2007年4月27日星期五

The Anglican Outlook on the American Colonies in the Early Eighteenth Century

Greene, Evarts Boutelle
American Historical Review 20 (October, 1914): 64-85.

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THE ANGLICAN OUTLOOK ON THE AMERICANCOLONIES IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTHCENTURY1
IN Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, there is a notable passage describing the importance of the Established Church in the English social fabric. He speaks of the establishment as “the first of our prejudices, not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom”. In a spirit of veneration like that in which he contemplated the national constitution, he saw in the church the living embodiment in the present of the “early received, and uniformly continued sense of mankind”.2 What Burke wrote in 1790 applied with greater force to the early eighteenth century. Whatever its spiritual limitations may have been, the popularity of the church was then so great as to endanger the Revolution settlement of 1689, and the grudging concessions to dissenters embodied in the Toleration Act.
In sharp contrast to the situation at home was the humiliating weakness of the church beyond the sea. In the new English commonwealths, this “first of English prejudices” had largely lost its force. Of the continental colonies, which in 1700 included a great majority of the white population in America under the English flag, only the two Chesapeake provinces of Virginia and Maryland had a measurably effective establishment of the Anglican Church; and even here English ecclesiastical law and custom were largely inoperative. Without a resident bishop, the important offices of confirmation and ordination could not be administered and though the Bishop of London was represented in Virginia by a commissary, a considerable part of the episcopal jurisdiction was exercised by the colonial governor. Commissary and parish clergy alike were dependent upon the passing moods of the laity to an extent quite inconsistent with the approved Anglican theory. In New England the situation was even worse. There was indeed all effective church establishment, but it was based upon principles sharply antagonistic to those of the mother-country. The other colonies had been
1 A paper read in the conference on American religious history at the meeting of the American Historical Association in Charleston, December 29, 1913. 2 Works (London, 1852), IV. 225-226.
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founded by proprietors, who though often themselves Anglicans, sometimes indeed as in the case of Lord Clarendon aggressive High Churchmen, were controlled mainly by considerations of economic interest and trusted that a variety of religious opinions, held by people so far away, would be “no breach of the unity and uniformity”3 thought necessary at home. In the most vigorous of the middle colonies, the prevailing religious influence was that of the Society of Friends, whose members combined the most thoroughgoing theories of religious individualism with an extraordinary capacity for cooperative action in defense of their common interests.
Under these depressing conditions a few energetic churchmen, in the first decade of the eighteenth century, took up the difficult problem of colonial missions. At a time when merchants and statesmen were working with fair success for an imperial system in trade and government, it was natural to think also of an imperialistic policy for the national church. This ecclesiastical imperialism was doubtless supported in part by political considerations; but the character of its chief promoters, many of whom were actively associated with various forms of practical piety at home, is sufficient to show that the movement had also a truly religious aspect.4
The two chief agencies of Anglican extension in the colonies during this period were the Bishop of London and the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, chartered by William III. in 1701.5 The jurisdiction of the diocese of London in the colonies and the long-continued service of Bishop Compton, which, beginning under Charles II., covered the greater part of Queen Anne’s reign, have been described in Cross’s well-known monograph.6 The work of the society, sometimes designated as the Venerable Society, or more briefly still as the S. P. G., has been described in various publications written from a distinctly Anglican point of view, of which the most valuable is Mr. C. F. Pascoe’s Two Centuries of the S. P. G., based mainly on the journal of the society and the correspondence on file in its London office.7 It is the purpose of the present paper
3 Carolina charter, 1663, § 18. 4 Dr. Thomas Bray is perhaps the most notable for the variety of religious societies with which he was associated. For other illustrations see C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G., and Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714 (index of both, sub T. Bray, Josiah Woodward, Thomas Tenison, Robert Nelson). See also Overton, ch. V. (“Religious and Philanthropical Societies”). Cf. Allen and McClure, History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, ch. II. 5 Charter in Pascoe, op. cit., pp. 932-934. 6 A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies. 7 The most important of the early accounts is that of Humphreys, secretary of the society, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1730).
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to interpret, in the light of this original material, the Anglican outlook on the colonial problem in the early years of the eighteenth century.
The S. P. G., though not technically an official agency of the church, had nevertheless a quasi-official character.8 Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, was named in the charter as the first president of the society and he was regularly chosen to the same office by annual election as long as he lived. Tenison was a moderate churchman, more conspicuous for practical piety than for controversial theology, and his activities in relation to the colonial church have not been adequately recognized.9 The minutes of the society show conclusively that his presidency was of no perfunctory kind. By a standing order of the society, minutes of its own action and that of its executive committee were to be sent to the archbishop as well as to the Bishop of London. In the later years of Tenison’s presidency, when he rarely attended the sessions in person, it was usual to make action on important matters conditional upon his approval.10 The relations of the society with the Bishop of London were also very close. He was asked for information about colonial needs and in turn depended upon the society for the funds required to support the American clergy. In fact his control of the colonial church was materially restricted by his financial dependence; for the society, not content with episcopal testimonials, conducted its own examination of candidates for the missionary service, reserving the right of dismissal for misconduct.11 In general there was friendly and effective co-operation, with occasional friction, as in 1709, when the bishop expressed his disappointment that there should have been “any rubb” in the appointment on liberal terms of one of his candidates, who in his opinion “would do as much good as ten others”.12
Other bishops took a more or less active part in the society’s work. Among them was Gilbert Burnet, who with all his multifarious activities as churchman, politician, and historian was able to attend numerous meetings of the society.13 Burnet belonged to the latitudinarian
8 The activity of Dr. Thomas Bray in the founding of this society and of its predecessor, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, is well known. Doubtless his part was larger than that of any other individual. See Steiner, Rev. Thomas Bray, in Maryland Hist. Soc. Fund Publications, no. 37. Cf. Pascoe, ch. I. 9 W. H. Hutton’s “Tenison” in Dict. of Nat. Biog. Cf. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714, pp. 60-62. 10 S. P. G. Journal, May 17, 1706, and passim, e. g., June, July, 171 1. 11 Ibid., September 17, 1703; November 17, December 15, 1704; May 18, June 15, 1705. 12 S. P. G., Letters Received, A V., nos. 29-32. 13 E. g., S. P. G. Journal, 1711, passim.
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group which included also White Kennett, afterwards bishop of Peterborough. Of the High Church bishops who took an active part in the society’s affairs, Patrick, bishop of Ely, was perhaps the most notable. Thus the outlook of the society on the American situation was in the main that of responsible leaders in the Church of England.
