the Constitution read: "Every clergyman, whether bishop or
presbyter or deacon, shall be amenable to the authority of the
convention in the State to which he belongs, so far as relates to
suspension or removal from office; and the convention in each
State shall institute rules for their conduct, and an equitable
mode of trial." Here there is not even an allusion to the
Episcopate, and each convention is recognized as absolutely
supreme. In June, 1786, the following sentence was added to
article viii. of 1785: "And at every trial of a bishop there shall
be one or more of the episcopal order present, and none but a
bishop shall pronounce sentence of deposition or degradation from
the ministry on any clergyman, whether bishop, presbyter, or
deacon." Here is an advance in the right direction. In August,
1789, the first sentence of the foregoing article disappears, and
in its place we read: "In every State the mode of trying clergymen
shall be instituted by the convention of the Church therein." The
last sentence of the article remains unchanged, and the second
principle contended for is accepted.]
While the years between 1785 and 1789, with their discussions,
doubts, and difficulties, were wearing away, the general
acceptance of the great principles on which I have been dwelling
seemed always uncertain, and sometimes hopeless. Steps were
accordingly taken to provide for a possible emergency of
rejection--an emergency which cannot be contemplated without a
shudder. It was decided in the convocation which met at
Wallingford in February, 1787, to send, should it become
necessary, a "presbyter to Scotland for consecration, as coadjutor
to Dr. Seabury." The purpose no doubt was, should such necessity
arise, to secure the number of bishops canonically requisite to
continue the succession. It was wise to provide for all
contingencies; but it was equally wise, and as much a matter of
duty, to take no actual steps till contingencies arose, and,
meantime, to make all possible endeavors to avert them. The
prudent counsels of the Scottish bishops, and the conciliatory and
patient action of Bishop White on the one side and Bishop Seabury
on the other, did avert the contingency; and by the year 1789 all
danger of the separation, so much feared and deprecated, had
passed away. It was of God's good providence that, in the General
Convention of that most memorable year, 1789, there was found in
the House of Bishops no root of bitterness, no disturbing element
growing out of political prejudice or personal animosity. When, on
the fifth day of October, the House was, for the first time,
constituted, Bishops Seabury and White composed its membership.
The great subject which occupied the attention of the bishops, as
well as that of the House of Deputies, was the Book of Common
Prayer. This is neither the time nor the place to speak at length
of what was then accomplished. But I must not omit to state, even
at the risk of saying what is familiar to us all, that in that
book, as we then received and still have it, the Order of the Holy
Communion stands--and, please God, will ever stand--the great
memorial of Seabury's share in framing our sacred offices, the
memorial, also, of the faithfulness with which, if not in the very
letter, yet substantially and in spirit, he redeemed the pledge
which he had given in the Concordate. Let me also add Bishop
White's own words touching the intercourse--for in a house
consisting of two members, one can hardly speak of debates--of
himself and his brother of Connecticut. He says: "To this day are
there recollected with satisfaction the hours which were spent
with Bishop Seabury on the important subjects which came before
them, and especially the Christian temper which he manifested all
along." For the results of that memorable Convention, in which so
much was gained--may we not say so little lost?--we are mainly
indebted, under the overruling wisdom of the Holy Spirit, to the
stedfast gentleness of Bishop White and the gentle stedfastness of
Bishop Seabury.
And here, since mention has been already made of Seabury's work in
his own diocese, and of his departure, when "he was not found"
because God had taken him, this historical review may end. Does it
not tell what he was? Does it not clearly reveal his character? If
it does not, then no words of mine can do it. Strong in faith,
patient in hope, humble and self-sacrificing in charity, he stands
out as a man "that had understanding of the times to know what
Israel ought to do"; as a builder able to "revive the stones out
of the heaps of the rubbish which were burned"; as a wise ruler
who "fed" those over whom the Holy Ghost had made him an overseer,
"according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the
skilfulness of his hands." Therefore for him and for his work, we
praise and magnify God's holy Name!
