Episcopalians
Episcopalians
The history of this religious organization divides itself naturally into two portions: the period of its dependence upon the Church of England and that of its separate existence with a hierarchy of its own.
I. BEFORE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The Church of England was planted permanently in Virginia in 1607, at the foundation of the Jamestown Colony. There had been sporadic attempts before this date — in 1585 and 1587, under the auspices of Walter Raleigh in the Carolinas, and in 1607, under the auspices of Chief Justice Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Maine. The attempt to found colonies had failed, and with it, of course, the attempt to plant the English ecclesiastical institutions.
During the colonial period the Church of England achieved a quasi-establishment in Maryland and Virginia, and to a lesser extent in the other colonies, with the exception of New England, where for many years the few Episcopalians were bitterly persecuted and at best barely tolerated. In the Southern states — notably in Virginia and Maryland, in the latter of which the Church of England has dispossessed the Catholics not only of their political power, but even of religious liberty — the Church of England, although well provided for from a worldly point of view, was by no means in a strong state, either spiritually or intellectually. The appointment to parishes was almost wholly in the hands of vestries who refused to induct ministers and so give them a title to the emoluments of their office, but preferred to pay chaplains whom they could dismiss at their pleasure. This naturally resulted in filling the ranks of the ministry with very unworthy candidates, and reduced the clergy to a position of contempt in the eyes of the laity.
As there were no bishops in America, the churches in the colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, who governed them by means of commissaries; but, although among the commissaries were men of such eminence as Dr. Bray in Maryland, and Dr. Blair, the founder of William and Mary College in Virginia, the lay power was so strong and the class of men willing to undertake the work of the ministry so inferior that very little could be done. Even the efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel proved of very little effect in the South, though in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey it bore much better fruit.
But, while the Anglican church was sunk in spiritual and intellectual lethargy in the South, and while it had a rather attenuated existence in the Middle states, an event occurred in New England in 1722 which was of the greatest promise for the future of Anglicanism, and which shook Congregationalism in New England to its very foundations. Timothy Cutler, the rector of Yale College, with six other Congregational ministers, all men of learning and piety, announced to their brethren in the Congregational ministry of Connecticut that they could no longer remain out of visible communion with an Episcopal Church: that some of them doubted of the validity, while others were persuaded of the invalidity, of Presbyterian ordinations. Three of them were subsequently persuaded to remain in the Congregational ministry, the rest becoming Episcopalians, and three of them, Messrs. Cutler, Johnson, and Brown, were ordained to the ministry of the Anglican Church.
During the Revolution. During the period of the Revolution the Church of England in America suffered greatly in the estimation of Americans by its strong attachment to the cause of the British Crown. But there were not wanting both clergymen and laymen most eminent in their loyalty to the cause of the colonies and in the patriotic sacrifices which they made to the cause of independence. Among the clergy two such men were Mr. White, an assistant of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and Mr. Provost, assistant of Trinity Church, New York. The rectors of these churches being Tories, these gentlemen subsequently succeeded them in the pastorate of their respective parishes.
II. AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The Seabury Faction. At the close of the war, Episcopalians, as they were already commonly called, realized that, if they were to play any part in the national life, their church must have a national organization. the greatest obstacle to this organization was the obtaining of bishops to carry on a national hierarchy. In Connecticut, where those who had gone into the Episcopal Church had not only read themselves into a belief in the necessity of Episcopacy, but had also adopted many other tenets of the Caroline divines, a bishop was considered of absolute necessity, and, accordingly, the clergy of that state elected the Rev. Samuel Seabury and requested him to go abroad and obtain the episcopal character.
It was found impossible to obtain the episcopate in England, owing to the fact that the bishops there could not by law consecrate any man who would not take the oath of allegiance, and, although during the War of the Revolution, Seabury had been widely known for his Tory sympathies, it would have been impossible for him to return to America if he had received consecration as a British subject. Upon the refusal of the English bishops to confer the episcopate, he proceeded to Scotland, where, after prolonged negotiations, the Nonjuring bishops consented to confer the episcopal character upon him.
