The Episcopal Church and the American Revolution

Home , Abraham Jarvis, Charles Inglis (bishop), Edward Bass, Latitudinarian, Myles Cooper, Samuel Provoost

David L. Holmes

evolutions, like street fights," an Episcopal church historian has written, "are likely to be as dangerous to the innocent by- JL ^standers as to the participants."1 Technically speaking, the Ang- lican Church in America was an innocent bystander in the American Revo- lution. But since it lived in the neighborhood of one of the participants and was intimately related to the other, it emerged with a terrible beating. The war raised questions of patriotism, of loyalty, and of the obligations of Christians at a time of war, and Americans who have lived through the Civil War or the Vietnam War have been there. Distinguished from other denominations in the colonies by its triple attachment to the Book of Common Prayer, to the Monarchy, and to the Episcopate, the American transplantation of the Church of England seemed in good condition on the eve of the Revolution. Anglicanism- the terms 'Protestant Episcopal" or "Episcopal Church" were not officially adopted until the 1780's- was not only the second largest denomination in the thirteen colonies but also one that was increasing rapidly. Although the Anglican parishes had their problems, the question of survival ap- peared not to be one. Yet Anglicanism emerged from the Revolutionary War seriously weakened in most of the newly-independent states and on the point of extinction in others. In New England-a traditional stronghold of anti-Anglicanism, where Congregationalism was established by law in all colonies except Rhode

Mr. Holmes is Associate Professor of Religion at the College of William and Mary and Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia - Editors Note . 1William W. Manross, A History of the American Episcopal Church, 2d ed. (New York, 1950), 172.

261

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 262 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Island- Anglicanism was steadily increasing in numbers and in influence by the eve of the Revolution. Although it remained small in New Hamp- shire (two clergymen and two parishes as of 1774) and in that portion of Massachusetts called Maine (five congregations served by one missionary), it had proportionately good strength in tiny Rhode Island. Especially in the Puritan citadels of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Church had made great gains. Starting in 1689 with only one clergyman and one church, by 1768 the Anglicans of Massuchusetts had approximately twenty churches or other meeting places staffed by some dozen clergy. With twenty priests serving more than forty congregations, Connecticut had witnessed an Anglican boom; according to a report made in 1774, seven to eight per cent of Connecticut's population was now Anglican, where 50 years earlier the colony had only a single, small Anglican parish. The aggressive growth of Anglicanism in Puritan New England caused serious tensions.2 In the Middle Colonies - where Calvinists, Quakers, and Lutherans pre- dominated - Anglicanism was also a minority church. Other denominations outnumbered it in New York, although the Church of England was established in the four lower counties of the colony. By the last years of the colonial period, New York had better than two dozen Anglican churches and somewhat fewer clergy, including extensive missions among the In- dians; King's College (now Columbia University) was under Anglican control. In New Jersey, the Church's growth had been steady but slow, with about a dozen Anglican clergy serving some two dozen churches by 1770; contrary to occasional assertions, the Church of England was never established in the colony. In tolerant Pennsylvania and in closely-related Dela- ware, Anglicans formed only a tiny minority, constituting perhaps two per cent of the population. In Philadelphia the Church not only had an influential membership but also substantial influence in the College of Philadelphia. Anglicanism's greatest strength lay in the South, where the Church of England was the established church in all of the colonies - though only in Maryland and Virginia did Anglicans actually outnumber members of other denominations. At the opening of the Revolution, Maryland had numerically the second strongest Anglican church in the colonies, with upwards of 50 clergy serving more than 40 lucrative parishes. Virginia was even stronger, with over 100 clergy serving slightly less than 100 parishes stretching from Norfolk in the east to a western parish called "Kentucky." Like Maryland and South Carolina, Virginia had consciously transplanted English parish life; its College of William and Mary was the oldest Ang- lican college in the colonies. In neighboring North Carolina Anglicans re-

2Two concise summaries of the tensions may be found in Glenn Weaver, "Anglican-Congregationalist Tensions in Pre-Revolutionary Connecticut," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church , XXVI (1957), 269-285, and in Winthrop Hudson, Religion in America, 2d ed. (New York, 1973), 87-92.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 263 mained a small minority, though the 1760's and 1770's witnessed an ambi- tious program to put clergy (there were about 11 by the eve of the Revolution) in each of its projected 30 parishes. More vital and influential but still a minority faith was the Anglican Church in South Carolina, with some two dozen parishes, somewhat more than 20 clergy, and close to half of the population. In Georgia, the last of the colonies founded, Anglicanism was technically established, but again, it was a minority faith, having in 1773 only two rectors for 13 parishes, some of which existed only on paper. In all, at the opening of the hostilities with England, Anglicanism had well over 400 regularly-meeting congregations and perhaps 300 clergy.3 As recent historical scholarship has clearly shown, the traditional conception of colonial Anglicanism as upper class in membership is only par- tially true. Anglican parishes in all colonies did include the wealthy, but they also included large numbers of the poor and the illiterate; adjoining congregations of other denominations - Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Quaker - often contained more wealth than the Anglican parishes. Future research will undoubtedly display even more clearly the social comprehensiveness of the colonial Anglican congregations.4 Similarly exaggerated is the stereotype of the colonial Anglican clergy as fox-hunting, socializing, sporting parsons. In colonies where wealthy, largely autonomous planter vestries controlled the parishes - Virginia, Mary- land, South Carolina - some of the clergy clearly adopted the worldly attitudes and lifestyles of the planter aristocracy; the eighteenth was a worldly century. But the majority of the Anglican clergy who served American parishes at the time of the Revolutionary War were missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, a High- Church5 English society of firm devotional and moral standards. Planting Anglicanism in areas without clergy and nurturing it in colonies where it was struggling, the S.P.G. dispatched more than 300 missionaries to the American colonies from its founding in 1701 until the cessation of its American activities following the Peace of 1783. Almost all of the Northern clergy received its aid; in the South, only the established churches of Vir- ginia, Maryland, and ultimately South Carolina failed to require it. As a group the S.P.G. clergy inevitably proved superior to the non-S.P.G. parochial clergy, for the life of a missionary pioneer was demanding, the So-

3The best single survey to date of Anglican strength in the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution is Frederick V. Mills, "Anglican Expansion in Colo- nial America, 1761-1775," HMPEC (1970), 315-324. In The Fledgling Province (Chapel Hill, 1976), 193-232, Harold E. Davis sheds new light on the status of Anglicanism in colonial Georgia. 4See, for example, Bruce E. Steiner, "New England Anglicanism: A Genteel Faith?," William and Mary Quarterly , XXVII (1970), 122-135. 5The term had not yet taken on the ritualistic and sacramental connotations it assumed in the nineteenth century. Colonial High Churchmen emphasized the episcopacy, the monarchy, the authority of the Church, and the traditional us- ages, vestments, and theology of the mother Church of England.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 264 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE ciety's low annual stipend generally attracted only the idealistic, and the Society carefully selected and supervised its clergy. Among the first missionaries to Georgia of the S.P.G. was one of the most famous clergy to serve in the American colonies, John Wesley.6 The problems of colonial Anglicanism were many. Constantly frustrat- ing, especially to the High-Church S.P.G. clergy, was the lack of a bishop in America. Without a bishop, not only Anglicanism's power of mission in the colonies but also its discipline, its morale, its vitality, and its recruit- ment of a native clergy all suifered; ordination required an expensive and dangerous 6,000-mile round-trip across the Atlantic, during which one of five candidates perished. As early as the 1630's, the Archbishop of Can- terbury drew up plans for Anglican bishoprics in America, and the S.P.G. promoted similar plans at frequent intervals throughout the eighteenth century. But proposals for an American episcopate increasingly aroused fears of an Anglican plot to overthrow the civil and religious rights of non- Anglican colonists. The opposition of colonial political authorities, of South- ern Anglicans, of Calvinist clergy, and of Whig governments in England combined to prevent the appointment of any Anglican bishops for America. Lacking any centralized spiritual authority, colonial American Anglicanism therefore remained a largely disunited collection of parishes under the distant supervision of the Bishop of London. With the colonists echoing the old cry "No Bishop, No King," the renewal in the 17 60' s and 1770's of Anglican agitation for an American episcopate may properly be seen as one of the contributing causes of the American Revolution.7 Over the issue of the Revolution itself, Anglicanism divided more than any of the major colonial denominations. Like their fellow colonists, An- glican clergy and laity appear to have fallen all across the broad spectrum of views from active and passive patriots on the left, to neutralists or concil- iators in the center, to passive and active loyalists on the right. Much depends on definition. It is clear that the politics of some varied according to the year, that the public and private positions of others were sometimes

6For typically exaggerated assessments of the morality of the eighteenth-century Virginia clergy, see Francis L. Hawks, Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States , 2 vols. (New York, 1836-1839). I, 87ff. and William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia , 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1965), I, 16 and passim. Hawks and Meade wrote not only from hearsay ( the former basing much of his interpretation on correspondence from the latter )but also at a time when the asceticism of the Evangelical School had influenced the view of codes of behavior for clergy. For a modern history of the S.P.G., see H. P. Thompson, Into All Lands (London, 1951). For S.P.G. missionaries who failed to live up to the Society's expectations, see, among others, Davis, The Fledgling Province, 223. 7For detailed examinations of the role the projected Anglican episcopate played in leading to the Revolutionary War, see Arthur L. Cross, The Anglican Episco- pate and the American Colonies (New York, 1902) and Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre ( New York, 1962 ) .

