In this chapter, we will give possible reasons why Washington did not commune in Philadelphia. While Washington nowhere gave an explicit reason for not communing under the ministry of Bishop William White of Christ Church, Philadelphia, there appears to be pertinent reasons to understand why he might have chosen not to do so. It is clear to us, that the Deist explanation simply does not fit the facts for several reasons.
Washington communed elsewhere and, according to the history of the German Reformed Congregation of Germantown, Washington even communed with them as president while in Philadelphia, when he was sequestered from the city during the yellow fever epidemic. During this time, he spent several weeks at the home of the German Reformed clergyman, Reverend Lebrecht Herman, where he kept his office.2 Washington never hinted that he had changed his faith in any way, and continued to identify himself as a Christian by his words and actions. So what reasons might there be to explain his non-communion at the Episcopal church in Philadelphia?
First, there was Washington’s Low Church (also referred to as “broad church”) tradition that impacted his attitude toward the three first American bishops. Further, we believe Washington’s relationship with Bishop William White in Philadelphia was significantly influenced by the struggle in the Episcopal Church over the theological views advocated by the High Church. These circumstances, when coupled with the pressures of time, made the temptation to not remain for the lengthy Communion service compelling.
Moreover, Washington’s massive and growing duties of the presidency, as well as the continuing demands on his time for the successful management of his vast Mount Vernon plantation, not only resulted in his limited communication with Bishop White, but in his non-communing at the Eucharist where Bishop White presided. The common practice of many of the Episcopal congregants of not remaining for the Communion service became Washington’s habit while president in Philadelphia. So Bishop White never saw Washington commune in the churches where he officiated.
Similarly, time demands and the tyranny of the urgent compelled him to protect Sunday afternoons for his personal concerns and voluminous correspondence. Sunday was his only day off, which often was inadequate to address the constant problems that Washington faced from the Mount Vernon front as well as his desire to maintain correspondence with the many who were dear to his heart and important to his life. Time pressures became so severe as president that he nearly forgot his gracious and dignified manner when he bluntly refused to sit for any more portraits unless a reputable group requested him to do so.3
WASHINGTON’S CONCERNS WITH BISHOP SEABURY
When the New England Anglicans began the first American Episcopate, it is clear that Washington and other Low Church adherents did not support the first American bishop, Samuel Seabury. In the privacy of his diary, Washington wrote what was probably his strongest written statement on an ecclesiastical matter,
“Monday 10th [1785]. Thermometer at 68 in the Morng. 70 at Noon and 74 at Night. Thunder about day. Morning threatning but clear & pleasant afterwards. A Mr. Jno. Lowe, on his way to Bishop Seabury for Ordination, called & dined here. Could not give him more than a general certificate, founded on information, respecting his character; having no acquaintance with him, nor any desire to open a Correspondence with the new ordained Bishop.4
Why would Washington not have wanted to correspond with the newly ordained Bishop Samuel Seabury? In part, it was due to the differences they had over the cause of liberty. As a New England Anglican, Seabury had been a keen Loyalist and stinging critic of the American revolutionary cause.5 Furthermore, Bishop Seabury was also an adherent to the High Church doctrine of apostolic succession, a view that was de-emphasized by the Anglican Low Church.6 Washington’s diary shows that he carefully chose his words spoken to his guest John Lowe (who was himself a Scottish Anglican and a tutor in the Washington household)7 before he recorded his personal lack of desire to correspond with the newly ordained Seabury.
This was not a rejection of bishops per se, for Washington was always open to Episcopal bishops, including Bishop Provoost in New York and Bishop White in Philadelphia. As we will see throughout this chapter, he also enjoyed correspondence with an Anglican bishop8 and was remembered in the will of another, receiving from him a Bible which Washington subsequently bequeathed to his lifelong friend, neighbor, and, pastor, the Loyalist Reverend Lord Bryan Fairfax.9 His diary note emphasized the “new ordained Bishop”
Below the surface of Washington’s studied silence and carefully chosen words, there was a major problem that had only begun to be addressed in the Anglican fold. As noted above, Bishop Seabury from Connecticut had been ordained as the first American Episcopal bishop in 1783.10 Washington’s problem was not with bishops; it was with Bishop Seabury. He had sought ordination independent of the concerns of Anglicans in the Low Church tradition, and he did so from the hands of Scottish bishops, who were more sympathetic to the Catholic side of the royal family, not the normal bishop of London, who had Protestant sympathies. This ecclesiastical maneuvering left the Low Church patriotic laymen in America feeling uncomfortable with Bishop Seabury and with little incentive or enthusiasm to embrace his leadership.
