The first General Convention besides revising the Prayer Book and framing a Constitution addressed a petition to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England requesting them "to confer the Episcopal character on such persons as shall be recommended by this Church in the several States here represented." In a letter dated February 24th, 1786, the English Bishops expressed their desire to use their best endeavours to comply with the prayer of the address, but asked to be first advised as to the alterations which the Convention proposed to make in the Prayer Book, lest they "should be the instrument of establishing an ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterwards may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially in doctrine or discipline." The Committee appointed to edit the Proposed Book had sent the printed sheets to England as they came from the press, but through some miscarriage they had not reached the Bishops at the time of their writing. "Hence arose the caution with which the Convention was answered by the right reverend bench."2

The revised Prayer Book was published in April, 1786, and almost immediately was referred to as the "Proposed Book," a name by which it has ever since been known. In the preface it was declared that, "It is far from the intention of this Church to depart from the Church of England, any farther than local circumstances require, or to deviate in anything essential to the true meaning of the thirty-nine Articles." Notwithstanding the many departures from the English Book, there is no reason whatever for doubting the perfect sincerity of this declaration. The omissions made by the Convention were prompted by a desire to remove whatever might seem to be a stumbling block in the way of persons otherwise disposed to enter the Church, and not from a wish to deny any doctrine held by the Church of England. It was thought that certain terms and statements could well be spared with great advantage to the Church, and without her doctrinal position being thereby weakened; to use the words of the General Convention of 1786, the omissions made were "such as were calculated to remove objections which it appeared to us more conducive to union and general content to obviate than to dispute." "I wish to God," writes the Rev. Dr. West, a member of the Convention, "that no construction may be put on any of the late Convention proceedings, by which a departure from what some of the Church of England may deem essential to its doctrines may be inferred!.........The next thing we may probably hear, is that the Convention at Philadelphia have rejected the Nicene and Athanasian Creed! The truth is, they omitted, but did not reject them; and could the motive inducing that body to omit them, have been made as public as the actual omission, I trust no ill-natured reflexions would have been made." But however excellent were the intentions of the Convention of 1785, the Proposed Book had no sooner issued from the press than it was at once the object of bitter attack. So many were the objections to the book, and so determined was the opposition stirred up against it, that the Rev. Mr. Provoost writing from New York shortly after its appearance, says, "Such a strong party has been raised against the alterations that I am afraid we should not be

1 Journal of 1786.

3 Hist. Notes and Doc., p. 307.

Memoirs of the Church, p. 125.

able to adopt the book at present without danger of a schism-the ostensible object is that they were made without the sanction of a Bishop, but the Thanksgiving for the Fourth of July in all probability is one principal cause of the opposition. The sale of the books has been very dull-only thirteen have been disposed of."

2

State Conventions subsequent to the First General Convention. The first State Convention in which the new Prayer Book came up for consideration was that of Maryland, which met at Annapolis, April 4th, 1786. A majority of the clergy were present, but not many of the laity. Among other things, it was recommended that the Nicene Creed should be restored to the Prayer Book, and printed as an alternative with the Apostles' Creed, and that a prayer for the sanctifiIcation of the bread and wine should be inserted before the words of institution. This last proposition, Dr. Smith tells us, "perfectly reconciled Mr. Smith3 to our service, and will prevent any further division between us and the numbers of clergy coming among us from Bp. S[eabury] and the Scots Church." These emendations seem to have fallen in with the views of Dr. White, of Pennsylvania, for writing to Dr. Smith he remarks, "I think the proposed alterations of your Convention will render our service more compleat." 115 The Church in New Jersey met in Convention on May 19th, at Perth Amboy, and addressed a Memorial to the General Convention, strongly deprecating many of the proposed alterations and the manner in which they had been made. The Convention of Pennsylvania, which met at Philadelphia, May 22d, proposed a number of amendments to the Proposed Book, chief among which were the restoration of the Nicene Creed, the introduction into the Prayer of Consecration in the Communion Office, of the same clause as that proposed by the Maryland Convention, and the putting back of the Apostles' Creed in the offices of Baptism. There is every probability that these amendments were suggested by Dr. White. On the 29th of the same month a Convention met at Richmond, Virginia. Its chief objection to the new Prayer Book was with regard to the rubric which directed the Minister to repel notorious evil livers from the Holy Communion. "The offensive matter was not the precise provisions of the rubric, but that there should be any provision of the kind, or power exercised to the end contemplated." It drew up a detailed criticism of the new Articles of Religion, and framed a letter of instruction for the delegates to the next General Convention." At the same time a Convention of the Church in South Carolina was being held at Charlestown. A committee, which had been appointed a month before, presented a carefully prepared report on the proposed changes in the Prayer Book, in which were embodied a number of propositions for still further alterations.10 The report was adopted, and the

1 Church Doc. of Conn., Vol. II, p. 297.

198

2 Appendix II, 6.

7

3 A relative of Dr. Smith who speaks of him as 'My learned but zealous high church little Friend and relation (as he says), Mr. Smith, of Somerset," Maryland. He afterward went to Connecticut and became Rector of Norwalk, where he drew up the Institution Office. For an account of his life, see Annals of the American Pulpit, Vol. V, p. 345; also, The Churchman, New York, Sept. 8th and 15th, 1883.

