THE

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL

QUARTERLY REVIEW,

AND

CHURCH REGISTER.

JULY, 1855.

No. III.

ART. I.-THE AMERICAN CHARACTER OF THE

AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

CERTAIN demonstrations made by some of our Bishops and Clergy, who have visited Great Britain within the last few years, to form more intimate connections with the Church of England, and to copy the observances and economy of that Church more than has been our custom in the earlier parts of our history as a distinct and independent branch of the Church Catholic, call for animadversion of a somewhat grave and serious character. After having obtained the Episcopacy through the Church of England; after having adopted her faith and formularies, as prescribed in her Book of Common Prayer, with some slight alterations adapted to a change of circumstances under a new political regime; after having organized a new, distinct, and independent Church, under a new system of Church polity itself adapted to the new position of the new organization; and after having begun and gone on prosperously for half a century in a uniform career, under a more simple economy, and with simpler modes of worship, the question is, whether the Church of England, in all that she differs from the American Church, is more worthy to be VOL. II.-21.

copied by the latter, or whether the latter is more worthy to be copied by the former? We affirm without hesitation the second alternative presented in this question, which introduces us directly to the subject which we propose to consider.

When Bishop Hobart returned to this country in 1825, from an absence of two or three years, most of which, we believe, was spent in England, he preached and published a sermon, a copy of which now lies before us, entitled, "The United States of America compared with some European Countries, particularly England," which excited much attention here, and much more in Great Britain, on account of his severe animadversions upon the condition of the Church of England, and of the decided preference which he manifested for the American Church. When the sermon was published in England, the Quarterly Theological Review for June, 1826, came out upon it, in a long article, in the severest terms of denunciation. We will cite a few sentences from that article, as follows:

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"We have here a man of gentleman-like habits-nay, of considerable intelligence-nay, of the sacred profession-nay, of Episcopal rank, actually signalizing his first appearance in the American pulpit, on his return from the hospitality and marked attentions of the British Clergy, by a labored, most unmeasured, and most unfounded attack on the Established Church of England. * We have in Dr. Hobart a clergyman stepping from the very shore to the pulpit, brimful of the most unfortunate opinions on our affairs; laying upon his cushion, for a sermon, a political pamphlet; and calling upon his congregation to rejoice in the superiority of their obscure Church over the falling and decrepit grandeur of the mighty Church of England. * * * In every page of the work (sermon) there is that palpable consciousness which always implies something wrong; that restless eagerness of apology which shows a feeling of being without excuse; that assumption of lofty motives, which leaves no doubt on the mind that the writer would find it difficult to clear himself from some of a different species. * * The Doctor has given us the first instance of a libel for the good of our souls, headed by a frontispiece of panegyrics on our souls and bodies. The sermon is a singular compound. Politics, the picturesque, piety, the general chastisement of England, and the general supremacy, dignity, and purity of America, her people, faith, manners, and ministry for the time being, are the materials of one of the most miscellaneous compositions that ever issued from the press."

One would think that must have been a very racy and

pithy sermon from an American divine, and well charged with the spirit of bitterness and fault-finding in relation to England and her Church, which could excite in an English Quarterly Theological Review such a long chapter of rebuke, of which the above citations are scintillations selected somewhat at random here and there. They are evidently couched in strong language, prompted by a strong and excited temper. Let us see now what was the occasion of all this. Bishop Hobart's character is too well known in this country to suppose that he would wantonly libel his own Church by libeling that of England. It is well said in the Review above cited, that "he," an American Bishop in the line of the English Episcopate, "should have been the last man to mention" such things. What motive could he have other than that of truth and honesty? And more than this, his motive, one would think, must have been higher still, namely, to tell such truths for some practical good. Without the object of some practical and not inconsiderable good, it would have been a wanton and inexeusable assault on fraternal and sacred relations. Without such a hoped-for benefit, there was every thing to deter from and suppress such animadversions. The Bishop had enjoyed the hospitality of the Church and people of England, and he was aware, that he would be accused of ingratitude, and of betraying confidence. Nevertheless, he said and published that which gave so great offense. And what was it? The faults and misfortunes of the Church of England, and the better condition, the greater purity, and the more exemplary character of the American Church. We will cite a few passages from the sermon on these particulars:

"She," the American Church, "has cause of congratulation, that having received through the Church of England, the faith as it was once delivered to the saints, the ministry as it was constituted by the Apostles of our Lord, and a worship conformed to that of the first Christian ages, she professes and maintains them IN THEIR primitive integrity, without being clogged or controlled by that secular influence and power which sadly obstruct the progress of the Church of England, and alloy her Apostolic and spiritual character. Look at the most important relation which the Church can constitute, that which connects the pastor with his flock. In the Church of England this connection is absolute property. The livings are in the gift of individuals, of the government, or corporate bodies; and can be and are

