made peace; and therefore his Grace (the very worthy and learned Dr. Moore) wished to be allowed some time to consider of the request; upon which Dr. Seabury very abruptly left the room, saying, 'If your Grace will not grant me consecration, I know where to obtain it;' and immediately set off for Aberdeen.

"The Archbishop communicated to G. S. the account of Dr. Seabury's behaviour; and G. S., in return, informed his Grace, that a general convention was actually appointed in America for the election of Bishops. On hearing this, the Archbishop gave G. S. authority to assure the Americans, that if they elected unexceptionable persons, and transmitted proper certificates of their morals and conduct, and of their suitable abilities for so important a charge, he would do every thing in his power to promote their good intentions."(1)

Towards the close of the year 1782, while the contest of the American Revolution was drawing near its close, the Rev. Dr. George Berkeley, the eldest son of the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne, who seems to have inherited his father's interest in the American Church, threw out the suggestion in a letter to a Scottish clergyman, the Rev. John Skinner, "that a most important good might ere long be derived to the suffering and nearly neglected sons of Protestant Episcopacy on the other side of the Atlantic, from the suffering Church of Scotland." "I would humbly submit it," he adds, "to the Bishops of the Church in Scotland (as we style her in Oxford), whether this be not a time peculiarly favourable to the introduction of the Protestant episcopate on the footing of universal toleration, and before any anti-episcopal establishment shall have taken place. God direct the hearts of your prelates in this matter."(2)

Resuming this subject after his correspondent had himself been raised to the Scottish Episcopate, Dr. Berkeley thus

(1) Memoirs of Granville Sharp, London, 1820. pp. 213-214.

(2) The preceding extracts, and those immediately following, are from "MS. Seabury Papers," quoted by the Bishop of Oxford in his "History of the American Church," (London, 1846, pp. 199-212), from which source we also condense this portion of our narrative.

answered objections, and removed from the path the many seeming hindrances.

"As to American Protestant episcopacy (for popish prelacy hath found its way into the transatlantic world), one sees not any thing complicated or difficult in the mere planting of it. A bishop consecrated by the English or Irish Church would find considerably stronger prejudices against him, than would one who had been called to the highest order by a bishop or bishops of the Scotch Church; our bishops, and those of Ireland, having been nominated by a sovereign against whom the Colonists have rebelled, and whom you have never recognised. The Americans would, even many of the Episcopalians among them, entertain political jealousies concerning a bishop by any means connected with us; they would be apt to think of him as of a foe to their wild prospects of independency, &c.

"I am as far removed from Erastianism and from democracy as any man ever was; I do heartily abominate both of those anti-scriptural systems. Had my honoured father's scheme for planting an Episcopal College, whereof he was to have been President, in the Summer Islands, not been sacrificed by the worst minister that Britain ever saw, probably under a mild monarch (who loves the Church of England as much as I believe his grandfather hated it), Episcopacy would have been established in America by succession from the English Church, unattended by any invidious temporal rank or power. But the dissenting miscellaneous interest in England has watched, with too successful a jealousy, over the honest intentions of our best bishops.

"From the Churches of England and Ireland, America will not now receive the Episcopate; if she might, I am persuaded that many of her sons would joyfully receive bishops from Scotland. The question, then, shortly is, Can any proper persons be found who, with the spirit of confessors, would convey the great blessing of the Protestant episcopate from the persecuted Church of Scotland to the struggling persecuted Protestant Episcopalian worshippers in America? If so, is it not the duty of all and every bishop of the Church in Scotland to contribute towards sending into the new world Protestant bishops, before general assemblies can be held and covenants taken, for their perpetual exclusion? Liberavi animam meam.

"Deeply convinced as I am of the necessity of Episcopacy towards the constitution of a Christian Church, I hope that no consideration would (I know that no consideration ought to) restrain me in this matter, if I was a bishop. A Scotch bishop, consecrating one or more good men of sound ecclesiastical principles, might now sow a seed which, in smallness resembling that of a mustard, might also resemble it in subsequent magnificence and amplitude of production. I humbly conceive that a bishop at Philadelphia, who had never sworn to King George, would be very well placed. The Quakers are a tolerating people. I have written to you currente calamo."

