Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
certain as yet, even that we had not the Note of Catholicity; but, if
not this, we had others. My first business then, was to examine this
question carefully, and see, whether a great deal could not be said
after all for the Anglican Church, in spite of its acknowledged
short-comings. This I did in an Article "on the Catholicity of the
English Church," which appeared in the British Critic of January, 1840.
As to my personal distress on the point, I think it had gone by February
21st in that year, for I wrote then to Mr. Bowden about the important
Article in the Dublin, thus: "It made a great impression here [Oxford];
and, I say what of course I would only say to such as yourself, it made
me for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind. The great speciousness
of his argument is one of the things which have made me despond so
much," that is, as anticipating its effect upon others.
But, secondly, the great stumbling-block lay in the 39 Articles. It was
urged that here was a positive Note _against_ Anglicanism:--Anglicanism
claimed to hold, that the Church of England was nothing else than a
continuation in this country, (as the Church of Rome might be in France
or Spain,) of that one Church of which in old times Athanasius and
Augustine were members. But, if so, the doctrine must be the same; the
doctrine of the Old Church must live and speak in Anglican formularies,
in the 39 Articles. Did it? Yes, it did; that is what I maintained; it
did in substance, in a true sense. Man had done his worst to disfigure,
to mutilate, the old Catholic Truth; but there it was, in spite of them,
in the Articles still. It was there,--but this must be shown. It was a
matter of life and death to us to show it. And I believed that it could
be shown; I considered that those grounds of justification, which I gave
above, when I was speaking of Tract 90, were sufficient for the purpose;
and therefore
I set about showing it at once. This was in March, 1840, when I went up
to Littlemore. And, as it was a matter of life and death with us, all
risks must be run to show it. When the attempt was actually made, I had
got reconciled to the prospect of it, and had no apprehensions as to the
experiment; but in 1840, while my purpose was honest, and my grounds of
reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless recognize that I was engaged in
an _experimentum crucis_. I have no doubt that then I acknowledged to
myself that it would be a trial of the Anglican Church, which it had
never undergone before,--not that the Catholic sense of the Articles had
not been held or at least suffered by their framers and promulgators,
not that it was not implied in the teaching of Andrewes or Beveridge,
but that it had never been publicly recognized, while the interpretation
of the day was Protestant and exclusive. I observe also, that, though my
Tract was an experiment, it was, as I said at the time, "no _feeler_";
the event showed this; for, when my principle was not granted, I did not
draw back, but gave up. I would not hold office in a Church which would
not allow my sense of the Articles. My tone was, "This is necessary for
us, and have it we must and will, and, if it tends to bring men to look
less bitterly on the Church of Rome, so much the better."
This then was the second work to which I set myself; though when I got
to Littlemore, other things interfered to prevent my accomplishing it at
the moment. I had in mind to remove all such obstacles as lay in the way
of holding the Apostolic and Catholic character of the Anglican
teaching; to assert the right of all who chose, to say in the face of
day, "Our Church teaches the Primitive Ancient faith." I did not conceal
this: in Tract 90, it is put forward as the first principle of all, "It
is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church, and to our own, to
take our reformed confessions in the most Catholic sense they will
admit: we have no duties towards their framers." And still more
pointedly in my Letter, explanatory of the Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf,
I say: "The only peculiarity of the view I advocate, if I must so call
it, is this--that whereas it is usual at this day to make the
_particular belief of their writers_ their true interpretation, I would
make the _belief of the Catholic Church such_. That is, as it is often
said that infants are regenerated in Baptism, not on the faith of their
parents, but of the Church, so in like manner I would say that the
Articles are received, not in the sense of their framers, but (as far as
the wording will admit or any ambiguity requires it) in the one Catholic
sense."
A third measure which I distinctly contemplated, was the resignation of
St. Mary's, whatever became of the question of the 39 Articles; and as a
first step I meditated a retirement to Littlemore. Littlemore was an
integral part of St. Mary's Parish, and between two and three miles
distant from Oxford. I had built a Church there several years before;
and I went there to pass the Lent of 1840, and gave myself up to
teaching in the Parish School, and practising the choir. At the same
time, I had in view a monastic house there. I bought ten acres of ground
and began planting; but this great design was never carried out. I
mention it, because it shows how little I had really the idea at that
time of ever leaving the Anglican Church. That I contemplated as early
as 1839 the further step of giving up St. Mary's, appears from a letter
which I wrote in October, 1840, to Mr. Keble, the friend whom it was
most natural for me to consult on such a point. It ran as follows:--
"For a year past a feeling has been growing on me that I ought to give
up St. Mary's, but I am no fit judge in the matter. I cannot ascertain
accurately my own impressions and convictions, which are the basis of
the difficulty, and though you cannot of course do this for me, yet you
may help me generally, and perhaps supersede the necessity of my going
by them at all.
