THE OXFORD TRACTS
"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble
preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published
under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept
the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37]
This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a
large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the
new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to
alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church.
The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion,
showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed
way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State.
Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation
which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its
theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part
of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the
fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so
constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a
principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself,"
this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short
of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere
that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is
Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The
sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of
immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by
Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it
will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his
behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his
petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name
of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and
negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel
themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in
reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and
excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public
concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those
who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or
undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional
kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person
can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in
these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to
sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out
of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder
and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost
the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman,
he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in
the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner
or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be
complete, universal, eternal."
But if Mr. Keble's sermon was the first word of the movement, its first
step was taken in a small meeting of friends, at Mr. Hugh James Rose's
parsonage at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, between the 25th and the 29th of the
same July. At this little gathering, the ideas and anxieties which for
some time past had filled the thoughts of a number of earnest Churchmen,
and had brought them into communication with one another, came to a
head, and issued in the determination to move. Mr. Rose, a man of high
character and distinction in his day, who had recently started the
_British Magazine_, as an organ of Church teaching and opinion, was the
natural person to bring about such a meeting.[38] It was arranged that a
few representative men, or as many as were able, should meet towards the
end of July at Hadleigh Rectory. They were men in full agreement on the
main questions, but with great differences in temperament and habits of
thought. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority, and next to him, Mr.
Palmer; and these, with Mr. A. Perceval, formed as it were the right
wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were the three Oriel
men, Mr. Keble, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Newman, now fresh from his escape
from death in a foreign land, and from the long solitary musings in his
Mediterranean orange-boat, full of joyful vigour and ready for
enterprise and work.[39] In the result, Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman were
not present, but they were in active correspondence with the others.[40]
From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation
connected with them.
These friends were all devoted Churchmen, but, as has been said, each
had his marked character, not only as a man but as a Churchman. The most
important among them was as yet the least prominent. Two of them were
men of learning, acquainted with the great world of London, and who,
with all their zeal, had some of the caution which comes of such
experience. At the time, the most conspicuous was Mr. Hugh James Rose.
Mr. Rose was a man whose name and whose influence, as his friends
thought, have been overshadowed and overlooked in the popular view of
the Church revival. It owed to him, they held, not only its first
impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it; and when it lost
him, it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer. It is certainly
true that when that revival began he was a much more distinguished and
important person than any of the other persons interested in it. As far
as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and
teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had the
intellect and energy and literary skill to use his learning. He was a
man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of
the eye and temper of a statesman, and he had already a high position.
He was profoundly loyal to the Church, and keenly interested in whatever
affected its condition and its fortunes. As early as 1825 he had in some
lectures at Cambridge called the attention of English Churchmen to the
state of religious thought and speculation in Germany, and to the
mischiefs likely to react on English theology from the rationalising
temper and methods which had supplanted the old Lutheran teaching; and
this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who
thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had
not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence,
but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable
experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his
younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness
in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, and
in his willingness to share with them the risks of an undertaking of
which no one knew better than he what were likely to be the
difficulties. He certainly was a person who might be expected to have a
chief part in directing anything with which he was connected. His
countenance and his indirect influence were very important elements,
both in the stirring of thought which led to the Hadleigh resolutions,
and in giving its form to what was then decided upon. But his action in
the movement was impeded by his failure in health, and cut short by his
early death, January 1839. How he would have influenced the course of
things if he had lived, it is not now easy to say. He must have been
reckoned with as one of the chiefs. He would have been opposed to
anything that really tended towards Rome. But there is no reason to
think that he would have shrunk from any step only because it was bold.
He had sympathy for courage and genius, and he had knowledge and
authority which would have commanded respect for his judgment and
opinion. But it is too much to say either that the movement could not
have been without him, or that it was specially his design and plan, or
that he alone could have given the impulse which led to it; though it
seemed at one time as if he was to be its leader and chief. Certainly he
was the most valuable and the most loyal of its early auxiliaries.
Another coadjutor, whose part at the time also seemed rather that of a
chief, was Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College. He had been
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but he had transferred his home to
Oxford, both in the University and the city. He was a man of exact and
scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial theology,
strong in clear theories and precise definitions, familiar with
objections current in the schools and with the answers to them, and well
versed in all the questions, arguments, and authorities belonging to the
great debate with Rome. He had definite and well-arranged ideas about
the nature and office of the Church; and, from his study of the Roman
controversy, he had at command the distinctions necessary to
discriminate between things which popular views confused, and to protect
the doctrines characteristic of the Church from being identified with
Romanism. Especially he had given great attention to the public
devotional language and forms of the Church, and had produced by far the
best book in the English language on the history and significance of the
offices of the English Church--the _Origines Liturgicae_, published at
the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with
divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no
one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat
rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church
as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great
dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of
thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too distinct
and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the side of
those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were prepared
for a great effort to counteract them.