Suggestions of this moment, and from such a source, could not pass unheeded. The newly-consecrated Bishop was well aware of the distinguished position held by his correspondent in the English Church, who had refused an Irish bishopric but a few years before, and was then among the most prominent of the Clergy of the land; but still, in his consciousness of the imputations under which the Church of Scotland was then struggling, he could but respond discouragingly. "Nothing," he replies, "can be done in the affair with safety on our side, till the independence of America be fully and irrevocably recognized by the government of Britain; and even then the enemies of our Church might make a handle of our correspondence with the colonies, as a proof that we always wished to fish in troubled waters-and we have little need to give any ground for an imputation of that kind."(1)

To this and other difficulties urged by the Bishops, Dr. Berkeley replies, under date of March 24th, 1783, as follows:

"I beg leave to observe, with all becoming deference, that I cannot consider the immediate and unrestricted introduction of Episcopacy into America in the same light wherein it is viewed by yourself and your venerable brethren, the bishops of the Scotch Church.

"From the papists one learns that no time is to be lost,

(1) Seabury MSS., quoted by the Bishop of Oxford.

and that substances are to be preferred to shadows-things essential to the paraphernalia of a Church. If I ever wrote a sentence under the influence of a humble spirit, I write so at this moment when I do yet adventure to differ from my fathers in Christ. A consecration in Scotland might be very secret; it could not be so elsewhere. A consecration from a persecuted, depressed Church, which is barely_tolerated, would not alarm the prejudices of opponents. I need not say to Bishop Skinner or his brethren, that an Episcopal Church may exist without any legal encouragement or establishment, and without the definition of country into regular and bounded dioceses. Provincial Assemblies will never invite a prelate; provincial assemblies, if they establish anything, will establish some human device; but provincial assemblies will not, now or soon, think of excluding a Protestant bishop, who sues only for toleration. Popish prelates are now in North America exercising their functions over a willing people, without any aid or encouragement from provincial assemblies. In a short time, we must expect all Protestant Episcopalian principles to be totally lost in America. They are not so now; and yet Episcopacy must be sent before it be asked: these are lukewarm days. Christianity waited not at the first, the Church of Rome waits not now, for any invitation or encouragement. Bishop Geddes told me that the pope allows him 251. per annum, and that he has no other settled support; the other popish bishops have 57. each per annum from the Bishop of Rome. Out of Scotland there is but little known concerning the Episcopal Church there; and, generally, it is conceived to be a society purely political. I believe a secret subscription could be raised adequate to the purposes of supporting one pious, sensible, discreet bishop, at least for a season after his arrival in Virginia; and I think I know one person competent and willing for the great work."(1)

Thus was the way prepared by GOD for the accomplishment of His wisely ordered plans. Delays and hindrances seemingly insurmountable, hedged up the way in England, and Dr. Seabury found himself compelled, either to seek consecration from the remnant of the non-juring Episcopate in

(1) Seabury MS. quoted in Bishop Wilberforce's History of the American Church.

that country, or from their political brethren at the North. In November, 1783, the question was directly propounded to the Primus of the Scottish bishops: "Can consecration be obtained in Scotland for an already dignified and wellvouched American clergyman, now at London, for the purpose of perpetuating the Episcopal Reformed Church in America, particularly in Connecticut?" In connection with this query, Dr. Berkeley thus addresses Bishop Skinner:

"I have this day heard, I need not add with the sincerest pleasure, that a respectable presbyter, well recommended. from America, has arrived in London seking what, it seems, in the present state of affairs, he cannot expect to receive in our Church.

"Surely, dear Sir, the Scotch prelates, who are not shackled by any Erastian connexion, will not send this suppliant empty away.

"I scruple not to give it as my decided opinion, that the King, some of his cabinet counsellors, all our bishops (except, peradventure, the Bishop of St. Asaph), and all the learned and respectable clergy in our Church, will at least secretly rejoice, if a Protestant bishop be sent from Scotland to America; but more especially if Connecticut be the scene of his ministry. It would be waste of words to say anything by way of stirring up Bishop Skinner's zeal."(1)

Enquiries with reference to the personal fitness of the candidate, and the causes which led to the rejection of his suit in England, followed, to which the persevering Dr. Berkeley made speedy and satisfactory reply. Coupled with a strong assertion that they need fear nothing from the English authorities in granting "a consecration, which can contradict no law, for a foreign and independent state," (2) he proceeds to state clearly and forcibly the obstacles in the way of the Bishops of the Church of England. "My reading does not enable me to comprehend how, without an Episcopacy, the gospel, together with all its divine institutions, can possibly

(1) Seabury MS., quoted by the Bishop of Oxford. (2) Ibid.