their Body, that on their Return to their respective States, they should make a respectful Application to their civil Rulers requesting them to certify, that ye said Address to ye Archbishops and ye Bishops of ye Church of England is not contrary to our Laws or Constitutions; and that a Compliance with it will not be offensive to ye civil Powers under which we live; and That your Petitioners do accordingly now make the said Application to your honourable Body; and as it has been uniformly the endeavour of ye Episcopal Church in this State and in ye other States represented in ye late Convention, so to form their ecclesiastical System, as that it may harmonize with our civil Duties and the Interests and Happiness of ye United States; so they trust, that your Honourable Body will condescend to their Request; and think it not unworthy of your Wisdom or beneath your Dignity, to remove ye political Obstacle which may prevent their obtaining the Episcopal Succession in a Way, which they hope will be thought reputable to themselves and safe to their Country. And your Petitioners, as in Duty bound, shall ever pray. Clerical Deputies: WILLIAM WHITE. ROBT. BLACKWELL. Lay Deputies: SAMUEL POWEL. The response of the Executive Council to this petition we add below. Dr. White's criticism on its closing paragraph we have already given in a familiar letter of his to the Rev. Dr. Smith.(2) From allusions in the same correspondence, it appears that a similar document had been furnished by the Governor of Maryland upon the application of Dr. Smith. The Certificate subsequently given by the celebrated Patrick Henry, at the request of Dr. Griffith, and that procured at this time by the Rev. Mr. Provoost from Governor Clinton of New York, are also appended; the one is printed in Bishop White's Memoirs, the other from an original copy in Mr. Provoost's own handwriting. The idea that such documents. were deemed necessary by our forefathers to facilitate the in (1) From the original among the Bishop White MSS. troduction of a purely spiritual and ecclesiastical office, may perhaps occasion surprise in our days; but we can with difficulty, at this distance of time, appreciate the apprehensions of the danger of this measure which had been excited, even in the minds of Churchmen, by the popular clamour raised against the Episcopate during the period immediately preceding the war. Pennsylvania, ss. The Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do hereby certify and make known to all whom it may concern, that agreeable to the frame of government and laws of this Commonwealth- the clergy and others, members of the Church of England in Pennsylvania, are at liberty to take such means as they may think proper, for keeping up a succession of religious teachers-Provided only, that the measures they adopt for this purpose do not induce a subjection to any foreign jurisdiction, civil or ecclesiastical. Given in Council under the hand of the honourable Charles Biddle, Esquire, Vice-President, and the Seal of this State, at Philadelphia, this twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of oer Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, and in the tenth year of the Commonwealth. CHARLES BIDDLE, V. P. Attest, JOHN ARMSTRONG JUN., Sec.(1) By His Excellency GEORGE CLINTON, Esquire, Governor of the State of New [PRIVY SEAL.] York, General, and Commander in Chief of all the Militia, and Admiral of the Navy thereof. To all to whom these Presents shall come or may concern. It is certified and made known that by the constitution of the said State, it is ordained and declared that the free exercise and enjoyment of Religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever be allowed within this State to all mankind, and that there is nothing in the said constitution, or in any of the laws of the said State, to prohibit the Clergy and others of the Episcopal Churches or of any other Church in the said State, to take such measures as they shall judge proper, for keeping up a succession (1) Bishop White's Memoirs, p. 239 of religious Teachers, Provided that the means they may adopt for this purpose be not inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State and do not induce a Subjection or Allegiance to any Foreign Jurisdiction or Power, Civil or Eccle siastical, whatever. Given under my Hand and the Privy Seal at the City By his Excellency's Command: GEORGE CLINTON. By his Excellency PATRICK HENRY, Esq., Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is certified and made known to all whom it may concern -That the Protestant Episcopal Church is incorporated by an Act of the Legislature of this Commonwealth, for that purpose made and provided: that there is no law existing in this Commonwealth, which in any manner forbids the admission of Bishops, or the exercise of their office; on the contrary, by the 16th Article of the Declaration of Rights, it is provided in the words following, viz.-"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all, to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each othe," which said Article is now in full force. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the Seal of the Commonwealth to be affixed, at Richmond, this first day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, and tenth of the Commonwealth. P. HENRY.