Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
I certainly should advise you to stay." I answered as follows:--
"Since you think I _may_ go on, it seems to follow that, under the
circumstances, I _ought_ to do so. There are plenty of reasons for it,
directly it is allowed to be lawful. The following considerations have
much reconciled my feelings to your conclusion.
"1. I do not think that we have yet made fair trial how much the English
Church will bear. I know it is a hazardous experiment,--like proving
cannon. Yet we must not take it for granted that the metal will burst in
the operation. It has borne at various times, not to say at this time, a
great infusion of Catholic truth without damage. As to the result, viz.
whether this process will not approximate the whole English Church, as a
body, to Rome, that is nothing to us. For what we know, it may be the
providential means of uniting the whole Church in one, without fresh
schismatizing or use of private judgment."
Here I observe, that, what was contemplated was the bursting of the
_Catholicity_ of the Anglican Church, that is, my _subjective idea_ of
that Church. Its bursting would not hurt her with the world, but would
be a discovery that she was purely and essentially Protestant, and would
be really the "hoisting of the engineer with his own petar." And this
was the result. I continue:--
"2. Say, that I move sympathies for Rome: in the same sense does Hooker,
Taylor, Bull, &c. Their _arguments_ may be against Rome, but the
sympathies they raise must be towards Rome, _so far_ as Rome maintains
truths which our Church does not teach or enforce. Thus it is a question
of _degree_ between our divines and me. I may, if so be, go further; I
may raise sympathies _more_; but I am but urging minds in the same
direction as they do. I am doing just the very thing which all our
doctors have ever been doing. In short, would not Hooker, if Vicar of
St. Mary's, be in my difficulty?"--Here it may be objected, that Hooker
could preach against Rome and I could not; but I doubt whether he could
have preached effectively against Transubstantiation better than I,
though neither he nor I held that doctrine.
"3. Rationalism is the great evil of the day. May not I consider my post
at St. Mary's as a place of protest against it? I am more certain that
the Protestant [spirit], which I oppose, leads to infidelity, than that
which I recommend, leads to Rome. Who knows what the state of the
University may be, as regards Divinity Professors in a few years hence?
Any how, a great battle may be coming on, of which Milman's book is a
sort of earnest. The whole of _our_ day may be a battle with this
spirit. May we not leave to another age _its own_ evil,--to settle the
question of Romanism?"
I may add that from this time I had a curate at St. Mary's, who
gradually took more and more of my work.
Also, this same year, 1840, I made arrangements for giving up the
British Critic, in the following July, which were carried into effect at
that date.
* * * * *
Such was about my state of mind, on the publication of Tract 90 in
February 1841. I was indeed in prudence taking steps towards eventually
withdrawing from St. Mary's, and I was not confident about my permanent
adhesion to the Anglican creed; but I was in no actual perplexity or
trouble of mind. Nor did the immense commotion consequent upon the
publication of the Tract unsettle me again; for I fancied I had
weathered the storm, as far as the Bishops were concerned: the Tract had
not been condemned: that was the great point, and I made much of it.
To illustrate my feelings during this trial, I will make extracts from
my letters addressed severally to Mr. Bowden and another friend, which
have come into my possession.
1. March 15.--"The Heads, I believe, have just done a violent act: they
have said that my interpretation of the Articles is an _evasion_. Do not
think that this will pain me. You see, no _doctrine_ is censured, and my
shoulders shall manage to bear the charge. If you knew all, or were
here, you would see that I have asserted a great principle, and I
_ought_ to suffer for it:--that the Articles are to be interpreted, not
according to the meaning of the writers, but (as far as the wording will
admit) according to the sense of the Catholic Church."
2. March 25.--"I do trust I shall make no false step, and hope my
friends will pray for me to this effect. If, as you say, a destiny hangs
over us, a single false step may ruin all. I am very well and
comfortable; but we are not yet out of the wood."
3. April 1.--"The Bishop sent me word on Sunday to write a Letter to him
'_instanter_.' So I wrote it on Monday: on Tuesday it passed through the
press: on Wednesday it was out: and to-day [Thursday] it is in London.
"I trust that things are smoothing now; and that we have made a _great
step_ is certain. It is not right to boast, till I am clear out of the
wood, i.e. till I know how the Letter is received in London. You know, I
suppose, that I am to stop the Tracts; but you will see in the Letter,
though I speak _quite_ what I feel, yet I have managed to take out on
_my_ side my snubbing's worth. And this makes me anxious how it will be
received in London.
"I have not had a misgiving for five minutes from the first: but I do
not like to boast, lest some harm come."
4. April 4.--"Your letter of this morning was an exceedingly great
gratification to me; and it is confirmed, I am thankful to say, by the
opinion of others. The Bishop sent me a message that my Letter had his
unqualified approbation; and since that, he has sent me a note to the
same effect, only going more into detail. It is most pleasant too to my
feelings, to have such a testimony to the substantial truth and
importance of No. 90, as I have had from so many of my friends, from
those who, from their cautious turn of mind, I was least sanguine about.
