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A POSTSCRIPT
TO
THE ENGLISH CHURCH NOT IN SCHISM;
CONTAINING A
FEW WORDSON
MR. NEWMAN'S ESSAY ON
DEVELOPMENT.

REV. WILLIAM BRUDENELL BARTER, M.A.
RECTOR OF BUliGIICLERE AND HIGIICLKIIE,
AND LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

LONDON:
FRANCIS & .TOHN RIVINGTON,
ST. Paul's church yard, and Waterloo place :
JAMES BURNS, PORTMAN STREET :
& J. H. PARKER, OXFORD.

LONDON :
OILBFRT & RIVINRTON, PRINTERS,
ST. John's square.

POSTSCRIPT.

Mr. Newman's Essay on Development came out a
few days after my tract was published. I have
read it with attention, especially those portions
which bear on the Pope's supremacy. His theory
of Development appears to me, on this point, as well
as on many others, to be a superstructure of in
genious argument, without any sufficient foundation
— cleverly -worded conclusions, without adequate
premises to support them.
This Essay may have an effect on minds predis
posed to accept a new theory, by intellectual rest
lessness, or any other species of morbid excitement ;
but I do not believe that it is calculated to lead
astray any one sound-hearted member of the Church
of England.
I have been told that my argument and Mr.
NeviTnan's move in different planes, that the so
called Development system professes to answer and
explain the facts that I have adduced without
denying them. It appears to me, however, that my
line of reasoning with regard to the Pope's supre-
A 2

4
macy comes into direct collision with Mr. Newman's
theory ; and that either my facts or his conclusions
must be false. I shall endeavour to show that this
is the case.
Mr. Newman compares the development of the
Pope's supremacy to what he terms the development
of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Athanasian
Creed, but there is really no resemblance between
them. Every statement of doctrine which is made
in the Athanasian Creed necessarily follows from
the words of Scripture. For instance, all that is
said of the equality of the Son with the Father is
contained in these four short words, " The Word
was God." If He were God, He possessed all the
attributes of God, He was Eternal, Uncreate, Incom
prehensible, Almighty. There is no addition to, or
expansion of the original idea, only each attribute
of God is ascribed to Him who was God, in order
that the gainsayer of these manifest truths might be
excluded from the Church. And this is the case
with every other article of the Creed.
Let Mr. Newman produce any text of Scripture
from which the supremacy of the Pope follows of
necessity, and then the tM'o cases will be similar.
But if I have shown that the teaching of Scripture
is opposed to the assumption of supreme power by
the successors of St. Peter ', his argument on this
point falls to the ground.
Besides, there is another very important dis-
' Vide pages 5 — 10.

tinction between these two cases. The Pope's
supremacy is not only a doctrine but a fact, and a
fact of the most engrossing importance. Both Mr.
Newman and the Roman Catholics allege that this
supreme power was exercised in the earliest ages of
the Church. The Romanist states this in the most
unmeasured terms ', and Mr. Newman also says that
St. Clement, the friend of St. Paul, wrote in his
character as Bishop of Rome to the Church at
Corinth. Now it is impossible that such an authority could
have been assumed in a single instance without the
fact of its assumption 'being known throughout the
Christian Church ; and I either have, or have not
proved that the exercise of the power was unknown,
and the right to assert it denied in the first three
centuries of the Church ^ My facts, therefore,
come into direct collision with Mr. Newman's con
clusions. I say that it is impossible that such an authority
could have been assumed- in a single instance, with
out the fact being known throughout the Christian
Church. It is not impossible that a Christian doc
trine might have lain hid for centuries in the
Christian Church ; although the supposition will ap
pear in the highest degree improbable, when we
remember that its founders were led by the Spirit of
God into all truth, and maintained an intimate and
unbroken communion with each other. But it is
' Vide page 11. ^ Vide pages 11 — 32.