(1) Accompanied by these and similar endorsements from the Executive authorities of the various States, and enlisting the further recommendation of the Federal authorities them (1) This Certificate, which was obtained at a date subsequent to the others, was sent to Bishop White by the Rev. Dr. Griffith, Bishop-elect of Virginia, to be laid before the Convention of 1786. Vide White's Memoirs, pp. 329, 330. selves, (1) the Address of the Convention was sent forth on The following characteristic letter, (2) an its mission. nounced its departure. REV. MR. PROVOOST TO REV. DR. WHITE. Dear and Revd. Sir, The Address was sent by the Packet with recommendatory Letters from the President of Congress and John Jay, Esqr., who have interested themselves much in our Business. I also enclosed a Copy I had taken of the Address, with some other Papers relating to the Church in America, in a Letter to the Bishop of Carlisle. I expect no obstruction to our Application but what may arise from the Intrigues of the nonjuring Bishop of Connecticut, who a few days since paid a visit to this State (notwithstanding he incurred the guilt of misprision of Treason, and was liable to confinement for life for doing so) and took shelter at Mr. James Rivington's, where he was seen only by a few of his most intimate friends; whilst he was there, a piece appeared in a newspaper under Livington's direction, pretending to give an account of the late Convention, but replete with Falsehood and Prevarication, and evidently intended to excite a prejudice against our transactions, both in England and America. On Long Island, Dr. Cebra appeared more openly-preached at Hempstead Church, and ordained the Person from Virginia I formerly mentioned, being assisted by the Revd. Mr. Moore of Hempstead and the Revd. Mr. Bloomer of New Town, Long Island. I relate these Occurrences, that when you write next to England, our (1) Vide ante p. 138. (2) Notices of the animosity borne by Mr. Provoost toward the first Bishop of Connecticut other than those which incidentally appear in Bp. White's Memoirs of the Church, can be found in two privately printed pamplilets by the compiler of this volume, entitled respectively Bishop Seabury and Bishop Provoost: an Historical Fragment " 8vo. 1862, and Bishop Seabury and the Episcopal Recorder'; a Vindication." 8vo. 1863. Mr. Provoost persistently spelled Bp. Seabury's name as in the letter given in the text. We scarcely need add that the article in the New-York Packet to which reference is made by Mr. Provoost, and which is printed in full herewith, in no sense justifies the construction put upon it by Mr. Provoost. "We are informed that about twenty of the Episcopal Clergy, joined by delegates of Lay gentlemen, from a number of the congregations in several of the Southern States, lately assembled in Convention at Christ Church, Philadelphia, revised the Liturgy of the Church of England, (adapting it to the late Revolution,) expunged some of the Creeds, reduced the thirty-nine Articles to twenty in number, and agreed on a letter addressed to the Archbishops and the Spiritual Court in England, desiring they would be pleased to obviate any difficulties that might arise on application to them for consecrating such respectable Clergy as should be appointed and sent to London from their body to, act as Bishops on the Continent of America, where there is at present only one Prelate dignified with Episcopal powers viz. the Right Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury, Bishop of the Apostolical Church in the State of Connecticut. Hitherto Mr. Pitt, the British Minister, has vehemently opposed all applications preferred for consecration to Sees in America; this discouragement occasioned Bishop Seabury to secure his consecration from three of the Bishops in Scotland, which proves as perfectly valid and efficient as though obtained from the hands of their Right Reverences of Canterbury, York and London, and is incontestably proved by a list of the consecration and succession of Scots Bishops since the Revolution in 1688, under William the Third."-From "The New-York Packet." No. 537, for Monday, October 31, 1785. Friends there may be guarded against any misrepresentations that may come to them from that Quarter. I am, with respects to Dr. Magaw and Mr. Blackwell, Dr. Sir, Your most sincere Friend and Humble Servant, New York, Nov. 7th, 1785. SAML. PROVOOST. (1) This epistle, betraying the political prejudices of the Whig Rector of Trinity, New-York, against the tory Bishop of Connecticut was shortly followed by another in a similar strain. * * REV. MR. PROVOOST TO REV. DR. WHITE. * * *If we may judge from appearances, Dr. Cebra and his friends are using every art to prevent the success of our application to the English prelates. A close correspondence is kept up between him, Chandler, (2), &c., and a few days ago two large packets were seen at Rivington's address'd to the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of which it was imagined came from Dr. Chandler. Governor Clinton assures me that Dr. Cebra is in the Bill of Attainder, a circumstance which I did not know when I mentioned him in a late letter. He certainly would never have run the risque he did by coming to New-York, unless some political ends of consequence were to be answered by it. * * New-York, Dec. 28, 1785 * SAM'L PROVOOST. (3) With the remark, in passing that there was no foundation for the unkind judgments of Mr. Provoost other than his political and personal prejudices, we turn to the consideration of the feeling in England with reference to the measures of the Convention of 1785. No little alarm was felt abroad by the friends of the Church in the United States at the reception of the sermon of Dr. Smith on the first introduction of the new Liturgy without any further information of the nature and extent of the alterations proposed. Rumors as to what had been done in the way of change and correction accompanied and pre (1) From the Bp. White Correspondence. (2) The Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler D. D., of New-Jersey, one of the wisest and best of the Colonial clergy. (3) From the Bp. White Correspondence. |