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Here begins Chapter 3 of Newman's Apologia, continued from Chapter 2.
Chapter III. {Pages 92 through 146} History of My Religious Opinions from 1839 to 1841
And now that I am about to trace, as far as I can, the course of that great
revolution of mind, which led me to leave my own home, to which I was bound by
so many strong and tender ties, I feel overcome with the difficulty of
satisfying myself in my account of it, and have recoiled from the attempt, till
the near approach of the day, on which these lines must be given to the world,
forces me to set about the task. For who can know himself, and the multitude of
subtle influences which act upon him? And who can recollect, at the distance of
twenty-five years, all that he once knew about his thoughts and his deeds, and
that, during a portion of his life, when, even at the time, his observation,
whether of himself or of the external world, was less than before or after, by
very reason of the perplexity and dismay which weighed upon him,—when, in spite
of the light given to him according to his need amid his darkness, yet a
darkness it emphatically was? And who can suddenly gird himself to a new and
anxious undertaking, which he might be able indeed to perform well, were full
and calm leisure allowed him to look through every thing that he had written,
whether in published works or private letters? yet again, granting that calm
contemplation of the past, in itself so desirable, who could afford to be
leisurely and deliberate, while he practises on himself a cruel operation, the
ripping up of old griefs, and the venturing again upon the "infandum dolorem"
{"Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem," from Book II of The Aeneid (Virgil)
"Great queen, what you command me to relate / Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:" (trans. Dryden)}
of years in which the stars of this lower heaven were one by one going out? I could
not in cool blood, nor except upon the imperious call of duty, attempt what I
have set myself to do. It is both to head and heart an extreme trial, thus to
analyze what has so long gone by, and to bring out the results of that
examination. I have done various bold things in my life: this is the boldest:
and, were I not sure I should after all succeed in my object, it would be
madness to set about it.
In the spring of 1839 my position in the Anglican Church was at its height. I
had supreme confidence in my controversial status, and I had a great and
still growing success, in recommending it to others. I had in the foregoing
autumn been somewhat sore at the Bishop's Charge, but I have a letter which
shows that all annoyance had passed from my mind. In January, if I recollect
aright, in order to meet the popular clamour against myself and others, and to
satisfy the Bishop, I had collected into one all the strong things which they,
and especially I, had said against the Church of Rome, in order to their
insertion among the advertisements appended to our publications. Conscious as I
was that my opinions in religion were not gained, as the world said, from Roman
sources, but were, on the contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the
circumstances in which I had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which
were heaped upon me. It was true that I held a large bold system of religion,
very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration and
adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I had as much
right to hold it, as the Evangelical, and more right than the Liberal party
could show, for asserting their own respective doctrines. As I declared on occasion
of Tract 90, I claimed, in behalf of who would in the Anglican Church, the right
of holding with Bramhall a comprecation with the Saints, and the Mass all but
Transubstantiation with Andrewes, or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself
is not a point for Churches to part communion upon, or with Hammond that a
General Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith, or
with Bull that man had in paradise and lost on the fall, a supernatural habit of
grace, or with Thorndike that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin,
or with Pearson that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than
in the Catholic Church. "Two can play at that," was often in my mouth, when men
of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, or Reformers; in
the sense that, if they had a right to speak loud, I had the liberty to speak
out as well as they, and had the means, by the same or parallel appeals, of
giving them tit for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church was tyrannized over
by a mere party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in
the motto to the Lyra, "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to be
allowed to show them the difference.
What will best describe my state of mind at the early part of 1839, is an
Article in the British Critic for that April. I have looked over it now, for the
first time since it was published; and have been struck by it for this
reason:—it contains the last words which I ever spoke as an Anglican to
Anglicans. It may now be read as my parting address and valediction, made to my
friends. I little knew it at the time. It reviews the actual state of things,
and it ends by looking towards the future. It is not altogether mine; for my
memory goes to this,—that I had asked a friend to do the work; that then, the
thought came on me, that I would do it myself: and that he was good enough to put into my
hands what he had with great appositeness written, and that I embodied it in my
Article. Every one, I think, will recognize the greater part of it as mine. It
was published two years before the affair of Tract 90, and was entitled "The
State of Religious Parties."
In this Article, I begin by bringing together testimonies from our enemies to
the remarkable success of our exertions. One writer said: "Opinions and views of
a theology of a very marked and peculiar kind have been extensively adopted and
strenuously upheld, and are daily gaining ground among a considerable and
influential portion of the members, as well as ministers of the Established
Church." Another: The Movement has manifested itself "with the most rapid growth
of the hot-bed of these evil days." Another: "The Via Media is crowded
with young enthusiasts, who never presume to argue, except against the propriety
of arguing at all." Another: "Were I to give you a full list of the works, which
they have produced within the short space of five years, I should surprise you.