Notwithstanding its connection with a richly endowed church, the financial resources of the society were meagre indeed. In 1707 the annual charges for missions and schools amounted to £1065 with yearly subscriptions not exceeding £759; and at the next annual meeting it was reported that the annual income from all sources including casual benefactions was less than a thousand pounds, with fixed and contingent charges more than £400 in excess of that amount.14 In 1709-1710 the auditing committee reported a yearly charge of £1251 exclusive of about £150 for books given to missionaries. The disbursements exceeded the certain yearly income by nearly £500.15 Many members, including some of the bishops, failed to pay their dues promptly. In 1706 the Bishops of Hereford and Bristol had to be notified of arrears and in 1708 the Bishop of Gloucester asked to have his subscription stopped. In March, 1709/10, members were in arrears for dues to the amount of £729. Bishop Burnet urged greater efforts to secure contributions from the merchants of London and other towns interested in the colonial trade, but little was accomplished.16 In short, the church as a whole hardly appreciated the importance of its task.
The stipends paid to missionaries were small. Some of the first grants were as low as £50 per annum, with smaller allowances for books, to which must be added the royal bonus of £20 paid to each clergyman on his entering the colonial service.17 Since the society worked mainly in provinces where there was no general establishment of the Anglican Church and since the missionaries themselves
14 Ibid., July 18, 1707; February 20, 1707/8; Letters Received A IV., no. 25. 15 S. P. G. Journal, February 17, 1709/10. The Abstracts for the next three years show somewhat larger amounts. In one year the estimated disbursements were £1745. 16 S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., April 5, 1703; Journal, February 21, 1706/7. Some conspicuous London merchants were, however, enlisted. Micajah Perry, one of the best known and most influential of the “merchants trading to the colonies” became a member and made a gift of land in New Jersey. Ibid., January 20, February 20, March 3, 1709/10. Cf. Burnet’s Sermon before the Society, 1703/4, p. 22: “You great Dealers in Trade, who have had so plentiful a Harvest in Temporal things, from the Productions of those Countries, and from the Industry of our Colonies settled among them, are, in a more special manner, bound to minister to them in spiritual things.” 17 E. g., S. P. G. Journal, June 15, 1705.
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were often reluctant to alienate actual or possible adherents by premature appeals for money, there was often little to depend upon besides the grants from England. To meet this situation various plans were offered. In 1701 Lewis Morris of New Jersey proposed that no one be appointed to “a great Benefice” in England, “but such as shall oblige themselves to preach three years gratis in America”; with part of the living the incumbent was to maintain a curate for his English parish.”18 In 1702 George Keith and others made a similar proposal.19 The favorite solution of the problem of clerical maintenance was the enactment by the colonial legislatures of laws securing a general establishment of the Anglican Church. In most provinces, however, especially in the middle colonies, this solution was impracticable; and where, as in South Carolina, the attempt was partially successful, it did much to embitter the politics of the province.
With small stipends, the ordeal of an ocean voyage,20 and the numerous hardships of colonial life in prospect, the missionary service did not appeal to many of the English clergy and some of those who applied were evidently men who could not make their way at home. The journal contains numerous instances of missionaries found guilty of various forms of misconduct, though they show also an increasing care in the selection of candidates.21 Several Scottish clergymen were enlisted to offset the lack of suitable English material, sometimes with unsatisfactory results, as when a Delaware parish complained of the Scottish clergy in the neighborhood and urged that “no minister of that nation” be sent to them.22 Nevertheless some good men were attracted to the service. Governor Hunter of New York, by no means an undiscriminating admirer of the Anglican clergy, thought he had in his neighborhood “a good Sett of Missionaries who generally labour hard in their Functions and are men of good lives and ability”.23
The first important move of the society was the sending out of
18 Memorial in S. P. G. journal, app. B, no. 1. 19 Statement by Keith et al., ibid., no. 24. 20 A vivid description of fairly common experiences is given in a letter of B. Dennis to the secretary, S. P. G. Letters Received, A VI., no. 76. The society itself recognized “how natural it is for Young Divines to decline the Difficulties and Dangers of such a Mission, if they have any tolerable Prospects nearer Home”. Annual Abstract, 1710/11. 21 S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., no. 31; A II., no. 5; A V., no. 47; A VI., no. 26. Journal, August 18, 1704; March 2, May 18, 1705; April 19, 1706; November 18, 1709. 22 S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., no. 44. 23 Ibid., A VI., no. 7; cf. N. J. Docs., IV. 155-158, 173-174. In addition to the missionaries a number of schoolmasters were employed by the society.
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George Keith as an itinerant missionary to survey the whole colonial field. This able and picturesque individual had an erratic ecclesiastical record. Beginning as a Scottish Presbyterian, he became a leader among the Pennsylvania Quakers. A little later he organized a seceding group called after him the Keithian Quakers, and in 1700 he entered the last phase by taking orders in the Anglican Church, to which he brought the fiery zeal and controversial temper of a recent convert.24 On his way across the Atlantic Keith made a notable disciple in the person of John Talbot, a navy chaplain who gave up his position to accompany Keith on his missionary journey. The two men proved congenial spirits. Both were hard fighters and indefatigable workers. Confident of the justice of their cause, they seem never to have been so happy as when engaged in plain-spoken, not to say violent, controversy with their Puritan, and more especially, Quaker opponents.25 How effective they were in this campaign, it is not easy to say. The Anglicans were generally proud of Keith and thought he had been successful in winning proselytes. The ardent John Talbot was especially enthusiastic about his colleague, whom he called “an able Disputant and a Perfect honest man . . . in a word Hereticorum Malleus”.26 The American Quakers, who had been duly warned of Keith’s coming, were equally confident that the victory rested with them. “As to that Implacable Adversary of Truth and the People of God, G. K.”, wrote the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting, “he hath in the main done Truth no disservice in these parts, tho’ he has done his utmost Towards it.”27
In one respect at any rate friends and enemies agree. Keith’s missionary journey was evidently conceived as a kind of ecclesiastical duet in which the champions of orthodoxy crossed lances. with the defenders of heresy. The requirements of heathen and infidels
24 “Keith” in Dict. of Nat. Biog.; Perry, Hist. of the Amer. Episcopal Church, vol. I., ch. XII. 25 Keith’s journal was soon afterwards printed under the title, A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck on the Continent of North-America (London, 1706). The manuscript copy of the journal in the society’s records varies considerably from the printed text. See Journal, 1704-1706, passim, especially September 15, 1704, and January, February, 1705/6; also Journal, app. A, no. 51. Keith’s final report was preceded by a number of other communications sent in during the course of his journey. The John Carter Brown Library at Providence reports the acquisition of a large number of Keith’s tracts. A biography of Keith, written from the standpoint of historical scholarship rather than that of ecclesiastical partizanship, is much to be desired, and would have real importance for the religious history of his time in England and America. 26 Lewis Morris to the secretary, Letters Received, A I., no. 48; Nicholson in Journal, app. A, nos. 43, 44; Talbot in Letters Received, A I., no. 119. 27 London Yearly Meeting (Devonshire House MSS.), Epistles Sent, I. 393-396, and Epistles Received, I. 388.
