Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
Catholic, 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 body of the Church
Catholic, and that we are split off from it, and in the condition of the
Donatists."
The other replies by denying the fact that the present Roman communion
is like St. Augustine's Catholic Church, inasmuch as there must be taken
into account the large Anglican and Greek communions. Presently he takes
the offensive, 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 Tridentine Council."
His opponent answers these objections by referring 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 improving 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 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 in connexion 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 contrariety 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 between the
Madonna and Child, and a Calvary. The peculiarity of the Anglican
theology was this,--that it "supposed the Truth to be entirely objective
and detached, not" (as in the theology of Rome) "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."
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
investigating how the matter lies between the Churches by means of a
dialogue, I end thus: "It would seem, that, in the above discussion,
each disputant has a strong point: our strong point is the argument from
Primitiveness, that of Romanists from Universality. It is a fact,
however it is to be accounted for, that Rome 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,
recognizes 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
mistaken here; we are neither accusing Rome of idolatry nor ourselves of
schism; we think neither charge tenable; but still the Roman Church
practises 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 her present state, we do
seriously think that members 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 remodelled and adapted Antiquity. This I advanced 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 conclusion of my Volume on the Prophetical
Office (1836-7) 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 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's party
had attracted attention, more, I think, than in 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 at no time been introduced: there
had been nothing for two years, either in my Tracts or in the British
Critic, of a polemical character. I was returning, for the Vacation, to
the course of reading which I had many years before chosen as especially
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 Monophysites. 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; now here, in the middle of the fifth century,
I 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 Monophysite. 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 history 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; difficult 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 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 unimpassioned,
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, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever
courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid;
and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, 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 outright,
as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God! anathema to a
whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels! perish the names
of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of
the earth, ere I should do ought but fall at their feet in love and in
worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical
words were ever in my ears and on my tongue!"
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 myself. There was an
article in it on the "Anglican Claim" by Dr. 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 has appeared already. 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 beyond its limits.
It was a case of 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 of Rome against the
Oriental Monophysites. But my friend, an anxiously religious man, now,
as then, very dear to me, a Protestant 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
orbis terrarum." He repeated these words again and again, and, when he
was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. "Securus judicat orbis
terrarum;" they were words which went beyond the occasion of the