-juring bishop. As, however, this was subsequent to the opening
of negotiations with Scotland, nothing, fortunately, came of it.
It has been said that an application was made to, or an offer
received from, the Danish government, looking to a consecration by
Danish bishops. This, however, is a mistake. No application was
ever made for consecration in Denmark; while the offer of the
Danish government, made through Mr. Adams, our then Minister to
England, related only to the ordination of candidates for the
diaconate and priesthood. The passage of the Act of Parliament,
mentioned above, prevented the necessity of acting on the offer;
and fortunately so, for the Danish Episcopate is only titular.]
Nearly fourteen months had now elapsed since Seabury arrived in
London. It was clear that consecration must, if obtained at all,
be obtained elsewhere than in England, and naturally his thoughts
reverted to Scotland. So careful, however, was he to consult in
all things those who had elected him, that he would take no
decisive step--notwithstanding the instructions given from
Woodbury in March, 1783--till they had been communicated with, and
their views obtained; so that it was not till August 31, 1784,
that he wrote to Dr. Myles Cooper. The letter is creditable alike
to his head and his heart. No word of personal disappointment and
vexation, no line of reproach finds place in it is the letter of a
manly man, too strong in faith and purpose to waste time in
complaints and repinings. He applies through his friend to the
bishops of Scotland, and adds: "I hope I shall not apply in vain.
If they consent to impart the Episcopal succession to the Church
of Connecticut, they will, I think, do a good work, and the
blessing of thousands will attend them. And perhaps for this
cause, among others, God's providence has supported them and
continued their succession under various and great difficulties;
that a free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical Episcopacy may from
them pass into the Western world."
Let me pause, just here, to remind you that this was the third
time that men's minds were turned to the Scottish bishops in
connection with an American Episcopate.
When, in 1703, the Venerable Society had it in mind to send out to
America a Suffragan to the Bishop of London, it was thought that
consecration could be most readily obtained from the bishops of
Scotland.
In the autumn of 1782, one year after the surrender of Lord
Cornwallis at Yorktown--an event which practically settled the
question of the independence of the thirteen colonies--the Rev.
Dr. George Berkeley, a son of that great prelate who sang of the
"westward course of empire," addressed a letter to Bishop Skinner,
coadjutor to the Primus of the Scottish Church, suggesting that
the bishops of Scotland should consecrate a bishop for America,
and saying, "had my honored father's scheme for planting an
Episcopal College, whereof he was to have been president, in the
Summer Islands, not been sacrificed by the worst minister that
Britain ever saw, probably under a mild monarch (who loves the
Church of England as much as I believe his grandfather hated it)
Episcopacy would have been established in America by a succession
from the English Church, unattended by any invidious temporal rank
or power."
No doubt the question thus proposed to the Scottish bishops was
carefully considered, but the result was unfavorable to Dr.
Berkeley's wishes. Bishop Skinner wrote: "Nothing can be done in
the affair with safety on our side, till the independence of
America be fully and irrevocably recognized by the government of
Britain; and even then the enemies of our Church might make a
handle of our correspondence with the colonies as a proof that we
always wished to fish in troubled waters, and we have little need
to give any ground for an imputation of this kind,"