You would see what a task it would be to make yourself complete master of their
system, even in its present probably immature state. The writers have adopted
the motto, 'In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' With regard to
confidence, they have justified their adopting it; but as to quietness, it is
not very quiet to pour forth such a succession of controversial publications."
Another: "The spread of these doctrines is in fact now having the effect of
rendering all other distinctions obsolete, and of severing the religious
community into two portions, fundamentally and vehemently opposed one to the
other. Soon there will be no middle ground left; and every man, and especially
every clergyman, will be compelled to make his choice between the two." Another:
"The time has gone by, when those unfortunate and deeply regretted publications can be passed
over without notice, and the hope that their influence would fail is now dead."
Another: "These doctrines had already made fearful progress. One of the largest
churches in Brighton is crowded to hear them; so is the church at Leeds. There
are few towns of note, to which they have not extended. They are preached in
small towns in Scotland. They obtain in Elginshire, 600 miles north of London. I
found them myself in the heart of the highlands of Scotland. They are advocated
in the newspaper and periodical press. They have even insinuated themselves into
the House of Commons." And, lastly, a bishop in a charge:—It "is daily assuming
a more serious and alarming aspect. Under the specious pretence of deference to
Antiquity and respect for primitive models, the foundations of the Protestant
Church are undermined by men, who dwell within her walls, and those who sit in
the Reformers' seat are traducing the Reformation."
After thus stating the phenomenon of the time, as it presented itself to
those who did not sympathize in it, the Article proceeds to account for it; and
this it does by considering it as a re-action from the dry and superficial
character of the religious teaching and the literature of the last generation,
or century, and as a result of the need which was felt both by the hearts and
the intellects of the nation for a deeper philosophy, and as the evidence and as
the partial fulfilment of that need, to which even the chief authors of the then
generation had borne witness. First, I mentioned the literary influence of
Walter Scott, who turned men's minds in the direction of the middle ages. "The
general need," I said, "of something deeper and more attractive, than what had
offered itself elsewhere, may be considered to have led to his popularity; and
by means of his popularity he re-acted on his readers, stimulating their mental
thirst, feeding their hopes, setting before them visions, which, when once seen, are
not easily forgotten, and silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which
might afterwards be appealed to as first principles."
Then I spoke of Coleridge, thus: "While history in prose and verse was thus
made the instrument of Church feelings and opinions, a philosophical basis for
the same was laid in England by a very original thinker, who, while he indulged
a liberty of speculation, which no Christian can tolerate, and advocated
conclusions which were often heathen rather than Christian, yet after all
installed a higher philosophy into inquiring minds, than they had hitherto been
accustomed to accept. In this way he made trial of his age, and succeeded in
interesting its genius in the cause of Catholic truth."
Then come Southey and Wordsworth, "two living poets, one of whom in the
department of fantastic fiction, the other in that of philosophical meditation,
have addressed themselves to the same high principles and feelings, and carried
forward their readers in the same direction."
Then comes the prediction of this re-action hazarded by "a sagacious observer
withdrawn from the world, and surveying its movements from a distance," Mr.
Alexander Knox. He had said twenty years before the date of my Article: "No
Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence than the English Church, yet no
Church probably has less practical influence.... The rich provision, made by the
grace and providence of God, for habits of a noble kind, is evidence that men
shall arise, fitted both by nature and ability, to discover for themselves, and
to display to others, whatever yet remains undiscovered, whether in the words or
works of God." Also I referred to "a much venerated clergyman of the last
generation," who said shortly before his death, "Depend on it, the day will
come, when those great doctrines, now buried, will be brought out to the light of day, and
then the effect will be fearful." I remarked upon this, that they who "now blame
the impetuosity of the current, should rather turn their animadversions upon
those who have dammed up a majestic river, till it has become a flood."
These being the circumstances under which the Movement began and progressed,
it was absurd to refer it to the act of two or three individuals. It was not so
much a movement as a "spirit afloat;" it was within us, "rising up in hearts
where it was least suspected, and working itself, though not in secret, yet so
subtly and impalpably, as hardly to admit of precaution or encounter on any
ordinary human rules of opposition. It is," I continued, "an adversary in the
air, a something one and entire, a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and
incapable of being grasped, as being the result of causes far deeper than
political or other visible agencies, the spiritual awakening of spiritual
wants."
