HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS “Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in Him, and He will do it And He will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judg ment as the noon-day.” BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D. OF THE ORATORY OF ST. PHILIP NERI. * LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER. . . . . 1870. - ** * (\- * \\ ...*.*.*.*.*, *.ſº 't … tº * *. xxº~ *, tº Y. *wº. § * **-Sas \ - *. wº “A ** § !. .* , , , f), % - e.g., $ §. - * , … *** * º ** - . * -- 3. M. £, ſº* º *), ‘. §: :^ w r º: ... º' - • * º ºx.” A sº, - 3. *"... .. *: & #3: * * * **** • wº RAA. Sº, Jºy..... *śjr., º vºº: +. sº - ****, . . N-R* *s º * º ka * * . - ~ v - *...*&#. 3.3%,..., ~ Wºłº t *... A. : : ***) ‘V XV*Wü. JV. t 㺠V * \ *}^*.*. * - w: Yº, º, §wº {{*Af, s %, . ; • ‘K. >ss \ºw, * $ ſº º, t;" - \ º, & *ēvºl.x. tº *e, *: \ºw ** ~~ 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 P And I 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 P 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. 93 practises on himself a cruel operation, the ripping up of old griefs, and the venturing again upon the “infandum dolorem ’’ 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 grow- ing 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 annoy- ance had passed from my mind. In January, if I recollect aright, in order to meet the popular clamour against my- self 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 pub- lications. 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 con- Centration and adjustment of the statements of great An- glican authorities, and I had as much right to hold it, as the Bvangelical, and more right than the Liberal party could show, for asserting their own respective doctrines. As I 94 PHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 para- dise 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 Wº 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. 95 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 exer- tions. One writer said: “Opinions and views of a theo- logy of a very marked and peculiar kind have been exten- sively adopted and strenuously upheld, and are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential por- tion of the members, as well as ministers of the Estab- lished 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 pro- duced within the short space of five years, I should sur- prise you. You would see what a task it would be to make yourself complete master of their system, even in its 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 dis- tinctions 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.” An- other: “The time has gone by, when those unfortunate | 2 … ".. - - * $... . . ; - 3. 96 FHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS and deeply regretted publications can be passed over with- out 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 Scot- land. They obtain in Elginshire, 600 miles north of London. I found them myself in the heart of the high- lands of Scotland. They are advocated in the newspaper and periodical press. They have even insinuated them- selves 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 founda- tions 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 con- sidering 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, stimu- lating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting ...'--- . FROM 1839 TO 1841. 97 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 sur- Veying 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 ex- cellence 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 - H 98 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 Move- ment 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 ante- cedents. 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 par- sonage; 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. 99 of one Sentiment, which has risen up simultaneously in many places very mysteriously.” My train of thought next led me to speak of the disci- ples 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 re- viewing, 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, what- ever 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 num- ber 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 dis- gust other people; persons, too young to be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intel- lectual 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 * * * * * * * * * * * 100 ELISTORY OF MY IRELIGIOUS OPINIONS three of the writers of the Tracts for the Times had com- menced 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 Pri- mitive 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 t 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 intemper- * * FROM 1839 TO 1841. 101 ance 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 doc- trine 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.’” 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 PJ “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 102 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 proposi- tions, which escape from destroying one another only by being diluted into truisms, who can hold the balance be- tween opposites so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam, who never enunciates a truth without guarding himself against being supposed to exclude the contradic- * FROM 1839 TO 1841. 103 tory,+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 con- dition 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 a Fe 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 104 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS members of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome P” 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. - T 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 neces- sary for my narrative, as plans of buildings and home- steads are often found to be in the proceedings of our law CourtS. I have said already that, though the object of the Move- ment 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. s 105 read up Dellarmine 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 com- & 2 munion 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, 106 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS the traditions of its establishment, its historical charac- teristics, its controversial rancour, and its private judgment. I disavowed and condemned those excesses, and called thent “Protestantism * or “Ulra-Protestantism :” I wished tº find a parallel disclaimer, on the part of Roman controver- sialists, 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 dis- putant 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 prin- ciples, 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. 107 .\ - - > Anglican Church; but I considered that the special point or plea of Tºome 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 apos- tolic. 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 per- Versely 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, fur- ther 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 108 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 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 con- tains, 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 im- prudent l” and, both at the time, and especially at a later date, my enemies have cried out, “How insidious !” Eriends 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 impru- dence, 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 FROM 1839 TO 1841. 109 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 incon- siderable 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 110 HISTORY OF MY IRELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 P to cut off a limb is a strange way of saving it from the influence of some constitutional ailment. Indi- gestion 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 Wine and its branches, which is found, I think, in St. Cyprian, as if a branch cut from the Catholic Wine must necessarily die. Also he quotes a passage from St. Augustine in controversy with the Dona- tists 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 argu- ment 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 con- tending for the fact, that the communion of Rome consti- tutes the main body of the Church Catholic, and that we are split off from it, and in the condition of the Donatists.” FROM 1839 TO 1841. 111 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 Tome 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 degra- dation 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 posi- tion 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 112 IHISTOIRY () F MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 de- tached, 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 back- ground.” - 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.” FROM 1839 TO 1841. 113 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 provi- dential direction given them, how to comport themselves towards the Church of Rome, while she is what she is.”v 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 cir- cumstance, 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 antici- pating 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 appre- hends it.” What was this, but to give up the Notes of - I 114 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 Vaca- tion, 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 men- tioning 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 cen- turies 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, that delirus Senew, as (I think) Petavius calls FROM 1839 TO 1841, 115 him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, 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 An- glicans 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 six- teenth. 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 com- prehensions, 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 º ./ :// 116 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS Athanasius and the majestic Leo P Be my soul with the Saints and shall I lift up my hand against them P 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 1 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 obser- vation. “Securus judicat orbis terrarum.” He repeated these words again and again, and, when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. “Securus judicat orbis. FROM 1839 TO 1841. 117 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 meat first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity; nay, St. Augus- tine 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 1 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. Wh9 can account for the impressions which are made on him P 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. “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 118 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 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 Sormons. 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, may 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 dis- obedient 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 P 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 sin- cerely 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.’” Now to trace the succession of thoughts, and the con- .* FROM 1839 TO 1841. 119 clusions, and the consequent innovations on my previous belief, and the general conduct, to which I was led, upon this sudden visitation. And first, I will say, whatever comes of saying it, for I leave inferences to others, that for years I must have had something of an habitual notion, though it was latent, and had never led me to distrust my own convictions, that my mind had not found its ultimate rest, and that in some sense or other I was on journey. During the same passage across the Mediterranean in which I wrote “Lead kindly light,” I also wrote the verses, which are found in the Lyra under the head of “Providences,” beginning, “When I look back.” This was in 1833; and, since I have begun this narrative, I have found a memo- randum under the date of September 7, 1829, in which I speak of myself, as “now in my rooms in Oriel College, slowly advancing &c. and led on by God’s hand blindly, not knowing whither He is taking me.” But, whatever this presentiment be worth, it was no protection against the dismay and disgust, which I felt, in consequence of the dreadful misgiving, of which I have been relating the history. The one question was, what was I to do? I had to make up my mind for myself, and others could not help me. I determined to be guided, not by my imagination, but by my reason. And this I said over and over again in the years which followed, both in conversation and in private letters. Had it not been for this severe resolve, I should have been a Catholic sooner than I was. Moreover, I felt on consideration a positive doubt, on the other hand, whether the suggestion did not come from below. Then I said to myself, Time alone can solve that question. It was my business to go on as usual, to obey those convictions to which I had so long surrendered myself, which still had possession of me, and on which my new thoughts had no direct bearing. That new conception of things should only So far influence me, as it had a logical claim to do so. If 120 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS it came from above, it would come again ;-so I trusted, —and with more definite outlines and greater cogency and consistency of proof. I thought of Samuel, before “he knew the word of the Lord;” and therefore I went, and lay down to sleep again. This was my broad view of the matter, and my primá facie conclusion. However, my new historical fact had already to a certain point a logical force. Down had come the Via Media as a definite theory or scheme, under the blows of St. Leo. My “Prophetical Office’ had comé to pieces; not indeed as an argument against “Roman errors,” nor as against Protestantism, but as in behalf of England. I had no longer a distinctive plea for Anglicanism, unless I would be a Monophysite. I had, most painfully, to fall back upon my three original points of belief, which I have spoken so much of in a former passage,_the principle of dogma, the sacramental system, and anti-Romanism. Of these three, the first two were better secured in Rome than in the Anglican Church. The Apostolical Succession, the two prominent sacraments, and the primitive Creeds, belonged, indeed, to the latter; but there had been and was far less strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the Anglican system than in the Roman : in consequence, my main. argument for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and special charges, which I could bring against Rome. I had no positive Anglican theory. I was very nearly a pure JProtestant. Lutherans had a sort of theology, so had Calvinists; I had none. However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was gradually left, was really a practical principle. It was a strong, though it was only a negative ground, and it still had great hold on me. As a boy of fifteen, I had so fully imbibed it, that I had actually erased in my Gradus ad Parnassum, such titles, under the word “Papa,” as “Christi Vicarius,” “sacer interpres,” and “sceptra gerens,” and FROM 1839 TO 1841. 121 substituted epithets so vile that I cannot bring myself to write them down here. The effect of this early persuasion remained as, what I have already called it, a “stain upon my imagination.” As regards my reason, I began in 1833 to form theories on the subject, which tended to obliterate it; yet by 1838 I had got no further than to consider Antichrist, as not the Church of Rome, but the spirit of the old pagan city, the fourth monster of Daniel, which was still alive, and which had corrupted the Church which was planted there. Soon after this indeed, and before my attention was directed to the Monophysite controversy, I underwent a great change of opinion. I saw that, from the nature of the case, the true Vicar of Christ must ever to the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized as such, because a resemblance must ever exist between an original and a forgery; and thus the fact of such a calumny was almost one of the notes of the Church. But we cannot unmake ourselves or change our habits in a moment. Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for Some time after, I could not have thrown off-the un- reasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished about her at least by fits and starts, in spite of this con- viction of my reason. I cannot prove this, but I believe it to have been the case from what I recollect of myself. Nor was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and the Monophysites to undo the firm belief I had in the existence of what I called the practical abuses and excesses of Rome. To her inconsistencies then, to her ambition and in- trigue, to her sophistries (as I considered them to be) I now had recourse in my opposition to her, both public and personal. I did so by way of a relief. I had a great and growing dislike, after the summer of 1839, to speak against the Roman Church herself or her formal doctrines. I was Very averse to speaking against doctrines, which might possi- 122 IHISTORY OF MY IRIELIGIOUS OPINIONS bly turn out to be true, though at the time I had no reason for thinking they were; or against the Church, which had preserved them. I began to have misgivings, that, strong as my own feelings had been against her, yet in some things which I had said, I had taken the statements of Anglican divines for granted without weighing them for myself. I said to a friend in 1840, in a letter, which I shall use presently, “I am troubled by doubts whether as it is, I have not, in what I have published, spoken too strongly against Rome, though I think I did it in a kind of faith, being determined to put myself into the English system, and say all that our divines said, whether I had fully weighed it or not.” I was sore about the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say strong things, which facts did not justify. Yet I did still hold in substance all that I had said against the Church of Rome in my Prophetical Office. I felt the force of the usual Protestant objections against her; I believed that we had the Apostolical succession in the Anglican Church, and the grace of the sacraments; I was not sure that the difficulty of its isolation might not be overcome, though I was far from sure that it could. I did not see any clear proof that it had committed itself to any heresy, ºr had taken part against the truth; and I was not sure that it would not revive into full Apostolic purity and strength, and grow into union with Rome herself (Rome explaining her doctrines and guarding against their abuse), that is, if we were but patient and hopeful. I began to wish for union between the Anglican Church and Rome, if, and when, it was possible; and I did what I could to gain weekly prayers for that object. The ground which I felt to be good against her was the moral ground: I felt I could not be wrong in striking at her political and social line of action. The alliance of a dogmatic religion with liberals, high or low, seemed to me a providential direction against FROM 1839 TO 1841. 123 moving towards Rome, and a better “Preservative against Popery,” than the three volumes in folio, in which, I think, that prophylactic is to be found. However, on occasions which demanded it, I felt it a duty to give out plainly all that I thought, though I did not like to do so. One such instance occurred, when I had to publish a Letter about Tract 90. In that Letter, I said, “Instead of setting before the soul the Holy Trinity, and heaven and hell, the Church of Rome does seem to me, as a popu- lar system, to preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and purgatory.” On this occasion I recollect expressing to a friend the distress it gave me thus to speak; but, I said, “How can I help saying it, if I think it? and I do think it; my Bishop calls on me to say out what I think; and that is the long and the short of it.” But I recollected Hurrell Froude's words to me, almost his dying words, “I must enter another protest against your cursing and swearing. What good can it do? and I call it uncharita- ble to an excess. How mistaken we may ourselves be, on many points that are only gradually opening on us!” Instead then of speaking of errors in doctrine, I was driven, by my state of mind, to insist upon the political conduct, the controversial bearing, and the social methods and manifestations of Rome. And here I found a matter ready to my hand, which affected me the more sensibly for the reason that it lay at our very doors. I can hardly describe too strongly my feeling upon it. I had an un- speakable aversion to the policy and acts of Mr. O’Connell, because, as I thought, he associated himself with men of all religions and no religion against the Anglican Church, and advanced Catholicism by violence and intrigue. When then I found him taken up by the English Catholics, and, as I supposed, at Rome, I considered I had a fulfilment before my eyes how the Court of Rome played fast and loose, and justified the serious charges which I had seen 124 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS put down in books against it. Here we saw what Rome was in action, whatever she might be when quiescent. Her conduct was simply secular and political. This feeling led me into the excess of being very rude to that zealous and most charitable man, Mr. Spencer, when he came to Oxford in January, 1840, to get Angli- cans to set about praying for Unity. I myself, at that time, or soon after, drew up such prayers; their desirable- ness was one of the first thoughts which came upon me after my shock; but I was too much annoyed with the political action of the Catholic body in these islands to wish to have any thing to do with them personally. So glad in my heart was I to see him, when he came to my rooms with Mr. Palmer of Magdalen, that I could have laughed for joy; I think I did laugh; but I was very rude to him, I would not meet him at dinner, and that, (though I did not say so,) because I considered him “in loco apostatae’ from the Anglican Church, and I hereby beg his pardon for it. I wrote afterwards with a view to apologize, but I dare say he must have thought that I made the matter worse, for these were my words to him :— “The news that you are praying for us is most touch- ing, and raises a variety of indescribable emotions. . . . May their prayers return abundantly into their own bosoms. . . . Why then do I not meet you in a manner 'conformable with these first feelings? For this single reason, if I may say it, that your acts are contrary to your words. You invite us to a union of hearts, at the same time that you are doing all you can, not to restore, not to reform, not to re-unite, but to destroy our Church. You go further than your principles require. You are leagued with our enemies. ‘The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” This is what especially distresses us; this is what we cannot under- FROM 1839 To 1841. 12.5 - stand; how Christians, like yourselves, with the clear view you have that a warfare is ever waging in the world be- tween good and evil, should, in the present state of Eng- land, ally yourselves with the side of evil against the side of good. . . . Of parties now in the country, you cannot but allow, that next to yourselves we are nearest to re- vealed truth. We maintain great and holy principles; we profess Catholic doctrines. . . . So near are we as a body to yourselves in modes of thinking, as even to have been taunted with the nicknames which belong to you; and, on the othºr hand, if there are professed infidels, scoffers, sceptics, unprincipled men, rebels, they are found among our opponents. And yet you take part with them against us. . . . You consent to act hand in hand [with these and others] for our overthrow. Alas! all this it is that impresses us irresistibly with the notion that you are a political, not a religious party; that in order to gain an end on which you set your hearts, an open stage for yourselves in England,-you ally yourselves with those who hold nothing against those who hold something. This is what distresses my own mind so greatly, to speak of myself, that, with limitations which need not now be mentioned, I cannot meet familiarly any leading persons of the Roman Communion, and least of all when they come on a religious errand. Break off, I would say, with Mr. O'Connell in Ireland and the liberal party in Eng- land, or come not to us with overtures for mutual prayer and religious sympathy.” And here came in another feeling, of a personal nature, which had little to do with the argument against Rome, except that, in my prejudice, I viewed what happened to myself in the light of my own ideas of the traditionary conduct of her advocates and instruments. I was very stern in the case of any interference in our Oxford matters on the part of charitable Catholics, and of any attempt | 26 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS to do nie good personally. There was nothing, indeed, at the time more likely to throw me back. “Why do you meddle P why cannot you let me alone? You can do me no good; you know nothing on earth about me; you may actually do me harm; I am in better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity of purpose; and I am deter- mined upon taking my time.” Since I have been a Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of backward- ness in making converts; and I’rotestants have argued from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It would be against my nature to act otherwise than I do; but besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained in the experience of my own history in the past. This is the account which I have to give of some savage and ungrateful words in the British Critic of 1840 against the controversialists of Rome: “Dy their fruits ye shall know them. . . . We see it attempting to gain converts among us by unreal representations of its doctrines, plausi- ble statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our fancies, our eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and ducking to attract attention, as gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and physic concealed in jam, and sugar-plums for good chil- dren. Who can but feel shame when the religion of Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal, is so overlaid P. Who can but feel sorrow, when its devout and earnest defenders so mistake its genius and its capabilities? We English- men like manliness, openness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on us, till she learns these virtues, and uses them; and then she may gain us, but it will be by ceasing to be what we now mean by Rome, by having a right, not to ‘have dominion over our faith,” but to gain and possess our affections in the bonds of the gospel. Till FROM 1839 TO 1841. 127 she ceases to be what she practically is, a union is impossi- ble between her and England; but, if she does reform, (and who can presume to say that so large a part of Chris- tendom never can P) then it will be our Church's duty at Once to join in communion with the continental Churches, whatever politicians at home may say to it, and whatever steps the civil power may take in consequence. And though we may not live to see that day, at least we are bound to pray for it; we are bound to pray for our brethren that they and we may be led together into the pure light of the gospel, and be one as we once were one. It was most touching news to be told, as we were lately, that Christians on the Continent were praying together for the spiritual well-being of England. May they gain light, while they aim at unity, and grow in faith while they manifest their love . We too have our duties to them; not of reviling, not of slandering, not of hating, though political interests require it; but the duty of lov- ing brethren still more abundantly in spirit, whose faces, for our sins and their sins, we are not allowed to see in the flesh.” No one ought to indulge in insinuations; it certainly diminishes my right to complain of slanders uttered against myself, when, as in this passage, I had already spoken in disparagement of the controversialists of that religious body, to which I myself now belong. I have thus put together, as well as I can, what has to be said about my general state of mind from the autumn of 1889 to the summer of 1841; and, having done so, I go on to narrate how my new misgivings affected my conduct, and my relations towards the Anglican Church. When I got back to Oxford in October, 1839, after the visits which I had been paying, it so happened, there had been, in my absence, occurrences of an awkward character, 128 ELISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS compromising me both with my Bishop and also with the authorities of the University; and this drew my atten- tion at once to the state of the Movement party there, and made me very anxious for the future. In the spring of the year, as has been seen in the Article analyzed above, I had spoken of the excesses which were to be found among persons commonly included in it:—at that time I thought little of such an evil, but the new views, which had come on me during the Long Vacation, on the one hand made me comprehend it, and on the other took away my power of effectually meeting it. A firm and powerful control was necessary to keep men straight; I never had a strong wrist, but at the very time, when it was most needed, the reins had broken in my hands. With an anxious presentiment on my mind of the upshot of the whole inquiry, which it was almost impossible for me to conceal from men who saw me day by day, who heard my familiar conversation, who came perhaps for the express purpose of pumping me, and having a categorical yes or no to their questions,—how could I expect to say any thing about my actual, positive, present belief, which would be sustaining or consoling to such persons as were haunted already by doubts of their own P Nay, how could I, with satisfaction to myself, analyze my own mind, and say what I held and what I did not hold? or how could I say with what limitations, shades of difference, or degrees of belief, I still held that body of Anglican opinions which I had openly professed and taught P how could I deny or assert this point or that, without injustice to the new light, in which the whole evidence for those old opinions presented itself to my mind P However, I had to do what I could, and what was best, under the circumstances; I found a general talk on the subject of the Article in the Dublin Review; and, if it had affected me, it was not wonderful, that it affected FROM 1839 TO 1841. 129 others also. As to myself, I felt no kind of certainty that the argument in it was conclusive. Taking it at the worst, granting that the Anglican Church had not the Note of Catholicity; yet there were many Notes of the Church. Some belonged to one age or place, some to another. Bellarmine had reckoned Temporal Prosperity among the Notes of the Church; but the Roman Church had not any great popularity, wealth, glory, power, or prospects, in the nineteenth century. It was not at all certain as yet, even that we had not the Note of Catho- licity; but, if not this, we had others. My first business then, was to examine this question carefully, and see, whether a great deal could not be said after all for the Anglican Church, in spite of its acknowledged short-com- ings. This I did in an Article “on the Catholicity of the English Church,” which appeared in the British Critic of January, 1840. As to my personal distress on the point, I think it had gone by February 21st in that year, for I wrote then to Mr. Bowden about the important Article in the Dublin, thus: “It made a great impression here [Oxford]; and, I say what of course I would only say to such as yourself, it made me for a while very uncomforta- ble in my own mind. The great speciousness of his argu- ment is one of the things which have made me despond so much,” that is, as anticipating its effect upon others. But, secondly, the great stumbling-block lay in the 39 Articles. It was urged that here was a positive Note against Anglicanism:-Anglicanism claimed to hold, that the Church of England was nothing else than a continua- tion in this country, (as the Church of Rome might be in France or Spain,) of that one Church of which in old times Athanasius and Augustine were members. But, if so, the doctrine must be the same ; the doctrine of the Old Church must live and speak in Anglican formularies, in the 39 Articles. Did it? Yes, it did; that is what I maintained; - K - 130 FHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS it did in substance, in a true sense. Man had done his worst to disfigure, to mutilate, the old Catholic Truth; but there it was, in spite of them, in the Articles still. It was there, but this must be shown. It was a matter of life and death to us to show it. And I believed that it could be shown ; I considered that those grounds of justi- fication, which I gave above, when I was speaking of Tract 90, were sufficient for the purpose; and therefore I set about showing it at once. This was in March, 1840, when I went up to Littlemore. And, as it was a matter of life and death with us, all risks must be run to show it. When the attempt was actually made, I had got reconciled to the prospect of it, and had no apprehensions as to the experiment; but in 1840, while my purpose was honest, and my grounds of reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless recognize that I was engaged in an eagerimentum crucis. I have no doubt that then I acknowledged to myself that it would be a trial of the Anglican Church, which it had never undergone before, not that the Catholic sense of the Articles had not been held or at least suffered by their framers and promulgators, not that it was not implied in the teaching of Andrewes or Beveridge, but that it had never been publicly recognized, while the interpretation of the day was Protestant and exclusive. I observe also, that, though my Tract was an experiment, it was, as I said at the time, “no feeler”; the event showed this; for, when my principle was not granted, I did not draw back, but gave up. I would not hold office in a Church which would not allow my sense of the Articles. My tone was, “This is necessary for us, and have it we must and will, and, if it tends to bring men to look less bitterly on the Church of Rome, so much the better.” This then was the second work to which I set myself; though when I got to Littlemore, other things interfered to prevent my accomplishing it at the moment. I had in FROM 1839 TO 1841. 131 mind to remove all such obstacles as lay in the way of holding the Apostolic and Catholic character of the Angli- can teaching; to assert the right of all who chose, to say in the face of day, “Our Church teaches the Primitive Ancient faith.” I did not conceal this: in Tract 90, it is put forward as the first principle of all, “It is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church, and to our own, to take our reformed confessions in the most Catholic sense they will admit: we have no duties towards their framers.” And still more pointedly in my Letter, expla- natory of the Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf, I say: “The only peculiarity of the view I advocate, if I must so call it, is this—that whereas it is usual at this day to make the particular belief of their writers their true interpretation, I . would make the belief of the Catholic Church such. That is, | as it is often said that infants are regenerated in Baptism, not on the faith of their parents, but of the Church, so in like manner I would say that the Articles are received, not in the sense of their framers, but (as far as the word- ing will admit or any ambiguity requires it) in the one Catholic sense.” A third measure which I distinctly contemplated, was the resignation of St. Mary's, whatever became of the question of the 39 Articles; and as a first step I meditated a retirement to Littlemore. Littlemore was an integral’ part of St. Mary’s Parish, and between two and three miles distant from Oxford. I had built a Church there several years before; and I went there to pass the Lent of 1840, and gave myself up to teaching in the Parish School, and practising the choir. At the same time, I had in view a monastic house there. I bought ten acres of ground and began planting; but this great design was never carried out. I mention it, because it shows how little I had really the idea at that time of ever leaving the Anglican Church. That I contemplated as early as 1839 the further step of 132 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS giving up St. Mary’s, appears from a letter which I wrote in October, 1840, to Mr. Keble, the friend whom it was most natural for me to consult on such a point. It ran as follows:— “For a year past a feeling has been growing on me that I ought to give up St. Mary's, but I am no fit judge in the matter. I cannot ascertain accurately my own impressions and convictions, which are the basis of the difficulty, and though you cannot of course do this for me, yet you may help me generally, and perhaps supersede the necessity of my going by them at all. “First, it is certain that I do not know my Oxford parishioners; I am not conscious of influencing them, and certainly I have no insight into their spiritual state. I have no personal, no pastoral acquaintance with them. To very few have I any opportunity of saying a religious word. Whatever influence I exert on them is precisely that which I may be exerting on persons out of my parish. In my excuse I am accustomed to say to myself that I am not adapted to get on with them, while others are. On the other hand, I am conscious that by means of my posi- tion at St. Mary's, I do exert a considerable influence on the University, whether on Undergraduates or Graduates. It seems, then, on the whole that I am using St. Mary’s, to the neglect of its direct duties, for objects not belonging to it; I am converting a parochial charge into a sort of University office. “I think I may say truly that I have begun scarcely any plan but for the sake of my parish, but every one has turned, independently of me, into the direction of the Uni- versity. I began Saints'-days Services, daily Services, and Lectures in Adam de Brome's Chapel, for my parishioners; but they have not come to them. In consequence I dropped the last mentioned, having, while it lasted, been naturally led to direct it to the instruction of those who did come, FROM 1839 TO 1841. 133 instead of those who did not. The Weekly Communion, I believe, I did begin for the sake of the University. “Added to this the authorities of the University, the appointed guardians of those who form great part of the attendants on my Sermons, have shown a dislike of my preaching. One dissuades men from coming;-the late Vice-Chancellor threatens to take his own children away from the Church; and the present, having an opportunity last spring of preaching in my parish pulpit, gets up and preaches against doctrine with which I am in good measure identified. No plainer proof can be given of the feeling in these quarters, than the absurd myth, now a second time put forward, ‘that Vice-Chancellors cannot be got to take the office on account of Puseyism.’ “But further than this, I cannot disguise from myself that my preaching is not calculated to defend that system of religion which has been received for 300 years, and of which the Heads of Houses are the legitimate maintainers in this place. They exclude me, as far as may be, from the University Pulpit; and, though I never have preached strong doctrine in it, they do so rightly, so far as this, that they understand that my sermons are calculated to undermine things established. I cannot disguise from myself that they are. No one will deny that most of my sermons are on moral subjects, not doctrinal; still I am leading my hearers to the Primitive Church, if you will, but not to the Church of England. Now, ought one to be disgusting the minds of young men with the received reli- gion, in the exercise of a sacred office, yet without a commis- sion, and against the wish of their guides and governors? “But this is not all. I fear I must allow that, whether I will or no, I am disposing them towards Rome. First, because Rome is the only representative of the Primitive Church besides ourselves; in proportion then as they are loosened from the one, they will go to the other. Next, because many doctrines which Ihave held have far greater, >= 134 ELISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS or their only scope, in the Roman system. And, moreover, if, as is not unlikely, we have in process of time heretical Bishops or teachers among us, an evil which ipso facto infects the whole community to which they belong, and if, again (what there are at this moment symptoms of), there be a movement in the English Roman Catholics to break the alliance of O’Connell and of Exeter Hall, strong temp- tations will be placed in the way of individuals, already imbued with a tone of thought congenial to Rome, to join her Communion. “People tell me, on the other hand, that I am, whether by sermons or otherwise, exerting at St. Mary’s a beneficial influence on our prospective clergy; but what if I take to myself the credit of seeing further than they, and of having in the course of the last year discovered that what they approve so much is very likely to end in Romanism P “The arguments which I have published against Roman- ism seem to myself as cogent as ever, but men go by their sympathies, not by argument; and if I feel the force of this influence myself, who bow to the arguments, why may not others still more, who never have in the same degree admitted the arguments? “Nor can I counteract the danger by preaching or writing against Rome. I seem to myself almost to have shot my last arrow in the Article on English Catholicity. It must be added, that the very circumstance that I have committed myself against Rome has the effect of setting to sleep people suspicious about me, which is painful now that I begin to have suspicions about myself. I mentioned my general difficulty to Rogers a year since, than whom I know no one of a more fine and accurate conscience, and it was his spontaneous idea that I should give up St. Mary’s, if my feelings continued. I mentioned it again to him lately, and he did not reverse his opinion, only expressed great reluctance to believe it must be so.” Mr. Keble’s judgment was in favour of my retaining my FROM 1839 TO 1841. 135 living; at least for the present; what weighed with me most was his saying, “You must consider, whether your retiring either from the Pastoral Care only, or from writing and printing and editing in the cause, would not be a sort of scandalous thing, unless it were done very warily. It would be said, ‘You see he can go on no longer with the Church of England, except in mere Lay Communion;’ or people might say you repented of the cause altogether. Till you see [your way to mitigate, if not remove this evil] I certainly should advise you to stay.” I answered as follows:— “Since you think I may go on, it seems to follow that, under the circumstances, I ought to do so. There are plenty of reasons for it, directly it is allowed to be lawful. The following considerations have much reconciled my feelings to your conclusion. “1. I do not think that we have yet made fair trial how much the English Church will bear. I know it is a hazardous experiment, like proving cannon. Yet we must not take it for granted that the metal will burst in the operation. It has borne at various times, not to say at this time, a great infusion of Catholic truth without damage. As to the (result, viz. whether this process will not approximate the whole English Church, as a body, to Rome, that is nothing to us. For what we know, it may be the providential means of uniting the whole Church in one, without fresh schismatizing or use of private judg- ment.” Here I observe, that, what was contemplated was the bursting of the Catholicity of the Anglican Church, that is, my subjective idea of that Church. Its bursting would not hurt her with the world, but would be a discovery that she was purely and essentially Protestant, and would be really the “hoisting of the engineer with his own petar.” And this was the result. I continue:— 136 FHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS “2. Say, that I move sympathies for Rome: in the same sense does Hooker, Taylor, Bull, &c. Their argu- ments may be against Rome, but the sympathies they raise must be towards Rome, so far as Rome maintains truths which our Church does not teach or enforce. Thus it is a question of degree between our divines and me. I may, if so be, go further; I may raise sympathies more; but I am but urging minds in the same direction as they do. I am doing just the very thing which all our doctors have ever been doing. In short, would not Hooker, if Vicar of St. Mary’s, be in my difficulty P”—PTere it may be objected, that Hooker could preach against Rome and I could not ; but I doubt whether he could have preached effectively against Transubstantiation better than I, though neither he nor I held that doctrine. “3. Rationalism is the great evil of the day. May not I consider my post at St. Mary's as a place of protest against it? I am more certain that the Protestant [spirit], which I oppose, leads to infidelity, than that which I re- commend, leads to Rome. Who knows what the state of the University may be, as regards Divinity Professors in , a few years hence P Any how, a great battle may be coming on, of which Milman’s book is a sort of earnest. The whole of our day may be a battle with this spirit. May we not leave to another age its own evil,—to settle the question of Romanism P” * . I may add that from this time I had a curate at St. Mary’s, who gradually took more and more of my work. Also, this same year, 1840, I made arrangements for giving up the British Critic, in the following July, which were carried into effect at that date. Such was about my state of mind, on the publication of Tract 90 in February 1841. I was indeed in prudence taking steps towards eventually withdrawing from St. Mary's, and FROM 1839 TO 1841. 137 I was not confident about my permanent adhesion to the Anglican creed; but I was in no actual perplexity or trouble of mind. Nor did the immense commotion conse- quent upon the publication of the Tract unsettle me again; for I fancied I had weathered the storm, as far as the Bishops were concerned : the Tract had not been con- demned: that was the great point, and I made much of it. To illustrate my feelings during this trial, I will make extracts from my letters addressed severally to Mr. Bowden and another friend, which have come into my possession. 1. March 15.—“The Heads, I believe, have just done a violent act: they have said that my interpretation of the Articles is an evasion. Do not think that this will pain me. You see, no doctrine is censured, and my shoulders shall manage to bear the charge. If you knew all, or were here, you would see that I have asserted a great principle, and I ought to suffer for it:-that the Articles are to be interpreted, not according to the meaning of the writers, but (as far as the wording will admit) according to the Sense of the Catholic Church.” 2. March 25.-“I do trust I shall make no false step, and hope my friends will pray for me to this effect. If, as you say, a destiny hangs over us, a single false step may ruin all. I am very well and comfortable; but we are not yet out of the wood.” 3. April 1.-‘‘The Bishop sent me word on Sunday to Write a Letter to him “instanter.” So I wrote it on Monday: on Tuesday it passed through the press: on Wednesday it Was out: and to-day [Thursday] it is in London. “I trust that things are smoothing now ; and that we have made a great step is certain. It is not right to boast, till I am clear out of the wood, i. e. till I know how the Letter is received in London. You know, I suppose, that I am to stop the Tracts; but you will see in the Letter, though I speak quite what I feel, yet I have managed to 138 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS take out on my side my snubbing's worth. And this makes me anxious how it will be received in London. “I have not had a misgiving for five minutes from the first: but I do not like to boast, lest some harm come.” 4. April 4.—“Your letter of this morning was an ex- ceedingly great gratification to me; and it is confirmed, I am thankful to say, by the opinion of others. The Bishop sent me a message that my Letter had his unqualified approbation; and since that, he has sent me a note to the same effect, only going more into detail. It is most pleasant too to my feelings, to have such a testimony to the substantial truth and importance of No. 90, as I have had from so many of my friends, from those who, from their cautious turn of mind, I was least sanguine about. I have not had one misgiving myself about it throughout ; and I do trust that what has happened will be overruled to subserve the great cause we all have at heart.” 5. May 9.—“The Bishops are very desirous of hushing the matter up : and I certainly have done my utmost to co-operate with them, on the understanding that the Tract is not to be withdrawn or condemned.” Upon this occasion several Catholics wrote to me; I answered one of my correspondents in the same tone:– | “April 8.-You have no cause to be surprised at the discontinuance of the Tracts. We feel no misgivings ~. about it whatever, as if the cause of what we hold to be , , , Catholic truth would suffer thereby. My letter to my Bishop has, I trust, had the effect of bringing the prepon- derating authority of the Church on our side. No stopping sº of the Tracts can, humanly speaking, stop the spread of - the opinions which they have inculcated. “The Tracts are not suppressed. No doctrine or prin- ciple has been conceded by us, or condemned by authority. The Bishop has but said that a certain Tract is “objection- able,” no reason being stated. I have no intention what- FROM 1839 TO 1841. 139 ever of yielding any one point which I hold on conviction; and that the authorities of the Church know full well.” In the summer of 1841, I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or anxiety on my mind. I had deter- mined to put aside all controversy, and I set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius; but, between July and November, I received three-blows which broke me. 1. I had got but a little way in my work, when my trouble returned on me. The ghost had come a second time. In the Arian History I found the very same phenomenon; " in a far bolder shape, which I had found in the Monophy- site. I had not observed it in 1832. Wonderful that this should come upon me ! I had not sought it out; I Was reading and writing in my own line of study, far from the controversies of the day, on what is called a “metaphysical” subject; but I saw clearly, that in the history of Arianism, the pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians were the Anglicans, and that Rome now was what it was then. The truth lay, not with the Via Media, but with what was called “the extreme party.” As I am not writing a work of controversy, I need not enlarge upon the argument; I have said something on the subject in a Volume, from which I have already quoted. 2. I was in the misery of this new unsettlement, when a second blow came upon me. The Bishops one after . another began to charge against me. It was a * determinate movement. This was the real “understandº ing;” that, on which I had acted on the first appearance of Tract 90, had come to nought. I think the words, which had then been used to me, were, that “perhaps two or three of them might think it necessary to say something in their charges;” but by this time they had tided over the difficulty of the Tract, and there was no one to enforce the “understanding.” They went on in this way, directing I40 . HISTORY OF MY REI,IGIOUS OPINIONS charges at me, for three whole years. I recognized it as a condemnation; it was the only one that was in their power. At first I intended to protest; but I gave up the thought in despair. On October 17th, I wrote thus to a friend: “I suppose it will be necessary in some shape or other to re-assert Tract 90; else, it will seem, after these Bishops’ Charges, as if it were silenced, which it has not been, nor do I intend it should be. I wish to keep quiet; but if Bishops speak, I will speak too. If the view were silenced, I could not remain in the Church, nor could many others; and therefore, since it is not silenced, I shall take care to show that it isn’t.” A day or two after, Oct. 22, a stranger wrote to me to say, that the Tracts for the Times had made a young friend of his a Catholic, and to ask, “would I be so good as to convert him back; ” I made answer: “If conversions to Rome take place in consequence of the Tracts for the Times, I do not impute blame to them, but to those who, instead of acknowledging such Anglican principles of theology and ecclesiastical polity as they con- tain, set themselves to oppose them. Whatever be the influence of the Tracts, great or small, they may become just as powerful for Rome, if our Church refuses them, as they would be for our Church if she accepted them. If our rulers speak either against the Tracts, or not at all, if any number of them, not only do not favour, but even do not suffer the principles contained in them, it is plain that our members may easily be persuaded either to give up those principles, or to give up the Church. If this state of things goes on, I mournfully prophesy, not one or two, but many secessions to the Church of Rome.” - Two years afterwards, looking back on what had passed, I said, “There were no converts to Rome, till after the condemnation of No. 90.” FROM 1839 TO 1841. 141 3. As if all this were not enough, there came the affair of the Jerusalem Bishopric ; and, with a brief mention of it, I shall conclude. I think I am right in saying that it had been long a desire with the Prussian Court to introduce Episcopacy into the new Evangelical Religion, which was intended in that country to embrace both the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. I almost think I heard of the project, when I was at Rome in 1833, at the Hotel of the Prussian Minister, M. Bunsen, who was most hospitable and kind, as to other English visitors, so also to my friends and myself. The idea of Episcopacy, as the Prussian king understood it, was, I suppose, very different from that taught in the Tractarian School: but still, I suppose also, that the chief authors of that school would have gladly seen such a measure carried out in Prussia, had it been done without compromising those principles which were necessary to the . being of a Church. About the time of the publication of º Tract 90, M. Bunsen and the then Archbishop of Canter- bury were taking steps for its execution, by appointing and consecrating a Bishop for Jerusalem. Jerusalem, it would seem, was considered a safe place for the experi- ment; it was too far from Prussia to awaken the suscepti- bilities of any party at home; if the project failed, it failed without harm to any one; and, if it succeeded, it gave Protestantism a status in the East, which, in association with the Monophysite or Jacobite and the Nestorian bodies, formed a political instrument for England, parallel to that which Russia had in the Greek Church, and France in the : Latin. Accordingly, in July 1841, full of the Anglican difficulty on the question of Catholicity, I thus spoke of the Jeru- salem scheme in an Article in the British Critic: “When our thoughts turn to the East, instead of recollecting that there are Christian Churches there, we leave it to the 142 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS Russians to take care of the Greeks, and the French to take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting a Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with help- ing the Jews to rebuild their Temple there, or with becoming the august protectors of Nestorians, Monophy- sites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or with forming a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and Romans together.” - I do not pretend, so long after the time, to give a full or exact account of this measure in detail. I will but say that in the Act of Parliament, under date of October 5, 1841, (if the copy, from which I quote, contains the measure as it passed the Houses,) provision is made for the consecration of “British subjects, or the subjects or citizens of any foreign state, to be Bishops in any foreign country, whether such foreign subjects or citizens be or be not subjects or citizens of the country in which they are to act, and . . . . without requiring such of them as may be subjects or citizens of any foreign kingdom or state to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the oath of due obedience to the Archbishop for the time being ” . . . also “that such Bishop or Bishops, so consecrated, may exercise, within such limits, as may from time to time be assigned for that purpose in such foreign countries by her Majesty, spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of British congre- gations of the United Church of England and Ireland, and over such other Protestant Congregations, as may be desirous of placing themselves under his or their authority.” Now here, at the very time that the Anglican Bishops were directing their censure upon me for avowing an approach to the Catholic Church not closer than I believed the Anglican formularies would allow, they were on the other hand, fraternizing, by their act or by their sufferance, with Protestant bodies, and allowing them to put themselves under an Anglican Bishop, without any renunciation of FROM 1839 TO 1841. 143 their errors or regard to their due reception of baptism and confirmation ; while there was great reason to suppose that the said Bishop was intended to make converts from the orthodox Greeks, and the schismatical Oriental bodies, by means of the influence of England. This was the third blow, which finally shattered my faith in the Anglican Church. That Church was not only forbidding any sym- pathy or concurrence with the Church of Rome, but it actually was courting an intercommunion with Protestant Prussia and the heresy of the Orientals. The Anglican Church might have the Apostolical succession, as had the Monophysites; but such acts as were in progress led me to the gravest suspicion, not that it would soon cease to be a Church, but that, since the 16th century, it had never been a Church all along. On October 12th, I thus wrote to Mr. Bowden :-‘‘We have not a single Anglican in Jerusalem; so we are sending a Bishop to make a communion, not to govern our own people. Next, the excuse is, that there are converted Anglican Jews there who require a Bishop ; I am told there are not half-a-dozen. But for them the Bishop is sent out, and for them he is a Bishop of the circumcision ” (I think he was a converted Jew, who boasted of his Jewish descent), “against the Epistle to the Galatians pretty nearly. Thirdly, for the sake of Prussia, he is to take under him all the foreign Protestants who will come; and the political advantages will be so great, from the influence of England, that there is no doubt they will come. They are to sign the Confession of Augsburg, and there is nothing to show that they hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. “As to myself, I shall do nothing whatever publicly, unless indeed it were to give my signature to a Protest; but I think it would be out of place in me to agitate, having been in a way silenced; but the Archbishop is really 144 THISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS doing most grave work, of which we cannot see the end.” - I did make a solemn Protest, and sent it to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and also sent it to my own Bishop, with the following letter:- “It seems as if I were never to write to your Lordship, without giving you pain, and I know that my present subject does not specially concern your Lordship; yet, after a great deal of anxious thought, I lay before you the en- closed Protest. “Your Lordship will observe that I am not asking for any notice of it, unless you think that I ought to receive one. I do this very serious act in obedience to my sense of duty. “If the English Church is to enter on a new course, and assume a new aspect, it will be more pleasant to me hereafter to think, that I did not suffer so grievous an event to happen, without bearing witness against it. “May I be allowed to say, that I augur nothing but evil, if we in any respect prejudice our title to be a branch of the Apostolic Church P That Article of the Creed, I need hardly observe to your Lordship, is of such constraining power, that, if we will not claim it, and use it for ourselves, others will use it in their own behalf against us. Men who learn whether by means of documents or measures, whether from the statements or the acts of persons in authority, that our communion is not a branch of the One Church, I foresee with much grief, will be tempted to look out for that Church else- where. “It is to me a subject of great dismay, that, as far as the Church has lately spoken out, on the subject of the opinions which I and others hold, those opinions are, not merely not sanctioned (for that I do not ask), but not even suffered. FROM 1839 TO 1841. 