Apologia pro vita sua : being a reply to a pamphlet entitled "What, then does Dr. Newman mean?"

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA:

BEING-

to a

ENTITLED

WHAT, THEN, DOES DR. NEWMAN MEAN?

" Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in Him, and He will do it.
And He will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judg
ment as the noon-day."

BY JOHN HENKY NEWMAN, D.D.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, AND GREEN.

1861.

CHARLES

TO THE EDITOK OF THE TIMES

imn n rnnv OI a lencr vvuii>" *" , . . ,

lliO UOVj **- -

which he concludes his letter.

I am yours faithfully,

Bramshill, Aug. 15* __WILLIAM H. COPE.
< The Oratory, Feb. 13, 1875.

lS^SHHH :ri f"

to jyiT*

i R \y Sti^*- -*- *-^ 1 .^ )*"**" t ** "" ** ::1 ~" i i i

nes. I have always hoped that by good luck
might g meet him, feeling sure there would b , no
embarrassment on my part, and I said
soul as soon as I heard of his death.
" Most truly yours,

" JOH> T H. NEWMAN."

tib

ti

frg B!.iugi: .... None of New
man s personal and distinctive beliefs appear to have
been held rnose seriously than that of the presence of
angels id all regions of the material world, and very
lovely are some of the things he snys about the revela
tion of the beauty of nature made by those angel
visitants. lie believed in guardian angels, and that
particular nations Lave particular anpeJs to guard
them. Every breath of air, he said, and ray of
light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were,
the skirts of their (the angels ) garments, the waving
of the robes of those whose faces see God. . .^ . ."

i lu the " Letter to the l)uke of Norfolk occurs the
following passage : " There are those among us, as
it mv.st be confessed, who in great part have, conducted
ihevusrhcs as it no responsibility attached to wild
W0 n! g deeds ; v.hohavr truths

in the I;K : L paradoxical funu. and stretched principles
till they were close upon snapping ; av-d who fit
length, haviia- d--nc their !;csl t > set the house un fire,
leave to others the la.- -: of puttuys QJiJ thejlaipo. It

CONTENTS.

PART I.

PAGE

Mr. Kingsley s Method of Disputation . 1

PART II.

True Mode of meeting Mr. Kingsley . . . .27

PART III.

History of my Eeligious Opinions up to 1833 . . 53

PART IV.

History of my Eeligious Opinions from 1833 to 1839 . 101

PART V.

History of my Eeligious Opinions from 1839 to 1841 . 177

PART VI.

History of my Eeligious Opinions from 1841 to 1845 . 255

IV

CONTENTS.

PART VII.

General Answer to Mr. Kingsley

PAGE

. 371

APPENDIX.

Answer in Detail to Mr. Kingsley s Accusations

THE KOMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND DR. Sx.

GEOB.UB MIVAHT. " X. Y." sends us the following

letter of tlic late Cardinal Newman, which he thinks

will bo of interest during the above controversy :

" The Oratory, June 4, 1672. My dear Sir, In answer

to your letter, 1 feel obliged to say that I do not think

our Lord s utouement logically implies the eternity of

i utura punishment in the case of those who depart this

life unreconciled to him. As to that awful doctrine, I

observe (1) That it is a negative one, namely, that the

lost will never gu to heaven, that there will be no

restitution. What eternity in itself involves positively

, in its idea we have no notion whatever. (2) Succession

of thought, the sense of a succession of time, is not

logically involved in the idea of eternity. In the legend

i o. the monk and the bird we find centuries of pleasure

! scorning to be not longer than a few minutes ; BO it

may be with centuries of pain. (3) Taking punishment

to mean pain, there is an infinite number of punishments

in degree. There is nothing to show but that, in a

i multitude of cases, the only punishment will be the

pccna ttamni, that is, the loss of heaven. <4j There is

nothing to make it necessary to believe that one and

the same individual will tor ever hava ono and the

; same degree of punishment. (5; Theologians of weight

have advocated, and have been allowed to advocate, a

gradual mitigation of punishment in the lost. (t>) And

mauy ancieut missals contain a mass for the alleviation

of their pains. It is difficult to epeak on this subject,

I for the Churcu, has said little, and one has little guide

! beyond oue a own private judgment. The great truth

. is that death ends our probation and settles our state

for ever ; that there is no passing over the great

gulf ; that our only happiness is to be with God, and

that those who are not with God are without Him. I

am, my dear Sir, most truly yours, JOHN H. NEWMAN. "

PART I.

ME. KINGSLEY S METHOD OP DISPUTATION.

IV

CONTENTS.

PART I.

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

I CANNOT be sorry to have forced Mr. Kingsley to
bring out in fulness his charges against me. It is
far better that he should discharge his thoughts

o o

upon me in my lifetime, than after I am dead.
Under the circumstances I am happy in having
the opportunity of reading the worst that can be
said of me by a writer who has taken pains with
his work and is well satisfied with it. I account it
a gain to be surveyed from without by one who
hates the principles which are nearest to my heart,
has no personal knowledge of me to set right his
misconceptions of my doctrine, and who has some
motive or other to be as severe with me as he can
possibly be.

And first of all, I beg to compliment him
on the motto in his Title-page; it is felicitous.
A motto should contain, as in a nutshell, the
contents, or the character, or the drift, or the

B 2

4 ME. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

animus of the writing to which it is prefixed. The
words which he has taken from me are so apposite
as to be almost prophetical. There cannot be a better
illustration than he thereby affords of the aphorism
which I intended them to convey. I said that it is
not more than an hyperbolical expression to say
that in certain cases a lie is the nearest approach
to truth. Mr. Kingsley s pamphlet is emphatically
one of such cases as are contemplated in that pro
position. I really believe, that his view of me is
about as near an approach to the truth about my
writings and doings, as he is capable of taking.
He has done his worst towards me; but he has also
done his best. So far well; but, while I impute to
him no malice, I unfeignedly think, on the other
hand, that, in his invective against me, he as faith
fully fulfils the other half of the proposition also.

This is not a mere sharp retort upon Mr.
Kingsley, as will be seen, when I come to consider
directly the subject, to which the words of his motto
relate. I have enlarged on that subject in various
passages of my publications ; I have said that minds
in different states and circumstances cannot under
stand one another, and that in all cases they must
be instructed according to their capacity, and, if
not taught step by step, they learn only so much
the less ; that children do not apprehend the
thoughts of grown people, nor savages the instincts
of civilization, nor blind men the perceptions of
sight, nor pagans the doctrines of Christianity, nor

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 5

men the experiences of Angels. In the same way,
there are people of matter-of-fact, prosaic minds,
who cannot take in the fancies of poets ; and
others of shallow, inaccurate minds, who cannot
take in the ideas of philosophical inquirers. In
a Lecture of mine I have illustrated this phenome
non by the supposed instance of a foreigner, who,
after reading a commentary on the principles of
English Law, does not get nearer to a real apprehen
sion of them than to be led to accuse Englishmen
of considering that the Queen is impeccable and
infallible, and that the Parliament is omnipotent.
Mr. Kingsley has read me from beginning to end
in the fashion in which the hypothetical Russian
read Blackstone ; not, I repeat, from malice, but be
cause of his intellectual build. He appears to be so
constituted as to have no notion of what goes on in
minds very different from his own, and moreover to
be stone-blind to his ignorance. A modest man or
a philosopher would have scrupled to treat with
scorn and scoffing, as Mr. Kingsley does in my own
instance, principles and convictions, even if he did
not acquiesce in them himself, which had been held
so widely and for so long, the beliefs and devotions
and customs which have been the religious life of
millions upon millions of Christians for nearly
twenty centuries, for this in fact is the task on
which he is spending his pains. Had he been a
man of large or cautious mind, he would not have
taken it for granted that cultivation must lead

6 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

every one to see things precisely as he sees them
himself. But the narrow-minded are the more
prejudiced by very reason of their narrowness.
The Apostle bids us " in malice be children, but in
understanding be men." I am glad to recognize
in Mr. Kingsley an illustration of the first half of
this precept; but I should not be honest, if I
ascribed to him any sort of fulfilment of the
second.

I wish I could speak as favourably either of his
drift or of his method of arguing, as I can of his
convictions. As to his drift, I think its ultimate
point is an attack upon the Catholic Religion. It is
I indeed, whom he is immediately insulting, still,
he views me only as a representative, and on the
whole a fair one, of a class or caste of men, to whom,
conscious as I am of my own integrity, I ascribe
an excellence superior to mine. He desires to im
press upon the public mind the conviction that I
arn a crafty, scheming man, simply untrustworthy ;
that, in becoming a Catholic, I have just found my
right place; that I do but justify and am properly
interpreted by the common English notion of
Roman casuists and confessors ; that I was secretly
a Catholic when I was openly professing to be a
clergyman of the Established Church ; that so far
from bringing, by means of my conversion, when
at length it openly took place, any strength to
the Catholic cause, I am reallv a burden to it,

/ *

MIL KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 7

an additional evidence of the fact, that to be a
pure, german, genuine Catholic, a man must be
either a knave or a fool.

These last words bring me to Mr. Kingsley s
method of disputation, which I must criticize with
much severity ; in his drift he does but follow the
ordinary beat of controversy, but in his mode of
arguing he is actually dishonest.

He says that I am either a knave or a fool, and
(as we shall see by and by) he is not quite sure
which, probably both. He tells his readers that on
one occasion he said that he had fears I should " end
in one or other of two misfortunes." " He would
either," he continues, " destroy his own sense of
honesty, i. e. conscious truthfulness and become
a dishonest person ; or he would destroy his common
sense, i. e. unconscious truthfulness, and become
the slave and puppet seemingly of his own logic,
really of his own fancy. ... I thought for years
past that he had become the former; I now see that
he has become the latter." p. 20. Again, " When
I read these outrages upon common sense, what
wonder if I said to myself, This man cannot be
lieve what he is saying ? p. 26. Such has been
Mr. Kingsley s state of mind till lately, but now
he considers that I am possessed with a spirit of
" almost boundless silliness," of " simple credulity,
the child of -scepticism," of "absurdity" (p. 41), of
a " self-deception which has become a sort of frantic
honesty (p. 26). And as to his fundamental

8 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

reason for this change, he tells us, he really does
not know what it is (p. 44). However, let the
reason be what it will, its upshot is intelligible
enough. He is enabled at once, by this professed
change of judgment about me, to put forward one
of these alternatives, yet to keep the other in re
serve- an d this he actually does. He need not
commit himself to a definite accusation against me,
such as requires definite proof and admits of defi
nite refutation ; for he has two strings to his bow ;-
when he is thrown off his balance on the one leg,
he can recover himself by the use of the other. If
I demonstrate that I am not a knave, he may
exclaim, "Oh, but you are a fool!" and when I
demonstrate that I am not a fool, he may turn
round and retort, " Well, then, you are a knave."
I have no objection to reply to his arguments in
behalf of either alternative, but I should have been
better pleased to have been allowed to take them
one at a time.

But I have not yet done full justice to the method
of disputation, which Mr. Kingsley thinks it right
to adopt. Observe this first: He means by a
man who is " silly " not a man who is to be pitied,
but a man who is to be abhorred. He means a man
who is not simply weak and incapable, but a moral
leper ; a man who, if not a knave, has every thing
bad about him except knavery; nay, rather, has
together with every other worst vice, a spice of
knavery to boot. His simpleton is one who has
become such, in judgment for his having once been

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 9

a knave. His simpleton is not a born fool, but a
self-made idiot, one who has drugged and abused

* OO

himself into a shameless depravity ; one, who,
without any misgiving or remorse, is guilty of
drivelling superstition, of reckless violation of
sacred things, of fanatical excesses, of passionate
inanities, of unmanly audacious tyranny over the
weak, meriting the wrath of fathers and brothers.
This is that milder judgment, which he seems to
pride himself upon as so much charity; and, as he
expresses it, he " does not know " why. This is
what he really meant in his letter to me of January
14, when he withdrew his charge of my being
dishonest. He said, " The tone of your letters,
even more than their language, makes me feel,
to my very deep pleasure" what ? that you have
gambled away your reason, that you are an in
tellectual sot, that you are a fool in a frenzy.
And in his Pamphlet, he gives us this explanation
why he did not say this to my face, viz. that he had
been told that I was " in weak health," and was
"averse to controversy," pp. 6 and 8. He "felt
some regret for having disturbed me."

But I pass on from these multiform imputations,
and confine myself to this one consideration, viz. that
he has made any fresh imputation upon me at all.
He gave up the charge of knavery; well and good :
but where was the logical necessity of his bringing
another ? I am sitting at home without a thought

^ ra

of Mr. Kingsley; he wantonly breaks in upon

c

10 MR. KTNGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

me with the charge that I had "informed" the
world " that Truth for its own sake need not and
on the whole ought not to be a virtue with the
Roman clergy." When challenged on the point
he cannot bring a fragment of evidence in proof
of his assertion, and he is convicted of false
witness bv the voice of the world. Well, I should

*

have thought that he had now nothing whatever
more to do. " Vain man ! " he seems to make
answer, " what simplicity in you to think so !
If you have not broken one commandment, let us
see whether we cannot convict you of the breach
of another. If you are not a swindler or forger,
you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook
or by crook you shall not escape. Are you to
suffer or I? What does it matter to you who
are going off the stage, to receive a slight
additional daub upon a character so deeply stained

alreadv ? But think of me, the immaculate lover

j

of Truth, so observant (as I have told you p. 8) of
hault courage and strict honour, and (aside)
1 and not as this publican do you think I can let
you go scot free instead of myself ? No ; noblesse
oblige. Go to the shades, old man, and boast that
Achilles sent you thither."

But I have not even yefc done with Mr.
Kingsley s method of disputation. Observe se-
condlv : when a man is said to be a knave or a

^

fool, it is commonly meant that he is either the one
or the other; and that, either in the sense that

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 11

the hypothesis of his being a fool is too absurd
to be entertained; or, again, as a sort of contemp
tuous acquittal of one, who after all has not wit
enough to be wicked. But this is not at all what
Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the antithesis
which he suggests to his readers. Though he
speaks of me as an utter dotard and fanatic, yet all
along, from the beginning of his Pamphlet to the
end, he insinuates, he proves from my writings,
and at length in his last pages he openly pro
nounces, that after all he was right at first, in
thinking me a conscious liar and deceiver.

Now I wish to dwell on this point. It cannot
be doubted, I say, that, in spite of his professing to
consider me as a dotard and driveller, on the
ground of his having given up the notion of my
being a knave, yet it is the very staple of his
Pamphlet that a knave after all I must be. By
insinuation, or by implication, or by question, or by
irony, or by sneer, or by parable, he enforces again
and again a conclusion which he does not cate
gorically enunciate.

For instance (1) P. 14. "I know that men
used to suspect Dr. Newman, I have been inclined

to do so myself, of writing a whole sermon

for the sake of one single passing hint, one phrase,

one epithet, one little barbed arrow which

he delivered unheeded, as with his finger tip, to
the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to be
withdrawn again"

c 2

12 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

(2) P. 15. "How was I to know that the
preacher, who had the reputation of being the most
acute man of his generation, and of having a
specially intimate acquaintance with the weak
nesses of the human heart, was utterly blind to the
broad meaning and the plain practical result of a
sermon like this, delivered before fanatic and hot
headed young men, who hung upon his every word ?
That he did not foresee that they would think that
they obeyed him, by becoming affected, artificial,
sly, sJdfty, ready for concealments and equivoca
tions?"

(3) P. 17. "No one would have suspected him
to be a dishonest man, if he had not perversely
chosen to assume a style which (as he himself
confesses) the world always associates with dis
honesty."

(4) Pp. 29, 30. " If he will indulge in subtle
paradoxes, in rhetorical exaggerations; if, whenever
he touches on the question of truth and honesty, he
will take a perverse pleasure in saying something
shocking to plain English notions, he must take the
consequences of his own eccentricities"

(5) P. 34. "At which most of my readers will
be inclined to cry : Let Dr. Newman alone, after

that He had a human reason once, no

doubt: but he has gambled it away. True:

so true, &c."

(6) P. 34. He continues : " I should never have
written these pages, save because it was my duty to

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD or DISPUTATION. 13

show the world, if not Dr. Newman, how the mis
take (!) of his not caring for truth arose"

(7) P. 37. "And this is the man, who when
accused of countenancing falsehood, puts on first a
tone of plaintive ( ! ) and startled innocence, and
then one of smug self-satisfaction as who should
ask, What have I said ? What have I done ?
Why am I on my trial ?

(8) P. 40. " What Dr. Newman teaches is clear
at last, and / see now how deeply I have wronged
him. So far from thinking truth for its own sake
to he no virtue, he considers it a virtue so lofty as
to be unattainable by man"

(9) P. 43. " There is no use in wasting words
on this economical statement of Dr. Newman s.
I shall only say that there are people in the world
whom it is very difficult to help. As soon as
they are got out of one scrape, they walk straight
into another."

(10) P. 43. "Dr. Newman has shown wis
dom enough of that serpentine type which is his

professed ideal Yes, Dr. Newman is a

very economical person."

(11) P. 44. "Dr. Newman tries, by cunning
sleight-of-hand logic, to prove that I did not believe
the accusation when I made it."

(12) P. 45. "These are hard words. If Dr.
Newman shall complain of them, I can only remind
him of the fate which befel the stork caught among
the cranes, even though the stork had not done all

14 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

he could to make himself like a crane, as Dr.
Newman has, by economising on the very title-
page of his pamphlet."

These last words hring us to another and far
worse instance of these slanderous assaults upon
me, but its place is in a subsequent page.

Now it may be asked of me, " Well, why should
not Mr. Kingsley take a course such as this ? It
was his original assertion that Dr. Newman was a
professed liar, and a patron of lies ; he spoke some
what at random ; granted ; but now he has got up
his references and he is proving, not perhaps the
very thing which he said at first, but something
very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He
is now only aiming to justify morally his original
assertion; why is he not at liberty to do so ?"

Why should he not now insinuate that I am a
liar and a knave ! he had of course a perfect right
to make such a charge, if he chose ; he might have
said, " I was virtually right, and here is the proof
of it," but this he has not done, but on the contrary
has professed that he no longer draws from my
works, as he did before, the inference of my dis
honesty. He says distinctly, p. 26, " When I read
these outrages upon common sense, what wonder if
I said to myself, This man cannot believe what he
is saying? I believe I was wrong" And in p. 31,
" I said, This man has no real care for truth.
Truth for its own sake is no virtue in his eyes, and
he teaches that it need not be. / do not say that

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD or DISPUTATION. 15

now." And in p. 41, "I do not call this conscious
dishonesty; the man who wrote that sermon was
already past the possibility of such a sin."

Why should he not ! because it is on the ground
of my not being a knave that he calls me a fool ;
adding to the words just quoted, " [My readers]
have fallen perhaps into the prevailing superstition
that cleverness is synonymous with wisdom. They
cannot believe that (as is too certain) great literary
and even barristerial ability may co-exist with
almost boundless silliness."

Why should he not! because he has taken credit
to himself for that high feeling of honour which
refuses to withdraw a concession which once has
been made; though, (wonderful to say!) at the
very time that he is recording this magnanimous
resolution, he lets it out of the bag that his relin-
quishment of it is only a profession and a pretence ;
for he says, p. 8 : "I have accepted Dr. Newman s
denial that [the Sermon] means what I thought it
did; and heaven forbid" (oh!) "that I should with
draw my word once given, at whatever disadvan
tage to myself" Disadvantage ! but nothing can
be advantageous to him which is untrue; therefore
in proclaiming that the concession of my honesty is
a disadvantage to him, he thereby implies unequi
vocally that there is some probability still, that I
am dishonest. He goes on, " I am informed by those
from whose judgment on such points there is no ap
peal, that en hault courage^ and strict honour, I am

16 ME. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

also precluded, by the terms of my explanation,
from using any other of Dr. Newman s past writings
to prove my assertion." And then, " I have declared
Dr. Newman to have been an honest man up to the
1st of February, 1864; it was, as I shall show, only
Dr. Newman s fault that I ever thought him to be
any thing else. It depends entirely on Dr. Newman
whether he shall sustain the reputation which he
has so recently acquired," (by diploma of course
from Mr. Kingsley.) "If I give him thereby a
fresh advantage in this argument, he is most wel
come to it. He needs, it seems to me, as many
advantages as possible"

What a princely mind! How loyal to his
rash promise, how delicate towards the subject of
it, how conscientious in his interpretation of it!
I have no thought of irreverence towards a Scrip
ture Saint, who was actuated by a very different
spirit from Mr. Kingsley s, but somehow since I
read his Pamphlet words have been running in my
head, which I find in the Douay version thus ;
" Thou hast also with thee Semei the son of Gera,
who cursed me with a grievous curse when I went
to the camp, but I swore to him, saying, I will
not kill thee with the sword. Do not thou hold
him guiltless. But thou art a wise man and knowest
what to do with him, and thou shalt bring down
his grey hairs with blood to hell."

Now I ask, Why could not Mr. Kingsley be
open ? If he intended still to arraign me on the

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 17

charge of lying, why could he not say so as a man ?
Why must he insinuate, question, imply, and use
sneering and irony, as if longing to touch a for
bidden fruit, which still he was afraid would burn
his fingers, if he did so ? Why must he " palter
in a double sense," and blow hot and cold in one
breath ? He first said he considered me a patron
of lying; well, he changed his opinion; and as to
the logical ground of this change, he said that,
if any one asked him what it was, he could only
answer that he really did not know. Why could
not he change back again, and say he did not
know why ? He had quite a right to do so ; and
then his conduct would have been so far straight
forward and unexceptionable. But no; in the
very act of professing to believe in my sincerity, he
takes care to show the world that it is a profession
and nothing more. That very proceeding which at
p. 15 he lays to my charge, (whereas I detest it,) of
avowing one thing and thinking another, that pro
ceeding he here exemplifies himself; and yet, while
indulging in practices as offensive as this, he ven
tures to speak of his sensitive admiration of " hault
courage and strict honour!" "I forgive you, Sir
Knight," says the heroine in the Romance, " I
forgive you as a Christian." " That means," said
Wamba, " that she does not forgive him at all."
Mr. Kingsley s word of honour is about as valuable
as in the jester * opinion was the Christian charity
of Rowena. But here we are brought to a further

D

18 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

specimen of Mr. Kingsley s method of disputation,
and having duly exhibited it, I shall have done
with him.

It is his last, and he has intentionally reserved
it for his last. Let it be recollected that he
professed to absolve me from his original charge
of dishonesty up to February 1. And further, he
implies that, at the time when he was writing,
I had not yet involved myself in any fresh acts
suggestive of that sin. He says that I have had a
great escape of conviction, that he hopes I shall
take warning, and act more cautiously. " It
depends entirely," he says, " on Dr. Newman,
ir.h ether he shall sustain the reputation which he
has so recently acquired" (p. 8). Thus, in Mr.
Kingsley s judgment, I was then, when he wrote
these words, still innocent of dishonesty, for a man
cannot sustain what he actually has not got; only
he could not he sure of my future. Could not be
sure ! Why at this very time he had already
noted down valid proofs, as he thought them, that
I had already forfeited the character which he
contemptuously accorded to me. He had cautiously
said "up to February 1st," in order to reserve the
Title-page and last three pages of my Pamphlet,
which were not published till February 12th, and out
of these four pages, which he had not whitewashed,
he had already forged charges against me of dis
honesty at the very time that he implied that as
yet there was nothing against me. When he gave

MK. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 19

me that plenary condonation, as it seemed to be,
he had already done his best that I should never
enjoy it. He knew well at p. 8, what he meant to
say at pp. 44 and 45. At best indeed I was only
out upon ticket of leave; but that ticket was a
pretence; he had made it forfeit when he gave it.
But he did not say so at once, first, because between
p. 8 and p. 44 he meant to talk a great deal about
my idiotcy and my frenzy, which would have been
simply out of place, had he proved me too soon to
be a knave again; and next, because he meant to
exhaust all those insinuations about my knavery
in the past, which " strict honour " did not permit
him to countenance, in order thereby to give colour
and force to his direct charges of knavery in
the present, which " strict honour " did permit
him to handsel. So in the fifth act he gave
a start, and found to his horror that, in my
miserable four pages, I had committed the " enor
mity " of an " economy," which in matter of fact he
had got by heart before he began the play. Nay,
he suddenly found two, three, and (for what he
knew) as many as four profligate economies in
that Title-page and those Reflections, and he uses
the language of distress and perplexity at this
appalling discovery.

Now why this coup de theatre ? The reason
soon breaks on us. Up to February 1, he could
not categorically arraign me for lying, and therefore
could not involve me, (as was so necessary for his

D 2

20 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

case,) in the popular abhorrence which is felt for the
casuists of Rome: but, as soon as ever he could
openly and directly pronounce (saving his " hault
courage and strict honour") that I am guilty of
three or four new economies, then at once I am
made to bear, not only my own sins, but the sins of
other people also, and, though I have been con
doned the knavery of my antecedents, I am guilty
of the knavery of a whole priesthood instead. So
the hour of doom for Semei is come, and the wise
man knows what to do with him; he is down upon
me with the odious names of " St. Alfonso da
Liguori," and " Scavini " and " Neyraguet," and
" the Romish moralists," and their " compeers and
pupils," and I am at once merged and whirled away
in the gulph of notorious quibblers, and hypocrites,
and rogues.

But we have not even yet got at the real object
of the stroke, thus reserved for his Jinale. I really
feel sad for what I am obliged now to say. I am in
warfare with him, but I wish him no ill ; it is very
difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom
one has never seen. It is easy enough to be irritated
with friends or foes, vis-a-vis ; but, though I am
writing with all my heart against what he has said
of me, I am not conscious of personal unkindness
towards himself. I think it necessary to write as I
am writing, for my own sake, and for the sake of the
Catholic Priesthood ; but I wish to impute nothing
worse to Mr. Kingslev than that he has been

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 21

furiously carried away by his feelings. But what
shall I say of the upshot of all this talk of my
economies and equivocations and the like ? What
is the precise work which it is directed to effect ?
I am at war with him ; but there is such a thing

* O

as legitimate warfare : w r ar has its laws ; there are
things which may fairly be done, and things which
may not be done. I say it with shame and with
stern sorrow; he has attempted a great transgres
sion ; he has attempted (as I may call it) to poison
the wells. I will quote him and explain what I
mean.

" Dr. Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand
logic, to prove that I did not believe the accusation
when I made it. Therein he is mistaken. I did
believe it, and I believed also his indignant denial.
But when he goes on to ask with sneers, why I
should believe his denial, if I did not consider him
trustworthy in the first instance ? 1 can only
answer, I really do not know. There is a great
deal to be said for that view, now that Dr. Newman
has become (one must needs suppose) suddenly
and since the 1st of February, 1864, a convert to
the economic views of St. Alfonso da Liguori and
his compeers. I am henceforth in doubt and fear,
as much as any honest man can be, concerning
every word Dr. Newman may write. How can I
tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation, of one of the three kinds laid down
as permissible by the blessed Alfonso da Liguori

22 MB. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

and his pupils, even when confirmed by an oath,
because then we do not deceive our neighbour,

but allow him to deceive himself? It is

admissible, therefore, to use words and sentences
which have a double signification, and leave the
hapless hearer to take which of them he may
choose. What proof have I, then, that by mean
it? I never said it! 1 Dr. Newman does not
signify, I did not say it, but I did mean it?"
Pp. 44, 45. , -i

Now these insinuations and questions shall be
answered in their proper places; here I will but
say that I scorn and detest lying, and quibbling, and
double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning,
and smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as
much as any Protestants hate them ; and I pray to
be kept from the snare of them. But all this is
just now by the bye; my present subject is Mr.
Kingsley; what I insist upon here, now that I am
bringing this portion of my discussion to a close,
is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding
pages, to cut the ground from under my feet ; to
poison by anticipation the public mind against
me, John Henry Newman, and to infuse into the
imaginations of my readers, suspicion and mistrust
of every thing that I may say in reply to him.
This I call poisoning the wells.

" I am henceforth in doubt and fear" he says,
" as much as any honest man can be, concerning
every word Dr. Newman may write. How can I

MR, KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION. 23

tell that I shall not he the dupe of some cunning
equivocation? .... What proof have I, that by
mean it ? I never said it ! Dr. Newman does not
signify, I did not say it, but I did mean it ?

Well, I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take
effect, I am but wasting my time in saying a word
in answer to his foul calumnies; and this is pre
cisely what he knows and intends to be its fruit.
I can hardly get myself to protest against a method
of controversy so base and cruel, lest in doing so, I
should be violating my self-respect and self-pos
session; but most base and most cruel it is. We
all know how our imagination runs away with us,
how suddenly and at what a pace; the saying,
" Cesar s wife should not be suspected," is an in
stance of what I mean. The habitual prejudice,
the humour of the moment, is the turning-point
which leads us to read a defence in a good sense or
a bad. We interpret it by our antecedent im
pressions. The very same sentiments, according
as our jealousy is or is not awake, or our aversion
stimulated, are tokens of truth or of dissimulation
and pretence. There is a story of a sane person
being by mistake shut up in the wards of a Lunatic
Asylum, and that, when he pleaded his cause to
some strangers visiting the establishment, the only
remark he elicited in answer was, " How naturally
he talks ! you would think he was in his senses."
Controversies should be decided by the reason; is
it legitimate warfare to appeal to the misgivings of

24 MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD OF DISPUTATION.

the public mind and to its dislikings ? Any how,
if Mr. Kingsley is able thus to practise upon my
readers, the more I succeed, the less will be my
success. If I am natural, he will tell them, " Ars
est celare artem;" if I am convincing, he will
suggest that I am an able logician; if I show
warmth, I am acting the indignant innocent ; if I
am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth hypo
crite; if I clear up difficulties, I am too plausible
and perfect to be true. The more triumphant are
my statements, the more certain will be my defeat.
So will it be if Mr. Kingsley succeeds in his
manoeuvre; but I do not for an instant believe
that he will. Whatever judgment my readers may
eventually form of me from these pages, I am con
fident that they will believe me in what I shall
say in the course of them. I have no misgiving
at all, that they will be ungenerous or harsh with
a man who has been so long before the eyes of the
world; who has so many to speak of him from
personal knowledge ; whose natural impulse it has
ever been to speak out; who has ever spoken too
much rather than too little ; who would have saved
himself many a scrape, if he had been wise enough
to hold his tongue ; who has ever been fair to the
doctrines and arguments of his opponents ; who has
never slurred over facts and reasonings which told
against himself; who has never given his name or
authority to proofs which he thought unsound, or
to testimony which he did not think at least plau-

MR. KINGSLEY S METHOD or DISPUTATION. 25
sible; who has never shrunk from confessing a

O

fault when he felt that he had committed one; who
has ever consulted for others more than for himself;
who has given up much that he loved and prized
and could have retained, but that he loved honesty
better than name, and Truth better than dear
friends.

And now I am in a train of thought higher and
more serene than any which slanders can disturb.
Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into space.
Your name shall occur again as little as I can help,
in the course of these pages. I shall henceforth
occupy myself not with you, but with your charges.

E

PART II.

TKUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

WHAT shall be the special imputation, against
which I shall throw myself in these pages, out of
the thousand and one which my accuser directs
upon me ? I mean to confine myself to one,
for there is onlv one about which I much care,

tf

the charge of Untruthfulness. He may cast upon
me as many other imputations as he pleases, and they
may stick on me, as long as they can, in the course of
nature. They will fall to the ground in their season.
And indeed I think the same of the charge
of Untruthfulness, and I select it from the rest, not
because it is more formidable, but because it is
more serious. Like the rest, it may disfigure me
for a time, but it will not stain : Archbishop
Whately used to say, " Throw dirt enough, and
some will stick;" well, will stick, but not stain.
I think he used to mean " stain," and I do not
agree with him. Some dirt sticks longer than
other dirt; but no dirt is immortal. According
to the old saying, Prsevalebit Veritas. There are
virtues indeed, which the world is not fitted to

F 2

30 TRUE MODE OF MEETING ME. KINGSLEY.

judge about or to uphold, such as faith, hope, and
charity: but it can judge about Truthfulness; it
can judge about the natural virtues, and Truthful
ness is one of them. Natural virtues may also
become supernatural; Truthfulness is such; but
that does not withdraw it from the jurisdiction
of mankind at large. It may be more difficult in
this or that particular case for men to take cogni
zance of it, as it may be difficult for the Court of
Queen s Bench at Westminster to try a case fairly,
which took place in Hindoostan; but that is a
question of capacity, not of right. Mankind has
the right to judge of Truthfulness in the case of a
Catholic, as in the case of a Protestant, of an Italian,
or of a Chinese. I have never doubted, that in my
hour, in God s hour, my avenger will appear, and
the world will acquit me of untruthfulness, even
though it be not while I live.

Still more confident am I of such eventual ac
quittal, seeing that my judges are my own country
men. I think, indeed, Englishmen the most sus
picious and touchy of mankind; I think them
unreasonable and unjust in their seasons of excite
ment; but I had rather be an Englishman, (as in
fact I am,) than belong to any other race under
heaven. They are as generous, as they are hasty
and burly; and their repentance for their injustice
is greater than their sin.

r^

For twenty years and more I have borne an
imputation, of which I am at least as sensitive,

TEUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 31

who am the object of it, as they can be, who are
only the judges. I have not set myself to remove
it, first, because I never have had an opening to
speak, and, next, because I never saw in them the
disposition to hear. I have wished to appeal from
Philip drunk to Philip sober. When shall I pro
nounce him to be himself again ? If I may judge
from the tone of the public press, which represents
the public voice, I have great reason to take heart
at this time. I have been treated by contemporary
critics in this controversy with great fairness and
gentleness, and I am grateful to them for it.
However, the decision of the time and mode of
my defence has been taken out of my hands; and
I am thankful that it has been so. I am bound
now as a duty to myself, to the Catholic cause, to
the Catholic Priesthood, to give account of myself
without any delay, when I am so rudely and cir
cumstantially charged with Untruthfulness. I ac
cept the challenge; I shall do my best to meet
it, and I shall be content when I have done so.

I confine myself then, in these pages, to the
charge of Untruthfulness ; and I hereby cart away,
as so much rubbish, the impertinences, with which
the Pamphlet of Accusation swarms. I shall not
think it necessary here to examine, whether I
am "worked into a pitch of confusion," or have
"carried self-deception to perfection," or am
" anxious to show my credulity," or am " in a
morbid state of mind," or " hunger for nonsense as

32 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

my food," or "indulge in subtle paradoxes : and
"rhetorical exaggerations," or have "eccentri
cities " or teach in a style " utterly beyond " my
Accuser s " comprehension," or create in him "blank
astonishment," or "exalt the magical powers of
my Church," or have " unconsciously committed
myself to a statement which strikes at the root of
all morality," or "look down on the Protestant
gentry as without hope of heaven," or " had better
be sent to the furthest " Catholic " mission among
the savages of the South seas," than " to teach in
an Irish Catholic University," or have "gambled
away my reason," or adopt " sophistries," or have
published " sophisms piled upon sophisms," or have
in my sermons " culminating wonders," or have a
"seemingly sceptical method," or have "barris-
terial ability and " almost boundless silliness," or
"make great mistakes," or am "a subtle dialec
tician," or perhaps have "lost my temper," or
"misquote Scripture," or am " antiscriptural," or
" border very closely on the Pelagian heresy." Pp.
5. 7. 26. 2934. 37, 38. 41. 43, 44. 48.

These all are impertinences ; and the list is so
long that I am almost sorry to have given them
room which might be better used. However, there
they are, or at least a portion of them ; and having
noticed them thus much, I shall notice them no
more.

Coming then to the subject, which is to furnish

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 33

the staple of my publication, the question of my
Truthfulness, I first direct attention to the passage
which the Act of Accusation contains at p. 8 and
p. 42. I shall give my reason presently, why I
begin with it.

My accuser is speaking of my Sermon on Wis
dom and Innocence, and he says, "It must be
remembered always that it is not a Protestant, but
a Romish sermon." P. 8.

Then at p. 42 he continues, " Dr. Newman does
not apply to it that epithet. He called it in his letter
to me of the 7th of January, (published by him,) a
Protestant one. I remarked that, but considered it
a mere slip of the pen. Besides, I have now nothing
to say to that letter. It is to his Reflections, in
p. 32, which are open ground to me, that I refer.
In them he deliberately repeats the epithet Pro
testant : only he, in an utterly imaginary conversa
tion, puts it into my mouth, which you preached
when a Protestant. I call the man who preached
that Sermon a Protestant ? I should have sooner
called him a Buddhist. At that very time he was
teaching his disciples to scorn and repudiate that
name of Protestant, under which, for some reason
or other, he now finds it convenient to take
shelter. If he forgets, the world does not, the
famous article in the British Critic, (the then
organ of his party,) of three years before, July
1841, which, after denouncing the name of Pro
testant, declared the object of the party to be

34 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

none other than the unprotestantising the English
Church."

In this passage my accuser asserts or implies, 1.
that the Sermon, on which he originally grounded
his slander against me in the January No. of the
Magazine, was really and in matter of fact a
"Romish" Sermon; 2. that I ought in my Pamphlet
to have acknowledged this fact; 3. that I didn t.
4. That I actually called it instead a Protestant
Sermon. 5. That at the time when I published it,
twenty years ago, I should have denied that it was
a Protestant Sermon. 6. By consequence, I should
in that denial have avowed that it was a " Romish "
Sermon ; 7. and therefore, not only, when I was in
the Established Church, was I guilty of the dis
honesty of preaching what at the time I knew to
be a "Romish" Sermon, but now too, in 1864, I
have committed the additional dishonesty of calling
it a Protestant Sermon. If my accuser does not
mean this, I submit to such reparation as I owe
him for my mistake, but I cannot make out that he
means any thing else.

Here are two main points to be considered;

1. I in 1864 have called it a Protestant Sermon.

2. He in 1844 and now has styled it a Popish
Sermon. Let me take these two points separately.

1. Certainly, when I was in the English Church,
I did disown the word "Protestant," and that,
even at an earlier date than my Accuser names ;
but just let us see whether this fact is any thing

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MK. KINGSLEY. 35

at all to the purpose of his accusation. Last
January 7th I spoke to this effect : " How can you
prove that Father Newman informs us of a certain
thing about the Roman Clergy, " by referring to
a Protestant Sermon of the Vicar of St. Mary s ?
My Accuser answers me thus : " There s a quibble !
why, Protestant is not the word which you would
have used when at St. Mary s, and yet you use
it now!" Very true; I do; but what on earth
does this matter to my argument? how does this
word "Protestant," which I, used, tend in any
degree to make my argument a quibble ? What
word should I have used twenty years ago instead
of "Protestant?" "Roman" or "Romish?" by
no manner of means.

My accuser indeed says that "it must always
be remembered that it is not a Protestant but
a Romish Sermon." He implies, and, I suppose,
he thinks, that not to be a Protestant is to
be a Roman; he may say so, if he pleases, but
so did not say that large body who have been
called by the name of Tractarians, as all the
world knows. The movement proceeded on the
very basis of denying that position which my
Accuser takes for granted that I allowed. It ever
said, and it says now, that there is something
between Protestant and Romish ; that there is a
" Via Media " which is neither the one nor the
other. Had I been asked twenty years ago, what
the doctrine of the Established Church was, I

G

36 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

should have answered, " Neither Romish nor Pro
testant, but Anglican or Anglo-catholic. : I
should never have granted that the Sermon was
Romish; I should have denied, and that with an
internal denial, quite as much as I dp now, that it
was a Roman or Romish Sermon. Well then, sub
stitute the word " Anglican " or " Anglo-catholic "
for "Protestant" in my question, and see if the
argument is a bit the worse for it, thus : " How
can you prove that Father Newman informs us
a certain thing abooit the Roman Clergy, by re
ferring to an Anglican or Anglo-catholic Sermon
of the Vicar of St. Mary s ? " The cogency of the
argument remains just where it was. What have
I gained in the argument, what has he lost, by my
having said, not "an Anglican Sermon," but "a
Protestant Sermon?" What dust then is he
throwing into our eyes !

For instance: in 1844 I lived at Littlemore;
two or three miles distant from Oxford; and Little-
more lies in three, perhaps in four, distinct pa
rishes, so that of particular houses it is difficult to
say, whether they are in St. Mary s, Oxford, or in
Cowley, or in Iffley, or in Sandford, the line of
demarcation running even through them. Now,
supposing I were to say in 1864, that "twenty
years ago I did not live in Oxford, because I lived
out at Littlemore, in the parish of Cowley;" and if
upon this there were letters of mine produced dated
Littlemore, 1844, in one of which I said that "I

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MB. KINGSLEY. 37

lived, not in Cowley, but at Littlemore, in St. Mary s
parish," how would that prove that Icontradicted my
self, and that therefore after all I must be supposed to
have been living in Oxford in 1844 ? The utmost
that would be proved by the discrepancy, such as it
was, would be, that there was some confusion either
in me, or in the state of the fact as to the limits of
the parishes. There would be no confusion about
the place or spot of my residence. I should be
saying in 1864, "I did not live in Oxford twenty
years ago, because I lived at Littlemore in the
Parish of Cowley." I should have been saying in
1844, "I do not live in Oxford, because I live in
St. Mary s, Littlemore." In either case I should
be saying that my habitat in 1844 was not Oxford,
but Littlemore ; and I should be giving the same
reason for it. I should be proving an alibi. I
should be naming the same place for the alibi; but
twenty years ago I should have spoken of it as
St. Mary s, Littlemore, and to-day I should have
spoken of it as Littlemore in the Parish of Cowley.
And so as to my Sermon ; in January, 1864, I
called it a Protestant Sermon, and not a Roman ;
but in 1844 I should, if asked, have called it an
Anglican Sermon, and not a Roman. In both
cases I should have denied that it was Roman, and
that on the ground of its being something else ;
though I should have called that something- else,

o o /

then by one name, now by another. The doctrine
of the Via Media is a fact, whatever name we

G 2

38 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

give to it ; I, as a Roman Priest, find it more
natural and usual to call it Protestant: I, as an
Oxford Vicar, thought it more exact to call it
Anglican ; but, whatever I then called it, and what
ever I now call it, I mean one and the same object
by my name, and therefore not another object,
viz. not the Roman Church. The argument, I
repeat, is sound, whether the Via Media and the
Vicar of St. Mary s be called Anglican or Protestant.

This is a specimen of what my Accuser means
by my " Economies ;" nay, it is actually one of
those special two, three, or four, committed after
February 1, which he thinks sufficient to connect
me with the shifty casuists and the double-dealing
moralists, as he considers them, of the Catholic
Church. What a "Much ado about nothing!"

2. But, whether or no he can prove that I in
1864 have committed any logical fault in calling
my Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence a Protestant
Sermon, he is and has been all along, most firm in
the belief himself that a Romish Sermon it is ; and
this is the point on which I wish specially to insist.
It is for this cause that I made the above extract
from his Pamphlet, not merely in order to answer
him, though, when I had made it, I could not pass by
the attack on me which it contains." I shall notice
his charges one by one by and by ; but I have made
this extract here in order to insist and to dwell on
this phenomenon viz. that he does consider it an
undeniable fact, that the Sermon is "Romish,"

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 39

meaning by "Romish" not "savouring of Romish
doctrine" merely, but " the work of a real Romanist,
of a conscious Romanist." This belief it is which
leads him to be so severe on me, for now calling it
" Protestant." He thinks that, whether I have
committed any logical self-contradiction or not, I
am very well aware that, when I wrote it, I ought
to have been elsewhere, that I was a conscious Ro
manist, teaching Romanism ; or if he does not
believe this himself, he wishes others to think so,
which comes to the same thing ; certainly I prefer
to consider that he thinks so himself, but, if he likes
the other hypothesis better, he is welcome to it.

He believes then so firmly that the Sermon was
a " Romish Sermon," that he pointedly takes it for
granted, before he has adduced a syllable of proof
of the matter of fact. He starts by saying that it
is a fact to be " remembered." " It must be re
membered always" he says, " that it is not a Pro
testant, but a Romish Sermon," p. 8. Its Romish
parentage is a great truth for the memory, not a
thesis for inquiry. Merely to refer his readers to
the Sermon is, he considers, to secure them on his
side. Hence it is that, in his letter of January 18,
he said to me, "It seems to me, that, by referring
publicly to the Sermon on which my allegations are
founded, I have given every one an opportunity of
judging of their injustice" that is, an opportunity
of seeing that they are transparently just. The
notion of there being a Via Media, held all along

o

40 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINOSLEY.

by a large party in the Anglican Church, and now
at least not less than at any former time, is too
subtle for his intellect. Accordingly, he thinks it
was an allowable figure of speech, not more, I sup
pose, than an " hyperbole," when referring to a
Sermon of the Vicar of St. Mary s in the Magazine,
to say that it was the writing of a Roman Priest ;
and as to serious arguments to prove the point,
why, they may indeed be necessary, as a matter of
form, in an Act of Accusation, such as his Pamphlet,
but they are superfluous to the good sense of any
one who will only just look into the matter himself.

Now, with respect to the so-called arguments
which he ventures to put forward in proof that the
Sermon is Romish, I shall answer them, together
with all his other arguments, in the latter portion of
this Reply ; here I do but draw the attention of the
reader, as I have said already, to the phenomenon
itself, which he exhibits, of an unclouded confidence
that the Sermon is the writing of a virtual member
of the Roman communion, and I do so because it has
made a great impression on my own mind, and has
suggested to me the course that I shall pursue in
my answer to him.

I say, he takes it for granted that the Sermon is
the writing of a virtual or actual, of a conscious
Roman Catholic ; and is impatient at the very
notion of having to prove it. Father Newman and
the Vicar of St. Mary s are one and the same:
there has been no change of mind in him ; what he

TKUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 41

believed then he believes now, and what he believes
now he believed then. To dispute this is frivolous ;
to distinguish between his past self and his present
is subtlety, and to ask for proof of their identity
is seeking opportunity to be sophistical. This
writer really thinks that he acts a straightforward
honest part, when he says " A Catholic Priest in
forms us in his Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence
preached at St. Mary s," and he thinks that I am
the shuffler and quibbler when I forbid him to
do so. So singular a phenomenon in a man of
undoubted ability has struck me forcibly, and I
shall pursue the train of thought which it opens.

It is not he alone who entertains, and has enter
tained, such an opinion of me and my writings. It
is the impression of large classes of men ; the im
pression twenty years ago and the impression now.
There has been a general feeling that I was for
years where I had no right to be ; that I was a
"Romanist" in Protestant livery and service; that
I was doing the work of a hostile Church in the
bosom of the English Establishment, and knew it,
or ought to have known it. There was no need of
arguing about particular passages "in my writings,
when the fact was so patent, as men thought it to be.

First it was certain, and I could not myself deny
it, that I scouted the name " Protestant." It was
certain again, that many of the doctrines which I
professed were popularly and generally known as
badges of the Roman Church, as distinguished

42 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. K1NGSLEY.

from the faith of the Reformation. Next, how
could I have come by them ? Evidently, I had
certain friends and advisers who did not appear ;
there was some underground communication be
tween Stonyhurst or Oscott and my rooms at
Oriel. Bevond a doubt, I was advocating- certain

ml /

doctrines, not by accident, but on an understanding
with ecclesiastics of the old religion. Then men
went further, and said that I had actually been
received into that religion, and withal had leave
given me to profess myself a Protestant still.
Others went even further, and gave it out to the
world, as a matter of fact, of which they themselves
had the proof in their hands, that I was actually a
Jesuit. And when the opinions which I advocated
spread, and younger men went further than I, the
feeling against rne waxed stronger and took a
wider range.

And now indignation arose at the knavery of a
conspiracy such as this : and it became of course
all the greater, in consequence of its being the
received belief of the public at large, that craft and
intrigue, such as they fancied they beheld with their
own eyes, were the very instruments to which the
Catholic Church has in these last centuries been
indebted for her maintenance and extension.

There was another circumstance still, which
increased the irritation and aversion felt by the
large classes, of whom I have been speaking, as
regards the preachers of doctrines, so new to them

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 43

and so unpalatable; and that was, that they deve
loped them in so measured a way. If they were
inspired by Roman theologians, (and this was taken
for granted,) why did they not speak out at once?
Why did they keep the world in such suspense and
anxiety as to what was coming next, and what was
to be the upshot of the whole ? Why this reticence,
and half-speaking, and apparent indecision ? It
was plain that the plan of operations had been
carefully mapped out from the first, and that these
men were cautiously advancing towards its accom
plishment, as far as was safe at the moment; that
their aim and their hope was to carry off a large
body with them of the young and the ignorant;
that they meant gradually to leaven the minds of
the rising generation, and to open the gate of that
city, of which they were the sworn defenders, to
the enemy who lay in ambush outside of it. And
when in spite of the many protestations of the
party to the contrary, there was at length an actual
movement among their disciples, and one went
over to Rome, and then another, the worst anti
cipations and the worst judgments which had been
formed of them received their justification. And,
lastly, when men first had said of me, " You will
see, he will go, he is only biding his time, he is
waiting the word of command from Rome," and,
when after all, after my arguments and denuncia
tions of former years, at length I did leave the
Anglican Church for the Roman, then they said

H

44 TEUE MODE OF MEETIKG ME. KINGSLEY.

to each other, "It is just as we said: I told
you so."

This was the state of mind of masses of men
twenty years ago, who took no more than an ex
ternal and common-sense view of what was going on.
And partly the tradition, partly the effect of that
feeling, remains to the present time. Certainly I con
sider that, in my own case, it is the great obstacle
in the way of my being favourably heard, as at
present, when I have to make my defence. Not
only am I now a member of a most un-English
communion, whose great aim is considered to be
the extinction of Protestantism and the Protestant
Church, and whose means of attack are popularly
supposed to be unscrupulous cunning and deceit, but
besides, how came I originally to have any relations
with the Church of Rome at all? did I, or my
opinions, drop from the sky ? how came I, in
Oxford, in gremio Universitatis, to present myself
to the eyes of men in that full-blown investiture of
Popery ? How could I dare, how could I have the
conscience, with warnings, with prophecies, with
accusations against me, to persevere in a path

which steadilv advanced towards, which ended in,

j

the religion of Rome ? And how am I now to be
trusted, when long ago I was trusted, and was
found wanting ?

It is this which is the strength of the case of my
Accuser against me; not his arguments in them
selves, which I shall easily crumble into dust, but

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 45

the bias of the court. It is the state of the at
mosphere; it is the vibration all around which will
more or less echo his assertion of my dishonesty; it
is that prepossession against me, which takes it for
granted that, when my reasoning is convincing it is
only ingenious, and that when my statements are
unanswerable, there is always something put out of
sight or hidden in my sleeve; it is that plausible,
but cruel conclusion to which men are so apt to
jump, that when much is imputed, something must
be true, and that it is more likely that one should
be to blame, than that many should be mistaken in
blaming him; these are the real foes which I have
to fight, and the auxiliaries to whom my Accuser
makes his court.

Well, I must break through this barrier of pre
judice against me, if I can ; and I think I shall be able
to do so. When first I read the Pamphlet of Accusa
tion, I almost despaired of meeting effectively such a
heap of misrepresentation and such a vehemence of
animosity. What was the good of answering first
one point, and then another, and going through the
whole circle of its abuse; when my answer to the
first point would be forgotten, as soon as I got to the
second ? What was the use of bringing out half a
hundred separate principles or views for the refuta
tion of the separate counts in the Indictment, when re
joinders of this sortwouldbut confuse and torment the
reader by their number and their diversity ? What
hope was there of condensing into a pamphlet of a

H 2

46 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

readable length, matter which ought freely to expand
itself into half a dozen volumes ? What means was
there, except the expenditure of interminable pages,
to set right even one of that series of "single passing
hints," to use my Assailant s own language, which,
"as with his finger tip, he had delivered" against me ?
All those separate charges of his had their force in
being illustrations of one and the same great impu
tation. He had a positive idea to illuminate his
whole matter, and to stamp it with a form, and to
quicken it with an interpretation. He called me a
liar, a simple, a broad, an intelligible, to the
English public a plausible arraignment; but for
me, to answer in detail charge one by reason
one, and charge two by reason two, and charge
three by reason three, and so to proceed through the
whole string both of accusations and replies, each of
which was to be independent of the rest, this would
be certainly labour lost as regards any effective
result. What I needed was a corresponding anta
gonist unity in my defence, and where was that to
be found ? We see, in the case of commentators
on the prophecies of Scripture, an exemplification
of the principle on which I am insisting; viz. how
much more powerful even a false interpretation
of the sacred text is than none at all; how a
certain key to the visions of the Apocalypse, for
instance, may cling to the mind (I have found it
so in my own case), mainly because they are
positive and objective, in spite of the fullest demon-

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 47

stration that they really have no claim upon our
belief. The reader says, " What else can the pro
phecy mean ?" just as my Accuser asks, : What,

then, does Dr. Newman mean ?" I reflected,

and I saw a way out of my perplexity.

Yes, I said to myself, his very question is about
my meaning ; " What does Dr. Newman mean ?"
It pointed in the very same direction as that into
which my musings had turned me already. He
asks what 1 mean ; not about my words, not about
my arguments, not about my actions, as his ultimate
point, but about that living intelligence, by which
I write, and argue, and act. He asks about my
Mind and its Beliefs and its Sentiments; and he
shall be answered; not for his own sake, but for
mine, for the sake of the Eeligion which I profess,
and of the Priesthood in which I am unworthily
included, and of my friends and of my foes, and of
that general public which consists of neither one
nor the other, but of well-wishers, lovers of fair
play, sceptical cross-questioners, interested inquirers,
curious lookers-on, and simple strangers, uncon
cerned yet not careless about the issue.

My perplexity did not last half an hour. I
recognized what I had to do, though I shrank
from both the task and the exposure which it
would entail. I must, I said, give the true key to
my whole life ; I must show what I am that it may
be seen what I am not, and that the phantom
may be extinguished which gibbers instead of me.

48 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

I wish to be known as a living man, and not as
a scarecrow which is dressed up in my clothes. False
ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by
true ideas alone are they expelled. I will vanquish,
not my Accuser, but my judges. I will indeed
answer his charges and criticisms on me one
by one, lest any one should say that they are
unanswerable, but such a work shall not be the
scope nor the substance of my reply. ^ I will draw
out, as far as may be, the history of my mind;
I will state the point at wliich I began, in what
external suggestion or accident each opinion had
its rise, how far and how they were developed from
within, how they grew, were modified, were com
bined, were in collision with each other, and
were changed ; again how I conducted myself
towards them, and how, and how far, and for how
long a time, I thought I could hold them con
sistently with the ecclesiastical engagements which
I had made and with the position which I filled.
I must show, what is the very truth, that the doc
trines which I held, and have held for so many years,
have been taught me (speaking humanly) partly
by the suggestions of Protestant friends, partly
by the teaching of books, and partly by the action
of my own mind : and thus I shall account for
that phenomenon which to so many seems so
wonderful, that I should have left " mv kindred

I */

and my father s house" for a Church from which once
I turned awav with dread: -so wonderful to them!

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MB. KINGSLEY. 49

as if forsooth a Religion which has flourished
through so many ages, among so many nations,
amid such varieties of social life, in such con
trary classes and conditions of men, and after so
many revolutions, political and civil, could not
subdue the reason and overcome the heart,
without the aid of fraud and the sophistries of the
schools.

What I had proposed to myself in the course of
half an hour, I determined on at the end of ten days.
However, I have many difficulties in fulfilling my
design. How am I to say all that has to be said
in a reasonable compass ? And then as to the
materials of my narrative ; I have no autobio
graphical notes to consult, no written explana
tions of particular treatises or of tracts which at
the time gave offence, hardly any minutes of
definite transactions or conversations, and few con
temporary memoranda, I fear, of the feelings or
motives under which from time to time I acted. I
have an abundance of letters from friends with
some copies or drafts of my answers to them, but they
are for the most part unsorted, and, till this process
has taken place, they are even too numerous and
various to be available at a moment for my purpose.
Then, as to the volumes which I have published,
they would in many ways serve me, were I well up
in them; but though I took great pains in their
composition, I have thought little about them,

50 TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY.

when they were at length out of my hands, and, for
the most part, the last time I read them has been
when I revised their proof sheets.

Under these circumstances my sketch will of course
be incomplete. I now for the first time contemplate
my course as a whole; it is a first essay, but it will
contain, I trust, no serious or substantial mistake,
and so far will answer the purpose for which I write
it. I purpose to set nothing down in it as certain,
for which I have not a clear memory, or some written
memorial, or the corroboration of some friend.
There are witnesses enough up and down the
country to verify, or correct, or complete it; and
letters moreover of my own in abundance, unless
they have been destroyed.

Moreover, I mean to be simply personal and his
torical : I am not expounding Catholic doctrine, I
am doing no more than explaining myself, and my
opinions and actions. I wish, as far as I am able,
simply to state facts, whether they are ultimately
determined to be for me or against me. Of course
there will be room enough for contrariety of judg
ment among my readers, as to the necessity, or
appositeness, or value, or good taste, or religious pru
dence of the details which I shall introduce. I may
be accused of laying stress on little things, of being
beside the mark, of going into impertinent or ridi
culous details, of sounding my own praise, of giving
scandal; but this is a case above all others, in
which I am bound to follow my own lights and to

TRUE MODE OF MEETING MR. KINGSLEY. 51

speak out my own heart. It is not at all pleasant
for me to be egotistical; nor to be criticized for
being so. It is not pleasant to reveal to high and
low, young and old, what has gone on within me
from my early years. It is not pleasant to be
giving to every shallow or flippant disputant the
advantage over me of knowing my most private
thoughts, I might even say the intercourse between
myself and my Maker. But I do not like to be
called to my face a liar and a knave : nor should I
be doing my duty to my faith or to my name, if I
were to suffer it. I know I have done nothing to
deserve such an insult; and if I prove this, as I
hope to do, I must not care for such incidental
annoyances as are involved in the process.

PART III.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

K

PART III.

HISTOEY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

IT may easily be conceived how great a trial it is to
me to write the following history of myself ; but I
must not shrink from the task. The words, " Se-
cretum meum mihi," keep ringing in my ears;
but as men draw towards their end, they care less
for disclosures. Nor is it the least part of my trial,
to anticipate that my friends may, upon first read
ing what I have written, consider much in it irre
levant to my purpose ; yet I cannot help thinking
that, viewed as a whole, it will effect what I wish
it to do.

I was brought up from a child to take great
delight in reading the Bible ; but I had no formed
religious convictions till I was fifteen. Of course I
had perfect knowledge of my Catechism.

After I was grown up, I put on paper such recol
lections as I had of my thoughts and feelings on
religious subjects, at the time that I was a child

K 2

56 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

and a boy. Out of these I select two, which are
at once the most definite among them, and also
have a bearing on my later convictions.

In the paper to which I have referred, written
either in the Long Vacation of 1820, or in
October, 1S23, the following notices of my school
days were sufficiently prominent in my memory for
me to consider them worth recording: "I used to
wish the Arabian Tales were true : my imagination
ran on unknown influences, on magical powers, and

talismans I thought life might be a

dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a decep
tion, my fellow-angels by a playful device conceal
ing themselves from me, and deceiving me with
the semblance of a material world."

Again, "Reading in the Spring of 1816 a
sentence from [Dr. Watts s] Remnants of Time,
entitled the Saints unknown to the world, to
the effect, that there is nothing in their figure or
countenance to distinguish them, &c. &c., I sup
posed he spoke of Angels who lived in the world,
as it were disguised."

The other remark is this : " I was very super
stitious, and for some time previous to my conver
sion" [when I was fifteen] "used constantly to
cross myself on going into the dark."

Of course I must have got this practice from
some external source or other ; but I can make
no sort of conjecture whence; and certainly no one
had ever spoken to me on the subject of the Catho-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 57

lie religion, which I only knew by name. The
French master was an emigre Priest, but he was
simply made a butt, as French masters too com
monly were in that day, and spoke English very
imperfectly. There was a Catholic family in the
village, old maiden ladies we used to think : but I

O

knew nothing but their name. I have of late years
heard that there were one or two Catholic boys in
the school ; but either we were carefully kept from
knowing this, or the knowledge of it made simply
no impression on our minds. My brother will bear
witness how free the school was from Catholic
ideas.

I had once been into VTarvick Street Chapel,
with my father, who, I believe, wanted to hear
some piece of music ; all that I bore away from it
was the recollection of a pulpit and a preacher
and a bov swinging a censer.

/ O O

When I was at Littlemore, I was looking over
old copy-books of my school days, and I found
among them my first Latin verse-book ; and in the
first page of it, there was a device which almost
took my breath away with surprise. I have the
book before me now, and have just been showing it
to others. I have written in the first page, in my
school-boy hand, " John H. Newman, February llth,
1811, Verse Book;" then follow my first Verses.
Between " Verse " and " Book " I have drawn the
figure of a solid cross upright, and next to it is,
what may indeed be meant for a necklace, but what

58 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

I cannot make out to be any thing else than a set
of beads suspended, with a little cross attached.
At this time I was not quite ten years old. I
suppose I got the idea from some romance, Mrs.
Radcliffe s or Miss Porter s ; or from some reli
gious picture ; but the strange thing is, how, among
the thousand objects which meet a boy s eyes, these
in particular should so have fixed themselves in my
mind, that I made them thus practically my own.
I am certain there was nothing in the churches I
attended, or the prayer books I read, to suggest
them. It must be recollected that churches and
prayer books were not decorated in those days as I
believe they are now.

When I was fourteen, I read Paine s Tracts
against the Old Testament, and found pleasure in
thinking of the objections which were contained in
them. Also, I read some of Hume s Essays; and
perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave my
father to understand; but perhaps it was a brag.
Also, I recollect copying out some French verses,
perhaps Voltaire s, against the immortality of the
soul, and saying to myself something like " How
dreadful, but how plausible ! "

When I was fifteen, (in the autumn of 1816,)
a great change of thought took place in me. I
fell under the influences of a definite Creed, and
received into my intellect impressions of dogma,
which, through God s mercy, have never been
effaced or obscured. Above and bevond the con-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 59

versations and sermons of the excellent man, long
dead, who was the human means of this begin
ning of divine faith in me, was the effect of the
books which he put into my hands, all of the
school of Calvin. One of the first books I read,
was a work of Romaine s; I neither recollect the
title nor the contents, except one doctrine, which
of course I do not include among those which I
believe to have come from a divine source, viz. the
doctrine of final perseverance. I received it at once,
and believed that the inward conversion of which I
was conscious, (and of which I still am more certain
than that I have hands and feet,) would last into the
next life, and that I was elected to eternal glory.
I have no consciousness that this belief had any
tendencv whatever to lead me to be careless about

w

pleasing God. I retained it till the age of twenty-
one, when it gradually faded away; but I believe
that it had some influence on my opinions, in the
direction of those childish imaginations which I
have already mentioned, viz. in isolating me from
the objects which surrounded me, in confirming me
in my mistrust of the reality of material pheno
mena, and making me rest in the thought of two
and two only supreme and luminously self-evident
beings, myself and my Creator; for while I con
sidered myself predestined to salvation, I thought
others simply passed over, not predestined to eternal
death. I only thought of the mercy to myself.
The detestable doctrine last mentioned is simply

60 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

denied and abjured, unless my memory strangely
deceives me,^y the writer who made a deeper impres
sion on my mind than any other, and to whom
(humanly speakim ) I almost owe my soul, Thomas
Scott of Aston Sandford. I so admired and delighted
in his writings, that, when I was an undergraduate,
I thought of making a visit to his Parsonage, in
order to see a man whom I so deeply revered. I
hardly think I could have given up the idea of this
expedition, even after I had taken my degree; for
the news of his death in 1821 came upon me
as a disappointment as well as a sorrow. I hung
upon the lips of Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop
of Calcutta, as in two sermons at St. John s Chapel
he gave the history of Scott s life and death. I
had been possessed of his Essays from a boy;
his Commentary I bought when I was an under
graduate.

What, I suppose, will strike any reader of Scott s
history and writings, is his bold unworldliness and
vigorous independence of mind. He followed
truth wherever it led him, beginning with Uni-
tarianism, and ending in a zealous faith in the
Holy Trinity. It was he who first planted deep in
my mind that fundamental Truth of religion.
With the assistance of Scott s Essays, and the
admirable work of Jones of Nayland, I made a
collection of Scripture texts in proof of the doc
trine, with remarks (I think) of my own upon
them, before I was sixteen; and a few months later

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 61

I drew up a series of texts in support of each verse
of the Athanasian Creed. These papers I have still.

Besides his unworldliness, what I also admired
in Scott was his resolute opposition to Anti-
nomianism, and the minutely practical character
of his writings. They show him to be a true
Englishman, and I deeply felt his influence; and
for years I used almost as proverbs what I con
sidered to be the scope and issue of his doctrine,
" Holiness before peace," and " Growth is the only
evidence of life."

Calvinists make a sharp separation between the
elect and the world; there is much in this that is
parallel or cognate to the Catholic doctrine ;
but they go on to say, as I understand them,
very differently from Catholicism, that the con
verted and the unconverted can be discriminated
by man, that the justified are conscious of their
state of justification, and that the regenerate
cannot fall away. Catholics on the other hand
shade and soften the awful antagonism between
good and evil, which is one of their dogmas, by
holding that there are different degrees of justifica
tion, that there is a great difference in point of
gravity between sin and sin, that there is the
possibility and the danger of falling away, and that
there is no certain knowledge given to any one
that he is simply in a state of grace, and much
less that he is to persevere to the end: of the
Calvinistic tenets the only one which took root in

L

C2 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

my mind was the fact of heaven and hell, divine
favour and divine wrath, of the justified and the
unjustified. The notion that the regenerate and
the justified were one and the same, and that the
regenerate, as such, had the gift of perseverance,
remained with me not many years, as I have said
already.

This main Catholic doctrine of the warfare
between the city of God and the powers of dark
ness was also deeply impressed upon my mind by a
work of a very opposite character, Law s " Serious
Call."

From this time I have given a full inward assent
and belief to the doctrine of eternal punishment, as
delivered by our Lord Himself, in as true a sense
as I hold that of eternal happiness ; though I have
tried in various ways to make that truth less ter
rible to the reason.

Now I come to two other works, which produced
a deep impression on me in the same autumn of
1816, when I was fifteen years old, each contrary
to each, and planting in me the seeds of an
intellectual inconsistency which disabled me for a
long course of years. I read Joseph Milner s
Church History, and was nothing short of ena
moured of the long extracts from St. Augustine
and the other Fathers which I found there. I
read them as being the religion of the primitive
Christians : but simultaneouslv with Milner I read

it

Newton on the Prophecies, and in consequence

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 63

became most firmly convinced that the Pope was
the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, St. Paul, and
St. John. My imagination was stained by the
effects of this doctrine up to the year 1843; it
had been obliterated from my reason and judgment
at an earlier date ; but the thought remained upon
me as a sort of false conscience. Hence came
that conflict of mind, which so many have felt
besides myself; leading some men to make a
compromise between two ideas, so inconsistent
with each other, driving others to beat out the
one idea or the other from their minds, and
ending in my own case, after many years of intel
lectual unrest, in the gradual decay and extinction
of one of them, I do not say in its violent
death, for why should I not have murdered it
sooner, if I murdered it at all ?

I am obliged to mention, though I do it with
great reluctance, another deep imagination, which
at this time, the autumn of 1816, took possession
of me, there can be no mistake about the fact;
viz. that it was the will of God that I should lead
a single life. This anticipation, which has held
its ground almost continuously ever since, with
the break of a month now and a month then, up
to 1829, and, after that date, without any break at
all, was more or less connected, in my mind,
with the notion that my calling in life would
require such a sacrifice as celibacy involved; as,
for instance, missionary work among the heathen,

L2

64 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

to which I had a great drawing for some years.
It also strengthened my feeling of separation from
the visible world, of which I have spoken above.

In 1822 I came under very different influences
from those to which I had hitherto been subjected.
At that time, Mr. Whately, as he was then, after
wards Archbishop of Dublin, for the few months
he remained in Oxford, which he was leaving for
good, showed great kindness to me. He renewed
it in 1825, when he became Principal of Alban
Hall, making me his Vice-Principal and Tutor.
Of Dr. Whately I will speak presently, for from
1822 to 1825 I saw most of the present Provost of
Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, at that time Vicar of St.
Mary s; and, when I took orders in 1824 and had
a curacy at Oxford, then, during the Long Vaca
tions, I was especially thrown into his company. I
can say with a full heart that I love him, and have
never ceased to love him ; and I thus preface what
otherwise might sound rude, that in the course of
the many years in which we were together after
wards, he provoked me very much from time to
time, though I am perfectly certain that I have
provoked him a great deal more. Moreover, in me
such provocation was unbecoming, both because he
was the Head of mv College, and because in the

ff

first years that I knew him, he had been in many
ways of great service to my mind.

He was the first who taught me to weigh my

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 65

words, and to be cautious in my statements. He
led me to that mode of limiting and clearing my
sense in discussion and in controversy, and of dis
tinguishing between cognate ideas, and of obviating
mistakes by anticipation, which to my surprise has
been since considered, even in quarters friendly to
me, to savour of the polemics of Rome. He is a
man of most exact mind himself, and he used to
snub me severely, on reading, as he was kind
enough to do, the first Sermons that I wrote, and
other compositions which I was engaged upon.

Then as to doctrine, he was the means of great
additions to my belief. As I have noticed else
where, he gave me the " Treatise on Apostolical
Preaching," by Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, from which I learned to give up my
remaining Calvinism, and to receive the doctrine
of Baptismal Regeneration. In many other ways
too he was of use to me, on subjects semi-religious
and semi-scholastic.

It was Dr. Hawkins too who taught me to anti
cipate that, before many years were over, there
would be an attack made upon the books and the
canon of Scripture. I was brought to the same
belief by the conversation of Mr. Blanco White,
who also led me to have freer views on the subject
of inspiration than were usual in the Church of
England at the time.

There is one other principle, which I gained
from Dr. Hawkins, more directly bearing upon

66 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINFONS.

Catholicism, than any that I have mentioned ; and
that is the doctrine of Tradition. When I was an
Undergraduate, I heard him preach in the Uni
versity Pulpit his celebrated sermon on the subject,
and recollect how long it appeared to me, though he
was at that time a very striking preacher ; but, when
I read it and studied it as his gift, it made a most
serious impression upon me. He does not go one
step, I think, beyond the high Anglican doctrine,
nay he does not reach it; but he does his work
thoroughly, and his view was original with him,
and his subject was a novel one at the time. He
lavs down a proposition, self-evident as soon as
stated, to those who have at all examined the
structure of Scripture, viz. that the sacred text was
never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove
it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must
have recourse to the formularies of the Church;
for instance to the Catechism, and to the Creeds.
He considers, that, after learning from them the
doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify
them by Scripture. This view, most true in its
outline, most fruitful in its consequences, opened
upon me a large field of thought. Dr. Whately
held it too. One of its effects was to strike at the
root of the principle on which the Bible Society
was set up. I belonged to its Oxford Association ;
it became a matter of time when I should withdraw
my name from its subscription-list, though I did
not do so at once.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 67

It is with pleasure that I pay here a tribute to
the memory of the Rev. William James, then
Fellow of Oriel; who, about the year 1823, taught
me the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, in the
course of a walk, I think, round Christ Church
meadow : I recollect being somewhat impatient on
the subject at the time.

It was at about this date, I suppose, that I read
Bishop Butler s Analogy; the study of which has
been to so many, as it was to me, an era in their
religious opinions. Its inculcation of a visible
Church, the oracle of truth and a pattern of sanc
tity, of the duties of external religion, and of the
historical character of Revelation, are characteristics
of this great work which strike the reader at once ;
for myself, if I may attempt to determine what I most
gained from it, it lay in two points, which I shall
have an opportunity of dwelling on in the sequel ;
they are the underlying principles of a great por
tion of my teaching. First, the very idea of an
analogy between the separate works of God leads
to the conclusion that the system which is of less
importance is economically or sacramentally con
nected with the more momentous system, and of
this conclusion the theory, to which I was inclined
as a boy, viz. the unreality of material phenomena,
is an ultimate resolution. At this time I did not
make the distinction between matter itself and its
phenomena, which is so necessary and so obvious
in discussing the subject. Secondly, Butler s doc-

G8 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

trine that Probability is the guide of life, led me, at
least under the teaching to which a few years later
I was introduced, to the question of the logical
cogency of Faith, on which I have written so
much. Thus to Butler I trace those two prin
ciples of my teaching, which have led to a charge
against me both of fancifulness and of scepticism.

And now as to Dr. Whately. I owe him a great
deal. He was a man of generous and warm heart.
He was particularly loyal to his friends, and to
use the common phrase, " all his geese were swans."
While I was still awkward and timid in 1822, he
took me by the hand, and acted the part to me of a
gentle and encouraging instructor. He, empha
tically, opened my mind, and taught me to think
and to use my reason. After being first noticed
by him in 1822, I became very intimate with
him in 1825, when I was his Vice-Principal
at Alban Hall. I gave up that office in 1826,
when I became Tutor of my College, and his hold
upon me gradually relaxed. He had done his work
towards me or nearly so, when he had taught me
to see with my own eyes and to walk with my
own feet. Not that I had not a good deal to
learn from others still, but I influenced them
as well as they me, and co-operated rather than
merely concurred with them. As to Dr. Whately,
his mind was too different from mine for us
to remain long on one line. I recollect how
dissatisfied he was with an Article of mine in

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 69

I

the London Review, which Blanco White, good-
humouredly, only called Platonic. When I was
diverging from him (which he did not like), I
thought of dedicating my first book to him, in
words to the effect that he had not only taught
me to think, but to think for myself. He left
Oxford in 1831; after that, as far as I can re
collect, I never saw him but twice, when he visited
the University; once in the street, once in a room.
From the time that he left, I have alwavs felt

V

a real affection for what I must call his memory ;
for thenceforward he made himself dead to me.
My reason told me that it was impossible that we
could have got on together longer ; yet I loved him
too much to bid him farewell without pain. After
a few years had passed, I began to believe that his
influence on me in a higher respect than intel
lectual advance, (I will not say through his fault,)
had not been satisfactory. I believe that he has
inserted sharp things in his later works about me.
They have never come in my way, and I have not
thought it necessary to seek out what would pain
me so much in the reading.

What he did for me in point of religious opinion,
was first to teach me the existence of the Church,
as a substantive body or corporation; next to fix
in me those anti-Erastian views of Church polity,
which were one of the most prominent features of
the Tractarian movement. On this point, and, as
far as I know, on this point alone, he and Hurrell

M

70 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Froude intimately sympathized, though Froude s
development of opinion here was of a later date.
In the vear 1826, in the course of a walk he

*>

said much to me about a work then just published,
called "Letters on the Church by an Episco
palian." He said that it would make my blood
boil. It was certainly a most powerful composi
tion. One of our common friends told me, that,
after reading it, he could not keep still, but went
on walking up and down his room. It was
ascribed at once to Whately ; I gave eager expres
sion to the contrary opinion; but I found the
belief of Oxford in the affirmative to be too strong
for me ; rightly or wrongly I yielded to the general
voice; and I have never heard, then or since, of
any disclaimer of authorship on the part of Dr.
Whately.

The main positions of this able essay are these;
first that Church and State should be independent
of each other : he speaks of the duty of protesting
" against the profanation of Christ s kingdom, by
that double usurpation, the interference of the
Church in temporals, of the State in spirituals,"
p. 191 ; and, secondly, that the Church may justly
and by right retain its property, though separated
from the State. "The clergy," he says p. 133,
" though they ought not to be the hired servants
of the Civil Magistrate, may justly retain their
revenues ; and the State, though it has no right of
interference in spiritual concerns, not only is justly

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 71

entitled to support from the ministers of religion,
and from all other Christians, but would, under
the system I am recommending, obtain it much
more effectually." The author of this work,
whoever he may be, argues out both these points
with great force and ingenuity, and with a
thorough-going vehemence, which perhaps we may
refer to the circumstance, that he wrote, not
in proprid persona, but in the professed character
of a Scotch Episcopalian. His work had a
gradual, but a deep effect on my mind.

I am not aware of any other religious opinion
which I owe to Dr. Whately. For his special
theological tenets I had no sympathy. In the
next year, 1827, he told me he considered that
I was Arianizing. The case was this : though at
that time I had not read Bishop Bull s Defensio nor
the Fathers, I was just then very strong for that
ante-Nicene view of the Trinitarian doctrine, which
some writers, both Catholic and non-Catholic, have
accused of wearing a sort of Arian exterior. This
is the meaning of a passage in Froude s Remains,
in which he seems to accuse me of speaking
against the Athanasian Creed. I had contrasted

o

the two aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine, which
are respectively presented by the Athanasian
Creed and the Nicene. My criticisms were to
the effect that some of the verses of the former
Creed were unnecessarily scientific. This is a
specimen of a certain disdain for antiquity which

M 2

72 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

had been growing on me now for several years.
It showed itself in some flippant language against
the Fathers in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitans.,
about whom I knew little at the time, except what
I had learnt as a boy from Joseph Milner. In
writing on the Scripture Miracles in 1825-6, I
had read Middleton on the Miracles of the early
Church, and had imbibed a portion of his spirit.

The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellec
tual excellence to moral; I was drifting in the
direction of liberalism. I was rudely awakened
from my dream at the end of 1827 by two great
blows illness and bereavement.

In the beginning of 1829, came the formal break
between Dr. Whately and me ; Mr. Peel s attempted
re-election was the occasion of it. I think in 1828
or 1827 I had voted in the minority, when the
Petition to Parliament against the Catholic Claims
was brought into Convocation. I did so mainly on
the views suggested to me by the theory of the
Letters of an Episcopalian. Also I disliked the
bigoted " two bottle orthodox," as they were invi
diously called. I took part against Mr. Peel, on a
simple academical, not at all an ecclesiastical or a
political ground ; and this I professed at the time.
I considered that Mr. Peel had taken the University
by surprise, that he had no right to call upon
us to turn round on a sudden, and to expose
ourselves to the imputation of time-serving, and
that a great University ought not to be bullied

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 73

even by a great Duke of Wellington. Also by this
time I was under the influence of Keble and
Froude; who, in addition to the reasons I have
given, disliked the Duke s change of policy as
dictated by liberalism.

Whately was considerably annoyed at me, and
he took a humourous revenge, of which he had
given me due notice beforehand. As head of a
house, he had duties of hospitality to men of all
parties ; he asked a set of the least intellectual men
in Oxford to dinner, and men most fond of port;
he made me one of the party; placed me between
Provost This and Principal That, and then asked
me if I was proud of my friends. However, he had
a serious meaning in his act; he saw, more clearly
than I could do, that I was separating from his
own friends for good and all.

Dr. Whately attributed my leaving his clientela
to a wish on my part to be the head of a party myself.
I do not think that it was deserved. My habitual
feeling then and since has been, that it was not I
who sought friends, but friends who sought me.

O o

Never man had kinder or more indulgent friends

O

than I have had, but I expressed my own feeling as
to the mode in which I gained them, in this very
year 1829, in the course of a copy of verses.
Speaking of my blessings, I said, " Blessings of
friends, which to my door, unasked, unhoped, have
come." They have come, they have gone; they
came to my great joy, they went to my great grief.

74 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

He who gave, took away. Dr. Whately s impres
sion about me, however, admits of this explana
tion :

During the first years of my residence at Oriel,
though proud of my College, I was not at home
there. I was verv much alone, and I used often to

V

take my daily walk by myself. I recollect once
meeting Dr. Copleston, then Provost, with one of
the Fellows. He turned round, and with the kind
courteousness which sat so well on him, made me a
bow and said, " Nunquam minus solus, quam cum
solus." At that time indeed (from 1823) I had
the intimacy of my dear and true friend Dr. Pusey,
and could not fail to admire and revere a soul so
devoted to the cause of religion, so full of good
works, so faithful in his affections; but he left
residence when I was getting to know him well.
As to Dr. Whately himself, he was too much my
superior to allow of my being at my ease with him;
and to no one in Oxford at this time did I open
my heart fully and familiarly. But things changed
in 1826. At that time I became one of the Tutors
of my College, and this gave me position ; besides,
I had written one or two Essays which had been
well received. I began to be known. I preached
mv first Universitv Sermon. Next year I was one

V W v

of the Public Examiners for the B.A. degree. It
was to me like the feeling of spring weather after
winter ; and, if I may so speak, I came out of my
shell; I remained out of it till 1841.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 75

The two persons who knew me best at that time
are still alive, beneficed clergymen, no longer my
friends. They could tell better than any one else
what I was in those years. From this time my
tongue was, as it were, loosened, and I spoke spon
taneously and without effort. A shrewd man, who
knew me at this time, said, " Here is a man who,
when he is silent, will never begin to speak; and
when he once begins to speak, will never stop."
It was at this time that I began to have in
fluence, which steadily increased for a course of
years. I gained upon my pupils, and was in parti
cular intimate and affectionate with two of our
probationer Fellows, Robert I. Wilberforce (after
wards Archdeacon) and Richard Hurrell Froude.
Whately then, an acute man, perhaps saw around
me the signs of an incipient party of which I was
not conscious myself. And thus we discern the
first elements of that movement afterwards called
Tractarian.

The true and primary author of it, however, as
is usual with great motive-powers, was out of sight.
Having carried off as a mere boy the highest
honours of the University, he had turned from
the admiration which haunted his steps, and sought
for a better and holier satisfaction in pastoral work
in the country. Need I say that I am speaking of
John Keble ? The first time that I was in a room
with him was on occasion of my election to a fel
lowship at Oriel, when I was sent for into the

76 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Tower, to shake hands with the Provost and Fel
lows. How is that hour fixed in my memory after
the changes of forty-two years, forty-two this very
day on which I write ! I have lately had a letter
in my hands, which I sent at the time to my great
friend, John Bowden, with whom I passed almost
exclusively my Undergraduate years. "I had to
hasten to the Tower," I say to him, " to receive
the congratulations of all the Fellows. I bore it
till Keble took my hand, and then felt so abashed
and unworthy of the honour done me, that I seemed
desirous of quite sinking into the ground." His
had been the first name which I had heard spoken
of, with reverence rather than admiration, when
I came up to Oxford. When one day I was walk
ing in High Street with my dear earliest friend
just mentioned, with what eagerness did he cry
out, "There s Keble!" and with what awe did I
look at him! Then at another time I heard a
Master of Arts of my college give an account how he
had just then had occasion to introduce himself on
some business to Keble, and how gentle, courteous,
and unaffected Keble had been, so as almost to
put him out of countenance. Then too it was re
ported, truly or falsely, how a rising man of bril
liant reputation, the present Dean of St. Paul s,
Dr. Milman, admired and loved him, adding, that
somehow he was unlike any one else. However,
at the time when I was elected Fellow of Oriel
he was not in residence, and he was shy of me for

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 77

years in consequence of the marks which I bore
upon me of the evangelical and liberal schools.
At least so I have ever thought. Hurrell Froude
brought us together about 1828: it is one of the
sayings preserved in his " Bemains," " Do you
know the story of the murderer who had done one
good thing in his life ? Well ; if I was ever asked
what good deed I had ever done, I should say that
I had brought Keble and Newman to understand
each other."

The Christian Year made its appearance in
1827. It is not necessary, and scarcely becoming,
to praise a book which has already become one of
the classics of the language. When the general
tone of religious literature was so nerveless and
impotent, as it was at that time, Keble struck an
original note and woke up in the hearts of thou
sands a new music, the music of a school, long
unknown in England. Nor can I pretend to analyze,
in my own instance, the effect of religious teaching
so deep, so pure, so beautiful. I have never till
now tried to do so; yet I think I am not wrong
in saying, that the two main intellectual truths
which it brought home to me, were the same two,
which I had learned from Butler, though recast in
the creative mind of rny new master. The first of
these was what may be called, in a large sense of
the word, the Sacramental system ; that is, the
doctrine that material phenomena are both the
types and the instruments of real things unseen,

N

78 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

a doctrine, which embraces, not only what Angli
cans, as well as Catholics, believe about Sacraments
properly so called ; but also the article of " the
Communion of Saints " in its fulness ; and likewise
the Mysteries of the faith. The connexion of this
philosophy of religion with what is sometimes
called " Berkeleyism " has been mentioned above ; I
knew little of Berkeley at this time except by name;
nor have I ever studied him.

On the second intellectual principle which I
gained from Mr. Keble, I could say a great deal;
if this were the place for it. It runs through very
much that I have written, and has gained for me
many hard names. Butler teaches us that pro
bability is the guide of life. The danger of this
doctrine, in the case of many minds, is, its ten
dency to destroy in them absolute certainty, lead
ing them to consider every conclusion as doubtful,
and resolving truth into an opinion, which it is
safe to obey or to profess, but not possible to
embrace with full internal assent. If this were
to be allowed, then the celebrated saying, " O God,
if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!"
would be the highest measure of devotion : but who
can really pray to a Being, about whose existence
he is seriouslv in doubt ?

tf

I considered that Mr. Keble met this difficulty
by ascribing the firmness of assent which we give
to religious doctrine, not to the probabilities which
introduced it, but to the living power of faith and

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 79

love which accepted it. In matters of religion, he
seemed to say, it is not merely probability which
makes us intellectually certain, 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. Faith and love are directed
towards an Object; in the vision of that Object
they live; it is that Object, received in faith and
love, which renders it reasonable to take pro
bability as sufficient for internal conviction. Thus

<

the argument about Probability, in the matter of
religion, became an argument from Personality,
which in fact is one form of the argument from

O

Authority,

V

In illustration, Mr. Keble used to quote the
words of the Psalm : " I will guide thee with mine
eye. Be ye not like to horse and mule, which
have no understanding; whose mouths must be
held with bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee."
This is the very difference, he used to say, between
slaves, and friends or children. Friends do not
ask for literal commands; but, from their know
ledge of the speaker, they understand his half-
words, and from love of him they anticipate his
wishes. Hence it is, that in his Poem for St.
Bartholomew s Day, he speaks of the " Eye of God s
word;" and in the note quotes Mr. Miller, of
Worcester College, who remarks, in his Bampton
Lectures, on the special power of Scripture, as
having " this Eye, like that of a portrait, uniformly

N 2

80 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

fixed upon us, turn where we will." The view
thus suggested by Mr. Keble, is brought forward
in one of the earliest of the " Tracts for the
Times." In No. 8 I say, " The Gospel is a Law
of Liberty. We are treated as sons, not as ser
vants; not subjected to a code of formal command
ments, but addressed as those who love God, and
wish to please Him."

I did not at all dispute this view of the matter,
for I made use of it myself; but I was dissatisfied,

/

because it did not go to the root of the difficulty.
It was beautiful and religious, but it did not even
profess to be logical; and accordingly I tried to
complete it by considerations of my own, which are
implied in my University Sermons, Essay on Eccle
siastical Miracles, and Essay on Development of
Doctrine. My argument is in outline as follows :
that that absolute certitude which we were able to
possess, whether as to the truths of natural theo
logy, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result
of an assemblage of concurring and converging
probabilities, and that, both according to the con
stitution of the human mind and the will of its
Maker; that certitude was a habit of mind, that
certainty was a quality of propositions; that pro
babilities which did not reach to logical certainty,
might create a mental certitude; that the cer
titude thus created might equal in measure and
strength the certitude which was created by the
strictest scientific demonstration; and that to have

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 81

such certitude might in given cases and to given
individuals be a plain duty, though not to others in
other circumstances :

Moreover, that as there were probabilities which
sufficed to create certitude, so there were other
probabilities which were legitimately adapted to
create opinion ; that it might be quite as much a
matter of duty in given cases and to given persons
to have about a fact an opinion of a definite strength
and consistency, as in the case of greater or of
more numerous probabilities it was a duty to have
a certitude; that according we were bound to be

/ o

more or less sure, on a sort of (as it were) gra
duated scale of assent, viz. according as the pro
babilities attaching to a professed fact were brought
home to us, and, as the case might be, to enter
tain about it a pious belief, or a pious opinion, or
a religious conjecture, or at least, a tolerance of
such belief, or opinion, or conjecture in others;
that on the other hand, as it was a duty to have a
belief, of more or less strong texture, in given
cases, so in other cases it was a duty not to believe,
not to opine, not to conjecture, not even to tolerate
the notion that a professed fact was true, inasmuch
as it would be credulity or superstition, or some
other moral fault, to do so. This was the region

r3

of Private Judgment in religion ; that is, of a Private
Judgment, not formed arbitrarily and according to
one s fancy or liking, but conscientiously, and
under a sense of duty.

82 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Considerations such as these throw a new light
on the subject of Miracles, and they seem to have
led me to re-consider the view which I took of them
in my Essay in 1825-6. I do not know what was the
date of this change in me, nor of the train of ideas
on which it was founded. That there had been
already great miracles, as those of Scripture, as the
Resurrection, was a fact establishing the principle
that the laws of nature had sometimes been sus
pended by their Divine Author; and since what
had happened once might happen again, a certain
probability, at least no kind of improbability, was
attached to the idea, taken in itself, of miraculous
intervention in later times, and miraculous accounts
were to be regarded in connexion with the veri
similitude, scope, instrument, character, testimony,
and circumstances, with which they presented
themselves to us ; and, according to the final result
of those various considerations, it was our duty to
be sure, or to believe, or to opine, or to surmise, or
to tolerate, or to reject, or to denounce. The
main difference between my Essay on Miracles
in 1826 and my Essay in 1842 is this: that in
1826 I considered that miracles were sharply
divided into two classes, those which were to be
received, and those which were to be rejected;
whereas in 1842 I saw that they were to be re
garded according to their greater or less probability,
which was in some cases sufficient to create certi
tude about them, in other cases only belief or opinion,

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 83

Moreover, the argument from Analogy, on which
this view of the question was founded, suggested to
me something besides, in recommendation of the
Ecclesiastical Miracles. It fastened itself upon the
theory of Church History which I had learned as
a boy from Joseph Milner. It is Milner s doctrine,
that upon the visible Church come down from
above, from time to time, large and temporary
Effusions of divine grace. This is the leading idea
of his work. He begins by speaking of the Day of
Pentecost, as marking " the first of those Effusions
of the Spirit of God, which from age to age have
visited the earth since the coming of Christ."
Vol. i. p. 3. In a note he adds that "in the
term Effusion there is not here included the
idea of the miraculous or extraordinary opera
tions of the Spirit of God;" but still it was
natural for me, admitting Milner s general theory,
and applying to it the principle of analogy, not to
stop short at his abrupt ipse dixit, but boldly to pass
forward to the conclusion, on other grounds plausible,
that, as miracles accompanied the first effusion of
grace, so they might accompany the later. It is
surely a natural and on the whole, a true antici
pation (though of course there are exceptions in
particular cases), that gifts and graces go together;
now, according to the ancient Catholic doctrine, the
gift of miracles was viewed as the attendant and
shadow of transcendent sanctity : and moreover, as
such sanctity was not of every day s occurrence, nay

84 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

further, as one period of Church history differed
widely from another, and, as Joseph Milner would
say, there have been generations or centuries of
degeneracy or disorder, and times of revival, and
as one region might be in the mid-day of religious
fervour, and another in twilight or gloom, there
was no force in the popular argument, that, be
cause we did not see miracles with our own eyes,
miracles had not happened in former times, or
were not now at this very time taking place in
distant places : but I must not dwell longer on a
subject, to which in a few words it is impossible to
do justice.

Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble s, formed
by him, and in turn reacting upon him. I knew
him first in 1826, and was in the closest and most
affectionate friendship with him from about 1829
till his death in 1836. He was a man of the
highest gifts, so truly many-sided, that it would
be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him,
except under those aspects, in which he came before
me. Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness
and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free
elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and
the patient winning considerateness in discussion,
which endeared him to those to whom he opened
his heart; for I am all along engaged upon matters
of belief and opinion, and am introducing others
into my narrative, not for their own sake, or

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 85

because I love and have loved them, so much as
because, and so far as, they have influenced my
theological views. In this respect then, I speak of
Hurrell Froude, in his intellectual aspect, as a
man of high genius, brimful and overflowing with
ideas and views, in him original, which were too
many and strong even for his bodily strength, and
which crowded and jostled against each other in
their effort after distinct shape and expression.
And he had an intellect as critical and logical as
it was speculative and bold. Dying prematurely,
as he did, and in the conflict and transition-state
of opinion, his religious views never reached their
ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of their
multitude and their depth. His opinions arrested
and influenced me, even when they did not gain
my assent. He professed openly his admiration of
the Church of Rome, and his hatred of the Re
formers. He delighted in the notion of an hier
archical system, of sacerdotal power and of full eccle
siastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim, " The

/

Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Pro
testants;" and he gloried in accepting Tradition
as a main instrument of religious teaching. He
had a high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence
of Virginity; and he considered the Blessed Virgin
its great Pattern. He delighted in thinking of
the Saints; he had a keen appreciation of the
idea of sanctity, its possibility and its heights; and
he was more than inclined to believe a large amount

o

86 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of miraculous interference as occurring in the early
and middle ages. He embraced the principle of
penance and mortification. He had a deep devo
tion to the Real Presence, in which he had a firm
faith. He was powerfully drawn to the Medieval
Church, but not to the Primitive.

He had a keen insight into abstract truth; but
he was an Englishman to the backbone in his
severe adherence to the real and the concrete. He
had a most classical taste, and a genius for philo
sophy and art ; and he was fond of historical
inquiry, and the politics of religion. He had no
turn for theology as such. He had no apprecia
tion of the writings of the Fathers, of the detail
or development of doctrine, of the definite tradi
tions of the Church viewed in their matter, of the
teaching of the Ecumenical Councils, or of the con
troversies out of which they arose. He took an
eager, courageous view of things on the whole,
should say that his power of entering into the
minds of others did not equal his other gifts; he
could not believe, for instance, that I really held
the Roman Church to be Antichristian. On many
points he would not believe but that I agreed
with him, when I did not. He seemed not to
understand my difficulties. His were of a different
kind, the contrariety between theory and fact. He
was a high Tory of the Cavalier stamp, and was
disgusted with the Toryism of the opponents of the
Reform Bill. He was smitten with the love of

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 87

the Theocratic Church; he went abroad and was
shocked by the degeneracy which he thought he
saw in the Catholics of Italy.

m

It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions
to my theological creed which I derived from a
friend to whom I owe so much. He made me >/
look with admiration towards the Church of Rome,
and in the same decree to dislike the Reformation.

^j

He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe
in the Real Presence.

There is one remaining source of my opinions to
be mentioned, and that far from the least im
portant. In proportion as I moved out of the
shadow of liberalism which had hung over my
course, my early devotion towards the Fathers
returned ; and in the Long Vacation of 1828
I set about to read them chronologically, beginning
with St. Ignatius and St. Justin. About 1830 a
proposal was made to me by Mr. Hugh Rose,
who with Mr. Lyall (afterwards Dean of Canter
bury) was providing writers for a Theological
Library, to furnish them with a History of the
Principal Councils. I accepted it, and at once
set to work on the Council of Nica3a. It was
launching myself on an ocean with currents
innumerable; and I was drifted back first to the
ante-Nicene history, and then to the Church of
Alexandria. The work at last appeared under

o 2

88 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

the title of "The Arians of the Fourth Century;"

and of its 422 pages, the first 117 consisted
of introductory matter, and the Council of NicaBa
did not appear till the 254th, and then occupied at
most twenty pages.

I do not know when I first learnt to consider
that Antiquity was the true exponent of the
doctrines of Christianity and the basis of the
Church of England; but I take it for granted
that Bishop Bull, whose works at this time I
read, was my chief introduction to this principle.
The course of reading which I pursued in the
composition of my work was directly adapted
to develope it in my mind. What principally
attracted me in the ante-Nicene period was the
great Church of Alexandria, the historical centre
of teaching in those times. Of Rome for some
centuries comparatively little is known. The
battle of Arianism was first fought in Alexandria ;
Athanasius, the champion of the truth, was Bishop
of Alexandria ; and in his writings he refers
to the great religious names of an earlier date,
to Origen, Dionysius, and others who were the
glory of its see, or of its school. The broad
philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me
away; the philosophy, not the theological doctrine;
and I have drawn out some features of it in
my volume, with the zeal and freshness, but
with the partiality of a neophyte. Some portions
of their teaching, magnificent in themselves, came

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 89

like music to ray inward ear, as if the response
to ideas, which, with little external to encourage
them, I had cherished so long. These were based
on the mystical or sacramental principle, and
spoke of the various Economies or Dispensations
of the Eternal. I understood them to mean that
the exterior world, physical and historical, was
but the outward manifestation of realities greater
than itself. Nature was a parable : Scripture was
an allegory : pagan literature, philosophy, and
mythology, properly understood, were but a pre
paration for the Gospel. The Greek poets and
sages were in a certain sense prophets ; for
thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards
were given." There had been a divine dispensation
granted to the Jews ; there had been in some sense
a dispensation carried on in favour of the Gentiles.
He who had taken the seed of Jacob for His
elect people, had not therefore cast the rest of
mankind out of His sight. In the fulness of
time both Judaism and Paganism had come to
nought; the outward framework, which concealed
yet suggested the Living Truth, had never been
intended to last, and it was dissolving under the
beams of the Sun of Justice behind it and throuo-h

o

it. The process of change had been slow; it
had been done not rashly, but by rule and mea
sure, " at sundry times and in divers manners," first

1 Vid. Mr, Morris s beautiful poem ^vith this title.

00 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

one disclosure and then another, till the whole
was brought into full manifestation. And thus
room was made for the anticipation of further
and deeper disclosures, of truths still under the
veil of the letter, and in their season to be
revealed. The visible world still remains without
its divine interpretation ; Holy Church in her
sacraments and her hierarchical appointments,
will remain even to the end of the world, only
a symbol of those heavenly facts which fill eternity.
Her mysteries are but the expressions in human
language of truths to which the human mind
is unequal. It is evident how much there was
in all this in correspondence with the thoughts
which had attracted me when I was young, and
with the doctrine which I have already connected
with the Analogy and the Christian Year.

I suppose it was to the Alexandrian school and
to the early Church that I owe in particular what I
definitely held about the Angels. I viewed them,
not only as the ministers employed by the Creator
in the Jewish and Christian dispensations, as we
find on the face of Scripture, but as carrying
on, as Scripture also implies, the Economy of
the Visible World. I considered them as the
real causes of motion, light, and life, and of those
elementary principles of the physical universe,
which, when offered in their developments to our
senses, suggest to us the notion of cause and effect,
and of what are called the laws of nature. I have

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 91

drawn out this doctrine in my Sermon for Michael
mas day, written not later than 1834. I say of the
Angels, " 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, " when
examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray
of light, which he treats as something so beneath
him in the scale of existence, suddenlv discovered

%/

that he was in the presence of some powerful being
who was hidden behind the visible things he was
inspecting, who, though concealing his wise hand,
was giving them their beauty, grace, and perfec
tion, as being God s instrument for the purpose,
nay, whose robe and ornaments those objects were,
which he was so eager to analyze ? and I there
fore remark that " we may say with grateful and
simple hearts with the Three Holy Children, Oall
ye works of the Lord, &c., &c., bless ye the Lord,
praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.

Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I con
sidered there was a middle race, Sat/xovta, neither
in heaven, nor in hell; partially fallen, capricious,
wayward ; noble or crafty, benevolent or mali
cious, as the case might be. They gave a sort of
inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and
classes of men. Hence the action of bodies politic
and associations, which is so different often from
that of the individuals who compose them. Hence

92 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

the character and the instinct of states and govern
ments, of religious communities and communions.
I thought they were inhabited hy unseen intel
ligences. My preference of the Personal to the
Abstract would naturally lead me to this view. I
thought it countenanced by the mention of " the
Prince of Persia " in the Prophet Daniel ; and I
think I considered that it was of such intermediate
beings that the Apocalypse spoke, when it intro
duced " the Angels of the Seven Churches."

In 1837 I made a further development of this
doctrine. I said to my great friend, Samuel Francis
Wood, in a letter which came into my hands on his
death, " I have an idea. The mass of the Fathers,
(Justin, Athenagoras, Irena3us, Clement, Tertul-
lian, Origen, Lactantius, Sulpicius, Ambrose, Na-
zianzen,) hold that, though Satan fell from the
beginning, the Angels fell before the deluge, falling
in love with the daughters of men. This has lately
come across me as a remarkable solution of a notion
which I cannot help holding. Daniel speaks as if
each nation had its guardian Angel. 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 yet a low Catholicism. It seems to me that
John Bull is a spirit neither of heaven nor hell . . .
Has not the Christian Church, in its parts, sur
rendered itself to one or other of these simulations

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 93

of the truth ? . . . . How are we to avoid Scylla
and Charybdis and go straight on to the very
image of Christ ? " &c., &c.

I am aware that what I have been saying will,
with many men, be doing credit to my imagination at
the expense of my judgment " Hippoelides doesn t
care;" I am not setting myself up as a pattern
of good sense or of any thing else : I am but vindi
cating myself from the charge of dishonesty. There
is indeed another view of the Economy brought
out, in the course of the same dissertation on
the subject, in my History of the Arians, which
has afforded matter for the latter imputation ;
but I reserve it for the concluding portion of my
Reply.

While I was engaged in writing my work upon
the Arians, great events were happening at home and
abroad, which brought out into form and passion
ate expression the various beliefs which had so gra
dually been winning their way into my mind. Shortly
before, there had been a Revolution in France;
the Bourbons had been dismissed : and I believed
that it was unchristian for nations to cast off their
governors, and, much more, sovereigns who had the
divine right of inheritance. Again, the great Re
form Agitation was going on around me as I wrote.
The Whigs had come into power; Lord Grey had
told the Bishops to set their house in order, and
some of the Prelates had been insulted and threat-

94 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

ened in the streets of London. The vital question
was how were we to keep the Church from being
liberalized ? there was such apathy on the subject
in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others;
the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so
radically decayed, and there was such distraction
in the Councils of the Clergy. The Bishop of
London of the day, an active and open-hearted
man, had been for years engaged in diluting the
high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction
of the Evangelical body into places of influence
and trust. He had deeply offended men who
agreed with myself, by an off-hand saying (as it
was reported) to the effect that belief in the Apos
tolical succession had gone out with the Non -jurors.
" We can count you," he said to some of the gravest
and most venerated persons of the old school. And
the Evangelical party itself seemed, with their late
successes, to have lost that simplicity and unworld-
liness which I admired so much in Milner and
Scott. It was not that I did not venerate such men
as the then Bishop of Lichfield, and others of similar
sentiments, who were not yet promoted out of the
ranks of the Clergy, but I thought little of them as
a class. I thought they played into the hands of the
Liberals. With the Establishment thus divided
and threatened, thus ignorant of its true strength, I
compared that fresh vigorous power of which I was
reading in the first centuries. In her triumphant
zeal on behalf of that Primeval Mystery, to which

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 95

I had had so great a devotion from my youth, I
recognized the movement of my Spiritual Mother.
"Incessu patuit Dea." The self-conquest of her
Ascetics, the patience of her Martyrs, the irre
sistible determination of her Bishops, the joyous
swing of her advance, both exalted and abashed
me. I said to myself, " Look on this picture and on
that;" I felt affection for my own Church, but not
tenderness; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger
and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought
that if Liberalism once got a footing within her,
it was sure of the victory in the event. I saw that
Reformation principles were powerless to rescue
her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed

c? / O

my imagination; still I ever kept before me that
there was something greater than the Established
Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and
Apostolic, set up from the beginning, of which she
was but the local 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.

At this time I was disengaged from College
duties, and my health had suffered from the labour

V

involved in the composition of my Volume. It
was ready for the Press in July, 1832, though not
published till the end of 1833. I was easily per
suaded to join Hurrell Froude and his Father,
who were going to the south of Europe for the
health of the former.

P 2

96 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

We set out in December, 1832. It was during
this expedition that my Verses which are in the
Lyra Apostolica were written ; a few indeed
before it, but not more than one or two of them
after it. Exchanging, as I was, definite Tutorial
labours, and the literary quiet and pleasant friend
ships of the last six years, 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. At Whit-
church, while waiting for the down mail to Fal-
mouth, I wrote the verses about mv Guardian

/

Angel, which begin with these words : " Are these
the tracks of some unearthly Friend?" and go on
to speak of "the vision" which haunted me:
that vision is more or less brought out in the
whole series of these compositions.

I went to various coasts of the Mediterranean,
parted with my friends at Rome; went down for
the second time to Sicily, at the end of April, and
got back to England by Palermo in the early part
of July. The strangeness of foreign life threw me
back into myself; I found pleasure in historical
sites and beautiful scenes, not in men and man
ners. W"e kept clear of Catholics throughout our
tour. I had a conversation with the Dean of
Malta, a most pleasant man, lately dead; but it
was about the Fathers, and the Library of the
great church. I knew the Abbate Santini, at
Rome, who did no more than copy for me the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 97

Gregorian tones. Froude and I made two calls

C5

upon Monsignore (now Cardinal) Wiseman at the
Collegio Inglese, shortly before we left Rome. I
do not recollect being in a room with any other
ecclesiastics, except a Priest at Castro-Giovanni in
Sicily, who called on me when I was ill, and with
whom I wished to hold a controversy. As to
Church Services, we attended the Tenebrse, at the
Sestine, for the sake of the Miserere ; and that was
all. My general feeling was, " All, save the spirit
of man, is divine." I saw nothing but what was
external; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew
nothing. I was still more driven back into myself,
and felt my isolation. England was in my thoughts
solely, and the news from England came rarely and
imperfectly. The Bill for the Suppression of the
Irish Sees was in progress, and filled my mind.
I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals.

It was the success of the Liberal cause which
fretted me inwardly. I became fierce against its
instruments and its manifestations. A French
vessel was at Algiers; I would not even look at
the tricolour. On my return, though forced to
stop a day at Paris, I kept indoors the whole time,
and all that I saw of that beautiful city, was what
I saw from the Diligence. The Bishop of Lon
don had already sounded me as to my filling one of
the Whitehall preacherships, which he had just then
put on a new footing; but I was indignant at the
line which he was taking, and from my Steamer

98 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

I had sent home a letter declining the appoint
ment by anticipation, should it be offered to me.
At this time I was specially annoyed with Dr.
Arnold, though it did not last into later years.
Some one, I think, asked in conversation at Rome,
whether a certain interpretation of Scripture was
Christian ? it was answered that Dr. Arnold took
it; I interposed, "But is he a Christian?" The
subject went out of my head at once; when after
wards I was taxed with it I could say no more
in explanation, than that I thought I must have
been alluding to some free views of Dr. Arnold
about the Old Testament: I thought I must
have meant, "But who is to answer for Arnold?"
It was at Rome too that we began the Lyra Apos*
tolica which appeared monthly in the British
Magazine. The motto shows the feeling of both
Froude and myself at the time : we borrowed from
M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude chose the words
in which Achilles, on returning to the battle, says,
" You shall know the difference, now that I am
back again."

Especially when I was left by myself, the thought
came upon me that deliverance is wrought, not by
the many but by the few, not by bodies but by
persons. Now it was, I think, that I repeated to
myself the words, which had ever been dear to me
from my school days, " Exoriare aliquis !" now too,
that Southey s beautiful poem of Thalaba, for which
J had an immense liking, came forcibly to my

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 99

mind. I began to think that I had a mission.
There are sentences of my letters to my friends to
this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we took
leave of Monsignore Wiseman, he had courteously
expressed a wish that we might make a second
visit to Rome ; I said with great gravity, " We have
a work to do in England." I went down at once
to Sicily, and the presentiment grew stronger. I
struck into the middle of the island, and fell ill of
a fever at Leonforte. My servant thought that I
was dying, and begged for my last directions. I
gave them, as he wished ; but I said, " I shall not
die." I repeated, "I shall not die, for I have not
sinned against light, I have not sinned against
light." I never have been able to make out at all
what I meant.

I got to Castro-Giovanni, and was laid up there
for nearly three weeks. Towards the end of May
I set off for Palermo, taking three days for the
journey. Before starting from my inn in the morning
of May 26th or 27th, I sat down on my bed, and
began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted
as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only
answer, " I have a work to do in England."

I was aching to get home; yet for want of a
vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. I
began to visit the Churches, and they calmed my
impatience, though I did not attend any services.
I knew nothing of the Presence of the Blessed Sacra
ment there. At last I got off in an orange boat,

100 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed a wbole
week in the Straits of Bonifacio. Then it was
that I wrote the lines, " Lead, kindly light," which
have since become well known. I was writing
verses the whole time of my passage. At length I
got to Marseilles, and set off for England. The
fatigue of travelling was too much for me, and I
was laid up for several days at Lyons. At last I
got off again, and did not stop night or day till I
reached England, and my mother s house. My
brother had arrived from Persia only a few hours
before. This was on the Tuesday. The following
Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize
Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published
under the title of " National Apostasy." I have
ever considered and kept the day, as the start of
the religious movement of 1833.

PART IV.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

PART IV.

I1ISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

IN spite of the foregoing pages, I have no ro
mantic story to tell; but I wrote them, because it
is my duty to tell things as they took place. 1
have not exaggerated the feelings with which I re
turned to England, and I have no desire to dress
up the events which followed, so as to make them
in keeping with the narrative which has gone be-

A. O O

fore. I soon relapsed into the every-day life which
I had hitherto led; in all things the same, except
that a new object was given me. I had employed
myself in my own rooms in reading and writing,
and in the care of a Church, before I left England,
and I returned to the same occupations when I was
back again. And yet perhaps those first vehement
feelings which carried me on were necessary for the
beginning of the Movement; and afterwards, when
it was once begun, the special need of me was over.

When I got home from abroad, I found that
already a movement had commenced in opposition

Q 2

104 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

to the specific danger which at that time was
threatening the religion of the" nation and its
Church. Several zealous and able men had united
their counsels, and were in correspondence with
each other. The principal of these were Mr. Keble,
Hurrell Froude, who had reached home long before
me, Mr. William Palmer of Dublin and Worcester
College (not Mr. W. Palmer of Magdalen, who is
now a Catholic), Mr. Arthur Perceval, and Mr.
Hugh Rose.

To mention Mr. Hugh Rose s name is to kindle
in the minds of those who knew him, a host of
pleasant and affectionate remembrances. He was
the man above all others fitted by his cast of mind
and literary powers to make a stand, if a stand
could be made, against the calamity of the times.
He was gifted with a high and large mind, and a
true sensibility of what was great and beautiful;
he wrote with warmth and energy; and he had a
cool head and cautious judgment. He spent his
strength and shortened his life, Pro Ecclesia Dei,
as he understood that sovereign idea. Some vears

earlier he had been the first to give warning, I
think from the University Pulpit at Cambridge, of
the perils to England which lay in the biblical and
theological speculations of Germany. The Reform
agitation followed, and the Whig Government came
into power; and he anticipated in their distribution
of Church patronage the authoritative introduction
of liberal opinions into the country : by " liberal" I

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 10")

mean liberalism in religion, for questions of politics,
as such, do not come into this narrative at all. He
feared that by the Whig party a door would be
opened in England to the most grievous of heresies,
which never could be closed again. In order under
such grave circumstances to unite Churchmen
together, and to make a front against the coming
danger, he had in 1832 commenced the British
Magazine, and in the same year he came to Oxford
in the summer term, in order to beat up for writers
for his publication ; on that occasion I became
known to him through Mr. Palmer. His reputa
tion and position came in aid of his obvious fitness,
in point of character and intellect, to become the
centre of an ecclesiastical movement, if such a
movement were to depend on the action of a party.
His delicate health, his premature death, would
have frustrated the expectation, even though the
new school of opinion had been more exactly thrown
into the shape of a party, than in fact was the
case. But he zealously backed up the first efforts
of those who were principals in it; and, when he
went abroad to die, in 1838, he allowed me the
solace of expressing my feelings of attachment and
gratitude to him by addressing him, in the dedica
tion of a volume of my Sermons, as the man, " who,
when hearts were failing, bade us stir up the gift
that was in us, and betake ourselves to our true
Mother."

But there were other reasons, besides Mr.

106 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Rose s state of health, which hindered those who
so much admired him from availing themselves of
his close co-operation in the coming fight. United
as both he and they were in the general scope of
the Movement, they were in discordance with each
other from the first in their estimate of the means to
be adopted for attaining it. Mr. Rose had a position
in the Church, a name, and serious responsibilities;
he had direct ecclesiastical superiors ; he had inti
mate relations with his own University, and a large
clerical connexion through the country. Froude
and I were nobodies; with no characters to lose,
and no antecedents to fetter us. Rose could not
go a-head across country, as Froude had no scruples
in doing. Froude was a bold rider, as on horse
back, so also in his speculations. After a long
conversation with him on the logical bearing of
his principles, Mr. Rose said of him with quiet
humour, that "he did not seem to be afraid of
inferences." It was simply the truth; Froude had
that strong hold of first principles, and. that keen
perception of their value, that he was comparatively
indifferent to the revolutionary action which would
attend on their application to a given state of
things ; whereas in the thoughts of Rose, as a prac
tical man, existing facts had the precedence of
every other idea, and the chief test of the sound
ness of a line of policy lay in the consideration
whether it would work. This was one of the
first questions, which, as it seemed to me, ever

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 107

occurred to his mind. With Froude, Erastianisra,
that is, the union (so he viewed it) of Church
and State, was the parent, or if not the parent,
the serviceable and sufficient tool, of liberalism.
Till that union was snapped, Christian doctrine
never could be safe; and, while he well knew how
high and unselfish was the temper of Mr. Rose, yet
he used to apply to him an epithet, reproachful in
his own mouth ; Rose was a " conservative." By
bad luck, I brought out this word to Mr. Rose in
a letter of my own, which I wrote to him in
criticism of something he had inserted into the
Magazine : I got a vehement rebuke for my pains,
for though Rose pursued a conservative line, he
had as high a disdain, as Froude could have, of a
worldly ambition, and an extreme sensitiveness of
such an imputation.

But there was another reason still, and a more
elementary one, which severed Mr. Rose from the
Oxford Movement. Living movements do not come
of committees, nor are great ideas worked out
through the post, even though it had been the penny
post. This principle deeply penetrated both Froude
and myself from the first, and recommended to us
the course which things soon took spontaneously,
and without set purpose of our own. Universities
are the natural centres of intellectual movements.
How could men act together, whatever was their
zeal, unless they were united in a sort of indi
viduality ? Now, first, we had no unity of place.

108 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Mr. Rose was in Suffolk, Mr. Perceval in Surrey,
Mr. Keble in Gloucestershire ; Hurrell Froude had to
go for his health to Barbados. Mr. Palmer indeed
was in Oxford; this was an important advantage,
and told well in the first months of the Movement ;
but another condition, besides that of place, was
required.

A far more essential unity was that of ante
cedents, a common history, common memories,
an intercourse of mind with mind in the past, and
a progress and increase of that intercourse in the
present. Mr. Perceval, to be sure, was a pupil of
Mr. Keble s; but Keble, Rose, and Palmer, repre
sented distinct parties, or at least tempers, in the
Establishment. Mr. Palmer had many conditions
of authority and influence. He was the only really
learned man among us. He understood theology
as a science; he was practised in the scholastic
mode of controversial writing; and I believe, was
as well acquainted, as he was dissatisfied, with the
Catholic schools. He was as decided in his re
ligious views, as he was cautious and even subtle
in their expression, and gentle in their enforce
ment. But he was deficient in depth ; and besides,
coming from a distance, he never had really grown
into an Oxford man, nor was he generally received
as such ; nor had he any insight into the force of
personal influence and congeniality of thought in
carrying out a religious theory, a condition which
Froude and I considered essential to any true

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 109

success in the stand which had to be made against
Liberalism. Mr. Palmer had a certain connexion,
as it may be called, in the Establishment, consist
ing 1 of high Church dignitaries, Archdeacons, Lon
don Rectors, and the like, who belonged to what
was commonly called the high-and-dry school. They
were far more opposed than even he was to the
irresponsible action of individuals. Of course their
beau ideal in ecclesiastical action w r as a board of safe,
sound, sensible men. Mr. Palmer was their organ
and representative ; and he wished for a Committee,
an Association, with rules and meetings, to protect
the interests of the Church in its existing peril.
He was in some measure supported by Mr. Per
ceval.

I, on the other hand, had out of mv own head

/ /

begun the Tracts; and these, as representing the
antagonist principle of personality, were looked
upon by Mr. Palmer s friends with considerable
alarm. The great point at the time with these
good men in London, some of them men of the
highest principle, and far from influenced by what
we used to call Erastianism, was to put down the
Tracts. I, as their editor, and mainly their author,
was not unnaturally willing to give way. Keble
and Froude advocated their continuance strongly,
and were angry with me for consenting to stop
them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own
friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he
still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own,

R

110 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

some fidget and nervousness at the course which
his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom
he had a real liking, took a high tone in his pro
ject of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy,
w r hich must have shocked and scandalized him con
siderably. As for me, there was matter enough in
the early Tracts to give him equal disgust; and
doubtless I much tasked his generosity, when he
had to defend me, whether against the London
dignitaries, or the country clergy. Oriel, from the
time of Dr. Copleston to Dr. Hampden, had had
a name far and wide for liberality of thought; it
had received a formal recognition from the Edin
burgh Review, if my memory serves me truly, as
the school of speculative philosophy in England;
and on one occasion, in 1833, when I presented
myself, with some of the first papers of the Move
ment, to a country clergyman in Northamptonshire,
he paused awhile, and then, eyeing me with sig
nificance, asked, " Whether Whately was at the
bottom of them ?"

Mr. Perceval wrote to me in support of the
judgment of Mr. Palmer and the dignitaries. I
replied in a letter, which he afterwards published.
" As to the Tracts," I said to him (I quote my
own words from his Pamphlet), " every one has
his own taste. You object to some things, another
to others. If we altered to please every one, the
effect would be spoiled. They were not intended
as symbols e cathedra, but as the expression of

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. Ill

individual minds ; and individuals, feeling strongly,
while on the one hand, they are incidentally faulty
in mode or language, are still peculiarly effective.
No great work was done by a system; whereas
systems rise out of individual exertions. Luther
was an individual. The very faults of an indi
vidual excite attention ; he loses, but his cause
(if good and he powerful-minded) gains. This is
the way of things : we promote truth by a self-
sacrifice."

The visit which I made to the Northampton
shire Rector was only one of a series of similar
expedients, which I adopted during the year 1833.
I called upon clergy in various parts of the country,
whether I was acquainted with them or not, and I
attended at the houses of friends where several of
them were from time to time assembled. I do not
think that much came of such attempts, nor were
they quite in my way. Also I wrote various letters
to clergymen, which fared not much better, except
that they advertised the fact, that a rally in favour
of the Church was commencing. I did not care
whether my visits were made to high Church or
low Church ; I wished to make a strong pull in
union with all who were opposed to the principles
of liberalism, whoever they might be. Giving my
name to the Editor, I commenced a series of letters
in the Record Newspaper : they ran to a consider
able length; and were borne by him with great
courtesy and patience. They were headed as being

R 2

112 IIISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

on " Church Reform." The first was on the Revival
of Church Discipline ; the second, on its Scripture
proof; the third, on the application of the doctrine ;
the fourth, was an answer to objections; the fifth,
was on the benefits of discipline. And then the
series was abruptly brought to a termination. I
had said what I really felt, and what was also in
keeping with the strong teaching of the Tracts,
but I suppose the Editor discovered in me some
divergence from his own line of thought; for at
length he sent a very civil letter, apologizing for
the non-appearance of my sixth communication,
on the ground that it contained an attack upon
"Temperance Societies," about which he did not
wish a controversy in his columns. He added,
however, his serious regret at the character of the
Tracts. I had subscribed a small sum in 1828
towards the first start of the Record.

Acts of the officious character, which I have been
describing, were uncongenial to my natural temper,
to the genius of the Movement, and to the historical
mode of its success : they were the fruit of that
exuberant and joyous energy with which I had re
turned from abroad, and which I never had before
or since. I had the exultation of health restored,
and home regained. While I was at Palermo and
thought of the breadth of the Mediterranean, and

O

the wearisome journey across France, I could not
imagine how I was ever to get to England ; but now
I was amid familiar scenes and faces once more.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 113

And my health and strength came back to me with
such a rebound, that some friends at Oxford, on
seeing me, did not well know that it was I, and
hesitated before they spoke to me. And I had the
consciousness that I was employed in that work
which I had been dreaming about, and which I felt
to be so momentous and inspiring. I had a supreme
confidence in our cause; we were upholding that
primitive Christianity which was delivered for all
time by the early teachers of the Church, and which
was registered and attested in the Anglican formu
laries and by the Anglican divines. That ancient
religion had well nigh faded away out of the land,
through the political changes of the last 1 50 years,
and it must be restored. It would be in fact a second
Reformation : a better reformation, for it would
be a return not to the sixteenth century, but to the
seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for the Whigs
had come to do their worst, and the rescue might
come too late. Bishopricks were already in course
of suppression ; Church property was in course of
confiscation ; Sees would soon be receiving unsuita
ble occupants. .We knew enough to begin preach
ing upon, and there was no one else to preach. I
felt as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh,
and then clears out the deck, and stores away lug
gage and live stock into their proper receptacles.

Nor was it only that I had confidence in our
cause, both in itself, and in its controversial force,
but besides, I despised every rival system of doc-

114 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

trine and its arguments. As to the high Church
and the low Church, I thought that the one had
not much more of a logical basis than the other;
while I had a thorough contempt for the evangeli
cal. I had a real respect for the character of many
of the advocates of each party, but that did not
give cogency to their arguments ; and I thought on
the other hand that the Apostolical form of doc
trine was essential and imperative, and its grounds
of evidence impregnable. Owing to this confi
dence, it came to pass at that time, that there was
a double aspect in my bearing towards others, which
it is necessary for me to enlarge upon. My be
haviour had a mixture in it both of fierceness and
of sport ; and on this account, I dare say, it gave
offence to many; nor am I here defending it.

I wished men to agree with me, and I walked with
them step by step, as far as they would go; this I
did sincerely ; but if they would stop, I did not much
care about it, but walked on, with some satisfaction
that I had brought them so far. I liked to make
them preach the truth without knowing it, and en
couraged them to do so. It was a satisfaction to me

O

that the Record had allowed me to say so much in

V

its columns, without remonstrance. I was amused to
hear of one of the Bishops, who, on reading an early
Tract on the Apostolical Succession, could not make
up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not.
I was not distressed at the wonder or anger of dull
and self-conceited men, at propositions which they

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 115

did not understand. When a correspondent, in
good faith, wrote to a newspaper, to say that the
" Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist," spoken of in the
Tract, was a false print for " Sacrament," I thought
the mistake too pleasant to be corrected before I
was asked about it. I was not unwilling to draw
an opponent on step by step to the brink of some
intellectual absurdity, and to leave him to get back
as he could. I was not unwilling to play with a
man, who asked me impertinent questions. I think
I had in my mouth the words of the Wise man,
u Answer a fool according to his folly," especially if
he was prying or spiteful. I was reckless of the
gossip which was circulated about me ; and, when I
might easily have set it right, did not deign to do
so. Also I used irony in conversation, when mat
ter-of-fact men would not see what I meant.

This kind of behaviour was a sort of habit with
me. If I have ever trifled with my subject, it
was a more serious fault. I never used arguments
which I saw clearly to be unsound. The nearest
approach which I remember to such conduct, but
which I consider was clear of it nevertheless, was
in the case of Tract 15. The matter of this Tract
was supplied to me by a friend, to whom I had
applied for assistance, but who did not wish to be
mixed up with the publication. He gave it me,
that I might throw it into shape, and I took his
arguments as they stood. In the chief portion of
the Tract I fully agreed ; for instance, as to what it

116 HISTORY OF MY KELIG10US OPINIONS.

says about the Council of Trent; but there were
arguments, or some argument, in it which I did not
follow ; I do not recollect what it was. Froude, I
think, was disgusted with the whole Tract, and
accused me of economy in publishing it. It is prin
cipally through Mr. Froude s Remains that this
word has got into our language. I think, I de
fended myself with arguments such as these : that,
as every one knew, the Tracts were written by vari
ous persons who agreed together in their doctrine,
but not always in the arguments by which it was to
be proved ; that we must be tolerant of difference
of opinion among ourselves ; that the author of the
Tract had a right to his own opinion, and that the
argument in question was ordinarily received ; that
I did not give my own name or authority, nor was
asked for my personal belief, but only acted instru-
mentally, as one might translate a friend s book
into a foreign language. I account these to be
good arguments; nevertheless I feel also that such
practices admit of easy abuse and are consequently
dangerous ; but then again, I feel also this, that if
all such mistakes were to be severely visited, not
many men in public life would be left with a cha
racter for honour and honesty.

This absolute confidence in my cause, which led
me to the imprudence or wantonness which I have
been instancing, also laid me open, not unfairly,
to the opposite charge of fierceness in certain steps
which I took, or words which I published. In the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 117

Lyra Apostolica, I have said that, before learning
to love, we must " learn to hate;" though I had
explained my words by adding "hatred of sin."
In one of my first Sermons I said, " I do not shrink
from uttering my firm conviction that it would be
a gain to the country were it vastly more super
stitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in
its religion than at present it shows itself to be."
I added, of course, that it would be an absurdity
to suppose such tempers of mind desirable in them
selves. The corrector of the press bore these
strong epithets till he got to " more fierce," and
then he put in the margin a query. In the very
first page of the first Tract, I said of the Bishops,
that, " black event though it would be for the
country, yet we could not wish them a more blessed
termination of their course, than the spoiling of
their goods and martyrdom." In consequence of a
passage in my work upon the Arian History, a
Northern dignitary wrote to accuse me of wishing
to re-establish the blood and torture of the In
quisition. Contrasting heretics and heresiarchs,
I had said, " The latter should meet with no mercy ;
he assumes the office of the Tempter, and, so far
forth as his error goes, must be dealt with by the
competent authority, as if he were embodied evil.
To spare him is a false and dangerous pity. It is
to endanger the souls of thousands, and it is un
charitable towards himself." I cannot deny that
this is a very fierce passage ; but Arius was banished,

s

118 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

not burned ; and it is only fair to myself to say that
neither at this, nor any other time of my life, not
even when I was fiercest, could I have even cut
off a Puritan s ears, and I think the sight of a
Spanish auto-da-fe would have been the death of
me. Again, when one of my friends, of liberal and
evangelical opinions, wrote to expostulate with me
on the course I was taking, I said that we would
ride over him and his, as Othniel prevailed over
Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia. Again,
I would have no dealings with my brother, and I
put my conduct upon a syllogism. I said, " St. Paul
bids us avoid those who cause divisions; you cause
divisions : therefore I must avoid you." I dissuaded
a lady from attending the marriage of a sister who
had seceded from the Anglican Church. No wonder
that Blanco White, who had known me under such
different circumstances, now hearing the general
course that I was taking, was amazed at the change
which he recognized in me. He speaks bitterly
and unfairly of me in his letters contemporaneously
with the first years of the Movement; but in 1839,
when looking back, he uses terms of me, which it
would be hardly modest in me to quote, were it not
that what he says of me in praise is but part of a
whole account of me. He says : " In this party
[the anti-Peel, in 1829] I found, to my great
surprise, my dear friend, Mr. Newman of Oriel. As
he had been one of the annual Petitioners to Par
liament for Catholic Emancipation, his sudden

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 110

union with the most violent bigots was inexplicable
to me. That change was the first manifestation of
the mental revolution, which has suddenly made
him one of the leading persecutors of Dr. Hamp-
den, and the most active and influential member of
that association, called the Puseyite party, from
which we have those very strange productions,
entitled, Tracts for the Times. While stating
these public facts, my heart feels a pang at the
recollection of the affectionate and mutual friend
ship between that excellent man and myself; a
friendship, which his principles of orthodoxy could
not allow him to continue in regard to one, whom
he now regards as inevitably doomed to eternal per
dition. Such is the venomous character of ortho
doxy. What mischief must it create in a bad heart

and narrow mind, when it can work so effectuallv

j

for evil, in one of the most benevolent of bosoms,
and one of the ablest of minds, in the amiable, the
intellectual, the refined John Henry Newman I"
(Vol. iii. p. 131.) He adds that I would have
nothing to do with him, a circumstance which I do
not recollect, and very much doubt.

I have spoken of my firm confidence in my posi
tion; and now let me state more definitelv what

w

the position was which I took up, and the pro
positions about which I was so confident. These
were three :

s 2

120 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

1. First was the principle of dogma: my battle
was with liberalism ; by liberalism I meant the anti-
dogmatic principle and its developments. This
was the first point on which I was certain. Here
I make a remark : persistence in a given belief is
no sufficient test of its truth; but departure from
it is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so
certain about it. In proportion then as I had in
1832 a strong persuasion in beliefs which I have
since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to
me, not only for that vain confidence, but for my
multiform conduct in consequence of it. But here
1 have the satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing
to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main
principle of the Movement is as dear to me now, as
it ever was. I have changed in many things : in
this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma
has been the fundamental principle of my religion :
I know no other religion ; I cannot enter into the
idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a
mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.
As well can there be filial love without the fact of
a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme
Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and
I hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the
end. Even when I was under Dr. Whately s in
fluence, I had no temptation to be less zealous for
the great dogmas of the faith, and at various times
I used to resist such trains of thought on his part,

HISTOKY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 121

as seemed to me (rightly or wrongly) to obscure
them. Such was the fundamental principle of the
Movement of 1833.

2. Secondly, I was confident in the truth of a
certain definite religious teaching, based upon this
foundation of dogma; viz. that there was a visible
Church with sacraments and rites which are the
channels of invisible grace. I thought that this
was the doctrine of Scripture, of the early Church,
and of the Anglican Church. Here again, I have
not changed in opinion; I am as certain now on
this point as I was in 1833, and have never ceased
to be certain. In 1834 and the following years I
put this ecclesiastical doctrine on a broader basis,
after reading Laud, Bramhall, and Stillingfleet and
other Anglican divines on the one hand, and after
prosecuting the study of the Fathers on the other;
but the doctrine of 1833 was strengthened in me,
not changed. When I began the Tracts for the
Times I rested the main doctrine, of which I am
speaking, upon Scripture, on St. Ignatius s Epistles,
and on the Anglican Prayer Book. As to the
existence of a visible Church, I especially argued
out the point from Scripture, in Tract 11. viz. from
the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. As to
the Sacraments and Sacramental rites, I stood on the
Prayer Book. I appealed to the Ordination Ser
vice, in which the Bishop says, " Receive the Holy
Ghost;" to the Visitation Service, which teaches
confession and absolution ; to the Baptismal Ser-

122 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

vice, in which the Priest speaks of the child after
baptism as regenerate; to the Catechism, in which
Sacramental Communion is receiving " verily the
Body and Blood of Christ;" to the Commination
Service, in which we are told to do " works of
penance ;" to the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, to
the calendar and rubricks, wherein we find the
festivals of the Apostles, notice of certain other
Saints, and days of fasting and abstinence.

And further, as to the Episcopal system, I
founded it upon the Epistles of St. Ignatius, which
inculcated it in various ways. One passage especially
impressed itself upon me : speaking of cases of dis
obedience to ecclesiastical authority, he says, "A
man does not deceive that Bishop whom he sees, but
he practises rather with the Bishop Invisible, and
so the question is not with flesh, but with God, who
knows the secret heart." I wished to act on this
principle to the letter, and I may say with confidence
that I never consciously transgressed it. I loved to
act in the sight of my Bishop, as if I was, as it were,
in the sight of God. It was one of my special safe
guards against myself and of my supports ; I could
not go very wrong while I had reason to believe that
I was in no respect displeasing him. It was not a
mere formal obedience to rule that I put before me,
but I desired to please him personally, as I con^
sidered him set over me by the Divine Hand. I
was strict in observing my clerical engagements, not
only because they were engagements, but because I

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 123

considered myself simply as the servant and instru
ment of my Bishop. I did not care much for the
Bench of Bishops, except as they might be the voice
of my Church : nor should I have cared much for a
Provincial Council; nor for a Diocesan Synod pre
sided over by my Bishop ; all these matters seemed
to me to be jure ecclesiastico, but what to me was
jure divino was the voice of my Bishop in his own
person. My own Bishop was my Pope; I knew no
other ; the successor of the Apostles, the Vicar of
Christ. This was but a practical exhibition of the
Anglican theory of Church Government, as I had
already drawn it out myself. This continued ail
through my course; when at length in 1845 I wrote
to Bishop Wiseman, in whose Vicariate I found
myself, to announce my conversion, I could find
nothing better to say to him, than that I would
obey the Pope as I had obeyed my own Bishop in
the Anglican Church. My duty to him was my
point of honour; his disapprobation was the one
thing which I could not bear. I believe it to have
been a generous and honest feeling; and in conse
quence I was rewarded by having all my time for
ecclesiastical superior a man, whom had I had a
choice, I should have preferred, out and out, to any
other Bishop on the Bench, and for whose memory
1 have a special affection, Dr. Bagot a man of
noble mind, and as kind-hearted and as considerate
as he was noble. He ever sympathized with me in
my trials which followed ; it was my own fault, that

124 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

I was not brought into more familiar personal re
lations with him than it was my happiness to be.
May his name be ever blessed !

And now in concluding my remarks on the second
point on which my confidence rested, I observe
that here again I have no retractation to announce as
to its main outline. While I am now as clear in my
acceptance of the principle of dogma, as I was in
1833 and 1816, so again I am now as firm in my
belief of a visible Church, of the authority of
Bishops, of the grace of the sacraments, of the reli
gious worth of works of penance, as I was in 1833.
I have added Articles to my Creed ; but the old
ones, which I then held with a divine faith, remain.

3. But now, as to the third point on which I
stood in 1833, and which I have utterly renounced
and trampled upon since, my then view of the
Church of Rome; I will speak about it as exactly
as I can. When I was young, as I have said already,
and after I was grown up, I thought the Pope to be
Antichrist. At Christmas 1824-5 I preached a
Sermon to that effect. In 1827 I accepted eagerly
the stanza in the Christian Year, which many people
thought too charitable, "Speak gently of thy sister s
fall." From the time that I knew Froude I got
less and less bitter on the subject. I spoke (suc
cessively, but I cannot tell in what order or at what
dates) of the Roman Church as being bound up
with " the cause of Antichrist," as being one of the
" many antichrists " foretold by St. John, as being

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 125

influenced by " the spirit of Antichrist," and as
having something " very Antichristian " or " un
christian " about her. From my boyhood and in
1824 I considered, after Protestant authorities, that
that St. Gregory I. about A.D. 600 was the first Pope
that was Antichrist, and again that he was also
a great and holy man ; in 1832-3 I thought the
Church of Rome was bound up with the cause of
Antichrist by the Council of Trent. When it was
that in my deliberate judgment I gave up the notion
altogether in any shape, that some special reproach
was attached to her name, I cannot tell; but I had
a shrinking from renouncing it, even when my rea
son so ordered me, from a sort of conscience or pre
judice, I think up to 1843. Moreover, at least
during the Tract Movement, I thought the essence
of her offence to consist in the honours which she
paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints ; and the
more I grew in devotion, both to the Saints and to
Our Lady, the more impatient was 1 at the Roman
practices, as if those glorified creations of God
must be gravely shocked, if pain could be theirs,
at the undue veneration of which they were the
objects.

On the other hand, Hurrell Froude in his familiar
conversations was always tending to rub the idea
out of my mind. In a passage of one of his letters
from abroad, alluding, I suppose, to what I used
to say in opposition to him, he observes : " I think
people are injudicious who talk against the Roman

T

126 HISTOEY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Catholics for worshipping Saints, and honouring
the Virgin and images, &c. These things may
perhaps be idolatrous; I cannot make up my mind
about it; but to my mind it is the Carnival that
is real practical idolatry, as it is written, the
people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to
play. : The Carnival, I observe in passing, is, in
fact, one of those very excesses, to which, for at least
three centuries, religious Catholics have ever op
posed themselves, as we see in the life of St. Philip,
to say nothing of the present day; but this he did
not know. Moreover, from Froude I learned to
admire the great medieval Pontiffs ; and, of course,
when I had come to consider the Council of Trent
to be the turning-point of the history of Christian
Rome, I found myself as free, as I was rejoiced, to
speak in their praise. Then, when I was abroad,
the sight of so many great places, venerable shrines,
and noble churches, much impressed my imagina
tion. And my heart was touched also. Making
an expedition on foot across some wild country in
Sicily, at six in the morning I came upon a small
church; I heard voices, and I looked in. It was
crowded, and the congregation was singing. Of
course it was the Mass, though I did not know it
at the time. And, in my 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 mainte
nance of the doctrine and the rule of celibacy, which

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 127

I recognized as Apostolic, and her faithful agree
ment 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:

o /

but still my reason was not affected at all. My
judgment was against her, when viewed as an
institution, as truly as it ever had been.

This conflict between reason and affection I
expressed in one of the early Tracts, published
Julv, 1834. "Considering the high gifts and the

/ CD O O

strong claims of the Church of Rome and its de
pendencies on our admiration, reverence, love, and
gratitude; how could we withstand it, as we do,
how could we refrain from being melted into ten
derness, and rushing into communion with it, but
for the words of Truth itself, which bid us prefer
It to the whole world? He that loveth father or
mother more than Me, is not worthy of me. How
could we learn to be severe, and execute judg
ment, but for the warning of Moses against even a
divinely-gifted teacher, who should preach new
gods; and the anathema of St. Paul even against
Angels and Apostles, who should bring in a new
doctrine ? " Records, No. 24. My feeling was
something like that of a man, who is obliged in a
court of justice to bear witness against a friend;
or like my own now, when I have said, and shall
say, so many things on which I had rather be
silent.

T 2

128 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

As a matter, then, of simple conscience, though
it went against my feelings, I felt it to be a duty to
protest against the Church of Rome. But besides
this, it was a duty, because the prescription of such
a protest was a living principle of my own Church,
as expressed in not simply a catena, but a con
sensus of her divines, and the voice of her people.
Moreover, such a protest was necessary as an in
tegral portion of her controversial basis; for
adopted the argument of Bernard Gilpin, that Pro
testants " were not able to give aujjlrm and solid
reason of the separation besides this, to wit, that
the Pope is Antichrist." But while I thus thought
such a protest to be based upon truth, and to be
a religious duty, and a rule of Anglicanism, and a
necessity of the case, I did not at all like the work.
Hurrell Froude attacked me for doing it; and,
besides, I felt that my language had a vulgar and
rhetorical look about it. I believed, and really
measured, my words, when I used them ; but I knew
that I had a temptation, on the other hand, to say
against Rome as much as ever I could, in order to
protect myself against the charge of Popery.

And now I come to the very point, for which I
have introduced the subject of my feelings about
Rome. I felt such confidence in the substantial
justice of the charges which I advanced against
her, that I considered them to be a safeguard and
an assurance that no harm could ever arise from
the freest exposition of what I used to call Angli-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 129

can principles. All the world was astounded at
what Froude and I were saying : men said that it
was sheer Popery. I answered, " True, we seem to
be making straight for it; but go on awhile, and
you will come to a deep chasm across the path,
which makes real approximation impossible." And
I urged in addition, that many Anglican divines
had been accused of Popery, yet had died in their
Anglicanism; now, the ecclesiastical principles
which I professed, they had professed also; and
the judgment against Rome which they had formed,
I had formed also. Whatever faults then the
Anglican system might have, and however boldly I
might point them out, any how that system was
not vulnerable on the side of Rome, and might
be mended in spite of her. In that very agree
ment of the two forms of faith, close as it might

O

seem, would really be found, on examination, the
elements and principles of an essential discord
ance.

It was with this supreme persuasion on my mind
that I fancied that there could be no rashness in
giving to the world in fullest measure the teaching
and the writings of the Fathers. I thought that
the Church of England was substantially founded
upon them. 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

130 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

imperfectly, of what I thought they said, or what
some of them had said. Any how, no harm could
come of bending the crooked stick the other way,
in the process of straightening it ; it was impossible
to break it. If there was any thing in the Fathers
of a startling character, it would be only for a
time; it would admit of explanation; it could not
lead to Rome. I express this view of the matter
in a passage of the Preface to the first volume,
which I edited, of the Library of the Fathers.
Speaking of the strangeness at first sight, presented
to the Anglican mind, of some of their principles
and opinions, I bid the reader go forward hope
fully, and not indulge his criticism till he knows
more about them, than he will learn at the outset.
" Since the evil," I say, " is in the nature of the
case itself, we can do no more than have patience,
and recommend patience to others, and, with the
racer in the Tragedy, look forward steadily and
hopefully to the event, rco reXet TT KTTIV ^epcut ,
when, as we trust, all that is inharmonious and
anomalous in the details, will at length be prac
tically smoothed."

Such was the position, such the defences, such
the tactics, by which I thought that it was both
incumbent on us, and possible to us, to meet that
onset of Liberal principles, of which we were all
in immediate anticipation, whether in the Church
or in the University. And during the first year of
the Tracts, the attack upon the University began.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 131

In November 1834 was sent to me by the author
the second Edition of a Pamphlet entitled, " Ob
servations on Religious Dissent, with particular
reference to the use of religious tests in the Uni
versity," In this Pamphlet it was maintained,
that " Religion is distinct from Theological
Opinion," pp. 1, 28, 30, &c. ; that it is but a com
mon prejudice to identify theological propositions
methodically deduced and stated, with the simple
religion of Christ, p. 1 ; that under Theological
Opinion were to be placed the Trinitarian doc
trine, p. 27, and the Unitarian, p. 19 ; that a
dogma was a theological opinion insisted on, pp.
20, 21 ; that speculation always left an opening
for improvement, p. 22; that the Church of Eng
land was not dogmatic in its spirit, though the
wording of its formularies may often carry the
sound of dogmatism, p. 23.

I acknowledged the receipt of this work in the
following letter :

" The kindness which has led to your presenting
me with your late pamphlet, encourages me to
hope that you will forgive me, if I take the oppor
tunity it affords of expressing to you my very
sincere and deep regret that it has been published.
Such an opportunity I could not let slip without
being unfaithful to my own serious thoughts on the
subject,

" While I respect the tone of piety which the
Pamphlet displays, I dare not trust myself to put

132 1IISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

on paper my feelings about the principles contained
in it; tending, as they do, in my opinion, altogether
to make shipwreck of Christian faith. I also
lament, that, by its appearance, the first step has
been taken towards interrupting that peace and
mutual good understanding which has prevailed so
long in this place, and which, if once seriously
disturbed, will be succeeded by dissensions the
more intractable, because justified in the minds of
those who resist innovation by a feeling of im
perative duty."

Since that time Phaeton has got into the chariot
of the sun ; we, alas ! can only look on, and watch
him down the steep of heaven. Meanwhile, the
lands, which he is passing over, suffer from his
driving.

Such was the commencement of the assault of
Liberalism upon the old orthodoxy of Oxford and
England ; and it could not have been broken, as it
was, for so long a time, had not a great change
taken place in the circumstances of that counter-
movement which had already started with the
view of resisting it. For myself, I was not the
person to take the lead of a party; I never was,
from first to last, more than a leading author of a
school; nor did I ever wish to be any thing else.
This is my own account of the matter, and I say it,
neither as intending to disown the responsibility of
what was done, nor as if ungrateful to those who

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 133

at that time made more of me than I deserved, and
did more for my sake and at my bidding than I
realized myself. I am giving my history from my
own point of sight, and it is as follows: I had
lived for ten years among my personal friends ; the
greater part of the time, I had been influenced,
not influencing; and at no time have I acted on
others, without their acting upon me. As is
the custom of a University, I had lived with my
private, nay, with some of my public, pupils, and
with the junior fellows of my College, without form
or distance, on a footing of equality. Thus it was
through friends, younger, for the most part, than
myself, that my principles were spreading. They
heard what I said in conversation, and told it to
others. Undergraduates in due time took their
degree, and became private tutors themselves. In
this new status, in turn, they preached the opinions
which they had already learned themselves. Others
went down to the country, and became curates of
parishes. Then they had down from London
parcels of the Tracts, and other publications. They
placed them in the shops of local booksellers, got
them into newspapers, introduced them to clerical
meetings, and converted more or less their Rectors
and their brother curates. Thus the Movement,
viewed with relation to myself, was but a floating
opinion ; it was not a power. It never would have
been a power, if it had remained in my hands.
Years after, a friend, writing to me in remon-

u

134 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

strance at the excesses, as he thought them, of my
disciples, applied to me my own verse about St.
Gregory Nazianzen, " Thou couldst a people raise,
but couldst not rule." At the time that he wrote
to me, I had special impediments in the way of
such an exercise of power; but at no time could I
exercise over others that authority, which under the
circumstances was imperatively required. My great
principle ever was, Live and let live. I never had
the staidness or dignity necessary for a leader. To
the last I never recognized the hold I had over young
men. Of late years I have read and, heard that
they even imitated me in various ways. I was
quite unconscious of it, and I think my immediate
friends knew too well how disgusted I should be
at the news, to have the heart to tell me. I felt
great impatience at our being called a party, and
would not allow that we were. I had a lounging,
free-and-easy way of carrying things on. I exer
cised no sufficient censorship upon the Tracts. I did
not confine them to the writings of such persons
as agreed in all things with myself; and, as to my
own Tracts, I printed on them a notice to the
effect, that any one who pleased, might make what
use he would of them, and reprint them with
alterations if he chose, under the conviction that
their main scope could not be damaged by such
a process. It was the same afterwards, as regards
other publications. For two years I furnished a
certain number of sheets for the British Critic

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 135

from myself and my friends, while a gentleman was
editor, a man of splendid talent, who, however, was
scarcely an acquaintance of mine, and had no
sympathy with the Tracts. When I was Editor
myself, from 1838 to 1841, in my very first number,
I suffered to appear a critique unfavourable to my
work on Justification, which had been published
a few months before, from a feeling of propriety,
because I had put the book into the hands of the
writer who so handled it. Afterwards I suffered
an article against the Jesuits to appear in it, of
which I did not like the tone. When I had to
provide a curate for my new Church at Littlemore,
I engaged a friend, by no fault of his, who, before
he entered into his charge, preached a sermon,
either in depreciation of baptismal regeneration, or
of Dr. Pusey s view of it. I showed a similar
easiness as to the Editors who helped me in the
separate volumes of Fleury s Church History; they
were able, learned, and excellent men, but their
after history has shown, how little my choice of
them was influenced by any notion I could have
had of any intimate agreement of opinion between
them and myself. I shall have to make the same
remark in its place concerning the Lives of the
English Saints, which subsequently appeared. All
this may seem inconsistent with what I have said
of mv fierceness. I am not bound to account for

m

it; but there have been men before me, fierce in
act, yet tolerant and moderate in their reasonings;

u 2

136 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

at least, so I read history. However, such was the
case, and such its effect upon the Tracts. These
at first starting were short, hasty, and some of
them ineffective ; and at the end of the year,
when collected into a volume, they had a slovenly
appearance.

It was under these circumstances, that Dr. Pusey
joined us. I had known him well since 1827-8,
and had felt for him an enthusiastic admiration.
I used to call him 6 /xeya?. His great learning,
his immense diligence, his scholarlike mind, his
simple devotion to the cause of religion, overcame
me ; and great of course was my joy, when in the
last days of 1833 he showed a disposition to make
common cause with us. His Tract on Fasting
appeared as one of the series with the date of
December 21. He was not, however, I think fully
associated in the Movement till 1835 and 1836,
when he published his Tract on Baptism, and
started the Library of the Fathers. He at once
gave to us a position and a name. Without him
we should have had no chance, especially at the
early date of 1834, of making any serious resist
ance to the Liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey
was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church;
he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep
religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities,
his Professorship, his family connexions, and his
easy relations with University authorities. He
was to the Movement all that Mr. Rose might have

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 137

been, with that indispensable addition, which was
wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and
the familiar daily society of the persons who had
commenced it. And he had that special claim
on their attachment, which lies in the living
presence of a faithful and loyal affection ateness.
There was henceforth a man who could be the
head and centre of the zealous people in every
part of the country, who were adopting the new
opinions; and not only so, but there was one who
furnished the Movement with a front to the world,
and gained for it a recognition from other parties
in the University. In 1829 Mr. Froude, or Mr. R.
Wilberforce, or Mr. Newman were but individuals;
and, when they ranged themselves in the contest
of that year on the side of Sir Robert Inglis, men
on either side only asked with surprise how they
got there, and attached no significancy to the fact;
but Dr. Pusey was, to use the common expression,
a host in himself; he was able to give a name, a
form, and a personality to what was without him
a sort of mob; and when various parties had to
meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of
the Government, we of the Movement took our
place by right among them.

Such was the benefit which he conferred on the
Movement externallv ; nor was the internal ad-

/ *

vantage at all inferior to it. He was a man of
large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine mind;
he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no

138 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

intellectual perplexities. People are apt to say
that he was once nearer to the Catholic Church
than he is now; I pray God that he may be one
day far nearer to the Catholic Church than he was
then; for I believe that, in his reason and judg
ment, all the time that I knew him, he never was
near to it at all. When I became a Catholic, I
was often asked, "What of Dr. Pusey?" when I
said that I did not see symptoms of his doing as I
had done, I was sometimes thought uncharitable.
If confidence in his position is, (as it is,) a first
essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had
it. The most remarkable instance of this, was his
statement, in one of his subsequent defences of the
Movement, when too it had advanced a consider
able way in the direction of Rome, that among
its most hopeful peculiarities was its " stationari-
ness." He made it in good faith; it was his sub
jective view of it.

Dr. Pusey s influence was felt at once. He saw
that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity,
more careful pains, more sense of responsibility in
the Tracts and in the whole Movement. It was
through him that the character of the Tracts was
changed. When he gave to us his Tract on Fasting,
he put his initials to it. In 1835 he published
his elaborate Treatise on Baptism, which was fol
lowed by other Tracts from different authors, if not
of equal learning, yet of equal power and apposite-
ness. The Catenas of Anglican divines which

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 139

occur in the Series, though projected, I think,
by me, were executed with a like aim at greater
accuracy and method. In 1836 he advertised his
great project for a Translation of the Fathers :
but I must return to myself. I am not writing the
history either of Dr. Pusey or of the Movement;
but it is a pleasure to me to have been able to
introduce here reminiscences of the place which he
held in it, which have so direct a bearing on myself,
that they are no digression from my narrative.

I suspect it was Dr. Pusey s influence and ex
ample which set me, and made me set others, on
the larger and more careful works in defence of the
principles of the Movement which followed in a
course of years, some of them demanding and re
ceiving from their authors, such elaborate treatment
that they did not make their appearance till both
its temper and its fortunes had changed. I set
about a work at once; one in which was brought
out with precision the relation in which we stood
to the Church of Rome. We could not move a step
in comfort, till this was done. It was of absolute
necessity and a plain duty, to provide as soon as
possible a large statement, which would encourage
and re-assure our friends, and repel the attacks of
our opponents. A cry was heard on all sides of
us, that the Tracts and the writings of the Fathers
would lead us to become Catholics, before we were
aware of it. This was loudly expressed by members

140 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of the Evangelical party, who in 1836 had joined
us in making a protest in Convocation against a
memorable appointment of the Prime Minister.
These clergymen even then avowed their desire,
that the next time they were brought up to Oxford
to give a vote, it might be in order to put down
the Popery of the Movement. There was another
reason still, and quite as important. Monsignore
Wiseman, with the acuteness and zeal which might
be expected from that great Prelate, had antici
pated what was coming, had returned to England
in 1836, had delivered Lectures in London on the
doctrines of Catholicism, and created an impres
sion through the country, shared in by ourselves,
that we had for our opponents in controversy, not
only our brethren, but our hereditary foes. These
were the circumstances, which led to my publication
of " The Prophetical office of the Church viewed
^relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism."

This work employed me for three years, from the
beginning of 1834 to the end of 1836. It was
composed, after a careful consideration and com
parison of the principal Anglican divines of the
17th century. It was first written in the shape of
controversial correspondence with a learned French
Priest; then it was re-cast, and delivered in Lec
tures at St. Mary s: lastly, with considerable re
trenchments and additions, it was re-written for
publication.

It attempts to trace out the rudimental lines on

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 141

which Christian faith and teaching proceed, and
to use them as means of determining the relation
of the Roman and Anglican systems to each other.
In this way it shows that to confuse the two
together is impossible, and that the Anglican can
be as little said to tend to the Roman, as the
Roman to the Anglican. The spirit of the Volume^
is not so gentle to the Church of Rome, as Tract
71 published the year before; on the contrary, it is
very fierce ; and this I attribute to the circum
stance that the Volume is theological and didactic,
whereas the Tract, being controversial, assumes as
little and grants as much as possible on the points in
dispute, and insists on points of agreement as well as
of difference. A further and more direct reason is,
that in my Volume I deal with " Romanism " (as I
call it), not so much in its formal decrees and in
the substance of its creed, as in its traditional action
and its authorized teaching as represented by its
prominent writers; whereas the Tract is written
as if discussing the differences of the Churches
with a view to a reconciliation between them.
There is a further reason too, which I will state
presently.

But this Volume had a larger scope than that
of opposing the Roman system. It was an attempt
at commencing a system of theology on the Anglican
idea, and based upon Anglican authorities. Mr.
Palmer, about the same time, was projecting a
work of a similar nature in his own way. It was

x

142 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

published, I think, under the title, " A Treatise on
the Christian Church." As was to be expected from
the author, it was a most learned, most careful
composition; and in its form, I should say, pole
mical. So happily at least did he follow the
logical method of the Roman Schools, that Father
Perrone in his Treatise on dogmatic theology,
recognized in him a combatant of the true cast,
and saluted him as a foe worthy of being van
quished. Other soldiers in that field he seems to
have thought little better than the lanzknechts of the
middle ages, and, I dare say, with very good reason.
When I knew that excellent and kind-hearted man
at Rome at a later time, he allowed me to put
him to ample penance for those light thoughts of
me, which he had once had, by encroaching on his
valuable time with my theological questions. As
to Mr. Palmer s book, it was one which no Anglican
could write but himself, in no sense, if I recollect
aright, a tentative work. The ground of contro
versy was cut into squares, and then every objection
had its answer. This is the proper method to
adopt in teaching authoritatively young men ; and
the work in fact was intended for students in
theology. My own book, on the other hand, was
of a directly tentative and empirical character.
I wished to build up an Anglican theology out of
the stores which already lay cut and hewn upon
the ground, the past toil of great divines. To do
this could not be the work of one man; much less,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 143

could it be at once received into Anglican theology,
however well it was done. I fully trusted that my
statements of doctrine would turn out true and
important; yet I wrote, to use the common phrase,
"under correction."

There was another motive for my publishing, of
a personal nature, which I think I should mention.
I felt then, and all along felt, that there was an
intellectual cowardice in not having a basis in

reason for mv belief, and a moral cowardice in not

j

avowing that basis. I should have felt myself less
than a man, if I did not bring it out, whatever it
was. This is one principal reason why I wrote and
published the "Prophetical Office." It was on the-
same feeling, that in the spring of 1836, at a meet
ing of residents on the subject of the struggle then
proceeding, some one wanted us all merely to act
on college and conservative grounds (as I under
stood him), with as few published statements as
possible : I answered, that the person whom we
were resisting had committed himself in writing,
and that we ought to commit ourselves too. This
again was a main reason for the publication of
Tract 90. Alas ! it was my portion for whole
years to remain without any satisfactory basis for
my religious profession, in a state of moral sick
ness, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor
able to go to Rome. But I bore it, till in course
of time my way was made clear to me. If here
it be objected to me, that as time went on, I often

x 2

144 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

in my writings hinted at things which I did not
fully bring out, I submit for consideration whether
this occurred except when I was in great difficul
ties, how to speak, or how to be silent, with due
regard for the position of mind or the feelings of
others. However, I may have an opportunity to say
more on this subject. But to return to the " Pro
phetical Office."

I thus speak in the Introduction to my Volume :
" It is proposed," I say, " to offer helps towards
the formation of a recognized Anglican theology
in one of its departments. The present state of
our divinity is as follows : the most vigorous, the
clearest, the most fertile minds, have through
God s mercy been employed in the service of
our Church : minds too as reverential and holy,
and as fullv imbued with Ancient Truth, and

i

as well versed in the writings of the Fathers,
as they were intellectually gifted. This is God s
great mercy indeed, for which we must ever be
thankful. Primitive doctrine has been explored
for us in every direction, and the original principles
of the Gospel and the Church patiently brought to
light. But one thing is still wanting: our cham
pions and teachers have lived in stormy times :
political and other influences have acted upon them
variously in their day, and have since obstructed a
careful consolidation of their judgments. We have
a vast inheritance, but no inventory of our trea
sures. All is given us in profusion; it remains for

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 145

us to catalogue, sort, distribute, select, harmonize,
and complete. We have more than we know how
to use; stores of learning, but little that is precise
and serviceable; Catholic truth and individual
opinion, first principles and the guesses of genius,
all mingled in the same works, and requiring to be
discriminated. We meet with truths overstated or
misdirected, matters of detail variously taken, facts
incompletely proved or applied, and rules incon
sistently urged or discordantly interpreted. Such
indeed is the state of every deep philosophy in its
first stages, and therefore of theological knowledge.
What we need at present for our Church s well-
being, is not invention, nor originality, nor saga
city, nor even learning in our divines, at least in
the first place, though all gifts of God are in a
measure needed, and never can be unseasonable
when used religiously, but we need peculiarly a
sound judgment, patient thought, discrimination, a
comprehensive mind, an abstinence from all private
fancies and caprices and personal tastes, in a
word, Divine Wisdom."

The subject of the Volume is the doctrine of the
Via Media, a name which had already been applied
to the Anglican system by writers of name. It is
an expressive title, but not altogether satisfactory,
because it is at first sight negative. This had
been the reason of my dislike to the word " Pro
testant;" in the idea which it conveyed, it was not
the profession of any religion at all, and was com-

146 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

patible with infidelity. A Via Media was but a
receding from extremes, therefore I had to draw it
out into a shape, and a character; before it had
claims on our respect, it must first be shown to be
one, intelligible, and consistent. This was the first
condition of any reasonable treatise on the Via
Media. The second condition, and necessary too,

V

was not in my power. I could only hope that it
would one day be fulfilled. Even if the Via Media
were ever so positive a religious system, it was not
as yet objective and real; it had no original any
where of which it was the representative. It was
,at present a paper religion. This I confess in my
Introduction ; I say, " Protestantism and Popery
are real religions . . . but the Via Media, viewed as
an integral system, has scarcely had existence ex
cept on paper." I grant the objection and proceed
to lessen it. There I say, " It still remains to be
tried, whether what is called Anglo- Catholicism,
the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler,
and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted
on, and maintained on a large sphere of action, or
whether it be a mere modification or transition-
state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism."
I trusted that some day it would prove to be a sub
stantive religion.

Lest I should be misunderstood, let me observe
that this hesitation about the validity of the theory
of the Via Media implied no doubt of the three
fundamental points on which it was based, as I

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 147

have described above, dogma, the sacramental system,
and opposition to the Church of Rome.

Other investigations which followed, gave a still
more tentative character to what I wrote or got
written. The basis of the Via Media, consisting
of the three elementary points, which I have just
mentioned, was clear enough; but, not only had
the house to be built upon them, but it had also to
be furnished, and it is not wonderful if both I
and others erred in detail in determining what
that furniture should be, what was consistent with

the stvle of building, and what was in itself de*

>

sirable. I will explain what I mean.

I had brought out in the " Prophetical Office
in what the Roman and the Anglican systems
differed from each other, but less distinctly in what

>

they agreed. I had indeed enumerated the Fun
damentals, common to both, in the following pas
sage : " In both systems the same Creeds are ac
knowledged. Besides other points in common we
both hold, that certain doctrines are necessary to
be believed for salvation; we both believe in the
doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atone
ment; in original sin; in the necessity of regenera
tion ; in the supernatural grace of the Sacraments ;
in the Apostolical succession; in the obligation of
faith and obedience, and in the eternity of future
punishment." Pp. 55, 56. So much I had said,
but I had not said enough. This enumeration im
plied a great many more points of agreement than

14B HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

were found in those very Articles which were fun
damental. If the two Churches were thus the same
in fundamentals, they were also one and the same
in such plain consequences as are contained in
those fundamentals or as outwardly represented
them. It was an Anglican principle that " the
abuse of a thing doth not take away the lawful use
of it;" and an Anglican Canon in 1603 had de
clared that the English Church had no purpose
to forsake all that was held in the Churches of
Italy, France, and Spain, and reverenced those
ceremonies and particular points which were Apos
tolic. Excepting then such exceptional matters,
as are implied in this avowal, whether they were
many or few, all these Churches were evidently
to be considered as one with the Anglican. The
Catholic Church in all lands had been one from
the first for many centuries; then, various portions
had followed their own way to the injury, but not
to the destruction, whether of truth or of charity.
These portions or branches were mainly three :
the Greek, Latin, and Anglican. Each of these

t^^

inherited the early undivided Church in solido as
its own possession. Each branch was identical
with that early undivided Church, and in the unity
of that Church it had unity with the other branches.
The three branches agreed together in all but
their later accidental errors. Some branches had
retained in detail portions of Apostolical truth and
usage, which the others had not; and these por-

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 149

tions might be and should be appropriated again
by the others which had let them slip. Thus, the
middle age belonged to the Anglican Church, and
much more did the middle age of England. The
Church of the 12th century was the Church of the
19th. Dr. Howley sat in the seat of St. Thomas
the Martyr; Oxford was a medieval University.
Saving our engagements to Prayer Book and
Articles, we might breathe and live and act and
speak, in the atmosphere and climate of Henry IIl. s
day, or the Confessor s, or of Alfred s. And we
ought to be indulgent of all that Rome taught now,
as of what Rome taught then, saving our protest.
We might boldly welcome, even what we did not
ourselves think right to adopt. And, when we
were obliged on the contrary boldly to denounce,
we should do so with pain, not with exultation.
By very reason of our protest, which we had made,
and made ex animo, we could agree to differ.
What the members of the Bible Society did on the
basis of Scripture, we could do on the basis of the
Church; Trinitarian and Unitarian were further
apart than Roman and Anglican. Thus we had a real
wish to co-operate with Rome in all lawful things, if
she would let us, and the rules of our own Church
let us; and we thought there was no better way
towards the restoration of doctrinal purity and
unity. And we thought that Rome was not com
mitted by her formal decrees to all that she actually
taught; and again, if her disputants had been un-

150 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

fair to us, or her rulers tyrannical, that on our side
too there had been rancour and slander in our con
troversy with her, and violence in our political
measures. As to ourselves being instruments in
improving the belief or practice of Rome directly,
I used to say, " Look at home ; let us first, or at
least let us the while, supply our own short-comings,
before we attempt to be physicians to any one else."
This is very much the spirit of Tract 71, to which
I referred just now. I am well aware that there is
a paragraph contrary to it in the Prospectus to the
Library of the Fathers ; but I never concurred in it.
Indeed, I have no intention whatever of implying
that Dr. Pusey concurred in the ecclesiastical
theory, which I have been drawing out; nor that
I took it up myself except by degrees in the course
of ten years. It was necessarily the growth of time.
In fact, hardly any two persons, who took part in
the Movement, agreed in their view of the limit to
which our general principles might religiously be
carried.

And now I have said enough on what I consider
to have been the general objects of the various
works which I wrote, edited, or prompted in the
years which I am reviewing; I wanted to bring
out in a substantive form, a living Church of Eng
land in a position proper to herself, and founded
on distinct principles; as far as paper could do it,
and as earnestly preaching it and influencing others
towards it, could tend to make it a fact ; a living

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 151

Church, made of flesh and blood, with voice, com
plexion, and motion and action, and a will of its
own. I believe I had no private motive, and no
personal aim. Xor did I ask for more than " a
fair stage and no favour," nor expect the work
would be done in my days; but I thought that
enough would be secured to continue it in the
future under, perhaps, more hopeful circumstances
and prospects than the present.

I will mention in illustration some of the princi
pal works, doctrinal and historical, which originated
in the object which I have stated.

I wrote my Essay on Justification in 1837; it
was aimed at the Lutheran dictum that justifica
tion by faith only was the cardinal doctrine of
Christianity. I considered that this doctrine was
either a paradox or a truism, a paradox in Luther s
mouth, a truism in Melanchthon. I thought that
the Anglican Church followed Melanchthon, and
that in consequence between Rome and Angli
canism, between high Church and low Church, there
was no real intellectual difference on the point. I
wished to fill up a ditch, the work of man. In this
Volume again. I express my desire to build up a
system of theology out of the Anglican divines, and
imply that my dissertation was a tentative Inquiry.
I speak in the Preface of " offering suggestions
towards a work, which must be uppermost in the
mind of every true son of the English Church at
this day, the consolidation of a theological system,

Y 2

152 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

which, built upon those formularies, to which all
clergymen are bound, may tend to inform, persuade,
and absorb into itself religious minds, which hitherto
have fancied, that, on the peculiar Protestant ques
tions, they were seriously opposed to each other."
P. vii. <

In my University Sermons there is a series of
discussions upon the subject of Faith and Reason ;
these again were the tentative commencement of a

C 1

grave and necessary work; it was an inquiry into
the ultimate basis of religious faith, prior to the
distinction into Creeds.

In like manner in a Pamphlet which I published
in the summer of 1838 is an attempt at placing the
doctrine of the Real Presence on an intellectual
basis. The fundamental idea is consonant to that
to which I had been so long attached; it is the
denial of the existence of space except as a sub
jective idea of our minds.

The Church of the Fathers is one of the earliest
productions of the Movement, and appeared in num
bers in the British Magazine, and was written with
the aim of introducing the religious sentiments,
views, and customs of the first ages into the modern
Church of England.

The Translation of Fleury s Church History was
commenced under these circumstances : 1 was fond
of Fleury for a reason which I express in the Adver
tisement ; because it presented a sort of photograph
of ecclesiastical history without any comment upon

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 150

it. In the event, that simple representation of the
early centuries had a good deal to do with un-

w

settling me ; but how little I could anticipate this,
will be seen in the fact that the publication was a
favourite scheme of Mr. Rose s. He proposed it to
me twice, between the years 1834 and 1887; and I
mention it as one out of many particulars curiously
illustrating how truly my change of opinion arose,
not from foreign influences, but from the work
ing of my own mind, and the accidents around
me. The date at which the portion actually trans
lated began was determined by the Publisher on
reasons with which we were not concerned.

Another historical work, but drawn from original
sources, was given to the world by my old friend
Mr. Bowden, being a Life of Pope Gregory VII.
I need scarcely recall to those who have read it, the
power and the liveliness of the narrative. This
composition was the author s relaxation on evenings
and in his summer vacations, from his ordinary
engagements in London. It had been suggested to

o o oo

him originally by me, at the instance of Hurrell
Froude.

The Series of the Lives of the English Saints
was projected at a later period, under circumstances
which I shall have in the sequel to describe. Those
beautiful compositions have nothing in them, as
far as I recollect, simply inconsistent with the
general objects which I have been assigning to my
labours in these years, though the immediate

154 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

occasion of them and their tone could not in the
exercise of the largest indulgence be said to have
an Anglican direction.

At a comparatively early date I drew up the
Tract on the Roman Breviary. It frightened my
own friends on its first appearance, and, several
years afterwards, when younger men began to
translate for publication the four volumes in extenso,
they were dissuaded from doing so by advice to
which from a sense of duty they listened. It was
an apparent accident which introduced me to the
knowledge of that most wonderful and most at
tractive monument of the devotion of saints. On
Hurrell Froude s death, in 1836, I was asked to
select one of his books as a keepsake. I selected
Butler s Analogy ; finding that it had been already
chosen, I looked with some perplexity along the
shelves as they stood before me, when an intimate
friend at my elbow said, " Take that." It was the
Breviary which Hurrell had had with him at Bar
bados. Accordingly I took it, studied it, wrote
my Tract from it, and have it on my table in
constant use till this day.

That dear and familiar companion, who thus put
the Breviary into my hands, is still in the Anglican
Church. So too is that early venerated long-loved
friend, together with whom I edited a work which,
more perhaps than any other, caused disturbance
and annoyance in the Anglican world, Froude s
Remains; yet, however judgment might run as to

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 155

the prudence of publishing it, I never heard any
one impute to Mr. Keble the very shadow of dis
honesty or treachery towards his Church in so
acting.

The annotated Translation of the Treatise of St.
Athanasius was of course in no sense a tentative
work; it belongs to another order of thought.
This historico-dogmatic work employed me for
years. I had made preparations for following it
up with a doctrinal history of the heresies which
succeeded to the Arian.

I should make mention also of the British Critic.
I was Editor of it for three years, from July 1838
to July 1841. My writers belonged to various
schools, some to none at all. The subjects are
various, classical, academical, political, critical,
and artistic, as well as theological, and upon the
Movement none are to be found which do not keep
quite clear of advocating the cause of Rome.

So I went on for years, up to 1841. It was, in a
human point of view, the happiest time of my life.
I was truly at home. I had in one of my volumes ap
propriated to myself the words of Bramhall, "Bees, by
the instinct of nature, do love their hives, and birds
their nests." I did not suppose that such sunshine
would last, though I knew not what would be its
termination. It was the time of plenty, and, during
its seven years, I tried to lay up as much as I
could for the dearth which was to follow it. We

15(5 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

prospered and spread. I have spoken of the doings
of these years, since I was a Catholic, in a passage,
part of which I will quote, though there is a sen
tence in it that requires some limitation :

" From beginnings so small," I said, " from ele
ments of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so
unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party suddenly
became a power in the National Church, and an
object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its
originators would have found it difficult to say
what they aimed at of a practical kind : rather,
they put forth views and principles, for their own
sake, because they were true, as if they were obliged
to say them ; and, as they might be themselves sur
prised at their earnestness in uttering them, they
had as great cause to be surprised at the success
which attended their propagation. And, in fact,
they could only say that those doctrines were in
the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to
explain was to persuade; and that the Movement
in which they were taking part was the birth of a
crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years
a school of opinion was formed, fixed in its prin
ciples, indefinite and progressive in their range;
and it extended itself into every part of the country.
If we inquire what the world thought of it, we
have still more to raise our wonder; for, not to
mention the excitement it caused in England, the
Movement and its party-names were known to the
police of Italy and to the back-woodmen of America.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 157

And so it proceeded, getting stronger and stronger
every year, till it came into collision with the
Nation, and that Church of the Nation, which it
hegan by professing especially to serve."

The greater its success, the nearer was that
collision at hand. The first threatenings of the
crisis were heard in 1838. At that time, my Bishop
in a Charge made some light animadversions, but
they were animadversions, on the Tracts for the
Times. At once I offered to stop them. What
took place on the occasion I prefer to state in the
words, in which I related it in a Pamphlet ad
dressed to him in a later year, when the blow
actually came down upon me.

"In your Lordship s Charge for 1838," I said,
" an allusion was made to the Tracts for the Times.
Some opponents of the Tracts said that you treated
them with undue indulgence. ... I wrote to the
Archdeacon on the subject, submitting the Tracts
entirely to your Lordship s disposal. What I thought
about your Charge will appear from the words
I then used to him. I said, A Bishop s lightest
word ex cathedra is heavy. His judgment on a
book cannot be light. It is a rare occurrence.
And I offered to withdraw any of the Tracts over
which I had control, if I were informed which
were those to which your Lordship had objections.
I afterwards wrote to your Lordship to this effect,
that I trusted I might say sincerely, that I should
feel a more lively pleasure in knowing that I was

o
Z

158 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

submitting myself to your Lordship s expressed
judgment in a matter of that kind, than I could
have even in the widest circulation of the volumes
in question. Your Lordship did not think it
necessary to proceed to such a measure, but I felt,
and always have felt, that, if ever you determined
on it, I was bound to obey."

That day at length came, and I conclude this
portion of my narrative, with relating the circum
stances of it.

From the time that I had entered upon the duties
of Public Tutor at my College, when my doctrinal
views were very different from what they were in
1841, 1 had meditated a comment upon the Articles.
Then, when the Movement was in its swing, friends
had said to me, " What will you make of the
Articles?" but I did not share the apprehension
which their question implied. Whether, as time
went on, I should have been forced, by the necessities
of the original theory of the Movement, to put on
paper the speculations which I had about them, I
am not able to conjecture. The actual cause of my
doing so, in the beginning of 1841, was the rest
lessness, actual and prospective, of those who neither
liked the Via Media, nor my strong judgment
against Rome. I had been enjoined, I think by my
Bishop, to keep these men straight, and I wished so
to do : but their tangible difficulty was subscription
to the Articles; and thus the question of the

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 159

Articles came before me. It was thrown in our
teeth ; " How can vou manage to sign the Articles ?

/ C

they are directly against Rome." " Against Rome ? "
I made answer, "What do you mean by Rome?
and then I proceeded to make distinctions, of which

I shall now give an account.

|

By 4; Roman doctrine " might be meant one of
three things : 1 , the Catholic teaching of the early
centuries; or 2, the formal dogmas of Rome as con
tained in the later Councils, especially the Council
of Trent, and as condensed in the Creed of Pope
Pius IV. ; 3, the actual popular beliefs and usages
sanctioned by Rome in the countries in communion
with it, over and above the dogmas; and these I
called " dominant errors." Now Protestants com
monly thought that in all three senses, "Roman
doctrine " was condemned in the Articles : I
thought that the Catholic teaching was not con
demned ; that the dominant errors were ; and as to
the formal dogmas, that some were, some were not,
and that the line had to be drawn between them.
Thus, 1, the use of Prayers for the dead was a
Catholic doctrine, not condemned ; 2, the prison of
Purgatory was a Roman dogma, which was con
demned; but the infallibility of Ecumenical Councils
was a Roman dogma, not condemned ; and 3, the
fire of Purgatory was an authorized and popular
error, not a dogma, which was condemned.

Further, I considered that the difficulties, felt by
the persons whom I have mentioned, mainly lay in

z 2

160 IIISTOKY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

their mistaking, 1, Catholic teaching, which was not
condemned in the Articles, for Roman dogma
which was condemned ; and 2, Roman dogma,
which was not condemned in the Articles, for domi
nant error which was. If they went further than
this, I had nothing more to say to them.

A further motive which I had for my attempt,
was the desire to ascertain the ultimate points of
contrariety between the Roman and Anglican
creeds, and to make them as few as possible. I
thought that each creed was obscured and misre
presented by a dominant circumambient "Popery"
and " Protestantism."

The main thesis then of my Essay was this :
the Articles do not oppose Catholic teaching; they
but partially oppose Roman dogma; they for the
most part oppose the dominant errors of Rome.
And the problem was to draw the line as to what
they allowed and what they condemned.

Such being the object which I had in view, what
were my prospects of widening and defining their
meaning? The prospect was encouraging; there
was no doubt at all of the elasticity of the Articles :
to take a palmary instance, the seventeenth was
assumed by one party to be Lutheran, by another
Calvinistic, though the two interpretations were
contradictory to each other; why then should not
other Articles be drawn up with a vagueness of an
equally intense character ? I wanted to ascertain
what was the limit of that elasticity in the direction

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 161

of Roman dogma. But next, I had a way of inquiry
of my own, which I state without defending. I
instanced it afterwards in my Essay on Doctrinal
Development. That work, I believe, I have not
read since I published it, and I doubt not at all
that I have made many mistakes in it; partly,
from my ignorance of the details of doctrine, as
the Church of Rome holds them, but partly from
my impatience to clear as large a range for the
principle of doctrinal Development (waiving the
question of historical fact] as was consistent with
the strict Apostolicity and identity of the Catholic
Creed. In like manner, as regards the 39 Articles,
my method of inquiry was to leap in medias res.
I wished to institute an inquiry 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 con
clusions were negative rather than positive. It
was but a first essay. And I made it with the full
recognition and consciousness, which I had already
expressed in my Prophetical Office, as regards the
Via Media, that I was making only "a first ap
proximation to a required solution ;" " a series of
illustrations supplying hints in the removal " of a
difficulty, and with full acknowledgment " that in

J

minor points, whether in question of fact or of
judgment, there was room for difference or error
of opinion," and that I "should not be ashamed to

162 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

own a mistake, if it were proved against me, nor
reluctant to bear the just blame of it." P. 31.

In addition, I was embarrassed in consequence of
my wish to go as far as was possible, in interpret
ing 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 further than at present they
found in themselves any call to do.

1. But in the way of such an attempt comes the
prompt objection that the Articles were actually
drawn up against " Popery," and therefore it was
transcendently absurd and dishonest to suppose that
Popery, in any shape, patristic belief, Tridentine
dogma, or popular corruption authoritatively sanc
tioned, would be able to take refuge under their
text, This premiss I denied. Not any religious
doctrine at all, but a political principle, was the
primary English idea at that time of " Popery."
And what was that political principle, and how
could it best be kept out of England ? What was
the great question in the days of Henry and
Elizabeth? The Supremacy; now, was I saying
one single word in favour of the Supremacy of
the Holy See, of the foreign jurisdiction? No;
I did not believe in it myself. Did Henry VIII.
religiously hold Justification by faith only ? did
he disbelieve Purgatory ? Was Elizabeth zealous
for the marriage of the Clergy ? or had she a con-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 163

science against the Mass ? The Supremacy of
the Pope was the essence of the " Popery to
which, at the time of the Articles, the Supreme
Head or Governor of the English Church was so
violently hostile.

2. But again I said this; let "Popery" mean
what it would in the mouths of the compilers of
the Articles, let it even, for argument s sake, in
clude the doctrines of that Tridentine Council, which
was not vet over when the Articles were drawn

*

up, and against which they could not be simply
directed, yet, consider, what was the religious object
of the Government in their imposition ? merely to
disown "Popery?" No; it had the further ob
ject of gaining the " Papists." What then was
the best way to induce reluctant or wavering
minds, and these, I supposed, were the majority,
to give in their adhesion to the new symbol ? how
had the Arians drawn up their Creeds ? was it
not on the principle of using vague ambiguous
language, which to the subscribers would seem to
bear a Catholic sense, but which, when worked out
in the long run, would prove to be heterodox ?
Accordingly, there was great antecedent probability,
that, fierce as the Articles mi^ht look at first sight,

/ o o

their bark would prove worse than their bite. I
say antecedent probability, for to what extent that
surmise might be true, could only be ascertained
by investigation.

3. But a consideration came up at once, which

164 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

threw light on this surmise : what if it should turn
out that the very men who drew up the Articles,
in the very act of doing so, had avowed, or rather
in one of those very Articles themselves had imposed
on subscribers, a number of those very "Papis
tical " doctrines, which they were now thought to
deny, as part and parcel of that very Protestantism,
which they were now thought to consider divine ?
and this was the fact, and I showed it in my Essay.
Let the reader observe : the 35th Article says :
"The second Book of Homilies doth contain a
godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for
these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies."
Here the doctrine of the Homilies is recognized as
godly and wholesome, and subscription to that pro
position is imposed on all subscribers of the Articles.
Let us then turn to the Homilies, and see what
this godly doctrine is : I quoted from them to the
following effect :

1. They declare that the so-called " apocryphal 1
book of Tobit is the teaching of the Holy Ghost,
and is Scripture.

2. That the so-called "apocryphal 1 book of
Wisdom is Scripture, and the infallible and un-
deceivable word of God.

3. That the Primitive Church, next to the
Apostles time, and, as they imply, for almost 700
years, is no doubt most pure.

4. That the Primitive Church is specially to be

followed.

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OriNIONS. 1C5

5. That the Four first General Councils belono-

o

to the Primitive Church.

6. That there are Six Councils which are
allowed and received by all men.

7. Again, they speak of a certain truth which
they are enforcing, as declared by God s word, the
sentences of the ancient doctors, and judgment of
the Primitive Church.

8. Of the learned and holy Bishops and doctors
of the first eight centuries being of good authority
and credit with the people.

9. Of the declaration of Christ and His Apostles
and all the rest of the Holy Fathers.

10. Of the authority of both Scripture and also
of Augustine.

11. Of Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome,
and about thirty other Fathers, to some of whom
they give the title of " Saint," to others of ancient
Catholic Fathers and doctors.

12. They declare that, not only the holy Apostles
and disciples of Christ, but the godly Fathers also
before and since Christ were endued without doubt
with the Holy Ghost.

13. That the ancient Catholic Fathers say that
the "Lord s Supper" is the salve of immortality,
the sovereign preservative against death, the food
of immortality, the healthful grace.

14. That the Lord s Blessed Body and Blood are
received under the form of bread and wine.

A a

166 HISTORY OF MY BELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

15. That the meat in the Sacrament is an in
visible meat and a ghostly substance.

16. That the holy Body and Blood ought to be
touched with the mind.

17. That Ordination is a Sacrament.

18. That Matrimony is a Sacrament.

19. That there are other Sacraments besides
" Baptism and the Lord s Supper."

20. That the souls of the Saints are reigning in
joy and in heaven with God.

21. That alms-deeds purge the soul from the
infection and filthy spots of sin, and are a precious
medicine, an inestimable jewel.

22. That mercifulness wipes out and washes
away infirmity and weakness as salves and reme
dies to heal sores and grievous diseases.

23. That the duty of fasting is a truth more
manifest than it should need to be proved.

24. That fasting, used with prayer, is of great
efficacy and weigheth much with God; so the
Angel Kaphael told Tobias.

25. That the puissant and mighty Emperor
Theodosius was, in the Primitive Church which
was most holy and godly, excommunicated by St.
Ambrose.

26. That Constantine, Bishop of Rome, did con
demn Philippicus, the Emperor, not without a
cause indeed, but most justly.

Putting altogether aside the question how far

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 167

these separate theses came under the matter to
which subscription was to he made, it was quite
plain, that the men who wrote the Homilies, and
who thus incorporated them into the Anglican
system of doctrine, could not have possessed that
exact discrimination between the Catholic and Pro
testant faith, or have made that clear recognition
of formal Protestant principles and tenets, or have
accepted that definition of "Roman doctrine,"
which is received at this day : hence great pro
bability accrued to my presentiment, that the
Articles were tolerant, not only of what I called
" Catholic teaching," but of much that was " Ro

man."