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 265 different, and that still others were waiverers who changed sides as the war progressed, occasionally more than once. The paradoxes have long been clear. More than half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Anglican laymen of one stamp or another, yet loyalism in America had a definite Anglican tinge. In some towns the terms "Anglican" and "Tory" were synonymous, but some of the greatest leaders of the Revo- lutionary cause were Anglicans. Although writers have long tied Anglican- ism to loyalism, they have exaggerated the association. In point of fact, the majority of the Anglican laity took the American side during the Revolution. Far from being overwhelmingly sympathetic to the British cause, the Angli- can clergy appear to have been almost evenly divided, with the loyalist majority being slight. Roughly speaking, Anglican clergy were loyalists in direct proportion to the weakness of Anglicanism in their colony , to the degree of their earlier support of an episcopate for the American colonies , to the * highness ' of their churchmanship, to the degree of their support by the S.P.G., and to the numbers of converts and recent immigrants from Britain and Scot- land among them. In lesser percentages, Anglican laity tended to be loyalists for the same reasons. Conversely, with the exception of the clergy of Maryland, Anglican clergy were patriots in rough proportion to the strength of Anglicanism in their colony, to the degree of their earlier coolness towards an American episcopate, to the extent to which they were low or latitudinarian churchmen, and to the degree to which their parishes were self-supporting. In greater percentages, Anglican laity tended to be patriots for the same reasons. Where the Anglican church was established at the time of the Revolu- tion, both laity and clergy tended to support the position on the war held by the American members of that establishment ; where another denomination was established, almost all of the Anglican clergy and a significant number of the laity tended to be anti-establishment and to support the position on the war opposite to that taken by the religious establishment. With the exception of the clergy in Maryland and the possible exception of the laity in Connecticut, most Anglicans, like most colonists of all backgrounds, seemed to follow their leaders in the Revolution- the missionaries following the English-based S.P.G., the locally-supported clergy following their patriotic vestries and parishes, and the laity following the public will . Although Anglicanism supplied more loyalists during the Rev- olution than any other denomination in the colonies, the majority of all Anglicans were patriots. Inevitably imprecise if applied individually to every clergyman or lay- person, this formula helps explain the behavior during the Revolutionary War of the generality of Anglican laity or clergy in the colonies. In New England- where Anglicans were a small minority on Congregationalist territory, where the S.P.G. had established virtually all of the parishes, and where many Anglican clergy and laity were converts from Congregationa-

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 266 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE lism- all Anglican clergy except two were loyalists of various degrees of intensity.8 Although the Anglican laity elsewhere in New England appear to have been predominantly on the American side, a slight majority of the Anglican laity in Connecticut- the center not only of S.P.G. work but also of agitation for an American episcopate- may have favored the British. The 20 Connecticut clergy- all American born- were loyalists to a man. In New York and especially in the lower four counties where Anglicanism was established, a large and influential minority of the laity were loyalists; only one priest- an assistant in Trinity Parish with no ties to the S.P.G.- was a patriot. For most of the war New York itself served as a British military stronghold and a refuge for loyalists. In New Jersey, where all of the clergy were S.P.G. missionaries and where arguments for the episcopate had been especially intense, all but one of the clergy took the British side. Thus the assertion of a nineteenth-century Bishop of Oxford that "no one minister of the Episcopalian Church north of Pennsylvania joined the side of the insurgents" was wrong, but only by four clergy, two of whom were really mild Tories.9 Anglican laymen in these Northern colonies taking loyalist positions included members of some of the most prominent families in Massachusetts, the aristocratic DeLancey family of New York, the Mohawk chief Tyendi- naga, William Franklin (son of Benjamin Franklin), and John Rattoon, a vestryman of St. Peter's Church, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, who served as messenger in the British negotiations with Benedict Arnold. Patriots in the laity included Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Duane, and William Alexander, the self-styled "Earl of Sterling." Only south of New Jersey did the patriot cause begin to enlist a sizeable percentage (if still a minority) of the Anglican clergy. With no religious establishment of any kind and with little hostility existing between Angli- cans and other denominations, loyalism attracted only a minority of the laity and a small majority of the clergy in Pennsylvania and Delaware. In Pennsylvania the rural clergy- all S.P.G. missionaries- took loyalist positions, but the five parochial clergy of Philadelphia divided over the Revo- lution. A similar division occurred among the five Delaware clergy, a body that included the brother-in-law of Betsy Ross.10 Robert Morris, Francis

8The two patriots among the New Enland Anglican clergy were Edward Bass, the S.P.G. missionary at St. Paul's Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts, and Samuel Parker, curate and subsequently rector of Trinity Church, Boston. 9Samuel Provoost was the single patriot in New York. Robert Blackwell, an S.P.G. missionary in Gloucester County who became a chaplain in the Continent- al Army, was the only Anglican cleric who openly supported the Revolution in New Jersey. The quotation is from Samuel Wilberforce, A History of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church in America , 2d ed. (London, 1846), 173. 10For the Pennsylvania clergy, see Edgar L. Pennington, "The Anglican Clergy of Pennsylvania in the Revolution," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography , LXIII (1939), 401-431. Pennington's analysis is somewhat dated be-

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 267

Hopkinson, John Cadwalader, and Thomas Bull were among the leading Anglican patriots in these two colonies; Thomas Robinson, a Delaware layman, was a principal opponent of the Declaration of Independence. In the South, the percentage of patriots among the clergy increased markedly, though Maryland represents an anomaly. As a colony with an Anglican establishment, an Anglican majority, and a locally-supported clergy, its parish clergy should have sided with the colonists. About two- thirds of the more than 50 Anglican clergy in the colony did not, and the reason probably revolves around the existence in Maryland of a significant High-Church faction who not only favored an American episcopate but who from 1770 on had become increasingly at odds with the patriotic leg- islature over the issues of lay control and clerical salaries. The influence among the clergy of the combative Tory Jonathan Boucher should not be overlooked. Nor should the effect of the economic competition between New England (which was patriotic) and the maritime Eastern Shore (which came to include a high proportion of Tories). The majority of the Anglican laity of Maryland, however, supported the American cause.11 In Virginia Anglicanism was the established church, still supported in the 1770s by a majority of the population, though its support was on the decline. Lay vestries exercised general control over church affairs, the parishes paid their own clergy, and proposals for the episcopate had proved unpopular. Patriotism was accordingly strong. From the laity and vestries of Virginia came some of the leading figures in the Revolution- George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph, Patrick Henry, James Madison, James Monroe, George Mason, Richard Kidder Meade, even Thomas Jefferson. Of the more than 100 clergy resident in Virginia in 1776, only 20 appear to have been firm loyalists; at least 74 seem clearly to have supported the American cause. Given the internal situation of the Virginia Church, none of this is surprising. What is surprising is that writers still repeat the assertion (apparently first made in the nineteenth century) that "two thirds" of the clergy of the Established Church of Virginia supported Great Britain in the war.12

cause of new material discovered or published since 1939. Nelson W. Rightmyer's The Anglican Church in Delaware (Philadelphia, 1947), 167-171 and passim ., supplements and to some extent corrects Pennington's treatment of the Delaware clergy, as does Wallace Brown's The King's Friends (Providence, 1965), 160-161. 11 For the anomalous situation among the Maryland clergy, see Charles A. Bar- ker, The Backround of the Revolution in Maryland (Hamden, Ct., 1967), 359- 367 and passim. Cf. William H. Nelson, The American Tory (Oxford, 1961) 107- 109 and Brown, King's Friends, 172-173. 12This assertion appears in numerous histories of the American Episcopal Church and in many of the general histories of American Christianity. Most recently, it has reappeared in Sydney Ahlstrom's magisterial A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, 1972), 368. A writer could devote an entire essay to tracing the scholarly dissemination of this erroneous statistic; Francis L. Hawks ( who in his Contributions , I, 136, declares that patriots numbered "not quite

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 268 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Staffed with S.P.G. clergy, North Carolina was less patriotic. The most recent figures indicate a slight majority of patriots among the 11 Anglican clergy in the colony, with a more solid majority among the laity. In South Carolina- where Anglicanism was established, where it was solidly based among the population, and where all but a few of its parishes supported their own clergy- no more than one-fourth of the rectors and a small percentage of the laity appear to have taken the British side. In Georgia, where the S.P.G. supported the minority Anglican establishment, it was to be expected that only one of the handful of clergy would be a patriot. Al- though loyalism was strong due to Georgia's high proportion of recent immigrants, more than half of the Anglican laity loosely attached to the Established Church nevertheless appear to have been patriots. Of the ten Signers of the Declaration of Independence from these three colonies, eight were Anglicans.13