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bought and sold like other property. Hence, like other property, they are used for the best worldly interest of the holders, and are frequently made subservient to the private views of individuals and families. They present an excitement to enter into the holy ministry, with a great admixture of secular motives, and with a spirit often falling short of that pure and disinterested ardor which supremely aims at the promotion of God's glory and the salvation of mankind. Such are the gross and lamentable obstructions to the exercise of discipline [in the Church of England] from the complicated provisions and forms of the ecclesiastical law, that common and even serious clerical irregularities are not noticed. The mode of support by tythes, is calculated to prevent cordial and affectionate intercourse between minister and people. I need not observe how superior, in all these respects, are the arrangements of our Church. The commission of a Bishop [in our Church] is conveyed to him by the Bishops who consecrate him. But in England the election of the person to be thus consecrated, is nominally in the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, but theoretically in the king, who gives the Dean and Chapter permission to elect the person, and only the person, whom he names. Actually, the Bishops are appointed by the Cabinet or Prime Minister. Almost all the prelates that have filled the English sees, have owed their advancement, not solely, as it ought to have been, and as in our system it must generally be, to their qualifications for the office, but to a secular interest, extraneous from spiritual or ecclesiastical considerations. * The Convocation, the legitimate legislature of the Church of England, has not exercised its functions for more than a century; and the only body that legislates for a Church thus bound by the State, and stripped of her legitimate authority, is Parliament. I need not remark to you how superior are the arrangements of our ecclesiastical constitutions. the American Episcopal Church, the body which exercises her legislative power, is constituted analagous to the paramount civil body of the United States-the Congress. * * I revere and love England and its Church; but I love my own Church and country better. It has been insinuated, if not openly asserted, that we secretly desire the establishment, the honors, and the wealth of the Church of England. God forbid that we should ever have them. It may be doubted whether, in their present operation, they are a blessing to that Church. They weigh down her apostolic principles; they obstruct the exercise of her legitimate powers; they subject her to worldly policy; they infect her with worldly views. * With the union of Church and State commenced the great corruptions of Christianity. If I must choose the one or the other, I would take the persecution of the State rather than her favor, her frowns rather than her smiles, her repulses rather than her embraces."

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And Bishop Hobart entered into other points of comparison besides those of a religious and ecclesiastical character, and

found nature and general society in America not less preferable to things of the same kind in Europe:

"We boast not indeed of Alps rising on Alps, with wild and snow-crowned summits, sheltering within their precipitous and lofty ridges, valleys that beam with the liveliest verdure, and bear the richest productions of the earth. Yet the warmest admirer of nature would still be able to turn, with refreshing pleasure, to the contemplation of the varied and bold outlines that mark the extensive mountains which range through our own country; of the highly-cultivated fields that occupy their valleys, and variegate the massy forests which mount up their sides; of the long and majestic rivers that proudly traverse the plains, or burst through the lofty hills which oppose them; and even of that sky, if not always as genial, often as serene and glowing as that of the most favored of the Southern regions of Europe, and which illumines the fertile soil that it nourishes and enriches. The traveller (here) is not indeed surprised, elevated, and delighted by the stupendous castles which guard the mountain-pass, or proclaim in their more interesting ruins, that they were the place of refuge or the point of assault. He sees not the large and imposing religious edifices which embosom the groves of some rich valley, or point some lofty hill. Nor is he astonished at the splendor that beams from the immense structures which wealth has erected for the gratification of private luxury or pride. But, he can see one feature of every landscape here, one charm of American scenery, which more than repays for the absence of these monuments of the power, the grandeur, the wealth, and the taste of the rich and the mighty of other lands, and which no other land affords. The sloping sides and summits of our hills, and the extensive plains which stretch before our view, are studded with the substantial, neat, and commodious dwellings of FREEMEN-INDEPENDENT FREEMEN-OWNERS OF THE SOIL-men who can proudly walk over their land, and exultingly say-It is mine. I hold it tributary to no one, IT IS MINE. No landscape here is alloyed by the painful consideration that the castle which towers in grandeur was erected by the hard labor of degraded vassals; or that the magnificent structure which rises in the spreading and embellished domain, presents a painful contrast to the meaner habitations, and the miserable hovels, that mark a dependent, and sometimes, a wretched peasantry."

Truly we may say, that Bishop Hobart returned to his country, not as some other Bishops and Clergy of our Church have returned, Anglicized; but he returned an American still-and more of an American than ever-a manly and Christian-like American, contented with, and by comparison, proud of his own Church and of his own country-not without reason, but he gives his reasons. He returned an AMERICAN CHURCHMAN.