I have not had one misgiving myself about it throughout; and I do trust
that what has happened will be overruled to subserve the great cause we
all have at heart."
5. May 9.--"The Bishops are very desirous of hushing the matter up: and
I certainly have done my utmost to co-operate with them, on the
understanding that the Tract is not to be withdrawn or condemned."
Upon this occasion several Catholics wrote to me; I answered one of my
correspondents in the same tone:--
"April 8.--You have no cause to be surprised at the discontinuance of
the Tracts. We feel no misgivings about it whatever, as if the cause of
what we hold to be Catholic truth would suffer thereby. My letter to my
Bishop has, I trust, had the effect of bringing the preponderating
_authority_ of the Church on our side. No stopping of the Tracts can,
humanly speaking, stop the spread of the opinions which they have
inculcated.
"The Tracts are not _suppressed_. No doctrine or principle has been
conceded by us, or condemned by authority. The Bishop has but said that
a certain Tract is 'objectionable,' no reason being stated, I have no
intention whatever of yielding any one point which I hold on conviction;
and that the authorities of the Church know full well."
* * * * *
In the summer of 1841, I found myself at Littlemore without any harass
or anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy,
and I set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius; but, between
July and November, I received three blows which broke me.
1. I had got but a little way in my work, when my trouble returned on
me. The ghost had come a second time. In the Arian History I found the
very same phenomenon, in a far bolder shape, which I had found in the
Monophysite. I had not observed it in 1832. Wonderful that this should
come upon me! I had not sought it out; I was reading and writing in my
own line of study, far from the controversies of the day, on what is
called a "metaphysical" subject; but I saw clearly, that in the history
of Arianism, the pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians were
the Anglicans, and that Rome now was what it was then. The truth lay,
not with the _Via Media_, but with what was called "the extreme party."
As I am not writing a work of controversy, I need not enlarge upon the
argument; I have said something on the subject in a Volume, from which I
have already quoted.
2. I was in the misery of this new unsettlement, when a second blow came
upon me. The Bishops one after another began to charge against me. It
was a formal, determinate movement. This was the real "understanding;"
that, on which I had acted on the first appearance of Tract 90, had come
to nought. I think the words, which had then been used to me, were, that
"perhaps two or three of them might think it necessary to say something
in their charges;" but by this time they had tided over the difficulty
of the Tract, and there was no one to enforce the "understanding." They
went on in this way, directing charges at me, for three whole years. I
recognized it as a condemnation; it was the only one that was in their
power. At first I intended to protest; but I gave up the thought in
despair.
On October 17th, I wrote thus to a friend: "I suppose it will be
necessary in some shape or other to re-assert Tract 90; else, it will
seem, after these Bishops' Charges, as if it were silenced, which it has
not been, nor do I intend it should be. I wish to keep quiet; but if
Bishops speak, I will speak too. If the view were silenced, I could not
remain in the Church, nor could many others; and therefore, since it is
_not_ silenced, I shall take care to show that it isn't."
A day or two after, Oct. 22, a stranger wrote to me to say, that the
Tracts for the Times had made a young friend of his a Catholic, and to
ask, "would I be so good as to convert him back;" I made answer:
"If conversions to Rome take place in consequence of the Tracts for the
Times, I do not impute blame to them, but to those who, instead of
acknowledging such Anglican principles of theology and ecclesiastical
polity as they contain, set themselves to oppose them. Whatever be the
influence of the Tracts, great or small, they may become just as
powerful for Rome, if our Church refuses them, as they would be for our
Church if she accepted them. If our rulers speak either against the
Tracts, or not at all, if any number of them, not only do not favour,
but even do not suffer the principles contained in them, it is plain
that our members may easily be persuaded either to give up those
principles, or to give up the Church. If this state of things goes on, I
mournfully prophesy, not one or two, but many secessions to the Church
of Rome."
Two years afterwards, looking back on what had passed, I said, "There
were no converts to Rome, till after the condemnation of No. 90."
3. As if all this were not enough, there came the affair of the
Jerusalem Bishopric; and, with a brief mention of it, I shall conclude.
I think I am right in saying that it had been long a desire with the
Prussian Court to introduce Episcopacy into the new Evangelical
Religion, which was intended in that country to embrace both the
Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. I almost think I heard of the project,
when I was at Rome in 1833, at the Hotel of the Prussian Minister, M.
Bunsen, who was most hospitable and kind, as to other English visitors,
so also to my friends and myself. The idea of Episcopacy, as the
Prussian king understood it, was, I suppose, very different from that
taught in the Tractarian School: but still, I suppose also, that the
chief authors of that school would have gladly seen such a measure
carried out in Prussia, had it been done without compromising those
principles which were necessary to the being of a Church. About the time