Why Anglicans took loyalist or patriotic positions requires examination. Chief among the reasons for loyalism among the clergy were the solemn oaths and declarations taken by each minister of the Church of England. Sworn first at the time of ordination to the diaconate and repeated at the time of ordination to the priesthood, the Oath of the Kings Sovereignty committed each Anglican clergyman to the proposition That the Kings Highness is the onely Supream Governour of this

one-third" of Virginia's Anglican clergy ) appears to have been one of its principal fathers. In pamphlets and in books such as The Episcopal Church in Virginia and the Revolution (Richmond, 1930) and Virginia's Mother Church , 2 vols. (Rich- mond and Philadelphia, 1947-1952), II, 415-437, George MacLaren Brydon did much to correct this misassumption, as does George J. Cleaveland in his "The Church of Virginia: Established and Disestablished," in Brewster S. Ford and Harold S. Sniffen, Up From Independence (Norfolk, Va. 1976), 19-46. The most detailed recent monograph is Otto Lorenz, The Virginia Clergy and the American Revolution , 1774-1799 (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1970). Lorenz calculates that the Anglican clergy of Virginia contained 20 Tories, 11 who wavered between the Tory and the patriotic positions, 22 who were passive patriots, 21 who were moderately active on the side of the Revolution, and 31 who played an active role on the American side. 13That the Anglican clergy of South Carolina generally supported the American cause has been known at least since the publication of Frederick Dalcho's An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South-Carolina. . . . (Charleston, 1820); see, for example, Brown, King's Friends , 227 and 377n.67. The positions taken during the Revolutionary War by the Anglican clergy of South Carolina's two neighboring states have only become clear recently. For the North Carolina clergy, see Michael T. Malone, "Sketches of the Anglican Clergy Who Served in North Carolina During the Period 1765-1776," Part II, in HMPEC , XXXIX (1970), 399-429. For the Georgia clergy, see Davis, The Fledgling Province , 229-230, and Henry T. Malone, The Episcopal Church in Georgia (Atlanta, 1960), 39ff.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 269

Realm, and of all other His Highnesses, Dominions and Countries. . . . And that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate hath, or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence or authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm. The Oath of Sovereignty further bound each Anglican clergyman serving in England or in one of its overseas colonies to bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings Highness, His Heirs and lawful Successours, and to . . . assist and defend all jurisdictions, priviledges, preeminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness, His Heirs and Successours, or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm. The 1662 Oath of Uniformity bound all priests to perform public worship without change or mutilation according to the liturgy of the Church of England.14 This meant the verbatim reading of services of the Book of Common Prayer such as morning prayer, evening prayer, the litany, and Holy Communion- all of which included prayers for the King, for the Royal Family, and for Parliament. The closing pages of this article reprint these oaths and prayers, including excerpts from the form of service (found at the end of each Prayer Book) appointed for every October 25, "being the Day on which His Majesty began his happy Reign." The reader should remember that Christian clergy have generally taken oaths seriously, that the eighteenth century took them more seriously than the twentieth century, and that most Christians of the time believed that breaking an oath would cause divine retribution. Sensing what lay ahead, Anglican clergy who opposed independence from Great Britain had begun leaving the colonies as early as 1774 and 1775. The émigrés included some of the most prominent of the colonial clergy- Thomas Bradbury Chandler of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, Presi- dent Myles Cooper of King's College, Samuel Peters of Hebron, Connecti- cut. On the same day that Paul Revere supposedly received his famous signal from the steeple of Christ Church, Boston, its loyalist rector resigned. During 1775 and 1776, the continental and provincial congresses issued a series of decrees ordering that churches be opened on stipulated days for fasting and prayer on behalf of the American cause. Although some loyalist clergy braved the consequences and refused to observe the fast days, and although others found patriotic vestries had locked them out of the church, most of the loyalist clergy reluctantly held services, on the basis that the colonies' rebellion from Great Britain was still unofficial. But when they read

14For the Oath of the Kings Sovereignty and other oaths and declarations, see the ordination offices both for deacons and for priests in the Ordinal of the Church of England; though required also of priests prior to ordination, the Oath is printed only in the form of service for the making of deacons. Pray- ers for George, for the Royal Family, and for Parliament are found scattered throughout the services of morning prayer, evening prayer, the litany, and Holy Communion in the same Prayer Book. The Oath can also be found in I Eliza- beth, cap. 1, The Statutes of the Realm (New York, 1955), IV, pt. 1, 350.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 270 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE the Prayer Book liturgy without omitting the so-called State Prayers, dis- turbances followed. So it went service after service and Sunday after Sun- day. On July 4, 1776, the series of crises reached a climax when Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. From that time on, supported by subsequent state laws, prayers for the King or for the English government represented an act of "high treason." The start of the hostilities with Eng- land accordingly placed the Anglican clergy of America in a dilemma of a kind and intensity suffered by the clergy of no other denominations. Until such time as the King or Parliament might release them, they were bound by solemn oaths to be loyal to the King, to pray publicly for him and for his family and government each Sunday, and so to be guilty of treason in the colonies.15 Whatever their private opinions, the majority of the Anglican clergy in America decided that they were bound by their oaths. Asked and threatened by their congregations to omit the "State Prayers," most responded that they had authority neither to deviate from nor to change the Book of Common Prayer. A handful of the most uncompromising decided to defy the patriotic authorities and to run the risk of fines and imprisonment. Most notable in this respect was the 78-year-old John Beach of Newtown and Redding, Connecticut- the John the Baptist of American Loyalism- who declared that he would continue to preach and to pray for the King until the rebels cut out his tongue. As the threats increased, more clergy now fled to Britain, to other Brit- ish overseas colonies, or to areas of the American colonies still under British control. Some became chaplains to British or to loyalist regiments. The quality of the departees continued to be high, including even the president and two members of the faculty of William and Mary. Most of the Anglican clergy who remained in the colonies reluctantly decided after the Declara- tion of Independence to suspend services until they could perform them according to the Book of Common Prayer without molestation from the civil government. By the summer of 1776, despite some lay opposition, Anglican church doors were closing all over America. Four months after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, a missionary informed the S.P.G. with essential accuracy that in the four colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jer- sey, New York, and Connecticut, the only Anglican churches open were

15The laws passed in Virginia during the Revolutionary period were typical of those in other colonies. For acts of the General Assembly of Virginia defining treason, enforcing test oaths, and prohibiting any resident of Virginia from maintaining or defending "the authority, jurisdiction, or power, of the King and parliament of Great Britain," see William W. Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia. . . . ( Richmond and New York, 1809-1823), IX, 168, 170-171, 281-283.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 271 those in Philadelphia, one or two in rural Pennsylvania, those under British control in New York, and John Beach's two parishes in Connecticut.16 The closing of churches did not mean that Anglicans with loyalist rectors were left without services. In areas such as lower New York, where the British were in control, Anglican churches remained open. In loyalist areas of Massachusetts some rectors were able to hold full services until early in 1777, and Beach of Connecticut and Ranna Cossitt of New Hampshire somehow managed to continue praying for the King throughout most of the war. Patriot clergy- or at least the clergy, a few of whom were privately mild Tories, who were willing to read the Prayer Book liturgy without the royal prayers (much again depends on definition)- held services in vacant parishes whenever possible; Samuel Tingley of Delaware seems to have travelled more than 3,000 miles a year in a wartime circuit-riding ministry of vacant parishes in Delaware and Maryland.17 Most of the loyalist clergy who did not flee also continued to minister to their congregations as best they could, using churches or private homes for services of baptism, marriage, and burial- none of which contained any treasonous prayers. Rather oddly for High Churchmen, the clergy of Con- necticut decided to continue informal Sunday services of sermons, read- ings, and prayers from the Bible; it is unclear how many of these services were held. In other parishes lay readers- not bound by oath to perform the liturgy verbatim- read the Prayer Book service and printed homilies on Sundays; at least one parish in Massachusetts ultimately hired a non- Ang- lican clergyman to lead their worship. Thus the work went on. In a letter sent by flag of truce to the S.P.G. in 1780, a solitary missionary in New Jersey- a colony from which most of the Anglican clergy had fled- reported

16For Beach's defiance of Connecticut's patriots, see, among others, Eben E. Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut , 2 vols. (New York, 1866), I, 319-320 and Epaphroditus Peck, The Loyalists of Connecticut (New Haven, 1934), 16-17. The story that patriots shot at Beach while he was in his pulpit needs especially to be checked with primary sources close to the event. For the report of closed churches, see Charles Inglis to Secretary of the S.P.G., 31 October 1776, in John W. Lydekker, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Inglis (London, 1936), 160-161. For the decision of the Connecticut clergy to abide by their oaths, see, among others, Walter H. Stowe, "A Study in Conscience: Some Aspects of the Relations of the Clergy to the State,'* HMPEC , XIX ( 1950), 305-307, and Peck, 16. 17For typical situations in Anglican parishes in the North during the early years of the war, see W. S. Perry, ed., Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial Church, 5 vols. (Hartford, 1870-1878), II, 488-490; N. R. Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1954), 373-415; and Charles Mampoteng, "The New England Anglican Clergy in the American Revolution," HMPEC y IX (1940), 267-304. For Tingley 's circuit riding as well as a description of Anglicanism in revolutionary Delaware, see Perry, V, 137.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 272 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE that in the 15 months of providing ministerial functions for five parishes, he had performed 98 baptisms, 14 marriages, and 7 burials.18 The evidence is clear that many of the Anglican clergy who suspended services would have preferred to remain neutral and to continue public worship. A sizeable minority seem to have been loyalists more because of their ordination oaths than because of any great love for the British cause over the American; a few- Samuel Fayerweather of Rhode Island, for example-may actually have favored an American victory.19 In virtually all parishes, the Anglican laity desired the continuation of services. What the clergy therefore required was permission from the S.P.G. and from the Bishop of London to hold regular Prayer Book services during the war minus the royal prayers. Even without the permission, late in 1778 a few loyalist clergymen in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey decided to resume Prayer Book services in their parish churches without State Prayers. Solicited by the Connecticut clergy for advice, Samuel Seabury of New York wrote to the loyalist exile Thomas Bradbury Chandler and asked him to determine whether the Bishop of London would permit the loyalist clergy in America to drop the controversial prayers and to resume public worship without them. Early in 1779 Chandler replied that although the English bishops felt it inadvisable to rule on so delicate a question, they would trust the Connecticut clergy to do "as they shall judge best for the Interest of the Church," so long as their decision did not involve substituting prayers for the Congress.20

