Abstract
Considering the origins of the American Revolution, John Adams wrote in 1815, ‘the apprehension of Episcopacy contributed fifty years ago, as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention … of the common people.’1 Indeed, significant religious forces helped to shape the American Revolution, including eighteenth-century revivalism, controversy over the possible creation of colonial Anglican bishops, and Parliament’s enactment of the Quebec Act in 1774.2 To one pamphleteer, the Quebec Act, in conjunction with the other Coercive Acts, demonstrated that Britain was implementing ‘a settled fix’d plan for inslaving the colonies, or bringing them under arbitrary government.’3 A decade earlier, rumors proliferated that the British government intended to undermine religious and civil liberties by establishing a colonial Anglican episcopate.
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Chapter 3 The Bishop Controversy
Ebenezer Baldwin, ‘An Appendix Stating the Heavy Grievances the Colonies Labor Under …’ (31 August 1774), in Jack P. Greene, ed., Colonies to Nation 1763–1789: A Documentary History of the American Revolution (New York: W. W.Norton, 1975), 213–20, esp. 213.
Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1976, orig. publ. 1967), 96 –8; andGordon S. Wood, ‘Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,’ WMQ 3rd Ser., 23 (1966), 3–32.
6. Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre, 57, 214. For a critique of Bridenbaugh, see William H. Hogue, ‘The Religious Conspiracy Theory of the Anglican Revolution: Anglican Motive,’ CH 45 (1976), 277– 92.
7. See Leonard J. Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examinationof Colonial Presbyterianism (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1949), 229–41. Trinterud’s chapter, ‘The Threat of Anglican Establishment,’ does not consider any non-political reasons in the Anglican campaign for aresident bishop.
12. J. C. D. Clark, English Society, 1688–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 7, 216 –35.
William Wilson Manross, A History of the American Episcopal Church(New York: Morehouse-Gorham, 1950), 154, 159– 60; Bridenbaugh, Mitreand Sceptre, 27; and Raymond W. Albright, A History of the ProtestantEpiscopal Church, (NewYork: Macmillan, 1964) 97–8.
19. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, The Appeal Defended: or, the proposed American Episcopate Vindicated, in Answer to the Objections and Misrepresentations of Dr. Chauncy and Others (New York, Hugh Gaine, 1771), 2.
Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre, 298–301; and Albright, A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 106 –8.
Hugh Neill to Bishop of London, 20 September 1768, Hist. Coll. IV, 338.Likewise, Thomas John Claggett to Bishop of London, 20 September 1769,Hist. Coll. IV, 340 –1.
Thomas Bradbury Chandler, A Free Examination of the CriticalCommentary on Archbishop Secker’s Letter to Mr. Walpole (New York:Hugh Gaine, 1774) 80 –1.
Henry Caner, The Firm Belief of a Future Reward a Powerful Motive to Obedience and a Good Life. A Sermon Preached at Christ Church in Boston, August 20, 1765. At the Funeral of the Rev. Timothy Cutler, D.D.Late Rector of Said Church (Boston, MA: Thomas and John Fleet, 1765), 17–19.
Manross, A History of the American Episcopal Church, 155– 6. In November 1784 Samuel Seabury Jr secured consecration as the first colonial bishop in the new republic from Scottish non-juring bishops. See DAB XVI, 528–30.
54. Norman Sykes, Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (New York: Octagon Books, 1975), 77; and his From Sheldon to Secker: Aspects of English Church History, 1660–1768 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 193.
56. John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Or, The Political Sermons of the Period of 1776 (Boston: D. Lothrop, 1876), xxx.See also H. G. G. Herklots, The Church of England and the AmericanEpiscopal Church: from the first Voyages of Discovery to the first Lambeth Conference (London: A.R. Mowbray, 1966), 79.
Samuel Johnson ‘A Short Vindication of the Society’, in Henry Caner, A Candid Examination of Dr. Mayhew’s Observations on the charter andconduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts(Boston, MA: Thomas and John Fleet, 1763), 88.