These bishops were the remnant of the Episcopal Church which the Stuarts had so ardently desired to set up in Scotland and which had lost the protection of the State, together with all its endowments, by its fidelity to James II. Their religious principles were looked upon by Scottish Presbyterians as scarcely less obnoxious than those of Catholics and politically they were considered quite as dangerous. They were indeed exceedingly High Churchmen, and had made such alterations in the liturgy as brought their doctrine of the Holy Eucharist very near to that of the Catholic Church. They had even been known to use chrism in confirmation, and they were strong believers in the sacerdotal character of the Christian ministry and in the necessity of Apostolic succession and episcopal ordination. Dr. Seabury was consecrated by them in 1784, and, being of very similar theological opinions himself, he signed a concordat immediately after his consecration, where by he agreed to do his utmost to introduce the liturgical and doctrinal peculiarities of the Nonjurors into Connecticut. Upon his return to his own state he proceeded to organize and govern his diocese very much as a Catholic bishop would do; he excluded the laity from all deliberations and ecclesiastical councils and, as much as he could, from all control of ecclesiastical affairs.
The White and Provost Factions. But if sacerdotalism was triumphant in Connecticut, a very different view was taken in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Dr. White, now rector of Christ Church, and a doctor of divinity, believed that if the Episcopal Church was ever to live and grow in America it must assent to, and adopt as far as possible, the principle of representative government. He would have been willing to go on without the episcopate until such time as it could have been obtained from England, and in the meantime to ordain candidates to the ministry by means of Presbyterian ordination, with the proviso, however, that upon the obtaining of a bishop these gentlemen were to be conditionally re-ordained. This last suggestion, however, found little favour among Episcopalians, and at last, after considerable difficulty, an Act was passed in Parliament whereby the English bishops were empowered to confer the episcopate upon men who were not subject to the British Crown. Accordingly, Dr. White, being elected Bishop of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Provost, Bishop of New York, proceeded to England and received consecration at the hands of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Moore, on Septuagesima Sunday, 1787;
Tenuous Union of the Various Factions. Upon their return to America, although there were now three bishops in the United States, there were so many differences between the Connecticut churchmen and those of the Middle and Southern states, especially with regard to the presence of laymen in ecclesiastical councils, that it was not until 1789 that a union was effected. Even after that date, when Dr. Madison was elected by Virginia to be its bishop, he proceeded to England for his consecration because Bishop Provost, of New York, refused to act in conjunction with the Bishop of Connecticut. The union, however, was finally cemented in 1792, when Dr. Claggert being elected Bishop of Maryland, and there being three bishops in the country of the Anglican line exclusive of Dr. Seabury, the Bishop of New York withdrew his objections as far as to allow Dr. Seabury to make a fourth. If Dr. Seabury had not been invited to take part in the consecration of Dr. Claggert, a schism between Connecticut an the rest of the country would have been the immediate result.
III. THE THREE PARTIES OF EPISCOPALIANS
Almost from the very beginning of its independent life, the tendencies which have shown themselves in the three parties in the Episcopal Church of the present day were not only evident, but were even embodied in the members of the Episcopate.
Bishop Provost, of New York, represented the rationalistic temper of the eighteenth century, which has eventuated in what is called the Broad Church Party.
Bishop White represented the Evangelical Party, with its belief in the desirability rather than the necessity of Apostolic succession and its desire to fraternize as nearly as possible with the other progeny of the Reformation.
Bishop Seabury, on the other hand, represented the traditional High Church position, intellectual rather than emotional, and laying more stress upon the outward ecclesiastical organization of the Church than upon emotional religion.
High Church Party. This school has played a very important part in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States; and, while it was undoubtedly influenced to a large extent by the Oxford Movement, it was existent and energetic long before 1833. Indeed, in the twenties Bishop Hobart was already presenting that type of evangelical piety, united with high sacramental ideas, which has been the principal characteristic of the party ever since.
The Oxford Movement, however, was not without its influence, and as early as 1843 the disputes between the extreme High Churchmen and the rest of the Episcopal Church had reached a condition of such acerbity that when the Rev. Arthur Cary, in his examination for orders, avowed the principles of “Tract 90” — and in spite of that fact was not refused ordination — the controversy broke out into an open war. The Bishop of Philadelphia, Dr. Onderdonk, was suspended from his office on a charge of drunkenness, the real reason being his sympathy with High Churchmen; and his dispossession was so unjust that it was declared by the famous legal authority, Horace Binney, to be absolutely illegal. He was not, however, restored to the exercise of his functions for more than ten years. His brother bishop of New York fared even worse. Charges of immorality were preferred against him, and he was suspended from his office for the rest of his life, despite the fact that the vast majority of his fellow-citizens, whether they belonged to his communion or not, firmly believed in his innocence. An attempt, however, to suspend a third bishop of High Church views, the father of the late Monsignor Doane, failed after he had been presented four times. Bishop Doane, not only by his unrivalled diplomatic skill, but by the goodness and probity of his life, made an ecclesiastical trial impossible.