18For private services in wartime Pennsylvania, see Barton to S.P.G. , 25 No- vember 1776, in Perry, Historical Collections , II, 490. For private services during the Revolutionary War in Connecticut, see, among others, Bruce E. Steiner, Samuel Seabury (Athens, O., 1971), 184-185; Stowe, "A Study in Conscience," 306-307, and Beardsley, I, 320-321. According to Samuel Parker, the Anglican church in Salem, Massachusetts, hired "a dissenting Preacher" to conduct their services; see Parker to Secretary of the S.P.G., 9 January 1781, reprinted in Addison, 147. For the letter from the solitary missionary in New Jersey, see Abraham Beach to Secretary of the S.P.G., 4 January 1782, reprinted in Walter H. Stowe, "The Reverend Abraham Beach, D.D.," HMPEC , III, (1934), 91. 19Wilkins Updike, History of the Episcopal Church, in Narragansett , tinoae- Island , 2 vols. (New York, 1847), II, 358-359 and Mampoteng, "New England Anglican Clergy," 283, claim Fayerweather for the Whig cause. 20For examples of clergy resuming Prayer Book worship but omitting the Mate Prayers in 1778, see John Tyler to Secretary of the S.P.G., 9 January 1781, reprinted in Rena Vassar, "The Aftermath of Revolution: Letters of Anglican Clergymen in Connecticut, 1781-1785," HMPEC , XLI (1972), 454-455 and Nelson R. Burr, The Story of the Diocese of Connecticut (Hartford, 1962), 124- 125. For Seabury 's query and Chandler's reply, see Thomas B. Chandler to Samuel Seabury, 4 February 1779, in the Samuel Seabury Papers, General Theo- logical Seminary. In view of the contents of Chandler's letter, the assertion that the Bishop of London gave "his official permission to open the churches and omit the hated prayers for George III" in the fall of 1778 (noted by Ezra Stiles in

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 273

How many loyalist clergy learned of this letter is unclear, but it clearly spread. From this point on, it appears that the Anglican churches in New England and the Middle Colonies who still possessed their clergy opened one by one. More churches opened after the British surrender at Yorktown and following a letter in late 1781 from Chandler to a reluctant S.P.G. clergyman reaffirming the assurance of the Bishop of London and the Society that no censure would be forthcoming for clergy who omitted the prayers for the King without substituting prayers for the Congress.21 By the Peace of 1783, virtually all Anglican churches whose clergy had not fled had reopened, though large numbers remained closed for lack of clergy. If the ordination vows represented the principal reason, many other considerations caused Anglican clergy to become loyalists at the time of the Revolution. The S.P.G. clergy- who were almost uniformly loyalist from Maine to Georgia- derived some of their income from the Society in Eng- land, made annual reports to it, would have been dismissed at any hint of disloyalty, and had in the "Venerable Society" the centralized supervision otherwise so lacking in colonial American Anglicanism. Most were also High Churchmen, and High Churchmanship- which less than 100 years earlier had caused nine English bishops (including the Archbishop of Canter- bury) and hundreds of priests ("the Non-Jurors") to refuse to break their previous oaths of allegiance to James II in order to take new oaths to Wil- liam and Mary- carried with it a strong attachment to the English Crown. Similarly providing a basis for loyalism was the essential conservatism and stress on decorum and order characteristic of Anglicanism. Unlike American Calvinists, who believed that Christians had the duty to resist whenever a government violated their natural rights, Anglicans were heirs of a conservative philosophy grounded in reverence for authority and respect for legal, orderly change. Although many of the Anglican loyalists symphathized with the colonists' grievances, they believed securing independence via a violent civil war to be unjustified.22 Allied to this reason was the fear of the Revolution as a Calvinist plot to abolish Anglicanism in the colonies. Recent research has shown that many loyalists came from "cultural minorities" in the colonies- Indians, Sande-

his entry for December 20, 1778, in Franklin B. Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles , 3 vols. [New York, 1901], II, 314-315, and repeated in, among others, Burr, Diocese of Connecticut , 124-125, and in Vassar, "Aftermath of Revolution," 433) deserves careful substantiation from primary sources. 21 For an example of the spread of Chandlers letter, see Abraham Beach to Secretary of the S.P.G., 4 January 1782, in Walter H. Stowe, "Abraham Beach," 90-91. For Chandler's later letter, see Thomas B. Chandler to Abraham Beach, 3 December 1781, reprinted in Samuel A. Clark, The History of St. Johns Church, Elizabeth Town , New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1857), 198-200. -"For an analysis or the conservative political philosophy or Anglican loyalists, see Robert McC. Calhoon, The Loyalists in Revolutionary America (New York, 1973,), 218-265.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 274 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE manians, Seventh-Day Baptists, Highland Roman Catholics in New York, back-country farmers in South Carolina- who depended on the British con- stitutional system for protection and who feared losing their rights to the tyranny of a new majority if the patriots should win. This thesis alone amply explains Anglican behavior during the Revolution, for the proportion of Anglican loyalists in each colony tended to rise in proportion to the weakness of their Church. This fear is especially seen in those colonies where a royal defeat would leave Anglicans at the mercy of a Calvinist state and church. In such colonies Anglican clergy and laity tended to see specific parallels between the American Revolution and the Commonwealth period, when English Calvinists not only beheaded the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury but also abolished Anglicanism for Calvinism. Conversely, Anglican loyalists in New England also believed that a royal victory might release them from the domination of a Puritan state and church.23 To these religious and moral obligations were added a welter of practi- cal and personal considerations- self-interest for royal office holders and merchants, lack of Americanization for newly-arrived Anglicans, and trust in British promises to award loyalists rebel land if Great Britain won the war and to compensate their losses in the event of a British defeat. Like the Maine clergyman who had been so impressed by the power and grandeur of England at the time of his ordination that he thought it madness for the colonies even to think of rebelling, many loyalists simply believed that the British troops would ultimately prove invincible in the field. They were wrong, but to Americans who have lived through the Vietnam war, the claim has a familiar ring.24

Ill

Although American history-writing almost totally ignored these loyalists for a time, historians have recently revived their story of constancy and courage.25 Easily identifiable, especially if they were clergy of the Church

23See, for example, Nelson, 85-91 and passim. Cf. Brown, Kings Friends , 29, 281-282, and William Warren Sweet, "The Role of Anglicans in the American Revolution/' The Huntington Library Quarterly , XI (1947), 52. "The descend- ants of Oliver Cromwell's army,"* a loyalist surgeon described the American military forces, though he himself thought the term inappropriate; see Margaret W. Willard, ed., Letters on the American Revolution (Port Washington, N.Y., 1968), 120. 24The clergyman was Jacob Bailey; see Mampoteng, "New England Anglican Clergy," 301. 25The reassessment of the motives, arguments, and self-sacrifice of the Ameri- can loyalists began in the nineteenth century with the publication of Lorenzo Sabine's The American Loyalists (Boston, 1847) and his enlarged second edition Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, with an Histori- cal Essay , 2 vols. (Boston, 1864). It continued into the turn of the century with Moses Coit Tyler's The Literary History of the American Revolution , 2 vols. ( New York, 1897) and Claude H. Van Tyne's The Loyalists in the American Revolu- tion (New York, 1902). Recent books have revived the Loyalists' story. Espec-

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 275 of England, they were despised by their countrymen, by their neighbors, and even by their kin. Despite thé consequences, most held firmly to their beliefs, a course which almost automatically led to martyrdom. Their courage of convictions was great. In the literary warfaťfe that led to the outbreak of military hostilities, Anglican clergy and laity from Geor- gia to Massachusetts produced the bulk of writings defending continued union with Britain. In pamphlets and gazette articles, clergy such as Had- don Smith of Georgia, Thomas B. Chandler and the gifted Jonathan Odell of New Jersey, Samuel Seabury, Charles Inglis, layman Isaac Wilkins of New York, and President Myles Cooper of King's College attempted to refute patriotic arguments and to influence colonial opinion in favor of continued union with Great Britain. Under the pseudonym of "A.W. Farmer," Seabury attacked the revolutionary government of New York in a series of pamphlets. Although none of the patriots quite knew who "A Westchester Farmer" was- Isaac Wilkins was also suspected- Seabury's suspected author- ship and loyalist activities caused him to be kidnapped and held prisoner for seven weeks. Representatives of the right wing of loyalism, Smith, Coop- er, and Chandler fled to England once hostilities proved inevitable; Inglis continued his ministry in British-held New York throughout the war; and Seabury and Odell served for a time as chaplains to loyalist regiments. In 1780, Odell played a major but little-known role in support of the British cause by serving as the intermediary in the negotiations between Benedict Arnold and Major John André.26 In attempting to perform public worship in the emotional period prior to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the loyalist clergy dis- played similar courage. Charles Inglis persisted in reading the royal prayers even when George Washington was in his congregation and even when a company of New York militia marched into Trinity Church and stood silently during the services. Handling themselves similarly amidst threats were John Beach of Connecticut (shot at in the pulpit) and John Agnew of Virginia (threatened during services by armed parties of men).27 In Queen Annes