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fell into the background and the chief thought in this long tour from New England to North Carolina was to reclaim dissenters who though they might “profess and call themselves Christians” were conceived at their best as Christians of a decidedly inferior type, and at their worst as hardly better, or even worse, than the infidels themselves. There were some acrimonious controversies with Puritan divines in New England;28 but the middle colonies were the chief battleground at first and here the Quakers clearly stood out as the most inveterate and formidable antagonists.29
It is doubtless possible to emphasize too much the temper displayed in this preliminary tour. While this controversy was going on and after Keith’s departure for England in 1704, the society gradually developed the more permanent features of its work. In South Carolina the sending of several missionaries strengthened materially the position of the Church of England, and it was possible to secure some legislation for their support. The insular colonies with Maryland and Virginia remained, for the most part, outside the society’s sphere of action. In the middle colonies, the society found only a few scattered parishes of the Anglican Church, notably at New York and Philadelphia, and it was to this region that the largest number of missionaries was sent. In New England there was already a fairly strong church at Boston. Though some other attempts were made in Massachusetts, notably at Braintree,30 the early efforts of the S. P. G. in this section were centred largely in Rhode Island, with the beginnings of an advance from New York into western Connecticut, the full effect of which was not apparent until many years later.
What now was the primary object of the society in America? Was it the conversion of heathen and infidels or the restoration of Quakers and Puritans to the Anglican fold? The charter itself certainly points to the English colonists as the chief objects of the society’s care. Because of the lack of suitable maintenance for the clergy, many of the king’s subjects, it was said, “do want the administration of God’s Word and Sacraments and seem to be abandoned to Atheism and Infidelity”. Besides providing maintenance for the parish clergy, such other measures were to be taken “as may be necessary for the Propagation of the Gospel in those parts”. The danger from “Popish superstition and Idolatry” is mentioned,
28 Keith to Bishop of London, September 4, 1703, in S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., no. 121. In this letter he describes his pamphlet warfare with President Willard of Harvard and Increase Mather. Cf. A I., nos. 45, 50. 29 Keith to Bray, Letters Received, A I., no. 87; “Account of the State of the Church, 1702”, in S. P. G. Journal, app. B, no. 24. 30 Cf. Perry, Hist. Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, III.
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but there is no reference to Protestant dissenters nor to the needs of Indians and negroes.31
The Dean of Lincoln in his anniversary sermon of 1702 put first the duty of settling “the State of Religion as well as may be among our own people there”, and next the conversion of the natives.32 From the beginning both interests were recognized in some measure, and special attention was given to the establishment of an Iroquois mission. The society engaged in a voluminous but inconclusive correspondence on this subject with a Dutch clergyman, Godfrey Dellius, who had lived in New York and was ready to accept Episcopal ordination; and in 1704 a small subsidy was paid to a Dutch minister at Albany for service among the Indians.33 Unsuccessful efforts were also made to secure money for this purpose from the Puritan managers of the older “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England”.34 Finally Thorogood Moor, an Anglican clergyman, was selected for this work; but on his arrival at Albany in 1704 his enthusiasm was chilled by the difficulties which confronted him and he soon gave up his post to engage in more congenial labors among the settlers of New Jersey. He consoled himself with the thought that Indian missions could be prosecuted more successfully after the English had been reformed. Besides, the English were rapidly increasing in numbers while the Indians were likely to disappear altogether.35 Moor thought it probable that in forty years not an Indian would be “seen in our America”. “God’s Providence in this matter” seemed to him “very wonderful”, though he agreed that rum drinking and “some new distempers we have brought amongst them” had contributed largely to this providential result. A missionary sent to the South Carolina frontier was equally discouraged and accepted a parish near Charleston instead.36
It was hard to find men in the English church at all comparable to
31 Charter of 1701 in Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G., pp. 932-935. In early sermons before the society the superior missionary zeal of the Roman Church is mentioned as a serious reproach to Protestantism, e. g., Burnet’s Sermon, 1703/4, p. 25. 32 Annual Sermon preached before the Society, 1701/2, p. 17. 33 Correspondence of Dellius in S. P. G. Letters Received, passim, e. g. A I., nos. 7, 72, 89, 132; Journal, June 18, October 15, 1703; June 16, 1704. 34 Sir William Ashurst to the secretary, June 30, 1703, Letters Received, A I., no. 92. 35 Moor’s letters in Letters Received, A II., nos. 75, 122. Cf. Bishop Burnet’s anniversary Sermon, 1703/4, p. 20: “Our Designs upon Aliens and Infidels must begin in the Instructing and Reforming our own People.” Cf. Journal, September 17, 1703. 36 S. P. G. Journal, June 18, 1703. Cf. Marston to Bray, February 2, 1702/3; letters of S. Thomas in Letters Received, A I., nos. 83, 86.