"First, it is certain that I do not know my Oxford parishioners; I am
not conscious of influencing them, and certainly I have no insight into
their spiritual state. I have no personal, no pastoral acquaintance with
them. To very few have I any opportunity of saying a religious word.
Whatever influence I exert on them is precisely that which I may be
exerting on persons out of my parish. In my excuse I am accustomed to
say to myself that I am not adapted to get on with them, while others
are. On the other hand, I am conscious that by means of my position at
St. Mary's, I do exert a considerable influence on the University,
whether on Under-graduates or Graduates. It seems, then, on the whole
that I am using St. Mary's, to the neglect of its direct duties, for
objects not belonging to it; I am converting a parochial charge into a
sort of University office.
"I think I may say truly that I have begun scarcely any plan but for the
sake of my parish, but every one has turned, independently of me, into
the direction of the University. I began Saints'-days Services, daily
Services, and Lectures in Adam de Brome's Chapel, for my parishioners;
but they have not come to them. In consequence I dropped the last
mentioned, having, while it lasted, been naturally led to direct it to
the instruction of those who did come, instead of those who did not. The
Weekly Communion, I believe, I did begin for the sake of the University.
"Added to this the authorities of the University, the appointed
guardians of those who form great part of the attendants on my Sermons,
have shown a dislike of my preaching. One dissuades men from
coming;--the late Vice-Chancellor threatens to take his own children
away from the Church; and the present, having an opportunity last spring
of preaching in my parish pulpit, gets up and preaches against doctrine
with which I am in good measure identified. No plainer proof can be
given of the feeling in these quarters, than the absurd myth, now a
second time put forward, 'that Vice-Chancellors cannot be got to take
the office on account of Puseyism.'
"But further than this, I cannot disguise from myself that my preaching
is not calculated to defend that system of religion which has been
received for 300 years, and of which the Heads of Houses are the
legitimate maintainers in this place. They exclude me, as far as may be,
from the University Pulpit; and, though I never have preached strong
doctrine in it, they do so rightly, so far as this, that they understand
that my sermons are calculated to undermine things established. I cannot
disguise from myself that they are. No one will deny that most of my
sermons are on moral subjects, not doctrinal; still I am leading my
hearers to the Primitive Church, if you will, but not to the Church of
England. Now, ought one to be disgusting the minds of young men with the
received religion, in the exercise of a sacred office, yet without a
commission, and against the wish of their guides and governors?
"But this is not all. I fear I must allow that, whether I will or no, I
am disposing them towards Rome. First, because Rome is the only
representative of the Primitive Church besides ourselves; in proportion
then as they are loosened from the one, they will go to the other. Next,
because many doctrines which I have held have far greater, or their only
scope, in the Roman system. And, moreover, if, as is not unlikely, we
have in process of time heretical Bishops or teachers among us, an evil
which _ipso facto_ infects the whole community to which they belong, and
if, again (what there are at this moment symptoms of), there be a
movement in the English Roman Catholics to break the alliance of
O'Connell and of Exeter Hall, strong temptations will be placed in the
way of individuals, already imbued with a tone of thought congenial to
Rome, to join her Communion.
"People tell me, on the other hand, that I am, whether by sermons or
otherwise, exerting at St. Mary's a beneficial influence on our
prospective clergy; but what if I take to myself the credit of seeing
further than they, and of having in the course of the last year
discovered that what they approve so much is very likely to end in
Romanism?
"The _arguments_ which I have published against Romanism seem to myself
as cogent as ever, but men go by their sympathies, not by argument; and
if I feel the force of this influence myself, who bow to the arguments,
why may not others still more, who never have in the same degree
admitted the arguments?
"Nor can I counteract the danger by preaching or writing against Rome. I
seem to myself almost to have shot my last arrow in the Article on
English Catholicity. It must be added, that the very circumstance that I
have committed myself against Rome has the effect of setting to sleep
people suspicious about me, which is painful now that I begin to have
suspicions about myself. I mentioned my general difficulty to Rogers a
year since, than whom I know no one of a more fine and accurate
conscience, and it was his spontaneous idea that I should give up St.
Mary's, if my feelings continued. I mentioned it again to him lately,
and he did not reverse his opinion, only expressed great reluctance to
believe it must be so."
Mr. Keble's judgment was in favour of my retaining my living; at least
for the present; what weighed with me most was his saying, "You must
consider, whether your retiring either from the Pastoral Care only, or
from writing and printing and editing in the cause, would not be a sort
of scandalous thing, unless it were done very warily. It would be said,
'You see he can go on no longer with the Church of England, except in
mere Lay Communion;' or people might say you repented of the cause
altogether. Till you see [your way to mitigate, if not remove this evil]