The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July
1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question
or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to
lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little
foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues
which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it
became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a
"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr.
Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy,"
as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men
dislike.
Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were
both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans
had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice
and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of
those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and
against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their
way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their
hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and
experience of their friends.
The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh
conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of
them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then
looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or
alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere
cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and
powerful tendencies. "We felt ourselves," writes Mr. Palmer some years
afterwards,[42] "assailed by enemies from without and foes within. Our
Prelates insulted and threatened by Ministers of State. In Ireland ten
bishoprics suppressed. We were advised to feel thankful that a more
sweeping measure had not been adopted. What was to come next?... Was the
same principle of concession to popular clamour ... to be exemplified in
the dismemberment of the English Church?... We were overwhelmed with
pamphlets on Church reform. Lord Henley, brother-in-law of Sir Robert
Peel, Dr. Burton, and others of name and influence led the way. Dr.
Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by
Act of Parliament with the Church of England. Reports, apparently well
founded, were prevalent that some of the Prelates were favourable to
alterations in the Liturgy. Pamphlets were in wide circulation
recommending the abolition of the Creeds (at least in public worship),
especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed; the removal of
all mention of the Blessed Trinity; of the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration; of the practice of absolution. We knew not to what quarter
to look for support. A Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated; a
Government making its power subservient to agitators, who avowedly
sought the destruction of the Church ... And, worst of all, _no
principle in the public mind to which we could appeal_; an utter
ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church; an
oblivion of its spiritual character, as an institution not of man but of
God; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially amongst
all classes of politicians. There was in all this enough to appal the
stoutest heart; and those who can recall the feeling of those days will
at once remember the deep depression into which the Church had fallen,
and the gloomy forebodings universally prevalent."
"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is
condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the
reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the
prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection
against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the
existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by
the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid
emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers
in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in
order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the
palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city,
while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The
pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and
most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833.
"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that
whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is
immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could
stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_
Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs
had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house
in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in
the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the
Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject
in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of
Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such
distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the
day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in
diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the
Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply
offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was
reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had
gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of
the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt
affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her
prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that
if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in
the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue
her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still
I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the
Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic,
set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and
organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with
strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation."
"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I
should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could
secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of
Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they
were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they
were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions.
He had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to
trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time to
stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon
him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so
cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That
_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is
done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the
imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely
from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose.
"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was
obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these
general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that
suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have
been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence
Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for
some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford.
Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought
out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the
policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of
Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as
possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more
uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted.
"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated
to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest
uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown
power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an
establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in
most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted
with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts
made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to
alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which
include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal
statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and
assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious
criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely
remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and
discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been
ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things
more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a
reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of
the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for
the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the
paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade
them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their
affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes
of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who
is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of
separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came
to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude
objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had
a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And
thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of
influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But
the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the
country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy.
In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury
was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the
business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble
of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would
cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified
clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of
the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with
the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834.
It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master
of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr.
Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were
difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too
much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid
aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the
State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this
form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the
Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr.
Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide,
which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45]
There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external
position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It
rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and
more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of
the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these
addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted
in its favour.
Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on
in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of
things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and
confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober
institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular
mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder
tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished,
only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which
he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have
made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel
men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural
centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more
spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith
in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of
committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be
done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon
showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be
written.
For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel
men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning,
than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits;
they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the
times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they
thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and
half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence.
They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from
their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were
indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by
selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes
men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no
peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and
addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the
country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be
got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision
and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to
write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man
should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and
sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of
the Church.
And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr.
Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr.
Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was;
it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for,
or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford
Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which
all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in
the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been
begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in
daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an
institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of
habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence,
in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though
tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious
action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the
minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of
good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their
efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general
respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a
great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and
taking its character and name from them.
But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from
anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern
appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without
rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid
utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first
one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head
begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has
himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home
regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he
never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to
him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I
had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been
dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had
a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive
Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of
the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican
formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had
well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the
last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second
Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the
sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for
the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too
late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property
was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable
occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else
to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection
of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the
_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears
out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper
receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September
1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening
words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most
of the present generation.
TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST
AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.
FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and
therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by
speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very
evil, yet no one speaks against them.
Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform
nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is
come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and
seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to
draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our
blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and
prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all
may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the
state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it.
Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to
stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them?
Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped;
indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to
deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their
high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as
far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed
termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and
martyrdom.
To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high
privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the
SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet
surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence;
and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to
St. Paul.
Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address
you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as
to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and
substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention
which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your
birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these
secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is
not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the
state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the
Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their
Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of
the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a
greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided
by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound
words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our
influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very
office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_
it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of
life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes
by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be
so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority
when the State deserts us?
Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the
attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us
oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are
some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion;
others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success;
and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last
case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the
real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT.
We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to
His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should
succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has
been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as
their assistants, and in some sense representatives.
Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny
they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently,
practically impressed on their minds.
They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination
Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season
of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and
impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made
ministers of Christ's Church.
The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority
to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto
thee: In the name, etc."
And the Priesthood thus:
"Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the
Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.
Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou
dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of
the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc."
These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we
were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know
the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in
any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the
Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have
confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave
us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to
administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give
these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which
would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish
(which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather
indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean
nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he
any right, except as having received the power from those who
consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never
received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the
Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power
of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the
Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and
therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of
our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL
SUCCESSION.
And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be
_really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination
is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine
ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_,
must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments
are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in
the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_
means.
I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the
subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words
do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly
time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for
their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder
inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all
services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of
speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly?
Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not
be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of
the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift
of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep
it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that
secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or
rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your
gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be
still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by
the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high
source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both
as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from
your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your
power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it
lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically
the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a
notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results,
acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests
of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our
Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and
the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained
by them to take part in their Ministry.
But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to
you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE
YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part.
_Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other
party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is
decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find
themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove
themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in
troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT
GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.
While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr.
Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another,
in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were
short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions
which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full
of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the
Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and
its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in
England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers,
the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect
of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom.
The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the
series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like
Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title
"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius,
Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these
papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most
part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and
one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the
series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one
might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were
distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the
cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire,
from parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_
records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in
various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not,
and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from
time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to
High Church or Low Church: I wished to make a strong pull in union with
all who were opposed to the principles of Liberalism, whoever they might
be." He adds that he does not think that much came of these visits, or
of letters written with the same purpose, "except that they advertised
the fact that a rally in favour of the Church was commencing."
The early Tracts were intended to startle the world, and they succeeded
in doing so. Their very form, as short earnest leaflets, was perplexing;
for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in
such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men
of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the
representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and
language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its
severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had
lately come the _Christian Year_, with its memorable motto "_In
quietness and confidence shall be your strength_." Their matter was
equally unusual. Undoubtedly they "brought strange things to the ears"
of their generation. To Churchmen now these "strange things" are such
familiar commonplaces, that it is hard to realise how they should have
made so much stir. But they were novelties, partly audacious, partly
unintelligible, then. The strong and peremptory language of the Tracts,
their absence of qualifications or explanations, frightened friends like
Mr. Palmer, who, so far, had no ground to quarrel with their doctrine,
and he wished them to be discontinued. The story went that one of the
bishops, on reading one of the Tracts on the Apostolical Succession,
could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. They
fell on a time of profound and inexcusable ignorance on the subjects
they discussed, and they did not spare it. The cry of Romanism was
inevitable, and was soon raised, though there was absolutely nothing in
them but had the indisputable sanction of the Prayer Book, and of the
most authoritative Anglican divines. There was no Romanism in them, nor
anything that showed a tendency to it. But custom, and the prevalence of
other systems and ways, and the interest of later speculations, and the
slackening of professional reading and scholarship in the Church, had
made their readers forget some of the most obvious facts in Church
history, and the most certain Church principles; and men were at sea as
to what they knew or believed on the points on which the Tracts
challenged them. The scare was not creditable; it was like the Italian
scare about cholera with its quarantines and fumigations; but it was
natural. The theological knowledge and learning were wanting which would
have been familiar with the broad line of difference between what is
Catholic and what is specially Roman. There were many whose teaching was
impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not Anglican.
There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who recognised in
that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective counter-stroke to their
own schemes and theories. There were many whom the movement forced to
think, who did not want such addition to their responsibilities. It
cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts were received with
surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they also at once
called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to whom they
brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of rebuke and
blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize sermon, had
hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, thousands of
Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, unaffectedly
anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that concern the
Church. The belief was soon justified.
When the first forty-six Tracts were collected into a volume towards the
end of 1834, the following "advertisement" explaining their nature and
objects was prefixed to it. It is a contemporary and authoritative
account of what was the mind of the leaders of the movement; and it has
a significance beyond the occasion which prompted it.
