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“The Manifest Distinction Established by Our Holy Religion”: Church, State and the Consecration of Samuel Seabury
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2022
Abstract
The consecration of Samuel Seabury as bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Connecticut in November 1784 is typically taken to mark the threshold that divides the magisterial pretensions of the old-world confessional state from the pluralism of the new-world denominational order. In such accounts, a chastened Anglicanism reluctantly sacrificed its royalism and claims to establishment in acquiescence to the pluralistic religious ecology of the republican United States. The Church of England, in this telling, possessed no native conception of the separation of church and state. The Americanization of Anglicanism, therefore, entailed the acceptance of ecclesiological premises foreign and inimical to its tradition—stemming largely from the intellectual world of the enlightenment and Protestant nonconformity. Such a narrative of denominational beginnings, this article demonstrates, fails to grapple seriously with the strain of antiestablishmentarian thought within Anglicanism itself. The separation of church and state necessarily implicated in Seabury's securing of “a free, valid and purely Ecclesiastical Episcopacy” was neither an alien imposition nor a mere epiphenomenon of American religious liberty. The catholic tendency in Anglicanism had long developed its own conception of ecclesiastical independence, which rejected both state superintendence as well as religious voluntarism. The consecration of Samuel Seabury, this article argues, was secured and defended in an Atlantic milieu characterized by this dual-sided antipathy. By setting the events and controversies surrounding the Seabury consecration back into this broader Atlantic milieu, we will glean a clearer sense of the imperative of ecclesial separateness and distinctiveness that characterized American Episcopalianism in the early republic. American Episcopalianism in the nineteenth century, particularly that of the high church tendency, was remarkably free of the establishmentarian and political impulses of other denominations because it was founded in explicit rejection of them.
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References
Notes
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42 Pennsylvania Packet XI, no. 90 (August 6, 1782). The three earlier meetings of the Anglican clergy and laity of Maryland between 1780 and 1782 had not produced any tangible results beyond the adoption of the name Protestant Episcopal Church. Mills, Bishops by Ballots, 190–91.
43 The peace overtures of Sir Guy Carleton and Rear Admiral Digby were made public in the same week that White's pamphlet was first advertised. Bird Wilson, Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend William White, D.D. (Philadelphia: James Kay, Jr. & Brother, 1839), 80–81.
44 [William White], The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered (Philadelphia, 1782), iv. See also John F. Woolverton, “Philadelphia's William White: Episcopalian Distinctiveness and Accommodation in the Post-Revolutionary Period,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 43, no. 4 (December 1974), 279–96.
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46 On the ordeal of Anglicanism during the War of Independence, see Nancy L. Rhoden Revolutionary Anglicanism: The Colonial Church of England Clergy during the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
47 White, Case of the Episcopal Churches, 17–19; on White's view of worship, see Harvey Hill, “Worship in the Ecclesiology of William White,” Anglican and Episcopal History 62, 3 (September 1993), 316–42.
48 White, Case of the Episcopal Churches, 8–9.
49 White, Case of the Episcopal Churches, 10–11, 18–19. See also Gregory K. Hotchkiss, “The Revolutionary William White and Democratic Catholicity,” Anglican and Episcopal History 70, no. 1 (March 2001), 40–74.
50 White, Case of the Episcopal Churches, 19–20,
51 Charles Inglis to William White, New York, June 9, 1783, in William Stevens Perry, Historical Notes and Documents Illustrating the Organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (Claremont, NH: Claremont Manufacturing Co., 1874), 259–60.
52 Jacob Duché to William White, Asylum, August 11, 1783, in Perry, Historical Notes, 261–62.
53 Inglis to White, June 9, 1783; Alexander Murray to William White, London, July 26, 1783; Inglis to White, New York, October 22, 1783, in Perry, Historical Notes, 259–66.