Washington never revealed this attitude outside of his diary, except in his method of deeds, not words. His silence toward Bishop Seabury spoke loudly. Seabury never attempted to open dialogue with Washington; however, Seabury’s ally, Reverend John C. Ogden, did contact him. Washington never answered the letter, even though Ogden wrote several plaintive letters appealing to him to help the New England Episcopacy, since they faced stiff opposition from the New England Congregationalists.11
As we have seen, Washington’s silence was reserved for those with whom he simply did not want to risk having an embarrassing or explosive conversation. Examples of this include: Thomas Paine;12 irate opponents of the Jay Treaty;13 and New England High Churchman, the Reverend John C. Ogden.14 Washington’s unwillingness to correspond with Bishop Seabury, who had been ordained by Scottish rather than English bishops, also seems to be consistent with his determination to avoid bringing European conflicts onto American soil.15
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION IN THE ANGLICAN TRADITION16
In a popular study on apostolic succession that Washington had in his library, Bishop Seabury wrote an explanation for the Anglican Church that openly criticized the other English Protestant churches.17 In his view, no other church’s ordination or celebration of the Lord’s Supper were valid if they could not directly establish an unbroken line of the laying on of hands all the way back to the apostles.18 In Seabury’s mind, the ability to establish this unbroken apostolic succession for the Anglican clergy was what gave the Anglican Church its validity.
These beliefs of Seabury and many High Church Anglicans had a tendency to separate the Episcopal Church from other Protestant bodies descending from English sources, like Presbyterians and Independents. Not only did Seabury oppose Washington politically, he opposed Anglicans and Presbyterians communing together, as Washington had done at Morristown. Washington was comfortable to commune with Christians of other denominations because he was a Low Churchman. Seabury opposed such ecumenical fellowship, since his doctrine of apostolic succession insisted on the exclusiveness of the Anglican Church.
Low Churchman, the Reverend Mason Gallagher, explains how the Low Church tradition, reflected by George Washington and his close friend, fellow-churchman, and Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, distanced itself from the apostolic succession view of Bishop Seabury. We read that “Mr. Jay finding, on his removal to Bedford, no Episcopal Church in the vicinity, constantly attended one belonging to the Presbyterian nor did he scruple to unite with his fellow Christians of that persuasion commemorating the passion of their common Lord.”19 In other words, John Jay did not have a problem worshiping with his Presbyterian brothers in Christ, even though he was an Episcopalian. This mentality exemplifies the Low Church Anglican tradition, to which Washington also belonged.
When Washington was encamped with his army at Morristown, he allegedly wrote a note to Reverend Dr. Johnes, the Presbyterian pastor, inquiring whether he would be welcome to partake of the semi-annual Communion in his church on the following Lord’s Day. He stated that he was a member of the Church of England, but was without exclusive partialities as a Christian. “He accepted the invitation, and received with his fellow Christians of other name the memorial of the dying love of their common Lord.”20
Washington’s magnanimous spirit of Low Church Anglicanism was well reflected in his letter to Marquis de Lafayette. “Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to Heaven, which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.”21 This view was anathema to High Churchman Seabury. But Washington did not keep his broad church views close to his chest and only communicate them to his close friends, like Marquis de Lafayette. He actually seized a moment in answering a public address from the General Convention of Bishops to make this point. Writing from New York on August 18, 1789, the president answered an address from the General Convention of Bishops, clergy, and laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina:
On this occasion...it would ill become me to conceal the joy I have felt in perceiving the fraternal affection, which appears to increase every day among the friends of genuine religion. It affords edifying prospects indeed, to see Christians of different denominations, dwell together in more charity and conduct themselves in respect to each other, with a more Christian-like spirit than ever they have done in any former age, or in any other Nation.22
What Washington described as a gracious “Christian-like spirit” differed markedly from the impact of the High Church practice. Low Churchman advocate Reverend Gallagher writes referring to President Washington and Chief Justice John Jay:
When one considers the offensiveness of language and action which unfortunately so largely characterizes the Protestant Episcopal Church, with respect to fellowship with the greater bodies of Evangelical Christians around them, it is refreshing to contemplate the spirit and action of these two greatest and grandest of American Episcopal laymen.23
So the Low Church’s critique of the narrower apostolic succession view of the High Church manifested itself in Washington’s lack of desire to correspond with the newly ordained Bishop Seabury. When Washington wrote to the Episcopal Church leaders and celebrated the ecumenicity of the churches in America, this actually was only true of the Episcopal Church in its Low Church expression, such as that seen in Virginia and under Bishop Samuel Provoost of New York City, and initially of Bishop William White of Philadelphia. Thus, Washington’s letter of ecumenical diversity marked by a “more Christian-like spirit than ever” was a gracious yet challenging critique of the Episcopal Church, wherein several of its clergy maintained the apostolic succession teaching of Bishop Seabury. Therefore, those who hold up as evidence that Washington was a Deist and that’s why he refused to have anything to do with Bishop Seabury are reading too much into the matter.