ially influential in addition to Nelson's brilliant The American Tory and Brown's twin studies The King's Friends and The Good Americans (New York, 1969) have been Paul H. Smith, Loyalists and Redcoats (Chapel Hill, 1964), Mary Beth Norton, The British-Americans (Boston, 1972), and Calhoon, Loyalists in the American Revolution. The reader is also directed to the volumes in The Loyal- ist Library, published by the Gregg Press. 26For Anglican loyalist pamphleteering, see Van Tyne, 113n., Norton, 130-154, and Calhoon, 100-101. The story of Seabury's pamphleteering, as well as the danger in which his writing on behalf of the Crown placed him, is told in Steiner, Samuel Seabury , 129-176. For Odell's role in the negotiations between Arnold and André, see, among others, Williard M. Wallace, Traitorous Hero (New York, 1954), 199, 201-204, 220. 27For the travails of Inglis and Agnew, see Sabine, I, 154, 563-564. For Beach, whose experience with the gunshot seems less well documented, see, among others, Peck, 11-12.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 276 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Parish, Maryland, the resilient Jonathan Boucher continued to pray for the King and to preach against the Revolution despite a series of confronta- tions including being locked out of his church, being burned in effigy, being threatened with bodily harm, and being called before and warned by committees of local patriots. For some months Boucher preached with two loaded pistols on the cushion of his pulpit. Seized by an armed mob when he attempted to preach a loyalist sermon on the day of fasting and prayer set aside by Congress in July, 1775, he not only saved himself by holding a cocked pistol at the head of the mob's leader but undauntedly returned on the next Sunday to preach once again. Patriot opposition forced Boucher to leave Maryland for England in September, 1775.28 Although their treatment was comparatively humane for the times, Anglican loyalists nevertheless suffered grievously for their views. Numer- ous laity were tarred and feathered or forced to "ride the Tory rail," though Anglican affiliation was not necessarily the cause. The Anglican clergy, however-especially in New England, where the war had fanned the centuries- old Puritan animosities into new life- became prime targets of the armed parties of patriots who roamed the countryside "Tory-hunting." Though ac- counts of martyrdom should be viewed with caution, it seems clear that the average loyalist rector who remained in his parish during the war- despite all the care he might take to make no political comments- ran the risk of having his house ransacked, his private papers read and publicized, his library destroyed, his livestock killed, and his daily life troubled with insults, fines, threats, mob attacks, stonings, duckings in creeks and various other personal indignities. For much of the war one loyalist rector in Con- necticut was afraid to drink from his well. Only years of service in the community, high personal reputation, and especially age served as deter- rents; the most outspoken clerical Tories who remained at large were generally also the most elderly.29 Although patriot mobs appear neither to have put to death nor to have tarred and feathered a single Anglican clergyman- the occasionally-cited murder of the loyalist Ephraim Avery of Rye, New York, is apparently inac- curate-the self-important Samuel Peters of Hebron, Connecticut, came close to being a statistic. An Anglophile who scorned dissenters and repub- 28Jonathan Boucher, Reminiscences of an American Loyalist (Boston, 1925), 104.-141. 29For typical stories of patriot treatment of loyalist rectors, see Perry, Histori- cal Collections, II, 490, V, 131-132; William B. Sprague, ed., Annals of the American Pulpit , 9 vols. (New York, 1859-1869), V, 59n., 129, 169, 180, 187, 192, 203; and Burr, Diocese of Connecticut , 121-126. Samuel D. McConnell, History of the American Episcopal Church , 10th ed. (Milwaukee, 1916), 208-211, has a concise summary based on Sabine. John Tyler was the loyalist who feared drinking from his own well; see Sprague, V, 59n. For examples of loyalist rectors tolerated because of their age and their lone service in a community, see Burr, Diocese of Connecticut , 122-123; Malone, "Sketches of Anglican Clergy in North Carolina," 149; and George B. Utley, The Life and Times of Thomas John Clag- gett (Chicago, 1913), 13.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 277 licans, Peters was seized in 1774 by a mob who initially intended to tar and feather him, but eventually contented themselves by having him read a prepared confession of republican faith while standing on a horseblock outside the Congregationalist meeting house. Peters quickly fled to England.30 On the legal grounds that the clergy had refused to take state oaths of allegiance or to pray for Congress and the colonies, provincial legislatures were able to seize and sell property of loyalist clergy, place some in prison or under house arrest- often in bad conditions- for short and long periods, officially banish loyalists who had fled the country and subject some who had fled to the death penalty if they returned, and, in one case, shut a High-Church S.P.G. missionary in the room of a Massachusetts inn and oblige him to stare for 45 minutes at a picture of Oliver Cromwell. The penalties and persecutions took a grave toll, with many clergy losing their life's possessions, others being separated from their families, and still others acquiring bodily infirmities that remained with them for life. The Angli- can loyalist clergy were therefore the prime religious casualties of the Revo- lution. "Their firm perseverance in their duty, amidst temptations, menaces, and in some cases cruelty"- said an English bishop of them following the war- "would have distinguished them as meritorious men in better times."31 Not only because of their association with loyalism but also because of the employment of the British crown on their spires or the British coat of arms on their altar pieces, Anglican churches in the North provided good targets for patriotic wrath. Common mischief for the boys of the Revolu- tionary years in Salem, Massachusetts, involved going to "rock the Tory Church." Trinity Church, in Newark, New Jersey, was only one of many Anglican churches seriously damaged by vandalism or mob attack. The parish churches in Cambridge and in Dedham, Massachusetts, in Narra- gansett and in Newport, R.I., and in Freehold and in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, were among those that served as American barracks and military storehouses. In Newport, Rhode Island, colonial troops ripped out and used for target practice the ornate altar piece of Trinity Church, on which 30Early in 1777 Charles Inglis reported to the S.P.G. that patriots had shot Avery, cut his throat, and left his corpse on a highway in the fall of 1776 "for not praying for the Congress." Although a number of writers - including Raymond W. Albright, A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church (New York, 1964), 119 - have repeated the story, Avery seems not to have been murdered. See Charles F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G., 2 vols. (London, 1901), I, 75, and Samuel Seabury to Secretary of the S.P.G., 29 March 1777, reprinted in Robert Bolton, History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the County of Westchester (New York, 1855), 322-323. Good treatments of Peters 's personality and Revolutionary experiences may be found in Sprague, V, 191-195, and in Peter's own exaggerated autobiographical account in the Appendix to his General History of Connecticut. . . . (London, 1788), 246-276. 31 William Clark was the Massachusetts missionary. See Clark to Secretary of the S.P.G., 5 January 1778, in Perry, Historical Collections, III, 594. The quoted words are from a speech by John Butler, Bishop of Oxford, reprinted in Historical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England in the North American Colonies (London, 1845), 344.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 278 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE the Arms of Great Britain were prominent. The presence of the arms of a nation on the altar of a Christian church symbolizes, of course, the major reason for Anglicanism's problems in the War of Independence.32

As indicated earlier, Anglicans were patriots during the war for reasons viftually opposite those of the loyalists. Above all, the situations of the Anglican clergy and laity were dissimilar. "Attached to the English Church only on its spiritual and not its secular side,"33 the laity had taken no sacred oaths to support the King. Nor were they bound by oath or solemn declaration to a strict fidelity to the Prayer Book, no more than oaths of celibacy today bind Roman Catholic laypeople or non-Roman Catholic clergy. Accordingly, they possessed the political and liturgical freedom denied to the clergy, and that dissimilarity alone largely explains why proportionately so many more laity than clergy became patriots of one stamp or another. A word should be added on several of the influences causing Anglican clergy to support the Revolution. If the loyalists tended to be conservatives in political philosophy, the patriotic clergy tended to be more liberal, con- vinced not only of the lightness of the American cause but also inclined towards democratic or republican forms, of government. The effect on the future of Anglican opposition to the war also clearly worried them; if Americans decided that Anglican clergy were simply "Tools of Power, Slavish in their tenets and privately Enemies to the principles of the Revo- lution," a Philadelphia clergyman declared in 1775, the opinion could clearly deal "a deadly wound to the Church in this country."34 Finally, although some High Church clergy supported the American side, the majority of the patriotic clergy seem to have belonged either to the Latitudinarian or to the Low Church schools of churchmanship. Whatever these terms may mean 200 years later, in 1775 Low Churchmanship and Latitudinarianism involved less devotion to the monarchy, less rigidity about a verbatim use of the Prayer Book liturgy, more openness to the views of Protestant denominations, more willingness than High Churchmen

32For typical stories of damage or of military use of Anglican churches in the North during the war, see Burr, Anglican Church in New Jersey , 393, 399, 404, 500; Mampoteng, "New England Anglican Clergy," 276-283; Beardsley, I, 329; George W. Shinn, Kings Handbook of Notable Episcopal Churches in the United States (Boston, 1889), 25. 33McConnell, 205. 34William Smith to Secretary of the S.P.G., 8 July 1775, in Peny, Historical Collections , II, 474. Cf. Smith to Secretary, 10 July 1775, in ibid.y II, 476. 35Samuel Provoost of New York as well as a number of the patriots among the Anglican clergy of Virginia, for example, tended to be latitudinarians in theology. William White of Pennsylvania was a classical low churchman. William Percy of