I cannot close without some mention of two scenes, in both of
which it was my privilege to share, More than fifty years had
passed since our first bishop was borne to his grave. In the town
in which, during his entire Episcopate, he had fulfilled the
lowlier duties of a parish priest, a stately church had replaced
the humble temple in which he ministered, and it was felt in all
our borders that under its altar his honored remains should find
their final resting-place. Reverently gathered, they were carried
by the clergy through crowded streets, and laid down where we
trust they may abide till the judgment of the great day.[Footnote:
"Ut in loco quietis ultimo usque ad magni diei judicium," are the
words of the epitaph on the altar-tomb in St. James's Church, New
London.] As we stood around his sepulchre there rose from every
lip the words of the symbol of Nicaea, for which he had striven so
faithfully, and which he had urged his clergy as faithfully to
teach, saying, in words which now seem prophetic, that he foresaw
the day when in New England there would come a widespread lapse
from the ancient faith. That was a scene which none who shared in
it can forget.
A hundred years had gone. In that city where he sought his
consecration to the Episcopate the little upper room had
disappeared, and six churches had arisen. In one of these, the
successor of the humble "oratory in the house of Bishop Skinner,"
there are gathered seventeen bishops and near two hundred clergy,
together with a vast congregation of the faithful. What do they
represent? Not what those who came together a century before had
represented; not one Church brought almost to the verge of
extinction, and another threatened with even deeper ruin. No! but
they represent a Church that has emerged from the darkness that
shrouded it in Scotland; a Church that has risen from what seemed
but shattered fragments in the United States; the great Mother
Church of England; the national Church of Ireland; and the
Churches in communion with them on the Continent of Europe, in the
dependencies and colonies of the empire of Great Britain, on this
Western Continent, in India, Australia, Southern Africa, and the
islands of the sea. "A little one has become a thousand, and a
small one a strong nation."
What has brought them together? Not merely to do honor to the
memory of one man or of several men, though their memories are
inseparably blended with the thoughts and associations of the
occasion. "In many centenaries the dominant interest is the
personal. The birthday of the 'monk that shook the world' is a
handy peg on which to hang the whole of his marvellous career, and
the massive personality of the man is never absent from view. But
in the consecration of Bishop Seabury the Churchman beholds, not
the preponderance of an individual, but the birthday of a Church.
The difference is suggestive, and illustrates the radical
divergence between the Catholic and the sectarian frame of mind.
When the ideal of the one Body of Christ is strongly realized, the
Church will overshadow the individual; when it is little
cherished, the individual will eclipse the Church. We may be
content to be of those who think that, as the State is greater
than its worthiest citizen, so the Church should take precedence
of its greatest member."[Footnote: These admirable words are
quoted from the Scottish Church Review for November, 1884, p.
749.] Who would have more gladly owned all this, who would have
been more thankful for it, than he who gave its name to that
centenary? For, indeed, it was this which swelled the tide of
emotion to its height. It was because of this that men felt in
their hearts, and said with their lips, "Glorious things are
spoken of thee, thou City of God."
One closing word, dear brethren, and the duty that from time to
time you have laid upon me will be accomplished; not as it should
have been, but as I have been able to accomplish it. The great
principles on which they of whom I have been speaking placed
themselves, are as lasting and as unchangeable as the everlasting
hills. The lines on which they wrought have borne the trial and
stood the test of all the Christian ages. Are we tempted, in a
spirit of self-sufficiency or of doubt or of impatience, to
forsake them? Then let us put the temptation firmly to one side.