GEORGE WASHINGTON VERSUS REVEREND JAMES ABERCROMBIE
A similar but less obvious expression of Washington’s theme of Christian grace in his Anglican Church appears in his response to a letter from the rector, church wardens, and vestrymen of the United Episcopal Churches of Christ Church and St. Peter’s. This was in response to Bishop White and his church leaders as Washington was leaving Philadelphia at the end of his second term in office. Written on March 2, 1797, the president acknowledged the expression of their approval of his work and the promise of their prayers. He was confident that he would enter retirement with a heartfelt satisfaction stemming from his own conscience, the people’s approval, coupled with the hope of future happiness. But Washington also commented on an aspect of his experience in the local church context. He said,
It is with peculiar satisfaction I can say, that, prompted by a high sense of duty in my attendance on public worship, I have been gratified, during my residence among you, by the liberal and interesting discourses which have been delivered in your Churches.24
One can understand President Washington’s high sense of duty in attending public worship, since the congregation prayed for the president’s salvation every public service. But Washington also affirmed his peculiar satisfaction with the “liberal and interesting discourses delivered in your churches.” (In this context, the word “liberal” means charitable or gracious.)
Apparently he even embraced the public rebuke given by the Reverend James Abercrombie to the president for leaving before the Communion service.25 That certainly was an “interesting” sermon. But had it been a “liberal” or a generously charitable sermon? Perhaps with the same gracious and challenging manner as was proffered in his answer to the Episcopalians’ address eight years earlier, Washington was giving a gentle critique. Did the churches under Bishop White and Reverend James Abercrombie’s leadership allow “room” or “latitude”26 for varying views and practices that inevitably existed in the church? In other words, Washington was rebuked from the pulpit for leaving before Communion was served. He here not only received the rebuke, but gently made the case for a Low Church, instead of the High Church approach.
While we wish to respect fully Reverend Abercrombie’s theological concerns, it has often seemed strange to us that a newly ordained understudy of a bishop would seek to preach a sermon consciously to rebuke the President of the United States that worshiped in the bishop’s church. Would it not normally have been the prerogative of the bishop of the church to privately discuss such things and minister to the spiritual needs of the president? Was this due to Abercrombie’s theological zeal, his immaturity of ministry, or was it due to an expression of a personal vindication? It seems to us that all three of these causes were involved.
James Abercrombie had been trained under Bishop White and so shared his views. He was a late arrival in ministry due to several adversities that had kept him in various business positions which he had disdained. He had only been ordained a year or so when he unleashed his sermonic assault aimed at the president. So immaturity was clearly a factor, but there seems to have been a principle of personal vindication as well. As it turns out, Washington had passed over Abercrombie for a government position, even though he came with strong advocates and recommendations.
Apparently, in 1793 Abercrombie had sought the office of treasurer, but Washington denied the application in compliance with a resolution forbidding the appointment of two persons from the same state in any one department. Frustrated and disappointed, Abercrombie renewed his efforts to be ordained as an Episcopal priest and rapidly succeeded.27
In his new role, Abercrombie was now in a position—consciously or unconsciously—to assuage his frustration toward Washington, who had rejected him as treasurer. So in his historic sermon aimed in large part toward President Washington, Reverend Abercrombie simultaneously pressed a High Church insistence on consistent Communion and seemed to even the score with the president as well.
