Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.Episcopal Church. Diocese of Connecticut
Religion
Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.
Episcopal Church. Diocese of Connecticut
Seabury, Samuel, 1729-1796
I am to try to give in a few words an account of the many events
of the second day of the commemoration at Aberdeen; they shall be
as far as possible the very words which were used in the addresses
which were read and delivered there. The Holy Communion was
celebrated at an early hour in all the churches of the city; and
the special service of the day was held in St. Andrew's Church.
Before the service began, the Rector of Christ Church, Hartford,
on behalf of a considerable number of the clergy and laity of
Connecticut, presented to the Bishop of Aberdeen, as representing
the Scotch Church, a handsome silver paten and chalice, to be used
by himself and his successors. The written address which he read,
prefacing it with a few words, recognized the two-fold gift of a
century ago--an Episcopate which, in words so often used at the
time, was "free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical," and a
Eucharistic Office embodying catholic and primitive principles.
The Bishop of Aberdeen accepted the gift as a witness of faith in
God's promises, of the love of the brethren, and of unity of
worship, as well in the past and the future as in the present. He
then proceeded to celebrate the Holy Communion according to the
English rite, which the Scotch canons now require to be used at
all synods and ordinations, two other Scotch bishops assisting
him, and the vessels just presented being employed both in the
consecration and in the administration.
At the close of the service the six Scotch bishops present--the
venerable Primus being still confined to his house by illness--met
in Synod, when, after prayer and proclamation, the record of the
acts of the Synod of a hundred years ago and the copy of the
Concordate which was left in Scotland were laid upon the table.
Our bishop then, in accordance with an appointment given him by
the House of Bishops of our Church, presented and read an address
prepared, on behalf of that house, by the Presiding Bishop and the
Bishops of New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and
Minnesota. In it, after expressing their affectionate regards
towards the Scotch bishops for the heroic act of their predecessors,
they called attention to the fact that the name of Bishop
Seabury now stands at the head of a list of over a hundred
and thirty bishops; and that, though our Church is grateful for
the direct connection of her Episcopate with that of the Church of
England, she is glad to remember that, through Bishop Seabury, the
Scotch succession has been transmitted to every bishop consecrated
in this land and will be so transmitted to the end of time. They
also expressed our Church's gratitude for the shaping of her
office of the Holy Communion in such a way as to make it in
harmony with the primitive liturgies. And so, offering warm thanks
for offices rendered, for sympathy expressed, and for examples
set, they gratefully acknowledged the close spiritual and
ecclesiastical relationship which binds the two Churches together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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