ANALYSIS
OF
DR. XEWMAX S APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA
ANALYSIS
OF
A A
DR. NEAVMAN S APOLOGIA PKO YITA SUA :
WITH
A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY
OP
POPES, COUNCILS, AND THE CHURCH.
BT
J. N.
LONDON" :
W. H. BROOM, PATEKNOSTER ROW.
1866.
ANALYSIS
OF
DR. NEWMAN S APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUi.
I HAD had no thought of even reading Dr. Newman s
Apologia pro Vita sud. I know pretty well, in theory
and practice, what Eomanism is ; and the history of
the popes is open to every one. But the book has
been put into my hands by others, and so far pressed
upon me ; and I have read it : I cannot say it has
won my respect. It has certain charms about it; and
the present state of things clothes it with interest. I
think it likely to attract and win no small number
of minds. There is a seeming candour on the
surface, and men s minds are prepared for it, and
" quod volumus facile credimu>s" The circle of uni
versity affections is most powerful formed as they
are just when the heart is fresh and growing to
manhood and amiable, and the reference to them is
one of the attractive points of Dr. Newman s book,
but cannot decide what salvation and the Church
of God is. If we penetrate below the surface, I do
not think the charm of the book remains. The
reader must judge when we shall have examined
it together.
The secret of the course of Dr. Newman s mind
is this it is sensuous;* and so is Eomanism. He
never possessed the truth, nor, in the process he de
scribes, sought it : he had never found rest or peace
in his own soul, nor sought it where it is to be found,
according to the holiness of God. He sunk into that
system where the mind often finds quiet from rest
less search after repose, when wearied in judging for
itself, but never peace with God. That is positively
denied and denounced in the Eoman Catholic system.
In his search, he was never and this difference is
all -important --on the true ground or principles of
true faith at all. These things his book shows.
From the first Oxford influences he came under, he
had a horror of Protestantism. I understand that
horror. How earnestly, when I was in the state I
have referred to elsewhere in these pages, I should
have disowned, and did disown, that name. I looked
for the Church. Not having peace in my soul, nor
knowing yet where peace is, I too, governed by a
morbid imagination, thought much of Eome, and its
professed sanctity, and Catholicity, and antiquity,
not of the possession of divine truth and of Christ
myself. Protestantism met none of these feelings,
and I was rather a bore to my clergyman by acting
on the rubrics. I looked out for something more
like reverend antiquity. I was really much in Dr.
* No reader must confound this with sensual.
Xewman s state of mind. But such a feeling as to
Protestantism is shallow, and little founded on fact.
I do not think, now, that Protestantism has restored
the Church to purity. It did not see, I judge, the true
doctrine of the Church, any more than Dr. Newman.
Protestantism occupied itself with the positive evils
in doctrine and practice that pressed upon men s
consciences, and did the best it knew how in raising
national churches, so-called. Still, its nature is mis
apprehended. As to the word Protestantism, it came
from the act of several German princes at the second
Diet of Spires. The previous Diet of Spires had left
each prince free in his own dominions as to religious
matters. At the second, the emperor, having settled
matters with the pope, succeeded with the legate in
getting this rescinded. Nothing was to be changed
O C* O Q
till the general council was held. The principal
northern princes and many free cities protested, nor
held the recess for valid, as it was passed only by a
majority when they had left. Further, on the Con
tinent, half those separated from Kome are not called
Protestants, but Reformed. The Lutherans are Pro
testants.
But the matter lies deeper than all this. It is a
past history; but it is well it should be known.
Protestantism practically broke out about indul
gences. The pope- -infallible according to Dr.
Newman- -the centre of infidelity in fact, at that
time, when infidelity was the fashion at Eome, had
set the sale of indulgences on foot to get money to
build St. Peter s. The sale was formed out, through
the Archbishop of Mayence, to the Fuggers ; and
the well known Tetzel, in Germany, and Samson,
in Switzerland, were the agents for the sale. But
of this hereafter.
I do not enter on the sparring between Mr. Kings-
ley and Dr. Newman. To say the truth, I think it
poor and low on both sides. If Mr. K. thinks Dr.
N. dishonest, all this shilly-shallying about gentle
men s points of honour is folly. The eternal truth
of God is beyond this fencing. If he thought in his
heart Dr. N. told the truth, he should not seek to
prove that he did not by subsequent writings. If he
did not, there is affectation in treating of points of
honour. All this is below the dignity and serious
ness of an enquiry into God s truth. On the other
hand, Dr. IN", is vexed and undignified too ; his blots,
one, two, &c., are poor, and, as I judge, a failure
undignified, and often very poor in reasoning and
tone. That he was vexed with being charged with
dishonesty, one can conceive ; but vexation is a bad
counsellor. I say, poor in reasoning. I take an
example. What analogy is there between accepting
devoutly a false historical statement, and Sir D.
Brewster s dreams of inhabitants in the stars ? This
is a very poor come-off. The author of St. Augus
tine s life says, with the evident wish it should be
so, that a statement, historically false, but which has
serious effects on the whole state of mind of him
who believes it, "will not be without effect on the
devout mind/ and that "it lias been received as a
pious opinion." It is admitted, that the alleged
visit of Peter, which is to have this effect, is a pre
tended visit ; hut devout minds will be influenced
by what has been received as a pious opinion. It is
"to be kept quite distinct from documentary evi
dence," but to have its effect. This Dr. K tells us
is sober. Is it sober to look for the effect of a con
fessed lying legend on the mind, as a pious opinion ?
Now the legend has for its object to exalt St. Peter,
and Rome through him. For this purpose, false
hoods have been told, and minds encouraged in
receiving them ; and it is a pious opinion to be
lieve it, and not without effect. This, Dr. Newman
tells us, is a sober judgment, because it is said it is
to be kept distinct from documentary and historic
proof. That people may have believed it piously, I
may admit; but to justify the reception of a con
fessedly false legend as a pious opinion, saying that
it will have its effect on devout minds, I cannot
call sober. It is a proof of what Eornanists con
sider devoutness and piety. It proves another
thing, how early the Church was deceived by false
hoods ; for we are here told, that Innocent I. (A.D.
416) lets us know, that it was then received as
a pious opinion, " that St. Peter was instrumental in
the conversion of the West enerallv." We do
O *.
get, not sobriety, but a specimen of the kind of
thing called devoutness and piety. I have men
tioned, however, this part of the book only to say,
that while I think it poor in reasoning, it is of a
character which in detail calls for no remark. AVhat
is important is mainly elsewhere, and to that I turn.*
It is written, that there will be a falling away, an
apostacy; and, though faith may be answered in
arresting judgment, when impending, no efforts of
ours will avert finally the predicted evil. This evil
will, we are told, have a double character in the
course of its development : the form of godliness and
denial of its power or religious evil, and open denial
of Christianity or infidelity ; superstitious idolatrous
religiousness, devoid of spiritual truth, and open in
fidelity.
It is a singular, but, providentially, a notable fact,
that two brothers should be eminently conspicuous
in these two forms of evil. Mr. F. Newman has
given his personal history in his progress to infi
delity ; Dr. Newman, in his progress in falling into
popery. There are some passages almost literally
identical in their form. The fact, of course, would
have been the same, whoever it might have been ;
but, as striking in its effect on the mind, two brothers
being representatives of the double form of depar
ture from the truth, is, I repeat, providentially re
markable. The more so, as they have both come
* I find, on my return to England, that Dr. Newman has sup
pressed all this in his second edition. He has judged, I suppose, as I
do, or received counsel to that effect. I have judged rightly in not
noticing it. But as many most probably will have the edition I had
in writing this, and the point itself has its importance, I leave the
paragraph as it is.
forward to account for it, not by any direct reason
ing as to the truth or falsehood of what they
have left or fallen into ; but, in each case, in
the way in which their minds were filled with it,
that is, bv an account of themselves. Both have
V
known how to render their books attractive, and
themselves attractive by them. Both of them un
questionably able men, but I do not, for my own
part, think possessed of any depth of moral percep
tion. I speak entirely from their respective works,
of course. I do not put them on a par : I must say
I think the low, and what I must call filthy, insinua
tions of Mr. F. Newman, in his "Phases of Faith,"
ought, though but short and occasional, to have at
once condemned the whole book, and the state of
mind of the writer, in every mind that had a spark
of elevation, any sense of what is of good report, of
what is comely and pure. From such a reproach Dr.
N. is entirely clear; I shall defer pronouncing any
judgment of his book till I have examined its
contents. One thing is striking in both ; they seek
to persuade us by shewing, in their respective books,
that they were wrong, and had each of them to give
up everything he held on the points in question.
This is singular. Each of these books shews us a
mind step by step giving up what they held as true,
and finding they were wrong at each step. This has
an air of candour. But, did it lead them to distrust
themselves ? Quite the contrary. They would have us
embrace the conclusions they have come to, and in
8
which they profess to have the greatest confidence,
though in every previous step they had found them
selves wrong. Mr. F. N. has given up Christianity
altogether, and gives us the phases of his discoveries
of mistake after mistake given up; Dr. N., the
apology for his life, in which he has relinquished,
not the general truths of Christianity, no doubt, but
all he once held on the particular points in question.
It does seem to me that this shews, not confidence
in the truth, (for what they supposed such they gave
up,) but the attaching an immense importance to their
own views I am afraid I must say, to themselves, I
mean by that, to the processes of their own minds.
I have no doubt that there is a direct action of
the enemy of souls in all this of Satan. On this I
do not enlarge ; but I am bound to say so. But is it
not singular that I should put forward the discovery
of my being wrong in everything I held, not as a
lowly acknowledgment of error, but seeking thereby
confidence in the conclusion I have arrived at as a
motive to influence other minds, and that they should
be influenced by it, and attracted to the persons who
thus acquaint the public so very elaborately with all
that has passed, as they tell us, in their minds ?
The public, no doubt, likes confidences, likes secret
histories, and here it has them, and has them very
cleverly written; seemingly very naturally and
innocently, and on topics which are in vogue. It
is admitted behind the scenes in an interesting
epoch, and has the actors familiarly and confidingly
brought before it. This, of course, attracts. We
O
like to be thus trusted with secrets, to know what
has gone on.
But here I must go a little deeper into the nature
of this disposition to have secret histories, though I
fear I may not please the public if they condescend
to read me; but I must tell the truth, and it bears
on the character of these books. Men like to hear the
secret history, and learn the progress of what is evil,
much more than of what is good. Take a young man,
in the human sense innocent, gradually getting away
from what is honourable and pure, making impulsive
efforts to recover himself, but still sinking, getting,
alas ! gradually degraded, till lie arrives at some
terrible and fatal end. Men are interested. The
efforts at recovery cast a halo round the sinking
man. His degradation is, comparatively speaking,
lost sight of. Pity surrounds his end: we like to
know the details. A young female, shining in early
youth, wickedly and heartlessly seduced, struggling
against the engulphing stream for a while, the moral
tone of her mind sinking, sorrow often (if innocence
be met), with longings of heart that she were back
to innocence, but her career still onward in evil,
till she sinks in destitution, and shame, and sorrow !
There is not merely pity (for that is right in both
cases), but man likes to read the process ; and the
person whose secret history he follows becomes in
teresting to him. Now let these persons be recovered
from their evil, instead of sinking to ruin ; will the
10
steps of their recovery be traced with the same
interest ? Most surely not. Put one and the other
in a newspaper, in a pamphlet, and try. I do not say
our moral judgment approves this tendency of mind :
grace surely will correct it. I speak of the fact.
Such is human nature, such is the public ; for the
public is human nature locally modified. Suppose
Mr. F. W. Newman or Dr. Newman were to return,
the one to Christianity, the other to scriptural truth,
would their phases of return, or the history of their
religious recovery, be read with the same interest ?
I am fully persuaded they would not. Eight-minded
people would be glad, individuals would trace it
with interest. Dr. N. s present publication might
cause the sale of some of that; but no bookseller
would undertake an edition of the history of their
recovery as he would of their fall. Alas ! that it
should be so ; but the history of their fall away from
truth and into evil, that it is that interests. But that
is what their history is a history of.
No one questions that at this moment the power
of evil is rampant; its forms are the deceit of Koman-
ism and the insolence of open infidelity. Dr. New
man avows in result that he knows only the one or
the other Catholicism (that is, Papal infallibility)
or Atheism; not the truth for himself. (Page 231 of
first edition.) What is fearful (though the Christian
has nothing to fear, far from it) is not that evil is
there, but the perfect impotency of existing forms
and corporations (I mean of such as ought, from
11
their position and profession, to stand against it), to
resist that evil. This is the sign of approaching
judgment, of being given up of God. It was not
Satan s power which drove the blessed Lord out of
the world: as its occasion, it brought Him into it.
But when His disciples could not cast demons out,
could not use the power which had come in, then He
says, " Faithless and perverse generation, how long
shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you ? "
The country is in progress towards these two
forms of evil. The National Schools in Ireland are
founded on the avowed principle, that it was a vital
defect to have the Scriptures read in them, and this
professedly to please the priests. A lay tribunal has
decided that clergymen are not bound to hold the
Scriptures to be inspired, and that if they do not
contravene articles made for another state of the
Church, they may teach anything they like ; that is,
that the Church is no guardian of the truth at all.
On the other hand, when men are subjected to the
stultified fatuity that a red gown is like the Holy
Ghost, there is no way of meeting such imbecility
in public service,* because there is a rubric attached
to the liturgy, the expression of patience, ill-advised
or not, at the time when men were emerging from
these things, which permits what was done in the
second year of Edward VI.
* Since this was written, some little righteous energy (I would I
could say, consistency) has been shown by Dr. Tait, for which I
desire to be abundantly thankful.
12
Now, it is not the evil I am judging here. If men
like red gowns, I am sorry they do not instead love
to worship God ii\ spirit and in truth ; but what I
notice, what is fatal in its character is, that while
the word of God is surrendered, and men are judi
cially authorized to give it up, there is no autonomy,
no power, avowedly no power, to stand against or
remove evil. The authorities of the national body
seek to tide it over with the power of evil ; but there
is no faithfulness to God : and we have Father Igna
tius at the Episcopal gathering as a deacon of the
Church of England, and having a right to be there ;
and we have Colensos and Williamses openly setting
aside the word with impunity. Neither can be met,
neither can be dealt with as evil. They are authori
tatively or judicially accepted ; there is no intrinsic
power at all to meet evil. I do not doubt the faith
fulness of the Lord ; I have no fear ; I hold it to be
a time of great blessing for faith ; I believe the Lord
is at hand. But it is sorrowful when what, in some
sense at least, was the professed seat of righteousness
declares its incapacity to remove or resist evil. If
it be so, we are on the way to judgment. The aris
tocratic mind tends to popery; the popular to in
fidelity. Ecclesiastical authorities are powerless
against the former; they are the chief abettors of
the latter. Truth remains, blessed be God, always
itself, and grace cannot fail.
As I have spoken of these two forms of evil, let
me add a few words on them before I formally take
13
up the book which has given occasion to these lines.
It is, as regards the true object of these remarks, the
best judgment on the book. I am greatly confirmed
in the conviction, that at the root of Eomanism lies
infidelity, not of course in the gross form of denying
Christianity, in its fundamental truths, or the his
torical basis of Christianity; but in the annulling
those truths on which the blessing of the soul de
pends, or their application to it. It is a sensuous
religion, fills the imagination with gorgeous cere
monies, noble buildings, fine music, stately proces
sions. It feeds it with legends and the poetry of
antiquity; but it gives no holy peace to the con
science, ease it may, but not peace, and while ac
crediting itself with asceticism,* accepts for the mass
of its votaries full association with the world. It
holds sin over the conscience as terror, and relieves
from that terror by human intervention, so as to put
power into man s hand into the hands of the priest
hood. Looked at as a picture, it fills largely the
imagination, in practice it degrades. Christianity
and (in its true sense, whatever its shortcomings
may have been) Protestantism elevate. I shall refer
to this last in a moment: it has largely failed in
result, but in its nature, as compared with Romanism,
it elevates.
Christianity brings us directly, immediately, to God.
Each individual is directly, immediately, in relation-
* "I looked at her," says Dr. N., her rites, her ceremonial, her
precepts, and I said, This is a religion."
14
ship to God, his conscience before God, his heart
confidingly in His presence. Judaism had a priest
hood, the people could not go into God s presence.
They might receive blessings, offer offerings, celebrate
God s goodness, have a law to command them ; but
the way into the holiest was closed by a veil : " the
Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the
holiest was not yet made manifest." When the Lord
Jesus died, this veil was rent from top to bottom, and
" we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He
has consecrated through the veil, that is to say, His
flesh;" "He has made peace by the blood of His
cross ;" " suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us
to God ;" " His blood cleanses from all sin." Hence
the essence of Christianity, as applied to man, is,
that the Christian goes himself, directly, personally
to God ; in Christ s name, and through Christ, but
himself, into the holiest, and with boldness. He has
by Christ access through the one Spirit to the Father,
the Spirit of adoption. This being brought nigh by
the blood of Jesus, characterises Christianity in its
nature. The holiness of God s own presence is
brought to bear on the soul, " If we walk," it is
said, " in the light, as He is in the light,"- -yet not as
fear, which repels, for we know perfect love through
the gift of Jesus; we have boldness to enter into the
holiest, that place where the presence of God him
self assures that the confidence of love will be the
adoration of reverence, while we go forth to the
15
world, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest
in our mortal body, the epistle (as it is said) of
Christ. I am not discussing how far each Christian
realizes it, but that is what Christianity practically
is. He hath made us kings and priests to God and
His Father. This elevates truly. Man is not elevated
by intellectual pretensions ; for he never gets, nor
can get, beyond himself. What elevates him is heart-
intercourse with what is above him ; what truly ele
vates him is heart -intercourse with God, fellowship
(wondrous word !) with the Father, and with His Son
Jesus Christ. But, even where the heart has not
found its blessed home there through grace, this
principle morally elevates ; for it at least puts the
natural conscience directly before God, and refers the
soul, in its estimate of good and evil, personally and
immediately to Him. There may be self-will and
failure, but the standard of responsibility is preserved
for the soul. I do but sketch the great principle on
which I insist.
Komanism has, wherever it exercises its influence,
closed the veil again. The faithful are not reconciled
to God, they cannot go into the holiest, do not know
(as they quote from Ecclesiastes with so false an
application) love and hatred by all that is before
them, they have a priesthood between them and God,
and saints, and the virgin Mary. Christianity is a
divine work which, through the redemption and life
of a heavenly Mediator, has brought us to God;
Eomanisin, a system of mediators on earth and in
16
heaven, placed between us and God, to whom we are
to go, and who go for us : we are too unworthy to go
ourselves. It sounds lowly, this voluntary humility,
but it shuts out the conscience from the witness of
God s presence, it casts us back on our worthiness, it
puts away and denies the perfect love of God as
known to us (shed abroad in the heart by the Holy
Ghost given to us) through Christ. It repudiates
the blessed tender grace of Jesus, that High Priest
who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;
we must go to the heart of Jesus through the heart
of Mary, they tell us. Surely I would rather trust
His, blessed and honoured as she may have been and
was in her own place. It removes me from God, to
connect me immediately with creatures, however
exalted, for my heart, and with sinful men, for my
conscience, who are to judge of and absolve me.
All this is degrading : it is the denial of Christianity,
not in its original facts, but in its power and applica
tion to man. A few illustrations of what I mean.
They hold the great facts or truths of Christianity
the Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ, the
atonement, so far as its sufficiency goes, not, however,
as effectual substitution, that men are sinners (this
also very imperfectly); and the need of regenera
tion, though they scorn the true force of the word :
they hold the inspiration of the Scriptures, though
they have falsified them, both in adding books which
every honest man knows are not genuine Scriptures,
and giving a translation as the authentic Scriptures.
17
They own in a general way the personality and
agency of the Holy Ghost. My object is not here
to state exactly every point, but to say in general
that they own the great fundamental facts of Chris
tianity. It is not there that the spirit of infidelity
shows itself. But the moment you come to the
application of these facts to men to their efficacious
value, all is lost. The Scriptures are inspired, but
the faithful are incapable of using them. In vain is
it that they are addressed by God himself through
the inspired writers to the body of believers they
must not have them but by leave of others. In vain
is it that there is a Holy Ghost ; He does not so lead
and guide individuals as that they can walk in peace
and grace, and understand withal His word. They
mock at the thought of His dwelling in believers.
They bring the divisions and faults of believers to
prove He cannot be there ; that is, they use man s sin
to deny God s goodness and truth, just as infidels do.
Even as to the Scriptures their universal question is
the same as the infidel s, How do you know them
to be the Scriptures ? Their doctrine is, You must
believe in them through the Church : that is, they do
not command faith in and by themselves, nor is man
guilty if he reject them, just as the infidel says.
God s word must be believed because God has spoken,
and for no other reason, or it is not believing His
word at all. Grace, no doubt, is needed for it, as for
everything; but man s responsibility is there, as the
Lord said, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall
c
18
die in your sins." They were responsible for not
receiving Him, with all Ecclesiastical authority re
jecting Him ; so are men as to the word.
Again, the sacrifice of Christ, they do not deny it.
They repeat it in the mass in an unbloody sacrifice,
they say. But Scripture says it was accomplished
once for all, and contrasts it in its efficacy with the
Jewish sacrifices, the repetition of which proved that
sin was still there. Whereas the sacrifice of Christ,
offered once for all, having perfectly put away sin for
him who believes, there could be no repetition, the
believer is perfected for ever, and God remembers his
sins and iniquities no more. Their repetition shows
unbelief in this blessed truth. The believer is not
perfected for ever the sacrifice must be repeated. It
is not true that God will not remember their sins and
iniquities any more. That is, the sacrifice is not
denied ; its efficacy, once offered for the believer s
soul, is.
Again, take Christ s intercessional mediatorship.
Christianity presents to me that blessed One, in
whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
a man tempted in all points as we are, without sin;
one who also can be touched with the feeling of my
infirmities, who has suffered being tempted, and thus
is able to succour them that are tempted. In a word,
the Son of God himself has descended into our
sorrows and trials, arid passed through them in tender
gracious love, that I might confide in His sympathy
and love, and know He could feel for and with me.
19
Do they deny His priesthood and intercession? No.
But in fact there are a crowd of mediators ; above all,
Mary His mother. And why? He is too high and
glorious. Any poor man would seek a friend at court
to have the king s ear ; it is the heart of Mary I am
to trust, and get the saints intercession, and get at His
heart through Mary s. The whole truth and value
of Christ s intercessory love is destroyed and denied
in practice. The saints and Mary s intercession
is trusted, their tenderness and nearness believed
in, not Christ s. Heathenism denied the one true
God the Creator (though in a certain sense owning
Him as a dogma) by a multiplicity of gods in practice.
God intervenes by a Mediator in the most perfect
system of blessing, and Komanism, while admitting
the mediatorship of Christ as a dogma, has denied
the one true mediatorship in practice by a multi
plicity of mediators. It is the heathenism of Chris
tianity, that is, of the blessed truth of a redeeming
Mediator.
I turn more immediately to Dr. Newman s book.
Let me be forgiven speaking for a moment of myself,
as what I say has a bearing on these points. I know
the system. I knew it and walked in it years before
Dr. Newman, as I learn from his book, thought on
the subject ; and when Dr. Pusey was not heard of.
I fasted in Lent so as to be weak in body at the end
of it ; ate no meat on week days ; nothing till evening
on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, then a little
bread, or nothing; observed strictly the weekly fasts,
c 2
20
too. I went to my clergyman always if I wished to
take the sacrament, that he might judge of the matter.
I held apostolic succession fully, and the channels of
grace to be there only. I held thus Luther and
Calvin and their followers to be outside. I was not
their judge, but I left them to the uncovenanted
mercies of God. I searched with earnest diligence
into the evidences of apostolic succession in England,
and just saved their validity for myself and my
conscience. The union of Church and State I held
to be Babylonish, that the Church ought to govern
itself, and that she was in bondage, but was the
Church.
I would guard this part of what I say. I still
think fasting a useful thing in its place, if spirit
ually used. I still think there were sacramental
ordinances instituted. I still think the State has
nothing to do with the Church. Only I add, that if
it be so, the Church must not be an imperium in
imperio, but a lowly heavenly body, which has no
portion on earth at all; as it was at the beginning,
suffering as its Head did, unknown and well known,
an unearthly witness of heavenly things on earth.
What saved me then, I think, from being a Eomanist
was the ninth and tenth of Hebrews. I could not
for priesthood, which I believed in, give practically
up our great High Priest and His work. What de
livered me from this whole system was the truth.
The word of God had its own, its divine authority
over my soul, and maintained it through grace. I
21
was looking for the true Church honestly, but in the
dark. I believe in the Church now, but I know it
in its reality only as the living body of Christ united
to Him by the Holy Ghost. I believe there is a
Church on earth, but, as is prophesied by the apostles,
utterly corrupted as an external thing, and ruined,
"having the form of godliness, but denying the
power of it," causing perilous times. I see the
Church, the body of Christ, composed of living
members united to Him by the Holy Ghost. I see
an outward system, the habitation of God through
the Spirit ; but there I see wood, and hay, and
stubble, may be built* in, and has been, and worse,
but that God s faithfulness will continue His own
work. Christ will build till all be finished, and no
power shall prevail against it, until the time come to
take those that are His to glory. I believe the appro
priating the privileges of the members of Christ s
body, as a fact, to all that are built into the house, is
the fundamental principle of popery, and all that
clings to it. I admit a sacramental system, but to
identify it with actual spiritual power is unscriptural
and false ; one may be corrupted by man, the other
is the work of God, and secured by Him. I know
* What Christ builds will be infallibly maintained to the end;
and to this Peter refers in 1 Peter ii. But, also, as in every divine
dispensation from the beginning, what God had established in a right
state has been trusted to man s responsibility, and man has uni
formly failed, and the system has been judged. So of the external
system of the Church, the day will declare the work, for it will
be revealed by lire. The corruption will be destroyed.
22
no salvation out of the true Church ; but the Roman
Catholic Church is ridiculous as a security for the
soul ; for they admit that men may be, and hundreds
are, members of it, and lost after all. I would not
thank you for such security as that. I do not think
Protestantism was fully delivered from this identify
ing the external sacramental system, and the divine
power of life- -these two distinct revealed aspects
of the Church and hence its present difficulties.
Romanism specifically and as a system identifies
them, denies the spiritual power, and regeneration by
the Word, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost;
in practice, mocks at it, as an infidel might. It is
essential falsehood in this respect. Protestantism
does not. It owns the spiritual power and the Word,
but I do not think there was deliverance from con
fusion as to it. It is bearing the burden of this now.
We are told there shall come a falling away. As
I have said, I believe it. The apostle has declared,
that is, God has declared, "Upon thee [the engrafted
Gentile] goodness, if thou continue in His goodness;
otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off." Falling away,
the opposite of continuing in God s goodness, is pro
phesied of; the lot of the Church, as an outward
professing system, is to be cut off. I look for partial
present success for Romanism the unbelief of ima
gination, and especially in its influence over govern
ment but to make a way for open apostacy, or infi
delity, the instrument of desolating judgments on it
when Antichrist and judgment will close the scene.
23
Into that system of corruption which shall thus be
destroyed, though for the moment successful, Dr.