This interpretation would appear uncharitable if it weren’t also sustained by Reverend Abercrombie’s judgmental remarks years later where he exclaimed that President “Washington was a Deist!” He then begrudgingly backed away from his verdict, admitting that George Washington was a member of the same church as Abercrombie was and thus was a professing Christian.28
THE BATTLE OF THE BISHOPS: BISHOP WHITE CASTS THE VOTE THAT BREAKS THE TIE
As we continue our story of the development of the Episcopal Church’s government in the United States after the Revolutionary War and its influence on Washington, we turn next to Washington and Bishop White. William White, the Bishop of Philadelphia was undoubtedly a patriot, holding fast during the war (when other Anglicans were Tories). White was an ecclesiastical diplomat to the differing factions of the church. Bishop White was also an outstanding visionary of the church. All of these things would seem to qualify him for the ear, let alone the heart of his fellow Episcopalian, the president. To understand Washington’s studied silence to Bishop White, consider the struggle that existed between America’s first three ordained Episcopalian bishops. We believe the simple answer is that Washington did not agree with Bishop White’s choices in some complicated church politics. While outwardly a Low Churchman, he sometimes acted as a High Churchman, to Washington’s displeasure.
Samuel Provoost and William White were ordained in 1787 by the Anglican Bishop of London. They had been keen supporters of the American cause. In fact, White had been the successor to Reverend Jacob Duché, after he had left his role as chaplain to Congress and fled to England in the wake of British conquest of Philadelphia. White not only served in Duché’s stead at Christ Church Philadelphia, but also as his replacement as the chaplain to the Continental Congress.
Bishop Provoost served as chaplain to the Senate under the new Constitution. Provoost was such a loyal American and Low Churchman that he did all he could to prevent the union of his Episcopal churches in New York with the leadership of Loyalist and High Church Bishop Seabury.
How then could there be a united Episcopal Church in America, given the Tory and High Church sympathies of Seabury and the patriotism and Low Church perspectives of White and Provoost? These latter two bishops, as Low Churchmen, were sympathetic in some measure with the theological school called “Latitudinarianism.” This system was so named by its opponents because of its desire to give greater “Latitude” in theological and ecclesiastical matters.29 One of the Latitudinarian distinctives was the broader view of Communion we have already mentioned. This meant that the Anglican clergyman could minister in good conscience to those outside the Episcopalian sphere. Thus Latitudinarians, like the early Bishop White and Bishop Provoost, held a theological perspective that did not emphasize the primacy of the apostolic succession of the Anglican or Episcopal tradition which was so critical for Seabury’s view of the church.30
The process of creating the Protestant Episcopal Church began on September 27, 1785, when the General Convention met in Christ Church in Philadelphia, the church where the then Reverend William White served. Bishop Seabury refused to attend, because no provision had been made for a bishop to preside. Reverend Samuel Provoost was not yet a bishop at this time, and Provoost refused to work with Seabury, since he was a Loyalist and had advocated for the meeting to be conducted without the presiding of a bishop.31 The newly-ordained Seabury rightly feared the impact that the spirit of independence of the American laity could have on his rule in the church.
The Reverend White, also not yet consecrated as a bishop, was chosen to preside. The assembly drew up a plan for obtaining the episcopate and began to elect bishops. William White became the bishop-elect for Philadelphia and David Griffith was the bishop-elect for Virginia. In New York, the choice fell to Samuel Provoost.
The second General Convention of the Episcopal Church met in Philadelphia on June 20, 1786. An attempt was made to deny the validity of Seabury’s ordination, but bishop-elect White managed to defuse this action. Later, a letter dated July 4th arrived containing the good news that the British Parliament had authorized the consecration of American bishops. Before adjourning, testimonials were signed for the consecration of White, Provoost, and Griffith. Reverend Griffith from Virginia, however, could not raise the money for the trip, so Provoost and White left for England and were consecrated on February 4, 1787, in Lambeth Palace.
In this instance, the Low Church views of Washington’s Virginia spoke loudly, when no one stepped forward to provide the funds to send their bishop-elect, the Reverend David Griffith, to London to be consecrated as their new bishop. Virginia’s resistance to an American Episcopate continued to be expressed.
When the news of White’s and Provoost’s departure reached Seabury, he was in a state of anxiety. What was to become of him and the churchmen of New England? His emphasis on Episcopal authority and his exclusion of the laity from church councils had made him unpopular outside of his own sphere in New England. Episcopalians outside of New England, especially in the South, where clergy and laity saw little need for bishops, shared Washington’s lack of desire to work with Bishop Seabury. This was especially seen in the opposition of now newly ordained Bishop Samuel Provoost.
