Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
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 my fierceness. I
am not bound to account for it; but there have been men before me,
fierce in act, yet tolerant and moderate in their reasonings; 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 [Greek: ho megas]. 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 little chance, especially at the early
date of 1834, of making any serious resistance 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 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 affectionateness.
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. Robert
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 externally; nor
were the internal advantages 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 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 judgment, 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, this Dr. Pusey possessed
pre-eminently. The most remarkable instance of this, was his statement,
in one of his subsequent defences of the Movement, when moreover it had
advanced a considerable way in the direction of Rome, that among its
more hopeful peculiarities was its "stationariness." He made it in good
faith; it was his subjective 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 followed by other Tracts from
different authors, if not of equal learning, yet of equal power and
appositeness. The Catenas of Anglican divines, projected by me, which
occur in the Series 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 example 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 receiving 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 from the first,
to provide as soon as possible a large statement, which would encourage
and reassure 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 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 anticipated what was coming, had returned
to England by 1836, had delivered Lectures in London on the doctrines of
Catholicism, and created an impression 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, and was published in 1837. It was composed, after a careful
consideration and comparison 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 Lectures at St. Mary's; lastly, with considerable
retrenchments and additions, it was rewritten for publication.
It attempts to trace out the rudimental lines on 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 circumstance 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 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, polemical. 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 vanquished. 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
controversy 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, could it be at once received into Anglican theology, however well
it was done. This I fully recognized; and, while I trusted that my
statements of doctrine would turn out to be true and important, still 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 finding a basis in reason for my
belief, and a moral cowardice in not 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 from the same feeling, that in the spring of 1836, at a
meeting of residents on the subject of the struggle then proceeding
against a Whig appointment, when some one wanted us all merely to act on
college and conservative grounds (as I understood 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