Newman has cast himself, as many others have, out
of the uncertainty in which he has found his mind.
His brother, as we have seen, publicly represents the
open infidelity. Dr. Newman rests on authority ;
for him the Pope is infallible. I have found (through
pure grace, I fully own) the truth deliver me out of
all difficulties, and the sure stay of my soul ; for the
word of God abides for ever. I rest, through grace,
on the truth; on divine authority; on apostles, not
on the Pope. Dr. Newman cannot say, I know of
whom I have learned it. I can. I have learned it
of Paul, John, Peter--! need not name the rest
yea, of the blessed Lord himself.
I will examine the process of Dr. Newman s mind.
He has set it before us for the purpose. I pity Dr.
Newman ; I feel his difficulties ; I have felt them
myself; I do not judge him. But as his book is
calculated to interest and influence many, I do not
think he can complain if I dissect it freely. It is
impossible to do so without speaking of Dr. Newman
himself; for the whole part of his book which I
comment on is an account of himself. I must neces
sarily expose his state in commenting on his own
account of it. In many things I agree ; many of his
thoughts I have gone over in my own mind. Strange
to say, I rind I admit constantly all that infidels
hold metaphysically. Only the truth remains, the
truth of God untouched. I account for some of their
24
thoughts; cannot for others. "What Dr. Newman calls
liberalism is infidelity man meddling, with his own
mind as competent, in divine things. I reject this as
utterly as he does. In the two points he professes
to name, I do in a measure, I suppose, pretty much
as he does; but Tie need not be so afraid of liberalism.
AVhat it hates is truth. Its latitudinarianism will
favour is favouring -Popery at present more than
anything else does, and has been. I believe the time
will come when it will pull down Popery. I believe
the time will come, as Dr. Newman says, when a
iin -re ria rued id will disappear as satisfying nobody,
ami the struggle will be between Popery and Infi
delity directly. I believe infidel power will triumph,
and Popery disappear ; but triumph to its own de
struction by the judgment of the Lord. l>ut at
present the liberal principle, and the majority of
Dissenters with it, are attacking the Establishment,
the via i/irdia. It stands in their way. Some have
boasted to me of their doing so, looking for the
result Dr. 1ST. himself anticipates ; that is, putting
down the Establishment, and then having a final
struggle with Romanism. I have no sympathy with
this in any sense or way. They are deceiving them
selves, too. They will find liberalism too strong for
themselves as a system. What is religious, as a
system among them, will not, does not satisfy any
active religious or infidel mind now. They may
grow for a time by the ruin of others ; but they are
letting loose what will ruin themselves. But there
25
is another thing besides and behind what Dr. New
man is looking at the truth of God, the people of
God. That will subsist and have its place in heaven
when the fashion of this world has passed away.
There will be a people, not liberal so-called, not
Romanists, but heavenly, Christian men, resting on
the word of God in true and lowly faith, led by the
Spirit, kept, whatever the ruin, against whom the
gates of hell shall not and never can prevail. They
will be kept, I mean, in the world, where alone
danger for them is. They will have the sacraments,
for such there are ; but they will have what is in
ward and essential true, divinely-wrought faith, and
the Spirit of God ; kept by the power of God through
faith unto salvation ready to be revealed. May Dr.
Newman be found among them, and many of the
liberals too; yea, his now poor infidel brother; for
grace can gather from every quarter. I am perfectly
assured, that the gates of hell shall not prevail
against the Church that Christ builds; and I mean
that He will keep it as a public profession here until
the moment known to God, when He will take His
own to Himself in heaven. But that which man has
built and corrupted, the servant which has said, My
Lord delays his coming, and has beaten the men
servants and maid servants, and has eaten and drunk
with the drunken, will be judged, have his portion
with the unbelievers, with the hypocrites, though
called His servant to the end. It is well that men
who tear God should ponder these things.
26
The first point which prominently strikes me in
Dr. Newman s book is, that, as far as I can find,
from diligently examining it, neither Christ, nor the
truth, nor the word of God, nor any true solid
foundation ever was in his mind at all. I hasten to
say, I am not speaking of what is called orthodoxy.
I am assuming that, as he does. He professed these
great Christian foundations before; he professes
them now sincerely, I doubt not, as dogmas then
and now, the useless faith of James. But in his
search on the point which occupied his mind, in
what he discloses in this book, neither Christ, nor
the truth, nor the word of God, nor any divine
ground of faith, is found as an object of research, or
possessed as the foundation of his soul. As, to a
divine foundation of divine faith, it is from beginning
to end denied. Romanism has none. It has dogmas,
immensely important, fundamental dogmas they are,
but no divine ground of faith.* My business is here
to show that it is so, as to Dr. N. His enquiry was
between Anglicanism and Romanism. The sound
ness and fairness of that enquiry I will speak of;
but there are deeper principles at the bottom of the
result he has arrived at, and to them I now turn. I
affirm that, as far as this book goes, there is no
divine ground of faith at all in it. He says he was
converted at fifteen. Charity will surely hope and
* I do not undervalue these dogmas. They are essential to
Christianity, and we cannot estimate them too highly, or hold them
too fast.
27
trust it is so. I do not pretend to judge, I earnestly
hope it is; my heart gladly believes it, and rejoices in
the thought of it. There is One only who judges.
I speak of his book, and the principles laid down
there. Whether Christ ever appears there, people
must judge of who have read it. I cannot recall the
instance. And this is exceedingly important, as to
what religion is. Possessing Christ, having the Son,
as Scripture expresses it, gives a rest and peace to
the soul, which does not leave it beating about after
truth, as Dr. Newman s was, saying, Where is it?
The soul that has Christ knows it has got the truth
for He is it that it has found the Father. It does
not hunger, as not having what the soul needs and
craves after. It is not looking about for safetv, for
O i/
it is safe in Him and through Him ; not in self-con
fidence, but trusting the good Shepherd, who knows
His sheep, and keeps them. It does not slight
the sacraments, but is thankful for them, nor the
ministry of men whom the Lord has sent. It blesses
God heartily for all these things where it enjoys
them, but it possesses the substance of all, eternal life
in Christ, shepherd -care in Him. It has peace and
rest of heart in Him. And there is another point
connected with this. What finally led Dr. Newman
to be satisfied with Ilomanism, which has confess
edly a multitude of doctrines unknown to the
primitive Church, was the principle of development.
He was far down the hill, no doubt, long before,
but tli at plunged him into its waters. Now in
28
the person of Christ, and the value of His work
before God, there can be no development. He is
the same and so is the efficacy of His work
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. I or Dr. Newman
may grow in the knowledge of Christ. Faithful
zeal may resist and dispel errors which arise, and by
which Satan seeks to cloud the truth and overthrow
faith ; but there cannot be a development of the
infinitely perfect and completely revealed person of
the Son of God, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily. Dr. Newman may find, in
spite of Bishop Bull, and as Pettau has admitted,
that the ante-Nicene fathers were worse than ob
scure as to the divinity of the blessed Lord; but
Paul is not, who declares that the fulness of the
Godhead (Qeorys not OeLorys, that is, proper Deity, not
divine character simply) dwells in Him bodily ; John
is not, who declares, He is the true God, was with
God, and was God ; and the New Testament, so
plainly and blessedly making Christ known to us, is
not. There He is Immanuel, Jesus, Jehovah the
Saviour. He may rejoice that the Mcene council re
affirmed this truth. But to say that this was develop
ment, and that the Church of God for three centuries
did not know the true divinity of Christ, is high
treason against Christ and the truth. It is the folly
of a mind who, to excuse itself, and make out a
point, gives up all fundamental truth --does not
possess it. It may lead to Eomanism I dare say it
does ; I am sure it does not lead to God. The
29
apostle tells us, on this very head, " Let that there
fore abide in you, which ye have heard from the
beginning. If that therefore which ye have heard
from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also
shall continue in the Son, and in the Father." There
might be the rejection of heresies, as Arianism,
whose source was in Platonism and philosophy, or
of other similar evil doctrines ; but it was not to
develope, but to maintain what was from the begin
ning. So the apostle Paul, " But continue thou in the
things which thou hast learned, knowing of whom
thou hast learned them." I admit no development :
that is Popery. I admit of no private judgment,
when God has revealed the truth. I will touch on
this subject further when I come to speak of Dr.
NVs views of Protestantism. I learn, but I know of
whom I learn; I continue in what we have heard
from the beginning. The Eomish Church does not so
continue ; it does not know of whom it learns, as to
the faith of any individual in it. The indiscriminate
reading of Scripture by Christians it condemns,
which the apostle gives as the resource and security
of the believer in the last and evil days. We are
perfectly sure why.
Xext, it is striking how absolutely foreign the
search for the truth, or the conscious possession of
it, was from Dr. N. s mind. He was looking out for
some via nmU<i to preserve from what threatened.
The Evangelical system only occupied a space be
tween Catholic truth and rationalism, (pp. 144, 145.)
30
1 do not know what else a via media of his own was
to do. But I refer to this now to show there was no
search for God s truth in the matter ; it was some
expedient. " It was necessary to have a definite
Church theory erected on a definite basis ; this took
me to the great Anglican divines." (146.) Then there
were the parties in the controversy, the Anglican via
media, and the popular religion of Eome. The Angli
can disputant took his stand upon antiquity or Apos-
tolicity, the Koman on Catholicity. (148-153.) " It is
plain, then, that at the end of 1835, or beginning of
1836, I had the whole question before me on which,
to my mind, the decision between the churches de
pended. There was a contrariety of claims between
the Anglican and Koman religions, and the history
of my conversion is simply the process of working it
out to a solution." It was Catholicity, or antiquity.
I add that the unity of the Church as one body was
not in his mind at all. It was Catholicity, or inde
pendent dioceses. (148.) On reading Leo he suddenly
felt he was all in the wrong. " Be my soul with the
saints," such as Athanasius (who died excommuni
cated and banished by the so-called universal Church
for the truth s sake) and Leo. "Anathema to a whole
tribe of Cranmers, Kidleys, Latimers, and Jewels !
Perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stil-
lingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I
should do aught but fall at their feet in love and
worship, whose image was continually before my
eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears
31
and on my tongue." Is there the most distant idea
of an approach to the serious search of God s truth
on the subject from His teaching ? Dr. 1ST. moves in
a circle of men s minds to decide a question of the
merit of present rival schemes, never for the truth
of God. Where he had learnt what he did hold we
shall see in the next article. Even here we shall see
he rests on no divine testimony. There is no serious
ness. Dr. Wiseman s words from St. Augustine, " Se-
curus yudicat orbis tcrmrum," sounded in his ears in
cessantly, like "Turn again Whittington ! " (157-8.)
"There was more evidence in antiquity for the neces
sity of unity, than for the Apostolical succession,"
etc. The truth of God, as revealed, does not enter
his mind. He cannot say he possessed it, or thought
he did; for he was uncertain and changing, and
that even as to why he was to believe ; but in this
state never enquired for God s truth on God s
authority.
Again, further on (231), he examines the concatena
tion .of arguments by which the mind ascends from its
first to its final religious idea : " And I came to the
conclusion that there was no medium between Athe
ism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent
mind, under those circumstances in which it finds
itself here below, must embrace either one or the
other." (231.) Now, such a sentence could not by
any possibility have been penned by one who pos
sessed the truth himself. One who possessed Christ,
knew Him as the Son of God for himself, (knew the
32
Father and His love), must have known that there
was the possession of truth without being what Dr.
N. (when he wrote this) means by Catholic. No one
who possessed divine truth, as taught of God, what
ever the external means truth as to God, the Trinity,
the Lord Jesus, the Church as one with Him, sin, sal-
I
vat ion (I might enlarge the list) could have declared
there was no medium between Atheism and Catho
licity. And note his grounds : " I am a Catholic by
virtue of my believing in a God ; and if I am asked
why I believe in a God, it is because I believe in
myself." God s presence in his conscience makes
him know God. Now, Dr. N. speaks of philosophical
correctness. It is not the question here. Either
before joining Borne he possessed Christian truth, or
he did not. If he did, his position is false ; if he did
not, any one can understand why he turned Catholic.
He had nothing. Nor, indeed, did he arrive at
anything. He came to authority, not faith in any
truth. He did not believe, he tells us, in transub-
stantiation till he was a Catholic. Now he receives
it on authority. (265.) He believed that the Eornan
Catholic Church was the oracle of God. Transub-
stantiation passed muster with all the rest, and he
declared it to be a part of the original revelation ;
but this is no true faith in a truth, it is acquiescence
in authority, and, after all, it is accrediting Borne for
a fact. I might add to this list of proofs that he did
not possess the truth, nor seek it. I quote this only
as short expressions of it on his part, and so proofs.
33
The whole book shows it it runs through every part
of it.
I shall now show that he had no divine ground of
faith. His whole ground of believing was, not divine
testimony, but probability, and no more; and such
is the doctrine of the school, as I shall show from.
Keble. No wonder that Komanism delights in this.
It has no divine ground of faith. It cannot give the
same ground of faith to a heathen and a Christian,
nor any sure one to either. It declares, I cannot
believe in God s word but on the authority of the
Church. But how am I to believe in the Church ?
The first converts could not. Antiquity, catholicity,
succession, did not exist. They were called on to
believe in Christ alone. There was no Church, and
all ecclesiastical authority was against Him. The
foundation of the first disciples faith is different on
the Eomanist system from mine ; and, even after
Christ was glorified, the faith of the converts could
not be founded, and was not founded on the Church,
but on the testimony of the apostles. Nor could it
be with heathens now; for they do not recognize the
Church. It is said that there is special grace for them.
So heathens have special grace which Christians
cannot have. And if, as believing in Christ, I seek,
not Christianity, but honestly what church is the
best one, I am told I must begin by owning the
authority of that Church. But this is absurd on the
face of it; for what I want to know is, has it au
thority ? Is it the true Church ( I return to the
D
34
ground Dr. Newman was on. Now, the truth rests
on testimony. John the Baptist says, " He that has
received His testimony has set to his seal that God
is true." So the apostle John : " He that is of
God heareth us." So Paul : " Continue thou in the
tilings that thou hast learned, knowing of whom thou
hast learned them." Now, if I believe the blessed
Lord s testimony, or Paul s, or John s, or any of the
inspired witnesses, I do not, I cannot, dare not speak
of probability. I set to my seal that God is true.
There is no divine faith but that. That Dr. N. never
had in prosecuting his inquiry. He tells us so. It
was one of the great underlying principles of a great
portion of his teaching " Probability is the guide of
life." (61, 62.) The difficulty was evident : scepti
cism, i. e., certainty about nothing. Keble met this,
he tells us, by the doctrine, "that it is not merely
probability which makes us intellectually certain "
mark, " intellectually." He had spoken before of the
logical cogency of faith (62) " but probability as it
is put to account by faith and love. It is faith and
love which give to probability a force which it has
not in itself." (69.) Thus in itself it was only a pro
bability, and something in myself gives it force. It
was reasoning plus right feeling ; but no divine tes
timony at all. Still Dr. N. says that did not satisfy
him. " It was beautiful and religious, but it did not
even profess to be logical." " My argument is in out
line as follows: That that absolute certitude which
we were able to possess, whether as to truths of
35
natural theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was
the result of an assemblage of concurring and con
verging probabilities, and that, both according to the
constitution of the human mind and the will of its
Maker, that certitude was a habit of mind, that cer
tainty was a quality of propositions," and so forth.
(70.) There are degrees, consequently, creating cer
titude, opinion, etc. Now it is quite certain that there
is no divine ground of faith at all here, no testimony
of God received as such ; and if I take these proba
bilities as that on which the reception of a testimony
is based, the certainty of that testimony cannot be
beyond the certainty that it is a true one. Nothing
can be clearer than that, whatever he might have
had in his soul for the foundation of all his inquiry,
no ground of divine faith existed at all. He was
already on the ground of Komanism on this point
that is, of infidelity. Such a process of reasoning
may show the folly of infidel reasoning, and so far
be useful as a means : it never can give divine faith :
it is not on the ground of it at all.
I might multiply quotations ; I only add a few, to
show he was always on this ground. Thus, page 202,
he preached against the danger of being swayed by
our feeling rather than our reason in religious en-
O O
quiry. (223.) "I wish to go by reason, not by feeling."
(232.) This was in 1843-4, on the eve of his be
coming a Romanist: "I say that I believed in God
on a probability, that I believed in Christianity on a
probability, and that I believed in Catholicism on a
D 2
36
probability, and that all three were about the same
kind of probabilities, a cumulative and a transcendant
probability, but still probability; inasmuch as He who
made us has so willed, that in mathematics indeed
we arrive at certitude by rigid demonstration, but in
religious enquiry we arrive at certitude by accumu
lated probabilities ; inasmuch as He who has willed
that we should so act, co-operates with us in our
acting, and therefore bestows on us a certitude which
rises higher than the logical force of our conclusions."
(232.) Thus we have God s grace helping us in ascer
taining probabilities; but, as Dr. N. says, still proba
bility. Now it is perfectly certain that there is no
divine ground of faith here at all. No true believer, no
one who has received God s testimony, and set to his
seal that God is true, be he Koman Catholic itself,
but knows this has nothing whatever to do with
divine faith. It would be a blasphemy to talk of
God s testimony being probably true, no matter how
high the probability may go. Probability of conclu
sions is not of the same nature as reception of a tes
timony. I might here again add quotations, but
they are useless after these. The Komanism of Dr.
Newman is not divine faith at all.
I shall now show further that the principles which
led him to the place where he is were all derived
from man. This may be very clever with a view to
involve Anglicanism in his present position, but is
a distinct testimony that all was built on human
influences, not on God s word or truth divinely
37
received in any way. Dr. Hawkins gave him
Sumner on apostolic preaching. Thus he gave up
his remaining Calvinism, and received the doctrine
of baptismal regeneration. Another principle he
received from Dr Hawkins was the doctrine of
tradition : " to learn doctrine we must have recourse
to the Catechisms and creeds . . . after learning from
them the doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must
verify them from scripture." (61.) Let me say here,
I distinguish fully between learning truth and a
standard of it ; but this is a poor teaching. The first
Christians certainlv did not learn it from words or
\j
Catechism, for there were none to learn them from ;
and now a parent, as well as a catechism, a friend, a
minister, may have taught us the truth, or Scripture
may have done so. Scripture is the only standard.
The fallacy of the statement is in this, that catechisms
and creeds are here introduced, not as teaching, but
as authority ; that is, the Church is. We have re
ceived the truth from them, as truth, without saying
so. Let it be true or false, it is a deceitful presenta
tion of the matter. A parent, a friend, a minister,
are not an authority. If catechisms and creeds are
only means of learning, there are a hundred others.
Their authority is at the root of this tradition.
But to proceed : " The Rev. Wm. James taught
me the doctrine of apostolic succession." "About
this date I read Butler s Analogy, the study of which
has been to so many, as it was to me, an era in their
religious opinions." (61.) From him he learned the
38
doctrine of probability. He had thus given up his early
religious convictions, imbibed with what converted
him to God, and was prepared for his departure into
Romanism. He had been taught by man, and was
landed in the denial of divine faith, on the ground of
probability as the basis of religious views. Whately
then taught him to think and use his reason, "to see
with my own eyes, and to walk with my own feet."
(62.) He learnt from him " the existence of the
Church as a substantive body or corporation. This
led, in its effects, to Tractarianism." (63.) Keble s
poetry, that is, the sacramental system, subsequently
exercised a great influence over him, and what was
added to the doctrine of probability, of which we
have spoken. (68.) Froude, a hard rider, we are told,
on horseback and in views, professed openly his
admiration of the Church of Rome, and his hatred
of the reformers. His opinions arrested and in
fluenced Dr. N.; he was his bosom friend. (73, 74.)
Mr. Froude was evidently governed by the wild
imagination of an unhealthy mind and a strong will.
The theory of virginity, and the real presence, and
medieval antiquity, carried him away not the primi
tive Church. He went abroad ill, and was shocked
by the degeneracy which, says Dr. Newman, lie
thought he saw in the Catholics of Italy. He died
young. "There is one remaining source of my
opiniom" says Dr. N. (so little conscious is he of
what that means, the tale it tells), "to be mentioned."
(75.) This was the study of Fathers and Church
39
history, which resulted in his work as to the Arians
of the fourth century. He delighted in and received
Clement of Alexandria s wild views. They came like
music to his inward ear, reviving the self -invented
Berkley anism he was in when young, of which we
will speak further on. From this school he learnt
what he held about angels. As wild as need be. He
then went abroad ill with Mr. Froude, visited Italy
and Sicily, and (with a strong impression he w r as
called to some work, of which anon,) he began the
Tracts for the Times.
I have gone through the proofs that God s truth
was not what Dr. Xewman sought, but to settle the
question between the principles of Catholicity and
antiquity, or Romanism and Anglicanism ; that
men s opinions, not God s word, was what gradually
led him on, and that he had no divine foundation for
faith at all, but avowedly only probability, which in
its nature excludes the idea of the reception of a
divine testimony. I will now enquire a little into
his actual progress, in which, it seems to me, aston
ishing levity of mind is exhibited, a large share of
self-confidence, it may be some more direct power of
the enemy. I shall be forgiven (as instructively
tracing the elements of a history, given to us by
himself, which has taken the course Dr. Newman s
has) in remarking how much he was occupied with
himself. At p. 20 or 23 he records the phases of his
youthful feeling; he kept even his Latin verses and
copy books, made and used when a young boy.
40
Small things, but which show the tone and character
of mind which were fully developed in after life, as
here depicted, "\\lien he left his tutorship for the
continent, he had a vision of some future before him,
and on his return felt he had a work to do. " I was
naturally led to think that some inward changes, as
well as some larger course of action, was coming upon
me." (81.) His imagination was wild and unre
strained, too, and somehow or other formed in a
popish school. He headed his first copy book as a
child with a crucifix and rosary, and crossed himself
before going into the dark, before he was fifteen ;
longed that the Arabian tales should be true;
thought life might be a dream, or himself an angel;
the world a deception, and his fellow-angels conceal
ing themselves from him, and deceiving him with the
o o
semblance of a material world. (53-55.) Nor when
a clergyman had this character disappeared. In
183-i he said of the angels in a sermon, "Every
breath of air, and ray of light and heat, every
beautiful prospect is as it were the skirts of their
garments, the waving of the robes of those whose
faces see God." "Again I ask, what would be the
thoughts of a man who, examining a flower, or an
herb, or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats
as something so beneath him in the scale of existence,
suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of
some powerful being, who was hidden behind the
visible things he was inspecting, who, &c., . . . nay,
whose robe and ornament these objects were?" (77.)
41
"Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I considered
there was a middle race, Scu/xovia, neither in heaven
nor in hell, partially fallen, capricious, wayward,
noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case
might be. They gave a sort of inspiration or intelli
gence to races, nations, and classes of men, hence the
actions of bodies politic," &c. (78.) This is connected
with his study of Clemens Alexandrinus and Alex-
andrianism, that is, of the JSTeoplatonism which
corrupted the gospel, and was the true source of
Arianism. This Clemens himself being unsound,
and Justin , Martyr expressly declaring that it was
impossible the supreme God could be made flesh.
However, my present object is to show the kind of
preparation there was in the state of his mind for
his further progress. Depth of conscience, sense of
good and evil, the soberness of God s Word, sub
jection to it, one finds no trace of. It is superficial
imagination, and on such subjects levity. And he
pursued this out. " I cannot but think that there
are beings with a great deal of good in them, yet
with great defects, who are the animating principles
of certain institutions, &c. &c. Take England, with
many high virtues and a low Catholicism." (78.)
This is in 1837. In 1835-6 he had the whole state
of the question between Anglicanism and Komanism
(152), so that these wild wanderings of mind existed
and entered into his judgment of England s ecclesias
tical state. Is there anything of earnestness or an
exercised conscience here?
42
I have said there was self-confidence and levity in
dealing with solemn subjects. What I mean now by
the latter is this. When he was uncertain what he
believed, what was the truth, and where it would
lead, though glowingly inclined to Romanism, he
went on acting diligently on the minds of others.
He was not at rest himself (he tells us so), yet went
on influencing others ; not always saying all he had
in his mind, but enough to prepare theirs for it.
Now, on so solemn a subject as what is the true
religion, to act w r eek after week on others without
knowing what is that true religion oneself, I call
moral levity of the worst kind. That he was not at
rest, he tells us. (159.) "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." This was the case as
early as 1833, and even 1829. NOW T , what does this
show? That with the consciousness of changing
views, his mind on a journey he knew not whither,
he went on leading and directing others, by sermons,
tracts, &c. Now, I do think an earnest, serious, con
scientious man would not have done this ; a modest
man would not, he would have waited till he saw
what the truth w r as himself, till he was at the end of
his journey. And why did he go on when he knew
he had not come to any settled conclusion ? Because
43
lie had immense confidence in himself. He never
was led to distrust his own convictions, that is, him
self, his own mind, though they were changing every
day " he was on journey." This is what I call moral
levity and self-confidence.
But we may have some other elements of this.
The truth is, that at this moment all was over as to
Anglicanism in Dr. N. s mind. It was in a ruinous,
evil state ; he could and was to reform it. But we
have the sources of this movement in his mind ; it
was in full connection with angelical flowers and
pehbles. It was not an earnest inquiry into what
Paul taught, or John presses on us in the power of
the eternal Spirit, not a heart bowed by Christ s
words, and because the Church does not answer to
what she ought to be for her heavenly Bridegroom.
It was not the truth, it was not God s word, it was
not what God planted at the first wholly a right seed
(to make use of Jeremiah s expression as to Israel),
nothing of the moral depth of the exercised con
science which such thoughts are connected with, of
which heart-connection with Christ, and the desire
that the Church might be what it ought to be for
Him, as the word of God will show it to us, are the
source of in the heart. It was Alexandria. So Dr.
X. tells. He had been writing the history of the
Arians. He had found in the wild mysteries and
errors of Platonistic Christianity " the primeval mys
tery,"* that all nature was a parable, the world the
* I should have doubted what Dr. N. meant by the primeval
44
expression of the Aoyo?, or Word of God, the stars
living beings. For such was Alexandrian philosophy,
as displayed in *Philo,f and with which the Alexan
drian fathers were more or less imbued. " In her
triumphant zeal in behalf of that primeval mystery,
to which I had so great a devotion from my youth,
I recognised the movement of my spiritual mother,
ince-ssu intuit Dea. The self- conquest of her asce
tics, the patience of her martyrs, the irresistible de-
mystery, but for the words, "to which I had so great a devotion in
my youth." This was the Platonic system of ideas and demons,
material things being merely a representative to sense of Archetypal
truth. This, though Neoplatonism properly speaking, was a subse
quent system, a last effort of philosophy against Christianity, reigned
among the Alexandrian fathers. Justin Martyr never gave up his
philosopher s cloak. Clement had his common teaching, and hia
esoteric for the initiated.
f That all this doctrine about souls and angels, or demons, is
half platonic, half philosopho- Mosaic, is unquestionable. It had a
semi-Jewish, semi-heathen origin, coming, I doubt not, as no one who
has examined Manicheism, Gnosticism, and eastern or old Persian
views, can, I think, question, from the East. Philo represents the
mixture in the Lord and the apostles time. He held that all was
full of living beings : the sun, moon, and stars were not only animals,
but most pure minds : that all the air, the space from the moon, the
extreme of heaven proper, to the earth, was filled with souls as
numerous as the stars : that the higher ones were very pure, and were
demons, called angels by Moses, the lower ones loved getting down
into human bodies ; the root of all the doctrine being the evil of
matter. See Philo Trept Tev: (i. 263 Mangey) Trepi &VT: No> (i. 331)
Trtpi rs GIOTT : ov: (i. 641), and elsewhere. This Origen held to be
true. He maintains it largely: De Prin. lib. i. 7. (i. 72, 73, De la
Rue.) And that they first had a body, and that then a soul entered
into it, which desires to depart and be with Christ. Clement is said
to have denied it. I cannot find the passage. In the system referred
to above, these demons, or angels, were held to be intercessors, as the
Jews also taught.