Bishop Seabury determined it was time to pursue a diplomatic course and wrote conciliatory letters of congratulations to the two men. He urged them to meet with him to discuss a plan for church union. Bishop Provoost never answered Seabury’s letter, but Bishop White responded diplomatically, welcoming the joint meeting.
The members of the Episcopal Constitutional Convention met in Christ Church, Philadelphia, July 28, 1789, but Bishop Provoost pleaded illness and was unable to attend. Bishop White presided over a single body, or chamber. Although many may not have liked Seabury, all factions had become weary of discord. To refuse to recognize Bishop Seabury’s consecration would perpetuate the divided state of the church. Finally, it was unanimously resolved, “that the consecration of the Right Reverend Dr. Seabury to the Episcopal Office is valid.” The way was then open for the reconciliation of Episcopalians throughout the country.
A further amendment created a House of Bishops. White also wrote to Bishop Seabury affirming his support. By creating two houses, the General House of Laymen and the Body of Bishops, a bi-cameral system of governance was established that in some ways paralleled the United States bi-cameral House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
The second session opened on September 30th. Bishop Provoost, feeling that harmony in the church had been bought at too high a price, refused to attend. On October 16, 1789, the Constitution and Canons and the Book of Common Prayer were ratified by “the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America....”32
Bishop White’s cooperation with Bishop Seabury, however, came at the expense of Low Churchman Bishop Provoost. The bi-cameral government of the church meant that the bishops would ultimately rule in the Protestant Episcopalian Church through the House of Bishops. Consequently, Bishop William White cast the vote that broke the tie in favor of the High Church views of Bishop Seabury. But the Low Church sentiments of Anglicans such as Washington, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, and Bishop Samuel Provoost did not disappear. Low Churchmen remained loyal to their new church, but also as much as possible to their Low Church principles.
WASHINGTON’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE THREE AMERICAN BISHOPS
Washington was cognizant of the battle of the bishops and he knew of or had met all three newly ordained American bishops.
One of the special duties of a bishop was to ordain the clergy. Washington’s diaries twice mention ordination. As we have already seen, the first was the ordination of Bishop Seabury. The second was the service of ordination that Washington saw in June 1787 by Bishop White in Philadelphia. This was history-making for Washington. He had never seen an ordination, since previously the laying on of hands had to be done in England.
Normally,33 the Bishop of London had ordained the American Anglican clergy. Given this Episcopalian epic-making event of an American ordination, it is no surprise that Washington recorded the event in his diary. Washington’s diary mentions that two gentlemen were ordained to be deacons: “June 1787, Sunday. 17th. Went to Church. Heard Bishop White preach, and see him ordain two Gentlemen Deacons.”34
Because Washington was a Low Churchman and had an interest in the ordination of clergy by the new American bishops, it is important to understand his relationships with these bishops. He would not correspond with High Church Bishop Samuel Seabury. But what was his relationship to Low Church Bishop Samuel Provoost and mediating Bishop William White? True to Washington’s and Provoost’s Low Church principles, there is evidence of warm interfaith fellowship. This ecumenical fellowship occurred during Washington’s presidency in the New York context under Bishop Provoost.
George and Martha Washington entertained Chief Justice John Jay and his wife, the vice president and Mrs. Adams, who were Congregationalists and Low Churchman Bishop Provoost as well as others. His diary records a meal shared on Sunday, April 11, 1790, which included Provoost and others.35
Such a fellowship meal occurred again in December. Washington’s diary shows that in December 1789, Bishop Provoost, Chaplain of the Senate and Bishop of New York City, Chief Justice John Jay, as well as Reformed Clergyman and Chaplain of the House of Representatives, William Linn were present for dinner also.
Washington’s ecumenical spirit36 enabled him to be close to Reformed clergyman Reverend Linn. During the war, he had forged deep friendships with Reformed and Presbyterian churches and their leaders.37 Presbyterian clergyman, Reverend Samuel Davies had prophesied of Washington’s service for his nation in the aftermath of the Braddock disaster. Also, his warmth toward his Reformed and Presbyterian clerical acquaintances is born out in letters and friendships between Dr. James Craik, Reverend William Linn, Dr. John Witherspoon, and Reverend William Gordon. As noted earlier, Washington chose to stay with the Reformed pastor Limbrecht Herman in Germantown for several weeks in 1793, during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.
