Dr. Seabury to add that this is completely disproved in a 'Vindication,' &c., addressed to the editor of the Christian Journal, January, 1821, signed 'Vindex.' This signature being one generally adopted on such occasions. by Bishop Hobart, would mark it as coming from his pen'. With Bishop Seabury, it is evident, as he died in 1796, Mr. Hobart could have had no personal intercourse; but as a writer and sound divine, he most highly esteemed him; had his portrait suspended in his library, and often spoke of him in terms of high respect. The examination of the early history of our Church, into which the present work has led the biographer of Bishop Hobart, has led him to concur in that opinion, and to form a higher estimate than he had before done of the talents, clear-sightedness and apostolic soundness of Bishop Seabury. He would, therefore, willingly pay to this earliest father of the American Church his feeble tribute of praise. The inscription recorded on his tombstone in the church at New-London, speaks justly his character. 'Ingenious without pride, Learned without pedantry, Good without severity, He was duly qualified to discharge The poor he assisted with his charity, SEABURY has shown the way that leads to it.' In a recent number of the (London) British Critic, his For further illustration of the condition and difficulties of the Church at this time, see correspondence between Chandler, Boucher, and Skinner, in Annals of Scottish Episcopacy.' name is thus introduced. 'Seabury, whose writings are worthy of the best days of English theology.' As a divine, what higher praise can be given? But the subsequent applicants from New-York and the South had also their own difficulties to contend with. The Proposed Book,' as set forth by the Convention, was considered by the English bishops as containing some dangerous, and many needless alterations; so that after all, the application for an episcopate from the English Church seemed trembling on the verge of total failure. At this moment another source for obtaining Episcopal consecration was opened through the medium of the Church of Denmark, and the correspondence entered into on the occasion went so far as to obtain from the Danish authorities the manner in which, and the terms on which it would have been granted". But though such episcopate must have been unquestioned, still it would not have been acceptable. To the Church of England the American churches continued to look with love as well as veneration; and it was a joyful day to every affectionate member of it when they learned that in all cordial brotherhood the apostolic power had been conferred by the hands of English bishops on those whom their American brethren had chosen and sent. On the 4th of February, 1787, the Rev. William White and the Rev. Samuel Provoost, Bishops elect for the Dioceses of Pennsylvania and New-York, were consecrated in the palace at Lambeth by the Primate of England, assisted by the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Peterborough; and setting sail within a few days after, landed in New-York on EasterSunday, (April 8,)-a happy omen for the reviving Church they came to bless. May we not, in truth, say, without m See Letters of John Adams and M. De V. Saphorin. White's Memoirs, p. 321. the charge of superstition, that it was a notable coincidence that thus brought to the American Church the most precious boon which man could give, at the very moment of their being assembled in GoD's house to thank him for the greatest of his own heavenly gifts. It was in truth, as it were, a resurrection. Then, for the first time, stood forth the Protestant Episcopal Church in America vitally organized, an independent and integral portion of the catholic apostolic Church of CHRIST. But though this long-mourning Church had thus 'put on the garments of beauty,' she was far from being 'clothed with strength. The life was there, but as yet dormant ; the spirit was not yet awakened within her; she knew not her own powers. Other denominations had from the first been taught to depend upon themselves. The Episcopal Church was like a child that had never walked, and when cut loose from its leading-strings its first steps were necessarily in feebleness and fear. Nor was this all: its path, as already noted, was not among friends; the popular prejudice was still so strong against it that a bare toleration seemed the very most it could aim at; and its laity were in general willing to secure such dishonourable safety by silence and quiet. At the period when Mr. Hobart came forward, though the shackles had been long removed which originally dictated this timid policy, the benumbing effect still, in a great degree, remained: her clergy were faithful but not active, her laity attached but not zealous; and even that attachment was mainly but to externals: they took but little interest in her concerns, and possessed but little acquaintance with her distinctive claims. To their ministers they resigned, what should have been felt by them equally as their privilege and duty, the interests of their Church; content with clerical management, provided the clergy neither brought themselves into controversy, nor the laity into contributions or personal exertion. A Church that had hardly escaped proscription, might, as they argued, be well content with silent indifference. But such policy little suited the character of the defender whom Providence now raised up to strengthen and to bless the Church. A bold heart rejected such policy as timid, and a sagacious judgment condemned it as false. Mr. Hobart felt and reasoned, that for a Church thus placed, between jealousy on the one hand and indifference on the other, no chance remained but to place itself upon the ground of principle, and to demand a fair trial; to proceed openly and firmly, to instruct its own members in their duty, and if need were, those without, in their equal rights; and at any rate to cast off publicly and fearlessly the unworthy aspersions with which it had been. loaded in the day of its weakness. These appear to have been from the earliest period of his course the prospective views of this young champion of the Church; and no one will deny, however differing from him in doctrinal opinions, but that it was the choice of a brave and conscientious mind, to which we may now add, as the result has shown, of a wise and sagacious one. Of the change he induced upon the Church during the whole period of his ministry, it would not be too much to say, whether we look to its external condition or its internal spirit, that, 'what he found of brick he left of marble.' It was a career of duty high, bold and arduous; such as naturally devolves upon strong and conscientious minds when placed in responsible stations in periods of emergency; one from which the timid flee; which the worldly prudent are ever forward to condemn; and in contemplating which even Christian wisdom, perhaps, sometimes stands at fault, from the wounds that she sees inflicted by controversy upon Christian peace. It was to Mr. Hobart, therefore, a course not without its trials as well as triumphs the triumphs were for the Church he loved, the trials were his own, and sometimes, as his biographer can truly witness, 'hard to be borne.' As a Christian he was reproached with awakening unholy contention by a spirit of bigotry and persecution; as a man, he was reproached with inordinate personal ambition, aiming at power on the Q plea of principle. Nor were these charges wholly from without, the harder trial was of coldness of friends, and suspicions from within. But the storm of controversy is now past; the censurer and the censured alike are gone, and the silence of the grave has come over the memory of the contest. But while this is so, still it must not be allowed to stifle either the claims of truth, or the demands of personal justice. Into these then let us now look. As to the general question, Bishop Hobart was right, he feared not controversy in the path of duty, nor should any man. If any man love peace more than principle, him hath not yet the truth made free.' Nor do the evils of religious controversy always, as some think, overbalance the benefit. It is the observation of one" who looked wisely into the history of mankind, that it is when countries are declining into Atheism then 'Controversies wax dainty, because men do think religion scarce worth the falling out for.' 'So,' he adds, 'that it is weak divinity to account controversies an ill sign in a Church.' Controversial divinity is sometimes, therefore, a necessary evil; without it the Reformation could not have taken place in the sixteenth century, nor the Protestant Church now maintain its ground in the nineteenth; nor any Church long continue in purity; so that, like other evils in the moral and physical world, it may yet be the means, under Providence, of working out greater good-clouding for a moment the peaceful serenity of the heavens, but clearing off into purer air and a brighter sky. Nor only to the eye of reason is it a necessary evil, Scripture has made it, in some sense, a Christian duty, and the teacher who fails ' to contend,' on all suitable occasions, 'for the faith once delivered to the saints,' is answerable for the error that grows up by his neglect. But setting aside the general question-to the specific n Lord Bacon. |