Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
of the publication of Tract 90, M. Bunsen and the then Archbishop of
Canterbury were taking steps for its execution, by appointing and
consecrating a Bishop for Jerusalem. Jerusalem, it would seem, was
considered a safe place for the experiment; it was too far from Prussia
to awaken the susceptibilities of any party at home; if the project
failed, it failed without harm to any one; and, if it succeeded, it gave
Protestantism a _status_ in the East, which, in association with the
Monophysite or Jacobite and the Nestorian bodies, formed a political
instrument for England, parallel to that which Russia had in the Greek
Church, and France in the Latin.
Accordingly, in July 1841, full of the Anglican difficulty on the
question of Catholicity, I thus spoke of the Jerusalem scheme in an
Article in the British Critic: "When our thoughts turn to the East,
instead of recollecting that there are Christian Churches there, we
leave it to the Russians to take care of the Greeks, and the French to
take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting a
Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with helping the Jews to rebuild
their Temple there, or with becoming the august protectors of
Nestorians, Monophysites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or with
forming a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and Romans together."
I do not pretend, so long after the time, to give a full or exact
account of this measure in detail. I will but say that in the Act of
Parliament, under date of October 5, 1841, (if the copy, from which I
quote, contains the measure as it passed the Houses,) provision is made
for the consecration of "British subjects, or the subjects or citizens
of any foreign state, to be Bishops in any foreign country, whether such
foreign subjects or citizens be or be not subjects or citizens of the
country in which they are to act, and ... without requiring such of them
as may be subjects or citizens of any foreign kingdom or state to take
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the oath of due obedience to
the Archbishop for the time being" ... also "that such Bishop or
Bishops, so consecrated, may exercise, within such limits, as may from
time to time be assigned for that purpose in such foreign countries by
her Majesty, spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of British
congregations of the United Church of England and Ireland, and over
_such other Protestant_ Congregations, as may be desirous of placing
themselves under his or their authority."
Now here, at the very time that the Anglican Bishops were directing
their censure upon me for avowing an approach to the Catholic Church not
closer than I believed the Anglican formularies would allow, they were
on the other hand, fraternizing, by their act or by their sufferance,
with Protestant bodies, and allowing them to put themselves under an
Anglican Bishop, without any renunciation of their errors or regard to
their due reception of baptism and confirmation; while there was great
reason to suppose that the said Bishop was intended to make converts
from the orthodox Greeks, and the schismatical Oriental bodies, by means
of the influence of England. This was the third blow, which finally
shattered my faith in the Anglican Church. That Church was not only
forbidding any sympathy or concurrence with the Church of Rome, but it
actually was courting an intercommunion with Protestant Prussia and the
heresy of the Orientals. The Anglican Church might have the Apostolical
succession, as had the Monophysites; but such acts as were in progress
led me to the gravest suspicion, not that it would soon cease to be a
Church, but that, since the 16th century, it had never been a Church all
along.
On October 12th, I thus wrote to Mr. Bowden:--"We have not a single
Anglican in Jerusalem; so we are sending a Bishop to _make_ a communion,
not to govern our own people. Next, the excuse is, that there are
converted Anglican Jews there who require a Bishop; I am told there are
not half-a-dozen. But for _them_ the Bishop is sent out, and for them he
is a Bishop of the _circumcision_" (I think he was a converted Jew, who
boasted of his Jewish descent), "against the Epistle to the Galatians
pretty nearly. Thirdly, for the sake of Prussia, he is to take under him
all the foreign Protestants who will come; and the political advantages
will be so great, from the influence of England, that there is no doubt
they _will_ come. They are to sign the Confession of Augsburg, and there
is nothing to show that they hold the doctrine of Baptismal
Regeneration.
"As to myself, I shall do nothing whatever publicly, unless indeed it
were to give my signature to a Protest; but I think it would be out of
place in _me_ to agitate, having been in a way silenced; but the
Archbishop is really doing most grave work, of which we cannot see the
end."
I did make a solemn Protest, and sent it to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and also sent it to my own Bishop with the following
letter:--
"It seems as if I were never to write to your Lordship, without giving
you pain, and I know that my present subject does not specially concern
your Lordship; yet, after a great deal of anxious thought, I lay before
you the enclosed Protest.
"Your Lordship will observe that I am not asking for any notice of it,
unless you think that I ought to receive one. I do this very serious act
in obedience to my sense of duty.
"If the English Church is to enter on a new course, and assume a new
aspect, it will be more pleasant to me hereafter to think, that I did
not suffer so grievous an event to happen, without bearing witness
against it.