Only by so doing shall we maintain for ourselves, and hand on to
others, who shall then in coming years rise up and call us
blessed, the precious deposit that has come down to us, and for
which we bless those who have gone before us. Christianity is not
_one of the religions of_ the world, but it is _the one_
_religion for_ the world. Jesus Christ, our Prophet, Priest,
and King, our sufficing Sacrifice and our living Lord, is not the
ideal man, the product of the growth, circumstances, and
conditions of one nation or of the whole human race, but He is the
"Son of God with power," miraculously conceived by the Holy Ghost,
miraculously born of the Virgin Mary, dying for our sins and
rising again for our justification. "A Christianity," I use the
words of Coleridge, "without a Church exercising spiritual
authority, is vanity and dissolution."[Footnote: _Aids to
Reflection_, p. 224, note (fourth edition).] The Church is not
an aggregation of persons agreeing in certain doctrines or
practices, but it is the "Body of Christ," perpetuated in
accordance with the laws of its organism. "The fellowship of
kindred minds" is not the Communion of saints. A certain
"continuity of Christian thought" is not the same thing as the
Faith once and forever given to the saints.
If we fling away these truths to which our predecessors clung so
firmly, if they who shall come after us fling them away, then on
us and on them will come the shame and the woe of making the well-
ordered "city of the living God," the walls of which are salvation
and its gates praise, to be "like a city that is broken down and
without walls." On the other hand, if we, and they who shall come
after us, hold them, teach them, act on them, then, and only then,
shall we and they, in very deed, "grow up into Him in all things,
Which is the Head, even Christ, from Whom the whole Body fitly
joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,
maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in love."
A SPECIAL service was held in the Church of the Holy Trinity,
Middletown, on the one-hundredth anniversary of the first
Ordination held by Bishop Seabury, August 3, 1885, at 11 o'clock
A. M. The processional hymn being ended, Bishop Williams began the
Communion-service, the Collect being that for St. Simon and St.
Jude's Day. The Epistle (that for St. Mark's Day) was read by the
Rev. Prof. Samuel Hart of Trinity College, and the Gospel (that
for St. Matthias's Day), by the Rev. Sylvester Clarke, Rector of
Trinity Church, Bridgeport. After the Creed, the Bishop delivered
this address:
The third of August, 1785, was a memorable day for this diocese
and for our whole Church. For the first time an American Bishop
was to hold an ordination in the United States. The event carries
us back, in thought, to Apostolic days. The first act of
ordination by the Apostles at Jerusalem, after the miracle of
Pentecost, was the laying on of hands upon the seven deacons. The
first ordination ministered by him who first bore the Apostolic
commission to this nation, was an ordination--not of seven indeed,
but of four--to the diaconate. The authority, the ministration,
and the order imparted were in both cases the same, separated
though the acts were by the great chasm of seventeen centuries. It
is good to commemorate such an event. It is right to commemorate
it in the place in which it occurred. Such a commemoration fitly
ends the series of centenary observances which we began in
Woodbury in the spring-tide of 1883. For the act of this day
certified our fathers that what they had sought and cried out for
through long and weary years was gained at last; that no longer
did three thousand miles of ocean separate them from the
possibility of admission to the "ministry of Christ, and the
stewardship of the mysteries of God."
Let me, first, say something of the place in which the service of
ordination, and all the services and acts connected with it, were
held. There stood, at that time, on what used to be called the
South Green in this city, a small wooden church known as Christ
Church. There are not many persons, probably, now living who
remember it, but a rough sketch of it, which has been preserved,
has given many who never saw it an idea at least of what it was.
It was not an altogether ungraceful building with its arched
windows--regarded by many in those days as indicating Romeward
tendencies--and its pointed spire. And it had nothing in common
with those hideous combinations of packing-box and Grecian
portico, which prevailed many years later on; but which decay and
fire and other merciful interferences and visitations have made
things of the past.
It had a story of its own, too--that old church--to tell; a story
of trial, perseverance, and success; a story exactly parallel to
that of the clergy, and especially the bishop, who came together
within its walls. About the middle of the last century, a number
of persons who, in the exercise of that "freedom to worship God,"
which has been claimed as the peculiar glory of New England, had
declared themselves to be attached to the Church of England,
petitioned the town authorities to grant them a piece of ground on
which they might erect a church. Their application was refused.
