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rank of independent states. During that term, there was no resource for the supply of vacancies; which were continually multiplying, not only from death, but by the retreat of very many of the episcopal clergy to the mother country, and to the colonies still dependent on her. To add to the evil, many able and worthy ministers, cherishing their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and entertaining conscientious scruples against the use of the liturgy, under the restriction of omitting the appointed prayers for him, ceased to officiate. Owing to these circumstances, the doors of the far greater number of the episcopal churches were closed for several years. In the state in which this work is edited, there was a part of that time, in which there was, through its whole extent, but one resident minister of the church in question, he who records the fact. B.

No sooner was it known in America, that Great Britain had acknowledged her independence, than a few young gentlemen to the southward, who had been educated for the ministry, but kept back from it by the times, embarked for England; and applied to the then bishop of London, Dr. Lowth, for orders. As the bishop could not ordain them, without requiring of them engagements inconsistent with their allegiance to the American sovereignty, he applied for and obtained an act of parliament, allowing him to dispense with requisitions of that sort. While this matter was depending, and the success of the candidates was doubtful, there was an incident, which

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may be proper to record, in justice to the intended good offices of a foreign sister church.

Mr. Adams, then the minister of the United States at the court of St. James, being in company with M. de St. Saphorin the minister of the crown of Denmark, mentioned to him the case here stated, of the candidates for orders; with a view to his opinion, whether they could be gratified in the kingdom which he represented. Sometime after, the Danish minister made a communication to the American; from which it appeared, that the inquiry of the latter had been notified to the Danish court; that the consequence had been a reference to the theological faculty of the kingdom; and that they had declared their readiness to ordain candidates from America, on the condition of their signing of the 39 Articles of the church of England, with the exception of the political parts of them; the service to be performed in Latin, in accommodation to the candidates, who might be supposed unacquainted with the language of the country. This conduct, is here the more cheerfully mentioned to the honour of the Danish church; as it is reasonable to presume, that there would have been an equal readiness to the consecrating of bishops, had necessity required a recourse for it to any other source than the English Episcopacy, under which the American churches had been planted. The proceeding in Denmark, was made known to the American government by Mr. Adams; a copy of whose letter to the president of congress, was sent to the author by the then supreme executive

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council of Pennsylvania. Mr. Adams stated, that the transaction arose from his having been applied to by an American gentleman, in behalf of the candidates for ordination referred to. Mr. Adams mentioned the matter to M. de St. Saphorin, the Danish minister; who accordingly wrote to the count de Rosencrone, privy counsellor and secretary of state to the king of Denmark. The result was as above given.

In truth, there was no idea of having recourse, in the first instance, to any other quarter than that of the English Episcopacy, in the minds of those who had begun to direct their attention to the supply of the present and the future exigencies of the churches. But it seemed to those at least who took up the subject in the middle states, that nothing could be done to effect, without some association, under which the churches might act as a body: they having been heretofore detached from and independent on one another; excepting the bond of union which had subsisted through the medium of the bishop of London. That medium of connexion, had been confessedly destroyed by the revolution: and therefore it was evident, that without the creating of some new tie, the churches in the different states, and even those in the same state might adopt such varying me sures, as would for ever prevent their being combined in one communion.

The first step towards the forming of a collective body of the episcopal church in the United States, was taken, at a meeting for another purpose, of a few clergymen of New York, New Jersey and

Pennsylvania, at Brunswick in New Jersey, on the 13th and 14th of May, 1784. These clergymen, in consequence of prior correspondence, had met for the purpose of consulting, in what way to renew a society that had existed under charters of incorporation from the governors of the said three states, for the support of widows and children of deceased clergymen. Here it was determined, to procure a larger meeting on the fifth of the ensuing October, in New York; not only for the purpose of reviving the said charitable institution, but to confer and agree on some general principles of an union of the Episcopal church throughout the states. C.

Such a meeting was held, at the time and place agreed on: and although the members composing it were not vested with powers, adequate to the present exigencies of the church; they happily and with great unanimity laid down a few general principles, to be recommended in the respective states, as the ground on which a future ecclesiastical government should be established. These principles were approbatory of Episcopacy and of the Book of Common Prayer; and provided for a representative body of the church, consisting of clergy and laity; who were to vote as distinct orders. There was also a recommendation to the church in the several states, to send clerical and lay deputies to a meeting to be held in Philadelphia, on the 27th of September in the following year. D.

Although at the meeting last held, there were present two clergymen from the eastern states; yet it

now appeared, that there was no probability, for the present, of the aid of the churches in those states, in the measures begun for the obtaining of a representative body of the church at large. From this they thought themselves restrained in Connecticut, in particular, by a step they had antecedently taken, for the obtaining of an Episcopate from England. For until the event of their application could be known, it naturally seemed to them inconsistent, to do any thing which might change the ground on which the gentleman of their choice was then standing. This gentleman was the Rev. Samuel Seabury, D. D. formerly missionary on Long Island; who had been recommended to England for consecration, before the evacuation of New York by the British army.

On the 27th of September, 1785, there assembled, agreeably to appointment, in Philadelphia, a convention of clerical and lay deputies, from seven of the thirteen United States, viz. from New York to Virginia, inclusive, with the addition of South Carolina. They applied themselves to the making of such alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, as were necessary for the accommodating of it to the late changes in the state; and the proposing, but not establishing, of such other alterations in that book and in the articles, as they thought an improvement of the service and of the manner of stating the principal articles of faith; these were published in a book, ever since known by the name of the proposed book. E.

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