INTRODUCTION. 33 



and all other associations of that denomination acknowledged subordination to 

 the classis of Amsterdam, which some times permitted, and other times refused 

 powers of ordination. The expenses attending the journeys of candidates for 

 ordination to Holland, and the reference of disputes concerning doctrine and 

 discipline, to foreign judicatories, induced a portion of the clergy, even at that 

 day, to seek a domestic organization. There were also two Protestant Episcopal 

 chm-ches which were more independent ; but still the bishop was obliged to go to 

 England for orders, before he could exercise his ecclesiastical functions ; and 

 rectors were required to be instituted and inducted, agreeably to the king's instruc- 

 tions to the governor, and the canonical rights of the bishop of London. The 

 presbyterians had one church, and aimed at ecclesiastical independence, but all 

 such efforts were defeated by the opposition of the episcopalians ; and to save 

 their httle edifice and grounds, the former conveyed the glebe in 1730 to the 

 moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland and others, as a 

 committee of that body, and received from it a declaration that " the property 

 was held on condition that it should be free and lawful for the presbyterians in 

 the city of New- York and its vicinity to convene in the edifice for the worship of 

 God in all the parts thereof, and for the dispensation of all the gospel ordinances." 

 Besides these churches, there were a small French church, two German Lutheran 

 societies, a Friends', a Moravian and Anabaptist meeting houses, and an obscure 

 synagogue. But the dependence of the church had one advantage. Many of the 

 clergy had received a transatlantic education, while this country was destitute of 

 proper seminaries, and the reproach of ignorance did not attach to the theological 

 profession.* 



One of the most serious obstacles in the way of the revolutionary cause, was 

 found in the apprehensions indulged by persons connected with the English esta- 

 bhshed church, that religion, here deprived of the sustaining support of the mother 

 country, must languish, and infidelity and vice disappoint the hopes of those who 



♦ American Gazetteer, 1762. 



Intr. 5 