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the self-sacrificing and adventurous French Jesuits. Perhaps the practical temper of the English missionary was repelled by the slightness of the results in proportion to the energy expended. Caleb Heathcote, one of the most zealous of the Anglican laymen in New York, pointed out the necessity of sending men who could emulate the French in readiness to bear the hardships of life with the Indians “according to their way and manner”. He thought Scotsmen better qualified for such service than Englishmen, but in general believed that the society could spend its money more usefully in caring for those who called themselves Christians.37 Though as a result of this general attitude, the substantial work of the society was confined mainly to parochial work with the colonists and the Indians and negroes living among them, there was serious dissatisfaction in various quarters. Two South Carolina correspondents wrote to the society in 1705 condemning the South Carolina missionary who had neglected the service assigned him among the Yemassee Indians. They urged that missionaries must not be a “nice delicate sort of People”, and dwelt in contrast upon the successful labors of the Spanish friars on the Florida frontier.38 Robert Livingston, secretary of Indian affairs at Albany, was similarly disappointed by the failure of the Iroquois mission, of which he had been one of the chief advocates.39
It must be conceded that the political motive for Indian missions, especially among the Iroquois, was almost if not quite as influential as the religious. In 1704 the secretary of the society, in a letter to the Board of Trade announcing the selection of missionaries for this service, remarked that it was done “in consequence of the representation” made by the board to the queen, and that it did “at least as much concerne the State as the Church”.40 The continuance of the French war and the well-known visit of the Mohawk Indians to London naturally accentuated this political view of the Indian missions. In 1710 Secretary Sunderland wrote a somewhat peremptory letter to the archbishop transmitting an appeal from the visiting sachems on which the society was to report to the queen “without loss of time”.41 It was again pointed out in support of
37 S. P. G. Letters Received, A II., no. 117. 38 Ibid., no. 156. 39 Livingston to the secretary. Ibid., no. 136. Cf. S. P. G. journal, September 17, November 19, 1703, and app. A, no. 29 . 40 Docs. rel. to the Col. Hist. of New York, IV. 1077. Cf. representations of the board in Acts of Privy Council, Colonial, vol. II., no. 898; S. P. G. Journal, April 16, 1703. 41 S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., nos. 85, 86, 88.
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this appeal that delay might be a “point of ill-consequence” not only “of Religion but of State also.”42
Partly at least as a result of this political pressure, the society reconsidered its whole policy regarding the relative importance of the two main divisions of its work. In the first of three notable resolutions adopted in 1710, it was declared that the design of the organization “dos chiefly and principally relate to the conversion of Heathen and Infidels”, a work which was to be prosecuted “preferably to all others”. The second resolution proposed the immediate resumption of the Iroquois mission, and the third declared that no more missionaries should be sent among Christians, except to fill vacant positions, until the prior claims of the heathen had been provided for.43 An elaborate plan for the Iroquois mission was accordingly adopted44 and a missionary was sent out in 1712. He also failed, however, and in 1719 the mission was suspended.45
The comparative ill success of these efforts to serve the Indians naturally strengthened the general conviction of the missionaries that their first duty was to their own misguided countrymen. The “children must first be satisfied and the lost Sheep recovered who have gone astray among hereticks and Quakers”.46
Assuming that missionary service was to be concerned largely with the recovery of dissenters to the Anglican fold, there was room for much divergence of opinion as to the best means for securing the desired results. Some thought that sound churchmanship was to be promoted by associating with it certain special privileges. Lewis Morris, for instance, suggested in 1701 that no one be appointed governor unless he were a firm churchman and that if possible the
42 Nicholson to the Archbishop of Canterbury, May 22, 1710. Ibid., no. 94. 43 S. P. G. Journal, April 21, 1710. Cf. anniversary Sermon of the Bishop of Norwich, 1709/10, urging conciliatory methods of correcting the errors of Christians in order through the example of the latter to bring the “Native Infidels” into the fold. “For this is what they are always to look on as their principal Business, and that for which this Corporation was primarily erected” (pp. 16-20). 44 Ibid., April 28, 1710. Cf. the Abstract, for 1710/11, p. 38. 45 Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G., pp. 70-71. Cf. Abstracts, 1712/13, pp. 60-62; 1713/14, pp. 46-49. Humphreys in his Historical Account (1730) assumes that the obstacles to missionary work among the Iroquois were insuperable (ch. XI.). 46 S. P. G. Letters Received, A II., no. 22. It must not be forgotten, however, that considerable attention was given to the Christianizing of negroes. The subject was urged upon the attention of missionaries and some conscientious work was done by them. Cf. the summary in Humphreys’s Historical Account, ch. X. An estimate of the work is given by M. W. Jernegan in a paper on “Christianity and Slavery in the American Colonies”, read at the meeting, of the American Historical Association in Charleston, December 29, 1913 (and to be printed before long in this journal).
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same test be applied to councillors and magistrates. In general, churchmen should have “peculiar Privileges above others”, preferably by act of Parliament.47 In 1705 the colonial clergy assembled at Burlington suggested in a similar spirit that the exclusion from certain offices of those who failed to “Frequent the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” might be a good way of weakening the schism.48 The general principle had just been applied in the well-known South Carolina law imposing a sacramental test for membership in the assembly, which was subsequently repealed through the intervention of the crown. Ill adapted as these proposals were to American conditions, they came naturally enough from a generation which was already accustomed to the English Test and Corporation acts and was soon to see the enactment of the Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.
Some missionaries advocated more conciliatory methods and were even ready to take liberties with the rubric in order to disarm Puritan prejudices. For instance, a missionary on Long Island thought it necessary to modify the baptismal service, which he found would “not go down by any means in the strictness of our Liturgy”. “I hope”, he added, that “my Diocesan and the Honorable Society will not blame me in this so necessary a Condescension, in adding a word or two to soften that wch grates (as they say) upon tender consciences”. No man was more naturally inclined than himself to observe the “Strictest Rules of the Rubrick”, “but a part of St. Paul’s pious Guile will sooner captivate these tempers than either the allurements of fair promises or the force of threats”.49 In 1708 Bishop Burnet was consulted on the same subject by Commissary Johnston of South Carolina, who observed that some of the clergy in his jurisdiction had been accustomed to give way to the extent of baptizing children without godparents and without the sign of the Cross. He was sure that Burnet would “say all that can be said on this argument; which is whether any of the Ceremonys [of] our Church may be dispensed, in order to preserve and retain those that are in communion with us already, tho’ not such full Conformists as may be Wish’d for, and to gain those that do separate from us on the account of some Ceremonies and are actually joined and linked with the Dissenters”.50
There was, however, a militant group, of whom John Talbot was perhaps the most conspicuous, who were so aggressive as to call
47 Morris’s “Memorial” in S. P. G. Journal, app. B, no. 1. 48 S. P. G. journal, app. A, no. 84. 49 John Thomas, 1705, S. P. G. Letters Received, A II., no. 102. 50 Ibid., A IV., no. 97.