45
termination of her bishops, the joyous swing of her
advance, both exalted and abashed me. I said, Look
on this picture and on that (the Anglican Church).
I felt affection for my own Church, but not tender
ness ; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and scorn
at her do-nothing perplexity. ... I saw that refor
mation principles were powerless to rescue her. As
to leaving her, the thought never crossed mv ima<n-
^j CD v o
nation ; still, I ever kept before me that there was
something greater than the Established Church, and
that was the Church Catholic and apostolic set up
from the becrinnin^, of which she was but the local
O O
presence and organ. She was nothing unless she was
this. She must be dealt with strongly, or she would
be lost. There was need of a second reformation."
(p. 80.) Now, although Dr. N. speaks of the Primitive
Church, he refers essentially to Alexandria. He says
(p. 76), " What principally attached me to the ante-
Nicene period was the great Church of Alexandria,
the historical centre of teaching of those times."
" The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen car
ried me away." And this is distinctly connected
with his rhapsodies about angels, &c. It is the whole
subject from the beginning of 75 to the end of 80.
This was what he admired ; this forced reformation
on his notice. He owed his doctrine about angels
to the Alexandrian school. (77.) He was " drifted
back first to the ante-Nicene history, and then to
the Church of Alexandria." It was the Alexandrian
Church led him to his reforming undertakings.
46
Let us see a little what the state of this Church
was, and in matters which made Dr. N. admire it
and seek to reform the Anglican. Strange to say, it
is, to say the very least, excessively doubtful whether
for years, yea centuries, there was any episcopal
ordination there at all, at least if we are to believe
St. Jerome. No doubt in his time, and before it,
episcopacy was established, and this he recognizes.
]>ut on the pretensions of the diaconate at Eome, he
exalts presbyters, declaring that according to scripture
bishops and presbyters were identical ; he says the
apostle perspicuously teaches that presbyters are the
same as bishops; quotes Phil, i., Acts xx. 8, Tit. i. 5,
seq. 1 Tim. iv. 14, 1 Pet. v., and the 2nd and 3rd
epistles of John. He adds, but that afterwards one
was chosen who should be set over the others, w T as
as a remedy for schism, lest any drawing to himself
should make a breach in the Church of Christ. For
at Alexandria also, from the evangelist Mark up to
the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters
always called bishop one chosen out of themselves,
placed in a higher grade; as if the army should make
an Imperator (as they did in the empire), or the
deacons choose from themselves one whom they may
have known to be industrious, and called him Arch
deacon. Now it is true, he adds, that the bishop
differs only in this, that he can ordain. Nor do I
doubt for a moment, that was the universal order in
Jerome s time. Nay, the Alexandrian patriarch,
whose jurisdiction then w T as larger than that of Ptonie,
47
claimed the right to ordain in all his subject dioceses
himself. But it is equally true that Jerome states
historically that it had not been so till Heraclas and
Dionysius ; and this is confirmed by many peculiari
ties as to the rights of Alexandrian presbyters, and,
as is said, the abolition of their rights by Alexander
in the time of the Nicene council. But this by the
by. That Alexandrian theology was philosophical,
and corrupted by philosophy, is certain; Clement the
great Alexandrian teacher does not conceal it : he
says in his Stromata (ed. Potter, i. 319, line 35),
speaking of the nourishment of souls, the peace in
the word, and the life which is of God, he adds :
"For souls have their own nourishment, some growing
in knowledge and intelligence, some fed according to
the Grecian philosophy, of which, as in the case of
nuts, all is not edible." In lib. vii. 2 (831, 2), "the
AYord teaches all, some as friends, some as faithful
servants, some as servants ; he is the teacher who
instructs the man of knowledge (the Gnostic) in
mysteries (this is the esoteric teaching for a few), the
faithful by good hopes, and the hard hearted by cor
rective discipline and sensible (esthetic) powers." And
afterwards : " He, the Word, it is who gives philosophy
to the Greeks by inferior angels; for the angels, by a
divine and ancient ordinance, are distributed by na
tions, but the doctrine of believers is the Lord s part,
insisting on the divine care of all." So in book vi. 8.
(77:1) "All things useful to life are given by the
AVord, but philosophy more especially to the Greeks
48
was given to them as a special covenant, to be as a
foundation of philosophy according to Christ." And
in book i. G (p. 337) he makes the sower of the
parable to have come thus from above from the
foundation of the world. What this philosophy
was he tells us (338) : " Philosophy, I say not the
Stoic, not the Platonic, nor the Epicurean and Aristo-
telic, but whatever things are said rightly by eacli of
these sects, teaching righteousness with pious intelli
gence; this, as a whole, I call eclectic philosophy."
The law, he says elsewhere, for the Jews, philosophy
for the Greeks, till Christ came (vi. 17, p. 823) ; the
whole chapter being a long discourse on this subject,
each receiving it according to their deserts. I am fully
satisfied that the east was the origin of much more
of all this than we are aware of, corrected partially
in these Alexandrian fathers by Christianity, and
already in Plato (and, I suppose, Pythagoras) by
Grecian habits of thought. The root of it was, that
there was a supreme unknown God who dwelt in the
depths of silence, and could have no connection with
matter. Hence emanations and the Demiurge, an
inferior creator, resulting in Gnosticism the plague
of the early Church. Platonism, with its emanated
demons, and the Alexandrian philosophy, divides
into the Christian and heathen parties, Clement
giving his perfect Christian the name of Gnostic.
Early there was a Jewish party, whom Philo re
presents. In all, Logos was an inferior being, though
divine. It resulted, in another form, in Arianism, the
49
doctrine more or less of these Alexandrian ante-
Nicene Fathers (not of Irenseus), combated by Atha-
nasius when it came formally to a head in Arius.
Thus it was that Dr. Newman came to be called an
Arian. He had imbibed a delight in these ante-
Mcene statements. Hence, too, arose asceticism.
Matter held, as Plato teaches, the soul down as a
nail to earth ; it was to be mortified. Asceticism
began in the Alexandrian Church, partly indeed by
persons who fled in the Decian persecution. Hence
forbidding to marry, not that people might be more
devoted, but as evil for the Gnostic.
Again, Origen a most attractive, interesting man,
I fully admit, but whose name became the football
of passion in the Church what was he ? First he
applied to himself literally by mutilation Matthew
xix. 12. He held that souls were born into different
conditions in this world, according to their conduct
in a previously existing state a doctrine current
among the heathen Egyptians, but a well known
eastern idea of Buddhists and Brahmins too. Bud-
dah s great doctrine was, how to escape it by hearing
" Bana," and absolute indifference to everything sense
could feel, so as to obtain Xinvana (extinction). But
Origen held it is not my part to make him con
sistent that the fall (and this was Alexandrian and
Philo s doctrine already, and Platonic) was the pure
soul of man coming into a body. He was not sound,
though he seems sometimes to be clear, on the divinity
of Christ. As to the divinity of the Holy Ghost, he
E
50
was wholly unsound. As to Amnionius (the master
of Heraclas, Patriarch, and others), it is disputed
whether he is Christian or heathen.
Such was the school Dr. N. delighted in; their
philosophy, he tells us, not their theology; but it is
impossible to separate them. The fall of man being
a pure soul coining into a material body- -is that
philosophy or theology ? Even as to Christ (Or ujcn
de Principiis, book ii, e. 6. De Incarnatione, i. 90,
ed. De la Rue), holding, as he does expressly, that
the divine nature cannot, without a mediator, be
united to a body, and each soul receiving according
to its deserts, he states that the Word or Son took
one of these previously existing souls from the
beginning of creation, and became and remained
thoroughly one spirit with him; and then, by the
mediation of that, took a body too, though he admits
it is beyond even the apostle s thoughts.* I need not
go further. Men s souls were to work their way back
to liberation from matter, as also Philo and their
Platonic predecessors and Gnostic contemporaries
held, that was the object of the mission of Christ.
To prove the effect of this heathenish system in
morals, I may add what I regret to have to add, but
with modern pretensions in these things it is well it
should be known that one form of asceticism was
the clergy abstaining from marriage, under the plea
of purity, taking to sleep with them females, with
* He applies John x. 18 to the inseparability of the soul and the
Word.
51
the same pretension to purity, alleging they were
free from all evil of mind. This was one form of
asceticism not the only one. I know they went into
the desert. But this shows the nature of it. This
Dr. N. must know as well as possible. He will say
it was often publicly condemned. It was often con
demned in the East and in the West, but that shows
it was a custom ; and they had a name, both in
Greek and Latin --^weio-a/crai (subintroductce), and
aya.TTY)TaL (beloved). Irenaeus himself charges the
Gnostics with the same practice. It is recognised in
the Shepherd of Hernias (III. sim. ix. 11), which
was read in the churches there, of course, in a
seemly way. Tertullian, when a Montanist, charges
the Catholics with it. (De Jcjuniis, p. 554.) My
reader will easily understand that it is not only in
reference to Dr. Newman I quote these things : we
learn what early infected the Church. But we do
see the wild system which attracted Dr. 1ST., and
sanctioned his early mental vagaries, preached to
his parishioners, be it remembered, at St. Mary s.
After this Dr. K went abroad. Here it was he had
the strong impression that he was called to reform
Anglicanism. Let us retrace his history thus far. He
was converted, he tells us, at fifteen. He believed,
too, that the inward conversion of which he was con
scious (and of which he still is more certain than that
he has hands and feet) would last into the next life,
and that he was elected to eternal glory. (58.) This
was a beginning of divine faith, a great change of
E 2
52
thoughts. The influence and books, he tells us, were
of the Calvinistie school. He, humanly speaking, al
most owed his soul to one good man, whom he does
not name. But all the special truth which wrought
this in 1822, save the fact of heaven and hell, divine
i i iv our and divine wrath, of the justified and un
justified, which alone took root in his mind, did not
remain with him many years. In 1832 he came
under very different influences. On reading Sumner
he gave up all his remaining Calvinism. He never
believed in reprobation. From Dr. Hawkins he re
ceived the doctrine of tradition ; from the Rev. W.
James, apostolic succession ; from Butler s Analogy,
learnt to rest his faith in probability,* not on divine
testimony; from Whately, to think and use his rea
son, and see with his own eyes, and believe in the
existence of the Church as a proper corporate body ;
Keble added faith and love in man to probability, to
give it force, leading him to authority; Froude led
him in his feelings towards Eome, and hatred of the
reformers. (53-73.) This brought him to Alexandria,
* It is a singular effect of tins reasoning on probability, and I
must add of the Aristotelian teaching of Oxford, that in this famous and
able book to which Dr. N. refers (Butler s Analogy), it is stated, that
the natural propensities of man must continue in heaven, as happiness
cannot be without virtue, nor virtue without trial and exercise Such
is the fruit of ignorance of redemption. Bishop Butler s words are
these : " This way of putting the matter supposes particular affections"
(or propensions, as he calls them) " to remain in a future state, which
it is scarce possible to avoid supposing." And he is speaking of "the
danger finite creatures are in from the very nature of propensions or
particular affections." (Part I. chap, v., on " Moral Discipline.")
53
or at least co-operated with it ; for the dates mingle
at the close of this history together. There we have
now found him, and going abroad to rest himself
after his labours in this ante-Nicene study, his wild
Platonism in full blow.
There was need of a second reformation. Who
was to do it ? Here comes the turning point of Dr.
K s life. I do not doubt the direct agency of Satan
on a self-confident mind ; but I must trace it in its
human manifestation. " I was exchanging my tutor
ship for foreign countries and an unknown future. I
naturally was led to think that some inward changes,
as well as some larger course of action, was coming
upon me." (81.) At this moment, while waiting at
Whitchurch for the mail, he wrote the verses about
his guardian angel,
" Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend ? "
and goes on to speak of the "vision that haunted
him." (80.) Why, when jaded with study, and
obliged to go abroad for his health, was it natural to
look for some larger course of action ? There is a
natural, though unconfessed, sentiment of force in
every active mind ; but in the Christian, suppressed
by the sense of his own nothingness, that without
Christ he can do nothing, and the principle of obedi
ence, than which nothing is more humble, and of
conscience, which makes our own path being right
of the first importance. Dr. N. had this confidence ;
he thought of acting on others a larger course of
action. I quite believe he was afterwards unaware
54
of the influence he exercised on young men ; that is
very often the case.
But the sick man, filled with his primeval mystery,
and inclined towards Rome, having left all the forms
of truth that had been the means of his conversion,
was looking for a second reformation, and, through a
" vision," a larger course of action for himself. His
journey completes this picture. He was not much
amongst Roman Catholics. His imagination was at
work on new scenes naturally enough. "The sight
of so many great places, venerable shrines, and
noble churches, much impressed my imagination,"
he tells us. He heard singing in a country church
at six o clock, and his heart thus also was touched.
(100.) Now, a religious congregation singing, when
heard from without, has this effect touches deeply
the religious imagination where it exists. It could
not have been anything really spiritual in his mind ;
for he did not know what they were singing. In his
weary days at Palermo, " I was not ungrateful for
the comfort which I had received in frequenting the
churches, nor did I ever forget it." Then, again, " her
zealous maintenance of the doctrine and rule of
celibacy, which I recognized as apostolic, and her
faithful agreement with antiquity in so many points
besides which were dear to me, was an argument, as
well as a plea, in favour of the great Church of
Rome. Thus I learned to have tender feelings
towards her, but still my reason was not affected at
all." (p. 100.)
55
Now you will remark, as I said at the beginning,
all is sensuous here, what acts on the imagination ;
no question of truth and grace, no holiness, unless
celibacy be taken for it, which he believed apostolic
-not, observe, self-devoteclness, when given of God,
which is apostolic, but as a rule ; which is so false,
that it shows Dr. X. was wholly governed by imagi
nation. Not only does the apostle say, the elder is
to be the husband of one wife, having his children
subject in all gravity, and let us know that Peter
and the Lord s brethren were married, though he
and Barnabas were not; but in the council of Mce,
which Dr. N. had been just studying, it was
formally refused to be made a rule, though it had
acquired great influence, and was resisted by Paph-
nutius, an unmarried bishop, as a snare. What its
enforcement in the eleventh century, by Hildebrand
(though never carried through till the end of the
thirteenth), produced, is well known. I may speak
of it further on, when I come to speak of the causes
of Protestantism. A man must have been wholly
blinded by imagination, or Satan, to say celibacy was,
as a rule, apostolic. Even the Roman body holds it
for a mere matter of discipline; the Greek requires
that priests should be married only bishops not, if
I do not mistake.
His imagination was fully ripened towards Eome ;
the primitive Church, that is, not the Scripture, or
first, but the ante-Xicene Church* was certainly
* We have no accounts, I may say, of the Church from apostolic
men to Justin Martyr. (140.)
56
right, the Anglican useless if it was not the same;
he was tenderly turned towards Rome, as to his
heart, and, at any rate, Anglicanism needed a second
reformation ; he had no tenderness, he tells us, for it.
Rome was a great Church, his heart with her; his
habits, no doubt, not overcome, he might hope to
defend Anglicanism, but it was dreadfully bad. The
whole was a foregone conclusion. "NVliat was the
work he was going to do ? He had entire, thorough
confidence in himself- -confidence unrepressed by
grace. The motto chosen from Homer by Froude,
showing his own feeling, he adds, too, shows this
transparently, "You shall know the difference now
that I am back again." Nor does he conceal from
himself what I am proving "I began to think I had
a mission." (82.) Nor was it an uncertainty. He
visited Monsignore Wiseman. He wished they
should visit Rome a second time. He saw plain
enough his state, as he did afterwards what was
going on at Oxford, (p. 109.) Dr. N. replied to
him, with great gravity, "We have a work to do in
England;" pleased to pander to Romanism, and be
in Monsignore s good graces. The state of his mind
was shown ; when sick, he cried, " I shall not die, I
shall not die ; I have not sinned against light." No
peaceful conscience, no rest in Christ ; the latent
conviction he speaks of, of not being at rest, ceased
to be latent when death seemed to be there. The
pressure of darkness on a troubled conscience, used,
I doubt not, by the enemy ; but still, conscience,
57
which, if not settled between him and God, Satan
would drive him to quiet in his own way. He was
sobbing bitterly, while waiting to leave Palermo,
and replied, to the inquiry of his servant, " I have a
work to do in England." Now this uneasiness, if
not a bad conscience in a general way, of which, of
course, I can say nothing, and is not here so pre
sented, was a bad conscience, which, not possessing
Christ for its own rest in Him, looked to the Church,
because it had not rest; and from his previous
studies, feeling he did not possess that, and had re
sisted impressions and feelings which led him to Ro
manism, broke out in bitter uneasiness when thus ill.
But remark, no destruction of self-confidence, no turn
ing to Christ in lowliness of conscience and heart. He
turned to self. " I could only answer, I have a work
to do." This work he was doing afterwards. The
rest was merely a process, a question of time. He
hated Protestantism, he loved Popery, though not
agreeing to it. Anglicanism was all wrong, even if
it were on the foundation. He pretended to set about
and correct it. Romanism was the only certainly
right thing in existence. The primitive Church had
been right and lovely the only right thing now was
Romanism ; he hoped to get Anglicanism on right
ground, but he had no tenderness for her. And now
it is I find the excessive moral levity of Dr. Xew-
rnan s state, of which I have spoken, come out in
full blaze. It was no search for the truth, as such,
for himself; he had not accepted all Rome s doctrines,
58
but neither had he when he joined her ; but she was
the only right Church in his eyes: he was looking for
the church of his imagination, not for truth.* He
did not believe transubstantiation the day he joined
Popery, more than twenty years before. He says
so. After joining Koine as infallible, he accepted
it on authority.
See what a state this involves. There were two
real religions : Protestantism and Popery. The for
mer he hated. Seeking communion with Protestants
was the last blow to Anglicanism. (182.) He counted
them heretics. Borne, when abroad, he held as un
deniably the most exalted church in the whole world,
manifesting, in all the truth and beauty of the Spirit,
high-mindedness, majesty, and the calm conscious
ness of power. Anglicanism, bishops and all, was
at best as a set of unruly boys Trojans, who would
know the difference when he came back. Hence,
afterwards, when they trench on his via media, he
threatens them all. There was a limit to forbearance.
(178, 180, 183, 184, 200.) Anglicanism still re
mained to be tried. He looked to "that future of
the Anglican Church which was to be a new birth
of the ancient religion ; " a system would be rising
up. (143.) Thus inclined to Kome, hating Protes
tantism, Anglicanism being nothing really, he set
about to work. Did he ascertain the truth before he
* I say, the Church of his imagination; he says, Popery is a
religion Protestantism is a religion ; the via media is only on
paper. (113.)
59
set to work ? In no wise. I do not mean that he
did not like the ante-Nicene Church. No doubt he
did. But had he searched out the grounds of truth,
or truth itself, before he acted? In no wise. An
tiquity was his only ground. "Taking antiquity,"
he says, referring back to this early period (p. 194),
not the existing Church, as the oracle of truth.
Never, mark, the Word. "I thought that the Church
of England was substantially founded upon them"
[the fathers]. (102.) Had he searched them tho
roughly ? Not at all. " I did not know all that the
fathers had said, but I felt that even when their
tenets happened to differ from the Anglican; no harm
could come of reporting them. I said out what I
was clear they had said ; I spoke vaguely and imper
fectly of what I thought they had said, or what
some of them had said. Anyhow, no harm could
come of bending the crooked stick the other wav in
\!
the process of straightening it ; it was impossible to
break it." Thus Anglicanism was but a stick to be
straightened. He set about reforming, rebuilding the
Church, getting a Church de facto of flesh and bones,
as he says, held the fathers to be the authority,
yet did not know all that they had said. Can there
be conceived, on so solemn a subject, a man acting
with more self-confidence and more levity? Nor
does he deny it. "I never had the staidness or
dignity necessary for a leader." " I had a lounging,
free and easy way of carrying things on." (105.)
Now this is true; but think of a man saying it of
60
his whole status as to the Church of God, and in
the things in which he was acting as one who had a
mission to reform the Church, and rebuild it in its
beauty as of old. He admits (104) he was widely
spreading his principles, not recognizing the hold he
had over young men. He laughed when a man
innocently thought he meant sacrament when he
said the sacrifice of the Eucharist, and did not give
himself the trouble of answering it. Accordingly,
he tells us, when Dr. Pusey joined the movement,
he (Dr. P.) saw that there ought to be more sobriety,
more gravity, more careful pains, more sense of
responsibility in the tracts and in the whole move
ment. It was through him the character of the
tracts was changed. (208.) He, however grieved, and,
as I judge, justly, though I may not agree with all
his views;* and Mr. Keble, in the sense of that
responsibility, have as yet remained in Anglicanism.
And that he acted in this lounging, easy way,
was so truly the case, that while quite settled
in what he was seeking to establish, "a visible
Church with sacraments and rites which are the
channels of invisible grace," that he tells us that
he did not know what he aimed at. " I thought
this was the doctrine of Scripture, of the early
Church, and of the Anglican Church." Of this he
* I think the whole Catholic system, Roman or Anglican, wrong
in confounding "the hody" of Ephesians i. with "the house" of
Ephesians ii., and attributing to the house now the privileges of the
body.
61
never ceased to be certain; but "in 1834 and the
following years I put this ecclesiastical doctrine on a
broader basis after reading Laud, Bramhall, Stilling-
fleet, and other Anglican divines on the one hand,
and after prosecuting the study of the fathers on the
other/ Now, that he held a doctrine immaturely
no one can blame : we have all done so. But that
he should set about to reform and rebuild the Church
with a special mission, though he founded it on the
fathers, with his views unformed, seems to me, I
confess, intolerable self-sufficiency and levity. " When
I began the Tracts for the Times, I rested the main
doctrines of which I am speaking upon Scripture, on
St. Ignatius epistles, and on the Anglican Prayer
Book." (96.) The visible Church on Scripture, sacra
ments and sacramental rites on the Prayer Book, the
Episcopal system on St. Ignatius. Now the Scripture
clearly teaches a visible Church, and thus is authority
that there ought to be one. As to the fact, it is all
around us. But why not search Scripture as to what
it ought to be ? I believe it is sadly fallen ; but why
not go to Paul, and John, and Peter, to know what
it ought to be, instead of Ignatius ? And note the
excessive inconsistency after all : he is going to build
a right Church, because Anglicanism was not such ;
and yet he takes the Prayer Book of Anglicans as
the rule to prove his point on the matter he was
anxious about, although he admits "that the An
glican Church must have a ceremonial, a ritual, and
a fulness of doctrine and devotion which this had not
62
at present." (204.) Was this because it was right?
No ; " if it were to compete with the Roman Church
with any prospect of success." Why so ? Because
lie liked that system, not because it could be any
authority for truth ; for the system he was seeking
to change. It suited him, the Articles did not. And
they were to be interpreted according to Catholic
teaching, not the opinion of the framers. " Catholi
cism" (by which he then meant Romanism), he tells
us plainly later "was the real scope and issue of
the movement." And why does he take Ignatius ?
Why do all, who love the system Dr. N. has followed ?
Why did I myself delight in it, found my thoughts
on him ? Because he already liked and had adopted
the system found in his published writings, not from
any real, ascertained authority in Ignatius.
Dr. N. must have well known, that since Ussher
and Daille they have been called in question ; that
there are two recensions, besides confessedly spurious
letters, one enormously interpolated, the other shorter;
so that, though defended .by learned men, as a docu
ment they were of questionable authority. Since
then it has been, I think I may say, ascertained I
do not say all acquiesce in it that five out of the
eight letters are wholly spurious, and the three
remaining ones, even in the short recension, inter
polated, and the passages in favour of unity which
Dr. N delighted in, are all, save one, false and spu
rious ; for you must know that these pious frauds
were the custom of this vaunted primitive church.
63
There was one Leucas, or Lucius, who had quite a
manufactory of them. I do not know that it was he
who tampered with Ignatius. There were numbers
of false gospels* and acts of the apostles, and that not
only by heretics, but by pious people, and this very
early indeed.
Dr. Xewman scarcely even excuses himself here ;
if he does, it is onlv for guilt in his vain confidence,
/ O
so far as he had strong persuasions in 1832, which
he has since given up. I do not blame him for
giving up what he thought wrong. I blame him
for lightly pretending to reform and rebuild the An
glican body, that is, to form a church as it should
be, when he had not searched the grounds on which
he did it ; when he knew he was not at rest, but
on journey, as he has told us, and doing it in a
free and easy way, and, I must say, with some
effrontery, telling us that he "had a lounging, free
and easy way" in the matter. Was this God-fearing?
The more his book is read through, the more it will
be seen. Yet he attaches immense importance to his
movement. He says, with singular self-complacency,
" Great acts take time. At least I felt this in my
own case." (206.) He sought, he tells us elsewhere,
to go by reason, not sentiment; here, that all the
logic in the world would not have made him move
faster ; God does not save people by logic. This
* A pretty copious list of these pious frauds, so-called, is in Baro-
nius, i. 302. The gospels have been collected by Fabricius and
Th
G4
when people showed him the evident and necessary
consequences of his principles. More of this when
his pleas as to his honesty are considered. I do not
suppose he was a concealed Eoman Catholic before
he professed to be so, in the least ; but he did know
long before where all was tending, and knew he was
leading others there, and continued to do so while
unsettled, and, full of confidence in himself, charged
others as authors of it for resisting him. Yet it did
lead him there.
But what I insist on now is, the moral levity of
teaching without his mind having arrived at any
conclusions. He says (p. Ill), "Alas! it was my
portion for wdiole years to remain, without any satis
factory basis for my religious profession, in a state of
moral sickness, neither able to acquiesce in Angli
canism, nor able to go to Kome." Now these are the
very years in which he was labouring as having a
special mission, influencing diligently others, taking
the future of Anglicanism and of souls on his own
shoulders. He had confidence in his cause, despised
every rival system of doctrine, had a thorough con
tempt for the evangelical system. Owing to this
confidence, there w r as a mixture of fierceness and
sport in his behaviour. If he had brought men on
to a certain point, if they stopped he did not care ;
liked to make them preach the truth without know
ing it, and encouraged them so to do. "I was not
unwilling to draw an opponent on step by step to
the brink of some intellectual absurdity, and to
65
leave him to get back as he could." He speaks of
the imprudence and wantonness into which his abso
lute confidence in his cause led him. (92-94.) I un
derstand this state of mind in a restless spirit con
fident in his views, but which has found no rest for
itself excited and uneasy, "moral sickness/ as he
admits. But is it God-fearing ? Is it God-fearing
to teach others and set the Church right in such a
state ? Can we be surprised at the result ? And
what must we think of the result such a course in
such a state of mind led to ? He tells us, that
through the storm on Tract 90, he had already be
fore lost full confidence in himself. He had confi
dence in the apostolic movement ; " but how was I
any more to have absolute confidence in myself?"