145 & f - - ºf .9. . . . . . . , , : ºº "... "...' ... ' ' '..e. “ , ” “I earnestly hope that your Lordship will excuse my freedom in thus speaking to you of some members of your Most Rev. and Right Rev. Body. With every feeling of reverent attachment to your Lordship, “I am, &c.” PROTEST. “Whereas the Church of England has a claim on the allegiance of Catholic believers only on the ground of her own claim to be considered a branch of the Catholic Church : “And whereas the recognition of heresy, indirect as well as direct, goes far to destroy such claim in the case of any religious body: “And whereas to admit maintainers of heresy to com- munion, without formal renunciation of their errors, goes far towards recognizing the same : “And whereas Lutheranism and Calvinism are heresies, repugnant to Scripture, springing up three centuries since, and anathematized by East as well as West: “And whereas it is reported that the Most Reverend Primate and other Right Reverend Rulers of our Church have consecrated a Bishop with a view to exercising spiri- tual jurisdiction over Protestant, that is, Lutheran and Calvinist congregations in the East (under the provisions of an Act made in the last session of Parliament to amend an Act made in the 26th year of the reign of his Majesty King George the Third, intituled, “An Act to empower the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York for the time being, to consecrate to the office of Bishop persons being subjects or citizens of countries out of his Majesty's dominions'), dispensing at the same time, not in particular cases and accidentally, but as if on principle and universally, with any abjuration of error on the part - L 146 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS of such congregations, and with any reconciliation to the Church on the part of the presiding Bishop; thereby giving some sort of formal recognition to the doctrines which such congregations maintain : “And whereas the dioceses in England are connected together by so close an intercommunion, that what is done by authority in one, immediately affects the rest : “On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest of the English Church and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, by way of relieving my conscience, do hereby solemnly protest against the measure aforesaid, and disown it, as removing our Church from her present ground and tending to her disorganization. - “JoHN HENRY NEWMAN. “November 11, 1841.” Looking back two years afterwards on the above-men- tioned and other acts, on the part of Anglican Ecclesiasti- cal authorities, I observed: “Many a man might have held an abstract theory about the Catholic Church, to which it was difficult to adjust the Anglican,—might have admitted a suspicion, or even painful doubts about the latter, yet never have been impelled onwards, had our Rulers pre- i served the quiescence of former years; but it is the i corroboration of a present, living, and energetic hetero- doxy, which realizes and makes them practical; it has been the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who had so long been tolerant of Protestant error, which have given to inquiry and to theory its force and its edge.” As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never heard of any good or harm it has ever done, except what it has done for me; which many think a great misfortune, and I one of the greatest of mercies. It brought me on to the beginning of the end. FROM 1841. To 1845. | 47 CIIA PTER IV. IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1841. To 1845. § 1. FROM the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, though at the . time I became aware of it only by degrees. I introduce what I have to say with this remark, by way of accounting for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative. A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither cares nor is able to record the stages of his malady. I Was in these circumstances, except so far as I was not allowed to die in peace,—except so far as friends, who had still a full right to come in upon me, and the public world which had not, have given a sort of history to those last four years. But in consequence, my narrative must be in great measure documentary, as I cannot rely on my memory, ex- cept for definite particulars, positive or negative. Letters of mine to friends since dead have come into my hands; others have been kindly lent me for the occasion; and I have some drafts of others, and some notes which I made, though I have no strictly personal or continuous memo- 148 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS randa to consult, and have unluckily mislaid some valuable papers. And first as to my position in the view of duty; it was this:–1. I had given up my place in the Movement in my letter to the Bishop of Oxford in the spring of 1841; but 2. I could not give up my duties towards the many and various minds who had more or less been brought into it by me; 3. I expected or intended gradually to fall back into Lay Communion; 4. I never contemplated leaving the Church of England; 5. I could not hold office in its service, if I were not allowed to hold the Catholic sense of the Articles; 6. I could not go to Rome, while she suffered honours to be paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints which I thought in my conscience to be incompatible with the Supreme, Incommunicable Glory of the One Infinite and Eternal; 7. I desired a union with Rome under con- ditions, Church with Church; 8. I called Littlemore my Torres Vedras, and thought that some day we might advance again within the Anglican Church, as we had been forced to retire ; 9. I kept back all persons who were dis- posed to go to Rome with all my might. And I kept them back for three or four reasons; 1. because what I could not in conscience do myself, I could not suffer them to do ; 2. because I thought that in various cases they were acting under excitement; 3. because I had duties to my Bishop and to the Anglican Church ; and 4, in some cases, because I had received from their Anglican parents or superiors direct charge of them. This was my view of my duty from the end of 1841, to my resignation of St. Mary’s in the autumn of 1843. And now I shall relate my view, during that time, of the state of the controversy between the Churches. As soon as I saw the hitch in the Anglican argument, during my course of reading in the summer of 1839, I º . .- i FROM 1841 TO 1845. 149 began to look about, as I have said, for some ground which might supply a controversial basis for my need. The diffi- culty in question had affected my view both of Antiquity and Catholicity; for, while the history of St. Leo showed me that the deliberate and eventual consent of the great body of the Church ratified a doctrinal decision as a part of revealed truth, it also showed that the rule of Antiquity was not infringed, though a doctrine had not been publicly recognized as so revealed, till centuries after the time of the Apostles. Thus, whereas the Creeds tell us that the " Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, I could not prove that the Anglican communion was an integral part of the One Church, on the ground of its teaching being Apostolic or Catholic, without reasoning in favour of what are commonly called the Roman corruptions; and I could not defend our separation from Rome and her faith without using arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines con- cerning our Lord, which are the very foundation of the Christian religion. The Via Media was an impossible idea; it was what I had called “standing on one leg;” and it was necessary, if my old issue of the controversy was to be retained, to go further either one way or the other. Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took another. I deliberately quitted the old Anglican ground as untenable; though I did not do so all at once, but as I became more and more convinced of the state of the case. The Jerusalem Bishopric was the ultimate condemnation of the old theory of the Via Media:—if its establishment did nothing else, at least it demolished the sacredness of diocesan rights. If England could be in Palestine, Rome might be in England. But its bearing upon the contro- versy, as T have shown in the foregoing chapter, was much more serious than this technical ground. From that time the Anglican Church was, in my mind, either not a normal portion of that One Church to which the promises 150 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS were made, or at least in an abnormal state ; and from that time I said boldly (as I did in my Protest, and as indeed I had even intimated in my Letter to the Bishop of Oxford), that the Church in which I found myself had no claim on me, except on condition of its being a portion of the One Catholic Communion, and that that condition must ever be borne in mind as a practical matter, and had to be distinctly proved. All this is not inconsistent with my saying above that, at this time, I had no thought of leaving the Church of England; because I felt some of my old objections against Rome as strongly as ever. I had no right, I had no leave, to act against my conscience. That was a higher rule than any argument about the Notes of the Church. Under these circumstances I turned for protection to the Note of Sanctity, with a view of showing that we had at least one of the necessary Notes, as fully as the Church of Rome; or, at least, without entering into comparisons, that we had it in such a sufficient sense as to reconcile us to our position, and to supply full evidence, and a clear direction, on the point of practical duty. We had the Note of Life, not any sort of life, not such only as can come of nature, but a supernatural Christian life, which could only come directly from above. Thus, in my Article in the British Critic, to which I have so often referred, in January, 1840 (before the time of Tract 90), I said of the Anglican Church that “she has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party titles, the note of life, a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the Ancient Church.” Presently I go on to speak of sanctity: “Much as Roman Catholics may denounce us at present as schis- matical, they could not resist us if the Anglican com- munion had but that one note of the Church upon it, sanctity. The Church of the day [4th century] could not FROM 1841. To 1845. 151 | resist Meletius; his enemies were fairly overcome by him, by his meekness and holiness, which melted the most jealous of them.” And I continue, “We are almost con- tent to say to Romanists, account us not yet as a branch of the Catholic Church, though we be a branch, till we are like a branch, provided that when we do become like a branch, then you consent to acknowledge us,” &c. And So I was led on in the Article to that sharp attack on English Catholics, for their shortcomings as regards this Note, a good portion of which I have already quoted in another place. It is there that I speak of the great Scandal which I took at their political, social, and contro- versial bearing ; and this was a second reason why I fell back upon the Note of Sanctity, because it took me away from the necessity of making any attack upon the doc- trines of the Roman Church, nay, from the consideration of her popular beliefs, and brought me upon a ground on which I felt I could not make a mistake; for what is a higher guide for us in speculation and in practice, than that conscience of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, those sentiments of what is decorous, consistent, and noble, which our Creator has made a part of our original nature? Therefore I felt I could not be wrong in attacking what I fancied was a fact, the unscrupulousness, the deceit, and the intriguing spirit of the agents and representatives of Rome. - This reference to Holiness as the true test of a Church was steadily kept in view in what I wrote in connexion with Tract 90. I say in its Introduction, “The writer can never be party to forcing the opinions or projects of one school upon another; religious changes should be the act of the whole body. No good can come of a change which is not a development of feelings springing up freely and calmly within the bosom of the whole body itself; every change in religion” must be “attended by deep re- 152 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS pentance; changes” must be “nurtured in mutual love; we cannot agree without a supernatural influence;” we must come “together to God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.” In my Letter to the Bishop I said, “I have set myself against suggestions for considering the differences between ourselves and the foreign Churches with a view to their adjustment.” (I meant in the way of negotiation, conference, agitation, or the like.) “Our business is with ourselves, to make ourselves more holy, more self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our high calling. To be anxious for a composition of differ- ences is to begin at the end. Political reconciliations are but outward and hollow, and fallacious. And till Roman Catholics renounce political efforts, and manifest in their public measures the light of holiness and truth, perpetual war is our only prospect.” According to this theory, a religious body is part of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, if it has the succession and the creed of the Apostles, with the note of holiness of life; and there is much in such a view to approve itself to the direct common sense and practical habits of an English- man. However, with the events consequent upon Tract 90, I sunk my theory to a lower level. For what could be said in apology, when the Bishops and the people of my Church, not only did not suffer, but actually rejected primitive Catholic doctrine, and tried to eject from their communion all who held it P after the Bishops' charges P after the Jerusalem “abomination" P” Well, this could be said; still we were not nothing: we could not be as if we never had been a Church; we were “Samaria.” This then was that lower level on which I placed myself, and all who felt with me, at the end of 1841. To bring out this view was the purpose of Four Sermons * * * Matt. xxiv. 15. FROM 1841 TO 1845. 153 i preached at St. Mary's in December of that year. Hitherto I had not introduced the exciting topics of the day into the Pulpit”; on this occasion I did. I did so, for the moment was urgent; there was great unsettlement of mind among us, in consequence of those same events which had unsettled me. One special anxiety, very obvious, which was coming on me now, was, that what was “one man's meat was another man’s poison.” I had said even of Tract 90, “It was addressed to one set of persons, and has been used and commented on by another;” still more Was it true now, that whatever I wrote for the service of those whom I knew to be in trouble of mind, would become on the one hand matter of suspicion and slander in the mouths of my opponents, and of distress and surprise to those on the other hand, who had no difficulties of faith at all. Accordingly, when I published these Four Sermons at the end of 1843, I introduced them with a recommenda- tion that none should read them who did not need them. But in truth the virtual condemnation of Tract 90, after that the whole difficulty seemed to have been weathered, Was an enormous disappointment and trial. My Protest also against the Jerusalem Bishopric was an unavoidable cause of excitement in the case of many; but it calmed them too, for the very fact of a Protest was a relief to their impatience. And so, in like manner, as regards the Four Sermons, of which I speak, though they acknowledged freely the great scandal which was involved in the recent episcopal doings, yet at the same time they might be said to bestow upon the multiplied disorders and shortcomings of the Anglican Church a sort of place in the Revealed Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the contro- versy, and the dignity of a great principle, for unsettled minds to take and use,_a principle which might teach * Wide Note C. Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence. 154 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS them to recognize their own consistency, and to be recon- ciled to themselves, and which might absorb and dry up a multitude of their grudgings, discontents, misgivings, and questionings, and lead the way to humble, thankful, and tranquil thoughts;–and this was the effect which certainly it produced on myself. The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than schism, of the Ten Tribes, yet in fact they were still recog- nized as a people by the Divine Mercy; that the great prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them ; and not only so, but were sent to preach to them and reclaim them, without any intimation that they must be reconciled to the line of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship. They were not in the Church, yet they had the means of grace and the hope of acceptance with their Maker. The application of all this to the Anglican Church was immediate;—whether, under the circumstances, a man could assume or exercise ministerial functions, or not, might not clearly appear. (though it must be remembered that England had the Apostolic Priest- hood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all), but so far was clear, that there was no call at all for an Anglican to leave his Church for Rome, though he did not believe his own to be part of the One Church:-and for this reason, because it was a fact that the kingdom of Israel was cut off from the Temple; and yet its subjects, neither in a mass, nor as individuals, neither the multitudes on Mount Carmel, nor the Shunammite and her household, had any command given them, though miracles were displayed before them, to break off from their own people, and to submit themselves to Judah”. * As I am not writing controversially, I will only here remark upon this FROM 1841. To 1845. 155 It is plain, that a theory such as this, whether the marks of a divine presence and life in the Anglican Church were sufficient to prove that she was actually within the covenant, or only sufficient to prove that she was at least enjoying extraordinary and uncovenanted mercies, not only lowered her level in a religious point of view, but weakened her controversial basis. Its very novelty made it suspicious; and there was no guarantee that the process of subsidence might not continue, and that it might not end in a submersion. Indeed, to many minds, to say that England was wrong was even to say that Rome was right; and no ethical or casuistic reasoning whatever could overcome in their case the argument from prescription and authority. To this objection, as made to my new teaching, I could only answer that I did not make my circumstances. I fully acknowledged the force and effectiveness of the genuine Anglican theory, and that it was all but proof against the disputants of Rome; but still like Achilles, it had a vulnerable point, and that St. Leo had found it out for me, and that I could not help it; —that, were it not for matter of fact, the theory would be great indeed; it would be irresistible, if it were only true. When I became a Catholic, the Editor of the Christian Observer, Mr. Wilkes, who had in former days accused me, to my indignation, of tending towards Rome, wrote to me to ask, which of the two was now right, he or I? I answered him in a letter, part of which I here insert, as it will serve as a sort of leave-taking of the great theory, which is so specious to look upon, so difficult to prove, and so hopeless to work. - “Nov. 8, 1845. I do not think, at all more than I did, argument, that there is a great difference between a command, which presun- poses physical, material, and political conditions, and one which is moral, To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the body, not of the soul. 156 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIO US OPINIONS y ; | . ‘. . . * * that the Anglican principles which I advocated at the date you mention, lead men to the Church of Rome. If I must specify what I mean by ‘Anglican principles,” I should say, e. g. taking Antiquity, not the easisting Church, as the oracle of truth; and holding that the Apostolical Succession is a sufficient guarantee of Sacramental Grace, without wnion with the Christian Church throughout the world. I think these still the firmest, strongest ground against Rome—that is, if they can be held” [as truths or facts.] “They have been held by many, and are far more difficult to refute in the Roman controversy, than those of any other religious body. - “For myself, I found I could not hold them. I left them. From the time I began to suspect their unsound- ness, I ceased to put them forward. When I was fairly sure of their unsoundness, I gave up my Living. When I was fully confident that the Church of Rome was the only true Church, I joined her. “I have felt all along that Bp. Bull's theology was the only theology on which the English Church could stand. I have felt, that opposition to the Church of Rome was part of that theology; and that he who could not protest against the Church of Rome was no true divine in the English Church. I have never said, nor attempted to say, that any one in office in the English Church, whether Bishop or incumbent, could be otherwise than in hostility to the Church of Rome.” . The Via Media then disappeared for ever, and a Theory, made expressly for the occasion, took its place. I was pleased with my new view. I wrote to an intimate friend, Samuel F. Wood, Dec. 13, 1841: “I think you will give me the credit, Carissime, of not undervaluing the strength of the feelings which draw one [to Rome], and yet I am (I trust) quite clear about my duty to remain where I am; FROM 1841 TO 1845. 157 indeed, much clearer than I was some time since. If it is not presumptuous to say, I have . . . a much more definite view of the promised inward Presence of Christ with us in the Sacraments now that the outward notes of it are being removed. And I am content to be with Moses in the desert, or with Elijah excommunicated from the Temple. I say this, putting things at the strongest.” However, my friends of the moderate Apostolical party, who were my friends for the very reason of my having been so moderate and Anglican myself in general tone in times past, who had stood up for Tract 90 partly from faith in me, and certainly from generous and kind feeling, and had thereby shared an obloquy which was none of theirs, were naturally surprised and offended at a line of argument, novel, and, as it appeared to them, wanton, which threw the whole controversy into confusion, stultified my former principles, and substituted, as they would consider, a sort of methodistic self-contemplation, especially abhor- rent both to my nature and to my past professions, for the plain and honest tokens, as they were commonly received, of a divine mission in the Anglican Church. They could not tell whither I was going ; and were still further an- noyed when I persisted in viewing the reception of Tract 90 by the public and the Bishops as so grave a matter, and when I threw about what they considered mysterious hints of “eventualities,” and would not simply say, “An Anglican I was born, and an Anglican I will die.” One of my familiar friends, Mr. Church, who was in the Country at Christmas, 1841-2, reported to me the feeling that prevailed about me; and how I felt towards it will appear in the following letter of mine, written in a DSWer — “Oriel, Dec. 24, 1841. Carissime, you cannot tell how sad your account of Moberly has made me. His view of the sinfulness of the decrees of Trent is as much against 158 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS union of Churches as against individual conversions. To tell the truth, I never have examined those decrees with this object, and have no view ; but that is very different from having a deliberate view against them. Could not he say which they are P I suppose Transubstantiation is one. Charles Marriott, though of course he would not like to have it repeated", does not scruple at that. I have not my mind clear. Moberly must recollect that Palmer [of Worcester] thinks they all bear a Catholic interpre- tation. For myself, this only I see, that there is in- definitely more in the Fathers against our own state of alienation from Christendom than against the Tridentine Decrees. - “The only thing I can think of,” [that I can have said of a startling character, “is this, that there were persons who, if our Church committed herself to heresy, sooner than think that there was no Church any where, would believe the Roman to be the Church ; and therefore would on faith accept what they could not otherwise acquiesce in. I suppose, it would be no relief to him to insist upon the circumstance that there is no immediate danger. Indivi- duals can never be answered for of course; but I should think lightly of that man, who, for some act of the Bishops, should all at once leave the Church. Now, considering how the Clergy really are improving, considering that this row is even making them read the Tracts, is it not possible we may all be in a better state of mind seven years hence to consider these matters? and may we not leave them meanwhile to the will of Providence P I cannot believe this work has been of man; God has a right to His own work, to do what He will with it. May we not try to leave it in His hands, and be content P * As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his opinion being generally known. FROM 1841 TO 1845. 159 “If you learn any thing about Barter, which leads you to think that I can relieve him by a letter, let me know. The truth is this, our good friends do not read the Fathers; they assent to us from the common sense of the case: then, when the Fathers, and we, say more than their common sense, they are dreadfully shocked. “The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For holding any Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. The Real Pre- sence. 3. That there is a grace in Ordination". “Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be draw- ing up some stringent declarations of faith ? Is this what Moberly fears ? Would the Bishop of Oxford accept them P If so, I should be driven into the Refuge for the Destitute [Littlemore]. But I promise Moberly, I would do my utmost to catch all dangerous persons and clap them into confinement there.” Christmas Day, 1841. “I have been dreaming of Moberly all night. Should not he and the like see, that it is unwise, unfair, and impatient to ask others, What will you do under circumstances, which have not, which may never come P Why bring fear, suspicion, and dis- union into the camp about things which are merely in posse 3 Natural, and exceedingly kind as Barter’s and another friend’s letters were, I think they have done great harm. I speak most sincerely when I say, that there are things which I neither contemplate, nor wish to contem- plate; but, when I am asked about them ten times, at length I begin to contemplate them. “He surely does not mean to say, that nothing could separate a man from the English Church, e. g. its avowing Socinianism; its holding the Holy Eucharist in a Socinian * I cannot prove this at this distance of time; but I do not think it wrong to introduce here the passage containing it, as I am imputing to the Bishop nothing which the world would think disgraceful, but, on the contrary, what a large religious body would approve. 160 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS s sense. Yet, he would say, it was not right to contemplate such things. “Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken’s. To say nothing of the last miserable century, which has given us to start from a much lower level and with much less to spare than a Churchman in the 17th century, ques- tions of doctrine are now coming in ; with him, it was a question of discipline. “If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot help thinking we should all be vastly more agreed than we think now. Indeed, is it possible (humanly speaking) that those, who have so much the same heart, should widely differ P But let this be considered, as to alternatives. What communion could we join P Could the Scotch or American sanction the presence of its Bishops and congre- gations in England, without incurring the imputation of schism, unless indeed (and is that likely P) they denounced the English as heretical ? “Is not this a time of strange providences? is it not our safest course, without looking to consequences, to do simply what we think right day by day ? shall we not be sure to go wrong, if we attempt to trace by anticipation the course of divine Providence P - “Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from people being afraid to look difficulties in the face? They have palliated acts, when they should have denounced . them. There is that good fellow, Worcester Palmer, can whitewash the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Jerusalem Bishopric. And what is the consequence? that our Church has, through centuries, ever been sinking lower and lower, till good part of its pretensions and professions is a mere sham, though it be a duty to make the best of what we have received. Yet, though bound to make the best of other men’s shams, let us not incur any of our own. The truest friends of our Church are they, who say boldly whey FROM 1841. To 1845. 161 her rulers are going wrong, and the consequences; and (to speak catachrestically) they are most likely to die in the Church, who are, under these black circumstances, most prepared to leave it. “And I will add, that, considering the traces of God’s grace which surround us, I am very sanguine, or rather confident, (if it is right so to speak,) that our prayers and our alms will come up as a memorial before God, and that all this miserable confusion tends to good. “Let us not then be anxious, and anticipate differences in prospect, when we agree in the present. “P. S. I think when friends” [i. e. the extreme party] “get over their first unsettlement of mind and consequent Vague apprehensions, which the new attitude of the Bishops, and our feelings upon it, have brought about, they will get contented and satisfied. They will see that they exaggerated things. . . . Of course it would have been wrong to anticipate what one's feelings would be under such a painful contingency as the Bishops’ charging as they have done,—so it seems to me nobody’s fault. Nor is it wonderful that others” [moderate men] “are startled” [i. e. at my Protest, &c. &c.]; “yet they should recollect that the more implicit the reverence one pays to a Bishop, the more keen will be one's perception of heresy in him. The cord is binding and compelling, till it snaps. “Men of reflection would have seen this, if they had looked that way. Last spring, a very high churchman talked to me of resisting my Bishop, of asking him for the Canons under which he acted, and so forth; but those, who have cultivated a loyal feeling towards their superiors, are the most loving servants, or the most zealous pro- testors. . If others became so too, if the clergy of Chester denounced the heresy of their diocesan, they would be doing their duty, and relieving themselves of the share which they otherwise have in any possible defection of their brethren. M ! 162 IHISTORY OF MY REI,IGIOUS OPINIONS “St. Stephen's [Day, December 26]. How I fidget ! I now fear that the note I wrote yesterday only makes matters worse by disclosing too much. This is always my great difficulty. “In the present state of excitement on both sides, I think of leaving out altogether my reassertion of No. 90 in my Preface to Volume 6 [of Parochial Sermons], and merely saying, ‘As many false reports are at this time in circulation about him, he hopes his well-wishers will take this Volume as an indication of his real thoughts and feel- ings: those who are not, he leaves in God’s hand to bring them to a better mind in His own time.” What do you say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety of this?” An old friend, at a distance from Oxford, Archdeacon Robert I. Wilberforce, must have said something to me at this time, I do not know what, which challenged a frank reply; for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two persons, viz. his brother Henry, and Mr. (now Sir Frederick) Rogers, that, as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break down in the event, that perhaps we were both out of the Church. I think I recollect expressing my difficulty, as derived from the Arian and Monophysite history, in a form in which it would be most intelligible to him, as being in fact an admission of Bishop Bull’s ; viz. that in the controversies of the early centuries the Roman Church was ever on the right side, which was of course a primá facie argument in favour of Rome and against Anglicanism now. He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842: “I don’t think that I ever was so shocked by any com- munication, which was ever made to me, as by your letter of this morning. It has quite unnerved me. . . . I cannot but write to you, though I am at a loss where to begin. . . . I know of no act by which we have dissevered our- selves from the communion of the Church Universal. . . . FROM 1841 TO 1845. 163 The more I study Scripture, the more am I impressed with the resemblance between the Romish principle in the Church and the Babylon of St. John. . . . I am ready to grieve that I ever directed my thoughts to theology, if it is indeed so uncertain, as your doubts seem to indi- cate.” While my old and true friends were thus in trouble about me, I suppose they felt not only anxiety but pain, to See that I was gradually surrendering myself to the influ- ence of others, who had not their own claims upon me, younger men, and of a cast of mind in no small degree un- congenial to my own. A new school of thought was rising, as is usual in doctrinal inquiries, and was sweeping the original party of the Movement aside, and was taking its place. The most prominent person in it, was a man of elegant genius, of classical mind, of rare talent in literary composition :-Mr. Oakeley. He was not far from my own age; I had long known him, though of late years he had not been in residence at Oxford; and quite lately, he has been taking several signal occasions of renewing that kindness, which he ever showed towards me when we were both in the Anglican Church. His tone of mind was not unlike that which gave a character to the early Movement; he was almost a typical Oxford man, and, as far as I recol- lect, both in political and ecclesiastical views, would have been of one spirit with the Oriel party of 1826–1833. But he had entered late into the Movement; he did not know its first years; and, beginning with a new start, he Was naturally thrown together with that body of eager, acute, resolute minds who had begun their Catholic life about the same time as he, who knew nothing about the Via Media, but had heard much about Rome. This new party rapidly formed and increased, in and out of Oxford, and, as it so happened, contemporaneously with that very 164 IIISTORY OF MY RET,IGIOUS OPINIONS summer, when I received so serious a blow to my ecclesi- astical views from the study of the Monophysite contro- versy. These men cut into the original Movement at an angle, fell across its line of thought, and then set about turning that line in its own direction. They were most of them keenly religious men, with a true concern for their souls as the first matter of all, with a great zeal for me, but giving little certainty at the time as to which way they would ultimately turn. Some in the event have remained firm to Anglicanism, some have become Catholics, and some have found a refuge in Tiberalism. Nothing was clearer concerning them, than that they needed to be kept in order; and on me who had had so much to do with the making of them, that duty was as clearly incumbent; and it is equally clear, from what I have already said, that I was just the person, above all others, who could not un- dertake it. There are no friends like old friends; but of those old friends, few could help me, few could understand me, many were annoyed with me, some were angry, because I was breaking up a compact party, and some, as a matter of conscience, could not listen to me. When I looked round for those whom I might consult in my diffi- culties, I found the very hypothesis of those difficulties acting as a bar to their giving me their advice. Then I said, bitterly, “You are throwing me on others, whether I will or no.” Yet still I had good and true friends around me of the old sort, in and out of Oxford too, who were a great help to me. But on the other hand, though I neither was so fond (with a few exceptions) of the persons, nor of the methods of thought, which belonged to this new school, as of the old set, though I could not trust in their firmness of purpose, for, like a swarm of flies, they might come and go, and at length be divided and dissipated, yet I had an intense sympathy in their object and in the direction in which their path lay, in spite of my old friends, in spite FROM 1841 TO 1845. 165 of my old life-long prejudices. In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, and the decision of my reason and con science against her usages, in spite of my affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of Rome the Mother of English Christianity, and I had a true devo- tion to the Blessed Virgin, in whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and whose Immaculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed Sermons made much of And it was the consciousness of this bias in myself, if it is so to be called, which made me preach so earnestly against the danger of being swayed in religious inquiry by our sym- pathy rather than by our reason. And moreover, the members of this new school looked up to me, as I have said, and did me true kindnesses, and really loved me, and stood by me in trouble, when others went away, and for all this I was grateful; nay, many of them were in trouble themselves, and in the same boat with me, and that was a further cause of sympathy between us; and hence it was, when the new school came on in force, and into collision with the old, I had not the heart, any more than the power, to repel them; I was in great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I took their part; and, When I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out, and I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and underhand dealing from the majority. Now I will say here frankly, that this sort of charge is a matter which I cannot properly meet, because I cannot duly realize it. I have never had any suspicion of my own honesty; and, when men say that I was dishonest, I cannot grasp the accusation as a distinct conception, such as it is possible to encounter. If a man said to me, “On such a day and before such persons you said a thing was white, when it was black,” I understand what is meant 166 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS well enough, and I can set myself to prove an alibi or to explain the mistake; or if a man said to me, “You tried to gain me over to your party, intending to take me with you to Rome, but you did not succeed,” I can give him the lie, and lay down an assertion of my own as firm and as exact as his, that not from the time that I was first un- settled, did I ever attempt to gain any one over to myself or to my Romanizing opinions, and that it is only his own coxcombical fancy which has bred such a thought in him: but my imagination is at a loss in presence of those vague charges, which have commonly been brought against me, charges, which are made up of impressions, and under- standings, and inferences, and hearsay, and surmises. Accordingly, I shall not make the attempt, for, in doing so, I should be dealing blows in the air; what I shall attempt is to state what I know of myself and what I recollect, and leave to others its application. While I had confidence in the Via Media, and thought that nothing could overset it, I did not mind laying down large principles, which I saw would go further than was commonly perceived. I considered that to make the Via Media concrete and substantive, it must be much more than it was in outline; that the Anglican Church must have a ceremonial, a ritual, and a fulness of doctrine and devotion, which it had not at present, if it were to compete with the Roman Church with any prospect of success. Such additions would not remove it from its proper basis, but would merely strengthen and beautify it : such, for instance, would be confraternities, particular devotions, reverence for the Blessed Virgin, prayers for the dead, beautiful churches, munificent offerings to them and in them, monastic houses, and many other observances and institutions, which I used to say belonged to us as much as to Rome, though Rome had appropriated them and boasted of them, by reason of our having let them slip FROM 1841 TO 1845. 167 from us. The principle, on which all this turned, is brought out in one of the Letters I published on occasion of Tract 90. “The age is moving,” I said, “towards something; and most unhappily the one religious com- munion among us, which has of late years been practically in possession of this something, is the Church of Rome. She alone, amid all the errors and evils of her practical system, has given free scope to the feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, devotedness, and other feelings which may be especially called Catholic. The question then is, whether we shall give them up to the Roman Church or claim them for ourselves. . . . But if we do give them up, we must give up the men who cherish them. We must consent either to give up the men, or to admit their principles.” With these feelings I frankly admit, that, while I was working simply for the sake of the Anglican Church, I did not at all mind, though I found myself laying down principles in its defence, which went beyond that particular kind of defence which high-and-dry men thought perfection, and even though I ended in fram- ing a kind of defence, which they might call a revolution, while I thought it a restoration. Thus, for illustration, I might discourse upon the “Communion of Saints” in such a manner, (though I do not recollect doing so,) as might lead the way towards devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints on the one hand, and towards prayers for the dead on the other. In a memorandum of the year 1844 or 1845, I thus speak on this subject: “If the Church be not defended on establishment grounds, it must be upon principles, which go far beyond their immediate object. Sometimes I saw these further results, sometimes not. Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I saw them:—so long as I thought they were inconsistent, not with our Church, but only with the existing opinions, I 168 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS was not unwilling to insinuate truths into our Church, which I thought had a right to be there.” To so much I confess; but I do not confess, I simply deny that I ever said any thing which secretly bore against the Church of England, knowing it myself, in order that others might unwarily accept it. It was indeed one of my great difficulties and causes of reserve, as time went on, that I at length recognized in principles which I had homestly preached as if Anglican, conclusions favourable to the cause of Rome. Of course I did not like to confess this ; and, when interrogated, was in consequence in per- plexity. The prime instance of this was the appeal to Antiquity; St. Leo had overset, in my own judgment, its force as the special argument for Anglicanism ; yet I was committed to Antiquity, together with the whole Anglican school; what then was I to say, when acute minds urged this or that application of it against the Via Media & it was impossible that, in such circumstances, any answer could be given which was not unsatisfactory, or any behaviour adopted which was not mysterious. Again, sometimes in what I wrote I went just as far as I saw, and could as little say more, as I could see what is below the horizon; and therefore, when asked as to the consequences of what I had said, I had no answer to give. Again, sometimes when I was asked, whether certain conclusions did not follow from a certain principle, I might not be able to tell at the moment, especially if the matter were complicated; and for this reason, if for no other, because there is great differ- ence between a conclusion in the abstract and a conclusion in the concrete, and because a conclusion may be modified in fact by a conclusion from some opposite principle. Or it might so happen that my head got simply confused, by the very strength of the logic which was administered to me, and thus I gave my sanction to conclusions which really FROM 1841. To 1845. 169 t were not mine; and when the report of those conclusions came round to me through others, I had to unsay them. And then again, perhaps I did not like to see men scared or scandalized by unfeeling logical inferences, which would not have troubled them to the day of their death, had they not been forced to recognize them. And then I felt alto- gether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose, “Non in dialectică complacuit Deo Salvum facere populum suum ;”— I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was Inot logic that carried me on ; as well might one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I find my mind in a new place; how P the whole man moves; paper logic is but the record of it. All the logic in the world would not have made me move faster towards Rome than I did; as well might you say that I have arrived at the end of my journey, because I see the village church before me, as venture to assert that the miles, over which my soul had to pass before it got to Rome, could be annihilated, even though I had been in possession of some far clearer view than I then had, that Rome was my ulti- mate destination. Great acts take time. At least this is what I felt in my own case; and therefore to come to me with methods of logic had in it the nature of a provoca- tion, and, though I do not think I ever showed it, made me somewhat indifferent how I met them, and perhaps led me, as a means of relieving my impatience, to be mysteri- ous or irrelevant, or to give in because I could not meet them to my satisfaction. And a greater trouble still than these logical mazes, was the introduction of logic into every subject whatever, so far, that is, as it was done. Before I was at Oriel, I recollect an acquaintance saying to me that “the Oriel Common Room stank of Logic.” One is not at all pleased when poetry, or eloquence, or de- , * 170 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS votion, is considered as if chiefly intended to feed syllo- gisms. Now, in saying all this, I am saying nothing against the deep piety and earnestness which were charac- teristics of this second phase of the Movement, in which I had taken so prominent a part. What I have been observing is, that this phase had a tendency to bewilder and to upset me; and, that, instead of saying so, as I ought to have done, perhaps from a sort of laziness I gave answers at random, which have led to my appearing close or inconsistent." I have turned up two letters of this period, which in a measure illustrate what I have been saying. The first was written to the Bishop of Oxford on occasion of Tract 90: “March 20, 1841. No one can enter into my situation but myself. I see a great many minds working in various directions and a variety of principles with multiplied bear- ings; I act for the best. I sincerely think that matters would not have gone better for the Church, had I never written. And if I write I have a choice of difficulties. It is easy for those who do not enter into those difficulties to say, ‘He ought to say this and not say that,’ but things are wonderfully linked together, and I cannot, or rather I would not be dishonest. When persons too interrogate me, I am obliged in many cases to give an opinion, or I seem to be underhand. Reeping silence looks like artifice. And I do not like people to consult or respect me, from thinking differently of my opinions from what I know them to be. And again (to use the proverb) what is one man's food is another man’s poison. All these things make my situation very difficult. But that collision must at some time ensue between members of the Church of opposite sentiments, I have long been aware. The time and mode has been in the hand of Providence; I do not mean to exclude my own great imperfections in bringing FROM 1841 to 1845. 171 it about ; yet I still feel obliged to think the Tract necessary.” The second is taken from the notes of a letter which I sent to Dr. Pusey in the next year: “October 16, 1842. As to my being entirely with Ward, I do not know the limits of my own opinions. If Ward says that this or that is a development from what I have said, I cannot say Yes or No. It is plausible, it Amay be true. Of course the fact that the Roman Church has so developed and maintained, adds great weight to the antecedent plausibility. I cannot assert that it is not true; but I cannot, with that keen perception which some people have, appropriate it. It is a nuisance to me to be forced beyond what I can fairly accept. 1 There was another source of the perplexity with which at this time I was encompassed, and of the reserve and mysteriousness, of which that perplexity gained for me the credit. After Tract 90 the Protestant world would not let me alone; they pursued me in the public journals to Littlemore. Reports of all kinds were circulated about me. “Imprimis, why did I go up to Littlemore at all? For no good purpose certainly; I dared not tell why.” Why, to be sure, it was hard that I should be obliged to Say to the Editors of newspapers that I went up there to say my prayers; it was hard to have to tell the world in confidence, that I had a certain doubt about the Anglican System, and could not at that moment resolve it, or say what would come of it; it was hard to have to confess that I had thought of giving up my Living a year or two before, and that this was a first step to it. It was hard to have to plead, that, for what I knew, my doubts would vanish, if the newspapers would be so good as to give me time and let me alone. Who would ever dream of making the world his confidant P yet I was considered insidious. 172 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS Ol’INIONS sly, dishonest, if I would not open my heart to the tender mercies of the world. But they persisted: “What was I doing at Littlemore ?” Doing there ! have I not retreated from you? have I not given up my position and my place? am I alone, of Englishmen, not to have the privilege to go where I will, no questions asked 2 am I alone to be followed about by jealous prying eyes, which take note whether I go in at a back door or at the front, and who the men are who happen to call on me in the afternoon P Cowards ! if I advanced one step, you would run away; it is not you that I fear: “Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.” It is because the Bishops still go on charging against me, though I have quite given up : it is that secret mis- giving of heart which tells me that they do well, for I have neither lot nor part with them : this it is which weighs me down. I cannot walk into or out of my house, but curious eyes are upon me. Why will you not let me die in peace? Wounded brutes creep into some hole to die in, and no one grudges it them. Let me alone, I shall not trouble you long. This was the keen feeling which pierced me, and, I think, these are the very words in which I expressed it to myself. I asked, in the words of a great motto, “Ubi lapsus P quid feciº” One day when I entered my house, I found a flight of Under-graduates inside. Heads of Houses, as mounted patrols, walked their horses round those poor cottages. Doctors of Di- vinity dived into the hidden recesses of that private tene- ment uninvited, and drew domestic conclusions from what they saw there. I had thought that an Englishman’s house was his castle; but the newspapers thought otherwise, and at last the matter came before my good Bishop. I insert his letter, and a portion of my reply to him:- “April 12, 1842. So many of the charges against your- self and your friends which I have seen in the public journals have been, within my own knowledge, false and FROM 1841. To 1845. 17.3 calumnious, that I am not apt to pay much attention to what is asserted with respect to you in the newspapers. “In " [a newspaper] “however, of April 9, there appears a paragraph in which it is asserted, as a matter of notoriety, that a ‘so-called Anglo-Catholic Monastery is in process of erection at Littlemore, and that the cells of dormitories, the chapel, the refectory, the cloisters all may be seen advancing to perfection, under the eye of a Parish Priest of the Diocese of Oxford.” “Now, as I have understood that you really are possessed of some tenements at Littlemore, as it is generally be- lieved that they are destined for the purposes of study and devotion,-and as much suspicion and jealousy are felt about the matter, I am anxious to afford you an oppor- tunity of making me an explanation on the subject. “I know you too well not to be aware that you are the last man living to attempt in my Diocese a revival of the Monastic orders (in any thing approaching to the Romanist sense of the term) without previous communication with me, or indeed that you should take upon yourself to originate any measure of importance without authority from the heads of the Church,-and therefore I at once exonerate you from the accusation brought against you by the newspaper I have quoted, but I feel it nevertheless a duty to my Diocese and myself, as well as to you, to ask you to put it in my power to contradict what, if uncon- tradicted, would appear to imply a glaring invasion of all ecclesiastical discipline on your part, or of inexcusable neglect and indifference to my duties on mine.” I wrote in answer as follows:— “April 14, 1842. I am very much obliged by your Lordship's kindness in allowing me to write to you. On the subject of my house at Littlemore; at the same time I feel it hard both on your Lordship and myself that the rest- & \ , 174 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS lessness of the public mind should oblige you to require an explanation of me. “It is now a whole year that I have been the subject of incessant misrepresentation. A year since I submitted entirely to your Lordship's authority; and, with the in- tention of following out the particular act enjoined upon me, I not only stopped the series of Tracts, on which I was engaged, but withdrew from all public discussion of Church matters of the day, or what may be called ecclesi- astical politics. I turned myself at once to the prepara- tion for the Press of the translations of St. Athanasius to which I had long wished to devote myself, and I intended and intend to employ myself in the like theological studies, and in the concerns of my own parish and in practical works. “With the same view of personal improvement I was led more seriously to a design which had been long on my mind. For many years, at least thirteen, I have wished to give myself to a life of greater religious regularity than I have hitherto led; but it is very unpleasant to confess such a wish even to my Bishop, because it seems arrogant, and because it is committing me to a profession which may come to nothing. For what have I done that I am to be called to account by the world for my private actions, in a way in which no one else is called? Why may I not have that liberty which all others are allowed? I am often accused of being underhand and uncandid in respect to the intentions to which I have been alluding: but-no-one likes his own good resolutions noised about, both from mere common delicacy and from fear lest he should not be able to fulfil them. I feel it very cruel, though the parties in fault do not know what they are doing, that very sacred matters between me and my conscience are made a matter of public talk. May I take a case parallel though differ- FROM 1841 TO 1845. 175 ent? suppose a person in prospect of marriage; would he like the subject discussed in newspapers, and parties, cir- cumstances, &c., &c., publicly demanded of him, at the penalty of being accused of craft and duplicity ? “The resolution I speak of has been taken with refer- ence to myself alone, and has been contemplated quite independent of the co-operation of any other human being, and without reference to success or failure other than per- Sonal, and without regard to the blame or approbation of man. And being a resolution of years, and one to which I feel God has called me, and in which I am violating no rule of the Church any more than if I married, I should have to answer for it, if I did not pursue it, as a good Providence made openings for it. In pursuing it then I am thinking of myself alone, not aiming at any ecclesiasti- cal or external effects. At the same time of course it would be a great comfort to me to know that God had put it into the hearts of others to pursue their personal edification in the same way, and unnatural not to wish to have the benefit of their presence and encouragement, or not to think it a great infringement on the rights of conscience if such personal and private resolutions were interfered with. Your Lordship will allow me to add my firm con- viction that such religious resolutions are most necessary for keeping a certain class of minds firm in their allegiance to our Church; but still I can as truly say that my own reason for any thing I have done has been a personal one, without which I should not have entered upon it, and which I hope to pursue whether with or without the sym- pathies of others pursuing a similar course. . . . . “As to my intentions, I purpose to live there myself a good deal, as I have a resident curate in Oxford. In doing this, I believe I am consulting for the good of my parish, as my population at Littlemore is at least equal to that of St. Mary’s in Oxford, and the whole of Littlemore is double & -- * 176 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS of it. It has been very much neglected; and in providing a parsonage-house at Tittlemore, as this will be, and will be called, I conceive I am doing a very great benefit to my people. At the same time it has appeared to me that a partial or temporary retirement from St. Mary’s Church might be expedient under the prevailing excitement. “As to the quotation from the [newspaper], which I have not seen, your Lordship will perceive from what I have said, that no ‘monastery is in process of erection;’ there is no ‘chapel;’ no “refectory,’ hardly a dining-room or parlour. The ‘cloisters’ are my shed connecting the cottages. I do not understand what ‘cells of dormitories’ means. Of course I can repeat your Lordship's words that “I am not attempting a revival of the Monastic Orders, in any thing approaching to the Romanist sense of the term,” or ‘taking on myself to originate any measure of importance without authority from the Heads of the Church.” I am attempting nothing ecclesiastical, but something personal and private, and which can only be made public, not private, by newspapers and letter-writers, in which sense the most sacred and conscientious resolves and acts may certainly be made the objects of an unman- nerly and unfeeling curiosity.” One calumny there was which the Bishop did not be- lieve, and of which of course he had no idea of speaking. It was that I was actually in the service of the enemy. I had forsooth been already received into the Catholic Church, and was rearing at Littlemore a nest of Papists, who, like me, were to take the Anglican oaths which they disbelieved, by virtue of a dispensation from Rome, and thus in due time were to bring over to that unprincipled Church great numbers of the Anglican Clergy and Laity. Bishops gave their countenance to this imputation against me. The case was simply this:—as I made Littlemore a FROM 1841 TO 1845. 177 place of retirement for myself, so did I offer it to others. There were young men in Oxford, whose testimonials for Orders had been refused by their Colleges; there were young clergymen, who had found themselves unable from conscience to go on with their duties, and had thrown up their parochial engagements. Such men were already going straight to Rome, and I interposed; I interposed for the reasons I have given in the beginning of this por- tion of my narrative. I interposed from fidelity to my clerical engagements, and from duty to my Bishop; and from the interest which I was bound to take in them, and from belief that they were premature or excited. Their friends besought me to quiet them, if I could. Some of them came to live with me at Littlemore. They were lay- men, or in the place of laymen. I kept some of them back for several years from being received into the Catho- lic Church. Even when I had given up my living, I was still bound by my duty to their parents or friends, and I did not forget still to do what I could for them. The immediate occasion of my resigning St. Mary’s, was the unexpected conversion of one of them. After that, I felt it was impossible to keep my post there, for I had been unable to keep my word with my Bishop. The following letters refer, more or less, to these men, whether they were actually with me at Littlemore or Ilot :— - 1. “March 6, 1842. Church doctrines are a powerful weapon; they were not sent into the world for nothing. God’s word does not return unto Him void: If I have Said, as I have, that the doctrines of the Tracts for the Times would build up our Church and destroy parties, I meant, if they were used, not if they were denounced. Else, they will be as powerful against us, as they might be powerful for us. “If people who have a liking for another, hear him . N 178 THISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS called a Tºoman Catholic, they will say, ‘Then after all Romanism is no such bad thing.” All these persons, who are making the cry, are fulfilling their own prophecy. If all the world agree in telling a man, he has no business in our Church, he will at length begin to think he has none. How easy is it to persuade a man of any thing, when numbers affirm it ! so great is the force of imagina- tion. Did every one who met you in the streets look hard at you, you would think you were somehow in fault. I do not know any thing so irritating, so unsettling, especially in the case of young persons, as, when they are going on calmly and unconsciously, obeying their Church and fol- lowing its divines, (I am speaking from facts,) as sud- denly to their surprise to be conjured not to make a leap, of which they have not a dream and from which they are far removed.” . 2. 1843 or 1844. “I did not explain to you sufficiently the state of mind of those who were in danger. I only spoke of those who were convinced that our Church was external to the Church Catholic, though they felt it unsafe to trust their own private convictions; but there are two other states of mind; 1. that of those who are uncon- sciously near Rome, and whose despair about our Church would at once develope into a state of conscious approxi- mation, or a quasi-resolution to go over; 2. those who feel they can with a safe conscience remain with us while they are allowed to testify in behalf of Catholicism, i.e. as if by such acts they were putting our Church, or at least that portion of it in which they were included, in the position of catechumens.” - 3. “June 20, 1843. I return the very pleasing letter you have permitted me to read. What a sad thing it is, that it should be a plain duty to restrain one’s sympathies, and to keep them from boiling over; but I suppose it is a matter of common prudence. FROM 1841 To 1845. 17.9 “Things are very serious here; but I should not like you to say so, as it might do no good. The Authorities find, that, by the Statutes, they have more than military power; and the general impression seems to be, that they intend to exert it, and put down Catholicism at any risk. I believe that by the Statutes, they can pretty nearly sus- pend a Preacher, as Seditiosus or causing dissension, without assigning their grounds in the particular case, nay, banish him, or imprison him. If so, all holders of preferment in the University should make as quiet an exit as they can. There is more exasperation on both sides at this moment, as I am told, than ever there was.” 4. “July 16, 1843. I assure you that I feel, with only too much sympathy, what you say. You need not be told that the whole subject of our position is a subject of anxiety to others beside yourself. It is no good attempt- ing to offer advice, when perhaps I might raise difficultics instead of removing them. It seems to me quite a case, in which you should, as far as may be, make up your mind for yourself. Come to Littlemore by all means. We shall all rejoice in your company; and, if quiet and retirement are able, as they very likely will be, to reconcile you to things as they are, you shall have your fill of them. How distressed poor Henry Wilberforce must be Rnowing how he values you, I feel for him; but, alas ! he has his own position, and every one else has his own, and the misery is that no two of us have exactly the same. “It is very kind of you to be so frank and open with me, as you are; but this is a time which throws together persons who feel alike. May I without taking a liberty sign myself, yours affectionately, &c.” - 5. “August 30, 1843. A. B. has suddenly conformed to the Church of Rome. He was away for three weeks. I suppose I must say in my defence, that he promised me 1S0 EIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS distinctly to remain in our Church three years, before I received him here.” 6. “June 17, 1845. I am concerned to find you speak of me in a tone of distrust. If you knew me ever so little, instead of hearing of me from persons who do not know me at all, you would think differently of me, whatever you thought of my opinions. Two years since, I got your son to tell you my intention of resigning St. Mary's, before I made it public, thinking you ought to know it. When you ex- pressed some painful feeling upon it, I told him I could not consent to his remaining here, painful as it would be to me to part with him, without your written sanction. And this you did me the favour to give. , “I believe you will find that it has been merely a deli- cacy on your son's part, which has delayed his speaking to you about me for two months past; a delicacy, lest he should say either too much or too little about me. I have urged him several times to speak to you. “Nothing can be done after your letter, but to recom- mend him to go to A. B. (his home) at once. I am very sorry to part with him.” 7. The following letter is addressed to Cardinal Wise- man, then Vicar Apostolic, who accused me of coldness in my conduct towards him — : “April 16, 1845. I was at that time in charge of a ministerial office in the English Church, with persons entrusted to me, and a Bishop to obey; how could I pos- sibly write otherwise than I did without violating sacred obligations and betraying momentous interests which were upon me? I felt that my immediate, undeniable duty, clear if any thing was clear, was to fulfil that trust. It might be right indeed to give it up, that was another thing; but it never could be right to hold it, and to act as if I did not hold it. . . . . . If you knew me, you FROM 1841 TO 1845. 