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 279 to be influenced by the views of their culture, and a more elastic view of oaths.35 The means by which the patriot clergy justified stretching their oaths varied, but all eventually reached the conclusion that these oaths to the Monarchy were not absolutely binding. Some interpreted the Biblical pre- cepts (found especially in Romans 13) requiring obedience to civil authorities to include the King of England only when he exercised his authority in accordance with the English constitution and law.36 Claiming that they were simply recognizing Congress as the de facto ruler of the colonies, others pointed to the precedent of 100 years earlier when all of the Angli- can clergy except the Non- Jurors, despite their solemn oaths of allegiance to the de jure King James II, had transferred both their loyalty and their prayers to the de facto King William III. Many came to the conclusion that they were first and foremost not political subjects but rather priests and pastors of men, women, and children who looked to them for the ministra- tions of the Church. This last position attracted many clergy- Bass and Par- ker of Massachusetts, Claggett of Maryland, Tingley of Delaware, and others- who would otherwise have felt tied to their ordination oaths of allegiance.37 Writing more than forty years after the Revolution, Bishop William White summarized the views of the patriotic clergy on the lawfulness of removing the State Prayers from the liturgy of the Prayer Book: This promise ought to be taken in connexion with the pastoral duty generally; and with the discharge of it as stipulated for in the promises made at ordination; which require of the minister the reading of the prayers, and the administration of the sacraments. But there occurs a case, in which there is an external necessity of omitting a few petitions, not involved in any Christian duty; so far as

South Carolina was an Evangelical with a background in the Countess of ^Hunt- ingdon's Connexion. 36For a typical sermon by a patriot reinterpreting Romans 13, see David Griffith, Passive Obedience Considered: In a Sermon Preached at Williamsurg , December 31st, 1775 (Williamsburg, Va., 1776), reprinted in HMPEC , XLIV (1975), 77-93. 37According to the loyalist William Clark, Edward Bass of Massachusetts was among the "patriot" clergy who cited English precedents for submitting to a new political authority during the Revolution; see Clark to Secretary of the S.P.G., 23 February 1781, in Perry, Historical Collections , III, 612. Although both his own family and that of his wife were Whigs, fidelity to his ordination vows caused Claggett to cease ministerial functions during the first years of the war. He returned to the active ministry during the year of 1779-1780; see Utley, 29-30. For Tingley s declaration that his pastoral duties took precedence over all other claims, see Samuel Tingley to Secretary of the S.P.G., 5 March 1782, in Perry, Historical Collections, V, 135-137.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 280 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

civil rulers are identified by name, or other personal description. In such a case, it seems evident, that the promise is the most nearly com- plied with, by the use of the liturgy to the extent which the external necessity permits.38 The patriot clergy removed and changed the prayers at various times and in various ways. Some ceased prayers for the King following the Bat- tles of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775; others offered the royal prayers until the Sunday immediately preceding the Declaration of Inde- pendence; and some clergy- like the nominal patriots Samuel Parker and Edward Bass of Massachusetts- omitted the State Prayers following the Declaration of Independence but substituted no new prayers for the Con- gress and the united colonies. In Virginia and other states, the clergy used forms of prayers for the new government prescribed by the provincial con- ventions and congresses.39 Other clergy, like Tingley of Delaware, compro- mised, changing "O Lord, Save the King," for example, to "O Lord, Save those, whom Thou hast made it our especial Duty to pray for." Often old habits died hard. Accidentally praying for King George one Sunday, one patriotic clergyman reportedly added: "O Lord, I mean George Washing- ton."40 Most of the patriotic clergy kept their churches open, prayed for the suc- cess of the Revolution, honored fast days and days of thanksgiving ordered by the continental or provincial congresses, preached occasional patriotic sermons (from texts such as I Kings 21:3: "The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee"), and attempted to give pastoral care not only to their congregations but also to neighboring churches (many of which had congregations composed largely of patriots) closed by loyalist rectors. Where Anglicanism had been the established church, patriotic legislatures quickly disestablished it and terminated state salaries for its clergy- Maryland and North Carolina in 1776, Georgia and New York in 1777 (though the British occupation of the lower part of New York made the disestablishment relatively ineffective until 1783), and South Carolina in 1777; Virginia stopped clerical salaries at the start of 1777 but delayed full disestablishment until 1784. At least three S.P.G. missionaries who took the American side also lost their stipends, for the Society dismissed any missionary whom it learned was disloyal.41

38William White, Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1820), 61. 39See, for example, M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, eds., American Ar- chives, 4th series (Washington, D.C., 1837-1846), VI, 1614-1615. 40For Tingley 's change in the liturgy, see Samuel Tingley to Secretary of the S.P.G., 5 March 1782, in Perry, Historical Collections , V, 135. For the slip of the tongue, see Beardsley, I, 313. 41 For the text or a typical patriotic sermon, see Dalcho, 357. Edward Bass ot Massachusetts, Robert Blackwell of New Jersey, and Samuel Magaw of Penn- sylvania and Delaware lost their S.P.G. stipends for disloyalty to the Crown. Bass contested the charges, and the conflicting testimony sent to the S.P.G.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 281

Lacking state or S.P.G. stipends, most of the patriotic clergy derived their support from their glebes (parish farms), from voluntary contributions, from additional occupations such as teaching and medicine, or from family inheritances. With many remaining at work in the South and only a handful in the North, the numbers of patriot clergy varied from colony to colony. In Virginia parish life continued relatively unchanged, but at one time William White was the sole Anglican clergyman active in Pennsyl- vania. In New York, the single patriot among the Anglican clergy- Samuel Provoost- spent the war on his farm and in militia service. Of the Anglican clergy who more directly served in the Revoluntary War, several became officers in the Continental Army, and others served as cap- tains and common soldiers in the militia. An oft-told but perhaps ultimately apocryphal story recounts John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg- Lutheran rector in Anglican orders in Woodstock, Virginia- informing his congregation on the Sunday after Bunker Hill in a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes that there is "a time for all things" and that the time for fighting had now arrived. Throwing off his clerical gown at the conclusion of the service and dis- playing the uniform of a Virginia colonel under it, Muhlenberg enlisted male members of his congregation amidst beating drums at the church doors. Large numbers of Anglican clergy were also elected to committees of safety in the South, with some one-third of Virginia's county committees including at least one Anglican clergyman. With Virginia and South Caro- lina supplying the largest number, at least seventeen Anglican clergy- or roughly ten per cent of the total from all denominations- served as chaplains in the Revolutionary forces.42 Few patriot clergy or churches came under active persecution during the Revolution, largely because American forces controlled most of the colonies. In the North, Hessian troops indiscriminately burned churches of all denominations, including Anglican churches with loyalist rectors. In patriotic South Carolina, British forces burned some Anglican churches and turned others into hospitals, barracks, and storehouses. British occupation authorities banished to Philadelphia the patriotic rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, sent the ardently patriotic rector of St. Paul's Parish to military prison in Florida, and threatened the evangelical patriot William Percy of Charleston with prison if he preached. In Virginia, the College of William about his political views indicates again the difficulties in defining who was "patriotic" and who was not; for the conflicting testimony on Bass, see Perry, Historical Collections , III, 602-640. 42The writer knows of no account contemporary with or close to the event that tells the story of Muhlenberg's recruiting sermon. The question of its authenticity deserves careful examination. For Anglican chaplains in the American forces, see Howard L. Applegate, "Anglican Chaplains Serving the American Revolutionary Army, 1775-1783," HMPEC , XXX (1961), 138-140. Subsequent research has cor- rected or expanded Applegate's statistics. Whereas Applegate found only 10 Angli- can clergy from Virginia who served as military chaplains in the American forces, Lorenz, 163-220, esp. 218, finds 15.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 282 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE and Mary was abandoned to the British in 1781, with the faculty and stu- dent body fleeing. The Rev. James Madison- who was not only president of the college but also captain of the college milita and rector of James City Parish- gave serious consideration to becoming a lawyer in the mountains of Virginia for the duration of the war.43 The extent of the identification of these "patriotic" clergy with the American cause should not be exaggerated. Like the Founding Fathers, they varied in view. "Non-Tory" rather than "patriot" would be a more accurate description of some. The number of firebrands was relatively few, though the percentage of earnest patriots among the clergy increased with the passing of years. North of Pennsylvania, only two of the four clergy who were not loyalists- Samuel Provoost of New York and Robert Blackwell of New Jersey- were really ardent patriots. Described by a friend as "not the man needlessly to brave the prejudices or shock the feelings of those from whom he might differ," Edward Bass seems to have been a mild Tory in private, and Samuel Parker was only slightly more "warm for liberty."44 The careers of the three "patriotic" Philadelphia clergy are instructive. William Smith, the intellectual, somewhat vulgar Provost of the College of Philadelphia, initially opposed not only British colonial policy but also American independence from Great Britain; though he fled Philadelphia with the patriots, he always remained suspect to them. The eloquent Jacob Duché- rector of Christ Church, first chaplain of the Continental Congress, and "the Benedict Arnold of the American Clergy"- remained firmly patriotic as long as Philadelphia was in American hands, but stunned and out- raged George Washington by converting to loyalism when the city fell to the British in 1777- only to apologize from England after the war and ask to return to America. Even William White, Duché's successor as chaplain to Congress and the Anglican clergyman most identified with the patriot side, publicly prayed for the King until the Sunday immediately preceding the Declaration of Independence, initially wished only the righting of Brit- ish wrongs, and remained a moderating force in patriotic circles throughout the war.45 Only with Virginia and the Carolinas do ardently patriotic clergy in Anglican gowns and bands begin to appear in any large numbers. Distinguished from their loyalist brethren by their willingness to accept

