Patriots, Loyalists, Anglicans: unity and accord

I continued, as did all of us, to pray for the king, until Sunday (inclusively) before the 4th of July 1776.

So said William White, supporter of the Patriot cause and chaplain to the Continental Congress. It is a reminder of the complexities and nuances of Anglican allegiances and identities in North America during these years. Similarly we might also point to the Loyalist parson Jonathan Boucher's critique of the Administration in Westminster in a 1774 sermon:

Their whole conduct, indeed, has been so utterly devoid of counsel, that I seem to have no right to tax those persons with being superstitious, who ascribe to it a preternatural infatuation ... That they wish for a reconciliation, we cannot but believe: yet every step they have taken, since the dispute began, has, through their folly, or our perverseness, or both, tended only to widen the breach; tended to make new enemies and lose old friends.

Boucher also admitted, in his farewell sermon the following year to his parish in Maryland, that - as with many Loyalists - he opposed the Stamp Act and "joined a giddy and numerous multitude, in declaiming as loud as the loudest in behalf of liberty, and against tyranny". 

The theme uniting this week's post has been how those colonial Anglicans supporting the Patriot cause tended to do so as quite traditional, conventional Anglicans. The political theology shaping Patriot Anglicans and which they invoked, their reverence for the civil magistrate, their understanding of constitutional obedience, their moral vision and the preaching by which they encouraged others to embrace this moral vision - all these shared the characteristics of ordinary 18th century Anglicanism.

This found particular expression in a commitment to the Revolution of 1688, shared by Patriots and Loyalists alike. White stated:

The principles which I had adopted, are those which enter into the constitution of England, from the Saxon times ... and were confirmed and acted on at the revolution in 1688.

The Loyalist Charles Inglis was no less committed to Revolutionary Settlement:

I assure the reader further, that I am none of your passive obedience and non-resistance men. The principles on which the glorious Revolution in 1688 was brought about, constitute the articles of my political creed.

All this suggests a quite different understanding to that found in, for example, J.C.D. Clark's The Language of Liberty (1994). For Clark, the political divisions within colonial Anglicanism around 1776 were a reflection of "theological conflicts" between High Church and Latitudinarian. And so, the fact that 74 of the 100 clergy in Virginia supported the Patriot cause was due to the lamentable Latitudinarianism of the province's established Church, "quasi-Presbyterian in practice". By contrast, the overwhelmingly Loyalist clergy of New York was, Clark proposes, due to a higher churchmanship in that province.

A strong case can be made, however, that colonial Anglicanism was much more a reflection of the Mother Church than Clark suggests.  The 'unity and accord' which Gibson sees in the 18th century Church of England was also to be found in the Anglicanism of the American colonies. Studies of Virginian Anglicanism, in particular, suggest that this is so. Consider John K. Nelson's conclusion in his excellent A Blessed Company:

White Virginians in substantial numbers attended Divine Services, which were faithful to the Book of Common Prayer, conducted by suitably vested clergy, and held in churches and chapels that were well-supplied with Bibles and Prayer Books and the furnishings appropriate for preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Parishioners communicated in numbers comparable to those in England's rural parishes ... [Despite the absence of a resident bishop,] Virginians had created a church remarkably faithful to Anglican belief and practice.

Furthermore, Lauren F. Winner's portrayal of the devotional life of elite Virginian households in the 18th century points to a vibrant culture of Anglican piety, which sustained Episcopalians after the Anglican establishment was vigorously dismantled  post-independence. It was this vibrant culture of household Anglican piety which meant many Virginians "could remain practicing Episcopalians, in their homes". Particularly significant to this was reliance on the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican devotional books, distinguishing Episcopalian households from evangelicals.

Recent studies have, therefore, portrayed a much more traditionally, conventionally Anglican vision than the popular caricature of a miserly, heterodox Latitudinarian establishment in colonial Virginia. What, then, might explain the different allegiances of the majority Patriot clergy of Virginia and the overwhelmingly Loyalist clergy of New York?

Quite traditionally Anglican characteristics help to explain how the conventional Anglicanism of a Virginian parson would lead to different political commitments to the conventional Anglicanism of a New York parson. As a study of Virginia's Anglican clergy between 1770 and 1776 notes, "a high percentage of these patriot churchmen were personally connected to leading members of the gentry through marriage or in other ways". Nelson states that "a picture of rootedness, persistence, and permanence" described Virginia's Anglican parsons. In such a context, it was hardly surprising that the a significant majority of Virginian parsons aligned with the political allegiance of the community in which they served and of which they were a vital, respected part.

Likewise in New York, with its strong Loyalist constituency, some counties (such as Westchester) with a Loyalist majority, the role of King's College, the 1776 Declaration of Dependence (signed by some 547 of New York's Loyalists), and a commitment evident in the support of militia and provincial units for the Crown, parsons could easily align with a deeply rooted political allegiance in their community. 

Recognising the role of the laity in providing the political leadership of a community was a deeply traditional Anglican characteristic. In both Virginia and (albeit in a rather more contested manner in) New York, Anglican parsons could do what they traditionally did, follow the political leadership of laity. What is more, the married parson, integrated into his community and its networks of support, allegiance, and patronage, was also an Anglican characteristic.  

It is, of course, easy to dismiss all this as a form of worldly compromise, far removed from prophetic political leadership by clergy. Self-proclaimed prophetic leadership from clergy, however, has often had appalling results for polities, with religious enthusiasm intensifying civil strife. With great wisdom, therefore, Article 37 of the Articles of Religion committed the "chief power in this Realm", over "all Estates ... whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil", to the civil magistrate. In a context of constitutional conflict, division, and uncertainty, both Patriot and Loyalist Anglican clergy adhered to this characteristically Anglican commitment to lay secular power.

Finally, it is to the Book of Common Prayer that we should turn to summarise how both Virginian Patriot parsons and New York Loyalist parsons were traditionally and characteristically Anglican in their rival allegiances. In the Prayer for the Church Militant, the parson prayed for the community to whom he ministered and of which he was a part:

And to all thy people give thy heavenly grace; and specially to this congregation here present; that, with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear, and receive thy holy Word; truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.

To reject the community's political allegiance, the moral reflection and discernment laity practised in determining that allegiance, and their communal hopes expressed by such allegiance, would be to undo this prayer, to declare that it has not been answered, that the political mind of the community has fallen into abject error. Of course, there can be times when this is so in the political life of a community.  In most polities, however, such times are - thankfully - exceedingly rare.  Much more common are political debates and divisions when allegiances are not immediately self-evident, in which the choices are not between good and evil, times when Christians - exercising moral discernment and reflection - legitimately disagree. Such was the case for traditionally, characteristically Anglican parsons in the colonies in the years leading to 1776.

(The first photograph is a stained glass depiction of Jacob Duché, Rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, leading the Continental Congress in prayer; from the 'Liberty Window' in Christ Church. The second is of the interior of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Queen Anne county, Maryland, where Loyalist Jonathan Boucher was parson. The third is of the interior of Bruton Parish Church, Virginia, where the rector crossed out the Prayer for the King in the BCP.)