To make this clear, I proceed to refer to the chief preachers of the revived
doctrines at that moment, and to draw attention to the variety of their
respective antecedents. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton represented the high Church
dignitaries of the last century; Mr. Perceval, the Tory aristocracy; Mr. Keble
came from a country parsonage; Mr. Palmer from Ireland; Dr. Pusey from the
Universities of Germany, and the study of Arabic MSS.; Mr. Dodsworth from the
study of Prophecy; Mr. Oakeley had gained his views, as he himself expressed it,
"partly by study, partly by reflection, partly by conversation with one or two
friends, inquirers like himself:" while I speak of myself as being "much
indebted to the friendship of Archbishop Whately." And thus I am led on to ask,
"What head of a sect is there? What march of opinions can be traced from mind to
mind among preachers such as these? They are one and all in their degree the
organs of one Sentiment, which has risen up simultaneously in many places very
mysteriously."
My train of thought next led me to speak of the disciples of the Movement,
and I freely acknowledged and lamented that they needed to be kept in order. It
is very much to the purpose to draw attention to this point now, when such
extravagances as then occurred, whatever they were, are simply laid to my door,
or to the charge of the doctrines which I advocated. A man cannot do more than
freely confess what is wrong, say that it need not be, that it ought not to be,
and that he is very sorry that it should be. Now I said in the Article, which I
am reviewing, that the great truths themselves, which we were preaching, must
not be condemned on account of such abuse of them. "Aberrations there must ever
be, whatever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, capricious,
and wayward. A mixed multitude went out of Egypt with the Israelites." "There
will ever be a number of persons," I continued, "professing the opinions of a
movement party, who talk loudly and strangely, do odd or fierce things, display
themselves unnecessarily, and disgust other people; persons, too young to be
wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intellectual to
be humble. Such persons will be very apt to attach themselves to particular
persons, to use particular names, to say things merely because others do, and to
act in a party-spirited way."
While I thus republish what I then said about such extravagances as occurred
in these years, at the same time I have a very strong conviction that those
extravagances furnished quite as much the welcome excuse for those who were
jealous or shy of us, as the stumbling-blocks of those who were well inclined to
our doctrines. This too we felt at the time; but it was our duty to see that our
good should not be evil-spoken of; and accordingly, two or three of the writers of the Tracts
for the Times had commenced a Series of what they called "Plain Sermons" with
the avowed purpose of discouraging and correcting whatever was uppish or extreme
in our followers: to this Series I contributed a volume myself.
Its conductors say in their Preface: "If therefore as time goes on, there
shall be found persons, who admiring the innate beauty and majesty of the fuller
system of Primitive Christianity, and seeing the transcendent strength of its
principles, shall become loud and voluble advocates in their behalf,
speaking the more freely, because they do not feel them deeply as founded
in divine and eternal truth, of such persons it is our duty to declare
plainly, that, as we should contemplate their condition with serious
misgiving, so would they be the last persons from whom we should seek
support.
"But if, on the other hand, there shall be any, who, in the silent humility
of their lives, and in their unaffected reverence for holy things, show that
they in truth accept these principles as real and substantial, and by habitual
purity of heart and serenity of temper, give proof of their deep veneration for
sacraments and sacramental ordinances, those persons, whether our professed
adherents or not, best exemplify the kind of character which the writers of
the Tracts for the Times have wished to form."
These clergymen had the best of claims to use these beautiful words, for they
were themselves, all of them, important writers in the Tracts, the two Mr.
Kebles, and Mr. Isaac Williams. And this passage, with which they ushered their
Series into the world, I quoted in the Article, of which I am giving an account,
and I added, "What more can be required of the preachers of neglected truth,
than that they should admit that some, who do not assent to their preaching, are
holier and better men than some who do?" They were not answerable for the
intemperance of those who dishonoured a true doctrine, provided they protested, as they did,
against such intemperance. "They were not answerable for the dust and din which
attends any great moral movement. The truer doctrines are, the more liable they
are to be perverted."
The notice of these incidental faults of opinion or temper in adherents of
the Movement, led on to a discussion of the secondary causes, by means of which
a system of doctrine may be embraced, modified, or developed, of the variety of
schools which may all be in the One Church, and of the succession of one phase
of doctrine to another, while that doctrine is ever one and the same. Thus I was
brought on to the subject of Antiquity, which was the basis of the doctrine of
the Via Media, and by which was not to be understood a servile imitation
of the past, but such a reproduction of it as is really new, while it is old.
"We have good hope," I say, "that a system will be rising up, superior to the
age, yet harmonizing with, and carrying out its higher points, which will
attract to itself those who are willing to make a venture and to face
difficulties, for the sake of something higher in prospect. On this, as on other
subjects, the proverb will apply, 'Fortes fortuna adjuvat.'"