moral impossibility that the existence of a right to
supreme power should have been concealed, when
that power had been exercised in a single instance.
I will illustrate what I mean. Millions live now
under the sway of our limited monarchy, without
being acquainted in the slightest degree with the
theory of its constitution. But, supposing that the
queen of this country were to address the municipal
authorities of any town in her dominions as their
despotic sovereign, would not the fact be speedily
known in every part of the empire ?
And had St. Clement assumed the character
of supreme pontiff when he vtrote to the Co
rinthians, as the Romanists say he did, the fact
would have been equally notorious throughout all
Christendom. If, then, I have proved that the
primitive Church of Christ never heard or thought
of the supremacy of the successors of St. Peter,
my argument must be fatal to Mr. Newman's
theory. By the converse of this argument, the practice of
infant baptism stands on impregnable ground on the
authority of the primitive Church (whatever Mr.
Newman may have said to the contrary) ; for that is
also not only a doctrine, but a fact ; the existence
of the custom could never have been questioned
in the primitive Church ; the fact must have been
notorious to every member of it. When therefore
the Council at Carthage, in the year 252, rejected
the proposition of an African bishop, that infants

should be baptized on the eighth day, and decided that
infants might be admitted to that privilege at any
moment after their birth, they bare direct and
unequivocal testimony to the custom of infant
baptism from the beginning.
Whether I have sufficiently proved that the supre
macy of the Pope is supported by no such testimony
in the history of the primitive Church, I must leave
my readers to determine.
I have always spoken of Mr. Newman in the
warmest terms of regard and affection, and every
word that I said came from the heart. I have looked
up to him and to those M'hose names have been asso
ciated with his, as to the brightest examples of
holiness and devotion in a dark and worldly age. I
have also held Mr. Newman's religious works in the
highest esteem ; but I have observed occasionally in
those publications, rather too subtle an use of
his logical powers in removing any obstacle which
might oppose the conclusions at which he de
sired to arrive. He has now embraced the cause of
error, and has put himself fm^ward at once to main
tain her most indefensible positions. In this attempt
there is a continual call for the exercise of delusive
reasoning; and accordingly a strange development
of that power is manifest in every page of the work
which is now before me. I believe it to be my
painful duty to place some of these developments
before my readers.
In page 107, Mr. Newman affirms that " St.

Ignatius had to establish the doctrine of Epis
copacy:" this assertion has no foundation whatever
in fact, and will be received only by those who
trust implicitly to the authority of him who wrote
it ; for St. Ignatius was himself one of the order of
Bishops established by the Apostles. It is difficult to
assign a motive for this groundless assertion, unless
it was meant to prepare the minds of his readers for
believing that the supremacy of the Pope might have
been established in the fourth or fifth century.
In page 167, he says, that "local disturbances
gave rise to Bishops :" he has no Scriptural autho
rity for this new position, and as Bishops were first
appointed by the Apostles', he is bound to support
this statement by no authority less conclusive than
that of Scripture itself; and if he fail to do so, the
assertion will only be believed by those who have
submitted their understandings blindly to his will.
The intention with which he wrote this is evident,
namely, to prepare us for believing that the dissen
sions of the Church gave rise to the Papacy.
In page 10, he makes another assertion incon
sistent with the two statements to which I have pre
viously adverted, and equally gToundless, for he ex
presses an opinion that "the Apostolical Succession in
the Episcopal Order has not the faintest pretensions
of being a Catholic truth." Now, there is direct
evidence of the doctrine of Apostolical Succession
' Vide St. Clement's account of the appointment of Bishops,
page 13.

in the Episcopal Order, both in the works of St.
Clement and St. Ignatius'. Mr. Newman's state
ment was written undoubtedly to conceal the fact
that the Pope's supremacy has not in reality the
faintest pretension to be a Catholic truth ; but it
will deceive no one who investigates the truth of his
assertion. In page 20, he calls us hypocrites, for believing
in the Real Presence as a Catholic truth, and re
jecting the Pope's supremacy, maintaining that the
latter is more unequivocally asserted by the Fathers
than the former : now, St. Ignatius asserted the Real
Presence in the most unequivocal terms ^ If Mr.
NeviTnan can extract from the writings of the Apos
tolic Fathers an equally unequivocal assertion of the
Pope's supremacy, I will admit the truth of his
reasoning ; but, before he has done this, I ' request
his readers to look with the deepest distrust upon his
statements with reference to this point.
The book abounds also in illustrations, which
are more likely to deceive even than direct untruths.
I vnll cite an instance. — He says, page 171, in
order to illustrate the power of the Pope over all
Christendom, that " as the prospects of the English
Church have opened, and her communion extended,
the see of Canterbury has become the natural centre
of her operations." If we claimed the primacy for
the see of Canterbury by Divine right, this illustra
tion would be to the purpose, but as it is only a
human institution, the whole force of the illustration
' Vide pages 13—17. ' Vide page 17.

