Q. Page 36. Of the Convention in 1811.

Bishop White presided in the House of Bishops, and the Rev. Dr. Wilkins in the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies. The secretaries of the two houses, were the Rev. Philo Shelton, of the former, and the Rev. Ashbel Baldwin, of the latter., Bishop Claggett, who was to have opened this convention with a sermon, being detained by sickness, that office was performed by the presiding bishop.

This convention was held under very serious and well founded apprehensions, that the American Church would be again subjected to the necessity of having recourse to the mother Church, for the Episcopacy; or else of continuing it without requiring the canonical number; which might be productive of great disorder in future. Bishop Moore had been lately visited by a paralytic stroke, and was supposed to be incompetent to the joining in a consecration, unless in his chamber: which was contemplated as the last resort. Bishop Claggett, after severe indisposition, was so far recovered as to be encouraged to attempt the journey; but after proceeding a few miles, found himself under the necessity of returning. Bishop Madison thought himself not at liberty to leave the duties of his college. The author left home, under the hope of inducing Bishop Provoost to go on to New-Haven; although he had never performed any ecclesiastical duty, since the consecration of Bishop Moore, in 1801. But besides Bishop Provoost's being under the effects of a slight stroke of the paralytic, sustained two years before, he was, at this time, only beginning to recover from the jaundice. He found himself utterly incompetent to the taking of a journey; but promised, if possible, to assist in a consecration, if it should be held in the city of New-York. With the expectation of this, Bishop Jarvis, after the rising of the convention, came with the author to the said city; as did the two bishops elect. To the last hour, there was danger of disappointment. On our arrival, a day also having been publicly notified for the consecration, we found that Bishop Provoost had suffered a relapse during our absence. But finally, he found himself strong enough to give his attendance; and thus, the business was happily accomplished.

* It appears from a letter of Bishop Madison to the author, that these duties had been made the more imperative by the solemnity of an oath.

What is mentioned on the journals, in relation to the introduction of Episcopacy into the western states, arose from a correspondence which had been entered into between the author and the Rev. Joseph Doddridge, who had been ordained by him many years before; and who lived near the western line of Pennsylvania, which divides it from Virginia. This gentleman wrote in behalf of himself, and of a few other clergymen settled in, those western regions. The line of direction given to this business by the convention, renders it premature to say much concerning it at present. The hinderances to the carrying of the design of the preceding General Convention into effect, were the difficulty of selecting a suitable person, and that of supporting him. The same difficulties are to be apprehended in the new shape of the business. There is this difference in the two designs. According to the former, the bishop would have been on the missionary plan, selected and paid on this side of the mountains. If the latter idea should be realized, the churches to the westward must be organized, and a bishop must be chosen by themselves.

It appears on the journal, that the convention were called on to give their sanction to the endeavours of the Episcopalians in Connecticut, for the establishment of an Episcopal academy with corporate powers. This design originated in the exclusive constitution of the college in that state, which is entirely in the hands of Congregationalists; and is so patronized by the government, and so supplied with occasional grants of money from the treasury, as is thought to amount to a species of state establishment of a particular religious denomination. It is considerably owing to this circumstance, that there is a degree of dissatisfaction between the Episcopalians and the dominant society, beyond what prevails in any other state in the union.

The application to the society (in England) for the Propagating of the Gospel, originated in the following circumstances. Before the revolution, and when the state now known by the name of Vermont, was considered as part of the province of New-Hampshire, Governor Wentworth, in his grants of the western lands of that province, laid out in every township a tract for the use of the Episcopal Church, which should in future be within the limits of the township; and conveyed the lands so given to the said society. Some of these lands are within the present bounds of New-Hampshire, and the rest are in Vermont. After the peace of 1783, the society conveyed the former to certain gentlemen,

within the state to which they belonged. The present application, for a similar grant of the lands in Vermont, was with the view of making them productive, for the accomplishing of the original object of the grants.

It appears further on the journal, that two Rev. gentlemen, Benjamin Benham, and Virgil H. Barber, made to the convention an application, the purport of which is not recorded, but became an object of attention in conversation, during and after the session, besides its occasioning of a debate at the time, in the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies. The subject is contemplated as likely to be a cause of future litigation, and therefore now noticed with sorrow. The object of the two gentlemen alluded to, was to procure a declaration of the invalidity of lay-baptism; and they were said to be conscientiously scrupulous of admitting as members of their congregations, persons who had received no other. This of course precluded accessions, except on the condition of compliance with their proposal, from the most numerous denomination in the state: their baptism by the Congregational ministers, being considered as performed by laymen. Although the clergymen referred to were singular in carrying the matter so far; yet there has been an increasing tendency in some of the clergy, to administer Episcopal baptism to such as desire it, on alleged doubts of the validity of former baptism. Even this is contrary to the rubrics, as is proved by many judicious divines of the Church of England. It happened, that a distinguished lay-member of the convention-the Hon. Rufus King-had brought with him a pamphlet lately sent to him from England, containing a judgment recently given in an ecclesiastical court of that country, in a case precisely to the point. It was occasioned by a suit brought by a dissenter against a parish minister for refusing to bury a child who had been baptized by a minister dissenting from the establishment. The judge-Sir John Nichols-decided it against the clergyman. His reasons, grounded altogether on the rubrics, must carry conviction to every mind, so far as concerns the question of the sense of the Church of England. It is true, that this does not settle the question of the sense of scripture. On the most serious consideration of the subject many years ago, conviction is entertained, that the