{Fortune favors the brave}
Lastly, I proceeded to the question of that future of the Anglican Church,
which was to be a new birth of the Ancient Religion. And I did not venture to
pronounce upon it. "About the future, we have no prospect before our minds
whatever, good or bad. Ever since that great luminary, Augustine, proved to be
the last bishop of Hippo, Christians have had a lesson against attempting to
foretell, how Providence will prosper and" [or?] "bring to an end, what
it begins." Perhaps the lately-revived principles would prevail in the Anglican
Church; perhaps they would be lost in some miserable schism, or some more
miserable compromise; but there was nothing rash in venturing to predict that "neither
Puritanism nor Liberalism had any permanent inheritance within her."
Then I went on: "As to Liberalism, we think the formularies of the Church
will ever, with the aid of a good Providence, keep it from making any serious
inroads upon the clergy. Besides, it is too cold a principle to prevail with the
multitude." But as regarded what was called Evangelical Religion or Puritanism,
there was more to cause alarm. I observed upon its organization; but on the
other hand it had no intellectual basis; no internal idea, no principle of
unity, no theology. "Its adherents," I said, "are already separating from each
other; they will melt away like a snow-drift. It has no straightforward view on
any one point, on which it professes to teach, and to hide its poverty, it has
dressed itself out in a maze of words. We have no dread of it at all; we only
fear what it may lead to. It does not stand on intrenched ground, or make any
pretence to a position; it does but occupy the space between contending powers,
Catholic Truth and Rationalism. Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when
two real and living principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the
Church, the other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending not for
names and words, or half-views, but for elementary notions and distinctive moral
characters."
Whether the ideas of the coming age upon religion were true or false, at
least they would be real. "In the present day," I said, "mistiness is the mother
of wisdom. A man who can set down a half-a-dozen general propositions, which
escape from destroying one another only by being diluted into truisms, who can
hold the balance between opposites so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or
beam, who never enunciates a truth without guarding himself against being
supposed to exclude the contradictory,—who holds that Scripture is the only authority,
yet that the Church is to be deferred to, that faith only justifies, yet that it
does not justify without works, that grace does not depend on the sacraments,
yet is not given without them, that bishops are a divine ordinance, yet those
who have them not are in the same religious condition as those who have,—this is
your safe man and the hope of the Church; this is what the Church is said to
want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to
guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of
Aye and No."
This state of things, however, I said, could not last, if men were to read
and think. They "will not keep in that very attitude which you call sound
Church-of-Englandism or orthodox Protestantism. They cannot go on for ever
standing on one leg, or sitting without a chair, or walking with their feet
tied, or like Tityrus's stags grazing in the air. They will take one view or
another, but it will be a consistent view. It may be Liberalism, or Erastianism,
or Popery, or Catholicity; but it will be real."
I concluded the Article by saying, that all who did not wish to be
"democratic, or pantheistic, or popish," must "look out for some Via
Media which will preserve us from what threatens, though it cannot restore the
dead. The spirit of Luther is dead; but Hildebrand and Loyola are alive. Is it
sensible, sober, judicious, to be so very angry with those writers of the day,
who point to the fact, that our divines of the seventeenth century have occupied
a ground which is the true and intelligible mean between extremes? Is it wise to
quarrel with this ground, because it is not exactly what we should choose, had
we the power of choice? Is it true moderation, instead of trying to fortify a
middle doctrine, to fling stones at those who do?... Would you rather have your
sons and daughters members of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome?"
And thus I left the matter. But, while I was thus speaking of the future of
the Movement, I was in truth winding up my accounts with it, little dreaming
that it was so to be;—while I was still, in some way or other, feeling about for
an available Via Media, I was soon to receive a shock which was to cast
out of my imagination all middle courses and compromises for ever. As I have
said, this Article appeared in the April number of the British Critic; in the
July number, I cannot tell why, there is no Article of mine; before the number
for October, the event had happened to which I have alluded.
But before I proceed to describe what happened to me in the summer of 1839, I
must detain the reader for a while, in order to describe the issue of the
controversy between Rome and the Anglican Church, as I viewed it. This will
involve some dry discussion; but it is as necessary for my narrative, as plans
of buildings and homesteads are at times needed in the proceedings of our law
courts.
I have said already that, though the object of the Movement was to withstand
the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt this could not be done by mere
negatives. It was necessary for us to have a positive Church theory erected on a
definite basis. This took me to the great Anglican divines; and then of course I
found at once that it was impossible to form any such theory, without cutting
across the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman
controversy.
When I first turned myself to it, I had neither doubt on the subject, nor
suspicion that doubt would ever come upon me. It was in this state of mind that
I began to read up Bellarmine on the one hand, and numberless Anglican writers on the
other. But I soon found, as others had found before me, that it was a tangled
and manifold controversy, difficult to master, more difficult to put out of hand
with neatness and precision. It was easy to make points, not easy to sum up and
settle. It was not easy to find a clear issue for the dispute, and still less by
a logical process to decide it in favour of Anglicanism. This difficulty,
however, had no tendency whatever to harass or perplex me: it was a matter which
bore not on convictions, but on proofs.