The following-Tracts were published with the object of
contributing-something towards the practical revival of doctrines,
which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present
have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are
withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few
who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic
Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of
the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the
Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the
temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own
divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political
events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A
lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in
addition to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect
which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious
sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting
motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline.
Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful
maintenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us),
are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in
communion with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has
graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and constraining
motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them; just as it would be
a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law
of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel
by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has
shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however
scripturally enforced, in restraining from schism the awakened and
anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher "because" (as he
expresses it) "he gets good from him": and though he does not stand
excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the
ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more
gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ,
they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that
the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace; that
the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the
whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with
it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty, we could not have had
so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it.
This instance may suggest many others of the superior _influence_ of
an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened
mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger
will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word.
Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom
the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers
of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the
desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered,
insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and
offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular
religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind,
desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to
the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and
ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other,
to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its
proselytes. Moreover, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide
themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private
judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such
teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but
supersede individual exertion.
These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to
the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts.
The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its
forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are adequate for that
gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English
branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full
usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age,
which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission;
and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is
especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to
form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines,
faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery, for which
the ever multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly
preparing the way.
Another publication ought to be noticed, a result of the Hadleigh
meeting, which exhibited the leading ideas of the conference, and
especially of the more "conservative" members of it. This was a little
work in question and answer, called the "Churchman's Manual," drawn up
in part some time before the meeting by Mr. Perceval, and submitted to
the revision of Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. It was intended to be a
supplement to the "Church Catechism," as to the nature and claims of the
Church and its Ministers. It is a terse, clear, careful, and, as was
inevitable, rather dry summary of the Anglican theory, and of the
position which the English Church holds to the Roman Church, and to the
Dissenters. It was further revised at the conference, and "some
important suggestions were made by Froude"; and then Mr. Perceval, who
had great hopes from the publication, and spared himself no pains to
make it perfect, submitted it for revision and advice to a number of
representative Churchmen. The Scotch Bishops whom he consulted were warm
in approval, especially the venerable and saintly Bishop Jolly; as were
also a number of men of weight and authority in England: Judge Allan
Park, Joshua Watson, Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough, Mr. Churton of Crayke,
Mr. H.H. Norris, Dr. Wordsworth, and Dr. Routh. It was then laid before
the Archbishop for correction, or, if desirable, suppression; and for
his sanction if approved. The answer was what might have been expected,
that there was no objection to it, but that official sanction must be
declined on general grounds. After all this Mr. Perceval not unnaturally
claimed for it special importance. It was really, he observed, the
"first Tract," systematically put forth, and its preparation "apparently
gave rise" to the series; and it was the only one which received the
approval of all immediately concerned in the movement. "The care
bestowed on it," he says, "probably exceeds that which any theological
publication in the English communion received for a long time;" and
further, it shows "that the foundation of the movement with which Mr.
Rose was connected, was laid with all the care and circumspection that
reason could well suggest." It appears to have had a circulation, but
there is no reason to think that it had any considerable influence, one
way or other, on opinion in the Church. When it was referred to in
after-years by Mr. Perceval in his own vindication, it was almost
forgotten. More interesting, if not more important, Tracts had thrown it
into the shade.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] _Apol._ p. 100.
[38] Palmer, _Narrative_, 1843 (republished 1883), pp. 5, 18.
[39] Palmer (1883), pp. 40, 43, "June 1833, when he joined us at
Oxford."
[40] See Palmer's account (1883), pp. 45-47, and (1843), pp. 6,7.
[41] "Mr. Rose ... was the one commanding figure and very lovable man,
that the frightened and discomfited Church people were now rallying
round. Few people have left so distinct an impression of themselves as
this gentleman. For many years after, when he was no more, and Newman
had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could never speak of him or
think of him without renewed tenderness" (Mr. T. Mozley,
_Reminiscences_, i. 308).
In November 1838, shortly before Mr. Rose's death, Mr. Newman had
dedicated a volume of sermons to him--"who, when hearts were failing,
bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our
true mother" (_Parochial Sermons_, vol. iv.)
[42] _Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for
the Times_, by W. Palmer (published 1843, republished 1883), pp. 96-100
(abridged).
[43] _Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of_
1833, by A.P. Perceval (1842), p. 25.
[44] Palmer's _Narrative_ (1833), p. 101
[45] _Collection of Papers_, p. 12.
[46] "That portentous birth of time, the _Tracts for the
Times._"--Mozley, _Remin_, i. 311.
[47] Froude, _Remains_, i. 265.