60. Bernhard Knollenberg, Origin of the American Revolution: 1759–1776(New York: Macmillan 1960), 83. On the financing of colonial bishops, see Thomas Bradbury Chandler, An Appeal to the Public, in Behalf of the Church of Englandin America (New York: James Parker, 1767), 97–108;and Charles Inglis, A Vindication of the Bishop of Land aff ‘s Sermon (New York: J. Holt, 1768), 80.
John M. Mulder, ‘William Livingston: Propagandist Against Episcopacy,’Journal of Presbyterian History 54 (1976), 90.
For the Information of the Publick. As it has been asserted, in defiance of truth, that no Application was ever made for an American bishop, the following extract from the introduction to Doctor Chandler’s Appeal to the public, in behalf of the Church of England in America, it is thought will be of service (New York, 1768) broadside, Evans Early American Imprints, 10898.
Hogue, ‘The Religious Conspiracy Theory of the American Revolution,’277– 92, esp. 291; and Jerald C. Brauer, Protestantism in America, rev. edn(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1965), 67.
69. Robert Bruce Mullin, Episcopal Vision/American Reality: High Church Theology and Social Thought in Evangelical America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), xiii–xiv. See also Peter Doll, ‘The Idea of the Primitive Church in High Church Ecclesiology from Samuel Johnson to J. H. Hobart,’ AEH 65 (1996), 6 –43.
70. Jeremiah Leaming, A Defence of the Episcopal Government of the Church: Containing Remarks on Two Late, Noted Sermons on Presbyterian Ordination (New York: John Holt, 1766), 50 – 63, esp. 57.
72. John Beach, A Continuation of the Calm and Dispassionate Vindication of the Professors of the Church of England (Boston, MA, 1751), 81–2
J. Leaming, A Defence of the Episcopal Government of the Church, 16 –23, 47; and his A Second Defence, of the Episcopal Government, 43– 4.
Jonathan Mayhew, Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the SPG(Boston, 1763); Henry Caner, A Candid Examination of Dr. Mayhew’s Observations (Boston, 1763); and Arthur Browne, Remarks on Dr. Mayhew’s Incidental Reflections Relative to the Church of England, as Contained in his Observations (Portsmouth, 1763).0
Jonathan Mayhew, Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Boston, 1763); Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, An Answer to Dr. Mayhew’s Observations (Boston, 1764); Don R. Gerlach, ‘Champions of an American Episcopate: Thomas Secker of Canterbury and Samuel Johnson of Connecticut,’ HMPEC 41 (1972), 384, 396.
113. John F. Woolverton, Colonial Anglicanism in North America (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1984), 19.
John Andrews, Two Sermons on Public Occasions (Philadelphia, PA: W. Young, 1788), 51.
Chandler, A Free Examination of the Critical Commentary on Archbishop Secker’s Letter to Mr. Walpole, vi, x, 19 –22; and Robert Leroy Hilldrup, ed.,‘The Need of a Bishop in Virginia in 1756 as Seen by a Layman; a Letterof Graham Frank to Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London,’ HMPEC 26(1957), 170.
121. William Duke, Observations on the Present State of Religion in Maryland(Baltimore, MD: Samuel & John Adams, 1795), 39 –40.
On Atlantic travel, see I.K. Steele, The English Atlantic, 1675–1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), esp. 11–16.
Babcock, ‘Difficulties and Dangers of Pre-revolutionary Ordinations,’ 233;and Johnson to SPG, 21 December 1757, SPG Journals XIV, 68–71.
Quoted in E. Edward Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut I (New York: Hurd and Hougton, 1865), 184. Full text inSamuel Johnson to Bishop of Oxford, 5 December 1757, Lambeth Palace Misc., reel 2, 111.
Douglas Adair, ed., ‘The Autobiography of the Reverend Devereux Jarratt, 1732–1763,’ WMQ 3rd Ser., 9 (1952), 383.
See William W. Sweet, The Story of Religions in America, rev. edn (NewYork: Harper, 1950; orig. publ. 1930), 174–5. See also David L. Holmes, ‘The Episcopal Church and the American Revolution,’ HMPEC 47 (1978), 265.
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Rhoden, N.L. (1999). The Bishop Controversy. In: Revolutionary Anglicanism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230512924_3
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