43For the treatment of patriotic Anglican clergy and their churches in South Carolina, see Dalcho, 207, 237-238, 273, 357-358, 384. For Madison's plans to pursue a legal career, see James Madison to William Madison, 21 July 1781, in the Pierpont Morgan Library, and James Madison to James Madison (Jr.), 18 January 1781 and 9 March 1781 in William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rach- al, and Robert Rutland, eds., The Papers of James Madison (Chicago and Char- lottesville, 1962- ), II, 294, 295n.l0, 111, 10, 12n. 10. 44The S.P.G. deemed some of the clergy commonly listed as "patriots"- Aeneas Ross and Samuel Tingley of Pennsylvania and Delaware, for example - sufficiently loyal to the Crown as to permit them to keep receiving their stipends during the war. Edward Sprague Rand so describes Bass in Sprague, V, 145. 45Pennington s "Anglican Clergy of Pennsylvania, 412-429, examines the political attitudes of the Philadelphia clergy.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 283 the changed political and ecclesiastical situation, the patriotic Anglican clergy were far more popular in the colonies during the war. Historians have generally failed to notice that they were only slightly fewer in number than the clergy who remained loyal to Britain. A precise count is impossible because of the lack of records on some of the clergy, the ambiguity of the positions of others, and the problem of defining precisely what it meant to be a "loyalist" or a "patriot." But if "loyalists" are defined as colonists whose words and actions tied them more to the British side and if "patriots" are defined as colonists whose words and actions tied them more to the American cause, then the number of "loyalists" may have exceeded the number of "patriots" among the Anglican clergy of Revolutionary America by less than 30. 150 'loyalists" and 123 "patriots" (the figures include clergy who changed sides) is an estimate that will need refining over the years, but it is one that points in a more accurate direction. To be sure, ťhese new figures fail to change the accepted tradition that the majority of Anglican clergy in the colonies opposed the Revolution. But by disclosing that some 45 % actually supported it, they do modify the traditional association of colonial Anglicanism with loyalism. Coupled with the known statistics on the Anglican laity, they also show that the overwhelming majority of the members of the Church of England in the American colonies did not oppose the war for independence from their Mother Country.46

England formally surrendered in 1783, cutting its losses in America and turning its attention to the wars it was simultaneously conducting with France, with Spain, and with the Dutch. The war cost 100 million pounds, and much blood. At its end Britain had lost thirteen of its most valuable colonies. Although the Revolution harmed no other denomination in the colonies, it dealt serious wounds to the former Church of England. The identification of the Church with British oppression, the flight of so many of its clergy and laity, the lack of replacements for the clergy via ordinations or missionaries from England, the serious financial problems caused by the termination of S.P.G. operations in the North and by disestablishment and by the ending of state stipends for clergy in the South, the discontinuation of services in so many churches from Maine to Georgia, the departure of laity to other denominations, the scant attention paid to church affairs during the war, and the increasing inroads among Anglicans

46Most histories of the period inevitably leave a reader with the impression that 70% or more of the Anglican clergy in the American colonies were counted among the loyalists. Sweet's pioneering and often insightful "Role of Anglicans in the Revolution," for example, asserts (p. 52) not only that Anglican clergy and laity "were almost a hundred per cent loyalist" in New England but also (p. 62) that "about two-thirds of the clergy" in Virginia were loyalists. Despite these major inaccuracies, Sweet's article has probably been the single most influential monograph on the topic since its publication shortly after World War II.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 284 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE of the form of religious rationalism called Deism- all combined to place the Anglican churches in a state of general disorganization and demoralization. In states such as Georgia, North Carolina, and ultimately Virginia, the ef- fects of the war were disastrous. But the prostration of the Church should not be exaggerated. Though some colonies were virtually without clergy, the Anglican tradition in America was recuperating and not dying. Within the next six years it was sufficiently alive to select a new name, to harmonize loyalist, patriot, and churchmanship factions within it, to form a central organization, to create a constitution satisfactory to the parishes in all 13 states, to secure the his- toric episcopate, and to adopt a Book of Common Prayer modified to meet the needs of American independence. More than twenty years would pass before it recovered anything of its colonial strength, but in 1789 the Prot- estant Episcopal Church in the United States of America not only became the first independent Anglican Church outside the British Isles but in its form of representative government inaugurated a new era for Anglicanism.47 The independence of America and the disestablishment of Anglicanism also allowed the Episcopal Church to inaugurate the first Anglican bishoprics possessing only spiritual powers. In keeping with the colonies' former fear of lordly bishops on the English model, the American bishops main- tained democratic lifestyles, had parish or college responsibilities, and existed without retinues or episcopal millinery.48 Just as Charles II had promoted clergy who had remained loyal to the Church and Monarchy during the troubles of the Commonwealth, so a concern for a politically pure episcopate caused post-Revolutionary Episcopalians to elect a largely patriotic episcopate. For the 13 years between the somewhat anomalous consecration of the loyalist Samuel Seabury- elected Bishop of Connecticut in 1783 in a closed meeting of 10 loyalist clergy with no lay representation- until the consecration of the moderate loyalist Abraham Jarvis as his successor in 1797- only patriot clergy reached the episcopate. Seven of the first ten bishops elected and consecrated- those of Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and two in Massachusetts (where Parker suc- ceeded Bass)- had taken the American side in the Revolution; in all states where loyalists were elected, no patriotic clergy were available for election.49

47Recent research has made the resilience of post-Revolutionary Anglicanism increasingly clear. See, for example, Frederick V. Mills, Sr., "The Protestant Epis- copal Churches in the United States, 1783-1789: Suspended Animation or Re- markable Recovery?," HMPEC , XLVI (1977), 151-170. 48See Frederick V. Mills, Sr. Bishops By Ballot (New York, 1978). Cf. Mills, "Mitre Without Sceptre," Church History , XXXIX (1970), 365-371. 49White of Pennsylvania, Provoost of New York, Madison of Virginia, and Smith of South Carolina were firm supporters of the American cause during the war. Although Claggett of Maryland initially felt bound by his ordination oaths, he sided with the patriots by mid-war and later termed the American cause "glor- ious"; see Utley, 29. As earlier indicated, both Bass and to some extent Parker of Massuchusetts remained mild Tories at heart, but both also dropped the State

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 285

During the same years three of the four clergy elected to the episcopate but never consecrated- William Smith of Maryland, David Griffith of Vir- ginia, and Charles Pettigrew of North Carolina- also had patriotic backgrounds. The concern for a patriotic episcopate clearly caused the election of some bishops- most notably Provoost of New York- who were constitu- tionally unsuited to the episcopate. It also caused Provoost to despise the "traitor" Seabury, to refuse to meet with him or to accept his episcopate, and to write of him for a time only as "Dr. Cebra."50 The House of Deputies of the General Convention clearly shared the same concern, with its first three presidents and all but one of its first five secretaries having a past free from any taint of loyalism. With the election in 1801 of John Croes- former- ly a sergeant-major in the Continental Army- as first Bishop of New Jersey, the era of rewarding Revolutionary patriots with the episcopate closed. With similar logic, in 1787 the British appointed an ardent loyalist- Charles Ing- lis, wartime rector of Trinity Parish in British-occupied New York City- as first Bishop of loyalist Nova Scotia.51

Although the precise figures remain unknown, at least 80,000 American loyalists seem to have fled the American colonies during or after the war for England, for Nova Scotia, for New Brunswick, for the Canadas, and for the West Indies and Africa.52 By withdrawing its subsidies in 1784 from America

Prayers and continued in their parishes and so are classed among the "patriots." Seabury, his successor Abraham Jarvis, and Provoost's co-adjutor Benjamin Moore had loyalist backgrounds. Seabury, in fact, even financed his voyage to the British Isles for consecration by serving as a chaplain on a British warship departing American waters; see Steiner, Samuel Seabury , 191. 50For Provoost s vendetta against Seabury, see, among others, Samuel Provoost to William White, 25 October 1785, in William White Papers, Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, and Steiner, Samuel Seabury , 250ff. Smith's waivering patriotism during the war also represented one of thè reasons he was never consecrated Bishop of Maryland. 51White, Griffith, and Provoost were the first three presidents of the House of Deputies. Griffith, Francis Hopkinson, John Bisset (who lived in his native Scot- land during the war), and Ashbel Baldwin were the four secretaries of the House of Deputies; only James Abercrombie, who spent the war in Philadelphia, seems not to be free from charges of complicity with British troops in the colonies. See C. Rankin Barnes, The General Convention Offices and Officers , 1785-1950 (Phila- delphia, 1951), 52-55, 93-100. If William Smith is classified among the Whigs, the patriotic hold on the presidency of the House of Deputies extended until 1801. Inglis was rewarded not only with the episcopate of Nova Scotia after the war but also (along with Seabury) with the prized honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University during the war; see Steiner, Samuel Seabury , 169-170. 52Historians can make only educated guesses about the number of loyalists who fled the colonies during the Revolutionary War. For some of the estimates, see Brown, King's Friends, 250 (ca. 80,000); Morton and Penn Borden, eds., The American Tory (Englewood Cliffs, 1972), 13 ("some 75,000 to 100,000" ) ; Philip

