34 
INTRODUCTION. 
had disseminated the principles of civil liberty. Experience has shown that this 
was a capital error, and that independence has been even more beneficial to the 
necessary diffusion of religious instruction throughout the continent, than to the 
political progress of society. We need only refer to the condition of the 
church in the city of New-York previous to the revolution, to show how incom¬ 
petent a colonial religious establishment would have been to educate and send 
abroad the clergy and missionaries required among a growing people. The 
apprehensions to which we have referred were by no means general among the 
episcopalians, who soon became sensible of the injury which their church was 
receiving from that source, and from a prevalent prejudice that the episcopal 
form of government had a peculiar affinity for monarchical institutions. The best 
efforts of the clergy were put in requisition to refute these prejudices, and in 
many of the pamphlets, written for that purpose, may be found very able argu¬ 
ments against a union of the church and the state, and in defence of the cardinal 
principle that religion is best promoted, and most fruitfuf of blessings, when wholly 
independent of the patronage and control of government. 
Soon after the revolution, all the religious denominations in the state, with one 
exception, had risen to ecclesiastical independence. Candidates for the clergy, 
for many years, obtained their theological education in the private study of some 
approved divine of their particular sect. But provision was early made to guard 
against the admission of unqualified candidates, by an open examination before 
the body which conferred orders. The advantages, however, which would be 
afforded by public institutions for theological education were too obvious to be 
overlooked. The “ Theological Seminary of the Associate Reformed Synod of 
New-York,” was established in 1801, through the efforts of the reverend John 
M. Mason, D.D., and was the first theological institution in the United States. 
Dr. Mason was elected the only professor of the school in 1804, and it went into 
actual operation in 1805. It received a valuable theological library, procured in 
Europe in 1802, by the personal solicitations of its founder. He relinquished 
his office after about fifteen years. The school was removed to Newburgh, and 