1 S1 would acquit me, I think, of having ever felt towards your Lordship in an unfriendly spirit, or ever having had a shadow on my mind (as far as I dare witness about myself) of what might be called controversial rivalry or desire of getting the better, or fear lest the world should think I had got the worse, or irritation of any kind. You are too kind indeed to imply this, and yet your words lead me to say it. And now in like manner, pray believe, though I cannot explain it to you, that I am encompassed with responsibilities, so great and so various, as utterly to over- come me, unless I have mercy from Him, who all through my life has sustained and guided me, and to whom I can now submit myself, though men of all parties are thinking evil of me.” Such fidelity, however, was taken in malam partem by the high Anglican authorities; they thought it insidious. I happen still to have a correspondence which took place in 1843, in which the chief place is filled by one of the most eminent Bishops of the day, a theologian and reader of the Fathers, a moderate man, who at one time was talked of as likely on a vacancy to succeed to the Primacy. A young clergyman in his diocese became a Catholic; the papers at once reported on authority from “a very high quarter,” that, after his reception, “the Oxford men had been recommending him to retain his living.” I had reasons for thinking that the allusion was made to me, and I authorized the Editor of a Paper, who had inquired of me on the point, to “give it, as far as I was concerned, an unqualified contradiction;”—when from a motive of deli- cacy he hesitated, I added “my direct and indignant con- tradiction.” “Whoever is the author of it,” I continued to the Editor, “no correspondence or intercourse of any kind, direct or indirect, has passed between Mr. S. and myself, since his conforming to the Church of Rome, 182 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS except my formally and merely acknowledging the receipt of his letter, in which he informed me of the fact, without, as far as I recollect, my expressing any opinion upon it. You may state this as broadly as I have set it down.” My denial was told to the Bishop ; what took place upon it is given in a letter from which I copy. “My father showed the letter to the Bishop, who, as he laid it down, said, “Ah, those Oxford men are not ingenuous.” “How do you mean P’ asked my father. “Why,” said the Bishop, “they advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living after he turned Catholic. I know that to be a fact, because A. B. told me so.” “The Bishop,” continues the letter, “who is per- haps the most influential man in reality on the bench, evidently believes it to be the truth.” Upon this Dr. Pusey wrote in my behalf to the Bishop; and the Bishop instantly beat a retreat. “I have the honour,” he says in the autograph which I transcribe, “to acknowledge the receipt of your note, and to say in reply that it has not been stated by me, (though such a statement has, I believe, appeared in some of the Public Prints,) that Mr. Newman had advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living, after he had forsaken our Church. But it has been stated to me, that Mr. Newman was in close correspondence with Mr. B. S., and, being fully aware of his state of opinions and feelings, yet advised him to continue in our communion. Allow me to add,” he says to Dr. Pusey, “that neither your name, nor that of Mr. Keble, was mentioned to me in con- nexion with that of Mr. B. S.” I was not going to let the Bishop off on this evasion, so I wrote to him myself. After quoting his Letter to Dr. Pusey, I continued, “I beg to trouble your Lordship with my own account of the two allegations” [close correspond- ence and fully aware, &c.] “which are contained in your statement, and which have led to your speaking of me in terms which I hope never to deserve. 1. Since Mr. B. S. * 3. FROM 1841 TO 1845. 183 has been in your Lordship's diocese, I have seen him in Common rooms or private parties in Oxford two or three times, when I never (as far as I can recollect) had any conversation with him. During the same time I have, to the best of my memory, written to him three letters. One was lately, in acknowledgment of his informing me of his change of religion. Another was last summer, when I asked him (to no purpose) to come and stay with me in this place. The earliest of the three letters was written just a year since, as far as I recollect, and it certainly was on the subject of his joining the Church of Rome. I wrote this letter at the earnest wish of a friend of his. I cannot be sure that, on his replying, I did not send him a brief note in explanation of points in my letter which he had misapprehended. I cannot recollect any other correspond- ence between us. - “2. As to my knowledge of his opinions and feelings, as far as I remember, the only point of perplexity which I knew, the only point which to this hour I know, as press- ing upon him, was that of the Pope's supremacy. He pro- fessed to be searching Antiquity whether the see of Rome had formerly that relation to the whole Church which Roman Catholics now assign to it. My letter was directed to the point, that it was his duty not to perplex himself with arguments on [such] a question, . . . and to put it altogether aside. . . . It is hard that I am put upon my memory, without knowing the details of the statement made against me, considering the various correspondence in which I am from time to time unavoidably engaged. . . Be assured, my Lord, that there are very definite limits, beyond which persons like me would never urge another to retain preferment in the English Church, nor would retain it themselves; and that the censure which has been directed against them by so many of its Rulers has a very grave bearing upon those limits.” The Bishop replied in 184 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS a civil letter, and sent my own letter to his original in- formant, who wrote to me the letter of a gentleman. It seems that an anxious lady had said something or other which had been misinterpreted, against her real meaning, into the calumny which was circulated, and so the report vanished into thin air. I closed the correspondence with the following Letter to the Bishop :- “I hope your Lordship will believe me when I say, that statements about me, equally incorrect with that which has come to your Lordship's ears, are from time to time reported to me as credited and repeated by the highest authorities in our Church, though it is very seldom that I have the opportunity of denying them. I am obliged by your Lordship's letter to Dr. Pusey as giving me such an opportunity.” Then I added, with a purpose, “Your Lordship will observe that in my Letter I had no occasion to proceed to the question, whether a person holding Roman Catholic opinions can in honesty remain in our Church. Lest then any misconception should arise from my silence, I here take the liberty of adding, that I see nothing wrong in such a person’s continuing in commu- nion with us, provided he holds no preferment or office, abstains from the management of ecclesiastical matters, and is bound by no subscription or oath to our doctrines.” This was written on March 8, 1843, and was in antici- pation of my own retirement into lay communion. This again leads me to a remark:—for two years I was in layºff communion, not indeed being a Catholic in my º \ but in a state of serious doubt, and with the probable pro- spect of becoming some day, what as yet I was not. Under these circumstances I thought the best thing I could do was to give up duty and to throw myself into lay commu- nion, remaining an Anglican. I could not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions she sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I did not give up FROM 1841 TO 1845. 185 my fellowship, for I could not be sure that my doubts would not be reduced or overcome, however unlikely I might consider such an event. But I gave up my living; and, for two years before my conversion, I took no clerical duty. My last Sermon was in September, 1843; then I remained at Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was made a subject of reproach to me at the time, and is at this day, that I did not leave the Anglican Church sooner. To me this seems a wonderful charge; why, even had I been quite sure that Rome was the true Church, the Anglican Bishops would have had no just subject of com- plaint against me, provided I took no Anglican oath, no clerical duty, no ecclesiastical administration. Do they force all men who go to their Churches to believe in the 39 Articles, or to join in the Athanasian Creed P. How- ever, I was to have other measure dealt to me; great authorities ruled it so ; and a learned controversialist in the North thought it a shame that I did not leave the Church of England as much as ten years sooner than I did. He said this in print between the years 1847 and 1849. His nephew, an Anglican clergyman, kindly wished to undeceive him on this point. So, in the latter year, after some correspondence, I wrote the following letter, which will be of service to this narrative, from its chronological notes:— “Dec. 6, 1849. Your uncle says, “If he (Mr. N.) will declare, sans phrase, as the French say, that I have laboured under an entire mistake, and that he was not a concealed Romanist during the ten years in question,” (I suppose, the last ten years of my membership with the Anglican Church,) “ or during any part of the time, my controversial antipathy will be at an end, and I will readily express to him that I am truly sorry that I have made such a mistake.’ - “So candid an avowal is what I should have expected 186 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS from a mind like your uncle’s. I am extremely glad he has brought it to this issue. “By a ‘concealed Romanist' I understand him to mean one, who, professing to belong to the Church of England, in his heart and will intends to benefit the Church of Rome, at the expense of the Church of England. He cannot mean by the expression merely a person who in fact is benefiting the Church of Rome, while he is in- tending to benefit the Church of England, for that is no discredit to him morally, and he (your uncle) evidently means to impute blame. “In the sense in which I have explained the words, I can simply and honestly say that I was not a concealed Romanist during the whole, or any part of, the years in question. “For the first four years of the ten, (up to Michaelmas, 1839,) I honestly wished to benefit the Church of England, at the expense of the Church of Rome: “For the second four years I wished to benefit the Church of England without prejudice to the Church of Rome: e “At the beginning of the ninth year (Michaelmas, 1843) I began to despair of the Church of England, and gave up all clerical duty; and then, what I wrote and did was influenced by a mere wish not to injure it, and not by the wish to benefit it : • . “At the beginning of the tenth year I distinctly con- templated leaving it, but I also distinctly told my friends that it was in my contemplation. \ “Lastly, during the last half of that tenth year I was engaged in writing a book (Essay on Development) in favour of the Roman Church, and indirectly against the English; but even then, till it was finished, I had not absolutely intended to publish it, wishing to reserve to myself the chance of changing my mind when the argu- FROM 1841. To 1845. 187 mentative views which were actuating me had been dis- tinctly brought out before me in writing. - “I wish this statement, which I make from memory, and without consulting any document, severely tested by my writings and doings, as I am confident it will, on the whole, be borne out, whatever real or apparent exceptions (I suspect none) have to be allowed by me in detail. “Your uncle is at liberty to make what use he pleases of this explanation.” I have now reached an important date in my narrative, the year 1843; but before proceeding to the matters which it contains, I will insert portions of my letters from 1841 to 1843, addressed to Catholic acquaintances. 1. “April 8, 1841. . . . The unity of the Church Catholic is very near my heart, only I do not see any prospect of it in our time; and I despair of its being effected without great sacrifices on all hands. As to resisting the Bishop's will, I observe that no point of doctrine or principle was in dispute, but a course of action, the publication of certain works. I do not think you sufficiently understood our position. I suppose you would obey the Holy See in such a case; now, when we were separated from the Pope, his authority reverted to our Diocesans. Our Bishop is our Pope. It is our theory, that each diocese is an integral Church, intercommunion being a duty, (and the breach of it a sin,) but not essential to Catholicity. To have resisted my Bishop, would have been to place myself in an utterly false position, which I never could have recovered. Depend upon it, the strength of any party lies in its being true to its theory. Con- sistency is the life of a movement. “I have no misgivings whatever that the line I have taken can be other than a prosperous one: that is, in itself, 18S IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS for of course Providence may refuse to us its legitimate issues for our sins. “I am afraid, that in one respect you may be disap- pointed. It is my trust, though I must not be too gan- guine, that we shall not have individual members of our communion going over to yours. What one’s duty would be under other circumstances, what our duty ten or twenty years ago, I cannot say; but I do think that there is less of private judgment in going with one's Church, than in leaving it. I can earnestly desire a union between my Church and yours. I cannot listen to the thought of your being joined by individuals among us.” 2. “April 26, 1841. My only anxiety is lest your branch of the Church should not meet us by those reforms which surely are necessary. It never could be, that so large a portion of Christendom should have split off from the communion of Rome, and kept up a protest for 300 years for nothing. I think I never shall believe that so much piety and earnestness would be found among Pro- testants, if there were not some very grave errors on the side of Rome. To suppose the contrary is most unreal, and violates all one's notions of moral probabilities. All aberrations are founded on, and have their life in, some truth or other—and Protestantism, so widely spread and so long enduring, must have in it, and must be witness for, a great truth or much truth. That I am an advocate for Protestantism, you cannot suppose;—but I am forced into a Via Media, short of Rome, as it is at present.” 3. “May 5, 1841. While I most sincerely hold that there is in the Roman Church a traditionary system which is not necessarily connected with her essential formularies, yet, were I ever so much to change my mind on this point, this would not tend to bring me from my present position, providentially appointed in the English Church. That FROM 1841. To 1845. 189 your communion was unassailable, would not prove that mine was indefensible. Nor would it at all affect the sense in which I receive our Articles; they would still speak against certain definite errors, though you had reformed them. “I say this lest any lurking suspicion should be left in the mind of your friends that persons who think with me are likely, by the growth of their present views, to find it imperative on them to pass over to your communion. Allow me to state strongly, that if you have any such thoughts, and proceed to act upon them, your friends will be committing a fatal mistake. We have (I trust) the principle and temper of obedience too intimately wrought into us to allow of our separating ourselves from our eccle- siastical superiors because in many points we may sympa- thize with others. We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another. We may be cast out of our communion, or it may decree heresy to be truth,-you shall say whether such contingencies are likely; but I do not see other con- ceivable causes of our leaving the Church in which we were baptized. “For myself, persons must be well acquainted with what I have written before they venture to say whether I have much changed my main opinions and cardinal views in the course of the last eight years. That my sympathies have grown towards the religion of Rome I do not deny; that my reasons for Shunning her communion have lessened or altered it would be difficult perhaps to prove. And I wish to go by reason, not by feeling.” 4. “June 18, 1841. You urge persons whose views agree with mine to commence a movement in behalf of a union between the Churches. Now in the letters I have written, I have uniformly said that I did not expect that union in our time, and have discouraged the notion of all 190 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS sudden proceedings with a view to it. I must ask your leave to repeat on this occasion most distinctly, that I cannot be party to any agitation, but mean to remain quiet in my own place, and to do all I can to make others take the same course. This I conceive to be my simple duty; but, over and above this, I will not set my teeth on edge with sour grapes. I know it is quite within the range of possibilities that one or another of our people should go over to your communion; however, it would be a greater misfortune to you than grief to us. If your friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let them make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ventured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations for the union of the Churches: when you now urge us to petition our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very like an act of negotiation.” 5. I have the first sketch or draft of a letter, which I wrote to a zealous Catholic layman: it runs as follows, as far as I have preserved it, but I think there were various changes and additions:—“September 12, 1841. It would rejoice all Catholic minds among us, more than words can say, if you could persuade members of the Church of Rome to take the line in politics which you so earnestly advocate. Suspicion and distrust are the main causes at present of the separation between us, and the nearest approaches in doctrine will but increase the hos- tility, which, alas, our people feel towards yours, while these causes continue. Depend upon it, you must not rely upon our Catholic tendencies till they are removed. I am not speaking of myself, or of any friends of mine; but of our Church generally. . Whatever our personal feelings may be, we shall but tend to raise and spread a rival Church to yours in the four quarters of the world, unless you do what none but you can do. Sympathies, which would flow over to the Church of Rome, as a matter FROM 1841 TO 1845. 191 ..- of course, did she admit them, will but be developed in the consolidation of our own system, if she continues to be the object of our suspicions and fears. I wish, of course I do, that our own Church may be built up and extended, but still, not at the cost of the Church of Rome, not in oppo- sition to it. I am sure, that, while you suffer, we suffer too from the separation; but we cannot remove the obstacles; it is with you to do so. You do not fear us; we fear you. Till we cease to fear you, we cannot love you. “While you are in your present position, the friends of Catholic unity in our Church are but fulfilling the pre- diction of those of your body who are averse to them, viz. that they will be merely strengthening a rival communion to yours. Many of you say that we are your greatest enemies; we have said so ourselves: so we are, so we shall be, as things stand at present. We are keeping people from you, by supplying their wants in our own Church. We are keeping persons from you: do you wish us to keep them from you for a time or for ever? It rests with you to determine. I do not fear that you will succeed among us; you will not supplant our Church in the affections of the English nation; only through the English Church can you act upon the English nation. I wish of course our Church should be consolidated, with and through and in your communion, for its sake, and your sake, and for the sake of unity. “Are you aware that the more serious thinkers among us are used, as far as they dare form an opinion, to regard the spirit of Liberalism as the characteristic of the destined Antichrist P In vain does any one clear the Church of Rome from the badges of Antichrist, in which Protestants would invest her, if she deliberately takes up her position in the very quarter, whither we have cast them, when we took them off from her. Antichrist is described as the ăvouos, as exalting himself above the yoke of religion and 192 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS | law. The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reforma- tion, and Liberalism is its offspring. “And now I fear I am going to pain you by telling you, that you consider the approaches in doctrine on our part towards you, closer than they really are. I cannot help repeating what I have many times said in print, that your services and devotions to St. Mary in matter of fact do most deeply pain me. I am only stating it as a fact. “Again, I have nowhere said that I can accept the de- crees of Trent throughout, nor implied it. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is a great difficulty with me, as being, as I think, not primitive. Nor have I said that our Arti- cles in all respects admit of a Roman interpretation; the very word ‘Transubstantiation' is disowned in them. “Thus, you see, it is not merely on grounds of expedi- ence that we do not join you. There are positive difficul- ties in the way of it. And, even if there were not, we shall have no divine warrant for doing so, while we think that the Church of England is a branch of the true Church, and that intercommunion with the rest of Chris- tendom is necessary, not for the life of a particular Church, but for its health only. I have never disguised that there are actual circumstances in the Church of Rome, which pain me much ; of the removal of these I see no chance, while we join you one by one; but if our Church were prepared for a union, she might make her terms; she might gain the cup ; she might protest against the extreme honours paid to St. Mary; she might make some explanation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. I am not prepared to say that a reform in other branches of the Roman Church would be necessary for our uniting with them, however desirable in itself, so that we were allowed to make a reform in our own country. We do not look towards Rome as believing that its communion is infallible, but that union is a duty.” FROM 1841. To 1845. 4- 193 6. The following letter was occasioned by the present made to me of a book by the friend to whom it is written; more will be said on the subject of it presently:- “Nov. 22, 1842. I only wish that your Church were more known among us by such writings. You will not interest us in her, till we see her, not in politics, but in her true functions of exhorting, teaching, and guiding. I wish there were a chance of making the leading men among you understand, what I believe is no novel thought to yourself. It is not by learned discussions, or acute arguments, or reports of miracles, that the heart of Eng- land can be gained. It is by men ‘approving themselves,” like the Apostle, “ministers of Christ.’ “As to your question, whether the Volume you have sent is not calculated to remove my apprehensions that another gospel is substituted for the true one in your practical instructions, before I can answer it in any way, I ought to know how far the Sermons which it comprises are selected from a number, or whether they are the whole, or such as the whole, which have been published of the author's. I assure you, or at least I trust, that, if it is ever clearly brought home to me that I have been wrong in what I have said on this subject, my public avowal of that conviction will only be a question of time with me. “If, however, you saw our Church as we see it, you would easily understand that such a change of feeling, did it take place, would have no necessary tendency, which you seem to expect, to draw a person from the Church of England to that of Rome. There is a divine life among us, clearly manifested, in spite of all our disorders, which is as great a note of the Church, as any can be. Why should we seek our Lord’s presence elsewhere, when He vouchsafes it to us where we are P What call have we to change our communion? “Roman Catholics will find this to be the state of things O 194 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS in time to come, whatever promise they may fancy there is of a large secession to their Church. This man or that may leave us, but there will be no general movement. There is, indeed, an incipient movement of our Church towards yours, and this your leading men are doing all they can to frustrate by their unwearied efforts at all risks to carry off individuals. When will they know their posi- tion, and embrace a larger and wiser policy?” § 2. The letter which I have last inserted, is addressed to my dear friend, Dr. Russell, the present President of May- nooth. He had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion than any one else. He called upon me, in passing through Oxford in the summer of 1841, and I think I took him over some of the buildings of the University. He called again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion. He sent me at different times several letters; he was always gentle, mild, unobtrusive, uncontroversial. He let me alone. He also gave me one or two books. Veron's Rule of Faith and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of St. Alfonso Liguori’s Sermons was another; and it is to those Sermons that my letter to Dr. Russell relates. Now it must be observed that the writings of St. Alfonso, as I knew them by the extracts commonly made from them, prejudiced me as much against the Roman Church as any thing else, on account of what was called their “Mariolatry;” but there was nothing of the kind in this book. I wrote to ask Dr. Russell whether any thing had FROM 1841. To 1845. 195 been left out in the translation; he answered that there certainly were omissions in one Sermon about the Blessed Virgin. This omission, in the case of a book intended for Catholics, at least showed that such passages as are found in the works of Italian Authors were not acceptable to every part of the Catholic world. Such devotional mani- festations in honour of our Lady had been my great crue as regards Catholicism; I say frankly, I do not fully enter into them now ; I trust I do not love her the less, because I cannot enter into them. They may be fully explained and defended; but sentiment and taste do not run with logic: they are suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable for England. But, over and above England, my own case was special; from a boy I had been led to consider that my Maker and I, His creature, were the two beings, luminously such, in rerum natură. I will not here specu- late, however, about my own feelings. Only this I know full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or imma- terial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come be- tween the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, “solus cum solo,” in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eyes we go in death; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude. 1. Solus cum solo:-I recollect but indistinctly what I gained from the Volume of which I have been speaking; but it must have been something considerable. At least I had got a key to a difficulty; in these Sermons, (or rather heads of sermons, as they seem to be, taken down by a hearer,) there is much of what would be called legendary illustration; but the substance of them is plain, practical, awful preaching upon the great truths of salvation. What I can speak of with greater confidence is the effect produced | 196 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS on me a little later by studying the Exercises of St. Igna- tius. For here again, in a matter consisting in the purest and most direct acts of religion,-in the intercourse be- tween God and the soul, during a season of recollection, of repentance, of good resolution, of inquiry into vocation,— the soul was “sola cum solo;” there was no cloud inter- posed between the creature and the Object of his faith and love. The command practically enforced was, “My son, give Me thy heart.” The devotions then to Angels and Saints as little interfered with the incommunicable glory of the Eternal, as the love which we bear our friends and re- lations, our tender human sympathies, are inconsistent with that supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen, which really does but sanctify and exalt, not jealously destroy, what is of earth. At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or half-penny books of devotion, of all sorts, as they are found in the booksellers’ shops at Rome; and, on looking them over, I was quite astonished to find how different they were from what I had fancied, how little there was in them to which I could really object. I have given an account of them in my Essay on the De- velopment of Doctrine. Dr. Russell sent me St. Alfonso's book at the end of 1842; however, it was still a long time before I got over my difficulty, on the score of the devo- tions paid to the Saints; perhaps, as I judge from a letter I have turned up, it was some way into 1844 before I could be said fully to have got over it. 2. I am not sure that I did not also at this time feel the force of another consideration. The idea of the Blessed Virgin was as it were magnified in the Church of Rome, as time went on, but so were all the Christian ideas; as: that of the Blessed Eucharist. The whole scene of pale, faint, distant Apostolic Christianity is seen in Rome, as .. through a telescope or magnifier. The harmony of the whole, however, is of course what it was. It is unfair FROM 1841 TO 1845. 107 then to take one Roman idea, that of the Blessed Virgin, out of what may be called its context. 3. Thus I am brought to the principle of development of doctrine in the Christian Church, to which I gave my mind at the end of 1842. I had made mention of it in the passage, which I quoted many pages back (vide p. 111), in “Home Thoughts Abroad,” published in 1836; and even at an earlier date I had introduced it into my History of the Arians in 1832; nor had I ever lost sight of it in my speculations. And it is certainly recognized in the Treatise of Vincent of Lerins, which has so often been taken as the basis of Anglicanism. In 1843 I began to consider it attentively; I made it the subject of my last University Sermon on February 2; and the general view to which I came is stated thus in a letter to a friend of the date of July 14, 1844;-it will be observed that, now as before, my issue is still Creed versus Church:- “The kind of considerations which weighs with me are such as the following:—1. I am far more certain (accord- ing to the Fathers) that we are in a state of culpable Separation, than that developments do not exist under the Gospel, and that the Roman developments are not the true ones. 2. I am far more certain, that our (modern) doctrines are wrong, than that the Roman (modern) doc- trines are wrong. 3. Granting that the Roman (special) doctrines are not found drawn out in the early Church, yet I think there is sufficient trace of them in it, to recom- mend and prove them, on the hypothesis of the Church having a divine guidance, though not sufficient to prove them by itself. So that the question simply turns on the nature of the promise of the Spirit, made to the Church. 4. The proof of the Roman (modern) doctrine is as strong (or stronger) in Antiquity, as that of certain doctrines which both we and Romans hold: e. g. there is more of evidence in Antiquity for the necessity of Unity, than for | 198 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS % the Apostolical Succession ; for the Supremacy of the See of Rome, than for the Presence in the Eucharist; for the practice of Invocation, than for certain books in the pre- sent Canon of Scripture, &c. &c. 5. The analogy of the Old Testament, and also of the New, leads to the acknow- ledgment of doctrinal developments.” 4. And thus I was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philoso- phical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first years of the Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching a unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which the Anglican could not exhibit, that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, Alex- andria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve has its own law and expression. 5. And thus again I was led on to examine more atten- tively what I doubt not was in my thoughts long before, viz. the concatenation of argument by which the mind ascends from its first to its final religious idea; and I came to the conclusion that there was no medium, in true philosophy, between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself here below, must embrace either the one or the other. And I hold this still: I am a Catholic by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am asked why I believe in a God, I answer that it is because I believe in myself, for I feel it impossible to believe in my own existence (and of that fa uite sure) without believing also in the existe of Him, who lives as a Personal, All-seeing, All-judging Being in my conscience. Now, I dare say, I have not expressed myself with philo- sophical correctness, because I have not given myself to the study of what metaphysicians have said on the sub- FROM 1841 TO 1845. 199 ject; but I think I have a strong true meaning in what I say which will stand examination. 6. Moreover, I found a corroboration of the fact of the logical connexion of Theism with Catholicism in a consider- ation parallel to that which I had adopted on the subject of development of doctrine. The fact of the operation from first to last of that principle of development in the truths of Revelation, is an argument in favour of the identity of Roman and Primitive Christianity; but as there is a law which acts upon the subject-matter of dogmatic theology, so is there a law in the matter of religious faith. In the first chapter of this Narrative I spoke of certitude as the consequence, divinely intended and enjoined upon us, o the accumulative force of certain given reasons which taken one by one, were only probabilities. Let it be re- collected that I am historically relating my state of mind, at the period of my life which I am surveying. I am not speaking theologically, nor have I any intention of going into controversy, or of defending myself; but speaking his- torically of what I held in 1843-4, I say, that I believed in a God on a ground of probability, that I believed in Christianity on a probability, and that I believed in Catholicism on a probability, and that these three grounds of probability, distinct from each other of course in sub- ject matter, were still all of them one and the same in nature of proof, as being probabilities–probabilities of a special kind, a cumulative, a transcendent probability but still probability; inasmuch as He who made us has so willed, that in mathematics indeed we should arrive at certitude by rigid demonstration, but in religious inquiry | we should arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities; —He has willed, I say, that we should so act, and, as willing it, He co-operates with us in our acting, and thereby enables us to do that which He wills us to do, and carries us on, if our will does but co-operate with His, . 200 THISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS to a certitude which rises higher than the logical force of our conclusions. And thus I came to see clearly, and to have a satisfaction in seeing, that, in being led on into the Church of Rome, I was not proceeding on any secondary or isolated grounds of reason, or by controversial points in detail, but was protected and justified, even in the use of those secondary or particular arguments, by a great and broad principle. But, let it be observed, that I am stating a matter of fact, not defending it; and if any Catholic says in consequence that I have been converted in a wrong way, I cannot help that now. I have nothing more to say on the subject of the change in my religious opinions. On the one hand I came gradu- ally to see that the Anglican Church was formally in the wrong, on the other that the Church of Rome was formally in the right; then, that no valid reasons could be assigned for continuing in the Anglican, and again that no valid objections could be taken to joining the Roman. Then, I had nothing more to learn; what still remained for my conversion, was, not further change of opinion, but to change opinion itself into the clearness and firmness of intellectual conviction. Now I proceed to detail the acts, to which I committed myself during this last stage of my inquiry. In 1843, I took two very significant steps:—1. In Fe- bruary, I made a formal Retractation of all the hard things which I had said against the Church of Rome. 2. In Sep- tember, I resigned the Living of St. Mary’s, Littlemore included:—I will speak of these two acts separately. 1. The words, in which I made my Retractation, have given rise to much criticism. After quoting a number of passages from my writings against the Church of Rome, which I withdrew, I ended thus:—“If you ask me how an individual could venture, not simply to hold, but to FROM 1841 TO 1845. 201 .4 publish such views of a communion so ancient, so wide- spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer that I said to myself, ‘I am not speaking my own words, I am but fol- lowing almost a consensus of the divines of my own Church. They have ever used the strongest language against Rome, even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their system. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary for our position.’ Yet I have reason to fear still, that such language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous temper, a hope of approving myself to persons I respect, and a wish to repel the charge of Romanism.” These words have been, and are, again and again cited against me, as if a confession that, when in the Anglican Church, I said things against Rome which I did not really believe. . - For myself, I cannot understand how any impartial man can so take them; and I have explained them in print Several times. I trust that by this time their plain mean- ing has been satisfactorily brought out by what I have said in former portions of this Narrative; still I have a word or two to say in addition to my former remarks upon them. In the passage in question I apologize for saying out in controversy charges against the Church of Rome, which withal I affirm that I fully believed at the time when I made them. What is wonderful in such an apology P There are surely many things a man may hold, which at the same time he may feel that he has no right to say publicly, and which it may annoy him that he has said publicly. The law recognizes this principle. In our own time, men have been imprisoned and fined for saying true things of a bad king. The maxim has been held, that, “The greater the truth, the greater is the libel.” And so as to the judgment of society, a just indignation would be felt against a writer who brought forward wantonly 202 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS the weaknesses of a great man, though the whole world knew that they existed. No one is at liberty to speak ill of another without a justifiable reason, even though he knows he is speaking truth, and the public knows it too. Therefore, though I believed what I said against the Roman Church, nevertheless I could not religiously speak it out, unless I was really justified, not only in believing ill, but in speaking ill. I did believe what I said on what I thought to be good reasons; but had I also a just cause for saying out what I believed P I thought I had, and it was this, viz. that to say out what I believed was simply neces- sary in the controversy for self-defence. It was impossible to let it alone: the Anglican position could not be satis- factorily maintained, without assailing the Roman. In this, as in most cases of conflict, one was right or the other, not both ; and the best defence was to attack. Is not this almost a truism in the Roman controversy P Is it not what every one says, who speaks on the subject at all? does any serious man abuse the Church of Rome, for the sake of abusing her, or because that abuse justifies his own religious position ? What is the meaning of the very word “Protestantism,” but that there is a call to speak out P. This then is what I said; “I know I spoke strongly against the Church of Rome; but it was no mere abuse, for I had a serious reason for doing so.” But, not only did I think such language necessary for my Church’s religious position, but I recollected that all the great Anglican divines had thought so before me. They had thought so, and they had acted accordingly. And therefore I observe in the passage in question, with much propriety, that I had not used strong language simply out of my own head, but that in doing so I was following the track, or rather reproducing the teaching, of those who had preceded me. I was pleading guilty to using violent language, but I - g FROM 1841 TO 1845. 203 was pleading also that there were extenuating circum- stances in the case. We all know the story of the convict, who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. By doing so he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which he was to hang; but he said that his mother's indulgence when he was a boy, had a good deal to do with it. In like manner I had made a charge, and I had made it ea animo; but I accused others of having, by their own example, led me into believing it and publishing it. I was in a humour, certainly, to bite off their ears. I will freely confess, indeed I said it some pages back, that I was angry with the Anglican divines. I thought they had taken me in ; I had read the Fathers with their eyes; I had sometimes trusted their quotations or their reasonings; and from reliance on them, I had used words or made statements, which by right I ought rigidly to have ex- amined myself. I had thought myself safe, while I had their warrant for what I said. I had exercised more faith than criticism in the matter. This did not imply any broad misstatements on my part, arising from reliance on their authority, but it implied carelessness in matters of detail. And this of course was a fault. But there was a far deeper reason for my saying what I said in this matter, on which I have not hitherto touched; and it was this:–The most oppressive thought, in the whole process of my change of opinion, was the clear anti- cipation, verified by the event, that it would issue in the triumph of Liberalism. Against the Anti-dogmatic prin- ciple I had thrown my whole mind; yet now I was doing more than any one else could do, to promote it. I was one of those who had kept it at bay in Oxford for so many years; and thus my very retirement was its triumph. The men who had driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals; it was they who had opened the attack upon Tract 90, and it was they who would gain a second benefit, 204 EIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS if I went on to abandon the Anglican Church. But this was not all. As I have already said, there are but two alternatives, the way to Rome, and the way to Atheism: Anglicanism is the halfway house on the one side, and Liberalism is the halfway house on the other. How many men were there, as I knew full well, who would not follow me now in my advance from Anglicanism to Rome, but would at once leave Anglicanism and me for the Liberal camp. It is not at all easy (humanly speaking) to wind up an Englishman to a dogmatic level. I had done so in good measure, in the case both of young men and of laymen, the Anglican Via Media being the representa- tive of dogma. The dogmatic and the Anglican principle were one, as I had taught them ; but I was breaking the Via Media to pieces, and would not dogmatic faith alto- gether be broken up, in the minds of a great number, by the demolition of the Via Media & Oh! how unhappy this made me ! I heard once from an eye-witness the account of a poor sailor whose legs were shattered by a ball, in the action off Algiers in 1816, and who was taken below for an operation. The surgeon and the chaplain persuaded him to have a leg off; it was done and the tourniquet applied to the wound. Then, they broke it to him that he must have the other off too. The poor fellow said, “You should have told me that, gentlemen,” and de- liberately unscrewed the instrument and bled to death. Would not that be the case with many friends of my own P IIow could I ever hope to make them believe in a second theology, when I had cheated them in the first? with what face could I publish a new edition of a dogmatic creed, and ask them to receive it as gospel? Would it not be plain to them that no certainty was to be found any where? Well, in my defence I could but make a lame apology; however, it was the true one, viz. that I had not read the Fathers cautiously enough; that in such nice points, as FROM 1841 TO 1845. 205 those which determine the angle of divergence between the two Churches, I had made considerable miscalculations. But how came this about? why, the fact was, unpleasant as it was to avow, that I had leaned too much upon the assertions of Ussher, Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow, and had been deceived by them. Waleat quantum, it was all that could be said. This then was a chief reason of that word- ing of the Retractation, which has given so much offence, because the bitterness, with which it was written, was not understood;—and the following letter will illustrate it:- “April 3, 1844. I wish to remark on William's chief distress, that my changing my opinion seemed to unsettle one's confidence in truth and falsehood as external things, and led one to be suspicious of the new opinion as one became distrustful of the old. Now in what I shall say, I am not going to speak in favour of my second thoughts in comparison of my first, but against such scepticism and unsettlement about truth and falsehood generally, the idea of which is very painful. “The case with me, then, was this, and not surely an unnatural one :—as a matter of feeling and of duty I threw myself into the system which I found myself in. I saw that the English Church had a theological idea or theory as such, and I took it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and thought it (as I still think it) very masterly. The Anglican Theory was very distinctive. I admired it and took it on faith. It did not (I think) occur to me to doubt it; I saw that it was able, and supported by learning, and I felt it was a duty to maintain it. Further, on looking into Antiquity and reading the Fathers, I saw such portions of it as I examined, fully confirmed (e.g. the Supremacy of Scripture). There was only one question about which I had a doubt, viz. whether it would work, for it has never been more than a paper system. . . . “So far from my change of opinion having any fair 206 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS tendency to unsettle persons as to truth and falsehood viewed as objective realities, it should be considered whether such change is not necessary, if truth be a real objective thing, and be made to confront a person who has been brought up in a system short of truth. Surely the con- tinuance of a person, who wishes to go right, in a wrong system, and not his giving it up, would be that which militated against the objectiveness of Truth, leading, as it would, to the suspicion, that one thing and another were equally pleasing to our Maker, where men were sincere. “Nor surely is it a thing I need be sorry for, that I de- fended the system in which I found myself, and thus have had to unsay my words. For is it not one's duty, instead of beginning with criticism, to throw oneself generously into that form of religion which is providentially put before one P Is it right, or is it wrong, to begin with private judgment P May we not, on the other hand, look for a blessing through obedience even to an erroneous sys- tem, and a guidance even by means of it out of it? Were those who were strict and conscientious in their Judaism, or those who were lukewarm and sceptical, more likely to be led into Christianity, when Christ came? Yet in pro- portion to their previous zeal, would be their appearance of inconsistency. Certainly, I have always contended that obedience even to an erring conscience was the way to gain light, and that it mattered not where a man began, so that he began on what came to hand, and in faith ; and that any thing might become a divine method of Truth; that to the pure all things are pure, and have a self- correcting virtue and a power of germinating. And though I have no right at all to assume that this mercy is granted to me, yet the fact, that a person in my situation may have it granted to him, seems to me to remove the perplexity which my change of opinion may occasion. “It may be said, I have said it to myself,-‘Why, how- From 1841 to 1845. 207 ever, did you publish 8 had you waited quietly, you would have changed your opinion without any of the misery, which now is involved in the change, of disappointing and distressing people.’ I answer, that things are so bound up together, as to form a whole, and one cannot tell what is or is not a condition of what. I do not see how possibly I could have published the Tracts, or other works profess- ing to defend our Church, without accompanying them with a strong protest or argument against Rome. The one obvious objection against the whole Anglican line is, that it is Roman; so that I really think there was no alternative between silence altogether, and forming a theory and attacking the Roman system.” 2. And now, in the next place, as to my Resignation of St. Mary’s, which was the second of the steps which I took in 1843. The ostensible, direct, and sufficient reason for my doing so was the persevering attack of the Bishops on Tract 90. I alluded to it in the letter which I have in- Serted above, addressed to one of the most influential among them. A series of their ea cathedrá judgments, lasting through three years, and including a notice of no little severity in a Charge of my own Bishop, came as near to a condemnation of my Tract, and, so far, to a repudiation of the ancient Catholic doctrine, which was the scope of the Tract, as was possible in the Church of England. It was in order to shield the Tract from such a condemnation, that I had at the time of its publication in 1841 so simply put myself at the disposal of the higher powers in London. At that time, all that was distinctly contemplated in the way of censure, was contained in the message which my Bishop sent me, that it was “objectionable.” That I thought was the end of the matter. I had refused to sup- press it, and they had yielded that point. Since I published the former portions of this Narrative, I have found what I 208 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS wrote to Dr. Pusey on March 24, while the matter was in progress. “The more I think of it,” I said, “the more reluctant I am to suppress Tract 90, though of course I will do it if the Bishop wishes it; I cannot, however, deny that I shall feel it a severe act.” According to the notes which I took of the letters or messages which I sent to him in the course of that day, I presently wrote to him, “My first feel- ing was to obey without a word; I will obey still; but my judgment has steadily risen against it ever since.” Then in the PostScript, “If I have done any good to the Church, I do ask the Bishop this favour, as my reward for it, that he would not insist on a measure, from which I think good will not come. However, I will submit to him.” After- wards, I got stronger still and wrote: “I have almost come to the resolution, if the Bishop publicly intimates that I must suppress the Tract, or speaks strongly in his charge against it, to suppress it indeed, but to resign my living also. I could not in conscience act otherwise. You may show this in any quarter you please.” All mythen hopes, all my satisfaction at the apparent ful- filment of those hopes was at an end in 1843. It is not won- derful then, that in May of that year, when two out of the three years were gone, I wrote on the subject of my re- iring from St. Mary’s to the same friend, whom I had con- sulted upon it in 1840. But I did more now; I told him my great unsettlement of mind on the question of the Churches. I will insert portions of two of my letters:— “May 4, 1843. . . . . At present I fear, as far as I can analyze my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles, and that what grace is among us (which, through God’s mercy, is not little) is extraordinary, and from the over- flowings of His dispensation. I am very far more sure that England is in schism, than that the Roman additions FROM 1841 TO 1845. 209 to the Primitive Creed may not be developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine Depositum of Faith. “You will now understand what gives edge to the Bishops’ Charges, without any undue sensitiveness on my part. They distress me in two ways: —first, as being in Some sense protests and witnesses to my conscience against my own unfaithfulness to the English Church, and next, as being samples of her teaching, and tokens how very far she is from even aspiring to Catholicity. “Of course my being unfaithful to a trust is my great subject of dread, as it has long been, as you know.” When he wrote to make natural objections to my pur- pose, such as the apprehension that the removal of clerical obligations might have the indirect effect of propelling me towards Rome, I answered:— - “May 18, 1843. . . . My office or charge at St. Mary’s is not a mere state, but a continual energy. People assume and assert certain things of me in consequence. With what sort of sincerity can I obey the Bishop? how am I to act in the frequent cases, in which one way or another the Church of Rome comes into consideration ? I have to the utmost of my power tried to keep persons from Rome, and with some success; but even a year and a half since, my arguments, though more efficacious with the persons I aimed at than any others could be, were of a nature to in- fuse great suspicion of me into the minds of lookers-on. “By retaining St. Mary’s, I am an offence and a stum- bling-block. Persons are keen-sighted enough to make out what I think on certain points, and then they infer that such opinions are compatible with holding situations of trust in our Church. A number of younger men take the validity of their interpretation of the Articles, &c. from me on faith. Is not my present position a cruelty, as well as a treachery towards the Church? P 210 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS “I do not see how I can either preach or publish again, while I hold St. Mary’s;—but consider again the following difficulty in such a resolution, which I must state at some length. “Last Long Vacation the idea suggested itself to me of publishing the Lives of the English Saints; and I had a conversation with [a publisher] upon it. I thought it would be useful, as employing the minds of men who were in danger of running wild, bringing them from doctrine to history, and from speculation to fact;-again, as giving them an interest in the English soil, and the English Church, and keeping them from seeking sympathy in Rome, as she is ; and further, as tending to promote the spread of right views. “But, within the last month, it has come upon me, that, if the scheme goes on, it will be a practical carrying out of No. 90, from the character of the usages and opinions of ante-reformation times. * “It is easy to say, ‘Why will you do any thing? why won’t you keep quiet P what business had you to think of any such plan at all?” But I cannot leave a number of poor fellows in the lurch. I am bound to do my best for a great number of people both in Oxford and elsewhere. If I did not act, others would find means to do so. “Well, the plan has been taken up with great eagerness and interest. Many men are setting to work. I set down the names of men, most of them engaged, the rest half engaged and probable, some actually writing.” About thirty names follow, some of them at that time of the school of Dr. Arnold, others of Dr. Pusey's, some my personal friends and of my own standing, others whom I hardly knew, while of course the majority were of the party of the new Movement. I continue :— “The plan has gone so far, that it would create surprise and talk, were it now suddenly given over. Yet how is it -- FROM 1841 TO 1845. 211 compatible with my holding St. Mary’s, being what I am P.” Such was the object and the origin of the projected Series of the English Saints; and, since the publication was connected, as has been seen, with my resignation of St. Mary’s, I may be allowed to conclude what I have to say on the subject here, though it may read like a digres- sion. As soon then as the first of the Series got into print, the whole project broke down. I had already anticipated that some portions of the Series would be written in a style inconsistent with the professions of a beneficed clergyman, and therefore I had given up my Living; but men of great weight went further in their misgivings than I, when they saw the Life of St. Stephen Harding, and decided that it was of a character inconsistent even with its pro- ceeding from an Anglican publisher: and so the scheme was given up at once. After the two first numbers, I re- tired from the Editorship, and those Lives only were pub- lished in addition, which were then already finished, or in advanced preparation. The following passages from what I or others wrote at the time will illustrate what I have been saying:— In November, 1844, I wrote thus to the author of one of them: “I am not Editor, I have no direct control over the Series. It is T.’s work; he may admit what he pleases; and exclude what he pleases. I was to have been Editor. I did edit the two first numbers. I was responsible for them, in the way in which an Editor is responsible. Had I continued Editor, I should have exer- cised a control over all. I laid down in the Preface that doctrinal subjects were, if possible, to be excluded. But, even then, I also set down that no writer was to be held answerable for any of the Lives but his own. When I 212 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS gave up the Editorship, I had various engagements with friends for separate Lives remaining on my hands. I should have liked to have broken from them all, but there were some from which I could not break, and I let them take their course. Some have come to nothing; others like yours have gone on. I have seen such, either in MS. or Proof. As time goes On, I shall have less and less to do with the Series. I think the engagement between you and me should come to an end. I have any how abundant responsibility on me, and too much. I shall write to T. that if he wants the advantage of your assistance, he must write to you direct.” In accordance with this letter, I had already advertised in January 1844, ten months before it, that “other Lives,” after St. Stephen Harding, would “be published by their respective authors on their own responsibility.” This no- tice was repeated in February, in the advertisement to the second number entitled “The Family of St. Richard,” though to this number, for some reason which I cannot now recollect, I also put my initials. In the Life of St. Augustine, the author, a man of nearly my own age, says in like manner, “No one but himself is responsible for the way in which these materials have been used.” I have in MS. another advertisement to the same effect, but I cannot tell whether it ever appeared in print. I will add, since the authors have been considered “hot- headed fanatic young men,” whom I was in charge of, and whom I suffered to do intemperate things, that, while the writer of St. Augustine was in 1844 past forty, the author of the proposed Life of St. Boniface, Mr. Bowden, was forty-six; Mr. Johnson, who was to write St. Ald- helm, forty-three; and most of the others were on one side or other of thirty. Three, I think, were under twenty- five. Moreover, of these writers some became Catholics, FROM 1841. To 1845. 213 some remained Anglicans, and others have professed what are called free or liberal opinions'. The immediate cause of the resignation of my Living is stated in the following letter, which I wrote to my Bishop:— “August 29, 1843. It is with much concern that I inform your Lordship, that Mr. A. B., who has been for the last year an inmate of my house here, has just con- formed to the Church of Rome. As I have ever been desirous, not only of faithfully discharging the trust, which is involved in holding a living in your Lordship's diocese, but of approving myself to your Lordship, I will for your information state one or two circumstances con- nected with this unfortunate event. . . . . I received him on condition of his promising me, which he distinctly did, that he would remain quietly in our Church for three years. A year has passed since that time, and, though I saw nothing in him which promised that he would even- tually be contented with his present position, yet for the time his mind became as settled as one could wish, and he frequently expressed his satisfaction at being under the promise which I had exacted of him.” I felt it impossible to remain any longer in the service of the Anglican Church, when such a breach of trust, how- ever little I had to do with it, would be laid at my door. I wrote in a few days to a friend: “September 7, 1843. I this day ask the Bishop leave to resign St. Mary's. Men whom you little think, or at least whom I little thought, are in almost a hopeless way. Really we may expect any thing. I am going to publish a Volume of Sermons, including those Four against moving.” I resigned my living on September the 18th. I had not 1 Wide Note D, Lives of the English Saints. 