4

Hist. Notes and Doc., p. 190.

7 Appendix II, 8.

"Appendix II, 9.

5

Ibid., p. 191.

6 Appendix II, 7.

8 Memoirs of the Church, p. 127.

10

Appendix II, 10.

Deputies to the General Convention desired to use their endeavours to have its propositions adopted.' It was evidently from the suggestions of the South Carolina Convention that not a few of the features which distinguished the Prayer Book of 1789, not only from the English Book, but also from the Proposed Book, were derived, e. g., the following omissions: the word "again" from the Apostles' Creed, the versicle "O God make speed to save us," with its response, and the three Evangelical canticles. The Convention of New York, which assembled on June 14th, deferred the consideration of the Proposed Book to a future time.1 No Convention met in Delaware.

General Convention of 1786.

The Second General Convention assembled in Philadelphia, the 20th of June, 1786, and continued in session until the 26th of the same month. There were in attendance fourteen clerical and twelve lay delegates. The first business was to draft a reply to the letter of the English Bishops. In this answer it was declared that, "We are unanimous and explicit in assuring your Lordships, that we neither have departed, nor propose to depart from the doctrine of your Church. We have retained the same discipline and forms of worship, as far as has been consistent with our civil constitutions; and we have made no alterations or omissions in the Book of Common Prayer but such as that consideration prescribed, and such as were calculated to remove objections which it appeared to us more conducive to union and general content to obviate than to dispute.' No action was attempted at this time with regard to the alterations which had been passed with such apparent unanimity the previous October, and the various memorials from the State Conventions on the subject were "referred to the first General Convention which shall assemble with sufficient powers to determine the same." Before adjourning, the Committee of Correspondence with the English prelates was "empowered to call a General Convention whenever a majority of the said Committee shall think necessary."

ton.

113

Adjourned Meeting of a Convention at Boston, 1786.

The Convention of the Church in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire which met at Boston, September, 1785, was kept under adjournment until the following July waiting to see what action would be taken by the Church in Connecticut and in the Southern States with regard to the alterations prepared at Middletown and proposed in BosAs has been already noted these alterations were not generally acceptable to the Churchmen of Connecticut, and no action was there taken with regard to them. "When our Convention met in July by adjournment," writes the Rev. Mr. Parker of Boston, "we found that we were left by our brethren in Connecticut-that they thought it not advisable to make any alterations. The Convention at the southward, though they acceded to some of our alterations had gone much further, and did

2 Journal.

3 Ibid.

4

1 Appendix II, 11. *Chiefly in omitting the Nicene Creed, but Mr. Parker's only objection to this was on the score of its inopportuneness :-"No objection, I think, can be made to the omission of the Nicene Creed but the time. Some passages in it are as obscure and unintelligible as many in the Creed of Saint Athanasius, which I am very glad we are rid of." (Hist. Notes and Doc., p. 295.)

not adopt the substitutes for the State prayers." So far, however, was the Proposed Book from being distasteful to the New England Churchmen, outside of Connecticut, that it would probably have been adopted by this Convention, had there been any likelihood of its general acceptance in the Southern States. This we learn from a letter of Mr. Parker to Dr. White, September 15th, 1786: "Our Convention met here on the 20th of July and seemed disposed to adopt your Alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, but were discouraged from the circumstance of your not being agreed to the use of it in those States which were represented in the Convention by which those alterations were proposed. Indeed the Alterations proposed in our own Convention in September last had been sent to the several Churches in these States and returns received from them purporting their approbation of them and readiness to adopt them. And though yours are in a great measure similar, yet as there are some things in which we disagree, it was thought best, all things considered, to leave it optional with the several Churches to adopt which they like best, or even to continue the use of the old liturgy (the State prayers excepted) until we become complete in our officers and one common liturgy is established by the first Order of the Clergy to whom alone, we are of opinion, this matter appertains." Availing himself of the permission given by this Convention, Mr. Parker introduced into the services of Trinity Church, Boston, on the first Sunday in August the alterations proposed the September before, together with the use of the Psalms of the Proposed Book which he had "reprinted by themselves," and which he thought were "much more suitable for public worship than the collective body of David's Psalms."