Thus, Washington’s Low Church ecumenical spirit also explains why he was comfortable with the image of the Eucharist and used it in strategic places in his public writings. This fact strips Professor Boller’s conjecture regarding Washington’s alleged non-communing of all its force: “It is quite probable that at no time in his life— though we have no firsthand evidence of any kind for the pre-Revolutionary period— did Washington consider his mind and heart in a proper condition to receive the sacrament. Hypocrisy is surely no Christian virtue; and the pietists might well have applauded Washington’s basic honesty and integrity in this matter.”38
Would not the height of hypocrisy be to quote the very biblical verse that gives us the name of the chalice—“the cup of blessing”—and do so in a context that describes all Americans being offered such a cup to drink as a symbol of national blessing, and yet all the while not believing in the image at all? Rather, Washington’s use of the image underscored his own historic practice and willingness to come to the Table and, so symbolically called on the entire nation to come to the national Table of spiritual blessing. In so writing, Washington was not reflecting the exclusivity of the apostolic succession view of the High Church. As a Low Churchman, he called on all Americans to partake of the divine blessings given at the Table of national liberty.
Washington’s Low Church sympathies and friendship with Low Churchman Bishop Samuel Provoost, John Jay, as well as Reformed Clergyman William Linn39 and his antipathy to Bishop Seabury, set the stage for Washington’s limited relationship with Bishop William White. The ecumenical gatherings assembled by President Washington in New York at the family table do not seem to have occurred in Philadelphia, when Washington was under the spiritual jurisdiction of Bishop White.40 Why did Washington choose to change this? Did Bishop White’s compromise with the High Church Bishop Seabury, at the expense of Washington’s Low Church Virginian Episcopal views and the Low Church views of his friends Bishop Provoost and Chief Justice John Jay, help to make this a reality? It is an argument from silence, but it seems to conform with the known facts in a much greater way than the superficial charge that Washington was a Deist because he didn’t take Communion in Philadelphia.
WASHINGTON’S NON-COMMUNICATION WITH BISHOP WILLIAM WHITE
We concur that all of the evidence indicates that George Washington did not communicate with Bishop White about spiritual matters in Philadelphia, nor commune at his church’s Table. We believe that this can be explained in part when we understand the significant results that occurred from Bishop White’s relationship with Bishop Seabury. When Bishop White cast the swing vote for Bishop Seabury, he not only set aside the rule of laymen in the Episcopal church, a view that Washington’s Virginia Committee on Religion had advocated for years, but he also set aside the 1785 Proposed Prayer Book with its July Fourth service. The new Episcopal Church had gone the opposite direction of what Low Churchmen, such as Washington’s friend John Jay, had hoped to establish.
Washington’s careful silence concerning controversial or difficult matters was habitual, whether in matters of ecclesiastical or government politics.41 Even though he clearly did not approve of the Bishop Seabury approach, with his reserved dignity, Washington remained silent, yet loyal to his church.
Bishop White had compromised with Bishop Seabury, and in so doing, distanced himself from Bishop Provoost. The results of the compromise were sweeping. A summary of these results can be listed as follows:
1. An elevation of the High Church’s emphasis on apostolic succession.
2. A rejection of the Latitudinarian or Broad Church spirit of ecumenical fellowship and communion
3. The elevation of the episcopacy over the governance by laymen.
4. An implicit rebuke of Virginian Episcopalianism, as practiced by Washington for all of his life before the war.
5. A rejection of the views of his friends John Jay and Bishop Samuel Provoost of New York.
6. A negative light was cast on Washington’s closeness with Presbyterian and Reformed churches and his acts of communing with them.
7. An honoring of the Tory clergy, such as the Reverends Ogden, Seabury, Duché, Inglis, placing them on par with the pro-Revolutionary clergy, such as Bishop Provoost and Bishop White himself.
8. The loss of Washington’s ecumenical fellowship meals under his presidency in Philadelphia, as had been previously held in New York with Reverend Linn, Chief Justice Jay, and Bishop Provoost.
9. The rejection of the American Proposed Book of Common Prayer.
10. The loss of the July 4th service, which would have been a natural American commerative service to replace the historic British November 5th celebration of Guy Fawkes Day.