(132.) Did he cease to go on? No; the movement
was out of his hands. But on his views he was
obstinate, and bearded the bishops. This is clear:
he had had absolute confidence in himself. He got
completely bewildered in reading Bellarmine and the
Anglican divines. This had no tendency whatever
to harass and perplex him. It was a matter of con
victions, not of proofs. (146.) But he had been
teaching with absolute confidence in himself, without
having ever really ascertained the difference, or found
solid ground on it.
In 1839, the fact that Leo s judgment had settled the
council of Chalcedon and the monophysite question,
upset his via media, and showed that Koine was now
on the ground of Leo in the fifth century, the Protes-
F
66
tants on that of Eutychians and Monophysites, i.e.,
heretics.* Here he owns he had the habitual notion
that lie was " on journey " had not found his ultimate
rest. Yet it had never led him to distrust his con
victions. Before and after, he was restlessly teaching
others. I feel I need not go further. The time of
his activity, the time of his influence, was the time
of his own "moral sickness" and unformed views.
I turn for a moment to Protestantism. Mr. N. s
position, on his return from abroad with a mission,
was this the Roman Church was the most exalted
Church in the whole world (161), certainly Catholic.
Protestantism he hated: it was heretical, save in
England ; so that to receive a Protestant without
O
abjuration of error was subsequently sufficient
almost, if not quite, to oblige a person to leave the
Establishment, and was what finally led to it. (182.)
It shattered his faith in Anglicanism. Anglicanism
rested only on paper, to be formed by himself by his
mission. As it stood, was of questionable Catholicity ;
could be so only by interpreting her Articles as no
one else in the world would. There was no motive
for keeping aloof from Rome, but the pope s being
Antichrist (101) ; which for my part, however anti-
* Dr. N. very conveniently forgets that Pope Leo, a very able
man, who really founded the power of the Papacy, forbad that doc
trine to be put in the creed, though he admits it, which makes Dr.
N. himself now hold the Greeks to be heretics for not holding. And
I may add that a general council, admitted such, forbad positively
any additional articles to be added to the creed. That is what Dr.
K. calls development.
67
Christian lie may be, I do not believe. It appears
Rome s being the great whore, drunk with the blood
of the saints, was nothing. This he got over by its
being the spirit of the city acting on the Church.
(161.) He was determined to clear Eomanism. Tran-
substantiation he did not believe; but Mr. Palmer
held, that all the decrees of Trent might have a
Catholic sense. I recall his own excuses. But Home s
being the harlot drunk with blood, transubstantiation,
purgatory, the worship of the virgin and the saints,
indulgences, the repeated sacrifice of the mass as an
expiation for the sins of the living and the dead, the
supremacy and infallibility of the pope, none of
these or other principles and dogmas of Rome was
any ground for separation from it. It is astonishing
how little hold truth had on his mind, how little
prominence it had with him : a very peculiar phe
nomenon. Being disposed towards Rome is nothing
uncommon or surprising; but souls are kept, often
almost unconsciously, by some truth which guards
them. I was, especially by Hebrews ix. x. But
truth, it is evident (I do not say mere dogma com
mon to all), he never cared about. He says the
English opposition to Romanism was caused by
political motives in Henry the eighth s time, than
which nothing can be more unfounded. He burnt
people for giving up his Six Articles, which were
essentially popish, though he would not accept the
pope s supremacy. The reformation in England
was set on foot by Edward VI., as to authority;
F 2
68
but by saints, of whom Henry burned many, as to
truth.
But I shall show what brought in Protestantism,
if it is to be used as a name. I have no doubt there
were many defects, and could not but be, in the order
that was set up. The mere name is nothing. It came
from an act of German electors at the Diet of Spires
protesting against the recess of that Diet, passed
only by a majority of votes when they had left,
which they held to be illegal. The Reformed are not
called Protestants abroad. But Protestantism, used
as a popular name, was the protest of the conscience,
given energy to by faith, against the most horrible
system of iniquity that ever withered and over
whelmed the human conscience. It was not merely
negative; there was the positive assertion of com
mon fundamental dogmas (this was the very object
of the Confession of Augsburg, because this negative
character was charged upon it) ; and articles were
added which are rejected by Dr. Newman and his
party, such as justification by faith, the two sacra
ments, and other anti-Romanist ones ; as the counter
doctrine was also maintained in the decrees of the
Council of Trent refuting formally this teaching ;
and further, the authority of the word of God main
tained, of the books of which the Council of Trent
has given an undeniably false list. It was not
simply the right of private judgment in the modern
sense. The direct responsibility of each conscience
to God, as contrasted with the domination of priests,
69
was maintained, and rightly, as between man and man
not the right simply, but the obligation to judge,
was maintained; but it was the public confession
of positive truth which characterized Protestantism.
Each local body framed its own profession of faith.
The authority of the word of God was asserted.
The right of every man to judge Scripture, or have
his own thoughts where God has revealed His name,
never entered into the thoughts of the Eeformers. The
right of private judgment, as often now talked of,
whether by infidels, who desire it, or Komanists, who
condemn it, is essentially and absolutely incom
patible with the absolute authority of Scripture,
which was the Protestant principle. The question
was, What was to have authority Scripture, or the
clergy and tradition ? The duty to judge by Scrip
ture was asserted, and rightly.* It was the putting
away of evil, and the teaching of positive faith,
and the authority of the word of God, dogmatically
and historically in this order. It broke out, under
Luther, by resisting indulgences, the profligate and
shameless sale of which was destroying all morality,
and even the parochial care of the priests.
I repeat, while truth was promulgated, and Luther s
action the fruit of his having learnt the truth, the
first spring of action was the revolt of the Christian
* My object is not here controversy, but Dr. Newman s book, or
it is easy to show that Romanism has no sure ground of authority,
which the Protestant has. As to private j udgment, it is all clap-trap.
The Romanist calls on me to judge Protestantism as much as I do
him to judge Popery, and to judge that he is right.
70
conscience against the state of the professing Chris
tian Church. I shall give some account of the state
of that Church*, that it may be seen how far this
revolt of conscience was well grounded. And here I
feel I am on painful, and, for any Christian, dangerous
ground. It is, and ought to be, painful to rake up
evil, especially in that which bears the name of
Christ. There is danger of failing in that article of
charity, "rejoiceth not in iniquity." I admit, I trust
I feel, both the painfulness and the danger. But
with the pretensions which are current, and the
deceitful statements of morbid imaginations as to
the holiness of the Romish body, it becomes neces
sary that those likely to be deceived should know
the truth. Not only is " corrwptio optimi pcssima
corruptio^ but the corruption of Rome was in
itself worse than any corruption that ever existed.
I shall state from authentic sources, and Roman
Catholic sources, what the state of things really was,
and show how early it began. I have verified the
statements in the authorities quoted except two
Mansi s " Councils" being inaccessible to me, and
Nic. Clemangis works not in my library. I have
only Hardouin s " Councils," which does not repro
duce the document ; but there is no doubt it is
authentic and correct. I refer to the letter of Pope
Alexander V., quoted further on.
Even in the apostles days Paul complains that all
seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ; Jude,
that evil men had crept in unawares, turning the
71
orace of God into lasciviousness. But then there
o
was apostolic power to repress and correct ; but Paul
knew that after his decease grievous wolves would
enter in ; yea, that of themselves perverse men would
arise. Peter assures us that the time was come for
judgment to begin at the house of God.
We have seen that it had become, in the end of
the second and in the third century, a common habit
for the clergy, under pretext of purity unmarried
to live and sleep with unmarried persons, consecrated
also to celibacy as above all passion, above that
evil matter into which pure souls were descended ;
for such was the doctrine of these mighty Alexan
drians of which Dr. N. was enamoured.
Hernias, to whom I referred amongst others, alludes
to it thus (the shepherd had commended him to the
virgins who were there): --"I said, Where shall I
tarry? They replied, Thou shalt sleep with us as a
brother, not as a husband ; for them art our brother,
and we are ready henceforth to dwell with thee ; for
thou art very dear to us. Howbeit, I was ashamed
to continue with them. But she that seemed to be
chiefest amongst them embraced me, and began to
kiss me, and so did the rest. When the evening
came on, I would forthwith have gone home ; but
they withheld me, and suffered me not to depart;
therefore I continued with them that uk ht near the
o
same tower ; so they spread their linen garments on
the ground, and placed me in the middle ; nor did
they any tiling else only prayed."
72
Origen complains bitterly of the great multitude
of Christians who did not trouble themselves about
divine things; % and if they attended divine service,
were entirely indifferent to it when there.
I add Cyprian s account (A.D. 251). He is ac
counting for the Decian persecution, and says it is
only too light a chastisement, " czploratio potii .x
q/ am persecutio vidcrctur" All devoted to increasing
their patrimony ; no devoted religion in the priests,
no upright faithfulness in ministers, no piety in works,
no discipline in morals. Men s beards false, women s
faces painted, eyes adulterated from what God had
made them, their hair falsely coloured- -cunning
frauds to deceive the hearts of the simple. Artful
deceit (subdolce voluntatis) in circumventing brethren,
marriages with unbelievers, prostituting to Gentiles
the members of Christ ; not only rash swearing, but
perjury too ; despising authority with haughty pre
tension ; to speak evil with poisoned lip oneself ;
mutual discord with pertinacious hatred. Very many
bishops, who should be an exhortation and example
to others, despising their divinely-committed service
(divina procuratione), make themselves agents (pro-
curatores) of secular affairs, leave their see, desert the
people, wandering through others provinces, hunt
after markets for gainful traffic, &c. (De Lapsis, 124.
Fell s Ox. ed.)
Here is Jerome s account of the clergy (A.D. 394).
It is shameful to have to say, the priests of idols,
buffoons, charioteers, harlots receive inheritance; to
73
the clergy and monks alone it is forbidden by law,
and prohibited not by persecutors, but by Christian
princes. Nor do I complain of the law, but that we
should have deserved it. The cautery is good, but
now the worst is that I should need the cautery.
The provisions of the law are careful and severe,
and yet thus avarice is not restrained. We mock the
laws by trustees.* The glory of a bishop is to pro
vide for the wants of the poor. The disgrace of all
priests is the pursuit of their own wealth. Born in
a poor home, and in a rustic hut, who could scarcely
satisfy my clamorous stomach with millet and the
coarsest bread, I now turn up my nose at the finest
flour and honey. I know the kinds and names of
fishes. I am thoroughly au fait as to what shore
shell fish are found on. I discern the provinces birds
come from by their savour. I hear, moreover, of the
base service of certain to old men and old women
without children. They put the chamber pot beside
the bed, take away with their own hand the purulent
matter from the stomach, and phlegm of the lungs.
They are full of fear at the arrival of the physician,
and with trembling lips enquire if the patient is
better; and if the old person is a little more vigor
ous they are in danger, and pretending falsely joy,
the mind, inwardly avaricious, is tortured; for they
* Every one acquainted with English law is aware that it was
thus the statutes of mortmain were evaded. The English lawyers
thought it was invented here for this purpose, but the clergy did not,
it appears, want so long to find it out.
74
fear lest they should lose their pains, and compare
the living old body to the years of Methuselah.
(Epist. ad Nepotianum Hi. Vallarsii. Ed. i. 261.)
Drunkenness, Augustine tells us, was universal;
the clergy had lent themselves, he tells us, to the
evil habits of heathens continuing among Christians
in order to win and keep them. He did not, he was
a godly faithful man, but put it down with danger to
himself. (Epp. xxii. xxix. Ed. Ben.) It had reigned
in other places (Ep. xxii).: he would have had the
Africans set an example, but at any rate they should
follow it. These are his words in letter xxix. " But
lest they who preceded us, and permitted, or did not
dare prohibit the manifest crimes of the inexpe
rienced multitude, should seem to have some oppro
brium cast on them by us, I explained to them by
what necessity those things had arisen in the Church
(getting drunk in church at the martyrs festivals),
namely, that when, after so many persecutions and
so vehement, it would be a hindrance, when peace
took place, to the crowd of Gentiles desirous of
coming to the Christian name, that they were accus
tomed to pass festal days with their idols in abun
dance of feasts and drunkenness, nor could easily
abstain from these very pernicious and yet very
ancient pleasures : it seemed to those of old that
they should spare for the time this part of infirmity,
and celebrate not with like sacrilege, although with
like luxury, other festal days after those which they
had relinquished ; that now, bound together as they
75
were by the name of Christ, and subjected to the
yoke of so great authority, salutary precepts of so
briety would be delivered to them, which, on account
of the honour and fear of him who gave them, they
would not be able to resist ; as to which it was now
time that, as those who did not dare deny their being
Christians, they should begin to live according to the
will of Christ, and that those things which were
yielded to them that they might be Christians they
should reject now they are so/ Many said their
fathers were good Christians, and did so. However,
in that place Augustine succeeded. But here is a
really holy man, the great light of the west, alleging
that they had deliberately let the people be drunk in
honour of martyrs, that they might not in honour of
idols.
Gregory Thaumaturgus instituted saints festivals
to the same end, and Pope Gregory the first gave the
same directions as to England. It was the same as
to doctrine and worship. The Pagans did not at
tempt, says M. Beugnot (Destruction du Paganisme,
ii. 271), to defend their altars against the progress of
the worship of the mother of God. They opened to
Mary the temples which they had kept shut against
Jesus Christ, and avowed themselves conquered. He
udds in a note, "Out of a multitude of proofs I shall
choose one to show with what facility the worship
of Mary swept before it the remains of Paganism
which yet covered Europe. Notwithstanding the
preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faith-
76
ful to the ancient worship. After the council of
Ephesus (which decreed that Mary was the mother
of God) we seeits eight finest temples become in a
very short time churches under the invocation of the
virgin. Their temples were," &c., &c. "The annals of
every country furnish like testimonies." " In truth,"
he continues, "they mixed with the adoration of Mary
those Pagan ideas, those vain practices, those ridicu
lous superstitions, from which they seemed unable
to separate themselves ; but the Church rejoiced to
see them enter within its bosom, because she well
knew it would be easy for her, with the help of time,
to purify from its alloy a worship which was purity
itself." Thus some prudent concessions made tempo-
rarilv to Pa^an habits, and the influence exercised
v CJ
by the worship of the virgin such were the two
elements of force made use of by the Church to
conquer the resistance of the last Pagans.
It was the system. The Romans were passionately
fond of festivals and processions. The Saturnalia
and other feasts were at the end of December.
Christmas* was fixed there. The Lupercalia in the
end of January ; it was a feast of purification. The
purification of the virgin Mary was fixed there. St.
* The feast now celebrated at Christmas (the very evergreens are
Pagan) was the expression of one of the worst principles of heathen
ism the reproductive power of nature, celebrated at the return of
the sun from the winter solstice. The Hindoos celebrate their
Uttarayana at this time have their twelve days, sending of pre
sents, and wishing many happy returns : so the heathen Romans, so
the Teutonic nations. Compare "Wilson s Religious Festivals of
Hindoos," ii. 173.
77
Peter de Yinculis replaced Augustus Caesar, and so
of many others. See Beugnot, ii. 263, &c., where the
concessions to Pagan usages are enlarged on and
justified. It is difficult to do this when they sanc
tified drunkenness by dedicating it to martyrs in
stead of demigods. M. Beugnot admits that their
martyrs festivals were a very large concession made
to ancient manners, for all that passed while they
lasted was little edifying ! It was that system Vigi-
lantius attacked and Jerome defended. Christians
went to the heathen feasts, as Augustine, Chrysostom,
and many others testify ; they resisted, as in the case
of Pope Gelasius and others, and when Paganism
fell and the populations entered in crowds, they
gave them Christian festivals, so-called, to replace the
heathen ones. It was a whole system.
I may take the passage I have referred to in
Gregory Thaumaturgus life by Gregory Nyssen, as
describing it in the case of the former. I shall be
excused these long quotations. It is the establish
ment of an immense system, paganising Christianity
first in doctrines in Alexandria, then in ceremonies
everywhere.* " But when with the divine help that
tyranny had been overthrown, and peace had again
accepted human life, service towards God, which lay
before them, was free to every one according to his
ability ; descending again to the city, and going round
the whole district in a circle, he made an appendage
* The reader will find some other details on its establishment
further on, connected with another subject.
78
for the people everywhere to their divine service.
Having instituted the general assemblies for those
who had been in the combat of faith, and, as they
had taken away, different persons to different places,
the bodies of the martyrs, going round in a proces
sion, they celebrated festivities in a yearly anniver
sary, holding a general assembly to the honour of
the martyrs. For, indeed, this was a demonstration
of his great wisdom, that, remodelling to a new life
in a mass the whole generation of his day, set as a
charioteer to nature, submitting them securely to the
reins of faith and the knowledge of God, he allowed
what was subject to the yoke of faith to caper a
little in enjoyment. For perceiving that the child
ish and uninstructed mind of the many remained,
through bodily hilarity and enjoyments, in the error
of idols, that the principal thing with them should
be specially set right, their looking to God instead of
vain objects for -worship, he allowed them to make
merry at the memories (tombs or places consecrated
to them) of the martyrs, and to enjoy themselves
and to celebrate festivities, that some time or other
their life might be changed to what was more seemly
and exact." It is said he left only seventeen heathen
at his death.
But how opposite to the blessed delivering power
of the Spirit, as seen in Scripture. How does it
come under the apostle s word, " But now after that
ye have known God, or rather are known of God,
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly ele-
79
rnonts whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage.
Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you
labour in vain." This part of the history gives the
decay in doctrine and spiritual state, till on the fall
of Paganism its ceremonies and feasts were delibe
rately transferred to the nominal Church. Many
went on with their heathenism. This was con
demned by the hierarchical authorities, but long
persevered in. Gregory I. condemns it in England,
but directs, as Gregory Thaumaturgus did, similar
feasts among the professing mass that had been
brought in, to keep their fleshly minds contented.
This was the Primitive Church, ante-Nicene and post
Nicene. From this we pass gradually into the
mediaeval It was a space of nine hundred years,
dark, confessedly dark, but we must leave it. Its
result was what gave occasion to Protestantism. I
shall examine the Church, and afterward the history
of the popes. We shall see how far holiness, the
alleged note of the Church, can be found.
In 953, 931-974, Ratherius, bishop of Verona and
Liege, charges the clergy with corrupt avarice and
universal incontinency ; the popes themselves, many
times married, a warrior, perjurer, heretic, gambler, and
drunkard ; such a shame to the whole Church could
not be a rebuker of others. He says in his Itinerary
(Fleury xii. 193) he held a synod to correct this,
but the clergy kept none of the canons ; the synods
he held were to maintain the canons. There were
80
bigamists, concubine keepers, conspirators, perjurers,
drunkards, usurers. The cause of the ruin of all the
people, he says> is the clergy. The ignorance of the
clergy was excessive; he says they must learn the
three creeds, and be able to read the gospel and cer
tain services. No one, he says, was fit to be made a
bishop, or to consecrate one. They would not give up
their incontinency, and counted the rest for nothing.
The Italian clergy despise the canons the most,
because they are the most given to impudicity, and
minister to this vice by ragouts and excess of wine.
(Dupin, vol. viii. 19, &c. Fleury 1. c., from Dachery
and Mabillon.) He may have been said to be ruth
less and violent. The Benedictines defend him.
Damianus, a great friend of Hildebrand (Gregory
VII.), the strictest of monks, re-establisher, if not
inventor, of the Flagellators (self-scourgers), the able
champion of Eome against the Emperor, the reducer
of Milan (till then independent) to subjection to the
pope, given up to devotion to Mary, who gave up his
cardinalate and see, to the great pain and offence of
Hildebrand, out of piety, in a book entitled "Liber
Gomorrliianus" the name of which betrays its im
port, addressed to the pope, complains of the way in
which the clergy were given up to such crimes, it
being alleged they could not depose them for it, as
people must have the sacraments : they committed
them, we read, with their own children I appre
hend, those who came to confession. Pope Leo ap
proved the book. His letter of recommendation is
81
prefixed to it. Damianus refers to canons which gave
trilling penances for fornication; if even with a nun,
and habitually, five years penances. (These canons
he alleged to be forged, or of uncertain authority,
though amongst the canons.) Damianus demanded
o o /
the deposition of those guilty of these things. The
pope answers, they deserved by the canons to be
deposed, but out of clemency he would depose only
the most immoral. On which Eleury remarks,
" which leads us to suppose that the numbers of the
guilty were too great to treat them with rigour."
The next pope, Alexander II., got the book and hid
it, of which Damianus complains bitterly. In the
liomish council of 1059, he wished them to take it
up, but it was refused, as likely to produce scandal.
(Fleury, xii. 532, Dupin.)
Already, in 888, in two councils (Mogunt. et
Metens. Hardouin, vol. vi.), the clergy are forbidden
to have a mother or sister in the house, though it
Lad been allowed. In the latter case examples of
vice had given occasion to it. (Con. Mog., cap. x.)
Renolf of Soissons gave like orders (889). In the
council of ./Enamhense (1009), connection with
women is forbidden; but it is added (ci.), "but it is
worse that some should have two or more, and (non-
nuUitx) such an one, although he had sent her off
whom he lately had, during her life should marry
another.
In the time of Gregory VI. (1045), Eome was full
of assassins and robbers, says Fleury, quoting William
G
82
of Malmsbury. They drew the sword even at the
altar and the tombs of the apostles, to carry off the
offerings as soon tis they were put there, and use
them for feasts, and to maintain corrupt women.
He exhorted, excommunicated in vain, and at last
seized St. Peter s to begin, and drove away or killed
those who were stealing the offerings.
In 910 and 927-941, Clugny (that is, the reforma
tion of the monks) began. Before, in the confusion
of the empire, laymen, women, had the monasteries
as inheritances; abbots had their wives as Campo,
who had seven daughters and three sons, and his
s second, Hildebrand, and all their monks. Yet, in
the well-known discourse of Bernard, abbot of Clair-
vaux, he says, the whole Christian people, from the
least to the greatest, had conspired against God. It
is not the time to say, As the people, so the priest :
for the people are not even as the priest is. They
,are ministers of Christ, but serve Antichrist. All
that remains is, that this Man of Sin should be re
vealed. (Sermon on conversion of Paul.)
Pope Benedict VIII. rages against the licentious
ness of the clergy (forbidding marriage), but more
because the clergy, who were serfs, had children
by free women, and the Church lost her property in
serfs. Still, he declares, in language which I do
not transfer to these pages, the universal and open
profligacy of the clergy, more shameless than the
laity. .Between the years 1012 and 1014. (Hardouin,
vi.)
83
It was at tliis epoch that the prohibition to the
clergy to marry was rigidly enforced, and, as is
known, by Hildebrand. The wives were treated as
concubines by the popes ; but they were married,
and openly, with ordinary solemnities very often,
In England, it appears, few were not, but the kings
made them pay for it. (Hard. Con. Lon. vii., 1147.)
Lanfranc allowed it ; later, Ansel in raged against it.
It shows the state of Christendom, that many of
the synods forbid the children born of the priests
inheriting their cures. They gave them as portions
even to their daughters. Paschal, pope, died 1118,
ordered men on their death-beds to receive the
sacrament from them, rather than from none ; and
that their sons should be admitted to the priesthood
in England, as almost the major part of the clergy,
and the better part, were in this case. (Pascal s letter
in Hard, vii, 1804-1807.) That the bishops took
money for allowing the priests to live with women
is recognized (Con. Lat. cxiv. Hard. viii. 31),* and
in the constitutions of Canterbury, where it is said,
V "
as spiritual judgments did not hinder the evil of con
cubinage, they were to be mulcted in their benefices.
Decrees as to this may be found in Hardouin,
from 1217 to 1302. The canons of Con. Lat. iv.,
1215, enforced by Edmund, Archbishop of Canter
bury, 1236, Hard. viii. 1236. In the canon law,
Distindio Ixxxi, c. vi, it is said, that a clergyman,
* Thomas Aquinas counsels them to have a wife, secretly, or
with connivance.
G 2
84
convicted of having begotten children in the pres
bytery, is to be deposed. The gloss on this is But
it is generally saM, that a clergyman is not to be
deposed for simple fornication, because few can be
found without that sin.
The literature of these ages teems with the bitterest
reproaches against the clergy, as setting an example
of simony, money-getting (one was alleged to have
five hundred benefices), and licentious morals, brawls
in taverns, unnatural crimes, impossible to be quoted,
increased by a prohibition to marry, a measure not,
however, fully carried into effect for two centuries,
and long resisted in the north, as in England, Den
mark, Norway, Sweden, the people often insisting
that the priest should have a wife. Pope Alexander
IV. (as quoted, it is not in Hardouin, and I have not
access to Mansi) admits the evil state of things in
1258. " So a drowsiness of deadly carelessness seems
in the greater part to have oppressed the vigilance
of pastoral life, which we say, groaning, as the too
great corruption of Christian people crying out from
many regions testifies; which, when it ought to be
cured by the remedies of a sacerdotal antidote,
alas ! grows greater by the contagion of evils, which
proceeds from the clergy, so that it should be any
where true what the prophetic complaint bears
witness to, saying, As the people is become, so the
priest.
I may now go on to a later state of things. The
bishops received money regularly to allow the priests
85
to keep women. This was forbidden by the council
of Paris, 1429 (c. xxiii. Hard. vol. ix. Derlusanum,
(Tortosa,) 1429, c. ii. The council of Basle, session
xx. c. i.) But it is said, it was again authorized by a
local council of Breslau, that they were to put them
away under a penalty of ten florins. I have not the
German local councils to verify the quotation in this
case.
Later again, W. F. Picus, Lord of Mirandola, that
is the nephew of the famous Pic de Mirandola, as
quoted in a literal extract which I cannot verify,
not possessing his works, says, that priests left the
natural use of women, and good boys were given
up to them by their parents, and when grown older,
then were made priests of. I give it literally, only
in Latin: "Ab illis (sacerdotibus) etiam (proh
pudor) fceminae abiguntur ad eorum libidines ex-
plendas, et meritorii pueri a parentibus commen-
dantur et condonantur his, qui ab omni corporis
etiam concessa voluptate sese immaculatos custodire
deberent. Hi postea ad sacerdotiorum gradus pro
mo ventur cetatis flore transacto jam exoleti." This
was an address to pope Leo, in 1517, the year
Luther began the Reformation,
The receiving of money by bishops for priests
concubines was evidently general ; complained of in
Constance, written against by authors. Theodorich,
Archbishop of Cologne, ordered them to be dis
missed, and then took money from the priests for it.
In the council of Paris, already quoted from Har-
86
douin, they complain, that because of the concu
binage of the clergy, with which many ecclesiastical
and religious men (secular clergy and monks) are
infected, the Church of God and the whole clergy
are held in derision, abomination, and reproach by
every body, and that most iniquitous crime has so
prevailed in the Church of God, that Christians do
not now believe simple fornication to be a sin. These
testimonies may be multiplied ad libitum.