54 George Berkeley to Bishop John Skinner, March 21, 1783, in The Scottish Church Review, 1 (1884), 42–43.
55 This letter is printed in Beardsley, Life of Seabury, 98–102.
56 On the Woodbury meeting, see Steiner, Samuel Seabury, 187–90.
57 Samuel Seabury to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [draft], February 27, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §82, General Theological Seminary (GTS); Abraham Jarvis, A Discourse Delivered before a Special Convention of the Clergy, and Lay Delegates of the Episcopal Church in the State of Connecticut (New Haven, 1796), 18–19.
58 Daniel Fogg to Samuel Parker, Pomfret, July 14, 1783 [copy], Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §53, GTS. In a provocative essay, it has been claimed that no such instruction regarding consecration in Scotland was ever actually transmitted to Seabury; see Clinton Rogers Woodruff, “The Part of Dr. Routh in Dr. Seabury's Consecration,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 9, no. 3 (September 1940), 231–46.
59 Clergy of Connecticut to the Archbishop of Canterbury, [April 1783], The Churchman's Magazine 4, no. 1 (January 1807), 37–39; Clergy of Connecticut to the Archbishop of York, New York, April 21, 1783, The Churchman's Magazine, 3, no. 3 (March 1806), 112–13.
60 Copy of a letter by Charles Inglis, et al. [the New York clergy] to Archbishop of Canterbury, May 24, 1783, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §51, GTS.
61 Clergy of Connecticut to the Archbishop of Canterbury, [April 1783], The Churchman's Magazine 4, no. 1 (January 1807), 37–39.
62 See the “Draft of an appeal for an American bishop,” [1784], Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §251, GTS, where the Connecticut clergy plead: “With the independents they [Episcopalians] will never join, conceiving, as has been observed, their ordinations to be invalid and all their ministrations, of course, to be without effect.”
63 Samuel Seabury [to Jonathan Boucher], Edinburgh, December 3, 1784, Folder 333, Protestant Episcopal Bishops Collection (PEBC), Sterling Memorial Library (SML), Yale University.
64 Bishop John Skinner to George Berkeley, Aberdeen, November 29, 1783, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884): 106–107.
65 Seabury to Jeremiah Leaming, Abraham Jarvis, et al., London, July 15, 1783, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
66 Seabury to Jeremiah Leaming, Abraham Jarvis, et al., August 10, 1783; Seabury to Leaming, London, October 20, 1783, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
67 Seabury to Jeremiah Leaming, London, September 3, 1783, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
68 Leaming to Seabury, New Haven, January 21, 1784, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §60, GTS.
69 The Public Records of the State of Connecticut for the Years 1783 and 1784, ed. Leonard Woods Labaree (Hartford: State of Connecticut, 1943), 281–82. For the text of the statute, see Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America (New London, 1784), 21–22. On the broader narrative of disestablishment in Connecticut, see Robert J. Imholt, “Connecticut: A Land of Steady Habits,” in Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Church-State Relations in the New American States, 1776–1833, ed. Carl H. Esbeck and Jonathan J. Den Hartog (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2019), 327–50.
70 Leaming, Jarvis, and Hubbard to Seabury, Middletown, February 5, 1784, in Beardsley, Life and Correspondence, 112–16.
71 Seabury to Leaming and Hubbard, London, April 30, 1784, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
72 Seabury to Jarvis, London, May 3, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut Archives (EDCA).
73 Seabury to Jarvis, London, May 24, 1784, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
74 Charles Inglis, Samuel Seabury, et al., to Sir Guy Carleton, New York, March 21, 1783, Document #7182, Reel 21, British Headquarters (Sir Guy Carleton) Papers 1747 (1777)–1783 (microfilm).
75 On Chandler's activities on London, see Thomas Bradbury Chandler, “Memorandums,” typewritten copy of Chandler's unpublished diary, 1775–1785, GTS.
76 Fogg to Parker, Pomfret, July 14, 1783 [copy], Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §53, GTS.
77 Seabury to the Archbishop of York, November 24, 1783, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §59, GTS.
78 Seabury to Leaming, London, September 3, 1783; Seabury to Leaming and Hubbard, London, April 30, 1784; Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University; Seabury to Abraham Jarvis, London, May 3, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA.