In 1852 the Bishop of North Carolina, Dr. Ives, resigned his position in the Episcopal Church and submitted to the Apostolic See, and he was followed into the Catholic Church by a considerable number, both of clergymen and laymen. His secession drew out of the Episcopal Church all those of distinctly Roman sympathies, but the High Church Party lived on, grown, and in some degrees prospering, in spite of hostile legislation, while in course of time a pro-Roman party sprang up again. After the passing of the open-pulpit canon in the General Convention of 1907, some twenty clergymen and a large number of the laity submitted to the Catholic Church.
Evangelical Party. On the other hand, the extreme Evangelical Party, disturbed by the growth of ritualism, and unable to drive out High Churchmen in any large numbers, themselves seceded from the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1873, and formed what is known as the Reformed Episcopal Church. Unlike many of the Protestant bodies, the Episcopal Church was not permanently disrupted by the Civil War, for with the collapse of the Confederacy the separate organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States ceased.
Broad Church Party. The Broad Church party, however, have remained in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and of late years have seriously affected its attitude towards such subjects as higher criticism and the necessity of episcopal ordination. The most outspoken advocates of this school, who in their conclusions differed little or not at all from the extreme modernists, have not been able seriously to alter the teaching of the Episcopal Church upon such fundamental truths as the Trinity and Incarnation; and in a few cases the High Church Party and the Evangelical, by combining, have been strong enough to exclude them from the Episcopal Church. The party, however, is gaining strength; its clergymen are men of intellect and vigour, and the laity who support the party are in the main people of large means. To it the future of Anglicanism belongs more than to any other school of thought within the Anglican body.
IV. STATISTICS
In 1907, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America possessed a hierarch of 5413 clergy, 438 candidates for orders, and 946,252 communicants. These communicants should be multiplied at least three times in order to give an idea of the adherents of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It possessed nine colleges and universities and fifteen theological seminaries.
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TIFFANY, Hist. of the Prot. Episc. Church in the U.S. of America, in American Church History Series, VII (New York, 1907); McCONNEL, Hist. of the Am. Ep. Church from the Planting of the Colonies to the End of the Civil War (New York, 1890); WHITE, Memoirs of the Prot. Ep. Church in the U.S. (New York, 1880); COLEMAN. The Church in America (New York, 1895).
SIGOURNEY W. FAY Transcribed by Bryan R. Johnson
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Episcopalians
members of those churches which adopt the Episcopal form of Church government. SEE EPISCOPACY; SEE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH; SEE MORAVIANS; SEE LUTHERAN CHURCH; SEE ENGLAND, CHURCH OF; SEE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Episcopalians
those who maintain that bishops, presbyters, or priests, and deacons, are three distinct orders in the church; and that the bishops have a superiority over both the others. The episcopal form of church government professes to find in the days of the Apostles the model upon which it is framed. While our Lord remained upon earth, he acted as the immediate governor of his church. Having himself called the Apostles, he kept them constantly about his person, except at one time, when he sent them forth upon a short progress through the cities of Judea, and gave them particular directions how they should conduct themselves. The seventy disciples, whom he sent forth at another time, are never mentioned again in the New Testament. But the Apostles received from him many intimations that their office was to continue after his departure; and as one great object of his ministry was to qualify them for the execution of this office, so, in the interval between his resurrection and his ascension, he explained to them the duties of it, and he invested them with the authority which the discharge of those duties implied. Go, said he, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost, Mat 28:19-20; Joh 20:21-22. Soon after the ascension of Jesus, his Apostles received those extraordinary gifts of which his promise had given them assurance; and immediately they began to execute their commission, not only as the witnesses of his resurrection, and the teachers of his religion, but as the rulers of that society which was gathered by their preaching. In Acts vi, we find the Apostles ordering the Christians at Jerusalem to look out seven men of honest report, who might take charge of the daily ministrations to the poor, and to bring the men so chosen to them, that we, said the Apostles, may appoint them over this business. The men accordingly were set before the Apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. Here are the Apostles ordaining deacons. Afterward, we find St. Paul, in his progress through Asia Minor, ordaining in every church elders, ; the name properly expressive of age being transferred, after the practice of the Jews, as a mark of respect, to ecclesiastical rulers, Act 14:23. The men thus ordained by St. Paul appear, from the book of Acts and the Epistles, to have been teachers, pastors, overseers, of the flock of Christ; and to Timothy, who was a minister of the word, the Apostle speaks of the gift which is in thee by the putting on of my hands, 2Ti 1:6. Over the persons to whom he thus conveyed the office of teaching, he exercised jurisdiction; for he sent to Ephesus, to the elders of the church to meet him at Miletus; and there, in a long discourse, gave them a solemn charge, Act 20:17-35; and to Timothy and Titus he writes epistles in the style of a superior.