First I saw, as all see who study the subject, that a broad distinction had
to be drawn between the actual state of belief and of usage in the countries
which were in communion with the Roman Church, and her formal dogmas; the latter
did not cover the former. Sensible pain, for instance, is not implied in the
Tridentine decree upon Purgatory; but it was the tradition of the Latin Church,
and I had seen the pictures of souls in flames in the streets of Naples. Bishop
Lloyd had brought this distinction out strongly in an Article in the British
Critic in 1825; indeed, it was one of the most common objections made to the
Church of Rome, that she dared not commit herself by formal decree, to what
nevertheless she sanctioned and allowed. Accordingly, in my Prophetical Office,
I view as simply separate ideas, Rome quiescent, and Rome in action. I
contrasted her creed on the one hand, with her ordinary teaching, her
controversial tone, her political and social bearing, and her popular beliefs
and practices, on the other.
While I made this distinction between the decrees and the traditions of Rome,
I drew a parallel distinction between Anglicanism quiescent, and Anglicanism in
action. In its formal creed Anglicanism was not at a great distance from Rome:
far otherwise, when viewed in its insular spirit, the traditions of its
establishment, its historical characteristics, its controversial rancour, and
its private judgment. I disavowed and condemned those excesses, and called them
"Protestantism" or "Ultra-Protestantism:" I wished to find a parallel
disclaimer, on the part of Roman controversialists, of that popular system of
beliefs and usages in their own Church, which I called "Popery." When that hope
was a dream, I saw that the controversy lay between the book-theology of
Anglicanism on the one side, and the living system of what I called Roman
corruption on the other. I could not get further than this; with this result I
was forced to content myself.
These then were the parties in the controversy:—the Anglican Via
Media and the popular religion of Rome. And next, as to the issue, to
which the controversy between them was to be brought, it was this:—the Anglican
disputant took his stand upon Antiquity or Apostolicity, the Roman upon
Catholicity. The Anglican said to the Roman: "There is but One Faith, the
Ancient, and you have not kept to it;" the Roman retorted: "There is but One
Church, the Catholic, and you are out of it." The Anglican urged "Your special
beliefs, practices, modes of action, are nowhere in Antiquity;" the Roman
objected: "You do not communicate with any one Church besides your own and its
offshoots, and you have discarded principles, doctrines, sacraments, and usages,
which are and ever have been received in the East and the West." The true
Church, as defined in the Creeds, was both Catholic and Apostolic; now, as I
viewed the controversy in which I was engaged, England and Rome had divided
these notes or prerogatives between them: the cause lay thus, Apostolicity
versus Catholicity.
However, in thus stating the matter, of course I do not wish it supposed that
I allowed the note of Catholicity really to belong to Rome, to the disparagement
of the Anglican Church; but I considered that the special point or plea of Rome in the
controversy was Catholicity, as the Anglican plea was Antiquity. Of course I
contended that the Roman idea of Catholicity was not ancient and apostolic. It
was in my judgment at the utmost only natural, becoming, expedient, that the
whole of Christendom should be united in one visible body; while such a unity
might, on the other hand, be nothing more than a mere heartless and political
combination. For myself, I held with the Anglican divines, that, in the
Primitive Church, there was a very real mutual independence between its separate
parts, though, from a dictate of charity, there was in fact a close union
between them. I considered that each See and Diocese might be compared to a
crystal, and that each was similar to the rest, and that the sum total of them
all was only a collection of crystals. The unity of the Church lay, not in its
being a polity, but in its being a family, a race, coming down by apostolical
descent from its first founders and bishops. And I considered this truth brought
out, beyond the possibility of dispute, in the Epistles of St. Ignatius, in
which the Bishop is represented as the one supreme authority in the Church, that
is, in his own place, with no one above him, except as, for the sake of
ecclesiastical order and expedience, arrangements had been made by which one was
put over or under another. So much for our own claim to Catholicity, which was
so perversely appropriated by our opponents to themselves:—on the other hand, as
to our special strong point, Antiquity, while, of course, by means of it, we
were able to condemn most emphatically the novel claim of Rome to domineer over
other Churches, which were in truth her equals, further than that, we thereby
especially convicted her of the intolerable offence of having added to the
Faith. This was the critical head of accusation urged against her by the
Anglican disputant; and as he referred to St. Ignatius in proof that he himself was a
true Catholic, in spite of being separated from Rome, so he triumphantly
referred to the Treatise of Vincentius of Lerins upon the
"Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,"
{"In ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneatur quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est."
(Vincent of Lerins, 5th cen., Commonitorium)
Also in the Catholic Church itself we take great care that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.