4. And here was another reason against the no
tion that the Articles directly attacked the Roman
dogmas as declared at Trent and as promulgated by
Pius the Fourth : the Council of Trent was not
over, nor its Decrees promulgated at the date when
the Articles were drawn up, so that those Articles
must be aiming at something else. What was that
something else ? The Homilies tell us : the Homi
lies are the best comment upon the Articles. Let
us turn to the Homilies, and we shall find from first
to last that, not only is not the Catholic teaching of
the first centuries, but neither again are the dogmas
of Rome, the objects of the protest of the compilers
of the Articles, but the dominant errors, the popular
corruptions, authorized or suffered by the high name
of Rome. As to Catholic teaching, nay as to

A a 2

168 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Roman dogma, those Homilies, as I have shown,
contained no small portion of it themselves.

5. So much for the writers of the Articles and
Homilies ; they were witnesses, not authorities,
and I used them as such ; but in the next place,
who were the actual authorities imposing them ?
I considered the imponens to be the Convocation
of 1571 ; but here again, it would be found that
the very Convocation, which received and con
firmed the 39 Articles, also enjoined by Canon
that "preachers should be careful, that they
should never teach aught in a sermon, to be re
ligiously held and believed by the people, except
that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old
and New Testament, and which the Catholic Fa
thers and ancient Bishops have collected from that
very doctrine." Here, let it be observed, an appeal
is made by the Convocation imponens to the very
same ancient authorities, as had been mentioned
with such profound veneration by the writers of
the Homilies and of the Articles, and thus, if the
Homilies contained views of doctrine which now
would be called Roman, there seemed to me to
be an extreme probability that the Convocation
of 1571 also countenanced and received, or at least
did not reject, those doctrines.

6. And further, when at length I came actually
to look into the text of the Articles, I saw in many
cases a patent fulfilment of all that I had surmised
as to their vagueness and indecisiveness, and that,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 169

not only on questions which lay between Lutherans,
Calvinists, and Zuinglians, but on Catholic ques
tions also; and I have noticed them in my Tract.
In the conclusion of my Tract I observe : They are
" evidently framed on the principle of leaving- open
large questions on which the controversy hinges.
They state broadly extreme truths, and are silent
about their adjustment. For instance, they say that
all necessary faith must be proved from Scripture;
but do not say who is to prove it. They say, that
the Church has authority in controversies; they do
not say what authority. They say that it may
enforce nothing beyond Scripture, but do not say
where the remedy lies when it does. They say
that works before grace and justification are worth
less 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 say that men are lawfully called and sent to
minister and preach, who are chosen and called
by men who have public authority given them in
the Congregation; but they do not add by whom
the authority is to be given. They say that
Councils called by princes may err ; they do not
determine whether Councils called in the name of
Christ may err."

Such were the considerations which weighed
with me in my inquiry how far the Articles were
tolerant of a Catholic, or even a Ivoman inter
pretation ; and such was the defence which I made

170 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

in my Tract for having attempted it. From what
I have already said, it will appear that I have no
need or intention at this day to maintain every
particular interpretation which I suggested in the
course of my Tract, nor indeed had I then.
Whether it was prudent or not, whether it was
sensible or not, any how I attempted only a first
essay of a necessary work, an essay which, as 1 was
quite prepared to find, would require revision and
modification by means of the lights which I should
<rain from the criticism of others. 1 should have

O

gladly withdrawn any statement, which could be
proved to me to be erroneous ; I considered my work
to be faulty and objectionable in the same sense in
which 1 now consider my Anglican interpretations
of Scripture to be erroneous, but in no other sense.
I am surprised that men do not apply to the inter
preters of Scripture generally the hard names which
they apply to the author of Tract 90. He held a large
system of theology, and applied it to the Articles :
Episcopalians, or Lutherans, or Presbyterians, or
Unitarians, hold a large system of theology and
apply it to Scripture. Every theology has its
difficulties; Protestants hold justification by faith
only, though there is no text in St. Paul which
enunciates it, and though St. James expressly
denies it; do we therefore call Protestants dis
honest ? they deny that the Church has a divine
mission, though St. Paul says that it is "the
Pillar and ground of Truth;" they keep the Sab-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 171

bath, Chough St. Paul says, "Let no man judge you
in meat or drink or in respect of ... the sabbath
days." Every creed has texts in its favour, and
again texts which run counter to it : and this is
generally confessed. And this is what I felt keenly :
how had I done worse in Tract 90 than Angli-

^ O

cans, Wesleyans, and Calvinists did daily in their
Sermons and their publications ? how had I done
worse, than the Evangelical party in their ex animo
reception of the Services for Baptism and Visitation
of the Sick ? Why was I to be dishonest and
they immaculate ? There was an occasion on which

1 For instance, let candid men consider the form of Absolu
tion contained in that Prayer Book, of which all clergymen,
Evangelical and Liberal as well as high Church, and (I think) all
persons in University office declare that " it containeth nothing
contrary to tlie Word of God."

I challenge, in the sight of all England, Evangelical clergy
men generally, to put on paper an interpretation of this form of
words, consistent with their sentiments, which shall be les*
forced than the most objectionable of the interpretations which
Tract 90 puts upon any passage in the Articles.

" Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church
to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him,
of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences ; and by His
authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen."

I subjoin the Eoman form, as used in England and else
where : " Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat ; et ego
auctoritate ipsius te absolve, ab omni vinculo excommunica-
tionis et iuterdicti, in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde
ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et
Spiritus Saucti. Amen."

172 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

our Lord gave an answer, which seemed to be ap
propriate to my own case, when the tumult broke
out against mv Tract : " He that is without sin

o >

among you, let him first cast a stone at him." I
could have fancied that a sense of their own diffi
culties of interpretation would have persuaded the
great party I have mentioned to some prudence,
or at least moderation, in opposing a teacher of an
opposite school. But I suppose their alarm and
their anger overcame their sense of justice.

In the universal storm of indignation with which
the Tract was received on its appearance, I re
cognize much of real religious feeling, much of honest
and true principle, much of straightforward ignorant
common sense. In Oxford there was genuine feel-
ino- too; but there had been a smouldering stern

O * ^

energetic animosity, not at all unnatural, partly
rational, against its author. A false step had been
made ; now was the time for action. I am told that,
even before the publication of the Tract, rumours
of its contents had got into the hostile camp in an
exaggerated form ; and not a moment was lost in

OO

proceeding to action, when I was actually in the
hands of the Philistines. I was quite unprepared
for the outbreak, and was startled at its violence.
I do not think I had any fear. Nay, I will add
I am not sure that it was not in one point of view
a relief to me.

I saw indeed clearly that my place in the Move-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 173

ment was lost ; public confidence was at an end ; my
occupation was gone. It was simply an impossibility
that I could say any thing henceforth to good effect,
when I had been posted up by the marshal on the
buttery hatch of every College of my University,
after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks, and
when in every part of the country and every class of
society, through every organ and occasion of opinion,
in newspapers, in periodicals, at meetings, in pul
pits, at dinner -tables, in coffee-rooms, in railway
carriages, I was denounced as a traitor who had laid
his train and was detected in the very act of firing
it against the time-honoured Establishment. There
were indeed men, besides my own friends, men of
name and position, who gallantly took my part,
as Dr. Hook, Mr. Palmer, and Mr. Perceval : it
must have been a grievous trial for themselves;
yet what after all could they do for me ? Con
fidence in me was lost; but I had already lost
full confidence in myself. Thoughts had passed
over me a year and a half before, which for the
time had profoundly troubled me. They had gone :
I had not less confidence in the power and the
prospects of the Apostolical movement than before;
not less confidence than before in the grievousness
of what I called the " dominant errors of
Rome : but how was I any more to have absolute
confidence in myself? how was I to have confidence
in my present confidence ? how was I to be sure

Bb

174 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

that I should always think as I thought now ?
I felt that by this event a kind Providence had
saved me from an impossible position in the
future.

First, if I remember right, they wished me to
withdraw the Tract. This I refused to do : I would
not do so for the sake of those who were unsettled
or in danger of unsettlement. I would not do so for
my own sake; for how could I acquiesce in a mere
Protestant interpretation of the Articles ? how
could I range myself among the professors of a
theology, of which it put my teeth on edge, even
to hear the sound ?

Next they said, "Keep silence; do not defend
the Tract;" I answered, "Yes, if you will not con
demn it, if you will allow it to continue on sale."
They pressed on me whenever I gave way; they
fell back when they saw me obstinate. Their line
of action was to get out of me as much as they
could; but upon the point of their tolerating the
Tract I was obstinate. So they let me continue it
on sale; and they said they would not condemn it.
But they said that this was on condition that I did
not defend it, that I stopped the series, and that I
myself published my own condemnation in a letter
to the Bishop of Oxford. I impute nothing what
ever to him, he was ever most kind to me. Also,
they said they could not answer for what individual

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 175

Bishops might perhaps say about the Tract in their
own charges. I agreed to their conditions. My
one point was to save the Tract.

Not a scrap of writing was given me, as a pledge
of the performance of their side of the engagement.
Parts of letters from them were read to me, with
out being put into my hands. It was an " under
standing." A clever man had warned me against
" understandings " some six years before : I have
hated them ever since.

In the last words of my letter to the Bishop of
Oxford I thus resigned my place in the Move
ment:

"I have nothing to be sorry for," I say to him,
"except having made your Lordship anxious, and
others whom I am bound to revere. I have nothing
to be sorry for, but every thing to rejoice in and be
thankful for. I have never taken pleasure in seem
ing to be able to move a party, and whatever in
fluence I have had, has been found, not sought
after. I have acted because others did not act,
and have sacrificed a quiet which I prized. May
God be with me in time to come, as He has been
hitherto! and He will be, if I can but keep my
hand clean and my heart pure. I think I can
bear, or at least will try to bear, any personal humi
liation, so that I am preserved from betraying sacred
interests, which the Lord of grace and power has
given into my charge."

PART V,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS

C c

PART V.

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

AND now that I am about to trace, as far as I can,
the course of that great revolution of mind, which
led me to leave my own home, to which I was
bound by so many strong and tender ties, I feel
overcome with the difficulty of satisfying myself in
my account of it, and have recoiled from doing so,
till the near approach of the day, on which these
lines must be given to the world, forces me to set
about the task. For who can know himself, and
the multitude of subtle influences which act upon
him ? and who can recollect, at the distance of
twenty-five years, all that he once knew about his
thoughts and his deeds, and that, during a portion
of his life, when even at the time his observation,
whether of himself or of the external world, was
less than before or after, by very reason of the per
plexity and dismay which weighed upon him, when,
though it would be most unthankful to seem to im
ply that he had not all-sufficient light amid his dark
ness, yet a darkness it emphatically was ? And who
can gird himself suddenly to a new and anxious un-

c c 2

180 HISTOKY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

dertaking, which he might be able indeed to perform
well, had he full and calm leisure to look through
every thing that he has written, whether in pub
lished works or private letters ? but, on the other
hand, as to that calm contemplation of the past, in
itself so desirable, who can afford to be leisurely

V

and deliberate, while he practises on himself a cruel
operation, the ripping up of old griefs, and the
venturing again upon the " infandum dolorem " of
years, in which the stars of this lower heaven

were one by one going out ? I could not in cool blood,
nor except upon the imperious call of duty, attempt
what I have set mvself to do. It is both to head and

w

heart an extreme trial, thus to analyze what has so
long gone by, and to bring out the results of that
examination. I have done various bold things in
my life : this is the boldest : and, were I not sure I
should after all succeed in my object, it would be
madness to set about it.

In the spring of 1839 my position in the An
glican Church was at its height. I had supreme

confidence in mv controversial status, and I had a

.1

great and still growing success, in recommending it
to others. I had in the foregoing autumn been some
what sore at the Bishop s Charge, but I have a letter
which shows that all annoyance had passed from my
mind. In January, if I recollect aright, in order to
meet the popular clamour against myself and others,
and to satisfy the Bishop, I had collected into one

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 181

all the strong things which they, and especially I,
had said against the Church of Rome, in order to
their insertion among the advertisements appended
to our publications. Conscious as I was that my
opinions in religion were not gained, as the world
said, from Roman sources, but were, on the con
trary, the birth of my own mind and of the circum
stances in which I had been placed, I had a scorn
of the imputations which were heaped upon me.
It was true that I held a large bold system of
religion, very unlike the Protestantism of the day,
but it was the concentration and adjustment of the
statements of great Anglican authorities, and I had
as much right to do so, as the Evangelical party had,
and more right than the Liberal, to hold their own
respective doctrines. As I spoke on occasion of
Tract 90, I claimed, in behalf of who would, that
he might hold in the Anglican Church a com-
precation with the Saints with Bramhall, and tho
Mass all but Transubstantiation with Andrewes, or
with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not
a point for Churches to part communion upon, or
with Hammond that a General Council, trulv such,

mf

never did, never shall err in a matter of faith, or
with Bull that man lost inward grace by the fall,
or with Thorndike that penance is a propitiation
for post-baptismal sin, or with Pearson that the
all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given
than in the Catholic Church. " Two can play at
that," was often in my mouth, when men of Pro

1 82 HISTORY OE MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

testant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homi
lies, or Reformers ; in the sense that, if they had a
right to speak loud, I had both the liberty and
the means of giving them tit for tat. I thought
that the Anglican Church had been tyrannized
over by a party, and I aimed at bringing into effect
the promise contained in the motto to the Lyra,
" They shall know the difference now." I only
asked to be allowed to show them the difference.

What will best describe my state of mind at the
early part of 1839, is an Article in the British Critic
for that April. I have looked over it now, for the
first time since it was published; and have been
struck by it for this reason : it contains the last
words which I ever spoke as an Anglican to Angli
cans. It may now be read as my parting address
and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew
it at the time. It reviews the actual state of
things, and it ends by looking towards the future.
It is not altogether mine ; for my memory goes to
this, that I had asked a friend to do the work;
that then, the thought came on me, that I would
do it myself: and that he was good enough to put
into my hands what he had with great appositeness
written, and I embodied it into my Article. Every
one, I think, will recognize the greater part of it
as mine. It wa s published two years before the
affair of Tract DO, and was entitled " The State of
Religious Parties."

In this Article, I begin by bringing together

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 183

testimonies from our enemies to the remarkable
success of our exertions. One writer said :
" Opinions and views of a theology of a very
marked and peculiar kind have been extensively
adopted and strenuously upheld, and are daily
gaining ground among a considerable and influ
ential portion of the members, as well as ministers
of the Established Church." Another : The Move
ment has manifested itself "with the most rapid
growth of the hot-bed of these evil days." An
other : " The Via Media is crowded with young
enthusiasts, who never presume to argue, except
against the propriety of arguing at all." Another :
" Were I to give you a full list of the works, which
they have produced within the short space of five
years, I should surprise you. You would see what
a task it would be to make yourself complete
master of their system, even in its present pro
bably immature state. The writers have adopted
the motto, In quietness and confidence shall be
your strength. With regard to confidence, they
have justified their adopting it ; but as to quiet
ness, it is not very quiet to pour forth such a
succession of controversial publications." Another :
" The spread of these doctrines is in fact now
having the effect of rendering all other distinctions
obsolete, and of severing the religious community
into two portions, fundamentally and vehemently
opposed one to the other. Soon there will be no
middle ground left; and every man, and especially

184 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

every clergyman, will be compelled to make his
choice between the two." Another : " The time
has gone by, when those unfortunate and deeply
regretted publications can be passed over without
notice, and the hope that their influence would
fail is now dead." Another: "These doctrines
had already made fearful progress. One of the
largest churches in Brighton is crowded to hear
them ; so is the church at Leeds. There are few
towns of note, to which they have not extended.
They are preached in small towns in Scotland.
They obtain in Elginshire, COO miles north of
London. I found them myself in the heart of the
highlands of Scotland. They are advocated in the
newspaper and periodical press. They have even
insinuated themselves into the House of Com
mons." And, lastly, a bishop in a Charge: It
" is daily assuming a more serious and alarming
aspect. Under the specious pretence of deference
to Antiquity and respect for primitive models, the
foundations of the Protestant Church are under
mined by men, who dwell within her walls, and
those who sit in the Reformers seat are traducing
the Reformation."

After thus stating the phenomenon of the time,
as it presented itself to those who did not sym
pathize in it, the Article proceeds to account for it ;
and this it does by considering it as a re-action
from the dry and superficial character of the re
ligious teaching and the literature of the last

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 185

generation, or century, and as a result of the need
which was felt both bv the hearts and the intellects

of the nation for a deeper philosophy, and as the
evidence and as the partial fulfilment of that need,
to which even the chief authors of the then gene
ration had borne witness. First, I mentioned the
literary influence of Walter Scott, who turned men s
minds to the direction of the middle ages. " The

o

general need," I said, "of something deeper and
more attractive, than what had offered itself else
where, may be considered to have led to his popu
larity ; and by means of his popularity he re-acted on
his readers, stimulating- their mental thirst, feeding

O / O

their hopes, setting before them visions, which, when
once seen, are not easily forgotten, and silently in
doctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might -
afterwards be appealed to as first principles."

Then I spoke of Coleridge, thus : " While history
in prose and verse was thus made the instrument
of Church feelings and opinions, a philosophical
basis for the same was laid in England by a very
original thinker, who, while he indulged a liberty
of speculation, which no Christian can tolerate,
and advocated conclusions which were often heathen
rather than Christian, yet after all instilled a
higher philosophy into inquiring minds, than they
had hitherto been accustomed to accept. In this
way he made trial of his age, and succeeded in
interesting its genius in the cause of Catholic
truth."

D d

186 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Then come Southey and Wordsworth, " two
living poets, one of whom in the department of
fantastic fiction, the other in that of philosophical
meditation, have addressed themselves to the same
high principles and feelings, and carried forward
their readers in the same direction."

Then comes the prediction of this re-action
hazarded by " a sagacious observer withdrawn
from the world, and surveying its movements from
a distance," Mr. Alexander Knox. He had said
twenty years before the date of my writing: "No
Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence than
the English Church, yet no Church probably has
less practical influence. . . . The rich provision,
made by the grace and providence of God, for
habits of a noble kind, is evidence that men shall
arise, fitted both by nature and ability, to discover
for themselves, and to display to others, whatever
yet remains undiscovered, whether in the words or
works of God." Also I referred to " a much
venerated clergyman of the last generation," who
said shortly before his death, " Depend on it, the
day will come, when those great doctrines, now
buried, will be brought out to the light of day,
and then the effect will be fearful." I remarked
upon this, that they who "now blame the im
petuosity of the current, should rather turn their
animadversions upon those who have dammed up
a majestic river, till it had become a flood."

These bein the circumstances under which the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 187

Movement began and progressed, it was absurd to
refer it to the act of two or three individuals. It
was not so much a movement as a " spirit afloat ;"
it was within us, " rising up in hearts where it was
least suspected, and working itself, though not in
secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to
admit of precaution or encounter on any ordinary
human rules of opposition. It is," I continued, "an
adversary in the air, a something one and entire, a
whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable
of being grasped, as being the result of causes far
deeper than political or other visible agencies, the
spiritual awakening of spiritual wants."

To make this clear, I proceed to refer to the
chief preachers of the revived doctrines at that
moment, and to draw attention to the variety of

their respective antecedents. Dr. Hook and Mr.
Churton represented the high Church dignitaries
of the last century; Mr. Perceval, the tory aristo
cracy ; Mr. Keble came from a country parsonage ;
Mr. Palmer from Ireland ; Dr. Pusey from the
Universities of Germany, and the study of Arabic
MSS. ; Mr. Dodsworth from the study of Prophecy ;
Mr. Oakeley had gained his views, as he himself
expressed it, " partly by study, partly by reflection,
partly by conversation with one or two friends,
inquirers like himself:" while I speak of myself as
being "much indebted to the friendship of Arch
bishop Whately." And thus I am led on to ask,
" What head of a sect is there ? What march of

l> d 2

188 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

opinions can be traced from mind to mind among
preachers such as these ? They are one and all in
their degree the organs of one Sentiment, which
has risen up simultaneously in many places very
mysteriously."

* ^

My train of thought next led me to speak of the
disciples of the Movement, and I freely acknowledged
and lamented that they needed to be kept in order.
It is very much to the purpose to draw attention to
this point now, when such extravagances as then oc
curred, whatever they were, are simply laid to my door,
or to the charge of the doctrines which I advocated.
A man cannot do more than freely confess what is
wrong, say that it need not be, that it ought not to
be, and that he is very sorry that it should be. Now
I said in the Article, which I am reviewing, that the
great truths themselves, which we were preaching,
must not be condemned on account of such abuse
of them. " Aberrations there must ever be, w hat-
ever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensi
tive, capricious, and wayward. A mixed multitude
went out of Egypt with the Israelites." " There
will ever be a number of persons," I continued,
" professing the opinions of a movement party, who
talk loudly and strangely, do odd or fierce things,
display themselves unnecessarily, and disgust other
people ; persons, too young to be wise, too generous
to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intel
lectual to be humble. Such persons will be very
apt to attach themselves to particular parsons, to use

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 189

particular names, to say things merely because
others do, and to act in a party-spirited way."

AYhile I thus repuhlish what I then said about
such extravagances as occurred in these years, at
the same time I have a very strong conviction that
they furnished quite as much the welcome excuse
for those who were jealous or shy of us. as the stum
bling-blocks of those who were well inclined to our
doctrines. This too we felt at the time; but it was
our duty to see that our good should not be evil-
spoken of; and accordingly, two or three of the
writers of the Tracts for the Times had com
menced a Series of what they called " Plain Ser
mons" with the avowed purpose of discouraging
and correcting whatever was uppish or extreme in
our followers : to this Series I contributed a volume
myself.

w

Its conductors say in their Preface : " If therefore
as time goes on, there shall be found persons, who
admiring the innate beauty and majesty of the
fuller system of Primitive Christianity, and seeing
the transcendent strength of its principles, sJtall
become loud tnid voluble advocates in their behalf,
speaking the more freely, because they do not feel
them deeply as founded in divine and eternal truth,
of such persons it is our duty to declare plainly,
that, as we should contemplate their condition with
serious misgiving, so icould they be the. last persons
from whom we should seek support.

"But if, on the other hand, there shall be any,

100 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

who, in the silent humility of their lives, and in
their unaffected reverence for holy things, show
that they in truth accept these principles as real
and substantial, and by habitual purity of heart
and serenity of temper, give proof of their deep
veneration for sacraments and sacramental ordi
nances, those persons, whether our professed adhe
rents or not, best exemplify the kind of character
which the writers of the Tracts for the Times have
wished to form."

These clergymen had the best of claims to use
these beautiful words, for they were themselves, all of
them, important writers in the Tracts, the two Mr.
Kebles, and Mr. Isaac Williams. And this passage,
with which they ushered their Series into the world,

/

I quoted in the Article, of which I am giving an
account, and I added, "What more can be required of
the preachers of neglected truth, than that they should
admit that some, who do not assent totheirpreaching,
are holier and better men than some who do ?"
They were not answerable for the intemperance of
those who dishonoured a true doctrine, provided they
protested, as they did, against such intemperance.
" They were not answerable for the dust and din
which attends any great moral movement. The
truer doctrines are, the more liable they are to be

perverted."

The notice of these incidental faults of opinion
or temper in adherents of the Movement, led on to a
discussion of the secondary causes, by means of which

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 191

a system of doctrine mav be embraced, modified,

V / /

or developed, of the variety of schools which may all
be in the One Church, and of the succession of one
phase of doctrine to another, while it is ever one
and the same. Thus I was brought on to the
subject of Antiquity, which was the basis of the
doctrine of the Via Media, and by which was not
implied a servile imitation of the past, but such a
reproduction of it as is really young, while it is old.
" We have good hope," I say, " that a system will
be rising up, superior to the age, yet harmonizing
with, and carrying out its higher points, which will
attract to itself those who are willing to make a

O

venture and to face difficulties, for the sake of
something higher in prospect. On this, as on other
subjects, the proverb will apply, Fortes fortuna
adjuvat.

Lastly, I proceeded to the question of that future
of the Anglican Church, which was to be a new birth
of the Ancient Religion. And I did not venture to
pronounce upon it. " About the future, we have
no prospect before our minds whatever, good or
bad. Ever since that great luminary, Augustine,
proved to be the last bishop of Hippo, Christians
have had a lesson against attempting to foretell,
how Providence will prosper and " [or ?] " bring to
an end, what it begins." Perhaps the lately-revived
principles would prevail in the Anglican Church ;
perhaps they would be lost in "some miserable
schism, or some more miserable compromise; but

192 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

there was nothing rash in venturing 1 to predict that
"neither Puritanism nor Liberalism had any per
manent inheritance within her." I suppose I
meant to say that in the present age, without the
, aid of Apostolical principles, the Anglican Church
would, in the event, cease to exist.

"As to Liberalism, we think the formularies
of the Church will ever, with the aid of a good
Providence, keep it from making any serious in
roads upon the Clergy. Besides, it is too cold a
principle to prevail with the multitude." But as
regarded what was called Evangelical Religion or
Puritanism, there was more to cause alarm. I
observed upon its organization ; but on the other
hand it had no intellectual basis ; no internal idea,
no principle of unity, no theology. " Its adherents,"
I said, "are already separating from each other;
they will melt away like a snow-drift. It has no
straightforward view on any one point, on which
it professes to teach, and to hide its poverty, it has
dressed itself out in a maze of words. We have no
dread of it at all; we only fear what it may lead
to. It does not stand on intrenched ground, or
make any pretence to a position ; it does but occupy
the space between contending powers, Catholic
Truth and Rationalism. Then indeed will be the
stern encounter, when two real and living prin
ciples, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the
Church, the other out of it, at length rush upon
each other, contending not for names and words, or

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 193

half-views, but for elementary notions and dis
tinctive moral characters."

Whether the ideas of the coming age upon re
ligion were true or false, they would be real. " In
the present day," I said, " mistiness is the mother
of wisdom. A man who can set down half-a-dozen
general propositions, which escape from destroying
one another only by being diluted into truisms,
who can hold the balance between opposites so
skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam, who
never enunciates a truth without guarding himself
against being supposed to exclude the contra
dictory, who holds that Scripture is the only
authority, yet that the Church is to be deferred to,
that faith only justifies, yet that it does not justify
without works, that grace does not depend on the
sacraments, yet is not given without them, that
bishops are a divine ordinance, yet those who have
them not are in the same religious condition as
those who have, this is your safe man and the
hope of the Church; this is what the Church is
said to want, not party men, but sensible, tem
perate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it
through the channel of no-meaning, between the
Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No."

This state of things, however, I said, could not
last, if men were to read and think. Thev " will

v

not keep standing in that very attitude which you
call sound Church-of-Englandism or orthodox Pro
testantism. They cannot go on for ever standing

E e

194 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

on one leg, or sitting without a chair, or walking
with their feet tied, or grazing like Tityrus s stags
in the air. They will take one view or another,
but it will be a consistent view. It may be Libe
ralism, or Erastianism, or Popery, or Catholicity ;
but it will be real."

I concluded the Article by saying, that all who
did not wish to be " democratic, or pantheistic, or
popish," must " look out for some Via Media which
will preserve us from what threatens, though it
cannot restore the dead. The spirit of Luther is
dead ; but Hildebrand and Loyola are alive. Is it
sensible, sober, judicious, to be so very angry with
those writers of the day, who point to the fact, that
our divines of the seventeenth century have occu
pied a ground which is the true and intelligible
mean between extremes ? Is it wise to quarrel with
this ground, because it is not exactly what we
should choose, had we the power of choice ? Is it
true moderation, instead of trying to fortify a
middle doctrine, to fling stones at those who do ? ...
Would you rather have your sons and daughters
members of the Church of England or of the
Church of Rome?"

And thus I left the matter. But, while I was
thus speaking of the future of the Movement, I was
in truth winding up my accounts with it, little
dreamino- that it was so to be; while I was still,

o *

in some way or other, feeling about for an available
Via Media, I was soon to receive a shock which

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 195

was to cast out of my imagination all middle courses
and compromises for ever. As I have said, this
Article appeared in the April number of the British
Critic; in the July number, I cannot tell why,
there is no Article of mine ; before the number for
October, the event had happened to which I have
alluded.

But before I proceed to describe what happened
to me in the summer of 1839, I must detain the
reader for a while, in order to describe the issue of
the controversy between Rome and the Anglican
Church, as I viewed it. This will involve some
dry discussion ; but it is as necessary for my narra
tive, as plans of buildings and homesteads are often
found to be in the proceedings of our law courts.

I have said already that, though the object of
the Movement was to withstand the Liberalism of
the day, I found and felt this could not be done by
mere negatives. It was necessary for us to have a
positive Church theory erected on a definite basis.
This took me to the great Anglican divines; and
then of course I found at once that it was im
possible to form any such theory, without cutting
across the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus
came in the Roman controversy.

When I first turned myself to it, I had neither
doubt on the subject, nor suspicion that doubt
would ever come upon me. It was in this state
of mind that I began to read up Bellarmine, on

E e 2

196 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

the one hand, and numberless Anglican writers
on the other. But I soon found, as others had
found before me, that it was a tangled and manifold
controversy, difficult to master, more difficult to
put out of hand with neatness and precision. It
was easy to make points, not easy to sum up and
settle. It was not easy to find a clear issue for the
dispute, and still less by a logical process to decide
it in favour of Anglicanism. This difficulty, how
ever, had no tendency whatever to harass or per
plex me : it was a matter, not of convictions, but of
proofs.

First I saw, as all see who study the subject,
that a broad distinction had to be drawn between
the actual state of belief and of usage in the coun
tries which were in communion with the Roman
Church, and her formal dogmas; the latter did not
cover the former. Sensible pain, for instance, is
not implied in the Tridentine decree upon Purga
tory; but it was the tradition of the Latin Church,
and I had seen the pictures of souls in flames in
the streets of Naples. Bishop Lloyd had brought
this distinction out strongly in an Article in the
British Critic in 1825; indeed, it was one of the
most common objections made to the Church of
Rome, that she dared not commit herself by formal
decree, to what nevertheless she sanctioned and
allowed. Accordingly, in my Prophetical Office,
I view as simply separate ideas, Rome quiescent,
and Rome in action. I contrasted her creed on the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 197

one hand, with her ordinary teaching, her contro
versial tone, her political and social bearing, and
her popular beliefs and practices on the other.

While I made this distinction between the decrees
and the traditions of Rome, I drew a parallel dis
tinction between Anglicanism quiescent, and Angli
canism in action. In its formal creed Anglicanism
was not at a great distance from Rome : far otherwise,
when viewed in its insular spirit, the traditions of its
establishment, its historical characteristics, its con
troversial rancour, and its private judgment. I dis
avowed and condemned those excesses, and called
them " Protestantism " or " Ultra-Protestantism :"
I wished to find a parallel disclaimer, on the part
of Roman controversialists, of that popular system
of beliefs and usages in their own Church, which
I called " Popery." When that hope was a dream,
I saw that the controversy lay between the book-
theology of Anglicanism on the one side, and the
living system of what I called Roman corruption
on the other. I could not get further than this;
with this result I was forced to content myself.

These then were the parties in the controversy :
the Anglican Via Media and the popular religion of
Rome. And next, as to the issue, to which the
controversy between them was to be brought, it was
this: the Anglican disputant took his stand upon
Antiquity or Apostolicity, the Roman upon Catho
licity. The Anglican said to the Roman : " There
is but One Faith, the Ancient, and you have not

198 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

kept to it;" the Roman retorted: "There is but
One Church, the Catholic, and you are out of it."
The Anglican urged : " Your special beliefs, prac
tices, modes of action, are nowhere in Antiquity;"
the Roman objected : " You do not communicate
with any one Church besides your own and its
offshoots, and you have discarded principles, doc
trines, sacraments, and usages, which are and ever
have been received in the East and the West." The
true Church, as defined in the Creeds, was both
Catholic and Apostolic; now, as I viewed the con
troversy in which I was engaged, England and
Rome had divided these notes or prerogatives
between them : the cause lay thus, Apostolicity
versus Catholicity.

However, in thus stating the matter, of course I
do not wish it supposed, that I considered the note
of Catholicity really to belong to Rome, to the dis
paragement of the Anglican Church; but that the
special point or plea of Rome in the controversy
was Catholicity, as the Anglican plea was Anti
quity. Of course I contended that the Roman idea
of Catholicity was not ancient and apostolic. It-
was in my judgment at the utmost only natural,
becoming, expedient, that the whole of Christendom
should be united in one visible body ; while such
a unity might be, on the other hand, a mere
heartless and political combination. For myself, I
held with the Anglican divines, that, in the Primi
tive Church, there was a very real mutual inde-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 199

pendence between its separate parts, though, from
a dictate of charity, there was in fact a close union
between them. I considered that each See and
Diocese might be compared to a crystal, and that
each was similar to the rest, and that the sum
total of them all was only a collection of crystals.

V

The unity of the Church lay, not in its being a
polity, but in its being a family, a race, coming
down by apostolical descent from its first founders
and bishops. And I considered this truth brought
out, beyond the possibility of dispute, in the Epistles
of St. Ignatius, in which the Bishop is represented
as the one supreme authority in the Church, that is,
in his own place, with no one above him, except as,
for the sake of ecclesiastical order and expedience,
arrangements had been made by which one was put
over or under another. So much for our own claim
to Catholicity, which was so perversely appropriated
by our opponents to themselves : on the other
hand, as to our special strong point, Antiquity,
while of course, by means of it, we were able to
condemn most emphatically the novel claim of Rome
to domineer over other Churches, which were in
truth her equals, further than that, we thereby
especially convicted her of the intolerable offence
of having added to the Faith. This was the critical
head of accusation urged against her by the An-
glican disputant, and, as he referred to St. Ignatius
in proof that he himself was a true Catholic, in spite
of being separated from Rome, so he triumphantly

200 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

referred to the Treatise of Vincentius of Lerins
upon the " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
omnibus," in proof that the controversialists of
Rome were separated in their creed from the Apos
tolical and primitive faith.

Of course those controversialists had their own
answer to him, with which I am not concerned in
this place; here I am only concerned with the issue
itself, between the one party and the other Anti
quity versus Catholicity.

Now I will proceed to illustrate what I have
been saying of the status of the controversy, as it
presented itself to my mind, by extracts from my
writings of the dates of 1836, 1840, and 1841.
And I introduce them with a remark, which espe
cially applies to the paper, from which I shall quote
first, of the date of 1836. That paper appeared in
the March and April numbers of the British Maga
zine of that year, and was entitled " Home Thoughts
Abroad." Now it will be found, that, in the dis
cussion which it contains, as in various other
writings of mine, when I was in the Anglican
Church, the argument in behalf of Rome is stated
with considerable perspicuity and force. And at
the time my friends and supporters cried out " How
imprudent ! " and both at the time, and especially
at a later date, my enemies have cried out, " How
insidious!" Friends and foes virtually agreed in

J O

their criticism ; I had set out the cause which I
was combating to the best advantage: this was an

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 201

offence; it might be from imprudence, it might be
with a traitorous design. It was from neither the one
nor the other ; but for the following reasons. First,
I had a great impatience, whatever was the subject,
of not bringing out the whole of it, as clearly as I
could; next I wished to be as fair to my adver
saries as possible ; and thirdly I thought that there
was a great deal of shallowness among our own
friends, and that they undervalued the strength of
the argument in behalf of Rome, and that they
ought to be roused to a more exact apprehension of
the position of the controversy. At a later date,
(1841,) when 1 really felt the force of the Roman
side of the question myself, as a difficulty which
had to be met, I had a fourth reason for such frank
ness in argument, and that was, because a number
of persons were unsettled far more than I was, as to
the Catholicity of the Anglican Church. It was
quite plain, that, unless I was perfectly candid in
stating what could be said against it, there was no
chance that any representations, which I felt to be
in its favour, or at least to be adverse to Rome,
would have had their real weight duly acknow
ledged. At all times I had a deep conviction,
to put the matter on the lowest ground, that
" honesty was the best policy." Accordingly,
in 1841, I expressed myself thus on the Ano-li-
can difficulty : " This is an objection which we
must honestly say is deeply felt by many people,
and not inconsiderable ones ; and the more it is

F f

202 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

openly avowed to be a difficulty, the better; for
there is then the chance of its being acknow
ledged, and in the course of time obviated, as
far as may be, by those who have the power.
Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant;
and we are sanguine that the time is come when so
great an evil as this is, cannot stand its ground
against the good feeling and common sense of reli
gious persons. It is the very strength of Romanism
against us ; and, unless the proper persons take it
into their serious consideration, they may look for
certain to undergo the loss, as time goes on, of some
whom they would least like to be lost to our
Church." The measure which I had especially in
view in this passage, was the project of a Jerusalem
Bishopric, which the then Archbishop of Canterbury
was at that time concocting with M. Bunsen, and
of which I shall speak more in the sequel. And
now to return to the Home Thoughts Abroad of
the spring of 1836 :

The discussion contained in this composition
runs in the form of a dialogue. One of the dis
putants says : " You say to me that the Church of
Rome is corrupt. What then ? to cut off a limb
is a strange way of saving it from the influence of
some constitutional ailment. Indigestion may cause
cramp in the extremities; yet we spare our poor
feet notwithstanding. Surely there is such a re
ligious fact as the existence of a great Catholic
body, union with which is a Christian privilege

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 203

and duty. Now, we English are separate from
it."

The other answers : " The present is an un
satisfactory, miserable state of things, vet I can

o w

grant no more. The Church is founded on a
doctrine, on the gospel of Truth ; it is a means
to an end. Perish the Church, (though, blessed
be the promise! this cannot be,) yet let it perish
rather than the Truth should fail. Purity of faith
is more precious to the Christian than unity itself.
If Rome has erred grievously in doctrine, then it is
a duty to separate even from Rome."

His friend, who takes the Roman side of the
argument, refers to the image of the Vine and its
branches, which is found, I think, in St. Cyprian,
as if a branch cut from the Catholic Vine* must
necessarily die. Also he quotes a passage from
St. Augustine in controversy with the Donatists
to the same effect; viz. that, as being separated
from the body of the Church, they were ipso facto
cut off from the heritage of Christ. And he quotes
St. Cyril s argument drawn from the very title Ca
tholic, which no body or communion of men has ever
dared or been able to appropriate, besides one.
He adds, " Now, I am only contending for the fact,
that the communion of Rome constitutes the main
bodv of the Church Catholic, and that we are

J

split off from it, and in the condition of the
Donatists."

The other replies, by denying the fact that the

F f 2

204 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS

present Roman communion is like St. Augustine s
Catholic Church, inasmuch as there are to be
taken into account the large Anglican and Greek
communions. Presently he takes the offensive,

9

naming distinctly the points, in which Rome
has departed from Primitive Christianity, viz.
" the practical idolatry, the virtual worship of the
Virgin and Saints^ which are the offence of the
Latin Church, and the degradation of moral truth
and duty, which follows from these." And again :
" We cannot join a Church, did we wish it ever
so much, which does not acknowledge our orders,
refuses us the Cup, demands our acquiescence in
image-worship, and excommunicates us, if we do
not receive it and all other decisions of the Tri-
dentine Council."

His opponent answers these objections by re
ferring to the doctrine of " developments of gospel
truth." Besides, " The Anglican system itself is
not found complete in those early centuries; so
that the [Anglican] principle [of Antiquity] is self-
destructive." "When a man takes up this Via
Media, he is a mere doctrinaire;" he is like those,
"who, in some matter of business, start up to
suggest their own little crotchet, and are ever
measuring mountains with a pocket ruler, or im
proving the planetary courses." " The Via Media
has slept in libraries; it is a substitute of infancy
for manhood."

It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835 or

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 205

beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the
question before me, on which, to my mind, the
decision between the Churches depended. It is
observable that the question of the position of the
Pope, whether as the centre of unity, or as the source
of jurisdiction, did not come into my thoughts
at all; nor did it, I think I may say, to the end.
I doubt whether I ever distinctly held any of his
powers to be de jure divino, while I was in the
Anglican Church ; not that I saw any difficulty
in the doctrine; not that, together with the history
of St. Leo, of which I shall speak by and by, the
idea of his infallibility did not cross my mind, for it
did, but after all, in my view the controversy did
not turn upon it; it turned upon the Faith and the
Church. This was my issue of the controversy
from the beginning to the end. There was a con
trariety of claims between the Roman and Anglican
religions, and the history of my conversion is simply
the process of working it out to a solution. In 1838
I illustrated it by the contrast presented to us be
tween the Madonna and Child, and a Calvary. I said
that the peculiarity of the Anglican theology was this,
that it " supposed the Truth to be entirely objec
tive and detached, not" (as the Roman) "lying
hid in the bosom of the Church as if one with her,
clinging to and (as it were) lost in her embrace,
but as being sole and unapproachable, as on the
Cross or at the Resurrection, with the Church close
by, but in the background."

206 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

As I viewed the controversy in 1836 and 1838,
so I viewed it in 1840 and 1841. In the British
Critic of January 1840, after gradually investi
gating how the matter lies between the Churches
bv means of a dialogue, I end thus : " It would

* o /

seem, that, in the above discussion, each disputant
has a strong point : our strong point is the argu
ment from Primitiveness, that of Romanists from
Universality. It is a fact, however it is to be
accounted for, that Home has added to the Creed ;
and it is a fact, however we justify ourselves, that
we are estranged from the great body of Christians
over the world. And each of these two facts is
at first sight a grave difficulty in the respective
systems to which they belong." Again, " While
Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers, re
cognizes them, and England, not deferring to the
large body of the Church, recognizes it, both Rome
and England have a point to clear up."
And still more strongly in July, 1841 :
" If the Note of schism, on the one hand, lies
against England, an antagonist disgrace lies upon
Rome, the Note of idolatry. Let us not be mis
taken here; we are neither accusing Rome of ido
latry, nor ourselves of schism; we think neither
charge tenable ; but still the Roman Church prac
tises what is so like idolatry, and the English
Church makes much of what is so very like schism,
that without deciding what is the duty of a
Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 207

her present state, we do seriously think that mem
bers of the English Church have a providential
direction given them, how to comport themselves
towards the Church of Rome, while she is what
she is."

One remark more about Antiquity and the Via
Media. As time went on, without doubting the
strength of the Anglican argument from Antiquity,
I felt also that it was not merely our special plea,
but our only one. Also I felt that the Via Media,
which was to represent it, was to be a sort of re
modelled and adapted Antiquity. This I observe
both in Home Thoughts Abroad, and in the Article
of the British Critic which I have analyzed above.
But this circumstance, that after all we must use
private judgment upon Antiquity, created a sort of
distrust of my theory altogether, which in the con
clusion of my Volume on the Prophetical Office
I express thus : " Now that our discussions draw to
a close, the thought, with which we entered on the
subject, is apt to recur, when the excitement of the
inquiry has subsided, and weariness has succeeded,
that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton
exercise, rather than the practical conclusions of
the intellect." And I conclude the paragraph by
anticipating a line of thought into which I was, in
the event, almost obliged to take refuge : " After all,"
I say, " the Church is ever invisible in its day, and
faith only apprehends it." What was this, but to

208 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

give up the Notes of a visible Church altogether,
whether the Catholic Note or the Apostolic ?

The Long Vacation of 1839 began early. There
had been a great many visitors to Oxford from
Easter to Commemoration; and Dr. Pusey and
myself had attracted attention, more, I think, than
any former year. I had put away from me the
controversy with Rome for more than two years.
In my Parochial Sermons the subject had never
been introduced : there had been nothing for
two years, either in my Tracts or in the British
Critic, of a polemical character. I was return
ing, for the Vacation, to the course of reading
which I had many years before chosen as espe
cially my own. I have no reason to suppose
that the thoughts of Rome came across my mind
at all. About the middle of June I began to
study and master the history of the Monophy-
sites. I was absorbed in the doctrinal question.
This was from about June 13th to August 30th.
It was during this course of reading that for
the first time a doubt came upon me of the
tenableness of Anglicanism. I recollect on the
30th of July mentioning to a friend, whom I had
accidentally met, how remarkable the history was;
but by the end of August I was seriously alarmed.

I have described in a former work, how the
history affected me. My stronghold was Antiquity;

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 201)

now here, in the middle of the fifth century, [
found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the
sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected.
I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Mono-
physite. The Church of the Via Media was in
the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was,
where she now is; and the Protestants were the
Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since his
tory has been, who would have thought of going to
the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that delirus
senex, as (I think) Petavius calls him, and to the
enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order
to be converted to Rome !

Now let it be simply understood that I am not
writing controversially, but with the one object of
relating things as they happened to me in the
course of my conversion. With this view I will
quote a passage from the account, which I gave in
1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839 :

" It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians
or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants
and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find
arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which
did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon ; diffi
cult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century,
without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The
drama of religion, and the combat of truth and
error, were ever one and the same. The principles
and proceedings of the Church now, were those of
the Church then; the principles and proceedings

G g

210 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I
found it so, almost fearfully ; there was an awful
similitude, more awful, because so silent and un-
impassioned, between the dead records of the past
and the feverish chronicle of the present. The
shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth.
It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters
of the old. world, with the shape and lineaments of
the new. The Church then, as now, might be
called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing,
and relentless; and heretics were shifting, change
able, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil
power, and never agreeing together, except by its
aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at com
prehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view,
and substituting expediency for faith. What was
the use of continuing the controversy, or defending
my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments
for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil s advocate
against the much-enduring Athanasius and the
majestic Leo ? Be my soul with the Saints ! and
shall I lift up my hand against them ? Sooner may
my right hand forget her cunning, and wither out
right, as his who once stretched it out against a
prophet of God! anathema to a whole tribe of
Cranmers, Kidleys, Latimers, and Jewels ! perish
the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stilling-
fleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I
should do aught but fall at their feet in love and in
worship, whose image was continually before my

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 211

eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my
ears and on mv tongue !

i

Hardly had I brought my course of reading to a
close, when the Dublin Review of that same August
was put into my hands, by friends who were more
favourable to the cause of Rome than I was mvself.

tt

There was an Article in it on the " Anglican
Claim" by Bishop Wiseman. This was about the
middle of September. It was on the Donatists,
with an application to Anglicanism. I read it, and
did not see much in it. The Donatist controversy
was known to me for some years, as I have instanced
above. The case was not parallel to that of the
Anglican Church. St. Augustine in Africa wrote
against the Donatists in Africa. They were a
furious party who made a schism within the African
Church, and not bevond its limits. It was a case of

V

Altar against Altar, of two occupants of the same
See, as that between the Non-jurors in England and
the Established Church ; not the case of one Church
against another, as Rome against the Oriental
Monophysites. But my friend, an anxiously reli
gious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Pro
testant still, pointed out the palmary words of St.
Augustine, which were contained in one of the
extracts made in the Review, and which had
escaped my observation. " Securus judicat or bis
terrarum." He repeated these words again and
again, and, when he was gone, they kept ringing in
my ears. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" they

Gg2

212 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

were words which went beyond the occasion of the
Donatists : they applied to that of the Monophysites.
They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped
me at first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on
a simpler rule than that of Antiquity ; nay, St. Au
gustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity ;
here then Antiquity was deciding against itself. What
a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in
the Church ! not that, for the moment, the multitude
may not falter in their judgment, not that, in the
Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered
did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St.
Athanasius, not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops
did not need to be sustained during the contest by
the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the
deliberate judgment, in which the whole Church at
length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible prescrip
tion and a final sentence against such portions of it
as protest and secede. Who can account for the
impressions which are made on him ? For a mere
sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me
with a power which I never had felt from any
words before. To take a familiar instance, they
were like the " Turn again Whittington " of the
chime ; or, to take a more serious one, they were like
the "Tolle, lege, Tolle, lege," of the child, which
converted St. Augustine himself. " Securus judicat
orbis terrarum !" By those great words of the ancient
Father, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely
pulverized.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 213

I became excited at the view thus opened upon
me. I was just starting on a round of visits; and
I mentioned my state of mind to two most intimate
friends : I think to no others. After a while, I got
calm, and at length the vivid impression upon my
imagination faded away. What I thought about it
on reflection, I will attempt to describe presently.
I had to determine its logical value, and its bearing
upon my duty. Meanwhile, so far as this was certain,
I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall. It
was clear that I had a good deal to learn on the
question of the Churches, and that perhaps some
new light was coming upon me. He who has seen
a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it. The
heavens had opened and closed again. The thought
for the moment had been, " The Church of Rome will
be found right after all;" and then it had vanished.
My old convictions remained as before.

At this time, I wrote my Sermon on Divine
Calls, which T published in my volume of Plain
Sermons. It ends thus :

" O that we could take that simple view of things,
as to feel that the one thing which lies before us is
to please God! What gain is it to please the
world, to please the great, nay even to please those
whom we love, compared with this ? What gain is
it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed, com
pared with this one aim, of not being disobedient
to a heavenly vision ? What can this world offer
comparable with that insight into spiritual things,

214 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high
sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope
of glory, which they have, who in sincerity love and
follow our Lord Jesus Christ ? Let us beg and
pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls
more fully, to quicken our senses, to give us sight
and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come;
so to work within us, that we may sincerely say,
Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after
that receive me with glory. Whom have I in heaven
but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I
desire in comparison of Thee. My flesh and my
heart faileth, but God is the strength of mv heart,

O tf

and my portion for ever. !

Now to trace the succession of thoughts, and the
conclusions, and the consequent innovations on my
previous belief, and the general conduct, to which
I was led, upon this sudden visitation. And first,
I will say, whatever comes of saying it, for I leave

v ml O

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

tt

convictions, that my mind had not found its ulti
mate rest, and that in some sense or other I was
on journey. During the same passage across
the Mediterranean in which I wrote "Lead kindly
light," I also wrote the verses, which are found
in the Lyra under the head of " Providences,"

v

beginning, " When I look back." This was in

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 215

1833; and, since I have begun this narrative, I
have found a memorandum under the date of Sep
tember 7, 1829, in which I speak of myself, as
" now in my rooms in Oriel College, slowly advanc
ing &c. and led on by God s hand blindly, not know
ing whither He is taking me." But, whatever this
presentiment be worth, it was no protection against
the dismay and disgust, which I felt, in consequence
of the dreadful misgiving, of which I have been
relating the history. The one question was, what
was I to do ? I had to make up my mind for
myself, and others could not help me. I deter
mined to be guided, not by my imagination, but by
my reason. And this I said over and over again
in the years which followed, both in conversation
and in private letters. Had it not been for this
severe resolve, I should have been a Catholic sooner
than I was. Moreover, I felt on consideration a
positive doubt, on the other hand, whether the
suggestion did not come from, below. Then I said
to myself, Time alone can solve that question.
It was my business to go on as usual, to obey those
convictions to which I had so long surrendered my
self, which still had possession of me, and on which
my new thoughts had no direct bearing. That
new conception of things should only so far in
fluence me, as it had a logical claim to do so. If
it came from above, it would come again; so I
trusted, and with more definite outlines. I
thought of Samuel, before " he knew the word of

216 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

the Lord;" and therefore I went, and lay down to
sleep again. This was my broad view of the
matter, and my prima facie conclusion.

However, my new historical fact had to a certain
point a logical force. Down had come the Via
Media as a definite theory or scheme, under the
blows of St. Leo. My "Prophetical Office" had
come to pieces; not indeed as an argument against
" Roman errors," nor as against Protestantism, but
as in behalf of England. I had no more a dis
tinctive plea for Anglicanism, unless I would be a
Monophysite. I had, most painfully, to fall back
upon my three original points of belief, which I
have spoken so much of in a former passage,
the principle of dogma, the sacramental system,
and anti-Romanism. Of these three, the first two
were better secured in Rome than in the Anglican
Church. The Apostolical Succession, the two
prominent sacraments, and the primitive Creeds,
belonged, indeed, to the latter, but there had been
and was far less strictness on matters of dogma
and ritual in the Anglican system than in the
Roman : in consequence, my main argument
for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and
special charges, which I could bring against Rome.
I had no positive Anglican theory. I was very
nearly a pure Protestant. Lutherans had a sort
of theology, so had Calvinists ; I had none.

However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was
gradually left, was really a practical principle. It

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 217

was a strong though it was only a negative ground,
and it still had great hold on me. As a boy of fifteen,
I had so fully imbibed it, that I had actually erased
in my Gradus ad Parnassum, such titles, under
the word "Papa," as " Christi Vicarius," "sacer
interpres," and "sceptra gerens," and substituted
epithets so vile that I cannot bring myself to write
them down here. The effect of this early per
suasion remained as, what I have already called it,
a " stain upon my imagination." As regards my
reason, I began in 1833 to form theories on the
subject, which tended to obliterate it. In the first
part of Home Thoughts Abroad, written in that
year, after speaking of Rome as " undeniably the
most exalted Church in the whole world," and
manifesting, " in all the truth and beauty of the
Spirit, that side of high mental excellence, which
Pagan Rome attempted but could not realize,
high-mindedness, majesty, and the calm conscious
ness of power,"- -I proceed to say, " Alas ! . . . the
old spirit has revived, and the monster of Daniel s
vision, untamed by its former judgments, has seized
upon Christianity as the new instrument of its
impieties, and awaits a second and final woe from
God s hand. Surely the doctrine of the Genius
Loci is not without foundation, and explains to us
how the blessing or the curse attaches to cities
and countries, not to generations. Michael is re
presented [in the book of Daniel] as opposed to
the Prince of the kingdom of Persia. Old Rome

H h

218 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

is still alive. The Sorceress upon the Seven Hills,
in the book of Revelation, is not the Church of
Rome, but Rome itself, the bad spirit, which, in
its former shape, was the animating spirit of the
Fourth Monarchy." Then I refer to St. Malachi s
Prophecy which " makes a like distinction between
the City and the Church of Rome. In the last
persecution, it says, of the Holy Roman Church,
Peter of Rome shall be on the throne, who shall
feed his flock in manv tribulations. When these

v

are past, the City upon the Seven Hills shall be
destroyed, and the awful Judge shall judge the
people. Then I append my moral. " I deny
that the distinction is unmeaning; Is it nothing to
be able to look on our Mother, to whom we owe
- the blessing of Christianity, with affection instead

/

of hatred ? with pity indeed, aye, and fear, but not
with horror ? Is it nothing to rescue her from the
hard names, which interpreters of prophecy have
put upon her, as an idolatress and an enemy of
God, when she is deceived rather than a deceiver ?
Nothing to be able to account her priests as or
dained of God, and anointed for their spiritual
functions by the Holy Spirit, instead of considering
her communion the bond of Satan?" This was
my first advance in rescuing, on an intelligible,
intellectual basis, the Roman Church from the
designation of Antichrist; it was not the Church,
but the old dethroned Pagan monster, still living in
the ruined city, that was Antichrist.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 219

In a Tract in 1838, 1 profess to give the opinions
of the Fathers on the subject, and the conclusions
to which I come, are still less violent against the
Roman Church, though on the same basis as befoi e.
I say that the local Christian Church of Rome has
been the means of shielding the pagan city from
the fulness of those judgments, which are due to it;
and that, in consequence of this, though Babylon has
been utterly swept from the earth, Rome remains
to this day. The reason seemed to be simply this,
that, when the barbarians came down, God had a
people in that city. Babylon was a mere prison of
the Church ; Rome had received her as a guest.
" That vengeance has never fallen : it is still sus
pended; nor can reason be given why Rome has
not fallen under the rule of God s general dealings
with His rebellious creatures, except that a Chris
tian Church is still in that city, sanctifying it, in
terceding for it, saving it." I add in a note, " No
opinion, one way or the other, is here expressed as
to the question, how far, as the local Church has
saved Rome, so Rome has corrupted the local
Church ; or whether the local Church in conse
quence, or again whether other Churches elsewhere,
may or may not be types of Antichrist." I quote
all this in order to show how Bishop Newton was
still upon my mind even in 18158; and how I was
feeling after some other interpretation of prophecy
instead of his, and not without a good deal of hesi
tation.

IT h 2

220 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

However, I have found notes written in March,
1839, which anticipate my Article in the British
Critic of October, 1840, in which I contended that
the Churches of Rome and England were both one,
and also the one true Church, for the very reason
that they had both been stigmatized by the name
of Antichrist, proving my point from the text, " If
, they have called the Master of the House Beelze
bub, how much more them of His household," and
quoting largely from Puritans and Independents to
show that, in their mouths, the Anglican Church is
Antichrist and Antichristian as well as the Roman.
I urged in that article that the calumny of being
Antichrist is almost " one of the notes of the true
Church ;" and that " there is no medium between a
Vice-Christ and Anti-Christ;" for "it is not the
acts that make the difference between them, but the
authority for those acts." This of course was a
new mode of viewing the question ; but we cannot
unmake ourselves or change our habits in a mo
ment. It is quite clear, that, if I dared not commit
myself in 1838, to the belief that the Church of
Rome was not a type of Antichrist, I could not
have thrown off the unreasoning prejudice and sus
picion, which I cherished about her, for some time
after, at least by fits and starts, in spite of the conviction
of my reason. I cannot prove this, but I believe it to
have been the case from what I recollect of mvself.

v

Nor was there any thing in the history of St. Leo
and the Monophysites to undo the firm belief I had

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 221

in the existence of what I called the practical abuses
and excesses of Rome.

To the inconsistencies then, to the ambition and
intrigue, to the sophistries of Rome (as I considered
them to be) I had recourse in my opposition to
her, both public and personal. I did so by way of
a relief. I had a great and growing dislike, after
the summer of 1839, to speak against the Roman
Church herself or her formal doctrines. I was

V

very averse to speak against doctrines, which might
possibly turn out to be true, though at the time
I had no reason for thinking they were, or against
the Church, which had preserved them. I began
to have misgivings, that, strong as my own feel
ings had been against her, yet in some things which
I had said, I had taken the statements of Anglican
divines for granted without weighing them for
myself. I said to a friend in 1840, in a letter,
which I shall use presently, " I am troubled by
doubts whether as it is, I have not, in what I have
published, spoken too strongly against Rome, though
I think I did it in a kind of faith, being determined
to put myself into the English system, and say all
that our divines said, whether I had fully weighed
it or not." I was sore about the great Anglican
divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me
say strong things, which facts did not justify. Yet I
did still hold in substance all that I had said against
the Church of Rome in my Prophetical Office.
I felt the force of the usual Protestant objections

22*2 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

against her; I believed that we had the Aposto
lical succession in the Anglican Church, and the
grace of the sacraments; I was not sure that the
difficulty of its isolation might not be overcome,
though I was far from sure that it could. I did
not see any clear proof that it had committed itself
to any heresy, or had taken part against the truth ;
and I was not sure that it would not revive into
full Apostolic purity and strength, and grow into

v

union with Rome herself (Rome explaining her doc
trines and guarding against their abuse), that is, if
we were but patient and hopeful. I wished for
union between the Anglican Church and Rome, if,
and when, it was possible; and I did what I could
to gain weekly prayers for that object. The ground
which I felt good against her was the moral ground :
I felt I could not be wrong in striking at her poli
tical and social line of action. The alliance of a
dogmatic religion with liberals, high or low, seemed
to me a providential direction against moving
towards it, and a better "Preservative against
Popery," than the three volumes of folio, in which,
I think, that prophylactic is to be found. However,
on occasions which demanded it, I felt it a duty
to give out plainly all that I thought, though I did
not like to do so. One such instance occurred, when
I had to publish a letter about Tract 90. In that
letter, I said, " Instead of setting before the soul
the Holy Trinity, and heaven and hell, the Church
of Rome does seem to me, as a popular system, to

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 223

preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and
purgatory." On this occasion I recollect expressing
to a friend the distress it gave me thus to speak;
but, I said, " How can I help saying it, if I think
it ? and I do think it ; my Bishop calls on me to say
out what I think; and that is the long and the short
of it." But I recollected Hurrell Froude s words to
me, almost his dying words, " I must enter another
protest against your cursing and swearing. What
good can it do ? and I call it uncharitable to an
excess. How mistaken we may ourselves be, on
many points that are only gradually opening on
us!"

Instead then of speaking of errors in doctrine,
I was driven, by my state of mind, to insist upon
the political conduct, the controversial bearing, and
the social methods and manifestations of Rome.
And here I found a matter close at hand, which af
fected me most sensibly too, because it was before my
eyes. I can hardly describe too strongly my feeling
upon it. I had an unspeakable aversion to the
policy and acts of Mr. O Connell, because, as I
thought, he associated himself with men of all re
ligions and no religion against the Anglican Church,
and advanced Catholicism by violence and intrigue.
When then I found him taken up by the English
Catholics, and, as I supposed, at Rome, I considered
I had a fulfilment before my eyes how the Court
of Rome played fast and loose, and fulfilled the bad
points which I had seen put down in books against

224 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

it. Here we saw what Rome was in action, what
ever she might be when quiescent. Her conduct
was simply secular and political.

This feeling led me into the excess of being
very rude to that zealous and most charitable man,
Mr. Spencer, when he came to Oxford in January,
1840, to get Anglicans to set about praying for
Unity. I myself then, or soon after, drew up such
prayers ; it was one of the first thoughts which
came upon me after my shock, but I was too much
annoyed with the political action of the members
of the Roman Church in England to wish to have
any thing to do with them personally. So glad in
my heart was I to see him when he came to my
rooms, whither Mr. Palmer of Magdalen brought
him, that I could have laughed for joy; I think I
did ; but I was very rude to him, I would not meet
him at dinner, and that, (though I did not say so,)
because I considered him " in loco apostatse " from
the Anglican Church, and I hereby beg his pardon
for it. I wrote afterwards with a view to apolo
gize, but I dare say he must have thought that I
made the matter worse, for these were my words
to him :

" The news that you are praying for us is most
touching, and raises a variety of indescribable
emotions. May their prayers return abundantly
into their own bosoms ! Why then do I not meet
you in a manner conformable with these first feel
ings ? For this single reason, if I may say it, that

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 225

vour acts are contrary to your words. You invite

w / J

us to a union of hearts, at the same time that you
are doing all you can, not to restore, not to reform,
not to re-unite, but to destroy our Church. You

%/

go further than your principles require. You are
leagued with our enemies. The voice is Jacob s
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. This
is what especially distresses us; this is what we
cannot understand, how Christians, like yourselves,
with the clear view you have that a warfare is ever
waging in the world between good and evil, should,
in the present state of England, ally yourselves with
the side of evil against the side of good. ... Of
parties now in the country, you cannot but allow,
that next to yourselves we are nearest to revealed
truth. We maintain great and holy principles; we
profess Catholic doctrines. ... So near are we as
a body to yourselves in modes of thinking, as even
to have been taunted with the nicknames which
belong to you ; and, on the other hand, if there are
professed infidels, scoffers, sceptics, unprincipled
men, rebels, they are found among our opponents.
And yet you take part with them against us. ...
You consent to act hand in hand [with these and
others] for our overthrow. Alas ! all this it is that
impresses us irresistibly with the notion that you
are a political, not a religious party; that, in order
to gain an end on which you set your hearts, an
open stage for yourselves in England, you ally

I i

226 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

yourselves with those who hold nothing against
those who hold something. This is what distresses
my own mind so greatly, to speak of myself, that,
with limitations which need not now be mentioned,
I cannot meet familiarly any leading persons of the
Roman Communion, and least of all when they
come on a religious errand. Break off, I would
say, with Mr. O Connell in Ireland and the liberal

^

party in England, or come not to us with overtures
for mutual prayer and religious sympathy."

And here came in another feeling, of a personal
nature, which had little to do with the argument
against Rome, except that, in my prejudice, I con
nected it with my own ideas of the usual conduct of
her advocates and instruments. I was very stern
upon any interference in our Oxford matters on the
part of charitable Catholics, and on any attempt to
do me good personally. There was nothing, indeed,
at the time more likely to throw me back. " Why
do YOU meddle ? whv cannot YOU let me alone ? You

/ V >

can do me no good; you know nothing on earth
about me; you may actually do rne harm; I am in
better hands than yours. I know my own sincerity
of purpose; and I am determined upon taking my
time." Since I have been a Catholic, people have
sometimes accused me of backwardness in making
converts; and Protestants have argued from it that
I have no great eagerness to do so. It would be
against iny nature to act otherwise than I do; but

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 227

besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I
gained in the experience of my own history in the past.
This is the account which I have to give of
some savage and ungrateful words in the British
Critic of 1840 against the controversialists of
Rome : " By their fruits ye shall know them. . . ,
We see it attempting to gain converts among us by
unreal representations of its doctrines, plausible
statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weak
nesses of human nature, to our fancies, our eccen-
tricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philoso
phies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and
ducking to attract attention, as gipseys make up to
truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and
pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and physic
concealed in jam, and sugar-plums for good chil
dren. Who can but feel shame when the religion
of Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal, is so overlaid ?
Who can but feel sorrow, when its devout and
earnest defenders so mistake its genius and its
capabilities ? We Englishmen like manliness, open
ness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on
us, till she learns these virtues, and uses them ; and
then she may gain us, but it will be by ceasing to
be what we now mean by Rome, by having a right,
not to i have dominion over our faith, but to gain
and possess our affections in the bonds of the
gospel. Till she ceases to be what she practically
is, a union is impossible between her and England;
but, if she docs reform, (and who can presume to

li 2

228 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

say that so large a part of Christendom never can?)
then it will be our Church s duty at once to join in
communion with the continental Churches, what
ever politicians at home may say to it, and what
ever steps the civil power may take in consequence.
And though we may not live to see that day, at
least we are bound to pray for it; we are bound to
pray for our brethren that they and we may be led
together into the pure light of the gospel, and be
one as we once were one. It was most touching
news to be told, as we were lately, that Christians
on the Continent were praying together for the
spiritual well-being of England. May they gain
light, while they aim at unity, and grow in faith
while they manifest their love! We too have our
duties to them ; not of reviling, not of slandering,
not of hating, though political interests require it;
but the duty of loving brethren still more abundantly
in spirit, whose faces, for our sins and their sins,
we are not allowed to see in the flesh."

No one ought to indulge in insinuations; it cer
tainly diminishes my right to complain of slanders
uttered against myself, when, as in this passage, I
had already spoken in condemnation of that class
of controversialists, to which I myself now belong.

I have thus put together, as well as I could, what
has to be said about my general state of mind from
the autumn of 1839 to the summer of 184L; and,
having done so, I go on to narrate how my new

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 229

misgivings affected my conduct, and my relations
towards the Anglican Church.

CD

When I got back to Oxford in October, 1839,
after the visits which I had been paying, it so
happened, there had been, in my absence, occur
rences of an awkward character, bringing me into
collision both with my Bishop and also with the
University authorities ; and this drew my attention
at once to the state of what would be considered the
Movement party there, and made me very anxious for
the future. In the spring of the year, as has been
seen in the Article analyzed above, I had spoken
of the excesses which were to be found among-

CJ

persons commonly included in it ; at that time I
thought little of such an evil, but the new thoughts,
which had come on me during the Long Vacation,
on the one hand made me comprehend it, and on
the other took away my power of effectually meeting
it. A firm and powerful control was necessary to
keep men straight; I never had a strong wrist,
but at the very time, when it was most needed, the
reins had broken in my hands. With an anxious
presentiment on my mind of the upshot of the
whole inquiry, which it was almost impossible
for me to conceal from men who saw me day by
day, who heard my familiar conversation, who came
perhaps for the express purpose of pumping me,
and having a categorical yes or no to their ques
tions, how could I expect to say any thing about
my actual, positive, present belief, which would be

230 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

sustaining or consoling to such persons as were
haunted already by doubts of their own ? Nay, how
could I, with satisfaction to myself, analyze my own
mind, and say what I held and what I did not ? or
say with what limitations, shades of difference, or
degrees of belief, I held that body of opinions which
I had openly professed and taught ? how could I
deny or assert this point or that, without injustice
to the new view, in which the whole evidence for
those old opinions presented itself to my mind ?

However, I had to do what I could, and what
was best, under the circumstances; I found a
general talk on the subject of the Article in the
Dublin Review; and, if it had affected me, it was
not wonderful, that it affected others also. As to
myself, I felt no kind of certainty that the argument
in it was conclusive. Taking it at the worst, granting
that the Anglican Church had not the Note of Ca
tholicity; yet there were many Notes of the Church.
Some belonged to one age or place, some to another.
Bellarmine had reckoned Temporal Prosperity
among the Notes of the Church; but the Roman
Church had not any great popularity, wealth, glory,
power, or prospects, in the nineteenth century. It
was not at all certain yet, even that we had not the
Note of Catholicity; but, if not, we had others.
My first business then, was to examine this ques
tion carefully, and see, if a great deal could not be
said after all for the Anglican Church, in spite of
its acknowledged short-comings. This I did in an

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 231

Article " on the Catholicity of the English Church,"
which appeared in the British Critic of January,
1840. As to my personal distress on the point, I
think it had gone by February 21st in that year,
for I wrote then to Mr. Bowden about the important
Article in the Dublin, thus : " It made a great im
pression here [Oxford] ; and, I say what of course
I would only say to such as yourself, it made me
for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind.
The great speciousness of his argument is one of
the things which have made me despond so much,"
that is, as to its effect upon others.

But, secondly, the great stumbling-block lay in
the 39 Articles. It was urged that here was a
positive Note against Anglicanism : Anglicanism
claimed to hold that the Church of England was

O

nothing else than a continuation in this country,
(as the Church of Rome might be in France or
Spain,) of that one Church of which in old times
Athanasius and Augustine were members. But,
if so, the doctrine must be the same ; the doctrine
of the Old Church must live and speak in Anglican
formularies, in the 39 Articles. Did it ? Yes, it
did ; that is what I maintained; it did in substance,
in a true sense. Man had done his worst to dis
figure, to mutilate, the old Catholic Truth, but
there it was, in spite of them, in the Articles still.
It was there, but this must be shown. It was
a matter of life and death to us to show it. And
I believed that it could be shown; I considered

232 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

that those grounds of justification, which I gave
above, when I was speaking of Tract 90, were suffi
cient for the purpose; and therefore I set about
showing it at once. This was in March, 1840,
when I went up to Littlemore. And, as it was a
matter of life and death with us, all risks must
be run to show it. When the attempt was actually
made, I had got reconciled to the prospect of it,
and had no apprehensions as to the experiment;
but in 1840, while my purpose was honest, and my
grounds of reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless
recognize that I was engaged in an experimentum
crucis. I have no doubt that then I acknowledged
to myself that it w r ould be a trial of the Anglican
Church, which it had never undergone before, not
that the Catholic sense of the Articles had not
been held or at least suffered by their framers and
promulgators, and was not implied in the teaching
of Andrewes or Beveridge, but that it had never
been publicly recognized, while the interpretation
of the day was Protestant and exclusive. I observe
also, that, though my Tract was an experiment, it
was, as I said at the time, "no feeder" the event
showed it; for, when my principle was not granted,
I did not draw back, but gave up. I would not
hold office in a Church which would not allow my
sense of the Articles. My tone was, " This is ne
cessary for us, and have it we must and will, and,
if it tends to bring men to look less bitterly on the
Church of Rome, so much the better."

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 233

This then was the second work to which I set
myself; though when I got to Littlemore, other
things came in the way of accomplishing it at
the moment. I had in mind to remove all such
obstacles as were in the way of holding the Apos
tolic and Catholic character of the Anglican teach
ing; to assert the right of all who chose to say in
the face of day, " Our Church teaches the Primitive
Ancient faith." I did not conceal this : in Tract
90, it is put forward as the first principle of all,
"It is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic
Church, and to our own, to take our reformed
confessions in the most Catholic sense they will
admit: we have no duties towards their framers."
And still more pointedly in my Letter, explanatory
of the Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf, I say : " The
only peculiarity of the view I advocate, if I must
so call it, is this that whereas it is usual at this
day to make the particular belief of their winters
their true interpretation, I would make the belief
of the Catholic Church such. That is, as it is
often said that infants are regenerated in Baptism,
not on the faith of their parents, but of the
Church, so in like manner I would say that the
Articles are received, not in the sense of their
framers, but (as far as the wording will admit
or any ambiguity requires it) in the one Catholic

sense. 1

A third measure which I distinctly contem
plated, was the resignation of St. Mary s, whatever

K k

234 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

became of the question of the Articles; and as a
first step I meditated a retirement to Littlemore.
I had built a Church there several years before;

/ *

and I went there to pass the Lent of 1840, and
gave myself up to teaching in the Poor Schools,
and practising the choir. At the same time, I
contemplated a monastic house there. I bought
ten acres of ground and began planting; but this
great design was never carried out. I mention it, be
cause it shows how. little I had really the idea then
of ever leaving the Anglican Church. That I also
contemplated even the further step of giving up St.
Mary s itself as early as 1839, appears from a
letter which I wrote in October, 1840, to the friend
whom it was most natural for me to consult on
such a point. It ran as follows :

" For a year past a feeling has been growing on
me that I ought to give up St. Mary s, but I am no
fit judge in the matter. I cannot ascertain accu
rately my own impressions and convictions, which
are the basis of the difficulty, and though you
cannot of course do this for me, yet you may help
me generally, and perhaps supersede the necessity
of my going by them at all.

" First, it is certain that I do not know my Oxford
parishioners; I am not conscious of influencing
them, and certainly I have no insight into their
spiritual state. I have no personal, no pastoral
acquaintance with them. To very few have I any
opportunity of saying a religious word. Whatever

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 235

influence I exert on them is precisely that which I
may be exerting on persons out of my parish. In
my excuse I am accustomed to say to myself that I
am not adapted to get on with them, while others
are. On the other hand, I am conscious that by
means of my position at St. Mary s I do exert
a considerable influence on the University, whether
on Undergraduates or Graduates. It seems, then,
on the whole that I am using St. Mary s, to the
neglect of its direct duties, for objects not belonging
to it; I am converting a parochial charge into a
sort of University office.

"I think I may say truly that I have begun
scarcely any plan but for the sake of my parish,
but every one has turned, independently of me,
into the direction of the University. I began
Saints -days Services, daily Services, and Lectures
in Adam de Brome s Chapel, for my parishioners ;
but they have not come to them. In consequence
I dropped the last mentioned, having, while it
lasted, been naturally led to direct it to the instruc
tion of those who did come, instead of those who
did not. The Weekly Communion, I believe, I did
begin for the sake of the University.

o *

" Added to this the authorities of the University,
the appointed guardians of those who form great
part of the attendants on my Sermons, have shown
a dislike of my preaching. One dissuades men
from coming; the late Vice-Chancellor threatens
to take his own children away from the Church ;

Kk2

236 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

and the present, having an opportunity last spring
of preaching in my parish pulpit, gets up and
preaches against doctrine with which I am in good
measure identified. No plainer proof can be given
of the feeling in these quarters, than the absurd
myth, now a second time put forward, that Vice-
Chancellors cannot be got to take the office on
account of Puseyism.

" But further than this, I cannot disguise from
myself that my preaching is not calculated to
defend that system of religion which has been
received for 300 years, and of which the Heads of
Houses are the legitimate maintainers in this place.
They exclude me, as far as may be, from the Uni
versity Pulpit; and, though I never have preached
strong doctrine in it, they do so rightly, so far as
this, that they understand that my sermons are
calculated to undermine things established. I
cannot disguise from myself that they are. No one
will deny that most of my sermons are on moral
subjects, not doctrinal; still I am leading my hearers
to the Primitive Church, if you will, but not to the
Church of England. Now, ought one to be dis
gusting the minds of young men with the received
religion, in the exercise of a sacred office, yet with
out a commission, against the wish of their guides

o O

and governors ?

" But this is not all. I fear I must allow that,
whether I will or no, I am disposing them towards
Rome. First, because Home is the only represen-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 237

tative of the Primitive Church besides ourselves;
in proportion then as they are loosened from the
one, they will go to the other. Next, because many
doctrines which I have held, have far greater, or
their only scope, in the Roman system. And, more
over, if, as is not unlikely, we have in process of
time heretical Bishops or teachers among us, an
evil which ipso facto infects the whole community
to which they belong, and if, again (what there are
at this moment symptoms of), there be a move
ment in the English Roman Catholics to break the
alliance of O Connell and of Exeter Hall, strong

i O

temptations will be placed in the way of individuals,
already imbued with a tone of thought congenial to
Rome, to join her Communion.

" People tell me, on the other hand, that I am,
whether by sermons or otherwise, exerting at St.
Mary s a beneficial influence on our prospective
clergy; but what if I take to myself the credit of
seeing further than they, and of having in the course
of the last year discovered that what they approve
so much is very likely to end in Romanism ?

" The arguments which I have published against
Romanism seem to myself as cogent as ever, but
men go by their sympathies, not by argument; and
if I feel the force of this influence myself, who bow
to the arguments, why may not others still more
who never have in the same degree admitted the
arguments ?

" Nor can I counteract the danger by preaching

288 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

or writing against Rome. I seem to myself almost
to have shot my last arrow in the Article on
English Catholicity. It must be added, that the
very circumstance that I have committed myself
against Rome has the effect of setting to sleep
people suspicious ahout me, which is painful now
that I begin to have suspicions about myself. I
mentioned my general difficulty to A. B. a year since,
than whom I know no one of a more fine and
accurate conscience, and it was his spontaneous idea
that I should give up St. Mary s, if my feelings con
tinued. I mentioned it again to him lately, and
he did not reverse his opinion, only expressed great
reluctance to believe it must be so."

My friend s judgment was in favour of my re
taining my living; at least for the present; what
weighed with me most was his saying, " You must
consider, whether your retiring either from the
Pastoral Care only, or from writing and printing
and editing in the cause, would not be a sort of
scandalous thing, unless it were done very warily.
It would be said, You see he can go on no longer
with the Church of England, except in mere Lay
Communion ; or people might say you repented of
the cause altogether. Till you see [your way to
mitigate, if not remove this evil] I certainly should
advise you to stay." I answered as follows :

" Since you think I may go on, it seems to follow
that, under the circumstances, I ought to do so.
There are plenty of reasons for it, directly it is

HISTORY OF MY KELTGIOUS OPINIONS. 239

allowed to be lawful. The following considerations
have much reconciled my feelings to your conclu
sion.

" 1 . I do not think that we have yet made fair
trial how much the English Church will bear. I
know it is a hazardous experiment, like proving
cannon. Yet we must not take it for granted, that
the metal will burst in the operation. It has borne
at various times, not to say at this time, a great
infusion of Catholic truth without damage. As to

O

the result, viz. whether this process will not ap
proximate the whole English Church, as a body to
Rome, that is nothing to us. For what we know,
it may be the providential means of uniting the
whole Church in one, without fresh schismatizing-

o

or use of private judgment."

Here I observe, that, what was contemplated
was the bursting of the Catholicity of the Anglican
Church, that is, my subjective idea of that Church.
Its bursting would not hurt her with the world, but
would be a discovery that she was purely and essen
tially Protestant, and would be really the " hoisting
of the engineer with his own petar." And this
was the result. I continue :

"2. Say, that I move sympathies for Rome: in
the same sense does Hooker, Taylor, Bull, &c.
Their arguments may be against Rome, but the
sympathies they raise must be towards Rome, so far
as Rome maintains truths which our Church does
not teach or enforce. Thus it is a question of

240 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

degree between our divines and me. I may, if so
be, go further ; I may raise sympathies more ; but I
am but urging minds in the same direction as they
do. I am doing just the very thing which all our
doctors have ever been doing. In short, would not
Hooker, if Vicar of St. Mary s, be in my diffi
culty ?" Here it may be said, that Hooker could
preach against Eome, and I could not; but I doubt
whether he could have preached effectively against
Transubstantiation better than I, though neither
he nor I held it.

"3. Rationalism is the great evil of the day.
May not I consider my post at St. Mary s as a
place of protest against it? I am more certain
that the Protestant [spirit], which I oppose, leads
to infidelitv, than that which I recommend, leads

*

to Rome. Who knows what the state of the Uni
versity may be, as regards Divinity Professors in
a few years hence ? Any how, a great battle may
be coming on, of which C. D. s book is a sort of
earnest. The whole of our day may be a battle
with this spirit. May we not leave to another age
its own evil, to settle the question of Romanism ?"
I may add that from this time I had a Curate
at St. Mary s, who gradually took more and more
of mv work.

V

Also, this same year, 1840, I made arrangements
for giving up the British Critic, in the following

Julv, which were carried into effect at that

j i

date.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 241

Such was about my state of mind, on the publi
cation of Tract 90 in February, 1841. The im-

/

mense commotion consequent upon the publication
of the Tract did not unsettle me again ; for I had
weathered the storm : the Tract had not been con
demned : that was the great point ; I made much of it.
To illustrate my feelings during this trial, I will
make extracts from my letters to a friend, which
have come into my possession. The dates are
respectively March 25, April 1, and May 9.

1. "I do trust I shall make no false step, and
hope my friends will pray for me to this effect. If,
as you say, a destiny hangs over us, a single false
step may ruin all. I am very well and comfortable;
but we are not yet out of the wood. " 1

2. " The Bishop sent me word on Sunday to
write a letter to him instanter." 1 So I wrote it on
Monday : on Tuesday it passed through the press :
on Wednesday it was out : and to-day [Thursday]
it is in London.

"I trust that things are smoothing now; and
that we have made a great step is certain. It is
not right to boast, till I am clear out of the wood,
i. e. till I know how the letter is received in
London. You know, I suppose, that I am to stop
the Tracts ; but you will see in the Letter, though
I speak quite what I feel, yet I have managed to
take out on my side my snubbing s worth. And
this makes me anxious how it will be received
in London.

L 1

242 HISTOEY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

" I have not had a misgiving for five minutes
from the first : but I do not like to boast, lest some
harm come."

3. " The Bishops are very desirous of hushing
the matter up : and I certainly have done my ut
most to co-operate with them, on the understand
ing that the Tract is not to be withdrawn or con
demned."

And to my friend, Mr. Bowden, under date of
March 15, " The Heads, I believe, have just done a
violent act : they have said that my interpretation
of the Articles is an evasion. Do not think that
this will pain me. You see, no doctrine is cen
sured, and my shoulders shall manage to bear the
charge. If you knew all, or were here, you
would see that I have asserted a great principle,
and I ought to suffer for it: that the Articles
are to be interpreted, not according to the meaning
of the writers, but (as far as the wording will admit)
according to the sense of the Catholic Church."

Upon occasion of Tract 90 several Catholics
wrote to me ; I answered one of my correspondents
thus :

"April 8. You have no cause to be surprised
at the discontinuance of the Tracts. We feel no
misgivings about it whatever, as if the cause of
what we hold to be Catholic truth would suffer
thereby. My letter to my Bishop has, I trust, had
the effect of bringing the preponderating authority
of the Church on our side. No stopping of the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 243

Tracts can, humanly speaking, stop the spread of
the opinions which they have inculcated.

" The Tracts are not suppressed. No doctrine
or principle has been conceded by us, or condemned
by authority. The Bishop has but said that a cer
tain Tract is objectionable, no reason being stated.
I have no intention whatever of yielding any one
point which I hold on conviction; and that the
authorities of the Church know full well."

In the summer of 1841, I found myself at Little-
more without any harass or anxiety on my mind. I
had determined to put aside all controversy, and I
set myself down to mv translation of St. Athanasius :

*

but, between July and November, I received three
blows which broke me.

1 . I had got but a little way in my work, when
my trouble returned on me. The ghost had come
a second time. In the Arian History I found the
very same phenomenon, in a far bolder shape, which
I had found in the Monophysite. I had not ob
served it in 1832. Wonderful that this should
come upon me ! I had not sought it out ; I was
reading and writing in my own line of study, far
from the controversies of the day, on what is called
a "metaphysical" subject; but I saw clearly, that
in the history of Arianism, the pure Arians were
the Protestants, the semi- Arians were the Anglicans,
and that Rome now was what it was. The truth
lay, not with the Via Media, but in what was called

L! 2

244 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

" the extreme party." As I am not writing a work
of controversy, I need not enlarge upon the argu
ment; I have said something on the subject, in a
Volume which I published fourteen years ago.

2. I was in the misery of this new unsettlement,
when a second blow came upon me. The Bishops
one after another began to charge against me. It
was a formal, determinate movement. This was the
real "understanding;" that, on which I had acted
on occasion of Tract 90, had come to nought. I
think the words, which had then been used to me,
were, that "perhaps two or three might think it
necessary to say something in their charges;" but
by this time they had tided over the difficulty of
the Tract, and there was no one to enforce the
" understanding." They went on in this way, di
recting charges at me, for three whole years. I
recognized it as a condemnation; it was the only
one that was in their power. At first I intended
to protest ; but I gave up the thought in despair.

On October 17th, I wrote thus to a friend: "I
suppose it will be necessary in some shape or other
to re-assert Tract 90 ; else, it will seem, after these
Bishops Charges, as if it were silenced, which it
has not been, nor do I intend it should be. I wish
to keep quiet; but if Bishops speak, I will speak
too. If the view were silenced, I could not remain
in the Church, nor could many others; and there
fore, since it is not silenced, I shall take care to
show that it isn t,"

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS . 245

A day or two after, Oct. 22, a stranger wrote to
me to say, that the Tracts for the Times had made a
young friend of his a Catholic, and to ask, " would I
be so good as to convert him back ;" I made answer :

" If conversions to Rome take place in conse
quence of the Tracts for the Times, I do not impute
blame to them, but to those who, instead of acknow
ledging such Anglican principles of theology and
ecclesiastical polity as they contain, set themselves
to oppose them. Whatever be the influence of the
Tracts, great or small, they may become just as
powerful for Rome, if our Church refuses them, as
they would be for our Church if she accepted them.
If our rulers speak either against the Tracts, or
not at all, if any number of them, not only do not
favour, but even do not suffer the principles con
tained in them, it is plain that our members may
easily be persuaded either to give up those prin
ciples, or to give up the Church. If this state of
things goes on, I mournfully prophesy, not one or
two, but many secessions to the Church of Rome."

Two years afterwards, looking back on what had
passed, I said, " There were no converts to Rome,
till after the condemnation of No. 90."

3. As if all this were not enough, there came
the affair of the Jerusalem Bishopric; and, with
a brief mention of it, I shall conclude.

I think I am right in saying that it had been
long a desire with the Prussian Court to introduce
Episcopacy into the Evangelical Religion, which

246 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

was intended in that country to embrace both the
Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. I almost think
I heard of the project, when I was at Rome in
1833, at the Hotel of the Prussian Minister, M.
Bunsen, who was most hospitable and kind, as to
other English visitors, so also to my friends and
myself. I suppose that the idea of Episcopacy, as
the Prussian king understood it, was very different
from that taught in the Tractarian School ; but
still, I suppose also, that the chief authors of that
school would have gladly seen such a measure
carried out in Prussia, had it been done without
compromising those principles which were neces
sary to the being of a Church. About the time of
the publication of Tract 90, M. Bunsen and the
then Archbishop of Canterbury were taking steps
for its execution, by appointing and consecrating
a Bishop for Jerusalem. Jerusalem, it would seem,
was considered a safe place for the experiment; it
was too far from Prussia to awaken the suscepti
bilities of any party at home ; if the project failed,
it failed without harm to any one; and, if it suc
ceeded, it o-ave Protestantism a status in the East,

i O

which, in association with the Monophysite or Jaco
bite and the Nestorian bodies, formed a political
instrument for England, parallel to that which
Russia had in the Greek Church, and France in
the Latin.

Accordingly, in July 1841, full of the Anglican
difficulty on the question of Catholicity, I thus

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 247

spoke of the Jerusalem scheme in an Article in the
British Critic : " When our thoughts turn to the
East, instead of recollecting that there are Christian
Churches there, we leave it to the Russians to take
care of the Greeks, and the French to take care of
the Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting

O

a Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with helping
the Jews to rebuild their Temple there, or with
becoming the august protectors of Nestorians, Mo-
nophysites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or
with forming a league with the Mussulman against
Greeks and Romans together."

I do not pretend so long after the time to give a full
or exact account of this measure in detail. I will
but say that in the Act of Parliament, under date of
October 5, 1841, (if the copy, from which I quote,
contains the measure as it passed the Houses,) pro
vision is made for the consecration of "British
subjects, or the subjects or citizens of any foreign
state, to be Bishops in any foreign country,
whether such foreign subjects or citizens be or be
not subjects or citizens of the country in which
they are to act, and .... without requiring such of
them as may be subjects or citizens of any foreign
kingdom or state to take the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, and the oath of due obedience to
the Archbishop for the time being "... also " that
such Bishop or Bishops, so consecrated, may exer
cise, within such limits, as may from time to time
be assigned for that purpose in such foreign coun-

248 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

tries by her Majesty, spiritual jurisdiction over the
ministers of British congregations of the United
Church of England and Ireland, and over such other
Protestant Congregations, as may be desirous of
placing themselves under his or their authority."

Now here, at the very time that the Anglican
Bishops were directing their censure upon me for
avowing an approach to the Catholic Church not
closer than I believed the Anglican formularies
would allow, they were on the other hand frater
nizing, by their act or by their sufferance, with
Protestant bodies, and allowing them to put them
selves under an Anglican Bishop, without any re
nunciation of their errors or regard to the due
reception of baptism and confirmation ; while there
was great reason to suppose that the said Bishop
was intended to make converts from the orthodox
Greeks, and the schismatical Oriental bodies, by
means of the influence of England. This was the
third blow, which finally shattered my faith in the
Anglican Church. That Church was not only for
bidding any sympathy or concurrence with the
Church of Rome, but it actually was courting an
intercommunion with Protestant Prussia and the
heresy of the Orientals. The Anglican Church
might have the Apostolical succession, as had the
Monophy sites ; but such acts as were in progress
led me to the gravest suspicion, not that it would
soon cease to be a Church, but that it had never
been a Church all along.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 249

On October 12th I thus wrote to a friend:
" We have not a single Anglican in Jerusalem, so
we are sending a Bishop to make a communion, not
to govern our own people. Next, the excuse is,
that there are converted Anglican Jews there who
require a Bishop ; I am told there are not half-a-
dozen. But for them the Bishop is sent out, and
for them he is a Bishop of the circumcision" (I
think he was a converted Jew, who boasted of his
Jewish descent), "against the Epistle to the Ga-
latians pretty nearly. Thirdly, for the sake of
Prussia, he is to take under him all the foreign
Protestants who will come ; and the political ad
vantages will be so great, from the influence of
England, that there is no doubt they will come.
They are to sign the Confession of Augsburg, and
there is nothing to show that they hold the doc
trine of Baptismal Regeneration.

" As to myself, I shall do nothing whatever
publicly, unless indeed it were to give my signature
to a Protest ; but I think it would be out of place
in me to agitate, having been in a way silenced; but
the Archbishop is really doing most grave work, of
which we cannot see the end."

I did make a solemn Protest, and sent it to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and also sent it to my
own Bishop, with the following letter :

" It seems as if I were never to write to your
Lordship, without giving you pain, and I know that
my present subject does not specially concern your

M m

250 HISTORY OP MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Lordship; yet, after a great deal of anxious
thought, I lay before you the enclosed Protest.

"Your Lordship will observe that I am not
asking for any notice of it, unless you think
that I ought to receive one. I do this very serious
act, in obedience to my sense of duty.

"If the English Church is to enter on a new
course, and assume a new aspect, it will be more
pleasant to me hereafter to think, that I did not
suffer so grievous an event to happen, without
bearing witness against it.

" May I be allowed to say, that I augur nothing
but evil, if we in -any respect prejudice our title
to be a branch of the Apostolic Church ? That
Article of the Creed, I need hardly observe to your
Lordship, is of such constraining power, that, if
we will not claim it, and use it for ourselves, others
will use it in their own behalf against us. Men
who learn, whether by means of documents or
measures, whether from the statements or the acts
of persons in authority, that our communion is not
a branch of the one Church, I foresee with much
grief, will be tempted to look out for that Church
elsewhere.