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forth protests even from Anglican officials. Governor Robert Hunter of New York and New Jersey was a vigorous supporter of authority in government and emphatic in his profession of loyalty to the Church of England as the “most pure and best constituted church upon earth”; he was also a subscriber to the society’s funds. Nevertheless he thought there were fanatics in the church as well as out of it and that they were largely responsible for the political animosities in his neighborhood. He therefore repeatedly urged the society to send out a general letter to the missionaries advising them to be more cautious in their attitude “toward those of different Persuasions as to Ceremonial or Church Discipline”.51
Some of the leading members of the society including the Archbishop of Canterbury himself sympathized, in a measure at least, with Hunter’s view. Many of the bishops and some other church dignitaries had Whig affiliations and were not disposed to antagonize the dissenters unnecessarily. On one occasion the archbishop objected to the appointment of a certain missionary because of his pamphlet controversy with the Puritans, in which, Tenison thought, there was “too much bitterness for the Spirit of a Missionary”.52
At any rate the missionaries were cautioned as Hunter proposed and the Bishop of London agreed to use his influence with Talbot. To that sturdy fighter, Talbot, this prudent council seemed nothing less than a Laodicean plea for “moderation in religion” from men who lived “at home at ease and plenty”, knowing little of colonial conditions and of the “damnable heresies” that flourished there. Toleration of such errors was “worse than the worst persecution in the World, for that only destroys men’s bodys, but these destroy body and soul in Hell forever.”53
In the main, however, the difference between Talbot and his more conciliatory associates and superiors was one of method rather than of principle. Both undoubtedly regarded the reclaiming of dissenters
51 Letters of Hunter to the secretary of the society, February 21 to March 21, 1709/10, Letters Received, A V., nos. 70-73, 80. Cf. Journal, March 17, 1709/10; April 21, 1710. 52 Archbishop to the secretary, May 19, 1709/10. Letters Received, A V., no. 91; Journal, April 21, 1710. The Bishop of Norwich in his anniversary Sermon of 1709/10 warns against divisions in the society: “And to this end the Christianity given them to preach, should be kept as near as is possible to the Simplicity of the Gospel; and as free as may be from those Disputes which have been to the Hindrance of it. If all cannot be avoided by Reason of the Differences that are already on Foot among the Christians that live in those Parts, yet Care should be taken not to increase them; To be sure not to send any new Notions or Questions among them; which ought at least to be kept on this Side of the Water, if they cannot wholly be laid.” Sermon, 1709/10, pp. 17-18. 53 Talbot to the secretary, S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., no. 19.
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as an important part of the missionary service.54 The planting of Anglican churches in Puritan communities was held to be justified not simply because of doctrinal differences, but partly at least on the ground that many people in such communities failed to share in the fundamental sacraments of the Christian Church. In the correspondence of Caleb Heathcote, the New York politician, this point was urged as one of the chief reasons for the extension of the Anglican work to Connecticut. He maintained that the refusal of the Congregational ministers to baptize any children except those whose parents were in full communion left “many thousands in that Government unbaptized”. In a subsequent letter he declared that in some of the Connecticut towns, less than one tenth of the “sober people” were “admitted to the sacrament”. It seemed to him that those who “stop and hedge up the way to God’s altar” would have much to answer for. From the Anglican point of view, which steadily emphasized the sacramental aspects of religion, such criticism was natural enough; for the Puritan theory conceived of the church as a carefully selected group of true believers, insisting on tests which limited membership and participation in the sacraments to a comparatively small part of the community.55
An interesting feature of the missionary correspondence related to Harvard College, whose importance as a training place for Puritan ministers was fully recognized. It was hoped, however, that instead of poisoning the minds of New England youth with the errors of Independency, Harvard might be converted into a centre of Anglican influence. In 1703 George Keith suggested that some “pious and able scholars” might be sent thither from Oxford and Cambridge to make disciples in the American Cambridge, who should in their turn gradually reclaim New England from its evil ways.“56 Nothing tangible came of this proposal, but it is an interesting anticipation of Timothy Cutler’s defection from Congregational principles at Yale, twenty years later, and his subsequent efforts to secure the admission of the Anglican clergy of Boston to the Harvard Board of Overseers. Meantime, high hopes were entertained of persuading
54 Cotton Mather complained in 1715 that the S. P. G. neglected many colonies “in the most paganizing Circumstances”, sending their missionaries instead to towns where they could only serve as “Tools of Contention” and where “the meanest Christians understand Religion and practise it, better than the Ministers whom they send over to us.” Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, seventh series, VIII. 327. 55 Heathcote’s letters, 1706, 1710, in S. P. G. Letters Received, A II., no. 165 A V., no. 84. 56 Keith to Bray, February 26, 1702/3; ibid., A I., no. 86. Cf. Talbot to the secretary, ibid., no. 181.
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many Harvard graduates to accept Anglican orders if only a resident bishop could be provided to give them ordination.57
As against the Quakers, the missionaries felt that they had an even stronger case. Talbot characterized them as “Anti-Christians who are worse than Turks” and if “let alone will increase to an abominable desolacion”.58 This intense feeling was due to a variety of causes. Something must be allowed for the influence of Keith’s own experience as a recent convert from Quakerism, and the situation was complicated by the political objection to Quaker views on oaths and military service and their supposedly anarchical tendencies.59 The very efficiency of their propaganda, on which Keith, especially, laid great stress, naturally increased the feeling against them.60 Even a fragmentary reading of the Friends’ records will show how thoroughly the London Yearly Meeting kept up its communications with the scattered Quaker communities in North America and the West Indies.61 Their organization seems simple enough when compared with that of the Church of England, but it was indefatigable in the dissemination of literature and in the inspiring of volunteer missionaries for whom no journey was too difficult. Nor were they without influence in the imperial administration. Penn’s position is well known, but it must not be forgotten that there were many other Friends among the well-to-do merchants of London whose standing as commercial experts gave them a decided advantage in pleading before the Board of Trade the cause of their brethren in the colonies who refused to pay “priest’s rates” at the bidding of Anglican or Puritan authorities.62 Indeed the Quaker “lobby” in London, if we may use a modern term, seemed at times quite able to hold its own even against the prelates of the national church.
Finally there was in the case of Quakerism, as well as in that of the Puritans, a fundamental question of principle, which helps to explain
57 Heathcote to the society, ibid., II., no. 117; Christopher Bridge to the secretary, October 7, 1706, ibid., A III., no. 2; Memorial of S. Thomas, 1705, in S. P. G. Journal, app. A, no. 74. Cf. Quincy, Hist. of Harvard Univ., I. 360-376, 560-574; Perry, Hist. Coll. rel. to Amer. Col. Church, III. 210 ff. 58 S. P. G. Letters Received, A III., no. 186. 59 The official attitude is illustrated by a representation of the Committee of Trade in 1694. Acts of Privy Council, Colonial, vol. II., no. 539. See Root, The Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government, chs. VIII., IX., for a thorough treatment of political and legal issues. 60 Keith et als., Account of the State, etc., S. P. G. Journal, app. B, no. 24. Keith to Bray, February 24, 1702/3, in S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., no. 87. 61 Series of Epistles Received, Epistles Sent, in Friends’ Historical Library, Devonshire House, London. 62 For typical procedure in such matters (1702), see London “Meeting for Sufferings”, Minutes, XVI. 21-163, passim. Cf. Board of Trade Journal, September 3, 1702; January 25, 1702/3.
