 | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia. |  |
ANSWER.
As this accusation is here worded, the design of it is plainly to induce
your Lordship to believe that I oppose the King's instructions and deny
parish without him. But none of all these do in the least touch and explain
the true state of the difference betwixt his opinion and mine in this
matter, which I must therefore beg leave more clearly to unfold to your
Lordship.
The sole question as to this affair is, What is to be meant by collation
as in the Governor's instructions?—whether such a power as the King has
to bestow livings of which he himself is the patron? or such a power as
the Bishop has to collate to livings that fall into his hands by lapse? He
claims it in the first sense; I have always understood it in the second, for
the following reasons. It has been the constant practice in this country
that whatever ministers we have had inducted have had first a presentation
from the vestries, who, by law here, act in the name of the parishioners.
And before this gentleman's time, it was never known that ever
a Governor refused to induct upon any such presentations, or gave collation
and institution without it. 2d. By a law of this country, entitled Ministers
to be Inducted, after it has spoken of a minister's producing a testimonial
of his ordination, and his subscribing to be conformable to the orders
and constitutions of the Church of England and the laws there established,
follow immediately these words:—"Upon which the Governor is hereby
requested to induct the said minister into any parish that shall make presentation
[OMITTED] him." And from these words it has been always understood
here that the parish had the presentation and the Governor the induction.
For, as to the word requested, they think, and he grants, it doth not alter
the case when applied to the Governor,—that being the usual form in
which our laws express his duty, and not by the more authoritative words
of enacting, commanding, or requiring, as they do other people's. 3d.
The parishes here are at the charge of founding the churches, the glebes,
and the salaries. 4th. Governor Nicholson consulted Sir Edward Northey,
the late Attorney-General, as to all this affair,—being desirous (as I thought)
to remedy the precariousness of the clergy, who, except a very few, have
no inductions. And Sir Edward was altogether of this opinion, as your
Lordship will see by a copy of it, which I herewith transmit. Governor
Nicholson sent copies of that opinion to the several vestries of this country,
and threatened if they did not present that he would take the benefit
of the lapse: the very threatening procured presentations, and consequently
inductions, for some ministers. And had the Governor collated and inducted
upon the lapse,—nay, had he made but one or two examples of it,—
all this grievance might have been redressed long ago. But he only
threatened, and never once collated upon lapse; so that the precariousness
is as much fixed as ever. 5th. Having often discoursed with your Lordship's
predecessor and written to him on this subject, I never found he
had any other notion of collation by the Governor but that it was to be
upon lapse. And the great difficulty started in those days to that scheme
was that the country complained six months was too short a time for them
were not already provided. For remedy of which, in the last revisal of
our laws, a law was provided in which two years (if I remember right)
were allowed the parishes to supply their vacancies. This law, about fifteen
years ago, was under consideration of the Council of Trade. My Lord-Bishop
of London was that day present at the Board, and I, being then in
London, was desired to attend. After full debate upon it, the law was
approved of, and my Lord of London was very well satisfied. But after
all it miscarried here in this country. Our Assembly could not agree
about it, and so it fell. Sure, if either the Bishop or the Council of Trade
had had any notion of this right of patronage which the Governor claims,
(and his commission and instructions are the same now they were then,)
having so ready a remedy for the precariousness of the clergy, they needed
not to have made these extraordinary concessions. 6th The Governor's
new method would destroy all benefit of lapse; whereas, if the presentation
is in the parish and the lapse in the Governor, we have the ordinary
check upon the patron, as in England and other Christian Churches, which
is a very valuable security. 7th Collations for benefices, together with
licenses for marriage and probates of wills,—being three things pertaining
to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but expressly excepted out of it and by
the King's instructions given to the Governor,—seems to be a good argument
that, in the point of collations, the Governor acts only as ordinary,
and consequently either institutes upon presentation or collates by lapse,
but not as original patron.
These are the reasons which have induced me to think collations are to
be interpreted in another sense than the Governor has lately fixed on
them. I say lately; for I do not remember that he fell upon this notion
above three or four years ago, which makes me astonished at the censure
he gives of me for not applying to him for his collation. There are two
wrong things here insinuated. One is, as if the Governor at that time
had claimed (as he now does) the right of collating to the living as patron
before it lapsed; whereas this pretension was, by four or five years, of a
later date,—my coming to this parish being at Christmas, 1710,—and nobody
at that time having ever questioned the vestry's right of choosing a
minister when the parish was fairly void,—as it was here, by the death
of my predecessor, Mr. Solomon Wheatly. As soon as I was elected by
the vestry, I immediately acquainted the Governor, and he said he was very
glad of it. And I do assure your Lordship he nor no one else at that time
faulted this as being then, and long afterward, the common practice of the
country. If a Governor ever interposed in such cases in those days, it was
only by recommendation to the vestries, but never by way of collation, which
he now begins to claim. The other thing which I take to be here insinuated
is as if, upon the vestry's presentation of me, I had, in contempt of his
authority and right to give collation, never applied to him for it. This, I
confess, would have been a great contempt, and such one as never any
from the vestry, we never fail to apply to the Governor for induction,
as readily as any clerk in England applies to the Bishop with his
presentation. But this is the unhappiness of our precarious circumstances
in this country,—that the vestries are such enemies to induction that they
will give no presentations, and our Governors have been so unwilling to
disoblige the parishes that they have never taken the benefit of the lapse; so
that the ministers generally officiate upon the election of the vestry, without
presentation or induction. As this is the case of about nine or ten of
our ministers, (for some four or five are inducted,) your Lordship will
easily perceive that, as matters then stood, without a presentation it was
in vain for me to apply to the Governor for collation or induction. But I
thought it became me, in good manner, to wait on the Governor and to acquaint
him with what was done: he signified his great satisfaction, and did
not in the least fault any thing in the conduct of the matter. We were
then, and for many years afterward, in perfect friendship; though now all
things that are capable of any ill aspect are mustered up to make a crime
where never any before was so much as pretended.
| Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia. | |