79 Seabury to Jarvis, London, June 26, 1784, in The Churchman's Magazine, 3, no. 6 (June 1806), 236–37; “Objections Made to the Connecticut Episcopacy by the B—Ministry,” Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §65, GTS.
80 Seabury to Jarvis, London, September 7, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA. See also the account in Seabury to William Smith, August 15, 1785 [photostat], Folder 332, PEBC, SML, Yale University.
81 Seabury to Jarvis, London, June 26, 1784, in The Churchman's Magazine 3, no. 6 (June 1806), 236–37.
82 Katherine Carté, Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: Omohundro Institution and UNC Press, 2021), 302–27.
83 Mason Locke Weems to John Adams, ca. February 27, 1784, Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-16-02-0039.
84 John Adams to Mason Locke Weems, March 3, 1784, Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-16-02-0043.
85 Translated copies of the Danish ministers’ April 1784 letters to Adams are enclosed in John Jay to William Paca, March 31, 1785, Columbia Digital Library Collections, Columbia University Libraries, accessed July 12, 2018, from https://dlc.library.columbia.edu/catalog/ldpd:82430.
86 The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10 vols., ed. Albert Henry Smyth (New York: Haskell, 1970), 9: 238–40.
87 On the question, see Beardsley, Life of Seabury, 134; Woodruff, “Part of Routh in Seabury's Consecration,” 231–46.
88 Nockles, Oxford Movement in Context, 156–64; Tony Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 284–353.
89 Seabury to Leaming, Oxford Street, London, October 20, 1783, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 (microfilm), SML, Yale University.
90 Seabury to Jarvis, London, May 3, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA.
91 Journal of the House of Lords 37 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1767–1830), 147, 152–53. See also Richard G. Salomon, “British Legislation and American Episcopacy,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 20, no. 3 (September 1951), 278–93.
92 Seabury to George Horne, London, January 8, 1785 [draft], Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §75, GTS; Granville Sharp to James Oglethorpe, London, November 3, 1784, Box 3183, 13/1/O1, Gloucestershire Record Office (GRO).
93 Berkeley to Bishop Skinner, St. Andrews, December 10, 1783, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884): 109–10.
94 John Henry Overton, The Nonjurors: Their Lives, Principles and Writings (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1903), 29–30, 84–91, 119–21.
95 Henry Broxap, The Later Nonjurors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924), 276–88.
96 William Cartwright to Thomas Bradbury Chandler, August 30, 1784, Add. MS D 30, f. 34, Bodleian Library, Oxford University.
97 Seabury to Cartwright, (ca.) October 15, 1784, Seabury Copy-Book, GTS. See also Frederick Goldie, A Short History of the Episcopal Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1951), 37–62.
98 On disestablishment, see Jeffrey Stephen, Defending the Revolution: The Church of Scotland, 1689–1716 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013), 19–76.
99 John Parker Lawson, History of the Scottish Episcopal Church from the Revolution to the Present Time (Edinburgh: Gallie and Bayley, 1843), 287–311.
100 Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (Boston: Samuel H. Parker, 1821), 217.
101 An account of the earlier correspondence may be found in William Walker, The Life and Times of John Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (Aberdeen: J & J. P. Edmond and Spark, 1887), 23–30.
102 See William Jones, “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Horne,” in The Works of the Right Reverend George Horne, D.D., 6 vols. (London: Rivington, 1818), 1: 150–58. See also Robert M. Andrews, Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807 (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
103 Seabury to Jarvis, London, June 26, 1784, in The Churchman's Magazine 3, no. 6 (June 1806), 236–37; Seabury to Jarvis, London, September 7, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA. See also Bishop Petrie to Alexander Jolly, October 23, 1784, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884), 593–94, where it appears Bishop Skinner sought Dean Horne's advice on the matter of the consecration.
104 Seabury to Myles Cooper, London, August 31, 1784, Seabury Copy-Book, GTS.
105 Bishop Charles Rose to Bishop Robert Kilgour, December 1, 1783, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884), 589; Bishop Rose to Bishop Arthur Petrie, October 26, 1784; Rose to Petrie, February 26, 1785, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University.
106 Bishop William Falconer to Bishop Kilgour, November 29, 1783, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884), 588–89.
