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I hope he may find you in Richmond, and that I shall hear from you on his return.

Be assured, that, different as are our pursuits, and distant as we are in place,

I remain, as ever, dear Mercer,

Most affectionately,

JOHN H. HOBART.'

CHAPTER XIII.

A. D. 1814. Et. 39.

General Convention-Motion for a General Theological Seminary opposed by Bishop Hobart-Reasons-Standing and Influence in that Body-Sermon preached at its Opening-Review of it -Sentiments touching the Church of England-General Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church-Prospects-Rite of Confirmation-Administered at Hyde Park-Influence-Eulogium on the Prayer-book-Letters-C. F. Mercer-President Smith.

Of his course as Bishop, Mr. Hobart had already given warrant to the Church, in the numerous publications that had preceded his elevation; it was, to maintain the vital truths of the Gospel in connection with the distinctive principles of the Church, or as he himself was accustomed to indicate it, 'the union of evangelical truth with apostolic order.' He doubted the expediency of teaching a 'no Church' Christianity; he distrusted 'modern liberality;' he regarded it but as the cloak of indifference, the language of infidelity, or, at best, the apology of a mind too indolent to examine, or too little interested to choose between the conflicting claims of Christian truth. Such a spirit in the Church he regarded as a fatal symptom, he therefore deprecated its existence, and fought against its extension under every form in which it presented itself.

How, he would say, can Christianity be taught in the abstract? one might as well propose to put into the hand of the child who is to learn it, a Bible, that shall be neither large, nor small, nor medium size, and of which the binding shall be a colour partaking equally of all colours; but Christianity has its form, and has its colour, and man

has no right to vary from either the one or the other. The Gospel generalized, is no Gospel; if all creeds be admitted, no creed can be held, and if no creed be held, there is no standing ground for the Christian reasoner, no foothold against infidelity; once entered on that slippery descent, the mind glides insensibly, but necessarily, onward; all behind, becomes bigotry; all before, liberality; nor can we stop, upon this principle, till all truth is generalized, and all opinions, however heretical or infidel, are put upon an equal footing. But where then will be the Gospel? where will be the Christian? The Gospel will then be ranked among the many marvellous histories of a dark and fabulous age; and the Christian, at least he who bears such name under this extension, will find himself sitting down, not only with the Arian and the Socinian, but with the Moslem and the Gentoo, as having equal rights and equal claims with himself, and, worse than all that, even with the utter infidel and atheist. Such must, demonstratively, be the result, unless we stand upon Christian truth, for if we arbitrarily stop short, what becomes of the principle contended for. There is, therefore, but one security in the Christian Church: there is, and there can be none other, THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. What that truth is, is matter of inquiry to learn, and matter of duty to inquire: what in any individual case it will result in, depends upon the care and diligence of the search; but the Christian who ventures to advance any other principle than that of 'truth,' is a traitor to the cause he professes to advocate; he opens the gates to the foe. Thus did not Bishop Hobart :-and the Church of CHRIST at large, by whatever name known, has yet to learn the full debt it owes to him who stood fearlessly in the gap, and fought a good fight' against that insidious enemy who was for changing the Gospel banner from TRUTH, to-LIBERALITY.

This uncompromising tone was in him a Christian, not a sectarian spirit, and they who deemed it such, still more

they who inveighed against it as such, and would have held him up to odium for maintaining it, do now owe to him, yea, rather to themselves, an honourable amend' for such misconstruction.

This exposition of the principle on which he went bears upon the whole tenour of his life; it is referred to here in order to account for what would otherwise appear a striking inconsistency in his course, in the General Convention of this year, in relation to the proposition of a Theological Seminary under its control. After urging for years, by every means, the establishment of such an institution for the Church, when the very measure itself was moved in the General Convention, he opposed it. How can this be explained?

'It is proper,' said he, in reporting those proceedings to the State Convention of this year, that on the subject of the proceedings of the General Convention I should remark, that the opposition from the deputation of the Church in New-York to the establishment of a general theological seminary, by an act of that body, did not arise from disaffection to a measure of vital importance to the Church, but from an opinion that the same object could be accomplished on the most correct and enlarged principles and views, by private concert and co-operation among the influential friends of the Church in various parts of the Union, without encountering many difficulties to which the measure would be liable, if taken up under present circumstances by the General Convention. At the next meeting of that body they will doubtless be in possession of such facts as will enable them to come to a decision on this important subject.'

The objection here hinted at is easily made clear: he feared, in the then state of the Church, compromitting its principles by putting the control of an institution, that was to give tone to its doctrines and discipline, into the hands of the General Convention. He deemed it safer, and therefore wiser, to pursue the object for a time,

a Journal of Convention, 1814, p. 11.

where there would be unity of counsel, and greater security for sound teaching. On this point, his letter introducing Dr. Moore to his friend in Virginia, (p. 345,) may be referred to in further explanation. This was his motive; for in after-years, when he esteemed those dangers comparatively past, he then united in placing the seminary actually, where, theoretically, he had always thought that it should be, provided it could be safely done, under the control of the general authorities of the Church.

This course of Bishop Hobart's was then, and has often been since charged with inconsistency; it is such inconsistency as is chargeable upon the sagacious pilot, who varies his course to avoid the rocks that lie in it. It is the end aimed at wherein the wise and good mind is to be tested, all else, within the limits of Christian probity, is a question of prudence and of expediency; and he is the wisest ruler, and the safest pilot, who is wary as to his course, and inflexible only as to the haven where he would be.'

As the General Convention of this year was the first, after his consecration, in which Bishop Hobart appeared in the House of Bishops, a few words are due to the standing he took, and the course he pursued in it. Of the first, an incidental proof was given, the very day on which that body opened its sittings. Bishop Claggett, of Maryland, was to have preached, on that occasion, the Convention Sermon. Sickness prevented his attendance. Bishop Hobart, from the confidence reposed in his sound judgment and ready talent, was unanimously requested to assume the duty, and, at a 'very short notice,' gave, not only an able discourse, but one highly appropriate to the solemn act with which it opened, viz., the consecration of a Bishop for the Diocese of Virginia. This was the Rev. R. Channing Moore, the same he had before introduced to his Virginia friend. As a matter of course, this sermon was immediately printed, bearing the title of The Origin. General Character, and Present Condition of the

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