10
is lost, and can deceive no one who does not happen
to overlook this circumstance.
Thus does Mr. Newman successively defend many
of the false doctrines and corruptions of the Church
of Rome, under the name of Developments, deve
loping most completely the old proverb, that a false
position can only be maintained by a host of argu
ments equally unfounded.
The last corruption of which he makes himself the
champion, (for he omits entirely indulgences and false
miracles,) is the idol worship of the Roman Catholic
Church. Pie had previously stated for the purpose
of defending the worship of saints, page 401, that
when " Moses hid his face," he hid his face before
a creature ; that Jacob said, " I have seen God face
to face," but what he saw was an angel. He does
not state the authority on which he grounds these
assertions ; but in pages 434 and 435, after having
said what is perfectly true, that the Jews after
the captivity did not violate the letter of the se
cond commandment, he winds up his argument
with regard to that commandment Avith these
words, " If, then, adherence to the letter was no
protection to the Jews, departure from the letter
may be no guilt in Christians." This line of argu
ment, if fairly carried out, would justify our violation
of the letter of the whole Decalogue, instead of obey
ing it in the letter and in the spirit, which is the legi
timate conclusion at which we ought to arrive, from
the fact of God's not being contented with adherence
to the letter.

11
This M'ork abounds in instances of this defective
reasoning, and, notwithstanding some beautiful pas
sages, in which he describes the glorious Catholic and
Apostolic remains which (to our loss) are ' the peculiar
property of the corrupted Church into which he has
entered ' ; the frequent introduction of such in
admissible propositions, have left on my mind a
feeling of the deepest sorrow for its author; for
it appears to me that the faculties of a noble
mind have been bewildered and obscured by mental
excitement long continued, and perhaps, also, by high
and holy aspirations disappointed. His earlier pub
lications " will follow him," and retain a high place
among the standard works of English divinity when
his " Treatise on Development" has sunk into merited
oblivion ; and he himself may in future ages be still
classed among the brightest luminaries of the Eng
lish Church, as Origen and Tertullian still maintain
their rank among the Fathers in the old time before us.
It is, however, a consoling reflection, that the
pious and humble inquirer after truth, whose lot has
been cast by God's mercy within the pale of our
English communion, must rise from the perusal of
this book with confirmed attachment to the Church
in which he was baptized. Is this all, he will say,
that can be advanced to justify the desertion of
our holy Mother, by one who was nursed in
her bosom, and knew the inmost secrets of her
heart? What shall we have in return, if we
' Vide pages 68, CO.

ft

12
give up what is called her indefinite teaching,
derived from the general consent of the Fathers ?
What better rule of teaching shall we adopt, if we
cease to teach " that which is agreeable to the doc
trine of the Old and New Testament, and collected
out of the same doctrine by the ancient Fathers and
Bishops of the Church ?" Shall we be more certain
that we hold the truth, if we listen to Mr. Newman's
theory, if we embrace his new opinions, and believe
what he receives as true, that " the combined testi
mony of all the Fathers, supposing such a case, would
not have a feather's weight against a decision of the
Pope in council ?"
Was this the doctrine of the Primitive Church of
Christ ? Did the Churches of Marseilles and Lyons,
in Mr. Newman's favourite century, rest their re
monstrance against the errors of St. Augustine on
such grounds as these ? No ; they condemned his
teaching because it was new, because they had never
heard it before, because it was unsanctioned by any
one of the preceding Fathers, and contrary to the
sense of the whole Catholic Church.
On these grounds we will continue to act, God
being our helper : on these grounds we will oppose
the tyranny of the Pope, and all the efforts of his
corrupt Church ; on these grounds we will resist the
sectarian also and the infidel. On these grounds the
Church of England shall hold fast her deposit, though
an angel from heaven should tempt her to re
linquish it.

13
But, while the true member of the Church of
England will peruse this Essay on Development and
sorrow over it, the infidel will read it and rejoice,
because its principle is calculated, if it were possible,
to shake the authority of the Primitive Church of
Christ. The sectarian will also find a theory ready
for him, and easily adapted to his purpose by an
alteration of dates.
It is a remarkable instance of the proverbial ap
proximation of ultra-Protestant and Romish error,
that the author of " Ancient Christianity " makes
the same use of the parable of the grain of mustard-
seed as Mr. Newman, and advocates a similar theory,
with this difference only, that he dates his Develop
ments from the fourteenth or fifteenth, instead of
from the fourth or fifth century. Mr. Newman's
book, however, is entirely free from the slightest
taint of the grossness and impurity which disgrace
the evangelical publication.
The authorities of the Church of Rome have con
ducted themselves with their usual caution, for they
have declined to incur the slightest responsibility
with regard to Mr. Newman's Essay, because when
he wrote it he was not a member of their Church,
although he joined her communion before it was
published. I know that some learned Romanists
have spoken in very doubtful terms of its doctrinal
statements, and I should be sure that the Roman
Church would condemn it as heretical were she
obliged to give an opinion on the subject, did I not
know that she has acted for centuries on the principle