(trans. T. Herbert Bindley, 1914)}
in proof that the controversialists of Rome, in spite
of their possession of the Catholic name, were separated in their creed from the
Apostolical and primitive faith.
Of course those controversialists had their own mode of answering him, with
which I am not concerned in this place; here I am only concerned with the issue
itself, between the one party and the other—Antiquity versus
Catholicity.
Now I will proceed to illustrate what I have been saying of the status
of the controversy, as it presented itself to my mind, by extracts from my
writings of the dates of 1836, 1840, and 1841. And I introduce them with a
remark, which especially applies to the paper, from which I shall quote first,
of the date of 1836. That paper appeared in the March and April numbers of the
British Magazine of that year, and was entitled "Home Thoughts Abroad." Now it
will be found, that, in the discussion which it contains, as in various other
writings of mine, when I was in the Anglican Church, the argument in behalf of
Rome is stated with considerable perspicuity and force. And at the time my
friends and supporters cried out, "How imprudent!" and, both at the time, and
especially at a later date, my enemies have cried out, "How insidious!" Friends
and foes virtually agreed in their criticism; I had set out the cause which I
was combating to the best advantage: this was an offence; it might be from
imprudence, it might be with a traitorous design. It was from neither the one
nor the other; but for the following reasons. First, I had a great impatience,
whatever was the subject, of not bringing out the whole of it, as clearly as I
could; next I wished to be as fair to my adversaries as possible; and thirdly I
thought that there was a great deal of shallowness among our own friends, and
that they undervalued the strength of the argument in behalf of Rome, and that
they ought to be roused to a more exact apprehension of the position of the
controversy. At a later date, (1841,) when I really felt the force of the Roman
side of the question myself, as a difficulty which had to be met, I had a fourth
reason for such frankness in argument, and that was, because a number of persons
were unsettled far more than I was, as to the Catholicity of the Anglican
Church. It was quite plain that, unless I was perfectly candid in stating what
could be said against it, there was no chance that any representations, which I
felt to be in its favour, or at least to be adverse to Rome, would have had any
success with the persons in question.
At all times I had a deep conviction, to put the matter on the lowest ground,
that "honesty was the best policy." Accordingly, in July 1841, I expressed
myself thus on the Anglican difficulty: "This is an objection which we must
honestly say is deeply felt by many people, and not inconsiderable ones; and the
more it is openly avowed to be a difficulty, the better; for there is then the
chance of its being acknowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as far as
may be, by those who have the power. Flagrant evils cure themselves by being
flagrant; and we are sanguine that the time is come when so great an evil as
this is, cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and common sense of
religious persons. It is the very strength of Romanism against us; and, unless
the proper persons take it into their serious consideration, they may look for
certain to undergo the loss, as time goes on, of some whom they would least like
to be lost to our Church." The measure which I had especially in view in this
passage, was the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, which the then Archbishop of
Canterbury was at that time concocting with M. Bunsen, and of which I shall
speak more in the sequel. And now to return to the Home Thoughts Abroad of the
spring of 1836:—
The discussion contained in this composition runs in the form of a dialogue.
One of the disputants says: "You say to me that the Church of Rome is corrupt.
What then? to cut off a limb is a strange way of saving it from the influence of
some constitutional ailment. Indigestion may cause cramp in the extremities; yet
we spare our poor feet notwithstanding. Surely there is such a religious
fact as the existence of a great Catholic body, union with which is a
Christian privilege and duty. Now, we English are separate from it."
The other answers: "The present is an unsatisfactory, miserable state of
things, yet I can grant no more. The Church is founded on a doctrine,—on the
gospel of Truth; it is a means to an end. Perish the Church, (though, blessed be
the promise! this cannot be,) yet let it perish rather than the Truth
should fail. Purity of faith is more precious to the Christian than unity
itself. If Rome has erred grievously in doctrine, then it is a duty to separate
even from Rome."
His friend, who takes the Roman side of the argument, refers to the image of
the Vine and its branches, which is found, I think, in St. Cyprian, as if a
branch cut from the Catholic Vine must necessarily die. Also he quotes a passage
from St. Augustine in controversy with the Donatists to the same effect; viz.
that, as being separated from the body of the Church, they were ipso
facto cut off from the heritage of Christ. And he quotes St. Cyril's
argument drawn from the very title Catholic, which no body or communion of men
has ever dared or been able to appropriate, besides one. He adds, "Now I am only
contending for the fact, that the communion of Rome constitutes the main body of
the Church Catholic, and that we are split off from it, and in the condition of
the Donatists."