2. As St. Paul unquestionably conceived that there belonged to him, as an Apostle, an authority over other office-bearers of the church, so his epistles contain two examples of a delegation of that authority. He not only directs Timothy, whom he had besought to abide at Ephesus, how to behave himself in the house of God as a minister, but he sets him over other ministers. He empowers him to ordain men to the work of the ministry:
The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also, 2Ti 2:2. He gives him directions about the ordination of bishops and deacons; he places both these kinds of office-bearers in Ephesus under his inspection, instructing him in what manner to receive an accusation against an elder who laboured in word and doctrine; and he commands him to charge some that they teach no other doctrine but the form of sound words. In like manner he says to Titus, For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee, Tit 1:5. He describes to Titus the qualifications of a bishop or elder, making him the judge how far any person in Crete was possessed of these qualifications; he gives him authority over all orders of Christians there; and he empowers him to reject heretics. Here, then, is that Apostle, with whose actions we are best acquainted, seemingly aware that there would be continual occasion in the Christian church for the exercise of that authority over pastors and teachers, which the Apostles had derived from the Lord Jesus; and by these two examples of a delegation, given during his life time, preparing the world for beholding that authority exercised by the successors of the Apostles in all ages. Accordingly, the earliest Christian writers tell us that the Apostles, to prevent contention, appointed bishops and deacons: giving orders, too, that, upon their death, other approved men should succeed in their ministry. We are told that the other Apostles constituted their first- fruits, that is, their first disciples, after they had proved them by the Spirit, bishops and deacons of those who were to believe; and that the Apostle John, who survived the rest, after returning from Patmos, the place of his banishment, went about the neighbouring nations, ordaining bishops, establishing whole churches, and setting apart particular persons for the ministry, as they were pointed out to him by the Spirit.
3. As bishops are mentioned in the earliest times, so ecclesiastical history records the succession of bishops through many ages; and even during the first three centuries, before Christianity was incorporated with the state, every city, where the multitude of Christians required a number of pastors to perform the stated offices, presents to us, as far as we can gather from contemporary writers, an appearance very much the same with that of the church of Jerusalem in the days of the Apostles. The Apostle James seems to have resided in that city. But there is also mention of the elders of the church, who, according to the Scripture representation of elders, must have discharged the ministerial office, but over whom the Apostle James presided. So, in Carthage, where Cyprian was bishop, and in every other Christian city of which we have particular accounts, there was a college of presbyters; and there was one portion who had not only presidency, but jurisdiction and authority, over the rest. They were his council in matters relating to the church, and they were qualified to preach, to baptize, and to administer the Lord’s Supper; but they could do nothing without his permission and authority. It is a principle in Christian antiquity, , one bishop, and one church. The one bishop had the care of all the Christians, who, although they met in separate congregations, constituted one church; and he had the inspection of the pastors, who, having received ordination from the bishop, officiated in the separate congregations, performed the several parts of duty which he prescribed to them, and were accountable to him for their conduct. In continuation of this primitive institution, we find episcopacy in all corners of the church of Christ. Until the time of the reformation, there were, in every Christian state, persons with the name, the rank, and the authority of bishops; and the existence of such persons was not considered as an innovation, but as an establishment, which, by means of catalogues preserved in ecclesiastical writers, may be traced back to the days of the Apostles.
4. Upon the principles which have now been stated, it is understood, according to the episcopal form of government, that there is in the church a superior order of office-bearers, the successors of the Apostles, who possess in their own persons the right of ordination and jurisdiction, and who are called , as being the overseers not only of the people, but also of the clergy; and an inferior order of ministers, called presbyters, the literal translation of the word , which is rendered in our English Bibles elders, persons who receive from the ordination of the bishop, power to preach and to administer the sacraments, who are set over the people, but are themselves under the government of the bishop, and have no right to convey to others the sacred office, which he gives them authority to exercise under him. According to a phrase used by Charles I., who was by no means an unlearned defender of that form of government to which he was a martyr, the presbyters are episcopi gregis; [bishops of the flock;] but the bishops are episcopi gregis et pastorum, [bishops of the flock and of the pastors.]
