ordering of Providence to "show whether of those two the Lord had
chosen"? That ordering, as we all know, laid the burden upon
Seabury. The brave step was taken, the venture of faith was made.
God provided the man to assume the weighty charge; and for that
and all that came of it, we offer him to-day "high laud and hearty
thanks."

The same wise and prudent forecast which provided against one
possible contingency provided also against another, and in its
provision exhibited a truer comprehension of what the Church of
Christ, as a spiritual Kingdom, really was than any statesman and
many prelates in England seem to have then attained. Says one who
was present at Woodbury, writing to a friend who became the second
Bishop of Massachusetts: "We clergy have even gone so far as to
instruct Dr. Seabury, if none of the regular bishops of the Church
of England will ordain him, to go down to Scotland and receive
ordination from a non-juring bishop." [Footnote: Letter of the
Rev. Daniel Fogg to the Rev. Samuel Parker; _Connecticut Church
Documents,_ ii. 213.] I am in no wise concerned to deny that
the thought of applying to the Scottish bishops may have been an
entirely original thought in the mind of more than one person in
England in the years 1783 and 1784. But there can be no doubt--for
the fact is proved, not by unwritten reminiscences after a lapse
of years, but by contemporary documents--that this purpose was in
the minds of our clergy long before it could have been conceived
in England; before, indeed, it was known there that Seabury would
seek consecration at the hands of the English prelacy.

The line and limits which I have prescribed to myself in this
discourse forbid me to speak as I fain would speak of my great