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ber last; they being satisfactory and agreeable to their wish.

They have also approved of their plan for obtaining consecration of bishops; and pursuant to their recommendation, have appointed a committee to correspond with the English bishops for that purpose.

They have also, with great pleasure, considered their address to the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England; which your memorialists are of opinion, was properly calculated to obtain the end proposed.

But it is with the greatest concern they are constrained to remark, that the other proceedings of the said convention, in their opinion, have an undoubted tendency to prolong, if not entirely prevent, the obtaining the prayer thereof. In this opinion your memorialists conceive they are supported by the answer of the said venerable bishops, with a copy of which they have been favoured during their sitting at this place; for which reason, among others, they did not ratify, but disapproved of the other parts of the proceedings of the said late General Convention.

Your memorialists do not question the right of every national or independent Church, to make such alterations, from time to time, in the mode of its public worship, as upon mature consideration may be found expedient; but they doubt the right of any order or orders of men in an Episcopal Church, without a bishop, to make any alterations not warranted by immediate necessity; especially such as not only go to the mode of its worship, but also to its doctrines. Wherefore your memorialists cannot forbear remarking, that in their opinion, all unnecessary alterations must be unseasonable and impolitic, and will prove highly detrimental to the Church in general.

Your memorialists cannot approve of the said late General Convention having published, in the manner they have, the new Book of Common Prayer as altered, with the psalms and calendar transposed and changed by their committee, without their revision and express approbation; but since they have done so, and if it was proper to have been considered, your memorialists have to regret, that the same was not sooner published, that they might have been enabled to have declared the sentiments of their constituents as well

as their own. The prejudices and prepossessions of mankind in favour of old customs, especially in religious matters, are generally so strong as to require great delicacy and caution in the introduction of any alterations or innovations,

although manifestly for the better; which was also one reason why they could not at this time ratify the alterations so unnecessarily made; and they are very apprehensive, that until alterations can be made consistent with the cus toms of the primitive Church, and with the rules of the Church of England, from which it is our boast to have descended, a ratification of them would create great uneasiness in the minds of many members of the Church, and in great probability cause dissensions and schisms. Although they may not disapprove of all the alterations made in the said new book, yet they have to regret the unseasonableness and irregularity of them.

Your memorialists, having an anxious desire of cementing, perpetuating, and extending the union so happily begun in the Church, with all deference and submission, humbly request and entreat the said General Convention, now soon to meet, that they will revise the proceedings of the said late convention and their aforesaid committee, and remove every cause that may have excited any jealousy or fear, that the Episcopal Church in the United States of America have any intention or desire essentially to depart, either in doctrine or discipline, from the Church of England; but, on the contrary, to convince the world that it is their wish and intention, to maintain the doctrines of the Gospel as now held by the Church of England, and to adhere to the liturgy of the said Church as far as shall be consistent with the American revolution, and the constitution of the respective states; thereby removing every obstacle in the way of obtaining the consecration of such and so many persons to the Episcopal character as shall render our ecclesiastical government complete, and secure to the Episcopalians in America, and to their descendants, a succession of that necessary order: And that they will use all means in their power to promote and perpetuate harmony and unanimity among ourselves, and with the said Church of England as a mother or sister Church, and with every Protestant Church in the universe.

By order of the convention,

ABRAHAM BEACH, President.

Perth-Amboy, May 19, 1786.

No. 8. Page 120.

Second Address to the English Prelates.

To the Most Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in God, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, MOST WORTHY AND VENERABLE PRELATES,

We, the clerical and lay deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the states of New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and SouthCarolina, have received the friendly and affectionate letter which your lordships did us the honour to write on the 24th day of February, and for which we request you to accept our sincere and grateful acknowledgments.

It gives us pleasure to be assured, that the success of our application will probably meet with no greater obstacles than what have arisen from doubts respecting the extent of the alterations we have made and proposed; and we are happy to learn, that as no political impediments oppose us here, those which at present exist in England may be removed.

