Activities at the 1785 First General Convention and the first
session of the 1786 Second General Convention aimed toward unification
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Both conventions represented
only the middle and southern states, and the New England preference for
top-down organization was therefore underrepresented. A committee
of correspondence had engaged in two rounds of correspondence with the
bishops and two archbishops of England, inquiring about the possibility
of getting three American bishops consecrated in England. Now it
was time to decide what to do.
Second Session of the Second General Convention
The committee of correspondence called the adjourned meeting of the
Second General Convention into session on October 10, 1786, in
Wilmington to react to the two letters from the archbishops.
David Griffith being ill, Samuel Provoost presided. The only
business was to respond to the two letters and to endorse a suitable
complement of American bishops elect. There was unanimous
agreement that the Nicene Creed should be restored and widespread
agreement that the Athanasian Creed should
continue to be omitted. Opinion was divided concerning restoring
the line "He descended into hell" to the Apostles' Creed. The
archbishops
had attempted to make it look like a small thing to include the line,
saying that the line had been added to the original creed in order to
address
an ancient heresy, now largely forgotten. But the same argument
could be made that it was not so important if the convention left the
line out. What may have carried the day was that the bishops
elect would not have
been prepared to make the trip without assent to the archbishops'
wishes
on this point; thus the line was restored.
The elections of Samuel Provoost, William White, and David Griffith as
bishops were ratified by the convention, with the testimonials
signed. The official records are silent
William Smith and His Grandson
about action on William Smith. Possibly the explanation
comes from a drinking problem that Smith was widely said to have
had. The delegates could hardly vouch for Smith's having lived
the past three years "soberly," as the form of the testimonials
required, and the convention may have quietly arranged that Smith's
nomination should not be pressed. This outcome was doubtless a
disappointment for Smith, who had been one of White's teachers in
Pennsylvania and had been bishop elect from Maryland since 1783.
But Smith continued an active leadership role in the church, getting
elected as president of the House of Deputies at the next four General
Conventions (1789, 1792, 1795, and 1799).
A committee of nine that included Smith was formed and met on
the evening of the 10th. White's memoirs say, "We sat up the
whole
of the succeeding night, digesting the determinations in the form in
which they appear on the journal." In other words, they framed a
resolution whose text they could send to the archbishops. This
provided
for the restoration of the line "He descended into hell" to the
Apostles'
Creed, it provided for the restoration of the Nicene Creed, it took
note
of the constitutional change from the first session that captured the
way
the approval of a prayer book was eventually to be handled, and it
mentioned
small changes to the preface consistent with these changes to the
creeds.
The resolution was approved on the 11th. A cover letter was
prepared,
signed, and sent that day, and the convention's work was
complete.
The Third General Convention was scheduled to start July 28, 1789.
Consecrations
Provoost and White sailed for England on November 2, 1786, and arrived
in London on November 29. Griffith was unable to go with them
because he had not been able to raise sufficient funds for the
trip. Provoost and White were consecrated as bishops on February
4, 1787, they left London on February 5, and they arrived in New York
on April 7. White's memoirs describe this trip in detail.
Activities Before the Third General Convention
Samuel Seabury, Bishop of Connecticut, wrote to each of Provoost and
White on May 1, 1787, after their return from England, offering his
congratulations
Samuel Seabury
and proposing that the three of them get together alone to hammer out
the outline of a united church. It was his first priority
that such an arrangement succeed, but he also had a backup plan.
Toward the end of 1785, discouraged over reports from the First General
Convention, Seabury had written to Samuel Parker of Massachusetts,
suggesting
that it might be a good idea to have one or two more New England
bishops
consecrated in Scotland. Seabury was telling Parker his backup
plan:
if unity of the churches in all the states was not possible, then New
England
could arrange to have its own complete set of three bishops. The
unstated but clear suggestion was that one of these ought to be
Parker. Seabury had not acted further on this plan until February
27, 1787, when his discouragement with reports from the Second General
Convention led him to convene the Connecticut clergy, who elected one
of their number as a coadjutor (assistant) bishop. This person
had not immediately departed for Scotland; Seabury's letter of May 1
was one more try at unity with Provoost and White.
White responded to Seabury on May 21, 1787. He said that having
the Episcopal
churches united in one system of ecclesiastical government was a hope
dear to his heart. But he thought it would first be good to tell
each other the views of the churches in their own areas.