The other replies by denying the fact that the present Roman communion is
like St. Augustine's Catholic Church, inasmuch as there must be taken into
account the large Anglican and Greek communions. Presently he takes the
offensive, naming distinctly the points, in which Rome has departed from
Primitive Christianity, viz. "the practical idolatry, the virtual worship of the
Virgin and Saints, which are the offence of the Latin Church, and the
degradation of moral truth and duty, which follows from these." And again: "We
cannot join a Church, did we wish it ever so much, which does not acknowledge
our orders, refuses us the Cup, demands our acquiescence in image-worship, and
excommunicates us, if we do not receive it and all other decisions of the
Tridentine Council."
His opponent answers these objections by referring to the doctrine of
"developments of gospel truth." Besides, "The Anglican system itself is not
found complete in those early centuries; so that the [Anglican] principle [of
Antiquity] is self-destructive." "When a man takes up this Via Media, he
is a mere doctrinaire;" he is like those, "who, in some matter of
business, start up to suggest their own little crotchet, and are ever measuring
mountains with a pocket ruler, or improving the planetary courses." "The Via
Media has slept in libraries; it is a substitute of infancy for
manhood."
It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835 or beginning of 1836, I had the
whole state of the question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision
between the Churches depended. It is observable that the question of the
position of the Pope, whether as the centre of unity, or as the source of
jurisdiction, did not come into my thoughts at all; nor did it, I think I may
say, to the end. I doubt whether I ever distinctly held any of his powers to be
de jure divino, while I was in the Anglican Church;—not that I saw any
difficulty in the doctrine; not that in connexion with the history of St. Leo, of
which I shall speak by and by, the idea of his infallibility did not cross my
mind, for it did,—but after all, in my view the controversy did not turn upon
it; it turned upon the Faith and the Church. This was my issue of the
controversy from the beginning to the end. There was a contrariety of claims
between the Roman and Anglican religions, and the history of my conversion is
simply the process of working it out to a solution. In 1838 I illustrated it by
the contrast presented to us between the Madonna and Child, and a Calvary. The
peculiarity of the Anglican theology was this,—that it "supposed the Truth to be
entirely objective and detached, not" (as in the theology of Rome) "lying hid in
the bosom of the Church as if one with her, clinging to and (as it were) lost in
her embrace, but as being sole and unapproachable, as on the Cross or at the
Resurrection, with the Church close by, but in the background."
As I viewed the controversy in 1836 and 1838, so I viewed it in 1840 and
1841. In the British Critic of January 1840, after gradually investigating how
the matter lies between the Churches by means of a dialogue, I end thus: "It
would seem, that, in the above discussion, each disputant has a strong point:
our strong point is the argument from Primitiveness, that of Romanists from
Universality. It is a fact, however it is to be accounted for, that Rome has
added to the Creed; and it is a fact, however we justify ourselves, that we are
estranged from the great body of Christians over the world. And each of these
two facts is at first sight a grave difficulty in the respective systems to
which they belong." Again, "While Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers,
recognizes them, and England, not deferring to the large body of the Church,
recognizes it, both Rome and England have a point to clear up."
And still more strongly, in July, 1841:
"If the Note of schism, on the one hand, lies against England, an antagonist
disgrace lies upon Rome, the Note of idolatry. Let us not be mistaken here; we
are neither accusing Rome of idolatry nor ourselves of schism; we think neither
charge tenable; but still the Roman Church practises what is so like idolatry,
and the English Church makes much of what is so very like schism, that without
deciding what is the duty of a Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in
her present state, we do seriously think that members of the English Church have
a providential direction given them, how to comport themselves towards the
Church of Rome, while she is what she is."
One remark more about Antiquity and the Via Media. As time went on,
without doubting the strength of the Anglican argument from Antiquity, I felt
also that it was not merely our special plea, but our only one. Also I felt that
the Via Media, which was to represent it, was to be a sort of remodelled
and adapted Antiquity. This I advanced both in Home Thoughts Abroad and in the
Article of the British Critic which I have analyzed above. But this
circumstance, that after all we must use private judgment upon Antiquity,
created a sort of distrust of my theory altogether, which in the conclusion of
my Volume on the Prophetical Office (1836-7) I express thus: "Now that our
discussions draw to a close, the thought, with which we entered on the subject,
is apt to recur, when the excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness
has succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton exercise,
rather than the practical conclusions of the intellect." And I conclude the
paragraph by anticipating a line of thought into which I was, in the event,
almost obliged to take refuge: "After all," I say, "the Church is ever invisible
in its day, and faith only apprehends it." What was this, but to give up the
Notes of a visible Church altogether, whether the Catholic Note or the Apostolic?
