1785] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 235 



this, our second address, as in your fatherly regard you were pleased to 

 give to our former one ; as it is our wish that some at least of the per- 

 sons nominated should embark for England, so as to put themselves 

 under your protection and patronage, against the meeting of Parliament 

 next winter. We. are with great and sincere Respect 



Most worthy and venerable Prelates. 



It is no part of our purpose to give an ecclesiastical history of 

 the day further than as Dr. Smith was connected with it. Suffice 

 it, therefore, to say that when the Proposed Book was received in 

 England — while the Bishops expressed their regret at several ver- 

 bal alterations of the necessity or propriety of which they were not 

 satisfied, and saw with grief that the Nicene and Athanasian creeds 

 had been omitted — they did not deny that the essential doctrines 

 of the faith, common to the two churches, had been retained. 

 Strange to add, the principal thing faulted apparently by the 

 Bishops was the omission of the passage in the Apostles' Creed 

 which affirms the descent of Christ into Hell — an affirmation con- 

 fessedly inserted but as a contradiction of an early heresy and 

 without Scriptural authority beyond the passage in the First 

 Epistle of St. Peter iii. 19, 20, speaking of Christ's preaching unto 

 the spirits in prison; a passage considerably involved in obscurity, 

 as all will agree. It subsequently appeared, moreover, that even 

 this ground of objection was much urged apparently by no one 

 but the Bishop of Bath and Wells ; a venerable prelate, we may 

 indeed admit, eminent as well for his theological learning as for 

 his exemplary life and conversation ; but not one who should have 

 had power to enforce an objection, the least weighty of several, 

 none of which were very weighty, that might have been made. 



The changes chiefly desired by the English Bishops (except an 

 adoption of the Athanasian Creed) were made by the convention 

 almost Slid sponte upon the suggestion of them, and our Bishops 

 were consecrated while the Proposed Book thus altered was be- 

 fore the Church for adoption, if the respective dioceses liked it. 



While Dr. Smith was at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he 

 owned a large body of lands which he had gone to look after, Dr. 

 White received from England communications from the two 

 Archbishops expressing the regrets above mentioned, but withal 

 giving a general assurance that the desired consecration would be 

 given; expressing their hope that a change on the subject above 

 mentioned as unsatisfactory would be made. 