After a time it was renewed, and refused again. At last, a
building-place was granted them, the situation of which has just
been mentioned. It was a marshy spot, on which few persons
believed that any building could ever be erected. It is strangely
noticeable, however, that a great many things which never can be
done, are nevertheless somehow brought about, especially in the
progress of the Church. So it was here. Careful drainage overcame
the natural lack of adaptation, and, though the work met with
delays and drawbacks, the church was completed in 1755. It is a
tradition of the time that when the frame of the building was
raised, the shout that burst from the lips of those engaged in or
watching the work was so loud and joyous that it might have been
heard for the distance of a mile. Verily, good people of this
parish, if your predecessors could not say that they had been
brought "through fire," they could at least say that they had been
"brought through water to a wealthy place"; wealthy, not in this
world's goods, but in those spiritual gifts which are the eternal
dowry of the Bride of Christ.
So much for the place. Next let us look at those who came
together. If the place of meeting had been hardly won, those men
had "endured hardness as good soldiers of Christ." Foremost, in
the full maturity of his manhood, stands the newly consecrated
bishop. He is in his fifty-sixth year. And inasmuch as the picture
with which we are all familiar was painted while he was in London,
we no doubt see him there as he was here in Middletown, a century
ago. And a goodly sight it is; the sight of one who looked, and
was, every inch a bishop.
Jeremiah Learning comes next to view. But for his advanced age,
and the fact that imprisonment in a damp and noisome cell had made
him a cripple for life, he would have stood in Seabury's place as
our first bishop. He is now in his sixty-eighth year, having been
born in Durham in 1717. He lived to the age of nearly eighty-
eight, and one who remembered him In his latest years says: "He
rises to my mind the very ideal of age and decrepitude--a small,
emaciated old man, very lame, his ashen and withered features
surmounted sometimes by a cap, and sometimes by a small wig--
always quiet and gentle in his manner." Such a condition as is
here described is still, however, in the future for him. He is
still vigorous enough to preside in the convention of the clergy,
until the new bishop takes that place, and to preach what was
called, in the quaint phraseology of the day, "a well adapted"
ordination sermon.
We turn to the secretary of the convention, Abraham Jarvis, who
will in time become the second bishop of this diocese. He has just
entered on the twenty-first year of his rectorship of this parish,
a position which he will hold for fourteen more years. He is
described, by one who knew him, as having "an uncommon tact at
public business, and in a talent at drafting petitions, memorials,
etc., having few, if any, superiors."
Most, if not all, of the excellent papers connected with the
negotiations for the Episcopate were drawn up by him, and on him
devolved nearly all the correspondence to which the negotiations
gave rise. Nine others of the clergy of the diocese were present,
and with them two from other places--the Rev. Benjamin Moore of
New York, who came in no official capacity, and the Rev. Samuel
Parker of Boston, who appeared as representing the clergy of
Massachusetts. Dr. Moore was afterwards the second Bishop of New
York, and Dr. Parker the second Bishop of Massachusetts. The
clergy had assembled on the day previous, August 2nd, and Bishop
Seabury had presented his letters of consecration. On the day we
are commemorating, the services began with the reception and
recognition of the bishop. Four of the clergy repaired to the
parsonage, which stood nearly where the house of the Hon. Benjamin
Douglas now stands, bearing with them the declaration of the
clergy then convened, that "they confirmed their former election,
and acknowledged and received Dr. Seabury as their Episcopal head.
Two of the four immediately carried back to the convention the
answer of acceptance by the bishop, while the other two followed
in attendance upon him, and conducted him to the church." Here,
sitting near the Holy Table, with the clergy gathered before him,
he listened to their address, which was read by the Rev. Dr.
Hubbard of New Haven. I quote from it three striking passages.