107 Kilgour to the Reverend John Allan, Aberdeen, October 2, 1784; Seabury to Kilgour, London, October 14, 1784, Seabury Copy-Book, GTS.
108 “Concordat between Church in Scotland and Church in Connecticut, 15 Nov 1784” [copy], Episcopal Diocese of Maryland Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. See also Alexander Jolly to Bishop Petrie, October 23, 1784, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884), 594.
109 Seabury to Samuel Peters, Dundee, November 24, 1784, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA.
110 Beardsley, Life of Seabury, 148–49.
111 [John Skinner], The Nature and Extent of the Apostolical Commission. A Sermon Preached at the Consecration of the Right Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury, Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. By a Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Scotland (Aberdeen: J. Chalmers and Co., 1785), 9–11, 15–17, 20, 37–39.
112 Seabury to Leaming, Jarvis, and Hubbard, London, January 5, 1785, in Churchman's Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1806), 276–77.
113 Jolly to Skinner, December 19, 1784, in The Scottish Church Review 1 (1884), 597.
114 Seabury to George Berkeley Jr., London, December 24, 1784, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §70, GTS.
115 George Horne to Seabury, January 3, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §73, GTS.
116 Samuel Seabury to [Jonathan Boucher], Edinburgh, December 3, 1784, Folder 333, PEBC, SML, Yale University; and “Extract of a letter from Bishop Skinner to Bishop Seabury, Aberdeen, 29 Jan 1785,” Seabury Copy-Book, GTS.
117 Seabury to Skinner, December 27, 1784; John Allan to Bishop Petrie, Edinburgh, January 15, 1785, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University; Abernathy Drummond to Seabury, Edinburgh, January 3, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §74, GTS; John Allan to Seabury, Edinburgh, January 17, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §76, GTS; Alexander Allan to Seabury, Edinburgh, January 18, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §77, GTS. See also “Letters from the Reverend Dr. Myles Cooper, Formerly President of King's College, New York, Written from Edinburgh to Rev. Dr. Samuel Peters, of London,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 2, no. 1 (March 1933): 44–47.
118 Charles Wesley to Thomas Bradbury Chandler, April 28, 1785, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University; Thomas Bradbury Chandler to Seabury, July 28, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §93, GTS.
119 Seabury to Horne, London, January 8, 1785 [draft], Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §75, GTS.
120 The Gentleman's Magazine 55, no. 2 (February 1785): 105; The Weekly Entertainer 5, no. 117 (March 28, 1785), 304.
121 At Seabury's urging, Skinner's sermon was first published at Aberdeen in January 1785. Seabury to Skinner, December 27, 1784; Skinner to Petrie, Aberdeen, January 4, 1785; Seabury to Skinner, Gravesend, March 11, 1785, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University.
122 Skinner, Nature and Extent of the Apostolical Commission, 14–15.
123 English Review 5 (April 1785), 273–74. On the religious meaning of “liberality,” see Craig, David, “The Language of Liberality in Britain, c. 1760–1815,” Modern Intellectual History 16, no. 3 (2019): 771–801CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
124 Gentleman's Magazine 55, no. 4 (April 1785): 248; W. C.'s letter to the Magazine repeatedly quoted from Seabury's October 1784 letter to Cartwright.
125 Gentleman's Magazine 55, no. 4 (April 1785): 278–80.
126 Gentleman's Magazine 55, no. 12 (December 1785): 1017–19.
127 Jonathan Boucher to Seabury, Epsom, March 31, 1786, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §111, GTS.
128 Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal 73 (July 1785): 79.
129 Mills, Frederick V., “Granville Sharp and the Creation of an American Episcopate: Ordo Episcoporum Est Robur Ecclesiae,” Anglican and Episcopal History 79, no. 1 (March 2010): 34–58Google Scholar.
130 Granville Sharp to James Oglethorpe, November 3, 1784, Box 3813, 13/1/O1; Sharp to John Hincliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, November 3, 1784, Box 3814, 13/1/P23, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO; Granville Sharp, “A farther Declaration of the ancient popular, or congregational Right to elect Bishops,” in An Account of the Ancient Division of the English Nation into Hundreds and Tithings (London, 1784), 296–365.