"It is to me a subject of great dismay, that, as
far as the Church has lately spoken out, on the
subject of the opinions which I and others hold,
those opinions are, not merely not sanctioned (for
that I do not ask), but not even suffered.

" I earnestly hope that your Lordship will excuse

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 251

my freedom in thus speaking to you of some
members of your Most Rev. and Right Rev. Body.
With every feeling of reverent attachment to your
Lordship,

" I am, &c."

PROTEST.

" Whereas the Church of England has a claim on
the allegiance of Catholic believers only on the
ground of her own claim to be considered a branch
of the Catholic Church :

" And whereas the recognition of heresy, indirect
as well as direct, goes far to destroy such claim in
the case of any religious body advancing it :

" And whereas to admit maintainers of heresy to
communion, without formal renunciation of their
errors, goes far towards recognizing the same :

"And whereas Lutheranisrn and Calvinism are
heresies, repugnant to Scripture, springing up three
centuries since, and anathematized by East as well
as West:

" And whereas it is reported that the Most Reve
rend Primate and other Right Reverend Rulers of
our Church have consecrated a Bishop with a view
to exercising spiritual jurisdiction over Protestant,
that is, Lutheran and Calvinist congregations in the
East (under the provisions of an Act made in the
last session of Parliament to amend an Act made
in the 26th year of the reign of his Majesty King

M m 2

252 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

George the Third, intituled, " An Act to empower
the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop
of York for the time being, to consecrate to the
office of Bishop persons being subjects or citizens
of countries out of his Majesty s dominions "), dis
pensing at the same time, not in particular cases
and accidentally, but as if on principle and univer
sally, with any abjuration of error on the part of
such congregations, and with any reconciliation to
the Church on the part of the presiding Bishop;
thereby giving some sort of formal recognition to
the doctrines which such congregations maintain :

"And whereas the dioceses in England are con
nected together by so close an intercommunion,
that what is done by authority in one, immediately
affects the rest :

" On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest
of the English Church and Vicar of St. Mary the
Virgin s, Oxford, by way of relieving my conscience,
do hereby solemnly protest against the measure
aforesaid, and disown it, as removing our Church
from her present ground and tending to her dis
organization.

" JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

" November 11, 1841."

Looking back two years afterwards on the above-
mentioned and other acts, on the part of Anglican
Ecclesiastical authorities, I observe : " Many a man
might have held an abstract theory about the

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 253

Catholic Church, to which it was difficult to adjust
the Anglican, might have admitted a suspicion,
or even painful doubts about the latter, yet never
have been impelled onwards, had our Rulers pre
served the quiescence of former years; but it is the
corroboration of a present, living, and energetic
heterodoxy, which realizes and makes them prac
tical ; it has been the recent speeches and acts of
authorities, who had so long been tolerant of Pro
testant error, which have given to inquiry and to
theory its force and its edge."

As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I
never heard of any good or harm it has ever done,
except what it has done for me ; which many
think a great misfortune, and I one of the greatest
of mercies. It brought me on to the beginning of
the end.

PART VI.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

N n

PART VI.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

FROM the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed,
as regards ray membership with the Anglican
Church, though at the time I became aware of it
only by degrees. I introduce what I have to say
with this remark, by way of accounting for the
character of this remaining portion of my narra
tive. A death-bed has scarcely a history ; it is a
tedious decline, with seasons of rallying and seasons
of falling back; and since the end is foreseen,
or what is called a matter of time, it has little
interest for the reader, especially if he has a kind
heart. Moreover, it is a season when doors are
closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man
neither cares nor is able to record the stages of his
malady. I was in these circumstances, except so
far as I was not allowed to die in peace, except so
far as friends, who had still a full right to come in
upon me, and the public world which had not, have
given a sort of history to those last four years.
But in consequence, my narrative must be in
great measure documentary. Letters of mine to

N n 2

258 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

friends have come to me since their deaths ; others
have been kindly lent me for the occasion ; and I
have some drafts of letters, and notes of my own,
though I have no strictly personal or continuous
memoranda to consult, and have unluckily mislaid
some valuable papers.

And first as to my position in the view of duty ;
it was this: 1. I had given up my place in the
Movement in my letter to the Bishop of Oxford in
the spring of 1841 ; but 2. I could not give up my
duties towards the many and various minds who
had more or less been brought into it by me; 3. I
expected or intended gradually to fall back into Lay
Communion; 4. I never contemplated leaving the
Church of England ; 5. I could not hold office in
her, if I were not allowed to hold the Catholic
sense of the Articles ; 6. I could not go to Rome,
while she suffered honours to be paid to the Blessed
Virgin and the Saints which I thought incom
patible with the Supreme, Incommunicable Glory of
the One Infinite and Eternal; 7. I desired a union
with Rome under conditions, Church with Church ;
8. I called Littlemore my Torres Vedras, and
thought that some day we might advance again
within the Anglican Church, as we had been
forced to retire; 9. I kept back all persons who
were disposed to go to Rome with ail my might.

And I kept them back for three or four reasons ;
1, because what I could not in conscience do my-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 259

self, I could not suffer them to do; 2, because I
thought that in various cases they were acting
under excitement; 3, while I held St. Mary s, be
cause I had duties to my Bishop and to the Anglican
Church; and 4, in some cases, because I had re
ceived from their Anglican parents or superiors
direct charge of them.

This was my view of my duty from the end of
1341, to my resignation of St. Mary s in the autumn
of 1843. And now I shall relate my view, during
that time, of the state of the controversy between
the Churches.

As soon as I saw the hitch in the Anglican
argument, during my course of reading in the
summer of 1839, I began to look about, as I have
said, for some ground which might supply a contro
versial basis for my need. The difficulty in ques
tion had affected my view both of Antiquity and
Catholicity ; for, while the history of St. Leo showed
me that the deliberate and eventual consent of the
great body of the Church ratified a doctrinal de
cision, it also showed that the rule of Antiquity was
not infringed, though a doctrine had not been
publicly recognized as a portion of the dogmatic
foundation of the Church, till centuries after the
time of the Apostles. Thus, whereas the Creeds
tell us that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic, I could not prove that the Anglican
communion was an integral part of the One Church,
on the ground of its being Apostolic or Catholic,

260 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

without reasoning in favour of what are commonly
called the Roman corruptions; and I could not
defend our separation from Rome without using
arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines con
cerning our Lord, which are the very foundation of
the Christian religion. The Via Media was an
impossible idea; it was what I had called "standing
on one leg;" and it was necessary, if my old issue
of the controversy was to he retained, to go further
either one way or the other.

Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took
another. I deliberately quitted the old Anglican
ground as untenable; but I did not do so all at
once, but as I became more and more convinced of
the state of the case. The Jerusalem Bishopric
was the ultimate condemnation of the old theory of
the Via Media ; from that time the Anglican Church
was, in my mind, either not a normal portion of
that One Church to which the promises were made,
or at least in an abnormal state, and from that
time I said boldly, as I did in my Protest, and as
indeed I had even intimated in my Letter to the
Bishop of Oxford, that the Church in which I
found myself had no claim on me, except on con
dition of its being a portion of the One Catholic
Communion, and that that condition must ever be
borne in mind as a practical matter, and had to be
distinctly proved. All this was not inconsistent
with my saying that, at this time, I had no thought
of leaving that Church ; because I felt some of my

HISTOEY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 261

old objections against Rome as strongly as ever.
I had no right, I had no leave, to act against my
conscience. That was a higher rule than any ar
gument about the Notes of the Church.

Under these circumstances I turned for protec
tion to the Note of Sanctity, with a view of showing
that we had at least one of the necessary Notes, as
fully as the Church of Rome; or, at least, without
entering into comparisons, that we had it in such a
sufficient sense as to reconcile us to our position, and
to supply full evidence, and a clear direction, on the
point of practical duty. We had the Note of Life,
not any sort of life, not such only as can come of
nature, but a supernatural Christian life, which
could only come directly from above. In my Article
in the British Critic, to which I have so often re
ferred, in January, 1840 (before the time of Tract
90), I said of the Anglican Church that "she has
the note of possession, the note of freedom from
party titles, the note of life, a tough life and
a vigorous; she has ancient descent, unbroken con
tinuance, agreement in doctrine with the Ancient
Church." Presently I go on to speak of sanctity:
" Much as Roman Catholics may denounce us at
present as schismatical, they could not resist us if
the Anglican communion had but that one note of
the Church upon it, sanctity. The Church of the
day [4th century] could not resist Meletius ; his
enemies were fairly overcome by him, by his meek
ness and holiness, which melted the most jealous of

262 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

them." And I continue, " We are almost content
to say to Romanists, account us not yet as a branch
of the Catholic Church, though we be a branch,
till we are like a branch, provided that when we
do become like a branch, then you consent to ac
knowledge us," &c. And so I was led on in the
Article to that sharp attack on English Catholics
for their shortcomings as regards this Note, a good
portion of which I have already quoted in another
place. It is there that I speak of the great scandal
which I took at their political, social, and contro
versial bearing; and this was a second reason why
I fell back upon the Note of Sanctity, because it
took me away from the necessity of making any
attack upon the doctrines of the Roman Church,
nay, from the consideration of her popular beliefs,
and brought me upon a ground on which I felt
I could not make a mistake ; for what is a higher
guide for us in speculation and in practice, than
that conscience of right and wrong, of truth and
falsehood, those sentiments of what is decorous,
consistent, and noble, which our Creator has made
a part of our original nature ? Therefore I felt I
could not be wrong in attacking what I fancied
was a fact, the unscrupulousness, the deceit, and
the intriguing spirit of the agents and represen
tatives of Rome.

This reference to Holiness as the true test of a
Church was steadily kept in view in what I wrote
in connexion with Tract 90. I say in its Intro-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 263

d action, " The writer can never be party to forcing
the opinions or projects of one school upon another ;
religious changes should be the act of the whole
body. No good can come of a change which is not
a development of feelings springing up freely and
calmly within the bosom of the whole body itself ;
every change in religion " must be " attended by
deep repentance; changes" must be "nurtured in
mutual love ; we cannot agree without a super
natural influence:" we must come " together to God

O

to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves." In
my Letter to the Bishop I said, " I have set myself
against suggestions for considering the differences
between ourselves and the foreign Churches with a
view to their adjustment." (I meant in the way of
negotiation, conference, agitation, or the like.)
" Our business is with ourselves, to make our
selves more holy, more self-denying, more primitive,
more worthy of our high calling. To be anxious
for a composition of differences is to begin at the
end. Political reconciliations are but outward and
hollow, and fallacious. And till Roman Catholics
renounce political efforts, and manifest in their
public measures the light of holiness and truth,
perpetual war is our only prospect."

According to this theory, a religious body is part
of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, if it has
the succession and the creed of the Apostles, with
the note of holiness of life; and there is much in
such a view to approve itself to the direct common

o o

264 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

sense and practical habits of an Englishman. How
ever, with events consequent upon Tract 90, I sunk
my theory to a lower level. What could be said in
apology, when the Bishops and the people of my
Church, not only did not suffer, but actually rejected
primitive Catholic doctrine, and tried to eject from
their communion all who held it ? after the Bishops
charges ? after the Jerusalem " abomination ? "
Well, this could be said; still we were not nothing:
we could not be as if we never had been a Church ;
we were " Samaria." This then was that lower
level on which I placed myself, and all who felt
with me, at the end of 1841.

To bring out this view was the purpose of Four
Sermons preached at St. Mary s in December of
that year. Hitherto I had not introduced the ex
citing topics of the day into the Pulpit; on this
occasion I did. I did so, for the moment was
urgent; there was great unsettlement of mind
among us, in consequence of those same events
which had unsettled me. One special anxiety, very
obvious, which was coming on me now, was, that
what was " one man s meat was another man s
poison." I had said even of Tract 90, " It was
addressed to one set of persons, and has been used
and commented on bv another;" still more was it

* *

true now, that whatever I wrote for the service
of those whom I knew to be in trouble of mind,
would become on the one hand matter of suspicion
and slander in the mouths of my opponents, and of

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 265

distress and surprise to those on the other hand,
who had no difficulties of faith at all. Accord
ingly, when I published these Four Sermons at the
end of 1843, I introduced them with a recom
mendation that none should read them who did not
need them. But in truth the virtual condemnation
of Tract 90, after that the whole difficulty seemed
to have been weathered, was an enormous disap
pointment and trial. My Protest also against the
Jerusalem Bishopric was an unavoidable cause of
excitement in the case of many; but it calmed
them too, for the very fact of a Protest was a relief
to their impatience. And so, in like manner, as
regards the Four Sermons, of which I speak, though
they acknowledged freely the great scandal which
was involved in the recent episcopal doings, yet at
the same time they might be said to bestow upon
the multiplied disorders and shortcomings of the
Anglican Church a sort of place in the Revealed
Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the
controversy, and the dignity of a great principle,
for unsettled minds to take and use, which might
teach them to recognize their own consistency,
and to be reconciled to themselves, and which
might absorb into itself and dry up a multitude of
their grudgings, discontents, misgivings, and ques
tionings, and lead the way to humble, thankful,
and tranquil thoughts; and this was the effect
which certainly it produced on myself.

The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of

o o 2

26G HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

the rigid character of the Jewish law, the formal
and literal force of its precepts, and the manifest
schism, and worse than schism, of the Ten Tribes,
yet in fact they were still recognized as a people by
the Divine Mercy ; that the great prophets Elias and
Eliseus were sent to them, and not only so, but sent
to preach to them and reclaim them, without any
intimation that they must be reconciled to the line
of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to
Jerusalem to worship. They were not in the
Church, yet they had the means of grace and the
hope of acceptance with their Maker. The appli
cation of all this to the Anglican Church was im
mediate ; whether a man could assume or exercise
ministerial functions under the circumstances, or not,
might not clearly appear, though it must be re
membered that England had the Apostolic Priest
hood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all; but
so far was clear, that there was no call at all for an
Anglican to leave his Church for Rome, though he
did not believe his own to be part of the One Church :
and for this reason, because it was a fact that
the kingdom of Israel was cut off from the Temple ;
and yet its subjects, neither in a mass, nor as
individuals, neither the multitudes on Mount Car-
mel, nor the Shunammite and her household, had
any command given them, though miracles were
displayed before them, to break off from their own
people, and to submit themselves to Judah .

1 As I am not writing controversially, I will only here re-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 207

It is plain, that a theory such as this, whether
the marks of a divine presence and life in the An
glican Church were sufficient to prove that she was
actually within the covenant, or only sufficient to
prove that she was at least enjoying extraordinary
and uncovenanted mercies, not only lowered her level
in a religious point of view, but weakened her con
troversial basis. Its very novelty made it suspicious ;
and there was no guarantee that the process of
subsidence might not continue, and that it might not
end in a submersion. Indeed, to many minds, to
say that England was wrong was even to say that
Rome was right; and no ethical reasoning what
ever could overcome in their case the argument

o

from prescription and authority. To this objection
I could only answer that I did not make my cir
cumstances. I fully acknowledged the force and
effectiveness of the genuine Anglican theory, and
that it was all but proof against the disputants of
Rome; but still like Achilles, it had a vulnerable
point, and that St. Leo had found it out for me,
and that I could not help it; that, were it not
for matter of fact, the theory would be great
indeed, it would be irresistible, if it were only true.
When I became a Catholic, the Editor of a Maga-

O

zine who had in former days accused me, to my

mark upon this argument, that there is a great difference
between a command, which implies physical conditions, and
one which is moral. To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the
body, not of the soul.

2G8 HISTORY OF MY KEL1GIOUS OPINIONS.

indignation, of tending towards Rome, wrote to me
to ask, which of the two was now right, he or I ?
I answered him in a letter, part of which I here
insert, as it will serve as a sort of leave-taking: of

O

the great theory, which is so specious to look upon,
so difficult to prove, and so hopeless to work.

"Nov. 8, 1845. I do not think, at all more
than I did, that the Anglican principles which I
advocated at the date you mention, lead men to the
Church of Rome. If I must specify what I mean
by Anglican principles, I should say, e. g. taking
Antiquity, not the existing Church, as the oracle
of truth ; and holding that the Apostolical Succes
sion is a sufficient guarantee of Sacramental Grace,
without union with the Christian Church through
out the world. I think these still the firmest,
strongest ground against Rome that is, if they
can be held. Thoy have been held by many, and
are far more difficult to refute in the Roman
controversy, than those of anv other religious

* **

body.

" For myself, I found / could not hold them.
I left them. From the time I began to suspect
their unsoundness, I ceased to put them forward.
When I was fairly sure of their unsoundness, I gave
up my Living. When I was fully confident that
the Church of Rome was the only true Church,
I joined her.

" I have felt all along that Bp. Bull s theology
was the only theology on which the English Church

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 269

could stand. I have felt, that opposition to the
Church of Rome was part of that theology; and
that he who could not protest against the Church
of Rome was no true divine in the English Church.
I have never said, nor attempted to say, that any
one in office in the English Church, whether Bishop
or incumbent, could be otherwise than in hostilitv

tt

to the Church of Rome."

The Via Media then disappeared for ever, and a
new Theory, made expressly for the occasion, took
its place. I was pleased with my new view. I
wrote to an intimate friend, Dec. 13, 1841, "I
think you will give me the credit, Carissime, of not
undervaluing the strength of the feelings which
draw one [to Rome], and yet I am (I trust) quite
clear about my duty to remain where I am ; indeed,

m m

much clearer than I was some time since. If it is
not presumptuous to say, I have ... a much more
definite view of the promised inward Presence of
Christ with us in the Sacraments now that the
outward notes of it are being removed. And I am
content to be with Moses in the desert, or with
Elijah excommunicated from the Temple. I say
this, putting things at the strongest."

However, my friends of the moderate Apostolical
party, who were my friends for the very reason of
my having been so moderate and Anglican myself
in general tone in times past, who had stood up for
Tract 90 partly from faith in me, and certainly
from generous and kind feeling, and had thereby

270 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

shared an obloquy which was none of theirs, were
naturally surprised and offended at a line of argu
ment, novel, and, as it appeared to them, wanton,
which threw the whole controversy into confusion,
stultified my former principles, and substituted, as
they would consider, a sort of methodistic self-con
templation, especially abhorrent both to my nature
and to my past professions, for the plain and honest
tokens, as they were commonly received, of a divine
mission in the Anglican Church. They could not

O J

tell whither I was going; and were still further an
noyed, when I would view the reception of Tract 90
by the public and the Bishops as so grave a matter,
and threw about what they considered mysterious
hints of " eventualities," and would not simply say,
"An Anglican I was born, and an Anglican I will
die." One of my familiar friends, who was in the
country at Christmas, 1841-2, reported to me the
feeling that prevailed about me; and how I felt
towards it will appear in the following letter of
mine, written in answer:

" Oriel, Dec. 24, 1841. Carissime, you cannot
tell how sad your account of Moberly has made me.
His view of the sinfulness of the decrees of Trent is
as much against union of Churches as against in
dividual conversions. To tell the truth, I never
have examined those decrees with this object, and
have no view; but that is very different from hav
ing a deliberate view against them. Could not he
say which they are ? I suppose Transubstantiation

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 271

is one. A. B., though of course he would not like to
have it repeated, does not scruple at that. I have
not my mind clear. Moberly must recollect that
Palmer thinks they all bear a Catholic interpreta
tion. For myself, this only I see, that there is
indefinitely more in the Fathers against our own
state of alienation from Christendom than against
the Tridentine Decrees.

" The only thing I can think of [that I can have
said] is this, that there were persons who, if our
Church committed herself to heresy, sooner than
think that there was no Church any where, would
believe the Roman to be the Church ; and therefore
would on faith accept what they could not otherwise
acquiesce in. I suppose, it would be no relief to
him to insist upon the circumstance that there is
no immediate danger. Individuals can never be
answered for of course ; but I should think lightly
of that man, who, for some act of the Bishops,
should all at once leave the Church. Now, con
sidering how the Clergy really are improving, con
sidering that this row is even making them read
the Tracts, is it not possible we may all be in a
better state of mind seven years hence to consider
these matters ? and may we not leave them mean
while to the will of Providence ? I cannot, believe
this work has been of man ; God has a right to

7 O

His own work, to do what He will with it. May
we not try to leave it in His hands, and be con
tent ?

P p

272 HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

" If you learn any thing about Barter, which leads
you to think that I can relieve him by a letter, let
me know. The truth is this, our good friends do
not read the Fathers; they assent to us from the
common sense of the case : then, when the Fathers,
and we, say more than their common sense, they
are dreadfully shocked.

u The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For
holding any Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. The
Real Presence. 3. That there is a grace in Ordi
nation 2 .

" Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be
drawing up some stringent declarations of faith ?
is this what Moberly fears ? Would the Bishop of
Oxford accept them ? If so, I should be driven into
the Refuge for the Destitute [Littlemorej. But I
promise Moberly, I would do my utmost to catch
all dangerous persons and clap them into confine
ment there."

Christmas Day, 1841. "I have been dreaming
of Moberly all night. Should not he and the like
see, that it is unwise, unfair, and impatient to ask
others, What will you do under circumstances,
which have not, which may never come ? Why
bring fear, suspicion, and disunion into the camp

1 I cannot prove this at this distance of time ; but I do not
think it wrong to introduce here the passage containing it, as I
am imputing to the Bishop nothing which the world would
think disgraceful, but, on the contrary, what a large religious
body would approve.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 273

about things which are merely in posse f Natural,
and exceedingly kind as Barter s and another
friend s letters were, I think they have done great
harm. I speak most sincerely when I say, that
there are things which I neither contemplate, nor
wish to contemplate; but, when I am asked about
them ten times, at length I begin to contemplate
them.

" He surely does not mean to say, that nothing
could separate a man from the English Church,
e. g. its avowing Socinianism ; its holding the Holy
Eucharist in a Socinian sense. Yet, he would say,
it was not right to contemplate such things.

" Again, our case is [diverging] from that of
Ken s. To say nothing of the last miserable
century, which has given us to start from a much
lower level and with much less to spare than a
Churchman in the 17th century, questions of doc
trine are now coming in ; with him, it was a question
of discipline.

" If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot
help thinking we should all be vastly more agreed
than we think now. Indeed, is it possible (humanly
speaking) that those, who have so much the same
heart, should widely differ ? But let this be con
sidered, as to alternatives. What communion
could we join ? Could the Scotch or American
sanction the presence of its Bishops and congre
gations in England, without incurring the imputa-

pp 2

274 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

tion of schism, unless indeed (and is that likely ?)
they denounced the English as heretical ?

" Is not this a time of strange providences ? is it
not our safest course, without looking to conse
quences, to do simply what we think right day by
day ? shall we not be sure to go wrong, if we
attempt to trace by anticipation the course of
divine Providence ?

" Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen
from people being afraid to look difficulties in the
face ? They have palliated acts, when they should
have denounced them. There is that good fellow,
Worcester Palmer, can whitewash the Ecclesiastical
Commission and the Jerusalem Bishopric. And
what is the consequence ? that our Church has,
through centuries, ever been sinking lower and
lower, till good part of its pretensions and pro
fessions is a mere sham, though it be a duty to
make the best of what we have received. Yet,
though bound to make the best of other men s
shams, let us not incur any of our own. The
truest friends of our Church are they, who say
boldly when her rulers are going wrong, and the
consequences; and (to speak catachrestically) they
are most likely to die in the Church, who are,
under these black circumstances, most prepared to
leave it.

" And I will add, that, considering the traces of
God s grace which surround us, I am very sanguine,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 275

or rather confident, (if it is right so to speak,) that
our prayers and our alms will come up as a memo
rial before God, and that all this miserable con
fusion tends to good.

"Let us not then be anxious, and anticipate
differences in prospect, when we agree in the pre
sent.

.:, "P.S. I think, when friends [i. e. the extreme
party] get over their first unsettlement of mind
and consequent vague apprehensions, which the
new attitude of the Bishops, and our feelings upon
it, have brought about, they will get contented and
satisfied. They will see that they exaggerated
things. . . Of course it would have been wrong to
anticipate what one s feelings would be under such
a painful contingency as the Bishops charging as
they have done, so it seems to me nobody s
fault. Nor is it wonderful that others" [moderate
men] " are startled " [i. e. at my Protest, &c. &c.] ;
"yet they should recollect that the more implicit
the reverence one pays to a Bishop, the more keen
will be one s perception of heresy in him. The
cord is binding and compelling, till it snaps.

" Men of reflection would have seen this, if they
had looked that way. Last spring, a very high
churchman talked to me of resisting my Bishop, of
asking him for the Canons under which he acted,
and so forth ; but those, who have cultivated a loyal
feeling towards their superiors, are the most loving
servants, or the most zealous protestors. If others

276 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

became so too, if the clergy of Chester denounced
the heresy of their diocesan, they would be doing
their duty, and relieving themselves of the share
which they otherwise have in any possible defection
of their brethren.

"St. Stephen s [December 26]. How I fidget!
I now fear that the note I wrote yesterday only
makes matters worse by disclosing too much.
This is always my great difficulty.

"In the present state of excitement on both
sides, I think of leaving out altogether my re-
assertion of No. 90 in my Preface to Volume 6,
and merely saying, As many false reports are at
this time in circulation about him, he hopes his
well-wishers will take this Volume as an indication
of his real thoughts and feelings : those who are
not, he leaves in God s hand to bring them to a
better mind in His own time. What do you say to
the logic, sentiment, and propriety of this ?"

There was one very old friend, at a distance from
Oxford, afterwards a Catholic, now dead some
years, who must have said something to me, I do
not know what, which challenged a frank reply;
for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what
words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known
to two persons, that, as regards my Anglicanism,
perhaps I might break down in the event, that
perhaps we were both out of the Church. He an
swered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842: "I
don t think that I ever was so shocked by any

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 277

communication, which was ever made to me, as
by your letter of this morning. It has quite un
nerved me. . . I cannot but write to you, though
I am at a loss where to begin. . . I know of no
act by which we have dissevered ourselves from
the communion of the Church Universal. . . The
more I study Scripture, the more am I impressed
with the resemblance between the Romish prin
ciple in the Church and the Babylon of St. John.
... I am ready to grieve that I ever directed my
thoughts to theology, if it is indeed so uncertain,
as your doubts seem to indicate."

While my old and true friends were thus in
trouble about me, I suppose they felt not only anx
iety but pain, to see that I was gradually surrender
ing myself to the influence of others, who had not
their own claims upon me, younger men, and of a cast
of mind uncongenial to my own. A new school of
thought was rising, as is usual in such movements,
and was sweeping the original party of the move
ment aside, and was taking its place. The most
prominent person in it, was a man of elegant
genius, of classical mind, of rare talent in literary
composition : Mr. Oakeley. He was not far from
my own age ; I had long known him, though of late
years he had not been in residence at Oxford; and
quite lately, he has been taking several signal occa
sions of renewing that kindness, which he ever
showed towards me when we were both in the
Anglican Church. His tone of mind was not unlike

278 HISTOHY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

that which gave a character to the early movement;
he was almost a typical Oxford man, and, as far as
I recollect, both in political and ecclesiastical views,
would have been of one spirit with the Oriel party
of 18261833. But he had entered late into the
Movement; he did not know its first years; and,
beginning with a new start, he was naturally
thrown together with that body of eager, acute,
resolute minds who had begun their Catholic life
about the same time as he, who knew nothing about
the Via Media, but had heard much about Rome.
This new party rapidly formed and increased, in
and out of Oxford, and, as it so happened, con
temporaneously with that very summer, when I
received so serious a blow to mv ecclesiastical

H

views from the study of the Monophysite contro
versy. These men cut into the original Move
ment at an angle, fell across its line of thought,
and then set about turning that line in its own
direction. They were most of them keenly re
ligious men, with a true concern for their souls as
the first matter of all, with a great zeal for me, but
giving little certainty at the time as to which way

they would ultimately turn. Some in the event

.

have remained firm to Anglicanism, some have
become Catholics, and some have found a refuge in
Liberalism. Nothing was clearer concerning them,
than that they needed to be kept in order; and on
me who had had so much to do with the making of
them, that duty was as clearly incumbent; and it

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 279

is equally clear, from what I have already said,
that I was just the person, above all others, who
could not undertake it. There are no friends like
old friends; but of those old friends, few could
help me, few could understand me, many were
annoyed with me, some were angry, because I was
breaking up a compact party, and some, as a matter
of conscience, could not listen to me. I said, bit
terly, " You are throwing me on others, whether I
will or no." Yet still I had good and true friends
around me of the old sort, in and out of Oxford too.
But on the other hand, though I neither was so
fond of the persons, nor of the methods of thought,
which belonged to this new school, excepting two
or three men, as of the old set, though I could not
trust in their firmness of purpose, for, like a swarm
of flies, they might come and go, and at length be
divided and dissipated, yet I had an intense sym
pathy in their object and in the direction of their
path, in spite of my old friends, in spite of my old
life-long prejudices. In spite of my ingrained fears
of Rome, and the decision of my reason and con
science against her usages, in spite of my affection
for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing
love of Rome the author of English Christianity,
and I had a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin,
in whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and
whose Immaculate Purity I had in one of my
earliest printed Sermons made much of. And it
was the consciousness of this bias in myself, if it is

Q q

280 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

so to be called, which made me preach so earnestly
against the danger of being swayed by our sym-
pathy rather than our reason in religious inquiry.
And moreover, the members of this new school
looked up to me, as I have said, and did me true
kindnesses, and really loved me, and stood by me
in trouble, when others went away, and for all this
I was grateful; nay, many of them were in trouble
themselves, and in the same boat with me, and that
was a further cause of sympathy between us; and
hence it was, when the new school came on in
force, and into collision with the old, I had not the
heart, any more than the power, to repel them;
I was in great perplexity, and hardly knew where
I stood; I took their part; and, when I wanted
to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out,
and I incurred the charge of weakness from some
men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and under
hand dealing from the majority.

Now I will say here frankly, that this sort of
charge is a matter which I cannot properly meet,
because I cannot duly realize it. I have never had
any suspicion of my own honesty ; and, when men
say that I was dishonest, I cannot grasp the accusa
tion as a distinct conception, such as it is possible
to encounter. If a man said to me, " On such a day
and before such persons you said a thing was white,
when it was black," I understand what is meant
well enough, and I can set myself to prove an alibi
or to explain the mistake ; or if a man said to me,

IIIRTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 281

" You tried to gain me over to your party, intend
ing to take me with vou to Rome, but you did not

i *i

succeed," I can give him the lie, and lay down an
assertion of my own as firm and as exact as his,
that not from the time that I was first unsettled,
did I ever attempt to gain any one over to myself
or to my Romanizing opinions, and that it is only
his own coxcombical fancy which has bred such a
thought in him : but my imagination is at a loss in
presence of those vague charges, which have com
monly been brought against me, charges, which
are made up of impressions, and understandings,
and inferences, and hearsay, and surmises. Ac
cordingly, I shall not make the attempt, for, in
doing so, I should be dealing blows in the air; what
I shall attempt is to state what I know of myself
and what I recollect, and leave its application to
others.

While I had confidence in the Via Media, and
thought that nothing could overset it, I did not
mind laying down large principles, which I saw
would go further than was commonly perceived. I
considered that to make the Via Media concrete
and substantive, it must be much more than it was
in outline; that the Anglican Church must have a
ceremonial, a ritual, and a fulness of doctrine and
devotion, which it had not at present, if it were to
compete with the Roman Church with any prospect
of success. Such additions would not remove it
from its proper basis, but would merely strengthen

Qq 2

282 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

and beautify it: such, for instance, would be con
fraternities, particular devotions, reverence for the
Blessed Virgin, prayers for the dead, beautiful
churches, rich offerings to them and in them,
monastic houses, and many other observances and
institutions, which I used to say belonged to us as
much as to Rome, though Rome had appropriated
them, and boasted of them, by reason of our having
let them slip from us. The principle, on which all
this turned, is brought out in one of the Letters I
published on occasion of Tract 90. " The age is
moving," I said, "towards something; and most
unhappily the one religious communion among us,
which has of late years been practically in posses
sion of this something, is the Church of Rome.
She alone, amid all the errors and evils of her prac
tical system, has given free scope to the feelings of
awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, devotedness,
and other feelings which may be especially called
Catholic. The question then is, whether we shall
give them up to the Roman Church or claim them
for ourselves. . . . But if we do give them up, we
must give up the men who cherish them. We
must consent either to give up the men, or to admit
their principles." With these feelings I frankly
admit, that, while I was working simply for the
sake of the Anglican Church, I did not at all mind,
though I found myself laying down principles in its
defence, which went beyond that particular defence
which high-and-dry men thought perfection, and

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 283

though I ended in framing a sort of defence, which
they might call a revolution, while I thought it a
restoration. Thus, for illustration, I might dis
course upon the "Communion of Saints" in such a
manner, (though I do not recollect doing so,) as
might lead the way towards devotion to the Blessed
Virgin and the saints on the one hand, and towards
prayers for the dead on the other. In a memo
randum of the year 1844 or 1815, I thus speak on
this subject: "If the Church be not defended on
establishment grounds, it must be upon principles,
which go far beyond their immediate object. Some
times I saw these further results, sometimes not.
Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I
saw them ; so long as I thought they were incon
sistent, not with our Church, but only with the
existing opinions, I was not unwilling to insinuate
truths into our Church, which I thought had a
right to be there."

To so much I confess; but I do not confess, I
simply deny that I ever said any thing which se
cretly bore against the Church of England, know
ing it myself, in order that others might unwarily
accept it. It was indeed one of my great difficul
ties 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 consequence in perplexity. The prime instance

284 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of this was the appeal to Antiquity ; St. Leo had
overset, in my own judgment, its force in the special
argument for Anglicanism ; yet I was committed to
Antiquity, together with the whole Anglican school ;
what then was I to say, when acute minds urged
this or that application of it against the Via
Media ? it was impossible that, in such circum
stances, any answer could be given which was not
unsatisfactory, or any behaviour adopted which was
not mysterious. A^ain, sometimes in what I wrote

/

I went just as far as I saw, and could as little say
more, as I could see what is below the horizon ; and
therefore, when asked as to the consequences of
what I had said, had no answer to give. Again,
sometimes when I was asked, whether certain con
clusions did not follow from a certain principle, I
might not be able to tell at the moment, especially
if the matter were complicated ; and for this reason,
if for no other, because there is great difference
between a conclusion in the abstract and a con
clusion in the concrete, and because a conclusion
may be modified in fact by a conclusion from some
opposite principle. Or it might so happen that I
got simply confused, by the very clearness of the
loo-ic which was administered to me, and thus gave

O

my sanction to conclusions which really were not
mine; and when the report of those conclusions
came round to me through others, I had to unsay
them. And then again, perhaps I did not like to
see men scared or scandalized by unfeeling logical

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 285

inferences, which would not have touched them to
the day of their death, had they not been made to
eat them. And then I felt altogether the force of

~

the maxim of St. Ambrose, " Non in dialectica
complacuit Deo salvuni facere populum suum;"
I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself,
it was not logic that carried me on ; as well
might one say that the quicksilver in the baro
meter changes the weather. It is the concrete
being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I
find my mind in a new place ; how ? the whole
man moves; paper logic is but the record of it.
All the logic in the world would not have made me
move faster towards Rome than I did ; as well
might you say that I have arrived at the end of
my journey, because I see the village church before
me, as venture to assert that the miles, over which
my soul had to pass before it got to Rome, could
be annihilated, even though I had had some far
clearer view than I then had, that Rome was my
ultimate destination. Great acts take time. At
least this is what I felt in my own case; and there
fore to come to me with methods of logic, had in
it the nature of a provocation, and, though I do
not think I ever showed it, made me somewhat in
different how I met them, and perhaps led me, as
a means of relieving my impatience, to be mysteri
ous or irrelevant, or to give in because I could not
reply. And a greater trouble still than these logi
cal mazes, was the introduction of logic into everv

286 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

subject whatever, so far, that is, as it was done.
Before I was at Oriel, I recollect an acquaintance
saying to me that " the Oriel Common Room stank
of Logic." One is not at all pleased when poetry,
or eloquence, or devotion, is considered as if chiefly
intended to feed syllogisms. Now, in saying all
this, I am saying nothing against the deep piety
and earnestness which were characteristics of this
second phase of the Movement, in which I had
taken so prominent a part. What I have been
observing is, that this phase had a tendency to
bewilder and to upset me, and, that instead of
saying so, as I ought to have done, in a sort of
easiness, for what I know, I gave answers at random,
which have led to my appearing close or incon
sistent.

I have turned up two letters of this period, which
in a measure illustrate what I have been saying.
The first is what I said to the Bishop of Oxford on
occasion of Tract 90 :

"March 20, 1841. No one can enter into my situa
tion but myself. I see a great many minds working
in various directions and a variety of principles with
multiplied bearings ; I act for the best. I sincerely
think that matters would not have gone better for the
Church, had I never written. And if I write I have
a choice of difficulties. It is easy for those who do
not enter into those difficulties to say, He ought
to say this and not say that, but things are wonder
fully linked together, and I cannot, or rather I

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 287

would not be dishonest. When persons too inter
rogate me, I am obliged in many cases to give an
opinion, or I seem to be underhand. Keeping
silence looks like artifice. And I do not like
people to consult or respect me, from thinking
differently of my opinions from what I know them
to be. And (again to use the proverb) what is
one man s food is another man s poison. All these
things make my situation very difficult. But that
collision must at some time ensue between mem
bers of the Church of opposite sentiments, I have
long been aware. The time and mode has been in
the hand of Providence ; I do not mean to exclude
my own great imperfections in bringing it about;
yet I still feel obliged to think the Tract necessary.

" Dr. Pusey has shown me your Lordship s letters
to him. I am most desirous of saying in print any
thing which I can honestly say to remove false
impressions created by the Tract."

The second is part of the notes of a letter sent
to Dr. Pusey in the next year :

" October 16, 1842. As to my being entirely
with A. B., I do not know the limits of my own
opinions. If A. B. says that this or that is a de
velopment from what I have said, I cannot say Yes
or No. It is plausible, it may be true. Of course
the fact that the Roman Church has so developed
and maintained, adds great weight to the antecedent
plausibility. I cannot assert that it is not true;
but I cannot, with that keen perception which some

R r

288 HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

people have, appropriate it. It is a nuisance to me
to be forced beyond what I can fairly accept."

There was another source of the perplexity with
which at this time I was encompassed, and of
the reserve and mysteriousness, of which it gave me
the credit. After Tract 90 the Protestant world
would not let me alone ; they pursued me in the
public journals to Littlemore. Reports of all kinds
were circulated about me. " Imprimis, why did I
go up to Littlemore at all ? For no good purpose
certainly; I dared not tell why." Why, to be
sure, it was hard that I should be obliged to say
to the Editors of newspapers that I went up there
to say my prayers ; it was hard to have to tell the
world in confidence, that I had a certain doubt
about the Anglican system, and could not at that
moment resolve it, or say what would come of it ;
it was hard to have to confess that I had thought of
giving up my Living a year or two before, and that
this was a first step to it. It was hard to have to
plead, that, for what I knew, my doubts would vanish,
if the newspapers would be so good as to give me
time and let me alone. Who would ever dream of
making the world his confidant ? yet I was con
sidered insidious, sly, dishonest, if I would not open
my heart to the tender mercies of the world. But
they persisted : " What was I doing at Littlemore ?"
Doing there ? have I not retreated from you ? have I
not given up my position and my place ? am I alone,
of Englishmen, not to have the privilege to go where

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 289

I will, no questions asked ? am I alone to be fol
lowed about by jealous prying eyes, who note down
whether I go in at a back door or at the front,
and who the men are who happen to call on me in
the afternoon ? Cowards ! if I advanced one step,
you would run away; it is not you that I fear: "Di
me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." It is because the
Bishops still go on charging against me, though I
have quite given up : it is that secret misgiving of
heart which tells me that they do well, for I have
neither lot nor part with them: this it is which
weighs me down. I cannot walk into or out of
my house, but curious eyes are upon me. Why
will you not let me die in peace ? Wounded brutes
creep into some hole to die in, and no one
grudges it them. Let me alone, I shall not trouble
you long. This was the keen heavy feeling which
pierced me, and, I think, these are the very words
that I used to myself. I asked, in the words of a
great motto, "Ubi lapsus? quid feci?" One day
when I entered my house, I found a flight of Un
dergraduates inside. Heads of Houses, as mounted
patrols, walked their horses round those poor cot
tages. Doctors of Divinity dived into the hidden
recesses of that private tenement uninvited, and
drew domestic conclusions from what they saw
there. I had thought that an Englishman s house
was his castle; but the newspapers thought other
wise, and at last the matter came before my good

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290 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Bishop. I insert his letter, and a portion of my
reply to him :

" April 12, 1842. So many of the charges
against yourself and your friends which I have
seen in the public journals have been, within my
own knowledge, false and calumnious, that I am
not apt to pay much attention to what is asserted
with respect to you in the newspapers.

" In a " [newspaper] " however, of April 9, there
appears a paragraph in which it is asserted, as a
matter of notoriety, that a so-called Anglo-Catholic
Monastery is in process of erection at Littlemore,
and that the cells of dormitories, the chapel, the
refectory, the cloisters all may be seen advancing
to perfection, under the eye of a Parish Priest of
the Diocese of Oxford.

" Now, as I have understood that you really are
possessed of some tenements at Littlemore, as it
is generally believed that they are destined for the
purposes of study and devotion, and as much sus
picion and jealousy are felt about the matter, I am
anxious to afford you an opportunity of making me
an explanation on the subject.

" I know you too well not to be aware that you
are the last man living to attempt in my Diocese a
revival of the Monastic orders (in any thing ap
proaching to the Romanist sense of the term)
without previous communication with me, or in
deed that you should take upon yourself to originate

HISTOEY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 291

any measure of importance without authority from
the heads of the Church, and therefore I at once
exonerate you from the accusation brought against
you by the newspaper I have quoted, but I feel it
nevertheless a duty to my Diocese and myself, as
well as to you, to ask you to put it in my power to
contradict what, if uncontradicted, would appear to
imply a glaring invasion of all ecclesiastical dis
cipline on your part, or of inexcusable neglect and
indifference to my duties on mine."

"April 14, 1842. I am very much obliged by
your Lordship s kindness in allowing me to write
to you on the subject of my house at Littlemore;
at the same time I feel it hard both on your Lord
ship and myself that the restlessness of the public
mind should oblige you to require an explanation
of me.

"It is now a whole year that I have been the
subject of incessant misrepresentation. A year
since I submitted entirely to your Lordship s au
thority; and with the intention of following out
the particular act enjoined upon me, I not only
stopped the series of Tracts, on which I was en
gaged, but withdrew from all public discussion of
Church matters of the day, or what may be called
ecclesiastical politics. I turned myself at once to
the preparation for the Press of the translations of
St. Athanasius to which I had long wished to
devote myself, and I intended and intend to employ

292 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

myself in the like theological studies, and in the
concerns of my own parish and in practical works.

" With the same view of personal improvement
I was led more seriously to a design which had
been long on my mind. For many years, at least
thirteen, I have wished to give myself to a life of
greater religious regularity than I have hitherto
led; but it is very unpleasant to confess such a
wish even to my Bishop, because it seems arrogant,
and because it is committing me to a profession
which may come to nothing. For what have I
done that I am to be called to account by the world
for my private actions, in a way in which no one
else is called ? Why may I not have that liberty
which all others are allowed ? I am often accused
of being underhand and uricandid in respect to the
intentions to which I have been alluding : but no
one likes his own good resolutions noised about,
both from mere common delicacy and from fear lest
he should not be able to fulfil them. I feel it very
cruel, though the parties in fault do not know what
they are doing, that very sacred matters between me
and my conscience are made a matter of public talk.
May I take a case parallel though different ? sup
pose a person in prospect of marriage; would he
like the subject discussed in newspapers, and par
ties, circumstances, &c., &c., publicly demanded of
him, at the penalty of being accused of craft and
duplicity ?

" The resolution I speak of has been taken with

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 293

reference to myself alone, and has been contem
plated quite independent of the co-operation of any
other human being, and without reference to suc
cess or failure other than personal, and without re
gard to the blame or approbation of man. And
being a resolution of years, and one to which I feel
God has called me, and in which I am violating no
rule of the Church any more than if I married, I
should have to answer for it, if I did not pursue
it, as a good Providence made openings for it. In
pursuing it then I am thinking of myself alone,
not aiming at any ecclesiastical or external effects.
At the same time of course it would be a great
comfort to me to know that God had put it into
the hearts of others to pursue their personal edifi
cation in the same way, and unnatural not to wish
to have the benefit of their presence and encourage
ment, or not to think it a great infringement on
the rights of conscience if such personal and private
resolutions were interfered with. Your Lordship
will allow me to add mv firm conviction that such

w

religious resolutions are most necessary for keeping
a certain class of minds firm in their allegiance to
our Church; but still I can as truly say that my
own reason for any thing I have done has been a
personal one, without which I should not have
entered upon it, and which I hope to pursue whe
ther with or without the sympathies of others pur
suing a similar course." ....

294 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

"As to my intentions, I purpose to live there
myself a good deal, as I have a resident curate in
Oxford. In doing this, I believe I am consulting
for the good of my parish, as my population at
Littlemore is at least equal to that of St. Mary s in
Oxford, and the whole of Littlemore is double of
it. It has been very much neglected; and in pro
viding a parsonage-house at Littlemore, as this will
be, and will be called, I conceive I am doing a very
great benefit to my people. At the same time it
has appeared to me that a partial or temporary
retirement from St. Mary s Church might be expe
dient under the prevailing excitement.

"As to the quotation from the [newspaper]
which I have not seen, your Lordship will perceive
from what I have said, that no monastery is in
process of erection ; there is no chapel; no re
fectory, hardly a dining-room or parlour. The
cloisters are my shed connecting the cottages. I
do not understand what cells of dormitories
means. Of course I can repeat your Lordship s
words that I am not attempting a revival of the
Monastic Orders, in any thing approaching to the
Romanist sense of the term, or taking on myself
to originate any measure of importance without
authority from the Heads of the Church. I am
attempting nothing ecclesiastical, but something
personal and private, and which can only be made
public, not private, by newspapers and letter-writers,

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 295

in which sense the most sacred and conscientious
resolves and acts may certainly be made the objects
of an unmannerly and unfeeling curiosity."

One calumny there was which the Bishop did
not believe, and of which of course he had no idea
of speaking. It was that I was actually in the service
of the enemy. I had been already received into the
Catholic Church, and was rearing at Littlemore a
nest of Papists, who, like me, were to take the
Anglican oaths which they did not believe, and for
which they got dispensation from Rome, and thus
in due time were to bring over to that unprincipled
Church great numbers of the Anglican Clergy and
Laity. Bishops gave their countenance to this im
putation against me. The case was simply this : as
I made Littlemore a place of retirement for myself,
so did I offer it to others. There were young men
in Oxford, whose testimonials for Orders had been
refused by their Colleges ; there were young clergy
men, who had found themselves unable from con
science to go on with their duties, and had thrown
up their parochial engagements. Such men were
already going straight to Rome, and I interposed;
I interposed for the reasons I have given in the be
ginning of this portion of my narrative. I interposed
from fidelity to my clerical engagements, and from
duty to my Bishop; and from the interest which I
was bound to take in them, and from belief that
they were premature or excited. Their friends be
sought me to quiet them, if I could. Some of them

s s

29 G HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

came to live with me at Littlemore. They were
laymen, or in the place of laymen. I kept some of
them back for several years from being received
into the Catholic Church. Even when I had given
up my living, I was still bound by my duty to their
parents or friends, and I did not forget still to do
w r hat I could for them. The immediate occasion of
my resigning St. Mary s, was the unexpected con
version of one of them. After that, I felt it was
impossible to keep my post there, for I had been
unable to keep my word with my Bishop.

The following letters refer, more or less, to these
men, whether they were with me at Littlemore or
not:

1. 1843 or 1844. "I did not explain to you
sufficiently the state of mind of those who were in

V

danger. I only spoke of those who were convinced
that our Church was external to the Church Ca
tholic, though they felt it unsafe to trust their own
private convictions ; but there are two other states
of mind ; 1. that of those who are unconsciously
near Rome, and whose despair about our Church
would at once develope into a state of conscious
approximation, or a ^cm -resolution to go over;
2. those who feel they can with a safe conscience
remain with us while they are allowed to testify in
behalf of Catholicism, i. e. as if by such acts they
were putting our Church, or at least that portion
of it in which they were included, in the position of
catechumens."

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 297

2. "July 16, 1843. I assure you that I feel, with
only too much sympathy, what you say. You need
not be told that the whole subject of our position is
a subject of anxiety to others beside yourself. It is
no good attempting to offer advice, when perhaps
I might raise difficulties instead of removing them.
It seems to me quite a case, in which you should,
as far as may be, make up your mind for yourself.
Come to Littlemore by all means. We shall all
rejoice in your company; and, if quiet and retire
ment are able, as they very likely will be, to recon
cile you to things as they are, you shall have your
fill of them. How distressed poor Henry Wilber-
force must be ! Knowing how he values you, I
feel for him ; but, alas ! he has his own position,
and every one else has his own, and the misery is
that no two of us have exactly the same.

" It is very kind of you to be so frank and open
with me, as vou are; but this is a time which

tt

throws together persons who feel alike. May I
without taking a liberty sign myself, yours affec-
tionatelv, &c."

V

3. " 1845. I am concerned to find you speak
of me in a tone of distrust. If vou knew me ever

so little, instead of hearing of me from persons who
do not know me at all, you would think differently
of me, whatever you thought of my opinions. Two
years since, I got your son to tell you my intention
of resigning St. Mary s, before I made it public,
thinking you ought to know it. When you ex-

s s 2

298 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

pressed some painful feeling upon it, I told him I
could not consent to his remaining here, painful as
it would be to me to part with him, without your
written sanction. And this you did me the favour
to give.

" I believe you will find that it has been merely
a delicacy on your son s part, which has delayed
his speaking to you about me for two months past;
a delicacy, lest he should say either too much or too
little about me. I have urged him several times to
speak to you.

" Nothing can be done after your letter, but to
recommend him to go to A. B. (his home) at once.
I am very sorry to part with him."

4. The following letter is addressed to a Catholic
Prelate, who accused me of coldness in my conduct
towards him :

"April 16, 1845. I was at that time in charge
of a ministerial office in the English Church, with
persons entrusted to me, and a Bishop to obey; how
could I possibly write otherwise than I did without
violating sacred obligations and betraying momen
tous interests which were upon me ? I felt that my
immediate, undeniable duty, clear if any thing was
clear, was to fulfil that trust. It might be right
indeed to give it up, that was another thing; but
it never could be right to hold it, and to act as if

I did not hold it If you knew me, you

would acquit me, I think, of having ever felt to
wards your Lordship an unfriendly spirit, or ever

HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 299

having had a shadow on my mind (as far as I dare
witness about myself) of what might be called
controversial rivalry or desire of getting the better,
or fear lest the world should think I had got the
worst, or irritation of any kind. You are too kind
indeed to imply this, and yet your words lead
me to say it. And now in like manner, pray
believe, though I cannot explain it to you, that I
am encompassed with responsibilities, so great and
so various, as utterly to overcome me, unless I have
mercy from Him, who all through my life has sus
tained and guided me, and to whom I can now
submit myself, though men of all parties are think
ing evil of me."

"August 30, 1843. A. B. has suddenly con
formed to the Church of Rome. He was away
for three weeks. I suppose I must say in my
defence, that he promised me distinctly to remain
in our Church three years, before I received him
here."

Such fidelity, however, was taken in malam
partem by the high Anglican authorities ; they
thought it insidious. I happen still to have a
correspondence, in which the chief place is filled
by one of the most eminent Bishops of the
day, a theologian and reader of the Fathers, a
moderate man, who at one time was talked of as
likely to have the reversion of the Primacy. A
young clergyman in his diocese became a Catholic;
the papers at once reported on authority from " a

300 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

very high quarter," that, after his reception, " the
Oxford men had been recommending him to retain
his living." I had reasons for thinking that the
allusion was to me, and I authorized the Editor of
a Paper, who had inquired of me on the point, to
" give it, as far as I was concerned, an unqualified
contradiction ;"- -when from a motive of delicacy
he hesitated, I added " my direct and indignant
contradiction." " Whoever is the author of it, no
correspondence or intercourse of any kind, direct or
indirect, has passed," I continued to the Editor,
" between Mr. S. and myself, since his conforming
to the Church of Rome, except my formally and
merely acknowledging the receipt of his letter, in
which he informed me of the fact, without, as far
as I recollect, my expressing any opinion upon it.
You may state this as broadly as I have set it
down." My denial was told to the Bishop; what
took place upon it is given in a letter from which
I copy. " My father showed the letter to the
Bishop, who, as he laid it down, said, Ah, those
Oxford men are not ingenuous. How do you
mean ? asked my father. Why, said the Bishop,
they advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living after
he turned Catholic. I know that to be a fact, be
cause A. B. told me so. " The Bishop," con
tinues the letter, " who is perhaps the most in
fluential man in reality on the bench, evidently be
lieves it to be the truth." Dr. Pusey too wrote
for me to the Bishop ; and the Bishop instantly

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 301

beat a retreat. "I have the honour," he says in the
autograph which I transcribe, " to acknowledge the
receipt of your note, and to say in reply that it has
not been stated by me, (though such a statement
has, I believe, appeared in some of the Public
Prints,) that Mr. Newman had advised Mr. B. S.
to retain his living, after he had forsaken our
Church. But it has been stated to me, that Mr.
Newman was in close correspondence with Mr.
B. S., and, being fully aware of his state of opinions
and feelings, yet advised him to continue in our
communion. Allow me to add," he says to Dr.
Pusey, " that neither your name, nor that of Mr.
Keble, was mentioned to me in connexion with
that of Mr. B. S."

I was not going to let the Bishop off on this
evasion, so I wrote to him myself. After quoting
his Letter to Dr. Pusey, I continued, " I beg to
trouble your Lordship with my own account of
the two allegations" [close correspondence and fully
aware, &c.] u which are contained in your state
ment, and which have led to your speaking of me
in terms which I hope never to deserve. 1. Since
Mr. B. S. has been in your Lordship s diocese, I
have seen him in common rooms or private parties
in Oxford two or three times, when I never (as far
I can recollect) had any conversation with him.
During the same time I have, to the best of my
memory, written to him three letters. One was
lately, in acknowledgment of his informing me of

302 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

his change of religion. Another was last summer,
when I asked him (to no purpose) to come and
stay with me in this place. The earliest of the
three letters was written just a year since, as far as
I recollect, and it certainly was on the subject of
his joining the Church of Rome. I wrote this
letter at the earnest wish of a friend of his. I
cannot be sure that, on his replying, I did not send
him a brief note in explanation of points in my
letter which he had misapprehended. I cannot re
collect any other correspondence between us.

" 2. As to my knowledge of his opinions and
feelings, as far as I remember, the only point of
perplexity which I knew, the only point which
to this hour I know, as pressing upon him, was
that of the Pope s supremacy. He professed to be
searching Antiquity whether the see of Rome had
formally that relation to the whole Church which
Roman Catholics now assign to it. My letter was
directed to the point, that it was his duty not to
perplex himself with arguments on [such] a question,
. . . and to put it altogether aside. ... It is hard
that I am put upon my memory, without knowing
the details of the statement made against me, con
sidering the various correspondence in which I am
from time to time unavoidably engaged. ... Be
assured, my Lord, that there are very definite limits,
beyond which persons like me would never urge
another to retain preferment in the English Church,
nor would retain it themselves; and that the censure

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 303

which has been directed against them by so many
of its Rulers has a very grave bearing upon those
limits." The Bishop replied in a civil letter, and
sent my own letter to his original informant, who
wrote to me the letter of a gentleman. It seems
that an anxious lady had said something or other
which had been misinterpreted, against her real
meaning, into the calumny which was circulated,
and so the report vanished into thin air. I closed
the correspondence with the following Letter to
the Bishop :

" I hope your Lordship will believe me when I
say, that statements about me, equally incorrect with
that which has come to your Lordship s ears, are
from time to time reported to me as credited and
repeated by the highest authorities in our Church,
though it is very seldom that I have the oppor
tunity of denying them. I am obliged by your
Lordship s letter to Dr. Pusey as giving me such
an opportunity. 1 Then I added, with a purpose,
" Your Lordship will observe that in my Letter I
had no occasion to proceed to the question, whether
a person holding Roman Catholic opinions can in
honesty remain in our Church. Lest then any
misconception should arise from my silence, I here
take the libertv of adding, that I see nothing wronsr

O

in such a person s continuing in communion with
us, provided he holds no preferment or office, ab
stains from the management of ecclesiastical mat-

T t

304 HISTORY OF ]\1Y RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

ters, and is bound by no subscription or oath to
our doctrines."

This was written on March 7, 1843, and was in
anticipation of my own retirement into lay commu
nion. This again leads me to a remark; for two
years 1 was in lay communion, not indeed being a
Catholic in my convictions, but in a state of serious
doubt, and with the probable prospect of becoming
some day, what as yet I was not. Under these cir
cumstances I thought the best thing I could do was
to give up duty and to throw myself into lay com
munion, remaining an Anglican. I could not go to
Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions
she sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints.
I did not give up my fellowship, for I could not be
sure that my doubts would not be reduced or over
come, however unlikely I thought such an event.
But I gave up my living; and, for two years before
my conversion, I took no clerical duty. My last
Sermon was in September, 1840; then I remained
at Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was
made a subject of reproach to me at the time, and
is at this day, that I did not leave the Anglican
Church sooner. To me this seems a wonderful
charge; why, even had I been quite sure that Rome
was the true Church, the Anglican Bishops would
have had no just subject of complaint against me,
provided I took no Anglican oath, no clerical duty,
no ecclesiastical administration. Do they force all

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 305

men who go to their Churches to believe in the 39
Articles, or to join in the Athanasian Creed ? How
ever, I was to have other measure dealt to me;
great authorities ruled it so; and a learned contro
versialist in the North thought it a shame that I
did not leave the Church of England as much as
ten years sooner than I did. His nephew, an
Anglican clergyman, kindly wished to undeceive
him on this point. So, in 1850, after some cor
respondence, I wrote the following letter, which will
be of service to this narrative, from its chrono
logical character:

"Dec. 6, 1849. Your uncle says, If he (Mr.
N.) will declare, sans phrase, as the French say,
that I have laboured under an entire mistake,
and that he was not a concealed Romanist during
the ten years in question, (I suppose, the last ten
years of my membership with the Anglican Church,)
or during any part of the time, my controversial
antipathy will be at an end, and I will readily ex
press to him that I am truly sorry that I have made
such a mistake.

" So candid an avowal is what I should have
expected from a mind like your uncle s. I am ex
tremely glad he has brought it to this issue.

"By a concealed Romanist I understand him
to mean one, who, professing to belong to the
Church of England, in his heart and will intends
to benefit the Church of Rome, at the expense of
the Church of England. He cannot mean by the

T t 2

306 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

expression merely a person who in fact is benefiting
the Church of Rome, while he is intending to
benefit the Church of England, for that is no dis
credit to him morally, and he (your uncle) evidently
means to impute blame.

" In the sense in which I have explained the
words, I can simply and honestly say that I was not
a concealed Romanist during the whole, or any part
of, the years in question.

" For the first four years of the ten, (up to
Michaelmas, 1839,) I honestly wished to benefit
the Church of England, at the expense of the
Church of Rome :

" For the second four years I wished to benefit
the Church of England without prejudice to the
Church of Rome :

"At the beginning of the ninth year (Michael
mas, 1843) I began to despair of the Church of
England, and gave up all clerical duty; and then,
what I wrote and did was influenced by a mere
wish not to injure it, and not by the wish to
benefit it:

" At the beginning of the tenth year I distinctly
contemplated leaving it, but I also distinctly told
my friends that it was in my contemplation.

" Lastly, during the last half of that tenth year
I was engaged in writing a book (Essay on Deve
lopment) in favour of the Roman Church, and
indirectly against the English; but even then, till
it was finished, I had not absolutely intended to

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 307

publish it, wishing to reserve to myself the chance
of changing niy mind when the argumentative
views which were actuating me had been distinctly
brought out before me in writing.

" I wish this statement, which I make from
memory, and without consulting any document,
severely tested by my writings and doings, as I am
confident it will, on the whole, be borne out, what
ever real or apparent exceptions (I suspect none)
have to be allowed by me in detail.

" Your uncle is at liberty to make what use he
pleases of this explanation."

I have now reached an important date in my
narrative, the year 1843, but before proceeding
to the matters which it contains, I will insert por
tions of my letters from 1841 to 1843, addressed to
Catholic acquaintances.

1. "April 8, 1841 The unity of the Church

Catholic is very near my heart, only I do not see any
prospect of it in our time ; and I despair of its being
effected without great sacrifices on all hands. As
to resisting the Bishop s will, I observe that no
point of doctrine or principle was in dispute, but
a course of action, the publication of certain works.
I do not think you sufficiently understood our posi
tion. I suppose you would obey the Holy See in
such a case; now, when we were separated from
the Pope, his authority reverted to our Diocesans.
Our Bishop is our Pope. It is our theory, that
each diocese is an integral Church, intercommu-

308 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

nion being a duty, (and the breach of it a sin,)
but not essential to Catholicity. To have resisted
iny Bishop, would have been to place myself in an
utterly false position, which I never could have
recovered. Depend upon it, the strength of any
party lies in its being true to its theory. Con
sistency is the life of a movement.

"I have no misgivings whatever that the line
I have taken can be other than a prosperous one :
that is, in itself, for of course Providence may
refuse to us its legitimate issues for our sins.

" I am afraid, that in one respect you may be
disappointed. It is my trust, though I must not
be too sanguine, that we shall not have individual
members of our communion going over to yours.
What one s duty would be under other circum
stances, what our duty ten or twenty years ago, I
cannot say; but I do think that there is less of
private judgment in going with one s Church, than
in leaving it. I can earnestly desire a union be-

*

tween my Church and yours. I cannot listen to
the thought of your being joined by individuals

among us."

2. "April 26, 1841. My only anxiety is lest
your branch of the Church should not meet us
by those reforms which surely are necessary. It
never could be, that so large a portion of Chris
tendom should have split off from the communion
of Rome, and kept up a protest for 300 years
for nothing. I think I never shall believe that

o

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 309

so much piety and earnestness would be found
among Protestants, if there were not some very
grave errors on the side of Rome. To suppose
the contrary is most unreal, and violates all
one s notions of moral probabilities. All aber
rations are founded on, and have their life in,
some truth or other and Protestantism, so widely
spread and so long enduring, must have in it, and
must be witness for, a great truth or much truth.
That I am an advocate for Protestantism, you
cannot suppose but I am forced into a Via Media,
short of Rome, as it is at present."

3. "May 5, 1841. While I most sincerely hold
that there is in the Roman Church a tradi
tionary system which is not necessarily connected
with her essential formularies, yet, were I ever so
much to change my mind on this point, this would
not tend to bring me from my present position,
providentially appointed in the English Church.
That vour communion was unassailable, would not

V /

prove that mine was indefensible. Nor would it at
all affect the sense in which I receive our Articles ;
they would still speak against certain definite
errors, though you had reformed them.

" I say this lest any lurking suspicion should be
left in the mind of your friends that persons who
think with me arc likely, by the growth of their
present views, to find it imperative on them to
pass over to your communion. Allow me to state
strongly, that if you have any such thoughts, and

310 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

proceed to act upon them, your friends will be com
mitting a fatal mistake. We have (I trust) the
principle and temper of obedience too intimately
wrought into us to allow of our separating our
selves from our ecclesiastical superiors because in
many points we may sympathize with others. We
have too great a horror of the principle of private
judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as
that of changing from one communion to another.
We may be cast out of our communion, or it may
decree heresy to be truth, you shall say whether
such contingencies are likely ; but I do not see other
conceivable causes of our leaving the Church in
which we were baptized.

" For myself, persons must be well acquainted
with what I have written before they venture to
say whether I have much changed my main opinions
and cardinal views in the course of the last eight
years. That my sympathies have grown towards
the religion of Rome I do not deny ; that my
reasons for shunning her communion have lessened
or altered it would be difficult perhaps to prove.
And I wish to go by reason, not by feeling."

4. "June 18, 1841. You urge persons whose
views ao-ree with mine to commence a movement in

o

behalf of a union between the Churches. Now in
the letters I have written, I have uniformly said that
I did not expect that union in our time, and have
discouraged the notion of all sudden proceedings
with a view to it. I must ask your leave to repeat

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 311

on this occasion most distinctly, that I cannot be
party to any agitation, but mean to remain quiet in
my own place, and to do all I can to make others
take the same course. This I conceive to be my
simple duty ; but, over and above this, I will not set my
teeth on edge with sour grapes. I know it is quite
within the range of possibilities that one or another
of our people should go over to your communion ;
however, it would be a greater misfortune to you
than grief to us. If your friends wish to put a
gulf between themselves and us, let them make
converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ven
tured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep
aloof from all Roman Catholics who came with the
intention of opening negotiations for the union of
the Churches: when you now urge us to petition
our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very like
an act of negotiation."

5. I have the first sketch or draft of a letter, which
I wrote to a zealous Catholic layman : it runs as
follows, as I have preserved it: September 12,
1841. " It would rejoice all Catholic minds among
us, more than words can say, if you could persuade
members of the Church of Home to take the line
in politics which you so earnestly advocate. Sus
picion and distrust are the main causes at present
of the separation between us, and the nearest
approaches in doctrine will but increase the hos
tility, which, alas, our people feel towards yours,
while these causes continue. Depend upon it, you

u u

312 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

must not rely upon our Catholic tendencies till they
are removed. I am not speaking of myself, or of
any friends of mine; but of our Church generally.
Whatever our personal feelings may be, we shall
but tend to raise and spread a rival Church to
yours in the four quarters of the world, unless you
do what none but you can do. Sympathies, which
would flow over to the Church of Rome, as a
matter of course, did she admit them, will but be
developed in the consolidation of our own system, if
she continues to be the object of our suspicions and
fears. I wish, of course I do, that our own Church
may be built up and extended, but still, not at the
cost of the Church of Rome, not in opposition to
it. I am sure, that, while you suffer, we suffer
too from the separation ; but we cannot remove the
obstacles; it is with you to do so. You do not
fear us; we fear you. Till we cease to fear you,
we cannot love you.

"While you are in your present position, the
friends of Catholic unity in our Church are but
fulfilling the prediction of those of your body who
are averse to them, viz. that they will be merely
strengthening a rival communion to yours. Many
of you say that we are your greatest enemies ; we
have said so ourselves : so we are, so we shall be, as
things stand at present. We are keeping people
from you, by supplying their wants in our own
Church. We are keeping persons from you : do you
wish us to keep them from you for a time or for ever ?

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 313

It rests with you to determine. I do not fear that
you will succeed among us; you will not supplant
our Church in the affections of the English nation;
only through the English Church can you act upon
the English nation. I wish of course our Church
should be consolidated, with and through and in
your communion, for its sake, and your sake, and
for the sake of unity.

" Are you aware that the more serious thinkers
among us are used, as far as they dare form an
opinion, to regard the spirit of Liberalism as
the characteristic of the destined Antichrist ? In
vain does any one clear the Church of Rome from
the badges of Antichrist, in which Protestants
would invest her, if she deliberately takes up her
position in the very quarter, whither we have cast
them, when we took them off from her. Antichrist
is described as the ou/o/xos, as exalting himself above
the yoke of religion and law. The spirit of law
lessness came in with the Reformation, and Li
beralism is its offspring.

" And now I fear I am going to pain you by
telling you, that you consider the approaches in
doctrine on our part towards you, closer than they
really are. I cannot help repeating what I have
many times said in print, that your services and
devotions to St. Mary in matter of fact do most
deeply pain me. I am only stating it as a fact.

" Again, I have nowhere said that I can accept
the decrees of Trent throughout, nor implied it. The

uu2

314 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

doctrine of Transubstantiation is a great difficulty
with me, as being, as I think, not primitive. Nor
have I said that our Articles in all respects admit
of a Roman interpretation ; the very word Tran
substantiation is disowned in them.

" Thus, you see, it is not merely on grounds of
expedience that we do not join you. There are
positive difficulties in the way of it. And, even if
there were not, we shall have no divine warrant for
doing so, while we think that the Church of England
is a branch of the true Church, and that inter
communion with the rest of Christendom is neces
sary, not for the life of a particular Church, but for
its health only. I have never disguised that there
are actual circumstances in the Church of Rome,
which pain me much ; of the removal of these I see
no chance, while we join you one by one; but if our
Church were prepared for a union, she might make
her terms; she might gain the Cup; she might
protest against the extreme honours paid to St.
Mary; she might make some explanation of the
doctrine of Transubstantiation. I am not prepared
to say that a reform in other branches of the Roman
Church would be necessary for our uniting with
them, however desirable in itself, so that we were
allowed to make a reform in our own country. We
do not look towards Rome as believing that its
communion is infallible, but that union is a duty."

The following letter was occasioned by the pre
sent of a book, from the friend to whom it is

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 315

written; more will be said on the subject of it pre
sently :

"Nov. 22, 1842. I only wisb that your Church
were more known among us by such writings.
You will not interest us in her, till we see her,
not in politics, but in her true functions of ex
horting, teaching, and guiding. I wish there
were a chance of making the leading men among
you understand, what I believe is no novel thought
to yourself. It is not by learned discussions, or
acute arguments, or reports of miracles, that the
heart of England can be gained. It is by men
approving themselves, like the Apostle, minis
ters of Christ.

" As to your question, whether the Volume you
have sent is not calculated to remove my appre
hensions that another gospel is substituted for the
true one in your practical instructions, before I can
answer it in any way, I ought to know how far the
Sermons which it comprises are selected from a
number, or whether they are the whole, or such
as the whole, which have been published of the
author s. I assure you, or at least I trust, that, if
it is ever clearly brought home to me that I have
been wrong in what I have said on this subject, my
public avowal of that conviction will only be a
question of time with me.

" If, however, you saw our Church as we see it,
you would easily understand that such a change of
feeling, did it take place, would have no necessary

316 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

tendency, which you seem to expect, to draw a
person from the Church of England to that of
Rome. There is a divine life among us, clearly
manifested, in spite of all our disorders, which is as
great a note of the Church, as any can be. Why
should we seek our Lord s presence elsewhere, when
He vouchsafes it to us where we are ? What call
have we to change our communion ?

"Roman Catholics will find this to be the state
of things in time to come, whatever promise they
may fancy there is of a large secession to their
Church. This man or that may leave us, but there
will be no general movement. There is, indeed,
an incipient movement of our Church towards
yours, and this your leading men are doing all they
can to frustrate by their unwearied efforts at all
risks to carry off individuals. When will they
know their position, and embrace a larger and
wiser policy ?"

HISTOBY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 317

The last letter, which I have inserted, is ad
dressed to my dear friend, Dr. Russell, the present
President of Maynooth. He had, perhaps, more to
do with my conversion than any one else. He
called upon me, in passing through Oxford in the
summer of 1841, and I think I took him over some
of the buildings of the University. He called
again another summer, on his way from Dublin to
London. I do not recollect that he said a word on
the subject of religion on either occasion. He
sent me at different times several letters; he
was always gentle, mild, unobtrusive, uncontrover-
sial. He let me alone. He also gave me one or
two books. Veron s Rule of Faith and some Trea
tises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of
St. Alfonso Liguori s Sermons was another; and
to that the letter which I have last inserted relates.

Now it must be observed that the writings of St.
Alfonso, as I knew them by the extracts commonly
made from them, prejudiced me as much against
the Roman Church as any thing else, on account

318 HISTORY OF MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of what was called their "Mariolatry;" but there
was nothing of the kind in this book. I wrote to
ask Dr. Russell whether any thing had been left out
in the translation ; he answered that there cer
tainly was an omission of one passage about the
Blessed Virgin. This omission, in the case of a
book intended for Catholics, at least showed that
such passages as are found in the works of Italian
Authors were not acceptable to every part of the
Catholic world. Such devotional manifestations in
honour of our Lady had been my great crux as
regards Catholicism; I say frankly, I do not fully
enter into them now ; I trust I do not love her the less,
because I cannot enter into them. They may be fully
explained and defended ; but sentiment and taste do
not run with logic : they are suitable for Italy,
but they are not suitable for England. But, over
and above England, my own case was special;
from a boy I had been led to consider that my
Maker and I, His creature, were the two beings,

/ o "

certainly such, in rerum naturd. I will not here
speculate, however, about my own feelings. Only
this I know full well now, and did not know
then, that the Catholic Church allows no image
of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic
symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no Saint, not
even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come between
the soul and its Creator. It is face to face,
" solus cum solo," in all matters between man and

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 319

his God. He alone creates; He alone has re
deemed ; before His awful eyes we go in death ; in
the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude. " Solus
cum solo:" I recollect but indistinctly the effect
produced upon me by this Volume, but it must have
been considerable. At all events I had got a key
to a difficulty; in these sermons, (or rather heads
of sermons, as they seem to be, taken down by a
hearer,) there is much of what would be called
legendary illustration; but the substance of them
is plain, practical, awful preaching upon the great
truths of salvation. What I can speak of with
greater confidence is the effect upon me a little
later of the Exercises of St. Ignatius. Here again,
in a pure matter of the most direct religion, in the
intercourse between God and the soul, during a
season of recollection, of repentance, of good re
solution, of inquiry into vocation, the soul was " sola
cum solo;" there was no cloud interposed between
the creature and the Object of his faith and love.
The command practically enforced was, " My son,
give Me thy heart." The devotions then to angels
and saints as little interfered with the incommuni
cable glory of the Eternal, as the love which we
bear our friends and relations, our tender human
sympathies, are inconsistent with that supreme
homage of the heart to the Unseen, which really
does but sanctify and exalt what is of earth. At
a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of

x x

320 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

penny or half-penny books of devotion, of all sorts,
as they are found in the booksellers shops at Rome ;
and, on looking them over, I was quite astonished
to find how different they were from what I had
fancied, how little there was in them to which I
could really object. I have given an account of
them in my Essay on the Development of Doc
trine. Dr. Russell sent me St. Alfonso s book at
the end of 1842; however, it was still a long time
before I got over my difficulty, on the score of
the devotions paid to the Saints; perhaps, as I
judge, from a letter I have turned up, it was some
way into 1844, before I could be said to have got
over it.

I am not sure that another consideration did not
also weigh with me then. The idea of the Blessed
Virgin was as it were magnified in the Church
of Rome, as time went on, but so were all the
Christian ideas ; as that of the Blessed Eucharist.
The whole scene of pale, faint, distant Apostolic
Christianity is seen in Rome, as through a telescope
or magnifier. The harmony of the whole, however,
is of course what it was. It is unfair then to take
one Roman idea, that of the Blessed Virgin, out
of what may be called its context.

Thus I am brought to the principle of develop
ment of doctrine in the Christian Church, to which
I gave my mind at the end of 1842. I had spoken
of it in the passage, which I quoted many pages

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 321

back, in Home Thoughts Abroad, published in
1836; but it had been a favourite subject with me
all along. And it is certainly recognized in that
celebrated Treatise of Vincent of Lerins, which has
so often been taken as the basis of the Anglican

?

theory. In 1843 I began to consider it steadily;
and the general view to which I came is stated
thus in a letter to a friend of the date of July 14,
1844; it will be observed that, now as before, my
issue is still Faith versus Church :

" The kind of considerations which wei^h with

O

me are such as the following: 1. I am far more
certain (according to the Fathers) that we are in a
state of culpable separation, than that develop
ments do not exist under the Gospel, and that the
Roman developments are not the true ones. 2. I
am far more certain, that our (modern) doctrines
are wrong, than that the Roman (modern) doc
trines are wrong. 3. Granting that the Roman
(special) doctrines are not found drawn out in the
early Church, yet I think there is sufficient trace of
them in it, to recommend and prove them, on the
hypothesis of the Church having a divine guidance,
though not sufficient to prove them by itself. So
that the question simply turns on the nature of the
promise of the Spirit, made to the Church. 4. The
proof of the Roman (modern) doctrine is as strong
(or stronger) in Antiquity, as that of certain doc
trines which both we and Romans hold : e. g. there

xx 2

322 HISTORY or MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

is more of evidence in Antiquity for the necessity
of Unity, than for the Apostolical Succession ; for
the Supremacy of the See of Koine, than for the
Presence in the Eucharist; for the practice of
Invocation, than for certain books in the pre
sent Canon of Scripture, &c. &c. 5. The ana
logy of the Old Testament, and also of the New,
leads to the acknowledgment of doctrinal develop
ments."

And thus I was led on to a further considera
tion. I saw that the principle of development not
only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a
remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a cha
racter to the vvhole course of Christian thought.
It was discernible from the first years of the Ca
tholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to
that teaching a unity and individuality. It served
as a sort of test, which the Anglican could not ex
hibit, that modern Rome was in truth ancient
Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as
a mathematical curve has its own law and ex
pression.

And thus a^ain I was led on to examine more at-

o

tentively what I doubt not was in my thoughts long
before, viz. the concatenation of argument by which
the mind ascends from its first to its final religious
idea ; and I came to the conclusion that there was
no medium, in true philosophy, between Atheism
and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 323

mind, under those circumstances in which it finds
itself here below, must embrace either the one or
the other. And I hold this still : I am a Catholic
by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am
asked why I believe in a God, I answer that it is
because I believe in myself, for I feel it impossible
to believe in my own existence (and of that fact I
am quite sure) without believing also in the ex
istence of Him, who lives as a Personal, All- seeing,
All-judging Being in my conscience. Now, I dare
say, I have not expressed myself with philosophical
correctness, because I have not given myself to the
study of what others have said on the subject; but
I think I have a strong true meaning in what I say
which will stand examination.

Moreover, I came to the conclusion which I have
been stating, on reasoning of the same nature, as that
which I had adopted on the subject of development of
doctrine. The fact of the operation from first to last
of that principle of development is an argument in
favour of the identity of Koman and Primitive Chris
tianity; but as there is a law which acts upon the
subject-matter of dogmatic theology, so is there a
law in the matter of religious faith. In the third
part of this narrative I spoke of certitude as the
consequence, divinely intended and enjoined upon
us, of the accumulative force of certain given
reasons which, taken one by one, were only proba
bilities. Let it be recollected that I am historically

324 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

relating my state of mind, at the period of my life
which I am surveying. I am not speaking theo
logically, nor have I any intention of going into con
troversy, or of defending myself; but speaking his
torically of what I held in 1843-4, I say, that I
believed in a God on a ground of probability, that I
believed in Christianity on a probability, and that
I believed in Catholicism on a probability, and that
all three were about the same kind of probability,
a cumulative, a transcendent 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
inquiry we arrive at certitude by accumulated pro
babilities, inasmuch as He who has willed that
we should so act, co-operates with us in our act
ing, and thereby bestows on us a certitude which
rises higher than the logical force of our con
clusions. And thus I came to see clearly, and
to have a satisfaction in seeing, that, in being led
on into the Church of Rome, I was proceeding,
not by any secondary grounds of reason, or by
controversial points in detail, but was protected
and justified, even in the use of those secondary
arguments, by a great and broad principle. But,
let it be observed, that I am stating a matter of
fact, not defending it ; and if any Catholic says
in consequence that I have been converted in a
wrong way, I cannot help that now.

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 325

And now I have carried on the history of my
opinions to their last point, before I became a Ca
tholic. I find great difficulty in fixing dates pre
cisely; but it must have been some way into 1844,
before I thought not only that the Anglican Church

o / o

was certainly wrong, but that Rome was right. Then
I had nothing more to learn on the subject. How
" Samaria " faded away from my imagination I can
not tell, but it was gone. Now to go back to the
time when this last stage of my inquiry was in its
commencement, which, if I dare assign dates, was
towards the end of 1842.

In 1843, I took two very important and signi
ficant steps: 1. In February, I made a formal
Retractation of all the hard things which I had
said against the Church of Rome. 2. In Sep
tember, I resigned the Living of St. Mary s,
Littlemore inclusive : I will speak of these two
acts separately.

1. The words, in which I made my Retractation,
have given rise to much criticism. After quoting
a number of passages from my writings against the
Church of Rome, which I withdrew, I ended thus :
" If you ask me how an individual could venture,
not simply to hold, but to publish such views of a
communion so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful
in Saints, I answer that I said to myself, I am not
speaking my own words, I am but following almost

326 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

a consensus of the divines of my own Church. They
have ever used the strongest language against Rome,
even the most able and learned of them. I wish to
throw myself into their system. While I say what
they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary
for our position. Yet I have reason to fear still,
that such language is to he ascribed, in no small
measure, to an impetuous temper, a hope of approv
ing myself to persons I respect, and a wish to repel
the charge of Romanism."

These words have been, and are, cited again and
again against me, as if a confession that, when in
the Anglican Church, I said things against Rome
which I did not really believe.

For myself, I cannot understand how any im
partial man can so take them; and I have explained
them in print several times. I trust that by this
time they have been sufficiently explained by what
I have said in former portions of this narrative;
still I have a word or two to say about them, which
I have not said before. I apologized in the lines
in question for saying out charges against the
Church of Rome which I fully believed to be true.
What is wonderful in such an apology ?

There are many things a man may hold, which at
the same time he may feel that he has no right to
say publicly. The law recognizes this principle.
In our own time, men have been imprisoned and
fined for saying true things of a bad king. The

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 327

maxim has been held, that, " The greater the truth,
the greater is the libel." And so as to the judg
ment of society, a just indignation would be felt
against a writer who brought forward wantonly the
weaknesses of a great man, though the whole world
knew that they existed. No one is at liberty to
speak ill of another without a justifiable reason,
even though he knows he is speaking truth, and
the public knows it too. Therefore I could not
speak ill against the Church of Rome, though I
believed what I said, without a good reason. I did
believe what I said; but had I a good reason for
saying it ? I thought I had ; viz. I said what I
believed was simply necessary in the controversy, in
order to defend ourselves ; I considered that the An
glican position could not be defended, without bring
ing charges against the Church of Rome. Is not
this almost a truism ? is it not what every one says,
who speaks on the subject at all ? does any serious
man abuse the Church of Rome, for the sake of
abusing her, or because it justifies his own religious
position ? What is the meaning of the very word
"Protestantism," but that there is a call to speak
out? This then is what I said; "I know I spoke
strongly against the Church of Rome; but it was
no mere abuse, for I had a serious reason for doing

so."

But, not only did I think such language neces
sary for my Church s religious position, but all the
great Anglican divines had thought so before me.

Y y

328 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

They had thought so, and they had acted accord
ingly. And therefore I said, with much propriety,
that I had not done it simply out of my own head,
but that I was following the track, or rather repro
ducing the teaching, of those who had preceded
me.

I was pleading guilty; but pleading also that
there were extenuating circumstances in the case.
We all know the story of the convict, who on the
scaffold bit off his mother s ear. By doing so he
did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which
he was to hang; but he said that his mother s
indulgence, when he was a boy, had a good deal to
do with it. In like manner I had made a charge,
and I had made it ex animo; but I accused others
of having led me into believing it and publishing it.

But there was more than this meant in the words
which I used : first, I will freely confess, indeed I
said it some pages back, that I was angry with
the Anglican divines. I thought they had taken
me in ; I had read the Fathers with their eyes ;
I had sometimes trusted their quotations or their
reasonings ; and from reliance on them, I had used
words or made statements, which properly I ought
rigidly to have examined myself. I had exercised
more faith than criticism in the matter. This did
not imply any broad misstatements on my part,
arising from reliance on their authority, but it
implied carelessness in matters of detail. And
this of course was a fault.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 329

But there was a far deeper reason for my saying
what I said in this matter, on which I have not
hitherto touched ; and it was this : The most
oppressive thought, in the whole process of my
change of opinion, was the clear anticipation,
verified by the event, that it would issue in the
triumph of Liberalism. Against the Anti-dogmatic
principle I had thrown my whole mind ; yet now I
was doing more than any one else could do, to
promote it. I was one of those who had kept it at
bay in Oxford for so many years ; and thus my very
retirement was its triumph. The men who had
driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals ;
it was they who had opened the attack upon Tract
90, and it was they who would gain a second bene
fit, if I went on to retire from the Anglican Church.
But this was not all. As I have already said,
there are but two alternatives, the way to Rome,
and the way to Atheism: Anglicanism is the half
way house on the one side, and Liberalism is the
halfway house on the other. How many men were
there, as I knew full well, who would not follow
me now in my advance from Anglicanism to
Rome, but would at once leave Anglicanism and
me for the Liberal camp. It is not at all easy
(humanly speaking) to wind up an Englishman to a
dogmatic level. I had done so in a good measure,
in the case both of young men and of laymen, the
Anglican Via Media being the representative of
dogma. The dogmatic and the Anglican principle

Yy 2

330 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

were one, as I had taught them ; but I was breaking
the Via Media to pieces, and would not dogmatic
faith altogether be broken up, in the minds of a
great number, by the demolition of the Via Media ?
Oh ! how unhappy this made me ! I heard once
from an eye-witness the account of a poor sailor
whose legs were shattered by a ball, in the action
off Algiers in 1816, and who was taken below for
an operation. The surgeon and the chaplain per
suaded him to have a leg off; it was done and the
tourniquet applied to the wound. Then, they broke
it to him that he must have the other off too. The
poor fellow said, " You should have told me that,
gentlemen," and deliberately unscrewed the instru
ment and bled to death. Would not that be the
case with many friends of my own ? How could I
ever hope to make them believe in a second theology,
when I had cheated them in the first ? with what
face could I publish a new edition of a dogmatic
creed, and ask them to receive it as gospel ? Would
it not be plain to them that no certainty was to be
found any where ? Well, in my defence I could
but make a lame apology ; however, it was the true
one, viz. that I had not read the Fathers critically
enough; that in such nice points, as those which
determine the angle of divergence between the two
Churches, I had made considerable miscalculations ;
and how came this about ? Why the fact was, un
pleasant as it was to avow, that I had leaned too
much upon the assertions of Ussher, Jeremy Taylor,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 331

or Barrow, and had been deceived by them. Valeat
quantum, it was all that could be said. This
then was a chief reason of that wording of the Re
tractation, which has given so much offence, and
the following letter will illustrate it :

" April 3, 1 844. I wish to remark on W. s chief
distress, that my changing my opinion seemed to
unsettle one s confidence in truth and falsehood as
external things, and led one to be suspicious of the
new opinion as one became distrustful of the old.
Now in what I shall say, I am not going to speak
in favour of my second thoughts in comparison of
my first, but against such scepticism and unsettle-
ment about truth and falsehood generally, the idea
of which is very painful.

" The case with me, then, was this, and not
surely an unnatural one: as a matter of feeling
and of duty I threw myself into the system which
I found myself in. I saw that the English Church
had a theological idea or theory as such, and I took
it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and thought it
(as I still think it) very masterly. The Anglican
Theory was very distinctive. I admired it and took
it on faith. It did not (I think) occur to me to
doubt it; I saw that it was able, and supported
by learning, and I felt it was a duty to maintain it.
Further, on looking into Antiquity and reading the
Fathers, I saw such portions of it as I examined,
fully confirmed (e. g. the supremacy of Scripture).
There was only one question about which I had a

332* HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

doubt, viz. whether it would work, for it has never
been more than a paper system. . . .

" So far from my change of opinion having any
fair tendency to unsettle persons as to truth and
falsehood viewed as objective realities, it should be
considered whether such change is not necessary,
if truth be a real objective thing, and be made
to confront a person who has been brought up in
a system short of truth. Surely the continuance
of a person who wishes to go right in a wrong
system, and not his giving it up, would be that
which militated against the objectiveness of Truth,
leading, as it would, to the suspicion, that one thing
and another were equally pleasing to our Maker,
where men were sincere.

" Nor surely is it a thing I need be sorry for,
that I defended the system in which I found myself,
and thus have had to unsay my words. For is it not
one s duty, instead of beginning with criticism, to
throw oneself generously into that form of religion
which is providentially put before one ? Is it right,
or is it wrong, to begin with private judgment ?
May we not, on the other hand, look for a blessing
through obedience even to an erroneous system, and
a guidance even by means of it out of it ? Were
those who were strict and conscientious in their
Judaism, or those who were lukewarm and sceptical,
more likely to be led into Christianity, when Christ
came ? Yet in proportion to their previous zeal,
would be their appearance of inconsistency. Cer-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 333

tainly, I have always contended that obedience
even to an erring, conscience was the way to gain
light, and that it mattered not where a man began,
so that he began on what came to hand, and in faith ;
and that any thing might become a divine method
of Truth ; that to the pure all things are pure, and
have a self-correcting virtue and a power of germi
nating. And though I have no right at all to
assume that this mercy is granted to me, yet the
fact, that a person in my situation may .have it
granted to him, seems to me to remove the per
plexity which my change of opinion may occasion.

" It may be said, I have said it to myself,
Why, however, did you publish ? had you waited
quietly, you would have changed your opinion with
out any of the misery, which now is involved in the
change, of disappointing and distressing people.
I answer, that things are so bound up together, as
to form a whole, and one cannot tell what is or is
not a condition of what. I do not see how possibly
I could have published the Tracts, or other works
professing to defend our Church, without accom
panying them with a strong protest or argument
against Rome. The one obvious objection against
the whole Anglican line is, that it is Roman; so
that I really think there was no alternative between
silence altogether, and forming a theory and attack
ing the Roman system."

2. And now, secondly, as to my Resignation of
St. Mary s, which was the second of the steps

334 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

which I took in 1843. The ostensible, direct, and
sufficient cause of my doing so was the persevering
attack of the Bishops on Tract 90. I alluded to it
in the letter which I have inserted above, addressed
to one of the most influential among them. A
series of their ex cathedra judgments, lasting
through three years, and including a notice of no
little severity in a Charge of my own Bishop, came
as near to a condemnation of my Tract, and, so
far, to a repudiation of the ancient Catholic doc
trine, which was the scope of the Tract, as was
possible in the Church of England. It was in
order to shield the Tract from such a condem
nation, that I had at the time of its publication so
simply put myself at the disposal of the higher
powers in London. At that time, all that was
distinctly contemplated in the way of censure, was
the message which my Bishop sent me, that it
was "objectionable." That I thought was the
end of the matter. I had refused to suppress it,
and they had yielded that point. Since I wrote
the former portions of this narrative, I have found
what I wrote to Dr. Pusey on March 24, while the
matter was in progress. " The more I think of
it," I said, " the more reluctant I am to suppress
Tract 90, though of course I will do it if the
Bishop wishes it; I cannot, however, deny that I
shall feel it a severe act." According to the notes
which I took of the letters or messages which I sent
to him in the course of that day, I went on to say,

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 335

" My first feeling was to obey without a word ; I
will obey still; but ray judgment has steadily risen
against it ever since." Then in the Postscript,
" If I have done any good to the Church, I do ask
the Bishop this favour, as my reward for it, that
he would not insist on a measure, from which I
think good will not come. However, I will submit
to him." Afterwards, I get stronger still : " I have
almost come to the resolution, if the Bishop publicly
intimates that I must suppress the Tract, or speaks
strongly in his charge against it, to suppress it
indeed, but to resign my living also. I could not
in conscience act otherwise. You may show this
in any quarter you please."

