Why, When, and Where. The Consecration of Samuel Seabury.

Selkirk: The Scottish Chronicle Press, 1934.. The Consecration of Samuel Seabury at Aberdeen, on November 14, 1784, and how through Suffering, the dispossessed and shattered Church of Scotland made good, and proved her fealty to Evangelic Truth and Apostolic Order. Pp.26/3(list of the clergie in the dioces of Aberdeen at the Revolution, 1688), black & white portrait frontispiece + 2 further plates, slight toning to pages. Red card covers, creasing to lower front and rear corners, spine rubbed and sunned. A scarce item. G+.** " A crucial date for members of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the consecration of the first Bishop of the Anglican Communion in the United States. During the colonial era, there had been no Anglican bishops in the New World; and persons seeking to be ordained as clergy had had to travel to England for the purpose. After the achievement of American independence, it was important for the Church in the United States to have its own bishops, and an assembly of Connecticut clergy chose Samuel Seabury to go to England and there seek to be consecrated as a bishop. However, the English bishops were forbidden by law to consecrate anyone who would not take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. He accordingly turned to the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which had no connection with the government (having originated around 1690 with the non-Jurors: those Anglicans who, having sworn allegiance to James Stuart, would not during his lifetime swear allegiance to William of Orange, and who were accordingly all but outlawed under the new dynasty), and was accordingly free to consecrate him without political complications. In Aberdeen, 14 November 1784, Samuel Seabury was consecrated to the Episcopate by the Bishop and the Bishop Coadjutor of Aberdeen and the Bishop of Ross and Caithness. He thus became part of the unbroken chain of bishops that links the Church today with the Church of the Apostles. In return, he promised them that he would do his best to persuade the American Church to use as its Prayer of Consecration (blessing of the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper) the Scottish prayer, taken largely unchanged from the 1549 Prayer Book, rather than the much shorter one in use in England. The aforesaid prayer, adopted by the American Church with a few modifications, has been widely regarded as one of the greatest treasures of the Church in this country." (justusanglican).