I go on now to what preceded the council of Pisa,
a council that is a great trouble to Koman Catholics,
as I may show further on. Clemangis was rector of
the University of Paris, the most famous then in
the world, the correspondent of popes and kings,
earnestly seeking the healing of the schism ; for there
were two popes then. This led to their using all
possible means to make money, provisions, annates,
tenths, exacting in every shape and every way,
giving a right to thair favourites to a living, whoever
had a right to present to it. He declares, that many
of the clergy did not know their ABC. He attacks
the cardinals for their pride and insolence ; though
drawn from the lowest ranks of the clergy, they had
up to about five hundred benefices. He says, " he is
not willing (non volo) to enumerate their adulteries,
rapts (stuprct), fornications, by which they pollute
the Koman court, nor relate the most obscene life of
their family, nothing inconsistent, however, with the
morals of their masters." The oppression of the
bishops was intolerable : if any ecclesiastic was put
87
in prison for any great crime, on payment of a
certain sum lie came out as white as snow. He
complains of the bishops, as we have seen they did,
making the clergy compound for keeping a con
cubine. " If any now is lazy, if any one hates to
work, he flies to the priesthood. As soon as he has
attained to it, they diligently frequent brothels and
taverns, and spend their time drinking, eating, dining,
supping, playing at dice and games, gorged and
drunken, they fight, cry out, make riots, execrate the
name of God and his saints with their most polluted
lips. Sicque tandem compositi, ex meretricum suarum
complexibus ad divinum altare veniuntur" This was
a common complaint. "The bishops," he says, "go to
court; perhaps they were better away, for what could
they profit by their presence, who at the utmost
enter the Church two or three times a year; who
pass whole days in falconry and the chase, who eat
most exquisite feasts, in shouting and dances, and
pass their nights with girls and effeminate per
sons. Who drag by a base example the flock, by
crooked paths, on to the precipice," &c. Were the
monks and councils better ? They are pharisees,
false doctors, the ravening wolves spoken of in
Scripture ; he calls the nunneries brothels of Venus.
To make a girl take the veil is to give her up to
prostitution. All that Dupin ventures to say as to
this last is, that he describes it in very strong terms,
and apparently too violent (outres).
Clemangis admits that there are exceptions to this
88
state of the clergy, but that the majority are such.
Now, I do not douht a moment that there were
godly men who shrunk away from all this iniquity,
and sought communion with God, some persecuted,
some not; and communities of another character,
not under vows, as the brethren of the common
doctrine, Groot, Thomas a Kempis, and many others,
whose schools merged in the light of the Beforma-
tion. But this is the character of the so-called Holy
Catholic Apostolic Church. Christian conscience,
yea, natural conscience, was weary of the wicked
ness. I shall be told that the doctrine of the
Church was holy. Dr. Milner, a standard book in
England, tells us, that there is the doctrine of
holiness, the means of holiness, the fruits of holiness,
the divine testimony of holiness. That the Church
itself was holy,* he does not attempt to show; he
speaks of individuals, a number of persons, who
have given their names to churches as saints, and
besides that, it was certain, there have been a count
less number. As to sanctity of doctrine, he speaks
of the Trinity and the Incarnation, &c., most holy
* Dr. Pusey tells us, in defending himself against Romanizers,
that it is by faith the Church is recognized as holy. What a con
fession ! And note, holiness is one mark by which we are to
recognize the true Church (a doctrine I do not except to) ; but when
we come to seek it as a mark, then we must believe it to be holy, by
means of faith. What a satire ! What are we to believe to be holy ?
the unholy Church. And how is it then a proof? I am to know the
true Church by its holiness, and when I find an awfully wicked body,
believe it is holy because it is the Church, I must say this is a mock
ery, and a mockery in holy things ; a trifling with the claims of God.
89
doctrines surely, but not doctrines about holiness.
He identifies justification and sanctity, saying, " the
efficient cause of justification or sanctity," -the
principal and most efficient means being the sacra
ments, and then her public service. The attestation
of sanctity is miracles. Now, there is not an
attempt to say that the Church is holy ; in fact, I do
not admit the doctrines of Home to be holy. It is
not holy to confound sanctity and justification ; it is
not holy to make sacraments the principal means,
leaving out the Word and Spirit of God, to which
Christ and his apostles directly ascribe sanctification.
It is not holy, it is Manicheism to make holiness,
and a holiness necessary to the clergy, by a prohibi
tion to marry. It was the most unholy and wicked
doctrine against which the apostle warns us, as a
doctrine of devils, the fruit of a conscience seared
with a hot iron. The fruits of it have been pro
duced. They characterized the Church. If a man
can devote himself to the Lord, body, soul, and
spirit, without a snare to himself, be it so. It is a
grace and gift from God. But the moment you
forbid to marry, you are on Manichean and Gnostic
ground. It is urged, in order to defend Rome, that
the passages in Paul s epistle to Timothy apply to
Gnostics. I admit it. They held that matter was
a bad thing, hence that Christ had no material body,
and other extravagancies of every kind ; but as a
way or means of holiness, they taught abstinence
from women. This was the doctrine of the Alex-
90
andrian school Dr. N. admires. They were infected
with it. The Albigenses, the mediaeval fruit of
Gnosticism in Christendom, constantly practised it;
their perfect, or bonhommcs, did not eat meat, nor
have to say to women.
The Bornan Catholic Church taught holiness in
this way, and of this kind. Their doctrine was
unholy, what the fruits of it were we have seen.
Further, the doctrine of indulgences was a horribly
unholy doctrine. We are told it is only the remission
of the temporal punishment of sin. But if a man
died with the sacraments, he never could have any
other. It was purgatory that was feared. A good
Catholic has nothing else to fear; besides, the ignorant
masses were not so nice as to this. The terror of sin
\vas on their consciences, and the Eoman Church
helped them to get rid of this terror ; not by Christ s
blood for the repentant, known by faith, and there
fore purifying ; not by having their soul restored by
the operation of the Spirit of God, but by pardons
bought with money. It was used to build and
adorn churches, farmed out to bankers. A money
tariff was made for sins, or the commutations of
them, and years, thousands of years, of purgatory
avoided by paying money. It was a traffic of sin
security as to future sins, too. The nominal Church
had returned to Pagan vices, as Paul foretold it
would. (Compare Eom. i. and 2 Tim. iii.) The differ
ence was this : corruption had its way in Paganism ;
it was horrible as horrible could be. But Papal
91
Rome systematized it, and made a tariff for sin. Not
in the known world, that I am aware of, has there
been iniquity like this a tariff made for sin ! Can
Dr. N. be surprised that there arose a protest against
it ? that there were Protestants ? The word of God
was brought out : no one can deny it. Old truths
were maintained, and justification by faith preached.
Truth was preached. That man s will, long sup
pressed, broke out ; that the Church was not set up
as at the beginning, I admit; that a vast mass of
Protestantism has fallen into infidelity, alas ! I do
not deny, though in Germany there is a strong re
action, and it is far more the case among cultivated
Roman Catholics, only they do not publish it, as in
Germany. But a protest against Rome could not
have been delayed. It had been going on at Pisa, at
Basle, at Constance, by legal attempts, by the centum
gravamina, by the complaints of Bernard and Wes-
salas, and holy men of times previous to the Refor
mation. All the difference was, that God then raised
up men of sufficient faith to brave the pope ; whereas
previously the reformation had been left to the popes,
and all was worse than ever.
I admit and feel that it is dismal work going over
all this wickedness ; and I have still to pursue the
task. If we pursue the study of the truth, it nou
rishes and sanctifies. We are occupied with unseen
things ; but as the imagination of men is sought to
be filled with an idea of the Holy Catholic Church,
it is needful to turn to the facts, that one may know
92
that what is called the Catholic Church was the un-
holiest thing in the world, that it had extinguished
the truth, put to death the saints, and corrupted morals
till it became intolerable. Satan was not allowed to
set aside the dogmatic foundation of the evidence of
a divine Saviour, as in the mass of the population in
the East by Mahommedanism ; so that still I do not
the least doubt many unknown pious souls were
found, and some known, however dark in knowledge,
as Bernard ; but these felt the evil. As Bernard said,
it only remained for Antichrist to come. My object
here is not to go through the Eoman Catholic con
troversy : when God s word is believed it is very
simple. The ninth and tenth of Hebrews suffice to
prove it apostate in its central doctrine. I believe
it false in all that distinguishes it. Its pretension to
catholicity is absurd, as probably the majority of
Christendom, and certainly the most ancient churches,
are outside its pale. Unity hence fails in its first
element. There is no external unity now. Nor was
there in the Roman body in former times. The great
modern doctrine of the immaculate conception of the
Virgin Mary was denied by the most powerful body
in the Roman system, the Dominicans. The prince
Archbishop of Breslau left that system not long ago
because of its being papally decreed.* Transubstan-
tiation was only decreed in 1215 : had been rejected
* Dr. Pusey, in his " Eirenicon," has fully shewn what Dr. New
man s statement as to the unanimity of modern Romanists on this
point is worth.
93
by the best of the fathers and doctors for centuries :
the contrary doctrines were used earnestly by them
against the Eutychians. Whatever apostolic succes
sion is worth, it is far more elsewhere than at Eome.
But I cannot enter now into all these questions. I
am accounting for the Protestantism which Dr. N.
hated.
It will be alleged that there was individual sanc
tity. Now, that there were God s hidden ones in all
times I cannot doubt a moment. And if the charac
ter of their holiness shewed want of scriptural light,
it was not necessarily the less sincere. Still, it is
beyond all question, that the universal unholiness of
the professing world, and especially of the priests,
and the idolatry prevalent in Christendom, exposed
those whose consciences were oppressed by what was
all around them to fall into the snares laid for them
by Satan in the shape of false doctrine. The effect
of this was, that Christendom was composed of, first,
unholy, iniquitous, and persecuting orthodoxy (a few
souls groaning under the state of things, such as
Bernard, who said, All that remained was for Anti
christ to come ; and others, that he was born already
at Rome) ; secondly, of a vast number (for they filled
the country from Asia to Spain) who had fallen into
Manichean notions, and sought holiness by judging
all matter as itself unholy, but whose devoted and
blameless walk won the conscience of the population,
till they were put down by fire and sword ; and
thirdly, of a number whose doctrines it is hard to
94
discover whose constancy and blameless walk as
tonished conscientious men ; and lastly, of others who
were counted only schismatics, whose only fault was
that they could not own the corruption which reigned
around them. One class or another of these was
spread all over Europe. It is a sad history; for they
were all hunted as wild beasts all over the country,
burned and tortured, and it is often hard to ascertain
what they really did hold. The inquisition was in
vented for putting them down. Of one large class,
Albigenses and Waldenses (of whom the former, I
suppose, were, as to their leaders at any rate, more
or less Manichean), the judgments at Toulouse may
be found in the end of Limborch s History of the
Inquisition, other notices in many popular books,
and a good deal of research as to them collected in a
note to Elliott s Horce Apocalypticce. Of the Mora
vians, before they were driven out of Bohemia and
Moravia, the best account is a German work
History of the, Bohemian Brethren by Gindely.*
Prague, 1857.
But I must add a few words as to the character of
the holiness that was introduced as the Church de
clined, and when it had lost its first love and true
Christian holiness of walk. We have seen, by con
temporary statements of Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine,
that this was the case, and dreadfully so. I now
* Geschichte der Bohmischem Briider. Part of a larger work.
Bohmen u. Mahren, im Zeitalter der Reformation. Gindely is a
Romanist; but fair enough as a historian.
95
only notice the character of what was substituted.
It was at a time (and it is not without importance to
note it) when Jerome complains bitterly that there
was no need to make laws against heathen priests
and deceivers, but that there was against Christian
priests besetting the sick-beds of old persons in order
to get their inheritance. A new kind of sanctity
was introduced devotedness to the saints, monastic
habits of life, celibacy, &c. Jerome, Paulinus of
Nola, and Martin of Tours, were the great promoters
of this. Sulp. Severus gives us the history of the
last, Jerome and Paulinus furnish us with their own
history; but it was a spurious holiness, false miracles
and wonders, accompanied with drunkenness and
violent tempers. No one can deny that the men I
have named were the types and promoters of this
kind of devotion.
Let us see some of the historical characteristics of
it. First as to Martin of Tours, the apostle of Gaul.
He lay on ashes, as he was, for his bed, and covered
with a sack and the like ; and when he put his foot
out of the cell to go a couple of miles to church, all
the possessed in the church shewed he was coming,
though in different ways, so that the clergy learnt
thus he was coming. I saw (I quote from Sulp. Sev.
Dialogues iii. 6) one caught up into the air as Martin
was coming suspended on high, with his hands
stretched out, his feet unable to touch the ground :
Martin prayed prostrate in sackcloth and ashes.
Then you might see the unhappy men cleansed by
96
their going out in different ways ; these, their feet
being carried up on high, hang as if from a cloud,
and yet their gawnents not fall down over their face,
lest the naked part of their bodies should put people
to shame. So in Egypt. Two friends went to see
one of the Anchorites. An enormous lioness came
and sought him, and they all followed her. She took
them to a cave, and they saw what was the matter :
five cubs were all blind. The Anchorite stroked their
eyes, and they saw. Soon after the lioness brought
a skin of some rare wild beast how acquired we do
not learn and brought it to the Anchorite, and he
took it and wore it. (Dialogue i. 9.) Another lived
up in Mount Sinai, naked ; and, when at last seen, he
said, He who was visited by men, could not be by
angels. Martin met a furious cow that had gored
several. She was rushing at him. He told her to
stand, and she did ; and then saw a devil on her
back, and ordered him off; and he went, and the
cow was quiet. Nor was that all. The cow knew
very well what had happened, and came and knelt
down before Martin, then, on Martin s order, went
and found the herd. (Dialogue ii. 9.) He was most
familiar with demons ; knew when it was Jupiter,
when Mercury, who was the most troublesome of all,
and specially when he had the saints with him.
When Sulp. Sev. went to see him all was harmony,
and Martin was talking, and women s voices within,
for two hours, while Sulpicius and Gallus were out
side. This turned out, as he told them after he came
97
out covered with ashes and filth, to be Agnes, and
Thecla, and Mary : often Martin said Peter and
Paul : but then all of a sudden a whole lot of devils
came, Martin denouncing them by their names.
Jove, he said, was a brute, and stupid (brutum et
hebetum). Alas ! they beset his dying bed. (Letter
iii. to Bassula.) Why are you standing there, bloody
beast ? he said ; thou shalt find nothing, fatal one,
in me ; the bosom of Abraham has received me : and
so expired. Yet he had promised pardon to the devil
if he repented. The devil was accusing some monks
who had sinned after baptism. Martin replied that
crimes were purged by the conversation of a better
life, and God would pardon; and then said to the
devil, if he, as judgment-day was near, even then
left off following after men, and repented of his
deeds, he himself, trusting in the Lord, promised
him. the mercy of Christ. I might multiply all
kinds of stories, but this surely is enough ; he died
in 402, or thereabouts. When he dined with the
Emperor, he gave the cup to the Presbyter first, as
superior to him ; such was the lowliness of the as
cetic worker of miracles. (Life, xxiii.)
This was the kind of sanctity now introduced.
Paulinus s was specially shewn in honouring St,
Felix. He had festivals in honour of his saint.
But, alas ! as we have seen, this change to honouring
saints instead of heathen demigods, thus systemati
cally established, did not change the habits. He
deplores the votaries honouring the saints with
H
98
drinking bouts. Verum utiiiam sanis agerent hoc
gaudia votis, nee sua liminibus miscerent pocula
sanctis. (Natalis, 9.) So elsewhere.* He adds, that he
has covered St. Felix s house with holy pictures; that
the gaper may drink in sobriety, and forget too much
wine. He implores the aid of St. Felix directly, not
<even his intercession, for sickness and a bad eye ; he
-calls himself him that is thine; he seems to make
the saints particularly efficacious wherever a part of
their body was. This is the holiness Baronius com
pares with Protestantism. (394, xciii.)
As to St. Jerome, it is impossible to have a more
eloquent description of Eomish holiness than the
* However, he thinks such joys are to be pardoned, as error creeps
into rude minds ; nor conscious of so great a fault, fails in piety in
fancying amiss the saints delight in it.
Ignoscenda tamen puto talia parvis,
Gaudia quae ducunt epulis, quia mentibus error
Irrepit rudibus, nee tantae conscia culpae,
Simplicitas pietate cadit, male credula Sanctos
Perfusis halante mero gaudere sepulcris.
Is this holiness is it a system of holiness ? Paulinus does not
approve of it. But it was common ; and the system which gave rise
to it was approved by Rome, as a system. In the well-known letter
to Mellitus, Gregory I. desires Augustine not to pull down the temples,
if well built, but to sprinkle them with holy water, put relics of
saints in them, and as they were accustomed to slaughter many oxen
in the sacrifice of demons, the solemnity was to be changed some
what. On the festival of the saint whose relics were there, they
were to make booths about the cleansed temple, and celebrate the
solemnity with religious feasts ; that while some external joys were
reserved to them, they might be better able to consent to internal
ones, as it was not doubtful it was impossible to cut off all, at once,
with hard minds. He cites Jewish sacrifices as a condescension to
heathen habits in Egypt. (Lib. ix. 71, or xi. 76.)
99
efforts of the excellent Tillemont to keep poor Je
rome s name among the saints. He sought to over
come his nature, I dare say. He fasted excessively,
lived in grime and filth, did everything possible to
subdue flesh by flesh s efforts, but nature is not over
come thus. Tillemont declares that he was very
little exact in stating things as they were, following
more his own ideas than the truth. These, however,
he says, are the defects of a great genius. But he
did not weigh what he said, and, which is more to
be regretted, attacked St. Chrysostom ; indeed, who
ever he had as an adversary was the basest of men :
he had too great an idea of his eloquence, shews it,
was naturally jealous and envious, so as to wound
his greatest friends and alienate them. It is hard
not to recognize that he had in his natural character
a sourness and bitterness which pained many. He
was soon on fire when offended, and did not easily
pardon. Are we to say, he asks, if so many saints
who have admired him, and the Church who honours
him amongst its saints and doctors, have been de
luded a humble son of the Church cannot say that
St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine are
excellent models of a perfect virtue to animate us to
imitate them ? But others have had great sins, as
David. We may say, even, that the defects of Jerome
are useful) as teaching us what the substance (le
fond) of virtue and Christian piety is. For if it
consisted in an even and uniform life, in which few
faults are committed, one would have to prefer
H 2
100
Piiifinus to him. But the Church leaves him to God s
judgment, and has always had the greatest respect
for Jerome. Not the services he has rendered the
Church by his labours ;* these are not virtues. Til-
lemont can see that in his case his austerities would
not do. Doubtless, he says, they were very useful to
him (which his own account by the by does not
shew, though I do not question their sincerity in
seeking to maintain incorruptness in celibacy, which
he held the highest of virtues), yet, if we had no
thing else to praise in him, we should have reason to
fear they had rendered him proud, and had been the
cause of that severe and critical spirit which some
have blamed in him. He then shews what he thinks
proof of what constitutes a saint : first, his love of
his solitary life and poverty, though he could have
enjoyed the favour of Pope Damasus and the wealth
of Saint Marcella and Saint Paula, two rich women
who admired him greatly; and his fleeing those who
honoured him humility which was shewn in not
exercising the functions of priest, for which he had
been brought up ; his eleemosynary charity and la
borious service for others, when he might have been
glad to be writing ; he hopes his anger against his
heretical adversaries, and certainly his conduct in
exalting St. Augustine, when he might have seemed
a competitor, the more so as he had quarrelled with
him. Such is Tillemont s kindly and gracious excuse
for what he was obliged to tell in his history ; for, in
* He corrected the translation of the Scriptures.
101
fact, Jerome s language, particularly against those
who deprecated monkish sanctity, saint and image
worship, was regular Billingsgate ; for that is really
the only word to describe it by. Tillemont then
makes a saint of him in these words. The Scripture
does not call him alone happy who is without spot
and does not sin ; but, moreover, him to whom God
does not impute sin, because he hates it by a pure
and sincere love of righteousness, and that he covers
it by the nuptial robe of charity, which covers a
multitude of sins, a deep and deadly error arising
from a confusion of Proverbs x. 12, quoted by Peter,
and Psalm xxxii. 1. I believe, as to God s govern
ment in the Church, fervent charity may keep many
sins out of sight by Christian forgiveness --was
not to come before God for present judgment ; but
to confound it with Psalm xxxii., quoted in Eomans
iv., is a denial of the gospel and the truth, but the
foundation of Komish righteousness and sanctity,
even in the hands of the very respectable Tillemont.
Another painful question may be asked, Why
bring all this failure up, if things are changed ? Is
there such vice now ? In the first place I reply
in the enquiry, Has the Eomish body the "note of
holiness?" The facts are everything. It certainly
has not. But I must answer. There is no doubt
that the light and spiritual energy of the Reformation
caused a certain amelioration in Rome ; but I still
must say, that where the action of this is not directly
felt, it is not changed. Mr. Froude, whose hard-
102
riding imagination had made a picture of mediaeval
holiness, as we learn, was checked by the degeneracy
he found in Italy. We have seen what they dege
nerated from. I have known a good deal by personal
experience in several countries, and a good deal more
by that of others; and I believe that in principle
and practice there is no change, though there may
be more concealment. It is thought infidelity is
found among Protestants especially. It is a mistake :
more, I believe, in the bosom of what is called
Catholicism; but not published, as among those
called Protestants. Go to France and Italy, and see
the state of men, in towns especially.
I turn to the popes, to see what their history
affords as a stay to the soul, or if it were a cause of
righteous revolt. The absence of the emperors from
Eome, and their presence at Constantinople, made
the Episcopate of Eome a post of great importance
and political power. Its ecclesiastical jurisdiction
was really comparatively small. It was respected as
the See of the capital, and had a primary rank if
worldly rank is to be looked for in Christ which
Constantinople contested with it as the new capital.
But Augustine, the great Western doctor, and the
African council, forbad appeals to Borne as intol
erable. But I confine myself here to their history,
that we may have what we are called to look upon
as infallible, as commanding our respect and submis
sion as holy, as of God.
Already, in the fourth century, intrigues for the
103
possession of Papal power became a source of public
trouble. In 3G6 Pope Liberius died, and contests for
the See began. Damasus was elected by a majority,
Ursicinus by a large party both were consecrated
bishops of Home. The emperor banished Ursicinus ;
but his partisans met in the churches they possessed,
and refused communion with Darnasus. The emperor
took away the churches. They met outside Rome,
and were banished the country. In the dispute, the
parties fought for victory, and a vast number of
Christians were killed, even in the churches. But
the origin of the violent feud is more important than
the feud itself. The emperor Constans was an Arian
persecutor. Liberius had condemned Athanasius,
and communicated with the Arians. AYhen called
on to subscribe an Arian creed, it appears he re
pented, and recalled his condemnation. The emperor
summoned a council at Aries, where the legates of
Liberius signed a semi -Arian creed. Afterwards, at
the council of Milan, hesitating, he was banished,
and Felix consecrated pope by an Arian minority.
Rome murmured, and Liberius was restored, after
three years exile; but signed an Arian creed; and
there were two popes, one said to be really Arian,
and in communion with Arians who had made him
pope; the other, who had signed an Arian creed
against his conscience. Felix was driven out by the
people, who favoured Liberius, though the clergy had
mainly submitted to Felix. Liberius wrote to the
Eastern bishops, who had condemned Athanasius,
104
to declare his agreement with them, and that he
never agreed with Athanasius. Osius, of Cordova,
the president of the council of Nice which con
demned Arius, had given way to the emperor before
Liberius. Felix is counted among the popes as
Felix II. Damasus was of the Felix party, and
hence the riots. It is stated, that in the riots about
Felix, which were very great, many were killed ; that
there were real massacres in baths, streets, and
churches, of laity and clergy who favoured Felix ;
but there is some obscurity as to the history. Bar.,
Anno 357, Tillemont, vol. vi. ; Hilarii P. Fragmenta
(p. 1335), where he interrupts his history, or rather
Liberius letter to the Eastern bishops, and turns to
anathematize Liberius. Efforts have been made to
screen Liberius, by questioning what Sirmian creed
he adopted. So Baronius. But, if we are to trust
Hilary, there can be no mistake as to his Arianism ;
nor does Tillemont nor Dupin defend him from this
accusation, nor Jerome either.
Zosimus became pope. (417.) He formally ap
proved Pelagianism. The synod at Lydda accepted
Pelagius confession of faith. Augustine and the
African bishops had condemned him. Zosimus re
proves them sharply. The African churches met
(418) ; Pelagius was condemned and anathematized ;
and they add, if any one presume to appeal beyond
sea, no one was to receive him into communion.
There is as to what follows some conflict of dates ;
but a decree of the Emperor Honorius was obtained,
105
Pelugius and Coelestius banished from Eome, and
Zosimus now condemned what he had approved, and
cut them both off from communion. On the death
of Zosimus (418), two popes, Boniface and Eulalius,
were elected. Boniface attempted to maintain his
place by force. The prefect kept the peace, and
reported in favour of Eulalius to the Emperor Ho-
norius. Honorius confirmed Eulalius, and banished
Boniface from the city. Boniface maintained his
ground outside, and his partisans appealed to Ho
norius. The emperor cited both before him. The
prefect told him neither could be trusted in their
statements. Difficulties arose in the decision. Ho
norius forbade both to go into the city, and sent a
bishop for the Easter ceremonies. However, Eulalius
went in. His adherents were unarmed. Boniface s,
who were of the populace, made a violent attack,
and the prefect hardly escaped. But Honorius, glad
to terminate the matter, condemned Eulalius for
going in, and appointed Boniface. Eulalius was
driven out of the city by force. (Baronius Annals,
419.)
It was about this time that the popes alleged
forged canons of the council of Nice to maintain
their authority in Africa. The African bishops had
the records of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexan
dria, besides their own, searched; found they were
forged, and refused to submit, reproving Pope Celes-
tine, and denying his right to send his legate a latere.
These appeals of evil persons the popes were con-
106
stantly receiving as a means of establishing their
authority. (Hardouin s Councils, i. 934, Prohibition
to Appeal, Can. *125, Letter to Pope Boniface, 939,
and to Celestine, 947.) The letter to Celestine is
very strong indeed. Faustinus the legate s mission
being wholly rejected.
The fifth general council condemned three chapters
of the fourth. Pope Vigilius, who was at Constan
tinople, had demanded the council called the fifth ;
then objected to it, and would not assist ; was exiled
by the emperor, published a constitution condemning
the chapters, saving that he did not condemn the
council of Chalcedon (the fourth), on whose authority
they rested. The Komans wished him back. The
emperor agreed, and said they might have him or
Archdeacon Pelagius for pope, or the latter after
Vigilius. They wished Vigilius, and said they would
take Pelagius afterwards, as he prescribed to them,
and the emperor let him go, on his confirming the
council which condemned the three chapters. He
died in Sicily on the way. Pelagius, who was sus
pected of poisoning him, succeeded him ; publicly
declaring, however, his innocence. Vigilius himself
had climbed over the wall into the Papacy, Belisarius
having, by the empress orders, sent off Pope Silverius,
who would not submit to the emperor s theology,
and put in Vigilius. Silverius, however, returned.
Belisarius gave him up to Vigilius, who sent him to
the island Palmaria, in guard, where he died. (Fleury,
537-558; vol. vii. 356, 482; Baronius, sub. an. 538.)