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 286 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE and by moving its missionary concern from the American to the Canadian colonies, the S.P.G. caused additional clergy who had championed Britain to leave the uncertainty of their post-Revolutionary situations in America. Whether a majority of the loyalist emigrants were Anglicans or not is uncer- tain, but they clearly included large numbers of Episcopal clergy, vestry- men, and occasionally even the principal memberships of parishes.53 Since the sheer quality of the refugees meant that America's loss became Canada's and England's gain, patriots such as Alexander Hamilton and Patrick Henry urged amnesty and readmission to citizenship- something that all states granted with remarkable swiftness following the war. Although family quarrels are often the most difficult to resolve, the animosities between loyalists and patriots in the Episcopal Church died with remarkable swiftness. Patriots and loyalists worked harmoniously in the councils of the Church. Writing from England, Jonathan Boucher dedicated his A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution (London, 1797) to George Washington; Bishop James Madison remained in close correspondence with one of the loyalist faculty (Samuel Henley) who had fled from William and Mary to England at the start of the war. When White and Provoost- both patriots- were consecrated in 1787, not only did George III receive them cordially but both the Archbishop of Can- terbury and the Archbishop of York- an unusual combination- participated in the consecration; at White's request, one of the guests was the indecisive Jacob Duché. Even Provoost eventually reconciled himself- albeit grudgingly -to Seabury's Tory background. Finding their situations unsatisfactory and occasionally miserable, loyalist refugees gradually returned to America as state laws permitted, some to assume rectorates. The Odysseys of many of the refugee clergy were compli- cated. That of the Rev. William Walter took him from the rectorship of Trinity Church, Boston, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to British-occupied New York, to the chaplainship of a British regiment, to a post-war parish in Nova Scotia, and finally in 1792 back to Boston, where he became rector of Christ Church. Eventually even Jacob Duché returned. Although at the time of his secession George Washington had doubted that Americans would ever forgive him, in 1783 Washington replied to a pleaful letter of Duché by forgiving him himself. In 1790 Duché returned quietly to live as a layman in Philadelphia until his death eight years later.54

Carrington, The Anglican Church in Canada (Toronto, 1963), 40-41 (some 47,000 in Canada alone); and Judith Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia (London, 1972), 39 ( 20,000 in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton alone). 5dSee, tor example, the analysis m Fingard, 40-43, who believes that less than half of the loyalists who fled to Nova Scotia may have been Anglicans. 54For Duché's presence at Whites consecration, see White, Memoirs of the Church , 159. For his forgiveness by Washington, see George Washington to Jacob Duché, 10 August 1783, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington , 39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931-1944), XXVII, 91-92; cf. ibid , IX,

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 287

VII

The ecclesiastical ironies of the war should not be overlooked. A war supported on the American side by persons inherently suspicious of episcopacy ended with the quick establishment of Anglican bishoprics in America- with the first bishop being placed (of all places) in Congregationalist New England. A political change feared and opposed by conservative Anglicans brought about that central instrument of Anglican stability, the episcopate, for which High Churchmen had so long and so unsuccessfully struggled under British rule. In Virginia, where the overwhelming majority of clergy and laity had championed the Revolution, the Episcopal Church collapsed shortly after its conclusion and almost died. In Connecticut, where all of the Anglican clergy and a solid number of the laity had been loyalists, the Protestant Episcopal Church revived rapidly. Although the last became first, the first almost disappeared. In the 200 years since the start of the struggle for American Indepen- dence, Americans have occasionally failed to recognize that the colonists of Anglican and other backgrounds who refused to support the Revolutionary cause were also patriots. Unable to interpret their obligations of citizenship or their ordination vows to apply to any authority other than that of Great Britain, the loyalists courageously went against the common trend and took the consequences. At the end most had scarcely anything left except their loyalty and their unbroken oaths. They are perhaps deserving of more honor than Americans have hitherto given them, not only on political but also on religious grounds. In religious terms, the war raised more questions than it answered. Which of the two groups of clergy- loyalists, patriots, or neither- were free of the conception of the Christian Church as a subsidiary function of the state? Which simply followed the political directives of the state? Which served as the ethical conscience of the state? Which of the clergy, if any, found à balance between Christian authority and Christian conscience, or between freedom and submission? Is the motto of the religious Tories- "fear God and honor the King"- correct, or is there something radically wrong in the view that a Christian should always simultaneously be the faithful servant of his church and of his state? What belongs to Caesar, and what belongs to God? Applied to the Revolution, the answers cut both ways, and the ambigui- ties are clear. But in the end the question must be whether the loyalist clergy, despite their courage in opposing the popular will and despite their faithlessness to the medieval concept that God regulates the temporal world

382-383. For the Story of Provoost s gradual, grudging acceptance of Seabury s episcopate, see, among others, Clara O. Loveland, The Critical Years (Greenwich, Ct., 1956), 281-283 and passim. Mampoteng, "New England Anglican Clergy," 274, chronicles Walter s Odyssey. A study of the honorary degrees of Doctor of Divinity awarded by New England Congregational colleges after the war to Anglican clergy with loyalist backgrounds would also be instructive.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 288 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE through both Church and Crown, did not ultimately take the narrower and less important view and miss the larger and more important one. Because of a few words in the liturgy- not words redolent with Christian meaning like "Christ" or "Trinity" or "Incarnation," but rather words dealing with loyalty to what later centuries have come to regard as a kingdom of this world- they stopped the public worship of God, closed their churches, and even left their posts. In a changed political situation, it must be asked whether continued public prayers for the Monarchy and unalloyed fidelity to the Book of Common Prayer were so important to Anglicanism that the Gospel would have collapsed without them. "I am here doing my Master s business," declared a loyalist rector in Virginia when he continued to pray for the King in 1775 in the face of an impending riot. " Which master?," asked one of his vestry, in words that exemplify the break with the Anglican concept of the King as Vicar of God. "Your Master in Heaven, or your master over the water?"55 Whatever the answer, the fidelity of the Anglican clergy failed to gain them a grudging admiration in America either then or in succeeding years. Instead, their closing of churches caused adult Episcopalians to lose the habit of church attendance or to convert to other denominations, children to grow up knowing little of their religious heritage, scattered missions and churches to dwindle away, and the Protestant Episcopal Church to suffer more from the war than all other denominations combined. In that admix- ture of patriotism and religion that generally accompanies wars, many of the loyalist Anglican clergy unsuspectingly acted as if they were doing God and King a service by promoting the ruin of the Anglican parishes of Amer- ica. Although their sincerity and dedication cannot be questioned, the pur- pose of their dedication remains open to serious question. So in the end it appears that the patriotic clergy- or at least the more moderate patriots, those who apprehended the carnage and tragedy of war -saw the larger Christian issue. The strength of the patriot clergy was that they realized that oaths, liturgies, and even governments are lesser things than the commission of Christ, and that the Church of God can exist faithfully and separately without formal connection with the government of a particular nation. The subsequent history of American Christianity has amply borne out that assumption.

THE OATH OF THE KINGS SOVERIGNTY*

I A.B. do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience, That the King's Highness is the onely Supream Governour of this Realm,

55"A Loyal Parson," Virginia Historical Register , V (1852), 38-39. Cf. Calhoon, 462. *1 Elizabeth, cap. 1, The Statutes of the Realm (New York, 1955), IV, pt. 1, 350.

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 289 and all other His Highnesses Dominions and Countries, as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes, as Temporal: And that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate hath, or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence or authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm. And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and authorities; and do promise, That from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings High- ness, His Heirs and lawful Successours, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, priviledges, preeminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness, His Heirs and Successours, or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm; so help me God, and the Contents of this Book.

EXAMPLES OF PRAYERS FOR THE KING AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE ENGLISH PRAYER BOOK OF 1775

From the order for daily Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer: A PRAYER FOR THE KING'S MAJESTY

O Lord our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord, King George; and so replenish him with the grace of thy Holy Spirit that he may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way: Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant him in health and wealth long to live; strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies; and finally, after this life, he may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen .

A PRAYER FOR THE ROYAL FAMILY

Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, we humbly beseech thee to bless our gracious Queen, Charlotte, his Royal Highness George Prince of Wales , and all the Royal Family: Endue them with thy holy Spirit; enrich them with thy heavenly grace; prosper them with all happiness; and bring them to thine everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen .

FROM THE LITANY: That it may please thee to keep and strengthen in the true wor- shipping of thee, in righteousness and holiness of life, thy Servant George , our most gracious King and Governour;

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 290 HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That it may please thee to rule his heart in thy faith, fear, and love, and that he may evermore have affiance in thee, and ever seek thy honour and glory; We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That it may please thee to be his defender and keeper, giving him the victory over all his enemies; We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

From the order for the Holy Communion:

Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and power infi- nite; Have mercy upon the whole Church; and so rule the heart of thy chosen servant George, our King and Governor, that he (knowing whose Minister he is) may above all Things seek thy honour and glory: And that we, and all his subjects (duly consid- ering whose authority he hath) may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey him, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and Ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

OR,

Almighty and everlasting God, we are taught by thy holy Word, that the hearts of Kings are in thy rule and governance, and that thou dost dispose and turn them as it seemeth best to thy godly wisdom: We humbly beseech thee so to dispose and govern the heart of George thy Servant, our King and Governor, that, in all his thoughts, words, and works, he may seek thy honour and glory, and study to preserve thy people committed to his charge, in wealth, peace, and godliness: Grant this, O merciful Father, for thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen .

From the Prayer for the Church Militant in the order for the Holy Communion :

. . . We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and especially thy Servant George our King; that under him we may be godly and quietly governed; And grant unto his whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under him, that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion and virtue. . . .

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 291

From the service appointed for each October 25 to commemorate the beginning of the reign of George III

Most gracious God, who hast set thy servant George our King upon the throne of his ancestors, we most humbly beseech thee to protect him on the same from all the dangers to which he may be exposed: Hide him from the gathering together of the froward, and from the insurrection of wicked doers; Do thou weaken the hands, blast the designs, and defeat the enterprizes of all his enemies; that no secret conspiracies, nor open violences, may disquiet his reign; but that being safely kept under the shadow of thy wing, and supported by thy power, he may triumph over all opposition; that so the world may acknowledge thee to be his Defender and mighty Deliverer in all difficulties and adversities, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen .

This content downloaded from 24.208.34.85 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:48:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms