Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.

by Episcopal Church. Diocese of Connecticut

AUGUST 3, 1785.

On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning at 10-1/2 o'clock after the singing of the 138th Hymn. The Bishop was assisted in the service by the Rev. Dr. Beardsley of New Haven, the Rev. Dr. Seabury of New York, the Rev. Dr. Vibbert of Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. W. Bradin, Rector of the Parish. The sermon was preached by Bishop Williams, as follows:

THE WISE RULER.

PSALM lxxviii. 72.

"So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands."

The seventy-eighth psalm contains a rapid review of the history of the chosen people from the day when God led them out of Egypt "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm," down to the time of David. The record of provocation and transgression on the side of Israel, and of mingled mercy and judgment on the side of Jehovah, ends with the reign of the shepherd-king. He who watched his flock as, centuries after, other shepherds watched theirs, on the hill- sides of Bethlehem; he who had risked his own life that he might deliver his charge "out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear," was now called "from among the sheep-folds" to the throne of Israel and Judah. He who had been "faithful over a few things" was made "ruler over many things" in a kingdom which was itself but a type of a mightier Kingdom wherein One who was not only the Son of David but the Son of God should reign forever and ever.

In describing the character of David as a ruler, which is done in the text of this discourse, it will be observed that the same qualities are emphasized that marked his shepherd-life. What he was in the narrower field, that he was also in the wider. What he had been in Bethlehem, that he continued to be in Jerusalem. What he had done for his flock, that he did for his people. "He fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands." Integrity in purpose and discretion in action are the two qualities here emphasized. The former without the latter makes the impracticable blunderer; the latter without the former makes the time-serving schemer; the two together make the wise ruler of men. Unless I greatly err, we shall see these two qualities strikingly illustrated in the story of that Episcopate of which I am now to speak to you.

We must still linger for a while with the newly consecrated bishop in that city on the German ocean where we last beheld him. For his consecration is not the only thing which occurred there that was to have an abiding influence on the future of our national Church. On the day following the consecration (Nov. 15th, 1784), the Scottish bishops present and their American brother united in signing the important document known as the "Concordate." While this is not the place to speak of it at length, some of its positions and agreements ought not, in view of opinions then prevalent in Great Britain and of events soon to occur in this country, to pass unnoticed.

First of all, the document opens with a full and clear statement of the necessity, "before all things," of holding the "One Faith." As the Lord declared that on Himself, as confessed by His apostle, He would build His Church; as St. Paul, when he has spoken of "one Lord," speaks next of "one faith," so the framers of the "Concordate"—invoking "the blessing of the great and glorious Head of the Church"—declare their "earnest and united desire to maintain the analogy of the faith once delivered to the saints, and happily preserved in the Church of Christ."

This all-important and fundamental truth having been asserted, the document proceeds to declare that the Church of Christ is "a spiritual society," the powers and authority of which come from God and not from man; and which, as they are not given and cannot be given by any civil government, so neither can any civil government take away.