The Long Vacation of 1839 began early. There had been a great many visitors
to Oxford from Easter to Commemoration; and Dr. Pusey's party had attracted
attention, more, I think, than in any former year. I had put away from me the
controversy with Rome for more than two years. In my Parochial Sermons the
subject had at no time been introduced: there had been nothing for two years,
either in my Tracts or in the British Critic, of a polemical character. I was
returning, for the Vacation, to the course of reading which I had many years
before chosen as especially my own. I have no reason to suppose that the
thoughts of Rome came across my mind at all. About the middle of June I began to
study and master the history of the Monophysites. I was absorbed in the
doctrinal question. This was from about June 13th to August 30th. It was during
this course of reading that for the first time a doubt came upon me of the
tenableness of Anglicanism. I recollect on the 30th of July mentioning to a
friend, whom I had accidentally met, how remarkable the history was; but by the
end of August I was seriously alarmed.
I have described in a former work, how the history affected me. My stronghold
was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it
seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries
reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of
the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was,
where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. Of all passages of
history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings
and doings of old Eutyches
{c. 380—c. 456, asserted, heretically, that in Christ human nature and divine nature were combined into the single new nature.},
that delirus senex, {old dotard} as (I think) Petavius {French theologian, 1583-1652}
calls him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, {Antipope from 22 September 530 – 14 October 530}
in order to be converted to Rome!
Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing controversially, but
with the one object of relating things as they happened to me in the course of
my conversion. With this view I will quote a passage from the account, which I
gave in 1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839:
"It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were
heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find
arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers
of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without
condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of
truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of
the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of
heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so,—almost fearfully;
there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned,
between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present.
The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit
rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments
of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern,
resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable,
reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together,
except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying
to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What
was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after
all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate
against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and
shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her
cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet
of God! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels!
perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the
face of the earth, ere I should do ought but fall at their feet in love and in
worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words
were ever in my ears and on my tongue!"
Hardly had I brought my course of reading to a close, when the Dublin Review
of that same August was put into my hands, by friends who were more favourable
to the cause of Rome than I was myself. There was an article in it on the
"Anglican Claim" by Dr. Wiseman. This was about the middle of September. It was
on the Donatists, with an application to Anglicanism. I read it, and did not see
much in it. The Donatist controversy was known to me for some years, as has
appeared already. The case was not parallel to that of the Anglican Church. St.
Augustine in Africa wrote against the Donatists in Africa. They were a furious
party who made a schism within the African Church, and not beyond its limits. It
was a case of Altar against Altar, of two occupants of the same See, as that
between the Non-jurors in England and the Established Church; not the case of
one Church against another, as of Rome against the Oriental Monophysites. But my
friend, an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant
still, pointed out the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in
one of the extracts made in the Review, and which had escaped my observation.
"Securus judicat orbis terrarum."
{"The verdict of the world is conclusive." (St. Augustine, Contra Epist. Parmen. III. 24.)}
He repeated these words again and again, and,
when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" they
were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that
of the Monophysites. They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at
first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of
Antiquity; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here
then Antiquity was deciding against itself. What a light was hereby thrown upon
every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not
falter in their judgment,—not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can
be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,—not
that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the
contest by the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the deliberate judgment,
in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible
prescription and a final sentence against such portions of it as protest and
secede. Who can account for the impressions which are made on him? For a mere
sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had
felt from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like the
"Turn again Whittington" of the chime; or, to take a more serious one, they were
like the "Tolle, lege,—Tolle, lege," of the child, which converted St. Augustine
himself {See Confessions, Book VIII}.
"Securus judicat orbis terrarum!" By those great words of the ancient
Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical
history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.
I became excited at the view thus opened upon me. I was just starting on a
round of visits; and I mentioned my state of mind to two most intimate friends:
I think to no others. After a while, I got calm, and at length the vivid
impression upon my imagination faded away. What I thought about it on
reflection, I will attempt to describe presently. I had to determine its logical
value, and its bearing upon my duty. Meanwhile, so far as this was certain,—I
had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall. It was clear that I had a good deal
to learn on the question of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was
coming upon me. He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it.
The heavens had opened and closed again. The thought for the moment had been,
"The Church of Rome will be found right after all;" and then it had vanished. My
old convictions remained as before.
At this time, I wrote my Sermon on Divine Calls, which I published in my
volume of Plain Sermons. It ends thus:—
"O that we could take that simple view of things, as to feel that the one
thing which lies before us is to please God! What gain is it to please the
world, to please the great, nay even to please those whom we love, compared with
this? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed,—compared with
this one aim, of not being disobedient to a heavenly vision? What can this world
offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that
heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of
glory, which they have, who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?
Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully, to
quicken our senses, to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world
to come; so to work within us, that we may sincerely say, 'Thou shalt guide me
with Thy counsel, and after that receive me with glory. Whom have I in heaven
but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My
flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion
for ever.'"
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