All my then hopes, all my satisfaction at the
apparent fulfilment of those hopes, were at an end
in 1843. It is not wonderful then, that in May of
that year I addressed a letter on the subject of
St. Mary s to the same friend, whom I had con
sulted about retiring from it in 1840. But I did

O

more now ; I told him my great unsettlement of
mind on the question of the Churches. I will
insert portions of two of my letters :

" May 4, 1843 At present I fear, as far

as I can analyze my own convictions, I consider the
Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of
the Apostles, and that what grace is among us
(which, through God s mercy, is not little) is ex
traordinary, and from the overflowings of His dis
pensation. I am very far more sure that England

z z

336 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

is in schism, than that the Roman additions to the
Primitive Creed may not be developments, arising
out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine

O

Depositum of Faith.

" You will now understand what gives edge to
the Bishops Charges, without any undue sensitive
ness on my part. They distress me in two ways :
first, as being in some sense protests and wit
nesses to my conscience against my own unfaith
fulness to the English Church, and next, as being
samples of her teaching, and tokens how very far
she is from even aspiring to Catholicity.

" Of course my being unfaithful to a trust is my
great subject of dread, as it has long been, as you
know."

When he wrote to make natural objections to
my purpose, such as the apprehension that the
removal of clerical obligations might have the
indirect effect of propelling me towards Rome, I
answered :

"May 18, 1843. . . . My office or charge at
St. Mary s is not a mere state, but a continual
energy. People assume and assert certain things
of me in consequence. With what sort of sincerity
can I obey the Bishop? how am I to act in the
frequent cases, in which one way or another the
Church of Rome comes into consideration ? I have
to the utmost of my power tried to keep persons
from Rome, and with some success; but even a year
and a half since, my arguments, though more cffi-

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 337

cacious with the persons I aimed at than any others
could be, were of a nature to infuse great suspicion
of me into the minds of lookers-on.

" By retaining St. Mary s, I am an offence and a
stumbling-block. Persons are keen-sighted enough
to make out what I think on certain points, and
then they infer that such opinions are compatible
with holding situations of trust in our Church. A

^j

number of younger men take the validity of their
interpretation of the Articles, &c., from me on
faith. Is not my present position a cruelty, as well
as a treachery towards the Church ?

" I do not see how I can either preach or pub
lish again, while I hold St. Mary s; but consider
again the following difficulty in such a resolution,
which I must state at some length.

" Last Long Vacation the idea suggested itself to
me of publishing the Lives of the English Saints;
and I had a conversation with [a publisher] upon it.
I thought it would be useful, as employing the
minds of men who were in danger of running wild,
bringing them from doctrine to historv, and from

>

speculation to fact; again, as giving them an in
terest in the English soil, and the English Church,
and keeping them from seeking sympathy in Rome,
as she is; and further, as seeking to promote the
spread of right views.

u But, within the last month, it has come upon
me, that, if the scheme goes on, it will be a prac
tical carrying out of No. 90; from the character

V ~

z z 2

UISTOKY OF MY HELIGIOUJS OPINIONS.

of the usages and opinions of ante-reformation
times.

"It is easy to say, Why will you do any thing?
why won t you keep quiet ? what business had you
to think of any such plan at all ? But I cannot
leave a number of poor fellows in the lurch. I am
bound to do my best for a great number of people
both in Oxford and elsewhere. If / did not act,
others would find means to do so.

" Well, the plan has been taken up with great
eagerness and interest. Many men are setting to
work. I set down the names of men, most of them
engaged, the rest half engaged and probable, some
actually writing." About thirty names follow, some
of them at that time of the school of Dr. Arnold,
others of Dr. Pusey s, some my personal friends
and of my own standing, others whom I hardly
knew, while of course the majority were of the
party of the new Movement. I continue :

" The plan has gone so far, that it would create
surprise and talk, were it now suddenly given over.
Yet how is it compatible with my holding St.
Mary s, being what I am ? "

Such was the object and the origin of the pro
jected Series of the English Saints; and, as the
publication was connected, as has been seen, with
my resignation of St. Mary s, I may be allowed to
conclude what I have to say on the subject here,
though it will read like a digression. As soon then
as the first of the Series got into print, the whole

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 339

project broke down. I had already anticipated
that some portions of the Series would be written
in a style inconsistent with the professions of a
beneficed clergyman, and therefore I had given up
my Living; but men of great weight went further,
when they saw the Life of St. Stephen Harding,
and decided that it was of such a character as to
be inconsistent even with its being given to the
world by an Anglican publisher : and so the scheme
was given up at once. After the two first parts,
I retired from the Editorship, and those Lives only
were published in addition, which were then already
finished, or in advanced preparation. The follow
ing passages from what I or others wrote at the
time will illustrate what I have been saying :-

In November, 1844, I wrote thus to one of the
authors of them : " I am not Editor, I have no direct
control over the Series. It is T. s work; he may
admit what he pleases ; and exclude what he pleases.
I was to have been Editor. I did edit the two first
numbers. I was responsible for them, in the way
in which an Editor is responsible. Had I continued
Editor, I should have exercised a control over all.
I laid down in the Preface that doctrinal subjects
were, if possible, to be excluded. But, even then,
I also set down that no writer was to be held
answerable for any of the Lives but his own. When
I gave up the Editorship, I had various engage
ments with friends for separate Lives remaining on
my hands. I should have liked to have broken

340 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

from them all, but there were some from which I
could not break, and I let them take their course.
Some have come to nothing; others like yours have
gone on. I have seen such, either in MS. or Proof.
As time goes on, I shall have less and less to do
with the Series. I think the engagement between
you and me should come to an end. I have any how
abundant responsibility on me, and too much. I
shall write to T. that if he wants the advantage of
your assistance, he must write to you direct."

In accordance with this letter, I had already
advertised in January 1844, ten months before it,
that "other Lives," after St. Stephen Harding,
" will be published by their respective authors on
their own responsibility." This notice is repeated
in February, in the advertisement to the second
volume entitled "The Family of St. Richard,"
though to this volume also, for some reason, I also
put my initials. In the Life of St. Augustine, the
author, a man of nearly my own age, says in like
manner, " No one but himself is responsible for the
way in which these materials have been used." I
have in MS. another advertisement to the same
effect, but I cannot tell whether it was ever put
into print.

I will add, since the authors have been con
sidered hot-headed boys, whom I was in charge of
and whom I suffered to do intemperate things, that,
while the writer of St. Augustine was of the mature
age which I have stated, most of the others were

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 341

on one side or other of thirty. Three were under
twenty-live. Moreover, of these writers some be
came Catholics, some remained Anglicans, and
others have professed what are called free or
liberal opinions.

The immediate cause of the resignation of my
Living is stated in the following letter, which I
wrote to my Bishop :

"August 29, 18413. It is with much concern that

O

I inform your Lordship, that Mr. A. B., who has been
for the last year an inmate of my house here, has
just conformed to the Church of Rome. As I have
ever been desirous, not only of faithfully discharging
the trust, which is involved in holding a living
in your Lordship s diocese, but of approving my
self to your Lordship, I will for your information
state one or two circumstances connected with this
unfortunate event I received him on con
dition of his promising me, which he distinctly did,
that he would remain quietly in our Church for
three years. A year has passed since that time,
and, though I saw nothing in him which promised
that he would eventually be contented with his
present position, yet for the time his mind became
as settled as one could wish, and he frequently
expressed his satisfaction at being under the pro
mise which I had exacted of him."

I felt it impossible to remain any longer in the
service of the Anglican Church, when such a
breach of trust, however little I had to do with it,

342 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

would be laid at my door. I wrote in a few days to
a friend :

" September 7, 1843. I this day ask the Bishop
leave to resign St. Mary s. Men whom you little
think, or at least whom I little thought, are in

7 O 7

almost a hopeless way. Really we may expect any
thing. I am going to publish a Volume of Ser
mons, including those Four against moving."

I resigned my living on September 18th. I had
not the means of doing it legally at Oxford. The
late Mr. Goldsmid aided me in resigning it in
London. I found no fault with the Liberals ; they
had beaten me in a fair field. As to the act of
the Bishops, I thought, as Walter Scott has applied
the text, that they had " seethed the kid in his
mother s milk."

I said to a friend :

" Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni."

And now I have brought almost to an end, as far
as this sketch has to treat of them, the historv both

w

of my opinions, and of the public acts which they
involved. I had only one more advance of mind to
make; and that was, to be certain of what I had
hitherto anticipated, concluded, and believed; and
this was close upon my submission to the Catholic
Church. And I had only one more act to perform,
and that was the act of submission itself. But two
years yet intervened before the date of these final

HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 343

events; during which I was in lay communion in
the Church of England, attending its services as
usual, and abstaining altogether from intercourse
with Catholics, from their places of worship, and
from those religious rites and usages, such as
the Invocation of Saints, which are characteristics
of their creed. I did all this on principle; for I
never could understand how a man could he of two
religions at once.

What then I now have to add is of a private
nature, heing my preparation for the great event,
for which I was waiting, in the interval between
the autumns of 1843 and 1845.

And I shall almost confine what I have to say to
this one point, the difficulty I was in as to the best
mode of revealing the state of my mind to my
friends and others, and how I managed to do it.

Up to January, 1842, 1 had not disclosed my state
of unsettlement to more than three persons, as has
been mentioned above, and is repeated in the
letters which I am now about to give to the reader.
To two of them, intimate and familiar companions,
in the Autumn of 1839 : to the third, an old friend
too, when, I suppose, I was in great distress of
mind upon the affair of the Jerusalem Bishopric.
In May, 1843, 1 mentioned it to the friend, by whose
advice I wished, as far as possible, to be guided.
To mention it on set purpose to any one, unless
indeed I was asking advice, I should have felt

3 A

344 HISTORY OF MY BELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

to be a crime. If there is any thing that was
and is abhorrent to me, it is the scattering
doubts, and unsettling consciences without ne
cessity. A strong presentiment that my existing
opinions would ultimately give way, and that
the grounds of them were unsound, was not a
sufficient warrant for disclosing the state of my
mind. I had no guarantee yet, that that presenti
ment would be realized. Supposing I were crossing
ice, which came right in my way, which I- had good
reasons for considering sound, and which I saw
numbers before me crossing in safety, and supposing
a stranger from the bank, in a voice of authority,
and in an earnest tone, warned me that it was dan
gerous, and then was silent, I think I should be
startled, and should look about me anxiously, but I
also should go on, till I had better grounds for
doubt; and such was my state, I believe, till the
end of 1842. Then again, when my dissatisfaction
became greater, it was hard at first to determine
the point of time, when it was too strong to suppress
with propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but
doubt is a progress ; I was not near certitude yet.
Certitude is a reflex action ; it is to know that one
knows. I believe I had not that, till close upon
my reception into the Catholic Church. Again, a
practical, effective doubt is a point too, but who
can easily ascertain it for himself? Who can deter
mine when it is, that the scales in the balance of

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 345

opinion begin to turn, and what was a greater
probability in behalf of a belief becomes a positive
doubt against it ?

In considering this question in its bearing upon
my conduct in 1843, my own simple answer to my
great difficulty was, Do what your present state of
opinion requires, and let that doing tell: speak by
acts. This I did ; my first act of the year was in
February, 1843. After three months deliberation
I published my retractation of the violent charges
which I had made against Home : I could not be
wrong in doing so much as this ; but I did no more :
I did not retract my Anglican teaching. My
second act was in September; after much sorrow
ful lingering and hesitation, I resigned my Living.
I tried indeed to keep Littlemore for myself, even
though it was still to remain an integral part of
St. Mary s. I had made it a Parish, and I loved
it; but I did not succeed in my attempt. I could
indeed bear to become the curate at will of another,
but I hoped still that I might have been my own
master there. I had hoped an exception might
have been made in my favour, under the circum
stances ; but I did not gain my request. Indeed, I
was asking what was impracticable, and it is well
for me that it was so.

These were my two acts of the year, and I
said, "I cannot be wrong in making them; let
that follow which must follow in the thoughts of
the world about me, when they see what I do." They

3 A 2

346 HISTOKY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

fully answered my purpose. What I felt as a
simple duty to do, did create a general suspicion
about me, without such responsibility as would be
involved in my taking the initiative in creating it.
Then, when friends wrote me on the subject, I
either did not deny or I confessed it, according
to the character and need of their letters. Some
times, in the case of intimate friends, whom I
seemed to leave in ignorance of what others knew
about me, I invited the question.

And here comes in another point for explana
tion. While I was fighting for the Anglican
Church in Oxford, then indeed I was very glad to
make converts, and, though I never broke away
from that rule of my mind, (as I may call it,) of
which I have already spoken, of finding disciples
rather than seeking them, yet, that I made ad
vances to others in a special way, I have no doubt;
this came to an end, however, as soon as I fell into
misgivings as to the true ground to be taken in the
controversy. Then, when I gave up my place in
the Movement, I ceased from any such proceeding:
and my utmost endeavour was to tranquillize such
persons, especially those who belonged to the new
school, as were unsettled in their religious views,

O i

and, as I judged, hasty in their conclusions. This
went on till 1843; but, at that date, as soon as I
turned my face Homeward, I gave up altogether
and in any shape, as far as ever was possible, the
thought of acting upon others. Then I myself was

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 347

simply my own concern. How could I in any sense
direct others, who had to be guided in so moment
ous a matter myself? How could I be considered
in a position, even to say a word to them one way
or the other ? How could I presume to unsettle
them, as I was unsettled, when I had no means of
bringing them out of such unsettlement ? And,
if they were unsettled already, how could I point
to them a place of refuge, which I was not sure
that I should choose for myself? My only line,
my only duty, was to keep simply to my own
case. I recollected Pascal s words, "Je mourrai
seul." I deliberately put out of my thoughts all
other works and claims, and said nothing to any
one, unless I was obliged.

But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the
newspapers there were continual reports about my
intentions ; I did not answer them ; presently
strangers or friends wrote, begging to be allowed to
answer them ; and, if I still kept to my resolution
and said nothing, then I was thought to be mys
terious, and a prejudice was excited against me.
But, what was far worse, there were a number of
tender, eager hearts, of whom I knew nothing at
all, who were watching me, wishing to think as I
thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find
it out; who in consequence were distressed, that,
in so solemn a matter, they could not see what was
coming, and who heard reports about me this way
or that, on a first day and on a second ; and felt the

348 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

weariness of waiting, and the sickness of delayed
hope, and did not understand that I was as per
plexed as themselves, and, being of more sensitive
complexion of mind than myself, were made ill by
the suspense. And they too of course for the
time thought me mysterious and inexplicable. I
ask their pardon as far as I was really unkind to
them. There was a gifted and deeply earnest lady,
who in a parabolical account of that time, has de
scribed both my conduct as she felt it, and that of
such as herself. In a singularly graphic, amusing
vision of pilgrims, who were making their way
across a bleak common in great discomfort, and
who were ever warned against, yet continually
nearing, " the king s highway " on the right, she
says, " All my fears and disquiets were speedily
renewed by seeing the most daring of our leaders,
(the same who had first forced his way through the
palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all
put implicit trust,) suddenly stop short, and declare
that he would go on no further. He did not, how
ever, take the leap at once, but quietly sat down on
the top of the fence with his feet hanging towards
the road, as if he meant to take his time about it,
and let himself down easily." I do not wonder at
all that I thus seemed so unkind to a lady, who
at that time had never seen me. We were both
in trial in our different ways. I am far from
denying that I was acting selfishly both towards
them and towards others ; but it was a religious

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 349

selfishness. Certainly to myself my own duty
seemed clear. They that are whole can heal others ;
but in my case it was, " Physician, heal thyself."
My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed
an absurdity to my reason to be converted in part
nership. I wished to go to my Lord by myself, and
in my own way, or rather His way. I had neither
wish, nor, I may say, thought of taking a number
with me. But nothing of this could be known to
others.

The following three letters are written to a
friend, who had every claim upon me to be frank
with him : it will be seen that I disclose the real
state of mind to him, in proportion as he presses
me.

1. " October 14, 1843. I would tell you in a few
words why I have resigned St. Mary s, as you seem
to wish, were it possible to do so. But it is most
difficult to bring out in brief, or even in extenso,
any just view of my feelings and reasons.

" The nearest approach I can give to a general
account of them is to say, that it has been caused
by the general repudiation of the view, contained in
No. 90, on the part of the Church. I could not
stand against such an unanimous expression of
opinion from the Bishops, supported, as it has
been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of all
classes in the Church, lay and clerical. If there
ever was a case, in which an individual teacher
has been put aside and virtually put away by a

350 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

community, mine is one. No decency has been
observed in the attacks upon me from authority;
no protests have been offered against them. It is
felt, I am far from denying, justly felt, that I am
a foreign material, and cannot assimilate with the
Church of England.

" Even my own Bishop has said that my mode ol
interpreting the Articles makes them mean any
thing or nothing. When I heard this delivered,
I did not believe my ears. I denied to others that
it was said. . . . Out came the charge, and the
words could not be mistaken. This astonished me
the more, because I published that Letter to him,
(how unwillingly you know,) on the understanding
that / was to deliver his judgment on No. 90
instead of him. A year elapses, and a second and
heavier judgment came forth. I did not bargain
for this, nor did he, but the tide was too strong
for him.

" I fear that I must confess, that, in proportion
as I think the English Church is showing herself
intrinsically and radically alien from Catholic
principles, so do I feel the difficulties of defending
her claims to be a branch of the Catholic Church.
It seems a dream to call a communion Catholic,
when one can neither appeal to any clear statement
of Catholic doctrine in its formularies, nor inter
pret ambiguous formularies by the received and
living Catholic sense, whether past or present. Men
of Catholic views are too truly but a party in our

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 351

Church. I cannot deny that many other inde
pendent circumstances, which it is not worth
while entering into, have led me to the same con
clusion.

" I do not say all this to every body, as you may
suppose ; but I do not like to make a secret of it
to you."

2. " Oct. 25, 1843. You have engaged in a dan
gerous correspondence; I am deeply sorry for the
pain I shall give you.

"I must tell you then frankly, (but I combat
arguments which to me, alas, are shadows,) that it
is not from disappointment, irritation, or impa
tience, that I have, whether rightly or wrongly,
resigned St. Mary s ; but because I think the Church
of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours not part of
the Catholic Church, because not in communion
with Rome; and because I feel that I could not
honestly be a teacher in it any longer."

" This thought came to me last summer four
years. . . I mentioned it to two friends in the
autumn. . . It arose in the first instance from
the Monophysite and Donatist controversies, the
former of which I was engaged with in the course
of theological study to which I had given myself.
This was at a time when no Bishop, I believe, had
declared against us, and when all was progress and
hope. I do not think I have ever felt disap
pointment or impatience, certainly not then ; for I

3 B

352 HISTORY or MY KELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize
it now.

" My first effort was to write that article on
the Catholicity of the English Church ; for two
years it quieted me. Since the summer of 1839
I have written little or nothing on modern con
troversy. . . You know how unwillingly I wrote
my letter to the Bishop in which I committed
myself again, as the safest course under circum
stances. The article I speak of quieted me till the
end of 1841, over the affair of No. 90, when that
wretched Jerusalem Bishopric (no personal mat
ter) revived all my alarms. They have increased
up to this moment. At that time I told my secret
to another person in addition.

" You see then that the various ecclesiastical
and quasi-ecclesiastical acts, which have taken
place in the course of the last two years and a half,
are not the cause of my state of opinion, but are
keen stimulants and weighty confirmations of a
conviction forced upon me, while engaged in the
course of duty, viz. that theological reading to
which I had given myself. And this last-mentioned
circumstance is a fact, which has never, I think,
come before me till now that I write to you.

" It is three years since, on account of my state of
opinion, I urged the Provost in vain to let St. Mary s
be separated from Littlemore; thinking I might
with a safe conscience serve the latter, though I

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 353

could not comfortably continue in so public a
place as a University. This was "before No. 90.

"Finally, I have acted under advice, and that,
not of my own choosing, but what came to me
in the way of duty, nor the advice of those only
who agree with me, but of near friends who differ
from me.

" I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far
as I see, in the matter of impatience ; i. e. practi
cally or in conduct. And I trust that He, who has
kept me in the slow course of change hitherto, will
keep me still from hasty acts or resolves with a
doubtful conscience.

"This I am sure of, that such interposition as
yours, kind as it is, only does what you would con
sider harm. It makes me realize my own views to
myself; it makes me see their consistency; it as
sures me of my own deliberateness ; it suggests
to me the traces of a Providential Hand; it takes
away the pain of disclosures; it relieves me of a
heavy secret.

"You may make what use of my letters you
think right."

My correspondent wrote to me once more, and
I replied thus: "October 31, 1843. Your letter
has made my heart ache more, and caused me more
and deeper sighs than any I have had a long while,
though I assure you there is much on all sides of
me to cause sighing and heart-ache. On all sides
I am quite haunted by the one dreadful whisper

3 B 2

354 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

repeated from so many quarters, and causing the
keenest distress to friends. You know but a part
of my present trial, in knowing that I am unsettled
myself.

" Since the beginning of this year I have been
obliged to tell the state of my mind to some others ;
but never, I think, without being in a way obliged,
as from friends writing to me as you did, or
guessing how matters stood. No one in Oxford
knows it or here" [Littlemore], "but one friend
whom I felt I could not help telling the other day.
But, I suppose, very many suspect it."

On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if
I recollect rightly, at once communicated the matter
of them to Dr. Pusey, and this will enable me to state
as nearly as I can the way in which my changed
state of opinion was made known to him.

I had from the first a great difficulty in making
Dr. Pusey understand such differences of opinion
as existed between himself and me. When there
was a proposal about the end of 1838 for a sub
scription for a Cranmer Memorial, he wished us
both to subscribe together to it. I could not, of
course, and wished him to subscribe by himself.
That he would not do ; he could not bear the thought
of our appearing to the world in separate positions,
in a matter of importance. And, as time went on,
he would not take any hints, which I gave him, on
the subject of my growing inclination to Rome.
When I found him so determined, I often had not

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 355

the heart to go on. And then I knew, that, from
affection to me, he so often took up and threw him
self into what I said, that I felt the great respon
sibility I should incur, if I put things before him
just as I might view them. And, not knowing him
so well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I should
unsettle him. And moreover, I recollected well,
how prostrated he had been with illness in 1832,
and I used always to think that the start of the
Movement had given him a fresh life. I fancied
that his physical energies even depended on the
presence of a vigorous hope and bright prospects
for his imagination to feed upon ; so much so, that
when he was so unworthily treated by the autho
rities of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to
the late Mr. Dodsworth to state my anxiety, lest, if
his mind became dejected in consequence, his health
would suffer seriouslv also. These were difficulties

*>

in my way; and then again, another difficulty was,
that, as we were not together under the same roof,
we only saw each other at set times ; others indeed,
who were coming in or out of my rooms freely,
and as there might be need at the moment, knew
all my thoughts easily ; but for him to know them
well, formal efforts were necessary. A common
friend of ours broke it all to him in 1841, as
far as matters had gone at that time, and showed
him clearly the logical conclusions which must lie
in propositions to which I had committed myself;
but somehow or other in a little while, his mind

356 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

fell back into its former happy state, and he could
not bring himself to believe that he and I should
not go on pleasantly together to the end. But that
affectionate dream needs must have been broken at
last; and two years afterwards, that friend to whom
I wrote the letters which I have just now inserted,
set himself, as I have said, to break it. Upon that, I
too begged Dr. Pusey to tell in private to any
one he would, that I thought in the event I should
leave the Church of England. However, he would
not do so; and at the end of 1844 had almost
relapsed into his former thoughts about me, if I
may judge from a letter of his which I have found.
Nay, at the Commemoration of 1845, a few months
before I left the Anglican Church, I think he said
about me to a friend, " I trust after all we shall
keep him."

In that autumn of 1843, at the time that I
spoke to Dr. Pusey, I asked another friend also to
communicate to others in confidence the prospect
which lay before me.

To another friend I gave the opportunity of
knowing it, if he would, in the following Postscript
to a letter :

" While I write, I will add a word about myself.
You may come near a person or two who, owing to
circumstances, know more exactly my state of feel
ing than you do, though they would not tell you.
Now I do not like that you should not be aware of
this, though I see no reason why you should know

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 357

what they happen to know. Your wishing it
otherwise would be a reason."

I had a dear and old friend, near his death; I
never told him my state of mind. Why should I
unsettle that sweet cairn tranquillity, when I had
nothing to offer him instead ? I could not say,
" Go to Rome ;" else I should have shown him the
way. Yet I offered myself for his examination.
One day he led the way to my speaking out; but,
rightly or wrongly, I could not respond. My reason
was, "I have no certainty on the matter myself.
To say I think is to tease and to distress, not to
persuade."

I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843: "As
you may suppose, I have nothing to write to you
about, pleasant. I could tell you some very painful
things; but it is best not to anticipate trouble,
which after all can but happen, and, for what one
knows, may be averted. You are always so kind,
that sometimes, when I part with you, I am nearly
moved to tears, and it would be a relief to be so, at
your kindness and at my hardness. I think no one
ever had such kind friends as I have."

The next year, January 22, I wrote to him :
" Pusey has quite enough on him, and generously
takes on himself more than enough, for me to add
burdens when I am not obliged; particularly too,
when I am very conscious, that there are burdens,
which I am or shall be obliged to lay upon him
some time or other, whether I will or no."

358 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

And on February 21 : " Half-past ten. I am just
up, having a bad cold ; the like has not happened
to me (except twice in January) in my memory.
You may think you have been in my thoughts,
long before my rising. Of course you are so con
tinually, as you well know. I could not come to
see you; I am not worthy of friends. With my
opinions, to the full of which I dare not confess,
I feel like a guilty person with others, though I
trust I am not so. People kindly think that I have
much to bear externally, disappointment, slander,
&c. No, I have nothing to bear, but the anxiety
which I feel for my friends anxiety for me, and
their perplexity. This [letter] is a better Ash-
Wednesday than birthday present;" [his birthday
was the same day as mine ; it was Ash- Wednesday
that year] ; " but I cannot help writing about
what is uppermost. And now all kindest and
best wishes to you, my oldest friend, whom I must
not speak more about, arid with reference to
myself, lest you should be angry." It was not in his
nature to have doubts : he used to look at me with
anxiety, and wonder what had come over me.

On Easter Monday: "All that is good and
gracious descend upon you and yours from the in
fluences of this Blessed Season ; and it will be so, (so
be it!) for what is the life of you all, as day passes
after day, but a simple endeavour to serve Him, from
whom all blessing comes ? Though we are separated
in place, yet this we have in common, that you are

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 359

living a calm and cheerful time, and I am enjoying
the thought of you. It is your blessing to have a
clear heaven, and peace around, according to the
hlessing pronounced on Benjamin. So it is, and
so may it ever be."

He was in simple good faith. He died in Sep
tember that year. I had expected that his last
illness would have brought light to my mind, as to
what I ought to do. It brought none. I made a
note, which runs thus : " I sobbed bitterly over his
coffin, to think that he left me still dark as to what
the way of truth was, and what I ought to do in
order to please God and fulfil His will." I think
I wrote to Charles Marriott to say, that at that
moment, with the thought of my friend before me,
my strong view in favour of Rome remained just
what it was. On the other hand, my firm belief
that grace was to be found in the Anglican Church
remained too. I wrote to a friend upon his death :

" Sept. 16, 1844. I am full of wrong and mise
rable feelings, which it is useless to detail, so
grudging and sullen, when I should be thankful.
Of course, when one sees so blessed an end, and that,
the termination of so blameless a life, of one who
really fed on our ordinances and got strength from
them, and see the same continued in a whole family,
the little children finding quite a solace of their
pain in the Daily Prayer, it is impossible not to
feel more at ease in our Church, as at least a sort

3 c

360 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

of Zoar, a place of refuge and temporary rest,
because of the steepness of the way. Only, may
we be kept from unlawful security, lest we have
Moab and Ammon for our progeny, the enemies of
Israel."

I could not continue in this state, either in the
light of duty or of reason. My difficulty was this :
I had been deceived greatly once ; how could I be
sure that I was not deceived a second time ? I then
thought myself right ; how was I to be certain that
I was right now ? How many years had I thought,
myself sure of what I now rejected ? how could I
ever again have confidence in myself? As in 1 840 1
listened to the rising doubt in favour of Rome, now
I listened to the waning doubt in favour of the
English Church. To be certain is to know that
one knows; what test had I, that I should not
change again, after that I had become a Catholic ?
I had still apprehension of this, though I thought
a time would come, when it would depart. How
ever, some limit ought to be put to these vague
misgivings ; I must do my best and then leave it to
a higher power to prosper it. So, I determined to
write an Essay on Doctrinal Development; and
then, if, at the end of it, my convictions in favour
of the Roman Church were not weaker, to make
up my mind to seek admission into her fold. I
acted upon this resolution in the beginning of 1845,
and worked at my Essay steadily into the autumn.

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 361

I told my resolution to various friends at the
beginning of the year ; indeed, it was at that time
known generally. I wrote to a friend thus :

"My intention is, if nothing comes upon me,
which I cannot foresee, to remain quietly in statu
quo for a considerable time, trusting that my friends
will kindly remember me and my trial in their
prayers. And I should give up my fellowship
some time before any thing further took place."

One very dear friend, now no more, Charles
Marriott, sent me a letter at the beginning of the
next year, from which, from love of him, I quote
some sentences :

"January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to
be aware, that I never see through any thing at first.
Your letter to B. casts a gloom over the future,
which you can understand, if you have understood
me, as I believe you have. But I may speak out
at once, of what I see and feel at once, and doubt
not that I shall ever feel : that your whole conduct
towards the Church of England and towards us,
who have striven and are still striving to seek after
God for ourselves, and to revive true religion among
others, under her authority and guidance, has been
generous and considerate, and, were that word ap
propriate, dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely
have conceived possible, more unsparing of self than
I should have thought nature could sustain. I
have felt with pain every link that you have severed,

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362 HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

and I have asked no questions, because I felt that
you ought to measure the disclosure of your thoughts
according to the occasion, and the capacity of those
to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the midst
of engagements engrossing in themselves, but partly
made tasteless, partly embittered by what I have
heard; but I am willing to trust even you, whom I
love best on earth, in God s Hand, in the earnest
prayer that you may be so employed as is best for
the Holy Catholic Church."

There was a lady, who was very anxious on the
subject, and I wrote to her the following letters :

1. "October, 1844. What can I say more to
your purpose ? If you will ask me any specific
questions, I will answer them, as far as I am able."

2. "November 7, 1844. I am still where I was;
I am not moving. Two things, however, seem
plain, that every one is prepared for such an event,
next, that every one expects it of me. Few indeed,
who do not think it suitable, fewer still, who do
not think it likely. However, I do not think it
either suitable or likely. I have very little reason
to doubt about the issue of things, but the when
and the how are known to Him, from whom, I
trust, both the course of things and the issue come.
The expression of opinion, and the latent and
habitual feeling about me, which is on every side
and among all parties, has great force. I insist
upon it, because I have a great dread of going

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 363

by my own feelings, lest they should mislead me.
By one s sense of duty one must go; but external
facts support one in doing so."

3. "January 8, 1845. My full belief is, in accord
ance with your letter, that, if there is a move in our
Church, very few persons indeed will be partners to
it. I doubt whether one or two at the most among
residents at Oxford. And I don t know whether I
can wish it. The state of the Roman Catholics is
at present so unsatisfactory. This I am sure of,
that nothing but a simple, direct call of duty is a
warrant for any one leaving our Church; no pre
ference of another Church, no delight in its ser
vices, no hope of greater religious advancement in
it, no indignation, no disgust, at the persons and
things, among which we may find ourselves in the
Church of England. The simple question is, Can
/ (it is personal, not whether another, but can T)
be saved in the English Church ? am / in safety,
were I to die to-night ? Is it a mortal sin in me,
not joining another communion ? P.S. I hardly
see my way to concur in attendance, though occa
sional, in the Roman Catholic chapel, unless a man
has made up his mind pretty well to join it eventually.
Invocations are not required in the Church of Rome;
somehow, I do not like using them except under
the sanction of the Church, and this makes me un
willing to admit them in members of our Church."

4. " March 30. Now I will tell you more than any

364 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

one knows except two friends. My own convic
tions are as strong, as I suppose they can become :
only it is so difficult to know whether it is a call
of reason or of conscience. I cannot make out, if I
am impelled by what seems clear, or by a sense of
duty. You can understand how painful this doubt
is; so I have waited, hoping for light, and using
the words of the Psalmist, Show some token upon
me. But I suppose I have no right to wait for
ever for this. Then I am waiting, because friends
are most considerately bearing me in mind, and
asking guidance for me; and, I trust, I should
attend to any new feelings w 7 hich came upon me,
should that be the effect of their kindness. And
then this waiting subserves the purpose of pre
paring men s minds. I dread shocking, unsettling
people. Any how, I can t avoid giving incalculable
pain. So, if I had my will, I should like to wait
till the summer of 1846, w r hich would be a full
seven years from the time that my convictions first
began to fall on me. But I don t think I shall last
so long.

" My present intention is to give up my Fellow
ship in October, and to publish some work or
treatise between that and Christmas. I wish people
to know why I am acting, as well as what I am
doing; it takes off that vague and distressing sur
prise, What can have made him ?

5. "June 1. What you tell me of yourself makes

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 365

it plain that it is your duty to remain quietly and
patiently, till you see more clearly where you are;
else you are leaping in the dark."

In the early part of this year, if not before, there
was an idea afloat that my retirement from the
Anglican Church was owing to the feeling that I
had so been thrust aside, without any one s taking
my part. Various measures were, I believe, talked
of in consequence of this surmise. Coincidently
with it was an exceedingly kind article about me
in a Quarterly, in its April number. The writer
praised me in feeling and beautiful language far
above my deserts. In the course of his remarks,
he said, speaking of me as Vicar of St. Mary s :
" He had the future race of clergy hearing him.
Did he value and feel tender about, and cling to
his position ? . . . Not at all. . . .No sacrifice to him
perhaps, he did not care about such things."

This was the occasion- of my writing to a very
intimate friend the following letter :

"April 3, 1845. . . . Accept this apology, my
dear C., and forgive me. As I say so, tears come
into my eyes, that arises from the accident of
this time, when I am giving up so much I love.
Just now I have been overset by A. B. s article
in the C. D. ; yet really, my dear C., I have
never for an instant had even the temptation of
repenting my leaving Oxford. The feeling of
repentance has not even come into my mind.
How could it ? How could I remain at St. Mary s

366 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

a hypocrite ? how could I be answerable for
souls, (and life so uncertain,) with the convictions,
or at least persuasions, which I had upon me ?
It is indeed a responsibility to act as I am doing ;
and I feel His hand heavy on me without inter
mission, who is all Wisdom and Love, so that my
heart and mind are tired out, just as the limbs
might be from a load on one s back. That sort of
dull aching pain is mine ; but my responsibility
really is nothing to what it would be, to be answerable
for souls, for confiding loving souls, in the English
Church, with my convictions. My love to Marriott,
and save me the pain of sending him a line."

In July a Bishop thought it worth while to
give out to the world that " the adherents of Mr.
Newman are few in number. A short time will
now probably suffice to prove this fact. It is well
known that he is preparing for secession; and,
when that event takes place, it will be seen how
few will go with him."

All this time I was hard at my Essay on Doc
trinal Development. As I advanced, my view so
cleared that instead of speaking any more of " the
Roman Catholics," I boldly called them Catholics.
Before I got to the end, I resolved to be received,
and the book remains in the state in which it
was then, unfinished.

On October 8th I wrote to a number of friends
the following letter:

" Littlemore, October 8, 1845. I am this night

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 367

expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from
his youth, has been led to have distinct and direct
thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then
of England, After thirty years (almost) waiting,
he was without his own act sent here. But he
has had little to do with conversions. I saw him
here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist s day
last year. He does not know of my intention ; but
I mean to ask of him admission into the one Fold
of Christ. . . .

" I have so many letters to write, that this must
do for all who choose to ask about me. With mv

V

best love to dear Charles Marriott, who is over
your head, &c., &c.

" P.S. This will not go till all is over. Of course
it requires no answer."

For a while after my reception, I proposed to
betake myself to some secular calling. I wrote
thus in answer to a very gracious letter of congra
tulation :

"Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have antici
pated, before I express it, the great gratification
which I received from your Eminence s letter. That
gratification, however, was tempered by the appre
hension, that kind and anxious well-wishers at a
distance attach more importance to my step than
really belongs to it. To me indeed personally it is
of course an inestimable gain; but persons and
things look great at a distance, which are not so

3 D

368 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

when seen close ; and, did your Eminence know me,
you would see that I was one, about whom there
has been far more talk for good and bad than he
deserves, and about whose movements far more
expectation has been raised than the event will
justify.

" As I never, I do trust, aimed at any thing else
than obedience to my own sense of right, and have
been magnified into the leader of a party without my
wishing it or acting as such, so now, much as I may
wish to the contrary, and earnestly as I may labour
(as is my duty) to minister in a humble way to the
Catholic Church, yet my powers will, I fear, dis
appoint the expectations of both my own friends,
and of those who pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

" If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is
that you would kindly moderate those anticipations.
Would it were in my power to do, what I do not
aspire to do ! At present certainly I cannot look
forward to the future, and, though it would be a
good work if I could persuade others to do as I
have done, yet it seems as if I had quite enough to
do in thinking of myself."

Soon, Dr. Wiseman, in whose Vicariate Oxford
lay, called me to Oscott; and I went there with
others; afterwards he sent me to Rome, and finally
placed me in Birmingham.

I wrote to a friend :

" January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely
I am. Obliviscere populum tuum et domum

HISTORY OF MY EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 369

patris tui, has been in my ears for the last twelve
hours. I realize more that we are leaving Little-
more, and it is like going on the open sea."

I left Oxford for good on Monday, February
23, 1846. On the Saturday and Sunday before, I
was in my House at Littlemore simply by myself, as
I had been for the first day or two when I had
originally taken possession of it. I slept on Sun
day night at my dear friend s, Mr. Johnson s, at the
Observatory. Various friends came to see the
last of me ; Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr.
Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey
too came up to take leave of me ; and I called
on Dr. Ogle, one of my very oldest friends,
for he was my private Tutor, when I was an
Undergraduate. In him I took leave of my
first College, Trinity, which was so dear to me,
and which held on its foundation so many who
have been kind to me both when I was a boy, and
all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never
been unkind to me. There used to be much snap
dragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman s
rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the
emblem of my own perpetual residence even unto
death in my University.

On the morning of the 23rd I left the Ob
servatory. I have never seen Oxford since, ex
cepting its spires, as they are seen from the
railway.

PART YII.

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

PART VII.

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

FROM the time that I became a Catholic, of course
I have no further history of my religious opinions to
narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that
my mind has been idle, or that I have given up
thinking on theological subjects ; but that I have
had no changes to record, and have had no anxiety
of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace
and contentment. I never have had one doubt. I
was not conscious, on my conversion, of any inward
difference of thought or of temper from what I had
before. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the
fundamental truths of revelation, or of more self-
command ; I had not more fervour; but it was like
coming into port after a rough sea; and my happi
ness on that score remains to this day without
interruption.

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those
additional articles, which are not found in the An
glican Creed. Some of them I believed already,
but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made
a profession of them upon my reception with the

3E2

374 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing
them now. I am far of course from denying that
every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held
by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intel
lectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for
myself I cannot answer those difficulties. Many
persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of reli
gion ; I am as sensitive as any one; but I have
never been able to see a connexion between appre
hending those difficulties, however keenly, and multi
plying them to any extent, and doubting the doc
trines to which they are attached. Ten thousand
difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand
the subject ; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.
There of course may be difficulties in the evidence;
but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doc
trines, or to their compatibility with each other. A
man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a
mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is
not given to him, without doubting that it admits of
an answer, or that a particular answer is the true one.
Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my
own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty,
and borne in upon our minds with most power.

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 Roman Church
was the oracle of God, and that she had declared
this doctrine to be part of the original revelation.

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 375

It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant but
how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought
it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a
believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas
More, before he could bring himself to conceive that
the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist " the
overwhelming force of the argument against it."
" Sir Thomas More," he says, " is one of the choice
specimens of wisdom and virtue ; and the doctrine of
transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A
faith which stands that test, will stand any test."
But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot
tell how it is; but I say, " Why should not it be?
What s to hinder it? What do I know of substance
or matter? just as much as the greatest philosophers,
and that is nothing at all ;" so much is this the case,
that there is a rising school of philosophy now, which
considers phenomena to constitute the whole of our
knowledge in physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves
phenomena alone. It does not say that the phe
nomena go; on the contrary, it says that they re
main : nor does it say that the same phenomena are
in several places at once. It deals with what no
one on earth knows any thing about, the material
substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that
majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the
Catholic Creed, the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity.
What do I know of the Essence of the Divine
Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is
simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when

376 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no
means of proving that there is not a sense in which
one and three can equally be predicated of the
Incommunicable God.

But I am going to take upon myself the respon
sibility of more than the mere Creed of the Church ;
as the parties accusing me are determined I shall
do. They say, that now, in that I am a Catholic,
though I may not have offences of my own against
honesty to answer for, yet, at least, I am answerable
for the offences of others, of my co-religionists, of
my brother priests, of the Church herself. I am
quite willing to accept the responsibility; and, as I
have been able, as I trust, by means of a few words,
to dissipate, in the minds of all those who do not
begin with disbelieving me, the suspicion with which
so many Protestants start, in forming their judgment
of Catholics, viz. that our Creed is actually set up in
inevitable superstition and hypocrisy, as the original
sin of Catholicism ; so now I will go on, as before,
identifying myself with the Church and vindicating
it, not of course denying the enormous mass of sin
and ignorance which exists of necessity in that world
wide multiform Communion, but going to the proof
of this one point, that its system is in no sense dis
honest, and that therefore the upholders and teachers
of that system, as such, have a claim to be acquitted
in their own persons of that odious imputation.

Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KIN GSLEY. 377

I have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of
my own existence, though when I try to put the
grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a
difficulty in doing so in mood and figure to my satis
faction,) I look out of myself into the world of men,
and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeak
able distress. The world seems simply to give the
lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is
so full ; and the effect upon me is, in consequence,
as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it denied
that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a
mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort
of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look
into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its
Creator. This is, to me, one of the great difficulties
of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred
just now. Were it not for this voice, speaking so
clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be
an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I
looked into the world. I am speaking for myself
only ; and I am far from denying the real force of the
arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the gene
ral facts of human society, but these do not warm me
or enlighten me ; they do not take away the winter
of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the
leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice.
The sight of the world is nothing else than the pro
phet s scroll, full of " lamentations, and mourning,
and woe."

To consider the world in its length and breadth,

378 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

its various history, the many races of man, their
starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their
conflicts ; and then their ways, habits, governments,
forms of worship ; their enterprises, their aimless
courses, their random achievements and acquirements,
the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the
tokens so faint and broken, of a superintending design,
the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers
or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreason
ing elements, not towards final causes, the greatness
and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short
duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the dis
appointments of life, the defeat of good, the success
of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence
and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the cor
ruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition
of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in
the Apostle s words, " having no hope and without
God in the world," all this is a vision to dizzy and
appal ; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a
profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human
solution.

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason -
bewildering fact ? I can only answer, that either
there is no Creator, or this living society of men is
in a true sense discarded from His presence. Did
I see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens
on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world
without provision, unable to say whence he came,
his birth-place or his family connexions, I should

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 379

conclude that there was some mystery connected
with his history, and that he was one, of whom, from
one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. Thus
only should I be able to account for the contrast
between the promise and condition of his being.
And so I argue about the world ; if there be a God,
since there is a God, the human race is implicated
in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of
joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a
fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence ; and
thus the doctrine of what is theologically called
original sin becomes to me almost as certain as
that the world exists, and as the existence of God.

And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving
\vill of the Creator to interfere in this anarchical con
dition of things, what are we to suppose would be
the methods which might be necessarily or naturally
involved in His object of mercy? Since the world
is in so abnormal a state, surely it would be no sur
prise to me, if the interposition were of necessity
equally extraordinary or what is called miraculous.
But that subject does not directly come into the scope
of my present remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve
an argument ; and of course I am thinking of some
means which does not immediately run into argu
ment. I am rather asking what must be the face-to-
face antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle the
fierce energy of passion and the all-corroding, all-
dissolving scepticism of the intellect in religious
inquiries? I have no intention at all to deny, that

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380 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

truth is the real object of our reason, and that, if it
does not attain to truth, either the premiss or the
process is in fault ; but I am not speaking of right
reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely
in fallen man. I know that even the unaided rea
son, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in
God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future
retribution ; but I am considering it actually and
historically; and in this point of view, I do not think
I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards
a simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth,
however sacred, can stand against it, in the long
run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when
our Lord came, the last traces of the religious
knowledge of former times were all but disappear
ing from those portions of the world in which the
intellect had been active and had had a career.

And in these latter days, in like manner, outside
the Catholic Church things are tending, with far
greater rapidity than in that old time from the
circumstance of the age, to atheism in one shape
or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the
whole of Europe present at this day ! and not only
Europe, but every government and every civilization
through the world, which is under the influence of
the European mind ! Especially, for it most con
cerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even
taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form,
is the spectacle presented to us by the educated
intellect of England, France, and Germany ! Lovers

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 381

of their country and of their race, religious men,
external to the Catholic Church, have attempted
various expedients to arrest fierce wilful human
nature in its onward course, and to bring it into
subjection. The necessity of some form of religion
for the interests of humanity, has been generally
acknowledged : but where was the concrete repre
sentative of things invisible, which would have the
force and the toughness necessary to be a break
water against the deluge ? Three centuries ago the
establishment of religion, material, legal, and social,
was generally adopted as the best expedient for the
purpose, in those countries which separated from
the Catholic Church ; and for a long time it was
successful ; but now the crevices of those establish
ments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years ago,
education was relied upon : ten years ago there was
a hope that wars would cease for ever, under the
influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of
the useful and fine arts ; but will any one venture
to say that there is any thing any where on this
earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us, whereby
to keep the earth from moving onwards ?

The judgment, which experience passes on esta
blishments or education, as a means of maintaining
religious truth in this anarchical world, must be ex
tended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine.
Experience proves surely that the Bible does not
answer a purpose, for which it was never intended.
It may be accidentally the means of the conversion

382 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

of individuals ; but a book, after all, cannot make a
stand against the wild living intellect of man, and in
this day it begins to testify, as regards its own
structure and contents, to the power of that universal
solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious
establishments.

Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator
to interfere in human affairs, and to make provisions
for retaining in the world a knowledge of Himself,
so definite and distinct as to be proof against the
energy of human scepticism, in such a case, I am
far from saying that there was no other way, but
there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should
think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested
with the prerogative of infallibility in religious
matters. Such a provision would be a direct, imme
diate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the
difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to the
need ; and, when I find that this is the very claim
of the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no diffi
culty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness in
it, which recommends it to my mind. And thus I
am brought to speak of the Church s infallibility, as
a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to
preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that
freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one
of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it
from its own suicidal excesses. And let it be
observed that, neither here nor in what follows,
shall I have occasion to speak directly of the re-

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 383

vealed body of truths, but only as they bear upon the
defence of natural religion. I say, that a power, pos
sessed of infallibility in religious teaching, is happily
adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of
human affairs, for smiting hard and throwing back
the immense energy of the aggressive intellect : and v
in saying this, as in the other things that I have to
say, it must still be recollected that I am all along
bearing in mind my main purpose, which is a de
fence of myself.

I am defending myself here from a plausible
charge brought against Catholics, as will be seen
better as I proceed. The charge is this: that I,
as a Catholic, not only make profession to hold
doctrines which I cannot possibly believe in my
heart, but that I also believe in the existence of a
power on earth, which at its own will imposes upon
men any new set of credenda, when it pleases, by a
claim to infallibility; in consequence, that my own
thoughts are not my own property; that I cannot
tell that to-morrow I may not have to give up what
I hold to-day, and that the necessary effect of such
a condition of mind must be a degrading bondage,
or a bitter inward rebellion relieving itself in secret
infidelity, or the necessity of ignoring the whole
subject of religion in a sort of disgust, and of
mechanically saying every thing that the Church
says, and leaving to others the defence of it. As
then I have above spoken of the relation of my
mind towards the Catholic Creed, so now I shall

384 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

speak of the attitude which it takes up iu the view
of the Church s infallibility.

/

And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible
teacher must be an emphatic protest against the ex
isting state of mankind. Man had rebelled against
his Maker. It was this that caused the divine
interposition : and the first act of the divinely ac
credited messenger must be to proclaim it. The
Church must denounce rebellion as of all possible
evils the greatest. She must have no terms with
it; if she would be true to her Master, she must
ban and anathematize it. This is the meaning of
a statement, which has furnished matter for one of
those special accusations to which I am at present
replying: I have, however, no fault at all to confess
in regard to it; I have nothing to withdraw, and
in consequence I here deliberately repeat it. I
said, "The Catholic Church holds it better for the
sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to
fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of
starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal
affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say,
should be lost, but should commit one single venial
sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal
one poor farthing without excuse." I think the
principle here enunciated to be the mere preamble
in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as
an Act of Parliament might begin with a " Whereas"
It is because of the intensity of the evil which has
possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 385

been provided against it ; and the initial act of that
divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver
her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a pre
amble then gives a meaning to her position in the
world, and an interpretation to her whole course of
teaching and action.

In like manner she has ever put forth, with most
energetic distinctness, those other great elementary
truths, which either are an explanation of her
mission or give a character to her work. She does
not teach that human nature is irreclaimable, else
wherefore should she be sent ? not that it is to be
shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, purified,
and restored ; not that it is a mere mass of evil, but
that it has the promise of great things, and even now
has a virtue and a praise proper to itself. But in the
next place she knows and she preaches that such a
restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be
brought about, not simply through any outward provi
sion of preaching and teaching, even though it be her
own, but from a certain inward spiritual power or
grace imparted directly from above, and which is in
her keeping. She has it in charge to rescue human
nature from its misery, but not simply by raising it
upon its own level, but by lifting it up to a higher
level than its own. She recognizes in it real moral
excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it
free from earth except by exalting it towards heaven.
It was for this end that a renovating grace was put
into her hands, and therefore from the nature of the

386 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

gift, as well as from the reasonableness of the case, she
goes on, as a further point, to insist, that all true con
version must begin with the first springs of thought,
and to teach that each individual man must be in his
own person one whole and perfect temple of God,
while he is also one of the living stones which build
up a visible religious community. And thus the
distinctions between nature and grace, and between
outward and inward religion, become two further
articles in what I have called the preamble of her
divine commission.

Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and
pertinaciously inflicts upon mankind ; as to such she
observes no half-measures, no economical reserve, no
delicacy or prudence. " Ye must be born again," is
the simple, direct form of words which she uses
after her Divine Master ; " your whole nature must
be re-born, your passions, and your affections, and
your aims, and your conscience, and your will, must
all be bathed in a new element, and reconsecrated
to your Maker, and, the last not the least, your in
tellect." It was for repeating these points of her
teaching in my own way, that certain passages of
one of my Volumes have been brought into the
general accusation which has been made against my
religious opinions. The writer has said that I was
demented if I believed, and unprincipled if I did not
believe, in my statement that a lazy, ragged, filthy,
story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste, sober, cheerful,
and religious, had a prospect of heaven, which was

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 387

absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman, or
lawyer, or noble, be he ever so just, upright, gene
rous, honourable, and conscientious, unless he had
also some portion of the divine Christian grace ; yet
I should have thought myself defended from cri
ticism by the words which our Lord used to the
chief priests, " The publicans and harlots go into the
kingdom of God before you." And I was subjected
again to the same alternative of imputations, for
having ventured to say that consent to an unchaste
wish was indefinitely more heinous than any lie
viewed apart from its causes, its motives, and its
consequences : though a lie, viewed under the limi
tation of these conditions, is a random utterance, an
almost outward act, not directly from the heart, how
ever disgraceful it may be, whereas we have the ex
press words of our Lord to the doctrine that " whoso
looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath com
mitted adultery with her already in his heart." On
the strength of these texts I have surely as much
right to believe in these doctrines as to believe in
the doctrine of original sin, or that there is a super
natural revelation, or that a Divine Person suffered,
or that punishment is eternal.

Passing now from what I have called the pre
amble of that grant of power, with which the Church
is invested, to that power itself, Infallibility, I
make two brief remarks : on the one hand, I am not
here determining any thing about the essential seat
of that power, because that is a question doctrinal,

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388 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

not historical and practical ; nor, on the other hand,
am I extending the direct subject-matter, over which
that power has jurisdiction, beyond religious opinion :
and now as to the power itself.

This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous
as the giant evil which has called for it. It claims,
when brought into exercise in the legitimate manner,
for otherwise of course it is but dormant, to have for
itself a sure guidance into the very meaning of every
portion of the Divine Message in detail, which was
committed by our Lord to His Apostles. It claims
to know its own limits, and to decide what it can
determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims,
moreover, to have a hold upon statements not directly
religious, so far as this, to determine whether they
indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its
own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or
not, in a particular case, they are consistent with
revealed truth. It claims to decide magisterially,
whether infallibly or not, that such and such state
ments are or are not prejudicial to the Apostolic
depositum of faith, in their spirit or in their conse
quences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid
them, accordingly. It claims to impose silence at
will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine,
which on its own ipse dixit, it pronounces to be
dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims
that whatever may be the judgment of Catholics
upon such acts, these acts should be received by them
with those outward marks of reverence, submission,

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 389

and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay to
the presence of their sovereign, without public criti
cism on them, as being in their matter inexpedient,
or in their manner violent or harsh. And lastly, it
claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual punish
ment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of
the divine life, and of simply excommunicating, those
who refuse to submit themselves to its formal decla
rations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the
Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed
and surrounded by the appendages of its high sove
reignty : it is, to repeat what I said above, a super-
eminent prodigious power sent upon earth to en
counter and master a giant evil.

And now, having thus described it, I profess my
own absolute submission to its claim. I believe
the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles,
as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as
declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is
infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is
thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like
manner, further interpreted by that same authority
till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the uni
versally received traditions of the Church, in which
lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions
which are from time to time made, and which in
all times are the clothing and the illustration of the
Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit
myself to those other decisions of the Holy See,
theological or not, through the organs which it has

So 2.

390 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their
infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with
a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I con
sider that, gradually and in the course of ages,
Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes,
and has thrown itself into the form of a science,
with a method and a phraseology of its own, under
the intellectual handling of great minds, such as
St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas; and
I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the
great legacy of thought thus committed to us for
these latter days.

All this being considered as the profession ex
ammo, as on my own part, so also on the part of the
Catholic body, as far as I know it, it will at first
sight be said that the restless intellect of our com
mon humanity is utterly weighed down to the re
pression of all independent effort and action what
ever, so that, if this is to be the mode of bringing
it into order, it is brought into order only to be
destroyed. But this is far from the result, far
from what I conceive to be the intention of that
high Providence who has provided a great remedy
for a great evil, far from borne out by the history
of the conflict between Infallibility and Reason in
the past, and the prospect of it in the future. The
energy of the human intellect " does from oppo
sition grow;" it thrives arid is joyous, with a tough
elastic strength, under the terrible blows of the
divinely-fashioned weapon, and is never so much

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 391

itself as when it has lately been overthrown. It is
the custom with Protestant writers to consider that,
whereas there are two great principles in action in
the history of religion, Authority and Private Judg
ment, they have all the Private Judgment to them
selves, and we have the full inheritance and the
superincumbent oppression of Authority. But this
is not so ; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it
only, which affords an arena for both combatants in
that awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the
very life of religion, viewed in its large operations
and its history, that the warfare should be incessantly
carried on. Every exercise of Infallibility is brought
out into act by an intense and varied operation of the
Reason, from within and without, and provokes again
a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in a civil polity
the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry
and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its
constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christen
dom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism,
but it presents a continuous picture of Authority
and Private Judgment alternately advancing and re
treating as the ebb and flow of the tide ; it is a vast
assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects
and wild passions, brought together into one by the
beauty and the majesty of a Superhuman Power into
what may be called a large reformatory or training-
school, not to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive,
but for the melting, refining, and moulding, as in
some moral factory, by an incessant noisy process, (if

392 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

I may proceed to another metaphor,) the raw material
of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so
capable of divine purposes.

St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical
power is given him to edification, and not to de
struction. There can be no better account of the
Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a
need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its
object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the
freedom or vigour of human thought in religious
speculation, but to resist and control its extravagance.
What have been its great works? All of them in
the distinct province of theology : to put down
Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism, Manicheeism,
Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result
of its action in the past ; and now as to the secu
rities which are given us that so it ever will act in
time to come.

First, Infallibility cannot act outside of a definite
circle of thought, and it must in all its decisions, or
definitions, as they are called, profess to be keeping
within it. The great truths of the moral law, of na
tural religion, and of Apostolical faith, are both its
boundary and its foundation. It must not go beyond
them, and it must ever appeal to them. Both its
subject-matter, and its articles in that subject-matter,
are fixed. Thus, in illustration, it does not extend to
statements, however sound and evident, which are
mere logical conclusions from the Articles of the
Apostolic Depositum ; again, it can pronounce nothing

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 393

about the persons of heretics, whose works fall
within its legitimate province. It must ever profess
to be guided by Scripture and by tradition. It must
refer to the particular Apostolic truth which it is
enforcing, or (what is called) defining. Nothing,
then, can be presented to me, in time to come, as part
of the faith, but what I ought already to have re
ceived, and have not actually received ; if not, merely
because it has not been told me. Nothing can be
imposed upon me different in kind from what I hold
already, much less contrary to it. The new truth
which is promulgated, if it is to be called new, must
be at least homogeneous, cognate, implicit, viewed
relatively to the old truth. It must be what I may
even have guessed, or wished, to be included in the
Apostolic revelation ; and at least it will be of such
a character, that my thoughts readily concur in it or
coalesce with it, as soon as I hear it. Perhaps
I and others actually have always believed it, and
the only question which is now decided in my behalf,
is that I am henceforth to believe that I have only
been holding what the Apostles held before me.

Let me take the doctrine which Protestants con
sider our greatest difficulty, that of the Immaculate
Conception. Here I entreat the reader to recol
lect my main drift, which is this. I have no diffi
culty in receiving it: if / have no difficulty, why
may not another have no difficulty also ? why may
not a hundred ? a thousand? Now I am sure that
Catholics in general have not any intellectual diffi-

394 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

culty at all on the subject of the Immaculate Con
ception; and that there is no reason why they
should. Priests have no difficulty. You tell me
that they ought to have a difficulty ; but they have
not. Be large-minded enough to believe, that men
may reason and feel very differently from yourselves;
how is it that men fall, when left to themselves, into
such various forms of religion, except that there are
various types of mind among them, very distinct
from each other? From my testimony then about
myself, if you believe it, judge of others also who are
Catholics : we do not find the difficulties which you
do in the doctrines which we hold ; we have no
intellectual difficulty in that in particular, which you
call a novelty of this day. We priests need not be
hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in
the Immaculate Conception. To that large class of
minds, who believe in Christianity, after our manner,
in the particular temper, spirit, and light, (whatever
word is used,) in which Catholics believe it, there is
no burden at all in holding that the Blessed Virgin was
conceived without original sin ; indeed, it is a simple
fact to say, that Catholics have not come to believe it
because it is defined, but it was defined because they
believed it.

So far from the definition in 1854 being a tyran
nical infliction on the Catholic world, it was received
every where on its promulgation with the greatest
enthusiasm. It was in consequence of the unanimous
petition, presented from all parts to the Holy See, in

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 395

behalf of a declaration that the doctrine was Apos
tolic, that it was declared so to be. I never heard
of one Catholic having difficulties in receiving it,
whose faith on other grounds was not really sus
picious. Of course there were grave and good men,
who were made anxious by the doubt whether it
could be proved Apostolical either by Scripture or
tradition, and who accordingly, though believing it
themselves, did not see how it could be defined by
authority ; but this is another matter. The point in
question is, whether the doctrine is a burden. I
believe it to be none. So far from it being so, I
sincerely think that St. Bernard and St. Thomas,
who scrupled at it in their day, had they lived into
this, would have rejoiced to accept it for its own
sake. Their difficulty, as I view it, consisted in
matters of words, ideas, and arguments. They
thought the doctrine inconsistent with other doc
trines ; and those who defended it in that age had not
that precision in their view of it, which has been
given to it by means of the long controversy of the
centuries which followed. And hence the difference
of opinion, and the controversy.

Now the instance which I have been taking sug
gests another remark ; the number of those (so
called) new doctrines will not oppress us, if it takes
eight centuries to promulgate even one of them.
Such is about the length of time through which the
preparation has been carried on for the definition of
the Immaculate Conception. This of course is an

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396 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

extraordinary case; but it is difficult to say what is
ordinary, considering how few are the formal occa
sions on which the voice of Infallibility has been
solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in Ecumenical
Council that we look, as to the normal seat of Infal
libility : now there have been only eighteen such
Councils since Christianity was, an average of one
to a century, and of these Councils some passed
no doctrinal decree at all, others were employed on
only one, and many of them were concerned with
only elementary points of the Creed. The Council
of Trent embraced a large field of doctrine certainly;
but I should apply to its Canons a remark contained
in that University Sermon of mine, which has been
so ignorantly criticized in the Pamphlet which has
led to my writing; I there have said that the
various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only
repetitions in various shapes of one and the same
idea; and in like manner, the Tridentine Decrees
are not isolated from each other, but are occupied
in bringing out in detail, by a number of separate
declarations, as if into bodily form, a few necessary
truths. I should make the same remark on the
various Theses condemned by Popes, and on their
dogmatic decisions generally. I acknowledge that
at first sight they seem from their number to be a
greater burden to the faith of individuals than are
the Canons of Councils ; still I do not believe in
matter of fact that they are so at all, and I give this
reason for it : it is not that a Catholic, layman or

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 397

priest, is indifferent to the subject, or, from a sort of
recklessness, will accept any thing that is placed
before him, or is willing, like a lawyer, to speak
according to his brief, but that in such condemna
tions the Holy See is engaged, for the most part, in
repudiating one or two great lines of error, such as
Lutheranism or Jansenism, principally ethical not
doctrinal, which are foreign to the Catholic mind,
and that it is expressing what any good Catholic, of
fair abilities, though unlearned, would say himself,
from common and sound sense, if the matter could
be put before him.

Now I will go on in fairness to say what I think is
the great trial to the Reason, when confronted with
that august prerogative of the Catholic Church, of
which I have been speaking. I enlarged just now
upon the concrete shape and circumstances, under
which pure infallible authority presents itself to the
Catholic. That authority has the prerogative of
an indirect jurisdiction on subject-matters which lie
beyond its own proper limits, and it most reasonably
has such a jurisdiction. It could not act in its own
province, unless it had a right to act out of it. It
could not properly defend religious truth, without
claiming for it what may be called its pomceria ; or,
to take another illustration, without acting as we act,
as a nation, in claiming as our own, not only the land
on which we live, but what are called British waters.
The Catholic Church claims, not only to judge in
fallibly on religious questions, but to animadvert on

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398 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

opinions in secular matters which bear upon religion,
on matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of
history, and it demands our submission to her claim.
It claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to
forbid discussions. In all this it does not so much
speak doctrinally, as enforce measures of discipline.
It must of course be obeyed without a word, and
perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede from
its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith
does not come in ; for what is matter of faith is true
for all times, and never can be unsaid. Nor does it
at all follow, because there is a gift of infallibility in
the Catholic Church, that therefore the power in pos
session of it is in all its proceedings infallible. " O,
it is excellent," says the poet, " to have a giant s
strength, but tyrannous, to use it like a giant." I
think history supplies us with instances in the
Church, where legitimate power has been harshly
used. To make such admission is no more than
saying that the divine treasure, in the words of the
Apostle, is "in earthen vessels;" nor does it follow
that the substance of the acts of the ruling power
is not right and expedient, because its manner may
have been faulty. Such high authorities act by
means of instruments; we know how such instru
ments claim for themselves the name of their prin
cipals, who thus get the credit of faults which really
are not theirs. But granting all this to an extent
greater than can with any show of reason be imputed
to the ruling power in the Church, what is there in

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 399

this want of prudence or moderation more than can
be urged, with far greater justice, against Protestant
communities and institutions? What is there in it
to make us hypocrites, if it has not that effect upon
Protestants ? We are called upon, not to profess any
thing, but to submit and be silent. Such injunctions,
as I have supposed, are laid merely upon our actions,
not upon our thoughts. How, for instance, does it
tend to make a man a hypocrite, to be forbidden
to publish a libel? his thoughts are as free as before :
authoritative prohibitions may tease and irritate, but
they have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of
reason.

So much at first sight ; but I will go on to say
further, that, in spite of all that the most hostile
critic may say upon the encroachments or severities
of high ecclesiastics, in times past, in the use of their
power, I think that the event has shown after all, that
they were mainly in the right, and that those whom
they were hard upon mainly in the wrong. I love,
for instance, the name of Origen : I will not listen
to the notion that so great a soul was lost; but I
am quite sure that, in the contest between his doc
trine and his followers and ecclesiastical power, his
opponents were right, and he was wrong. Yet who
can speak with patience of his enemy and the enemy
of St. John Chrysostom, that Theophilus, bishop
of Alexandria? who can admire or revere Pope
Vigilius ? And here another consideration presents
itself to my thoughts. In reading ecclesiastical

400 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be
forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error
of what afterwards became heresy was the urging
forward some truth against the prohibition of autho
rity at an unseasonable time. There is a time for
every thing, and many a man desires a reformation
of an abuse, or the fuller development of a doctrine,
or the adoption of a particular policy, but forgets to
ask himself whether the right time for it is come ;
and, knowing that there is no one who will do any
thing towards it in his own lifetime unless he does
it himself, he will not listen to the voice of autho
rity, and spoils a good work in his own century, that
another man, as yet unborn, may not bring it happily
to perfection in the next. He may seem to the world
to be nothing else than a bold champion for the
truth and a martyr to free opinion, when he is just
one of those persons whom the competent authority
ought to silence, and, though the case may not fall
within that subject-matter in which it is infallible,
or the formal conditions of the exercise of that gift
may be wanting, it is clearly the duty of authority
to act vigorously in the case. Yet that act will go
down to posterity as an instance of a tyrannical inter
ference with private judgment, and of the silencing
of a reformer, and of a base love of corruption or
error; and it will show still less to advantage, if the
ruling power happens in its proceedings to act with
any defect of prudence or consideration. And all those
who take the part of that ruling authority will be con-

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 401

sidered as time-servers, or indifferent to the cause of
uprightness and truth ; while, on the other hand, the
said authority may be supported by a violent ultra
party, which exalts opinions into dogmas, and has it
principally at heart to destroy every school of
thought but its own.

Such a state of things may be provoking and
discouraging at the time, in the case of two classes
of persons ; of moderate men who wish to make
differences in religious opinion as little as they fairly
can be made ; and of such as keenly perceive, and
are honestly eager to remedy, existing evils, evils,
of which divines in this or that foreign country know
nothing at all, and which even at home it is not
every one who has the means of estimating. This
is a state of things both of past time and of the
present. We live in a wonderful age ; the enlarge
ment of the circle of secular knowledge just now is
simply a bewilderment, and the more so, because it
has the promise of continuing, and that with greater
rapidity, and more signal results. Now these dis
coveries, certain or probable, have in matter of fact
an indirect bearing upon religious opinions, and the
question arises how are the respective claims of reve
lation and of natural science to be adjusted. Few
minds in earnest can remain at ease without some
sort of rational grounds for their religious belief; to
reconcile theory and fact is almost an instinct of the
mind. When then a flood of facts, ascertained or
suspected, conies pouring in upon us, with a multi-

402 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

tude of others in prospect, all believers in revelation,
be they Catholic or not, are roused to consider their
bearing upon themselves, both for the honour of
God, and from tenderness for those many souls who,
in consequence of the confident tone of the schools
of secular knowledge, are in danger of being led
away into a bottomless liberalism of thought.

I am not going to criticize here that vast body of
men, in the mass, who at this time would profess
to be liberals in religion ; and who look towards the
discoveries of the age, certain or in progress, as their in
formants, direct or indirect, as to what they shall think
about the unseen and the future. The Liberalism
which gives a colour to society now, is very different
from that character of thought which bore the name
thirty or forty years ago. It is scarcely now a party;
it is the educated lay world. When I was young, I
knew the word first as giving name to a periodical,
set up by Lord Byron and others. Now, as then, I
have no sympathy with the philosophy of Byron.
Afterwards, Liberalism was the badge of a theolo
gical school, of a dry and repulsive character, not
very dangerous in itself, though dangerous as open
ing the door to evils which it did not itself either
anticipate or comprehend. Now it is nothing else
than that deep, plausible scepticism, of which I
spoke above, as being the development of human
reason, as practically exercised by the natural man.

The Liberal religionists of this day are a very
mixed body, and therefore I am not intending to

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 403

speak against them. There may be, and doubtless
is, in the hearts of some or many of them a real anti
pathy or anger against revealed truth, which it is dis
tressing to think of. Again ; in many men of science
or literature there may be an animosity arising from
almost a personal feeling ; it being a matter of party,
a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a
consequence of soreness or annoyance occasioned by
the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for religion,
to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is un
trustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on
the other hand, go on, I am confident, in a straight
forward impartial way, in their own province and on
their own line of thought, without any disturbance
from religious opinion in themselves, or any wish at
all to give pain to others by the result of their in
vestigations. It would ill become me, as if I were
afraid of truth of any kind, to blame those who
pursue secular facts, by means of the reason which
God has given them, to their logical conclusions : or
to be angry with science because religion is bound
to take cognizance of its teaching. But putting
these particular classes of men aside, as having no
special call on the sympathy of the Catholic, of
course he does most deeply enter into the feelings
of a fourth and large class of men, in the educated
portions of society, of religious and sincere minds,
who are simply perplexed, frightened or rendered
desperate, as the case may be, by the utter confu
sion into which late discoveries or speculations have

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404 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

thrown their most elementary ideas of religion.
Who does not feel for such men ? who can have
one unkind thought of them? I take up St. Au
gustine s beautiful words, " Illi in vos sseviant," &c.
Let them be fierce with you w y ho have no expe
rience of the difficulty with which error is discrimi
nated from truth, and the way of life is found amid
the illusions of the world. How many Catholics
have in their thoughts followed such men, many of
them so good, so true, so noble ! how often has the
wish risen in their hearts that some one among
themselves should come forward as the champion of
revealed truth against its opponents ! Various per
sons, Catholic and Protestant, have asked me to do
so myself; but I had several strong difficulties in
the way. One of the greatest is this, that at the
moment it is so difficult to say precisely what it is
that is to be encountered and overthrown. I am
far from denying that scientific knowledge is really
growing, but it is by fits and starts ; hypotheses
rise and fall ; it is difficult to anticipate which
will keep their ground, and what the state of know
ledge in relation to them will be from year to year.
In this condition of things, it has seemed to me to be
very undignified for a Catholic to commit himself to
the work of chasing what might turn out to be
phantoms, and in behalf of some special objections, to
be ingenious in devising a theory, which, before it was
completed, might have to give place to some theory
newer still, from the fact that those former objections

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 405

had already come to nought under the uprising
of others. It seemed to be a time of all others, in
which Christians had a call to be patient, in which
they had no other way of helping those who w r ere
alarmed, than that of exhorting them to have a little
faith and fortitude, and to " beware," as the poet says,
" of dangerous steps." This seemed so clear to me,
as I thought more, as to make me surmise, that, if I
attempted what had so little promise in it, I should
find that the highest Catholic authority was against the
attempt, and that I should have spent my time and my
thought, in doing what either it would be imprudent
to bring before the public at all, or what, did I do so,
would only complicate matters more which were
already complicated more than enough. And I in
terpret recent acts of that authority as fulfilling my
expectation ; I interpret them as tying the hands of
a controversialist, such as I should be, and teaching
us that true wisdom, which Moses inculcated on his
people, when the Egyptians were pursuing them,
" Fear ye not, stand still ; the Lord shall fight for
you, and ye shall hold your peace." And so far
from finding a difficulty in obeying in this case,
I have cause to be thankful and to rejoice to have
so clear a direction in a matter of difficulty.

But if we would ascertain with correctness the real
course of a principle, we must look at it at a certain
distance, and as history represents it to us. Nothing
carried on by human instruments, but has its irre
gularities, and affords ground for criticism, when

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406 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR, KINGSLEY.

minutely scrutinized in matters of detail. I have
been speaking of that aspect of the action of an in
fallible authority, which is most open to invidious cri
ticism from those who view it from without ; I have
tried to be fair, in estimating what can be said to its
disadvantage, as witnessed in the Catholic Church,
and now I wish its adversaries to be equally fair in
their judgment upon its historical character. Can,
then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason,
be said in fact to have destroyed the energy of the
intellect in the Catholic Church ? Let it be ob
served, I have not to speak of any conflict which
ecclesiastical authority has had with science, for
there has been none such, because the secular
sciences, as they now exist, are a novelty in the
world, and there has been no time yet for a his
tory of relations between theology and these new
methods of knowledge, and indeed the Church may
be said to have kept clear of them, as is proved
by the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here
" exceptio probat regulam : " for it is the one stock
argument. Again, I have not to speak of any re
lations of the Church to the new sciences, because
my simple question is whether the assumption of in
fallibility by the proper authority is adapted to make
me a hypocrite, and till that authority passes decrees
on pure physical subjects and calls on me to subscribe
them, (which it never will do, because it has not the
power,) it has no tendency by its acts to interfere with
my private judgment on those points. The simple

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 407

question is whether authority has so acted upon the
reason of individuals, that they can have no opinion
of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish
superstition or secret rebellion of heart ; and I think
the whole history of theology puts an absolute nega
tive upon such a supposition. It is hardly necessary
to argue out so plain a point. It is individuals, and
not the Holy See, which has taken the initiative, and
given the lead to Catholic minds, in theological in
quiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged
against the Church of Rome, that it has originated
nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or
break in the development of doctrine. And it is an
objection, which I embrace as a truth ; for such I
conceive to be the main purpose of its extraordinary
gift. It is said, and truly, that the Church of
Rome possessed no great mind in the whole period
of persecution. Afterwards for a long while, it
has not a single doctor to show ; St. Leo, its
first, is the teacher of one point of doctrine; St.
Gregory, who stands at the very extremity of
the first age of the Church, has no place in dogma
or philosophy. The great luminary of the western
world is, as we know, St. Augustine ; he, no in
fallible teacher, has formed the intellect of Europe;
indeed to the African Church generally we must
look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas.
The case is the same as regards the Ecumeni
cal Councils. Authority in its most imposing ex
hibition, grave bishops, laden with the traditions and

408 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

rivalries of particular nations or places, have been
guided in their decisions by the commanding genius
of individuals, sometimes young and of inferior rank.
Not that unjnspired intellect overruled the super
human gift which was committed to the Council,
which would be a self-contradictory assertion, but
that in that process of inquiry and deliberation,
which ended in an infallible enunciation, individual
reason was paramount. Thus the writings of St.
Bonaventura, and, what is more to the point, the
address of a Priest and theologian, Salmeron, at
Trent, had a critical effect on some of the definitions
of dogmas. Parallel to this is the influence, so well
known, of a young deacon, St. Athanasius, with the
318 Fathers at Nicasa. In like manner we hear of
the influence of St. Anselm at Bari, and St. Thomas
at Lyons. In the latter cases the influence might
be partly moral, but in the former it was that of a
discursive knowledge of ecclesiastical writers, a
scientific acquaintance with theology, and a force of
thought in the treatment of doctrine.

There are of course intellectual habits which
theology does not tend to form, as for instance the
experimental, and again the philosophical ; but that
is because it is theology, not because of the gift of
infallibility. But, as far as this goes, I think it
could be shown that physical science on the other
hand, or mathematical, affords but an imperfect
training for the intellect. I do not see then how
any objection about the narrowness of theology

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. K1NGSLEY. 409

comes into our question, which simply is, whether
the belief in an Infallible authority destroys the
independence of the mind ; and I consider that the
whole history of the Church, and especially the
history of the theological schools, gives a nega
tive to the accusation. There never was a time
when the intellect of the educated class was more
active, or rather more restless, than in the middle
ages. And then again all through Church history
from the first, how slow is authority in interfering !
Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor in some local
school, hazards a proposition, and a controversy
ensues. It smoulders or burns in one place, no
one interposing; Rome simply lets it alone. Then
it comes before a Bishop ; or some priest, or some
professor in some other seat of learning takes it up ;
and then there is a second stage of it. Then it
comes before a University, and it may be condemned
by the theological faculty. So the controversy pro
ceeds year after year, and Rome is still silent. An
appeal perhaps is next made to a seat of authority
inferior to Rome ; and then at last after a long while
it comes before the supreme power. Meanwhile,
the question has been ventilated and turned over
and over again, and viewed on every side of it, and
authority is called upon to pronounce a decision,
which has already been arrived at by reason. But
even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates
to do so, and nothing is determined on the point for
years ; or so generally and vaguely, that the whole

410 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

controversy has to be gone through again, before
it is ultimately determined. It is manifest how a
mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to
the liberty, but to the courage, of the individual
theologian or controversialist. Many a man has
ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful for his
clay, but he wishes to have them discussed. He is
willing or rather would be thankful to give them
up, if they can be proved to be erroneous or danger
ous, and by means of controversy he obtains his
end. He is answered, and he yields; or he finds
that he is considered safe. He would not dare to
do this, if he knew an authority, which was supreme
and final, was watching every word he said, and
made signs of assent or dissent to each sentence, as
he uttered it. Then indeed he would be fighting,
as the Persian soldiers, under the lash, and the
freedom of his intellect might truly be said to be
beaten out of him. But this has not been so : I
do not mean to say that, when controversies run high,
in schools or even in small portions of the Church,
an interposition may not rightly take place; and
again, questions may be of that urgent nature, that
an appeal must, as a matter of duty, be made at once
to the highest authority in the Church ; but, if we look
into the history of controversy, we shall find, I think,
the general run of things to be such as I have repre
sented it. Zosimus treated Pelagius and Crelestius
with extreme forbearance; St. Gregory VII. was
equally indulgent with Berengarius; by reason of

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 411

the very power of the Popes they have commonly
been slow and moderate in their use of it.

And here again is a further shelter for the indi
vidual reason: the multitude of nations who are in
the fold of the Church will be found to have acted for
its protection, against any narrowness, if so, in the va
rious authorities at Rome, with whom lies the practical
decision of controverted questions. How have the
Greek traditions been respected and provided for in
the later Ecumenical Councils, in spite of the coun
tries that held them being in a state of schism !
There are important points of doctrine which have
been (humanly speaking) exempted from the in
fallible sentence, by the tenderness with which its
instruments, in framing it, have treated the opinions
of particular places. Then, again, such national
influences have a providential effect in moderating
the bias which the local influences of Italy may
exert upon the See of St. Peter. It stands to reason
that, as the Gallican Church has in it an element of
France, so Rome must have an element of Italy ;
and it is no prejudice to the zeal and devotion with
which we submit ourselves to the Holy See to admit
this plainly. It seems to me, as I have been saying,
that Catholicity is not only one of the notes of the
Church, but, according to the divine purposes, one of
its securities. I think it would be a very serious
evil, which Divine Mercy avert! that the Church
should be contracted in Europe within the range of
particular nationalities. It is a great idea to intro-

3 K

412 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

dnce Latin civilization into America, and to improve
the Catholics there by the energy of French Reli
gion ; but I trust that all European races will have
ever a place in the Church, and assuredly I think
that the loss of the English, not to say the German
element, in its composition has been a most serious
evil. And certainly, if there is one consideration
more than another which should make us English
grateful to Pius the Ninth, it is that, by giving us a
Church of our own, he has prepared the way for
our own habits of mind, our own manner of reason
ing, our own tastes, and our own virtues, finding a
place and thereby a sanctification, in the Catholic
Church.

There is only one other subject, which I think it
necessary to introduce here, as bearing upon the
vague suspicions which are attached in this country
to the Catholic Priesthood. It is one of which my
accuser says much, the charge of reserve and eco
nomy. He founds it in no slight degree on what I
have said on the subject in my History of the Arians,
and in a note upon one of my Sermons in which I
refer to it. The principle of Reserve is also advo
cated by an admirable writer in two numbers of the
Tracts for the Times.

Now, as to the Economy itself, I leave the greater
part of what I have to say to an Appendix. Here
I will but say that it is founded upon the words of
our Lord, " Cast not your pearls before swine ;" and

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 413

it was observed by the early Christians more or less
in their intercourse with the heathen populations
among whom they lived. In the midst of the abomi
nable idolatries and impurities of that fearful time,
they could not do otherwise. But the rule of the
Economy, at least as I have explained and recom
mended it, did not go beyond (1) the concealing the
truth when we could do so without deceit, (2) stating
it only partially, and (3) representing it under the
nearest form possible to a learner or inquirer, when
he could not possibly understand it exactly. I con
ceive that to draw angels with wings is an instance
of the third of these economical modes ; and to
avoid the question, " Do Christians believe in a
Trinity?" by answering, "They believe in only one
God," would be an instance of the second. As to
the first, it is hardly an Economy, but comes under
what is called the "Disciplina Arcani." The second
and third economical modes Clement calls lying;
meaning that a partial truth is in some sense a lie,
and so also is a representative truth. And this,
I think, is about the long and the short of the
ground of the accusation which has been so vio
lently urged against me, as being a patron of the
Economy.

Of late years I have come to think, as I believe
most writers do, that Clement meant more than I
have said. I used to think he used the word " lie "
as an hyperbole, but I now believe that he, as other
early Fathers, thought that, under certain circum-

3x2

414 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

stances, it was lawful to tell a lie. This doctrine I
never maintained, though I used to think, as I do
now, that the theory of the subject is surrounded
with considerable difficulty ; and it is not strange
that I should say so, considering that great English
writers simply declare that in certain extreme cases,
as to save life, honour, or even property, a lie is
allowable. And thus I am brought to the direct
question of truth, and the truthfulness of Catholic
priests generally in their dealings with the world, as
bearing on the general question of their honesty, and
their internal belief in their religious professions.

It would answer no purpose, and it would be
departing from the line of writing which I have been
observing all along, if I entered into any formal dis
cussion on the subject ; what I shall do here, as I
have done in the foregoing pages, is to give my own
testimony on the matter in question, and there to
leave it. Now first I will say, that, when I became
a Catholic, nothing struck me more at once than the
English out-spoken manner of the Priests. It was
the same at Oscott, at Old Hall Green, at Ushaw;
there was nothing of that smoothness, or mannerism,
which is commonly imputed to them, and they were
more natural and unaffected than many an Anglican
clergyman. The many years, which have passed since,
have only confirmed my first impression. I have
ever found it in the priests of this Diocese ; did I
wish to point out a straightforward Englishman, I

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 415

should instance the Bishop, who has, to our great
benefit, for so many years presided over it.

And next, I was struck, when I bad more oppor
tunity of judging of the Priests, by the simple faith in
the Catholic Creed and system of which they always
gave evidence, and which they never seemed to feel,
in any sense at all, to be a burden. And now that
I have been in the Church nineteen years, I cannot
recollect hearing of a single instance in England of
an infidel priest. Of course there are men from time
to time, who leave the Catholic Church for another
religion, but I am speaking of cases, when a man
keeps a fair outside to the world and is a hollow
hypocrite in his heart.

I wonder that the self-devotion of our priests does
not strike Protestants in this point of view. What
do they gain by professing a Creed, in which, if my
assailant is to be believed, they really do not believe ?
What is their reward for committing themselves to
a life of self-restraint and toil, and after all to a
premature and miserable death ? The Irish fever
cut off between Liverpool and Leeds thirty priests
and more, young men in the flower of their days,
old men who seemed entitled to some quiet time
after their long toil. There was a bishop cut off in
the North; but what had a man of his ecclesiastical
rank to do with the drudgery and danger of sick
calls, except that Christian faith and charity con
strained him ? Priests volunteered for the dangerous
service. It was the same on the first coming of

416 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

the cholera, that mysterious awe-inspiring infliction.
If priests did not heartily believe in the Creed of
the Church, then I will say that the remark of the
Apostle had its fullest illustration : " If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men
most miserable." What could support a set of hypo
crites in the presence of a deadly disorder, one of
them following another in long order up the forlorn
hope, and one after another perishing? And such,
I may say, in its substance, is every Mission-Priest s
life. He is ever ready to sacrifice himself for his
people. Night and day, sick or well himself, in all
weathers, off he is, on the news of a sick call.
The fact of a parishioner dying without the Sacra
ments through his fault is terrible to him ; why ter
rible, if he has not a deep absolute faith, which he
acts upon with a free service? Protestants admire
this, when they see it ; but they do not seem to see
as clearly, that it excludes the very notion of hypo
crisy.

Sometimes, when they reflect upon it, it leads
them to remark on the wonderful discipline of the
Catholic priesthood ; they say that no Church has so
well ordered a clergy, and that in that respect it
surpasses their own ; they wish they could have such
exact discipline among themselves. But is it an
excellence which can be purchased ? is it a pheno
menon which depends on nothing else than itself, or is
it an effect which has a cause? You cannot buy
devotion at a price. " It hath never been heard of

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 417

in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen
in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of
Meran, none of these have known its way." What
then is that wonderful charm, which makes a thou
sand men act all in one way, and infuses a prompt
obedience to rule, as if they were under some stern
military compulsion ? How difficult to find an
answer, unless you will allow the obvious one, that
they believe intensely what they profess !

I cannot think what it can be, in a day like this,
which keeps up the prejudice of this Protestant
country against us, unless it be the vague charges
\vhich are drawn from our books of Moral Theology;
and with a notice of the work in particular which my
accuser especially throws in our teeth, I shall in a
very few words bring these observations to a close.

St. Alfonso Liguori, it cannot be denied, lavs

w

down that an equivocation, that is, a play upon
words, in which one sense is taken by the speaker,
and another sense intended by him for the hearer,
is allowable, if there is a just cause, that is, in an
extreme case, and may even be confirmed by an
oath. I shall give my opinion on this point as
plainly as any Protestant can wish ; and therefore I
avow at once that in this department of morality, much
as I admire the high points of the Italian character,
I like the English character better; but, in saying
so, I am not, as will be seen, saying .any thing

418 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

disrespectful to St. Alfonso, who was a lover of
truth, and whose intercession I trust I shall not
lose, though, on the matter under consideration, I
follow other guidance in preference to his.

Now I make this remark first: great English
authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson,
men of very distinct schools of thought, distinctly
say, that under certain extreme circumstances it is
allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says: "To tell a lie
for charity, to save a man s life, the life of a friend,
of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public
person, hath not only been done at all times, but
commended by great and wise and good men. Who
would not save his father s life, at the charge of
a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?" Again,
Milton says: "What man in his senses would deny,
that there are those whom we have the best grounds
for considering that we ought to deceive, as boys,
madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in
error, thieves? I would ask, by which of the com
mandments is a lie forbidden ? You will say, by
the ninth. If then my lie does not injure my
neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this com
mandment." Paley says : " There are falsehoods,
which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal."
Johnson : " The general rule is, that truth should
never be violated ; there must, however, be some
exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask
you which. way a man is gone."

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 419

Now, I am not using these instances as an argu-
mentum ad hominem ; but this is the use to which I
put them :

1. First, I have set down the distinct statements
of Taylor, Milton, Paley, and Johnson ; now, would
any one give ever so little weight to these state
ments, in forming a real estimate of the veracity of
the writers, if they now were alive ? Were a man,
who is so fierce with St. Alfonso, to meet Paley or
Johnson to-morrow in society, would he look upon
him as a liar, a knave, as dishonest and untrust
worthy? I am sure he would not. Why then does
he not deal out the same measure to Catholic
priests? If a copy of Scavini, which speaks of
equivocation as being in a just cause allowable, be
found in a student s room at Oscott, not Scavini
himself, but the unhappy student, who has what a
Protestant calls a bad book in his possession, is judged
for life unworthy of credit. Are all Protestant text
books at the University immaculate? Is it neces
sary to take for gospel every word of Aristotle s
Ethics, or every assertion of Hey or Burnett on the
Articles? Are text-books the ultimate authority, or
are they manuals in the hands of a lecturer, and the
groundwork of his remarks ? But, again, let us sup
pose, not the case of a student, or of a professor, but
of Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso ; now here again
I ask, if you would not scruple in holding Paley for
an honest man, in spite of his defence of lying, why
do you scruple at St. Alfonso? I am perfectly sure

3 L

420 GENEEAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

that you would not scruple at Pale) 7 personally; you
might not agree with him, but you would call him
a bold thinker : then why should St. Alfonso s person \
be odious to you, as well as his doctrine?

Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid
of Paley; because, you would say, when he advo
cated lying, he was taking extreme cases. You would
have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a
burglar dead in his own house, because you know
you are not a burglar : so you would not think that
Paley had a habit of telling lies in society, because
in the case of a cruel alternative he thought it the
lesser evil to tell a lie. Then why do you show
such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, who speaks
of certain extreme cases in which an equivocation
in a penitent cannot be visited by his confessor as
if it were a sin ? for this is the exact point of the
question.

But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy
Taylor, when no practical matter is before him,
lay down a maxim about the lawfulness of lying,
which will startle most readers? The reason is plain.
He is forming a theory of morals, and he must treat
every question in turn as it comes. And this is
just what St. Alfonso orScavini is doing. You only
try your hand yourself at a treatise on the rules of
morality, and you will see how difficult the work is.
What is the definition of a lie ? Can you give a
better than that it is a sin against justice, as Taylor
and Paley consider it? but, if so, how can it be a

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 421

sin at all, if your neighbour is not injured ? If you
do not like this definition, take another; and then,
by means of that, perhaps you will be defending St.
Alfonso s equivocation. However, this is what I
insist upon; that St. Alfonso, as Paley, is consider
ing the different portions of a large subject, and he
must, on the subject of lying, give his judgment,
though on that subject it is difficult to form any
judgment which is satisfactory.

But further still : you must not suppose that a
philosopher or moralist uses in his own case the
licence which his theory itself would allow him.
A man in his own person is guided by his own
conscience; but in drawing out a system of rules he
is obliged to go by logic, and follow the exact deduc
tion of conclusion from conclusion, and be sure that
the whole system is coherent and one. You hear of
even immoral or irreligious books being written by
men of decent character ; there is a late writer who
says that David Hume s sceptical works are not at
all the picture of the man. A priest may write a
treatise which would be called really lax on the sub
ject of lying, which might come under the con
demnation of the Holy See, as some treatises on that
score have been condemned, and yet in his own
person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious
from St. Alfonso s Life, that he, who has the repute
of being so lax a moralist, had one of the most
scrupulous and anxious of consciences himself. Nay,
further than this, he was originally in the Law, and

3L2

422 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

on one occasion he was betrayed into the commission
of what seemed like a deceit, though it was an acci
dent; and that was the very occasion of his leaving
the profession and embracing the religious life.