131 Sharp to Archbishop of Canterbury, November 19, 1784 [copy], Box 3811, 13/1/C3, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO. Sharp, at this point, was likely only reflecting on Seabury's seeking consecration in Scotland as news of the event had probably not reached London yet.
132 Sharp possessed a copy of Skinner's consecration sermon, Box 3825, 13/3/39; it was sent to him by James Oglethorpe in April 1785. See Oglethorpe to Sharp, April 12, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/O1, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO .
133 Granville Sharp to James Manning, February 22, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/M5, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO; Sharp to Manning, March 4, 1785, Box 1, Folder 54, Accession #817, James Manning Papers, John Hay Library, Brown University.
134 Robert Findlay to Granville Sharp, Glasgow, March 29, 1785, Box 3812, 13/1/F4, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO.
135 Oglethorpe to Sharp, April 12, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/O1, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO.
136 Sharp to Benjamin Franklin [copy], London, October 29, 1785, Box 1, Folder 54, Accession #A977, James Manning Papers, John Hay Library, Brown University; Sharp to Manning, London, December 11, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/M5; Sharp to Findlay, London, January 19, 1786, Box 3812, 13/1/F4, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO. On the usages controversy, see Broxap, The Later Nonjurors, 35–65; Robert Cornwall, “The Later Nonjurors and the Theological Basis of the Usages Controversy,” Anglican Theological Review 75 (1993): 166–86.
137 Charles Inglis, October 21, 1785, Journal of Occurrences, Inglis Family Papers, MS C-3, University of New Brunswick.
138 Manning to Sharp, Providence, RI, July 26, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/M5, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO; Henry Purcell to Samuel Seabury, New York, September 15, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §101, GTS; Perry, Historical Notes, 272n2.
139 Sharp to Archbishop Moore, September 13, 1785, Box 3811, 13/1/C3, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO.
140 See William White, Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, ed. B. F. DeCosta (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1880), 86–88.
141 Seabury to Skinner, December 27, 1784, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University.
142 Andrew Macfarlane to Seabury, Inverness, February 5, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §79, GTS.
143 Seabury to Skinner, December 27, 1784; Skinner to Petrie, Aberdeen, January 4, 1785, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University; Alexander Allan to Seabury, Edinburgh, January 18, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §77; Macfarlane to Seabury, Inverness, January 21, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §78; Macfarlane to Seabury, Inverness, February 5, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §79, GTS. Mentioned were Bishop Robert Keith's Catalogue of the Bishops of Scotland (1755): “two or three Tracts wrote by Dr. Rattray of Craighall,” among them, presumably, his 1728 Essay on the Nature of the Church. Macfarlane further recommended Bishop John Sage's Principles of the Cyprianic Age (1695) and his lengthy Vindication thereof (1701); as well as Alexander Monro's Enquiry into the New Opinions, Chiefly Propagated by the Presbyterians of Scotland (1696) and the London clergyman Thomas Bennet's 1711 pamphlet The Rights of the Clergy of the Christian Church, a response to Matthew Tindal.
144 Seabury to Jarvis, New London, June 29, 1785, The Churchman's Magazine, III, 7 (July 1806), 278–279
145 White, et al., to Seabury, Philadelphia, July 22, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §91, GTS.
146 James Rivington to Seabury, New York, July 25, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §92, GTS.
147 The Address of the Episcopal Clergy of Connecticut to the Right Reverend Bishop Seabury, with the Bishop's Answer (New Haven, 1785), 4–5, 7.
148 The Scots Magazine 47 (December 1785), 645–48.
149 Gentleman's Magazine 56, no. 4 (April 1786), 286–88.
150 Jonathan Boucher to Seabury, Epsom, March 31, 1786, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §111, GTS; Skinner to Petrie, March 15, 1786; Skinner to Petrie, March 27, 1786, Seabury family papers, 1784–1867 [microfilm], SML, Yale University.
