Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
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 considerable length; and were borne by him with
great courtesy and patience. The heading given to them was, "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 theological views
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 returned 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 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. 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 formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient
religion had well nigh faded away out of the land, through the political
changes of the last 150 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 unsuitable occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching upon,
and there was no one else to preach. I felt as on board a vessel, which
first gets under weigh, and then the deck is cleared out, and luggage
and live stock stowed away into their proper receptacles.
Nor was it only that I had confidence in our cause, both in itself, and
in its polemical force, but also, on the other hand, I despised every
rival system of doctrine and its arguments too. 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
controversial position of the latter. 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 contrary, that the
Apostolical form of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its
grounds of evidence impregnable. Owing to this supreme confidence, 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
behaviour 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 encouraged them to do so. It was a satisfaction to me
that the Record had allowed me to say so much in 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 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, by virtue of his own
opinions, 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, "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
matter-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
furnished 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 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 principally through Mr. Froude's
Remains that this word has got into our language. I think, I defended
myself with arguments such as these:--that, as every one knew, the
Tracts were written by various 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
instrumentally, 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
character for honour and honesty.
This absolute confidence in my cause, which led me to the negligence 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 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 superstitious, 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 themselves. 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 Inquisition. 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 uncharitable towards
himself." I cannot deny that this is a very fierce passage; but Arius
was banished, 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-fè_ 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, on
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 occurs in the
midst of blame. 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 Parliament for Catholic
Emancipation, his sudden 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. Hampden, 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 friendship 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 perdition. Such is the venomous character of
orthodoxy. What mischief must it create in a bad heart and narrow mind,