The account of this remarkable occurrence is told
us in his Life :

"Notwithstanding he had carefully examined
over and over the details of the process, he was com
pletely mistaken regarding the sense of one docu
ment, which constituted the right of the adverse
party. The advocate of the Grand Duke perceived
the mistake, but he allowed Alfonso to continue his
eloquent address to the end without interruption;
as soon, however, as he had finished, he rose, and
said with cutting coolness, Sir, the case is not ex
actly what you suppose it to be ; if you will review
the process, and examine this paper attentively, you
will find there precisely the contrary of all you have
advanced. Willingly, replied Alfonso, without
hesitating ; the decision depends on this question
whether the fief were granted under the law of
Lombardy, or under the French Law. The paper
being examined, it was found that the Grand Duke s
advocate was in the right. Yes, said Alfonso,
holding the paper in his hand, I am wrong, I have
been mistaken. A discovery so unexpected, and
the fear of being accused of unfair dealing, filled
him with consternation, and covered him with con
fusion, so much so, that every one saw his emotion.
Tt was in vain that the President Caravita, who

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 423

loved him, and knew his integrity, tried to console
him, by telling him that such mistakes were not
uncommon, even among the first men at the bar.
Alfonso would listen to nothing, but, overwhelmed
with confusion, his head sunk on his breast, he said
to himself, World, I know you now ; courts of law,
never shall you see me again! And turning his
back on the assembly, he withdrew to his own
house, incessantly repeating to himself, World, I
know you now. What annoyed him most was, that
having studied and re-studied the process during a
whole month, without having discovered this im
portant flaw, he could not understand how it had
escaped his observation."

And this is the man who is so flippantly pro
nounced to be a patron of lying.

But, in truth, a Catholic theologian has objects in
view which men in general little compass ; he is not
thinking of himself, but of a multitude of souls, sick
souls, sinful souls, carried away by sin, full of evil, and
he is trying with all his might to rescue them from
their miserable state; and, in order to save them
from more heinous sins, he tries, to the full extent
that his conscience will allow him to go, to shut his
eyes to such sins, as are, though sins, yet lighter in
character or degree. He knows perfectly well that,
if he is as strict as he would wish to be, he shall be
able to do nothing at all with the run of men; so
he is as indulgent with them as ever he can be.
Let it not be for an instant supposed, that I allow of

424 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

the maxim of doing evil that good may come ; but,
keeping clear of this, there is a way of winning men
from greater sins by winking for the time at the
less, or at mere improprieties or faults ; and this is
the key to the difficulty which Catholic books of
moral theology so often cause to the Protestant.
They are intended for the Confessor, and Protestants
view them as intended for the Preacher.

2. And I observe upon Taylor, Milton, and Paley
thus: What would a Protestant clergyman say to
me, if I accused him of teaching that a lie was allow
able; and, if when he asked for my proof, I said in
reply that Taylor and Milton so taught? Why, he
would sharply retort, " / am not bound by Taylor or
Milton ;" and if I went on urging that " Taylor was
one of his authorities," he would answer that Taylor
was a great writer, but great writers were not there
fore infallible. This is pretty much the answer
which I make, when I am considered in this matter
a disciple of St. Alfonso.

I plainly and positively state, and without any
reserve, that I do not at all follow this holy and
charitable man in this portion of his teaching. There
are various schools of opinion allowed in the Church :
and on this point I follow others. I follow Car
dinal Gerdil, and Natalis Alexander, nay, St. Augus
tine. I will quote one passage from Natalis Alex
ander : " They certainly lie, who utter the words of
an oath, without the will to swear or bind them
selves : or who make use of mental reservations and

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 425

equivocations in swearing, since they signify by words
what they have not in mind, contrary to the end for
which language was instituted, viz. as signs of ideas.
Or they mean something else than the words signify
in themselves and the common custom of speech."
And, to take an instance: I do not believe any
priest in England would dream of saying, " My
friend is not here;" meaning, "Pie is not in my
pocket or under my shoe." Nor should any con
sideration make me say so myself. I do not think
St. Alfonso would in his own case have said so ; and
he would have been as much shocked at Taylor and
Paley, as Protestants are at him.

And now, if Protestants wish to know what our
real teaching is, as on other subjects, so on that of
lying, let them look, not at our books of casuistry,
but at our catechisms. Works on pathology do not
give the best insight into the form and the harmony
of the human frame ; and, as it is with the body, so
is it with the mind. The Catechism of the Council
of Trent was drawn up for the express purpose of
providing preachers with subjects for their sermons ;
and, as my whole work has been a defence of my
self, I may here say that I rarely preach a Sermon,
but I go to this beautiful and complete Catechism
to get both my matter and my doctrine. There
we find the following notices about the duty of
veracity :

" Thou shalt not bear false witness, &c. : let at-

426 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

tention be drawn to two laws contained in this com
mandment : the one, forbidding false witness ; the
other bidding, that removing all pretence and deceits,
we should measure our words and deeds by simple
truth, as the Apostle admonished the Ephesians of
that duty in these words: Doing truth in charity,
let us grow in Him through all things.

" To deceive by a lie in joke or for the sake of
compliment, though to no one there accrues loss or
gain in consequence, nevertheless is altogether un
worthy: for thus the Apostle admonishes, Putting
aside lying, speak ye truth. For therein is great
danger of lapsing into frequent and more serious
lying, and from lies in joke men gain the habit of
lying, whence they gain the character of not being
truthful. And thence again, in order to gain credit
to their words, they find it necessary to make a
practice of swearing.

" Nothing is more necessary than truth of testi
mony, in those things, which we neither know our
selves, nor can allowably be ignorant of, on which
point there is extant that maxim of St. Augustine s ;
Whoso conceals the truth, and whoso puts forth a
lie, each is guilty ; the one because he is not willing
to do a service, the other because he has a wish to
do a mischief.

" It is lawful at times to be silent about the truth,
but out of a court of law; for in court, when a
witness is interrogated by the judge according to
law, the truth is wholly to be brought out.

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 427

" Witnesses, however, must beware, lest, from
over-confidence in their memory, they affirm for
certain, what they have not verified.

" In order that the faithful may with more good
will avoid the sin of lying, the Parish Priest shall
set before them the extreme misery and turpitude
of this wickedness. For, in holy writ, the devil is
called the father of a lie; for, in that he did not
remain in Truth, he is a liar, and the father of a lie.
He will add, with the view of ridding men of so
great a crime, the evils which follow upon lying;
and, whereas they are innumerable, he will point
out [at least] the sources and the general heads of
these mischiefs and calamities, viz. 1. How great is
God s displeasure and how great His hatred of a
man who is insincere and a liar. 2. What security
there is that a man who is specially hated by God
may not be visited by the heaviest punishments.
3. What more unclean and foul, as St. James says,
than .... that a fountain by the same jet should
send out sweet water and bitter ? 4. For that
tongue, which just now praised God, next, as far as
in it lies, dishonours Him by lying. 5. In con
sequence, liars are shut out from the possession of
heavenly beatitude. 6. That too is the worst evil
of lying, that that disease of the mind is generally
incurable.

" Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast
extent, and touching men generally, that by insin
cerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are

3 M

428 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

the firmest bonds of human society, and, when they
are lost, supreme confusion follows in life, so that
men seem in nothing to differ from devils.

"Lastly, the Parish Priest will set those right
who excuse their insincerity and allege the example
of wise men, who, they say, are used to lie for an
occasion. He will tell them, what is most true,
that the wisdom of the flesh is death. He will
exhort his hearers to trust in God, when they are
in difficulties and straits, nor to have recourse to the
expedient of a lie.

" They who throw the blame of their own lie on
those who have already by a lie deceived them, are
to be taught that men must not revenge themselves,
nor make up for one evil by another." ....

There is much more in the Catechism to the same
effect, and it is of universal obligation ; whereas the
decision of a particular author in morals need not
be accepted by any one.

To one other authority I appeal on this subject,
which commands from me attention of a special
kind, for they are the words of a Father. They will
serve to bring my work to a conclusion.

" St. Philip," says the Roman Oratorian who
wrote his Life, " had a particular dislike of affecta
tion both in himself and others, in speaking, in
dressing, or in any thing else.

" He avoided all ceremony which savoured of
worldly compliment, and always showed himself a

GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY. 429

great stickler for Christian simplicity in every thing;
so that, when he had to deal with men of worldly
prudence, he did not very readily accommodate him
self to them.

" And he avoided, as much as possible, having any
thing to do with two-faced persons, who did not go
simply and straightforwardly to work in their trans
actions.

"As for liars, he could not endure them, and he
was continually reminding his spiritual children, to
avoid them as they would a pestilence"

These are the principles on which I have acted
before I was a Catholic; these are the principles
which, I trust, will be my stay and guidance to
the end.

I have closed this history of myself with St. Phi
lip s name upon St. Philip s feast-day; and, having
done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a
memorial of affection and gratitude, than to St.
Philip s sons, my dearest brothers of this House, the
Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, AMBROSE ST.
JOHN, HENRY AUSTIN MILLS, HENRY BITTLESTON,
EDWARD CASWALL, WILLIAM PAINE NEVILLE, and
HENRY IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER? who have been
so faithful to me ; who have been so sensitive of my
needs ; who have been so indulgent to my failings ;
who have carried me through so many trials ; who
have grudged no sacrifice, if I asked for it; who
have been so cheerful under discouragements of my

430 GENERAL ANSWER TO MR. KINGSLEY.

causing ; who have done so many good works, and
let me have the credit of them ; with whom I have
lived so long, with whom I hope to die.

And to you especially, dear AMBROSE ST. JOHN ;
whom God gave me, when He took every one else
away ; who are the link between my old life and my
new ; who have now for twenty-one years been so de
voted to me, so patient, so zealous, so tender; who
have let me lean so hard upon you; who have watched
me so narrowly; who have never thought of yourself,
if I was in question.

And in you I gather up and bear in memory those
familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who
in Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be
my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of
great name and high example, who were my thorough
friends, and showed me true attachment in times
long past ; and also those many young men, whether
I knew them or not, who have never been disloyal
to me by word or by deed ; and of all these, thus
various in their relations to me, those more especially
who have since joined the Catholic Church.

And I earnestly pray for this whole company,
with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once
were so united, and so happy in our union, may even
now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine
Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.

May 26, 1864.
In Festo Corp. Christ.

APPENDIX.

ANSWER IN DETAIL TO MR. KINGSLEY S
ACCUSATIONS.

3 N

APPENDIX.

ANSWER IN DETAIL TO MR. KINGSLEY s ACCUSATIONS.

IN proceeding now, according to the engagement
with which I entered upon my undertaking, to
examine in detail the Pamphlet which has been
written against me, I am very sorry to be obliged to
say, that it is as slovenly and random and futile in
its definite charges, as it is iniquitous in its method
of disputation. And now I proceed to show this
without any delay ; and shall consider in order,

1. My Sermon on the Apostolical Christian.

2. My Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence.

3. The Anglican Church.

4. The Lives of the English Saints.

5. Ecclesiastical Miracles.

6. Popular Religion.

7. The Economy.

8. Lying and Equivocation.

3N2

APPENDIX.

1.

My Sermon on " The Apostolical Christian" being
the 19 ill of " Sermons on Subjects of the Day?

This writer says, " What Dr. Newman means by
Christians ... lie has not left in doubt ;" and then,
quoting a passage from this Sermon which speaks of
" the humble monk and the holy nun " being " Chris
tians after the very pattern given us in Scripture,"
he observes, " This is his definition of Christians."

P. y.

This is not the case. I have neither given a defi
nition, nor implied one, nor intended one ; nor could
I, either now or in 1843-4, or at any time, allow of
the particular definition he ascribes to me. As if
all Christians must be monks or nuns !

What I have said is, that monks and nuns are
patterns of Christian perfection ; and that Scripture
itself supplies us with this pattern. Who can deny
this? Who is bold enough to say that St. John Bap
tist, who, I suppose, is a Scripture Character, is not a
pattern-monk ; and that Mary, who " sat at our Lord s
feet," was not a pattern-nun ? and " Anna too, \vho
served God with fastings and prayers night and
day 1 ?" Again, what is meant but this by St. Paul s
saying, " It is good for a man not to touch a
woman?" and, when speaking of the father or
guardian of a young girl, " He that giveth her in
marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in

APPENDIX. 5

marriage doeth better?" And what does St. John
mean but to praise virginity, when he says of the
hundred forty and four thousand on Mount Sion,
" These are they which were not defiled with women,
for they are virgins?" And what else did our Lord
mean, when He said, " There be eunuchs who have
made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven s
sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive
it?"

He ought to know his logic better: I have said
that "monks and nuns find their pattern in Scrip
ture :" he adds, Therefore I hold all Christians are
monks and nuns.

This is Blot one.

Now then for Blot two.

" Monks and nuns the only perfect Christians . . .
what more 1 ?" p. 9.

A second fault in logic. I said no more than that
monks and nuns were perfect Christians : he adds,
Therefore " monks and nuns are the only perfect
Christians." Monks and nuns are not the only per
fect Christians ; I never thought so or said so, now
or at any other time.

P. 42. " In the Sermon . . . monks and nuns are
spoken of as the only true Bible Christians." This,
again, is not the case. What I said is, that " monks
and nuns are Bible Christians :" it does not follow,
nor did I mean, that " all Bible Christians are monks
and nuns." Bad logic again. Blot three.

6 APPENDIX.

2.

My Sermon on " Wisdom and Innocence" being the
of " Sermons on Subjects of the DayT

This writer says, p. 8, about my Sermon 20, "3y
the world appears to be signified, especially, the
Protestant public of these realms."

He also asks, p. 14, " Why was it preached ? . . .
to insinuate, that the admiring young gentlemen,
who listened to him, stood to their fellow-countrymen
in the relation of the early Christians to the heathen
Romans 1 or that Queen Victoria s Government was
to the Church of England, what Nero s or Dio-
clesian s was to the Church of Rome t It may have
been so."

May or may not, it wasn t. He insinuates, what
not even with his little finger does he attempt to
prove. Blot four.

He asserts, p. 9, that I said in the Sermon in
question, that " Sacramental Confession and the
celibacy of the clergy are notes of the Church."
And, just before, he puts the word "notes" in in
verted commas, as if it was mine. That is, he
garbles. It is not mine.

He says that I " define what I mean by the
Church in two notes of her character." I do not
define, or dream of defining.

1. He says that I teach that the celibacy of the

APPENDIX. 7

clergy enters into the definition of the Church. I
do no such thing; that is the blunt truth. Define
the Church by the celibacy of the clergy ! why, let
him read 1 Tim. iii. ; there he will find that bishops
and deacons are spoken of as married. How, then,
could I be the dolt to say or imply that the celibacy
of the clergy was a part of the definition of the
Church ? Blot sLr.

And again in p. 42, " In the Sermon a celibate
clergy is made a note of the Church." Thus the
untruth is repeated. Blot seven.

2. And now for Blot eight. Neither did I say
that " Sacramental confession " was " a note of the
Church." Nor is it. Nor could I with any co
gency have brought this as an argument against the
Church of England, for the Church of England has
retained Confession, nay, Sacramental Confession.
No fair man can read the form of Absolution in the
Anglican Prayer in the Visitation of the Sick, with
out seeing that that Church does sanction and pro
vide for Confession and Absolution. If that form
does not contain the profession of a grave Sacra
mental act, words have no meaning. The form is
almost in the words of the Roman form; and, by the
time that this Clergyman has succeeded in explaining
it away, he will have also got skill enough to explain
away the Roman form ; and if he did but handle
my words with that latitude with which he inter
prets his own formularies, he would prove that,
instead of my being superstitious and frantic, I was
the most Protestant of preachers and the most

8 APPENDIX.

latitudinarian of thinkers. It would be charity in
him, in his reading of my words, to use some of
that power of evasion, of which he shows himself
such a master in his dealing with his own Prayer
Book. Yet he has the assurance at p. 14 to ask,
" Why was the Sermon preached ? to insinuate that
a Church which had sacramental confession and a
celibate clergy was the only true Church?"

"Why?" I will tell the reader, why ; and with this
view will speak, first of the contents of the Sermon,
then of its subject, then of its circumstances.

1. It was one of the last six Sermons which I
wrote when I was an Anglican. It was one of the
five Sermons I preached in St. Mary s between
Christmas and Easter, 1843, the year when I gave
up my Living. The MS. of the Sermon is de
stroyed ; but I believe, and my memory too bears me
out, as far as it goes, that the sentence in question
about Celibacy and Confession was not preached at
all. The Volume, in which this Sermon is found,
was published after that I had given up St. Mary s,
when I had no call on me to restrain the expression
of any thing which I might hold : and I state an im
portant fact about it in the Advertisement, which
this truth-loving writer suppresses. Blot nine.

My words, which stared him in the face, are as
follows : " In preparing [these Sermons] for publi
cation, a few words and sentences have in several
places been added, which will be found to express
more of private or personal opinion, than it was
expedient to introduce into the instruction delivered

APPENDIX.

in Church to a parochial Congregation. Such in
troduction, however, seems unobjectionable in the
case of compositions, which are detached from the
sacred place and service to which they once be
longed, and submitted to the reason and judgment of
the general reader."

This Volume of Sermons then cannot be criticized
at all as preachments ; they are essays ; essays of a
man who, at the time of publishing them, was not a
preacher. Such passages, as that in question, are
just the very ones which I added upon my publishing
them. I always was on my guard in the pulpit of
saying any thing which looked towards Rome ; and
therefore all his rhetoric about my " disciples,"
"admiring young gentlemen who listened to rne,"
" fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon
my every word," becomes simple rubbish.

I have more to say on this point. This writer
says, p. 14, "I know that men used to suspect Dr.
Newman, I have been inclined to do so myself,
of writing a wliole Serjnon, not for the sake of the
text or of the matter, but for the sake of one simple
passing hint, one phrase, one epithet." Can there
be a plainer testimony borne to the practical cha
racter of my Sermons at St. Mary s than this gra
tuitous insinuation? Many a preacher of Tractarian
doctrine has been accused of not letting bis parish
ioners alone, and of teasing them with his private
theological notions. You would gather from the
general tone of this Writer that that was my way.
Kvery one who was in the habit of hearing me, knows
that it wasn t. This Writer either knows nothing

3 o

10 APPENDIX.

about it, and then he ought to be silent ; or he does
know, and then he ought to speak the truth. Others
spread the same report twenty years ago as he does
now, and the world believed that my Sermons at St.
Mary s were full of red-hot Tractarianism. Then
strangers came to hear me preach, and were asto
nished at their own disappointment. I recollect the
wife of a great prelate from a distance coming to
hear me, and then expressing her surprise to find
that I preached nothing but a plain humdrum
Sermon. I recollect how, when on the Sunday
before Commemoration one year, a number of
strangers came to hear me, and I preached in my
usual way, residents in Oxford, of high position, were
loud in their satisfaction that on a great occasion, I
had made a simple failure, for after all there was
nothing in the Sermon to hear. Well, but they
were not going to let me off, for all my common-
sense view of duty. Accordingly, they got up the
charitable theory which this Writer revives. They
said that there was a double purpose in those plain
addresses of mine, and that my Sermons were never
so artful as when they seemed common-place; that
there were sentences which redeemed their apparent
simplicity and quietness. So they watched during
the delivery of a Sermon, which to them was too
practical to be useful, for the concealed point of it,
which they could at least imagine, if they could not
discover. " Men used to suspect Dr. Newman," he
says, " of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of
the text or of the matter, but for the sake of ... one
phrase, owe epithet, or/c little barbed arrow, which, as

APPENDIX. 1 I

he swept magnificently past on the stream of his calm
eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences,
save those unseen, he delivered unheeded," &c.,
p. 14. To all appearance, he says, I was "uncon
scious of all presences ;" so this kind Writer supplies
the true interpretation of this unconsciousness. He
is not able to deny that "the whole Sermon" had the
appearance of being "for the sake of the text and
matter;" therefore he suggests that perhaps it
wasn t. And then he emptily talks of the "magni
ficent sweep of my eloquence," and my "oratorio
power." Did he forget that the Sermon of which he
thus speaks can be read by others as well as him \
Now, the sentences are as short as Aristotle s, and
as grave as Bishop Butler s. It is written almost in
the condensed style of Tract 90. Eloquence there
is none. I put this down as Blot ten.

2. And now as to the subject of the Sermon. The
series of which the Volume consists are such Sermons
as are, more or less, exceptions to the rule which I
ordinarily observed, as to the subjects which I intro
duced into the pulpit of St. Mary s. They are not
purely ethical or doctrinal. They were for the most
part caused by circumstances of the day or of the
time, and they belong to various years. One was
written in 1832, two in 1836, two in 1838, five in
1840, five in 1841, four in 1842, seven in J843.
Many of them are engaged on one subject, viz. in
viewing the Church in its relation to the world. By
the world was meant, not simply those multitudes

3o2

12 APPENDIX.

which were not in the Church, but the existing body
of human society, whether in the Church or not,
whether Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, or Maho
metans, theists or idolaters, as being ruled by prin
ciples, maxims, and instincts of their own, that is, of
an unregenerate nature, whatever their supernatural
privileges might be, greater or less, according to their
form of religion. This view of the relation of the
Church to the world as taken apart from questions
of ecclesiastical politics, as they may be called, is
often brought out in my Sermons. Two occur to
me at once ; No. 3 of my Plain Sermons, which was
written in 1829, and No. 15 of my Third Volume,
written in 1835. Then, on the other hand, by
Church I meant, in common with all writers con
nected with the Tract Movement, whatever their
shades of opinion, and with the whole body of
English divines, except those of the Puritan or
Evangelical School, the whole of Christendom,
from the Apostles time till now, whatever their
later divisions into Latin, Greek, and Anglican. I
have explained this view of the subject above at pp.
147- -150 of this Volume. When then I speak,
in the particular Sermon before us, of the members,
or the rulers, or the action of " the Church," I mean
neither the Latin, nor the Greek, nor the English,
taken by itself, but of the whole Church as one
body: of Italy as one with England, of the Saxon
or Norman as one with the Caroline Church. This
was specially the one Church, and the points in which
one branch or one period differed from another were

APPENDIX. 13

not and could not be Notes of the Church, because
Notes necessarily belonged to the whole of the
Church ever) 7 where and always.

This being my doctrine as to the relation of the
Church to the world, T laid down in the Sermon
three principles concerning it, and there left the
matter. The first is, that Divine Wisdom had
framed for its action, laws which man, if left to
himself, would have antecedently pronounced to be
the worst possible for its success, and which in all
ages have been called by the world, as they were in
the Apostles days, "foolishness;" that man ever
relies on physical and material force, and on carnal
inducements, as Mahomet with his sword and his
houris, or indeed almost as that theory of religion,

r O

called, since the Sermon was written, " muscular
Christianity ;" but that our Lord, on the contrary, has
substituted meekness for haughtiness, passiveness for
violence, and innocence for craft: and that the
event has shown the high wisdom of such an
economy, for it has brought to light a set of natural
laws, unknown before, by which the seeming paradox
*that weakness should be stronger than might, and
simplicity than worldly policy, is readily explained.

Secondly, I said that men of the world, judging
by the event, and not recognizing the secret causes
of the success, viz. a higher order of natural laws,
natural, though their source and action were super
natural, (for "the meek inherit the earth," by means
of a meekness which comes from above,) these men,
I say, concluded, that the success which they wit
nessed must arise from some evil secret which the

14 APPENDIX.

world had not mastered, by means of magic, as they
said in the first ages, by cunning as they say now.
And accordingly they thought that the humility and
inoffensiveness of Christians, or of Churchmen, was a
mere pretence and blind to cover the real causes of
that success, which Christians could explain and
would not; and that they were simply hypocrites.

Thirdly, I suggested that shrewd ecclesiastics, who
knew very well that there was neither magic nor craft
in the matter, and, from their intimate acquaintance
with what actually went on within the Church, dis
cerned what were the real causes of its success, were
of course under the temptation of substituting reason
for conscience, and, instead of simply obeying the
command, were led to do good that good might
come, that is, to act in order to their success, and
not from a motive of faith. Some, I said, did yield
to the temptation more or less, and their motives
became mixed ; and in this way the world in a more
subtle shape has got into the Church ; and hence it
has come to pass, that, looking at its history from first
to last, \ve cannot possibly draw the line between
good and evil there, and say either that every thing
is to be defended, or some things to be condemned.
I expressed the difficulty, which I supposed to be in
herent in the Church, in the following words. I said,
" Priestcraft has ever been considered the badge, and
its imputation is a kind of Note of the Church;
and in part indeed truly, because the presence of
powerful enemies, and the sense of their own weak
ness, lias sometimes tempted Christians to the abuse,
instead of the use of Christian wisdom, to be wise

APPENDIX. 15

without being harmless; but partly, nay, for the
most part, not truly, but slanderously, and merely
because the world called their wisdom craft, when it
was found to be a match for its own numbers and
power." This passage he has partly garbled, partly
omitted. Blot eleven.

Such is the substance of the Sermon : and as to
the main drift of it, it was this; that I was, there
and elsewhere, scrutinizing the course of the Church
as a whole, as if philosophically, as an historical
phenomenon, and observing the laws on which it was
conducted. Hence the Sermon, or Essay as it more
truly is, is written in a dry and unimpassioned way :
it shows as little of human warmth of feeling, I
repeat, as a Sermon of Bishop Butler s. Yet, under
that calm exterior there was a deep and keen sen
sitiveness, as I shall now proceed to show.

3. If I mistake not, it was written with a secret
thought about myself. Every one preaches according
to his frame of mind, at the time of preaching. One
heaviness especially oppressed me at that season,
which this Writer, twenty years afterwards, has set
himself with a good will to renew : it arose from the
sense of the base calumnies which were thrown upon
me on all sides. In this trouble of mind I gained,
while I reviewed the history of the Church, at once an
argument and a consolation. My argument was this :
if I, who knew my own innocence, was so blackened
by party prejudice, perhaps those high rulers and
those servants of the Church, in the many ages which
intervened between the earlv Nicene times and the

16 APPENDIX.

present, who were laden with such grievous accusa
tions, were innocent also ; and this reflection served
to make me tender towards those great names of
the past, to whom weaknesses or crimes were im
puted, and reconciled me to difficulties in ecclesias
tical proceedings, which there were no means now
of properly explaining. And the sympathy thus ex
cited for them, re-acted on myself, and I found
comfort in being able to put myself under the
shadow of those who had suffered as I was suffering,
and who seemed to promise me their recompense,
since I had a fellowship in their trial. In a letter
to my Bishop at the time of Tract 90, part of which
I have quoted, I said that I had ever tried to "keep
innocency;" and now two years had passed since
then, and men were louder and louder in heaping
on me the very charges, which this Writer repeats
out of my Sermon, of " fraud and cunning," " crafti
ness and deceitfulness," " double-dealing," " priest
craft," of being " mysterious, dark, subtle, design
ing," when I was all the time conscious to myself, in
my degree, and after my measure, of " sobriety, self-
restraint, and control of word and feeling." I had
had experience how my past success had been
imp uted to "secret management;" and how, \vhen
I had shown surprise at that success, that surprise
again was imputed to "deceit;" and how my honest
heartfelt submission to authority had been called, as it
was called in a colonial Bishop s charge, "mystic humi
lity ;" and how my silence was called an " hypocrisy ;"
and my faithfulness to my Clerical engagements a
secret correspondence with the enemy. And I

APPENDIX. 17

found a way of destroying my sensitiveness about
these things which jawed upon my sense of justice,
and otherwise would have been too much for me,
by the contemplation of a large law of the Divine
Dispensation, anc found myself more and more
able to bear in my own person a present trial, of
which in my past writings I had expressed an
anticipation.

For thus feeling and thus speaking this Writer
has the charitableness and the decency to call me
" Mawworm." " I found him telling Christians," he
says, "that they will always seem artificial, and
wanting in openness and manliness; that they
will always be a mystery to the world; and that
the world will always think them rogues ; and
bidding them glory in what the world (that is, the
rest of their fellow-countrymen) disown, and say
with Mawworm, I like to be despised. . . . How
was I to know that the preacher . . . was utterly
blind to the broad meaning and the plain practical
result of a Sermon like this delivered before fanatic
and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every
word?" p. 17. Hot-headed young men! why, man,
you are writing a Romance. You think the scene is
Alexandria or the Spanish main, where you may let
your imagination play revel to the extent of inve
racity. It is good luck for me that the scene of my
labours was not at Moscow or Damascus. Then I
might be one of your ecclesiastical Saints, of which I
sometimes hear in conversation, but with whom, I am
glad to say, I have no personal acquaintance. Then
you might ascribe to me a more deadly craft than

18 APPENDIX.

mere quibbling and lying; in Spain I should have
been an Inquisitor, with my rack in the background;
I should have had a concealed dagger in Sicily ;
at Venice I should have brewed poison ; in Turkey
I should have been the Sheik-el-Islam with my
bowstring ; in Khorassan I should have been a
veiled Prophet. "Fanatic young men!" Why he
is writing out the list of a Dramatis Personse ;
" guards, conspirators, populace," and the like. He
thinks I was ever moving about with a train of
Capulets at my heels. " Hot-headed fanatics, who
hung on my every word !" If he had taken to write
a history, and not a play, he would have easily
found out, as I have said, that from 1841 I had
severed myself from the younger generation of
Oxford, that Dr. Pusey and I had then closed our
theological meetings at his house, that I had brought
my own weekly evening parties to an end, that I
preached only by fits and starts at St. Mary s, so that
the attendance of young men was broken up, that in
those very weeks from Christmas till over Easter,
during which this Sermon was preached, I was but
five times in the pulpit there. He would have
known, that it was written at a time when I was
shunned rather than sought, when I had great sacri
fices in anticipation, when I was thinking much of
myself; that I was ruthlessly tearing myself away
from my own followers, and that, in the musings of
that Sermon, I was at the very utmost only deliver
ing a testimony in my behalf for time to come, not
sowing my rhetoric broadcast for the chance of
present sympathy. Blot twelve.

APPENDIX. 19

I proceed : he says at p. 15, "I found him actually
using of such [prelates], (and, as I thought, of him
self and his party likewise,) the words They yield out
wardly ; to assent inwardly were to betray the faith.
Yet they are called deceitful and double-dealing,
because they do as much as they can, not more than
they may. This too is a proof of my duplicity !
Let this writer go with some one else, just a little
further than he has gone with me; and let him
get into a court of law for libel ; and let him be
convicted ; and let him still fancy that his libel,
though a libel, was true, and let us then see whether
he will not in such a case " yield outwardly," with
out assenting internally ; and then again whether we
should please him, if we called him " deceitful and
double-dealing," because "he did as much as he
could, not more than he ought to do." But Tract
90 will supply a real illustration of what I meant.
I yielded to the Bishops in outward act, viz. in not
defending the Tract, and in closing the Series ; but,
not only did I not assent inwardly to any condemna
tion of it, but I opposed myself to the proposition of
a condemnation on the part of authority. Yet I
was then by the public called " deceitful and double-
dealing," as this Writer calls me now, " because I
did as much as I felt I could do, and not more than
I felt I could honestly do." Many were the publi
cations of the day and the private letters which
accused me of shuffling, because I closed the Series
of Tracts, yet kept the Tracts on sale, as if I ought
to comply not only with what my Bishop asked, but
with what he did not ask, and perhaps did not wish.

3

20 APPENDIX.

However, such teaching, according to this Writer,
was likely to make young men suspect, that truth
was not a virtue for its own sake, but only for the
sake of " the spread of Catholic opinions," and the
"salvation of their own souls;" and that "cunning
was the weapon which heaven had allowed to them
to defend themselves against the persecuting Pro
testant public." p. 16. Blot thirteen.

And now I draw attention to another point. He
says at p. 15, "How was I to know that the
preacher . . . did not foresee, that [fanatic and hot
headed young men] would think that they obeyed
him, by becoming affected, artificial, sly, shifty,
ready for concealments and equivocations? "How
should he know !" What ! I suppose that we are to
think every man a knave till he is proved not to be
such. Know ! had he no friend to tell him whether
I was "affected" or "artificial" myself ? Could he
not have done better than impute equivocations to me,
at a time when I was in no sense answerable for the
ampldbolocjia of the Roman casuists ? Has he a single
fact which belongs to me personally or by profession
to couple my name with equivocation in 1843 ?
" How should he know " that I was not sly, smooth,
artificial, non-natural ! he should know by that
common manly frankness, if he had it, by which we
put confidence in others, till they are proved to have
forfeited it ; he should know it by my own words in
that very Sermon, in which I say it is best to be
natural, and that reserve is at best but an unpleasant
necessity. I say, " I do not deny that there is some-

APPENDIX. 21

tiling very engaging in a frank and unpretending
manner; some persons have it more than others; in
some persons it is a great grace. But it must be re
collected that I am speaking of times of persecution
and oppression to Christians, such as the text fore
tells ; and then surely frankness will become nothing
else than indignation at the oppressor, and vehement
speech, if it is permitted. Accordingly, as persons
have deep feelings, so they will find the necessity of
self-control, lest they should say what they ought not.
He omits these words. I call, then, this base insinua
tion that I taught equivocation, Blot t\\e fourteenth.

Lastly, he sums up thus : " If [Dr. Newman]
would . . . persist (as in this Sermon) in dealing with
matters dark, offensive, doubtful, sometimes actually
forbidden, at least according to the notions of the
great majority of English Churchmen; if he would
always do so in a tentative, paltering way, seldom
or never letting the world know how much he
believed, how far he intended to go ; if, in a word,
his method of teaching was a suspicious one, what
wonder if the minds of men were filled with sus
picions of him?" p. 17-

Now first he is speaking of my Sermons; where,
then, is his proof that in my Sermons I dealt in
matters dark, offensive, doubtful, actually forbidden ?
he has said nothing in proof that I have not been
able flatly to deny.

"Forbidden according to the notions of the great
majority of English Churchmen." I should like to
know what opinions, beyond those which relate to

22 APPENDIX.

the Creed, (lire held by the "majority of English
Churchmen:" are his own? is it not perfectly well
known, that "the great majority" think of him and
his views with a feeling which I will not describe,
because it is not necessary for my argument? So
far is certain, that he has not the majority with
him.

"In a tentative, paltering way." The word "pal
tering" I reject, as vague ; as to " tentative," he must
show that I was tentative in my Sermons ; and he has
eight volumes to look through. As to the ninth, my
University Sermons, of course I was " tentative ;" but
not because " I would seldom or never let the world
know how much I believed, or how far I intended
to go;" but because in deep subjects, which had not
been fully investigated, I said as much as I believed,
and about as far as I saw I could go ; and a man
cannot do more ; and I account no man to be a
philosopher who attempts to do more. How long
am I to have the office of merely negativing asser
tions which are but supported by former assertions,
in which John is ever helping Tom, and the elephant
stands upon the tortoise? This is Blot fifteen.

APPENDIX 23

3.

The Anglican Church.

This Writer says : " If there is, as there is, a
strong distrust of certain Catholics, it is restricted
to the proselytizing priests among them ; and espe
cially to those, who, like Dr. Newman, have turned
round upon their mother Church, (I had almost said
their mother country,) with contumely and slander."
-p. 18.

No one has a right to make a charge, without at
least an attempt to prove what he says ; but this
Writer is consistent with himself. From the time
that he first spoke of rne in the Magazine, when has
he ever even professed to give evidence of any sort
for any one of his charges, from his own sense of
propriety, and without being challenged on the
point? After the sentence which 1 have been
quoting, and another like it, he coolly passes on to
Tract 90 ! Blot sixteen ; but I shall dwell on it
awhile, for its own sake.

Now I have been bringing out my mind in this
Volume on every subject which has come before
me ; and therefore I am bound to state plainly what
I feel and have felt, since I was a Catholic, about the
Anglican Church. I said, in a former page, that,
on my conversion, I was not conscious of any change
in me of thought or feeling, as regards matters of
doctrine ; this, however, was not the case as regards
some matters of fact, and, unwilling as I am to give

24 APPENDIX.

offence to religious Anglicans, I am bound to con
fess that I felt a great change in my view of the
Church of England. I cannot tell how soon there
came on me, but very soon, an extreme astonish
ment that I had ever imagined it to be a portion of
the Catholic Church. For the first time, I looked at
it from without, and (as I should myself say) saw it
as it was. Forthwith I could not get myself to see
in it any thing else, than what I had so long fearfully
suspected, from as far back as 1836, a mere national
institution. As if my eyes were suddenly opened,
so I saw it spontaneously, apart from any definite
act of reason or any argument; and so I have seen
it ever since. I suppose, the main cause of this lay
in the contrast which was presented to me by the
Catholic Church. Then I recognized at once a
reality which was quite a new thing with me. Then
I was sensible that I was not making for myself a
Church by an effort of thought; 1 needed not to
make an act of faith in her ; I had not painfully to
force myself into a position, but my mind fell back
upon itself in relaxation and in peace, and I gazed
at her almost passively as a great objective fact. I
looked at her; at her rites, her ceremonial, and her
precepts ; and I said, " This is a religion ;" and then,
when I looked back upon the poor Anglican Church,
for which I had laboured so hard, and upon all that
appertained to it, arid thought of our various at
tempts to dress it up doctrinally and esthetically, it
seemed to me to be the veriest of nonentities.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ! How can I make
a record of what passed within me, without seeming

APPENDIX. 25

to be satirical ? But I speak plain, serious words.
As people call me credulous for acknowledging
Catholic claims, so they call me satirical for dis
owning Anglican pretensions; to them it is cre
dulity, to them it is satire; but it is not so in me.
What they think exaggeration, I think truth. I
am not speaking of the Anglican Church in any
disdain, though to them I seem contemptuous. To
them of course it is "Aut Caesar aut nullus," but not
to me. It may be a great creation, though it be
not divine, and this is how I judge of it. Men,
who abjure the divine right of kings, would be very
indignant, if on that account they were considered
disloyal. And so I recognize in the Anglican Church
a time-honoured institution, of noble historical me
mories, a monument of ancient wisdom, a momentous
arm of political strength, a great national organ, a
source of vast popular advantage, and, to a certain
point, a witness and teacher of religious truth. I do
not think that, if what I have written about it since
I have been a Catholic, be equitably considered as a
whole, I shall be found to have taken any other view
than this ; but that it is something sacred, that it is
an oracle of revealed doctrine, that it can claim a
share in St. Ignatius or St. Cyprian, that it can take
the rank, contest the teaching, and stop the path of
the Church of St. Peter, that it can call itself "the
Bride of the Lamb," this is the view of it which
simply disappeared from my mind on my conversion,
and which it would be almost a miracle to repro
duce. "I went by, and lo ! it was gone; I sought
it, but its place could no where be found ;" and

3 Q

26 APPENDIX.

nothing can bring it back to me. And, as to its
possession of an episcopal succession from the time
of the Apostles, well, it may have it, and, if the Holy
See ever so decided, I will believe it, as being the
decision of a higher judgment than my own; but,
for myself, I must have St. Philip s gift, who saw the
sacerdotal character on the forehead of a gaily-
attired youngster, before I can by my own wit
acquiesce in it, for antiquarian arguments are al
together unequal to the urgency of visible facts.
Why is it that I must pain dear friends by saying so,
and kindle a sort of resentment against me in the
kindest of hearts? but I must, though to do it be
not only a grief to me, but most impolitic at the
moment. Any how, this is my mind; and, if to
have it, if to have betrayed it, before now, involun
tarily by my words or my deeds, if on a fitting occa
sion, as now, to have avowed it, if all this be a proof
of the justice of the charge brought against me
of having "turned round upon my Mother-Church
with contumely and slander," in this sense, but in no
other sense, do I plead guilty to it without a word in
extenuation.

In no other sense surely; the Church of England
has been the instrument of Providence in conferring
great benefits on me; had I been born in Dissent,
perhaps I should never have been baptized; had I
been born an English Presbyterian, perhaps 1 should
never have known our Lord s divinity; had I not
come to Oxford, perhaps I never should have heard of
the visible Church, or of Tradition, or other Catholic
doctrines. And as I have received so much good

APPENDIX. 27

from the Anglican Establishment itself, can I have
the heart, or rather the want of charity, considering
that it does for so many others, what it has done for
me, to wish to see it overthrown \ I have no such
wish while it is what it is, and while we are so small
a body. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of
the many congregations to which it ministers, I
will do nothing against it. While Catholics are so
weak in England, it is doing our work ; and, though
it does us harm in a measure, at present the balance
is in our favour. What our duty would be at
another time and in other circumstances, supposing,
for instance, the Establishment lost its dogmatic
faith, or at least did not preach it, is another matter
altogether. In secular history we read of hostile
nations having long truces, and renewing them from
time to time, and that seems to be the position the
Catholic Church may fairly take up at present in
relation to the Anglican Establishment.

Doubtless the National Church has hitherto been
a serviceable breakwater against doctrinal errors,
more fundamental than its own. How long- this will

O

last in the years now before us, it is impossible to say,
for the Nation drags down its Church to its own level ;
but still the National Church has the same sort of
influence over the Nation that a periodical has upon
the party which it represents, and my own idea of
a Catholic s fitting attitude towards the National
Church in this its supreme hour, is that of assisting
and sustaining it, if it be in our power, in the in
terest of dogmatic truth. I should wish to avoid
every thing, except under the direct call of duty,

3 Q 2

28 APPENDIX.

which went to weaken its hold upon the public
mind, or to unsettle its establishment, or to em
barrass and lessen its maintenance of those great
Christian and Catholic principles and doctrines
which it has up to this time successfully preached.

I say, " except under the call of duty ;" and this
exception, I am obliged to admit, is not a slight
one; it is one which necessarily places a bar to
any closer relation between it and ourselves, than
that of an armed truce. For, in the first place, it
stands to reason that even a volume, such as this
has been, exerts an influence adverse to the Esta
blishment, at least in the case of many minds ;
and this I cannot avoid, though I have sincerely
attempted to keep as wide of controversy in the
course of it, as ever I could. And next I cannot
deny, what must be ever a very sore point with
Anglicans, that, if any Anglican comes to me after
careful thought and prayer, and with deliberate
purpose, and says, " I believe in the Holy Catholic
Church, and that your Church and yours alone is it,
and I demand admittance into it, it would be the
greatest of sins in me to reject such a man, as being
a distinct contravention of our Lord s maxim, "Freely
ye have received, freely give."

I have written three volumes which may be con
sidered controversial; Loss and Gain in 1847; Lec
tures on Difficulties felt by Anglicans in submitting
to the Catholic Church in 1850; and Lectures on
the present Position of Catholics in England in 1851.
And though I have neither time nor need to go into

APPENDIX. 29

the matter minutely, a few words will suffice for
some general account of what has been my object
and my tone in these works severally.

Of these three, the Lectures on the " Position of
Catholics" have nothing to do with the Church of
England, as such; they are directed against the
Protestant or Ultra-Protestant Tradition on the sub
ject of Catholicism since the time of Queen Eliza
beth, in which parties indeed in the Church of
England have largely participated, but which cannot
be confused with Anglican teaching itself. Much
less can that Tradition be confused with the doc
trine of the Laudian or of the Tractarian School.
1 owe nothing to Protestantism ; and I spoke against
it even when I was an Anglican, as well as in these
Catholic Lectures. If I spoke in them against the
Church Established, it was because, and so far as, at
the time when thev were delivered, the Establish-

ment took a violent part against the Catholic Church,
on the basis of the Protestant Tradition. More
over, I had never as an Anglican been a lover of the
actual Establishment; Hurrell Froude s Remains, in
which it is called an " incubus " and " Upas Tree,"
will stand in evidence, as for him, so for me; for I
was one of the Editors. What I said even as an
Anglican, it is not strange that I said when I was
not. Indeed I have been milder in my thoughts
of the Establishment ever since I have been a
Catholic than before, and for an obvious reason ; -
when I was an Anglican, I viewed it as repressing
a higher doctrine than its own; and now I view it
as keeping out a lower and more dangerous.

30 APPENDIX.

Then as to my Lectures on Anglican Difficulties.
Neither were these formally directed against the
National Church. They were addressed to the
"Children of the Movement of 1833," to impress
upon them, that, whatever was the case with others,
their duty at least was to become Catholics, since
Catholicism was the real scope and issue of that
Movement. "There is but one thing," I say, "that
forces me to speak. ... It will be a miserable
thing for you and for me, if I have been instru
mental in bringing you but half-way, if I have co
operated in removing your invincible ignorance, but
am able to do no more." p. 5. Such being the drift
of the Volume, the reasoning directed against the
Church of England goes no further than this, that
it had no claims whatever on such of its members as
were proceeding onwards with the Movement into
the Catholic Church.

Lastly, as to Loss and Gain : it is the story,
simply ideal, of the conversion of an Oxford man.
Its drift is to show how little there is in Anglican
ism to satisfy and retain a young and earnest heart.
In this Tale, all the best characters are sober
Church-of-England people. No Tractarians proper
are introduced : and this is noted in the Advertise
ment: "No proper representative is intended in
this Tale, of the religious opinions, which had lately
so much influence in the University of Oxford."
There could not be such in the Tale, without the
introduction of friends, which was impossible in its
very notion. But, since the scene was to be laid
during the very years, and at the head-quarters, of

APPENDIX. 31

Tractarianism, some expedient was necessary in
order to meet what was a great difficulty. My
expedient was the introduction of what may be
called Tractarians improper; and I took them the
more readily, because, though I knew that such
there were, I knew none of them personally. I
mean such men as I used to consider of "the gilt-
gingerbread school," from whom I expected little
good, persons whose religion lay in ritualism or
architecture, and who "played at Popery" or at
Anglicanism. I repeat I knew no such men, be
cause it is one thing to desire fine churches and
ceremonies, (which of course I did myself,) and
quite another thing to desire these and nothing
else; but at that day there was in some quarters,
though not in those where I had influence, a strong
movement in the esthetic direction. Doubtless I
went too far in my apprehension of such a move
ment : for one of the best, and most devoted and
hard-working Priests I ever knew was the late
Father Hutchison, of the London Oratory, and I
believe it was architecture that directed his thoughts
towards the Catholic Church. However, I had in
my mind an external religion which was inordinate;
and, as the men who were considered instances of
it, were personally unknown to me, even by name, I
introduced them, under imaginary representatives, in
Loss and Gain, and that, in order to get clear of
Tractarians proper; and of the three men, whom I
have introduced, the Anglican is the best. In like
manner I introduced two "gilt-gingerbread" young
ladies, who were ideal, absolutely, utterly, without

32 APPENDIX.

a shred of concrete existence about them ; and I
introduced them with the remark that they were
"really kind charitable persons," and "by no means
put forth as a type of a class," that "among such
persons were to be found the gentlest spirits and
the tenderest hearts," and that "these sisters had
open hands, if they had not wise heads," but that
" they did not know much of matters ecclesiastical,
and they knew less of themselves."

It has been said, indeed, 1 know not to what
extent, that I introduced my friends or partisans
into the Tale ; this is utterly untrue. Only two
cases of this misconception have come to my know
ledge, and I at once denied each of them outright ;
and I take this opportunity of denying generally the
truth of all other similar charges. No friend of
mine, no one connected in any way with the Move
ment, entered into the composition of any one of
the characters. Indeed, putting aside the two in
stances which have been distinctly brought before
me, I have not even any sort of suspicion who the
persons are, whom I am thus accused of introducing.

Next, this writer goes on to speak of Tract 90 ; a
subject of which I have treated at great length in a
former passage of this narrative, and, in consequence,
need not take up again now.

APPENDIX. 33

4.

Series of Lives of the English Saints.

I have given the history of this publication above
at pp. 337 340. It was to have consisted of
almost 300 Lives, and I was to have been the
Editor. It was brought to an end, before it w r as
well begun, by the act of friends who were frightened
at the first Life printed, the Life of St. Stephen
Harding. Thus I was not responsible except for the
first two numbers; and the Advertisements distinctly
declared this. I had just the same responsibility
about the other Lives, that my assailant had, and
not a bit more. However, it answers his purpose to
consider me responsible.

Next, I observe, that his delusion about "hot
headed fanatic young men " continues : here again I
figure with my strolling company. " They said," he
observes, " what they believed ; at least, what they had
been taught to believe that they ought to believe.
And who had taught them ? Dr. Newman can best
answer that question," p. 20. Well, I w r ill do what
I can to solve the mystery.

Now as to the juvenile writers in the proposed
series. One was my friend Mr. Bowden, who in
1843 was a man of 46 years old ; he was to have
written St. Boniface. Another was Mr. Johnson, a
man of 42; he was to have written St. Aldelm.
Another was the author of St. Augustine : let us
hear something about him from this writer:

3 R

34 APPENDIX.

"Dr. Newman," he says, "might have said to the
Author of the Life of St Augustine, when he found
him, in the heat and haste of youthful fanaticism,
outraging historic truth and the law of evidence,
This must not be. -p. 20.

Good. This juvenile was past 40, well, say 39.
Blot seventeen. " This must not be." This is what I
ought to have said, it seems ! And then, you see, I
have not the talent, and never had, of some people,
for lecturing my equals, much less men twenty years
older than myself.

But again, the author of St. Augustine s Life dis
tinctly says in his Advertisement, " No one but himself
is responsible for the way in which these materials
have been used." Blot eighteen.

Thirty-three Lives were actually published. Out of
the whole number this writer notices three. Of these
one is " charming ;" therefore I am not to have the be
nefit of it. Another " outrages historic truth and the
law of evidence ;" therefore " it was notoriously sanc
tioned by Dr. Newman." And the third was "one
of the most offensive," and Dr. Newman must have
formally connected himself with it in "a moment
of amiable weakness."- -p. 22. What even-handed
justice is here ! Blot nineteen.

But to return to the juvenile author of St. Augus
tine : "I found," says this writer, "the Life of St.
Augustine saying, that, though the pretended visit
of St. Peter to England wanted historic evidence,
yet it has undoubtedly been received as a pious

APPENDIX. 35

opinion by the Church at large, as we learn from the
often-quoted words of St. Innocent I. (who wrote
A.D. 41 (j) that St. Peter was instrumental in the
conversion of the West generally. " p. 21. He
brings this passage against me (with which, however,
I have nothing more to do than he has) as a great
misdemeanour; but let us see Mhat his criticism is
worth. "And this sort of argument," continues the
passage, " though it ought to be kept quite distinct
from documentary and historic proof, will not be with
out its effect on devout minds," &c. I should have
thought this a very sober doctrine, viz. that we must
not confuse together two things quite distinct from
each other, criticism and devotion, proof and opi
nion, that a devout mind will hold opinions which
it cannot demonstrate by " historic proof." What,
I ask, is the harm of saying this? Is this my As
sailant s definition of opinion, "a thing which can
be proved?" I cannot answer for him, but I can
answer for men in general. Let him read Sir
David Brewster s " More Worlds than One ;" this
principle, which is so shocking to my assailant,
is precisely the argument of Sir David s book ;
he tells us that the plurality of worlds cannot be
proved, but will be received by religious men. He
asks, p. 229, " If the stars are not suns, for what
conceivable purpose were they created ? " and then
he lays down dogmatically, p. 254, " There is no
opinion, out of the region of pure demonstration,
more universally cherished than the doctrine of the
Plurality of worlds." And in his Title-page he styles
this "opinion" "the creed of the philosopher and

3 R2

36 APPENDIX.

the hope of the Christian." If Brewster may bring
devotion into Astronomy, why may not my friend
bring it into History ? and that the more, when he
actually declares that it ought to be kept quite dis
tinct from history, and by no means assumes that he
is an historian because he is a hagiographer ; whereas,
somehow or other, Sir David does seem to me to
show a zeal greater than becomes a savant, and to
assume that he himself is a theologian because he is
an astronomer. This writer owes Sir David as well
as me an apology. Blot twenty.

He ought to wish his original charge against me
in the Magazine dead and buried ; but he has the
good sense and good taste to revive it again and
again. This is one of the places which he has
chosen for it. Let him then, just for a change, sub
stitute Sir David Brewster for me in his sentence ;
Sir David has quite as much right to the compliment
as I have, as far as this Life of St. Augustine is
concerned. Then he will be saying, that, because
Sir David teaches that the belief in more worlds than
one is a pious opinion, and not a demonstrated fact,
he " does not care for truth for its own sake, or teach
men to regard it as a virtue," p. 21. Blot twenty-one.

However, he goes on to give in this same page one
other evidence of my disregard of truth. The author of
St. Augustine s Life also asks the following question :
" On what evidence do we put faith in the existence
of St. George, the patron of England? Upon such,
assuredly, as an acute critic or skilful pleader might

APPENDIX. 6<

easily scatter to the winds ; the belief of prejudiced
or credulous witnesses, the unwritten record of
empty pageants and bauble decorations. On the
side of scepticism might be exhibited a powerful
array of suspicious legends and exploded acts. Yet,
after all, what Catholic is there but would count it a
profaneness to question the existence of St. George f :
On which my assailant observes, " When I found
Dr. Newman allowing his disciples ... in page after
page, in Life after Life, to talk nonsense of this kind
which is not only sheer Popery, but saps the very
foundation of historic truth, was it so wonderful that
I conceived him to have taught and thought like
them ? " p. 22, that is, to have taught lying.

Well and good ; here again take a parallel ; not
St. George, but Lycurgus.

Mr. Grote says: "Plutarch begins his biography
of Lycurgus with the following ominous words :
4 Concerning the lawgiver Lycurgus, we can assert
absolutely nothing, which is not controverted. There
are different stories in respect to his birth, his travels,
his death, and also his mode of proceeding, political
as well as legislative : least of all is the time in
which he lived agreed on. And this exordium is
but too well borne out by the unsatisfactory nature of
the accounts which we read, not only in Plutarch
himself, but in those other authors, out of whom we
are obliged to make up our idea of the memorable
Lycurgian system." Greece, vol. ii. p. 455. But
Bishop Thirlwall says, " Experience proves that
scarcely any amount of variation, as to the time or

38 APPENDIX.

circumstances of a fact, in the authors who record it,
can be a sufficient ground for doubting its reality."
Greece, vol. i. p. 332.

Accordingly, my assailant is virtually saying of the
latter of these two historians, " When I found the
Bishop of St. David s talking nonsense of this kind,
which saps the very foundation of historic truth," was
it "hasty or far-fetched" to conclude " that he did
not care for truth for its own sake, or teach his dis
ciples to regard it as a virtue 1" p. 21. Nay, further,
the Author of St. Augustine is no more a disciple of
mine, than the Bishop of St. David s is of my As
sailant s, and therefore the parallel will be more exact
if I accuse this Professor of History of teaching Dr.
Thirlwall not to care for truth, as a virtue, for its
own sake. Blot twenty-two.

It is hard on me to have this dull, profitless work,
but I have pledged myself; so now for St. Walburga.

Now will it be believed that this Writer suppresses
the fact that the miracles of St. Walburga are
treated by the author of her Life as mythical ? yet
that is the tone of the whole composition. This
Writer can notice it in the Life of St. Neot, the first
of the three Lives which he criticizes; these are his
words: "Some of them, the writers, for instance, of
Volume 4, which contains, among others, a charming
life of St. Neot, treat the stories openly as legends
and myths, and tell them as they stand, without
asking the reader, or themselves, to believe them
altogether. The method is harmless enough, if the

APPENDIX. 39

legends had stood alone ; but dangerous enough,
when they stand side by side with stories told in
earnest, like that of St. Walburga. p. 22.

Now, first, that the miraculous stories are treated,
in the Life of St. Walburga, as legends and myths.
Throughout, the miracles and extraordinary occur
rences are spoken of as " said " or " reported ;" and
the suggestion is made that, even though they
occurred, they might have been after all natural.
Thus, in one of the very passages which my As
sailant quotes, the author says, "Illuminated men
feel the privileges of Christianity, and to them the
evil influence of Satanic power is horribly dis
cernible, like the Egyptian darkness which could be
felt; and the only way to express their keen per
ception of it is to say, that they see upon the coun
tenances of the slaves of sin, the marks, and linea
ments, and stamp of the evil one ; and [that] they
smell with their nostrils the horrible fumes that arise
from their vices and uncleansed heart" &c., p. 78.
This introduces St. Sturme and the gambolling Ger
mans ; what does it mean but that "the intolerable
scent" was nothing physical, or strictly miraculous,
but the horror, parallel to physical distress, with which
the Saint was affected, from his knowledge of the
state of their souls? My assailant is a lucky man,
if mental pain has never come upon him with a
substance and a volume, as forcible as if it were
bodily.

And so in like manner, the Author of the Life says,
as this writer actually has quoted him, "a story was
told and believed," 1 p. 94. " One evening, says her

40 APPENDIX.

history" p. 87. " Another incident is thus related"
p. 88. "Immediately, says Wiilfhard," p. 91.
"A vast number of other cases are recorded," p. 92.
And there is a distinct intimation that they may be
myths, in a passage which this Assailant himself
quotes, "All these have the character of a gentle
mother correcting the idleness and faults of careless
and thoughtless children with tenderness." p. 95.
I think the criticism which he makes upon this Life
is one of the most wanton passages in his Pamphlet.
The Life is beautifully written, full of poetry, and,
as I have said, bears on its very surface the profes
sion of a legendary and mythical character. Blot
twenty-three.

In saying all this, I have no intention whatever
of implying that miracles did riot illustrate the Life
of St. Walburga; but neither the Author nor I
have bound ourselves to the belief of certain in
stances in particular. My Assailant, in the passage
which I just now quoted from him, made some
distinction, which was apparently intended to save
St. Neot, while it condemned St. Walburga. He
said that legends are "dangerous enough, when
they stand side by side with stories told in earnest
like St. Walburga." He will find he has here Dr.
Milman against him, as he has already had Sir David
Brewster, and the Bishop of St. David s. He accuses
me of having "outraged historic truth and the law
of evidence," because friends of mine have considered
that, though opinions need not be convictions, never
theless that legends may be connected with history :

APPENDIX. 41

now, on the contrary, let us hear the Dean of St.
Paul s :-

"History, to be true, must conde^end to speak
the language of legend; the belief of the times is
part of the record of the times ; and, though there
may occur what may baffle its more calm and search
ing philosophy, it must not disdain that which was
the primal, almost universal, motive of human life."
Latin. Christ., vol. i. p. 388. Dr. Milman s decision
justifies me in putting this down as Blot twenty-four.

However, there is one miraculous account for
which this writer makes me directly answerable, and
with reason ; and with it I shall conclude my reply
to his criticisms on the "Lives of the English Saints."
It is the medicinal oil which flows from the relics
of St. Walburga.

Now, as I shall have occasion to remark under
my next Head, these two questions among others
occur, in judging of a miraculous story ; viz. whether
the matter of it is extravagant, and whether it is a
fact. And first, it is plain there is nothing extra
vagant in this report of the relics having a super
natural virtue; and for this reason, because there
are such instances in Scripture, and Scripture cannot
be extravagant. For instance, a man was restored
to life by touching the relics of the Prophet Eliseus.
The sacred text runs thus: "And Elisha died, and
they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites
invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And
it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that,
behold, they spied a band of men ; and they cast the

3 s"

42 APPENDIX.

man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And, when the
man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha,
he revived, and stood upon his feet." Again, in the
case of an inanimate substance, which had touched a
living Saint: " And God wrought special miracles
by the hands of Paul ; so that from his body were
brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and
the diseases departed from them" And again in the
case of a pool : "An Angel went doivn at a certain
season into the pool, and troubled the water; who
soever then first, after the troubling of the water,
stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he
had." 2 Kings [4 Kings] xiii. 20, 21. Acts xix.
11, 12. John v. 4. Therefore there is nothing ex
travagant in the character of the miracle.

The main question then (I do not say the only re
maining question, but the main question) is the matter
of fact : is there an oil flowing from St. Walburga s
tomb, which is medicinal? To this question I con
fined mvself in the Preface to the Volume. Of the

!

accounts of medieval miracles, I said that there was
no extravagance in their general character, but I
could riot affirm that there was always evidence for
them. I could not simply accept them as facts, but
I could not reject them in their nature ; they might
be true, for they were not impossible : but they
were not proved to be true, because there was not
trustworthy testimony. However, as to St. Wal-
burga, I made one exception, the fact of the medi
cinal oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and
successive testimony. And then I went on to give
a chain of witnesses. It was my duty to state what

APPENDIX. 43

those witnesses said in their very words; and I did
so; they were in Latin, and I gave them in Latin.
One of them speaks of the "sacrum oleum " flowing
" de membris ejus virgineis, maxima tamen pectora-
libus;" and I so printed it; if I had left it out, this
sweet-tempered Writer would have accused me
of an " economy." I gave the testimonies in full,
tracing them from the Saint s death. I said, "She
is one of the principal Saints of her age and country."
Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says,
" Six writers are extant, who have employed them
selves in relating the deeds or miracles of Walburga."
Then I said that her "renown was not the mere
natural growth of ages, but begins with the very
century of the Saint s death." Then I observed that
only two miracles seem to have been " distinctly
reported of her as occurring in her lifetime ; and
they were handed down apparently by tradition."
Also, that they nre said to have commenced about
A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the medicinal oil as
having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450,
in 1615, and in 1620. Also, I said that Mabillon
seems not to have believed some of her miracles;
and that the earliest witness had got into trouble
with his Bishop. And so I left it, as a question
to be decided by evidence, not deciding any thing
myself.

What was the harm of all this? but my Critic has
muddled it together in a most extraordinary man
ner, and I am far from sure that he knows himself
the definite categorical charge which he intends it
to convey against me. One of his remarks is,

3s2

44 APPENDIX.

" What has become of the holy oil for the last
240 years, Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25. Of
course I did not, because I did not know ; I gave
the evidence as I found it; he assumes that I had
a point to prove, and then asks why I did not make
the evidence larger than it was. I put this down
as Blot twenty-five.

I can tell him more about it now ; the oil still
flows; I have had some of it in my possession; it is
medicinal ; some think it is so by a natural quality,
others by a divine gift. Perhaps it is on the confines
of both.

APPENDIX. 45

5.

Ecclesiastical Miracles.

What is the use of going on with this Writer s
criticisms upon me, when I am confined to the dull
monotony of exposing and oversetting him again
and again, with a persistence, which many will think
merciless, and few will have the interest to read ?
Yet I am obliged to do so, lest I should seem to be
evading difficulties.

Now as to Miracles. Catholics believe that they
happen in any age of the Church, though not for
the same purposes, in the same number, or with the
same evidence, as in Apostolic times. The Apostles
wrought them in evidence of their divine mission ;
and with this object they have been sometimes
wrought by Evangelists of countries since, as even
Protestants allow. Hence we hear of them in the
history of St. Gregory in Pontus, and St. Martin in
Gaul ; and in their case, as in that of the Apostles,
they were both numerous and clear. As they are
granted to Evangelists, so are they granted, though in
less measure and evidence, to other holy men ; and
as holy men are not found equally at all times and in
all places, therefore miracles are in some places and
times more than in others. And since, generally,
they are granted to faith and prayer, therefore in a
country in which faith and prayer abound, they will
be more likely to occur, than where and when faith
and prayer are not; so that their occurrence is

46 APPENDIX.

irregular. And further, as faith and prayer obtain
miracles, so still more commonly do they gain from
above the ordinary interventions of Providence; and,
as it is often very difficult to distinguish between a
providence and a miracle, and there will be more
providences than miracles, hence it will happen that
many occurrences will be called miraculous, which,
strictly speaking, are not such, and not more than
providential mercies, or what are sometimes called
" graces " or " favours."

Persons, who believe all this, in accordance with
Catholic teaching, as I did and do, they, on the
report of a miracle, will of necessity, the necessity
of good logic, be led to say, first, "It may be," and
secondly, " But I must have good evidence in order
to believe it." It may be, because miracles take
place in all ages ; it must be clearly proved, because
perhaps after all it may be only a providential mercy,
or an exaggeration, or a mistake, or an imposture.
Well, this is precisely what I have said, which this
Writer considers so irrational. I have said, as he
quotes me, p. 24, " In this day, and under our pre
sent circumstances, we can only reply, that there is
no reason why they should not be." Surely this is
good logic, provided that miracles do occur in all
ages; and so again is it logical to say, "There is no
thing, primd facie, in the miraculous accounts in
question, to repel a properly taught or religiously
disposed mind." What is the matter with this
statement? My assailant does not pretend to say
what the matter is, and he cannot ; but he expresses
a rnde, unmeaning astonishment. Next, I stated

APPENDIX. 47

what evidence there is for the miracles of which I
was speaking; what is the harm of that? He ob
serves, " What evidence Dr. Newman requires, he
makes evident at once. He at least will fear for
himself, and swallow the whole as it comes." p. 24.
What random abuse is this, or, to use his own words
of me just before, what " stuff and nonsense !" What
is it I am "swallowing?" "the whole "what? the
evidence ? or the miracles ? I have swallowed
neither, nor implied any such thing. Blot twenty-six.

But to return : I have just said that a Catholic s
state of mind, of logical necessity, will be, " It may
be a miracle, but it has to be proved What has
to be proved? 1. That the event occurred as stated,
and is not a false report or an exaggeration. 2. That
it is clearly miraculous, and not a mere providence
or answer to prayer within the order of nature.
What is the fault of saying this ? The inquiry is
parallel to that which is made about some extraordi
nary fact in secular history. Supposing I hear that
King Charles II. died a Catholic, I should say, 1. It
maybe. 2. What is your proof f Accordingly, in the
passage which this writer quotes, I observe, " Miracles
are the kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history,
just as instances of sagacity or daring, personal
prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to secular
history." What is the harm of this? But this
writer says, "Verily his [Dr. Newman s] idea of
secular history is almost as degraded as his idea
of ecclesiastical/ p. 24, and he ends with this
muddle of an Ipse dLvit! Blot twenty-secen.

48 APPENDIX.

In like manner, about the Holy Coat at Treves,
he says of me, " Dr. Newman . . . seems hardly sure
of the authenticity of the Holy Coat/ Why need I
be, more than I am sure that Richard III. murdered
the little princes? If I have not means of making
up my mind one way or the other, surely my most
logical course is "not to be sure." He continues,
" Dr. Newman does not see why it may not have been
what it professes to be. Well, is not that just what
this Writer would say of a great number of the facts
recorded in secular history? is it not what he would
be obliged to say of much that is told us about the
armour and other antiquities in the Tower of London \
To this I alluded in the passage from which he
quotes; but he has garbled that passage, and I must
show it. He quotes me to this effect : " Is the
Tower of London shut against sight-seers because
the coats of mail or pikes there may have half-le
gendary tales connected with them ? why then may
not the country people come up in joyous companies,
singing and piping, to see the holy coat at Treves?"
On this he remarks, " To see, forsooth ! to worship,
Dr. Newman would have said, had he known (as I
take for granted he does not) the facts of that im
posture." Here, if I understand him, he implies
that the people came up, not only to see, but to
worship, and that I have slurred over the fact that
their coming was an act of religious homage, that
is, what he would call " worship." Now, will it be
believed that, so far from concealing this, I had
carefully stated it in the sentence immediately pre
ceding, arid he suppresses it? I say, "The world

APPENDIX. 49

pays civil honour to it [a jewel said to be Alfred s]
on the probability ; we pay religious honour to relics,
if so be, on the probability. Is the Tower of
London," I proceed, " shut," &c. Blot twenty-eight.

These words of mine, however, are but one sentence
in a long argument, conveying the Catholic view on
the subject of ecclesiastical miracles; and, as it is
carefully worked out, and very much to the present
point, and will save me doing over again what I could
not do better or more fully now, if I set about it, I
shall make a very long extract from the Lecture in
which it occurs, and so bring this Head to an end.

The argument, I should first observe, which is
worked out, is this, that Catholics set out with a
definite religious tenet as a first principle, and
Protestants with a contrary one, and that on this
account it comes to pass that miracles are credible
to Catholics and incredible to Protestants.

"We affirm that the Supreme Being has wrought
miracles on earth ever since the time of the
Apostles; Protestants deny it. Why do we affirm,
why do they deny ? We affirm it on a first prin
ciple, they deny it on a first principle ; and on
either side the first principle is made to be decisive
of the question. . . . Both they and we start with
the miracles of the Apostles; and then their first
principle or presumption against our miracles is this,
* What God did once, He is not likely to do again ;
while our first principle or presumption for our
miracles is this; What God did once, He is likely

3 T

50 APPENDIX.

to do again. They say, It cannot be supposed He
will work many miracles ; we, It cannot be supposed
He will \vorkfew.

" The Protestant, I say, laughs at the very idea of
miracles or supernatural powers as occurring at this
day ; his first principle is rooted in him ; he repels
from him the idea of miracles ; he laughs at the
notion of evidence ; one is just as -likely as another ;
they are all false. Why ? because of his first prin
ciple, There are no miracles since the Apostles.
Here, indeed, is a short and easy way of getting rid
of the whole subject, not by reason, but by a first
principle which he calls reason. Yes, it is reason,
granting his first principle is true; it is not reason,
supposing his first principle is false.

"There is in the Church a vast tradition and testi
mony about miracles; how is it to be accounted
for? If miracles can take place, then the fact of
the miracle will be a natural explanation of the
report, just as the fact of a man dying accounts
satisfactorily for the news that he is dead ; but the
Protestant cannot so explain it, because he thinks
miracles cannot take place ; so he is necessarily
driven, by way of accounting for the report of them,
to impute that report to fraud. He cannot help
himself. I repeat it ; the whole mass of accusa
tions which Protestants bring against us under this
head, Catholic credulity, imposture, pious frauds,
hypocrisy, priestcraft, this vast and varied super
structure of imputation, you see, all rests on an
assumption, on an opinion of theirs, for which they
offer no kind of proof. What then, in fact, do they

APPENDIX. 51

say more than this, If Protestantism be true, you
Catholics are a most awful set of knaves? Here, at
least, is a most sensible and undeniable position.

" Now, on the other hand, let me take our own
side of the question, and consider how we ourselves
stand relatively to the charge made against us.
Catholics, then, hold the mystery of the Incarna
tion ; and the Incarnation is the most stupendous
event which ever can take place on earth ; and after
it and henceforth, I do not see how we can scruple
at any miracle on the mere ground of its being
unlikely to happen. . . . When we start with as
suming that miracles are not unlikely, we are put
ting forth a position which lies embedded, as it
were, and involved in the great revealed fact of the
Incarnation. So much is plain on starting ; but
more is plain too. Miracles are not only not
unlikely, but they are positively likely ; and for this
simple reason, because for the most part, when God
begins, He goes on. We conceive, that when He
first did a miracle, He began a series ; what He
commenced, He continued : what has been, will be.
Surely this is good and clear reasoning. To my
own mind, certainly, it is incomparably more diffi
cult to believe that the Divine Being should do one
miracle and no more, than that He should do a
thousand ; that He should do one great miracle
only, than that He should do a multitude of lesser
besides. ... If the Divine Being does a thing once,
He is, judging by human reason, likely to do it
again. This surely is common sense. If a beggar
gets food at a gentleman s house once, does he not

3x2

52 APPENDIX.

send others thither after him ( If you are attacked
by thieves once, do you forthwith leave your
windows open at night? .... Nay, suppose you
yourselves were once to see a miracle, would
you not feel the occurrence to be like passing a
line ? would you, in consequence of it, declare, I
never will believe another if I hear of one ? would
it not, on the contrary, predispose you to listen to a
new report ? . . . .

" When I hear the report of a miracle, my first
feeling would be of the same kind as if it were a
report of any natural exploit or event. Supposing,
for instance, I heard a report of the death of some
public man ; it would not startle me, even if I did
not at once credit it, for all men must die. Did I
read of any great feat of valour, I should believe it,
if imputed to Alexander or Cceur de Lion. Did I
hear of any act of baseness, I should disbelieve it, if
imputed to a friend whom I knew and loved. And
so in like manner were a miracle reported to me as
wrought by a Member of Parliament, or a Bishop of
the Establishment, or a Wesleyan preacher, I should
repudiate the notion : were it referred to a saint, or
the relic of a saint, or the intercession of a saint, I
should not be startled at it, though I might not at
once believe it. And I certainly should be right in
this conduct, supposing my First Principle be true.
Miracles to the Catholic are historical facts, and
nothing short of this ; and they are to be regarded
and dealt with as other facts ; and as natural facts,
under circumstances, do not startle Protestants, so
supernatural, under circumstances, do not startle the

APPENDIX. 53

Catholic. They may or may not have taken place
in particular cases ; he may be unable to determine
which ; he may have no distinct evidence ; he may
suspend his judgment, but he will say It is very
possible; he never will say I cannot believe it.

"Take the history of Alfred; you know his wise,
mild, beneficent, yet daring character, and his ro
mantic vicissitudes of fortune. This great king has
a number of stories, or, as you may call them,
legends told of him. Do you believe them all ? no.
L)o you, on the other hand, think them incredible ?
no. Do you call a man a dupe or a blockhead for
believing them ? no. Do you call an author a knave
or a cheat who records them ? no. You go into
neither extreme, whether of implicit faith or of
violent reprobation. You are not so extravagant ;
you see that they suit his character, they may have
happened : yet this is so romantic, that has so little
evidence, a third is so confused in dates or in geo
graphy, that you are in matter of fact indisposed
towards them. Others are probably true, others
certainly. Nor do you force every one to take
your view of particular stories ; you and your neigh
bour think differently about this or that in detail,
and agree to differ. There is in the museum at
Oxford, a jewel or trinket said to be Alfred s ; it is
shown to all comers; I never heard the keeper of
the museum accused of hypocrisy or fraud for show
ing, with Alfred s name appended, what he might or
might not himself believe to have belonged to that
great king ; nor did I ever see any party of strangers
who were looking at it with awe, regarded by any

54 APPENDIX.

self-complacent bystander with scornful compassion.
Yet the curiosity is not to a certainty Alfred s. The
world pays civil honour to it on the probability ; we
pay religious honour to relics, if so be, on the pro
bability. Is the Tower of London shut against
sight-seers, because the coats of mail and pikes there
may have half-legendary tales connected witli them?
why then may not the country people come up in
joyous companies, singing and piping, to see the
Holy Coat at Treves \ There is our Queen again,
who is so truly and justly popular ; she roves
about in the midst of tradition and romance ; she
scatters myths and legends from her as she goes
along; she is a being of poetry, and you might fairly
be sceptical whether she had any personal existence.
She is always at some beautiful, noble, bounteous
work or other, if you trust the papers. She is doing
alms-deeds in the Highlands ; she meets beggars in
her rides at Windsor; she writes verses in albums,
or draws sketches, or is mistaken for the house
keeper by some blind old woman, or she runs up a
hill as if she were a child. Who finds fault with
these things? he would be a cynic, he would be
white-livered, and would have gall for blood, who
was not struck with this graceful, touching evidence
of the love her subjects bear her. Who could have
the head, even if he had the heart, who could be so
cross and peevish, who could be so solemn and per
verse, as to say that some of these stories may be
simple lies, and all of them might have stronger
evidence than they carry with them? Do you think
she is displeased at them ? Why then should Pie,

APPENDIX. 55

the Great Father, who once walked the earth, look
sternly on the unavoidable mistakes of His own
subjects and children in their devotion to Him and
His? Even granting they mistake some cases in
particular, from the infirmity of human nature and
the contingencies of evidence, and fancy there is or
has been a miracle here and there when there is
not, though a tradition, attached to a picture, or to
a shrine, or a well, be very doubtful, though one
relic be sometimes mistaken for another, and St.
Theodore stands for St. Eugenius or St. Agathocles,
still, once take into account our First Principle, that
He is likely to continue miracles among us, which
is as good as the Protestant s, and I do not see why
He should feel much displeasure with us on account
of this, or should cease to work wonders in our
behalf. In the Protestant s view, indeed, who as
sumes that miracles never are, our thaumatology is
one great falsehood ; but that is his First Principle,
as I have said so often, which he does not prove but
assume. If he, indeed, upheld our system, or we
held his principle, in either case he or we should be
impostors; but though we should be partners to a
fraud if we thought like Protestants, we surely are
not if we think like Catholics.

" Such then is the answer I make to those who
would urge against us the multitude of miracles re
corded in our Saints Lives and devotional works,
for many of which there is little evidence, and for
some next to none. We think them true in the
same sense in which Protestants think the history of
England true. When they say that, they do not

56 APPENDIX.

mean to say that there are no mistakes, but no mis
takes of consequence, none which alter the general
course of history. Nor do they mean they are
equally sure of every part ; for evidence is fuller and
better for some things than for others. They do not
stake their credit on the truth of Froissart or Sully,
they do not pledge themselves for the accuracy of
Doddington or AValpole, they do not embrace as
an Evangelist Hume, Sharon Turner, or Macaulay.
And yet they do not think it necessary, on the other
hand, to commence a religious war against all our
historical catechisms, and abstracts, and dictionaries,
and tales, and biographies, through the country;
they have no call on them to amend and expurgate
books of archaeology, antiquities, heraldry, architec
ture, geography, and statistics, to re-write our inscrip
tions, and to establish a censorship on all new pub
lications for the time to come. And so as regards
the miracles of the Catholic Church ; if, indeed,
miracles never can occur, then, indeed, impute the
narratives to fraud ; but till you prove they are not
likely, we shall consider the histories M hich have
come down to us true on the whole, though in par
ticular cases they may be exaggerated or unfounded.
Where, indeed, they can certainly be proved to be
false, there we shall be bound to do our best to get
rid of them ; but till that is clear, we shall be liberal
enough to allow others to use their private judgment
in their favour, as we use ours in their disparage
ment. For myself, lest I appear in any way to be
shrinking from a determinate judgment on the
claims of some of those miracles and relics, which

APPENDIX. 57

Protestants are so startled at, and to be hiding par
ticular questions in what is vague and general, I will
avow distinctly, that, putting out of the question the
hypothesis of unknown laws of nature (which is an
evasion from the force of any proof), I think it
impossible to withstand the evidence which is
brought for the liquefaction of the blood of St.
Januarius at Naples, and for the motion of the eyes
of the pictures of the Madonna in the Roman
States. I see no reason to doubt the material of
the Lombard crown at Monza; and I do not see
why the Holy Coat at Treves may not have been
what it professes to be. I firmly believe that por
tions of the True Cross are at Rome and elsewhere,
that the Crib of Bethlehem is at Rome, and the

bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul also Many

men when they hear an educated man so speak, will
at once impute the avo\val to insanity, or to an
idiosyncrasy, or to imbecility of mind, or to de
crepitude of powers, or to fanaticism, or to hypo
crisy. They have a right to say so, if they will ;
and we have a right to ask them why they do not
say it of those who bow down before the Mystery of
mysteries, the Divine Incarnation ? "

In my Essay on Miracles of the year 1826, I pro
posed three questions about a professed miraculous
occurrence, 1. is it antecedently probable? 2. is it
in its nature certainly miraculous ? 3. has it sufficient
evidence? These are the three heads under which
I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the miracles
of Ecclesiastical History.

3 u

58 APPENDIX.

6.

Popular Religion.

This Writer uses much rhetoric against a Lecture
of mine, in which I bring out, as honestly as I can,
the state of countries which have long received the
Catholic Faith, and hold it by the force of tradition,
universal custom, and legal establishment; a Lecture
in which I give pictures, drawn principally from the
middle ages, of what, considering the corruption of
the human race generally, that state is sure to be,
pictures of its special sins and offences, sui generis,
which are the result of that Faith when it is sepa
rated from Love or Charity, or of what Scripture
calls a "dead faith," of the Light shining in dark
ness, and the truth held in unrighteousness. The
nearest approach which this Writer is able to make
towards stating what I have said in this Lecture, is
to state the very reverse. Observe : we have already
had some instances of the haziness of his ideas con
cerning: the " Notes of the Church." These Notes

O

are, as any one knows who has looked into the sub
ject, certain great and simple characteristics, which
He who founded the Church has stamped upon her
in order to draw both the reason arid the imagination
of men to her, as being really a divine work, and a
religion distinct from all other religious commu
nities ; the principal of these Notes being that she
is Holy, One, Catholic, and Apostolic, as the Creed
says. Now, to use his own word, he has the in
credible "audacity" to say, that I have declared,

APPENDIX. 59

not the divine characteristics of the Church, but the
sins and scandals in her, to be her Notes, as if
I made God the Author of evil. He says distinctly,
" Dr. Newman, with a kind of desperate audacity,
will dig forth such scandals as Notes of the Catholic
Church." This is what I get at his hands for my
honesty. Blot twenty-nine.

Again, he says, " [Dr. Newman uses] the blas
phemy and profanity which he confesses to be so
common in Catholic countries, as an argument for,
and not against the * Catholic Faith/" p. 34.
That is, because I admit that profaneness exists in
the Church, therefore I consider it a token of the
Church. Yes, certainly, just as our national form of
cursing is an evidence of the being of a God, and as
a gallows is the glorious sign of a civilized country,
but in no other way. Blot thirty.

What is it that I really say? I say as follows:
Protestants object that the communion of Rome does
not fulfil satisfactorily the expectation which we
may justly form concerning the True Church, as it
is delineated in the four Notes, enumerated in the
Creed ; and among others, e. g. in the Note of sanc
tity; and they point, in proof of what they assert, to
the state of Catholic countries. Now, in answer to
this objection, it is plain what I might have done, if
I had not had a conscience. I might have denied
the fact. I might have said, for instance, that the
middle ages were as virtuous, as they were believing.
I might have denied that there was any violence,

3 u 2

60 APPENDIX.

any superstition, any immorality, any blasphemy
during them. And so as to the state of countries
which have long had the light of Catholic truth, and
have degenerated. I might have admitted nothing
against them, and explained away every thing which
plausibly told to their disadvantage. I did nothing
of the kind ; and what effect has this had upon this
estimable critic ? " Dr. Newman takes a seeming
pleasure," he says, "in detailing instances of dis
honesty on the part of Catholics." p. 34. Blot
thirty-one. Any one who knows me well, would tes
tify that my " seeming pleasure," as he calls it, at
such things, is just the impatient sensitiveness, which
relieves itself by means of a definite delineation of
what is so hateful to it.

However, to pass on. All the miserable scandals
of Catholic countries, taken at the worst, are, as I
view the matter, no argument against the Church
itself; and the reason which I give in the Lecture
is, that, according to the proverb, Corruptio optimi
est pessima. The Jews could sin in a way no other
contemporary race could sin, for theirs was a sin
against light ; and Catholics can sin with a depth
and intensity with which Protestants cannot sin.
There will be more blasphemy, more hatred of God,
more of diabolical rebellion, more of awful sacrilege,
more of vile hypocrisy in a Catholic country than
any where else, because there is in it more of sin
against light. Surely, this is just what Scripture
says, " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida ! " And, again, surely what is told us by re
ligious men, say by Father Bresciani, about the present

APPENDIX. 61

unbelieving party in Italy, fully bears out the divine
text : " If, after they have escaped the pollutions of
the world . . . they are again entangled therein and
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the
beginning. For it had been better for them not to
have known the way of righteousness, than, after
they have known it, to turn from the holy com
mandments delivered unto them."

And what is true of those who thus openly oppose
themselves to the truth, as it was true of the Evil One
in the beginning, will in an analogous way be true
in the case of all sin, be it of a heavier or lighter cha
racter, which is found in a Catholic country : sin will
be strangely tinged or dyed by religious associations or
beliefs, and will exhibit the tragical inconsistencies
of the excess of knowledge over love, or of much
faith with little obedience. The mysterious battle
between good and evil will assume in a Catholic
country its most frightful shape, when it is not the
collision of two distinct and far-separated hosts, but
when it is carried on in hearts and souls, taken one
by one, and when the eternal foes are so intermingled
and interfused that to human eyes they seem to
coalesce into a multitude of individualities. This is
in course of years, the real, the hidden condition of
a nation, which has been. bathed in Christian ideas,
whether it be a young vigorous race, or an old and
degenerate; and it will manifest itself socially and
historically in those characteristics, sometimes gro
tesque, sometimes hideous, sometimes despicable, of
which we have so many instances, medieval and
modern, both in this hemisphere and in the western.

62 APPENDIX.

It is, I say, the necessary result of the intercom
munion of divine faith and human corruption.

But it has a light side as well as a dark. First,
much which seems profane, is not in itself profane,
but in the subjective view of the Protestant beholder.
Scenic representations of our Lord s Passion are
not profane to a Catholic population ; in like manner,
there are usages, customs, institutions, actions, often
of an indifferent nature, which will be necessarily
mixed up with religion in a Catholic country, because
all things whatever are so mixed up. Protestants
have been sometimes shocked, most absurdly as a
Catholic rightly decides, at hearing that Mass is
sometimes said for a good haul of fish. There is
no sin here, but only a difference from Protestant
customs. Other phenomena of a Catholic nation
are at most mere extravagances. And then as to
what is really sinful, if there be in it fearful in
stances of blasphemy or superstition, there are also
special and singular fruits and exhibitions of sanctity ;
and, if the many do not seem to lead better lives
for all their religious knowledge, at least they learn,
as they can learn nowhere else, how to repent
thoroughly and to die well.

The visible state of a country, which professes
Catholicism, need not be the measure of the spiritual
result of that Catholicisrn, at the Eternal Judgment
Seat; but no one could say that that visible state
was a Note that Catholicism was divine.

All this 1 attempted to bring out in the Lecture of
which I am speaking ; and that I had some success, I
am glad to infer from the message of congratulation

APPENDIX. 63

upon it, which I received at the time, from a foreign
Catholic layman, of high English reputation, with
whom I had not the honour of a personal acquaint
ance. And having given the key to the Lecture,
which the Writer so wonderfully misrepresents, I
pass on to another head.

64 APPENDIX.

7.

The Economy.

For the subject of the Economy, I shall refer to
my discussion upon it in my History of the Arians,
after one word about this Writer. He puts into his
Title-page these words from a Sermon of mine:
" It is not more than an hyperbole to say, that, in
certain cases, a lie is the nearest approach to truth."
This Sermon he attacks ; but I do not think it neces
sary to defend it here, because any one who reads it,
will see that he is simply incapable of forming a
notion of what it is about. It treats of subjects
which are entirely out of his depth; and, as I have
already shown in other instances, and observed in the
beginning of this Volume, he illustrates in his own
person the very thing that shocks him, viz. that the
nearest approach to truth, in given cases, is a lie.
He does his best to make something of it, I believe ;
but he gets simply perplexed. He finds that it
annihilates space, robs him of locomotion, almost
scoffs at the existence of the earth, and he is simply
frightened and cowed. He can but say " the man
who wrote that sermon was already past the possi
bility of conscious dishonesty," p. 41. Perhaps it is
hardly fair, after such a confession on his part of
being fairly beat, to mark down a blot ; however, let
it be Blot thirty-two.

Then again, he quotes from me thus : " Many a

APPENDIX. 65

theory or view of things, on which an institution is
founded, or a party held together, is of the same
kind (economical). Many an argument, used by
zealous and earnest men, has this economical cha
racter, being not the very ground on which they
act, (for they continue in the same course, though it
be refuted,) yet in a certain sense, a representation
of it, a proximate description of their feelings, in
the shape of argument, on which they can rest, to
which they can recur Avhen perplexed, and appeal
when they are questioned." He calls these "startling
words," p. 39. Yet here again he illustrates their
truth; for in his own case, he has acted on them in
this very controversy with the most happy exactness.
Surely he referred to my Sermon on Wisdom and
Innocence, when called on to prove me a liar, as "a
proximate description of his feelings about me, in
the shape of argument," and he has "continued i::
the same course, though it has been refuted/
Blot thirty-three.

Then, as to "a party being held together by
a mythical representation," or economy. Surely
"Church and King," "Reform," "Non-interven
tion," are such symbols ; or let this Writer answer
Mr. King-lake s question in his " Crimean War,"
" Is it true that .... great armies were gathering,
and that for the sake of the Key and the Star the
peace of the nations was brought into danger?"
Blot thirty-four.

In the beginning of this work, pp. 32 42, I

3 x

66 APPENDIX.

refuted his gratuitous accusation against me at
p. 42, founded on my calling one of my Anglican
Sermons a Protestant one : so I have nothing to do
but to register it here as Blot thirty-Jive.

Then he says that I committed an economy in
placing in my original title-page, that the question
between him and me, was whether " Dr. Newman
teaches that Truth is no virtue. It was a " wisdom
of the serpentine type," since I did not add, "for its
ow r n sake." Now observe : First, as to the matter
of fact, in the course of my Letters, which bore that
Title-page, I printed the words " for its own sake,"
Jive times over. Next, pray, what kind of a virtue
is that, which is not done for its own sake? So this,
after all, is this Writer s idea of virtue ! a something
that is done for the sake of something else ; a sort
of expedience ! He is honest, it seems, simply
because honesty is " the best policy," and on that
score it is that he thinks himself virtuous. Why,
" for its own sake " enters into the very idea or de
finition of a virtue. Defend me from such virtuous
men, as this Writer would inflict upon us! Blot
thirty-six.

These Blots are enough just now; so I proceed to
a brief sketch of what I held in 1833 upon the
Economy, as a rule of practice. I wrote this two
months ago ; perhaps the composition is not quite in
keeping with the run of this Appendix; and it is short;
but I think it will be sufficient for my purpose:

The doctrine of the Economia, had, as I have

APPENDIX. 67

shown, pp. 89 93, a large signification when ap
plied to the divine ordinances; it also had a definite
application to the duties of Christians, whether
clergy or laity, in preaching, in instructing or cate
chizing, or in ordinary intercourse with the world
around them.

As Almighty God did not all at once introduce
the Gospel to the world, and thereby gradually pre
pared men for its profitable reception, so, according
to the doctrine of the early Church, it was a duty,
for the sake of the heathen among whom they lived,
to observe a great reserve and caution in commu
nicating to them the knowledge of " the whole
counsel of God." This cautious dispensation of the
truth, after the manner of a discreet and vigilant
steward, is denoted by the word " economy." It is
a mode of acting which comes under the head of
Prudence, one of the four Cardinal Virtues.

The principle of the Economy is this ; that out of
various courses, in religious conduct or statement,
all and each allowable antecedently and in them
selves, that ought to be taken which is most expe
dient and most suitable at the time for the object
in hand.

Instances of its application and exercise in Scrip
ture are such as the following : 1. Divine Providence
did but gradually impart to the world in general,
and to the Jews in particular, the knowledge of His
will : He is said to have " winked at the times of
ignorance among the heathen ;" and He suffered in
the Jews divorce " because of the hardness of their
hearts." 2. He has allowed Himself to be repre-

3x2

68 APPENDIX.

sented as having eyes, ears, and bands, as having
\vrath, jealousy, grief, and repentance. 3. In like
manner, our Lord spoke harshly to the Syro-Phoeni-
cian woman, whose daughter He was about to heal,
and made as if He would go further, when the two
disciples had come to their journey s end. 4. Tbus
too Joseph " made himself strange to his brethren,"
and Elisha kept silence on request of Naaman to
bow in the house of Rimmon. 5. Thus St. Paul
circumcised Timothy, while he cried out " Circum
cision availeth not."

It may be said that this principle, true in itself,
yet is dangerous, because it admits of an easy abuse,
and carries men away into what becomes insincerity
and cunning. This is undeniable; to do evil that
good may come, to consider that the means, what
ever they are, justify the end, to sacrifice truth to
expedience, unscrupulousness, recklessness, are grave
offences. These are abuses of the Economy. But
to call them economical is to give a fine name to
what occurs every day, independent of any know
ledge of the doctrine of the Economy. It is the
abuse of a rule which nature suggests to every one.
Every one looks out for the " mollia tempora fandi,"
and " mollia verba " too.