While doubts remain of our continuing to hold the same essential articles of faith and discipline with the Church of England, we acknowledge the propriety of suspending a compliance with our request.

We are unanimous and explicit in assuring your lordships, that we neither have departed nor propose to depart from the doctrines of your Church. We have retained the same discipline and forms of worship, as far as was consistent with our civil constitutions; and we have made no alterations or omissions in the Book of Common Prayer, but such as that consideration prescribed, and such as were calculated to remove objections, which it appeared to us more conducive to union and general content to obviate, than to dispute. It is well known, that many great and pious men of the Church of England have long wished for a revision of the liturgy, which it was deemed imprudent to hazard, lest it might become a precedent for repeated and improper alterations. This is with us the proper season for such a revision. We are now settling and ordering the affairs of our Church, and if wisely done, we shall have reason to promise ourselves all the advantages that can result from stability and union.

We are anxious to complete our Episcopal system by means of the Church of England. We esteem and prefer it, and with gratitude acknowledge the patronage and favours for which, while connected, we have constantly been indebted to that Church. These considerations, added to that of agreement in faith and worship, press us to repeat our former request, and to endeavour to remove your present hesitation, by sending you our proposed ecclesiastical constitution and Book of Common Prayer.

These documents, we trust, will afford a full answer to every question that can arise on the subject. We consider your lordship's letter as very candid and kind; we repose full confidence in the assurances it gives; and that confidence, together with the liberality and catholicism of your venerable body, leads us to flatter ourselves, that you will not disclaim a branch of your Church merely for having been in your lordship's opinion, if that should be the case, pruned rather more closely than its separation made absolutely necessary.

We have only to add, that as our Church in sundry of these states have already proceeded to the election of persons to be sent for consecration, and others may soon proceed to the same, we pray to be favoured with as speedy an answer to this, our second address, as in your great goodness you were pleased to give to our former one.

In Convention,

We are,

With great and sincere respect,
Most worthy and venerable prelates,
Your obedient, and

Very humble servants,*

Christ Church, Philadelphia, June 26, 1786.

Signed by all the members.

No. 9. Page 120.

Communications from the Archbishops of Canterbury and

York.

To the Committee of the General Convention at Philadelphia, the Rev. Dr. White, president, the Rev. Dr. Smith, the Rev. Mr. Provoost, the Honourable James Duane, Samuel Powell, and Richard Peters, Esqɛ.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN,

Influenced by the same sentiments of fraternal regard, expressed by the archbishops and bishops in their answer to your address, we desire you to be persuaded, that if we have not yet been able to comply with your request, the delay has proceeded from no tardiness on our part. The only cause of it has been the uncertainty in which we were left by receiving your address unaccompanied by those communications with regard to your liturgy, articles, and ecclesiastical constitution, without the knowledge of which we could not presume to apply to the legislature, for such powers as were necessary to the completion of your wishes. The journal of the convention, and the first part of your liturgy, did not reach us till more than two months after our receipt of your address; and we were not in possession of the remaining part of it and of your articles, till the last day of April. The whole of your communications was then, with as little delay as possible, taken into consideration, at a meeting of the archbishops and fifteen of the bishops, being all who were then in London and able to attend; and it was impossible not to observe, with concern, that if the essential doctrines of our common faith were retained, less respect however, was paid to our liturgy than its own excellence, and your declared attachment to it, had led us to expect. Not to mention a variety of verbal alterations, of the necessity or propriety of which we are by no means satisfied, we saw with grief, that two of the confessions of our Christian faith, respectable for their antiquity, have been entirely laid aside; and that even in that which is called the Apostles' Creed, an article is omitted, which was thought necessary to be inserted, with a view to a particular heresy, in a very early age of the Church, and has ever since had the venerable sanction of universal reception. Nevertheless, as a proof of the sincere desire which we feel to continue in

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