11. The possible creation of tension between Washington’s presidential leadership and personal church membership, due to the elevation of the exclusive apostolic succession view.42 This naturally created ongoing worries for non-Anglican churches that feared possible religious pressures or persecutions from the new government.43
12. The addition of a sacerdotal or priestly element by the inclusion of the word “priest” for “minister” in the new prayer book. George Washington never used the word “priest” for any Protestant clergyman, even though he carefully honored Roman Catholic leaders, while not embracing their theology.44
Due to Washington’s reserved dignity, he would never have disclosed such critical and personal views to Bishop White for the very same reasons he chose not to correspond with Bishop White’s Episcopal partner, Bishop Seabury. We believe this explanation of why Bishop White would not know George Washington’s faith views is consistent with all of the known and relevant facts.
WHY DID PRESIDENT WASHINGTON NOT COMMUNE WHILE IN PHILADELPHIA?
So finally, then, why did Washington not commune as president in Philadelphia? We reiterate that we have no explicit writing from Washington’s hand as to why he did not commune in Philadelphia. Since he never said so directly, we cannot be dogmatic. But this we can say with confidence, that there is no need, nor evidence, that points to the Deist explanation of professor Boller and others. The explanation offered here is consistent with Washington’s Christian faith, his Christian church, and numerous explicit statements in his writings.
Washington, while in Philadelphia, was under the ministry of Bishop White, whose compromise forfeited the Low Church’s position in the Church by his reconciliation with the High Church leader, Bishop Seabury—at the expense of Washington’s friend, Bishop Samuel Provoost of New York. Thus, his non-communing under Bishop White, who allowed Seabury to subjugate the patriotic Low Church, could have been an expression of his strong conscience.
Perhaps, the absence of any record of personal or inter-denominational and ecumenical fellowship under Bishop White is also a clue. Perhaps, the strong apostolic succession views of Bishop Seabury, openly accommodated by Bishop White, left Washington concerned that as president, he might be too committed to the Episcopal Church, creating fears of an established church in America.
However these matters may be interpreted, it is also clear that Washington’s relationship with the Philadelphia Episcopal churches was only complicated by Abercrombie’s indirect but intentional criticism of Washington in his sermon.45
Finally, given Washington’s Low Churchmanship, he was not a frequent communicant by principle and by habit. He had not taken Communion often to begin with. For good or for ill, this was the Virginian Low Church tradition. By personal temperament, Washington would not have discussed this with Bishop White.46
Because of Washington’s methodical nature, when he would have decided to commune, given that he had no scruple about the frequency of Communion, as a Virginia Low Churchman, it would have been according to his own plan and at what he conceived to be the most appropriate time. As president, he had immense duties, and limited time. As a land owner and citizen he had farm, financial, and family duties.
Given his non-intimacy with Bishop White, his burdens of responsibility that demanded his time, his sense of disappointment that he would be communing under a bishop who took away lay leadership, the Episcopal celebration of of July 4th, and gave a Tory bishop the dominant voice in his childhood church, it is not surprising that Washington chose not to commune in Philadelphia.
Lastly, but not unimportantly, Washington did not commune because of his strict conscience. When the Reverend James Abercrombie issued his sermonic rebuke to the congregation, and specifically to President Washington, he was speaking with the theology of Bishop Seabury. Washington heard it with the spirit of a Low Churchman and respectfully disagreed. Non-communing in this instance comported with his character and personality as well as his conscience.
These same reasons probably governed his Communion practices in New York as well, but clearly to a lesser degree, since the evidence argues he communed on various occasions in New York under Bishop Provoost. His communing on Inauguration Day would be a perfect example of a time when Washington’s spiritual and civic duties coincided, and he thus openly communed.
CONCLUSION
The important point to understand here is that George Washington’s non-communing did not make him a Deist. Perhaps Washington should have communed more. But then, if we had Washington’s strong conscience and extraordinarily busy schedule, and understood his mind, perhaps we would think differently. The point is that the explanation offered here is consistent with Washington himself, honors all the known facts, and in no way requires the incongruent claim that Washington was a Deist.
Again, the facts are that Washington never criticized Christ or Christianity. He did criticize Deism. He also maintained his distance from Bishop Seabury and was uncomfortable with an Episcopacy operated by the High Church principle of apostolic succession. Thus, we conclude that Washington had personal, theological, and ecclesiastical reasons not to commune in Philadelphia. But none of them required him to have been a Deist.