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the intensity of ecclesiastical partizanship. Even more than the Puritan, the Quaker seemed to depart from the fundamental teachings of Christianity as understood by nearly all who in that age called themselves Christians at all. Some of their leaders, including Penn himself, were believed to be heterodox on the question of the Trinity;63 and their doctrine of the “inner light”, coupled with their indifference to the Christian sacraments, may well have seemed to be a mere cloak for irreligion. To a clergyman who conceived of the administration of the sacraments as the most sacred function of his office, the Quaker attitude was indeed a denial of the faith.64
Less prominent than the Puritans of Congregational or Presbyterian associations, and the Quakers, but still numerous enough to attract the attention of the missionaries, were the Baptists. They were most conspicuous in Rhode Island, but were by no means confined to that colony. In New Jersey, Lewis Morris was afraid that many of the new converts might be drawn away because of the encouragement given to the Anabaptist preachers by Andrew Browne, one of the councillors of that province.65 In Pennsylvania, Keith had a public debate with a Baptist champion named Killingsworth, who had been summoned by his partizans for this purpose. The dispute lasted four hours, and as usual Keith believed that his arguments had been efficacious.66 The Baptists were also to be found in the South. They are mentioned from time to time in the reports on several South Carolina parishes and in one parish they were said to form a majority of the dissenting inhabitants, with a preacher who
63 Talbot writes: “It appears by Wm. Penn’s Book that he is a greater AntiChrist than Julian the Apostate.” He credits Penn with saying that “Christ is a finite Impotent Creature”. S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., no. 119. 64 The view of contemporary English churchmen on this subject is well illustrated by the petition of the London clergy against the Quakers’ Affirmation Bill Of 1722, protesting against further concessions “by a Christian legislature to a set of men who renounce the divine institutions of Christ, particularly that by which the faithful are initiated into his religion and denominated Christians, and who cannot on this account, according to the uniform judgment, and practice of the Catholic church, be deemed worthy of that sacred name”. On the passage of the bill, several peers, spiritual and temporal, signed a protest referring to the Quakers as rejecting “the two sacraments of Christ” and consequently “as far as they so do, unworthy of the name of Christians”. The protestants went on to express their opinion that “the Quakers, as they renounce the institutions of Christ, so have not given even the evidence by law required of their belief in his divinity”. Parliamentary History, VII. 937-948. Cf. Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (tenth ed., London, 1841), chs. XII., XIII., for a good statement of the Quaker view that the formal observance of the sacraments was unnecessary. “For”, he says, “we certainly know that the day is dawned in which God hath arisen and hath dismissed all those ceremonies and rites, and is only to be worshipped in spirit.” 65 S. P. G. Letters Received, A I., no. 171. 66 Ibid., no. 87.
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visited them every third Sunday. One such minister is mentioned as having lately arrived from the Devonshire town of Bideford.67 Sometimes a missionary wrote home for literature in defense of infant baptism, and in 1705 the society at the instance of the Bishop of London considered a request from Chief Justice Trott of South Carolina, himself something of an expert in divinity, for the printing of five hundred copies of “John Philpot’s Letter agst the Anabaptists”. The matter was referred to a committee of which Archdeacon White Kennett, afterwards bishop of Peterborough, was a member. On their recommendation the letter was ordered to be printed accordingly, with extracts from the works of Bishop Stillingfleet.62
A somewhat different problem which confronted the Venerable Society and its missionaries was that of the foreign Protestants who were beginning to assume importance both at home and in the colonies. Here again ecclesiastical and political interests were clearly associated and the Church of England was felt to be a possible means of nationalizing the non-English stocks. It must be remembered in this connection that many churchmen even among the High Church party were disposed to differentiate quite sharply the Reformed churches of the Continent from the corresponding denominations in England which had refused to accept the authority of the national church. The latter were dissenters from a system which represented a preponderant opinion and had the support of the state. On the other hand the Lutherans and Calvinists of the Continent were conceded, by many Anglicans at least, a certain degree of legitimacy as the representatives of non-Roman Christianity in their respective countries.69
The letter-books of the society contain a considerable amount of correspondence with Continental clergy of the Reformed churches which in its distinctly irenic tone is fairly representative of an important section of Anglican opinion. Several of these foreign Protestants were elected members of the society, among them M. Bonet, the Prussian envoy in London, who served in 1709 on a committee to
67 Report by S. Thomas in S. P. G. journal, app. A, no. 79; Letters Received, A IV., nos. 111, 141, A V., no. 133. 68 S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., no. 133; S. P. G. Journal, March 30, April 20, 1705. 69 Cf. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714, pp. 348-351. The anniversary sermons in general show strong Protestant feeling. See the cordial references to the foreign Protestant members of the society in the Bishop of Norwich’s Sermon, 1709/10, pp. 18, 22, and in the attached Abstract, p. 37. Cf. Abstract for 1712/3: “The Society have inlarg’d their correspondence in Foreign Courts and Universities, to communicate freely their Christian Designs, and to excite a Spirit of Zeal and Emulation in other Protestant States and Princes.”
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examine a candidate for missionary service among the German colonists.70 There was an especially sympathetic attitude toward the French Protestant churches in England, whether, as in some instances, they accepted Anglican orders, or retained their own discipline.71 With the great influx of Palatine Germans, however, a reaction set in and the Tory, High Church party displayed a strong antipathy toward the foreign immigrants.
