Together with Samuel Provoost of New York, William White of Pennsylvania was consecrated a bishop on February 14, 1787, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Bishop of Peterborough; the two thus became the second and third American bishops and the first two consecrated by bishops of the Church of England. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut had been consecrated by bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1784. With the consecration of White and Provoost, the American Episcopal Church acquired ability to make and consecrate bishops on American soil since, by ancient custom, three bishops are needed to ordain a new bishop.
Although not the first American Anglican bishop, White (by historical circumstance) became the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church by initially chairing the first General Convention in 1789 until the presidency could be taken by Bishop Seabury; he was again Presiding Bishop from 1795 until his death in 1836. (At that time, the Presiding Bishopric was determined solely by seniority of consecration; today, it is an elective office.) White is generally credited with structuring the Episcopal Church as one of the principal author’s of the Church’s Constitution. He was the champion of election of the episcopate by the clergy and people of a diocese, rather than through a system of appointment by some higher authority; this, he believed, was the practice of the primitive church and should be restored to the American church in the new democracy of the United States. He wrote:
The power of electing a superior order of ministers ought to be in the clergy and laity together, they being both interested in the choice. In England, the bishops are appointed by the civil authority, which was a usurpation of the crown at the Norman conquest, but since confirmed by acts of parliament. The primitive churches were generally supplied by popular elections; even in the city of Rome, the privilege of electing the bishop continued with the people to the tenth or eleventh century, and near those times there are resolves of councils, that none should be promoted to ecclesiastical dignities, but by election of the clergy and people. It cannot be denied that this right vested in numerous bodies, occasioned great disorders; which it is expected will be avoided, when the people shall exercise the right by representation.
Let us next take a view of the grounds on which the authority of episcopacy is asserted.
The advocates for this form maintain, that there having been an episcopal power originally lodged by Jesus Christ with his apostles, and by them generally exercised in person, but sometimes by delegation (as in the instances of Timothy and Titus) the same was conveyed by them before their decease to one pastor in each church, which generally comprehended all the Christians in a city and a convenient surrounding district. Thus were created the apostolic successors, who on account of their settled residence are called bishops by restraint; whereas the apostles themselves were bishops at large, exercising episcopal power over all the churches, except in the case of St. James, who from the beginning was bishop of Jerusalem. From this time the word “episcopos,” used in the New Testament indiscriminately with the word “presbyteros” (particularly in the 20th chapter of the Acts where the same persons are called “episcopoi” and “presbyteroi”), became appropriated to the superior order of ministers. That the apostles were thus succeeded by an order of ministers superior to pastors in general, episcopalians think they prove by the testimonies of the ancient fathers, and from the improbability that so great an innovation (as some conceive it) could have found general and peaceable possession in the 2d or 3d century, when episcopacy is on both sides acknowledged to have been prevalent. The argument is here concisely stated, but (as is believed) impartially.
White also served as Chaplain of the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1789, and then as Chaplain of the Senate. He died on July 17, 1836, at the age of 89 years.