14
of expediency, a principle, the advocacy of which in
religious matters, has sounded of late rather harshly
on the English ear. On this principle of expediency
the Church of Rome incurs the sin of making an
annual lie ', by the pretended liquefaction of the
blood of St. .lanuarius, because she dreads the effect
of disclosing the truth to her deluded proselytes ;
and on this principle alone will she act in the pre
sent instance, with reference to her new converts
and their heretical opinions.
With regard to Mr. Newman himself, he tells us
that, " here below to live is to change, and to be per
fect is to have changed often ;" but I should tremble
to hear that he had changed again, for I know well
the wretched change to which a further advance in
his theory of Development might lead him.
' This system of deceit by which the Church of Rome sup
ports her usurped power in foreign lands, is now in a rapid state
of development among us. Some recent converts to her faith
have translated from the French accounts of false miracles, which
they circulate in the shape of tracts, very similar to those in
which the members of the Religious Tract Society disseminate
tales of equally false conversions. If a mother be in anxiety on
account of the sickness of her child, a tract is placed in her hand
in which she reads of children relieved in a moment from the most
hopeless state of suffering, by the intercession of a Roman Ca
tholic priest. I bear witness to that which I have seen, and I
humbly ask those who are most expected to speak, but at pre
sent keep silence, whether they can thus deliver their own souls,
whether it be not their duty to apply the strongest antidotes with
out a moment's delay, when poison is thus carefully prepared,
and skilfully administered to weak and wavering minds, by men,
who of all others are best acquainted with the secret workings of
the human heart?

15
I subjoin an extract from a letter which I wrote
to the editor of the " Times," and which appeared in
that paper, in October, 1844. It contains a short
statement of my view of the theory of Development
at that time, in which I have been confirmed by the
perusal of Mr. Newman's Essay on that subject.
" When I say that I reject the doctrine of Develop
ment, I mean that I reject it altogether. / have no
idea of a one-sided abjuration of an heretical principle ;
I believe, in common with all our best divines, and
the whole body of our reformers, that we have no
right to teach any other doctrine but ' that which is
in accordance with the doctrine of the Old and New
Testament, and has been deduced from that very
doctrine by the Primitive Doctors and Fathers of
our Church.' I believe that all doctrines are to be
rejected as the inventions of men, which are new to
the Church, which are unauthorized by her primitive
tradition. As a Development, then, I reject the idol
atrous Roman Catholic worship of saints and of the
Blessed Virgin ; while I forget not to repudiate also
the Calvinistic Development, which would transform
the God of mercy Himself into a capricious and re
lentless idol. Thus, while I reject the Development
which would sanction the denial of the cup of sal
vation, I also reject that which would deny salvation
itself to any but a privileged class, which would con
demn millions of children yet unborn to eternal and
inevitable torment.
" Again, while on the ground of its being a Develop-

16

ment, I reject the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility,
I do not forget to repudiate the dissenting Develop
ment, which, by the abuse of private judgment,
would make every conceited and self-sufficient pro
fessor his own pope. So, while I oppose Hilde-
brand's self-denying Development, which decreed and
carried out the compulsory celibacy of the Clergy?
I forget not to denounce the self-indulgent Develop
ment of Martin Luther, who allowed a plurality of
wives to those whom he considered God's favoured
instruments in his cause. I might go on in this manner
vrith regard to the perversions of the doctrines of
justification by faith and works. On almost all points
where there is a Romanist Development on the one
side, an equally erroneous Sectarian Development
may be detected on the other ; and when our Church
shall adopt Developments as articles of faith, then,
and not till then, will she forfeit her claim to the title
of Catholic and Apostolic. All the corruptions and
superstitions of Popery — all the perversions and ex
travagancies of the sectarian, or so-called evange
lical creeds, are Developments, and should be re
jected as such by the true Catholic ; as in the old
time before us, the Churches of Marseilles and Lyons
rejected the Developments of St. Augustine, because
they were Developments." THE END.

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