214 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS the means of doing it legally at Oxford. The late Mr. Goldsmid was kind enough to aid me in resigning it in London. I found no fault with the Liberals; they had beaten me in a fair field. As to the act of the Bishops, I thought, to borrow a Scriptural image from Walter Scott, that they had “seethed the kid in his mother's milk.” I said to a friend:— - “Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” And now I may be almost said to have brought to an end, as far as is necessary for a sketch such as this is, the history both of my changes of religious opinion and of the public acts which they involved. - I had one final advance of mind to accomplish, and one final step to take. That further advance of mind was to be able honestly to say that I was certain of the conclusions at which I had already arrived. That further step, impera- tive when such certitude was attained, was my submission to the Catholic Church. This submission did not take place till two full years after the resignation of my living in September 1843; nor could I have made it at an earlier day, without doubt and apprehension, that is, with any true conviction of mind or certitude. In the interval, of which it remains to speak, viz. between the autumns of 1843 and 1845, I was in lay communion with the Church of England, attending its services as usual, and abstaining altogether from intercourse with Catholics, from their places of worship, and from those religious rites and usages, such as the Invocation of Saints, which are characteristics of their creed. I did all this on principle; for I never could understand how a man could be of two religions at once. What I have to say about myself between these two autumns I shall almost confine to this one point, the FROM 1841. To 1845. 215 difficulty I was in, as to the best mode of revealing the state of my mind to my friends and others, and how I managed to reveal it. Up to January, 1842, I had not disclosed my state of unsettlement to more than three persons, as has been men- tioned above, and as is repeated in the course of the letters which I am now about to give to the reader. To two of them, intimate and familiar companions, in the Autumn of 1839: to the third, an old friend too, whom I have also named above, I suppose, when I was in great distress of mind upon the affair of the Jerusalem Bishopric. In May, 1843, I made it known, as has been seen, to the friend, by whose advice I wished, as far as possible, to be guided. To mention it on set purpose to any one, unless indeed I was asking advice, I should have felt to be a crime. If there is any thing that was abhorrent to me, it was the scattering doubts, and unsettling consciences without ne- cessity. A strong presentiment that my existing opinions would ultimately give way, and that the grounds of them were unsound, was not a sufficient warrant for disclosing the state of my mind. I had no guarantee yet, that that presentiment would be realized. Supposing I were cross- ing ice, which came right in my way, which I had good reasons for considering sound, and which I saw numbers before me crossing in safety, and supposing a stranger from the bank, in a voice of authority, and in an earnest tone, warned me that it was dangerous, and then was silent, I think I should be startled, and should look about me anxiously, but I think too that I should go on, till I had better grounds for doubt; and such was my state, I be- lieve, till the end of 1842. Then again, when my dissatis- faction became greater, it was hard at first to determine the point of time, when it was too strong to suppress with propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but doubt is a pro- ‘gress; I was not near certitude yet. Certitude is a reflex 216 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS action; it is to know that one knows. Of that I believe I was not possessed, till close upon my reception into the Ca- tholic Church. Again, a practical, effective doubt is a point too, but who can easily ascertain it for himself? Who can determine when it is, that the scales in the balance of opinion begin to turn, and what was a greater probability in behalf of a belief becomes a positive doubt against it? In considering this question in its bearing upon my con- duct in 1843, my own simple answer to my great difficulty had been, Do what your present state of opinion requires in the light of duty, and let that doing tell: speak by acts. This I had done; my first act of the year had been in February. After three months’ deliberation I had pub- lished my retractation of the violent charges which I had made against Rome: I could not be wrong in doing so much as this; but I did no more at the time: I did not retract my Anglican teaching. My second act had been in September in the same year; after much sorrowful lingering and hesitation, I had resigned my Living. I tried indeed, before I did so, to keep Littlemore for myself, even though it was still to remain an integral part of St. Mary’s. I had given to it a Church and a sort of Parsonage; I had made it a Parish, and I loved it; I thought in 1843 that perhaps I need not forfeit my existing relations to- wards it. I could indeed submit to become the curate at will of another, but I hoped an arrangement was possible, by which, while I had the curacy, I might have been my own master in serving it. I had hoped an exception might have been made in my favour, under the circumstances; but I did not gain my request. Perhaps I was asking what was impracticable, and it is well for me that it was so. These had been my two acts of the year, and I said, “I cannot be wrong in making them; let that follow which must follow in the thoughts of the world about me, when they see what I do.” And, as time went on, they fully answered my purpose. What I felt it a simple duty to do, FROM 1841. To 1845. 217 did create a general suspicion about me, without such responsibility as would be involved in my initiating any direct act for the sake of creating it. Then, when friends wrote me on the subject, I either did not deny or Icon- fessed my state of mind, according to the character and need of their letters. Sometimes in the case of intimate friends, whom I should otherwise have been leaving in ignorance of what others knew on every side of them, I invited the question. And here comes in another point for explanation. While I was fighting in Oxford for the Anglican Church, then indeed I was very glad to make converts, and, though I never broke away from that rule of my mind, (as I may call it,) of which I have already spoken, of finding disciples rather than seeking them, yet, that I made advances to others in a special way, I have no doubt; this came to an end, however, as soon as I fell into misgivings as to the true ground to be taken in the controversy. For then, when I gave up my place in the Movement, I ceased from any such proceedings: and my utmost endeavour was to tran- quillize such persons, especially those who belonged to the new school, as were unsettled in their religious views, and, as I judged, hasty in their conclusions. This went on till 1843; but, at that date, as soon as I turned my face Rome- ward, I gave up, as far as ever was possible, the thought of in any respect and in any shape acting upon others. Then I myself was simply my own concern. How could I in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in so momentous a matter myself? How could I be considered in a position, even to say a word to them one way or the other? How could I presume to unsettle them, as I was unsettled, when I had no means of bringing them out of such unsettle- ment P And, if they were unsettled already, how could I point to them a place of refuge, when I was not sure that I should choose it for myself? My only line, my only 218 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS duty, was to keep simply to my own case. I recollected Pascal’s words, “Je mourrai seul.” I deliberately put out of my thoughts all other works and claims, and said nothing to any one, unless I was obliged. V. But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the newspapers there were continual reports about my inten- tions; I did not answer them; presently strangers or friends wrote, begging to be allowed to answer them; and, if I still kept to my resolution and said nothing, then I was thought to be mysterious, and a prejudice was excited against me. But, what was far worse, there were a num- ber of tender, eager hearts, of whom I knew nothing at all, who were watching me, wishing to think as I thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find it out; who in consequence were distressed, that, in so solemn a matter, they could not see what was coming, and who heard re- ports about me this way or that, on a first day and on a second; and felt the weariness of waiting, and the sickness of delayed hope, and did not understand that I was as perplexed as they were, and, being of more sensitive com- plexion of mind than myself, were made ill by the sus- pense. And they too of course for the time thought me mysterious and inexplicable. I ask their pardon as far as I was really unkind to them. There was a gifted and deeply earnest lady, who in a parabolical account of that time, has described both my conduct as she felt it, and that of such as herself. In a singularly graphic, amusing vision of pilgrims, who were making their way across a bleak common in great discomfort, and who were ever warned against, yet continually nearing, “the king's high- way” on the right, she says, “All my fears and disquiets were speedily renewed by seeing the most daring of our leaders, (the same who had first forced his way through the palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all put implicit trust,) suddenly stop short, and declare that he FROM 1841. To 1845. 219 would go on no further. He did not, however, take the leap at once, but quietly sat down on the top of the fence with his feet hanging towards the road, as if he meant to take his time about it, and let himself down easily.” I do not wonder at all that I thus seemed so unkind to a lady, who at that time had never seen me. We were both in trial in our different ways. I am far from denying that I was acting selfishly both in her case and in that of others; but it was a religious selfishness. Certainly to myself my own duty seemed clear. They that are whole can heal others; but in my case it was, “Physician, heal thyself.” My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed an ab- surdity to my reason to be converted in partnership. I wished to go to my Lord by myself, and in my own way, or rather His way. I had neither wish, nor, I may say, thought of taking a number with me. Moreover, it is but the truth to say, that it had ever been an annoyance to me to seem to be the head of a party; and that even from fastidiousness of mind, I could not bear to find a thing done elsewhere, simply or mainly because I did it myself, and that, from distrust of myself, Ishrank from the thought, whenever it was brought home to me, that I was influencing others. But nothing of this could be known to the world. The following three letters are written to a friend, who had every claim upon me to be frank with him, Archdeacon Manning:—it will be seen that I disclose the real state of my mind in proportion as he presses me. 1. “October 14, 1843. I would tell you in a few words why I have resigned St. Mary’s, as you seem to wish, were it possible to do so. But it is most difficult to bring out in brief, or even in eatenso, any just view of my feelings and reasons. “The nearest approach I can give to a general account of them is to say, that it has been caused by the general repudiation of the view, contained in No. 90, on the part 220 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS of the Church. I could not stand against such an unani- mous expression of opinion from the Bishops, supported, as it has been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of all classes in the Church, lay and clerical. If there ever was a case, in which an individual teacher has been put aside and virtually put away by a community, mine is one. No decency has been observed in the attacks upon me from authority; no protests have been offered against them. It is felt, I am far from denying, justly felt, that I am a foreign material, and cannot assimilate with the Church of England. “Even my own Bishop has said that my mode of inter- preting the Articles makes them mean anything or nothing. When I heard this delivered, I did not believe my ears. I denied to others that it was said. . . . Out came the charge, and the words could not be mistaken. This astonished me the more, because I published that Letter to him, (how unwillingly you know,) on the understanding that I was to deliver his judgment on No. 90 instead of him. A year elapses, and a second and heavier judgment came forth. I did not bargain for this, nor did he, but the tide was too strong for him. “I fear that I must confess, that, in proportion as I think the English Church is showing herself intrinsically and radically alien from Catholic principles, so do I feel the difficulties of defending her claims to be a branch of the Catholic Church. It seems a dream to call a com- munion Catholic, when one can neither appeal to any clear statement of Catholic doctrine in its formularies, nor inter- pret ambiguous formularies by the received and living Catholic sense, whether past or present. Men of Catholic views are too truly but a party in our Church. I cannot deny that many other independent circumstances, which it is not worth while entering into, have led me to the same conclusion. * FROM 1841 TO 1845. 221 “I do not say all this to every body, as you may sup- pose; but I do not like to make a secret of it to you.” 2. “Oct. 25, 1843. You have engaged in a dangerous correspondence; I am deeply sorry for the pain. I shall give you. “I must tell you then frankly, (but I combat arguments which to me, alas, are shadows,) that it is not from disap- pointment, irritation, or impatience, that I have, whether rightly or wrongly, resigned St. Mary’s; but because I think the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours not part of the Catholic Church, because not in communion With Rome; and because I feel that I could not honestly be a teacher in it any longer. “This thought came to me last summer four years. . . I mentioned it to two friends in the autumn. . . It arose in the first instance from the Monophysite and Donatist controversies, the former of which I was engaged with in the course of theological study to which I had given myself. This was at a time when no Bishop, I believe, had declared against us”, and when all was progress and hope. I do not think I have ever felt disappointment or impatience, certainly not then ; for I never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize it now. - - “My first effort was to write that article on the Catho- licity of the English Church; for two years it quieted me. Since the summer of 1839 I have written little or nothing on modern controversy. . . You know how unwillingly I wrote my letter to the Bishop in which I committed myself again, as the safest course under circumstances. The article I speak of quieted me till the end of 1841, over the affair of No. 90, when that wretched Jerusalem Bishopric (no personal matter) revived all my alarms. * I think Sumner, Bishop of Chester, must have done so already. 222 IIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS They have increased up to this moment. At that time I told my secret to another person in addition. “You see then that the various ecclesiastical and quasi- ecclesiastical acts, which have taken place in the course of the last two years and a half, are not the cause of my state of opinion, but are keen stimulants and weighty confirma- tions of a conviction forced upon me, while engaged in the course of duty, viz. that theological reading to which I had given myself. And this last-mentioned circumstance is a fact, which has never, I think, come before me till now that I write to you. “It is three years since, on account of my state of opinion, I urged the Provost in vain to let St. Mary's be separated from Littlemore ; thinking I might with a safe conscience serve the latter, though I could not comfortably continue in so public a place as a University. This was before No. 90. * “Finally, I have acted under advice, and that, not of my own choosing, but what came to me in the way of duty, nor the advice of those only who agree with me, but of near friends who differ from me. “I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far as I see, in the matter of impatience; i. e. practically or in conduct. And I trust that He, who has kept me in the slow course of change hitherto, will keep me still from hasty acts, or resolves with a doubtful conscience. “This I am sure of, that such interposition as yours, kind as it is, only does what you would consider harm. It makes me realize my own views to myself; it makes me see their consistency; it assures me of my own deli- berateness; it suggests to me the traces of a Providential Hand; it takes away the pain of disclosures; it relieves me of a heavy Secret. “You may make what use of my letters you think right.” FROM 1841 TO 1845. 223 3. My correspondent wrote to me once more, and I replied thus: “October 31, 1843. Your letter has made my heart ache more, and caused me more and deeper sighs than any I have had a long while, though I assure you there is much on all sides of me to cause sighing and heartache. On all sides:—I am quite haunted by the one dreadful whisper repeated from so many quarters, and causing the keenest distress to friends. You know but a part of my present trial, in knowing that I am unsettled myself. “Since the beginning of this year I have been obliged to tell the state of my mind to some others; but never, I think, without being in a way obliged, as from friends Writing to me as you did, or guessing how matters stood. No one in Oxford knows it or here” [Littlemore], “but one near friend whom I felt I could not help telling the other day. But, I suppose, many more suspect it.” On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if I recol- lect rightly, at once communicated the matter of them to Dr. Pusey, and this will enable me to describe, as nearly as I can, the way in which he first became aware of my changed state of opinion. I had from the first a great difficulty in making Dr. Pusey understand such differences of opinion as existed between himself and me. When there was a proposal about the end of 1838 for a subscription for a Cranmer Memorial, he wished us both to subscribe together to it. I could not, of course, and wished him to subscribe by himself. That he would not do; he could not bear the thought of our appearing to the world in separate posi- tions, in a matter of importance. And, as time went on, he would not take any hints, which I gave him, on the subject of my growing inclination to Rome. When I found him so determined, I often had not the heart to go on. And then I knew, that, from affection to me, he so often took up and threw himself into what I said, that I 224 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS felt the great responsibility I should incur, if I put things before him just as I might view them myself. And, not knowing him so well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I should unsettle him. And moreover, I recollected well, how prostrated he had been with illness in 1832, and I used always to think that the start of the Movement had given him a fresh life. I fancied that his physical energies even depended on the presence of a vigorous hope and bright prospects for his imagination to feed upon ; so much so, that when he was so unworthily treated by the authorities of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to the late Mr. Dodsworth to state my anxiety, lest, if his mind became dejected in consequence, his health should suffer seriously also. These were difficulties in my way; and then again, another difficulty was, that, as we were not together under the same roof, we only saw each other at set times; others indeed, who were coming in or out of my rooms freely, and according to the need of the moment, knew all my thoughts easily; but for him to know them well, formal efforts were necessary. A common friend of ours broke it all to him in 1841, as far as matters had gone at that time, and showed him clearly the logical conclusions which must lie in propositions to which I had committed myself; but somehow or other in a little while, his mind fell back into its former happy state, and he could not bring himself to believe that he and I should not go on pleasantly together to the end. But that affectionate dream needs must have been broken at last; and two years afterwards, that friend to whom I wrote the letters which I have just now inserted, set himself, as I have said, to break it. Upon that, I too begged Dr. Pusey to tell in private to any one he would, that I thought in the event I should leave the Church of England. However, he would not do so; and at the end of 1844 had almost relapsed into his former thoughts about me, if I may FROM 1841 TO 1845. 225 judge from a letter of his which I have found. Nay, at the Commemoration of 1845, a few months before I left the Anglican Church, I think he said about me to a friend; “I trust after all we shall keep him.” In that autumn of 1843, at the time that I spoke to Dr. Pusey, I asked another friend also to communicate in confidence, to whom he would, the prospect which lay be- fore me. To another friend, Mr. James Hope, now Mr. Hope Scott, I gave the opportunity of knowing it, if he would, in the following PostScript to a letter:- w “While I write, I will add a word about myself. You may come near a person or two who, owing to circum- stances, know more exactly my state of feeling than you do, though they would not tell you. Now I do not like that you should not be aware of this, though I see no reason why you should know what they happen to know. Your wishing it would be a reason.” I had a dear and old friend, near his death ; I never told him my state of mind. Why should I unsettle that sweet calm tranquillity, when I had nothing to offer him instead? I could not say, “Go to Rome;” else I should have shown him the way. Yet I offered myself for his examination. One day he led the way to my speaking out; but, rightly or wrongly, I could not respond. My reason was, “I have no certainty on the matter myself. To say ‘I think’ is to tease and to distress, not to per- suade.” - I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843: “As you may suppose, I have nothing to write to you about, pleasant. I could tell you some very painful things; but it is best not to anticipate trouble, which after all can but happen, and, for what one knows, may be averted. You are always so kind, that sometimes, when I part with you, I am nearly moved to tears, and it would be a relief to be - Q 226 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS so, at your kindness and at my hardness. I think no one ever had such kind friends as I have.” The next year, January 22, I wrote to him : “Pusey has quite enough on him, and generously takes on him- self more than enough, for me to add burdens when I am not obliged ; particularly too, when I am very conscious, that there are burdens, which I am or shall be obliged to lay upon him some time or other, whether I will or no.” And on February 21 : “Half-past ten. I am just up, having a bad cold ; the like has not happened to me (except twice in January) in my memory. You may think you have been in my thoughts, long before my rising. Of course you are so continually, as you well know. I could not come to see you; I am not worthy of friends. With my opinions, to the full of which I dare not confess, I feel like a guilty person with others, though I trust I am not so. People kindly think that I have much to bear externally, disappointment, slander, &c. No, I have nothing to bear, but the anxiety which I feel for my friends' anxiety for me, and their perplexity. This is a better Ash-Wednesday than birthday present;” [his birthday was the same day as mine; it was Ash-Wednes- day that year; “but I cannot help writing about what is uppermost. And now, my dear A., all kindest and best wishes to you, my oldest friend, whom I must not speak more about, and with reference to myself, lest you should be angry.” It was not in his nature to have doubts: he used to look at me with anxiety, and wonder what had wº COIſle OVéI’ Iſle. On Easter Monday: “All that is good and gracious descend upon you and yours from the influences of this Blessed Season; and it will be so, (so be it !) for what is the life of you all, as day passes after day, but a simple - jendeavour to serve Him, from whom all blessing comes? º *2. Though we are separated in place, yet this we have in * . . .* \ FROM 1841 TO 1845. 227 common, that you are living a calm and cheerful time, and I am enjoying the thought of you. It is your blessing to have a clear heaven, and peace around, according to the blessing pronounced on Benjamin ". So it is, my dear A., and so may it ever be.” He was in simple good faith. He died in September of the same year. I had expected that his last illness would have brought light to my mind, as to what I ought to do. It brought none. I made a note, which runs thus: “I sobbed bitterly over his coffin, to think that he left me still dark as to what the way of truth was, and what I ought to do in order to please God and fulfil His will.” I think I wrote to Charles Marriott to say, that at that moment, with the thought of my friend before me, my strong view in favour of Rome remained just what it was. On the other hand, my firm belief that grace was to be found within the Anglican Church remained too". I wrote to another friend thus : — “Sept. 16, 1844. I am full of wrong and miserable feelings, which it is useless to detail, so grudging and sullen, when I should be thankful. Of course, when one sees so blessed an end, and that, the termination of so blameless a life, of one who really fed on our ordinances and got strength from them, and sees the same continued in a whole family, the little children finding quite a solace of their pain in the Daily Prayer, it is impossible not to feel more at ease in our Church, as at least a sort of Zoar, a place of refuge and temporary rest, because of the steep- ness of the way. Only, may we be kept from unlawful security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for our progeny, the enemies of Israel.” 8 Deut. xxxiii. 12. - • 0. * On this subject, vide my Third Lecture on “Anglican Difficulties,” also Note E, Anglican Church. 228 ELISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS I could not continue in this state, either in the light of duty or of reason. QMy difficulty was this: I had been deceived greatly once; how could I be sure that I was not deceived a second time P I thought myself right then ; how was I to be certain that I was right now P How many years had I thought myself sure of what I now re- jected P how could I ever again have confidence in myself? As in 1840 I listened to the rising doubt in favour of Rome, now I listened to the waning doubt in favour of the Anglican Church. To be certain is to know that one knows; what inward test had I, that I should not change again, after that I had become a Catholic * I had still apprehension of this, though I thought a time would come, when it would depart. However, some limit ought to be put to these vague misgivings; I must do my best and then leave it to a higher Power to prosper it. So, at the end of 1844, I came to the resolution of writing an Essay on Doc- trinal Development; and then, if, at the end of it, my con- victions in favour of the Roman Church were not weaker, of taking the necessary steps for admission into her fold. By this time the state of my mind was generally known, and I made no great secret of it. I will illustrate it by letters of mine which have been put into my hands. “November 16, 1844. I am going through what must be gone through; and my trust only is that every day of pain is so much taken from the necessary draught which must be exhausted. There is no fear (humanly speaking) of my moving for a long time yet. This has got out without my intending it ; but it is all well. As far as I know myself, my one great distress is the perplexity, un- settlement, alarm, scepticism, which I am causing to so many; and the loss of kind feeling and good opinion on the part of so many, known and unknown, who have wished well to me. And of these two sources of pain it is the former that is the constant, urgent, unmitigated one. FROM 1841 TO 1845. 229 I had for days a literal ache all about my heart; and from time to time all the complaints of the Psalmist seemed to belong to me. “And as far as I know myself, my one paramount reason for contemplating a change is my deep, unvarying convic- tion that our Church is in schism, and that my salvation depends on my joining the Church of Rome. I may use argumenta ad hominem to this person or that"; but I am not conscious of resentment, or disgust, at any thing that has happened to me. I have no visions whatever of hope, no Schemes of action, in any other sphere more suited to me. I have no existing sympathies with Roman Catholics; I hardly ever, even abroad, was at one of their services; I know none of them, I do not like what I hear of them. “And then, how much I am giving up in so many ways! and to me sacrifices irreparable, not only from my age, when people hate changing, but from my especial love of old associations and the pleasures of memory. Nor am I conscious of any feeling, enthusiastic or heroic, of pleasure in the sacrifice; I have nothing to support me here. “What keeps me yet is what has kept me long; a fear that I am under a delusion; but the conviction remains firm under all circumstances, in all frames of mind. And this most serious feeling is growing on me; viz. that the reasons for which I believe as much as our system teaches, 7must lead me to believe more, and that not to believe more is to fall back into scepticism. “A thousand thanks for your most kind and consoling letter; though I have not yet spoken of it, it was a great gif .” Shortly after I wrote to the same friend thus: “My intention is, if nothing comes upon me, which I cannot * Wide supr. p. 219, &c. Letter of Oct. 14, 1843, compared with that of Oct. 25. - 230 FIISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS foresee, to remain quietly in statu quo for a considerable time, trusting that my friends will kindly remember me and my trial in their prayers. And I should give up my fellowship some time before any thing further took place.” There was a lady, who was very anxious on the subject, and I wrote to her the following letters:– 1. “November 7, 1844. I am still where I was; I am not moving. Two things, however, seem plain, that every One is prepared for such an event, next, that every one expects it of me. Few, indeed, who do not think it suit- able, fewer still, who do not think it likely. However, I do not think it either suitable or likely. I have very little reason to doubt about the issue of things, but the when and the how are known to Him, from whom, I trust, both the course of things and the issue come. The expression of opinion, and the latent and habitual feeling about me, which is on every side and among all parties, has great force. I insist upon it, because I have a great dread of going by my own feelings, lest they should mislead me. By one’s sense of duty one must go ; but external facts support one in doing so.” 2. “January 8, 1845. What am I to say in answer to your letter? I know perfectly well, I ought to let you know more of my feelings and state of mind than you do know. But how is that possible in a few words? Any thing I say must be abrupt; nothing can I say which will not leave a bewildering feeling, as needing so much to ex- plain it, and being isolated, and (as it were) unlocated, and not having anything with it to show its bearings upon other parts of the subject. “At present, my full belief is, in accordance with your letter, that, if there is a move in our Church, very few persons indeed will be partners to it. I doubt whether one or two at the most among residents at Oxford. And I don’t know whether I can wish it. The state of the FROM 1841. To 1845. 231 Roman Catholics is at present so unsatisfactory. This I am sure of, that nothing but a simple, direct call of duty is a warrant for any one leaving our Church ; no prefer- ence of another Church, no delight in its services, no hope of greater religious advancement in it, no indignation, no disgust, at the persons and things, among which we may find ourselves in the Church of England. The simple question is, Can I (it is personal, not whether another, but can I) be saved in the English Church P am I in safety, were I to die to-night? Is it a mortal sin in me, not join- ing another communion ? “P.S.. I hardly see my way to concur in attendance, though occasional, in the Roman Catholic chapel, unless a man has made up his mind pretty well to join it eventually. Invocations are not required in the Church of Rome; some- how, I do not like using them except under the sanction of the Church, and this makes me unwilling to admit them in members of our Church.” 3. “March 30. Now I will tell you more than any one knows except two friends. My own convictions are as strong as I suppose they can become : only it is so difficult to know whether it is a call of reason or of conscience. I cannot make out, if I am impelled by what seems clear, or by a sense of duty. You can understand how painful this doubt is; so I have waited, hoping for light, and using the words of the Psalmist, ‘Show some token upon me.” But I suppose I have no right to wait for ever for this. Then I am waiting, because friends are most considerately bear- ing me in mind, and asking guidance for me; and, I trust, I should attend to any new feelings which came upon me, should that be the effect of their kindness. And then this waiting subserves the purpose of preparing men's minds. I dread shocking, unsettling people. Any how, I can’t avoid giving incalculable pain. So, if I had my will, I should like to wait till the summer of 1846, which would 232 IHISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS be a full seven years from the time that my convictions first began to fall on me. Iłut I don’t think I shall last so long. “My present intention is to give up my Fellowship in October, and to publish some work or treatise between that and Christmas. I wish people to know why I am acting, as well as what I am doing; it takes off that vague and distressing surprise, ‘What can have made him?” 4. “June 1. What you tell me of yourself makes it plain that it is your duty to remain quietly and patiently, till you see more clearly where you are; else you are leap- ing in the dark.” In the early part of this year, if not before, there was an idea afloat that my retirement from the Anglican Church was owing to the feeling that I had so been thrust aside, without any one's taking my part. Various measures were, I believe, talked of in consequence of this surmise. Coincidently with it appeared an exceedingly kind article about me in a Quarterly, in its April number. The writer praised me in feeling and beautiful language far above my deserts. In the course of his remarks, he said, speaking of me as Vicar of St. Mary's: “He had the future race of clergy hearing him. Did he value and feel tender about, and cling to his position ? . . . . Not at all. . . . No sacrifice to him perhaps, he did not care about such things.” - There was a censure implied, however covertly, in these words; and it is alluded to in the following letter, addressed to a very intimate friend :— “April 3, 1845. . . . Accept this apology, my dear Church, and forgive me. As I say so, tears come into my eyes;–that arises from the accident of this time, when I am giving up so much I love. Just now I have been over- set by A.’s article in the Christian Remembrancer; yet really, my dear Church, I have never for an instant had FROM 1841 TO 1845. 233 even the temptation of repenting my leaving Oxford. The feeling of repentance has not even come into my mind. How could it P. How could I remain at St. Mary’s a hypo- crite P how could I be answerable for souls, (and life so uncertain,) with the convictions, or at least persuasions, which I had upon me? It is indeed a responsibility to act as I am doing ; and I feel His hand heavy on me without intermission, who is all Wisdom and Love, so that my heart and mind are tired out, just as the limbs might be from a load on one's back. That sort of dull aching pain is mine; but my responsibility really is nothing to what it would be, to be answerable for souls, for confiding loving souls, in the English Church, with my convictions. My love to Marriott, and save me the pain of sending him a line.” I am now close upon the date of my reception into the Catholic Church; at the beginning of the year a letter had been addressed to me by a very dear friend, now no more, Charles Marriott. I quote some sentences from it, for the love which I bear him and the value that I set on his good word. “January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to be aware, that I never see through any thing at first. Your letter to Badeley casts a gloom over the future, which you can understand, if you have understood me, as I believe you have. But I may speak out at once, of what I see and feel at once, and doubt not that I shall ever feel: that your whole conduct towards the Church of England and towards us, who have striven and are still striving to seek after God for ourselves, and to revive true religion among others, under her authority and guidance, has been gene- rous and considerate, and, were that word appropriate, dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely have conceived possible, more unsparing of self than I should have thought nature could sustain. I have felt with pain every link 4 • '4 * ... . º ſ:’. 234 THISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS that you have severed, and I have asked no questions, because I felt that you ought to measure the disclosure of your thoughts according to the occasion, and the capacity of those to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the midst of engagements engrossing in themselves, but partly made tasteless, partly embittered by what I have heard; but I am willing to trust even you, whom I love best on earth, in God's Hand, in the earnest prayer that you may be so employed as is best for the Holy Catholic Church.” In July, a Bishop thought it worth while to give out to the world that “the adherents of Mr. Newman are few in number. A short time will now probably suffice to prove this fact. It is well known that he is preparing for seces- sion; and, when that event takes place, it will be seen how few will go with him.” I had begun my Essay on the Development of Doctrine in the beginning of 1845, and I was hard at it all through the year till October. As I advanced, my difficulties so cleared away that I ceased to speak of “the Roman Catholics,” and boldly called them Catholics. Before I got to the end, I resolved to be received, and the book remains in the state in which it was then, unfinished. One of my friends at Littlemore had been received into the Church on Michaelmas Day, at the Passionist House at Aston, near Stone, by Father Dominic, the Superior. At the beginning of October the latter was passing through London to Belgium; and, as I was in some perplexity what steps to take for being received myself, I assented to the proposition made to me that the good priest should take Littlemore in his way, with a view to his doing for me the same charitable service as he had done to my friend. On October the 8th I wrote to a number of friends the following letter:— “Littlemore, October 8th, 1845. I am this night ex- pecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his FIROM 1841 TO 1845. 235 youth, has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then of England. After thirty years' (almost) waiting, he was without his own act sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions. I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist's day last year. “He is a simple, holy man; and withal gifted with remarkable powers. He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him admission into the One Fold of Christ. . . . • “I have so many letters to write, that this must do for all who choose to ask about me. With my best love to dear Charles Marriott, who is over your head, &c., &c. “P.S. This will not go till all is over. Of course it requires no answer.” For a while after my reception, I proposed to betake myself to some secular calling. I wrote thus in answer to a very gracious letter of congratulation sent me by Car- dinal Acton:— - “Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have anticipated, be- fore I express it, the great gratification which I received from your Eminence's letter. That gratification, however, was tempered by the apprehension, that kind and anxious well-wishers at a distance attach more importance to my step than really belongs to it. To me indeed personally it is of course an inestimable gain; but persons and things look great at a distance, which are not so when seen close; and, did your Eminence know me, you would see that I was one, about whom there has been far more talk for good and bad than he deserves, and about whose movements far more expectation has been raised than the event will justify. “As I never, I do trust, aimed at any thing else than obedience to my own sense of right, and have been magni- 236 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS fied into the leader of a party without my wishing it or acting as such, so now, much as I may wish to the con- trary, and earnestly as I may labour (as is my duty) to minister in a humble way to the Catholic Church, yet my powers will, I fear, disappoint the expectations of both my own friends, and of those who pray for the peace of Jeru- salem. “If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is that you would kindly moderate those anticipations. Would it were in my power to do, what I do not aspire to do | At present certainly I cannot look forward to the future, and, though it would be a good work if I could persuade others to do as I have done, yet it seems as if I had quite enough to do in thinking of myself.” Soon, Dr. Wiseman, in whose Vicariate Oxford lay, called me to Oscott; and I went there with others; after- wards he sent me to Rome, and finally placed me in Bir- mingham. I wrote to a friend:— “January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely I am. ‘Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui,' has been in my ears for the last twelve hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like going on the open sea.” I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my house at Littlemore simply by myself, as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend’s, Mr. John- son’s, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of me; Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey too came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private Tutor, when I was an Undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first FROM 1841 TO 1845. 237 College, Trinity, which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who had been kind to me both when I was a boy, and all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much snap-dragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman’s rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my University. On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. 238 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. CHAPTER W. POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. FROM the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological sub- jects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and conteniment; Inever have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption. Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 239 º of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I under- stand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficTiësin-the-evidence;—but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines them- selves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubt- ing that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true One. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne Tupon our minds with most power: People SyTITHETOGETIne of Transubstantiaiſon TS difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, S-to-imägine, Tgrant;-but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas - More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the - Catholics of an enlightened age could resist “the over- whelming force of the argument against it.” “Sir Thomas More,” he says, “is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test.” But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, “ Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? just as much as the greatest philosophets, and 240 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. that is nothing at all;”—so much is this the case, that there is a rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena to constitute the whole of our knowledge in physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone. It does not say that the phenomena go; on the contrary, it says that they remain ; nor does it say that the same phenomena are in several places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows any thing about, the material substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that ma- jestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being P I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving thäf there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the TTCOmmunicable God. - But I am going to take upon myself the responsibility of more than the mere Creed of the Church; as the parties accusing me are determined I shall do. They say, that now, in that I am a Catholic, though I may not have offences of my own against honesty to answer for, yet, at least, I am answerable for the offences of others, of my co-religionists, of my brother priests, of the Church her- self. I am quite willing to accept the responsibility; and, as I have been able, as I trust, by means of a few words, to dissipate, in the minds of all those who do not begin with disbelieving me, the suspicion with which so many Brotestants start, in forming their judgment of Catholics, viz. that our Creed is actually set up in inevitable super- stition and hypocrisy, as the original sin of Catholicism; so now I will proceed, as before, identifying myself with the Church and vindicating it, not of course denying the enormous mass of sin and error which exists of necessity in that world-wide multiform Communion,--but going to POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 241 ** § - the proof of this one point, that its system is in no sense dishonest, and that therefore the upholders and teachers of - -** - - ----------------, - that system, as such, have a claim to be acquitted in their own persons of that odious imputation. Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as I have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction,) I look out of myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a poly- theist when I looked into the world. I am speaking for myself only; and I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts of human society and the course of history, but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of “lamentations, and mourning, and woe.” To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then R. 242 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. •) & their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless éourses, their random achieve- ments and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, “having no hope and without God in the world,” —all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is abso- lutely beyond human solution. What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewil- dering fact P I can only answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense disgarded from His–presence- Did I see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to say whence he came, his birth-place or his family con- nexions, I should conclude that there was some mystery connected with his history, and that he was one, of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the promise and the condition of his being. And so I argue about the World —if there be a God, since there is 8, God, the human race is implicated in some terrible abori- ginal calamity. It is out of joint with ſhe purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence; and fºre doctrine of what is theologically POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 243 called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the worſt exists, and as the existence of God. -ms And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the Creator to interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what are we to suppose would be the methods which might be necessarily or naturally involved in His purpose of mercy P Since the world is in so abnormal a state, surely it would be no surprise to me, if the inter- position were of necessity equally extraordinary—or what is called miraculous. But that subject does not directly come into the scope of my present remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve a process of reason, or an argument; and of course I am thinking of some mode of interference which does not immediately run into argument. I am rather asking what must be the face-to-face antagonist. By which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the in- tellect in Teligious inquiries? I have no intention at all of denying, that truth is the real object of our reason, and that, if it does not attain to truth, either the premiss or the process is in fault; but I am not speaking here of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided ri hen correctly exercised: Teads to a belief in God, in the immor- tality of the soul, and in a future retribution; but I am considering *V-01-1: actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in Tsaying that its tendency is towards a simpſe Imperieſ in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand "against it, in the Tong run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of the religious knowledge of former times were all but disap- pearing from those portions of the world in which the intellect had been active and had had a career. And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the wº- 244 PosLTION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. Catholic Church things are tending-with far greater rapi- dity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age-to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day ! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization through the world, which is under the influence of the European mind Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of England, France, and Germany I Lovers of their country and of their race, religious men, external to the Catholic Church, have attempted various expedients to arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course, and to bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion for the interests of humanity, has been generally acknow- ledged : but where was the concrete representative of things invisible, Which would have the force and the toughness necessary to be a breakwater against the deluge P_Three centuries ago the establishment of reli- gion, material, legal, and social, was generally adopted as the best expedient for the purpose, in those countries which separated from the Catholic Church; and for a long time it was successful; but now the crevices of those establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years ago, education was relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would cease for ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of the useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that there is any thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us, whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards? The judgment, which experience passes whether on establishments or on education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical world, must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine. Experience Ae POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 245 proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the moans OFTtTG conversion of individualsTDuT book, after all, cannot make a stand against the wild living intellect of man, TTTThis day it begins to testify, as Tegards its own structure and contents, to the power of that universal Solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious establishments. Supposing-thea—it—to be the Will of the Creator to inter- fere in human affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge of Himself, so definite and dis- tinct as to be proof ºms the energy of human scepti- cism, in such a case-I am far from saying that there was no other way,+but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious matters.TSuch a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to the need; and, when I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do Tfeel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but thère is a fitness in it, which recommends it to my mind. And thus Tam brought to speak of the Church’s infalli- bility, is a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve religion in the World, and to restrain that free- dôm of thought, WHISTOf COUTSe in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts. ue if from its own suicidal excesses. And let it be observed that, neither here nor TWT follows, shall I have occasion to speak directly of Revelation in its subject-matter, but in reference to the sanction which it gives to truths which may be known independently of it, as it bears upon the defence of natural religion. I say, that a power, possessed of in- fallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for * 246 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. Smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect :—and in saying this, as in the other things that I have to say, it must still be recollected that I am all along bearing in mind my main purpose, which is a defence of myself. I am defending myself here from a plausible charge brought against Catholics, as will be seen better as I pro- ceed. The charge is this:—that I, as a Catholic, J19t only make profession to hold doctrines which I cannot possibly believe in my heart, but that I also believe in the existence of a power on earth, which at its own will imposes upon men any new set of Toroºnſ. WRCTITIcases, by a claim to infallibility; in consequence, that my own thoughts are º- not my own property; that I cannot tell that to-morrow may not have to give up what TTold to-day, ºn TTTTTThe mºssary effect of such a condition of mind must be a degrading bondage, or a bitter inward rebellion relieving itself in secret infidelity, or the necessity of ignoring the whole subject of religion in a sºrrºr disgust, and of me- chanically saying eVery thing that the Church says, and leaving to others the defence of it. As then I have above spoken of the relation of my mind towards the Catholic Creed, so now I shall speak of the attitude which it takes up in the view of the Church's infallibility. And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must be an emphatic protest against the existing state of mankind. Man had Or Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and to proclaim it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited messen- ger. The Church must denounce rebelliodenouncerebellion as of aſ possible, evils the greatest. She must have no terms with it; if she would be true to her Master, she must ban and ana- thematize it. This is the meaning of a statement of mine, which has furnished matter for one of those special accu- sations to which I am at present replying: I have, how- POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 247 ever, no fault at all to confess in regard to it; I have nothing to withdraw, and in consequence I here delibe- rately repeat it. I said, “The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.” I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere pre- amble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin with a “Whereas.” It is because of the intensity of the evil which has pos- session of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely- commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a meaning to her position in the world, and an interpreta- tion to her whole course of teaching and action. In like manner she has ever put forth, with most ener- getic distinctness, those other great elementary truths, which either are an explanation of her mission or give a character to her work. She does not teach that human nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent P ^*= not, that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be ex- tricated, purified, and restored--not, that it is a mere mass of hopeless evil, but that it has the promise upon it of great. things—and-even—now-in-its-present state of disorder and excess, has a virtue and a praise proper to itself. But in the next place she knows and she preaches that such a restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought about, TT simply through certain outward provisions of preaching and teaching, even though they be her own, but - from an inward spiritual power or grace imparted directly from above, and of which she is the channel. She has 248 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery, but not simply by restoring it on its own level, but by lifting it up to a higher level than its own. She recog- nizes in it real moral excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it towards heaven. It was for this end that a renovating grace was put into her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from the reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to insist, that all true conver- sion must begin with the first springs of thought, and to teach that each individual man must be in his own person one whoſe and perfect temple of God, while he is also one of the livingstones which build up a visible religious com- munity. And thus the distinctions between nature and gîăCE, and between outward and inward religion, become two further articles in what I have called the preamble of her divine commission. Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and per- tinaciously inflicts upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no economical reserve, no delicacy or prudence. “Ye must be born again,” is the simple, direct form of words which she uses after her Divine Master: “your whole nature must be re-born ; your passions, and -your affections, and your aims, and your conscience, and your will, must all be bathed in a new element, and recon- secrated to Your Maker, and, the last not the least, your intellect.” It was for repeating these points of her teach- ing in my own way, that certain passages of one of my Volumes have been brought into the general accusation which has been made against my religious opinions. The - writer has said that I was demented if I believed, and un- ; principled if I did not believe, in my own statement, that a j 2. lazy, ragged, filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste, sober, cheerful, and religious, had a prospect of heaven, such as was absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman, POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 249 or lawyer, or noble, be he ever so just, upright, generous, honourable, and conscientious, unless he had also some portion of the divine Christian graces;–yet I should have thought myself defended from criticism by the words which Our Lord used to the chief priests, “The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” And I was subjected again to the same alternative of imputations, for having ventured to say that consent to an unchaste wish was indefinitely more heinous than any lie viewed apart from its causes, its motives, and its consequences: though a lie, viewed under the limitation of these condi- tions, is a random utterance, an almost outward act, not directly from the heart, however disgraceful and despicable it may be, however prejudicial to the social contract, how- ever deserving of public reprobation; whereas we have the express words of our Lord to the doctrine that “whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” On the strength of these texts, I have surely as much right to believe in these doctrines which have caused so much surprise, as to believe in original sin, or that there is a supernatural reve- lation, or that a Divine Person suffered, or that punishment is eternal. Passing now from what I have called the preamble of that grant of power, which is made to the Church, to that power itself, Infallibility, I premise two brief remarks:–1. on the one hand, I am not here determining any thing about the essential seat of that power, because that is a question doctrinal, not historical and practical; 2. nor, on the other hand, am I extending the direct subject-matter, over which that power of Infallibility has jurisdiction, beyond religious opinion:—and now as to the power itself. This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the giant evil which has called for it. It claims, when brought into exercise but in the legitimate manner, for 250 TosſTION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. otherwise of course it is but quiescent, to know for cer- tain the very meaning of every portion of that T)ivine Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord to His Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to decide what it can determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have a hold upon statements not directly religious, so far as this, -to determine whether they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a par- ticular case, they are simply consistent with revealed truth. It claims to decide magisterially, whether as within its own province or not, that such and such statements are or are not prejudicial to the Depositum of faith, in their spirit or in their consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid them, accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own 'pse divit, it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims that, whatever may be the judg- ment of Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be re- ceived by them with those outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay to the presence of their sovereign, without expressing any criticism on them on the ground that in their matter they are inexpedient, or in their manner violent or harsh. And lastly, it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of the divine life, and of simply excommunicating, those who refuse to submit themselves to its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by the appendages of its high sovereignty: it is, to repeat what I said above, a supereminent prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and master a giant evil. And now, having thus described it, I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the whole re- POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 251 vealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days. - All this being considered as the profession which I make ea animo, as for myself, so also on the part of the Catholic body, as far as I know it, it will at first sight be said that the restless intellect of our common humanity is utterly weighed down, to the repression of all independent effort and action whatever, so that, if this is to be the mode of bringing it into order, it is brought into order only to be destroyed. But this is far from the result, far from what I conceive to be the intention of that high Providence who has provided a great remedy for a great evil,-far from borne out by the history of the conflict between Infalli- bility and Reason in the past, and the prospect of it in the 252 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. future. The energy of the human intellect “does from opposition grow;” it thrives and is joyous, with a tough elastic strength, under the terrible blows of the divinely- fashioned weapon, and is never so much itself as when it has lately been overthrown. It is the custom with Pro- testant writers to consider that, whereas there are two great principles in action in the history of religion, Authority and Private Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent oppression of Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large operations and its history, that the warfare should be incessantly carried on. Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in a civil polity the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide;— it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intel- lects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, into what may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral fac- tory, for the melting, refining, and moulding, by an inces- sant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes. . POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 253 St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical power is given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or vigour of human thought in religious specula- tion, but to resist and control its extravagance. What have been its great works P All of them in the distinct province of theology:-to put down Arianism, Eutychi- anism, Pelagianism, Manichæism, Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in the past;-and now as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will act in time to come. First, Infallibility cannot act outside of a definite circle of thought, and it must in all its decisions, or definitions, as they are called, profess to be keeping within it. The great truths of the moral law, of natural religion, and of Apostolical faith, are both its boundary and its foundation. It must not go beyond them, and it must ever appeal to them. Both its subject-matter, and its articles in that subject-matter, are fixed. And it must ever profess to be guided by Scripture and by tradition. It must refer to the particular Apostolic truth which it is enforcing, or (what is called) defining. Nothing, then, can be presented to me, in time to come, as part of the faith, but what I ought already to have received, and hitherto have been kept from receiving, (if so,) merely because it has not been brought home to me. Nothing can be imposed upon me different in kind from what I hold already, much less contrary to it. The new truth which is promulgated, if it is to be called new, must be at least homogeneous, cognate, implicit, viewed relatively to the old truth. It must be what I may even have guessed, or wished, to be included in the Apostolic revelation; and at least it will be of such 254 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. a character, that my thoughts readily concur in it or coalesce with it, as soon as I hear it. Perhaps I and others actually have always believed it, and the only question which is now decided in my behalf, is, that I have hence- forth the satisfaction of having to believe, that I have only been holding all along what the Apostles held before me. Let me take the doctrine which Protestants consider our greatest difficulty, that of the Immaculate Conception. Here I entreat the reader to recollect my main drift, which is this. I have no difficulty in receiving the doctrine; and that, because it so intimately harmonizes with that circle of recognized dogmatic truths, into which it has been recently received;—but if I have no difficulty, why may not another have no difficulty also P why may not a hundred P a thousand 2 Now I am sure that Catholics in general have not any intellectual difficulty at all on the subject of the Immaculate Conception ; and that there is no reason why they should. Priests have no difficulty. You tell me that they ought to have a difficulty;-but they have not. Be large-minded enough to believe, that men may reason and feel very differently from yourselves; how is it that men, when left to themselves, fall into such various forms of religion, except that there are various types of mind among them, very distinct from each other? From my testimony then about myself, if you believe it, judge of others also who are Catholics: we do not find the difficul- ties which you do in the doctrines which we hold; we have no intellectual difficulty in that doctrine in particular, which you call a novelty of this day. We priests need not be hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in the Immaculate Conception. To that large class of minds, who believe in Christianity after our manner, in the par- ticular temper, spirit, and light, (whatever word is used,) in which Catholics believe it, there is no burden at all in POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 255 holding that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin; indeed, it is a simple fact to say, that Catholics have not come to believe it because it is defined, but that it was defined because they believed it. So far from the definition in 1854 being a tyrannical in- fliction on the Catholic world, it was received every where on its promulgation with the greatest enthusiasm. It was in consequence of the unanimous petition, presented from all parts of the Church to the Holy See, in behalf of an ea. cathedrá declaration that the doctrine was Apostolic, that it was declared so to be. I never heard of one Catholic having difficulties in receiving the doctrine, whose faith on other grounds was not already suspicious. Of course there were grave and good men, who were made anxious by the doubt whether it could be formally proved to be Apostolical either by Scripture or tradition, and who accordingly, though believing it themselves, did not see how it could be defined by authority and imposed upon all Catholics as a matter of faith; but this is another matter. The point in question is, whether the doctrine is a burden. I believe it to be none. So far from it being so, I sincerely think that St. Bernard and St. Thomas, who scrupled at it in their day, had they lived into this, would have rejoiced to accept it for its own sake. Their difficulty, as I view it, consisted in matters of words, ideas, and arguments. They thought the doctrine inconsistent with other doctrines; and those who defended it in that age had not that preci- sion in their view of it, which has been attained by means of the long disputes of the centuries which followed. And in this want of precision lay the difference of opinion, and the controversy, - Now the instance which I have been taking suggests another remark; the number of those (so called) new doc- trines will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to pro- mulgate even one of them. Such is about the length of 256 PosLTION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. time through which the preparation has been carried on for the definition of the Immaculate Conception. This of course is an extraordinary case; but it is difficult to say what is ordinary, considering how few are the formal occasions on which the voice of Infallibility has been solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in Ecumenical Council that we look, as to the normal seat of Infallibility: now there have been only eighteen such Councils since Christianity was, an average of one to a century, L and of these Councils some passed no doctrinal decree at all, others were employed on only one, and many of them were concerned with only elementary points of the Creed. The Council of Trent embraced a large field of doctrine certainly; but I should apply to its Canons a remark con- tained in that University Sermon of mine, which has been so ignorantly criticized in the Pamphlet which has been the occasion of this Volume;—I there have said that the various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repetitions in various shapes of one and the same idea; and in like manner, the Tridentine Decrees are not isolated from each other, but are occupied in bringing out in detail, by a number of separate declarations, as if into bodily form, a few necessary truths. I should make the same remark on the various theological censures, promulgated by Popes, which the Church has received, and on their dogmatic deci- sions generally. I own that at first sight those decisions seem from their number to be a greater burden on the faith of individuals than are the Canons of Councils; still I do not believe that in matter of fact they are so at all, and I give this reason for it:—it is not that a Catholic, layman or priest, is indifferent to the subject, or, from a sort of reck- lessness, will accept any thing that is placed before him, or is willing, like a lawyer, to speak according to his brief, but that in such condemnations the Holy See is engaged, for the most part, in repudiating one or two great lines of POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 257 error, such as Lutheranism or Jansenism, principally ethi- cal not doctrinal, which are divergent from the Catholic mind, and that it is but expressing what any good Catholic, of fair abilities, though unlearned, would say himself, from common and sound sense, if the matter could be put before him. Now I will go on in fairness to say what I think is the great trial to the Reason, when confronted with that august prerogative of the Catholic Church, of which I have been speaking. I enlarged just now upon the concrete shape and circumstances, under which pure infallible authority presents itself to the Catholic. That authority has the prerogative of an indirect jurisdiction on subject-matters which lie beyond its own proper limits, and it most reason- ably has such a jurisdiction. It could not act in its own province, unless it had a right to act out of it. It could not properly defend religious truth, without claiming for that truth what may be called its pomaeria; or, to take another illustration, without acting as we act, as a nation, in claiming as our own, not only the land on which we live, but what are called British waters. The Catholic Church claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious questions, but to animadvert on opinions in secular mat- ters which bear upon religion, on matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of history, and it demands our submission to her claim. It claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to forbid discussions. In this pro- vince, taken as a whole, it does not so much speak doc- trinally, as enforce measures of discipline. It must of course be obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede from its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith does not come in at all; for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never can be unsaid. Nor does it at all follow, because there is a gift of infallibility in the Catholic Church, that therefore 258 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. the parties who are in possession of it are in all their pro- ceedings infallible. “O, it is excellent,” says the poet, “to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous, to use it like a giant.” I think history supplies us with instances in the Church, where legitimate power has been harshly used. To make such admission is no more than saying that the divine treasure, in the words of the Apostle, is “in earthen vessels;” nor does it follow that the substance of the acts of the ruling power is not right and expedient, because its manner may have been faulty. Such high authorities act by means of instruments; we know how such instruments claim for themselves the name of their principals, who thus get the credit of faults which really are not theirs. But granting all this to an extent greater than can with any show of reason be imputed to the ruling power in the Church, what difficulty is there in the fact of this want of prudence or moderation more than can be urged, with far greater justice, against Protestant communities and in- stitutions? What is there in it to make us hypocrites, if it has not that effect upon Protestants? We are called upon, not to profess anything, but to submit and be silent, as Protestant Churchmen have before now obeyed the royal command to abstain from certain theological questions. Such injunctions as I have been contemplating are laid merely upon our actions, not upon our thoughts. How, for instance, does it tend to make a man a hypocrite, to be for- bidden to publish a libel? his thoughts are as free as before: authoritative prohibitions may tease and irritate, but they have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of reason. So much at first sight; but I will go on to say further, that, in spite of all that the most hostile critic may urge about the encroachments or severities of high ecclesiastics, in times past, in the use of their power, I think that the event has shown after all, that they were mainly in the right, and that those whom they were hard upon were mainly POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 259 in the wrong. I love, for instance, the name of Origen: I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost; but I am quite sure that, in the contest between his doc- trine and followers and the ecclesiastical power, his oppo- nents were right, and he was wrong. Yet who can speak with patience of his enemy and the enemy of St. John Chrysostom, that Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria P who can admire or revere Pope Vigilius P And here another consideration presents itself to my thoughts. In reading ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error of what afterwards became heresy was the urging forward Some truth against the prohibition of authority at an un- seasonable time. There is a time for every thing, and many a man desires a reformation of an abuse, or the fuller development of a doctrine, or the adoption of a particular policy, but forgets to ask himself whether the right time for it is come; and, knowing that there is no one who will be doing any thing towards its accomplish- ment in his own lifetime unless he does it himself, he will not listen to the voice of authority, and he spoils a good work in his own century, in Order that another man, as yet unborn, may not have the opportunity of bringing it happily to perfection in the next. He may seem to the world to be nothing else than a bold champion for the truth and a martyr to free opinion, when he is just one of those persons whom the competent authority ought to silence; and, though the case may not fall within that subject-matter in which that authority is infallible, or the formal conditions of the exercise of that gift may be want- ing, it is clearly the duty of authority to act vigorously in the case. Yet its act will go down to posterity as an instance of a tyrannical interference with private judg- ment, and of the silencing of a reformer, and of a base love of corruption or error; and it will show still less to 260 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. advantage, if the ruling power happens in its proceedings to evince any defect of prudence or consideration. And all those who take the part of that ruling authority will be considered as time-servers, or indifferent to the cause of uprightness and truth; while, on the other hand, the said authority may be accidentally supported by a violent ultra party, which exalts opinions into dogmas, and has it prin- cipally at heart to destroy every school of thought but its OWI). * Such a state of things may be provoking and discourag- ing at the time, in the case of two classes of persons; of moderate men who wish to make differences in religious opinion as little as they fairly can be made; and of such as keenly perceive, and are honestly eager to remedy, existing evils, evils, of which divines in this or that foreign country know nothing at all, and which even at home, where they exist, it is not every one who has the means of estimating. This is a state of things both of past time and of the present. We live in a wonderful age; the enlargement of the circle of secular knowledge just now is simply a bewilderment, and the more so, be- cause it has the promise of continuing, and that with greater rapidity, and more signal results. Now these dis- coveries, certain or probable, have in matter of fact an indirect bearing upon religious opinions, and the question arises how are the respective claims of revelation and of natural science to be adjusted. Few minds in earnest can remain at ease without some sort of rational grounds for their religious belief; to reconcile theory and fact is almost an instinct of the mind. When then a flood of facts, ascertained or suspected, comes pouring in upon us, with a multitude of others in prospect, all believers in Revelation, be they Catholic or not, are roused to consider their bearing upon themselves, both for the honour of God, and from tenderness for those many souls who, in conse- POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 261 quence of the confident tone of the schools of secular knowledge, are in danger of being led away into a bottom- less liberalism of thought. I am not going to criticize here that vast body of men, in the mass, who at this time would profess to be liberals in religion; and who look towards the discoveries of the age, certain or in progress, as their informants, direct or indirect, as to what they shall think about the unseen and the future. The Liberalism which gives a colour to society now, is very different from that character of thought which bore the name thirty or forty years ago. Now it is scarcely a party; it is the educated lay world. When I was young, I knew the word first as giving name to a periodical, set up by Lord Byron and others. Now, as then, I have no sympathy with the philosophy of Byron. Afterwards, Liberalism was the badge of a theological school, of a dry and repulsive character, not very dangerous in itself, though dangerous as opening the door to evils which it did not itself either anticipate or comprehend. At present it is nothing else than that deep, plausible scepticism, of which I spoke above, as being the development of human reason, as practically exercised by the natural man. The Liberal religionists of this day are a very mixed body, and therefore I am not intending to speak against them. There may be, and doubtless is, in the hearts of some or many of them a real antipathy or anger against revealed truth, which it is distressing to think of. Again; in many men of science or literature there may be an animosity arising from almost a personal feeling; it being a matter of party, a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a satisfaction to the Soreness or annoyance occa- sioned by the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is un- trustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on the other hand, go on, I am confident, in a straightforward impartial 262 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. way, in their own province and on their own line of thought, without any disturbance from religious difficulties in themselves, or any wish at all to give pain to others by the result of their investigations. It would ill become me, as if I were afraid of truth of any kind, to blame those who pursue secular facts, by means of the reason which God has given them, to their logical conclusions: or to be angry with science, because religion is bound in duty to take cognizance of its teaching. But putting these parti- cular classes of men aside, as having no special call on the sympathy of the Catholic, of course he does most deeply enter into the feelings of a fourth and large class of men, in the educated portions of society, of religious and sincere minds, who are simply perplexed,—frightened or rendered desperate, as the case may be, by the utter confusion into which late discoveries or speculations have thrown their most elementary ideas of religion. Who does not feel for such men P who can have one unkind thought of them P I take up in their behalf St. Augustine's beautiful words, “Illi in vos saeviant,” &c. Let them be fierce with you who have no experience of the difficulty with which error is discriminated from truth, and the way of life is found amid the illusions of the world. How many a Catholic has in his thoughts followed such men, many of them so good, so true, so noble ! how often has the wish risen in his heart that some one from among his own people should come forward as the champion of revealed truth against its opponents | Various persons, Catholic and Protestant, have asked me to do so myself; but I had several strong difficulties in the way. One of the greatest is this, that at the moment it is so difficult to say precisely what it is that is to be encountered and overthrown. I am far from denying that scientific knowledge is really growing, but it is by fits and starts; hypotheses rise and fall; it is diffi- cult to anticipate which of them will keep their ground, POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 263 and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will be from year to year. In this condition of things, it has seemed to me to be very undignified for a Catholic to com- mit himself to the work of chasing what might turn out to be phantoms, and, in behalf of some special objections, to be ingenious in devising a theory, which, before it was completed, might have to give place to some theory newer still, from the fact that those former objections had already come to nought under the uprising of others. It seemed to be specially a time, in which Christians had a call to be patient, in which they had no other way of helping those who were alarmed, than that of exhorting them to have a little faith and fortitude, and to “beware,” as the poet says, “ of dangerous steps.” This seemed so clear to me, the more I thought of the matter, as to make me surmise, that, if I attempted what had so little promise in it, I should find that the highest Catholic Authority was against the attempt, and that I should have spent my time and my thought, in doing what either it would be imprudent to bring before the public at all, or what, did I do so, would only complicate matters further which were already complicated, without my interference, more than . enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority as fulfilling my expectation; I interpret them as tying the hands of a controversialist, such as I should be, and teach- ing us that true wisdom, which Moses inculcated on his people, when the Egyptians were pursuing them, “Fear ye not, stand still; the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” And so far from finding a diffi- culty in obeying in this case, I have cause to be thankful and to rejoice to have so clear a direction in a matter of r difficulty. - - But if we would ascertain with correctness the real course of a principle, we must look at it at a certain dis- tance, and as history represents it to us. Nothing carried 264 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. on by human instruments, but has its irregularities, and affords ground for criticism, when minutely scrutinized in matters of detail. I have been speaking of that aspect of the action of an infallible authority, which is most open to invidious criticism from those who view it from without ; I have tried to be fair, in estimating what can be said to its disadvantage, as witnessed at a particular time in the Catholic Church, and now I wish its adversaries to be equally fair in their judgment upon its historical character. Can, then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason, be said in fact to have destroyed the energy of the Catholic intellect P Let it be observed, I have not here to speak of any conflict which ecclesiastical authority has had with science, for this simple reason, that conflict there has been none; and that, because the secular sciences, as they now exist, are a novelty in the world, and there has been no time yet for a history of relations between theology and these new methods of knowledge, and indeed the Church may be said to have kept clear of them, as is proved by the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here “exceptio pro- bat regulam :” for it is the one stock argument. Again, I have not to speak of any relations of the Church to the new sciences, because my simple question all along has been whether the assumption of infallibility by the proper authority is adapted to make me a hypocrite, and till that authority passes decrees on pure physical subjects and calls on me to subscribe them, (which it never will do, because it has not the power,) it has no tendency to interfere by any of its acts with my private judgment on those points. The simple question is, whether authority has so acted upon the reason of individuals, that they can have no opinion of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish super- stition or secret rebellion of heart; and I think the whole history of theology puts an absolute negative upon such a supposition. POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 265 It is hardly necessary to argue out so plain a point. It is individuals, and not the Holy See, that have taken the initiative, and given the lead to the Catholic mind, in theo- logical inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged against the Toman Church, that it has originated nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or break in the development of doctrine. And it is an objection which J really embrace as a truth; for such I conceive to be the main purpose of its extraordinary gift. It is said, and truly, that the Church of IRome possessed no great mind in the whole period of persecution. Afterwards for a long while, it has not a single doctor to show ; St. Leo, its first, is the teacher of one point of doctrine; St. Gregory, who stands at the very extremity of the first age of the Church, has no place in dogma or philosophy. The great luminary of the western world is, as we know, St. Augustine; he, no infallible teacher, has formed the intellect of Christian Europe; indeed to the African Church generally we must look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas. More- over, of the African divines, the first in order of time, and not the least influential, is the strong-minded and heterodox Tertullian. Nor is the Eastern intellect, as such, without its share in the formation of the Latin teaching. . The free thought of Origen is visible in the writings of the Western Doctors, Hilary and Ambrose; and the indepen- dent mind of Jerome has enriched his own vigorous com- mentaries on Scripture, from the stores of the scarcely orthodox Eusebius. Heretical questionings have been transmuted by the living power of the Church into salu- tary truths. The case is the same as regards the Ecumeni- cal Councils. Authority in its most imposing exhibition, grave bishops, laden with the traditions and rivalries of particular nations or places, have been guided in their decisions by the commanding genius of individuals, some- times young and of inferior rank. Not that uninspired 266 PoSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. intellect overruled the super-human gift which was com- mitted to the Council, which would be a self-contradictory assertion, but that in that process of inquiry and delibera- tion, which ended in an infallible enunciation, individual reason was paramount. Thus Malchion, a mere presbyter, was the instrument of the great Council of Antioch in the third century in meeting and refuting, for the assembled Fathers, the heretical Patriarch of that see. Parallel to this instance is the influence, so well known, of a young deacon, St. Athanasius, with the 318 Fathers at Nicaea. In mediaeval times we read of St. Anselm at Bari, as the champion of the Council there held, against the Greeks. At Trent, the writings of St. Bonaventura, and, what is more to the point, the address of a Priest and theologian, Salmeron, had a critical effect on Some of the definitions of dogma. In some of these cases the influence might be partly moral, but in others it was that of a discursive knowledge of ecclesiastical writers, a scientific acquaint- ance with theology, and a force of thought in the treat- ment of doctrine. - - There are of course intellectual habits which theology does not tend to form, as for instance the experimental, and again the philosophical; but that is because it is theology, not because of the gift of infallibility. But, as far as this goes, I think it could be shown that physical science on the other hand, or again mathematical, affords but an imperfect training for the intellect. I do not see then how any objection about the narrowness of theology comes into our question, which simply is, whether the belief in an infallible authority destroys the independence of the mind; and I consider that the whole history of the Church, and especially the history of the theological schools, gives a negative to the accusation. There never was a time when the intellect of the educated class was more active, or rather more restless, than in the middle POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 267 ages. And then again all through Church history from the first, how slow is authority in interfering ! Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor in some local school, hazards a proposition, and a controversy ensues. It smoulders or burns in one place, no one interposing; Rome simply lets it alone. Then it comes before a Bishop ; or some priest, or some professor in some other seat of learning takes it up ; and then there is a second stage of it. Then it comes before a University, and it may be condemned by the theological faculty. So the controversy proceeds year after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal perhaps is next made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome; and then at last after a long while it comes before the supreme power. Meanwhile, the question has been ventilated and turned over and over again, and viewed on every side of it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision, which has already been arrived at by reason. But even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the point for years: or so generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy has to be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined. It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the individual theologian or controversialist. Many a man has ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful for his day, but he is not confident about them, and wishes to have them discussed. He is willing, or rather would be thankful, . to give them up, if they can be proved to be erroneous or dangerous, and by means of controversy he obtains his end. He is answered, and he yields; or on the contrary he finds that he is considered safe. He would not dare to do this, if he knew an authority, which was supreme and final, was watching every word he said, and made signs of assent or dissent to each sentence, as he uttered it. Then indeed he would be fighting, as the Persian soldiers, under * g. 268 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. the lash, and the freedom of his intellect might truly be said to be beaten out of him. But this has not been so:— I do not mean to say that, when controversies run high, in schools or even in small portions of the Church, an interposition may not advisably take place; and again, questions may be of that urgent nature, that an appeal must, as a matter of duty, be made at once to the highest authority in the Church; but if we look into the history of controversy, we shall find, I think, the general run of things to be such as I have represented it. Zosimus treated Pelagius and Coelestius with extreme forbearance; St. Gregory VII. was equally indulgent with Berengarius: —by reason of the very power of the Popes they have commonly been slow and moderate in their use of it. And here again is a further shelter for the legitimate exercise of the reason :-the multitude of nations which are within the fold of the Church will be found to have acted for its protection, against any narrowness, on the supposition of narrowness, in the various authorities at Rome, with whom lies the practical decision of contro- verted questions. How have the Greek traditions been respected and provided for in the later Ecumenical Coun- cils, in spite of the countries that held them being in a state of schism There are important points of doctrine which have been (humanly speaking) exempted from the infallible sentence, by the tenderness with which its instru- ments, in framing it, have treated the opinions of particular places. Then, again, such national influences have a pro- vidential effect in moderating the bias which the local influences of Italy may exert upon the See of St. Peter. It stands to reason that, as the Gallican Church has in it a French element, so Rome must have in it an element of Italy; and it is no prejudice to the zeal and devotion with which we submit ourselves to the Holy See to admit this plainly. It seems to me, as I have been saying, that f ! POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 269 Catholicity is not only one of the notes of the Church, but, according to the divine purposes, one of its securities. I think it would be a very serious evil, which Divine Mercy avert that the Church should be contracted in Europe within the range of particular nationalities. It is a great idea to introduce Latin civilization into America, and to improve the Catholics there by the energy of French devotedness; but I trust that all European races will ever have a place in the Church, and assuredly I think that the loss of the English, not to say the German element, in its composition has been a most serious misfortune. And certainly, if there is one consideration more than another which should make us English grateful to Pius the Ninth, it is that, by giving us a Church of our own, he has pre- pared the way for our own habits of mind, our own manner of reasoning, our own tastes, and our own virtues, finding a place and thereby a sanctification, in the Catholic Church. . !,' There is only one other subject, which I think it neces- sary to introduce here, as bearing upon the vague suspi- cions which are attached in this country to the Catholic Priesthood. It is one of which my accusers have before now said much,-the charge of reserve and economy. They found it in no slight degree on what I have said on the subject in my History of the Arians, and in a note upon one of my Sermons in which I refer to it. The principle of Reserve is also advocated by an admirable writer in two numbers of the Tracts for the Times, and of these I was the Editor. Now, as to the Economy itself”, it is founded upon the words of our Lord, “Cast not your pearls before swine;” and it was observed by the early Christians more or less, ū 3 Wide Note F, The Economy. 270 Position of MY MIND SINCE 1845. in their intercourse with the heathen populations among whom they lived. In the midst of the abouminable idola- tries and impurities of that fearful time, the Rule of the Economy was an imperative duty. But that rule, at least as I have explained and recommended it, in anything that I have written, did not go beyond (1) the concealing the truth when we could do so without deceit, (2) stating it only partially, and (3) representing it under the nearest form possible to a learner or inquirer, when he could not possibly understand it exactly. I conceive that to draw Angels with wings is an instance of the third of these economical modes; and to avoid the question, “Do Chris- tians believe in a Trinity?” by answering, “They believe in only one God,” would be an instance of the second. As to the first, it is hardly an Economy, but comes under what is called the “Disciplina Arcani.” The second and third economical modes Clement calls lying; meaning that a partial truth is in some sense a lie, as is also a represen- tative truth. And this, I think, is about the long and the short of the ground of the accusation which has been So violently urged against me, as being a patron of the Economy. - Of late years I have come to think, as I believe most writers do, that Clement meant more than I have said. I used to think he used the word “lie ’’ as an hyperbole, but I now believe that he, as other early Fathers, thought that, under certain circumstances, it was lawful to tell a lie. This doctrine I never maintained, though I used to think, as I do now, that the theory of the subject is sur- rounded with considerable difficulty; and it is not strange that I should say so, considering that great English writers declare without hesitation that in certain extreme cases, as to save life, honour, or even property, a lie is allowable. And thus I am brought to the direct question of truth, and of the truthfulness of Catholic priests gene- POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 271 rally in their dealings with the world, as bearing on the general question of their honesty, and of their internal belief in their religious professions. It would answer no purpose, and it would be departing from the line of writing which I have been observing all along, if I entered into any formal discussion on this question ; what I shall do here, as I have done in the foregoing pages, is to give my own testimony on the matter in question, and there to leave it. Now first I will Say, that, when I became a Catholic, nothing struck me more at once than the English out-spoken manner of the Priests. It was the same at Oscott, at Old Hall Green, at Ushaw; there was nothing of that smoothness, or man- nerism, which is commonly imputed to them, and they were more natural and unaffected than many an Anglican clergyman. The many years, which have passed since, have only confirmed my first impression. I have ever found it in the priests of this Diocese; did I wish to point out a straightforward Englishman, I should instance the Bishop, who has, to our great benefit, for so many years presided over it. And next, I was struck, when I had more opportunity of judging of the Priests, by the simple faith in the Catho- lic Creed and system, of which they always gave evidence, and which they never seemed to feel, in any sense at all, to be a burden. And now that I have been in the Church nineteen years, I cannot recollect hearing of a single in- stance in England of an infidel priest. Of course there are men from time to time, who leave the Catholic Church for another religion, but I am speaking of cases, when a man keeps a fair outside to the world and is a hollow hypocrite in his heart. I wonder that the self-devotion of our priests does not strike a Protestant in this point of view. What do they 272 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. gain by professing a Creed, in which, if their enemies are to be credited, they really do not believe? What is their reward for committing themselves to a life of self-restraint and toil, and perhaps to a premature and miserable death P The Irish fever cut off between Liverpool and Leeds thirty priests and more, young men in the flower of their days, old men who seemed entitled to some quiet time after their long toil. There was a bishop cut off in the North ; but what had a man of his ecclesiastical rank to do with the drudgery and danger of sick calls, except that Christian faith and charity constrained him P. Priests volunteered for the dangerous service. It was the same with them on the first coming of the cholera, that mysterious awe-in- spiring infliction. If they did not heartily believe in the Creed of the Church, then I will say that the remark of the Apostle had its fullest illustration:—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” What could support a set of hypocrites in the presence of a deadly disorder, one of them following another in long order up the forlorn hope, and one after another perishing P And such, I may say, in its substance, is every Mission-Priest’s life. He is ever ready to sacri- fice himself for his people. Night and day, sick or well himself, in all weathers, off he is, on the news of a sick call. The fact of a parishioner dying without the Sacra- ments through his fault is terrible to him; why terrible, if he has not a deep absolute faith, which he acts upon with a free service P Protestants admire this, when they see it; but they do not seem to see as clearly, that it excludes the very notion of hypocrisy. Sometimes, when they reflect upon it, it leads them to remark on the wonderful discipline of the Catholic priest- hood; they say that no Church has so well ordered a clergy, and that in that respect it surpasses their own; they wish they could have such exact discipline among POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 273 themselves. But is it an excellence which can be pur- chased ? is it a phenomenon which depends on nothing else than itself, or is it an effect which has a cause ? You cannot buy devotion at a price. “It hath never been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of Meran, none of these have known its way.” What then is that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand men act all in one way, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule, as if they were under some stern military compulsion ? How difficult to find an answer, unless you will allow the obvious one, that they believe intensely what they profess! I cannot think what it can be, in a day like this, which keeps up the prejudice of this Protestant country against us, unless it be the vague charges which are drawn from our books of Moral Theology; and with a short notice of the work in particular which by our accusers is especially thrown into our teeth, I shall bring these observations to a close. St. Alfonso Liguori, then, it cannot be denied, lays down that an equivocation, (that is, a play upon words, in which one sense is taken by the speaker, and another sense intended by him for the hearer,) is allowable, if there is a just cause, that is, in an extraordinary case, and may even be con- firmed by an oath. I shall give my opinion on this point as plainly as any Protestant can wish; and therefore I avow at once that in this department of morality, much as I admire the high points of the Italian character, I like the English rule of conduct better; but, in saying so, I am not, as will shortly be seen, saying any thing disre- spectful to St. Alfonso, who was a lover of truth, and whose intercession I trust I shall not lose, though, on the matter under consideration, I follow other guidance in preference to his. T 74. POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. Now I make this remark first :-great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very dif- ferent schools of thought, distinctly say, that under certain extraordinary circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says: “To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save his father's life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?” Again, Mil- ton says: “What man in his senses would deny, that there are those whom we have the best grounds for con- sidering that we ought to deceive, as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves? I would ask, by which of the commandments is a lie for- bidden P You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this commandment.” Paley says: “There are false- hoods, which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal.” Johnson: “The general rule is, that truth should never be violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone.” Now, I am not using these instances as an argumentum ad hominem; but the purpose to which I put them is this:— 1. First, I have set down the distinct statements of Taylor, Milton, Paley, and Johnson :-now, would any one give ever so little weight to these statements, in form- ing a real estimate of the veracity of the writers, if they now were alive P. Were a man, who is so fierce with St. Alfonso, to meet Paley or Johnson to-morrow in society, would he look upon him as a liar, a knave, as dishonest and untrustworthy P I am sure he would not. Why then. does he not deal out the same measure to Catholic priests? POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 275 If a copy of Scavini, which speaks of equivocation as being in a just cause allowable, be found in a student's room at Oscott, not Scavini himself, but even the unhappy student, who has what a Protestant calls a bad book in his possession, is judged to be for life unworthy of credit. Are all Pro- testant text-books, which are used at the University, im- maculate P Is it necessary to take for gospel every word of Aristotle's Ethics, or every assertion of Hey or Burnett on the Articles? Are text-books the ultimate authority, or rather are they not manuals in the hands of a lecturer, and the groundwork of his remarks? But, again, let us suppose, not the case of a student, or of a professor, but of Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso; now here again I ask, since you would not scruple in holding Paley for an honest man, in spite of his defence of lying, why do you scruple at holding St. Alfonso honest ? I am perfectly sure that you would not scruple at Paley personally; you might not agree with him, but you would not go further than to call him a bold thinker: then why should St. Alfonso’s per- son be odious to you, as well as his doctrine P Ø Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley; because, you would say, when he advocated lying, he was taking eatreme or special cases. You would have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead in his own house, because you know you are not a burglar: so you would not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because in the case of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser evil to tell a lie. Then why do you show such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, who speaks of certain extraordinary cases in which an equivocation in a penitent cannot be visited by his confessor as if it were a sin P for this is the exact point of the question. But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy Taylor, when no practical matter is actually before him, lay down a maxim about the lawfulness of lying, which will startle 276 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. most readers? The reason is plain. He is forming a theory of morals, and he must treat every question in turn as it comes. And this is just what St. Alfonso or Scavini is doing. You only try your hand yourself at a treatise on the rules of morality, and you will see how difficult the work is. What is the definition of a lie P Can you give a better than that it is a sin against justice, as Taylor and Paley consider it P but, if so, how can it be a sin at all, if your neighbour is not injured ? If you do not like this definition, take another; and then, by means of that, perhaps you will be defending St. Alfonso's equivocation. However, this is what I insist upon ; that St. Alfonso, as Paley, is considering the different portions of a large sub- ject, and he must, on the subject of lying, give his judgment, though on that subject it is difficult to form any judgment which is satisfactory. But further still: you must not suppose that a philoso- pher or moralist uses in his own case the licence which his theory itself would allow him. A man in his own person is guided by his own conscience; but in drawing out a system of rules he is obliged to go by logic, and follow the exact deduction of conclusion from conclusion, and must be sure that the whole system is coherent and one. You hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by men of decent character; there is a late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are not at all the picture of the man. A priest might write a treatise which was really lax on the subject of lying, which might come under the condemnation of the Holy See, as some treatises on that score have already been condemned, and yet in his own person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious from St. Alfonso's Life, that he, who has the repute of being so lax a moralist, had one of the most scrupulous and anxious of consciences himself. Nay, further than this, he was originally in the Law, and on one occasion he POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 277 Kºr was betrayed into the commission of what seemed like a deceit, though it was an accident; and that was the very occasion of his leaving the profession and embracing the religious life. The account of this remarkable occurrence is told us in his Life:— “Notwithstanding he had carefully examined over and Over the details of the process, he was completely mis- taken regarding the sense of one document, which con- stituted the right of the adverse party. The advocate of the Grand Duke perceived the mistake, but he allowed Alfonso to continue his eloquent address to the end with- out interruption; as soon, however, as he had finished, he rose, and said with cutting coolness, ‘Sir, the case is not exactly what you suppose it to be ; if you will review the process, and examine this paper attentively, you will find there precisely the contrary of all you have advanced.’ ‘Willingly,” replied Alfonso, without hesitating; ‘the decision depends on this question—whether the fief were granted under the law of Lombardy, or under the French Law.” The paper being examined, it was found that the Grand Duke's advocate was in the right. ‘Yes,’ said Alfonso, holding the paper in his hand, ‘I am wrong, I have been mistaken.” A discovery so unexpected, and the fear of being accused of unfair dealing filled him with consternation, and covered him with confusion, so much so, that every one saw his emotion. It was in vain that the President Caravita, who loved him, and knew his integrity, tried to console him, by telling him that such mistakes were not uncommon, even among the first men at the bar. Alfonso would listen to nothing, but, over- whelmed with confusion, his head sunk on his breast, he said to himself, ‘World, I know you now ; courts of law, never shall you see me again l’ And turning his back on the assembly, he withdrew to his own house, incessantly * - 278 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. repeating to himself, ‘World, I know you now.’ What annoyed him most was, that having studied and re-studied the process during a whole month, without having dis- covered this important flaw, he could not understand how it had escaped his observation.” - And this is the man, so easily scared at the very shadow of trickery, who is so flippantly pronounced to be a patron of lying. But, in truth, a Catholic theologian has objects in view which men in general little compass; he is not thinking of himself, but of a multitude of souls, sick souls, sinful souls, carried away by sin, full of evil, and he is trying with all his might to rescue them from their miserable state; and, in order to save them from more heinous sins, he tries, to the full extent that his conscience will allow him to go, to shut his eyes to such sins, as are, though sins, yet lighter in character or degree. He knows per- fectly well that, if he is as strict as he would wish to be, he shall be able to do nothing at all with the run of men; so he is as indulgent with them as ever he can be. Let it not be for an instant supposed, that I allow of the maxim of doing evil that good may come; but, keeping clear of this, there is a way of winning men from greater sins by winking for the time at the less, or at mere improprieties or faults; and this is the key to the difficulty which Ca- tholic books of moral theology so often cause to the Pro- testant. They are intended for the Confessor, and Pro- testants view them as intended for the Preacher. 2. And I observe upon Taylor, Milton, and Paley thus: What would a Protestant clergyman say to me, if I accused him of teaching that a lie was allowable; and if, when he asked for my proof, I said in reply that such was the doctrine of Taylor and Milton P Why, he would sharply retort, “I am not bound by Taylor or Milton; ” and if I went on urging that “Taylor was one of his authorities,” Position OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 279 he would answer that Taylor was a great writer, but great writers were not therefore infallible. This is pretty much the answer which I make, when I am considered in this matter a disciple of St. Alfonso. I plainly and positively state, and without any reserve, that I do not at all follow this holy and charitable man in this portion of his teaching. There are various schools of opinion allowed in the Church : and on this point I follow others. I follow Cardinal Gerdil, and Natalis Alexander, nay, St. Augustine. I will quote one passage from Natalis Alexander:-‘‘They certainly lie, who utter the words of an oath, without the will to swear or bind themselves: or who make use of mental reservations and equivocations in swearing, since they signify by words what they have not in mind, contrary to the end for which language was instituted, viz. as signs of ideas. Or they mean something else than the words signify in themselves and the common custom of speech.” And, to take an instance: I do not believe any priest in England would dream of saying, “My friend is not here;” meaning, “He is not in my pocket or under my shoe.” Nor should any consideration make me say so myself. I do not think St. Alfonso would in his own case have said so; and he would have been as much shocked at Taylor and Paley, as Protestants are at him”. And now, if Protestants wish to know what our real teaching is, as on other subjects, so on that of lying, let them look, not at our books of casuistry, but at our cate- chisms. Works on pathology do not give the best insight into the form and the harmony of the human frame; and, as it is with the body, so is it with the mind. The Cate- chism of the Council of Trent was drawn up for the express * Wide Note G, Lying and Equivocation. 280 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. purpose of providing preachers with subjects for their Sermons; and, as my whole work has been a defence of myself, I may here say that I rarely preach a Sermon, but I go to this beautiful and complete Catechism to get both my matter and my doctrine. There we find the following notices about the duty of Veracity:- “‘Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ &c. : let attention be drawn to two laws contained in this commandment:— the one, forbidding false witness; the other bidding, that removing all pretence and deceits, we should measure our words and deeds by simple truth, as the Apostle admo- nished the Ephesians of that duty in these words: “Doing truth in charity, let us grow in Him through all things.’ “To deceive by a lie in joke or for the sake of compli- ment, though to no one there accrues loss or gain in con- sequence, nevertheless is altogether unworthy : for thus the Apostle admonishes, ‘Putting aside lying, speak ye truth.” For therein is great danger of lapsing into fre- quent and more serious lying, and from lies in joke men gain the habit of lying, whence they gain the character of not being truthful. And thence again, in order to gain credence to their words, they find it necessary to make a practice of swearing. “Nothing is more necessary [for us] than truth of testi- mony, in those things, which we neither know ourselves, nor can allowably be ignorant of, on which point there is extant that maxim of St. Augustine's; Whoso conceals the truth, and whoso puts forth a lie, each is guilty; the one because he is not willing to do a service, the other because he has a wish to do a mischief. “It is lawful at times to be silent about the truth, but out of a court of law; for in court, when a witness is inter- rogated by the judge according to law, the truth is wholly to be brought out. “Witnesses, however, must beware, lest, from over- POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 281 . confidence in their memory, they affirm for certain, what they have not verified. “In order that the faithful may with more good will avoid the sin of lying, the Parish Priest shall set before them the extreme misery and turpitude of this wickedness. For, in holy writ, the devil is called the father of a lie; for, in that he did not remain in Truth, he is a liar, and the father of a lie. He will add, with the view of ridding men of so great a crime, the evils which follow upon lying; and, whereas they are innumerable, he will point out [at least] the sources and the general heads of these mischiefs and calamities, viz. 1. How great is God’s displeasure and how great His hatred of a man who is insincere and a liar. 2. What little security there is that a man who is specially hated by God may not be visited by the heaviest punish- ments. 3. What more unclean and foul, as St. James says, than . . . . that a fountain by the same jet should send out sweet water and bitter? 4. For that tongue, which just now praised God, next, as far as in it lies, dis- honours Him by lying. 5. In consequence, liars are shut out from the possession of heavenly beatitude. 6. That too is the worst evil of lying, that that disease of the mind is generally incurable. “Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast ex- tent, and touching men generally, that by insincerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human society, and, when they are lost, Supreme confu- sion follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ from devils. \ - “Lastly, the Parish Priest will set those right who ex- cuse their insincerity and allege the example of wise men, who, they say, are used to lie for an occasion. He will tell them, what is most true, that the wisdom of the flesh is death. He will exhort his hearers to trust in God, when 282 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. they are in difficulties and straits, nor to have recourse to the expedient of a lie. “They who throw the blame of their own lie on those who have already by a lie deceived them, are to be taught that men must not revenge themselves, nor make up for one evil by another.” . . . . There is much more in the Catechism to the same effect, and it is of universal obligation; whereas the decision of a particular author in morals need not be accepted by any one. To one other authority I appeal on this subject, which commands from me attention of a special kind, for it is the teaching of a Father. It will serve to bring my work to a conclusion. “St. Philip,” says the Roman Oratorian who wrote his Life, “ had a particular dislike of affectation both in him- self and others, in speaking, in dressing, or in any thing else. “He avoided all ceremony which savoured of worldly compliment, and always showed himself a great stickler for Christian simplicity in every thing; so that, when he had to deal with men of worldly prudence, he did not very readily accommodate himself to them. “And he avoided, as much as possible, having any thing to do with two-faced persons, who did not go simply and straightforwardly to work in their transactions. “As for liars, he could not endure them, and he was con- tinually reminding his spiritual children, to avoid them as they would a pestilence.” - These are the principles on which I have acted before I was a Catholic; these are the principles which, I trust, will be my stay and guidance to the end. POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 283 I have closed this history of myself with St. Philip's name upon St. Philip's feast-day; and, having done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affec- tion and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers of this House, the Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, AMBROSE ST. JoHN, HENRY AUSTIN MILLs, HENRY BITTLESTON, EDWARD CASwALL, WILLIAM PAINE NEVILLE, and HENRY IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER P who have been so faithful to me; who have been so sensitive of my needs; who have been so indulgent to my failings; who have carried me through so many trials; who have grudged no sacrifice, if I asked for it; who have been so cheerful under discouragements of my causing; who have done so many good works, and let me have the credit of them; —with whom I have lived so long, with whom I hope to die. And to you especially, dear AMBROSE ST. JoHN; whom God gave me, when He took every one else away; who are the link between my old life and my new ; who have now for twenty-one years been so devoted to me, so patient, so zealous, so tender; who have let me lean so hard upon you; who have watched me so narrowly; who have never thought of yourself, if I was in question. And in you I gather up and bear in memory those familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment in times long past ; and also those many younger men, whether I knew them or not, who have never been disloyal to me by word or deed; and 284 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. of all these, thus various in their relations to me, those more especially who have since joined the Catholic Church. And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd. May 26, 1864. In Festo Corp. Christ. NOTES. NOTE. A. ON PAGE 14. LIBERAI,ISM. I HAVE been asked to explain more fully what it is I mean by “Liberalism,” because merely to call it the Anti-dogmatic, Principle is to tell very little about it. An explanation is the more necessary, because such good Catholics and dis- tinguished writers as Count Montalembert and Father Lacordaire use the word in a favorable sense, and claim to be Liberals themselves. “The only singularity,” says the former of the two in describing his friend, “was his Liberalism. By a phenomenon, at that time unheard of, this convert, this seminarist, this confessor of nuns, was just as stubborn a liberal, as in the days when he was a student and a barrister.”