107
He counts Silverius pope till his death. Vigilius had
promised two hundred pounds of gold to Belisarius,
and would not pay it. Pelagius own election was
very uncertain. Vigilius had at first condemned the
three chapters in his judicatum. Thereupon the
Eoman clergy separated from him. The Africans
excommunicated him. He, seeing he had condemned
thus a general council to please the emperor, and
that the clergy turned against him, retracted; but
meanwhile, it seems (Conf. Pagi ad. Bar. 555, viii.
note), the Eoman clergy elected Pelagius. Then
Vigilius yielded, and got into favour again, and the
emperor told the Romans they might have which
they liked, and Pelagius, who came back with
Vigilius from Constantinople, certainly joined in
ill-treating him. Baronius says, no day or month is
named when he succeeded, and complains bitterly of
all this. Vigilius had condemned the council of
Chalcedon, and written to the three other patriarchs
(who were heretics according to it), anathematized
the doctrines of the council of Chalcedon, and Pope
Leo in his famous letter adopted by it, and re
nounced communion with those who defended it.
Baronius denies the authenticity of these letters;
but Pagi and Fleury both admit they are genuine.
Silverius was really murdered by want and starva
tion. "He died of hunger," says Fleury; and in
deed all historians remark that Vigilius was chosen
pope when Silverius was alive, and never afterwards.
Baronius tries to get out of it by supposing Vigilius
108
was re-elected after Silverius death; but it is merely
because it ought to be. Silverius was son of Pope
Hormisdas. (FleuTy and Baronius, 53, cxx.) Vigilius
ordained eighty-one bishops.
Pope Honorius was condemned as a heretic by the
sixth oecumenical council. Baronius laboriously seeks
to prove that Theodoret did it, and left his own name
out, and put Honorius in; but Pagi, his annotator,
has, in very few words, and by facts, shown the
absurdity of his attempt. Pope Adrian II. refers to
it, and says heresy was the only ground for resisting
thus such a superior authority. He was anathema
tized also by Pope Leo II. (See Fleury, xl. 28. For
the acts of the council, see Hardouin; quoted in
Baronius, Fleury.)
Symmachus and Laurentius contended for the
Papacy. (498.) It was a violently contested matter.
Both were ordained pope the same day, and they
appealed to Theodoric at Eavenna, Gothic king, an
Arian, to decide. As most were for Symmachus, he
was to be pope. He was accused of all sorts of
crimes, and never was cleared. There was fighting
in the streets for a length of time, and many killed
and wounded. The only godly man we hear of was
on the other side. Symmachus made regulations to
hinder these contests. In vain, however; for men
will be ambitious. The clergy had in other cases
sold all the churches goods, and even the vessels of
service, by auctions, for pushing their candidates ; so
that it had been forbidden by rescripts and laws of
109
the senate; and after Vigilius election, more than
3000 solidi were not to be paid at court after an
election for the royal confirmation, &c., for a pope ;
2000 for a metropolitan. This was in 532. The king
wrote to John, the new pope, recalling a decree of
the senate in the previous pope s time, and allows
his officers to take so much. (Fleury, book vii. 625.)
The history of the Papal influence was this,
when there were emperors, they ruled; but the pope s
influence was growing ecclesiastically, though often
resisted. When the empire fell they were the chief
influence (except the Arian Goths in Italy), and did
pretty freely what they pleased, increasing in power
in respect of Constantinople. However, the Gothic
kings confirmed them, and interfered, and were ap
pealed to, as we have seen. When for a time the eastern
empire reconquered Italy, the popes were servile and
submissive to the emperors : could not help it. When
these were driven out again, they were oppressed by
Lombards, but established in Home by the Franks ;
Charlemagne, however, fully holding his own, and
ruling at Kome. When the succeeding Carlovingian
emperors were weak and divided, their power grew.
Powerful emperors contended for the right of con
firmation of popes and local investiture of prelates ;
and the history of the middle ages is the history of
this conflict. The popes raising Italy against them
(Guelphs and Ghibelines), and the emperors some
times doing as they pleased; but the German em
perors having to contend with subject princes as
110
powerful as themselves, and jealous of them, the
pope and they coalesced against the emperors : the
popes even supported the rebellion of a son against
his father the emperor. In Boniface the eighth s
time they laid their hand on France ; but this was
more united, and there was a signal failure. The
pope had to give way. The next pope had his seat
at Avignon, under French influence the Avignon
popes and the court being degraded to the last
degree. At the end they had one pope at Eome and
another at Avignon, this giving rise to the question
whether the authority of a council were not superior
to that of a pope, and the three councils of Pisa,
Basle (Florence, Lausanne), and Constance, which
so puzzle Eoman Catholic theorists. There was a
universal cry for reformation in head and members,
always avoided. At last came the reformation, which
threw the whole power into the pope s hand, the
bishops holding only under him. And though Louis
XIV. maintained Gallican liberties, as they are
called, yet the clergy are simply slaves to the pope.
The Jesuit society sprung up at that time more
powerful than the pope himself, and recovered
southern Germany to Popery.
I have now to see in what way the state of the
Papacy gave occasion to Protestantism. From 887,
then, the popes were engaged in the strifes of the
Italian nobles, when the power of the Empire fell.
Another circumstance has to be introduced here.
A number of forged decretals were produced at this
Ill
time, which formed the foundation of the pope s
pretensions subsequently the Isidorean collection.
No doubt political circumstances were a means of the
popes power, but their canonical pretensions leaned
on these forged decretals. They declare the notable
falsehood that all churches had their origin from
Korne "A qua omnes ecclesias principium sumsissc"
and then go on to state its consequent rights.
It is said they were written between 829 and 845 ;
appear at Mentz in the time of Archbishop Aut-
carius ; alleged to be brought from Spain at the
end of the eighth century, or thereabouts. Some
think they were forged by Autcarius himself, at
Mentz ; and that there w r ere some old decretals
which gave rise to them, or as some allege, intro
duced to accredit the forgeries. At any rate, what
gave legal (not political) force to Papal authority
from this date, was the forged Isidorean collection.
It is admitted, on all hands, they are forgeries.
They were not detected till the Eeformation. Calvin
states it (Inst. iv. 7, 20, and the Cent. ii. 7) and fully
(iii. 7) demonstrated it. Bellarmine says they are
ancient, but does not dare defend them as genuine ;
and Baronius gives them up. (vi. 865, and follow
ing, with Pagi. Ann.) Hincmar combatted, in 870,
the authority of the decrees, but used them too.
However, no one denies their spuriousness, but they
served their purpose when wanted. They were used
by Nicolas I. in 864.
I turn to the history of the popes from this time.
112
After the death of Formosus (897), Boniface took
possession of the See, and held it for fifteen days.
Stephen VI. (VII.) drove him out and took posses
sion. Baronius here remarks : Boniface is not to
be counted, Stephen is ; future popes having owned
one, not the other, the clergy thought it better,
though all was taken by fear and violence, to sanc
tion it, *rather than by electing a legitimate Pope have
a schism. (Bar. i. 897.) Stephen dragged Formosus
out of his tomb, clothed him in pontifical robes, and
put him on the throne ; charged him with intrusion
into the See (he had been made pope in a tumult,
Sergius having been chosen by a party), stripped
him then of his pontifical robes, cut off the three
fingers which were used to bless with, and had his
body thrown into the Tiber, and re-ordained all the
clergy he had ordained. Baronius says he should
not dare to count him among the popes, if he had
not found it done by those of old. (vi. 897.) Stephen
was put in prison and strangled. Baronius owns
he had only the fact of subsequent recognition by
the Church to accept such or such a pope. (i. 897.)
I should have, perhaps, mentioned the history of
Pope Joan. A woman, an Englishwoman, who had
received a learned education at Athens, became, it is
said, pope in 855. She is said to have died in child
birth, having been taken with pains of labour in
the street, going to the Lateran Church ; so that
the popes never pass that way. That seems un
questionable, and it is certain that the sex of the
113
Pontiffs was examined for long years, and the story
believed till the time of the Reformation --that is,
for many centuries. She is put by Platina, who
speaks of the story as of uncertain authority, be
tween Leo IV. and Benedict III. The whole
controversy is fully gone into in Basnage, vii. 12,
and Schrock, xxii. 75-110. Baronius and Fleury
pass the Joan of Platina over in a suspicious
silence, and make Benedict elected on the death of
Leo IV. Here there was a contested election, too :
Anastasius was chosen by the people, and installed
pope, Benedict by the clergy, and Anastasius was
driven away.
To continue. After Stephen was gone, the Roman
faction having the upper hand at the time, Romanus
was Pope somewhat more than four months. I
quote Baronius s account : " Thus, indeed, all things,
as well sacred as profane, were mixed up with
factions, so that promotion to the Apostolic See of
the Roman Pontiff was in the power of the party
which seemed the strongest. So that at one time
the Roman nobles, at another the Prince of Etruria,
intruded by secular power whom he would, and put
down, when he could, the Roman Pontiff promoted
by the contrary faction. Which things were carried
on for almost a whole century, until the Othos
(German Emperors) came in between, in opposition
to both parties, but arrogating to themselves in the
same way the election of a pope, and his deposition
when elected." Romauus disappeared. Theodoras
114
was pope twenty days. Benedict IV. succeeded,
of whom nothing is known ; he seems to have been
a respectable man. Leo V. succeeded. After forty
days he was driven out, and put in prison by
Christopher. He was, after seven months, driven
out, put in prison, and obliged to retire to a mon
astery by Sergius, who was all-powerful through
Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany. It is to be added,
that these popes undid the ordinations of their pre
decessors, as having no legitimate title. One Auxilius
wrote a dialogue, to guard, by decrees and canonical
examples, against the intestine discord of the Eoman
Church ; namely, on ordinations, exordinations, and
superordinations. (Baronius, 907, iii.) " That repro
bate Sergius," says Baronius (908, ii.), "the slave of
all vices, the most iniquitous of all men what did
he leave unattempted \" "One pope undid," he says,
"all the acts of another; what, then (912, vii.), was
the face of the holy Eoman Church ? how filthy,
when the most powerful and basest harlots ruled
at Koine ! at whose will sees were changed, bishops
mven, and, what is horrible and unutterable to hear
o
of, their lovers were introduced into the See of
Peter, who are only to be written in the catalogue
of Koman Pontiffs to mark such times. For who
can say that persons, intruded without law in this
way by harlots, can be said to be legitimate Koman
Pontiffs ? The clergy never elected, nor is there
afterwards any consenting mention," &c. Yet suc
cession depends upon this, we are told. Baronius
115
says, "Christ, indeed, seemed to sleep, but he was
in the ship ; and that this proves the unfailing
security of the Church." Of the Church, I believe ;
but not by, but in spite of, the popes.
On the death of Lando, Theodora, who lived with
Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany, and whose daughter
Marozia was concubine of Pope Sergius, makes
John, son of Sergius and Marozia, pope. (John X.)
Marozia became wife of Guido, Marquis of Tuscany.
She being angry with his brother Peter, had Peter
killed, and John seized and put in a dungeon, where
he died they say, suffocated. The emperor at this
epoch got a lance, made out of the nails of Christ s
Cross, from Paidolf, King of Burgundy, after threaten
ing fire and sword if he did not give it to him.
Afterwards gave a large part of Swabia to him,
because he gave it up ; and always beat his enemies
with it.
After Pope Stephen, the Marquis of Tuscany and
Maro/ia make another son of hers, by Pope Sergius,
pope, by the name of John XL; but Alberic (son
of Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany, by Theodora, not
his wife), who ruled at Home, put John in prison.
There he remained three years, and there was no
other pope made. In 93G Leo VII. became pope.
I pass fiver a number which need no mention.
Octavianus, son of Alberic, AVUS a clergyman; and
he governed at Koine, made himself pope (John),
ing at tin- outside not eighteen years old. Baro-
nius again remarks here iv.), that though not
I 2
116
of an age to be made bishop, or even deacon, he
wns owned afterwards in the succession, the clergy
being supposed to consent, not to have a schism.
The truth is plain enough he ruled at Home. How
ever, the Emperor Otho comes to Rome (963), and
holds a council, which deposes John, and elects Leo
VIII., whom Baronius will not own, because nobody
could depose a pope ; yet he was ordained pope, and
ordained priests and deacons, and held the See a
year and four months (Fleury, book Ivi. sec. 7), and
they swore fidelity to them. But Otho having sent
away some of his troops, the Romans rose against
him and tried to kill him ; but he knew it, and had
the advantage ; but when the emperor left, Leo had
to fly, and John was pope again. However, being
one night out of Rome with a married woman, he
was caught in the act of adultery, and had his head
smashed, and died without the sacraments. The
Romans chose Benedict V. pope. Otho came and
besieged them, and they w r ere forced to give up
Benedict to Mm, and Leo re-enters. The emperor
committed Benedict to the keeping of the Arch
bishop of Hamburg. The emperor held a council
at Rome. Benedict appeared ; owned he had sinned ;
was stripped of his robes ; and his pastoral staff
broken : he had joined in deposing John, and swore
fidelity to Leo. No wonder Baronius does not own
Leo, as he recognized the right of Otho to establish
the pope, of investitures, &c., under pain of excom
munication, exile, and death. However, the next
117
Leo was Leo the Ninth, so that on Baronius s prin
ciple he must be reckoned such. Baronius has no
Leo VIII. at all. After Leo s death, they sent to
Otho to know whom he would have, and he sent
ambassadors to Koine, and John XIII. was chosen.
He was followed by Benedict VI. He became odious
to the Komans. Crescentius, son of Theodora and
Pope John X., took him, shut him up, and after
wards strangled him ; while yet alive, Boniface VII.
became Pope. After the death of Benedict they
drove out Boniface, and Bonus became pope ; though
some do not count him among the popes. Then a
relation of Alberic. But Baronius inserts Bonus,
but does not count Boniface.
I pass over the popes named while temporal in
fluence prevailed. The Germans were more respect
able ; but Baronius does not like them. In 1002 or
1003, we have John XVI., called also and com
monly XVIII. for a few months, and then John
XVII. (usually XIX.) Baronius will not own him
but as XVII., because it would be recognizing schis
matic popes. Bar. (x. 1003) puts two popes John;
he says, to make the numbers run right. Crescens
had expelled Gregory V. from Koine, and made a
( 1 reek pope. The Emperor and Gregory V. marched
together on Kome. But some servants of the Em
peror, fearing his clemency (John was a favourite
at court), followed, and caught the pope, and put
his eyes out, and put him in prison. (Fleury, Ivii.
50.) Benedict VIII. now took the See after Sersjius
118
IV., but another party chose Gregory VI. But
Benedict, being son of the Count of Tusculum,
carried the day; but the party of Gregory VI.
roused itself, and Benedict fled to the emperor.
However, Benedict was restored in less than two
years. After Benedict, John, a layman not in orders
at all, had the Papacy. He was Benedict s bro
ther, another son of the Count of Tusculum. He
got the Papacy, says Fleury, partly by money, (lix.
3.) Evidently family influence too. The patriarch
of Constantinople very nearly succeeded in buying
the universal Papacy of the East. The Romans drove
John XIX. out ; but Conrad, the emperor, came
with an army and set him up again : he died that
year, 1033. His nephew, son of Alberic, Count of
Tusculum, was made pope, a boy of about 12 years
old, says Fleury; not scarce 10, says Glabeus, in Bar.
By money also, and intrigue too. (Fleury, lix. 81 ;
Bar. 1033, v.) Benedict IX.: his life was infamous,
and through his plunderings and murders became so
odious, that the people drove him out. Sylvester III.
became pope, but only held it three months ; he was
of another powerful family, says Baronius. But
Benedict, with the Tusculum family, attacked Rome,
and was reinstated. But his conduct became insup
portable, and he agreed to leave for a sum of money,
and the Papal revenue of England, to follow his
pleasures freely ; and they made John Gratian pope,
as Gregory VI. But all three called themselves popes.
Gregory VI. gave up the Papacy, in a council called
119
to settle matters, as having entered on it unlawfully;
as Benedict was paid to go out. But Baronius, who
speaks of it as a beast with three heads (v. 1044)
coming out of the gates of hell, insists Gregory VI.
was a real pope, owned so by Gregory VII., Peter
Damienus, &c. The number designating the pope is
constantly uncertain, because whether such or such
an one was really pope is uncertain. He who is
called John XIX., Baronius calls XVII. Benedict
is VIII. or IX. : so Stephen. But when things are at
the worst they mend. The emperor came, gathered
the clergy and nobles of Rome ; they agreed to have
things done decently, and the emperor took up
Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, and he became Clement
II. No fit person, it is said, was found in Eome.
However, Clement II. died in nine months, and
Benedict came back and held the Papacy for nine
months. Then, as it seems, repented and gave it up.
Sylvester went back to his See. What came of Gre
gory I know not. The emperor sent Poppo, bishop
of Brixia, to be pope. He lived as Damasus II.
twenty-three days ; said to be poisoned : and Bruno,
six months after, in a diet held at Worms, was chosen
pope. But Baronius says, Benedict was tearing it to
pieces and defiling it. So Dupin (xi. century, chap,
iv.) ; he refers to Clement s being poisoned. A cir
cumstance is to be noted here. Hildebrand, after
wards Gregory VII., came with Bruno. The Romans
had sent to the emperor, and asked him to give
them a pope, through dread, it appears, of Benedict ;
120
and after his choice at Worms, Bruno (Leo IX.) came
in his pontifical robes. Hildebrand got him to take
them off, and be again chosen at Rome. He it was
who established the modern Papacy. (Bar., Fleury,
Dupin.) Everyone who searches for himself must
look to the facts, not the title of the pope, as the
succession is so uncertain, that VIII. in one is IX.
in the other, and sometimes, as in the Johns, there
are three enumerations.
AYe have seen already the state of the clergy ; the
buying and sale of benefices was universal even of
the popedom ; and immorality, the most degraded,
all but universal among the clergy. The chase and
pleasure was their occupation. On the death of Leo,
the Eomans sent Hildebrand to the emperor, to
choose a pope in Germany ; they had no one fit in
Borne. The emperor assembled a council at May-
ence, and Hildebrand got them to choose Gibbard,
bishop of Eichstadt, a near relative to the emperor,
who did not wish to lose him. However, he went,
kept his bishopric too, and became pope. He was
very near being poisoned by a subdeacon in the
sacrament, but could not lift the cup. They say
another devil openly seized the poisoner.
Hildebrand was now the soul of the Papacy at
Rome. A great change took place under Nicolas II.
On the death of Stephen, the emperor, who kept
things in order, the Eoman nobles, the Alberic
family, and others, chose the bishop of Veletri as
Pope Benedict. The cardinals opposed ; but Eleury
121
says lie held the Papacy nearly ten months ; but
Hildebrand got the bishop of Florence chosen at
Florence. When he had arrived, the Koiuans sent
to the emperor, who sanctioned the choice of Flo
rence ; the pope was Nicolas II. He recognized
publicly the emperor s rights, but decreed, when
pope, that the cardinals should choose the pope,
thus excluding the emperor and the Roman people.
This laid the foundation of the modern Papacy, which
was born in Hildebrand, Gregory VII. Therefore it
is I have noticed this part of the history. Benedict
abdicated. This was the era of Damianus, whom we
have previously cited. Alexander II. was the first
chosen by the cardinals. (1061.) Another was chosen
at Basle, and consecrated through Lombard influence.
Pope Honorius : he came to Rome in arms, was at
first victorious, but was afterwards beaten ; the Ger
man princes deserting him to weaken an infant
emperor. He was deserted by his soldiers, got into
the castle of St. Angelo, was besieged two years by
Alexander, and then fled. But Honorius never gave
up his claim. One great means of the depression of
imperial power was, that the archbishop of Cologne
stole away the young emperor from his mother, who
had maintained his authority, and went over to Pope
Alexander s side, so that the emperor was null,
though nominally saved. There was a council at
.Mantua, where the archbishop appeared, as did
Alexander, who was charged also with simony, and
Honorius. Alexander was recognized pope, Honorius
122
pardoned, the emperor s rights nominally saved, and
some of the German party promoted. The arch-
hop charged Alexander with having despised the
emperor s rights. P. Damianus wrote on this. That
Honorius contrived to claim and exercise Papal
authority as far as he could see (Bar. 1064, xl.), and
Archbishop of Eavenna favoured him. After
Alexander, Hildebrand was pope, as Gregory VII.
He decreed absolutely the celibacy of the clergy; was
resisted everywhere in the north of Europe, where
there was some more respect for morality; but pro
secuted it earnestly.
The Papal system was now established. I have
only to notice, till I come to those near the Eeforma-
tion, the dying struggles of the imperial power
which had given popes for near a century, as
Rtronius admits, and the Avignon popes, and the
schism ; and briefly. Before I turn to this, I give
Gregory VII. s account of the state of the Church.
I have not preserved any reference here, but have no
doubt of the correctness of the extract. "Alone with
my mind s eye, I look at the west, south, and north.
I scarcely find bishops, legally such by their entrance
and life, who rule the Christian people for the love
of Christ, and not secular ambition ; and among all
secular princes, I know none who put God s honour
before their own, and justice before gain. As to
those amongst whom I dwell, as I often tell them,
Eonians, Lombards, and Normans, I denounce them
123
as, in a certain way, worse than Jews and Pagans."*
Gregory having excommunicated the emperor, the
latter and his bishops chose Guibert (Clement III.)
pope. Gregory would have attacked him at Ravenna
with an army. (Fleury, 1080, iv.) He sought the help
of the Normans. The Italians (Lombardy) and
Germany being for the emperor. The latter (1084)
entered Rome, set Clement III. on the Papal throne.
Gregory retired to St. Angelo. The emperor besieged
him there. Robert Guiscard, the Norman, freed
him, and after staying awhile in Rome, he retired
to Salerno, under the protection of the Normans.
Gregory VII. died at Salerno. The small Papal party
secretly elected Desiderius, Victor III. Clement re
turned to Rome; he had been expelled in 1089, and
came back in 1091. (Fleury, Bar.) Didier refused
to be pope, and when chosen went back to Mont
Casino, ami would not be ordained, but at last
yielded. The Normans and others came to Rome,
and turned out Clement III. from St. Peter s by force.
Still, it appears, he held the upper hand there ; for
after the death of Victor III. (Didiev), Urban, named
by him, was chosen at Terracina, under the influence
of Mathilde, the great protectress of the popedom
then, by a small assembly, forty persons, clergy and
* An Abbot Transmundus having put out the eyes of some monks
accused of rebellion, and torn out the tongue of one of them,
Desiderius, abbot of Casino, put him to penance. Gregory, then
cardinal, approved the act, got him out of the abbot s hands, gave
him an abbacy, and afterwards made a bishop of him. Anything
for
124
laity partly, by proxy, John, Bishop of Porto, having
their authority. (Flemy, Ixiii. 41 ; Dupin, xi. cent,
chap, vi.; Bar. 1T)88, i. et seq.) It is important to
notice at this part of the history, that what destroyed
the power of Clement and the emperor in Italy was,
that Urban got up the crusades through Peter the
hermit, and when that took effect, Clement was re
jected. He was driven, it appears, from Koine by the
crusaders. Pope Urban, the second (Grat. Deer. Part
ii. Cans, xxiii. Quses. 5, c. 47) says, " Enjoin a measure
of suitable satisfaction to those who have killed the
excommunicated. For we do not consider those as
guilty of homicide who, burning with the zeal of
their Catholic mother against the excommunicated,
shall have happened to have slain some of them."
At this time this was the greater part of Europe.
The remaining facts may be briefly recounted.
Pascal II. raised the emperor s son against him.
That son banished him from Eome, and Gregory
VIII. was set up as pope. The Roman pope died
in exile, or two days after his return ; but Gelasius
was elected as Roman pope, but died in exile also
soon after. Calistus II. followed as Roman pope ; he
treats of peace with the emperor. Gregory was his
prisoner. Calistus was not elected, Baronius admits ;
he was chosen by a few cardinals and clergy at Cluny,
when Gelasius died, as trusted by him. (Bar. 1119, i.
and v.) After Honorius, there was a contested election
between cardinals and people, but the circumstances
are of no moment. After him, the cardinals who
125
had been beaten in Honorius s case chose Gregory,
Innocent II. Other cardinals and the people chose
Peter, Anacletus II., favoured by the laity. Innocent
had to leave Eome, went to France, owned by Ber
nard, and in general in Europe; but Anacletus was
Pope at Eome. On Anacletus s death, the schism
for the moment is ended by St. Bernard s influence.
The Emperor Lothaire brought back Innocent; but
as soon as he was gone, Innocent had to go back
to Pisa. Gregory was elected in Anacletus s stead
as Victor, and submitted to Innocent, but the
Eomans renounced obedience to the latter. Celes-
tine followed quietly. Baronius says Anacletus s
presence at Home was the triumph of Antichrist,
and that it was easy to see who was the successor
of St. Peter. (1130, iii.) The next, Lucius, was
killed in a rebellion of the Eomans, by a blow of
a stone, when assaulting the Capitol ; or of chagrin,
as some say. Baronius, Dupin, Fleury, do not say
how he died. His successor, Eugene, fled from
Eome, but returned. Then came Anastasius IV.
Adrian IV. followed. Then a disputed election-
Alexander and Victor ; the latter given up by the
emperor when beaten by the Lombards. Lucius III.
and Urban III. sat at Verona, not at Eome. Lucius
fled, being hated and despised by the Eomans, who
attacked his territories, and he finally settled at
Verona, where Urban was chosen.
From Urban III. on to Boniface VIII., that is,
taking in Lucius, from 1181 to 1294, the history of
126
the Papacy is that of a worldly power, yet using
excommunication as its weapon, contending against
the emperors, using Sicily and Lombardy as their
main arms against him with various success, but in
result successful. But it wearied the world, and
when Boniface attempted to use the acquired power
against Philip of France, he signally failed. His
successor repeated his acts. And the next pope,
chosen by French influence, removed to Avignon, in
France. This, as being practically secular history, I
leave untouched. "My kingdom," says the Lord, "is
not of this world, else would my servants fight."
The pope s was.
The most remarkable pope of the period was In
nocent III., who held the fourth council of Lateran,
when transubstantiation was for the first time decreed.
He established the inquisition in the crusades against
the Albigenses. We may notice that, the See having
been vacant three years through election intrigues,
there was a compromise, and Gregory X. made a
decree for what is now practised, that the cardinals
should be shut up till they chose a pope. Celestine
V. reserved it, and then resigned, as the cardinals
were two years and a half before electing him. The
person who got Celestine to resign got himself chosen
in his place it was Boniface VIII. Celestine gives
a curious reason to justify his abdication. He says
Clement, who was named by Peter, resigned, that no
pope might be named by his predecessor. And then
came third after Linus and Anacletus. So Peter
127
made a blunder in beginning the matter. It is known
the succession of the first three possessors of the See
is hopelessly embroiled. As to the manners of the
clergy and the court of Eome in Innocent IV. s time,
Matt. Paris is quoted as giving the parting address
of Cardinal Hugo, at Lyons, (p. 819. I have not the
book to verify the quotation.) "Amici magnam
fecimus postquam in hanc urbem venimus utilitatem
et eleemosynam. Quando enim primo hue venimus
tria vel quatuor prostibula invenimus (here in the
sense of Iv+ianar), sed nunc recedentes unum solum
reliuquimus verum ipsum durat continuation ab
orientale porto civitatis usque ad occidentalem."