151 Thomas Bradbury Chandler to Seabury, July 28, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §93, GTS; Charles Inglis, 13 October 1785; January 10, 1786, Journal of Occurrences, Inglis Family Papers, MS C-3, University of New Brunswick; Sharp to Archbishop Moore, September 13, 1785; Sharp to Archbishop Moore, February 17, 1786, Box 3811, 13/1/C3; Granville Sharp to Benjamin Rush, October 10, 1785, Box 3814, 13/1/R13, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO.
152 Seabury to William Smith, August 15, 1785, [photostat], Folder 332, PEBC, SML, Yale University.
153 Beardsley, Life of Seabury, 244–45; and William White to Samuel Seabury, February 1, 1786, in The Life and Letters of Bishop William White, ed. Walter Herbert Stowe (New York: Morehouse and Co., 1937), 254.
154 Sharp to Manning, London, December 11, 1785, Box 3813, 13/1/M5; Sharp to Findlay, London, January 19, 1786, Box 3812, 13/1/F4, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO.
155 Journals of the General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America from A.D. 1785 to A.D. 1853, ed. Francis L. Hawks and William Stevens Perry (Philadelphia: Joseph W. Raynor, 1860), 24–27.
156 Journals of the General Conventions, 26–27.
157 Seabury to William Smith, August 15, 1785, [photostat], Folder 332, PEBC, SML, Yale University.
158 The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner, 1901), 3: 172–73; Bishop Seabury to Samuel Peters of London, New London, December 14, 1785, Box 3: Seabury Correspondence and Manuscripts, 1781–1785, EDCA. See also Seabury's discourse on the apostolical commission, where he derides “the modern-invented scheme of parochial bishops,” Seabury, Discourses on Several Subjects, 1:88, probably a response to Stiles, Ezra, A Sermon Delivered at Ordination of the Reverend Henry Channing, A.M. (New-London, 1787)Google Scholar.
159 [John Locke], A Letter Concerning Toleration, Humbly Submitted, &c. (London, 1689), 1; Boucher to Seabury, Epsom, June 12, 1786, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §113, GTS.
160 Mills, Bishops by Ballot, 233–87, provides a comprehensive account.
161 Handschy, Dan, “Samuel Seabury's Eucharistic Ecclesiology: Ecclesial Implications of a Sacrificial Eucharist,” Anglican and Episcopal History 85, no. 1 (March 2016), 1–23Google Scholar. See also Marshall, Paul Victor, One, Catholic and Apostolic: Samuel Seabury and the Early Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing, 2004)Google Scholar.
162 Holifield, E. Brooks, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 245–51Google Scholar; Noll, America's God, 238–41; McBride, Spencer W., Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016), 75–80Google Scholar.
163 Taylor, William Harrison, Unity in Christ and Country: American Presbyterians in the Revolutionary Era, 1758–1801 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Hood, Fred J., Reformed America: The Middle and Southern States, 1783–1837 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980)Google Scholar.
164 Andrew Macfarlane to Samuel Seabury, January 21, 1785, Bishop Samuel Seabury Papers, §78, GTS.
165 For the pluralistic origins of American religious liberty, see Haefeli, Evan, Accidental Pluralism: America and the Religious Politics of English Expansion, 1497–1662 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
166 Butler, “The Church and American Destiny,” 202.
167 Correspondence of Richard Price, vol. 2, 327–28.
168 See Hobart's, John Henry An Address to Episcopalians on the Subject of the American Bible Society (New York: T&J Swords, 1816)Google Scholar; for the most controversial high church Episcopalian critique of the benevolent, paraecclesial and interdenominational groups that had come to define American Protestantism, see Hopkins, John Henry, The Primitive Church Compared with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Present Day (Burlington: Smith and Harrington, 1835)Google Scholar.
169 For this reflex among evangelical denominations, see Jonathan J. Hartog, Den, Patriotism and Piety: Federalist Politics and Religious Struggle in the New American Nation (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015)Google Scholar, which Den Hartog schematizes as the move from an establishmentarian Republicanism to a postestablishmentarian Voluntarism.