—Life (transl.), p. 19. I do not believe that it is possible for me to differ in any important matter from two men whom I so highly admire. In their general line of thought and conduct I enthusiastically concur, and consider them to be before their age. And it would be strange indeed if I did not read with a special interest, in M. de Montalembert’s beautiful volume, of the unselfish aims, the thwarted pro- jects, the unrequited toils, the grand and tender resigna- tion of Lacordaire. If I hesitate to adopt their language 286 NOTE. A. about Liberalism, I impute the necessity of such hesitation to some differences between us in the use of words or in the circumstances of country; and thus I reconcile Imyself to remaining faithful to my own conception of it, though I cannot have their voices to give force to mine. Speaking then in my own way, I proceed to explain what I meant as a Protestant by Liberalism, and to do so in connexion with the circumstances under which that sys- tem of opinion came before me at Oxford. If I might presume to contrast Lacordaire and myself, I should say, that we had been both of us inconsistent;- he, a Catholic, in calling himself a Liberal; I, a Protestant, in being an Anti-liberal; and moreover, that the cause of this inconsistency had been in both cases one and the . same. That is, we were both of us such good conserva- tives, as to take up with what we happened to find estab- lished in our respective countries, at the time when we came into active life. Toryism was the creed of Oxford; he inherited, and made the best of, the French Revolution. When, in the beginning of the present century, not very long before my own time, after many years of moral and intellectual declension, the University of Oxford woke up to a sense of its duties, and began to reform itself, the first instruments of this change, to whose zeal and courage we all owe so much, were naturally thrown together for mutual support, against the numerous obstacles which lay in their path, and soon stood out in relief from the body of residents, who, though many of them men of talent themselves, cared little for the object which the others had at heart. These Reformers, as they may be called, were for some years members of scarcely more than three or four Colleges; and their own Colleges, as being under their direct influence, of course had the benefit of those stricter views of discipline and teaching, which they them- selves were urging on the University. They had, in no LIBERALISM. - 287 long time, enough of real progress in their several spheres of exertion, and enough of reputation out of doors, to war- rant them in considering themselves the élite of the place; and it is not wonderful if they were in consequence led to look down upon the majority of Colleges, which had not kept pace with the reform, or which had been hostile to it. And, when those rivalries of one man with another arose, whether personal or collegiate, which befall literary and scientific societies, such disturbances did but tend to raise in their eyes the value which they had already set upon academical distinction, and increase their zeal in pursuing it. Thus was formed an intellectual circle or class in the University,+men, who felt they had a career before them, as soon as the pupils, whom they were form- ing, came into public life; men, whom non-residents, Y whether country parsons or preachers of the Low Church, º § on coming up from time to time to the old place, would : y look at, partly with admiration, partly with suspicion, as o. º.º. being an honour indeed to Oxford, but withal exposed to \} & * the temptation of ambitious views, and to the spiritual evils a " »” signified in what is called the “pride of reason.” Ö" Nor was this imputation altogether unjust ; for, as they were following out the proper idea of a University, of course they suffered more or less from the moral malady incident to such a pursuit. The very object of such great institutions lies in the cultivation of the mind and the spread of knowledge: if this object, as all human objects, has its dangers at all times, much more would these exist in the case of men, who were engaged in a work of re- formation, and had the opportunity of measuring them- selves, not only with those who were their equals in intellect, but with the many, who were below them. In this select circle or class of men, in various Colleges, the direct instruments and the choice fruit of real University Reform, we see the rudiments of the Liberal party. 288 NOTE. A. ~ (Whenever men are able to act at all, there is the chance of extreme and intemperate action; and therefore, when there is exercise of mind, there is the chance of wayward - or mistaken exercise. { Liberty of thought is in itself a good; but it gives an opening to false liberty.) Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and inde- pendent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word. Now certainly the party of whom I have been speaking, taken as a whole, were of a character of mind out of which Liberalism might easily grow up, as in fact it did; cer- tainly they breathed around an influence which made men of religious seriousness shrink into themselves. But, while I say as much as this, I have no intention whatever of implying that the talent of the University, in the years before and after 1820, was liberal in its theology, in the sense in which the bulk of the educated classes through the country are liberal now. I would not for the world be supposed to detract from the Christian earnestness, and the activity in religious works, above the average of men, of many of the persons in question. They would have protested against their being supposed to place reason before faith, or knowledge before devotion; yet I do con- sider that they unconsciously encouraged and successfully introduced into Oxford a licence of opinion which went far I,IBERALISM. 289 beyond them. In their day they did little more than take credit to themselves for enlightened views, largeness of mind, liberality of sentiment, without drawing the line between what was just and what was inadmissible in speculation, and without seeing the tendency of their own principles; and engrossing, as they did, the mental energy of the University, they met for a time with no effectual hindrance to the spread of their influence, except (what indeed at the moment was most effectual, but not of an intellectual character) the thorough-going Toryism and traditionary Church-of-England-ism of the great body of the Colleges and Convocation. Now and then a man of note appeared in the Pulpit or Lecture Rooms of the University, who was a worthy representative of the more religious and devout Anglicans. These belonged chiefly to the High-Church party; for the party called Evangelical never has been able to breathe freely in the atmosphere of Oxford, and at no time has been conspicuous, as a party, for talent or learning. But of the old High Churchmen several exerted some sort of Anti-liberal influence in the place, at least from time to time, and that influence of an intellectual nature. Among these especially may be mentioned Mr. John Miller, of Worcester College, who preached the Bampton Lecture in the year 1817. But, as far as I know, he who turned the tide, and brought the talent of the University round to the side of the old theology, and against what was familiarly called “march-of-mind,” was Mr. Keble. In and from Keble the mental activity of Oxford took that contrary direction which issued in what was called Trac- tarianism. Reble was young in years, when he became a University celebrity, and younger in mind. He had the purity and simplicity of a child. He had few sympathies with the in- tellectual party, who sincerely welcomed him as a brilliant - TJ 290 NOTE. A. specimen of young Oxford. He instinctively shut up be- fore literary display, and pomp and donnisbness of man- ner, faults which always will beset academical notabilities. He did not respond to their advances. His collision with them (if it may be so called) was thus described by Hurrell Froude in his own way. “Poor Keble !” he used gravely to say, “he was asked to join the aristocracy of talent, but he soon found his level.” He went into the country, but his instance serves to prove that men need not, in the event, lose that influence which is rightly theirs, because they happen to be thwarted in the use of the channels natural and proper to its exercise. He did not lose his place in the minds of men because he was out of their sight. Reble was a man who guided himself and formed his judgments, not by processes of reason, by inquiry or by argument, but, to use the word in a broad sense, by authority. Conscience is an authority; the Bible is an authority; such is the Church; such is Antiquity; such are the words of the wise; such are hereditary lessons; such are ethical truths; such are historical memories, such are legal saws and state maxims; such are proverbs; such are sentiments, presages, and prepossessions. It seemed to me as if he ever felt happier, when he could speak or act under some such primary or external sanction; and could use argument mainly as a means of recommending or ex- plaining what had claims on his reception prior to proof. He even felt a tenderness, I think, in spite of Bacon, for the Idols of the Tribe and the Den, of the Market and the Theatre. What he hated instinctively was heresy, insubordination, resistance to things established, claims of independence, disloyalty, innovation, a critical, censorious spirit. And such was the main principle of the school which in the course of years was formed around him; nor is it easy to set limits to its influence in its day; for multi- . . . . . LIBERALISMI. 291 tudes of men, who did not profess its teaching, or accept its peculiar doctrines, were willing nevertheless, or found it to their purpose, to act in company with it. Indeed for a time it was practically the champion and advocate of the political doctrines of the great clerical in- terest through the country, who found in Mr. Keble and his friends an intellectual, as well as moral support to their cause, which they looked for in vain elsewhere. His weak point, in their eyes, was his consistency; for he carried his love of authority and old times so far, as to be more than gentle towards the Catholic Religion, with which the Toryism of Oxford and of the Church of England had no sympathy. Accordingly, if my memory be correct, he never could get himself to throw his heart into the oppo- sition made to Catholic Emancipation, strongly as he re- volted from the politics and the instruments by means of which that Emancipation was won. I fancy he would have had no difficulty in accepting Dr. Johnson’s saying about “the first Whig ;” and it grieved and offended him that the “Via prima salutis” should be opened to the Catholic body from the Whig quarter. In spite of his reverence for the Old Religion, I conceive that on the whole he would rather have kept its professors beyond the pale of the Constitution with the Tories, than admit them on the principles of the Whigs. Moreover, if the Revolu- tion of 1688 was too lax in principle for him and his friends, much less, as is very plain, could they endure to subscribe to the revolutionary doctrines of 1776 and 1789, which they felt to be absolutely and entirely out of keep- ing with theological truth. - The Old Tory or Conservative party in Oxford had in it no principle or power of development, and that from its very nature and constitution: it was otherwise with the Liberals. They represented a new idea, which was but gradually learning to recognize itself, to ascertain its 292 NoTE A. characteristics and external relations, and to exert an influence upon the University. The party grew, all the time that I was in Oxford, even in numbers, certainly in breadth and definiteness of doctrine, and in power. And, what was a far higher consideration, by the accession of Dr. Arnold’s pupils, it was invested with an elevation of character which claimed the respect even of its opponents. On the other hand, in proportion as it became more earn- est and less self-applauding, it became more free-spoken; and members of it might be found who, from the mere circumstance of remaining firm to their original profes- sions, would in the judgment of the world, as to their public acts, seem to have left it for the Conservative camp. Thus, neither in its component parts nor in its policy, was it the same in 1832, 1836, and 1841, as it was in 1845. These last remarks will serve to throw light upon a matter personal to myself, which I have introduced into my Narrative, and to which my attention has been point- edly called, now that my Volume is coming to a second edition. It has been strongly urged upon me to re-consider the following passages which occur in it: “The men who had driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals, it was they who had opened the attack upon Tract 90,” p. 203, and “I found no fault with the Liberals; they had beaten me in a fair field,” p. 214. I am very unwilling to seem ungracious, or to cause pain in any quarter; still I am sorry to say I cannot modify these statements. It is surely a matter of historical fact that I left Oxford upon the University proceedings of 1841; and in those proceedings, whether we look to the Heads of Houses or the resident Masters, the leaders, if intellect and influence make men such, were members of the Liberal party. Those who did not lead, concurred or acquiesced in them,--I may say, felt a satisfaction. I do not recollect I,IBERALISM, 293 any Liberal who was on my side on that occasion. Ex- cepting the Liberal, no other party, as a party, acted against me. I am not complaining of them ; I deserved nothing else at their hands. They could not undo in 1845, even had they wished it, (and there is no proof they did,) what they had done in 1841. In 1845, when I had already given up the contest for four years, and my part in it had passed into the hands of others, then some of those who were prominent against me in 1841, feeling (what they had not felt in 1841) the danger of driving a number of my followers to Rome, and joined by younger friends who had come into University importance since 1841 and felt kindly towards me, adopted a course more consistent with their principles, and proceeded to shield from the zeal of the Hebdomadal Board, not me, but, professedly, all parties through the country, Tractarians, Evangelicals, Liberals in general,—who had to subscribe to the Anglican formu- laries, on the ground that those formularies, rigidly taken, were, on some point or other, a difficulty to all parties alike. +. However, besides the historical fact, I can bear witness to my own feeling at the time, and my feeling was this:— that those who in 1841 had considered it to be a duty to act against me, had then done their worst. What was it to me what they were now doing in opposition to the New Test proposed by the Hebdomadal Board P I owed them no thanks for their trouble. I took no interest at all, in Eebruary, 1845, in the proceedings of the Heads of Houses and of the Convocation. I felt myself dead as regarded. my relations to the Anglican Church. My leaving it was all but a matter of time. I believe I did not even thank my real friends, the two Proctors, who in Convocation stopped by their Veto the condemnation of Tract 90; nor did I make any acknowledgment to Mr. Rogers, nor to Mr. James Mozley, nor, as I think, to Mr. Hussey, for their *A * * 294 NOTE A. pamphlets in my behalf. My frame of mind is best de- scribed by the sentiment of the passage in Horace, which at the time I was fond of quoting, as expressing my view of the relation that existed between the Vice-Chancellor and myself. - “Pentheu, Rector Thebarum, quid me perferre patique Indignum cogas” “Adimam bona.” “Nempe pecus, rem, Lectos, argentum; tollas licet.” “In manicis et Compedibus, saevo te sub custode tenebo.” (viz. the 39 Articles.) “Ipse Deus, simul atque volam, me solvet.” Opinor, Hoc sentit : Moriar. Mors ultima linea rerum est. I conclude this notice of Liberalism in Oxford, and the party which was antagonistic to it, with some propositions in detail, which, as a member of the latter, and together with the High Church, I earnestly denounced and abjured. 1. No religious tenet is important, unless reason shows it to be so. Therefore, e.g. the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed is not to be insisted on, unless it tends to convert the soul; and the doctrine of the Atonement is to be insisted on, if it does convert the soul. 2. No one can believe what he does not understand. Therefore, e.g. there are no mysteries in true religion. 3. No theological doctrine is any thing more than an opinion which happens to be held by bodies of men. Therefore, e.g. no creed, as such, is necessary for salvation. 4. It is dishonest in a man to make an act of faith in what he has not had brought home to him by actual proof. Therefore, e.g. the mass of men ought not absolutely to believe in the divine authority of the Bible. 5. It is immoral in a man to believe more than he can spontaneously receive as being congenial to his moral and mental nature. - Therefore, e. g. a given individual is not bound to believe in eternal punishment. * * * * * * : * * : * * * * * * * * * LIBERALISM. 295 6. No revealed doctrines or precepts may reasonably stand in the way of scientific conclusions. Therefore, e.g. Political Economy may reverse our Lord's declara- tions about poverty and riches, or a system of Ethics may teach that the highest condition of body is ordinarily essential to the highest state of mind. 7. Christianity is necessarily modified by the growth of civilization, and the exigencies of times. Therefore, e.g. the Catholic priesthood, though necessary in the Middle Ages, may be superseded now. 8. There is a system of religion more simply true than Christianity as it has ever been received. Therefore, e.g. we may advance that Christianity is the “corn of wheat” which has been dead for 1800 years, but at length will bear fruit; and that Mahometanism is the manly religion, and existing Christianity the womanish. e 9. There is a right of Private Judgment: that is, there is no existing authority on earth competent to interfere with the liberty of individuals in reasoning and judging for themselves about the Bible and its contents, as they severally please. Therefore, e. g. religious establishments requiring subscription are Anti-christian. 10. There are rights of conscience such, that every one may lawfully advance a claim to profess and teach what is false and wrong in matters, religious, social, and moral, provided that to his private conscience it seems absolutely true and right. Therefore, e.g. individuals have a right to preach and practise forni- cation and polygamy. w 11. There is no such thing as a national or state con- science. Therefore, e.g. no judgments can fall upon a sinful or infidel nation. 296 NOTE. A. 12. The civil power has no positive duty, in a normal state of things, to maintain religious truth. Therefore, e.g. blasphemy and sabbath-breaking are not rightly punishable by law. 13. Utility and expedience are the measure of political duty. Therefore, e.g. no punishment may be enacted, on the ground that God commands it: e.g. on the text, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” - 14. The Civil Power may dispose of Church property without sacrilege. Therefore, e.g. Henry VIII. committed no sin in his spoliations. 15. The Civil Power has the right of ecclesiastical juris- diction and administration. - Therefore, e.g. Parliament may impose articles of faith on the Church or suppress Dioceses. 16. It is lawful to rise in arms against legitimate princes. Therefore, e.g. the Puritans in the 17th century, and the French in the 18th, were justifiable in their Rebellion and Revolution respectively. 17. The people are the legitimate source of power. Therefore, e.g. Universal Suffrage is among the natural rights of Iſlane 18. Wirtue is the child of knowledge, and vice of ignor- a DLC6. - Therefore, e.g. education, periodical literature, railroad travelling, ventilation, drainage, and the arts of life, when fully carried out, serve to make a population moral and happy. All of these propositions, and many others too, were familiar to me thirty years ago, as in the number of the tenets of Liberalism, and, while I gave into none of them except No. 12, and perhaps No. 11, and partly No. 1, before I began to publish, so afterwards I wrote against most of them in some part or other of my Anglican works. If it is necessary to refer to a work, not simply my own, IIIBERALISM. 297 but of the Tractarian school, which contains a similar pro- test, I should name the Lyra Apostolica. This volume, which by accident has been left unnoticed, except inciden- tally, in my Narrative, was collected together from the pages of the “British Magazine,” in which its contents originally appeared, and published in a separate form, im- mediately after Hurrell Froude's death in 1836. Its signatures, a, [3, y, 8, 8, Č, denote respectively the author- ship of Mr. Bowden, Mr. Hurrell Froude, Mr. Keble, myself, Mr. Robert Wilberforce, and Mr. Isaac Williams. There is one poem on “Liberalism,” beginning “Ye can- not halve the Gospel of God’s grace;” which bears out the account of Liberalism as above given; and another upon “the Age to come,” defining from its own point of view the position and prospects of Liberalism. I need hardly say that the above Note is mainly his- torical. How far the Liberal party of 1830-40 really held the above eighteen Theses, which I attributed to them, and how far and in what sense I should oppose those Theses now, could scarcely be explained without a separate Dissertation. 298. NOTE B. NOTE B. ON PAGE 23. ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. THE writer, who gave occasion for the foregoing Narra- tive, was very severe with me for what I had said about Miracles in the Preface to the Life of St. Walburga. I observe therefore as follows:— Catholics believe that miracles happen in any age of the Church, though not for the same purposes, in the same number, or with the same evidence, as in Apostolic times. The Apostles wrought them in evidence of their divine mission; and with this object they have been sometimes wrought by Evangelists of countries since, as even Pro- testants allow. Hence we hear of them in the history of St. Gregory in Pontus, and St. Martin in Gaul; and in their case, as in that of the Apostles, they were both numerous and clear. As they are granted to Evangelists, so are they granted, though in less measure and evidence, to other holy men; and as holy men are not found equally at all times and in all places, therefore miracles are in some places and times more than in others. And since, generally, they are granted to faith and prayer, therefore in a country in which faith and prayer abound, they will be more likely to occur, than where and when faith and prayer are not; so that their occurrence is irregular. And further, as faith and prayer obtain miracles, so still more commonly do they gain from above the ordinary interven- tions of Providence; and, as it is often very difficult to distinguish between a providence and a miracle, and there will be more providences than miracles, hence it will happen that many occurrences will be called miraculous, ECCI, ESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 299 which, strictly speaking, are not such, that is, not more than providential mercies, or what are sometimes called “grazie” or “favours.” Persons, who believe all this, in accordance with Catho- lic teaching, as I did and do, they, on the report of a miracle, will of necessity, the necessity of good logic, be led to say, first, “It may be,” and secondly, “But I must have good evidence in order to believe it.” 1. It may be, because miracles take place in all ages; it must be clearly proved, because perhaps after all it may be only a providential mercy, or an exaggeration, or a mistake, or an imposture. Well, this is precisely what I had said, which the writer, who has given occasion to this Volume, considered so irrational. I had said, as he quotes me, “In this day, and under our present circumstances, we can only reply, that there is no reason why they should not be.” Surely this is good logic, provided that miracles do occur in all ages; and so again I am logical in saying, “There is nothing, prima facie, in the miraculous accounts in ques- tion, to repel a properly taught or religiously disposed mind.” What is the matter with this statement P My assailant does not pretend to say what the matter is, and he cannot ; but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonish- ment. Accordingly, in the passage which he quotes, I observe, “Miracles are the kind of facts proper to eccle- siastical history, just as instances of Sagacity or daring, personal prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to secular history.” What is the harm of this? 2. But, though a miracle be conceivable, it has to be proved. What has to be proved? (1.) That the event occurred as stated, and is not a false report or an ex- aggeration. (2.) That it is clearly miraculous, and not a mere providence or answer to prayer within the order of nature. What is the fault of saying this? The inquiry is parallel to that which is made about some extraordinary 300 NOTE B. fact in secular history. Supposing I hear that King Charles II. died a Catholic, I am led to say: It may be, but what is your proof? In my Essay on Miracles of the year 1826, I proposed three questions about a professed miraculous occurrence: 1. is it antecedently probable 3 2. is it in its nature cer- tainly miraculous P. 3. has it sufficient evidence 3 To these three heads I had regard in my Essay of 1842; and under them I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the miracles of Ecclesiastical History. So much for general principles; as to St. Walburga, though I have no intention at all of denying that nu- merous miracles have been wrought by her intercession, still, neither the Author of her Life, nor I, the Editor, felt that we had grounds for binding ourselves to the belief of certain alleged miracles in particular. I made, however, one exception; it was the medicinal oil which flows from her relics. Now as to the verisimilitude, the ºmiraculousness, and the fact, of this medicinal oil. 1. The verisimilitude. It is plain there is nothing ex- travagant in this report of her relics having a supernatural virtue; and for this reason, because there are such in- stances in Scripture, and Scripture cannot be extravagant. For instance, a man was restored to life by touching the relics of the Prophet Eliseus. The sacred text runs thus: —“And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And, when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood upon his feet.” Again, in the case of an inanimate substance, which had touched a living Saint: “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; so that ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 301 from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them.” And again in the case of a pool: “An Angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water; whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” 2 Kings [4 Kings] xiii. 20, 21. Acts xix. 11, 12. John v. 4. Therefore there is nothing extravagant in the character of the miracle. 2. Next, the matter of fact :—is there an oil flowing from St. Walburga's tomb, which is medicinal? To this question I confined myself in my Preface. Of the ac- counts of medieval miracles, I said that there was no eatra- vagance in their general character, but I could not affirm that there was always evidence for them. I could not simply accept them as facts, but I could not reject them in their nature;—they might be true, for they were not im- possible; but they were not proved to be true, because there was not trustworthy testimony. However, as to St. Walburga, I repeat, I made one exception, the fact of the medicinal oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and successive testimony. And then I went on to give a chain of witnesses. It was my duty to state what those wit- nesses said in their very words; so I gave the testimonies in full, tracing them from the Saint's death. I said, “She is one of the principal Saints of her age and country.” Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, “Six writers are extant, who have employed themselves in relating the deeds or miracles of Walburga.” Then I said that her “renown was not the mere natural growth of ages, but begins with the very century of the Saint's death.” Then I observed that only two miracles seem to have been “distinctly reported of her as occurring in her lifetime; and they were handed down apparently by tra- dition.” Also, that such miracles are said to have com- 302 NOTE B, menced about A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the medicinal oil as having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450, in 1615, and in 1620. Also, I said that Mabillon seems not to have believed some of her miracles; and that the earliest witness had got into trouble with his Bishop. And so I left the matter, as a question to be decided by evidence, not deciding any thing myself. What was the harm of all this? but my Critic mud- dled it together in a most extraordinary manner, and I am far from sure that he knew himself the definite cate- gorical charge which he intended it to convey against me. One of his remarks is, “What has become of the holy oil for the last 240 years, Dr. Newman does not say,” p. 25. Of course I did not, because I did not know; I gave the evidence as I found it; he assumes that I had a point to prove, and then asks why I did not make the evidence larger than it was. I can tell him more about it now : the oil still flows; I have had some of it in my possession; it is medicinal still. This leads to the third head. 3. Its miraculousness. On this point, since I have been in the Catholic Church, I have found there is a difference of opinion. Some persons consider that the oil is the natural produce of the rock, and has ever flowed from it; others, that by a divine gift it flows from the relics; and others, allowing that it now comes naturally from the rock, are disposed to hold that it was in its origin mira- culous, as was the virtue of the pool of Bethsaida. This point must be settled of course before the virtue of the oil can be ascribed to the sanctity of St. Walburga; for myself, I neither have, nor ever have had, the means of going into the question; but I will take the opportunity of its having come before me, to make one or two remarks, supplemental of what I have said on other occasions. ECCI, ESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 303 1. I frankly confess that the present advance of science tends to make it probable that various facts take place, and have taken place, in the order of nature, which hitherto have been considered by Catholics as simply super- natural. . - 2. Though I readily make this admission, it must not be supposed in consequence that I am disposed to grant at once, that every event was natural in point of fact, which might have taken place by the laws of nature; for it is obvious, no Catholic can bind the Almighty to act only in one and the same way, or to the observance always of His own laws. An event which is possible in the way of na- ture, is certainly possible too to Divine Power without the sequence of natural cause and effect at all. A con- flagration, to take a parallel, may be the work of an incendiary, or the result of a flash of lightning; nor would a jury think it safe to find a man guilty of arson, if a dangerous thunderstorm was raging at the very time when the fire broke out. In like manner, upon the hypo- thesis that a miraculous dispensation is in operation, a recovery from diseases to which medical science is equal, may nevertheless in matter of fact have taken place, not by natural means, but by a supernatural interposition. That the Lawgiver always acts through His own laws, is an assumption, of which I never saw proof. In a given case, then, the possibility of assigning a human cause for an event does not ipso facto prove that it is not miraculous. - 3. So far, however, is plain, that, till some eaſperimentum crucis can be found, such as to be decisive against the natural cause or the supernatural, an occurrence of this kind will as little convince an unbeliever that there has been a divine interference in the case, as it will drive the Catholic to admit that there has been no interference at all. 304 NOTE B. 4. Still there is this gain accruing to the Catholic cause from the larger views we now possess of the operation of natural causes, viz. that our opponents will not in future be so ready as hitherto, to impute fraud and falsehood to our priests and their witnesses, on the ground of their pre- tending or reporting things that are incredible. Our opponents have again and again accused us of false wit- ness, on aceount of statements which they now allow are either true, or may have been true. They account indeed for the strange facts very differently from us; but still they allow that facts they were. It is a great thing to have our characters cleared; and we may reasonably hope that, the next time our word is vouched for occurrences which appear to be miraculous, our facts will be investi- gated, not our testimony impugned. 5. Even granting that certain occurrences, which we have hitherto accounted miraculous, have not absolutely a claim to be so considered, nevertheless they constitute an argument still in behalf of Revelation and the Church. Providences, or what are called grazie, though they do not rise to the order of miracles, yet, if they occur again and again in connexion with the same persons, institutions, or doctrines, may supply a cumulative evidence of the fact of a supernatural presence in the quarter in which they are found. I have already alluded to this point in my Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and I have a particular reason, as will presently be seen, for referring here to what I said in the course of it. In that Essay, after bringing its main argument to an end, I append to it a review of “the evidence for particular alleged miracles.” “It does not strictly fall within the scope of the Essay,” I observe, “to pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of this or that miraculous narrative, as it occurs in ecclesiastical history; but only to furnish such ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 305 general considerations, as may be useful in forming a decision in particular cases,” p. cv. However, I thought it right to go farther and “to set down the evidence for and against certain miracles as we meet with them,” ibid. In discussing these miracles separately, I make the fol- lowing remarks, to which I have just been referring. After discussing the alleged miracle of the Thundering Legion, I observe:–“ Nor does it concern us much to answer the objection, that there is nothing strictly mira- culous in such an occurrence, because sudden thunder- clouds after drought are not unfrequent; for, I would answer, Grant me such miracles ordinarily in the early Church, and I will ask no other; grant that, upon prayer, benefits are vouchsafed, deliverances are effected, unhoped- for results obtained, sicknesses cured, tempests laid, pesti- lences put to flight, famines remedied, judgments inflicted, and there will be no need of analyzing the causes, whether supernatural or natural, to which they are to be referred. They may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or surpass the laws of nature, and they may do so plainly or doubtfully, but the common sense of mankind will call them miraculous; for by a miracle is popularly meant, whatever be its formal definition, an event which im- presses upon the mind the immediate presence of the Moral Governor of the world. He may sometimes act through nature, sometimes beyond or against it; but those who admit the fact of such interferences, will have little difficulty in admitting also their strictly miraculous character, if the circumstances of the case require it, and those who deny miracles to the early Church will be equally strenuous against allowing her the grace of such intimate influence (if we may so speak) upon the course of divine Providence, as is here in question, even though it be not miraculous.”—p. cxxi. . And again, speaking of the death of Arius: “But after X 306 NOTE B. all, was it a miracle P for, if not, we are labouring at a proof of which nothing comes. The more immediate answer to this question has already been suggested several times. When a Bishop with his flock prays night and day against a heretic, and at length begs of God to take him away, and when he is suddenly taken away, almost at the moment of his triumph, and that by a death awfully significant, from its likeness to one recorded in Scripture, is it not trifling to ask whether such an occurrence comes up to the definition of a miracle P The question is not whether it is formally a miracle, but whether it is an event, the like of which persons, who deny that miracles continue, will consent that the Church should be consi- dered still able to perform. If they are willing to allow to the Church such extraordinary protection, it is for them to draw the line to the satisfaction of people in general, between these and strictly miraculous events; if, on the other hand, they deny their occurrence in the times of the Church, then there is sufficient reason for our appealing here to the history of Arius in proof of the affirmative.” —p. clxxii. w These remarks, thus made upon the Thundering Legion and the death of Arius, must be applied, in consequence of investigations made since the date of my Essay, to the ap- parent miracle wrought in favour of the African confessors in the Vandal persecution. Their tongues were cut out by the Arian tyrant, and yet they spoke as before. In my Essay I insisted on this fact as being strictly miracu- lous. Among other remarks (referring to the instances adduced by Middleton and others in disparagement of the miracle, viz. of a “a girl born without a tongue, who yet talked as distinctly and easily, as if she had enjoyed the full benefit of that organ,” and of a boy who, lost his tongue at the age of eight or nine, yet retained his speech, whether perfectly or not,) I said, “Does Middleton mean ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 307 to say, that, if certain of men lost their tongues at the command of a tyrant for the sake of their religion, and then spoke as plainly as before, nay if only one person was so mutilated and so gifted, it would not be a miracle P”— p. ccx. And I enlarged upon the minute details of the fact as reported to us by eye-witnesses and contemporaries. “Out of the seven writers adduced, six are contemporaries; three, if not four, are eye-witnesses of the miracle. One reports from an eye-witness, and one testifies to a fervent record at the burial-place of the subjects of it. All seven were living, or had been staying, at one or other of the two places which are mentioned as their abode. One is a Pope, a second a Catholic Bishop, a third a Bishop of a schismatical party, a fourth an emperor, a fifth a soldier, a politician, and a suspected infidel, a sixth a statesman and courtier, a seventh a rhetorician and philosopher. ‘He cut out the tongues by the roots,’ says Victor, Bishop of Vito ; ‘I perceived the tongues entirely gone by the roots,’ says AEneas; “as low down as the throat,’ says Procopius; “at the roots,’ say Justinian and St. Gregory; ‘he spoke like an educated man, without impediment,’ says Victor of Vito ; ‘with articulateness,’ says AEneas; ‘better than before;’ ‘they talked without any impedi- ment,’ says Procopius ; ‘speaking with perfect voice,’ says Marcellinus; ‘they spoke perfectly, even to the end,” says the second Victor; ‘the words were formed, full, and perfect,” says St. Gregory.”—p. ecwiii. e However, a few years ago an Article appeared in “Notes and Queries” (No. for May 22, 1858), in which various evidence was adduced to show that the tongue is not ne- cessary for articulate speech. 1. Col. Churchill, in his “Lebanon,” speaking of the cruelties of Djezzar Pacha, in extracting to the root the tongues of some Emirs, adds, “It is a curious fact, how- 308 NOTE Be ever, that the tongues grow again sufficiently for the purposes of speech.” & 2. Sir John Malcolm, in his “Sketches of Persia,” speaks of Zāb, Khan of Khisht, who was condemned to lose his tongue. “This mandate,” he says, “was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half this member deprived him of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its being cut close to the root would enable him to speak so as to be understood, he submitted to the operation; and the effect has been, that his voice, though indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed to converse with him. . . . I am not an anatomist, and I cannot therefore give a reason, why a man, who could not articulate with half a tongue, should speak when he had none at all; but the facts are as stated.” 3. And Sir John McNeill says, “In answer to your inquiries about the powers of speech retained by persons who have had their tongues cut out, I can state from per- sonal observation, that several persons whom I knew in Persia, who had been subjected to that punishment, spoke so intelligibly as to be able to transact important business. . . . The conviction in Persia is universal, that the power of speech is destroyed by merely cutting off the tip of the tongue; and is to a useful extent restored by cutting off another portion as far back as a perpendicular section can be made of the portion that is free from attachment at the lower surface. . . . I never had to meet with a person who had suffered this punishment, who could not speak so as to be quite intelligible to his familiar associates.” I should not be honest, if I professed to be simply con- verted, by these testimonies, to the belief that there was nothing miraculous in the case of the African confessors. It is quite as fair to be sceptical on one side of the question ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 309 as on the other; and if Gibbon is considered worthy of praise for his stubborn incredulity in receiving the evidence for this miracle, I do not see why I am to be blamed, if I wish to be quite sure of the full appositeness of the recent evidence which is brought to its disadvantage. Questions of fact cannot be disproved by analogies or presumptions; the inquiry must be made into the particular case in all its parts, as it comes before us. Meanwhile, I fully allow that the points of evidence brought in disparagement of the miracle are primá facie of such cogency, that, till they are proved to be irrelevant, Catholics are prevented from appealing to it for controversial purposes. 310 - NOTE C. NOTE C. ON PAGE 153. SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. THE professed basis of the charge of lying and equivoca- tion made against me, and, in my person, against the Catholic clergy, was, as I have already noticed in the Preface, a certain Sermon of mine on “Wisdom and Inno- cence,” being the 20th in a series of “Sermons on Subjects of the Day,” written, preached, and published while I was an Anglican. Of this Sermon my accuser spoke thus in his Pamphlet:— “It is occupied entirely with the attitude of ‘the world’ to “Christians’ and ‘the Church.” By the world appears to be signified, especially, the Pro- testant public of these realms; what Dr. Newman means by Christians, and the Church, he has not left in doubt; for in the preceding Sermon he says: “But if the truth must be spoken, what are the humble monk and the holy nun, and other regulars, as they are called, but Christians after the very pattern given us in Scripture, &c.' . . . . This is his definition of Christians. And in the Sermon itself, he sufficiently defines what he means by “the Church,” in two notes of her character, which he shall give in his own words: “What, for instance, though we grant that sacramental confession and the celibacy of the clergy do tend to consolidate the body politic in the relation of rulers and subjects, or, in other words, to aggrandize the priesthood 2 for how can the Church be one body without such relation ?’”—Pp. 8, 9. IIe then proceeded to analyze and comment on it at great length, and to criticize severely the method and tone of my Sermons generally. Among other things, he said:— “What, then, did the Sermon mean 2 Why was it preached 2 To insinu- ate that a Church which had Sacramental confession and a celibate clergy was the only true Church 2 Or to insinuate that the admiring young gentlemen who listened to him stood to their fellow-countrymen in the relation of the early Christians to the heathen Romans? Or that Queen Victoria's Govern- ment was to the Church of England what Nero's or Dioclesian's was to the SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. ' 311 Church of Rome 2 It may have been so. I know that men used to suspect Dr. Newman,—I have been inclined to do so myself, of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of the text or of the matter, but for the sake of one single passing hint—one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow, which, as he swept magnificently past on the stream of his calm eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences, save those unseen, he delivered unheeded, as with his finger-tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to be with- drawn again. I do not blame him for that. It is one of the highest triumphs of oratoric power, and may be employed honestly and fairly by any person who has the skill to do it honestly and fairly; but then, Why did he entitle his Sermon “Wisdom and Innocence 2' “What, then, could I think that Dr. Newman meant 2 I found a preacher bidding Christians imitate, to some undefined point, the ‘’arts' of the basest of animals, and of men, and of the devil himself. I found him, by a strange perversion of Scripture, insinuating that St Paul’s conduct and manner were such as naturally to bring down on him the reputation of being a crafty deceiver. I found him—horrible to say it—even hinting the same of one greater than St. Paul. I found him denying or explaining away the existence of that Priestcraft, which is a notorious fact to every honest student of history, and justifying (as far as I can understand him) that double-dealing by which prelates, in the middle age, too often played off alternately the sovereign against the people, and the people against the sovereign, careless which was in the right, so long as their own power gained by the move. I found him actually using of such (and, as I thought, of himself and his party likewise) the words “They yield outwardly; to assent inwardly were to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, and not more than they may.” I found him telling Christians that they will always seem “artificial,” and ‘wanting in openness and manliness;’ that they will always be ‘a mystery’ to the world, and that the world will always think them rogues; and bidding them glory in what the world (i. e. the rest of their countrymen), disown, and say with Mawworm, * I like to be despised.’ “Now, how was I to know that the preacher, who had the reputation of being the most acute man of his generation, and of having a specially intimate acquaintance with the weaknesses of the human heart, was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the plain practical result of a Sermon like this, delivered before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every word 2 that he did not foresee that they would think that they obeyed him by becom- ing affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for concealments and equivocations ** &c. &c.—Pp. 14–16. - My accuser asked in this passage what did the Sermon mean, and why was it preached. I will here answer this question; and with this view will speak, first of 312 NOTE C. the matter of the Sermon, then of its subject, then of its circumstances. 1. It was one of the last six Sermons which I wrote when I was an Anglican. It was one of the five Sermons I preached in St. Mary’s between Christmas and Easter, 1843, the year when I gave up my Living. The MS. of the Sermon is destroyed; but I believe, and my memory too bears me out, as far as it goes, that the sentence in question about Celibacy and Confession, of which this writer would make so much, was not preached at all. The Volume, in which this Sermon is found, was published after that I had given up St. Mary’s, when I had no call on me to restrain the expression of any thing which I might hold: and I stated an important fact about it in the Advertise- ment, in these words:— “In preparing [these Sermons] for publication, a few words and sentences have in several places been added, which will be found to express more of private or personal opinion, than it was expedient to introduce into the instruction delivered in Church to a parochial Congregation. Such introduc- tion, however, seems unobjectionable in the case of compositions, which are detached from the sacred place and service to which they once belonged, and submitted to the reason and judgment of the general reader.” This Volume of Sermons then cannot be criticized at all as preachments ; they are essays ; essays of a man who, at the time of publishing them, was not a preacher. Such passages, as that in question, are just the very ones which I added upon my publishing them; and, as I always was on my guard in the pulpit against saying anything which looked towards Rome, I shall believe that I did not preach the obnoxious sentence till some one is found to testify that he heard it. At the same time I cannot conceive why the mention of Sacramental Confession, or of Clerical Celibacy, had Imade it, was inconsistent with the position of an Anglican Clergyman. For Sacramental Confession and Absolution actually form a portion of the Anglican Visitation of the SERMION ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 313 Sick; and though the 32nd Article says that “Bishops, priests, and deacons, are not commanded by God’s law either to vow the state of single life or to abstain from marriage,” and “therefore it is lawful for them to marry,” this proposition I did not dream of denying, nor is it in- consistent with St. Paul’s doctrine, which I held, that it is “good to abide even as he,” i. e. in celibacy. But I have more to say on this point. This writer says, “I know that men used to suspect Dr. Newman,—I have been inclined to do so myself,-of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of the teat or of the matter, but for the sake of one simple passing hint, Lone phrase, one epithet.” Now observe; can there be a plainer testimony borne to the practical character of my Sermons at St. Mary's than this gratuitous insinuation ? Many a preacher of Trac- tarian doctrine has been accused of not letting his parishioners alone, and of teasing them with his private theological notions. The same report was spread about me twenty years ago as this writer spreads now, and the world believed that my Sermons at St. Mary’s were full of red- hot Tractarianism. Then strangers came to hear me preach, and were astonished at their own disappointment. I recollect the wife of a great prelate from a distance coming to hear me, and then expressing her surprise to find that I preached nothing but a plain humdrum Ser- mon. I recollect how, when on the Sunday before Com- memoration one year, a number of strangers came to hear me, and I preached in my usual way, residents in Oxford, of high position, were loud in their satisfaction that on a great occasion, I had made a simple failure, for after all there was nothing in the Sermon to hear. Well, but they were not going to let me off, for all my common-sense view of duty. Accordingly they, got up the charitable theory which this Writer revives. They said that there was a double purpose in those plain addresses of mine, 314 TNOTE C. and that my Sermons were never so artful as when they seemed common-place; that there were sentences which redeemed their apparent simplicity and quietness. So they watched during the delivery of a Sermon, which to them was too practical to be useful, for the concealed point of it, which they could at least imagine, if they could not discover. “Men used to suspect Dr. Newman,” he says, “ of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of the teat or of the matter, but for the sake of one single passing hint, . one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow, which, as he swept magnificently past on the stream of his calm eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences, save those unseen, he delivered unheeded,” &c. To all appearance, he says, I was “unconscious of all presences.” He is not able to deny that the “whole Sermon” had the appearance of being “for the sake of the text and matter;” therefore he suggests that perhaps it wasn’t. 2. And now as to the subject of the Sermon. The Sermons of which the Volume consists are such as are, more or less, exceptions to the rule which I ordinarily observed, as to the subjects which I introduced into the pulpit of St. Mary’s. They are not purely ethical or doctrinal. They were for the most part caused by circum- stances of the day or of the moment, and they belong to various years. One was written in 1832, two in 1836, two in 1838, five in 1840, five in 1841, four in 1842, seven in 1843. Many of them are engaged on one subject, viz. in viewing the Church in its relation to the world. By the world was meant, not simply those multitudes which were not in the Church, but the existing body of human society, whether in the Church or not, whether Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, or Mahometans, theists or idolaters, as being ruled by principles, maxims, and instincts of their own, that is, of an unregenerate nature, whatever their SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 315 supernatural privileges might be, greater or less, according to their form of religion. This view of the relation of the Church to the world as taken apart from questions of ecclesiastical politics, as they may be called, is often brought out in my Sermons. Two occur to me at once; No. 3 of my Plain Sermons, which was written in 1829, and No. 15 of my Third Volume of Parochial, written in 1835. On the other hand, by Church I meant, in common with all writers connected with the Tract Movement, what- ever their shades of opinion, and with the whole body of English divines, except those of the Puritan or Evan- gelical School, - the whole of Christendom, from the Apostles' time till now, whatever their later divisions into Latin, Greek, and Anglican. I have explained this view of the subject above at pp. 69–71 of this Volume. When then I speak, in the particular Sermon before us, of the members, or the rulers, or the action of “the Church,” I mean neither the Latin, nor the Greek, nor the English, taken by itself, but of the whole Church as one body: of Italy as one with England, of the Saxon or |Norman as one with the Caroline Church. This was specially the one Church, and the points in which one branch or one period differed from another were not and could not be Notes of the Church, because Notes neces- sarily belong to the whole of the Church every where and always. . This being my doctrine as to the relation of the Church to the world, I laid down in the Sermon three principles concerning it, and there left the matter. The first is, that Divine Wisdom had framed for its action laws, which man, if left to himself, would have antecedently pronounced to be the worst possible for its success, and which in all ages have been called by the world, as they were in the Apostles' days, “foolishness;” that man ever relies on physical and material force, and on carnal inducements, 316 NOTE C. as Mahomet with his sword and his houris, or indeed almost as that theory of religion, called, since the Sermon was written, “muscular Christianity;” but that our Lord, on the contrary, has substituted meekness for haughtiness, passiveness for violence, and innocence for craft: and that the event has shown the high wisdom of such an economy, for it has brought to light a set of natural laws, unknown before, by which the seeming paradox that weakness should be stronger than might, and simplicity than worldly policy, is readily explained. Secondly, I said that men of the world, judging by the event, and not recognizing the secret causes of the success, viz. a higher order of natural laws, natural, though their source and action were supernatural, (for “the meek inherit the earth,” by means of a meekness which comes from above,)—these men, I say, concluded, that the success which they witnessed must arise from some evil secret which the world had not mastered,—by means of magic, as they said in the first ages, by cunning as they say now. And accordingly they thought that the humility and in- offensiveness of Christians, or of Churchmen, was a mere pretence and blind to cover the real causes of that success, which Christians could explain and would not; and that they were simply hypocrites. Thirdly, I suggested that shrewd ecclesiastics, who knew very well that there was neither magic nor craft in the matter, and, from their intimate acquaintance with what actually went on within the Church, discerned what were the real causes of its success, were of course under the temptation of substituting reason for conscience, and, instead of simply obeying the command, were led to do good that good might come, that is, to act in order to secure success, and not from a motive of faith. Some, I said, did yield to the temptation more or less, and their motives became mixed; and in this way the world in a SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE, 317 more subtle shape had got into the Church; and hence it had come to pass, that, looking at its history from first to last, we could not possibly draw the line between good and evil there, and say either that everything was to be defended, or certain things to be condemned. I expressed the diffi- culty, which I supposed to be inherent in the Church, in the following words. I said, “Priesteraft has ever been considered the badge, and its imputation is a kind of Note of the Church : and in part indeed truly, because the pre- sence of powerful enemies, and the sense of their own weakness, has sometimes tempted Christians to the abuse, ºnstead of the use of Christian wisdom, to be wise without being harmless; but partly, nay, for the most part, not truly, but slanderously, and merely because the world called their wisdom craft, when it was found to be a match for its own numbers and power.” p Such is the substance of the Sermon : and as to the main drift of it, it was this ; that I was, there and else- where, scrutinizing the course of the Church as a whole, as if philosophically, as an historical phenomenon, and observing the laws on which it was conducted. Hence the Sermon, or Essay as it more truly is, is written in a dry and unimpassioned way: it shows as little of human warmth of feeling as a Sermon of Bishop Butler's. Yet, under that calm exterior there was a deep and keen sensi- tiveness, as I shall now proceed to show. 3. If I mistake not, it was written with a secret thought about myself. Every one preaches according to his frame of mind, at the time of preaching. One heaviness espe- cially oppressed me at that season, which this Writer, twenty years afterwards, has set himself with a good will to renew : it arose from the sense of the base calumnies which were heaped upon me on all sides. It is worth observing that this Sermon is exactly contemporaneous with the report 318 NOTE C. spread by a Bishop (vid. Supr. p. 181), that I had advised a clergyman converted to Catholicism to retain his Living. ... This report was in circulation in February 1843, and my ! Sermon was preached on the 19th. In the trouble of mind into which I, was thrown by such calumnies as this, I gained, while I reviewed the history of the Church, at once an argument and a consolation. My argument was this: if I, who knew my own innocence, was so blackened by party prejudice, perhaps those high rulers and those servants of the Church, in the many ages which intervened between the early Nicene times and the present, who were laden with such grievous accusations, were innocent also ; and this reflection served to make me tender towards those great names of the past, to whom weaknesses or crimes were imputed, and reconciled me to difficulties in eccle- siastical proceedings, which there were no means now of properly explaining. And the sympathy thus excited for them, re-acted on myself, and I found comfort in being able to put myself under the shadow of those who had suffered as I was suffering, and who seemed to promise me their recompense, since I had a fellowship in their trial. In a letter to my Bishop at the time of Tract 90, part of which I have quoted, I said that I had ever tried to “keep innocency;” and now two years had passed since then, and men were louder and louder in heaping on me the very charges, which this Writer repeats out of my Sermon, of “fraud and cunning,” “craftiness and deceit- fulness,” “double-dealing,” “priestcraft,” of being “mys- terious, dark, subtle, designing,” when I was all the time conscious to myself, in my degree, and after my measure, of “sobriety, self-restraint, and control of word and feel- | ing.” I had had experience how my past success had been imputed to “secret management;” and how, when I had shown surprise at that success, that surprise again was imputed to “deceit;” and how my honest heartfelt sub- SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE, 319 mission to authority had been called, as it was called in a Bishop's charge abroad, “mystic humility;” and how my silence was called an “hypocrisy;” and my faithfulness to my clerical engagements a secret correspondence with the enemy. And I found a way of destroying my sensitiveness about these things which jarred upon my sense of justice, and otherwise would have been too much for me, by the contemplation of a large law of the Divine Dispensation, and felt myself more and more able to bear in my own person a present trial, of which in my past writings I had expressed an anticipation. - For thus feeling and thus speaking this Writer com- pares me to “Mawworm.” “I found him telling Chris- tians,” he says, “that they will always seem “artificial,’ and ‘wanting in openness and manliness;’ that they will always be ‘a mystery’ to the world; and that the world will always think them rogues; and bidding them glory in what the world (that is, the rest of their fellow-country- men) disown, and say with Mawworm, “I like to be despised.” Now how was I to know that the preacher . . . was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the plain practical result of a Sermon like this delivered before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every word P”—Fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung on my every word! If he had undertaken to write a history, and not a romance, he would have easily found out, as I have said above, that from 1841 I had severed myself from the younger generation of Oxford, that Dr. Pusey and I had then closed our theological meetings at his house, that I had brought my own weekly evening parties to an end, that I preached only by fits and starts at St. Mary's, so that the attendance of young men was broken up, that in those very weeks from Christmas till over Easter, during which this Sermon was preached, I was but five times in the pulpit there. He would have found, | •º 320 - NOTE C. that it was written at a time when I was shunned rather than sought, when I had great sacrifices in anticipation, when I was thinking much of myself; that I was ruth- lessly tearing myself away from my own followers, and that, in the musings of that Sermon, I was at the very utmost only delivering a testimony in my behalf for time to come, not sowing my rhetoric broadcast for the chance of present sympathy. Again, he says: “I found him actually using of such [prelates], (and, as I thought, of himself and his party like- wise,) the words “They yield outwardly; to assent inwardly were to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, not more than they may.’” This too is a proof of my dupli- city Let this writer, in his dealings with some one else, go just a little further than he has gone with me; and let him get into a court of law for libel; and let him be con- victed; and let him still fancy that his libel, though a libel, was true, and let us then see whether he will not in such a case “ yield outwardly,” without assenting internally; and then again whether we should please him, if we called him “deceitful and double-dealing,” because “he did as much as he could, not more than he ought to do.” But Tract 90 will supply a real illustration of what I meant. I yielded to the Bishops in outward act, viz. in not defending the Tract, and in closing the Series; but, not only did I not assent inwardly to any condemnation of it, but I opposed myself to the proposition of a condemnation on the part of authority. Yet I was then by the public called “deceitful and double-dealing,” as this Writer calls me now, “be- cause I did as much as I felt I could do, and not more than I felt I could honestly do.” Many were the publications of the day and the private letters, which accused me of shuffling, because I closed the Series of Tracts, yet kept the Tracts on sale, as if I ought to comply not only with SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 321 what my Bishop asked, but with what he did not ask, and perhaps did not wish. However, such teaching, according to this Writer, was likely to make young men “suspect, that truth was not a virtue for its own sake, but only for the sake of the spread of ‘Catholic opinions,’ and the ‘salvation of their own souls;” and that cunning was the weapon which heaven had allowed to them to defend themselves against the persecuting Protestant public.”