Having thus explained what is meant by the
Economy as a rule of social intercourse between men
of different religious, or, again, political, or social
views, next I go on to state what I said in the Arians.

I say in that Volume first, that our Lord has
given us the principle in His own words, " Cast not
your pearls before swine;" and that He exemplified

APPENDIX, 69

it in His teaching by parables; that St. Paul ex
pressly distinguishes between the milk which is
necessary to one set of men, and the strong meat
which is allowed to others, and that, in two Epistles.
I say, that the Apostles in the Acts observe the
same rule in their speeches, for it is a fact, that they
do not preach the high doctrines of Christianity, but
only "Jesus and the resurrection " or "repentance
and faith." I also say, that this is the very reason
that the Fathers assign for the silence of various
writers in the first centuries on the subject of our
Lord s divinity. I also speak of the catechetical
system practised in the early Church, and the dis-
ciplina arcani as regards the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, to which Bingham bears witness ; also of
the defence of this rule by Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Chrysostom, and Theodoret.

And next the question may be asked, whether I
have said any thing in my Volume to guard the
doctrine, thus laid down, from the abuse to which it
is obviously exposed: and my answer is easy. Of
course, had I had any idea that I should have been
exposed to such hostile misrepresentations, as it has
been my lot to undergo on the subject, I should
have made more direct avowals than I have done of
my sense of the gravity and the danger of that
abuse. Since I could not foresee when I wrote,
that I should have been wantonly slandered, I only
wonder that I have anticipated the charge as fully
as will be seen in the following extracts.

For instance, speaking of the Disciplina Arcani, I
say: (1) "The elementary information given to

70 APPENDIX.

the heathen or catechumen was in no sense undone
by the subsequent secret teaching, which was in fact
but t\\Q fitting up of a bare but correct outline" p. 58,
and I contrast this with the conduct of the Mani-
chaeans " who represented the initiatory discipline as
founded on & fiction or hypothesis, which was to be
forgotten by the learner as he made progress in the
real doctrine of the Gospel." (2) As to allegorizing,
I say that the Alexandrians erred, whenever and as
far as they proceeded " to obscure the primary
meaning of Scripture, and to weaken the force of
historical facts and express declarations," p. 69.
(3) And that they were "more open to censure,"
when, on being " urged by objections to various pas
sages in the history of the Old Testament, as deroga
tory to the divine perfections or to the Jewish
Saints, they had recourse to an allegorical explanation
by way of answer " p. 71. (4) I add, "It is impos
sible to defend such a procedure, which seems to
imply a want of faith in those who had recourse to
it;" for "God has given us rules of right and
ivrong," ibid, (5) Again, I say, "The abuse of the
Economy in the hands of unscrupulous reasoners, is
obvious. Even the honest controversialist or teacher
will find it very difficult to represent, without mis
representing, what it is yet his duty to present to his
hearers with caution or reserve. Here the obvious
rule to guide our practice is, to be careful ever to
maintain substantial truth in our use of the economical
method," pp. 79, SO. (6) And so far from concur
ring at all hazards with Justin, Gregory, or Athana-
sius, I say, "It is plain [they] were justified or not in

APPENDIX. 71

their Economy, according as they did or did not
practically mislead their opponents" p. 80. (7) I
proceed, " It is so difficult to hit the mark in these
perplexing cases, that it is not wonderful, should
these or other Fathers have failed at times, and said
more or less than was proper," ibid.

The Principle of the Economy is familiarly acted
on among us every day. When we would persuade
others, we do not begin by treading on their toes.
Men would be thought rude who introduced their
own religious notions into mixed society, and were
devotional in a drawing-room. Have we never
thought lawyers tiresome who came down for the
assizes and talked law all through dinner? Does the
same argument tell in the House of Commons, on
the hustings, and at Exeter Hall ? Is an educated
gentleman never worsted at an election by the tone
and arguments of some clever fellow, who, whatever
his shortcomings in other respects, understands the
common people?

As to the Catholic Religion in England at the
present day, this only will I observe, that the truest
expedience is to answer right out, when you are
asked ; that the wisest economy is to have no manage
ment ; that the best prudence is not to be a coward ;
that the most damaging folly is to be found out
shuffling; and that the first of virtues is to "tell
truth, and shame the devil."

72 APPENDIX.

8.

Lying and Equivocation.

This writer says, "Though [a lie] be a sin, the
fact of its being a venial one seems to have gained
for it as yet a very slight penance." p. 46. Yet he
says also that Dr. Newman takes " a perverse pleasure
in eccentricities," because I say that " it is better for
sun and moon to drop from heaven than that one soul
should tell one wilful untruth." p. 30. That is, he
first accuses us without foundation of making light
of a lie; and, when he finds that we don t, then he
calls us inconsistent. I have noticed these words of
mine, and two passages besides, which he quotes,
above at pp. 384 387. Here I will but observe on
the subject of venial sin generally, that he altogether
forgets our doctrine of Purgatory. This punishment
may last till the day of judgment ; so much for dura
tion ; then as to intensity, let the image of fire,
by which we denote it, show what we think of it.
Here is the expiation of venial sins. Yet Protestants,
after the manner of this Writer, are too apt to play
fast and loose ; to blame us because we hold that
sin may be venial, and to blame us again when we
tell them what we think will be its punishment.
Blot thirty-seven.

At the end of his Pamphlet he makes a distinction
between the Catholic clergy and gentry in England,
which I know the latter consider to be very imper-

APPENDIX. 73

tinent ; and he makes it apropos of a passage in one of
my original letters in January. He quotes me as saying
that " Catholics differ from Protestants, as to whether
this or that act in particular is conformable to the
rule of truth," p. 48 ; and then he goes on to
observe, that I have " calumniated the Catholic
gentry," because " there is no difference whatever,
of detail or other, between their truthfulness and
honour, and the truthfulness and honour of the Pro
testant gentry among whom they live." But again
he has garbled my words; they run thus:

" Truth is the same in itself and in substance, to
Catholic and Protestant; so is purity; both virtues
are to be referred to that moral sense which is the
natural possession of us all. But, when we come to
the question in detail, whether this or that act in
particular is conformable to the rule of truth, or
again to the rule of purity, then sometimes there is a
difference of opinion between individuals, sometimes
between schools, and sometimes between religious com
munions." I knew indeed perfectly well, and I con
fessed that "Protestants think that the Catholic
system, as such, leads to a lax observance of the
rule of truth ;" but I added, " I am very sorry that
they should think so," and I never meant myself to
grant that all Protestants were on the strict side,
and all Catholics on the lax. Far from it; there is
a stricter party as well as a laxer party among Ca
tholics, there is a laxer party as well as a stricter
party among Protestants. I have already spoken of
Protestant writers who in certain cases allow of
lying, I have also spoken of Catholic writers who do

C Y

74 APPENDIX.

not allow of equivocation; when I wrote "a dif
ference of opinion between individuals," and "be
tween schools," I meant between Protestant and
Protestant, and particular instances were in my mind.
I did not say then, or dream of saying, that Catholics,
priests and laity, were lax on the point of lying, and
that Protestants were strict, any more than I meant
to say that all Catholics were pure, and all Protestants
impure ; but I meant to say that, whereas the rule
of Truth is one and the same both to Catholic and
Protestant, nevertheless some Catholics were lax,
some strict, and again some Protestants were strict,
some lax ; and I have already had opportunities of
recording my own judgment on which side this
Writer is himself, and therefore he may keep his
forward vindication of " honest gentlemen and noble
ladies," who, in spite of their priests, are still so
truthful, till such time as he can find a worse as
sailant of them than I am, and they no better
champion of them than himself. And as to the
Priests of England, those who know them, as he
does not, will pronounce them no whit inferior in this
great virtue to the gentry, whom he says that he
does ; and I cannot say more. Blot thirty-eight.

Lastly, this Writer uses the following words,
which I have more than once quoted, and with a
reference to them I shall end my remarks upon him.
" I am henceforth," he says, " in doubt and fear, as
much as an honest man can be, concerning every
word Dr. Newman may write. How can I tell that
1 shall not be the dupe of some cunning equivoca-

APPENDIX. 75

tion, of one of the three kinds, laid down as per
missible by the blessed St. Alfonso da Liguori and
his pupils, even when confirmed with an oath . . .?"
I will tell him why he need not fear; because he
has left out one very important condition in the
statement of St. Alfonso, arid very applicable to
my own case, even if I followed St. Alfonso s view
of the subject. St. Alfonso says " ear justd causa ;"
but our "honest man," as he styles himself, has
omitted these words ; which are a key to the whole
question. Blot thirty-nine. Here endeth our " honest
man." Now for the subject of Lying.

Almost all authors, Catholic and Protestant,
admit, that when a just cause is present, there is some
kind or other of verbal misleading, which is not sin.
Even silence is in certain cases virtually such a
misleading, according to the Proverb, " Silence gives
consent." Again, silence is absolutely forbidden to
a Catholic, as a mortal sin, under certain circum
stances, e. g. to keep silence, instead of making a
profession of faith.

Another mode of verbal misleading, and the most
direct, is actually saying the thing that is not; and
it is defended on the principle tliat such words are
not a lie, when there is a "justa causa," as killing is
not murder in the case of an executioner.

Another ground of certain authors for saying
that an untruth is not a lie where there is a just
cause, is, that veracity is a kind of justice, and
therefore, when we have no duty of justice to tell
truth to another^ it is no sin not to do so. Hence

3 Y 2

76 APPENDIX.

we may say the thing that is not, to children, to
madmen, to men who ask impertinent questions, to
those whom we hope to benefit by misleading.

Another ground, taken in defending certain un
truths, ex jmtd causa, as if not lies, is that veracity
is for the sake of society, and, if in no case we
might lawfully mislead others, we should actually
be doing society great harm.

Another mode of verbal misleading is equivocation
or a play upon words ; and it is defended on the
view that to lie is to use words in a sense which
they will not bear. But an equivocator uses them
in a received sense, though there is another re
ceived sense, and therefore, according to this defini
tion, he does not lie.

Others say that all equivocations are, after all, a
kind of lying, faint lies or awkward lies, but still
lies ; and some of these disputants infer, that there
fore we must not equivocate, and others that equivo
cation is but a half-measure, and that it is better to
say at once that in certain cases untruths are not lies.

Others will try to distinguish between evasions
and equivocations; but they will be answered, that,
though there are evasions which are clearly not
equivocations, yet that it is difficult scientifically to
draw the line between them.

To these must be added the unscientific way of
dealing with lies, viz. that on a great or cruel occasion
a man cannot help telling a lie, and he would not
be a man, did he not tell it, but still it is wrong and
he ought not to do it, and he must trust that the sin
will be forgiven him, though he goes about to com-

APPENDIX. 77

mit it. It is a frailty, and had better not be antici
pated, and not thought of again, after it is once
over. This view cannot for a moment be defended,
but, I suppose, it is very common.

And now I think the historical course of thought
upon the matter has been this : the Greek Fathers
thought that, when there was a justa causa, an un
truth need not be a lie. St. Augustine took an
other view, though with great misgiving; and,
whether he is rightly interpreted or not, is the
doctor of the great and common view that all un
truths are lies, and that there can be no just cause
of untruth. In these later times, this doctrine has
been found difficult to work, and it has been largely
taught that, though all untruths are lies, yet that
certain equivocations, when there is a just cause, are
not untruths.

Further, there have been and all along through
these later ages, other schools, running parallel with
the above mentioned, one of which says that equivo
cations, &c. after all are lies, and another which says
that there are untruths which are not lies.

And now as to the "just cause," which is the
condition, sine qua non. The Greek Fathers make
them such as these, self-defence, charity, zeal for
God s honour, and the like.

St. Augustine seems to deal with the same "just
causes" as the Greek Fathers, even though he does
not allow of their availableness as depriving untruths,
spoken with such objects, of their sinfulness. He

78 APPENDIX.

mentions defence of life and of honour, and the safe
custody of a secret. Also the Anglican writers, who
have followed the Greek Fathers, in defending: un-

O

truths when there is the "just cause," consider that
just cause to be such as the preservation of life and
property, defence of law, the good of others. More
over, their moral rights, e. g. defence against the
inquisitive, &c.

St. Alfonso, I consider, would take the same view
of the "justa causa" as the Anglican divines; he
speaks of it as "quicunque finis honest**, ad servanda
bona spiritui vel corpori utilia ;" which is very much
the view which they take of it, judging by the in
stances which they give.

In all cases, however, and as contemplated by all
authors, Clement of Alexandria, or Milton, or St.
Alfonso, such a causa is, in fact, extreme, rare, great,
or at least special. Thus the writer in the Melanges
Theologiques (Liege, 1852-3, p. 453) quotes Lessius :
"Si absque justa causa fiat, est abusio orationis contra
virtutem veritatis, et civilem consuetudinem, etsi pro-
prie non sit mendacium." That is, the virtue of
truth, and the civil custom, are the measure of the
just cause. And so Voit, " If a man has used a re
servation (restrictione non pure mentali) without a
grave cause, he has sinned gravely." And so the
author himself, from whom I quote, and who defends
the Patristic and Anglican doctrine that there are
untruths which are not lies, says, " Under the name
of mental reservation theologians authorize many
lies, when there is for them a grave reason and propor
tionate" i. e. to their character. p. 459. And so St.

APPENDIX. 79

Alfonso, in another Treatise, quotes St. Thomas to the
effect, that, if from one cause two immediate effects
follow, and, if the good effect of that cause is equal in
value to the bad effect (bonus cequivalet malo), then
nothing hinders that the good may be intended and
the evil permitted. From which it will follow that,
since the evil to society from lying is very great, the
just cause which is to make it allowable, must be
very great also. And so Kenrick : " It is confessed
by all Catholics that, in the common intercourse of
life, all ambiguity of language is to be avoided ; but
it is debated whether such ambiguity is ever lawful.
Most theologians answer in the affirmative, sup
posing a grave cause urges, and the [true] mind of
the speaker can be collected from the adjuncts,
though in fact it be not collected."

However, there are cases, I have already said, of
another kind, in which Anglican authors would think
a lie allowable ; such as when a question is imperti
nent. Accordingly, I think the best word for em
bracing all the cases which would come under the
"justa causa," is, not " extreme." but "special," and
I say the same as regards St. Alfonso ; and there
fore, above in pp. 417 and 420, whether I speak of
St. Alfonso or Paley, I should have used the word
"special," or "extraordinary," not "extreme."

What 1 have been saying shows what different
schools of opinion there are in the Church in the
treatment of this difficult doctrine ; and, by con
sequence, that a given individual, such as I am,
cannot agree with all, and has a full right to follow
which he will. The freedom of the Schools, indeed,

80 APPENDIX.

is one of those rights of reason, which the Church
is too wise really to interfere with. And this applies
not to moral questions only, but to dogmatic also.

It is supposed by Protestants that, because St.
Alfonso s writings have had such high commenda
tion bestowed upon them by authority, therefore
they have been invested with a quasi-infallibility.
This has arisen in good measure from Protestants not
knowing the force of theological terms. The words to
which they refer are the authoritative decision that
"nothing in his works has been found worthy of cen
sure, " censura dignum ;" but this does not lead to the
conclusions which have been drawn from it. Those
words occur in a legal document, and cannot be
interpreted except in a legal sense. In the first
place, the sentence is negative; nothing in St. Al
fonso s writings is positively approved ; and secondly
it is not said that there are no faults in what he has
written, but nothing which comes under the eccle
siastical censura, which is something very definite.
To take and interpret them, in the way commonly
adopted in England, is the same mistake, as if one
were to take the word "Apologia" in the English
sense of apology, or "Infant." in law to mean a
little child.

1. Now first as to the meaning of the form of words
viewed as a proposition. When they were brought
before the fitting authorities at Koine by the Arch
bishop of BesanQon, the answer returned to him con
tained the condition that those words were to be
interpreted, "with due regard to the mind of the Holy

APPENDIX. 81

See concerning the approbation of writings of the ser
vants of God, ad effectum Canonizationis." This is in
tended to prevent any Catholic taking the words about
St. Alfonso s works in too large a sense. Before a
Saint is canonized, his works are examined and a
judgment pronounced upon them. Pope Benedict
XIV. says, "The end or scope of this judgment
is, that it may appear, whether the doctrine of the
servant of God, which he has brought out in his
writings, is free from any soever theological censure"
And he remarks in addition, " It never can be said
that the doctrine of a servant of God is approved by
the Holy See, but at most it can [only] be said that it
is not disapproved (non reprobatam) in case that the
Revisers had reported that there is nothing found
by them in his works, which is adverse to the
decrees of Urban VIII., and that the judgment of
the Revisers has been approved by the sacred Con
gregation, and confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff."
The Decree of Urban VIII. here referred to is, " Let
works be examined, whether they contain errors
against faith or good morals (bonos mores), or any
new doctrine, or a doctrine foreign and alien to the
common sense and custom of the Church." The
author from whom I quote this (M. Vandenbroeck,
of the diocese of Malines) observes, "It is therefore
clear, that the approbation of the works of the Holy
Bishop touches not the truth of every proposition,
adds nothing to them, nor even gives them by conse
quence a degree of intrinsic probability." He adds
that it gives St. Alfonso s theology an extrinsic proba
bility, from the fact that, in the judgment of the Holy

82 APPENDIX.

See, no proposition deserves to receive a censure ;
but that " that probability will cease nevertheless in
a particular case, for any one who should be convinced,
whether by evident arguments, or by a decree of
the Holy See, or otherwise, that the doctrine of the
Saint deviates from the truth." He adds, "From
the fact that the approbation of the works of St.
Alfonso does not decide the truth of each propo
sition, it follows, as Benedict XIV. has remarked,
that we may combat the doctrine which they con
tain; only, since a canonized saint is in question,
who is honoured by a solemn culte in the Church,
we ought not to speak except with respect, nor to
attack his opinions except with temper and modesty."
2. Then, as to the meaning of the word censura :
Benedict XIV. enumerates a number of " Notes "
which come under that name ; he says, " Out of
propositions which are to be noted with theo
logical censure, some are heretical, some erroneous,
some close upon error, some savouring of heresy," and
so on ; and each of these terms has its own definite
meaning. Thus by " erroneous " is meant, according
to Viva, a proposition which is not immediately op
posed to a revealed proposition, but only to a theo
logical conclusion drawn from premisses which are
de fide ; " savouring of heresy," when a proposition
is opposed to a theological conclusion not evidently
drawn from premisses which are de fide, but most
probably and according to the common mode of
theologizing, and so with the rest. Therefore when
it was said by the Revisers of St. Alfonso s works
that they were not " worthy of censure" it was only

APPENDIX. 83

meant that they did not fall under these particular
Notes.

But the answer from Rome to the Archbishop of
Besan^on went further than this ; it actually took
pains to declare that any one who pleased might
follow other theologians instead of St. Alfonso.
After saying that no Priest was to be interfered with
who followed St. Alfonso in the Confessional, it
added, " This is said, however, without on that ac
count judging that they are reprehended who follow
opinions handed down by other approved authors."

And this too, I will observe, that St. Alfonso
made many changes of opinion himself in the course
of his writings ; and it could not for an instant be
supposed that w T e were bound to every one of his
opinions, when he did not feel himself bound to
them in his own person. And, what is more to the
purpose still, there are opinions, or some opinion, of
his which actually has been proscribed by the Church
since, and cannot now be put forward or used. I do
not pretend to be a well-read theologian myself, but
I say this on the authority of a theological professor
of Breda, quoted in the Melanges Theol. for 1850-1.
He says : " It may happen, that, in the course of
time, errors may be found in the works of St. Alfonso
and be proscribed by the Church, a thing wliicli in
fact has already occurred."

In not ranging myself then with those who con
sider that it is justifiable to use words in a double
sense, that is, to equivocate, I put myself, first, under
the protection of Cardinal Gerdil, who, in a work

3 z 2

84 APPENDIX.

lately published at Rome, has the following passage,
which I owe to the kindness of a friend :

Gerdil.

" In an oath one ought to have respect to the
intention of the party swearing, and the intention of
the party to whom the oath is taken. Whoso swears
binds himself in virtue of the words, not according
to the sense he retains in his own mind, but in the
sense according to which he perceives that they are
understood by him to whom the oath is made. When
the mind of the one is discordant with the mind of
the other, if this happens by deceit or cheat of the
party swearing, he is bound to observe the oath
according to the right sense (sana mente) of the party
receiving it; but, when the discrepancy in the sense
comes of misunderstanding, without deceit of the
party swearing, in that case he is not bound, except
to that to which he had in mind to wish to be bound.
It follows hence, that whoso uses mental reservation or
equivocation in the oath, in order to deceive the
party to whom he offers it, sins most grievously, and
is always bound to observe the oath in the sense in
which he knew that his words were taken by the other
party, according to the decision of St. Augustine,
They are perjured, who, having kept the words,
have deceived the expectations of those to whom
the oath was taken. He who swears externally,
without the inward intention of swearing, commits
a most grave sin, and remains all the same under
the obligation to fulfil it. ... In a word, all that is
contrary to good faith, is iniquitous, and by intro-

APPENDIX. 85

ducing the name of God the iniquity is aggravated
by the guilt of sacrilege."

Natalis Alexander.

" They certainly lie, who utter the words of an
oath, and without the will to swear or bind them
selves ; or who make use of mental reservations and
equivocations in swearing, since they signify by
words what they have not in mind, contrary to the
end for which language was instituted, viz. as signs
of ideas. Or they mean something else than the
words signify in themselves, and the common custom
of speech, and the circumstances of persons and
business-matters; and thus they abuse words which
were instituted for the cherishing of society."

Contenson.

" Hence is apparent how worthy of condemnation
is the temerity of those half-taught men, who give
a colour to lies and equivocations by the words and
instances of Christ. Than whose doctrine, which is
an art of deceiving, nothing can be more pestilent.
And that, both because what you do not wish done
to yourself, you should not do to another ; now the
patrons of equivocations and mental reservations
would net like to be themselves deceived by others,
&c. . . . and also because St. Augustine, &c. . . .
In truth, as there is no pleasant living with those
whose language we do not understand, and, as St.
Augustine teaches, a man w r ould more readily live
with his dog than with a foreigner, less pleasant
certainly is our converse with those who make use

86 APPENDIX.

of frauds artificially covered, overreach their hearers
by deceits, address them insidiously, observe the
right moment, and catch at words to their purpose,
by which truth is hidden under a covering ; and so
on the other hand nothing is sweeter than the
society of those, who both love and speak the naked
truth, . . . without their mouth professing one thing
and their mind hiding another, or spreading before
it the cover of double words. Nor does it matter
that they colour their lies with the name of equivoca
tions or mental reservations. For Hilary says, The
sense, not the speech, makes the crime.

Concina allows of what I shall presently call eva
sions, but nothing beyond, if I understand him ;
but he is most vehement against mental reservation
of every kind, so I quote him.

Concina.

" That mode of speech, which some theologians call
pure mental reservation, others call reservation not
simply mental ; that language which to me is lying,
to the greater part of recent authors is only amphi
bological. ... I have discovered that nothing is
adduced by more recent theologians for the lawful
use of amphibologies which has not been made use
of already by the ancients, whether philosophers or
some Fathers, in defence of lies. Nor does there
seem to me other difference when I consider their
respective grounds, except that the ancients frankly
called those modes of speech lies, and the more
recent writers, not a few of them, call them amphi
bological, equivocal, and material"

APPENDIX. 87

In another place he quotes Caramuel, so I sup
pose I may do so too, for the very reason that his
theological reputation does not place him on the
side of strictness. Concina says, "Caramuel himself,
who bore away the palm from all others in relaxing
the evangelical and natural law, says,

Caramuel.

" I have an innate aversion to mental reservations.
If they are contained within the bounds of piety
and sincerity, then they are not necessary ; . . . but
if [otherwise] they are the destruction of human
society and sincerity, and are to be condemned as
pestilent. Once admitted, they open the way to all
lying, all perjury. And the whole difference in the
matter is, that what yesterday was called a lie,
changing, not its nature and malice, but its name, is
to-day entitled mental reservation ; and this is to
sweeten poison with sugar, and to colour guilt with
the appearance of virtue."

St. Thomas.

" When the sense of the party swearing, and of
the party to whom he swears, is not the same, if this
proceeds from the deceit of the former, the oath
ought to be kept according to the right sense of the
party to whom it is made. But if the party swearing
does not make use of deceit, then he is bound ac
cording to his own sense."

St. Isidore.

With whatever artifice of words a man swears,
nevertheless God who is the witness of his con-

88 APPENDIX.

science, so takes the oath as he understands it, to
whom it is sworn. And he becomes twice guilty,
who both takes the name of God in vain, and
deceives his neighbour."

St. Augmtine.

"I do not question that this is most justly laid
down, that the promise of an oath must be fulfilled,
not according to the words of the party taking it,
but according to the expectation of the party to
whom it is taken, of which he who takes it is
aware."

And now, under the protection of these autho
rities, I say as follows :

Casuistry is a noble science, but it is one to which
I am led, neither by my abilities nor my turn of mind.
Independently, then, of the difficulties of the subject,
and the necessity, before forming an opinion, of
knowing more of the arguments of theologians upon
it than I do, I am very unwilling to say a word
here on the subject of Lying and Equivocation.
But I consider myself bound to speak ; and there
fore, in this strait, I can do nothing better, even
for my own relief, than submit myself and what I
shall say to the judgment of the Church, and to
the consent, so far as in this matter there be a
consent, of the Schola Theologorum.

Now, in the case of one of those special and rare
exigencies or emergencies, which constitute thejusta
causa of dissembling or misleading, whether it be
extreme as the defence of life, or a duty as the

APPENDIX. 89

custody of a secret, or of a personal nature as to
repel an impertinent inquirer, or a matter too trivial
to provoke question, as in dealing with children or
madmen, there seem to be four courses :

1. To say the thing that is not. Here I draw the
reader s attention to the words material and formal.
" Thou shalt not kill ;" murder is the formal trans
gression of this commandment, but accidental homi
cide is the material transgression. The matter of the
act is the same in both cases ; but in the homicide,
there is nothing more than the act, whereas in mur
der there must be the intention, &c. which consti
tutes the formal sin. So, again, an executioner
commits the material act, but not that formal killing
which is a breach of the commandment. So a man,
who, simply to save himself from starving, takes
a loaf which is not his own, commits only the
material, not the formal act of stealing, that is,
he does not commit a sin. And so a baptized Chris
tian, external to the Church, who is in invincible
ignorance, is a material heretic, and not a formal.
And in like manner, if to say the thing which is not
be in special cases lawful, it may be called a mate
rial lie.

The first mode then which has been suggested of
meeting those special cases, in which to mislead by
\vords has a sufficient object, or has a just cause, is
by a material lie.

The second mode is by an cequivocatio, which is
not equivalent to the English word " equivocation,"
but means sometimes a play upon words, sometimes
an evasion.

4 A

90 APPENDIX.

2. A play upon words. St. Alfonso certainly says
that a play upon words is allowable; and, speaking
under correction, I should say that he does so on
the ground that lying is not a sin against justice, that
is, against our neighbour, but a sin against God ; be
cause words are the signs of ideas, and therefore if a
word denotes two ideas, we are at liberty to use it in
either of its senses : but I think I must be incorrect
here in some respect, because the Catechism of the
Council, as I have quoted it at p. 427, says, " Vani-
tate et mendacio fides ac veritas tolluntur, arctissima
vincula societatis liumance ; quibus sublatis, sequitur
summa vitse confusio, ut homines mhil a dcemonibus
differre videantur"

3. Evasion ; when, for instance, the speaker di
verts the attention of the hearer to another subject ;
suggests an irrelevant fact or makes a remark, which
confu.ses him and gives him something to think about;
throws dust into his eyes; states some truth, from
which he is quite sure his hearer will draw an illo
gical and untrue conclusion, and the like. Bishop
Butler seems distinctly to sanction such a proceed
ing, in a passage which I shall extract below.

The greatest school of evasion, I speak seriously,
is the House of Commons ; and necessarily so, from
the nature of the case. And the hustings is
another.

An instance is supplied in the history of St.
Athanasius : he was in a boat on the Nile, flying
persecution ; and he found himself pursued. On
this he ordered his men to turn his boat round, and
ran right to meet the satellites of Julian. They

APPENDIX.

asked him, Have you seen Athanasius ? and lie told
his followers to answer, "Yes, he is close to you."
They went on their course, and lie ran into Alexandria,
and there lay hid till the end of the persecution.

I gave another instance above, in reference to a
doctrine of religion. The early Christians did their
best to conceal their Creed on account of the miscon
ceptions of the heathen about it. Were the ques
tion asked of them, "Do you worship a Trinity?"
and did they answer, "We worship one God, and
none else ;" the inquirer might, or would, infer that
they did not acknowledge the Trinity of Divine
Persons.

It is very difficult to draw the line between these
evasions, and what are commonly called in English
equivocations; and of this difficulty, again, I think,
the scenes in the House of Commons supply us
with illustrations.

4. The fourth method is silence. For instance,
not giving the whole truth in a court of law. If St.
Alban, after dressing himself in the Priest s clothes,
and being taken before the persecutor, had been able
to pass off for his friend, and so gone to martyrdom
without being discovered ; and had he in the course
of examination answered all questions truly, but not
given the whole truth, the most important truth,
that he was the wrong person, he would have come
very near to telling a lie, for a half-truth is often a
falsehood. And his defence must have been the
justa causa, viz. either that lie might in charity or
for religion s sake save a priest, or again that the
judge had no right to interrogate him on the subject.

4 A 2

92 APPENDIX.

Now, of these four modes of misleading others by
the tongue, when there is a justa causa (supposing
there can be such), a material lie, that is an untruth
which is not a lie, an equivocation, an evasion, and
silence, First, I have no difficulty whatever in
recognizing as allowable the method of silence.

Secondly, But, if I allow of silence, why not of the
method of material lying, since half of a truth is
often a lie \ And, again, if all killing be not murder,
nor all taking from another stealing, why must all
untruths be lies ? Now I will say freely that I
think it difficult to answer this question, whether
it be urged by St. Clement or by Milton ; at the
same time, I never have acted, and I think, when
it came to the point, I never should act upon such
a theory myself, except in one case, stated below.
This I say for the benefit of those who speak hardly
of Catholic theologians, on the ground that they
admit text-books which allow of equivocation.
They are asked, how can we trust you, when such
are your views ? but such views, as I already have said,
need not have any thing to do with their own prac
tice, merely from the circumstance that they are con
tained in their text-books. A theologian draws out
a system ; he does it partly as a scientific specula
tion : but much more for the sake of others. He is
lax for the sake of others, not of himself. His own
standard of action is much higher than that which
he imposes upon men in general. One special reason
why religious men, after drawing out a theory, are
unwilling to act upon it themselves, is this: that
they practically acknowledge a broad distinction

APPENDIX. 03

between their reason and their conscience ; and that
they feel the latter to be the safer guide, though the
former may be the clearer, nay even though it be
the truer. They would rather be wrong with their
conscience, than right with their reason. And again
here is this more tangible difficulty in the case of
exceptions to the rule of Veracity, that so very little
external help is given us in drawing the line, as to
when untruths are allowable and when not ; whereas
that sort of killing which is not murder, is most
definitely marked off by legal enactments, so that
it cannot possibly be mistaken for such killing as is
murder. On the other hand the cases of exemption
from the rule of Veracity are left to the private
judgment of the individual, and he may easily be led
on from acts which are allowable to acts which are
not. Now this remark does not apply to such acts as
are related in Scripture, as being done by a particular
inspiration, for in such cases there is a command.
If I had my own way, I would oblige society, that is,
its great men, its lawyers, its divines, its literature,
publicly to acknowledge, as such, those instances of
untruth which are not lies, as for instance, untruths
in war; and then there could be no danger in them
to the individual Catholic, for he would be acting
under a rule.

Thirdly, as to playing upon words, or equivoca
tion, I suppose it is from the English habit, but,
without meaning any disrespect to a great Saint, or
wishing to set myself up, or taking my conscience
for more than it is worth, I can only say as a fact,
that I admit it as little as the rest of my country-

94 APPENDIX.

men : and, without any reference to the right and the
wrong of the matter, of this I am sure, that, if there
is one thing more than another which prejudices
Englishmen against the Catholic Church, it is the
doctrine of great authorities on the subject of
equivocation. For myself, I can fancy myself
thinking it was allowable in extreme cases for me
to lie, but never to equivocate. Luther said, " Pecca
fortiter." I anathematize the formal sentiment, but
there is a truth in it, when spoken of material acts.

Fourthly, I think evasion, as I have described it,
to be perfectly allowable ; indeed, I do not know,
who does not use it, under circumstances ; but that a
good deal of moral danger is attached to its use ;
and that, the cleverer a man is, the more likely he
is to pass the line of Christian duty.

But it may be said, that such decisions do not
meet the particular difficulties for which provision is
required ; let us then take some instances.

1. I do not think it right to tell lies to children,
even on this account, that they are sharper than
we think them, and will soon find out what we are
doing; and our example wilt be a very bad training
for them. And so of equivocation : it is easy of
imitation, and we ourselves shall be sure to get the
worst of it in the end.

2. If an early Father defends the patriarch Jacob
in his mode of gaining his father s blessing, on the
ground that the blessing was divinely pledged to
him already, that it was his, and that his father and
brother were acting at once against his own rights

APPENDIX. 95

and the divine will, it does not follow from this
that such conduct is a pattern to us, who have no
supernatural means of determining when an un
truth becomes a material, and not a formal lie. It
seems to me very dangerous, be it allowable
or not, to lie or equivocate in order to preserve
some great temporal or spiritual benefit, nor does
St. Alfonso here say any thing to the contrary,
for he is not discussing the question of danger or
expedience.

3. As to Johnson s case of a murderer asking you
which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated
that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first
act would have been to knock the man down, and to
call out for the police ; and next, if he was worsted
in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the
information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I
think he would have let himself be killed first. I
do not think that he would have told a lie.

4. A secret is a more difficult case. Supposing
something has been confided to me in the strictest
secrecy, which could not be revealed without great
disadvantage to another, what am I to do ? If
I am a lawyer, I am protected by my profession.
I have a right to treat with extreme indignation any
question which trenches on the inviolability of my
position ; but, supposing I was driven up into a
corner, I think I should have a right to say an un
truth, or that, under such circumstances, a lie would
be material, but it is almost an impossible case, for
the law would defend me. In like manner, as a
priest, I should think it lawful to speak as if I knew

96 APPENDIX.

nothing of what passed in confession. And I think
in these cases, I do in fact possess that guarantee,
that I am not going by private judgment, which just
now I demanded ; for society would bear me out,
whether as a lawyer or as a priest, that I had a duty
to my client or penitent, such, that an untruth in the
matter was not a lie. A common type of this per
missible denial, be it material lie or evasion, is at the
moment supplied to me: an artist asked a Prime
Minister, who was sitting to him, " What news, my
Lord, from France?" He answered, "/ do not
know ; I have not read the Papers."

5. A more difficult question is, when to accept
confidence has not been a duty. Supposing a man
wishes to keep the secret that he is the author of
a book, and he is plainly asked on the subject.
Here I should ask the previous question, whether
any one has a right to publish what he dare not
avow. It requires to have traced the bearings and
results of such a principle, before being sure of it ;
but certainly, for myself, I am no friend of strictly
anonymous writing. Next, supposing another has
confided to you the secret of his authorship: there
are persons who would have no scruple at all in
giving a denial to impertinent questions asked them
on the subject. I have heard a great man in his
day at Oxford, warmly contend, as if he could not
enter into any other view of the matter, that, if he
had been trusted by a friend with the secret of his
being author of a certain book, and he were asked
by a third person, if his friend was not (as he really
was) the author of it, he ought without any scruple

APPENDIX. 97

and distinctly to answer that he did not know. He
bad an existing duty towards the author ; he had
none towards his inquirer. The author had a claim
on him ; an impertinent questioner had none at all.
But here again I desiderate some leave, recognized by
society, as in the case of the formulas " Not at home,"
and " Not guilty," in order to give me the right
of saying what is a material untruth. And more
over, I should here also ask the previous question,
Have I any right to accept such a confidence 1 ? have
I any right to make such a promise ? and, if it be
an unlawful promise, is it binding at the expense of
a lie ? I am not attempting to solve these difficult
questions, but they have to be carefully examined.

As I put into print some weeks ago various ex
tracts from authors relating to the subject which I
have been considering, I conclude by inserting them
here, though they will not have a very methodical
appearance.

For instance, St. Dorotheus : " Sometimes the ne
cessity of some matter urges (incumbit), which, un
less you somewhat conceal and dissemble it, will
turn into a greater trouble." And he goes on to
mention the case of saving a man who has committed
homicide from his pursuers : and he adds that it is
not a thing that can be done often, but once in a
long time.

St. Clement in like manner speaks of it only as
a necessity, and as a necessary medicine.

Origen, after saying that God s commandment
makes it a plain duty to speak the truth, adds, that

4 B

98 APPENDIX.

a man, " when necessity urges," may avail himself of
a lie, as medicine, that is, to the extent of Judith s
conduct towards Holofernes ; and he adds that that
necessity may be the obtaining of a great good, as
Jacob hindered his father from giving the blessing
to Esau against the will of God.

Cassian says, that the use of a lie, in order to be
allowable, must be like the use of hellebore, which
is itself poison, unless a man has a fatal disease on
him. He adds, " Without the condition of an ex
treme necessity, it is a present ruin."

St. John Chrysostom defends Jacob on the ground
that his deceiving his father was not done for the
sake of temporal gain, but in order to fulfil the pro
vidential purpose of God ; and he says, that, as
Abraham was not a murderer, though he was minded
to kill his son, so an untruth need not be a lie. And
he adds, that often such a deceit is the greatest pos
sible benefit to the man who is deceived, and there
fore allowable. Also St. Hilary, St. John Climacus,
&c., in Thomassin, Concina, the Melanges, &c.

Various modern Catholic divines hold this doctrine
of the " material lie" also. T will quote three pas
sages in point.

Cataneo : "Be it then well understood, that the
obligation to veracity, that is, of conforming our
words to the sentiments of our mind, is founded
principally upon the necessity of human intercourse,
for which reason they (i. e. words) ought not and
cannot be lawfully opposed to this end, so just, so
necessary, and so important, without which, the
world would become a Babylon of confusion. And

APPENDIX. 99

this would in a great measure be really the result,
as often as a man should be unable to defend secrets
of high importance, and other evils would follow,
even worse than confusion, in their nature destruc
tive of this very intercourse between man and man
for which speech was instituted. Every body must
see the advantage a hired assassin would have, if
supposing he did not know by sight the person he
was commissioned to kill, T being asked by the
rascal at the moment he was standing in doubt with
his gun cocked, were obliged to approve of his deed
by keeping silence, or to hesitate, or lastly to answer
* Yes, that is the man. [Then follow other similar
cases.] In such and similar cases, in which your
sincerity is unjustly assailed, when no other way
more prompt or more efficacious presents itself, and
when it is not enough to say, I do not know,
let such persons be met openly with a downright
resolute No without thinking upon any thing else.
For such a No is conformable to the universal
opinion of men, who are the judges of words, and
who certainly have not placed upon them obligations
to the injury of the Human Republic, nor ever en
tered into a compact to use them in behalf of rascals,
spies, incendiaries, and thieves. I repeat that such
a No is conformable to the universal mind of man,
and with this mind your o\vn mind ought to be in
union and alliance. Who does not see the manifest
advantage which highway robbers would derive, were
travellers when asked if they had gold, jewels, &c.,
obliged either to invent tergiversations or to answer
Yes, we have? Accordingly in such circumstances

4 B 2

100 APPENDIX.

that No which you utter [see Card. Pallav. lib. iii.
c. xi. n. 2 3, tie Fide, Spe, &c.] remains deprived of
its proper meaning, and is like a piece of coin, from
which by the command of the government the cur
rent value has been withdrawn, so that by using it
you become in no sense guilty of lying."

Bolgeni says, " We have therefore proved satisfac
torily, and with more than moral certainty, that an
exception occurs to the general law of riot speaking
untruly, viz. when it is impossible to observe a
certain other precept, more important, without tell
ing a lie. Some persons indeed say, that in the
cases of impossibility which are above drawn out,
what is said is not a lie. But a man who thus
speaks confuses ideas arid denies the essential cha
racters of things. What is a lie ? It is locutio contra
mentem ; this is its common definition. But in
the cases of impossibility, a man speaks contra
mentem ; that is clear and evident. Therefore he tells
a lie. Let us distinguish between the lie and the
sin. In the above cases, the man really tells a lie,
but this lie is not a sin, by reason of the existing
impossibility. To say that in those cases no one has
a right to ask, that the words have a meaning accord
ing to the common consent of men, and the like, as
is said by certain authors in order in those cases to
exempt the lie from sin, this is to commit oneself
to frivolous excuses, and to subject oneself to
a number of retorts, when there is the plain reason
of the above-mentioned fact of impossibility."

And the Author in the Melanges Theologiques :
" We have then gained this truth, and it is a con-

APPENDIX. 101

elusion of which we have not the smallest doubt,
that if the intention of deceiving our neighbour is
essential to a lie, it is allowable in certain cases to
say what we know to be false, as, e. g. to escape
from a great danger. . . .

" But, let no one be alarmed, it is never allowable
to lie; in this we are in perfect agreement with the
whole body of theologians. The only point in which
we differ from them is in what we mean by a lie.
They call that a lie which is not such in our view,
or rather, if you will, what in our view is only a
material lie they account to be both formal and
material."

Now to come to Anglican authorities.

Taylor : " Whether it can in any case be lawful to
tell a lie? To this I answer, that the Holy Scrip
tures of the Old and New Testament do indefinitely
and severely forbid lying. Prov. xiii. 5; xxx. 8.
Ps. v. 6. John viii. 44. Col. iii. 9. Rev. xxi. 8.
27. Beyond these things, nothing can be said in
condemnation of lying.

But then lying is to be understood to be some
thing said or written to the hurt of our neighbour,
which cannot be understood otherwise than to differ
from the mind of him that speaks. A lie is petu
lantly or from a desire of hurting, to say one thing,
or to signify it by gesture, and to think another
thing 1 : so Melancthon, To lie is to deceive our
neighbour to his hurt. For in this sense a lie is
naturally or intrinsically evil ; that is, to speak a lie

1 " Meudacium est petulanter, aut cupiditate noceudi, aliud
loqui, sen gestu significare, et aliud sentire."

102 APPENDIX.

to our neighbour is naturally evil .... not because it
is different from an eternal truth. ... A lie is an
injury to our neighbour. . . . There is in mankind a
universal contract implied in all their intercourses. . .
In justice we are bound to speak, so as that our
neighbour do not lose his right, which by our speak
ing we give him to the truth, that is, in our heart.
And of a lie, thus defined, which is injurious to our
neighbour, so long as his right to truth remains, it is
that St. Austin affirms it to be simply unlawful, and
that it can in no case be permitted, nisi forte regulas

quasdam daturus es If a lie be unjust, it can

never become lawful ; but, if it can be separate from
injustice, then it may be innocent. Here then I
consider

" This right, though it be regularly and commonly
belonging to all men, yet it may be taken away by a
superior right intervening ; or it may be lost, or it
may be hindered, or it may cease, upon a greater
reason.

" Therefore upon this account it was lawful for
the children of Israel to borrow jewels of the Egyp
tians, which supposes a promise of restitution, though
they intended not to pay them back again. God gave
commandment so to spoil them, and the Egyptians
were divested of their rights, and were to be used like
enemies.

" It is lawful to tell a lie to children or to madmen ;

because they, having no powers of judging, have no

right to truth ; but then, the lie must be charitable

and useful . . . If a lie be told, it must be such as is

for their good . . . and so do physicians to their pa-

APPENDIX. 103

tients. . . . This and the like were so usual, so per
mitted to physicians, that it grew to a proverb, You
lie like a doctor 2 ; which yet was always to be under
stood in the way of charity, and with honour to the
profession. ... To tell a lie for charity, to save a
man s life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of
a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not
only been done at all times, but commended by
great and wise and good men. . . . Who would not
save his father s life ... at the charge of a harmless
lie, from the rage of persecutors or tyrants ? . . .
When the telling of a truth will certainly be the
cause of evil to a man, though he have right to
truth, yet it must not be given to him to his harm. . . .
Every truth is no more justice, than every restitution
of a straw to the right owner is a duty. Be not
over-righteous, says Solomon. ... If it be objected,
that we must not tell a lie for God, therefore much
less for our brother, I answer, that it does not follow ;
for God needs not a lie, but our brother does. . . .
Deceiving the enemy by the stratagem of actions or
words, is not properly lying ; for this supposes a con
versation, of law or peace, trust or promise explicit
or implicit. A lie is a deceiving of a trust or con
fidence Taylor, vol. xiii. pp. 351 371, ed. Heber.

It is clear that Taylor thought that veracity was
one branch of justice; a social virtue; under the
second table of the law, not under the first; only
binding, when those to whom we speak have a claim
of justice upon us, which ordinarily all men have.

2 Mentiria ut medicus.

104 APPENDIX.

Accordingly, in cases where a neighbour has no
claim of justice upon us, there is no opportunity of
exercising veracity, as, for instance, when he is mad,
or is deceived by us for his own advantage. And
hence, in such cases, a lie is not really a lie, as
he says in one place, " Deceiving the enemy is not
properly lying." Here he seems to make that dis
tinction common to Catholics ; viz. between what
they call a material act and a formal act. Thus
Taylor would maintain, that to say the thing that is
not to a madman, has the matter of a lie, but the
man who says it as little tells a formal lie, as the
judge, sheriff, or executioner murders the man whom
he certainly kills by forms of law.

Other English authors take precisely the same
view, viz. that veracity is a kind of justice, that
our neighbour generally has a right to have the truth
told him ; but that he may forfeit that right, or lose it
for the time, and then to say the tiling that is not to
him is no sin against veracity, that is, no lie. Thus
Milton says 3 , Veracity is a virtue, by which we
speak true things to him to whom it is equitable,
and concerning what things it is suitable for the good
of our neighbour. . . . All dissimulation is not wrong,
for it is not necessary for us always openly to bring-
out the truth ; that only is blamed which is ma
licious. ... I do not see why that cannot be said of
lying which can be said of homicide and other mat
ters, which are not weighed so much by the deed as
by the object and end of acting. What man in his

The Latin original is given at tlie end of the Appendix.

APPENDIX. 105

senses will deny that there are those whom we have
the best of grounds for considering that we ought to
deceive, as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated,
enemies, men in error, thieves ? ... Is it a point of
conscience not to deceive them ? . . . I would ask, by
which of the commandments is a lie forbidden ? You
will say, by the ninth. Come, read it out, and you
will agree with me. For whatever is here for
bidden comes under the head of injuring one s
neighbour. If then any lie does not injure one s
neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this com
mandment. It is on this ground that, by the judg
ment of theologians, we shall acquit so many holy
men of lying. Abraham, who said to his servants
that he would return with his son ; . . the wise man
understood that it did not matter to his servants to
know [that his son would not return], and that it
was at the moment expedient for himself that they
should not know. . . Joseph would be a man of many
lies if the common definition of lying held ; [also]
Moses, Rahab, Ehud, Jael, Jonathan." Here again
veracity is due only on the score of justice towards
the person whom we speak with; and, if he has no
claim upon us to speak the truth, we need not speak
the truth to him.

And so, again, Paley : "A lie is a breach of pro
mise ; for whoever seriously addresses his discourse
to another tacitly promises to speak the truth, be
cause he knows that the truth is expected. Or the
obligation of veracity may be made out from the
direct ill consequences of lying to social happiness.

4 c

106 APPENDIX.

. . There are falsehoods which are not lies ; that is,
which are not criminal." (Here, let it be observed,
is the same distinction as in Taylor between material
and formal untruths.) " 1. When no one is de
ceived. . . 2. When the person to whom you speak
has no right to know the truth, or, more properly,
when little or no inconveniency results from the want
of confidence in such cases, as where you tell a false
hood to a madman for his own advantage ; to a robber,
to conceal your property; to an assassin, to defeat
or divert him from his purpose. . . It is upon this
principle that, by the laws of war, it is allowable to
deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, false
intelligence. . . Many people indulge, in serious
discourse, a habit of fiction or exaggeration. . . So
long as . . their narratives, though false, are inoffensive,
it may seem a superstitious regard to truth to cen
sure them merely for truth s sake" Then he goes
on to mention reasons against such a practice, adding,
" I have seldom known any one who deserted truth
in trifles that could be trusted in matters of im
portance." Works, vol. iv. p. 123.

Dr. Johnson, who, if any one, has the reputation
of being a sturdy moralist, thus speaks :

" We talked," says Boswell, " of the casuistical
question, whether it was allowable at any time to
depart from truth" Johnson. " The general rule is,
that truth should never be violated ; because it is of
the utmost importance to the comfort of life, that
we should have a full security by mutual faith ; and
occasional inconveniences should be willingly suf-

APPENDIX. 107

fered, that we may preserve it. There must, how
ever, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer
should ask you which way a man is gone, you may
tell him what is not true, because you are under a
previous obligation not to betray a man to a mur
derer." Boswell. " Supposing the person who wrote
Junius were asked whether he was the author, might
he deny it?" Johnson. "I don t know what to say
to this. If you were sure that he wrote Junius,
would you, if he denied it, think as well of him
afterwards ? Yet it may be urged, that what a man
has no right to ask, you may refuse to communicate ;
and there is no other effectual mode of preserving a
secret, and an important secret, the discovery of
which may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial ;
for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it will
be held equivalent to a confession. But stay,
sir; here is another case. Supposing the author
had told me confidentially that he had written Ju
nius, and I were asked if he had, I should hold
myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a pre
vious promise, express or implied, to conceal it.
Now what I ought to do for the author, may I not
do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of telling
a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. You
have no business with consequences ; you are to tell
the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect
your telling him that he is in danger may have ; it
may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may
cure him. Of all lying I have the greatest abhor
rence of this, because I believe it has been frequently

4c2

108 APPENDIX.

practised on myself." Boswell s Life, vol. iv. p.
277.

There are English authors who allow of mental
reservation and equivocation ; such is Jeremy Tay
lor.

He says, " In the same cases in which it is lawful
to tell a lie, in the same cases it is lawful to use a
mental reservation." Ibid. p. 374.

He says, too, " When the things are true in se
veral senses, the not explicating in what sense I mean
the words is not a criminal reservation. . . But
1. this liberty is not to be used by inferiors, but by
superiors only ; 2. not by those that are interro
gated, but by them which speak voluntarily ; 3. not
by those which speak of duty, but which speak of
grace and kindness." Ibid. p. 378.

Bishop Butler, the first of Anglican authorities,
writing in his grave and abstract way, seems to
assert a similar doctrine in the following pas

sage :-

" Though veracity, as well as justice, is to be our
rule of life, it must be added, otherwise a snare will
be laid in the way of some plain men, that the use of
common forms of speech generally understood, can
not be falsehood ; and, in general, that there can be
no designed falsehood without designing to deceive.
It must likewise be observed, that, in numberless
cases, a man may be under the strictest obligations to
what he foresees will deceive, without his intending it.
For it is impossible not to foresee, that the words and
actions of men in different ranks and employments,

APPENDIX. 109

and of different educations, will perpetually be mis
taken by each oilier ; and it cannot but be so, whilst
they will judge with the utmost carelessness, as they
daily do, of what they are not perhaps enough informed
to be competent judges of, even though they considered
it with great attention." Nature of Virtue, fin. These
last words seem in a measure to answer to the words
in Scavini, that an equivocation is permissible, be
cause " then we do not deceive our neighbour, but
allow him to deceive himself." In thus speaking, I
have not the slightest intention of saying any thing
disrespectful to Bishop Butler ; and still less of
course to St. Alfonso.

And a third author, for whom I have a great
respect, as different from the above two as they
are from each other, bears testimony to the same
effect in his " Comment on Scripture," Thomas Scott.
He maintains indeed that Ehud and Jael were di
vinely directed in what they did ; but they could
have no divine direction for what was in itself
wrong.

Thus on Judges iii. 15 21 :

" And Ehud said, I have a secret errand unto
thee, O king; I have a message from God unto
thee, and Ehud thrust the dagger into his belly.
Ehud, indeed," says Scott, "had a secret errand, a
message from God unto him ; but it was of a far
different nature than Eglon expected"

And again on Judges iv. 18 21 :

" And Jael said, Turn in, my lord, fear not. And
he said to her, When any man doth inquire, Is there
any man here ? thou shalt say, No. Then Jael took

110 APPENDIX.

a nail, and smote the nail into his temple. Jael,"
says Scott, " is not said to have promised Sisera that
she would deny his being there ; she would give
him shelter and refreshment, but not utter a false
hood to oblige him."

NOTES.

THE following are the originals of some of the pas
sages translated under this last Head:

Gerdil.

" Nel giuramento si dee riguardare 1 intenzlone di chi giura,
e 1 intenzione di quello a cui si presta il giuratneuto. Chicun-
que giura si obbliga in virtu delle parole non secondo il senso
ch egli si ritiene in mente, ma nel senso secondo cui egli
cognosce che sono intese da quello a cui si fa il giuramento.
Allorcbe la mente dell uuo e discordante dalla mente dell
altro, se cio avviene per dolo e inganuo del giurante, questi e
obbligato ad osservare il giuramento secondo la sana mente di
chi la ha ricevuto ; ma quando la discrepanza nel senso pro-
viene da mala intelligenza senza dolo di chi giura, in quel caso
egli non e obbligato se non a cio che avea in meute di volersi
obbligare. Da cio segue che chiunque usa restrizione mentale
o equivocazione nel giuramento per ingannare la parte cui egli
lo presta, pecca gravissimamente, ed e sempre obbligato ad
osservare il giuramento nel senso in cui egli sapea che le sue
parole erano prese dall altro, secondo la decisione di S.
Augostino (epist. 224) Perjuri sunt qui servatis verbia, ex-
pectationem eorum quibus juratum est deceperunt. Chi giura
esternamente senza interna intenzione di giurare, cornmette
gravissimo peccato, e ritnane con tutto cio nell obbligo di

adimperlo In somma tutto che e contrario alia buona

fede, e iniquo, e facendovi intervenire il nome di Dio si aggrava

112 NOTES.

1 iniquita colla reita del sacrilegio." Opusc. Theolog. Bom.
1851, p. 28.

Natalis Alexander.

" Perjurium est raendacium juramento firmatum. Illos vero
mentiri compertum est, qui juramenti verba proferunt, et jurare
vel obligare se nolunt, aut qui restrictiones mentales et aequivo-
cationes jurando adhibent, siquidem verbis significant quod in
meute non habent, contra finem propter quern institutae sunt
voces, ut videlicet sint sigua conceptuum. Vel aliud volunt
quam verba significent secundum se et secundutn communem
loquendi morem, et personarum ac negotiorum circutnstantias ;
atque ita verbis ad societatem fovendam institutis abutuntur."
Theol. Lib. iv. c. iv. Art. 3. Beg. 11.

Contenson.

" Atque ex his apparet quam damnanda sit eorum semi-
doctorum temeritas, qui mendacia et aequivocationes verbis et
exemplis Christi prascolorant. Quorum doctrina, quse ars
fallendi est, nihil pestilentius esse potest. Turn quia quod tibi
non vis fieri, alteri ne feceris ; sed aequivocationum, ac restric-
tionum mentalium patroni aequo animo non paterentur se ab
aliis illudi: ergo illud oecumenicum naturae principium nulli
ignotum, omnibus quamlibet barbaris implantatum violant.
Turn quia urget argumeutum Augustinus, etc- . . . Sane sicut
segre cum illis convivimus, quorum linguam non intelligimus ;
et authore Augustino, lib. 19, de Civit. Libentius vivit homo
cum cane suo, quam cum homine alieno : aegrius certe cum illis
conversamur qui fraudes artificio tectas adhibent, audientes
circumveniunt dolis, insidiis eos petunt, tempus observant,
verbaque idonea aucupantur, quibus veritas veluti quodam
involucre obtegitur: sicut e contra nihil eorum convictu
suavius, qui ab omni simulandi studio louge absentes, sincero
animo, candido ingenio, aperta voluntate prrediti sunt, oderunt
artes, nudam veritatem tarn amant, quam loquuntur : quorum
denique manus linguae, lingua cordi, cor rationi, ratio Deo con-
gruit, et tota vita uuius faciei est, unius et coloris : nee aliud
os prae se fert, aliud animus celat, et verborum duplicium velo
obtendit. Certe tolerabilior erat Babjlonica confusio, in qua

NOTES. 113

invicem loquentes se minime intelligebant, eorum couvictu, qui
non se intelligunt, nisi ut sese mutuo decipiant.

" Nee obest quod nomine sequivocationum, vel restrictionum
mentalium mendacia fucent. Nam ut ait Hilarius lib. 2. de
Trinit., Sensus, non sermo, fit crimen. O ubi simplicitas
Christiana, qua3 regula ilia Legislator-is sui Christi contenta
est : Sit sermo vester, Est est, Non non ! O ubi est mulier
ilia virilis totam Probabilistarum sequivocationibus veniam dan-
tium nationem confusura ! quae referente Hierouymo epist. 49,
nee ad gravissimos torturarum et dirae mortis cruciatus vitandos
aequivocationum usum septies icta advocavit." Theol. vii.
p. 30.

Concina.

" Cardo disputationis Augustiniana3, in duobus recensitis
libris, potissimum in eo vertitur, ut rationes pra3beantur pro
veritatis occultatione in negotiis summi momenti . . . Augus-
tinus nulla reperire remedia potuit prseter haec : Primum est
silentium . . . Alterum est aperta et invicta significatio. . . .
Nullam aliam viam occultandi veritatem agnovit, non re-
strictiones iuternas, non materiales locutiones, non verborum
amphibolias, non alia juniorum inventa. Theol. T. iii. p. 278.
Lib. v. in Decal. Diss. 3. c. 5. prop. 2d.

. . . Haec autem omnium scopulorum, et difficultatum origo :
quia cum non possit recta? disputationi locus esse, nisi id
pateat de quo est disputandum ; certas et claras notiones
aequivocationum, amphibologiarum, et mentalium restrictio
num prsefinire minime possumus, attentis recentiorum dis-
tinctiunculis, effugiis, et thecnis, quae rem bane maxime
implicatam efficiunt. Has ambages ut evitarem, cursum in-
ceptum abrumpere, telamque redordiri, atque retexere decrevi :
idque consilii cepi, ut primum omnium de mendacio sermonem
instituam. Illud namque coramodi mihi peracta controversiae
tractatio attulit, ut deprehenderim, nihil a recentioribus Theo-
logis pro licito amphibologiarum usu efferri quod prius ab
antiquis turn Philosophis, turn Patribus aliquibus usurpatum
non fuerit in mendaciorum patrocinium. Nee aliud discrimen
mihi utrorumque fundamenta perpendenti occurrit, nisi quod
antiqui eas locutiones quas recentiorum Theologorum non

4 D

114 NOTES.

pauci amphibologicas, sequivocas, et materiales vocant, in-
genua sinceritate niendacia appellaverint." Diss. iii. De Juram.
Dol. etc.

Caramuel.

" . . . . Est mihi," inquit, " innata aversio contra restrictionea
mentales. Si enim continentur inter terminos pietatis, et
sinceritatis, necessarise non sunt. Nam omnia quse ipsse prae-
stare possunt, prsestabunt consignificantes circumstantise. Quod
si tales dicantur, ut etiam ibi adun ttendas sint, ubi desunt
circumstantise significantes (ignoscant mihi earumdem auctores,
et propugnatores) tollunt humanam societatem, et securitatem,
et tamquam pestiferee damnandse sunt. Quoniam semel admissa?
aperiunt omni mendacio, omni perjurio viam. Et tota differentia
in eo erit ut quod heri vocabatur mendacium, naturam, et
malitiam non mutet, sed nomen, ita ut hodie jubeatur Ee-
strictio mentalis nominari; quod est virus condire saccharo,
et scelus specie virtutis colorare. Apud Concinam Theol. Diss.
iii. De Juram. Dol. etc.

8. Thomas.

" Quando non est eadem jurantis interitio, et ejus cui jurat,
si hoc proveniat ex dolo jurantis, debet juramentum servari
secundum sanum intellectum ejus, cui juramentum prsestatur.
Si autem jurans dolum non adhibeat, obligatur secundum
intentionem jurantis." Apud Nat. Alex.

8. Isidorus.

" Quacunque arte verborum quisquis juret, Deus tamen qui
conscientias testis est, ita hoc accipit, sicut ille, cui juratur,
intelligit. Dupliciter autem reus fit, qui et Dei nomen in
vanum assumit, et proximum dolo capit." Apud Nat. Alex.

8. Augustinus.

"Illud sane rectissime dici non ambigo, non secundum
verba jurantis, sed secundum expectationem illius cui juratur,
quam novit ille qui jurat, fidem jurationis impleri. Nam verba
difficillime comprehendunt, maxime breviter, sententiam cujus

NOTES. 115

a jurante fides exigitur. Unde perjuri sunt, qui servatis
verbis, expectationem eorum, quibus juratum est, deceperunt:
et perjuri non sunt, qui etiam verbis non servatis, illud quod
ab eis cum jurarent expectatum est, irapleverunt." Apud Natal.
Alex.

Cattaneo.

" Sappiasi dunque, che 1 oblige della veracita, cioe, di con-
formare le parole ai sentimenti dell animo nostro, egli e prin-
cipalmente fondato nella necessita del commercio uraano ; onde
elle non devono giammai ne possono lecitamente opporsi a
questo fine, si giusto, si necessario, e si importante ; tolto il
quale, diverebbe il mondo una Babilonia di confusione. E cio
accaderebbe in gran parte, ogni qual volta non si potessero
custodire, ue difendere i segreti d alta importanza, e ne se-
guissero altri mali anche peggiori, distruttivi di lor natura di
questo stesso commercio, per cui e stato istituito il parlare.
Ognun vede, quanto tornerebbe in acconcio ad un mandatario,
se non conoscendo la persona, che deve uccidere, io da lui in
terrogate, mentre il traditore sta dubbioso coll archibugio gia
alzato, dovessi, o approvar col silenzio, o titubare, o rispondergli,

Si egli e il tale. In somiglianti casi, ne quali viene

ingiustamente assalita la vostra sincerita, quando non sovvenga
altro mezzo piu pronto, e piu efficace, e quando non basti dire
no l so ; piantisi pure in faccia a costoro un No franco e
risoluto, senza pensar ad altro. Imperocche un tal no egli e
conforme alia mente universale degli uomini, i quali sono arbitri
delle parole, e certamente non le hanno obligate a dauno della
llepublica umana, ne hanno gia mai pattuito di usarle in pro
di furbi, di spie, d incendarii, di masnadieri, e di ladri. Torno
a dire, che quel No egli e conforme alia mente universale degli
uomini, e a questa raente deve esser unita e collegata anche la
vostra. Chi nou vede 1 utile manifesto, che ne trarrebbero gli
assassini di strada, se i passeggieri interrogati se abbian seco
oro, o gemme dovissero, o tergiversare, o rispondere, si che
1 abbiamo ; adunque, in tali congiunture, quel No, che voi
proferite (Card. Pallav. lib. iii. c. xi. n. 23 de fide, spe, &c.)
resta privo del suo significato e resta appunto agguisa di una
moneta, a cui per volere del Principio, sia stato tolto il vaiore,

4D2

116 NOTES.

con cui prima correva ; onde in niun modo voi siete reo di
menzogna." Lezione xlir. Prima Parte.

Bolgeni.

"Abbiamo dunque bene, e con certezza piu che morale,
provata una eccezione da porsi alia legge generale di non
mentire, cioe, quando non si possa osservare qualche altro
precetto piu importante se non col dir bugia. Dicono alcuni
che nei casi della impossibilita sopra esposta non e bugia,
quello che si dice. Ma chi dice cosi, confonde le idee, e nega
1 essenza delle cose. Che cosa e la bugia ? Est locutio contra
mentem : cosi la definiscono tutfci. Atqui nei casi della im
possibilita sovra esposta si parla contra mentem : cio e chiaro
ed evidente. Dunque si dice bugia. Distinguiamo la bugia
dal peccato. Nei casi detti si dice realmente bugia ; ma queata
bugia non e peccato per ragione della impossibilita. II dire
che in quei casi niuno ha diritto d interrogare ; che le parole
sigiiificano secondo la convenzione comune fra gli uomini ; e
cose simili, che da alcuni Autori si dicono per esimere da
peccato la bugia in quei casi : questo e un attaccarsi a ragioni
frivole, e soggette a molte repliche quando si ha la ragione
evidente della citata impossibilita." 11 Possesso, c. 48.

Author in the Melanges Theologiques.

" II reste done acquis, et nous n avons pas le moindre doute
sur la verite de cette conclusion, que si 1 intentiou de tromper
le prochain, est essentielle au mensonge, il sera permis de dire
ce qu on sait etre faux, en certain cas, comme pour eviter un

grand danger Au reste, que personne ne s effraie, il

ne sera jamais permis de mentir, et en cela nous sommes
d accord avec tous les theologiens : nous nous eloignons d eux
en ce seul point qu ils appellent mensonge, ce qui ne Test pas
pour nous, ou si 1 on vent, ils regardent comme mensonge
formel et materiel ce qui pour nous est seulement un mensouge
materiel." Melanges Theologiques, vi me Serie, p. 442.

Milton.

" Veracitas est Virtus qua ei cui requum est, et quibus de

NOTES. 117

rebus convenit ad bonutn proximi, vera dicimus. Psal. xv. 2.
Prov. xii. 21, 17 ; xx. 6. Zech. viii. 16. Eph. iv. 25.

" Huic opponitur dissimulatio vitiosa. Nam omnis non
iinprobatur : non enim semper vera palam expromere necesse
habemus ; ea tantum reprebenditur qua3 malitiosa est.

" Secundo opponitur mendacium. Psal. v. 7. xii. 2, 3. Prov.
xiii. 5 ; xix. 5. Joan viii. 44. Apoc. xxii. 15. Mendacio
itaque ne Dei quidem causa est utendum. Job xiii. 7.

" Mendacium vulgo definitur, quo falsum animo fallendi
verlis factisve significatur. Sed quoniam ssepe usu venit, ut
non solum vera dissimulare aut reticere, sed etiam fallendi
animo falsa dicere, utile ac salutare proximo sit, danda opera
est, ut mendacium quid sit melius definiamus. Neque enim
video cur non idem de mendacio, quod de homicidio aliisque
rebus, de quibus infra dicetur, nuuc dici possit, quee non tarn
facto, quam objecto et fine agendi ponderanda sunt. Esse enim
quos jure optimo fallendos putemus, quis sanus negaverit?
quid enim pueros, quid furcates, quid a?grotos, quid ebrios, quid
hostes, quid fallentes, quid latrones ? (certe juxta illud tritum,
Cui nulhim est jus, ei nulla fit injuria :) an illos ne fallamus
religio erit ? per hanc tamen definitionem ne illos quidem dictis
aut factis fallere licebit. Certe si gladium, aliamve rem quam
apud me sanus deposuerit, eidem furenti non reddiderim, cur
veritatem non depositam, ei ad quern veritas minime pertineat,
male usuro expromara ? Enimvero si quidquid cuicunque in-
terroganti respondetur fallendi animo, mendacium est cen-
sendum, profecto sanctis viris et propbetis nihil familiarius erat
quam mentiri.

" Quid si igitur mendacium hoc modo definiamus ? Menda
cium est cum quis dolo malo aut veritatem depravat, aut falsum
dicit ei, quicunque is sit, cui dicere veritatem ex officio debuerat.
Sic diabolus serpens primus erat mendax, Gen. iii. 4. et Cain,
cap. iv. 9. et Sara, cap. xviii. 15. angelis enim merito offensis
non satisfecit ingenua confessione : et Abrahamus, cap. xii. 13.
et cap. xx. illud enim de Sara tanquam sorore figmentura, ut
ipse didicisse poterat in JEgypto, quamvis incolumitatem vitse
sibi proposuerat solam, homines tamen inscientes in errorem et
alieni cupiditatem induxit: et Davides fugiens, 1 Sam. xxi. 3.

118 NOTES.

debebat enim non celasse Abimelecura quo loco res suse apud
regem essent, neque tantum periculum hospiti creare : sic
Ananias et Sapphira, Act. v., mentiti sunt.

" Ex hac definitione, l mo , baud secus atque ex altera, patet,
parabolas, hyperbolas, apologos, ironias mendacia non esse :
hsec enim orania non fallendi sed erudiendi studio adhibentur.
1 Begum xviii. 27. et xxii. 15. 2 do , si fallendi vocem signi-
ficatione debita sumamus, neurinem quidem fallere poterimus,
quiu eum eadem opera Ia3damus. Quern igitur nullo modo
laedimus, sed vel juvamus, vel ab iujuria aut inferenda aut
patienda probibemus, eum certe ne falso quidem millies dicto
revera falliinus, sed vero potius beneficio necopinantetn affi-
cimus. 3 tio , dolos et strategemata in bello, modo absit pertidia
aut perjurium, non esse mendacia omnes concedunt : quae con-
cessio alteram definitionem plane destruit. Vix enim ullae in-
sidise aut doli in bello strui possunt, quin palam idque summo
fallendi studio dicantur multa qua? falsissima sunt : unde per
illam definitionem mendacio absolvi nequeunt. Hanc igitur
potius ob causam licere strategemata dicendum erit, etiam cum
mendacio conjuncta, eo quod, si quis est cui verum dicere
officii nostri non sit, nihil certe interest an illi, quoties expedit,
etiam falsum dicamus : nee video cur hoc in bello magis quam
in pace liceat, praesertim quoties iDJuriam aut periculum a
nobismetipsis aut a proximo salutari et probo quodam mendacio
depellere licet.

" Qua? igitur testimonia scripturse contra mendacium pro-
feruntur, de eo intelligenda sunt mendacio, quod aut Dei
gloriam aut nostrum proximive bonum imminuere videatur.
Hujusmodi sunt, prater ea qua? supra citavimus, Lev. xix.
Ps. ci. 7. Prov. vi. 16, 17. Jer. ix. 5. His atque aliis hujus-
modi locis veritatem dicere jubemur : at cui ? non hosti, non
furioso, non violento, non sicario ; sed proximo, quicum scilicet
pax et justa societas nobis intercedit. Jam vero si veritatem
soli proximo dicere jubemur, profecto iis qui nomen proximi
non merentur, ne falsum quidem, quoties opus est, dicere
vetamur. Qui aliter sentit, ex eo libens quaererem, quoiiam
decalogi praecepto prohibeatur mendacium ? respondebit cer-
tissime, nono. Age, recitet modo, et mecum sentiet : quidqtiid

NOTES. 119

eiiim hie prohibetur, id proximum Isedere ostenditur; siquod
igitur mendacium non laedit proximum, sub hoc certe mandate
nequaquam prohibetur.

" Hinc tot sanctissimos viros theologorum fere judicio men-
dacii reos merito absolvemus : Abraharaum, Gen. xxii. 5. cum
dixit servis suis se reversurum cum filio ; fallendi tamen animo,
nequid illi suspicarentur ; cum ipse persuasus esset mactatum
ibi filium se relicturum ; nam nisi ita sibi persuasisset, quid hoc
magnopere tentationis erat ? - sed intellexit vir sapiens nihil
interesse servorum hoc ut scirent, sibi expedire in praesentia ne
scirent. Eebeccam et Jacobum, Gen. xxvii., prudenti enim
astutia et cautione aditum sibi muniebant ad jus illud ha3re-
ditatis quod alter vili vendiderat ; ad jus, inquam, et oraculo et
redemptione jam suum. At patri imposuit : immo potius errori
patris, qui amore prspostero in Esauum ferebatur, tempestive
occurrit. Josephum, Gen. xlii. 7, etc. multorum sane men-
daciorum hominem, si vulgari ilia definitione stetur : quam
multa enim dixit non vera, eo animo ut fratres falleret ? dolo
tamen fratribus non malo, sed utilissimo. Obstetrices He-
braaas, Exod. i. 19, etc., comprobante etiam Deo; fefellerant
enim Pharaonem, non laeserant tamen, sed beneficio potius
affecerant, dum male faciendi facultatem ademerunt. Mosen,
Exod. iii., etiam a Deo jussum iter tridui a Pharaone petere,
quasi ad rem divinam faciendam in deserto ; eo licet consilio
petentem ut Pharaoni verba daret ; non causam enim pro causa,
vel fictam saltern pro vera profectionis afferebat. Universum
populum Israeliticum, Exod. xi. et xii., ab eodem Deo jussum
aurum, vasa, vestemque pretiosam ab JEgyptiis mutuam petere ;
et pollicitum sine dubio reddere : fallendi tamen animo ; quidni
enim et Dei hostes et hospitii violatores et spoliatores jamdiu
suos ? Raabbam, Jos. ii. 4, 5, splendide mentitam, nee sine
fide ; fallebat enim quos Deus falli voluit, populares licet suos,
et magistratus : quos voluit ille salvos conservabat ; civile
officium religion! recte posthabuit. Ehudem, qui duplici men-
dacio Eglonem fefellit, Judic. iii. 19, 20. nee injuria tamen,
quippe hostem ; idque Dei non injussu. Jaelem, quae confu-
gientem ad se Siseram blanditiis perdidit, Judic. iv. 18, 19.
hostem licet Dei magis quam suum : quamquam id non men-

120 NOTES

dacio, sed pia fraude factum vult Junius, quasi quidquam iuter-
esset. Jonathanem, dum rogatus ab amico Davide causam
ejus absentia fictam refert patri, 1 Sam. xx. 6, 28. malebat enim
innocentis saluti quam patris crudelitati officiosum se ease ; et
majoris erat moment! ad charitatem ut iiinocentis amici con-
suleretur vitse, interposito licet mendacio, quam ut patri ad
maleficium exequenduin veritatis inutili confessione mos gere-
retur. Hos atque alios tot viros sanctissimos vulgari ilia defi
nitions mendacii condernnatos, vetuli ex limbo quodatn patrum
disquisitio haec veritatis accuratior educit."

The request has been made to me from various
quarters for a list of my writings. This I now give,
omitting several pamphlets and articles in Reviews
&c. of minor importance.

1. Life and Writings of Cicero Griffin.

2. Life of Apollonius Tyanseus and Essay on

Scripture Miracles ........ Griffin.

3. Article in London Beview, on Greek Tra

gedy , Out of print.

4. History of the Arians Lumley.

5 10. Parochial Sermons ....... Out of print.

11. Plain Sermons (vol. 5th) . . . ... . Eivingtons.

12. Home Thoughts Abroad in the British Ma

gazine 1832 1836 Out of print.

13. Tracts for the Times (smaller Tracts), Nos. 1,

2. 6, 7, 8. 10, 11. 19, 20, 21. 34. 38. 41.

45. 47 Eivingtons.

Tracts for the Times (larger Tracts), Nos. 71.

73. 75. 79. 82, 83. 85. 88. 90 . . . . Eivingtons.

14. Pamphlets. 1. Suffragan Bishops. 2. Letter

to Faussett. 3. Letters by Catholicus. 4.
Letter to Jelf. 5. Letter to Bishop of
Oxford Out of print.

15. Articles in British Critic, 18361842. 1.

Apostolical Tradition. 2. Dr. "Wiseman s
Lectures. 3. De la Mennais. 4. Geraldine.
5. Memorials of Oxford. 6. Exeter Hall.
7. Palmer on the Church of Christ. 8. St.
Ignatius of Antioch. 9. State of Eeligious
Parties. 10. American Church. 11. Ca
tholicity of the English Church. 12. Coun
tess of Huntingdon. 13. Antichrist. 14.
Milman s Christianity. 15. Bowden s Hil-
debrand. 16. Private Judgment. 17. Da
mson Out of print.

4 E

122 LIST OF WRITINGS.

16. Church of the Fathers Duffv.

9

17. Prophetical Office of the Church .... Out of print.

18. Doctrine of Justification Rivingtons.

19. University Sermons Rivingtons.

20. Sermons on Subjects of the Day .... Out of print.

21. Annotated Translation of St. Athanasius. Parker, Oxford.

22. Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles .... Rivingtons.

23. Essay on Development of Doctrine .... Toovey.
2-4. Dissertatiunculse Critico-Theologicse . . Out of print.

25. Loss and Gain . Burns and Lambert.

26. Sermons to Mixed Congregations ... . Duffy.

27. Anglican Difficulties Duffy.

28. Catholicism in England Duffy.

29. Lectures on the Turks . ....... Duffy.

30. University Education . ... . . . . Longman.

31. Office and "Work of Universities Longman.

32. Lectures on University Subjects Longman.

33. Verses on Eeligious Subjects Out of print.

(Vide also in Lyra Apostolica.)

34. Callista . . . .;,-..; Burns and Lambert.

35. Occasional Sermons Burns and Lambert.

36. Eambler, 18591860. Ancient Saints, 15.

Burns and Lambert.

37. Atlantis, 1. Benedictine Order. 2. Benedic

tine Centuries. 3. St. Cyril s Formula . Longman.

38. Apologia pro Vita sua Longman.

POSTSCRIPTUM.

JUNE 4, 1864,

WHTLE I was engaged with these concluding pages, I received
another of those special encouragements, which from several
quarters have been bestowed upon me, since my controversy
began. It was the extraordinary honour done me of an Address
from the Clergy of this large Diocese, who had been assembled
for the Synod.

It was followed two days afterwards by a most gracious
testimonial from my Bishop, Dr. Ullathorne, in the shape of a
Letter which he wrote to me, and also inserted in the Birming-
ham Papers. "With his leave I transfer it to my own Volume,
as a very precious document, completing and recompensing, in a
way most grateful to my feelings, the anxious work which has
occupied me so fully for nearly ten weeks,

" Bishop s House, June 2, 1864.
"My dear Dr. Newman,

" It was with warm gratification that, after the close of
the Synod yesterday, I listened to the Address presented to you
by the clergy of the diocese, and to your impressive reply.
But I should have been little satisfied with the part of the
silent listener, except on the understanding with myself that I
also might afterwards express to you my own sentiments in my
own way.

" We have now been personally acquainted, and much more
than acquainted, for nineteen years, during more than sixteen
of which we have stood in special relation of duty towards each

4E2

124 POSTSCRIPTUM.

other. This has been one of the singular blessings which God
has given me amongst the cares of the Episcopal office. "What
my feelings of respect, of confidence, and of affection have been
towards you, you know well, nor should I think of expressing
them in words. But there is one thing that has struck me
in this day of explanations, which you could not, and would
not, be disposed to do, and which no one could do so properly
or so authentically as I could, and which it seems to me is not
altogether uncalled for, if every kind of erroneous impression
that some persons have entertained with no better evidence
than conjecture is to be removed.

" It is difficult to comprehend how, in the face of facts, the
notion should ever have arisen that, during your Catholic life,
you have been more occupied with your own thoughts than
with the service of religion and the work of the Church. If
we take no other work into consideration beyond the written
productions which your Catholic pen has given to the world,
they are enough for the life s labour of another. There
are the Lectures on Anglican Difficulties, the Lectures on
Catholicism in England, the great work on the Scope and End
of University Education, that on the Office and Work of
Universities, the Lectures and Essays on University Subjects,
and the two Volumes of Sermons ; not to speak of your contri
butions to the Atlantis, which you founded, and to other
periodicals ; then there are those beautiful offerings to Catholic
literature, the Lectures on the Turks, Loss and Gain, and
Callista, and though last, not least, the Apologia, which is
destined to put many idle rumours to rest, and many unpro
fitable surmises ; and yet all these productions represent but a
portion of your labour, and that in the second half of your
period of public life.

" These works have been written in the midst of labour and
cares of another kind, and of which the world knows very little.
I will specify four of these undertakings, each of a distinct
character, and any one of which would have made a reputation
for untiring energy in the practical order.

" The first of these undertakings was the establishment of
the congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri that great

POSTSCRIPTUM. 125

ornament and accession to the force of English Catholicity.
Both the London and the Birmingham Oratory must look to
you as their founder and as the originator of their characteristic
excellences ; whilst that of Birmingham has never known any
other presidency.

" No sooner was this work fairly on foot than you were
called by the highest authority to commence another, and one
of yet greater magnitude and difficulty, the founding of a
University in Ireland. After the Universities had been lost to
the Catholics of these kingdoms for three centuries, every tiling
had to be begun from the beginning : the idea of such an
institution to be inculcated, the plan to be formed that would
work, the resources to be gathered, and the staff of superiors
and professors to be brought together. Tour name was then
the chief point of attraction which brought these elements
together. You alone know what difficulties you had to conci
liate and what to surmount, before the work reached that
state of consistency and promise, which enabled you to return
to those responsibilities in England which you had never laid
aside or suspended. And here, excuse me if I give expression
to a fancy which passed through my mind.

" I was lately reading a poem, not long published, from the
MSS. De Rerum Natura, by Neckham, the foster-brother of
Richard the Lion-hearted. He quotes an old prophecy, attri
buted to Merlin, and with a sort of wonder, as if recollecting
that England owed so much of its literary learning to that
country ; and the prophecy says that after long years Oxford
will pass into Ireland Vada bourn suo tempore transibunt in
Hiberniam. When I read this, I could not but indulge the
pleasant fancy that in the days when the Dublin University
shall arise in material splendour, an allusion to this prophecy
might form a poebic element in the inscription on the pedestal
of the statue which commemorates its first Rector.

" The original plan of an oratory did not contemplate any
parochial work, but you could not contemplate so many souls
in want of pastors without being prompt and ready at the beck
of authority to strain all your efforts in coming to their help.
And this brings me to the third and the most continuous of
those labours to which I have alluded. The mission in Alcester

126 POSTSCRIPTUM.

A Street, its church and schools, were the first work of the Bir
mingham Oratory. After several years of close and hard work,
and a considerable call upon the private resources of the
Fathers who had established this congregation, it was delivered
over to other hands, and the Fathers removed to the district of

^Edgbaston, where up to that time nothing Catholic had ap
peared. Then arose under your direction the large convent of
the Oratory, the church expanded by degrees into its present
capaciousness, a numerous congregation has gathered and grown
in it ; poor schools and other pious institutions have grown up
in connexion with it, and, moreover, equally at your expense
and that of your brethren, and, as I have reason to know, at
much inconvenience, the Oratory has relieved the other clergy
of Birmingham all this while by constantly doing the duty in

J the poor-house and gaol of Birmingham.

" More recently still, the mission and the poor school at
Smethwick owe their existence to the Oratory. And all this
while the founder and father of these religious works has added
to his other solicitudes the toil of frequent preaching, of at
tendance in the confessional, and other parochial duties.

" I have read on this day of its publication the seventh part
of the Apologia, and the touching allusion in it to the devoted-
ness of the Catholic clergy to the poor in seasons of pestilence
reminds me that when the cholera raged so dreadfully at
Bilston, and the two priests of the town were no longer equal
to the number of cases to which they were hurried day and
night, I asked you to lend me two fathers to supply the place
of other priests whom I wished to send as a further aid. But
you and Father St. John preferred to take the place of danger
which I had destined for others, and remained at Bilston till
the worst was over.

" The fourth work which I would notice is one more widely

_^ known. I refer to the school for the education of the higher
classes, which at the solicitation of many friends you have
founded and attached to the Oratory. Surely after reading
this bare enumeration of work done, no man will venture to say
that Dr. Newman is leading a comparatively inactive life in the
service of the Church.

" To spare, my dear Dr. Newman, any further pressure ou

POSTSCRIPTUM. 127

those feelings with which I have already taken so large a
liberty, I will only add one word more for my own satisfaction.
During our long intercourse there is only one subject on which,
after the first experience, I have measured my words with some
caution, and that has been where questions bearing on eccle
siastical duty have arisen. I found some little caution neces
sary, because you were always so prompt and ready to go even
beyond the slightest intimation of my wish or desires.

" That God may bless you with health, life, and all the
spiritual good which you desire, you and your brethren of the
Oratory, is the earnest prayer now and often of,

" My dear Dr. Newman,

" Tour affectionate friend and faithful servant
in Christ,

" + W. B. ULLATHOENE."

THE END.

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN S BftUARE, LONDON.

MR. KINGSLEY AND DR. NEWMAN;

CORRESPONDENCE

Question

WHETHER DR. NEWMAN TEACHES THAT
TRUTH IS NO VIRTUE?

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, EGBERTS, AND GREEN.

18Gi.

Price One Shitting.

LONDON 1

GILBERT AND R1V1NGTON, PRINTE11S,
ST. JOHN S 8QUARK.

ADVERTISEMENT.

To prevent misconception, I think it necessary to

w

observe, that, in my Letters here published, I
am far indeed from implying any admission of the
truth of Mr. Kingsley s accusations against the
Catholic Church, although I have abstained from
making any formal protest against them. The
object which led to my writing at all, has also led
me, in writing, to turn my thoughts in a different

direction.

J. H. N.

January 31, 1864.

A 2

CORRESPONDENCE,

I.

Extract from a Review of Fronde s History of
England, vols. vii. and viii., in Macmillan s
Magazine for January, 1864, signed " C. K."

PAGES 216, 217.

" THE Roman religion had, for some time past,
been making men not better men, but worse. We
must face, we must conceive honestly for ourselves,
the deep demoralization which had been brought
on in Europe by the dogma that the Pope of Rome
had the power of creating right and wrong; that
not only truth and falsehood, but morality and im
morality, depended on his setting his seal to a bit
of parchment. From the time that indulgences
were hawked about in his name, which would
insure pardon for any man, etsi matrem Dei viola-
vissetj the world in general began to be of that

6

opinion. But the mischief was older and deeper
than those indulgences. It lay in the very notion
of the dispensing power. A deed might be a
crime, or no crime at all like Henry the Eighth s
marriage of his brother s widow according to the
will of the Pope. If it suited the interest or
caprice of the old man of Rome not to say the
word, the doer of a certain deed would be burned
alive in hell for ever. If it suited him, on the
other hand, to say it, the doer of the same deed
would go, sacramentis munitus, to endless bliss.
What rule of morality, what eternal law of right
and wrong, could remain in the hearts of men
born and bred under the shadow of so hideous a
deception ?

"And the shadow did not pass at once, when
the Pope s authority was thrown off. Henry VIII.
evidently thought that if the Pope could make
right and wrong, perhaps he could do so likewise.
Elizabeth seems to have fancied, at one weak
moment, that the Pope had the power of making
her marriage with Leicester right, instead of

wrong.

" Moreover, when the moral canon of the Pope s
will was gone, there was for a while no canon of
morality left. The average morality of Elizabeth s
reign was not so much low, as capricious, self-
willed, fortuitous; magnificent one day in virtue,
terrible the next in vice. It was not till more
than one generation had grown up and died with

the Bible in their hands, that Englishmen arid
Germans began to understand (what Frenchmen
and Italians did not understand) that they were to
be judged by the everlasting laws of a God who
was no respecter of persons.

" So, again, of the virtue of truth. Truth, for
its own sake, had never been a virtue with the
Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that
it need not, and on the Avhole ought not to be;
that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has
given to the saints wherewith to withstand the
brute male force of the wicked world which
marries and is given in marriage. Whether his
notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least
historically so.

" Ever since Pope Stephen forged an epistle
from St. Peter to Pepin, King of the Franks, and
sent it with some filings of the saint s holy chains,
that he might bribe him to invade Italy, destroy
the Lombards, and confirm to him the Patrimony
of St. Peter; ever since the first monk forged the
first charter of his monastery, or dug the first
heathen Anglo-Saxon out of his barrow, to make
him a martyr and a worker of miracles, because
his own minster did not draw as well as the
rival minster ten miles off; ever since this had
the heap of lies been accumulating, spawning,
breeding fresh lies, till men began to ask them
selves whether truth was a thing worth troubling

8

a practical man s head about, and to suspect that
tongues were given to men, as claws to cats and
horns to bulls, simply for purposes of offence and
defence."

9

II.

DR. NEWMAN to MESSRS. MACMILLAN and Co.

The Oratory, Dec. 30, 1863.

GENTLEMEN,

I do not write to you with any contro
versial purpose, which would be preposterous; but
I address you simply because of your special inte
rest in a Magazine which bears your name.

That highly respected name you have associated
with a Magazine, of which the January number
has been sent to me by this morning s post, with a
pencil mark calling my attention to page 217.

There, apropos of Queen Elizabeth, I read as
follows :

" Truth, for its own sake, had never been a
virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman
informs us that it need not, and on the whole
ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon
which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith
to withstand the brute male force of the wicked
world which marries and is given in marriage.
Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not,
it is at least historically so."

There is no reference at the foot of the page to
any words of mine, much less any quotation from
my writings, in justification of this statement.

I should not dream of expostulating with the

10

writer of such a passage, nor with the editor who
could insert it without appending evidence in proof
of its allegations. Nor do I want any reparation
from either of them. I neither complain of them
for their act, nor should I thank them if they re
versed it. Nor do I even write to you with any desire
of troubling you to send uie an answer. I do but
wish to draw the attention of yourselves, as gentle
men, to a grave and gratuitous slander, with which
I feel confident you will be sorry to find associated
a name so eminent as yours.

I am, Gentlemen,

Your obedient Servant,

(Signed) JOHN H. NEWMAN.

11

III.

The REV. CHAKLES KINGSLEY to DR. NEWMAN.

Eversley Rectory, January 6, 1864.

REVEREND SIR,

I have seen a letter of yours to Mr.
Macmillan, in which you complain of some ex
pressions of mine in an article in the January
number of Macmillan s Magazine.

That my words were just, I believed from many
passages of your writings; but the document to
which I expressly referred was one of your Sermons
on " Subjects of the Day," No. XX., in the volume
published in 1844, and entitled " Wisdom and
Innocence."

It was in consequence of that sermon, that I
finally shook off the strong influence which your
writings exerted on me; and for much of which I
still owe you a deep debt of gratitude.

I am most happy to hear from you that I mis
took (as I understand from your letter) your
meaning; and I shall be most happy, on your
showing me that I have wronged you, to retract
my accusation as publicly as I have made it.

I am, Reverend Sir,

Your faithful Servant,
(Signed) CHARLES KINGSLEY.

12

IV.

DR. NEWMAN to the REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

The Oratory, Birmingham,
January 7, 1864.

REVEREND SIR,

I have to acknowledge your letter of

o

the 6th, informing me that you are the writer of
an article in Macmillan s Magazine, in which I am
mentioned, and referring generally to a Protestant
sermon of mine, of seventeen pages, published by
me, as Vicar of St. Mary s, in 1844, and treating
of the bearing of the Christian towards the world,
and of the character of the reaction of that bearing
upon him; and also, referring to my works passim ;
in justification of your statement, categorical and
definite, that " Father Newman informs us that
truth for its own sake need not, and on the whole
ought not to be, a virtue with the Roman clergy."

I have only to remark, in addition to what I
have already said with great sincerity to Messrs.
Macmillan and Co., in the letter of which you
speak, and to which I refer you, that, when I wrote
to them, no person whatever, whom I had ever
seen or heard of, had occurred to me as the author
of the statement in question. When I received

13

your letter, taking upon yourself the authorship, I
was amazed.

I am, Reverend Sir,

Your obedient Servant,
(Signed) JOHN H. NEWMAN.

14

V.