"May I be allowed to say, that I augur nothing but evil, if we in any
respect prejudice our title to be a branch of the Apostolic Church? That
Article of the Creed, I need hardly observe to your Lordship, is of such
constraining power, that, if _we_ will not claim it, and use it for
ourselves, _others_ will use it in their own behalf against us. Men who
learn whether by means of documents or measures, whether from the
statements or the acts of persons in authority, that our communion is
not a branch of the One Church, I foresee with much grief, will be
tempted to look out for that Church elsewhere.
"It is to me a subject of great dismay, that, as far as the Church has
lately spoken out, on the subject of the opinions which I and others
hold, those opinions are, not merely not _sanctioned_ (for that I do not
ask), but not even _suffered_.
"I earnestly hope that your Lordship will excuse my freedom in thus
speaking to you of some members of your Most Rev. and Right Rev. Body.
With every feeling of reverent attachment to your Lordship,
"I am, &c."
PROTEST.
"Whereas the Church of England has a claim on the allegiance of Catholic
believers only on the ground of her own claim to be considered a branch
of the Catholic Church:
"And whereas the recognition of heresy, indirect as well as direct, goes
far to destroy such claim in the case of any religious body:
"And whereas to admit maintainers of heresy to communion, without formal
renunciation of their errors, goes far towards recognizing the same:
"And whereas Lutheranism and Calvinism are heresies, repugnant to
Scripture, springing up three centuries since, and anathematized by East
as well as West:
"And whereas it is reported that the Most Reverend Primate and other
Right Reverend Rulers of our Church have consecrated a Bishop with a
view to exercising spiritual jurisdiction over Protestant, that is,
Lutheran and Calvinist congregations in the East (under the provisions
of an Act made in the last session of Parliament to amend an Act made in
the 26th year of the reign of his Majesty King George the Third,
intituled, 'An Act to empower the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the
Archbishop of York for the time being, to consecrate to the office of
Bishop persons being subjects or citizens of countries out of his
Majesty's dominions'), dispensing at the same time, not in particular
cases and accidentally, but as if on principle and universally, with any
abjuration of error on the part of such congregations, and with any
reconciliation to the Church on the part of the presiding Bishop;
thereby giving some sort of formal recognition to the doctrines which
such congregations maintain:
"And whereas the dioceses in England are connected together by so close
an intercommunion, that what is done by authority in one, immediately
affects the rest:
"On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest of the English Church
and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, by way of relieving my
conscience, do hereby solemnly protest against the measure aforesaid,
and disown it, as removing our Church from her present ground and
tending to her disorganization.
"John Henry Newman.
"November 11, 1841."
* * * * *
Looking back two years afterwards on the above-mentioned and other acts,
on the part of Anglican Ecclesiastical authorities, I observed: "Many a
man might have held an abstract theory about the Catholic Church, to
which it was difficult to adjust the Anglican,--might have admitted a
suspicion, or even painful doubts about the latter,--yet never have been
impelled onwards, had our Rulers preserved the quiescence of former
years; but it is the corroboration of a present, living, and energetic
heterodoxy, that realizes and makes such doubts practical; it has been
the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who had so long been
tolerant of Protestant error, which has given to inquiry and to theory
its force and its edge."
As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never heard of any good or
harm it has ever done, except what it has done for me; which many think
a great misfortune, and I one of the greatest of mercies. It brought me
on to the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1841 TO 1845.
§ 1.
From the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership
with the Anglican Church, though at the time I became aware of it only
by degrees. I introduce what I have to say with this remark, by way of
accounting for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative.
A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with
seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is
foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for
the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season
when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither
cares nor is able to record the stages of his malady. I was in these
circumstances, except so far as I was not allowed to die in
peace,--except so far as friends, who had still a full right to come in
upon me, and the public world which had not, have given a sort of
history to those last four years. But in consequence, my narrative must
be in great measure documentary, as I cannot rely on my memory, except
for definite particulars, positive or negative. Letters of mine to
friends since dead have come into my hands; others have been kindly lent
me for the occasion; and I have some drafts of others, and some notes
which I made, though I have no strictly personal or continuous memoranda
to consult, and have unluckily mislaid some valuable papers.
And first as to my position in the view of duty; it was this:--1. I had
given up my place in the Movement in my letter to the Bishop of Oxford
in the spring of 1841; but 2. I could not give up my duties towards the
many and various minds who had more or less been brought into it by me;
3. I expected or intended gradually to fall back into Lay Communion; 4.
I never contemplated leaving the Church of England; 5. I could not hold