One of the two clergymen (Mr. Barber) distinguishing themselves as above, a few years after, became a Roman Catholic. In the communion thus joined by him, it is not uncommon for midwives to baptize. It is a well known property of extremes, that they are often seen making the connecting points of a circle.

matter.

holy scriptures and the Church are not at variance in this What adds to the sorrow felt, at the introduction of a new ground of difference in the American Church, is the observing, that it never existed in the mother Church, until about the year 1712; and that it had then the strongest appearances of a political manoeuvre, played off against the family on whom the succession to the crown had been settled by act of parliament.*

If the prejudice should prevail, it is very unfortunate that two of our bishops (Dr. Provoost and Dr. Jarvis) never received baptism from an Episcopalian administrator. So that who knows what scruples this may occasion, as to the validity of many of our ordinations, and among the number, those of the very two gentlemen, who made the stir at the late convention? It is true, that to meet this difficulty, the distinction is devised, of the possibility of transmitting the Episcopal succession through persons who are not members of the Christian Church. This was the sense of Mr. Lawrence, who wrote with much zeal on the subject, about the time above referred to. But Dr. Hickes, who corresponded with Mr. Lawrence relatively to the main question, and harmonized with him in it, disagreed with him on the subordinate point of a man's being a bishop, without being a Christian. Dr. Hickes is high in the esteem of all the gentlemen who incline to the opinion of the invalidity of lay baptism. Therefore, who can tell to what extent his sentiment may prevail, and what inconveniences it may occasion? There would be no certainty of the existence of a bishop in Christendom.

In England, the scruple arose in the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, when there opened the prospect of introducing the Pretender. It was a political measure to serve that cause, and fell with it. A reproach was thrown on the electoral family, that they were unbaptized Lutherans: as is noticed in Tindal's continuation of Rapin-(p. 725, of vol. iii. of the continuation the first.)

James the First, when he ascended the throne of England, and probably his son Charles the First, who succeeded him, had been baptized in Scotland by nonepiscopalian ministers. And at the restoration of Charles the Second, when the great mass of persons who had grown up during the troubles, had been nonepiscopally baptized; it does not appear, that any motion was made to rebaptize them. This confirms the sentiment, that when the doctrine was broached in the reign of Queen Anne, it was in hostility to the Hanoverian family.

Bishop Provoost was of an Episcopalian family, but from some local or accidental cause, was baptized by a minister of the low Dutch Church. Bishop Jarvis had been born and educated among the Congregationalists.

In confirmation of the preceding statement, there shall be given in a note an extract from a charge of Archdeacon Sharp to the clergy of his archdeaconry. His book is a body of charges delivered by him on the rubrics and the canons. He gives an account of a meeting held at Lambeth, of the two archbishops, and all the bishops who were in town. The year in which their conference was held-1712-shows the coincidence of the occasion with the existing state of politics. The assembled prelates determined unanimously in contrariety to the scruple, which the artifice had excited.

As Mr. Lawrence's well known book on lay-baptism was issued about the same time, it was probably in aid of the political design. For Dr. Sharp's account of the matter, see the note.*

There being notice on the journals of the rejection of a request of a clergyman in Connecticut, and no reason given, it comes within the design of these statements to record the case.

The book is well esteemed; and it was not from dissatisfaction with it, that the application was rejected; but because the request to enjoin the use of the chants and tunes exclusively of all others, was thought unreasonable. The expectation of the applicant has been misunderstood by some; who have supposed, that he included in his demand the prohibition of the singing of psalms in metre. It is true, that he disapproves of such singing, from the opinion

*“In that year (1712) the dispute about the invalidity of lay-baptism running pretty high, the two archbishops, with all the bishops of their provinces that were in town, came unanimously to this resolution-that lay-baptism should be discouraged as much as possible; but, if the essentials had been preserved in a baptism by a lay hand, it was not to be repeated. But then, when it was proposed that a declaration of their sentiments to this purpose should be published, in order to silence or determine the debates raised on this question, it was resolved upon mature deliberation, to leave the question as much undecided by any public declaration, as it was left in the public offices and canons of the Church, for the better security of discipline, and to prevent any advantages that might be taken by dissenters, or seem to be given them, in favour of their baptisms; though they do not properly come within the question of lay-baptisms in cases of extremity.' Dr. Sharp professes to have taken the above from the original papers signed by the two archbishops.

The matter above referred to, as intended to be left undefined, was not the rebaptizing by the form at large, or by the hypothetical form, for against both of these measures, the archdeacon cautions his clergy. But, as in the English Book of Common Prayer, in the introductory instrument entitled, "Concerning the Service of the Church," a minister under doubt is directed to have recourse to the ordinary, and as a doubt may occur concerning the words to be made use of in the admission of a child privately baptized-"I certify that all is well done, &c." not because of the insufficiency of the administrator, but on account of the irregularity of the act, the minister is counselled by Dr. Sharp to avail himself of the said proviso, attached to the preface of the Book of Common Prayer.