DR. NEWMAN to X. Y., ESQ.

The Oratory, January 8, 1864.

DEAR SIR,

I thank you for the friendly tone of your
letter of the 5th just received, and I wish to reply
to it with the frankness which it invites. I have
heard from Mr. Kingsley, avowing himself, to my
extreme astonishment, the author of the passage
about which I wrote to Messrs. Macmillan. No
one, whose name I had ever heard, crossed my mind
as the writer in their Magazine : and, had any one
said that it was Mr. Kingsley, I should have laughed
in his face. Certainly, I saw the initials at the
end ; but, you must recollect, I live out of the
world; and I must own, if Messrs. Macmillan will
not think the confession rude, that, as far as I
remember, I never before saw even the outside of
their Magazine. And so of the Editor : when I saw
his name on the cover, it conveyed to me absolutely
no idea whatever. I am not defending myself, but
merely stating what was the fact; and as to the
article, I said to myself, " Here is a young scribe,

1 A gentleman who interposed between Mr. Kingsley and
Dr. Newman.

15

who is making himself a cheap reputation by smart
hits at safe objects."

All this will make you see, not only how I live
out of the world, but also how wanton I feel it to
have been in the parties concerned thus to let fly
at me. Were I in active controversv with the

X

Anglican body, or any portion of it, as I have been
before now, I should consider untrue assertions
about me to be in a certain sense a rule of the
game, as times go, though God forbid that I should
indulge in them myself in the case of another.
I have never been very sensitive of such attacks;
rarely taken notice of them. Now, when I have
long ceased from controversy, they continue : they
have lasted incessantly from the year 1833 to this
day. They do not ordinarily come in my way:
when they do, I let them pass through indolence.
Sometimes friends send me specimens of them ; and
sometimes they are such as I am bound to answer,
if I would not compromise interests which are
dearer to me than life. The January number of
the Magazine was sent to me, I know not by whom,
friend or foe, with the passage on which I have
animadverted, emphatically, not to say indignantly,
scored against. Nor can there be a better proof
that there was a call upon me to notice it, than the
astounding fact that you can so calmly (excuse me)
" confess plainly" of yourself, as you do, " that you
had read the passage, and did not even think

16

that I or any of my communion would think it
unjust."

Most wonderful phenomenon ! An educated man,
breathing English air, and walking in the light

of the nineteenth centurv, thinks that neither I nor

*

any members of my communion feel any difficulty
in allowing that " Truth for its own sake need not,
and on the whole ought not to be, a virtue with the
Roman Clergy;" nay, that they are not at all sur
prised to be told that " Father Newman had in
formed " the world, that such is the standard of
morality acknowledged, acquiesced in, by his co
religionists ! But, I suppose, in truth, there is
nothing at all, however base, up to the high mark
of Titus Gates, which a Catholic may not expect

to be believed of him bv Protestants, however

tt

honourable and hard-headed. However, dismissing
this natural train of thought, I observe on your
avowal as follows; and I think what I shall say
will commend itself to your judgment as soon as
I say it.

I think you will allow then, that there is a broad
difference between a virtue, considered in itself as
a principle or rule, and the application or limits
of it in human conduct. Catholics and Protestants,
in their view of the substance of the moral virtues,
agree, but they carry them out variously in detail;
and in particular instances, and in the case of par
ticular actors or writers, with but indifferent sue-

17

cess. Truth is the same in itself and in substance
to Catholic and Protestant; so is purity: both
virtues are to be referred to that moral sense which
is the natural possession of us all. But when we
come to the question in detail, whether this or that
act in particular is conformable to the rule of truth,
or again to the rule of purity; then sometimes
there is a difference of opinion between individuals,
sometimes between schools, and sometimes between
religious communions. I, on my side, have long
thought, even before I was a Catholic, that the
Protestant system, as such, leads to a lax ob
servance of the rule of purity; Protestants think
that the Catholic system, as such, leads to a lax
observance of the rule of truth. I am very sorry
that they should think so, but I cannot help it;
I lament their mistake, but I bear it as I may. If
Mr. Kingsley had said no more than this, I should
not have felt it necessary to criticize such an ordi-

/

nary remark. But, as I should be committing a
crime, heaping dirt upon my soul, and storing up
for mvself rern orse and confusion of face at a future

w

day, if I applied my abstract belief of the latent
sensuality of Protestantism, on a priori reasoning,
to individuals, to living persons, to authors and
men of name, and said (not to make disrespectful
allusion to the living) that Bishop Van Mildert,
or the Rev. Dr. Spry, or Dean Milner, or the Rev.
Charles Simeon "informs us that chastity for its
own sake need not be, and on the whole ought not

B

18

to be, a virtue with the Anglican clergy," and
then, when challenged for the proof, said, " Vide
Van Mildert s Bampton Lectures and Simeon s
Skeleton Sermons passim;" and, as I should only
make the matter still worse, if I pointed to fla
grant instances of paradoxical divines or of bad
clergymen among Protestants, as, for instance, to
that popular London preacher at the end of last
century who advocated polygamy in print; so, in
like manner, for a writer, when he is criticizing

O

definite historical facts of the sixteenth century,
which stand or fall on their own merits, to go out
of his way to have a fling at an unpopular name,
living but " down," and boldly to say to those who
know no better, who know nothing but what he
tells them, who take their tradition of historical
facts from him, who do not know me, to say of me,
" Father Newman informs us that Truth for its
own sake need not be, and on the whole ought not
to be, a virtue with the Roman clergy," and to be
thus brilliant and antithetical (save the mark !) in
the very cause of Truth, is a proceeding of so special
a character as to lead me to exclaim, after the pat
tern of the celebrated saying, " O Truth, how many
lies are told in thv name ! "

%/

Such being the state of the case, I think I shall
carry you along with me when I say, that, if there
is to be any explanation in the Magazine of so
grave an inadvertence, it concerns the two gentle
men who are responsible for it, of what complexion

19

that explanation shall be. For me, it is not I who
ask for it; I look on mainly as a spectator, and
shall praise or blame, according to my best judg
ment, as I see what they do. Not that, in so
acting, I am implying a doubt of all that you tell
me of them; but "handsome is, that handsome
does." If they set about proving their point, or,
should they find that impossible, if they say so, in
either case I shall call them men. But, bear
with me for harbouring a suspicion which Mr.
Kingsley s letter to me has inspired, if they pro
pose merely to smooth the matter over by publish
ing to the world that I have " complained," or that
" they yield to my letters, expostulations, represen
tations, explanations," or that "they are quite
ready to be convinced of their mistake, if I will
convince them," or that "they have profound re
spect for me, but really they are not the only
persons who have gathered from my writings what
they have said of me," or that " they are unfeignedly
surprised that I should visit in their case what
I have passed over in the case of others," or that
" they have ever had a true sense of my good
points, but cannot be expected to be blind to my
faults," if this be the sum total of what they are to
say, and they ignore the fact that the onus pro-
bandi of a very definite accusation lies upon them,
and that they have no right to throw the burden
upon others, then, I say with submission, they had

B 2

20

better let it all alone, as far as I am concerned, for
a half-measure settles nothing.

January 10. I will add, that any letter ad
dressed to me by Mr. Kingsley, I account public
property; not so, should you favour me with any
fresh communication yourself.

J

I am, Dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,
(Signed) JOHN H. NEWMAN.

VI.

The REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY to DR. NEWMAN.

Eversley Kectory, January 14, 1864.

REVEREND SIR,

I have the honour to acknowledge your
answer to my letter.

I have also seen your letter to Mr. X. Y. On

*

neither of them shall I make any comment, save to
say, that, if you fancy that I have attacked you
because you were, as you please to term it, " down,"
you do me a great injustice; and also, that the
suspicion expressed in the latter part of your letter
to Mr. X. Y., is needless.

The course, which you demand of me, is the
only course fit for a gentleman ; and, as the tone of
your letters (even more than their language) make
me feel, to my very deep pleasure, that my opinion
of the meaning of your words was a mistaken one,
I shall send at once to Macmillan s Magazine the
few lines which I inclose.

You say, that you will consider my letters as
public. You have every right to do so.

I remain, Reverend Sir,
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) C. KINGSLEY.

22

VII.

[ This will appear in the next number.]
" To THE EDITOR OF MACMILLAN S MAGAZINE.

"SIR, - , - "

" In your last number I made certain
allegations against the teaching of the Rev. Dr.
Newman, which were founded on a sermon of his,
entitled Wisdom and Innocence," (the sermon will
be fully described, as to . . .)

"Dr. Newman has, by letter, expressed in the
strongest terms, his denial of the meaning which I
have put upon his words.

" No man knows the use of words better than
Dr. Newman ; no man, therefore, has a better right
to define what he does, or does not, mean by them.

"It only remains, therefore, for me to express
my hearty regret at having so seriously mistaken
him; and my hearty pleasure at finding him on
the side of Truth, in this, or any other, matter.

(Signed) CHARLES KINGSLEY."

1 Here follows a word or half-word, which neither I nor any
one else to whom I have shown the MS. can decypher. I have
at p. 25 filled in for Mr. Kingsley what I understood him to
mean by " fully." J. H. K

23

VIII.

DR. NEWMAN to the REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

The Oratory, January 17, 1864.

REVEREND SIR,

Since you do no more than announce
to me your intention of inserting in Macmillan s
Magazine the letter, a copy of which you are so
good as to transcribe for me, perhaps I am taking
a liberty in making any remarks to you upon it.
But then, the very fact of your showing it to me
seems to invite criticism; and so sincerely do I
wish to bring this painful matter to an immediate
settlement, that, at the risk of being officious, I
avail myself of your courtesy to express the judg
ment which I have carefully formed upon it.

I believe it to be your wish to do me such justice
as is compatible with your duty of upholding the
consistency and quasi-infallibility which is neces
sary for a periodical publication; and I am far
from expecting any thing from you which would be
unfair to Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Moreover,
I am quite aware, that the reading public, to whom
your letter is virtually addressed, cares little for
the wording of an explanation, provided it be made
aware of the fact that an explanation has been
given.

24

Nevertheless, after giving your letter the benefit
of both these considerations, I am sorry to say I
feel it my duty to withhold from it the approbation
which I fain would bestow.

Its main fault is, that, quite contrary to your
intention, it will be understood by the general
reader to intimate, that I have been confronted
with definite extracts from my works, and have
laid before you my own interpretations of them.
Such a proceeding I have indeed challenged, but
have not been so fortunate as to bring about.

But besides, I gravely disapprove of the letter as
a whole. The grounds of this dissatisfaction will
be best understood by you, if I place in parallel
columns its paragraphs, one by one, and what I
conceive will be the popular reading of them.

This I proceed to do.

I have the honour to be,
Reverend Sir,

Your obedient Servant,
(Signed) JOHN H. NEWMAN.

Mr. Kingsley s Letter. Unjust, lut too probable, po

pular rendering of it.
1. Sir, In your last num
ber I made certain allegations
against the teaching of the
Kev. Dr. Newman, which
were founded on a Sermon of
his, entitled " Wisdom and

25

Innocence," preached by him
as Vicar of St. Mary s, and
published in 1841,

2. Dr. Newman has, by
letter, expressed in the strong
est terms his denial of the
meaning which I have put
upon his words.

3. No man knows the use
of words better than Dr.
Newman ; no man, therefore,
has a better right to define
what he does, or does not,
mean by them.

4. It only remains, there
fore, for me to express my
hearty regret at having so
seriously mistaken him, and
my hearty pleasure at finding
him on the side of truth, in
this or any other matter.

2. I have set before Dr.
Newman, as he challenged
me to do, extracts from his
writings, and he has affixed
to them what he conceives to
be their legitimate sense, to
the denial of that in which
I understood them.

3. He has done this with the
skill of a great master of
verbal fence, who knows, as
well as any man living, how
to insinuate a doctrine with
out committing himself to it.

4. However, while I heartily
regret that I have so seriously
mistaken the sense which he
assures me his words were
meant to bear, I cannot but
feel a hearty pleasure also, at
having brought him, for once
in a way, to confess that after
all truth is a Christian virtue.

26

IX.
REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY to DR. NEWMAN.

Eversley Eectory, January 18, 1864.

REVEREND SIR,

I do not think it probable that the
good sense and honesty of the British Public will
misinterpret my apology, in the way in which you
expect.

Two passages in it, which I put in in good faith
and good feeling, may, however, be open to such a
bad use, and I have written to Messrs. Macmillan
to omit them ; viz. the words, " No man knows the
use of words better than Dr. Newman ;" and those,
" My hearty pleasure at finding him in the truth
(sic) on this or any other matter."

As to your Art. 2, it seems to me, that, by
referring publicly to the Sermon on which my
allegations are founded, I have given, not only you,
but every one an opportunity of judging of their
injustice. Having done this, and having frankly
accepted your assertion that I was mistaken, I have
done as much as one English gentleman can expect

from another.

I have the honour to be,

Reverend Sir,

Your obedient Servant,
( Signed ) CHARLES KINGSLEY.

27

X.

DR. NEWMAN to MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co.

The Oratory, January 22, 1864.

GENTLEMEN,

Mr. Kingsley, the writer of the para
graph to which I called your attention on the 30th
of last month, has shown his wish to recall words,
which I considered a great affront to myself, and a
worse insult to the Catholic priesthood. He has
sent me the draft of a Letter which he proposes to
insert in the February number of your Magazine;
and, when I gave him my criticisms upon it, he
had the good feeling to withdraw two of its para
graphs.

However, he did not remove that portion of it,
to which, as I told him, lay my main objection.

That portion ran as follows :

"Dr. Newman has by letter expressed in the
strongest terms his denial of the meaning which I
have put upon his words."

My objection to this sentence, which (with the
addition of a reference to a Protestant sermon of
mine, which he says formed the ground of his
assertion, and of an expression of regret at having
mistaken me) constitutes, after the withdrawal of

28

the two paragraphs, the whole of his proposed
letter, I thus explained to him :

" Its [the proposed letter s] main fault is, that,
quite contrary to your intention, it will be under
stood by the general reader to intimate, that I
have been confronted with definite extracts from my
works, and have laid before you my own interpre
tation of them. Such a proceeding I have indeed
challenged, but have not been so fortunate as to
bring about."

In answer to this representation, Mr. Kingsley
wrote to me as follows :

" It seems to me, that, by referring publicly to
the sermon, on which my allegations are founded,
I have given, not only you, but every one, an oppor
tunity of judging of their injustice. Having done
this, and having frankly accepted your assertion
that I was mistaken, I have done as much as one
English gentleman can expect from another."

I received this reply the day before yesterday.
It disappointed me, for I had hoped that, with the
insertion of a letter from him in your Magazine for
February, there would have been an end of the
whole matter. However, I have waited forty-eight
hours, to give time for his explanation to make its
full, and therefore its legitimate impression on my
mind. After this interval, I find my judgment of
the passage just what it was.

Moreover, since sending to Mr. Kingsley that
judgment, I have received a letter from a friend at

29

a distance, whom I had consulted, a man about my
own age, who lives out of the world of theological
controversy and contemporary literature, and whose
intellectual habits especially qualify him for taking
a clear and impartial view of the force of words.
I put before him the passage in your January
number, and the writer s proposed letter in Feb
ruary ; and I asked him whether I might consider
the letter sufficient for its purpose, without saying
a word to show him the leaning of my own mind.
He answers :

" In answer to your question, whether Mr.
Kingsley s proposed reparation is sufficient, I have
no hesitation in saying, Most decidedly not. With
out attempting to quote any passage from your
writings which justifies in any manner the language
which he has used in his review, he leaves it to be
inferred that the representation, which he has
given of your statements and teaching in the
sermon to which he refers, is the fair and natural
and primary sense of them, and that it is only by
your declaring that you did not mean what you
really and in effect said, that he finds that he had
made a false charge."

This opinion thus given came to me, I repeat,
after I had sent to Mr. Kingsley the letter of
objection, of which I have quoted a portion above.
You will see that, though the two judgments are

1 Viz. as it is given above, p. 22. J. H. N.

30

independent of each other, they in substance coin
cide.

It only remains for me then to write to you
again; and, in writing to you now, I do no more
than I did on the 30th of December. I bring the
matter before you, without requiring from you any

reply.

I am, Gentlemen,

Your obedient Servant,
(Signed) JOHN H. NEWMAN.

31

XI.

Letter of Explanation from Mr. KINGSLEY, as it
stands in Macmillaris Magazine for February,
1864, p. 368.

TO THE EDITOR OF MACMILLAN S MAGAZINE.

SIR,

In your last number I made certain alle
gations against the teaching of Dr. John Henry
Newman, which I thought were justified by a Sermon
of his, entitled "Wisdom and Innocence" (Ser
mon 20 of " Sermons bearing on Subjects of the
Day"). Dr. Newman has by letter expressed, in
the strongest terms, his denial of the meaning which
I have put upon his words. It only remains, there
fore, for me to express my hearty regret at having
so seriously mistaken him.

Yours faithfully,

V I

(Signed) CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Eversley, January 14, 1864.

32

XII.

Refections on the above.

I shall attempt a brief analysis of the foregoing-
correspondence ; and I trust that the wording which
I shall adopt will not offend against the gravity due
both to myself and to the occasion. It is impos
sible to do justice to the course of thought evolved
in it without some familiarity of expression.

Mr. Kingsley begins then by exclaiming, " O the
chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy,
the conscience-killing tyranny of Rome ! We have
not far to seek for an evidence of it. There s
Father Newman to wit: one living specimen is
worth a hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing
of Priests, tells us that lying is never any harm."

I interpose : " You are taking a most extraor
dinary liberty with my name. If I have said this,
tell me when and where."

Mr. Kingsley replies : " You said it, Reverend
Sir, in a Sermon which you preached, when a Pro
testant, as Vicar of St. Mary s, and published in
1844; and I could read you a very salutary lecture
on the effects which that Sermon had at the time
on my own opinion of you."

I make answer : " Oh . . . Not, it seems, as a

33

Priest speaking of Priests; but let us have the
passage."

Mr. Kingsley relaxes: "Do you know, I like
your tone. From your tone I rejoice, greatly re
joice, to he able to believe that you did not mean
what you said."

I rejoin : " Mean it ! I maintain I never said it,
whether as a Protestant or as a Catholic."

Mr. Kingsley replies : " I waive that point."

I object : " Is it possible ! What ? waive the
main question ! I either said it or I didn t. You
have made a monstrous charge against me ; direct,
distinct, public. You are bound to prove it as
directly, as distinctly, as publicly; or to own you
can t."

" Well," says Mr. Kingsley, " if you are quite
sure you did not say it, I ll take your word for it ;
I really will."

My word! I am dumb. Somehow I thought
that it was my word that happened to be on trial.
The word of a Professor of lying, that he does not
lie!

But Mr. Kingsley re-assures me : " We are both
gentlemen," he says : " I have done as much as one
English gentleman can expect from another."

I begin to see : he thought me a gentleman at
the very time that he said I taught lying on system.
After all, it is not I, but it is Mr. Kingsley who
did not mean what he said. " Habemus confitentem

reum.

34

*

So we have confessedly come round to this,
preaching without practising; the common theme
of satirists from Juvenal to Walter Scott ! " I left
Baby Charles and Steenie laying his duty before
him," says King James of the reprobate Dalgarno :
" O Geordie, jingling Geordie, it was grand to hear
Baby Charles laying down the guilt of dissimulation,
and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of inconti

nence.

While I feel then that Mr. Kingsley s February
explanation is miserably insufficient in itself for his
January enormity, still I feel also that the Corre
spondence, which lies between these two acts of his,
constitutes a real satisfaction to those principles of
historical and literary justice to which he has given
so rude a shock.

Accordingly, I have put it into print, and make
no further criticism on Mr. Kingsley.

J. H. N.

THE END.

GILBERT AND RIVINGHON, PBINTEES, ST. JOHN S SQXJAKE, LONDON.

WHAT, THEN, DOES DR, NEWMAN MEAN?"

WHAT, THEN, DOES DR. NEWMAN MEAN?"

A REPLY

TO

A PAMPHLET LATELY PUBLISHEP
BY DR. NEWMAN.

BY THE

REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

"It is not more than a hyperbole to say, that, in certain cases, a lie is the
nearest approach to truth." NEWMAN, Sermons on the Theory of Religious Belief,
page 343.

THIRD EDITION.

MACMILLAN AND CO.

anfo Cambridge.

T864.

LONDON :

PRINTED BY K. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOK,
BBEAP STREET HII.L.

WHAT, THEN, DOES DR. NEWMAN MEAN?

DR. NEWMAN has made a great mistake. He has published
a correspondence between himself and me, with certain
" Eeflexions " and a title-page, which cannot be allowed to
pass without a rejoinder.

Before commenting on either, I must give a plain account
of the circumstances of the controversy, which seem to have
been misunderstood in several quarters. In the January
number of Macmillaris Magazine, I deliberately and ad
visedly made use of these words :

" Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the
" Eoman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need
" not, and, on the whole, ought not to be ; that cunning is the
" weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to
" withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which
" marries and is given in marriage." This accusation I based
upon a considerable number of passages in Dr. Newman s
writings, and especially on a sermon entitled " Wisdom and
Innocence," and preached by Dr. Newman as Vicar of St.
Mary s, and published as No. XX. of his " Sermons on
Subjects of the Day."

Dr. Newman wrote, in strong but courteous terms, to
Messrs. Macmillan and Co. complaining of this language as
a slander. I at once took the responsibility on myself, and
wrote to Dr. Newman.

6

I had been informed (by a Protestant) that he was in weak
health, that he wished for peace and quiet, and was averse
to controversy ; I therefore felt some regret at having dis
turbed him : and this regret was increased by the moderate
and courteous tone of his letters, though they contained, of
course, much from which I differed. I addressed to him the
following letter, of which, as I trust every English gentleman
will feel, I have no reason to be ashamed :

KEVEREND SIB,

I have seen a letter of yours to Mr. Macmillan, in
which you complain of some expressions of mine in an
article in the January number of Macmillan s Magazine.

That my words were just, I believed from many passages
of your writings ; but the document to which I expressly
referred was one of your sermons on " Subjects of the Day,"
No. XX. in the volume published in 1844, and entitled
" Wisdom and Innocence."

It was in consequence of that sermon that I finally shook
off the strong influence which your writings exerted on me,
and for much of which I still owe you a deep debt of
gratitude.

I am most happy to hear from you that I mistook (as I
understand from your letter) your meaning ; and I shall be
most happy, on your showing me that I have wronged you,
to retract my accusation as publicly as I have made it

I am, Eev. Sir,

Your faithful servant,

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

I received a very moderate answer from Dr. Newman, and
a short correspondence ensued, which ended in my inserting
in the February number of Macmillan s Magazine the fol
lowing apology :

To the Editor of " MACMILLAN S MAGAZINE.
SIR,

In your last number I made certain allegations against
the teaching of Dr. John Henry Newman, which I thought
were justified by a sermon of his, entitled " Wisdom and
Innocence " (Sermon XX. of " Sermons bearing on Subjects of
the Day "). Dr. Newman has, by letter, expressed in the
strongest terms his denial of the meaning which I have put
upon his words. It only remains, therefore, for me to express
my hearty regret at having so seriously mistaken him.

Yours faithfully,

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

My object had been throughout to avoid war, because
I thought Dr. Newman wished for peace. I therefore dropped
the question of the meaning of "many passages of his
writings," and confined myself to the sermon entitled " Wis
dom and Innocence," simply to give him an opportunity of
settling the dispute on that one ground.

But whether Dr. Newman lost his temper, or whether
he thought that he had gained an advantage over me, or
whether he wanted a more complete apology than I chose to
give, whatever, I say, may have been his reasons, he suddenly
changed his tone of courtesy and dignity for one of which
I shall only say that it shows sadly how the atmosphere of
the Romish priesthood has degraded his notions of what is
due to himself; and when he published (as I am much
obliged to him for doing) the whole correspondence, he
appended to it certain reflexions, in which he attempted to
convict me of not having believed the accusation which I had
made.

There remains for me, then, nothing but to justify my
mistake, as far as I can.

I am, of course, precluded from using the sermon entitled

8

Wisdom and Innocence" to prove my words. I have
accepted Dr. Newman s denial that it means what I thought
it did; and Heaven forbid that I should withdraw my word
once given, at whatever disadvantage to myself. But more.
I am informed by those from whose judgment on such
points there is no appeal, that, "en hault courage" and
strict honour, I am also precluded, by the terms of my expla
nation, from using any other of Dr. Newman s past writings
to prove my assertion. I have declared Dr. Newman to
have been an honest man up to the 1st of February, 1864.
It was, as I shall show, only Dr. Newman s fault that I ever
thought him to be anything else. It depends entirely on
Dr. Newman whether he shall sustain the reputation which
he has so recently acquired. If I give him thereby a fresh
advantage in this argument, he is most welcome to it. He
needs, it seems to me, as many advantages as possible. But
I have a right, in self-justification, to put before the public
so much of that sermon, and of the rest of Dr. Newman s
writings, as will show why I formed so harsh an opinion of
them and him, and why I still consider that sermon (whatever
may be its meaning) as most dangerous and misleading. And
I have a full right to do the same by those " many passages of
Dr. Newman s writings " which I left alone at first, simply
because I thought that Dr. Newman wished for peace.

First, as to the sermon entitled " Wisdom and Innocence."
It must be remembered always that it is not a Protestant, but
a Eomish sermon. It is occupied entirely with the attitude
of "the world" to "Christians" and "the Church." By the
world appears to be signified, especially, the Protestant public
of these realms. What Dr. Newman means by Christians,
and the Church, he has not left in doubt; for in the pre
ceding sermon (XIX. p. 328) he says : " But, if the truth must
" be spoken, what are the humble monk, and the holy nun,
" and other regulars, as they are called, but Christians after

9

" the very pattern given us in Scripture ? What have they
" done but this continue in the world the Christianity of
" the Bible ? Did our Saviour come on earth suddenly, as He
" will one day visit, in whom would He see the features of the
" Christians He and His apostles left behind them, but in
" them ? Who but these give up home and friends, wealth
" and ease, good name and liberty of will, for the kingdom of
" heaven ? Where shall we find the image of St. Paul, or
" St. Peter, or St. John, or of Mary the mother of Mark, or of
" Philip s daughters, but in those who, whether they remain
" in seclusion, or are sent over the earth, have calm faces, and
" sweet plaintive voices, and spare frames, and gentle rnan-
" ners, and hearts weaned from the world, and wills subdued ;
" and for their meekness meet with insult, and for their purity
" with slander, and for their gravity with suspicion, and for
" their courage with cruelty . . ." This is his definition of Chris
tians. And in the sermon itself he sufficiently defines what
he means by "the Church" in two "notes" of her character,
which he shall give in his own words (Sermon XX. p. 346 < :
" "What, for instance, though we grant that sacramental con-
" fession and the celibacy of the clergy do tend to consolidate
" the body politic in the relation of rulers and subjects, or, in
" other words, to aggrandize the priesthood ? for how can the
" Church be one body without such relation?" . . .

Monks and nuns the only perfect Christians ; sacramental
confession and the celibacy of the clergy notes of the Church ;
the laity in relation to the clergy of subjects to rulers.
What more? If I, like others, on the strength of Dr.
Newman s own definitions, gave to his advice to Christians
concerning " wisdom," " prudence," " silence," the meaning
which they would have in the mouth of a Eomish teacher
St. Alfonso da Liguori, for instance whom can Dr. New
man blame for the mistake, save himself ?

But to the sermon itself; the text of which is from

10

Matthew x. 16. It begins by stating that the Church has
been always helpless and persecuted, in proportion to its
purity. Dr. Newman then asks, how Christians are to
defend themselves if they might not fight? and answers,
" They were allowed the arms, that is, the arts, of the defence
less." He shows how the weaker animals are enabled to
defend themselves by various means, among which he
enumerates " natural cunning, which enables them to elude
or even to destroy their enemies." He goes on to show
how the same holds good in our own species, in the case
of " a captive, effeminate race " ; of " slaves " ; of " ill-used
and oppressed children " ; of the " subjects of a despot."
" They exercise the inalienable right of self-defence in such
"methods as they best may; only, since human nature is
" unscrupulous, guilt or innocence is all the same to them, if
" it works their purpose."

He goes on to point out the analogy between these facts
and the conduct fit for Christians. " The servants of Christ
" are forbidden to defend themselves by violence ; but they
" are not forbidden other means : direct means are not
" allowed, but others are even commanded. For instance,
" foresight, beware of men : avoidance, when they per-
" secute you in one city, flee into another : prudence and
" skill, as in the text, Be ye wise as serpents.

The mention of the serpent reminds him of the serpent in
Paradise ; and he says, " Considering that the serpent was
" chosen by the enemy of mankind as the instrument of
" his temptations in Paradise, it is very remarkable that
" Christ should choose it as the pattern of wisdom for His
" followers. It is as if He appealed to the whole world of
" sin, and to the bad arts by which the feeble gain advantages
" over the strong. It is as if He set before us the craft and
" treachery, the perfidy of the slave, and bade us extract a
" lesson even from so great an evil. It is as if the more we are

11

" forbidden violence, the more we are exhorted to prudence ;
"as if it were our bounden duty to rival the wicked in
" endowments of mind, and to excel them in their exercise."

Dr. Newman then goes on to assert, that " if there be one
reproach more than another which has been cast upon " the
Church, "it is that of fraud and cunning." He quotes the
imputations of craftiness and deceitfulness thrown upon St.
Paul, and even of " deceit " upon our Lord himself. He then
says that " Priestcraft has ever been considered the badge,
and its imputation is a kind of note, of the Church." He
asserts that the accusation has been, save in a few exceptions,
unfounded ; and that " the words craft and hypocrisy are
"but the version of wisdom and harmlessness in the
" language of the world." " It is remarkable, however, that
" not only is harmlessness the corrective of wisdom, securing
" it against the corruption of craft and deceit, as stated in
"the text: but innocence, simplicity, implicit obedience to
" God, tranquillity of mind, contentment, these and the
" like virtues are in themselves a sort of wisdom ; I mean,
"they produce the same results as wisdom, because God
" works for those who do not work for themselves ; and thus
" they especially incur the charge of craft at the hands of the
" world, because they pretend to so little, yet effect so much.
" This circumstance admits dwelling on."
He then goes on to mention seven heads :
" First, sobriety, self-restraint, control of word and feeling,
" which religious men exercise, have about them an appearance
" of being artificial, because they are not natural ; and of being
" artful, because artificial " ; and adds shortly after, that " those
" who would be holy and blameless, the sons of God, find so
" much in the world to unsettle and defile them, that they are
" necessarily forced upon a strict self-restraint, lest they should
" receive injury from such intercourse with it as is unavoid-
" able ; and this self-restraint is the first thing which makes

12

"holy persons seem wanting in openness and manliness."
Next he points out that " religious men are a mystery to the
" world ; and being a mystery, they will in mere self-defence
" be called by the world mysterious, dark, subtle, designing."
Next, that " it is very difficult to make the world understand
" the difference between an outward obedience and an inward
" assent." He then instances the relations between the early
Christians and the heathen magistrates ; and adds, that " when
" religious men outwardly conform, on the score of duty, to the
" powers that be, the world is easily led into the mistake that
" they have renounced their opinions, as well as submitted their
" actions ; and it feels or affects surprise, to find that their
" opinions remain ; and it considers, or calls this, an inconsis-
" tency, or a duplicity " : with more to the same purpose.

Next, the silent resignation of Christians is set forth as a
cause of the world s suspicion ; and " so is their confidence, in
" spite of their apparent weakness, their cause will triumph."

Another cause of the world s suspicion is, the unexpected
success of religious men.

Another, that the truth has in itself the power of spreading,
without instruments, " making the world impute " to secret
management that uniformity, which is nothing but the echo
of the One Living and True Word.

Another, that when Christians prosper, contrary to their
own expectations, " it looks like deceit to show surprise, arid
to disclaim the work themselves."

And lastly, because God works for Christians, and they
are successful, when they only mean to be dutiful. " But
" what duplicity does the world think it, to speak of conscience,
" or honour, or propriety, or delicacy, or to give other tokens
" of personal motives, when the event seems to show that
" a calculation of results has been the actuating principle at
" bottom. It is God who designs, but His servants seem
" designing. ..."

13

Dr. Newman, then goes on to point out how " Jacob is
" thought worldly wise in his dealings with Laban, whereas
" he was a plain man/ simply obedient to the angel." . . .
" Moses is sometimes called sagacious and shrewd in his
" measures or his law, as if wise acts might not come from
" the source of wisdom." . . . " Bishops have been called
" hypocritical in submitting and yet opposing themselves to
" the civil power, in a matter of plain duty, if a popular
" movement was the consequence ; and then hypocritical again,
" if they did their best to repress it. And, in like manner,
" theological doctrines or ecclesiastical usages are styled politic
" if they are but salutary ; as if the Lord of the Church, who
" has willed her sovereignty, might not effect it by secondary
" causes. What, for instance, though we grant that sacramental
" confession and the celibacy of the clergy do tend to con-
" solidate the body politic in the relation of rulers and subjects,
" or, in other words, to aggrandise the priesthood ? For how
" can the Church be one body without such relation ; and
" why should not He, who has decreed that there should be
" unity, take measures to secure it ?"

The reason of these suspicions on the part of the world is
then stated to be, that " men do not like to hear of the inter-
" position of Providence in the affairs of the world ; and
" they invidiously ascribe ability and skill to His agents, to
" escape the thought of an Infinite Wisdom and an Almighty
" Power. . . ."

The sermon then closes with a few lines of great
beauty, in that style which has won deservedly for Dr.
Newman the honour of being the most perfect orator of
this generation ; but they have no reference to the ques
tion in hand, save the words, " We will glory in what they
disown."

I have tried conscientiously to give a fair and complete
digest of this, to me, very objectionable and dangerous

14

sermon. I have omitted no passage in which Dr. Newman
guards himself against the conclusions which I drew from
it ; and none, I verily believe, which is required for the full
understanding of its general drift. I have abstained from all
comment as I went on, in order not to prejudice the minds of
my readers. But I must now turn round and ask, whether
the mistake into which Dr. Newman asserts me to have
fallen was not a very reasonable one ; and whether the
average of educated Englishmen, in reading that sermon,
would not be too likely to fall into the same ? I put on it,
as I thought, the plain and straightforward signification. I
find I am wrong ; and nothing is left for me but to ask,
with some astonishment, What, then, did the sermon mean ?
Why was it preached ? To insinuate that a Church which
had sacramental confession and a celibate clergy was the only
true Church? Or to insinuate that the admiring young
gentlemen who listened to him stood to their fellow-country
men in the relation of the early Christians to the heathen
Eomans 1 Or that Queen Victoria s Government was to the
Church of England what Nero s or Diocletian s was to the
Church of Rome 1 It may have been so. I know that men
used to suspect Dr. Newman I have been inclined to do so
myself of writing a whole sermon, not for the sake of the
text or of the matter, but for the sake of one single passing
hint one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow
which, as he swept magnificently past on the stream of his
calm eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences, save
those unseen, he delivered unheeded, as with his finger-tip, to
the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to be withdrawn
again. I do not blame him for that. It is one of the
highest triumphs of oratorio power, and may be employed
honestly and fairly, by any person who has the skill to do
it honestly and fairly. But then Why did he entitle his
sermon " Wisdom and Innocence " ?

15

What, then, could I think that Dr. Newman meant? I
found a preacher bidding Christians imitate, to some un
defined point, the " arts " of the basest of animals and of
men, and even of the Devil himself. I found him, by a
strange perversion of Scripture, insinuating that St. Paul s
conduct and manner were such as naturally to bring down on
him the reputation of being a crafty deceiver. I found him
horrible to have to say it even hinting the same of One
greater than St. Paul. I found him denying or explaining
away the existence of that priestcraft which is a notorious
fact to every honest student of history ; and justifying (as far
as I can understand him) that double-dealing by which
prelates, in the middle age, too often played off alternately
the sovereign against the people and the people against the
sovereign, careless which was in the right, as long as their
own power gained by the move. I found him actually using
of such (and, as I thought, of himself and his party likewise)
the words, " They yield outwardly ; to assent inwardly were
" to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and
" double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, and
" not more than they may." I found him telling Christians
that they will always seem " artificial," and " wanting in
openness and manliness ; " that they will always be " a
mystery" to the world, and that the world will always
think them rogues ; and bidding them glory in what the
world (i.e. the rest of their fellow-countrymen) disown, and
say with Mawworm, " I like to be despised."

Now how was I to know that the preacher, who had the
reputation of being the most acute man of his generation, and
of having a specially intimate acquaintance with the weak
nesses of the human heart, was utterly blind to the broad
meaning and the plain practical result of a sermon like this,
delivered before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who
hung upon his every word ? That he did not foresee that

16

they would think that they obeyed him, by becoming affected,
artificial, sly, shifty, ready for concealments and equivoca
tions ? That he did not foresee that they, hearing his words
concerning priestcraft and double-dealing, and being engaged
in the study of the Mediaeval Church, would consider the
same chicanery allowed to them which they found practised
but too often by the Mediaeval Church? or even go to the
Komish casuists, to discover what amount of cunning did or
did not come under Dr. Newman s one passing warning
against craft and deceit ? In a word, that he did not foresee
that the natural result of the sermon on the minds of his
disciples would be, to make them suspect that truth was not
a virtue for its own sake, but only for the sake of the spread
of " catholic opinions," and the " salvation of their own souls ;"
and that cunning was the weapon which Heaven had allowed
to them to defend themselves against the persecuting Pro
testant public ?

All England stood round in those days, and saw that this
would be the outcome of Dr. Newman s teaching. How was
I to know that he did not see it himself ?

And as a fact, his teaching had this outcome. Whatever
else it did, it did this. In proportion as young men absorbed
it into themselves, it injured their straightforwardness and
truthfulness. The fact is notorious to all England. It spread
misery and shame into many an English home. The net
practical result of Dr. Newman s teachings on truthfulness
cannot be better summed up than by one of his own disciples,
Mr. Ward, who, in his " Ideal of a Christian Church," page
382, says thus :

" Candour is rather an intellectual than a moral virtue, and
" by no means either universally or distinctively characteristic
" of the saintly mind."

Dr. Newman ought to have told his disciple, when he wrote
those words, that he was on the highroad to the father of

17

lies ; and he ought to have told the world, too, that such
was his opinion ; unless he wished it to fall into the mistake
into which I fell namely, that he had wisdom enough to
know the practical result of his words, and therefore meant
what they seemed to say.

Dr. Newman has nothing to blame for that mistake, save
his own method. If he would (while a member of the Church
of England) persist (as in this sermon) in dealing with matters
dark, offensive, doubtful, sometimes actually forbidden, at
least according to the notions of the great majority of English
Churchmen ; if he would always do so in a tentative, palter
ing way, seldom or never letting the world know how much
he believed, how far he intended to go ; if, in a word, his
method of teaching was a suspicious one, what wonder if
the minds of men were filled with suspicions of Mm? What
wonder if they said of him (as he so naively, in one of his
letters, expresses his fear that they will say again), "Dr.
" Newman has the skill of a great master of verbal fence, who
" knows, as well as any man living, how to insinuate a doctrine
" without committing himself to it? " If he told the world, as
he virtually does in this sermon, " I know that my conduct
" looks like cunning ; but it is only the arts of the defence-
" less : " what wonder if the world answered, " No. It is
" what it seems. That is just what we call cunning ; a habit
" of mind which, once indulged, is certain to go on from bad to
" worse, till the man becomes like too many of the mediaeval
" clergy who indulged in it utterly untrustworthy." Dr.
Newman, I say, has no one to blame but himself. The world
is not so blind but that it will soon find out an honest man if
he will take the trouble of talking and acting like one. No
one would have suspected him to be a dishonest man, if he
had not perversely chosen to assume a style which (as he
himself confesses) the world always associates with dis
honesty.

B

18

When, therefore, Dr. Newman says (p. 16 of his pamphlet)
that " he supposes, in truth, there is nothing at all, however
" base, up to the high mark of Titus Gates, which a Catholic
" may not expect to be believed of him by Protestants, how-
"ever honourable and hard-headed," he is stating a mere
phantom of his own brain. It is not so. I do not believe it
ever was so. In the days when Jesuits were inciting fanatics
to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and again in the days of the
Gunpowder Plot, there was deservedly a very strong feeling
against Eomish priests, and against a few laymen who were
their dupes ; and it was the recollection of that which caused
the " Titus Gates " tragedy, which Dr. Newman so glibly
flings in our teeth, omitting (or forgetting) that Gates villany
would have been impossible without the preceding villanies
of Popish fanatics, and that he was unmasked, condemned,
and punished by the strong and great arm of British law.
But there was never, I believe, even in the worst times,
any general belief that Catholics, simply as such, must be
villains.

There is none now. The Catholic laity of these realms are
just as much respected and trusted as the Protestants, when
their conduct justifies that respect and trust, as it does in the
case of all save a few wild Irish ; and so are the Eomish
priests, as long as they show themselves good and honest
men, who confine themselves to the care of their flock. If
there is (as there is) a strong distrust of certain Catholics, it
is restricted to the proselytizing priests among them ; and
especially to those who, like Dr. Newman, have turned round
upon their mother-Church (I had almost said their mother-
country) with contumely and slander. And I confess, also,
that this public dislike is very rapidly increasing, for reasons
which I shall leave Dr. Newman and his advisers to find out
for themselves.

19

I go on now to other works of Dr. Newman, from which
(as I told him in my first letter) I had conceived an opinion
unfavourable to his honesty.

I shall be expected to adduce, first and foremost, the too-
notorious No. 90 of " Tracts for the Times." I shall not do so.
On reading that tract over again, I have been confirmed in the
opinion which I formed of it at first, that, questionable as it
was, it was not meant to be consciously dishonest ; that some
few sayings in it were just and true ; that many of its extra
vagances were pardonable, as the natural fruit of a revulsion
against the popular cry of those days, which called on clergy
men to interpret the Articles only in their Calvinistic sense,
instead of including under them (as their wise framers intended)
not only the Calvinistic, but the Anglican form of thought.
There were pages in it which shocked me, and which shock
me still. I will instance the commentaries on the 5th, on
the 7th, on the 9th, and on the 12th Articles ; because in
them Dr. Newman seemed to me trying to make the Articles
say the very thing which (I believe) the Articles were meant
not to say. But I attributed to him no intentional dishonesty.
The fullest licence of interpretation should be given to every
man who is bound by the letter of a document. The animus
imponentium should be heard of as little as possible, because
it is almost certain to become merely the animus interpretan-
tium. And more : Every excuse was to be made for a man
struggling desperately to keep himself in what was, in fact,
his right place, to remain a member of the Church of England,
where Providence had placed him, while he felt himself
irresistibly attracted towards Rome. But I saw in that tract
a fearful danger for the writer. It was but too probable, that
if he continued to demand of that subtle brain of his, such
tours cle force as he had all but succeeded in performing,
when he tried to show that the Article against "the sacri
fice of masses " did not speak against the mass itself," he

B 2

20

would surely end in one or other of two misfortunes. He
would either destroy his own sense of honesty i. e. conscious
truthfulness and become a dishonest person ; or he would
destroy his common sense i. e. unconscious truthfulness, and
become the slave and puppet seemingly of his own logic, really
of his own fancy, ready to believe anything, however prepos
terous, into which he could, for the moment, argue himself. I
thought, for years past, that he had become the former ; I
now see that he has become the latter.

I beg pardon for saying so much about myself. But this
is a personal matter between Dr. Newman and me, and I
say what I say simply to show, not Dr. Newman, but my
fellow-Protestants, that my opinion of him was not an
" impulsive " or " hastily-formed one." I know his writings
of old, and now. But I was so far just to him, that No. 90,
which made all the rest of England believe him a dishonest
man, had not the same effect on me.

But again

I found Dr. Newman, while yet (as far as could be now
discovered) a member of the Church of England, aiding and
abetting the publication of certain "Lives of the English
Saints," of which I must say, that no such public outrage
on historic truth, and on plain common sense, has been per
petrated in this generation. I do not intend to impute to
any of the gentlemen who wrote these lives and more than
one of whom, I believe, I knew personally the least deli
berate intention to deceive. They said what they believed ;
at least, what they had been taught to believe that they ought
to believe. And who had taught them ? Dr. Newman can
best answer that question. He had, at least, that power
over them, and in those days over hundreds more, which
genius can always command. He might have used it well.
He might have made those "Lives of Saints," what they
ought to have been, books to turn the hearts of the children to

21

the Fathers, and to make the present generation acknowledge
and respect the true sanctity which there was, in spite of all
mistakes, in those great men of old a sanctity founded on
true virtue and true piety, which required no tawdry super
structure of lying and ridiculous wonders. He might have
said to the author of the " Life of St. Augustine," when he
found him, in the heat and haste of youthful fanaticism, out
raging historic truth and the law of evidence: "This must
" not be. Truth for its own sake is a more precious thing
" than any purpose, however pious and useful, which we
" may have in hand." But when I found him allowing the
world to accept, as notoriously sanctioned by him, such state
ments as are found in that life, was my mistake a hasty, or
far-fetched, or unfounded one, when I concluded that he did
not care for truth for its own sake, or teach his disciples to
regard it as a virtue ? I found that " Life of St. Augustine "
saying, that though the pretended visit of St. Peter to
England wanted historic evidence, " yet it has undoubtedly
" been received as a pious opinion by the Church at large, as
" we learn from some often-quoted words of St. Innocent I.
" (who wrote A.D. 416), that St. Peter was instrumental in
" the conversion of the West generally. And this sort of
" argument, though it ought to be kept quite distinct from
" documentary and historic proof, and will form no substitute
" for such proof with those who stipulate for something like
" legal accuracy in inquiries of this nature, will not be with-
" out its effect upon devout minds, accustomed to rest in the
" thought of God s watchful guardianship over His Church."
. . . And much more in the same tone, which is worthily,
and consistently summed up by the question : " On what
" evidence do we put faith in the existence of St. George, the
" patron of England ? Upon such, assuredly, as an acute
" critic or skilful pleader might easily scatter to the winds ;
" the belief of prejudiced or credulous witnesses ; the un-

22

" written record of empty pageants and "bauble decorations.
" On the side of scepticism might be exhibited a powerful
" array of suspicious legends and exploded acts. Yet, after
" all, what Catholic is there but would count it a profaneness
" to question the existence of St. George?"

When I found Dr. Newman allowing his disciples
members, even then, of the Protestant Church of England
in page after page, in Life after Life, to talk nonsense of
this kind, which is not only sheer Popery, but saps the very
foundation of historic truth, was it so wonderful that I con
ceived him to have taught and thought like them ?

But more. I found, that although the responsibility of these
Saints Lives was carefully divided and guarded by anony-
mousness, and by Dr. Newman s advertisement in No. 1, that
the different lives would be " published by their respective
authors on their own responsibility," yet that Dr. Newman
had, in what I must now consider merely a moment of amiable
weakness, connected himself formally with one of the most
offensive of these Lives, and with its most ridiculous state-
ments. I speak of the " Life of St. Walburga." There is, in
all the Lives, the same tendency to repeat childish miracles,
to waive the common laws of evidence, to say to the reader,
" You must believe all or nothing." But some of them, the
writers, for instance, of Vol. IV., which contains, among others,
a charming life of St. Neot treat the stories openly as legends
and myths, and tell them as they stand, without asking the
reader, or themselves, to believe them altogether. The method
is harmless enough, if the legends had stood alone ; but dan
gerous enough, when they stand side by side with stories told
in earnest, like that of St. Walburga. In that, not only has
the writer expatiated upon some of the most nauseous super
stitions of the middle age, but Dr. Newman has, in a preface
signed with his initials, solemnly set his seal to the same.

The writer an Oxford scholar, and, as far as I know, then

23

a professed member of the Church of England dares to tell
us of such miracles as these :

How a little girl, playing with a ball near the monastery,
was punished for her over-fondness for play, by finding the
ball stick to her hand, and, running to St. Walburga s shrine
to pray, had the ball immediately taken off.

How a woman who would spin on festival-days in like
manner found her distaff cling to her hand, and had to beg of
St Walburga s bone, before she could get rid of it.

How a man who came into the church to pray, " irre-
" verently kept his rough gauntlets, or gloves, on his hands,
" as he joined them in the posture of prayer," How they
were miraculously torn off, and then, when he repented,
" restored by a miracle." " All these," says the writer, " have
" the character of a gentle mother correcting the idleness and
" faults of careless and thoughtless children with tenderness."

" But the most remarkable and lasting miracle, attesting the
" holy Walburga s sanctity, is that which reckons her among
" the saints who are called Elseophori, or unguentiferous,
" becoming, almost in a literal sense, olive-trees in the courts
" of God. These are they from whose bones a holy oil distils.
" That oil of charity and gentle mercy which graced them
" while alive, and feel in them the flame of universal love at
" their death, still permeates their bodily remains." After
quoting the names of male saints who have possessed this
property, the author goes on to detail how this holy oil fell, in
drops, sometimes the size of a hazel-nut, sometimes of a pea,
into the silver bowl beneath the stone slab. How, when the
state of Aichstadt was laid under an interdict, the holy oil
ceased, " until the Church regained its rights," and so forth, and
so forth ; and then, returning to his original image, metaphor,
illustration, proof, or whatever else it may be called by
n-a^oners such as he and Dr. Newman, he says that the same
flow of oil or dew is related of this female saint and that

24

women whose souls, like that of Walburga, were touched
" with true compassion ; whose bosom, like hers, melted by
" divine love, was filled with the milk of human kindness," &c.
I can quote no more. I really must recollect that my readers
and I are living in the nineteenth century.

And to all this stuff and nonsense, more materialist
than the dreams of any bone-worshipping Buddhist, Dr.
Newman puts a preface, in which he says of the question
whether the " miracles recorded in these narratives " (i. e. in
the whole series, this being only No. II), especially those
contained in the life of St. Walburga, " are to be received as
matter of fact ; " that " in this day, and under our present
" circumstances, we can only reply, that there is no reason
:< why they should not be. They are the kind of facts proper
"to ecclesiastical history, just as instances of sagacity or
" daring, personal prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to
" secular history." Verily, his idea of " secular history " is
almost as degraded as his idea of " ecclesiastical."

He continues : " There is nothing, then, primob fade, in
the miraculous accounts in question to repel a properly-
taught or religiously-disposed mind : " only, it has the
right of rejecting or accepting them according to the evidence.
No doubt ; for (as he himself confesses) Mabillon, like many
sensible Eomanists, has found some of these miracles too
strong for his " acute nostril," and has, therefore, been re
proved by Basnage for " not fearing for himself, and warning
the reader."

But what evidence Dr. Newman requires, he makes evident
at once. He, at least, will " fear for himself," and swallow
the whole as it comes.

" As to the miracles ascribed to St. Walburga, it must be
" remembered that she is one of the principal saints of her age
" and country ; " and then he goes on to quote the authorities
for these miracles. They begin nearly 100 years after her

25

death, with one Wolfhard, a monk. Then follows, more than
400 years after, Philip, Bishop of Aichstadt, the disinterested
witness who tells the story of the holy oil ceasing during the
interdict, who tells the world how, " From her virgin limbs,
" maxime pectoralibus, flows this sacred oil, which, by the
"grace of God and the intercession of the blessed Virgin
" Walburga, illuminates the blind, makes the deaf hear," &c.,
and of which he says that he himself once drank a whole
cup, and was cured forthwith. Then come the nuns of this
same place, equally disinterested witnesses, after the invention
of printing ; then one Eader, in 1615 ; and one Gretser, in
1620. But what has become of the holy oil for the last 240
years, Dr. Newman does not say-

In his "Lectures on the present position of Catholics in
England, addressed to the brothers of the Oratory," in 1851, he
has again used the same line of sophism. Argument I cannot
call it, while such a sentence as this is to be found : (p. 295)
" Is the tower of London shut against sight-seers, because the
" coats of mail or pikes there may have half legendary tales
" connected with them? Why, then, may not the country
" people come up in joyous companies, singing and piping,
" to see the holy coat at Treves ? " To see, forsooth ! To
worship, Dr. Newman would have said, had he known (as I
take for granted he does not) the facts of that imposture. He
himself, meanwhile, seems hardly sure of the authenticity of
the holy coat. He (p. 298) " does not see why it may not have
been what it professes to be." It may " have been " so, no
doubt, but it certainly is not so now ; for the very texture
and material of the thing prove it to be spurious. However,
Dr. Newman " firmly believes that portions of the true Cross
" are at Eome and elsewhere, that the crib of Bethlehem is at
" Eome," fec. And more than all ; he thinks it " impossible
" to withstand the evidence which is brought for the lique-
" faction of the blood of St. Januarms, at Naples, and for the

26

" motion of the eyes of the pictures of the Madonna in the
" Eoman States."

How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the
Morning !

But when I read these outrages upon common sense, what
wonder if I said to myself, " This man cannot believe what
he is saying ? "

I believe I was wrong. I have tried, as far as I can, to
imagine to myself Dr. Newman s state of mind ; and I see
now the possibility of a man s working himself into that pitch
of confusion, that he can persuade himself, by what seems to
him logic, of anything whatsoever which he wishes to believe ;
and of his carrying self-deception to such perfection that it
becomes a sort of frantic honesty, in which he is utterly
unconscious, not only that he is deceiving others, but that he
is deceiving himself.

But I must say, If this be " historic truth," what is historic
falsehood? If this be honesty, what is dishonesty ? If this
be wisdom, what is folly ?

I may be told, But this is Eoman Catholic doctrine. You
have no right to be angry with Dr. Newman for believing
it. I answer, tliis is not Eoman Catholic doctrine, any more
than belief in miraculous appearances of the Blessed Virgin,
or the miracle of the stigmata, on which two matters I shall
say something hereafter. No Eoman Catholic, as far as I
am aware, is bound to believe these things. Dr. Newman
has believed them of his own free will. He is anxious, it
would seem, to show his own credulity. He has worked his
mind, it would seem, into that morbid state, in which non
sense is the only food for which it hungers. Like the
sophists of old, he has used reason to destroy reason. I had
thought that, like them, he had preserved his own reason, in
order to be able to destroy that of others. But I was unjust
to him, as he says. While lie tried to destroy others reason,

27

he was at least fair enough to destroy his own. That is all
that I can say. Too many prefer the charge of insincerity to
that of insipience Dr. Newman seems not to be of that
number.

But more. In connexion with this said life of St. Walburga,
Dr. Newman has done a deed, over which I might make
merry, if that were my wish. But I am not a wit, like
Dr. Newman.

In page 77, we find the following wonderful passage :
" Illuminated men ... to them the evil influence of Satanic
" power is horribly discernible . . . and the only way to
" express their keen perception of it is to say, that they see
" upon the countenances of the slaves of sin, the marks, and
" lineaments, and stamp of the evil one ; and they smell with
" their nostrils the horrible fumes which arise from their
" vices and uncleansed hearts, driving good angels from them
" in dismay, and attracting and delighting devils. It is said
" of the holy Sturme, a disciple and companion of Winfred,
" that in passing a horde of unconverted Germans, as they
" were bathing and gambolling in a stream, he was so over-
" powered by the intolerable scent which arose from them,
" that he nearly fainted away. And no doubt such preter-
" natural discernments are sometimes given to saints" and
a religious reason is given for it which I shall not quote.
I should be ashamed to use the sacred name in the same
page with such materialist nonsense.

Now this " no doubt " seemed as convincing to Dr. Newman
as to the author. The fly which his disciple had heedlessly
cast over the turbid waters of his brain was too fine to be
resisted ; and he rose at it, heavily but surely, and has hooked
himself past remedy. For into his lectures, given before the
Catholic University of Ireland, published in 1859, he has
inserted, at page 96, on the authority of " an Oxford writer,"
the whole passage which relates to St. Sturme, word for word.

28

I thought, when I was in my former mind as to Dr.
Newman, that he had gone out of his way to tell this fable,
in order to intimate to the young gentlemen who had the
blessing of Ms instructions, that they need care nothing for
" truth for its own sake," in the investigation of a miracle,
but take it on any anonymous authority, provided only it
made for the Catholic faith. And when I saw that I was
wrong, 1 was sorely puzzled as to why my old friend
St. Sturnie (against whom I do not say a word) had thus
been dragged unceremoniously into a passage on National
Literature, which had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
But I am not bound to find motives for Dr. Newman s
eccentricities.

But now comes the worst part of the matter. Dr. Newman
has been taken in. There is no miracle. There never was
any in the original document. There is none in Mabillon
who quotes it. It is a sheer invention of the ardent Oxford
writer.

The story appears first in the Life of St. Sturme, by his
contemporary and friend St. Eigils. It may be found in
Pertz s "Monumenta Critica;" and a most charming sketch of
mediaeval missionary life it is ; all the more so because one
can comfortably believe every word of it, from its complete
freedom (as far as I recollect) from signs and wonders.

The original passage sets forth how St. Sturnie ride& on his
donkey, and wishing for a place where to found Fulda Abbey,
came to a ford where the Sclavonians (not Germans, as the
Oxford writer calls them) were bathing, on the way to the
fair at Mentz, "whose naked bodies the animal on which he
" rode fearing, began to tremble, and the man of God himself
" shuddered (exhorruit) at their evil smell." They mocked
him, and went about to hurt him ; but Divine providence
kept them back, and he went on in safety.

That is all. There is not a hint of a miracle. A horde of

29

dirty savages, who had not, probably, washed for a twelve
month, smelt very strong, and St. Sturme had a nose. As
for his " nearly fainting away," that is a " devout imagi
nation."

Eeally, if Dr. Newman or the " Oxford writer " had been
monks of more than one Eoman Catholic nation, one might
have excused their seeing something quite miraculous in any
man s being shocked at his fellow-creatures evil smell; but in
Oxford gentlemen, accustomed to the use of soap and water,
it is too bad.

Besides, to impute a miracle in this case, is clearly to put
the saint, in virtue, below his own donkey ; for while the
saint was only shocked at the odour, the donkey did what the
saint should have done (in imitation of many other saints
before and since), and expressed his horror at the impro
priety of the deshabille of the " miscreants." Unless we are
to understand a miracle and why not? in the donkey s
case likewise; not indeed expressed, but understood as a
matter of course by " properly-taught and religiously-dis
posed minds ; " and piously hold that the virtue of the saint
(which seems, from monkish writings, to be some kind of
gas or oil) diffused itself through the saddle into the inmost
recesses of the donkey s frame, and imbued him for the
moment, through the merits of St. Sturme, with a preter
natural and angelic modesty ?

AVhich if we shall believe, we shall believe something not
a whit more ridiculous than many a story told in these
hapless volumes.

What can I say, again, of Dr. Newman s " Lectures on
Anglican Difficulties," published in 1850, save what I have
said already ? That if I, like hundreds more, have mistaken
his meaning and intent, he must blame not me, but himself.
If he will indulge in subtle paradoxes, in rhetorical ex
aggerations ; if, whenever he touches on the question of

30

truth and honesty, he will take a perverse pleasure in
saying something shocking to plain English notions, he must
take the consequences of his own eccentricities.

He tells us, for instance, in Lecture VIII. that the Catholic
Church " holds it better for sun and moon to drop from
" heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions
" on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as
(i temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say
" should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin,
" should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor
" farthing without excuse." And this in the face of those
permissions to deception, which may be seen formalized
and detailed in the works of the Eomish casuists, and espe
cially in those of the great Liguori, whose books have
received the public and solemn sanction of the Komish see.
In one only way can Dr. Newman reconcile this passage
with the teaching of his Church ; namely, by saying that the
licence given to equivocation, even on oath, is so complete,
that to tell a downright lie is the most superfluous and
therefore most wanton of all sins.

But how will he reconcile it with the statement with
which we meet a few pages on, that the Church " considers
" consent, though quick as thought, to a single unchaste wish
" as indefinitely more heinous than any lie that can possibly
" be fancied ; that is when viewed, of course, in itself, and
" apart from its causes, motives, and consequences ? " Heaven
forbid that any man should say that such consent is anything
save a great and mortal sin : but how can we reconcile this
statement with the former one, save by the paradox, that it
is a greater crime to sin like an animal, than like the Devil
the Father of Lies ?

Indeed, the whole teaching of this lecture and the
one following it concerning such matters is, I confess, so
utterly beyond my comprehension, that I must ask, in blank

31

astonishment, What does Dr. Newman mean? He assures
us so earnestly and indignantly that he is an honest man,
believing what he says, that we in return are bound, in
honour and humanity, to believe him ; but still "What does
he mean ?

He says : " Take a mere beggar woman, lazy, ragged, and
" filthy, and not over-scrupulous of truth (I do not say she
" has arrived at perfection) but if she is chaste, sober, and
" cheerful, and goes to her religious duties (and I am not
" supposing at all an impossible case), she will, in the eyes of
" the Church, have a prospect of heaven, quite closed and
" refused to the State s pattern-man, the just, the upright,
" the generous, the honourable, the conscientious, if he be all
" this, not from a supernatural power (I do not determine
" whether this is likely to be the fact, but I am contrasting
" views and principles) not from a supernatural power, but
" from mere natural virtue/ (Lecture viii. p. 207.)

I must ask again, What does Dr. Newman mean by this
astounding passage? What I thought that he meant, when
I first read it, some twelve years ago, may be guessed easily
enough. I said, This man has no real care for truth. Truth
for its own sake is no virtue in his eyes, and he teaches that
it need not be. I do not say that now : but this I say, that
Dr. Newman, for the sake of exalting the magical powers of
his Church, has committed himself unconsciously to a state
ment which strikes at the root of all morality. If he answer,
that such is the doctrine of his Church concerning " natural
virtues," as distinguished from "good works performed by
God s grace," I can only answer, So much the] worse for his
Church. The sooner it is civilized off the face of the earth,
if this be its teaching, the better for mankind. For as for
his theory that it may be a " natural virtue," I value it as
little as I trust every honest Englishman will do. I hold it
to be utterly antiscriptural ; to border very closely (in theo-

32

logical language) on the Pelagian heresy. Every good gift
and every perfect gift comes down from God above. With
out Him no man does a right deed, or thinks a right thought ;
and when Dr. Newman says otherwise, he is doing his best
(as in this passage) to make the " State s pattern-man " an
atheist, as well as to keep the beggar-woman a lying bar
barian. What Dr. Newman may have meant to teach by these
words, I cannot say ; but what he has taught practically is
patent. He has taught the whole Celtic Irish population, that
as long as they are chaste (which they cannot well help being,
being married almost before they are men and women) and
sober (which they cannot well help being, being too poor to
get enough whisky to make them drunk), and "go to their
religious duties" an expression on which I make no com
ment they may look down upon the Protestant gentry who
send over millions to feed them in famine ; who found hospi
tals and charities to which they are admitted freely ; who try
to introduce among them capital, industry, civilization, and,
above all, that habit of speaking the truth, for want of which
they are what they are, and are likely to remain such, as
long as they have Dr. Newman for their teacher that they
may look down, I say, on the Protestant gentry as cut off
from God, and without hope of heaven, because they do their
duty by mere " natural virtue."

And Dr. Newman has taught them, too, in the very same
page,* that they may confess " to the priest thefts which
" would sentence the penitent to transportation if brought
" into a court of justice; but which the priest knows too"
(and it is to be remembered that the priest is bound to
conceal his knowledge of the crime), " in the judgment of the
" Church, might be pardoned on the man s private contri-
" tion, without any confession at all."

If I said that Dr. Newman has, in this page, justified,

* P. 207.

33

formally and deliberately, some of the strongest accusations
brought by the Exeter Hall party against the Irish priests,
I should be answered (and possibly with temporary success)
by some of those ingenious special pleadings with which, in
spite of plain fact and universal public opinion, black is
made to appear, if not white, yet still grey enough to do
instead. But this I will say, that if the Eoman Catholic
hierarchy in these realms had had any sense of their own
interests (as far as standing well with the British nation is
concerned), they would, instead of sending the man who wrote
those words to teach in an Irish Catholic university, have
sent him to their furthest mission among the savages of the
South Seas.

The next lecture, the ninth, contains matter more liable
still to be mistaken ; and equally certain, mistaken or not, to
shock common sense. It is called, " The Eeligious Character
" of Catholic Countries no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the
" Church." By the religious character, we find, is meant
what we should call the irreligious character the tendency
to profanity, blasphemy, imposture, stealing, lying. These
are not my accusations, but Dr. Newman s. He details them
all with charming naiveti, and gives (as we shall see) most
picturesque and apposite instances. But this, he holds " is
no prejudice to the sanctity of the Church," because the
Church considers that " faith and works are separable," and
that all these poor wretches, though they have not works,
have at least faith, "caused directly by a supernatural in
fluence from above," and are, therefore, unless I have lost
utterly the clue to the intent of Dr. Newman s sophistries,
ipso facto infinitely better off than Protestants. What he
means by the separableness of faith and works is clear
enough. A man, he says, " may be gifted with a simple,

un doubting, cloudless, belief that Christ is in the Blessed
" Sacrament, and yet commit the sacrilege of breaking open

c

34

" the tabernacle, and carrying off the consecrated particles for
" the sake of the precious vessel containing them."

At which most of my readers will be inclined to cry :
" Let Dr. Newman alone, after that. What use in arguing
" with a man who has argued himself into believing that ?
" He had a human reason once, no doubt : but he has gambled
" it away, and left no common ground on which he and you,
" or we either, can meet him."

True : so true, that I never would have written these
pages, save because it was my duty to show the world, if
not Dr. Newman, how the mistake of his not earing for
truth arose ; and specially how this very lecture fostered that
mistake. For in it, after using the blasphemy and profanity
which he confesses to be so common in Catholic countries, as
an argument for, and not against, the "Catholic Faith," he takes
a seeming pleasure in detailing instances of dishonesty on the
part of Catholics, as if that were the very form of antino-
mianism which was most strongly and perpetually present to
his mind, and which needed most to be palliated and excused.
" The feeble old woman, who first genuflects before the Blessed
" Sacrament, and then steals her neighbour s handkerchief or
" prayer-book, who is intent on his devotions" she is very
wrong, no doubt : but " she worships, and she sins : she
" kneels because she believes ; she steals because she does not
" love. She may be out of God s grace ; she is not altogether
" out of His sight."

Heaven forbid that we should deny those words. That, at
least, is a doctrine common to Eomanist and to Protestant :
but while Dr. Newman, with a kind of desperate audacity,
will dig forth such scandals as notes of the "Catholic
Church," he must not wonder at his motive for so doing
being mistaken.

His next instance is even more wanton and offensive, and
so curious that I must quote it at length :

35

" You come out again and mix in the idle and dissipated
" throng, and you fall in with a man in a palmer s dress,
" selling false relics, and a credulous circle of customers
" buying them as greedily, as though they were the supposed
"French laces and India silks of a pedlar s basket. One
" simple soul has bought of him a cure for the rheumatism or
* ague, which might form a case of conscience. It is said to
" be a relic of St. Cuthbert, but only has virtue at sunrise,
" and when applied with three crosses to the head, arms, and
" feet. You pass on to encounter a rude son of the Church,
"more like a showman than a religious, recounting to the
"gaping multitude some tale of a vision of the invisible
" world, seen by Brother Augustine of the Friar Minors, or
" by a holy Jesuit preacher who died in the odour of sanctity,
" and sending round his bag to collect pence for the souls in
" purgatory ; and of some appearance of Our Lady (the like of
41 which has really been before and since), but on no authority
" except popular report, and in no shape but that which
" popular caprice has given it. You go forward, and you find
" preparations proceeding for a great pageant or mystery ; it
* is a high festival, and the incorporated trades have each
" undertaken their special religious celebration. The plumbers
" and glaziers are to play the Creation ; the barbers the call
" of Abraham ; and at night is to be the grandest performance
" of all, the Eesurrection and Last Judgment, played by the
* carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths. Heaven and hell are
"represented, saints, devils, and living men; and the chef
" d &uvre of the exhibition is the display of fireworks to be
" let off as the finale. How unutterably profane ! again you
" cry. Yes, profane to you, my dear brother profane to a
" population which only half believes ; not profane to those
" who believe wholly, who one and all have a vision within
"which corresponds with what they see, which resolves
"itself into, or rather takes up into itself, the external

c 2

30

" pageant, whatever be the moral condition of each individual
" composing the mass. They gaze, and in drinking in the
" exhibition with their eyes they are making one continuous
" and intense act of faith" (Lecture IX. 236, 237).

The sum of which is, that for the sake of the " one con
tinuous and intense act of faith" which the crowd is per
forming, " the rude son of the Church, more like a showman
than a religious" in plain English, the brutal and lying
monk, is allowed to continue his impostures without inter
ruption ; and the moral which Dr. Newman draws is, that
though his miraculous appearance of our Lady may be a lie,
yet " the like thereof has been before and since."

After which follows a passage of which I shall boldly
say, that I trust that it will arouse in every English husband,
father, and brother, who may read these words, the same
feelings which it roused in me ; and express my opinion,
that it is a better compliment to Dr. Newman to think that
he did not believe what he said, than to think that he did
believe it :

" You turn to go home, and in your way you pass through
" a retired quarter of the city. Look up at those sacred
" windows ; they belong to the Convent of the Perpetual
" Adoration, or to the poor Clares, or to the Carmelites of the
" Beform of St. Theresa, or to the Nuns of the Visitation.
" Seclusion, silence, watching, adoration, is their life day and
" night. The Immaculate Lamb of God is ever before the
" eyes of the worshippers ; or, at least, the invisible mysteries
" of faith ever stand out, as if in bodily shape, before their
" mental gaze. Where will you find such a realized heaven
" upon earth ? Yet that very sight has acted otherwise on
" the mind of a weak sister ; and the very keenness of her
" faith and wild desire of approaching the object of it has
" led her to fancy or to feign that she has received that
" singular favour vouchsafed only to a few elect souls ; and

37

" she points to God s wounds, as imprinted on her hand, and
" feet, and side, though she herself has been instrumental in
" their formation " (Lecture IX. 237, 238).

There are occasions on which courtesy or reticence is a
crime, and this one of them. A poor girl, cajoled, flattered,
imprisoned, starved, maddened, by such as Dr. Newman and
his peers, into that degrading and demoralising disease,
hysteria, imitates on her own body, from that strange vanity
and deceit which too often accompany the complaint, the
wounds of our Lord ; and all that Dr. Newman has to say
about the matter is, to inform us that the gross and useless
portent is " a singular favour vouchsafed only to a few elect
souls." And this is the man who, when accused of counte
nancing falsehood, puts on first a tone of plaintive and startled
innocence, and then one of smug self-satisfaction as who
should ask, " What have I said ? What have I done ? Why
am I upon my trial ? " On his trial ? If he be on his trial for
nothing else, he is on his trial for those words ; and he will
remain upon his trial as long as Englishmen know how to
guard the women whom God has committed to their charge.
If the British public shall ever need informing that Dr. New
man wrote that passage, I trust there will be always one man
left in England to inform them of the fact, for the sake of
the ladies of this land.

Perhaps the most astounding specimens of Dr. Newman s
teaching are to be found, after all, in the two sermons which
end his " Discourses addressed to Mixed Congregations,"
published in 1849; "The Glories of Mary for the sake of
her Son ; " and " On the fitness of the Glories of Mary." Of
the mis-quotations of Scripture, of the sophisms piled on
sophisms, of these two sermons, I have no room wherein to
give specimens. All I ask is, that they should be read ; read
by every man who thinks it any credit to himself to be a
rational being. But two culminating wonders of these two

38

sermons I must point out. The first is the assertion that the
Blessed Virgin " had been inspired, the first of womankind,
to dedicate her virginity to God." As if there had not been
Buddhist nuns (if not others) centuries before- Christianity.
As if (allowing the argument that they dedicated their
virginity to a false God) there were the slightest historic
proof that the Blessed Virgin dedicated hers before the In
carnation. The second is in a sermon which professes to prove
logically the "fitness" of the Immaculate Conception, and is
filled (instead of logic) with traditions which are utterly
baseless. I allude to the assertion that " the world" i.e. all
who do not belong to the Komish Church "blasphemes"
Mary. I make no comment. All I ask, again, of my readers
is, to read these two sermons.

But what, after all, does Dr. Newman teach concerning
truth? What he taught in 1843, and what he (as far as I
can see) teaches still, may be seen in his last sermon in a
volume entitled, " Chiefly on the Theory of Religious Belief,"
called a sermon " On the Theory of Developments in
Eeligious Doctrine." I beg all who are interested in this
question to read that sermon (which I had overlooked till
lately)j; and to judge for themselves whether I exaggerate
when I say that it tries to undermine the grounds of all
rational belief for the purpose of substituting blind super
stition. As examples : speaking of " certain narratives of
martyrdoms," and "alleged miracles," he says (p. 345) : " If the
" alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred, if
" I may so speak." Historic truth is thus sapped ; and phy
sical truth fares no better. " Scripture says (p. 350) that the sun
" moves, and that the earth is stationary ; and science that
" the earth moves, and the sun is comparatively at rest. How
" can we determine which of these statements is the very
" truth, till we know what motion is ? If our idea of motion
" be but an accident of our present senses neither proposition

39

n is true, and both are true ; neither true philosophically,
" both true for certain purposes in the system in which they
" are respectively found ; and physical science will have no
" better meaning when it says that the earth moves, than
" plain astronomy when it says that the earth is still."

Quorsum hsec ? What is the intent of this seemingly sceptic
method, pursued through page after page ? To tell us that
we can know nothing certainly, and therefore must take
blindly what The Church shall choose to teach us. For
the Church, it would seem, is not bound to tell us, indeed
cannot tell us, the whole truth. We are to be treated like
children, to whom (at least to those with whom Dr. Newman
has come in contact) it is necessary to (p. 343) " dispense and
" divide the word of truth, if we would not have it changed,
" as far as they are concerned, into a word of falsehood."
" And so, again, as regards savages, or the ignorant, or weak,
" or narrow-minded, our representations must take a certain
" form, if we are to gain admission into their minds at all,
" and to reach them."

This method of teaching by half-truths Dr. Newman calls
" economy ; " and justifies it (if I understand his drift), b
the instances of " mythical representations," legends, and
forth, " which, if they did not occur, ought to have occurred
"Many a theory or view of things," he goes on (p. 345)
" on which an institution is founded, or a party held together,
" is of the same kind. Many an argument, used by zealous
" and earnest men, has this economical character, being not
" the very ground on which they act (for they continue in the
" same course, though it be refuted), yet, in a certain sense, a
" representation of it, a proximate description of their feelings
" in the shape of argument, on which they can rest, to which
" they can recur when perplexed, and appeal when they are
" questioned." After which startling words, Dr. Newman
says and it is really high time " In this reference to

40

" accommodation or economy in human affairs, I do not
" meddle with the question of casuistry, viz. which of such
" artifices, as it may be called, are innocent, or where the
" line is to be drawn. 5

A hasty reader might say, that herein is an open justifi
cation of equivocation and dishonest reticence. But he
would be mistaken. The whole sermon is written in so
tentative a style, that it would be rash and wrong to say
that Dr. Newman intends to convey any lesson by it, save
that the discovery of truth is an impossibility. Only once,
and in a note, he speaks out. P. 342.

" Hence it is not more than an hyperbole to say that, in
" certain cases, a lie is the nearest approach to truth. This
" seems the meaning, for instance, of St. Clement, when he
" says He (the Christian) both thinks and speaks the truth,
" unless when, at any time, in the way of treatment, as a
" physician toward his patients, so for the welfare of the
" sick he will be false, or will tell a falsehood, as the sophists
" speak. "

If St. Clement said that, so much the worse for him. He
was a great and good man. But he might have learned from
his Bible that no lie was of the truth, and that it is ill
stealing the devil s tools to do God s work withal.

Be that as it may. What Dr. Newman teaches is clear
at last, and I see now how deeply I have wronged him. So
far from thinking truth for its own sake to be no virtue, he
considers it a virtue so lofty, as to be unattainable by man,
who must therefore, in certain cases, take up with what-it-is-
no-more-than-a-hyperbole-to-call lies ; and who, if he should
be so lucky as to get any truth into his possession, will be
wise in " economizing " the same, and " dividing it," so giving
away a bit here and a bit there, lest he should waste so
precious a possession.

That this is Dr. Newman s opinion at present, there can

41

be no manner of doubt. What lie has persuaded himself
to believe about St. Walburga s oil, St. Sturme s nose, St.
Januarius blood, and the winking Madonna s eyes, proves
sufficiently that he still finds, in certain cases, what-it-is-no-
more-than-a-hyperbole-to-call lies, the nearest approach which
he can make to truth ; while, as to the right of economizing
and dividing truth, I shall shortly bring forward two instances
of his having done so to such an extent, that very little of
poor truth remains after the dismemberment.

And yet I do not call this conscious dishonesty. The man
who wrote that sermon was already past the possibility of
such a sin. It is simple credulity, the child of scepticism.
Credulity, frightened at itself, trying to hide its absurdity
alike from itself and from the world by quibbles and reticences
which it thinks prudent and clever; and, like the hunted
ostrich, fancying that because it thrusts its head into the
sand, its whole body is invisible.

And now, I have tried to lead my readers along a path
to which some of them, I fear, have objected.

They have fallen, perhaps, into the prevailing superstition
that cleverness is synonymous with wisdom. They cannot
believe that (as is too certain) great literary, and even barris-
terial ability, may co-exist with almost boundless silliness : but
I can find no other explanation of the phenomena than that
which I have just given. That Dr. Newman thinks that there
is no harm in "economy," and "dividing the truth," is evident;
for he has employed it again in his comments on the
correspondence. He has employed twice, as the most natural
and innocent thing possible, those " arts of the defenceless
which require so much delicacy in the handling, lest " liberal
shepherds give a grosser name," and call them cunning, or
even worse.

I am, of course, free to make my own comments on them
as on all other words of Dr. Newman s printed since the

42

1st of February, 1864, on which day my apology was pub
lished. I shall certainly take the sense of the British public
on the matter. Though Dr. Newman may be " a mystery "
to them, as he says " religious men " always are to the world,
yet they possess quite common sense enough to see what his
words are, even though his intention be, as it is wont to be,
obscure.

They recollect the definitions of the "Church" and
" Christians," on the ground of which I called Sermon XX.
a Romish sermon ?

Dr. Newman does not apply to it that epithet. He called
it, in his letter to me of the 7th of January (published by
him), a " Protestant " one. I remarked that, but considered
it a mere slip of the pen. Besides, I have now nothing to
say to that letter. It is to his "Reflexions" in page 32
which are open ground to me, that I refer. In them he
deliberately repeats the epithet " Protestant : " only he, in an
utterly imaginary conversation, puts it into my mouth, "which
you preached when a Protestant." I call the man who
preached that sermon a Protestant? I should have sooner
called him a Buddhist. At that very time he was teaching
his disciples to scorn and repudiate that name of Protestant,
under which, for some reason or other, he now finds it con
venient to take shelter. If he forgets, the world does not, the
famous article in the British Critic (the then organ of his
party), of three years before July, 1841 which, after de
nouncing the name of Protestant, declared the object of the
party to be none other than the " Unprotestantising " the
English Church.

But Dr. Newman convicts himself. In the sermon before,
as I have shown, monks and nuns are spoken of as the only
true Bible Christians, and in the sermon itself a celibate
clergy is made a note of the Church. And yet Dr. Newman
goes on to say that he was not then " a priest, speaking of

43

priests." Whether he were a priest himself matters little
to the question; but if he were not speaking of priests,
and those Komish ones, when he spoke of a celibate clergy,
of whom was he speaking ? But there is no use in wasting
words on this "economical" statement of Dr. Newman s. I
shall only say that there are people in the world whom it
is very difficult to help. As soon as they are got out of one
scrape, they walk straight into another.

But Dr. Newman has made, in my opinion, another and a
still greater mistake. He has committed, on the very title-
page of his pamphlet, an " economy " which some men will
consider a very serious offence. He has there stated that
the question is, " Whether Dr. Newman teaches that truth
is no virtue." He has repeated this misrepresentation in a
still stronger form at page 32, where he has ventured to
represent me as saying " Dr. Newman tells us that lying is
never any harm." He has economised the very four words
of my accusation, which make it at least a reasonable one ;
namely " For its own sake."

I never said what he makes me say, or anything like it.
I never was inclined to say it. Had I ever been, I should
be still more inclined to say it now.

But Dr. Newman has shown " wisdom " enough of that
serpentine type which is his professed ideal in what he has
done, and has been so economic of truth, and " divided " the
truth so thoroughly, that really there is very little of it left.

For while no one knew better than he the importance of
the omission, none knew better that the public would not do
so; that they would never observe it; that, if I called
their attention to it, they would smile, and accuse me of
word-splitting and raising metaphysical subtleties. Yes, Dr.
Newman is a very economical person. So, when I had accused
him and the Romish clergy of teaching that " truth is no
virtue, for its own sake," he simply economised the last four

44

words, and said that I accused him and them of teaching
that " truth is no virtue."

This, in Dr. Newman, the subtle dialectician, is, indeed, an
" enormity," as he chooses to call my accusation of him. No
one better knows the value of such limitations. No one has,
sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, made more use of them.
No man, therefore, ought to have been more careful of doing
what he has done.

Dr. Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand logic, to
prove that I did not believe the accusation when I made it.
Therein he is mistaken. I did believe it, and I believed, also,
his indignant denial. But when he goes on to ask, with sneers,
Why I should believe his denial, if I did not consider him
trustworthy in the first instance ? I can only answer, I really
do not know. There is a great deal to be said for that view,
now that Dr. Newman has become (one must needs suppose)
suddenly, and since the 1st of February, 1864, a convert to
the economic views of St. Alfonso da Liguori and his compeers.
I am henceforth in doubt and fear, as much as an honest
man can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman may write.
How can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation, of one of the three kinds laid down as per
missible by the blessed St. Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils
even when confirmed with an oath, because " then we do not
deceive our neighbour, but allow him to deceive himself " ? *
The whole being justified by the example of Christ, " who an
swered, I go not up to this feast, subintelligendo, openly. :
" For," say the casuists, " if there were no such restrictions
" (on the telling of truth), there would be no means of con-
" cealing secrets, which one could not open without loss or
"inconvenience; but this would be no less pernicious to

* I quote from Scavini, torn. ii. page 232, of the Paris edition, and from
Xeyraguet, p. 141, two compendiums of Liguovi which are (or were lately)
used, so I have every reason to believe -one at Oscofct, the other at Maynooth.

45

human society than a lie itself." It is admissible, therefore, to
use words and sentences which have a double signification,
and leave the hapless hearer to take which of them he may
choose. What proof have I, then, that by " mean it ! I never
said it " ! Dr. Newman does not signify, " I did not say it : but
I did mean it ? "

Or again, how can I tell that I may not in this pamphlet
have made an accusation, of the truth of which Dr. Newman
is perfectly conscious ; but that as I, a heretic Protestant,
have no business to make it, he has a full right to deny it ?
For what says Neyraguet, after the blessed St. Alfonso da
Liguori ? That " a criminal or witness, being interrogated by a
" judge contrary to law, may swear that he knows not of the
" crime ; meaning, that he knows not of a crime of which he
" may be lawfully questioned."

These are hard words. If Dr. Newman shall complain of
them, I can only remind him of the fate which befel the
stork caught among the cranes, even though the stork had
not done all he could to make himself like a crane, as Dr.
Newman has, by " economising " on the very title-page of his
pamphlet.

I know perfectly well that truth " veracity, as they call
it " is a virtue with the Eomish moralists ; that it is one of
the cardinal virtues, the daughters of justice, like benevolence,
courtesy, gratitude, and so forth ; and is proved to be such
because there is a naturalis honestas in it, and also that
without it society could not go on. Lying, on the other hand,
though not one of the seven " capital " sins, which are pride,
avarice, luxury (unchastity), gluttony, anger, envy, and acedia
(lukewarmness), is yet held to be always a sin, when direct.
It is proved to be such from Scripture, from the fathers, and
from natural reason, because " truth is an essential perfection
of the Divine nature." So far well. But a lie is a venial sin,
if it " neither hurts our neighbour or God gravely, or causes

46

a grave scandal " ; as no lie told in behalf of the Catholic
faith can well do, though one wise Pope laid it down that it
was a sin to tell a lie, even for the sake of saving a soul. But
though it were a sin, the fact of its being a venial one seems
to have gained for it, as yet, a very slight penance. Mean
while, as a thousand venial sins can never make one
mortal one, a man may be a habitual liar all his life long,
without falling into mortal sin. Moreover, though " formal
simulation," when " one signifies by outward act some
thing different to what he has in his mind," is illicit, as
a lie, yet "material simulation," or stratagem, is not so. " For
" when one does something, not intending the deception of
" another, but some end of his own, then it is allowable on
" cause ; although, from other circumstances, men might con-
" jecture that the act was done for another end. So Joshua fled
" lawfully, not meaning fear, but that he might draw the enemy
" further from the city of Hai." From which one can gather,
that Eomish casuists allow the same stratagems to man
against his neighbours, in peaceable society, which Protestant
public opinion allows (and that with a growing compunction)
only to officers in war, against the enemies of their country.
Considering this fact, and the permission of equivocation, even
on oath, it is somewhat difficult to expect that the Romish
moralists, at least, hold truth to be a virtue for its own sake,
or to deny that they teach cunning to be the weapons of the
weak against the strong.

Yes I am afraid that I must say it once more Truth is
not honoured among these men for its own sake. There are,
doubtless, pure and noble souls among them, superior, through
the grace of God, to the official morality of their class : but in
their official writings, and in too much of their official con
duct, the great majority seem never, for centuries past, to
have perceived that truth is the capital virtue, the virtue of
all virtues, without which all others are hollow and rotten ;

47

and with which there is hope for a man s repentance and
conversion, in spite of every vice, if only he remains honest.
They have not seen that facts are the property not of man,
to be "economized" as man thinks fit, but of God, who
ordereth all things in heaven and earth ; and that therefore
not only every lie, but every equivocation, every attempt at
deception, is a sin, not against man, but against God ; they
have not seen that no lie is of the truth, and that God requires
truth, not merely in outward words, but in the inward parts ;
and that therefore the first and most absolute duty of every
human being is to speak and act the exact truth; or if he
wish to be silent, to be silent, courageously and simply, and
take the risk, trusting in God to protect him, as long as he
remains on God s side in the universe, by scorning to sully
his soul by stratagem or equivocation. Had they seen this ;
had they not regarded truth as a mere arbitrary command
of God, which was not binding in doubtful cases, they
would never have dared to bargain with God as to how little
truth He required of men ; and to examine and define (to
the injury alike of their own sense of honour, and that of
their hearers) how much deception He may be reasonably
supposed to allow.

Is this last Dr. Newman s view of truth? I hope not.
I hope that he, educated as an English gentleman and Oxford
scholar, is at variance with the notions formally allowed by
the most popular and influential modern Doctor of his
Church. But that there is some slight difference between
his notions of truth and ours he has confessed in a letter to
" X. V. Esq re ," which he has printed in his " Correspondence."
For there he says (p. 16) : "I think that you will allow that
" there is a broad difference between a virtue, considered as a
" principle or rule, and the applications and limits of it in
" human conduct. Catholics and Protestants, in their view of
" the substance of the moral virtues, agree ; but they carry

48

" them out variously in detail." He then gives us to under
stand, that this is the case as to truth ; that Catholics differ
from Protestants as to " whether this or that act in particular
is conformable to the rule of truth."

I beg to say, that in these words Dr. Newman has made
another great mistake. He has calumniated, as far as my
experience goes, the Catholic gentry of these realms. I am
proud to say, as far as I have had the honour and pleasure of
their acquaintance, that there is no difference whatsoever, of
detail or other, between their truthfulness and honour, and
the truthfulness and honour of the Protestant gentry among
whom they live, respected and beloved, in spite of all religious
differences, simply because they are honest gentlemen and
noble ladies. But if Dr. Newman will limit his statement to
the majority of the Eomish priesthood, and to those hapless Irish
Celts over whom they rule, then we will willingly accept it
as perfectly correct. There is a very wide difference in prac
tical details between their notions of truth and ours ; and
what that difference is, I have already pointed out. It is
notorious enough in facts and practice. It may be seen at
large by any one who chooses to read the Eomish Moral Theo
logians. And if Dr. Newman, as a Catholic priest, includes
himself in his own statement, that is his act, not mine.

And so I leave Dr. Newman, only expressing my fear, that
if he continues to " economize " and " divide " the words of
his adversaries as he has done mine, he will run great danger
of forfeiting once more his reputation for honesty.

CHAELES KINGSLEY.

R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS., LONDON.

Shilling Volumes.
SOME PROTESTANT FICTIONS EXPOSED.

Containing :

All About Monks and Nuns. By the Very Rev. Canon Koran.

Calumnies against Convents. By the Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S.J.

The Immuring of Nuns. By the "Rev. H. Thurston, S.J.

Mr. Rider Haggard and the Myth of the Walled-up Nun.

The True History of Maria Monk.

Ellen Golding, the " Rescued Nun." By the Rev. S. F. Smith, S.J.

Mr. Coliette as a Historian. By the same.

Does the End justify the Means ? By the same.

THE CHURCH OF OLD ENGLAND:

VOL. I.

The Church of Old England. By the Rev. J. D. Breen, O.S.B. [Croft.
The Continuity of the English Church. By the Very Rev. Canon
The Popes and the English Church. By the Rev. W. Watei worth.
A Voice from the Dead. By the Count de Montalembert.
Was St. Peter Bishop of Rome ? By C. F. B. Allnatt.
" Church Defence : " Notes on the History of the Church in England.

VOL. II.

Henry VJII. and the English Monasteries. By Cardinal Manning.
Papal Supremacy and Infallibility. By the Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S.J.
The Bible and the Reformation. By C. F. B. Allnatt.
Was Barlow a Bishop ? By the late Serjeant Bellasis.
Before and after Gunpowder Plot. By E. Healy Thompson. [Breen.
189 : or, the Church of Old England Protests. By the Rev. J. D.
The English Church and the Holy Eucharist. By Provost Northcote
King Henry VIII. and the Royal Supremacy.
Popery on Every Coin of the Realm.
A Letter to the Working Men of England.

VOL. III.

The Conversion of England. By H. E. Cardinal Vaughan.
Rome s Witness against Anglican Orders. By the Rev. S. F. Smith
The Revival of the Faith in England. By C. T. Gatty.
Why I left the Church of England. By James Britten.
Before and After the Reformation.
The Foreign and English " Reformation."
Why should we Remember the Fifth of November ?
The Truth about the Reformation. [C.SS.R.

England s Title : Our Lady s Dowry. By the Rev. T. E. Bridget!,

VOL. IV.

Blessed Peter and the English People. By Cardinal Vaughan.
How "the Church of England washed her Face." By the Rev.

S. F. Smith.

The English Church and the Blessed Virgin. By Provost Northcote.

Points of Anglican Controversy.

How I came Home. By Lady Herbert.

Continuity Reconsidered. By J. Hobson Matthews.

The People s Manuals. By Cardinal Vaughan.
Papers Read at the Manchester Conference.
Papers Read at the Birmingham Conference.
Papers Read at the Westminster Conference.

2 Vols.

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY,
69 SOUTHWAKK BRIDGE ROAD, S.E.

BX 4705 .N5 A3 1864b SMC
Newman, John Henry,
Apologia pro vita sua
47089360

G. H. NEWLANDS

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