In the missionary correspondence of this period three non-English elements figure most prominently: the French Huguenots, the Dutch, and the Germans. The French Huguenots presented on the whole the least difficulty. They were not massed in any one colony or group of colonies, but dispersed along the Atlantic seaboard from New England to South Carolina, where they played a more important part than in any other colony. In the French congregations the Calvinistic practice was at first generally maintained, but their relations with the Anglican element were usually amicable, notably so in South Carolina where these two groups acted together for some purposes against the English dissenters. Gideon Johnston, the commissary in South Carolina, reported that the French minister at Charleston had “greatly distinguished himself in favor of the Church of England against the dissenting ministers”, and would “willingly receive Episcopal ordination”, if he could conveniently go to England.72
Efforts were made with some success to induce ministers and congregations to conform to the Anglican system, and in some cases the S. P. G. was willing to make grants of money on condition of such conformity. In Boston a French minister, whose ordination was regular, was nevertheless refused a subsidy because his congregation was not “conformable to the Church of England”.73 In 1706 the French minister at New Rochelle, in New York, was refused a regular allowance unless he and his congregation would use the English liturgy. Three years later this condition was complied with, though not without some friction.74 To facilitate the change from the Reformed to the Anglican service the society interested itself in providing prayer-books in French and English.75
70 S. P. G. Journal, I., passim, e. g., December 17, 1708; December 16, 1709; March 3, 1709/10; also S. P. G. Letters Received, passim. 71 Cf. Allen and McClure, History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, pp. 19-21. 72 S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., no. 158. 73 S. P. G. Journal, March 21, 1706/7; Letters Received, A III., nos. 3, 4, 9. 74 S. P. G. Journal, May 17, 1706; June 3, 1709; Letters Received, A IV., no. 155; A V., nos. 2, 135. 75 Journal, November 18, December 2, 1709. Cf. annual Sermon and Abstract of 1710/1 1, p. 37, which notes the sending of “English and French Common Prayer Books to Carolina, New York, etc. this and the last year”.
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The problem of the Dutch in New York and New Jersey was more difficult. It was maintained by some that the fusion of Dutch and English elements should be promoted by gradually eliminating the Dutch ministers and substituting Anglican clergy. The notorious Lord Cornbury proposed that, as the Dutch ministers died, their places should be filled with English ministers; and one of the missionaries quoted him as saying that even “without a command, if the Queen would only give him leave he would never suffer another Dutch minister to come in”. Without such drastic measures he despaired of making New York a truly English colony.“76 Cornbury’s view did not prevail, however, and more moderate measures were adopted. In 1704 Lewis Morris urged that a “vast service” would be done if a Dutchman, or at least someone acquainted with the Dutch language could be sent as a missionary to New York with a “Parcell of Dutch Common Prayer Books to give away”,77 and this policy was actually pursued to a limited extent, as in the case of the French. In 1710 a Dutch clergyman, after being duly ordained by the Bishop of London, was appointed missionary to Harlem with the usual allowance from the society;78 and there are frequent votes in the journal for the sending out of Dutch prayer-books.79 A little later Morris reported that the new missionary was gaining ground at Harlem, and that there were already “several Strenuous Dutch advocates for the Church”, though he agreed that substantial progress would “be a work of time”.80
The spiritual care of the German immigrants became a matter of serious concern to the society in 1709. Even a year earlier the Board of Trade had before it an application from Joshua von Kocherthal for a salary to be settled upon him on his arrival in New York, and there was some doubt as to a precedent for such a grant to a foreign clergyman.81 In May, 1709, a committee of the society reported on a proposal recently received that a German minister be sent out with the Palatines. The committee suggested that if
76 T. Moor to the secretary, November 13, 1705, in S. P. G. Letters Received, A II., no. 122; Cornbury to the same, November 22, 1705, ibid., no. 131. 77 Ibid., A I., no. 171. 78 Journal, December 16, 30, 1709; January 20, February 3, 10, 1709/10; Letters Received, A V., no. 143. 79 Journal, March 28, 1706; November, December, 1709; April 28, 1710. The Abstract for 1710/11 (pp. 37-38) notes the printing of 750 Copies of the liturgy in “English and Low Dutch”. 80 Letters Received, A V., no. 143. The mission was withdrawn in 1713. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G., p. 61. 81 Board of Trade Journal, July 8, 1708. Kocherthal was afterwards voted £20 by the society, though his failure to secure Episcopal ordination prevented his being adopted as a regular missionary.
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no suitable person could be found in England, application might be made to “Professor Frank at Hall in Germany.”82 After conference with the bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury, action was postponed until the government had decided what was to be done about the transportation of refugees to America. In December the subject was reopened and La Mothe, a French refugee minister, was requested, with one other member, to select a suitable person for the service. A few weeks later, the society after hearing from the committee voted to appoint John Frederic Hager, a German minister who had presented satisfactory testimonials, provided he would accept Episcopal ordination and qualify under the usual rules for the missionary service. These conditions were complied with and in a few months Hager began his service in New York.83
The new minister had, however, a complex situation to deal with, partly because the German Protestants were themselves divided into Calvinistic and Lutheran factions. Though Hager reported a considerable number of German communicants, they seem to have acted under some sense of compulsion. The Lutheran minister was said to have urged his people to “stick to that in which they were bred and born”, and Hager’s efforts to compel their conformity were discouraged even by so good a churchman as Morris. The Calvinists, thereupon, began to ask, “If the Lutherans are not obliged to conform, why should we?”84 Thus with the Germans as with the Dutch, the difficulties were great and the results inconsiderable. As is well known, the Palatines were not happy in New York and the main stream of German immigration was deflected to Pennsylvania, where they were left to work out their own salvation with less interference.
The vigorous competition of all these rival churches brought out
82 The distinguished pietist theologian, Francke, is doubtless referred to here. Cf. Allen and McClure, History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, p. 21. 83 S. P. G. Journal, May 20, June 3, December 2, 16, 30, 1709; S. P. G. Letters Received, A V., no. 143. The annual Abstract of 1710/1 1 (p. 38) records the appointment of a minister among the “Poor Palatines” of New York and declares the intention of the society to “give them a whole Impression of our Liturgy in the High Dutch or German Tongue, which as they are inform’d from thence, is like to be a happy Expedient of uniting both Lutherans and Calvinists and bringing them all over to the Church of England”. 84 Hager to the secretary, S. P. G. Letters Received, A VI., nos. 21, 44; Lewis Morris to the secretary, ibid., A V., no. 143. Kocherthal wrote from New York in November, 1710, that he had sounded the Lutheran Palatines as to their possible union with the Church of England “in ceremonialibus”, adding, “finde aber das es bey den meisten sehr hart solte hergehen; nichtsdestoweniger hoffe ich nach und nach sie dahin zu persuadiren”. Ibid., VI., no. 45.