Extrapolating from what he had heard, he cautioned, "If our brethren in
Connecticut should be of the opinion that the giving of any share of
the Legislative power of the Church to others than those of the
Episcopal order is inconsistent with Episcopal Government, and that the
requiring of the consent of the Laity to ecclesiastical laws is an
invasion of Clerical rights,
in this case I see no prospect of doing good in any other way than
contributing
all in my power to promote a spirit of love and peace between us;
although
I shall continue to cultivate the hope of our being brought, at some
future day, to an happy agreement." On the other hand, he said
that he was quite flexible about the liturgy and that if it was felt
that the best
way to obtain an agreement among the three of them was to meet alone,
then
he would use his best endeavors to bring about such a meeting.
Seabury immediately forwarded White's letter to Parker in Boston,
asking for his
comments. The implicit message was that if a unified church was
not
possible, then perhaps Massachusetts could nominate Parker to be bishop
of
a new diocese and send him to Scotland.
White had his own backup plan. At about the same time, White
wrote to Parker in an undated letter, saying in part, "I wish most
sincerely that Massachusetts would unite with us, and choose a
person for consecration; not merely as it would tend to cement the
Church throughout the whole continent, but because I think it would add
to the wisdom of our determinations, whenever a General Convention
shall be had for the final settlement of our ecclesiastical system.
Parker was squarely in the middle but behaved like a skilled
diplomat. He replied to White on July 19, 1787, first offering
his belated congratulations for White's consecration and telling what
was happening with the Proposed Book in Massachusetts.
Samuel Parker
He continued, "Nothing will be determined in this state respecting a
Bishop till we see how matters are settled between you and the Bishop
of Connecticut. We are but six Clergymen in the whole state ...
and are divided in our sentiments respecting the expediency of
obtaining a Bishop. Two seem to adhere to Connecticut, two to
your states, and the other two will join either party that will bid
fairest to cement the whole. Should the case happen, that a
person should be chosen for this state, will it be necessary for him to
go to England to obtain it, or can two Bishops confer it authentically;
or is Dr. Griffith on his way to England, or will the Southern Bishops
unite with Bishop Seabury in this act?
If the last question is premature or impertinent, I beg pardon, and
request not an answer to it. The reason of my proposing these
questions is, that the answers may operate very considerably in the
determinations of
the Clergy here."
Parker, Seabury, and White continued to exchange letters on this
subject well into 1789, occasionally involving Smith and others in the
exchange. It remained true that fundamentally Seabury wanted a
top-down system of organization while White wanted a bottom-up
system. But the two began to understand each other's views better
and to acknowledge that some elements of each kind of organization were
required. Historically the power to act in the name of Jesus went
first to the apostles and
then down to others; on the other hand, the individual churches in the
United States depended on the voluntary contributions of the laity to
function, and it was only right to give the laity some say in things
that affected
them. Seabury was able to limit his main objections concerning
the
role of laity in the organization to two: he objected to having laymen
sit
in judgment of clergy in trials when laymen played no comparable role
in
ordinations, and he objected to the insistence that every state include
lay
representatives because Connecticut laymen were not sure they were
willing
to offer such representation.
Seabury and White were in agreement that any discussion of the liturgy
should start afresh, ignoring the Proposed Book, and make
only minimal changes. Seabury's reasons were philosophical and
White's reasons were pragmatic, but that distinction did not matter.
Edward Bass
For his part Parker decided on a course of action. He organized a
meeting of the six clergy of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to carry
out a plan to push the church toward unity. He himself did not
want to be bishop, and he arranged for one of his colleagues to be
willing
to be elected. On June 4, 1789, the group accordingly elected one
of their number, Edward Bass (1726-1803), as bishop. They passed
two resolutions. One attested to the fine qualities that Bass
had,
and it asked the three bishops in the United States to join in his
consecration.
The other empowered Parker to be their agent at the Third General
Convention,
to lay their resolution about Bass before that convention, and to
support
any measures that might promote unity. This resolution he
communicated
to White a few days before the start of the convention.
First Session of the Third General Convention, Overview
The Third General Convention met in Philadelphia in two sessions.
The first session went from July 28, 1789, to approximately August
16. The second session began September 29 and ended October
17. William White was the only bishop in attendance at the first
session, Provoost being ill, and White therefore presided at it.
The main business of the first session was to deal with the related
issues of uniting the church and arranging for a full complement of
bishops. Everyone agreed that both these ends were
desirable. The plan was to agree tentatively on a number of
proposals that together would create an organization that the church in
Connecticut should be willing to join, to invite Seabury and other
delegates from Connecticut officially to the second session, to modify
details in the proposals if necessary at the beginning of the second
session to ensure agreement, to have the Connecticut church officially
join with the churches in the other states, and to have the united
group approve all the proposals. Under the overall plan, the
organization was thus being set up officially in top-down fashion but
was being set up unofficially in bottom-up fashion. The blend of
top-down decisions and bottom-up decisions would occur in the details
also.
Founding of the Episcopal Church, Part V