— p. 16. And now I draw attention to a further point. He says, “How was I to know that the preacher . . did not fore- see, that [fanatic and hot-headed young men] would think that they obeyed him, by becoming affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for concealments and equivocations 3" “How should he know !” What 1 I suppose that we are to think every man a knave till he is proved not to be such. Know! had he no friend to tell him whether I was “affected” or “artificial” myself? Could he not have done better than impute equivocations to me, at a time when I was in no sense answerable for the amphibologia of the Roman casuists? Had he a single fact which belongs to me per- sonally or by profession to couple my name with equivoca- tion in 1843 P “How should he know” that I was not sly, smooth, artificial, non-naturall he should know by that common manly frankness, by which we put confidence in others, till they are proved to have forfeited it; he should know it by my own words in that very Sermon, in which I say it is best to be natural, and that reserve is at best but an unpleasant necessity. For I say there ex- pressly : — “I do not deny that there is something very engaging in a frank and unpre- tending manner; some persons have it more than others; in some persons it is a great grace. But it must be recollected that I am speaking of times of per- secution and oppression to Christians, such as the text foretells; and then surely frankness will become nothing else than indignation at the oppressor, 322 NOTE. C. and vehement speech, if it is permitted. Accordingly, as persons have deep feelings, so they will find the necessity of self-control, lest they should say what they ought not.” He sums up thus: “If [Dr. Newman] would . . . persist (as in this Sermon) in dealing with matters dark, offensive, doubtful, sometimes actually forbidden, at least accord- ing to the notions of the great majority of English Churchmen; if he would always do so in a tentative, paltering way, seldom or never letting the world know how much he believed, how far he intended to go; if, in a word, his method of teaching was a suspicious one, what wonder if the minds of men were filled with suspicions of him **—p. 17. Now, in the course of my Narrative, I have frankly admitted that I was tentative in such of my works as fairly allowed of the introduction into them of religious inquiry; but he is speaking of my Sermons; where, then, is his proof that in my Sermons I dealt in matters dark, offen- sive, doubtful, actually forbidden P. He must show that I was tentative in my Sermons; and he has the range of eight volumes to gather evidence in. As to the ninth, my University Sermons, of course I was tentative in them; but not because “I would seldom or never let the world know how much I believed, or how far I intended to go;” but because University Sermons are commonly, and allow- ably, of the nature of disquisitions, as preached before a learned body; and because in deep subjects, which had not been fully investigated, I said as much as I believed, and about as far as I saw I could go ; and a man cannot do more; and I account no man to be a philosopher who attempts to do more. SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 323 NOTE D. ON PAGE 213. SERIES of SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. I HAVE here an opportunity of preserving, what other- wise would be lost, the Catalogue of English Saints which I formed, as preparatory to the Series of their Lives which was begun in the above years. It is but a first Essay, and has many obvious imperfections; but it may be useful to others as a step towards a complete hagiography for Eng- land. For instance St. Osberga is omitted; I suppose because it was not easy to learn any thing about her. Boniface of Canterbury is inserted, though passed over by the Bollandists on the ground of the absence of proof of a cultus having been paid to him. The Saints of Cornwall were too numerous to be attempted. Among the men of note, not Saints, King Edward II. is included from piety towards the founder of Oriel College. With these admis- sions I present my Paper to the reader. Preparing for Publication, in Periodical Numbers, in small 8vo, The Lives of the English Saints, Edited by the Rev. John Henry Newman, IB.D., Fellow of Oriel College. IT is the compensation of the disorders and perplexities of these latter times of the Church that we have the history of the foregoing. We indeed of this day have been reserved to witness a disorganization of the City of God, which it never entered into the minds of the early believers to imagine: but we are witnesses also of its triumphs and of its luminaries through those many ages which have brought about the misfortunes which at present overshadow it. If they were blessed who lived in primitive times, and saw the fresh traces of their Lord, and heard the echoes of Apostolic voices, blessed too are we whose special portion it is to see that same Lord revealed in His Saints. 324. NOTE D. The wonders of His grace in the soul of man, its creative power, its inex- haustible resources, its manifold operation, all this we know, as they knew it not. They never heard the names of St. Gregory, St. Bernard, St. Francis, and St. Louis. In fixing our thoughts then, as in an undertaking like the present, on the History of the Saints, we are but availing ourselves of that solace and recompense of our peculiar trials which has been provided for our need by our Gracious Master. And there are special reasons at this time for recurring to the Saints of our own dear and glorious, most favoured, yet most erring and most un- fortunate England. Such a recurrence may serve to make us love our country better, and on truer grounds, than heretofore; to teach us to invest her territory, her cities and villages, her hills and springs, with sacred asso- ciations; to give us an insight into her present historical position in the course of the Divine Dispensation; to instruct us in the capabilities of the English character; and to open upon us the duties and the hopes to which that Church is heir, which was in former times the Mother of St. Boniface and St. Ethelreda. - Even a selection or specimens of the Hagiology of our country may suffice for some of these high purposes; and in so wide and rich a field of research it is almost presumptuous in one undertaking to aim at more than such a partial exhibition. The list that follows, though by no means so large as might have been drawn up, exceeds the limits which the Editor proposes to his hopes, if not to his wishes; but, whether it is allowed him to accomplish a larger or smaller portion of it, it will be his aim to complete such subjects or periods as he begins before bringing it to a close. It is hardly necessary to observe that any list that is producible in this stage of the undertaking can but approximate to correctness and completeness in matters of detail, and even in the names which are selected to compose it. He has considered himself at liberty to include in the Series such saints as have been born in England, though they have lived and laboured out of it; and such, again, as have been in any sufficient way connected with our country, though born out of it; for instance, Missionaries or Preachers in it, or spiritual or temporal rulers, or founders of religious institutions or houses. He has also included in the Series a few eminent or holy persons, who, though not in the Sacred Catalogue, are recommended to our religious memory by their fame, learning, or the benefits they have conferred on posterity. These have been distinguished from the Saints by printing their names in italics. It is proposed to page all the longer Lives separately; the shorter will be thrown together in one. They will be published in monthly issues of not more than 128 pages each; and no regularity, whether of date or of subject, will be observed in the order of publication. But they will be so numbered as to admit ultimately of a general chronological arrangement. - The separate writers are distinguished by letters subjoined to each Life: SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVEs of 1843-4. 325 and it should be added, to prevent misapprehension, that, since under the present circumstances of our Church, they are necessarily of various, though not divergent, doctrinal opinions, no one is answerable for any composition but his own. At the same time, the work professing an historical and ethical character, questions of theology will be, as far as possible, thrown into the back ground. Littlemore, Sept. 9, 1843. J. H. N. CALENDAR OF ENGLISH SAINTS. JANUARY. 1 Elvan, B. and Medwyne, C. 2 Martyrs of Lichfield. 3 Melorus, M. Edward, K.C. Peter, A. Cedd, B. Pega, W. Wulsin, B. Adrian, A. Bertwald, Archb. 10 Setirida, V. 11 Egwin, B. 12 Benedict Biscop, A. Aelred, A. 13 Kentigern, B. 14 Beuno, A. 15 Ceolulph, K. Mo. 16 Henry, Hermit. Fursey, A. 17 Mildwida, W. 18 Ulfrid or Wolfrid, M. 19 Wulstan, B. Henry, B. 20 21 22 Brithwold, B. 23 Boisil, A. 24 Cadoc, A. 25 i FEBRUARY. 1. 2 Laurence, Archb. Wereburga, V. Gilbert, A. Liephard, B.M. Ina, K. Mo. Augulus, B.M. Richard, K. Elfleda, A. Cuthman, C. Theliau, B. 10 Trumwin, B. ll 12 Ethelwold, B. of Lindisfarne. Cedmon, Mo. 13 Ermenilda, Q.A. 14 15 Sigefride, B. 16 Finan, B. 17 18 19 20 Ulric, H. 21 22 i 26 Theoritgida, V. 27 Bathildis, Queen. 28 29 Gildas, A. 30 / 31 Adamnan, Mo. Serapion, M. 23 Milburga, V. 24 Luidhard, B. Ethelbert of Kent, EC 25 Waiburga, W.A. 26 27 Alnoth, H.M. 28 Oswald, B. 29 326 NOTE D. MARCH. 1 David, Archb. Swibert, B. 2 Chad, B. Willeik, C. Joavan, B. 3 Winwaloe, A. 4. Owin, Mo. 5 6 Kineburga, &c., and Tibba, WV. Balther, C. and Bilfrid, H. 7 Easterwin, A. William, Friar. 8 Felix, B. 9 Bosa, B. 10 11 12 Elphege, B. Paul de Leon, B.C. 13 14 Robert, H. 15 Eadgith, A. 16 17 Withburga, V. 18 Edward, K.M. 19 Alcmund, M. 20 Cuthbert, B. Herbert, B. 21 22 23 AEdelwald, H. 24 Hildelitha, A. 25 Alfwold of Sherborne, B. and Wil- liam, M. 26 27 16 17 Stephen, A. 1S 19 Elphege, Archb. 20 Adelhare, M. Cedwalla, K. 21 Anselm, Archb. Doctor. 22 23 George, M. 24 Mellitus, Archb. Wilfrid, Archb. Egbert, C. 29 Wilfrid II. Archb. 30 Erconwald, B. Suibert, B. Maud, Q. - MAY. Germanus, M. Pthelred, K. Mo. Eadbert, A. John, Archb. of Beverley. 1. 11 Fremund, M. 12 13 14 15 16 Simon Stock, H. 1 7 18 Elgiva, Q. 19 Dunstan, Archb. B. Alcuin, A. 20 Ethelbert, K.M. 21 Godric, H. 22 Winewald, A. Berethun, A. IIenry, K. 23 24 Ethelburga, Q. 25 Aldhelm, B. 26 Augustine, Archb. 27 Bede, D. Mo. 28 Lanfranc, Archb. ' 29 Asaph, B. Ultan, A. Brioc, B.C. 28 29 Gundleus, H. 30 Merwenna, A. 31 APRIL. Richard, B. 9 Frithstan, B. 10 11 Guthlake, H. 12 13 Caradoc, H. 14 Richard of Bury, B. 15 Paternus, B. 30 Walstön, C. 31 Jurmin, C. º SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 327 JUNE. Wistan, K.M. 4. Petroc, A. 5 Boniface, Archb. M. Gudwall, B. Robert, A. William, Archb. i 10 Ivo, B. and Ithamar, B. 11 12 Eskill, B.M. 13 14 Elerius, A. 15 Edburga, V. 16 17 Botulph, A. John, Fr. 18 19 20 Idaberga, V. 21 Egelmund, A. 22 Alban, and Amphibolus, MM. 23 Ethelreda, V.A. 24 Bartholomew, H. 25 Adelbert, C. 26 16 Helier, H.M. 17 Kenelm, K.M. 18 Edburga and Edgitha of Ayles- bury, WV. Frederic, B.M. 19 20 21 22 23 24 Wulfud and Ruffin, M.M. Lew- 25 . [inna, V.M. 26 27 Hugh, M. 28 Sampson, B. 29 Lupus, B. [V. 30 Tatwin, Archb. and Ermenigitha, 31 Germanus, B. and Neot, H. AUGUST. 1 Ethelwold, B. of Winton. 2 Etheldritha, V. 3 Walthen, A. 4. 5 Oswald, K.M. Thomas, Mo. M. ; [of Dover. 8 Colman, B. 9 LO 11 William of Waynfleet, B. 12 13 Wigbert, A. Walter, A. 14 Werenfrid, C. 18 Helen, Empress. 19 20 Oswin, K.M. 21 Richard, B. of Andria. 22 Sigfrid, A. 23 Ebba, W.A. 24 25 Ebba, V.A.M. 26 Bregwin, Archb. Bradwardine, Archb. 27 Sturmius, A. 28 29 Sebbus, K. 30 * 27 John, C. of Moutier. 28 29 Margaret, Countess of Richmond. 30 - JULY. 1 Julius, Aaron, MM. Rumold, B. Leonorus, B. 2 Oudoceus, B. Swithun, B. 3 Gunthiern, A. 4. Odo, Archb. 5 Modwenna, W.A. 6 Sexburga, A. 7 Edelburga, W.A. Hedda, B. Wil- libald, B. Ercongota, W. 8 Grimbald, and Edgar, K. 9 Stephen Langton, Archb. 13 Mildreda, W.A. 14 Marchelm, C. Boniface, Archb. 15 Deusdedit, Archb. Plechelm, B. David, A. and Editha of Tam- worth, Q.W. 31 Eanswida, W.A. Aidan, Cuthburga, Q.W. A.B. NOTE ID. SEPTEMIBER. :: William, B. of Roschid. William, Fr. 6 Bega, A. 7 Alcmund, A. Tilhbert, A. 8 9 Bertelin, H. Wulfhilda or Wul- fridis, A. 10 Otger, C. 11 Robert Kilwardby, Archb. 12 13 14 Richard Foa, B. 15 16 Ninian, B. Edgar, V. 17 Socrates and Stephen, MM. 18 19 Theodore, Archb. 20 21 Hereswide, Q. I'dward II. K. 22 23 24 25 Ceolfrid, A. 26 27 William of Wykeham, B. 28 Lioba, V.A. 29 B. Richard of Hampole, H. 30 Honorius, Archb. Edith, daughter of OCTOBER. 1 Roger, B. 2 Thomas of Hereford, B. 3 Ewalds (two) MM. 4. 5 Walter Stapleton, B. 6 Ywy, C. 7 Ositha, Q.V.M. 8 Ceneu, V. 9 Lina, W. and Robert Grostete, B. 10 Paulinus, Archb. Bridlington. 11 Edilburga, W.A. 12 Edwin, K. 13 John, C. of 14 Burchard, B. 15 Tecla, V.A. 16 Lullus, Archb. 17 Ethelred, Ethelbright, MM. 18 Walter de Merton, B. 19 Frideswide, W. and Elbin. A. 20 21 Ursula, V.M. 22 Mello, B.C. 23 24 Magloire, B. 25 John of Salisbury, B. 26 Eata, B. 27 Witta, B. 28 B. Alfred. 29 Sigebert, K. Elfreda, A. 30 31 Foillan, B.M. NOVEMBER. 1. 2 3 Wenefred, W.M. Rumwald, C. 4 Brinstan, B. Clarus, M. 5 Cungar, H. 6 Iltut, A. and Winoc, A. 7 Willebrord, B. 8 Willehad, B. Tyssilio, B. 9 10 Justus, Archb. 11. 12 Lebwin, C. 13 Eadburga of Menstrey, A. 14 Dubricius, B.C. 15 Malo, B. 16 Edmund, B. 17 Hilda, A. Hugh, B. 18 • . 19 Ermenburga, Q. 20 Edmund, K.M. Humbert, B.M. Acca, B. 21 - 22 Paulinus, A. 23 Daniel, B.C. 24 25 26 27 28 Edwold, M. 29 - 30 SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843. 4. 329 1. 2 Weede, V. 3 Birimus, B. Lucius, K. and Sola, 18 Winebald, A. H 4. Osmund, D. 5 Christina, V. 6 7. 8 John Peckham, Archb. 24, 9 10 11 Elfleda, A. 12 Corentin, B.C. DECEMBER. 16 17 19 20 21 Eadburga, V.A. 22 23 25 26 Tathai, C. 27 Gerald, A.B. 28 13 Ethelburga, Q. wife of Edwin. 29 Thomas, Archb. M. 14 15 30 31 N.B. St. TWilliam, Austin-Friar, Ingulphus, and Peter of Blois have not been introduced into the above Calendar, their days of death or festival not being as yet ascertained. - 182 300 303 304 328 388 4ll 432 CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT. Dec. 3. Jan. 1. Oct. 22. Ap. 23. June 22. July 1. Jan. 2. Feb. 7. Aug. 18. Sept. 17. Jan. 3. Sept. 16. July 31. July 29. May 1. SECOND CENTURY. Lucius, K. of the British. - Elvan, B. and Medwyne, C. envoys from St. Lucius to Rome. FOURTH CENTURY. Mello, B. C. of Rouen. George, M. under Dioclesian. Patron of England. Alban and Amphibalus, MM. Julius and Aaron, M.M. of Caerleon. Martyrs of Lichfield. Augulus, B.M. of London. . Helen, Empress, mother of Constantine. Socrates and Stephen, M.M. perhaps in Wales. Melorus, M. in Cornwall. FIFTH CENTURY. Ninian, B. Apostle of the Southern I’icts. Germanus, B. C. of Auxerre. Lupus, B. C. of Troyes. Brioc, B. C., disciple of St. Germanus. 330 NOTE D. 490 Oct. 8. Ceneu, or Keyna, V., sister-in-law of Gundleus. 492 Mar. 29. Gundleus, Hermit, in Wales. July 3. Gunthiern, A., in Brittany. 453 Oct. 21. Ursula, V.M. near Cologne. bef. 500 Dec. 12. Corentin, B.C. of Quimper. FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. WELSII SCIIOOLs. 444–522 Nov. 14. Dubricius, B.C., first Bishop of Llandaff. 520 Nov. 22. Paulinus, A. of Whitland, tutor of St. David and St. Theliau. 445–544 Mar. 1. David, Archb. of Menevia, afterwards called from him. abt. 500 Dec. 26. Tathai, C., master of St. Cadoc. 480 Jan. 24. Cadoc, A., son of St. Gundleus, and nephew of St. Keyna. abt. 513 Nov. 6. Iltut, A., converted by St. Cadoc. 545 Nov. 23. Daniel, B.C., first Bishop of Bangor. aft. 559 Apr. 18. Paternus, B.A., pupil of St. Iltut. 573 Mar. 12. Paul, B.C. of Leon, pupil of St. Iltut. Mar. 2. Ioavan, B., pupil of St. Paul. 599 July 28. SAMPSON, B., pupil of St. Iltut, cousin of St. Paul de Leon. 565 Nov. 15. Malo, B., cousin of St. Sampson. 575 Oct. 24. Magloire, B., cousin of St. Malo. 583 Jan. 29. Gildas, A., pupil of St. Iltut. July 1. Leonorus, B., pupil of St. Iltut. 604 Feb. 9. Theliau, B. of Llandaff, pupil of St. Dubricius. 560 July 2. Oudoceus, B., nephew to St. Theliau. 500–580 Oct. 19. Ethbin, A., pupil of St. Sampson. 516–601 Jan. 13. Kentigern, B. of Glasgow, founder of Monastery of Elwy. SIXTH CENTURY. 529 Mar. 3. Winwaloe, A., in Brittany. 564 June 4. Petroc., A., in Cornwall. July 16. Helier, Hermit, M., in Jersey. • June 27. John, C. of Moutier, in Tours. . 590 May 1. Asaph, B. of Elwy, afterwards called after him. abt. 600 June 6. Gudwall, B. of Aleth in Brittany. Nov. 8. Tyssilio, B. of St. Asaph. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART I. 600 June 10. Ivo, or Ivia, B. from Persia. 596 Feb. 24. Luidhard, B. of Senlis, in France. 616 Feb. 24. Ethelbert, K. of Kent. 608 May 26. Augustine, Archb. of Canterbury, Apostle of England. 624 Apr. 24. Mellitus, Archb. of º 619 Feb. 2. Laurence, Archb. of Canterbury, | g 608 Jan. 6. Peter, A. at Canterbury, y Y Cº. of St. 627 Nov. 10. Justus, Archb. of Canterbury, | ugustine. 653 Sept. 30. Honorius, Archb. of Canterbury, 662 July 15. Deus-dedit, Archb. of Canterbury. SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 331 642 646 650 680 655 680 671 650 705 717 690 709 709 630 642 660 673 630 680 687 700 644 633 642 651 683 689 650 681 Oct. 29. Mar. 8. Jan. 16. May 1. Oct. 31. June 17. June 10. Dec. 3. July 7. Jan. 11. Sept. 19. Jan. 9. May 25. Nov. 3. Feb. 4. Jan. 14. Oct. 7. June 14. Jan. 27. July 24. July 18. Oct. 10. Oct. 12. Dec. 13. Aug. 5. Aug. 20. Aug. 23. Jan. 31. Sept. 6. Nov. 17. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART II. Sigebert, K. of the East Angles. Felix, B. of Dunwich, Apostle of the East Angles. Fursey, A., preacher among the East Angles. Ultan, A., brother of St. Fursey. Foillan, B.M., brother of St. Fursey, preacher in the Netherlands. Botulph, A., in Lincolnshire or Sussex. Ithamar, B. of Rochester. Birinus, B. of Dorchester. Hedda, B. of Dorchester. z Egwin, B. of Worcester. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART III. Theodore, Archb. of Canterbury. Adrian, A. in Canterbury. * Aldhelm, B. of Sherborne, pupil of St. Adrian. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART IV. Winefred, W.M. in Wales. Liephard, M.B., slain near Cambray. Beuno, A., kinsman of St. Cadocus and St. Kentigern. Osgitha, Q.V.M., in East Anglia during a Danish inroad. Elerius, A. in Wales. Bathildis, Q., wife of Clovis II., king of France. Lewinna, V.M., put to death by the Saxons. Edberga and Edgitha, WV. of Aylesbury. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART V. Paulinus, Archb. of York, companion of St. Augustine. Edwin, K. of Northumberland. Ethelburga, Q., wife to St. Edwin. Oswald, K.M., St. Edwin’s nephew. Oswin, K.M., cousin to St. Oswald. Ebba, W.A. of Coldingham, half-sister to St. Oswin. Adamnan, Mo. of Coldingham. SEVENTH CENTURY. PART VI.--WHITBY. Bega, W.A., foundress of St. Bee’s, called after her. Hilda, A. of Whitby, daughter of St. Edwin’s nephew. 716 680 Dec. 11. Feb. 12. Elfleda, A. of Whithy, daughter of St. Oswin. , Cedmon, Mo. of Whitby. 332 INOTE ID. 654 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. Sept. 21. Jan. 10. Apr. 30. Aug. 29. May 31. July 7. PART I. Hereswida, Q., sister of Hilda, wife of Annas, who suc- ceeded Egric, Sigebert’s cousin. Sethrida, V.A. of Faremoutier, St. Hereswida’s daughter by a former marriage. Erconwald, A.B., son of Annas and St. Hereswida, Bishop of London, Abbot of Chertsey, founder of Barking. Sebbus, K., converted by St. Erconwald. Jurmin, C., son of Annas and St. Hereswida. Edelburga, V.A. of Faremoutier, natural daughter of Annas. Ethelreda, Etheldreda, Etheltrudis, or Awdry, W.A., daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida. - Withburga, V., daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida. Sexburga, A., daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida. Ercongota, or Ertongata, V.A. of Faremoutier, daughter of St. Sexburga. - Ermenilda, Q.A., daughter of St. Sexburga, wife of Wulfere. * Wereburga, V., daughter of St. Ermenilda and Wulfere, patron of Chester. Alnoth, H.M., bailiff to St. Wereburga. Eanswida, V.A., sister-in-law of St. Sexburga, grand- daughter to St. Ethelbert. Ethelred and Ethelbright, MM., nephews of St. Ean- Swida. Ermenigitha, W., niece of St. Eanswida. Edilberga, V.A. of Barking, daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida. Theoritgida, W., nun of Barking. Cuthberga, Q.W., of Barking, sister of St. Ina. Hildelitha, A. of Barking. Ina, K. Mo. of the West Saxons. Ethelburga, Q., wife of St. Ina, nun at Barking. 677 650 - 679 699 660 699 aft. 675 Feb. 3. abt. 680 Feb. 27. 640 Aug. 31. 668 Oct. 17. July 30. 676 Oct. 11. 678 Jan. 26. aft. 713 Aug. 31. 700 Mar. 24. 728 Feb. 6. 740 May 24. 652 June 20. 696 Mar. 6. 701 692 Dec. 2. 696 Mar. 6. Nov. 3. 680 Nov. 19. Feb. 23. ... July 13. 676 Jan. 17. 750 Nov. 13. June 23. Mar. 17. July 6. July 7. Feb. 13. SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. PART II. Idaburga, V. Kineburga, Q.A. Kinneswitha, W. . Chidestre, V. | Weeda, V.A. Tibba, W., their kinswoman. Rumwald, C., grandson of Penda. Ermenburga, Q., mother to the three following. Milburga, W.A. of Wenlock, l Grand-daughters of Daughters of King Penda. Mildreda, V.A. of Menstrey, Milwida, or Milgitha, V. Penda. Eadburga, A. of Menstrey. SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 333 670 July 24. 672 Mar. 2. 664 Jan. 7. 688 Mar. 4. 689 Apr. 20. (390–725 Nov. 5. 700 Feb. 10. 705 Mar. 9. 709 Apr. 24. 721 May 7. 743 Apr. 29. 733 May 22. 751 May 22. 729 Apr. 24. 693 Oct. 3. 690–736 Nov. 7. 717 Mar. 1. 727 Mar. 2. 705 June 25. 705 Aug. 14. 720 June 21. 730 Sept. 10. 732 July 15. 750 May 2. 760 Nov. 12, 760 July 14. 697–755 June 5. 712 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. PART III. Wulfad and Ruffin, M.M., sons of Wulfere, Penda’s son, and of St. Erminilda. Chad, IB. of Lichfield. Cedd, B. of London. Owin, Mo. of Lichfield. Cedwalla, K. of West Saxons. Cungar, H. in Somersetshire. Trumwin, B. of the Picts. Bosa, Archb. of York. Wilfrid, Archb. of York. John of Beverley, Archb. of York. Wilfrid II., Archb. of York. Berethun, A. of Deirwood, disciple of St. John of Beverley. Winewald, A. of Deirwood. SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. Feb. 7. PART IV.-MISSIONS. Egbert, C., master to Willebrord. Ewalds (two), MM. in Westphalia. Willebrord, B. of Utrecht, Apostle of Friesland. Swibert, B., Apostle of Westphalia. Willeik, C., successor to St. Swibert. •' Adelbert, C., grandson of St. Oswald, preacher in Holland. Werenfrid, C., preacher in Friesland. Engelmund, A., preacher in Holland. Otger, C. in Low Countries. Plechelm, B., preacher in Guelderland. Germanus, B.M. in the Netherlands. Lebwin, C. in Overyssel, in Holland. Marchelm, C., companion of St. Lebwin, in Holland. Boniface, Archb., M. of Mentz, Apostle of Germany. Richard, K. of the West Saxons. Willibald, B. of Aichstadt, 704–790 July 7. 730–760 Dec. 18. 779 Fob. 25. aft. 755 Sept. 28. 750 Oct. 15. 788 Oct. 16. abt. 747 Aug. 13. 755 Apr. 20. 780 Aug. 27. 786 Oct. 27. in Franconia, | Winebald, A. of Heiden- Children of heim, in Suabia, St. Richard. Walburga, V.A. of Heiden- heim, Lioba, W.A. of Bischofsheim, Companions Tecla, V.A. of Kitzingen, in Franconia, of St. Ilullus, Archb. of Mentz, Boniface. Wigbert, A. of Fritzlar and Ortdorf, in Germany, Adelhare, B.M. of Erford, in Franconia, Sturmius, A. of Fulda, Witta, or Albuinus, B. of Buraberg, in Germany, ſ 334 NOTE D. 791 791 790 775 807 670 651 664 676 685 687 690 698 700 740 740 764 756 781 789 703 685 689 716 734 804. 710 719 714. 717 730 732 734 750 762 Nov. 8. Oct. 14. I)ec. 3. July 1. Apr. 30. Jan. 23. Aug. 31. Feb. 16. Aug. 8. Oct. 26. Mar. 20. Oct. 6. Mar. 20. May 6. Mar. 23. Feb. 12. Nov. 20. Jan. 15. Mar, 6. Sept. 7. Sept. 7. Jan. 12. Mar. 7. Aug. 22. Sept. 25. May 27. May 19. May 5. Jan. 8. April 11. Nov. 6. Jan. 9. Dec. 27. July 30. Oct. 19. Aug. 26. Willehad, B. of Bremen, and Apostle of Saxony, Companions Burchard, B. of Wurtzburg, in Fran- of St. conia, Boniface. Sola, H., near Aichstadt, in Franconia, Rumold, B., Patron of Mechlin. Suibert, B. of Verden in Westphalia. SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. PART W.—LINDISFARNE AND HEXIIAM. Boisil, A. of Melros, in Scotland. Aidan, A.B. of Lindisfarne. Finan, B. of Lindisfarne. Colman, B. of Lindisfarne. Eata, B. of Hexham. Cuthbert, B. of Lindisfarne. Ywy, C. disciple of St. Cuthbert. Herbert, H. disciple of St. Cuthbert. Radbert, B. of Lindisfarne. AEdelwald, H. successor of St. Cuthbert, in his hermitage. Ethelwold, B. of Lindisfarne. Acca, B. of Hexham. Ceolulph, K. Mo. of Lindisfarne. Balther, H. at Lindisfarne. Bilfrid, H. Goldsmith at Lindisfarne. Alchmund, B. of Hexham. Tilhbert, B. of Hexham. SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES. PART VI.--WEARMOUTH AND YARRow. Benedict Biscop, A. of Wearmouth. Easterwin, A. of Wearmouth. Sigfrid, A. of Wearmouth. Ceofrid, A. of Yarrow. Bede, Doctor, Mo. of Yarrow. IB. Alcuin, A. in France. EIGHTH CENTURY. Ethelred, K. Mo. King of Mercia, Monk of Bardney. Pega, W., sister of St. Guthlake. Guthlake, H. of Croyland. Winoc, A. in Brittany. Bertwald, Archb. of Canterbury. Gerald, A.B. in Mayo. Tatwin, Archb. of Canterbury. Frideswide, W. patron of Oxford. Bregwin, Archb. of Canterbury. 700-800 Feb. 8. Cuthman, C. of Stening in Sussex. bef. 800 Sept. 9. Bertelin, H. patron of Stafford. SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 335 793 834 819 849 838 894 819 May 20. Aug. 2. July 17. June 1. July 18. Nov. 4. Mar. 19. EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES. Ethelbert, K.M. of the Dast Angles. Etheldritha, or Alfreda, V., daughter of Offa, king of Mer- cia, nun at Croyland. Kenelm, K.M. of Mercia. Wistan, K.M. of Mercia. Frederic, Archb. M. of Utrecht. Clarus, M. in Normandy. NINTH CENTURY. PART I.-DANISH SLAUGHTERs, &c. Alcmund, M., son of Eldred, king of Northumbria, Patron of Derby. 870 862 870 867 862 870 871 900 880 883 903 900 929 934 96 926 921 975 978 984 990 980 990 1016 Nov. 20. May 11. Nov. 20. Aug. 25. July 2. July 5. Oct. 9. Mar. 15. Dec. 21. Nov. 28. July 31. July 8. Oct. 28. April 9. Nov. 4. June 15. July 15. May 18. July 8. Mar. 18. Sept. 16. Sept. 9. Mar. 30. Oct. 29. Dec. 5. Edmund, K.M. of the East Angles. Fremund, H. M. nobleman of East Anglia. Humbert, B.M. of Elmon in East Anglia. Ebba, V.A.M. of Coldingham. NINTH CENTURY. PART II. Swithun, B. of Winton. Modwenna, W.A. of Pollesworth in Warwickshire. Lina, V. nun at Pollesworth. Eadgith, W.A. of Pollesworth, sister of King Ethelwolf. Eadburga, V.A. of Winton, daughter of King Ethelwolf. Edwold, H., brother of St. Edmund. NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES. Neot, H. in Cornwall. Grimbald, A. at Winton. JB. Alfred, K. . Frithstan, B. of Winton. Brinstan, B. of Winton. TENTH CENTURY. PART I. Edburga, W., nun at Winton, granddaughter of Alfred. Editha, Q.W., nun of Tamworth, sister to Edburga. Algyfa, or Elgiva, Q., mother of Edgar. - Edgar, K. Edward, K.M. at Corfe Castle. Edith, V., daughter of St. Edgar and St. Wulfhilda. Wulfhilda, or Wulfrida, A. of Wilton. * --, Merwenna, V.A. of Romsey. Blfreda, A. of Romsey. Christina of Romsey, W., sister of St. Margaret of Scotland. 336 NOTE D- 961 July 4. TENTH CENTURY. PART II. Odo, Archb. of Canterbury, Benedictine Monk. 960-992 Feb. 28. Oswald, Archb. of York, B. of Worcester, nephew to St. Odo. 951–1012 Mar. 12. Elphege the Bald, B. of Winton. 988 973 984, 1015 950 1016 1028 1050 1012 1016 1053 1067 1066 1099 1095 1089 1109 1170 1200 1109 1117 1124 1127 1144. 1151 1150 1154 1170 1180 May 19. Jan. 8. Aug. 1. Jan. 22. Feb. 15. June 12. Jan. 18. July 15. April 19. May. 30. Mar. 35. Sept. 2. Jan. 5. Dec. 4. Dunstan, Archb. of Canterbury. Wulsin, B. of Sherbourne. Ethelwold, B. of Winton. Brithwold, B. of Winton. TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. MISSIONS. Sigfride, B., apostle of Sweden. Eskill, B.M. in Sweden, kinsman of St. Sigfride. Wolfred, M. in Sweden. - David, A., Cluniac in Sweden. ELEVENTH CENTURY. Elphege, M. Archb. of Canterbury. Walston, C. near Norwich. Alfwold, B. of Sherborne. William, B. of Roschid in Denmark. |Edward, K.C. Osmund, B. of Salisbury. ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES. Jan. 19. May 28. Apr. 21. Dec. 29. Nov. 17. . Apr. 30. Apr. 13. Jan. 16. Mar. 25. Jan. 19. Aug. 13. June 8. May 21. Oct. 25. Wulstan, B. of Worcester. Lanfranc, Archb. of Canterbury. Anselm, Doctor, Archb. of Canterbury. Thomas, Archb. M. of Canterbury. Hugh, B. of Lincoln, Carthusian Monk. TWELFTH CENTURY. PART I. Ingulphus, A. of Croyland. B. Maud, Q. Wife of Henry I. Caradoc, H. in South Wales. Henry, H. in Northumberland. William, M. of Norwich. Henry, M.B. of Upsal. Walter, A. of Fontenelle, in France. William, Archb. of York. Godric, H. in Durham. John of Salisbury, B. of Chartres. SERIES OF SAINTs’ LIVES OF 1843-4. 337 1182 1189 1190 1200 1134, 1139 1154. 1160 1166 1228 1242 1253 1282 1294 1217 1232 1240 1265 1279 1239 1241 1255 1295 1254 1270 1278 1326 1327 1349 1345 1349 June 24. Feb. 4. Aug. 21. Apr. 17. June 7. Feb. 20. Aug. 3. Jan. 12. July 9. Nov. 16. Apr. 3. Oct. 2. Dec. 3. June 17. Mar. 7. Jan. 31. May 16. Sept. 11. Mar. 14. Oct. 1. July 27. Aug. 5. Oct. 9, July 14, Oct. 18. Oct. 5. Sept. 21. Sept. 29. Apr. 14. Aug. 26. Bartholomew, C., monk at Durham. Gilbert, A. of Sempringham. Richard, B. of Andria. J’eter de Blois, Archd. of Bath. TWELFTH CENTURY. PART II.-CISTERTIAN ORDER. Stephen, A. of Citeaux. - Robert, A. of Newminster in Northumberland. Ulric, H. in Dorsetshire. Walthen, A. of Melrose. Aelred, A. of Rieval. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. PART I. Stephen Langton, Archb. of Canterbury. Edmund, Archb. of Canterbury. Richard, B. of Chichester. Thomas, B. of Hereford. John Peckham, Archb. of Canterbury. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. | PART II.-ORDERS OF FRIARS. John, Fr., Trinitarian. William, Fr., Franciscan. Serapion, Fr., M., Redemptionist. Simon Stock, H., General of the Carmelites. Bobert Kilwardby, Archb. of Canterbury Fr. Domi- %2C(Mºe THIRTEENTH CENTURY. PART III. IRobert H. at Knaresboro’. Roger, B. of London. Hugh, M. of Lincoln. Thomas, Mo., M. of Dover. Robert Grossteste, B. of Lincoln. Boniface, Archb. of Canterbury. Walter de Merton, B. of Rochester. FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Stapleton, B. of Eazeter. JEdward K. JB. Richard, H. of Hampole. Ičichard of Bury, B. of Lincoln. Bradwardine, Archb. of Canterbury, the Doctor Pro- Jundus, Z 338 NOTE I). 1358 Sept. 2. William, Fr., Servite. 1379 Oct. 10. John, C. of Bridlington. 1324–1404 Sept. 27. William of Wykeham, B. of Winton. 1400 William, Fr. Austin. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 1471 May 22. Henry, K. of England. 1486 Aug. 11. William of Wanefleet, B. of Winton. 1509 June 29. Margaret, Countess of Richmond. 1528 Sept. 24. Bichard Foa, B. of Winton. THE ANGLICAN CHURCIL. 339 NOTE E. ON PAGE 227. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. I HAVE been bringing out my mind in this Volume on every subject which has come before me; and therefore I am bound to state plainly what I feel and have felt, since I was a Catholic, about the Anglican Church. I said, in a former page, that, on my conversion, I was not conscious of any change in me of thought or feeling, as regards matters of doctrine; this, however, was not the case as regards some matters of fact, and, unwilling as I am to give offence to religious Anglicans, I am bound to confess that I felt a great change in my view of the Church of England. I cannot tell how soon there came on me, but very soon,-an extreme astonishment that I had ever imagined it to be a portion of the Catholic Church. For the first time, I looked at it from without, and (as I should myself say) saw it as it was. Forthwith I could not get myself to see in it any thing else, than what I had so long fearfully suspected, from as far back as 1836,-a mere (national institution.) As if my eyes were suddenly opened, so I saw it—spontaneously, apart from any definite act of reason or any argument; and so I have seen it ever since. I suppose, the main cause of this lay in the contrast which was presented to me by the Catholic Church. Then I recognized at once a reality which was quite a new thing with me. Then I was sensible that I was not making for myself a Church by an effort of thought; I needed not to make an act of faith in her; I had not painfully to force myself into a position, but my mind fell back upon itself in relaxation and in peace, and I gazed at her almost 340 NOTE TE. passively as a great objective fact. I looked at her;-at her rites, her ceremonial, and her precepts; and I said, “This is a religion;” and then, when I looked back upon the poor Anglican Church, for which I had laboured so hard, and upon all that appertained to it, and thought of our various attempts to dress it up doctrinally and esthe- tically, it seemed to me to be the veriest of nonentities. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity How can I make a record of what passed within me, without seeming to be satirical? But I speak plain, serious words. As people call me credulous for acknowledging Catholic claims, so they call me satirical for disowning Anglican pretensions; to them it is credulity, to them it is satire; but it is not so in me. What they think exaggeration, I think truth, I am not speaking of the Anglican Church with any disdain, though to them I seem contemptuous. To them of course it is “Aut Caesar aut nullus,” but not to me. It may be a great creation, though it be not divine, and this is how I judge of it. Men, who abjure the divine right of kings, would be very indignant, if on that account they were considered disloyal. And so I recognize in the Anglican Church a time-honoured institution, of noble historical memories, a monument of ancient wisdom, a momentous arm of political strength, a great national organ, a source of vast popular advantage, and, to a certain point, a wit- ness and teacher of religious truth. I do not think that, if what I have written about it since I have been a Catholic, be equitably considered as a whole, I shall be found to have taken any other view than this; but that it is something sacred, that it is an Oracle of revealed doctrine, that it can claim a share in St. Ignatius or St. Cyprian, that it can take the rank, contest the teaching, and stop the path of the Church of St. Peter, that it can call itself “the Bride of the Lamb,” this is the view of it which simply disappeared from my THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 341 mind on my conversion, and which it would be almost a miracle to reproduce. “I went by, and lo! it was gone; I sought it, but its place could no where be found;” and nothing can bring it back to me. And, as to its pos- session of an episcopal succession from the time of the Apostles, well, it may have it, and, if the Holy See ever so decide, I will believe it, as being the decision of a higher judgment than my own; but, for myself, I must have St. Philip's gift, who saw the sacerdotal character on the forehead of a gaily-attired youngster, before I can by my own wit acquiesce in it, for antiquarian arguments are altogether unequal to the urgency of visible facts. Why is it that I must pain dear friends by saying so, and Kindle a sort of resentment against me in the kindest of hearts? but I must, though to do it be not only a grief to me, but most impolitic at the moment. Any how, this is my mind; and, if to have it, if to have betrayed it, before now, involuntarily by my words or my deeds, if on a fitting occasion, as now, to have avowed it, if all this be a proof of the justice of the charge brought against me by my accuser of having “turned round upon my Mother- Church with contumely and slander,” in this sense, but in no other sense, do I plead guilty to it without a word in extehuation. g In no other sense surely; the Church of England has been the instrument of Providence in conferring great benefits on me;—had I been born in Dissent, perhaps I should never have been baptized; had I been born an English Presbyterian, perhaps I should never have known our Lord's divinity; had I not come to Oxford, perhaps I never should have heard of the visible Church, or of Tradition, or other Catholic doctrines. And as I have received so much good from the Anglican Establishment itself, can I have the heart or rather the want of charity, considering that it does for so many others, what it has 342 NOTE TE. done for me, to wish to see it overthrown P I have no such wish while it is what it is, and while we are so small a body. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of the many congregations to which it ministers, I will do no- thing against it. While Catholics are so weak in Eng- land, it is doing our work; and, though it does us harm in a measure, at present the balance is in our favour. What our duty would be at another time and in other circumstances, supposing, for instance, the Establishment lost its dogmatic faith, or at least did not preach it, is another matter altogether. In secular history we read of hostile nations having long truces, and renewing them from time to time, and that seems to be the position which the Catholic Church may fairly take up at present in rela- tion to the Anglican Establishment. Doubtless the National Church has hitherto been a serviceable breakwater against doctrinal errors, more fundamental than its own. How long this will last in the years now before us, it is impossible to say, for the Nation drags down its Church to its own level; but still the National Church has the same sort of influence over the Nation that a periodical has upon the party which it represents, and my own idea of a Catholic’s fitting attitude towards the National Church in this its supreme hour, is that of assisting and sustaining it, if it be in our power, in the interest of dogmatic truth. I should wish to avoid every thing (except indeed under the direct call of duty, and this is a material exception,) which went to weaken its hold upon the public mind, or to unsettle its establish- ment, or to embarrass and lessen its maintenance of those great Christian and Catholic principles and doctrines which it has up to this time successfully preached. THE ECONOMY. 343 NOTE F. ON PAGE 269. THE ECONOMY. FoR the Economy, considered as a rule of practice, I shall refer to what I wrote upon it in 1830–32, in my History of the Arians. I have shown above, pp. 26, 27, that the doctrine in question had in the early Church a large signification, when applied to the divine ordi- nances: it also had a definite application to the duties of Christians, whether clergy or laity, in preaching, in instructing or catechizing, or in ordinary intercourse with the world around them; and in this aspect I have here to consider it. As Almighty God did not all at once introduce the Gospel to the world, and thereby gradually prepared men for its profitable reception, so, according to the doctrine of the early Church, it was a duty, for the sake of the heathen among whom they lived, to observe a great reserve and caution in communicating to them the know- ledge of “the whole counsel of God.” This cautious dis- pensation of the truth, after the manner of a discreet and vigilant steward, is denoted by the word “economy.” It is a mode of acting which comes under the head of Pru- dence, one of the four Cardinal Wirtues. The principle of the Economy is this; that out of various courses, in religious conduct or statement, all and each allowable antecedently and in themselves, that ought to be taken which is most expedient and most suitable at the time for the object in hand. Instances of its application and exercise in Scripture are such as the following:–1. Divine Providence did but 344 NOTE F. gradually impart to the world in general, and to the Jews in particular, the knowledge of His will:—He is said to have “winked at the times of ignorance among the hea- then ;” and He suffered in the Jews divorce “because of the hardness of their hearts.” 2. He has allowed Him- self to be represented as having eyes, ears, and hands, as having wrath, jealousy, grief, and repentance. 3. In like manner, our Lord spoke harshly to the Syro-Phoenician woman, whose daughter He was about to heal, and made as if He would go further, when the two disciples had come to their journey’s end. 4. Thus too Joseph “made himself strange to his brethren,” and Elisha kept silence on request of Naaman to bow in the house of Rimmon. 5. Thus St. Paul circumcised Timothy, while he cried out “Circumcision availeth not.” It may be said that this principle, true in itself, yet is dangerous, because it admits of an easy abuse, and carries men away into what becomes insincerity and cunning. This is undeniable; to do evil that good may come, to consider that the means, whatever they are, justify the end, to sacrifice truth to expedience, unscrupulousness, recklessness, are grave offences. These are abuses of the Economy. But to call them economical is to give a fine name to what occurs every day, independent of any know- ledge of the doctrine of the Economy. It is the abuse of a rule which nature suggests to every one. Every one looks out for the “mollia tempora fandi,” and for “mollia verba’ too. Having thus explained what is meant by the Economy as a rule of social intercourse between men of different religious, or, again, political, or social views, next I will go on to state what I said in the Arians. º I say in that Volume first, that our Lord has given us the principle in His own words,-‘‘Cast not your pearls before swine;” and that He exemplified it in His teach- THE ECONOMY. 345 ing by parables; that St. Paul expressly distinguishes between the milk which is necessary to one set of men, and the strong meat which is allowed to others, and that, in two Epistles. I say, that the Apostles in the Acts observe the same rule in their speeches, for it is a fact, that they do not preach the high doctrines of Christianity, but only “Jesus and the Resurrection * or “repentance and faith.” I also say, that this is the very reason that the Fathers assign for the silence of various writers in the first centuries on the subject of our Lord's divinity. I also speak of the catechetical system practised in the early Church, and the disciplina arcani as regards the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, to which Bingham bears witness; also of the defence of this rule by Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Theodoret. But next the question may be asked, whether I have said any thing in my Volume to guard the doctrine, thus laid down, from the abuse to which it is obviously exposed: and my answer is easy. Of course, had I had any idea that I should have been exposed to such hostile mis- representations, as it has been my lot to undergo on the subject, I should have made more direct avowals than I have done of my sense of the gravity and the danger of that abuse. Since I could not foresee when I wrote, that I should have been wantonly slandered, I only wonder that I have anticipated the charge as fully as will be seen in the following extracts. - For instance, speaking of the Disciplina Arcani, I say:— (1) “The elementary information given to the heathen or catechumen was in no sense undone by the subsequent secret teaching, which was in fact but the filling up of a bare but correct outline,” p. 58, and I contrast this with the conduct of the Manichaeans “who represented the initiatory disci- pline as founded on a fiction or hypothesis, which was to be forgotten by the learner as he made progress in the real / 346 NOTE F. doctrine of the Gospel.” (2) As to allegorizing, I say that the Alexandrians erred, whenever and as far as they proceeded “to obscure the primary meaning of Scripture, and to weaken the force of historical facts and express de- clarations,” p. 69. (3) And that they were “more open to censure,” when, on being “urged by objections to various passages in the history of the Old Testament, as derogatory to the divine perfections or to the Jewish Saints, they had recourse to an allegorical earplanation by way of answer,” p. 71. (4) I add, “It is impossible to defend such a procedure, which seems to imply a want of faith in those who had recourse to it ;” for “God has given us rules of right and wrong,” ibid. (5) Again, I say,+“The abuse of the Economy in the hands of unscrupulous reasoners, is obvious. Even the honest con- troversialist or teacher will find it very difficult to repre- sent, without misrepresenting, what it is yet his duty to pre- sent to his hearers with caution or reserve. Here the obvious rule to guide our practice is, to be careful ever to maintain substantial truth in our use of the economical method,” pp. 79, 80. (6) And so far from concurring at all hazards with Justin, Gregory, or Athanasius, I say, “It is plain [they] were justified or not in their Economy, according as they did or did not practically mislead their opponents,” p. 80. (7) I proceed, “It is so difficult to hit the mark in these perplexing cases, that it is not won- derful, should these or other Fathers have failed at times, and said more or less than was proper,” ibid. The Principle of the Economy is familiarly acted on among us every day. When we would persuade others, we do not begin by treading on their toes. Men would be thought rude who introduced their own religious notions into mixed society, and were devotional in a drawing-room. Have we never thought lawyers tiresome who did not observe this polite rule, who came down for the assizes and talked law all through dinner P Does the same argument THE ECONOMY. 347 tell in the House of Commons, on the hustings, and at Exeter Hall P Is an educated gentleman never worsted at an election by the tone and arguments of some clever fellow, who, whatever his shortcomings in other respects, understands the common people P As to the Catholic Religion in England at the present day, this only will I observe, that the truest expedience is to answer right out, when you are asked ; that the wisest economy is to have no management; that the best pru- dence is not to be a coward; that the most damaging folly is to be found out shuffling ; and that the first of virtues is to “tell truth, and shame the devil.” - 348 NOTE G. NOTE G. ON PAGE 279. IYING AND EQUIVOCATION. AIMOST all authors, Catholic and Protestant, admit, that when a just cause is present, there is some kind or other of verbal misleading, which is not sin. Even silence is in certain cases virtually such a misleading, according to the Proverb, “Silence gives consent.” Again, silence is abso- lutely forbidden to a Catholic, as a mortal sin, under cer- tain circumstances, e.g. to keep silence, when it is a duty to make a profession of faith. Another mode of verbal misleading, and the most direct, is actually saying the thing that is not ; and it is defended on the principle that such words are not a lie, when there is a “justa causa,” as killing is not murder in the case of an executioner. Another ground of certain authors for saying that an untruth is not a lie where there is a just cause, is, that veracity is a kind of justice, and therefore, when we have no duty of justice to tell truth to another, it is no sin not to do so. Hence we may say the thing that is not, to children, to madmen, to men who ask impertinent ques- tions, to those whom we hope to benefit by misleading. Another ground, taken in defending certain untruths, ea. justá causa, as if not lies, is, that veracity is for the sake of society, and that, if in no case whatever we might lawfully mislead others, we should actually be doing society great harm. Another mode of verbal misleading is equivocation or a play upon words; and it is defended on the theory that to LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 349 - lie is to use words in a sense which they will not bear. But an equivocator uses them in a received sense, though there is another received sense, and therefore, according to this definition, he does not lie. Others say that all equivocations are, after all, a kind of lying, faint lies or awkward lies, but still lies; and some of these disputants infer, that therefore we must not equi- vocate, and others that equivocation is but a half-measure, and that it is better to say at once that in certain cases untruths are not lies. Others will try to distinguish between evasions and equivocations; but though there are evasions which are clearly not equivocations, yet it is very difficult scientifi- cally to draw the line between the one and the other. To these must be added the unscientific way of dealing with lies:—viz. that on a great or cruel occasion a man cannot help telling a lie, and he would not be a man, did he not tell it, but still it is very wrong, and he ought not to do it, and he must trust that the sin will be forgiven him, though he goes about to commit it ever so deliberately, and is sure to commit it again under similar circumstances. It is a necessary frailty, and had better not be thought about before it is incurred, and not thought of again, after is is well over. This view cannot for a moment be de- fended, but, I suppose, it is very common. I think the historical course of thought upon the matter has been this: the Greek Fathers thought that, when there was a justa causa, an untruth need not be a lie. St. Augus- tine took another view, though with great misgiving ; and, whether he is rightly interpreted or not, is the doctor of the great and common view that all untruths are lies, and that there can be no just cause of untruth. In these later times, this doctrine has been found difficult to work, and it has been largely taught that, though all untruths 350 NOTE G. are lies, yet that certain equivocations, when there is a just cause, are not untruths. Further, there have been and all along through these later ages, other schools, running parallel with the above mentioned, one of which says that equivocations, &c. after all are lies, and another which says that there are untruths which are not lies. And now as to the “just cause,” which is the condition, sine quá non. The Greek Fathers make it such as these, self defence, charity, zeal for God’s honour, and the like. St. Augustine seems to deal with the same “just causes” as the Greek Fathers, even though he does not allow of their availableness as depriving untruths, spoken on such occasions, of their sinfulness. He mentions defence of life and of honour, and the safe custody of a secret. Also the great Anglican writers, who have followed the Greek Fathers, in defending untruths when there is the “just cause,” consider that “just cause” to be such as the pre- servation of life and property, defence of law, the good of others. Moreover, their moral rights, e.g. defence against the inquisitive, &c. St. Alfonso, I consider, would take the same view of the “justa causa’ as the Anglican divines; he speaks of it as “quicumque finis honestus, ad servanda bona spirituivel corpori utilia;’ which is very much the view which they take of it, judging by the instances which they give. - In all cases, however, and as contemplated by all authors, Clement of Alexandria, or Milton, or St. Alfonso, such a causa is, in fact, extreme, rare, great, or at least special. Thus the writer in the Mélanges Théologiques (Liège, 1852-3, p. 453) quotes Lessius: “Si absºlue justa causa fiat, est abusio orationis contra virtutem veritatis, et civilem consuetudinem, etsi proprie non sit menda- LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 351 cium.” That is, the virtue of truth, and the civil custom, are the measure of the just cause. And so Voit, “If a man has used a reservation (restrictione non pure mentali) without a grave cause, he has sinned gravely.” And so the author himself, from whom I quote, and who defends the Patristic and Anglican doctrine that there are un- truths which are not lies, says, “Under the name of mental reservation theologians authorize many lies, when there is for them a grave reason and proportionate,” i. e. to their character.—p. 459. And so St. Alfonso, in another Treatise, quotes St. Thomas to the effect, that if from one cause two immediate effects follow, and, if the good effect of that cause is equal in value to the bad effect (bonus apquivalet malo), then nothing hinders the speaker’s intend- ing the good and only permitting the evil. From which it will follow that, since the evil to society from lying is very great, the just cause which is to make it allowable, must be very great also. And so Kenrick: “It is confessed by all Catholics that, in the common intercourse of life, all ambiguity of language is to be avoided; but it is debated whether such ambiguity is ever lawful. Most theologians answer in the affirmative, supposing a grave cause urges, and the [true mind of the speaker can be collected from the adjuncts, though in fact it be not collected.” 4: However, there are cases, I have already said, of another kind, in which Anglican authors would think a lie allowable ; such as when a question is impertinent. Of such a case Walter Scott, if I mistake not, supplied a very distinct example, in his denying so long the author- ship of his novels. What I have been saying shows what different schools of opinion there are in the Church in the treatment of this difficult doctrine; and, by consequence, that a given individual, such as I am, cannot agree with all of them, 352 NOTE G. and has a full right to follow which of them he will. The freedom of the Schools, indeed, is one of those rights of reason, which the Church is too wise really to interfere with. And this applies not to moral questions only, but to dogmatic also. It is supposed by Protestants that, because St. Alfonso’s writings have had such high commendation bestowed upon them by authority, therefore they have been invested with a quasi-infallibility. This has arisen in good measure from Protestants not knowing the force of theological terms. The words to which they refer are the authorita- tive decision that “nothing in his works has been found worthy of censure,” “ censură dignum;” but this does not lead to the conclusions which have been drawn from it. Those words occur in a legal document, and cannot be interpreted except in a legal sense. In the first place, the sentence is negative; nothing in St. Alfonso's writings is positively approved; and, secondly, it is not said that there are no faults in what he has written, but nothing which comes under the ecclesiastical censura, which is something very definite. To take and interpret them, in the way commonly adopted in England, is the same mistake, as if one were to take the word “Apologia '' in the English sense of apology, or “Infant’’ in law to mean a little child. 1. Now first as to the meaning of the above form of words viewed as a proposition. When a question on the subject was asked of the fitting authorities at Rome by the Arch- bishop of Besançon, the answer returned to him contained this condition, viz. that those words were to be inter- preted, “with due regard to the mind of the Holy See concerning the approbation of writings of the servants of God, ad effectum Canonizationis.” This is intended to prevent any Catholic taking the words about St. Alfonso's LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 3 A- 53 works in too large a sense. Before a Saint is canonized, his works are examined, and a judgment pronounced upon them. Pope Benedict XIV. says, “The end or scope of this judgment is, that it may appear, whether the doc- trine of the servant of God, which he has brought out in his writings, is free from any soever theological censure.” And he remarks in addition, “It never can be said that the doctrine of a servant of God is approved by the Holy See, but at most it can [only] be said that it is not dis- approved (non reprobatam) in case that the Revisers had reported that there is nothing found by them in his works, which is adverse to the decrees of Urban VIII., and that the judgment of the Revisers has been approved by the sacred Congregation, and confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff.” The Decree of Urban VIII. here referred to is, “Let works be examined, whether they contain errors against faith or good morals (bonos mores), or any new doctrine, or a doctrine foreign and alien to the common sense and custom of the Church.” The author from whom I quote this (M. Wandenbroeck, of the diocese of Malines) observes, “It is therefore clear, that the approbation of the works of the Holy Bishop touches not the truth of every proposition, adds nothing to them, nor even gives them by consequence a degree of intrinsic probability.” He adds that it gives St. Alfonso’s theology an extrinsic probability, from the fact that, in the judgment of the Holy See, no proposition deserves to receive a censure; but that “that probability will cease nevertheless in a particular case, for any one who should be convinced, whether by evident arguments, or by a decree of the Holy See, or otherwise, that the doctrine of the Saint deviates from the truth.” He adds, “From the fact that the approbation of the works of St. Alfonso does not decide the truth of each proposition, it follows, as Benedict XIV. has remarked, that we may combat the doctrine which - A a 354 N(\TE G. they contain ; only, since a canonized saint is in question, who is honoured by a solemn culte in the Church, we ought not to speak except with respect, nor to attack his opinions except with temper and modesty.” 2. Then, as to the meaning of the word censura : Benedict XIV. enumerates a number of “ Notes” which come under that name ; he says, “Out of propositions which are to be noted with theological censure, some are heretical, some erroneous, some close upon error, some savouring of heresy,” and so on; and each of these terms has its own definite meaning. Thus by “erroneous” is meant, according to Viva, a proposition which is not immediately opposed to a revealed proposition, but only to a theological conclusion drawn from premisses which are de fide; “savouring of heresy is” a proposition, which is opposed to a theological conclusion not evidently drawn from premisses which are de fide, but most probably and according to the common mode of theologizing;-and so with the rest. Therefore when it was said by the Revisers of St. Alfonso’s works that they were not “worthy of censure,” it was only meant that they did not fall under these particular Notes. But the answer from Rome to the Archbishop of Besan- çon went further than this; it actually took pains to declare that any one who pleased might follow other theo- logians instead of St. Alfonso. After saying that no Priest was to be interfered with who followed St. Alfonso in the Confessional, it added, “This is said, however, without on that account judging that they are reprehended who follow opinions handed down by other approved authors.” - And this too I will observe, that St. Alfonso made many changes of opinion himself in the course of his writings; and it could not for an instant be supposed that we were bound to every one of his opinions, when he did IYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 355 not feel himself bound to them in his own person. And, what is more to the purpose still, there are opinions, or Some opinion, of his which actually have been proscribed by the Church since, and cannot now be put forward or used. I do not pretend to be a well-read theologian myself, but I say this on the authority of a theological professor of Breda, quoted in the Mélanges Théol. for 1850-1. He says: “It may happen, that, in the course of time, errors may be found in the works of St. Alfonso and be pro- scribed by the Church, a thing which in fact has already occurred.” In not ranging myself then with those who consider that it is justifiable to use words in a double sense, that is, to equivocate, I put myself under the protection of such authors as Cardinal Gerdil, Natalis Alexander, Contenson, Concina, and others. Under the protection of these autho- rities, I say as follows:— * Casuistry is a noble science, but it is one to which I am led, neither by my abilities nor my turn of mind. Inde- pendently, then, of the difficulties of the subject, and the necessity, before forming an opinion, of knowing more of the arguments of theologians upon it than I do, I am very unwilling to say a word here on the subject of Lying and Equivocation. But I consider myself bound to speak; and therefore, in this strait, I can do nothing better, even for my own relief, than submit myself, and what I shall say, to the judgment of the Church, and to the consent, so far as in this matter there be a consent, of the Schola Theologorum. Now in the case of one of those special and rare exigen- cies or emergencies, which constitute the justa causa of dissembling or misleading, whether it be extreme as the defence of life, or a duty as the custody of a secret, or of a personal nature as to repel an impertinent inquirer, or a 356 - NOTE G. matter too trivial to provoke question, as in dealing with children or madmen, there seem to be four courses:— 1. To say the thing that is not. Here I draw the reader's attention to the words material and formal. “Thou shalt not kill;” murder is the formal transgression of this com- mandment, but accidental homicide is the material trans- gression. The matter of the act is the same in both cases; but in the homicide, there is nothing more than the act, whereas in murder there must be the intention, &c., which constitutes the formal sin. So, again, an executioner com- mits the material act, but not that formal killing which is a breach of the commandment. So a man, who, simply to save himself from starving, takes a loaf which is not his own, commits only the material, not the formal act of stealing, that is, he does not commit a sin. And so a baptized Christian, external to the Church, who is in invincible ignorance, is a material heretic, and not a formal. And in like manner, if to say the thing which is not be in special cases lawful, it may be called å material lie. The first mode then which has been suggested of meet- ing those special cases, in which to mislead by words has a sufficient occasion, or has a just cause, is by a mate- rial lie. The second mode is by an aquivocatio, which is not equivalent to the English word “equivocation,” but means sometimes a play upon words, sometimes an evasion : we must take these two modes of misleading separately. 