If we fling away these truths to which our predecessors clung so firmly, if they who shall come after us fling them away, then on us and on them will come the shame and the woe of making the well- ordered "city of the living God," the walls of which are salvation and its gates praise, to be "like a city that is broken down and without walls." On the other hand, if we, and they who shall come after us, hold them, teach them, act on them, then, and only then, shall we and they, in very deed, "grow up into Him in all things, Which is the Head, even Christ, from Whom the whole Body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in love."
A SPECIAL service was held in the Church of the Holy Trinity,
Middletown, on the one-hundredth anniversary of the first
Ordination held by Bishop Seabury, August 3, 1885, at 11 o'clock
A. M. The processional hymn being ended, Bishop Williams began the
Communion-service, the Collect being that for St. Simon and St.
Jude's Day. The Epistle (that for St. Mark's Day) was read by the
Rev. Prof. Samuel Hart of Trinity College, and the Gospel (that
for St. Matthias's Day), by the Rev. Sylvester Clarke, Rector of
Trinity Church, Bridgeport. After the Creed, the Bishop delivered
this address:
The third of August, 1785, was a memorable day for this diocese and for our whole Church. For the first time an American Bishop was to hold an ordination in the United States. The event carries us back, in thought, to Apostolic days. The first act of ordination by the Apostles at Jerusalem, after the miracle of Pentecost, was the laying on of hands upon the seven deacons. The first ordination ministered by him who first bore the Apostolic commission to this nation, was an ordination—not of seven indeed, but of four—to the diaconate. The authority, the ministration, and the order imparted were in both cases the same, separated though the acts were by the great chasm of seventeen centuries. It is good to commemorate such an event. It is right to commemorate it in the place in which it occurred. Such a commemoration fitly ends the series of centenary observances which we began in Woodbury in the spring-tide of 1883. For the act of this day certified our fathers that what they had sought and cried out for through long and weary years was gained at last; that no longer did three thousand miles of ocean separate them from the possibility of admission to the "ministry of Christ, and the stewardship of the mysteries of God."
Let me, first, say something of the place in which the service of ordination, and all the services and acts connected with it, were held. There stood, at that time, on what used to be called the South Green in this city, a small wooden church known as Christ Church. There are not many persons, probably, now living who remember it, but a rough sketch of it, which has been preserved, has given many who never saw it an idea at least of what it was. It was not an altogether ungraceful building with its arched windows—regarded by many in those days as indicating Romeward tendencies—and its pointed spire. And it had nothing in common with those hideous combinations of packing-box and Grecian portico, which prevailed many years later on; but which decay and fire and other merciful interferences and visitations have made things of the past.
It had a story of its own, too—that old church—to tell; a story of trial, perseverance, and success; a story exactly parallel to that of the clergy, and especially the bishop, who came together within its walls. About the middle of the last century, a number of persons who, in the exercise of that "freedom to worship God," which has been claimed as the peculiar glory of New England, had declared themselves to be attached to the Church of England, petitioned the town authorities to grant them a piece of ground on which they might erect a church. Their application was refused. After a time it was renewed, and refused again. At last, a building-place was granted them, the situation of which has just been mentioned. It was a marshy spot, on which few persons believed that any building could ever be erected. It is strangely noticeable, however, that a great many things which never can be done, are nevertheless somehow brought about, especially in the progress of the Church. So it was here. Careful drainage overcame the natural lack of adaptation, and, though the work met with delays and drawbacks, the church was completed in 1755. It is a tradition of the time that when the frame of the building was raised, the shout that burst from the lips of those engaged in or watching the work was so loud and joyous that it might have been heard for the distance of a mile. Verily, good people of this parish, if your predecessors could not say that they had been brought "through fire," they could at least say that they had been "brought through water to a wealthy place"; wealthy, not in this world's goods, but in those spiritual gifts which are the eternal dowry of the Bride of Christ.
So much for the place. Next let us look at those who came together. If the place of meeting had been hardly won, those men had "endured hardness as good soldiers of Christ." Foremost, in the full maturity of his manhood, stands the newly consecrated bishop. He is in his fifty-sixth year. And inasmuch as the picture with which we are all familiar was painted while he was in London, we no doubt see him there as he was here in Middletown, a century ago. And a goodly sight it is; the sight of one who looked, and was, every inch a bishop.
Jeremiah Learning comes next to view. But for his advanced age, and the fact that imprisonment in a damp and noisome cell had made him a cripple for life, he would have stood in Seabury's place as our first bishop. He is now in his sixty-eighth year, having been born in Durham in 1717. He lived to the age of nearly eighty- eight, and one who remembered him In his latest years says: "He rises to my mind the very ideal of age and decrepitude—a small, emaciated old man, very lame, his ashen and withered features surmounted sometimes by a cap, and sometimes by a small wig— always quiet and gentle in his manner." Such a condition as is here described is still, however, in the future for him. He is still vigorous enough to preside in the convention of the clergy, until the new bishop takes that place, and to preach what was called, in the quaint phraseology of the day, "a well adapted" ordination sermon.
We turn to the secretary of the convention, Abraham Jarvis, who will in time become the second bishop of this diocese. He has just entered on the twenty-first year of his rectorship of this parish, a position which he will hold for fourteen more years. He is described, by one who knew him, as having "an uncommon tact at public business, and in a talent at drafting petitions, memorials, etc., having few, if any, superiors."
Most, if not all, of the excellent papers connected with the negotiations for the Episcopate were drawn up by him, and on him devolved nearly all the correspondence to which the negotiations gave rise. Nine others of the clergy of the diocese were present, and with them two from other places—the Rev. Benjamin Moore of New York, who came in no official capacity, and the Rev. Samuel Parker of Boston, who appeared as representing the clergy of Massachusetts. Dr. Moore was afterwards the second Bishop of New York, and Dr. Parker the second Bishop of Massachusetts. The clergy had assembled on the day previous, August 2nd, and Bishop Seabury had presented his letters of consecration. On the day we are commemorating, the services began with the reception and recognition of the bishop. Four of the clergy repaired to the parsonage, which stood nearly where the house of the Hon. Benjamin Douglas now stands, bearing with them the declaration of the clergy then convened, that "they confirmed their former election, and acknowledged and received Dr. Seabury as their Episcopal head. Two of the four immediately carried back to the convention the answer of acceptance by the bishop, while the other two followed in attendance upon him, and conducted him to the church." Here, sitting near the Holy Table, with the clergy gathered before him, he listened to their address, which was read by the Rev. Dr. Hubbard of New Haven. I quote from it three striking passages. Their recognition of their new bishop was made in these words: "We, in the presence of Almighty God, declare to the world, that we do unanimously and voluntarily accept and receive you to be our Bishop, supreme in the government of the Church, and in the administration of all ecclesiastical offices. And we do solemnly engage to render you all that respect, duty, and submission, which we believe do belong and are due to your high office, and which, we understand, were given by the presbyters to their bishop in the Primitive Church while, in her native purity, she was unconnected with, and uncontrolled by, any secular power."
After describing the earnest attempts to obtain the Episcopate from England, and the final failure of the attempts, they add: "We hope that the successors of the Apostles in the Church of England have sufficient reasons to justify themselves to the world and to God. We, however, know of none such, nor can our imagination frame any."