Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
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 judgment,' 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.
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 not simply
in a _catena_, but by a _consensus_ of her divines, and by the voice of
her people. Moreover, such a protest was necessary as an integral
portion of her controversial basis; for I adopted the argument of
Bernard Gilpin, that Protestants "were _not able_ to give any _firm 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 Anglican
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
deficiencies then had to be supplied in the existing Anglican system,
and however boldly I might point them out, any how that system would not
in the process be brought nearer to the special creed of Rome, and might
be mended in spite of her. In that very agreement of the two forms of
faith, close as it might seem, would really be found, on examination,
the elements and principles of an essential discordance.
It was with this absolute 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 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, this would be only
for a time; it would admit of explanation, or it might suggest something
profitable to Anglicans; 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, in the judgment of the present day, of some of their
principles and opinions, I bid the reader go forward hopefully, 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_, [Greek: tô telei pistin pherôn], when, as we
trust, all that is inharmonious and anomalous in the details, will at
length be practically smoothed."
Such was the position, such the defences, such the tactics, by which I
thought that it was both incumbent on us, and possible for 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. In
November, 1834, was sent to me by Dr. Hampden the second edition of his
Pamphlet, entitled, "Observations on Religious Dissent, with particular
reference to the use of religious tests in the University." In this
Pamphlet it was maintained, that "Religion is distinct from Theological
Opinion," pp. 1. 28. 30, &c.; that it is but a common 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 doctrine, p. 27, and the Unitarian, p. 19;
that a dogma was a theological opinion formally insisted on, pp. 20, 21;
that speculation always left an opening for improvement, p. 22; that the
Church of England was not dogmatic in its spirit, though the wording of
its formularies might 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
opportunity 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 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 imperative 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 anything else. This is my
own account of the matter; and I say it, neither as intending to disown
the responsibility of what was done, or as if ungrateful to those who 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. Under-graduates in due time took
their degree, and became private tutors themselves. In their new
_status_, they in turn preached the opinions, with which they had
already become acquainted. 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
remonstrance 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 such proceedings, to have the
heart to tell me. I felt great impatience at our being called a party,
and would not allow that we were such. I had a lounging, free-and-easy
way of carrying things on. I exercised 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 with me afterwards, as regards other publications. For
two years I furnished a certain number of sheets for the British Critic
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
unfavorable 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 had 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