2. A play upon words. St. Alfonso certainly says that a play upon words is allowable; and, speaking under cor- rection, I should say that he does so on the ground that lying is not a sin against justice, that is, against our neighbour, but a sin against God. God has made words the signs of ideas, and therefore if a word denotes two ideas, we are at liberty to use it in either of its senses: but LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 357 I think I must be incorrect in some respect in supposing that the Saint does not recognize a lie as an injustice, because the Catechism of the Council, as I have quoted it at p. 281, says, “Vanitate et mendacio fides ac veritas tolluntur, arctissima Vincula Societatis humanaº ; quibus sublatis, sequitur summa vitae confusio, ut homines nihil a daemonibus differre videantur.” ~ 3. Evasion ; —when, for instance, the speaker diverts the attention of the hearer to another subject; suggests an irrelevant fact or makes a remark, which confuses him and gives him something to think about ; throws dust into his eyes; states some truth, from which he is quite sure his hearer will draw an illogical and untrue conclusion, and the like. The greatest school of evasion, I speak seriously, is the House of Commons; and necessarily so, from the nature of the case. And the hustings is another. An instance is supplied in the history of St. Athana- sius: he was in a boat on the Nile, flying persecution; and he found himself pursued. On this he ordered his men to turn his boat round, and ran right to meet the satellites of Julian. They asked him, “Have you seen Athanasius P” and he told his followers to answer, “Yes, he is close to you.” They went on their course as if they were sure to come up to him, while he ran back into Alexandria, and there lay hid till the end of the persecution. I gave another instance above, in reference to a doctrine of religion. The early Christians did their best to conceal their Creed on account of the misconceptions of the heathen about it. Were the question asked of them, “Do you worship a Trinity ?” and did they answer, “We worship one God, and none else;” the inquirer might, or would, infer that they did not acknowledge the Trinity of Divine Persons. It is very difficult to draw the line between these 358 NOTE G. evasions and what are commonly called in English equivo- cations; and of this difficulty, again, I think, the scenes in the House of Commons supply us with illustrations. 4. The fourth method is silence. For instance, not giving the whole truth in a court of law. If St. Alban, after dressing himself in the Priest's clothes, and being taken before the persecutor, had been able to pass off for his friend, and so gone to martyrdom without being dis- covered; and had he in the course of examination answered all questions truly, but not given the whole truth, the most important truth, that he was the wrong person, he would have come very near to telling a lie, for a half- truth is often a falsehood. And his defence must have been the ſusta causa, viz. either that he might in charity or for religion’s sake save a priest, or again that the judge had no right to interrogate him on the subject. Now, of these four modes of misleading others by the tongue, when there is a ſusta causa (supposing there can be such), (1) a material lie, that is, an untruth which is not a lie, (2) an equivocation, (3) an evasion, and (4) silence,—First, I have no difficulty whatever in recog- nizing as allowable the method of silence. Secondly, But, if I allow of silence, why not of the method of material lying, since half of a truth is often a lie? And, again, if all killing be not murder, nor all taking from another stealing, why must all untruths be lies P Now I will say freely that I think it difficult to answer this question, whether it be urged by St. Clement or by Milton; at the same time, I never have acted, and I think, when it came to the point, I never should act upon such a theory myself, except in one case, stated below. This I say for the benefit of those who speak hardly of Catholic theologians, on the ground that they admit text-books which allow of equivocation. They are asked, how can we trust you, when such are your views? but such views, as I,YING AND EQUIVOCATION. 359 I already have said, need not have any thing to do with their own practice, merely from the circumstance that they are contained in their text-books. A theologian draws out a system ; he does it partly as a scientific speculation : but much more for the sake of others. He is lax for the sake of others, not of himself. His own standard of action is much higher than that which he imposes upon men in general. One special reason why religious men, after drawing out a theory, are unwilling to act upon it them- selves, is this : that they practically acknowledge a broad distinction between their reason and their conscience; and that they feel the latter to be the safer guide, though the former may be the clearer, may even though it be the truer. They would rather be in error with the sanction of their conscience, than be right with the mere judgment of their reason. And again here is this more tangible diffi- culty in the case of exceptions to the rule of Veracity, that so very little external help is given us in drawing the line, as to when untruths are allowable and when not ; whereas that sort of killing which is not murder, is most definitely marked off by legal enactments, so that it can- not possibly be mistaken for such killing as is murder. On the other hand the cases of exemption from the rule of Veracity are left to the private judgment of the indi- vidual, and he may easily be led on from acts which are allowable to acts which are not. Now this remark does not apply to such acts as are related in Scripture, as being done by a particular inspiration, for in such cases there is a command. If I had my own way, I would oblige society, that is, its great men, its lawyers, its divines, its literature, publicly to acknowledge as such, those instances of untruth which are not lies, as for instance untruths in war; and then there could be no perplexity to the indi- vidual Catholic, for he would not be taking the law into his own hands. 360 NOTE G. Thirdly, as to playing upon words, or equivocation, I suppose it is from the English habit, but, without meaning any disrespect to a great Saint, or wishing to set myself up, or taking my conscience for more than it is worth, I can only say as a fact, that I admit it as little as the rest of my countrymen: and, without any reference to the right and the wrong of the matter, of this I am sure, that, if there is one thing more than another which prejudices Englishmen against the Catholic Church, it is the doctrine of great authorities on the subject of equivocation. For myself, I can fancy myself thinking it was allowable in extreme cases for me to lie, but never to equivocate. Luther said, “Pecca fortiter.” I anathematize his formal sentiment, but there is a truth in it, when spoken of mate- rial acts. Fourthly, I think evasion, as I have described it, to be perfectly allowable; indeed, I do not know, who does not use it, under circumstances; but that a good deal of moral danger is attached to its use; and that, the cleverer a man is, the more likely he is to pass the line of Christian duty. But it may be said, that such decisions do not meet the particular difficulties for which provision is required; let us then take some instances. 1. I do not think it right to tell lies to children, even on this account, that they are sharper than we think them, and will soon find out what we are doing; and our ex- ample will be a very bad training for them. And so of equivocation: it is easy of imitation, and we ourselves shall be sure to get the worst of it in the end. 2. If an early Father defends the patriarch Jacob in his mode of gaining his father's blessing, on the ground that the blessing was divinely pledged to him already, that it was his, and that his father and brother were acting at once against his own rights and the divine will, it does not LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 361 follow from this that such conduct is a pattern to us, who have no supernatural means of determining when an un- truth becomes a material, and not a formal lie. It seems to me very dangerous, be it ever allowable or not, to lie or equivocate in order to preserve some great temporal or spiritual benefit; nor does St. Alfonso here say any thing to the contrary, for he is not discussing the question of danger or expedience. 3. As to Johnson’s case of a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at what- ever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have told a lie. - 4. A secret is a more difficult case. Supposing some- thing has been confided to me in the strictest secrecy, which could not be revealed without great disadvantage to another, what am I to do P If I am a lawyer, I am pro- tected by my profession. I have a right to treat with ex- treme indignation any question which trenches on the inviolability of my position; but, supposing I was driven up into a corner, I think I should have a right to say an untruth, or that, under such circumstances, a lie would be material, but it is almost an impossible case, for the law would defend me... In like manner, as a priest, I should think it lawful to speak as if I knew nothing of what passed in confession. And I think in these cases, I do in fact possess that guarantee, that I am not going by private judgment, which just now I demanded; for society would bear me out, whether as a lawyer or as a priest, in holding that I had a duty to my client or penitent, such, that an 362 NOTE G. untruth in the matter was not a lie. A common type of this permissible denial, be it material lie or evasion, is at the moment supplied to me:—an artist asked a Prime Minister, who was sitting to him, “What news, my Lord, from France?” He answered, “I do not know ; I have not read the Papers.” 5. A more difficult question is, when to accept con- fidence has not been a duty. Supposing a man wishes to keep the secret that he is the author of a book, and he is plainly asked on the subject. Here I should ask the previous question, whether any one has a right to publish what he dare not avow. It requires to have traced the bearings and results of such a principle, before being sure of it; but certainly, for myself, I am no friend of strictly anonymous writing. Next, supposing another has con- fided to you the secret of his authorship —there are per- sons who would have no scruple at all in giving a denial to impertinent questions asked them on the subject. I have heard a great man in his day at Oxford, warmly contend, as if he could not enter into any other view of the matter, that, if he had been trusted by a friend with the secret of his being author of a certain book, and he were asked by a third person, if his friend was not (as he really was) the author of it, he ought, without any scruple and distinctly, to answer that he did not know. He had an existing duty towards the author; he had none towards his inquirer. The author had a claim on him ; an impertinent questioner had none at all. But here again I desiderate some leave, recognized by society, as in the case of the formulas “Not at home,” and “Not guilty,” in order to give me the right of saying what is a material untruth. And moreover, I should here also ask the previous question, Have I any right to accept such a confidence P have I any right to make such a I.YING AND EQUIVOCATION. 363 promise? and, if it be an unlawful promise, is it binding when it cannot be kept without a lie? I am not attempting to solve these difficult questions, but they have to be care- fully examined. And now I have said more than I had intended on a question of casuistry. SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER. LETTERS AND PAPERS OF THE AUTHOR USED IN THE COURSE OF THIS WORK. February 11, 1811 PAGE 3 2 October 26, 1823 September 7, 1829 July 20, 1834 November 28, , , August 18, 1837 February 11, 1840 5 5 21, » October 29(?), November 95 March 15, 1841 35 20, , 55 24, , 55 - 25, 95 April 1, 2, 55 4, 55 35 8, 95 - 95 8, 99 99 26, 27 May 5, , 92 9, 99 June 18 y 93 . 119 41 57 29 . 124 . 129 . 132 . 135 . 137 . 170 . 208 . 137 . 137 . 138 . 138 . 187 . 188 . 188 . 138 . 189 September 12, 1841 October 12, , 5 5 17, 2 3 55 22, 35 November 11, ,, 55 14, 95 December 13, ,, 95 24, 95 92 25, 33 25 26, , March 6, 1842 April 14, , October 16, , November 22, ,, Feb. 25, & 28, 1843 March 8, , 92 8, 55 May 4, , 55 ſº 18, 93 June 20, , July 16, , August 29, , PAGE . 190 . 143 . 140 . 140 . 145 . 144 . 156 . 157 . 159 . 162 . 177 . 173 . 171 . 193 . 181 . 182 . 184 . 208 . 209 . 178 . 179 . 213 LETTERS AND PAPERS OF THE AUTHOR, &c. 365 August 30, 1843 September 7, 55 29, October 14, 5 3 25, 33 31, November 13, 1843 or 1844 January 22, February 21, April 3, 53 8, July 14, September 16, November 7, 99 PAGE . 179 . 213 . 225 . 219 . 221 . 223 . 140 . 178 . 226 . 226 . 205 . 226 . 197 . 227 . 230 . 211 November 16, 1844 55 24, , 1844 (?) 1844 or 1845 January 8, 1845 March 30, , , April 3, .. 55 16, 5 y June l, 55 17, , , October 8, , November 8, ,, 55 25, 99 January 20, 1846 December 6, 1849 PAGE . 228 . 229 . 225 . 167 . 230 . 231 . 232 . 180 . 232 . 180 . 234 . 155 . 235 . 236 . 185 366 SUPPLEMENT AL MATTER. II. LIST OF TEIE AUTHOR'S PUBLICATIONS. THE request has been made to me from various quarters for a list of my writings. This I now give, as follows [up to Christmas, 1869]:— 1. Life and Writings of Cicero . & e & é e Griffin. 2. Life of Apollonius Tyanaeus and Essay on Scripture Miracles Griffin. 3. Articles in the Christian Observer (excluding the foot- notes), 1821, p. 293, Mathematics, and 1822, p. 623, Religious Students; in British Review, May 1824, Duncan's Travels; in Theological Review, June 1825, Cooper's Crisis and Robinson’s Acts; and in London Review, 1828, Greek Tragedy . gº dº g . Out of print. 4. History of the Arians . o © e º * Lumley. 5–10. Parochial Sermons . tº g e . Wols 1 and 4 out of print. 1. Plain Sermons (vol. 5th). tº wº . . Rivingtons. 12. In the British Magazine, 1833–1836, Home Thoughts Abroad, and 1834, On Convocation te & 13. Tracts for the Times (smaller Tracts), Nos. 1, 2. 6, 7, 8. - 10, 1}. 19, 20, 21. 34.38. 41.45. 47 e & . Rivingtons. Tracts for the Times (larger Tracts), Nos. 71. 73. 75. 79. 82, 83.85. 88. 90 © * tº º e 14. Pamphlets, 1830–1841. 1. Suggestions in behalf of the Church Missionary Society. 2. Suffragan Bishops. 3. Elucidations of Dr. Hampden’s Statements. 4. Letter to Faussett. 5. Letters by Catholicus. 6. Letter to Jelf. 7. Letter to Bishop of Oxford . . . . . Out of print. Except Suffragan Bishops Rivingtons. 15. Articles in British Critic, 1836–1842. 1. Apostolical Tradition. 2. Dr. Wiseman's Lectures. 3. De la Mennais. 4. Geraldine. 5. Memorials of Oxford. 6. Exeter Hall. 7. Palmer on the Church of Christ. 8. St. Ignatius of Antioch. 9. State of Religious Parties. 10. American Church. 11. Catholicity of the English Church. 12. Countess of Huntingdon. 13. Antichrist. 14. Milman's Christianity. 15. Bow- den's Hildebrand. 16. Private Judgment. 17. Davison Out of print. Out of print. Rivingtons. LIST OF THE AUTHOR’s PUBLICATIONS, 367 10. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. Church of the Fathers . e Q tº Prophetical Office of the Church . e Doctrine of Justification & tº University Sermons e g Sermons on Subjects of the Day Annotated Translation of St. Athanasius Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles Essay on Development of Doctrine Dissertatiunculae Critico-Theologicae Loss and Gain * . º Durns and Lambert. Sermons to Mixed Congregations Duffy. Anglican Difficulties e † & Duffy. Catholicism in England tº & * Duffy. Lectures on the Turks Duffy. University Education . g Longman. Office and Work of Universitie Longman. Lectures on University Subjects & Longman. Callista i.e. e tº o e gº * Burns and Lambert. decasional Sermons wº * e ſº Burns and Lambert. Review of Lyra Innocentium, in Dublin Review, 1846. Ancient Saints, 1–5, in the Rambler, 1859–1860. Burns and Lambert. 1. Benedictine Order. 2. Benedictine Centuries. 3. St. Cyril's Formula, in the Atlantis . & © G Longman. Apologia pro Vitā suá. [History of My Religious Opinions] Longman. Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. . { } Longman. The Pope and the Revolution: a Sermon Longman. Verses on Various Occasions . © & © Burns and Oates. Duffy. Out of print. Rivingtons. Rivingtons. Rivingtons. Parker, Oxford. Rivingtons. Toovey. Out of print. 368 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER. III. LETTER OF APPROBATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THI; BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF BIRMINGHAM, DR, ULLA- THORNE. “Bishop's House, June 2, 1864. “My dear Dr. Newman,— “It was with warm gratification that, after the close of the Synod yesterday, I listened to the Address presented to you by the clergy of the diocese, and to your impressive reply, But I should have been little satisfied with the part of the silent listener, except on the understanding with myself that I also might afterwards express to you my own sentiments in my own way. “We have now been personally acquainted, and much more than acquainted, for nineteen years, during more than sixteen of which we have stood in special relation of duty towards each other. This has been one of the singular bless- ings which God has given me amongst the cares of the Episcopal office. What my feelings of respect, of confidence, and of affection have been towards you, you know well, nor should I think of expressing them in words. But there is one thing that has struck me in this day of explanations, which you could not, and would not, be disposed to do, and which no one could do so properly or so authentically as I could, and which it seems to me is not altogether un- called for, if every kind of erroneous impression that some persons have enter- tained with no better evidence than conjecture is to be removed. “It is difficult to comprehend how, in the face of facts, the notion should ever have arisen that during your Catholic life, you have been more occupied with your own thoughts than with the service of religion and the work of the Church. If we take no other work into consideration beyond the written pro- ductions which your Catholic pen has given to the world, they are enough for the life's labour of another. There are the Lectures on Anglican Difficulties, the Lectures on Catholicism in England, the great work on the Scope and End of University Education, that on the Office and Work of Universities, the Lectures and Essays on University Subjects, and the two Volumes of Sermons; not to speak of your contributions to the Atlantis, which you founded, and to other periodicals; then there are those beautiful offerings to Catholic literature, the Lectures on the Turks, Loss and Gain, and Callista, and though last, not least, the Apologia, which is destined to put many idle LETTER OF DIR. UILTLATHORN E. 369 * . . } f rumours to rest, and many unprofitable surmises; and yet all these productions represent but a portion of your labour, and that in the second half of your period of public life. “These works have been written in the midst of labour and cares of another kind, and of which the world knows very little. I will specify four of these undertakings, each of a distinct character, and any one of which would have made a reputation for untiring energy in the practical order. “The first of these undertakings was the establishment of the congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri —that great ornament and accession to the force of English Catholicity. Both the London and the Birmingham Oratory must look to you as their founder and as the originator of their characteristic excellences; whilst that of Birmingham has never known any other presi- dency. “No sooner was this work fairly on foot than you were called by the highest authority to commence another, and one of yet greater magnitude and difficulty, the founding of a University in Ireland. After the Universities had been lost to the Catholics of these kingdoms for three centuries, every thing had to be begun from the beginning: the idea of such an institution to be inculcated, the plan to be formed that would work, the resources to be gathered, and the staff of superiors and professors to be brought together. Your name was then the chief point of attraction which brought these ele- ments together. You alone know what difficulties you had to conciliate and what to surmount, before the work reached that state of consistency and pro- mise, which enabled you to return to those responsibilities in England which you had never laid aside or suspended. And here, excuse me if I give ex- pression to a fancy which passed through my mind. “I was lately reading a poem, not long published, from the MSS. De Rerum Natura, by Neckham, the foster-brother of Richard the Lion-hearted. He quotes an old prophecy, attributed to Merlin, and with a sort of wonder, as if recollecting that England owed so much of its literary learning to that country; and the prophecy says that after long years Oxford will pass into Ireland—“Wada boum suo tempore transibunt in Hiberniam.” When I road this, I could not but indulge the pleasant fancy that in the days when the Dublin University shall arise in material splendour, an allusion to this pro- phecy might form a poetic element in the inscription on the pedestal of the statue which commemorates its first Rector. - “The original plan of an Oratory did not contemplate any parochial work, but you could not contemplate so many souls in want of pastors without being prompt and ready at the beck of authority to strain all your efforts in coming to their help. And this brings me to the third and the most continuous of those labours to which I have alluded. The mission in Alcester Street, its church and schools, were the first work of the Birmingham Oratory. After several years of close and hard work, and a considerable call upon the private resources of the Fathers who had established this congregation, it was de- B b 370 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER. livered over to other hands, and the Fathers removed to the district of Edgbaston, where up to that time nothing Catholic had appeared. Then arose under your direction the large convent of the Oratory, the church expanded by degrees into its present capaciousness, a numerous congregation has gathered and grown in it; poor schools and other pious institutions have grown up in connexion with it, and, moreover, equally at your expense and that of your brethren, and, as I have reason to know, at much inconvenience, the Oratory has relieved the other clergy of Birmingham all this while by constantly doing the duty in the poor-house and gaol of Birmingham. “More recently still, the mission and the poor school at Smethwick owe their existence to the Oratory. And all this while the founder and father of these religious works has added to his other solicitudes the toil of frequent preaching, of attendance in the confessional, and other parochial duties. “I have read on this day of its publication the seventh part of the Apologia, and the touching allusion in it to the devotedness of the Catholic clergy to the poor in seasons of pestilence reminds me that when the cholera raged so dreadfully at Bilston, and the two priests of the town were no longer equal to the number of cases to which they were hurried day and night, I asked you to lend me two fathers to supply the place of other priests whom 1 wished to send as a further aid. But you and Father St. John preferred to take the place of danger which I had destined for others, and remained at Bilston till the worst was over. “The fourth work which I would notice is one more widely known. I refer to the school for the education of the higher classes, which at the solicita- tion of many friends you have founded and attached to the Oratory. Surely after reading this bare enumeration of work done, no man will venture to say that Dr. Newman is leading a comparatively inactive life in the service of the Church. “To spare, my dear Dr. Newman, any further pressure on those feelings with which I have already taken so large a liberty, I will only add one word more for my own satisfaction. During our long intercourse there is only one subject on which, after the first experience, I have measured my words with some caution, and that has been where questions bearing on ecclesiastical duty have arisen. I found some little caution necessary, because you were always so prompt and ready to go even beyond the slightest intimation of my wish or desires. - ; , A - : “That God may bless you with health, life, and all the spiritual good which you desire, you and your brethren of the Oratory, is the earnest prayer now and often of, '. “My dear Dr. Newman, * * , , “Your affectionate friend and faithful servant in Christ, - “ -- W. B. ULLATHORNE.' LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &c. 371 . .: | f -- f| IV. LETTERS OF APPROBATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT FROM CLERGY AND TAITY. IT requires some words of explanation why I allow myself to sound my own praises so loudly, as I am doing by adding to my Volume the following Letters, written to me last year by large bodies of my Catholic brethren, Priests, and Laymen, in the course or on the conclusion of the publication of my Apologia. I have two reasons for doing so. 1. It seems hardly respectful to them, and hardly fair to myself, to practise self-denial in a matter, which after all belongs to others as well as to me. Bodies of men be- come authorities by the fact of being bodies, over and above the personal claims of the individuals who constitute them. To have received such unusual Testimonials in my favour, as I have to produce, and then to have let both those Testimonials and the generous feelings which dictated them be wasted, and come to nought, would have been a rudeness of which I could not bear to be guilty. Far be it from me to show such ingratitude to those who were especially “friends in need.” I am too proud of their approbation not to publish it to the world. 2. But I have a further reason. The belief obtains extensively in the country at large, that Catholics, and especially the Priesthood, disavow the mode and form, in which I am accustomed to teach the Catholic faith, as if they were not generally recognized, but something special and peculiar to myself; as if, whether for the purposes 372 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER. of controversy, or from the traditions of an earlier period of my life, I did not exhibit Catholicism pure and simple, as the bulk of its professors manifest it. Such testimonials, then, as now follow, from as many as 558 priests, that is, not far from half of the clergy of England, secular and religious, from the Bishop and clergy of a diocese at the Antipodes, and from so great and authoritative a body as the German Congress assembled last year at Wurzburg, scatter to the winds a suspicion, which it is not less pain- ful, I am persuaded, to numbers of those Protestants who entertain it, than it is injurious to me who have to bear it. I. THE DIOCESE OF WESTMINSTER. The following Address was signed by 110 of the Westminster clergy, including all the Canons, the Vicars- General, a great number of secular priests, and five Doctors in theology; Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic, of St. Francis, of the Oratory, of the Passion, of Charity, Oblates of St. Charles, and Marists. - “London, March 15, 1864. “Very Reverend and Dear Sir, - “We, the undersigned Priests of the Diocese of Westminster, tender to you our respectful thanks for the service you have done to religion, as well as to the interests of literary morality, by your Reply to the calumnies of [a popular writer of the day.] - \ “We cannot but regard it as a matter of congratulation that your assailant should have associated the cause of the Catholic Priesthood with the name of one so well fitted to represent its dignity, and to defend its honour, as yourself. - - “We recognize in this latest effort of your literary power one further claim, besides the many you have already established, to the gratitude and venera- tion of Catholics, and trust that the reception which it has met with on all LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &c. 37: !. •. ſ | | sides may be the omen of new successes which you are destined to achieve in the vindication of the teaching and principles of the Church. “We are, “Very Reverend and Dear Sir, “Your faithful and affectionate Servants in Christ.” (The Subscriptions follow.) “To the Very Rev. “John Henry Newman, D.D.” HI.--THE ACADEMIA OF CATHOLIC RELIGION. “London, April 19, 1804. “Very Rev. and Dear Sir, “The Academia of Catholic Religion, at their meeting held to-day, under the Presidency of the Cardinal Archbishop, have instructed us to write to you in their behalf. “As they have learned, with great satisfaction, that it is your intention to publish a defence of Catholic Veracity, which has been assailed in your person, they are precluded from asking you that that defence might be made by word of mouth, and in London, as they would otherwise have done. “Composed, as the Academia is, mainly of Laymen, they feel that it is not out of their province to express their indignation that your opponent should have chosen, while praising the Catholic Laity, to do so at the expense of the Clergy, between whom and themselves, in this as in all other matters, there exists a perfect identity of principle and practice. “It is because, in such a matter, your cause is the cause of all Catholics, that we congratulate ourselves on the rashness of the opponent that has thrown the defence of that cause into your hands. “We remain, “Very Reverend and Dear Sir, “Your very faithful Servants, “JAMES LAIRD partersos.) Secretarics “EDW. LUCAS, & “To the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D., “Provost of the Birmingham Oratory.” The above was moved at the meeting by Lord PETRE, - and seconded by the Hon. CHARLEs LANGDALE. 374 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER. III. —THE DIOCESE OF ]:31RMINGHAMI. In this Diocese there were in 1864, according to the Directory of the year, 136 Priests. “June 1, 1864. “Very Reverend and Dear Sir, “In availing ourselves of your presence at the Diocesan Synod to offer you our hearty thanks for your recent vindication of the honour of the Catholic Priesthood, We, the Provost and Chapter of the Cathedral, and the Clergy, Secular and Regular, of the Diocese of Birmingham, cannot forego the assertion of a special right, as your neighbours and colleagues, to express our veneration and affection for one whose fidelity to the dictates of conscience, in the use of the highest intellectual gifts, has won even from opponents unbounded admiration and respect. “To most of us you are personally known. Of some, indeed, you were, in years long past, the trusted guide, to whom they owe more than can be ex- pressed in words; and all are conscious that the ingenuous fulness of your answer to a false and unprovoked accusation, has intensified their interest in the labours and trials of your life. While, then, we resent the indignity to which you have been exposed, and lament the pain and annoyance which the manifestation of yourself must have cost you, we cannot but rejoice that, in the fulfilment of a duty, you have allowed neither the unworthiness of your assailant to shield him from rebuke, nor the sacredness of your inmost motives to deprive that rebuke of the only form which could at once complete his discomfiture, free your own name from the obloquy which prejudice had cast upon it, and afford invaluable aid to honest seekers after Truth. “Great as is the work which you have already done, Very Reverend Sir, permit us to express a hope that a greater yet remains for you to accomplish. In an age and in a country in which the very foundations of religious faith are exposed to assault, we rejoice in numbering among our brethren one so well qualified by learning and experience to defend that priceless deposit of Truth, in obtaining which you have counted as gain the loss of all things most dear and precious. And we esteem ourselves happy in being able to offer you that support and encouragement which the assurance of our unfeigned admiration and regard may be able to give you under your present trials and future labours. “That you may long have strength to labour for the Church of God and the glory of His Holy Name is, Very Reverend and Dear Sir, our heartfelt and united prayer.” (The Subscriptions follow.) “To the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D.” LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &c. 37 5 IV.--THE DIOCESE OF BEVERLEY. The following Address, as is stated in the first para- graph, comes from more than 70 Priests:– “Hull, May 9, 1864. “Very Rev. and Dear Dr. Newman, “At a recent meeting of the clergy of the Diocese of Beverley, held in York, at which upwards of seventy priests were present, special attention was called to your correspondence with [a popular writer]; and such was the enthusiasm with which your name was received—such was the admiration expressed of the dignity with which you had asserted the claims of the Catholic Priesthood in England to be treated with becoming courtesy and respect—and such was the strong and all-pervading sense of the invaluable service which you had thus rendered, not only to faith and morals, but to good manners so far as regarded religious controversy in this country, that I was requested, as Chairman, to become the voice of the meeting, and to express to you as strongly and as earnestly as I could, how heartily the whole of the clergy of this diocese desire to thank you for services to religion as well-timed as they are in themselves above and beyond all commenda- tion, services which the Catholics of England will never cease to hold in most grateful remembrance. God, in His infinite wisdom and great mercy, has raised you up to stand prominently forth in the glorious work of re-estab- lishing in this country the holy faith which in good old times shed such lustre upon it. We all lament that, in the order of nature, you have so few years before you in which to fight against false teaching that good fight in which you have been so victoriously engaged of late. But our prayers are that you may long be spared, and may possess to the last all your vigour, and all that zeal for the advancement of our holy faith, which imparts such a charm to the productions of your pen. I esteem it a great honour and a great privilege to have been deputed, as the representative of the clergy of the Diocese of Beverley, to tender you the fullest expression of our most grateful thanks, and the assurance of our prayers for your health and eternal happiness. - “I am, “Very Rev. and Dear Sir, “With sentiments of profound respect, “Yours most faithfully in Christ, “M. TRAPPES. “The Very Rev. Dr. Newman.” 376 SUPPLEMENTAI, MATTER. V. AND WI. —THE DIOCESES OF LIVERPOOL AND SALFORD. The Secular Clergy of Liverpool amounted in 1864 to 103, and of Salford to 76. “Preston, July 27, 1864. “Very Rev. and Dear Sir, “It may seem, perhaps, that the Clergy of Lancashire have been slow to address you ; but it would be incorrect to suppose that they have been indifferent spectators of the conflict in which you have been recently engaged. This is the first opportunity that has presented itself, and they gladly avail themselves of their annual meeting in Preston to tender to you the united expression of their heartfelt sympathy and gratitude. “The atrocious imputation, out of which the late controversy arose, was felt as a personal affront by them, one and all, conscious as they were, that it was mainly owing to your position as a distinguished Catholic ecclesiastic, that the charge was connected with your name. “While they regret the pain you must needs have suffered, they cannot help rejoicing that it has afforded you an opportunity of rendering a new and most important service to their holy religion. Writers, who are not overscrupulous about the truth themselves, have long. used the charge of untruthfulness as an ever ready weapon against the Catholic Clergy. Partly from the frequent repe- tition of this charge, partly from a consciousness that, instead of undervaluing the truth, they have ever prized it above every earthly treasure, partly, too, from the difficulty of obtaining a hearing in their own defence, they have gene- rally passed it by in silence. They thank you for coming forward as their champion : your own character required no vindication. It was their battle more than your own that you fought. They know and feel how much pain it has caused you to bring so prominently forward your own life and motives, but they now congratulate you on the completeness of your triumph, as ad- mitted alike by friend and enemy. “In addition to answering the original accusation, you have placed them under a new obligation, by giving to all, who read the English language, a work which, for literary ability and the lucid exposition of many difficult and abstruse points, forms an invaluable contribution to our literature. “They fervently pray that God may give you health and length of days, and, if it please Him, some other cause in which to use for His glory the great powers bestowed upon you. “Signed on behalf of the Meeting, “THOS. PROWOST COOKSON, “The Very Rev. J. H. Newman.” LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &c. 3 7 7 VII. —THE DIOCESE OF HEXIHAM. . The Secular Priests on Mission in 1864 in this Diocese were 64. “Durham, Sept. 22, 1804. “My Dear Dr. Newman, “At the annual meeting of the Clergy of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, held a few days ago at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I was commis- sioned by them to express to you their sincere sympathy, on account of the slanderous accusations, to which you have been so unjustly exposed. We are fully aware that these foul calumnies were intended to injure the character of the whole body of the Catholic Clergy, and that your distinguished name was singled out, in order that they might be more effectually propagated. It is well that these poisonous shafts were thus aimed, as no one could more tri- umphantly repel them. The “Apologia pro Vitā suá’ will, if possible, render still more illustrious the name of its gifted author, and be a lasting monument of the victory of truth, and the signal overthrow of an arrogant and reckless assailant. “It may appear late for us now to ask to join in your triumph, but as the Annual Meeting of the Northern Clergy does not take place till this time, it is the first occasion offered us to present our united congratulations, and to de- clare to you, that by none of your brethren are you more esteemed and vene- rated, than by the Clergy of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. “Wishing that Almighty God may prolong your life many more years for the defence of our holy religion and the honour of your brethren, “I am, dear Dr. Newman, “Yours sincerely in Jesus Christ, “RALPH PROVOST PLATT, V. G. “The Very Rev. J. H. Newman.” VIII.--THE CONGRESS OF WüRZBURG. “September 15, 1864. “Sir, “The undersigned, President of the Catholic Congress of Ger- many assembled in Würzburg, has been commissioned to express to you, Very Rev. and Dear Sir, its deep-felt gratitude for your late able defence of the Catholic Clergy, not only of England, but of the whole world, against the attacks of its enemies. 37S SU PPLEMIENTAL VIATT ICR. “The Catholics of Germany unite with the Catholics of England in testify. ing to you their profound admiration and sympathy, and pray that the Almighty may long preserve your valuable life. “The above Resolution was voted by the Congress with acclamation. “Accept, very Rev. and Dear Sir, the expression of the high consideration with which I am “Your most obedient servant, “(Signed) ERNEST BARON MOIJ DE SONS. “The Very Rev. J. H. Newman.” IX. —THE I) IOCESE OF HOP ART TOWN. “Hobart Town, Tasmania, November 22, 1804. “Very Rev. and Dear Sir, “By the last month's post we at length received your admirable book, entitled, ‘Apologia pro Vitā Suá,’ and the pamphlet, “What then does Dr. Newman mean?’ “By this month’s mail, we wish to express our heartfelt gratification and delight for being possessed of a work so triumphant in maintaining truth, and so overwhelming in confounding arrogance and error, as the “Apologia.” “No doubt, your adversary, resting on the deep-seated prejudice of our fellow-countrymen in the United Kingdom, calculated upon establishing his own fame as a keen-sighted polemic, as a shrewd and truth-loving man, upon the fallen reputation of one, who, as he would demonstrate, yes, that he would,—set little or no value on truth, and who, therefore, would deservedly sink into obscurity, henceforward rejected and despised “Aman of old erected a gibbet at the gate of the city, on which an unsuspecting and an unoffending man, one marked as a victim, was to be exposed to the gaze and derision of the people, in order that his own dignity and fame might be exalted; but a divine Providence ordained otherwise. The history of the judgment that fell upon Aman, has been recorded in Holy Writ, it is to be presumed, as a warning to vain and unscrupulous men, even in our days. There can be no doubt, a moral gibbet, full ‘fifty cubits high,’ had been prepared some time, on which you were to be exposed, for the pity at least, if not for the scorn and derision of so many, who had loved and venerated you through life . “But the effort made in the forty-eight pages of the redoubtable pam- phlet, “What then does Dr. Newman Mean *—the production of a bold, unscrupulous man, with a coarse mind, and regardless of inflicting pain on LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &c. 379 g. the feelings of another, has failed,—marvellously failed,—and he himself is now exhibited not only in our fatherland, but even at the Antipodes, in fact wherever the English language is spoken or read, as a shallow pretender, one quite incompetent to treat of matters of such undying interest as those he presumed to interfere with. “We fervently pray the Almighty, that you may be spared to His Church for many years to come, that to Him alone the glory of this noble work may be given,-and to you the reward in eternal bliss | “And from this distant land we beg to convey to you, Very Rev. and Dear Sir, the sentiments of our affectionate respect, and deep veneration.” (The Subscriptions follow, of the Bishop Vicar-General and eighteen Clergy.) “The Very Rev. Dr. Newman, &c, &c. &c.” ADDITIONAL NOTES NOTE ON PAGE 12. CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARCHIBISHOP WHATELY IN 1834. ON application of the Editor of Dr. Whately's Corre- spondence, the following four letters were sent to her for publication : they are here given entire. It will be observed that they are of the same date as my letter to Dr. Hampden at p. 57. - “Dublin, October 25, 1834. “My dear Newman, “A most shocking report concerning you has reached me, which indeed carries such an improbability on the face of it that you may perhaps wonder at my giving it a thought; and at first I did not, but finding it repeated from different quarters, it seems to me worth contradicting for the sake of your character. Some Oxford undergraduates, I find, openly report that when I was at Oriel last spring you absented yourself from chapel on purpose to avoid receiving the Communion along with me ; and that you yourself declared this to be the case. * “I would not notice every idle rumour; but this has been so confidently and so long asserted that it would be a satisfaction to me to be able to declare its falsity as a fact, from your authority. I did indeed at once declare my utter unbelief; but then this has only the weight of my opinion; though an opinion resting I think on no insufficient grounds. I did not profess to rest my disbelief on our long, intimate, and confidential friendship, which would make it your right and your duty—if I did any thing to offend you or any thing you might think materially wrong—to remonstrate with me;—but on your general character; which I was persuaded would have made you inca- pable, even had no such close connexion existed between us, of conduct so unchristian and inhuman. But, as I said, I should like for your sake to be able to contradict the report from your own authority. “Ever yours very truly, “R. WHATELY.” i.* . . CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 381 “Oriel College, October 28, 1834. “My dear Lord, “My absence from the Sacrament in the College Chapel on the Sunday you were in Oxford, was occasioned solely and altogether by my having it on that day in St. Mary's ; and I am pretty sure, if I may trust my memory, that I did not even know of your Grace's presence there, till after the Service. Most certainly such knowledge would not have affected my attendance. I need not say, this being the case, that the report of my having made any statement on the subject is quite unfounded; indeed, your letter of this morning is the first information I have had in any shape of the existence of the report. “I am happy in being thus able to afford an explanation as satisfactory to you, as the kind feelings which you have ever entertained towards me could desire;—yet, on honest reflection, I cannot conceal from myself, that it was generally a relief to me, to see so little of your Grace, when you were at Oxford : and it is a greater relief now to have an opportunity of saying so to yourself. I have ever wished to observe the rule, never to make a public charge against another behind his back, and, though in the course of conver- sation and the urgency of accidental occurrences it is sometimes difficult to keep to it, yet I trust I have not broken it, especially in your own case: i. e. though my most intimate friends know how deeply I deplore the line of ecclesiastical policy adopted under your archiepiscopal sanction, and though in society I may have clearly shown that I have an opinion one way rather than the other, yet I have never in my intention, never (as I believe) at all, spoken of your Grace in a serious way before strangers;–indeed mixing very little in general society, and not overapt to open myself in it, I have had little tempta- tion to do so. Least of all should I so forget myself as to take under- graduates into my confidence in such a matter. “I wish I could convey to your Grace the mixed and very painful feelings, which the late history of the Irish Church has raised in me —the union of her members with men of heterodox views, and the extinction (without ecclesiastical sanction) of half her Candlesticks, the witnesses and guarantees of the Truth and trustees of the Covenant. I willingly own that both in my secret judgment and my mode of speaking concerning you to my friends, I have had great alternations and changes of feeling,-defending, then blaming your policy, next praising your own self and protesting against your measures, according as the affectionate remembrances which I had of you rose against my utter aversion of the secular and unbelieving policy in which I considered the Irish Church to be implicated. I trust I shall never be forget- ful of the kindness you uniformly showed me during your residence in Oxford; and anxiously hope that no duty to Christ and His Church may ever 382 . NOTE ON PAGE 12. interfere with the expression of my sense of it. However, on the present opportunity, I am conscious to myself, that I am acting according to the dictates both of duty and gratitude, if I beg your leave to state my per- suasion, that the perilous measures in which your Grace has acquiesced are but the legitimate offspring of those principles, difficult to describe in few words, with which your reputation is especially associated; principles which bear upon the very fundamentals of all argument and investigation, and affect almost every doctrine and every maxim by which our faith or our conduct is to be guided. I can feel no reluctance to confess, that, when I first was noticed by your Grace, gratitude to you and admiration of your powers wrought upon me; and, had not something from within resisted, I should certainly have adopted views on religious and social duty, which seem to my present judgment to be based in the pride of reason and to tend towards infidelity, and which in your own case nothing but your Grace's high religious temper and the unclouded faith of early piety has been able to withstand. “I am quite confident, that, however you may regard this judgment, you will give me credit, not only for honesty, but for a deeper feeling in thus laying it before you. - - “May I be suffered to add, that your name is ever mentioned in my prayers, and to subscribe myself “Your Grace's very sincere friend and servant, “J. H. NEWMAN.” “Dublin, November 3, 1834. “My dear Newman, “I cannot forbear writing again to express the great satisfac- tion I feel in the course I adopted; which has, eventually, enabled me to contradict a report which was more prevalent and more confidently upheld than I could have thought possible : and which, while it was perhaps likely to hurt my character with some persons, was injurious to yours in the eyes of the best men. For what idea must any one have had of religion—or at least of your religion—who was led to think there was any truth in the imputation to you of such uncharitable arrogance “But it is a rule with me, not to cherish, even on the strongest assertions, any belief or even suspicion, to the prejudice of any one whom I have any reason to think well of, till I have carefully inquired, and dispassionately heard both sides. And I think if others were to adopt the same rule, I should not myself be quite so much abused as I have been. “I am well aware indeed that one cannot expect all, even good men, to CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 383 - -- think alike on every point, even after they shall have heard both sides; and that we may expect many to judge, after all, very harshly of those who do differ from them : for, God help us ! what will become of men if they receive no more mercy than they show to each other | But at least, if the rule were observed, men would not condemn a brother on mere vague popular rumour, about principles (as in my case) “difficult to describe in few words,” and with which his ‘reputation is associated.’ My own reputation I know is associated, to a very great degree, with what are in fact calumnious impu- tations, originated in exaggerated, distorted, or absolutely false statements, for which even those who circulate them, do not, for the most part, pretend to have any ground except popular rumour: like the Jews at Rome ; * as for this way, we know that it is every where spoken against.” “For I have ascertained that a very large proportion of those who join in the outcry against my works, confess, or even boast, that they have never read them. And in respect of the measure you advert to—the Church Temporalities Act—(which of course I shall not now discuss), it is curious to see how many of those who load me with censure for acquiescing in it, receive with open arms, and laud to the skies, the Primate; who was con- sulted on the measure—as was natural, considering his knowledge of Irish affairs, and his influence—long before me; and gave his consent to it; differing from Ministers only on a point of detail, whether the revenues of six Sees, or of ten, should be alienated. “Of course, every one is bound ultimately to decide according to his own judgment; nor do I mean to shelter myself under his example: but only to point out what strange notions of justice those have, who acquit with applause the leader, and condemn the follower in the same individual transaction. “Far be it from any servant of our Master, to feel surprise or anger at being thus treated : it is only an admonition to me to avoid treating others in a similar manner; and not to ‘judge another's servant,’ at least without a fair hearing. - - “You do me no more than justice, in feeling confident that I shall give you credit both for ‘honesty and for a deeper feeling' in freely laying your opinions before me : and besides this, you might have been no less confident, from your own experience, that, long since—whenever it was that you changed your judgment respecting me—if you had freely and calmly remon- strated with me on any point where you thought me going wrong, I should have listened to you with that readiness and candour and deference, which as you well know, I always showed, in the times when “we took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends;’—when we consulted together about so many practical measures, and about almost all the principal points in my publications. “I happen to have before me a letter from you just eight years ago, in which, after saying that “there are few things you wish more sincerely than to be known as a friend of mine,’ and attributing to me, in the 384 NOTE ON PAGE 12. warmest and most flattering terms, a much greater share in the forming of your mind than I could presume to claim, you bear a testimony, in which I do most heartily concur, to the freedom at least of our intercourse, and the readiness and respect with which you were listened to. Your words are : “Much as I owe to Oriel in the way of mental improvement, to none, as I think, do I owe so much as to yourself. I know who it was first gave me heart to look about me after my election, and taught me to think correctly, and—strange office for an instructor—to rely upon myself. Nor can I forget that it has been at your kind suggestion, that I have since been led to employ myself in the consideration of several subjects, which I cannot doubt have been very beneficial to my mind.” “If in all this I was erroneous, -if I have misled you, or any one else, into ‘the pride of reason,’ or any other kind of pride,-or if I have entertained, or led others into, any wrong opinions, I can only say I sincerely regret it. And again I rejoice if I have been the means of contributing to form in any one that ‘high religious temper and unclouded faith’ of which I not only believe, with you, that they are able to withstand tendencies towards infidelity, but also, that without them, no correctness of abstract opinions is worth much. But what I meant to point out, is, that there was plainly nothing to preclude you from offering friendly admonition (when your view of my prin- ciples changed), with a full confidence of being at least patiently and kindly listened to. • “I for my part could not bring myself to find relief in escaping the society of an old friend,-with whom I had been accustomed to frank discussion,—on account of my differing from him as to certain principles, whether through a change of his views, or (much more) of my own, till at least I had made full trial of private and affectionate remonstrance and free discussion. Even a “man that is a heretic,’ we are told, even a ruler of a Church is not to reject, till after repeated admonitions. “But though your regard for me does not show itself such as I think mine would have been under similar circumstances, I will not therefore reject what remains of it. Let us pray for each other that it may please God to enlighten whichever of us is, on any point, in error, and recall him to the truth; and that at any rate we may hold fast that charity, without which all knowledge, and all faith, that could remove mountains, will profit us nothing. “I fear you will read with a jaundiced eye, -if you venture to read it at all —any publication of mine ; but ‘for auld lang syne’ I take advantage of a frank to enclose you my last two addresses to my clergy. \ “Very sincerely yours, “RD, WHATELY.” CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 385 4. “Oriel, November 11, 1834. “My dear Lord, “The remarks contained in your last letter do not come upon me by surprise, and I can only wish that I may be as able to explain myself to you, as I do with a clear and honest conscience to myself. Your Grace will observe that the letter of mine from which you make an extract, was written when I was in habits of intimacy with you, in which I have not been of late years. It does not at all follow, because I could then speak freely to you, that I might at another time. Opportunity is the chief thing in such an office as delivering to a superior an opinion about himself. Though I never concealed my opinion from you, I have never been forward. I have spoken when place and time admitted, when my opinion was asked, when I was called to your side and was made your counsellor. No such favourable circumstances have befallen me of late years, if I must now state in expla- nation what in truth has never occurred to me in this fulness, till now I am called to reflect upon my own conduct and to account for an apparent omission. I have spoken the first opportunity you have given me; and I am persuaded good very seldom comes of volunteering a remonstrance. “Again, I cannot doubt for an instant that you have long been aware in a measure that my opinions differed from your Grace's. You knew it when at Oxford, for you often found me differing from you. You must have felt it, at the time you left Oxford for Dublin. You must have known it from hearsay in consequence of the book I have published. What indeed can account for my want of opportunities to speak to you freely my mind, but the feeling on your part, (which, if existing, is nothing but a fair reason,) that my views are different from yours? “And that difference is certainly of no recent date. I tacitly allude to it in the very letter you quote—in which, I recollect well that the words “strange office for an instructor, “to rely upon myself,’ were intended to convey to you that, much as I valued (and still value) your great kindness and the advantage of your countenance to me at that time, yet even then I did not fall in with the line of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesced. Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I should not now use; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of ‘Liberal,’ (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,) are those which may be briefly described as the Anti-superstition notions; and to these I do not recollect ever assenting. Connected with these I would C C 386 NOTE ON race 12. instance the undervaluing of Antiquity, and resting on one's own reasonings, judgments, definitions, &c., rather than authority and precedent; and I think I gave very little in to this ;-for a very short time too (if at all), in to the notion that the State, as such, had nothing to do with religion. On the other hand, whatever I held then deliberately, I believe I hold now; though per- haps I may not consider them as points of such prominent importance, or with precisely the same bearing as I did then :-as the abolition of the Jewish Sabbath, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of imputed righteousness (i. e. Our Lord’s active obedience)—the mistakes of the so-called Evangelical system, the independence of the Church ; the genius of the Gospel as a Law of Liberty, and the impropriety of forming geological theories from Scripture. Of course every one changes in opinion between twenty and thirty ; doubtless, I have changed; yet I am not conscious that I have so much changed, as made up my mind on points on which I had no opinion. E. g. I had no opinion about the Catholic Question till 1829. No one can truly say I was ever for the Catholics; but I was not against them. In fact I did not enter into the state of the question at all. “Then as to my change of judgment as to the character of your Grace's opinions, it is natural that, when two persons pursue different lines from the same point, they should not discover their divergence for a long while; espe- cially if there be any kind feeling in the one towards the other. It was not for a very long time that I discovered that your opinions were (as I now think them) but part of intellectual views, so different from your own inward mind and character, so peculiar in themselves, and (if you will let me add) so dan- gerous. For a long time I thought them to be but different; for a longer, to be but in parts dangerous; but their full character in this respect came on me almost on a sudden. I heard at Naples the project of destroying the Irish Sees, and at first indignantly rejected the notion, which some one suggested, that your Grace had acquiesced in it. I thought I recollected correctly your Grace's opinion of the inherent rights of the Christian Church, and I thought you never would allow men of this world so to insult it. When I returned to England, all was over. I was silent on the same principle that you are silent about it in your letter; that it was not the time for speaking ; and I only felt, what I hinted at when I wrote last, a bitter grief, which prompted me, when the act was irretrievable, to hide myself from you. However, I have spoken, with whatever pain to myself, the first opportunity you have given me. . “I might appeal to my conscience without fear in proof of the delight it would give me at this time to associate my name with yours, and to stand forward as your friend and defender, however humble, I should hope you know me enough to be sure, that, however great my faults are, I have no fear of man such as to restrain me, if I could feel I had a call that way. But may God help me, as I will ever strive to fulfil my first duty, the defence of His CORRESPONDENCE witH ARCHBISHOP what ELY. 387 Church, and of the doctrine of the old Fathers, in opposition to all the innova- tions and profanities which are rising round us. “My dear Lord, “Ever yours most sincerely and gratefully, “J. H. NEWMAN. “P.S.. I feel much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Addresses to your clergy, which I value highly for your Grace's sake.” 388 IBONIFACE OF CANTERBURY. NOTE ON PAGE 323. IBONIFACE OF CANTER BURY. WHEN I made the above reference in 1865 to Boniface of Canterbury, I was sure I had seen among my books some recent authoritative declaration on the subject of his eultus in opposition to the Bollandists ; but I did not know where to look for it. I have now found in our Library (Concess. Offic. t. 2) what was in my mind. It consists of five documents proceeding from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, with the following title:— “ Emo ac Revmo Domino Card. Lambruschini Relatore, Taurinem. Appro- bationis cultûs ab immemorabili tempore præstiti B. Bonifacio à Subaudiâ Archiepiscopi Cantuarien. Instante Serenissimo Rege Sardiniæ Carolo Alberto. Romæ, 1838.” Also Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, has kindly sup- plied me with the following extract from the Corre- spondance de Rome, 24 November, 1851, adding “ St. Eoniface of Canterbury or of Savoy was beatified aequi- pollenter by Gregory XVI.:”— ** Le B. Boniface de Savoie, xi de ce nome, petit-fils d'Humbert, iii Archevêque de Cantorbéry. Confirmation de son culte, également à la demande du Roi Charles Albert, 7 Sept. 1838. D'abord moine parmi les Chartreux, puis Archevêque de Cantorbéry, consacré par Innocent IV. au Concile Général de Lyons ; il occupa le siége 25 ans. Mort en 1270 pendant, un voyage en Savoie. Son corps porté à Haucatacombe; concours des popu- lations; miracles ; son corps retrouvé intact trois siècles après sa mort. Son nom dans les livres liturgiques. Sa fête célébrée sans aucune interruption. Sur la relation de Card. Lambruschini, la S. C. des Rites le l Sept. 1838, décida qu'il constait de cas exceptionnel aux décrets d'Urbain VIII. p. 410.'' GiLBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. a/ - - • ſiliili 3 9015 05801 3643 º - - - - - - - º - - - º - - º - - - º - - - - º º - - - - - - º º - - - - º - - - - - - |