From 1309 the pope lived at Avignon, under
French influence and protection, proclaimed his
rights over others, and submitted to France. The
struggles with the emperor went on. Lewis set up
an anti-pope at Rome Mcolas V. ; but he was soon
pven up to his competitor at Avignon. The friar
Minorites and Italian cardinals sided with the
emperor, who was preparing a general council against
the pope, who meanwhile died. Benedict XII. suc
ceeded at Avignon. France would not allow him to
make- peace witli the emperor; the emperor was
deprived of the sacraments by the pope ; but the
clergy who would not administer them were ban
ished. But Lewis took ecclesiastical powers in hand,
ami lost influence, t lement VI. succeeded Benedict,
and anathematized the emperor, and set up an anti-
emperor, who was forced to ily. But the conduct of
128
Clement, who had deposed an ecclesiastical elector
to gain voices for his anti-emperor, had wearied men
of the popes. .Clement got the upper hand, but
injured the Papacy. The electors of the empire
meet, and declare the King of Rome receives his
power from electors only.
From 1313 to 1316 the See was vacant : the car
dinals would not elect. Clement V., first pope at
Avignon, lived in adultery, sold all the benefices he
had to dispose of, and left immense wealth. (Fleury,
92, xi.) Yet this same Clement, in opening the
council of Vienne, describes the state of the whole
Church as corruption itself, clergy and laity (Raynald
con. of Bar. 1311, Iv.) This is Petrarch s account of
the court of Avignon. He died in the Papacy of
Gregory XI., and had lived at Avignon. It is the
third Babylon, the fifth labyrinth. Here, dreadful
prisons, nor the tortuous way of a dark house, nor
the fatal mixing of the fate of the human urn ;
lastly, not imperious Minos, nor a voracious mino-
taur, nor the monument of condemned lusts (yeneris),
are wanting; but remedies, love, charity, faith to
promises, friendly counsels, or thread by silent help,
marking the perplexed way Ariadne and Daedalus.
The only hope of safety is gold ! A fierce king is
appeased by gold, and heaven is opened by gold;
nay more, Christ is sold for gold !
During this time, from the universal corruption
and squeezing for money, the consciences of godly
men were rising up against the state of things
129
Milicz, Matthias Yon Jannow, both Bohemians,
before Huss. In England, Wickliff. (1360, &c.)
Gregory XL died at Eome, and a pope was elected
then in a riot. Eaynald says the uproar was after
wards. However that may be, for all was violence
and confusion, the cardinals elected another, Clement
VII., who went to Avignon; and there were two
who divided Europe between them. Benedict XIII.
succeeded at Avignon, Boniface IX. at Eome, and
then Gregory XII. This brought on the council of
Pisa, which put down both. The council chose
Alexander V. He dissolves the council, and does
not reform.
There were now three popes. The exaction of
money became intolerable, selling of benefices public.
It was said it was allowable, as the pope could not
sin in it. This brought on the council of Pisa,
"a council," says Bellarmine, "neither manifestly
approved nor manifestly condemned." (De Cone,
lib. i., c. viii.) That it is approved, the succeeding
Alexander being called VI. shews ; for Alexander V.
was made pope by that council, and the same cir
cumstance John XXIII. to be confessedly a true
pope, though moderns say no. John XXIII. being
obliged to fly, Eome consented to a new council,
which met at Constance. Here first they voted
by nations. John was deposed, accused of every
sort of horrible crime. He had first fled the
council. Gregory XII. resigned. Benedict XIII.
remained determined, was deposed, and finally
E
130
deserted by all but the Spanish town he lived in.
Martin V. was elected by all. The council had
formally decree^, a council superior to the pope, and
had acted on it. Martin condemned all appeals from
popes, and after a little reformation dissolved the
council. It was here John Huss was burnt, and it
was declared that faith was not to be kept with a
heretic. He had had letters of safe conduct. Martin
confirmed the articles of faith of the council of Con
stance. (Raynald, 1418, ii.) Martin V. quarrelled with
cardinals. He appointed a council first at Pavia,
then at Siena; but which met afterwards at Basle,
under Eugenius. But there was no reformation
really, and the universal complaint continued.
France made regulations for herself. Eugene IV.
succeeded Martin V. The iniquities with which
John XXIII. was charged were so dreadful, that
when presented to the chief men of the council of
Constance they thought it better not to have him
called to account the Apostolic See would be dis
credited altogether, and all his promotions of eccle
siastics held void.
I should add, that the council of Constance had
ordered that a council should be held within a
limited time, and a second within seven years, and
these were held in consequence. Eugenius, fearing
reformation from the first, sought to dissolve the
council. The council, under his own legate, resisted,
confirmed the decrees of Constance that a council
was above the pope, and could decide so as to
131
subject all, the pope included, in articles of faith,
schism, and reformation. The cry was universal,
echoed in these councils, for reformation in head and
members. The French held a national council to
back up the council of Basle against the pope s
effort, and even the emperor, though yielding to the
pope for a time to get crowned, returned to the
council. But this pope tried it out. It condemned
the pope, and deposed him, and elected Felix V.
Meanwhile, the council having cited the pope (1437)
to appear before it, he appointed a council at Ferrara,
and the two sat together. The council of Ferrara
condemns that of Basle. From Ferrara it was trans
ferred to Florence. The council of Florence ended
in 1442. The pope appointing one in Eome ; that
at Basle, in 1444, appointing one in Germany.
Felix V. had one at Lausanne. But subsequently
resigned the Papacy, on condition of having all his
cardinals and promotions to benefices owned, and
certain personal privileges. Nicolas, the other pope,
withdrew all his acts against him and the council
of Basle.
The pope of Kome had thus seemingly gained un-
contested supremacy; but the fact that all the respect
able clergy had met, condemned deposed popes, and
named others whose successors all subsequent popes
have been, made their position very different. All
their theologians avoid, if possible, pronouncing a
judgment on these councils, even when they hold the
supremacy of the pope in the highest way. Bellar-
K 2
132
mine admits, that Pisa can neither be approved nor
condemned. If it be condemned, the pope is not
pope, for the pope b are the successors of the council s
nominee; if it be approved, then a council can
depose a pope. Neither proposition would do. The
like is the case of Constance. That council deposed
three popes, and chose another. But, then, it openly
declared that a pope was subject to a general
council, and that a council represented the universal
Church, and could act in its name, and was infal
lible; and it acted on it; and again, the succession
depends on their act. .Moreover, Martin V. sanc
tioned the doctrine that a general council represents
the whole Church. (Fleury, 106, xiv.) Bellarmine
recognizes the power of a council to settle schism.
He refers to Popes Cornelius, Symmachus, Innocent
II., Alexander III., and the Pisa and Constance
councils. No remedy, he says, is more powerful
than a council. So for false doctrines in Popes, as
Murcellinus, Damasus, Sixtus III., Leo III. and IV.
Marcellinus, he says, had to confess it ; the rest
purged themselves. Now, though the popes had
the upper hand, the universal conscience of the
Church was roused ; the weightiest, godliest doctors
declared there must be reform in the head and in the
members. This became the universal cry all over
Europe ; whenever the pope went too far, there was
an appeal to a general council. France maintained,
in what are called the Gallican liberties, the doctrine
of Constance. The popes themselves, instead of
133
governing an ignorant and prostrate Europe, whose
princes being divided and jealous of one another,
were glad of the pope s help, while he was always
himself and one in his purpose, and scrupled at no
weapons, were now judged by laity and clergy, who
were subject to them, and gave themselves up to
mere petty local ambition. France and Germany
were considerably emancipated in the spirit of men s
minds; deliverance was looked for anxiously, and
though disappointed in their hopes of redress from
the councils, were groaning so much the more,
though hopelessly, under the burden. Spain and
Portugal were more content, because they liked that
title of the pope which divided the new world
between them. But men s spirits craved deliver
ance ; threatened councils, appealed to them, were
ripe for some deliverance. The unheard of infamies
of Alexander VI., and even the crimes and conduct
of Sixtus and Julius, only sunk the Papacy lower,
though none opposed it; and the shameless sale of
indulgences, practically an allowance to sin, gave
the last blow to man s conscience, and opened the
door to the testimony of an offended God. I shall
briefly trace this, which will lead us to the Eeforma-
tion.
Nicolas V. arranged matters peaceably with Felix
V., the Lausanne pope, who was during his life to be
respected as such, though without power. Calixtus
IV. followed him. They succeeded in gaining in
fluence in Germany ; but the attempt to rouse the
134
people to a crusade against the Turks utterly failed.
Pius II. failed in like attempts ; he condemned
appeals to a general council (Eaynald, 1460, x. xi.),
where we see it was "become a general thing. This
same pope, as Eneas Sylvius, had been a great
adherent of the council of Basle. Paul II. was arbi
trary. The cardinals at this time bound themselves
all when in conclave, as in the case of Eugenius, to
reform the Papal court in head and members, hold a
council, and to many other points. Eugene con
firmed this by a bull. Paul bound himself in the
same way, but by a decree rejected it all, and by
cajoling and violence forced all the cardinals but one
to join him, though some very reluctantly, (liaynald,
1431, v., 1458, v., 1464, Ixi. Ixii.) Platina complains
bitterly of his undoing iniquitously all Pius II. had
done, threatened to complain to kings and princes
(for parliaments, universities, kings, everybody did
so now), and have a general council, and got put in
prison and in the stocks for his pains. Sixtus IV.
succeeded. He occupied himself with low Italian
intrigues and conspiracy to advance his family.
Innocent VIII. came after him. He was famous for
promoting and enriching his illegitimate children,
though one of the conditions (in conclave) of election
was not to do it. He was the subject of pasquinades
on this account. Rome, they said, might well call
him father. It appears he had seven children while
pope. The general fact is stated by Raynald. (1492,
xxiii.) He received pay from the sultan for keeping
135
a rival brother safe when the Turks were invading
Europe. To Alexander VI. one hardly knows how
to refer. He is recognized to have been except it
be his own second illegitimate son the most horrible
fiend who has come under public notice. A thorough
debauchee at all times, so as to attract notice and
reproof even at the Papal court. Elected -pope by
bribery and promises, he got rid in one way or
another of those who promoted him. His second
son killed his eldest brother, and the pope s other
favourite, Peroto, who had hidden himself in the
pope s mantle, so that the blood spurted up in the
pope s face. (Casillo, Appendix to Eancke,) Alex
ander had made a cardinal of him when quite young,
but he left the clerical order to be a prince in Italy.
France made him Duke of Valentinois, to reward
the pope for his divorce. He killed his sister s hus
band to marry her better. This same sister, when
the pope was away, kept the Papal court, and opened
the dispatches, consulting the cardinals. She was
one of the pope s five illegitimate children. Her
marriage was celebrated with pomp in the pope s
palace. Infessina s language is bitter to a degree on
the occasion, and he declares that the universal corrup
tion of the clergy through Innocent and Alexander s
care of their children made men fear it might reach
the monks and people of religion. "Although," he
adds, "the monasteries of the city were all but all
(quasi omnia) turned into brothels, no one gainsaying
it. The current lines on him were, Alexander sells
136
kings, altars, Christ. He first bought them, he has
good right to sell them/ : Engaged with his second
son Borgia in poisoning (as he had poisoned others
already) some rich cardinals, to get their money, at a
feast prepared for it, he took, being very 7 hot, the
poisoned wine and died. I cannot be expected to go
into the details of such a life as this. Kaynald tries
to cover the way he met his death, but no one
believes him. The very brief pontificate of Pius III.
needs no notice. Julius II. was engaged in wars.
The cardinals had all sworn to reform, and have a
general council. He was occupied fighting against
the Venetians, and afterwards the French, &c. Louis
XII. had a council at Tours. Germany prepared her
griefs, and sought a pragmatic sanction like France.
The French council held that the king could renounce
allegiance to the pope. He should keep the decrees
of Basle, and appeal to a future council. If Julius
armed, pronounced sentence upon him or his allies,
it would be of no force whatever. The king and
emperor summoned a general council at Pisa, but it
was mainly composed of French bishops. The pope
convoked another at the Lateran. The Pisan came
to nothing, though it deposed the pope by a decree.
A number of cardinals were engaged in it, founded
on Julius promise to have a general council within
two years. I only refer to it to shew the confusion
all was in. The emperor and king of France adhered
afterwards to the Lateran. Francis I. and Leo X.
made a treaty. The pope by that had again quietly
137
the upper hand. The councils of Constance and
Basle, on the first of which the succession of the
Papacy depends, maintained the authority of councils
and bishops. France held strongly to this. The
councils of Florence and Lateran V. set up the pope.
In result half Europe broke off, and the pope by the
council of Trent remained absolute in the rest, if we
except the Gallican liberties.
This brings us to the last act which brought about
the Reformation. Not the wisdom of princes, nor the
power of councils ; but God rousing conscience and
faith. Conscience long wearied, and faith which He
gave, roused by the excessive wickedness which the
popes, grown secure in wickedness, countenanced for
mere esthetical purposes. Julius II. had begun St.
Peter s, Leo wanted to finish it. Italy had been
flooded with fresh light from Constantinople, and
the educated clergy were infidels. Elegant Latin or
Greek alone was sought after, pleasure and literary
pursuits. It is said that Leo himself was an infidel ;
but there is no proof of it. At any rate, St. Peter s
was to be finished, and for this purpose money was
to be raised. For this purpose an old expedient, by
which the piety of the ignorant had been before that
imposed on, was resorted to, but with a recklessness
which passed all bounds. Indulgences were issued,
as to which there are very pretty theories, but which
are but allowances to commit sin for money. I know
well it is said to be commutation of penance, and
shortening consequently the duration of purgatorial
138
pains; but penance had taken place of the need of
holiness, and as a man with the sacraments would
not go to hell, purgatory had taken the place of hell,
and when a man wanted to sin, he got rid of the
purgatory he was afraid of by paying a sum of
money : he wanted to sin, and paid so much money
to do it with impunity. Guilt (culpa) was settled
by sacraments, so that he did not much trouble
himself about it; the pains which remained, about
which he did care, by money. Now, too, it was not
provided for troubled sinners, but offered everywhere
to bold ones who wanted to sin. Each sin had its
price. The object was to get money. Grace, or
holiness, or any doctrine, no matter which, was riot
thought of.
Albert, brother of Joachim, of Brandenburg a
young, elegant, sumptuous Archbishop of Mayence,
and Elector, spent, like Leo, more than he could
afford, and applied to Leo for the farming of the
indulgences ; but he had not paid for his pallium,
or archepiscopal robe, some 30,000 florins, and could
not have it without ; for the pope wanted money,
and Cardinal Pucci had suggested this means of
getting it. The Fuggers were bankers of Augsbourg,
and Albert owed them money already; however, the
affair seemed a good one, and they advanced the
money for the pallium, and became bankers for the
indulgence -money. A certain Tetzel, whose life, it
is said, the Elector of Saxony had already saved,
when Maximilian was going to put him in a sack
139
and throw him into the Inn, and who had before
preached indulgences with success, undertook the
matter for Albert. It is stated that he declared,
that if a person had violated the Virgin Mary, he
could give him pardon : that as soon as the money
was in the box, the souls were out of purgatory.
It is certain, from his own statement, that he urged
that when a man had pardon (plenary remission,
says the instruction) for his sins on confession and
contrition, which he got on confessing them, or
undertaking to do it, still for mortal sin there was
seven years penance on earth ; and men committed
countless ones, and God knew how long they would
be in purgatory ; and that, save for four cases,
reserved to the pope, he could give pardon for
everything now, at any time on confession,* and
plenary at the hour of death, so that they would
slip purgatory altogether for a small sum. As to
condemnation, the confession, contrition, and abso
lution had put all that out of the question.
The Jesuit Maimbourg does not attempt to con
ceal the iniquity of what was and had been going
on. Before this, indulgences had been largely used
to make money farmed out to questors, who made
all the money of them they could. It was one of
the charges against John XXIII., giving power to
* The instructions themselves to Tetzel are in Gerdes Hist., Ev.
Ren. vol. i., document ix. These say once in life, and in the hour
of death, even, for reserved cases ; for others as often as need was.
Sec. 30.
140
his legate to appoint confessors, and free every one
from sins, and all the penalty besides, if they paid
what they were rated at. Still, Maimbourg admits, it
went on with Leo all the same, that Tetzel was em
ployed because he had got in great sums for the Teu
tonic knights, that the agents made people believe
they were sure of their salvation, and souls were
delivered out of pulsatory as soon as the money was
paid ; and as they saw the clerks of these same
uts carousing in taverns on their profits, much
indignation was created. (Maimbourg a History of
Lut 1 leninism, 3rd edition, 12mo, Paris, p. 9 et seq.)
This, he admits, was the origin of Protestantism.
No doubt popes had made money of indulgences
before. It was now an habitual resource; that is,
religious iniquity of the profoundest kind was. The
sale of liberty to sin was the settled practice of
the Bom an Church ; the authorised practice and
doctrine of its popes and leaders. It was farmed
out to profit. I repeat, no heathenism, horrible as
was its corruption, ever was guilty of such deep and
dark iniquity.
It will be said that Tetzel s conduct was a gross
abuse. Be it so. To a rightly constituted mind,
the principle is far worse than the abuse. The
pope, getting money to build or ornament a grand
church, by a universal commutation of godly dis
cipline (if we go no farther) for money, really for
an allowance of all sorts of sin for money, is worse
than the abuses that a reckless agent may be guilty
141
of. Dr. N. knew this ; an ignorant man might be
ignorant of this. Dr. N. was not; he knew this
gave birth to Protestantism. Has he not learned to
hate such things as this ?
In Leo s time light had come in ; the condemning
of popes by councils had weakened confidence ; the
people were weary of the iniquity long ago, but the
authority that sanctioned it had now lost a great
deal of its influence, and the excessive insult to con
science, shewn in the present sale of indulgences, filled
the cup. The princes were angry at their oppression
by the pope ; they had long complained, though
they had not dared to stir. But when God raised
up Luther to apply the Word of God to the con
science, and shew the iniquity of all this, and after
some time the want of foundation for the pope s
power, all was providentially prepared. People came
to confess to him, guilty of all sorts of crimes ; and
when he insisted on putting practical penance on
them, they produced their letters of indulgence, and
were easy in their sin. My business here is not to
pursue the history of the Reformation. For my own
part, I do not for a moment think it established the
Church on its original basis ; nor did its leaders
see that any more than Dr. Newman does ; but it
was the righteous rising up of faith, with the power
of the truth and Word of God, as far as it was
possessed, against the most iniquitous system that
ever the sun looked on, which nations and conscience
were alike weary of. I challenge Dr. Newman, or
142
any one else, to shew me a like system of iniquity
in the world. That gave rise to Protestantism. If
natural conscience, even, was not to have been
finally destroyed by the heads and authorities of
Christendom, it must have protested. That protest
first made by Luther s faith was Protestantism.
I have followed out the historical state of what
Dr. 1ST. looks at as the holy Catholic Church, and
that of the popes its leaders, according to him, the
alleged vicegerents of Christ on earth. If details
were gone into, and the statements of private his
torians, all would appear far darker than I have
made it. But it is needless. A righteous soul will
judge whether " the note " of holiness is to be found
in this history. That upright souls there were who
groaned under it, I admit. But what did they groan
under ? AVho made them groan ?
But Dr. N. tells us that normally infallibility
resides in a pope and general council. " It is to the
pope in oecumenical council that we look as to the
normal seat of infallibility." (280.) I will therefore
run through the oecumenical councils, and see what
we can trust to in them.
Constantine, the first Christian emperor, meddled,
as did his successors, largely in ecclesiastical matters.
As a political man, he felt his government hindered
by the dissensions of the bishops, which roused the
whole Christian world. He took up the Donatist
question; he directed certain bishops to hear the
same a second time, others to rehear it, and at last
143
heard it himself, and put the Donatists down. Mean
while, the Arian controversy raged in the East. It
had spread from Alexandria over the whole eastern
world, and divided the people into two factions.
(Eus. Life of Const., book ii. 61 to the end.) There
upon the emperor writes a letter, saying the East had
been the source of light to the world ; how grieved
he was, and so on, that, as they were one in faith
(Alexander and Arms), they ought to hold their
tongues on nice points, and not let such delicate
questions before the ignorant, and make confusion.
But in vain ; so he summoned a council at Nice in
the hope of settling it. The invitations came from
himself, and he provided horses for the bishops to
come, or allowed them to use the public posts ; had
them to meet in the palace, and presided himself.
A glowing description is given by Eusebius of his
coming into the assembly, and taking his seat at the
head of it. When the bishops had bowed, and said
a few complimentary words, he sat down, and the
bishops too. Then he made a long harangue to them,
and gave liberty of speech afterwards to the bishops,
soothed them, answered objections, reasoned with
them, and brought them, though with difficulty, to
some kind of quietness, and got all but five to sign,
who were banished. The emperor held thus a strong
hand over them ; having once made a decision in a
council, little or big, he enforced it for peace sake by
his own authority. The orthodox suffered as others,
if they were not quiet : Athanasius himself among
144
the rest. That Constantino convoked and managed
the council is beyond all question ; Eusebius, Kuf-
finus, Epiphanius all agree ; that he presided is
equally certain ; he sat in a little golden seat at the
head, the bishops down the sides of the apartment.
Alexander of Alexandria, Epiphanius tells us, got
him to convoke it. Hosius subscribed first, then the
two presbyters sent by Silvester of Eome, then the
rest.
I may note here, that in the early councils scarce
any Western bishops were ever present. The West
had not the mental activity of the East, and they did
not raise useless questions as the Easterns did. In
no one of the first six general councils were there a
dozen Western bishops, in many not half that num
ber. Three are found in this first one. A note, said
to be of Dionysius Exiguus, says, they did not sign
at Nice, because they were not suspect of heresy.
(Hard. i. 311.) If this were so, it gives a curious
character to the decrees and signatures. It was to
force the suspected bishops to declare and bind
themselves. The number of prelates is uncertain ;
Eusebius says 250. In Hardouin you have 318
names, which after was held to be a mystical
number.
The late councils were, on the contrary, wholly
Western, and of the Latin Church. There were no
Easterns. At Florence Pope Eugenius attempted it,
but it was a complete failure ; the assent a few
Greek prelates did give was utterly repudiated by
145
their Church when they went home. All these late
western councils, save Pisa, Constance, and Basle,
were assemblies called and managed by the popes for
their own purposes, with in general a vast majority
of Italian bishops. Pisa, Constance, and Basle, were
the fruit of the struggles of the conscience of Chris~
tendom against the hopeless wickedness and oppres
sion of the Papacy and the popes. There has been
no council since which represented East and West.
It was attempted at Sardica, and failed ; they split,
and held two ; the most complete one was Arimi-
nium, under Constantius, where 400 bishops undid
the work of Nice by dropping the words- "of one
substance with the Father," though they rejected
many statements of Arius : but it did not succeed ;
the Westerns had been dragged in, and afterwards
protested. Catholicity is a fable as to fact. As to holi
ness, to seek it leads into a tissue of horrible facts.
Unity in the outward body there has been none, since
the pretensions of the popes and Constantinople
began.
The second so-called general council consisted
of 150 Eastern bishops, called together by Theodo-
sius ; and the bishops so declare in their letter which
precedes the decrees, and ask expressly the confir
mation by the emperor of what they had decreed.
They communicate their decrees and canons to the
Western bishops in common, then assembled at
Rome, giving Constantinople the second rank after
liome, but on grounds which refer merely to civil
L
146
rank in each. They confirm the sixth canon of the
council of Nice as to the independence of the larger
divisions of the "hierarchical system. Their creed
is the now accepted Nicene one, an article forbidden
by Pope Leo being added. But the pope had nothing
to say to the council; the popes did not accept its
canons ; but they are received in the universal
Church. Baronius seeks to invalidate one, but is
corrected by Pagi, who shews it to have been uni
versally received.
It is worthy of note here, that the article added
to their creed is still rejected by the Greeks, who
hold the creed as settled by the council of Constan
tinople. And it is further to be remarked, that the
general council of Ephesus forbade any other creed
to be proposed to any one, and the great Pope Leo,
the means of Dr. N. s becoming a Romanist, this
very article in particular. This added article, which
came from Spain and France, is the great subject of
division with the Greeks, though they do not believe
in purgatory either, nor, of course, recognize the
popes. Not only did Pope Leo formally forbid its
being inserted, but had the Constantinopolitan creed
engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates on this
account in the Church. (Comp. Pearson on the
Creed, on the eighth article, where the authorities
are cited.)
We have not much security from councils as yet,
nor is the pope found in an oecumenical council
hitherto, save by his presbyters at Nice, who sub-
147
scribed in their place after Hosius, the emperor s
confidant, as it appears. The council of Ephesus
followed, in which the pope acted very ably by his
legates, but in which no other Western prelates were
present. The emperor had convoked the council,
and his commissioner forbade them to meet till all
the Eastern prelates were there ; but Cyril, and the
bishops of his party, drove him out, took possession
of all the churches, and settled the matter by con
demning Nestorius before the Easterns came, Nestorius
and his party protesting, but not daring to go. The
Easterns, however, did not yield ; Cyril was excom
municated and deposed by them ; and it was only
on Cyril s giving up some points, that John of
Antioch was reconciled some years later with Cyril,
through the emperor s means. The result was,
Nestorianism spread through the East even to China.
The emperor gave up Nestorius to have peace, and
he was banished. But Leo, in his letter subsequently
to Flavian of Constantinople, adopted at the council
of Chalcedon, does not use the word Nestorius ob
jected to DciiKtra. The whole course of Cyril was
a disgrace to any sober Christian man; he was the
true source of Eutychianism, and I judge his sound
ness very questionable on the atonement.
The next council of Ephesus was convoked, as the
previous one ; the pope s representatives were in it.
Hut Cyril s violence against Nestorius had left Euty-
chian sects at Alexandria, and bore its fruits here.
The Archbishop of Alexandria presided as before.
L 2
148
Why was not the Holy Ghost here ? Yet they beat
the poor old Archbishop of Constantinople in such a
way, that he died oX it in a few days, and others were
sorely maltreated. Pope Leo condemned Eutyches
in the famous epistle to Flavian, too rhetorical for
such a subject, and questionable, I judge, in some
expressions ; but doubtless a remarkable document,
and substantially sound, and asked for a council in
or near Italy. The emperor refused ; but the council
first convened at Nice, and then removed to Chalce-
don. was held which also condemned Eutvches,
I
adopting Leo s statement and Cyril s two letters to
Nestorius, on the ground of their intrinsic merits.
The legates ask if this and the other councils agree
with Leo. The bishops answered, Leo agrees with
them. There was a great struggle for jurisdiction
and rank between Leo and Anatolius. The legates
having orders to resist all advance in rank of Con
stantinople. Leo s predecessor denied any to it. But
it was maintained and increased to equal dignity
and second rank in precedence, and the contested
jurisdiction given it, the legates staying away that
day, then complaining of its being done ; but it was
confirmed. Anatolius gave way afterwards in form,
but kept his ground in fact. The canon remains in
the universal canons ; but the popes would never
own it. Pretty work for the lowly servants of Christ.
