by the fact that one of those makeshifts, just alluded to, by
which difficulties are evaded and not met, had been proposed in
the emergency, and was not unlikely to be adopted. In the summer
of 1782 a pamphlet had been published in Philadelphia, the author
of which, impressed with "the impossibility and present
undesirableness of attempting to obtain the Episcopate from
England," proposed "the combining of the clergy and of representatives
of the congregations in convenient districts with a representative
body of the whole." This representative body was to issue
"a declaration approving of Episcopacy, and professing a
determination to possess the succession when it could be
obtained"; but, meantime, permanent presidents were to be elected
from among the clergy with powers of supervision and ordination.
"An exigence of necessity" was pleaded in justification of this
extraordinary proposition.

On what possible ground an "exigence of necessity" could be
asserted or assumed when no attempt to obtain the Episcopate had
been made, it is very difficult to see. How completely is the
fallacy and unwisdom of the assumption exposed by the clear,
straightforward words of the reply sent from Woodbury on that
memorable twenty-fifth of March: "Could necessity warrant a
deviation from the law of Christ and the immemorial usage of the
Church, yet what necessity can we plead? Can we plead necessity
with any propriety till we have been rejected? We conceive the
present to be a more favorable opportunity for the introduction of
bishops than this country has before seen. However dangerous
bishops might have been thought to the civil rights of these
States, this danger has now vanished, for such superiors will have
no civil authority. They will be purely ecclesiastics... equally