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clearly the weakness of the Anglican organization on the colonial side. In characteristic and picturesque language, John Talbot put his finger on the weak point. “The Presbyterians”, he said, “come a long way to lay hands on one another. . . . The Independents are called bv their Sovereign Lord the People. The Anabaptists and Quakers pretend to the Spirit. But the poor Church has nobody on the spot to comfort or confirm her children. Nobody to ordain several that are willing to serve were they ordained for the work of the ministry.”85 In short the Anglican Church in America was trying to operate a system in which the episcopal function was essential, with no bishop nearer than three thousand miles away. Confirmation was the normal condition of full communion and ordination was essential to the full exercise of the clerical function, yet neither confirmation nor ordination could be exercised by any one in America.86
The discipline of the clergy presented another serious difficulty. The lack of a competent ecclesiastical jurisdiction for this purpose naturally led colonial governors and assemblies into the institution of other methods which, from an Anglican point of view, were decidedly irregular. In South Carolina, for example, even the zealous church party became involved in a controversy with the Bishop of London on this question. Royal governors and other imperial officials, however sound their churchmanship might be, were hardly competent supervisors of the clergy; but the society felt obliged to use them in this capacity. The missionaries, thus subjected, as one of them truly said, “to the various humors of different overseers”, were tempted “to be Parasites, fawn, and stroke that which may hurt us”.87 Some of the most serious conflicts of the colonial clergy were with men like Nicholson, Cornbury, and Quary, who had acquired prestige as zealous supporters of the church.88
85 Letter of September 1, 1703, in S. P. G. Letters Received, A 1. 86 Cf. a letter from J. Bass of New Jersey to the secretary, September 2, 1709, in which he refers specifically to the difficulty arising from the rubric requiring confirmation before communion. Ibid., A V., no. 43. 87 J. Thomas to Hodges, April 30, 1709, in ibid., A V., no. 17. 88 The difficulties between Governor Nicholson of Virginia and James Blair are well known. Cornbury was at first in high favor with the missionaries, but as one of them wrote later, “Tempora mutantur”, and his harsh treatment of the New Jersey clergymen was used to prove the need of a resident bishop. Ibid., A III., no. 168. Quary complained of the factious attitude of “these Young Gentlemen of the Clergy” who desired to “govern as they please without the least control”. Quary’s feelings were evidently reciprocated, for one of the clergy wrote that he lacked “time to set forth the sinister ends of this person to which he would make the Church and the Ministers subservient, of whom he always endeavored to form a party to joyn him in his representation of himself and the establishment of his character at home”, Thomas Jenkins to the secretary, March 23, 1708. Ibid., A IV., no. 110.
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The missionaries on the ground and the society at home were substantially agreed as to the need of a resident bishop. Undoubtedly the proposal had important political bearings. It was urged by some of its promoters that an American bishop would help to support authority against factious elements in the colonial governments, and the close relation between the Anglican clergy and the leaders of the imperialistic party is a well-known fact of colonial politics.89 The experience of many Englishmen who had come to America had undoubtedly been such as to suggest that an American bishop once securely established would hardly content himself with the spiritual care of his own flock. As White Kennett said in a letter to Colman in 1713, there was “so much of an Ecclesiastical and of a Civil Nature in this Affair” as to make the solution extremely difficult. Nevertheless the hearty support given to the measure by liberal churchmen like Kennett and Tenison indicates that the genuinely religious motive deserves more emphasis than has commonly been allowed by students of American history. The plan cannot fairly be set down as a purely Tory proposition.90
In order to disarm possible opponents, it was suggested by Bishop Compton and others that instead of appointing at the outset a bishop of full rank, a suffragan bishop might be sent out with delegated authority to perform such functions as confirmation and ordination, but without the full powers of an English diocesan.91 The whole subject was seriously considered by a committee of the society in 1703 and the journal contains numerous references to the subject during the next ten years.92 There were legal difficulties in the way which delayed action but in 1707 Archbishop Tenison reported that he had laid the matter before the queen, and that she had asked him to prepare a plan93 Two years later the matter was again discussed at a meeting attended by the archbishop himself; and in 1710 the society took advantage of public interest in the Iroquois mission to point out the difficulty of administering such work without a bishop.94 Finally, in the last years of Queen Anne’s reign, the plan of an American episcopate seemed likely to come in
89 Address of clergy at Burlington, N. J., November 2, 1705, in S. P. G. Journal, app. A, no. 84. 90 Cf. Cross, Anglican Episcopate, pp. 93-99, especially 99, notes. See also chs. VII., VIII. 91 Ibid., app. A, no. III., pp. 277-278. 92 E. g., April 16, 1703; November 17, December 15, 1704; December, 1706-October, 1707, passim; app. A, no. 50. 93 Ibid., September 19, 1707. 94 The annual Abstract for 1710/11 reports (p. 36) that the matter is “yet depending before the Society” and that in the meantime Gov. Hunter was authorized to treat for the purchase of a bishop’s house at Burlington.
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with the rising tide of High Church influence in the national councils. In 1713 it was expected that a bill would be presented to Parliament authorizing the creation of the new bishoprics.95 The next year, however, Queen Anne died, the Tories went out of office, and the opportunity for establishing an effective organization of the colonial church was indefinitely postponed.96
Just what would have been the effect of extending the diocesan system to the colonies, half a century before the economic and political controversies of the Revolutionary era, it is, of course, quite impossible to say. The work of the Venerable Society went on and substantial results were accomplished. Nevertheless it can hardly be doubted that the establishment of the national church, in anything like its full vigor, on American soil would have strengthened materially the influence of traditional and conservative ideals. The comparative weakness of the Anglican Church was significant, not merely because its clergy were advocates of certain political theories;97 but perhaps even more because their whole system of worship and discipline emphasized the importance for each new generation of the inherited elements in civilization, or, to use Burke’s phrase again, the “early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind”. A lessened sense of the dignity and value of this continuous tradition, attaching the new-world life to its roots in the old, was surely one important element in that differentiation of American from European society which found political expression in a new nationality.
EVARTS B. GREENE.
95 An address by the society to the queen recommended four colonial bishops. Ibid., 1713/14, p. 39. 96 See Cross, Anglican Episcopate, pp. 100, 101, in which the controversies resulting from the later revival of the plan are fully discussed. There are still hopeful references to the project in the annual Abstracts of 1714/15 (pp. 52-55) and 1715/16 (pp. 21-22). The latter records Archbishop Tenison’s bequest of £1000 “toward the Settlement of Two Bishops, one for the Continent, the other for the Isles of America”. 97 Cf. Van Tyne, “Influence of the Clergy, and of Religious and Sectarian Forces on the American Revolution”, in AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, XIX. 44-64 (1913).

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