Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
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. Augustine 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 prescription 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, interpreting and
summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the
theory of the _Via Media_ was absolutely pulverized.
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 I 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,--compared with this one aim, of not being disobedient
to a heavenly vision? What can this world offer comparable with that
insight into spiritual things, 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 my heart, 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 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 convictions, that my
mind had not found its ultimate 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," beginning, "When I
look back." This was in 1833; and, since I have begun this narrative, I
have found a memorandum under the date of September 7, 1829, in which I
speak of myself, as "now in my rooms in Oriel College, slowly advancing
&c. and led on by God's hand blindly, not knowing 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 determined 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 myself, 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 influence 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 and greater cogency and consistency of proof. I thought of
Samuel, before "he knew the word of the Lord;" and therefore I went, and
lay down to sleep again. This was my broad view of the matter, and my
_primâ facie_ conclusion.
However, my new historical fact had already 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 longer a
distinctive 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 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 persuasion 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; yet by 1838
I had got no further than to consider Antichrist, as not the Church of
Rome, but the spirit of the old pagan city, the fourth monster of
Daniel, which was still alive, and which had corrupted the Church which
was planted there. Soon after this indeed, and before my attention was
directed to the Monophysite controversy, I underwent a great change of
opinion. I saw that, from the nature of the case, the true Vicar of
Christ must ever to the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized
as such, because a resemblance must ever exist between an original and a
forgery; and thus the fact of such a calumny was almost one of the notes
of the Church. But we cannot unmake ourselves or change our habits in a
moment. Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for some
time after,--I could not have thrown off,--the unreasoning prejudice and
suspicion, which I cherished about her at least by fits and starts, in
spite of this conviction of my reason. I cannot prove this, but I
believe it to have been the case from what I recollect of myself. Nor
was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and the Monophysites to
undo the firm belief I had in the existence of what I called the
practical abuses and excesses of Rome.
To her inconsistencies then, to her ambition and intrigue, to her
sophistries (as I considered them to be) I now 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
very averse to speaking 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 feelings 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
against her; I believed that we had the Apostolical 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 union with Rome herself (Rome explaining her
doctrines and guarding against their abuse), that is, if we were but
patient and hopeful. I began to wish 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 to be
good against her was the moral ground: I felt I could not be wrong in
striking at her political 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 Rome, and a better
"Preservative against Popery," than the three volumes in folio, in
which, I think, that prophylactic is to be found. However, on occasions