A Theological Controversy
The Dissenters were aroused. They perceived in the Bishop's sermon the spirit of the old persecuting Church, and visions of Laud and the Star Chamber troubled them. They felt that their "liberties were in danger," without a doubt. The unjust reproaches of the prelate were severely commented upon, and his erroneous assertions were met with truth. Dr. Chauncey of Boston first entered the lists against him and his abettors; and early in 1768, Mr. Livingston issued, in pamphlet form, his famous Letter to the prelate, in which, with sarcastic indignation of tone, he refuted the charges of that dignitary so completely that they were not repeated. The pamphlet was republished in London, and excited much attention in England. It was highly commended by all Dissenters in America; and in the summer of 1768, when Massachusetts was in a blaze of indignation because of the instructions of Hillsborough and the duplicity of Bernard, the consociated churches of the colony of Connecticut assembled in convention at Coventry with Noah Wells as their scribe or secretary, passed a vote of thanks to Mr. Livingston "for vindicating the New England churches and plantations against the injurious reflections and unjust aspersions cast upon them in the Bishop of Llandaff's sermon." This compliment was travestied by one of the champions of the church in a poem of fifty lines, which was published in Hugh Gaines' New York Mercury. It was entitled "A Reviving Cordial for a Fainting Hero." The following is its conclusion:
On Language so unanswerable;
Give Church and State a hearty thump,
And knock down Truth with Falsehoods plump;
So flat shall fall their church's fair stones,
Felled by another Praise-God-Bare-Bones.
Signed with consent of all the Tribe,
By No--h W--s our fasting scribe,
The Scribe and Pharisee in meeting
To William Li--n send greeting."
This theological controversy ceased when the vital question of absolute resistance or submission to the encroachments of both Church and State upon the liberties of the Americans was brought to a final issue. In the war for independence which followed the ten years of discussion, appeal and remonstrance, many adherents to the republican cause were found among the members of the Anglican Church. The intimate relations of that Church with the State, however, caused many of its communion, especially of the clergy, to take the side of the crown.