Their recognition of their new bishop was made in these words:
"We, in the presence of Almighty God, declare to the world, that
we do unanimously and voluntarily accept and receive you to be
_our Bishop_, supreme in the government of the Church, and in
the administration of all ecclesiastical offices. And we do
solemnly engage to render you all that respect, duty, and
submission, which we believe do belong and are due to your high
office, and which, we understand, were given by the presbyters to
their bishop in the Primitive Church while, in her native purity,
she was unconnected with, and uncontrolled by, any secular power."
After describing the earnest attempts to obtain the Episcopate
from England, and the final failure of the attempts, they add: "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."
At the close of the address, after blessing God for the way opened
in Scotland, whose bishops had freely given what they had freely
received, they add, out of their full hearts, burning words of
gratitude, and say: "Wherever the American Episcopal Church shall
be mentioned in the world, may this good deed which they have done
for us, be spoken of for a memorial of them."
To this address the bishop made a brief, but sufficient and
dignified reply, expressing, among other things, his reliance on
the "ready advice and assistance" of the clergy in the discharge
of his office; so foreshadowing the character of his Episcopate.
The ordination was then proceeded with, and the four deacons were
ordained. Dr. Leaming preached the sermon, as I have already said,
and Mr. Jarvis "officiated as archdeacon" and presented the
candidates. The order of service differed somewhat in arrangement,
but in nothing else, from our order as it stands today. But the
changes are not material enough to require any mention.
The ordination ended, the bishop dissolved the convention and
directed the clergy to meet him in convocation at a later hour.
This was the first convocation of the clergy of this diocese. They
had before _come_ together by their own agreement; now they
were _called_ together by their chief pastor. These meetings
of the clergy continued till within my own memory, though they had
ceased before I was consecrated, nor do I remember ever to have
attended one as either deacon or presbyter. They were usually
held. I believe, in connection with the sessions of the Diocesan
Convention.
Of those who were admitted on that third of August to the
diaconate, another will speak to you as I could not, so that
little remains for me to add.
We can scarcely now imagine to ourselves the mingled joy and
doubt, hopes and fears, thankfulness and uncertainty, that filled
the minds and agitated the hearts of those who came together here
a hundred years ago. The great point, no doubt, was gained; but
what was to follow? Would the consecration of Seabury be
everywhere accepted? or would there be those who would reject it
because an Act of Parliament had established Presbyterianism in
Scotland, and other Acts of Parliament had proscribed the Scotch
Episcopate? Would all churchmen in all the thirteen States of the
Confederation be united in one body? Or were there such discordant
elements, that they who held to the Apostolic Faith and Order
would be thrust out? Was there vitality enough in the Church in
Connecticut to live and grow? Or, when they who composed it then
were gone, would it dwindle and die out? No man could have
answered those questions then; God has answered them since. And as
we run back along the story of the years that have written out the
answer which we read _this_ day, we come at last to _that_ day,
so truly memorable, and to the bishop, the clergy, the candidates,
who then assembled to take their several parts in the first
Episcopal Ordination in America.
In the library of Trinity College is preserved--many of us must
have seen it--Bishop Seabury's Mitre. I am sure I cannot better
express what may be called our culminating thought today, than by
quoting some lines written by the Bishop of Western New York on
that venerable relic:
"The rod that from Jerusalem
Went forth so strong of yore,
That rod of David's royal stem,
Whose hand the farthest bore?
St. Paul to seek the setting sun,
They say, to Britain prest;
St. Andrew to old Calidon,
But who still farther West?
"Go ask! a thousand tongues shall tell
His name and dear renown,
Where altar, font, and holy bell
Are gifts he handed down;
A thousand hearts keep warm the name,
Which share those gifts so blest;
Yet even this may tell the same,
First mitre of the West!
"Aye! keep it for this mighty West
Till truth shall glorious be,
And good old Samuel's is confest
Columbia's primal see.
'Tis better than a diadem,
The crown that Bishop wore,
Whose hand the rod of Jesse's stem
The farthest westward bore!"
The Rev. Dr. Beardsley then read the following biographical
account of the four candidates admitted to the diaconate by Bishop
Seabury at his first ordination: