302 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE \}7^9 



constitution, and a form of worship, which we believe to be truly apos- 

 tolical. 



The growing prospect of this happy diffusion of Christianity, and the 

 assurance we can give you, that our churches are spreading and flourish- 

 ing throughout these United States, we know, will yield you more solid 

 joy, and be considered as a more ample reward of your goodness to us, 

 than all the praises and expressions of gratitude which the tongues of 

 men can bestow. 



It gives us pleasure to assure you, that, during the present sitting of 

 our Convention, the utmost harmony has prevailed through all our de- 

 liberations ; that we continue, as heretofore, most sincerely attached to 

 the faith and doctrine of the Church of England, and that not a wish 

 appears to prevail, either among our Clergy or Laity, of ever departing 

 from that Church in any essential article. 



The business of most material consequence which hath come before 

 us, at our present meeting, hath been, an application from our sister 

 churches in the Eastern States, expressing their earnest desire of a gen- 

 eral union of the whole Episcopal Church in the United States, both in 

 doctrine and discipline; and, as a primary means of such union, pray- 

 ing the assistance of our Bishops in the consecration of a Bishop elect 

 for the States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We therefore 

 judge it necessary to accompany this address with the papers which have 

 come before us on that very interesting subject, and of the proceedings 

 we have had thereupon, by which you will be enabled to judge concern- 

 ing the particular delicacy of our situation, and, probably, to relieve us 

 from any difficulties which may be found therein. 



The application from the Church in the States of Massachusetts and 

 New Hampshire is in the following words, viz. : 



The good providence of Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, having lately 

 hlessed the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, by supply- 

 ing it with a complete and entire ministry, and affording to many of her communion 

 the benefit of the labors, advice and government of the successors of the Apostles: 



We, Presbyters of said Church in the States of IMassachusetts and New Hampshire, 

 deeply impressed with the most lively gratitude to the Supreme Governor of the uni- 

 verse, for his goodness in this respect, and with the most ardent love to his Church, 

 and concern for the interest of her sons, that they may enjoy all the means that Christ, 

 the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, has instituted for leading his followers into the 

 ways of truth and holiness, and preserving his Church in the unity of the spirit and 

 the bond of peace, to the end that the people committed to our respective charges 

 may enjoy the benefit and advantage of those offices, the administration of which be- 

 longs to the highest order of the ministry, and to encourage and promote, as far as in 

 us lies, a union of the whole Episcopal Church in these States, and to perfect and 

 compact this mystical body of Christ, do hereby nominate, elect and appoint, the Rev. 

 Edward Bass, a Presbyter of the said Church, and Rector of St. Paul's in Newbury- 

 port, to be our Bishop; and we do promise and engage to receive him as such when 

 canonically consecrated, and invested with the apostolic office and powers by the 

 Right Reverend the Bishops hereafter named, and to render him all that canonical 