The Romans were charged with forging part of a
canon here to give supremacy to Eome, as they were
convicted of it just at this time in Africa, which
149
peremptorily rejected the pretensions of Kome, and
sent off its legate. But what I mainly refer to in
the council was this, that Theodore and Ibas were
declared sound in the faith. And Leo confirmed
twice over the doctrinal decisions of the council.
But in the following oecumenical council, Pope
Vigilius first gave a judgment in favour of the three
chapters, as it was called ; but he had to do with a
powerful emperor who had now re-conquered Italy,
and he made the pope come to the council, and
finally forced him* to sign and confirm its decrees,
which condemned the three chapters which Chalce-
don had pronounced sound, by which confirmation,
moreover, Baronius says it became a general council.
But if it did, we have alleged infallibility authority,
a pope in an oecumenical council, condemning what
the same infallibility approves. AYhat kind of infal
libility or security is this ? The truth is, the best of
these councils were disgraceful scenes of turbulent
violence, even Chalcedon.
God has taken care of His Church, and the faith
that is true, blessed be His name ; and He uses any
means He pleases ; but the history of the means
shows, that if they are rested in, it is worse than
a broken reed. It is an utterly false principle to
sanction the means God has employed, because He
has employed them. The wickedness of the Jews
was the means God employed for our salvation, with
* I don t enter into the details; they were wretched enough.
150
the utter want of conscience of Pilate. Who justi
fies them ?
The third general council was perfectly shameful,
and really produced lasting disasters to the Church
at large. No one acquainted with history can deny
it. It was really the fruit of the pope s jealousy of
Constantinople, and consequent intrigues. Constan
tinople had not been what was called an apostolic
See ; was raised to eminence by the importance of
the city as the capital. Old Borne could not bear
this. At any rate, these councils, which we are told
are to secure us, rested the pre-eminence of Rome
and Constantinople on their being capitals, old and
new Koine. The Christian has nothing to do with
these worldly intrigues. They enable him to judge
the whole system by the faith of Him whose king
dom was not of this world. At any rate, general
councils confirmed by popes have directly contra
dicted one another. In very deed, if we examine
their history, we find no trace of the Spirit s pre
sence, but every proof of His absence, though the
faith may have been substantially preserved.
I am not writing a history of the Councils, but
meeting what is referred to in Dr. N. s self-defence.
I pass to three others, to show how groundless, how
wild these foundations of faith are ; how unsimple,
compared with the precious Word of God, the
statements of the Lord and His inspired apostles, or
other servants.
First, Pisa. Here is a council on which the whole
151
succession of the pope and Eoman clergy depends.
Yet Bellarmine declares that it is a council which
can neither be approved nor condemned. The reason
is very simple ; there were two popes, Benedict and
Gregory. The council was formed by a number of
the cardinals of each, and the prelates and others
they brought together. They summoned formally the
two popes, and deposed them ; chose a third, who
confirmed all their acts, and is recognized pope. If
they do accept the council, then it is above the pope,
and can act without him; for this is what amongst
other things is confirmed. If they do not accept it,
then the succession of popes is a false one. Benedict
and Gregory held their ground, but in vain. The
council had decreed a new council, and Alexander, the
new elected pope, had John for his successor. The
emperor was able to get him to hold a council, to
which he went. Here was normal infallibility ; but
the council deposed him for crimes, and the other
two as schismatics, &c., and chose a fourth, Martin,
whose authority, of course, depended on that of the
council. He tried to destroy it by an evasive confir
mation, and closed it without any reforms. Now, if
normal infallibility rests in a pope in oecumenical
council, it is not to be found at all ; for in the
early councils they contradicted one another, to say
nothing of their being horrible bear gardens ; and
in the later ones, the existence of popes depends on
their action without a pope amongst them.
Is it to this the Christian is reduced he who
152
seeks the truth, or even the true Church ? He cannot
receive a priest, nay, not a sacrament, till he knows
he is one. I say this on their own ground, and we
are supposing a person inquiring. He cannot take it
for granted, or he is decided already ; he looks to the
person who established the priest, and finally to the
ultimate source of certainty and authority. In
Rome it cannot be found. It is not a question of
profiting by a recognized ministry, but finding the
truth, and a true one. But this normal seat of
infallibility is not to be found by a person competent
to inquire; and what a thing to search for, when
their own authorities cannot tell me which council,
or what part of it, has authority, if a person is not
competent. AVhereas, if I receive the Scriptures as
the w r ord of God, and if not, I am an infidel, I have
the teaching of Paul, and Peter, and John, and of
the blessed Lord Himself. Surely I have need of
holiness and grace to learn ; but I have infallible
authority to learn from. It is in vain to say it is a
rule of faith, not a proper means of communicating
truth. I insist urgently on the difference. I may
learn there. I may have learnt from my mother, a
minister, or others. I may have done so from the
Bible; but I have a certain rule there. The Romanist
has none, if the question is raised. They say the uni
versal Church is right. But where is it to be found ?
The majority of Christians, and the most ancient
Churches, are outside Rome. One will tell me the
seat of this authority is in the pope; another, the pope
153
with a council ; another, a council as independent of
and above a pope. And if this last be not held,
there is no true pope to be had, no true succession.
And this not as an individual argument. It has
been decreed twice, by assembled Christendom, held
by universities the most famous in the world, de
nounced, no doubt, the other side of the Alps, at
Eome ; but when I enquire of their greatest autho
rity about that council, on which their cause de
pends, which was confirmed absolutely by a pope, I
am told it is uncertain cannot be condemned or
approved. As another is a secret not to be spoken
of. There is no known seat of infallibility for a
person capable of enquiring. The whole thing is as
foreign from God s dealings, and His way of securing
us in the truth, as it is possible to be. I might
much enlarge upon this point, but I refrain. "What
I have said is enough to show what the Roman
Church system produced, as its own best authors
record it, individual authors teem with reproaches
and scorn, what its popes were, what refuge its
councils were to the inquiring mind. I close this
part of my enquiry.
The question of Dr. Newman s honesty has been
raised. It is a painful kind of subject. But, I
must say, I don t think him honest. I don t in the
least mean that gross dishonesty which sets about to
deceive and say what is false. But a false way
always begets false ways. That kind of dishonesty
of which Scripture says, " deceiving and being de-
154
ceived" Every one saw, and Monsignore Wiseman
saw, as he tells us, and Dr. Newman knew that his
path led to Rom He counted Rome the most
exalted Church in the world ; hated Protestantism ;
thought he had a special mission to reform Angli
canism ; had a presentiment that he himself should
land in Popery; admits now the scope and issue
of the movement was such ; knew his leading was
leading others into it; hence, was willing to bend
the stick beyond what was straight, in order to
straighten it that is, to go beyond the truth to gain
the result he wished. He was not, as many thought
that he was, a concealed Romanist, seeking to gain
others; but he did know or feel where it led,
though there were difficulties from habits of thought
in his own mind, yet continued without his consci
ence being stirred as to the path he was pursuing,
and bending every thing, as, I must say, no honest
mind could do, to the purpose he had in view. I
suppose, from what he says of visions and secret
feelings as to a mission, that there was some direct
action of Satan, else it was connected with the most
absolute confidence in himself, and the most total
absence of the truth, or any concern in it. When
he joined Romanism, he did not yet believe its
principal tenets ; he submitted to authority- -that
authority, I have no doubt, Satan s. It is charac
teristic of Rome to be regardless of the truth, of
Christ to be the truth. It is the more solemn in
his case, because he declares he is now certain that
155
he was converted to God by that which he gave up.
Till the end of 1842 he was in doubt, not certain
that Rome was right. (246.) But long before this,
for he disclosed it in 1839, he had a strong presenti
ment that his existing opinions would ultimately
give way, and that the grounds of them were un
sound. Only before 1839 he felt such a strong
presentiment was not a sufficient ground for dis
closing the state of his mind. Perhaps not, if he
had not been active in a work and mission confided
to him. At that time he knew (174) he was dis
posing young men s minds towards Rome. This
in 1839, and he had mentioned his general difficulty
to A. B. a year before. He stayed then, because he
had not made trial how much the English Church
would bear. As to the result, he says, viz., whether
this process will not approximate the whole English
Church, as a body, to Rome, that is nothing to us.
(176.) I am more certain that the Protestant spirit
which I oppose leads to infidelity, than that which
I recommend leads to Rome. (177.) In p. 195 we
read, "I have felt all along Bishop 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 Church of England.
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
156
to the Church of Rome." Yet in the next page he
says, "You cannot tell how sad your account of
Moberly has made me. His view of the sinfulness
of the Tridentine decrees is as much against union
of churches as against individual conversions." In
p. 116 he tells us, "We had a real wish to co-operate
with Koine in all lawful things, if she would let us,
and the rules of our Church let us ; and we thought
there was no better way towards the restoration of
doctrinal purity and unity." Yet opposition to the
Church of Rome was part of the theology of the
Church of England divines, and none in office in
the Church of England could be otherwise than in
hostility to the Church of Rome, yet he talks of
saving his protest.
So as regards the Articles. " I wished to institute
an enquiry how far in critical fairness the text could
be opened. I was aiming far more at ascertaining
what a man who subscribed it might hold, than what
he must, so that my conclusions were negative rather
than positive." (124.) "In addition, I was embar
rassed in consequence of my wish to go as far as
possible in interpreting the Articles in the direction
of Roman dogma, without disclosing what I was
doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting,
who might be thereby encouraged to go still farther
than at present they found in themselves any call to
do." This, he tells us, was from being enjoined, he
thinks, by his bishop to keep the men straight who
were going into Popery through his means.
157
What a labyrinth of disingenuousness ! I ask any
man if this be plain uprightness. I do not mean he
intended to deceive ; but a false way, I repeat, leads
to false ways. His pretension to reform the Anglican
system, for which he had had a vision and a charge,
led him into this tortuous course, through absolute
confidence in himself. My reader will perhaps say
that it is a hard word, " absolute confidence in him
self." It is his own. In the storm that arose on
Tract 90, he says, " But how was I to have any more
absolute confidence in myself ? how was I to have
confidence in my present confidence?" (132.) Am
I wrong in saying, a vision, a mission, a charge ?
(81.) Going abroad he wrote the verses about his
guardian angel, which begin with these words,
"Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend?"
and goes on to speak of " the vision which haunted
me." While abroad he repeated to himself the words,
even of old dear to him, " Exoriari aliquis
I began to think I had a mission" (82), and so wrote
to his friends. It was at this time he said, " I shall
not die ; I have a work to do in England." Nor
did this ever leave him. When Tract 90 came out,
in writing to Dr. Bagot, of the See of Oxford, he
says (134), " I think I can bear, or at least will try
to bear, any personal humiliation, so that I am pre
served from betraying sacred interests which the
Lord of grace and power has given into my charge."
The words of St. Augustine, Securus judicat orbis
158
tcrrarum the whole world judges in security came
into his mind as a light from heaven, in connection
with Leo and the monophysites, and Cardinal Wise
man s lecturing on the Anglican claim. " I had seen
the shadow of a hand upon the wall. The heavens
had opened and closed again." (158.) At this time
he wrote the sermon in which it is said, " Compared
with this one aim, of not being disobedient to a
heavenly vision." Now, what was this mission ? At
this time the effect of the vision was, "the Church
of Koine will be found right after all." Already,
when abroad, we have seen he held Rome to be the
most exalted of all Churches. In 1839 he held the
Churches of Koine and England were both one. (163.)
His via m.nUa was then gone. (161.) His mission
was to reform the Anglican Church.
But in the beginning of 1839, in an article in the
British Critic, he says (143), " Lastly, I proceeded to
the question of that future of the Anglican Church
which was to be a new birth of the ancient religion."
Yet he had no prospect as to it ; the age was moving
towards Kome, he knew. (204) But, in defending
Anglicanism, he did not at all mind framing a sort
o * o
of defence which they (the High Church clergy)
misht call a revolution, while I thought it a restora-
O O
tion. Thus, for illustration, I might discourse upon
the communion of saints in such a manner (though
I don t 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
159
on the other. "If the Church be not defended on
establishment grounds, it must be upon principles
which go far beyond their immediate object. Some
times I saw these further results; sometimes not.
Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I
saw them ; 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 honestly
preached as if Anglican, conclusions favourable to
the Roman Church. Of course, I did not like to
confess this ; and, when interrogated, was in per
plexity. If Leo had overset, in my own mind, its
(antiquity s) force in the special argument for Angli
canism, 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 applica
tion of it against the via media ? It was impossible
that any answer could be given that was not unsatis
factory, or any behaviour adopted that was not
mysterious." Now this was already the case in 1839.
(155, 156.) He was preaching principles favourable
to the Roman Church at that date ; knowing them
to be such, did not confess it, and was mysterious in
his conduct. (204, 205.)
Is it possible that Dr. N. now does not see the
want of simplicity and uprightness in this. AVlien
he found out he was preaching principles favourable
to Rome, when he declares a true Anglican divine
must be hostile; if he could not bring himself to
confess it, could he not have stopped, instead of
160
adopting a mysterious behaviour ? I certainly judge
an honest man would have done so. He says in this
page, " I simply deny that I ever said anything which
secretly bore against the Church of England, know
ing it myself, in order that others might unwarily
accept it." But for him, as we have seen, the whole
question was between the Churches of England and
Rome. He recognized, by 1839 at any rate, that he
was, in effect, preaching in favour of the latter. When
he continued to do so, was it that others might accept
it or not ?. He was all this time remaining without
any satisfactory basis for a religious profession, in a
state of moral sickness, neither able to acquiesce in
Anglicanism, nor able to go to Eome. " But I bore
it, till in course of time my way was made clear to
me." (112.) But he had the presentiment he was
going there, was teaching conclusions favourable to
it, knew it, and preached on, and was mysterious in
behaviour, with the conviction that he had a mission
from some heavenly vision, to which he would not
be disobedient that vision being that Rome was
right. He had a secret longing love of Rome (202),
preached conclusions favourable to Rome, knew it,
but never said anything which secretly bore against
the Church of England.
Dr. N. may think this honest; I avow I cannot.
His friends may attribute it more to his "absolute
confidence in myself." This, doubtless, had a share
in it. But it does not make it honest. He had a
great sense of his own importance. His secession is
161
a great act. (206.) It is a great event. (245.) But
this does not solve this question of honesty. He
was seeking disciples (247) till he gave up his place
in the movement ; hut this last was only after Tract
90 ; that is, in 1841. Yet he knew in 1839 he was
preaching principles favourable to Kome, yet tells
us (247) he was fighting for the Anglican Church in
Oxford. I may admit the being deceived, but I
cannot admit it was not deceiving. He charges (131)
others as being as bad ; but this is a poor defence. I
think the only possible excuse is a confusion and
self-deception which comes from the enemy.
He says in 1845, when a Komanist, "I do not
think at all more than I did that the Anglican
principles which I advocated at the date you men
tion lead men to the Church of Eome. If I must
specify what I mean by Anglican principles, I would
say, e.g., taking antiquity, not the existing Church,
as the oracle of truth." (194.) Yet in page 205
he says, "I recognized, in principles which I had
preached, conclusions favourable to the Eoman
Church. The prime instance of this was the appeal
to antiquity."
This confession was the effect of habitual mental
dishonesty. I do not now enlarge on Tract 90. Dr.
N. has still no consciousness of it. Thus (129) his
attempt to shew the articles purposely left questions
open, and those on which the controversy hinged.
Article XII. positively states that good works, which
are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification,
M
162
are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ; and
the XIII., which is Of Works before Justification,
says, "Works donelbefore the grace of Christ and the
inspiration of His Spirit are not agreeable to God."
Dr. N. s comment is, " They say that works before
grace and justification are worthless and worse, and
that works after grace and justification are acceptable ;
but they do not speak at all of works with God s aid
before justification." They do not, because they say
that good works, without any distinction at all, are
the fruits of faith, and follow after justification ; that
is, they say there are not any such. Nor can the
miserable plea, that " which " distinguishes some,
namely, those that spring from faith, and follow, be
of any avail. Not only is it evident to every upright
person that it is not the meaning of the sentences,
but the title disproves it, and the next article sets it
at rest, because it says of works done before justifi
cation, " Forasmuch as they spring not from faith in
Christ, they are not pleasant to God." He says, " They
say that councils called by princes may err ; they do
not determine whether councils called in the name
of Christ may err." To be sure. But they say,
general councils (none, that is) cannot be called with
out the commandment and will of princes ; and that
general councils, which cannot be called in any other
way, may and have erred.
That is, it applies to all general councils. No;
all this is offensive dishonesty. He was trying, as
he says, how much the Church of England could
163
bear; lie did not expect people to look at the articles
for themselves. I think his answer to Mr. Kingsley,
as to the sermon on "Wisdom and Innocence" being
a Protestant sermon, dishonest ; but I will not enter
on that part of the book. It is to be noted, that
already in 1833, when abroad, he was forming theo
ries which tended to obliterate " the stain upon my
imagination" his youth had left as regards Rome.
And note, this was not merely his feelings, which he
tells us all through the book led him Eomewards ;
but as regards my reason, I began in 1833 to form
theories. It was deliberate ; it was his reason. Fool
ish his theories were ; but that is not my subject
now. It was the genius loci like the Prince of
Persia, one of his Alexandrian middle demons,
neither good nor bad absolutely, which infected
" the undeniably most exalted Church in the whole
world."
I cannot but think, Dr. N. s book to prove himself
honest, proves distinctly he was not. As to a Pro
testant theology in the interpretation of the articles,
" it sets his teeth on edge even to hear the sound" of
it. He had led many on so far towards Popery, that
he was forced, when ordered by Dr. Bagot to try and
keep them, to stretch the articles as far as possible,
without their bein,u r aware why; as we have seen
him say. Was lie honestly asking what they did
mean ? not he ; he tells us so : but what they
could bear by perversion. " Men had done their
worst to disfigure, to mutilate, the old Catholic
M 2
1G4
truth ; but there it was, in spite of them, in the
articles still." (171.) We have seen how he found it
there. It will be said, But his protest against Eome
saved his consistency. His consistency in what ?
forming theories in favour of it, tenderly loving it*
counting it the most exalted Church in the world?
I Jut there was no conviction in his protest either.
In excusing himself, when he retracted his words
against Eome, he tells us, at the time he protested,
"I said to myself, I am not speaking my own
w< >rds ; I am but following almost a consensus of the
divines of my own Church. They have ever used
the strongest language against Eome, even the most
able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself
into their system. \Yhile I say what they say, I am
safe. Such views, too, are necessary to our position."
(233.) Yes, they spoke against Eome, but they
believed what they said. They were opposed to
Eome. Dr. N, favoured it. He has explained their
words when urged against him ; but there is no
explaining them to an honest mind. I admit he did
not believe in transubstantiation ; he thought they
adored the Virgin Mary too much. But these were*
slight things ; he joined the Church of Eome when
he did not believe them a bit more. He believed
them because Rome was now an oracle, and what
she taught must be right.
I do not . think I ever met, in all my experience,
a mind so effceta veri as Dr. Newman s, so perfectly
incapable of valuing truth ; and truth of doctrine
165
has more to say to truthfulness than we are aware,
for we are sanctified by the truth. In that con
viction which wholly overthrew his whole scheme
of the via media, it never occurred to him to think,
even, whether in one case error was opposed, in the
other, truth.
In studying the monophysite history that is,
the controversy whether Christ had one nature or
two, or rather, whether the divinity did not take
the place of a human soul, he found Eutyches on
one side, and Leo, a most able pope, on the other,
who wrote a famous letter, accepted by the Council
of Chalcedon as rightly denning the doctrine ; and
the doctrine so denned has been ever since accepted.
Eutyches sought imperial protection : well, here was
a pope instructing a council, and a heretic con
demned ; the universal Church accepting the council s
act. At Trent a pope confirms a council s decisions,
which the Protestant world does not accept ; con
sequently the Protestant world must be as wrong
as Eutyches. What the composition of the Council
of Trent was ; what the doctrine was that was con
demned ; whether Eutyches held what was contrary
to the faith of the apostles or not; whether Trent
condemned the faith of the apostles or not, is never
a subject of his enquiry even. There was a pope,
and a council, and Eutyches ; and a council and a
pope, and half the European world against it. The
Greek Church absent. But as in the two cases
there was a pope and a council (whether general
166
or not, even, is a question), half Europe must be
wrong, as Eutyches and many Orientals were. The
only question for Dr. N. was analogy of position.
What was condemned was a matter of total in
difference to him. Dr. Newman knows very well
that another pope and another general council con
demned a part of this same Council of Chalcedon
for all that : what was called the three chapters.
But that was no matter; he was on journey to
Rome.* But, as we have seen, when he joined Eome
he did not believe in transubstantiation more than
before. He says, " People say that the doctrine of
transubstantiation is 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 Eoman Church was the oracle of God,
and that she had declared this doctrine to be part
of the original revelation." Is it possible for truth
to be more absolutely null in a human mind, or
true faith to be more absent from it ?
Another principle which really led Dr. Newman
to Popery was the doctrine of development. I will
say a word on this. I deny it absolutely in divine
things. In the human mind there is development.
In the present truth there cannot, for God has been
revealed. There is no revelation more, nor meant to
be any. Individuals may learn more and more, but
it is there to be learned. The Scriptures give two
* His protest was really to avoid getting the credit of being on his
way there.
167
positive grounds for this that I am to continue in
what I have learned as the only true ground of
safety, that I know of whom I have learned them*
There is a negative ground of proof the apostles
committing us, when they should be gone, to that
which would be a security for us. If the person of
Christ be the foundation truth of Christianity, as
Scripture declares it is, as the Son revealing the
Father, it is clear there can be no development. His
person cannot be developed. But I quite understand
it will be said, Of course not ; but the revelation of
it can. Equally impossible. He Himself is wholly,
fully revealed, and reveals the Father. The Holy
Ghost has revealed, and is the truth. Hence John,
who treats this subject, declares that was to continue
(abide in them) which they had learned, and they
would so abide in the Father and in the Son. They
could not have more. If any doctrine other than
this, or "Trapa," beyond or on one side, besides
"what he preached," says Paul, "was preached,"
neither the doctrine nor the preacher were to be
received. If the Church did not possess fully the
revelation of the Father in the glorified Son by the
Holy Ghost, it did not possess Christ at all, as there
revealed. If it did, it could not be added to nor
developed. If it did add to it, it falsified Christ.
That men speculated about it, and their foolish and
irreverent speculations had to be rebuked, repressed,
corrected, that is true ; but whatever was more than
returning to the simplicity of the first revelations, or
168
went beyond its fulness, was pure mischief. Either
the apostles and first Church had a full revelation of
Christ, or the Church never was founded on it. If
they had, there was no development of it. So of
His work. It is complete, or the Church is not
saved ; was completely revealed, or the Church had
not its ground of justification and peace. If it had,
there was no development. That much was lost I
believe. The greatest stickler for Church authoritv
O "
does not pretend the Church receives a fresh reve
lation. He merely says that the Church pronounces
on truth as having been revealed. But then there
can be no development. Till revelation was com
plete there were further truths unfolded, but it was
by revelation. Once that complete, all is closed ;
and Christianity completes it. The Word of God is
fulfilled, completed, says Paul to the Colossians.
We are to walk in the light, as God is in the light.
It was an unction of the Holy One, by which we
know all things. "The Spirit," says the apostle,
" searcheth all things, even the deep things of God."
And then the apostle tells us he spoke by the Holy
Spirit, in words which He taught. The true light
now shines. We have the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost may guard the
saints against error, and shew it is error; but the
apostles were guided into all truth. Thus John, in
a passage quoted, "Let that therefore abide in you
which ye have heard from the beginning. If that
which ye have heard from the beginning abide in
169
you, ye also shall continue in the Father and in the
Son. We have the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ." So Paul : " Continue them in the things
that thou hast learned, knowing of whom them hast
learned them." Paul, in going, commends them to
God, and the Word of His grace, as sufficient. Peter
writes that they should have, after his decease, these
things always in remembrance. As Tertullian justly
says, " What is first is the truth." If Eutyches intro
duces error, Eutyches may he condemned, and truth
stated ; but that is not development, but maintenance
of the truth as it had been revealed. The Church
does not teach ; the teacher teaches. The Church
abides in and professes the truth she has learned.
She is, or ought to be, the pillar and ground of the
truth ; but she does not teach it. The mystery of
iniquity began in the apostles days : the last days
were already come. The Truth was there; but men,
like Satan, abode not in it. But abiding in it, walk
ing in it, in the truth perfectly revealed in Christ,
that was the duty of the saint, even if the professing
Church would not, and the time should come when
they would turn away from the truth. Paul declared
they would.
In result, Dr. N. s book presents us with this
history a man who declares that he was converted
in a system and by truth which he afterwards gave
up. I value the doctrine of the Church of God
deeply, as the body of Christ (Epli. i.), and on earth
the dwelling-place of the Spirit. (Eph. ii.) I believe
170
the confounding these two to be the source of
Popery, and men s present confusions. But I do not
believe that trustmg the Church is the ground of
faith, for then there could have been none. Heathens
and Jews did not receive the Church at all. " Of his
own will begat He us," says James, " by the word of
truth." However, I am analyzing Dr. N. s account.
He was converted, he is still perfectly sure, at fifteen,
by the power of certain truths, and by the instru
mentality of a clergyman he calls Calvinistic. He
got then and there (29) in the system he left, con
version, of which he is " still more certain than that
he has hands and feet" (56) ; and the beginning of
divine faith, so he calls it now. In a word, he owes
his salvation to what he got then. He, indeed, all
but admits it as entirely obtained there. Next we
see him gradually giving up the truth which was the
means of it, by intercourse with Dr. Hawkins,
Froude, Whately, James, and Bishop Butler. The
result has been, that he has wholly apostatized from
all true ground of faith. " Speaking historically of
what I held in 1833-4, 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 all these
were about the same kind of probability, accumula
tive, a transcendant probability ; but still proba
bility, inasmuch as He who made us has willed,
that, in a religious enquiry, we arrive at certitude by
accumulated probabilities." It was thus he was
171
"led on into the Church of Kome." That is, it was
by giving up all true faith. Faith is the reception
of a divine testimony by the operation of the Spirit
of God, and can have no possible connection with
probability. To say it is probable that God speaks
the truth, would be a blasphemy. He who receives
a thing as probable, does not believe that God has
said or taught it at all. What led Dr. N. to Popery
was giving up faith. In this way he was in a sick
state of soul, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism,
nor to go to Kome ; but thought, by some vision first,
and then a special call, as to which he was not quite
sure, but that it came from Satan ; he says, he had a
mission, a charge, and was diligently making con
verts (247), until, after Tract 90, he gave up the lead
in the movement. All the while his heart was
towards Kome : she was certainly Catholic, he was
not quite sure that England was ; at any rate, she
needed a complete revolution in her state. As to
the true unity of the body, he never had an idea of
it. He threatened his Romanist friends, and threat
ened the bishops. Knew, as we have seen, at the
bottom of his heart, that he was going to Kome ;
had a secret longing love of it, and knew he was
disposing others to it, yet worked on. The result of
his account is this,- -The truth was the means of
his conversion to God ; departure from all true
ground of faith that of his going to Kome.
London : W. II. Broom, Paternoster Row.