Convocation at Derby, Connecticut, 1786.

On the 22d of September, 1786, Bishop Seabury with his clergy assembled in Convocation at Derby. In his charge, the Bishop animadverted to the Proposed Book. Some of the alterations he thought were "for the worse, most of them not for the better." His chief objection, however, rested upon the fact that it had been set forth without Episcopal authority: "Liturgies are left more to the prudence and judgment of the governors of the Church; and the primitive practice seems to have been that the Bishop did, with the advice no doubt of his Presbyters, provide a Liturgy for the use of his diocese. This ought to have been the case here. Bishops should first have been obtained to preside over those Churches. And to those Bishops, with the Proctors of the Clergy, should have been committed the business of compiling a liturgy for the use of the Church throughout the States." The Bishop of Connecticut's estimate of the doctrinal character of the Proposed Book may perhaps be gathered from a letter written to the Rev. Mr. Parker sometime afterward: "I never thought there was any heterodoxy in the Southern Prayer Book, but I do think the true doctrine is left too unguarded, and that the offices are, some of them, lowered to such a degree, that they will, in a great measure lose their influence." It was

113

1 Church Documents of Connecticut, Vol. II, p. 319, and Hist. Notes and Doc, p. 365.

2 Hist. Notes and Doc., pp. 365, 324.

3 Cited by the Rev. Dr. Saml. Hart in his Historical Sketch and Notes to Bp. Seabury's Communion Office, 2d. Ed. p. 33.

4 Hist. Notes and Doc., p. 367.

at this Convocation' that Bishop Seabury set forth a Communion Office, which was taken, with some alterations, from that which was then used in Scotland. He did not formally impose it, but "recommended" it to the congregations in his diocese. It "seems to have been almost, if not quite, universally adopted by the clergy of Connecticut." At the same time, a new State Prayer, and a suffrage in the Litany were provided.3

General Convention at Wilmington, 1786.

Upon the receipt of an answer from the English Bishops to the letter sent by the General Convention of 1786, an adjourned Convention was called, and met at Wilmington, October 10th, 1786. In this second communication, their Lordships expressed their willingness to confer the Episcopate upon such properly accredited persons as should be sent to them, but at the same time exhorted the Convention to "restore to its integrity the Apostles' Creed, in which you have omitted an article, merely as it seems, from misapprehension of the sense in which it is understood by our Church; nor can we help adding, that we hope you will think it but a decent proof of the attachment you profess to the services of our liturgy to give the other two Creeds a place in your Book of Common Prayer, even though the use of them should be left discretional." It is noteworthy that no particular reference was made to the other peculiarities of the Proposed Book, except the very general remark that," it was impossible not to observe with concern that if the essential doctrines of our common faith were retained, less respect, however, was paid to our liturgy than its own excellence, and your declared attachment to it, had led us to expect.' 114 As a matter of fact the Proposed Book but reflected the ideas of liturgical revision prevalent at the time, and there is little doubt that the majority of the Georgian prelates would gladly have revised the Prayer Book after much the same fashion had they been free to do so. "The feeble recommendation," as Bishop White styles it, that the Athanasian Creed should be restored was understood to have been made more for form's sake and to preclude the cavils of the Non-Jurors, than for any other reason. "The inclination

of the Archbishop on that head was, not to give any trouble, but only to avoid any act or omission, which might have been an implicating of them and their Church." Too much, also, must not be attributed to

115

1 Vide Dr. Jarvis' Voice from Connecticut.

Before this time Bishop Seabury in his own ministrations may have made some departures from the English Prayer Book for Dr. Smith tells us that rumors were afloat that the Bishop of Connecticut was "making very great alterations from the English Liturgy, especially in the administration of the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, striving as Archbishop Land did, to introduce again some of those superstitions of which it had been cleared at the Reformation." (Church Documents of Conn., Vol. II, p. 302.)

3

2 The Rev. Dr. Hart's Notes to Bp. Seabury's Communion Office, p. 40. Appendix II, 13. Mention may here be made of two other liturgical productions of Bishop Seabury, viz., "A Burial Office for Infants who depart this life before they have polluted their Baptism by actual sin," reprinted in Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Bp. Seabury, p. 488; also "The Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be said or sung in churches, with the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer Daily throughout the year." This latter work printed in 1795 is noteworthy in having the Athanasian Creed, in omitting the Latin titles of the Psalms, and in substituting the future tense for the imperative mood in passages which might be called damnatory.' Vide App. to Dr. Hart's Reprint of Bp. Seabury's Com. Office.

Appendix II. 12.

5 Memoirs of the Church, p. 134.