5. The liberal writers on that side, however, do not contend that this form of government is made so binding in the church as not to be departed from, and varied according to circumstances. It cannot be proved, says Dr. Paley, that any form of church government was laid down in the Christian, as it had been in the Jewish, Scriptures, with a view of fixing a constitution for succeeding ages. The truth seems to have been, that such offices were at first erected in the Christian church as the good order, the instruction, and the exigencies of the society at that time required; without any intention, at least without any declared design, of regulating the appointment, authority, or the distinction, of Christian ministers under future circumstances. To the same effect, also, Bishop Tomline says, It is not contended that the bishops, priests, and deacons of England are at present precisely the same that bishops, presbyters, and deacons were in Asia Minor, seventeen hundred years ago. We only maintain that there have always been bishops, priests, and deacons, in the Christian church, since the days of the Apostles, with different powers and functions, it is allowed, in different countries and at different periods; but the general principles and duties which have respectively characterized these clerical orders have been essentially the same at all times, and in all places; and the variations which they have undergone have only been such as have ever belonged to all persons in public situations, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and which are indeed inseparable from every thing in which mankind are concerned in this transitory and fluctuating world. I have thought it right to take this general view of the ministerial office, and to make these observations upon the clerical orders subsisting in this kingdom far the purpose of pointing out the foundation and principles of church authority, and of showing that our ecclesiastical establishment is as nearly conformable, as change of circumstances will permit, to the practice of the primitive church. But, though I flatter myself that I have proved episcopacy to be an Apostolical institution, yet I readily acknowledge that there is no precept in the New Testament which commands that every church should be governed by bishops. No church can exist without some government; but though there must be rules and orders for the proper discharge of the offices of public worship, though there must be fixed regulations concerning the appointment of ministers, and though a subordination among them is expedient in the highest degree, yet it does not follow that all these things must be precisely the same in every Christian country; they may vary with the other varying circumstances of human society, with the extent of a country, the manners of its inhabitants, the nature of its civil government, and many other peculiarities which might be specified. As it has not pleased our almighty Father to prescribe any particular form of civil government for the security of temporal comforts to his rational creatures, so neither has he prescribed any particular form of ecclesiastical polity as absolutely necessary to the attainment of eternal happiness. But he has, in the most explicit terms, enjoined obedience to all governors, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and whatever may be their denomination, as essential to the character of a true Christian. Thus the Gospel only lays down general principles, and leaves the application of them to men as free agents. Bishop Tomline, however, and the high Episcopalians of the church of England, contend for an original distinction in the office and order of bishops and presbyters; which notion is controverted by the Presbyterians, and is, indeed, contradicted by one who may be truly called the founder of the church of England, Archbishop Cranmer, who says, The bishops and priests were at one time, and were not two things; but both one office in the beginning of Christ’s religion. The more rigid Episcopalians admit of no ordination as valid in the church but by the hands of bishops, and those derived in a right line from the Apostles. See PRESBYTERIANS.
6. The churches of Rome and of England are the principal Episcopalian churches in the west of Europe; and those of the Greeks and Arminians in the east; but, beside these, there are Episcopalians in Scotland, and in other countries, where, Presbyterianism being the establishment, they are, of course, Dissenters. Thus a Presbyterian is a Dissenter in England, and an Episcopalian a Dissenter in Scotland. There is also an Episcopalian church in the United States of America; but there being no established religion, there are, of course, no Dissenters. The Episcopal church in America is organized very differently from that in England. The following particulars are from the best authorities:The general convention was formed in 1789, by a delegation from the different states, and meets triennially. They have eleven diocesses, two of which are without bishops, and are at liberty to form more in other states. The above convention consists of an upper and lower house; the former consisting of bishops, in which the senior bishop presides: they have no archbishop: and the lower, of the other clergy, and laymen mingled with them. There are also diocesan conventions annually, in which the bishop presides. The bishops have no salaries as such, but are allowed to hold parishes as other ministers; but it has lately been found more convenient in many states to raise a fund for the support of the bishop, that his time may be more at liberty for visiting the clergy.
They have neither patronage nor palaces, and some of their incomes are extremely small. The English Common Prayer Book is adopted, with the omission of the Athanasian Creed, and some other slight alterations. Subscription to the articles is not required by candidates for holy orders. The Methodists in America, also, form an episcopal church; but founded upon the primitive principle that bishops and presbyters are of the same order, although the oversight of presbyters may be committed to those who are, by virtue of their office, also called bishops.
[The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in December,
1784. The fundamental principle on which the episcopacy of this church rests, is here correctly stated. It is proper to add to Mr. Watson’s enumeration, that the Roman and Moravian churches in the United States are also episcopal; and that the statement that the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church receive no salaries as bishops, is not at present (1832) without exception. Their incomes, too, though doubtless extremely small compared with those of the bishops of the establishment in England, are not so, compared with those of other ministers generally in the United States.]