THE CHRISTIAN LIFE;
ITS COURSE, ITS HINDRANCES,
AND ITS HELPS.
BY
THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D.,
HEAD MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL,
AND LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD.
From the Fifth London Edition.
1856.
"As far as the principle on which Archbishop Laud and his
followers acted went to re-actuate the idea of the church, as
a co-ordinate and living power by right of Christ's
institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I
soon discover that by the church they meant the clergy, the
hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in
a tangent.
"For it is this very interpretation of the church, that,
according to my conviction, constituted the first and
fundamental apostasy; and I hold it for one of the greatest
mistakes of our polemical divines, in their controversies
with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of
the gospel faith to the Papacy."--COLERIDGE,
_Literary Remains_, vol. iii. p. 386.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
LECTURE I.
GEN. iii. 22.--And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one
of us, to know good and evil.
LECTURE II.
1 COR. xiii. 11.--When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as
a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
LECTURE III.
1 COR. xiii. 11.--When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as
a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
LECTURE IV.
COL. i. 9.--We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might
be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding.
LECTURE V.
COL. i. 9.--We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might
be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding.
LECTURE VI.
COL. iii. 3.--Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
LECTURE VII.
1 COR. iii. 21--23.--All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.
LECTURE VIII.
GAL. v. 16, 17.--Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts
of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would.
LECTURE IX.
LUKE xiv. 33.--Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he
hath, he cannot be my disciple.
LECTURE X.
1 TIM. i. 9.--The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the
lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy
and profane.
LECTURE XI.
LUKE xxi. 36.--Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be
accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and
to stand before the Son of Man.
LECTURE XII.
PROV. i. 28.--Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer: they
shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.
LECTURE XIII.
MARK xii. 34.--Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.
LECTURE XIV.
MATT. xxii. 14.--For many are called, but few are chosen.
LECTURE XV.
LUKE xi. 25.--When he cometh he findeth it swept and garnished.
JOHN v. 42.--I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
LECTURE XVI.
MATT. xi. 10.--I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare
thy way before thee.
LECTURE XVII.
1 COR. ii. 12.--We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the
Spirit which is of God.
LECTURE XVIII.
GEN. xxvii. 38.--And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one
blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.
MATT. xv. 27.--And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their master's table.
LECTURE XIX.
MATT. xxii. 32.--God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
LECTURE XX.
EZEK. xiii. 22.--With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad,
whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that
he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life.
LECTURE XXI.
ADVENT SUNDAY.
HEB. iii. 16.--For some when they had heard did provoke; howbeit not all
that came out of Egypt by Moses.
LECTURE XXII.
CHRISTMAS DAY.
JOHN i. 10.--He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the
world knew him not.
LECTURE XXIII.
SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER.
MATT. xxvi. 40, 41.--What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is
willing, but the flesh is weak.
LECTURE XXIV.
GOOD FRIDAY.
ROMANS v. 8.--God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us.
LECTURE XXV.
EASTER DAY.
JOHN xx. 20.--Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
LECTURE XXVI.
WHITSUNDAY.
ACTS xix. 2.--Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?
LECTURE XXVII.
TRINITY SUNDAY.
JOHN iii. 9.--How can these things be?
LECTURE XXVIII.
EXOD. iii. 6.--And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon
God.
LUKE xxiii. 30.--Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on
us; and to the hills, Cover us.
LECTURE XXIX.
PSALM cxxxvii. 4.--- How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land?
LECTURE XXX.
1 COR. xi. 26.--For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,
ye do show the Lord's death till he come.
LECTURE XXXI.
LUKE i. 3, 4.--It seemed good to me, also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in
order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
LECTURE XXXII.
Luke i. 3, 4.--It seemed good to me, also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in
order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
LECTURE XXXIII.
JOHN ix. 29.--We know that God spake unto Moses; as for this fellow, we
know not from whence he is.
LECTURE XXXIV.
1 COR. xiv. 20.--Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit, in
malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
LECTURE XXXV.
MATT. xxvi. 45, 46.--Sleep on now and take your rest; behold the hour is
at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise,
let us be going: behold he is at hand that doth betray me.
LECTURE XXXVI.
2 COR. v. 17, 18.--Old things are passed away; behold all things are
become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ.
LECTURE XXXVII.
EZEK. xx. 49.--Then said I, Ah, Lord God! they say of me Doth he not
speak parables?
LECTURE XXXVIII.
ISAIAH v. 1.--Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved
touching his vineyard.
LECTURE XXXIX.
COL. iii. 17.--Whatsoever ye do in the word or deed, do all in the name
of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.
NOTES.
INTRODUCTION.
The contents of this volume will be found, I hope, to be in agreement
with its title.
Amongst the helps of Christian life, the highest place is due to the
Christian church and its ordinances. I have been greatly misunderstood
with respect to my estimate of the Christian church, as distinguished
from the Christian religion. I agree so far with those, from whom I in
other things most widely differ, that I hold the revival of the church
of Christ in its full perfection, to be the one great end to which all
our efforts should be directed. This is with me no new belief, but one
which I have entertained for many years. It was impressed most strongly
upon me, as it appears to have been upon others, by the remarkable state
of affairs and of opinions which we witnessed in this country about nine
or ten years ago; and everything since that time has confirmed it in my
mind more and more.
Others, according to their own statement, received the same impression
from the phenomena of the same period. But the movement had begun
earlier; nor should I object to call it, as they do, a movement towards
"something deeper and truer than satisfied the last century[1]." It
began, I suppose, in the last ten years of the last century, and has
ever since been working onwards, though for a long time slowly and
secretly, and with no distinctly marked direction. But still, in
philosophy and general literature, there have been sufficient proofs
that the pendulum, which for nearly two hundred years had been swinging
one way, was now beginning to swing back again; and as its last
oscillation brought it far from the true centre, so it may be, that its
present impulse may be no less in excess, and thus may bring on again,
in after ages, another corresponding reaction.
[Footnote 1: See Mr. Newman's Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 27.]
Now if it be asked what, setting aside the metaphor, are the two points
between which mankind has been thus moving to and fro; and what are the
tendencies in us which, thus alternately predominating, give so
different a character to different periods of the human history; the
answer is not easy to be given summarily, for the generalisation which
it requires is almost beyond the compass of the human mind. Several
phenomena appear in each period, and it would be easy to give any one of
these as marking its tendency: as, for instance, we might describe one
period as having a tendency to despotism, and another to licentiousness:
but the true answer lies deeper, and can be only given by discovering
that common element in human nature which, in religion, in politics, in
philosophy, and in literature, being modified by the subject-matter of
each, assumes in each a different form, so that its own proper nature is
no longer to be recognized. Again, it would be an error to suppose that
either of the two tendencies which so affect the course of human affairs
were to be called simply bad or good. Each has its good and evil nicely
intermingled; and taking the highest good of each, it would be difficult
to say which was the more excellent;--taking the last corruption of
each, we could not determine which, was the more hateful. For so far as
we can trace back the manifold streams, flowing some from the eastern
mountains, and some from the western, to the highest springs from which
they rise, we find on the one side the ideas of truth and justice, on
the other those of beauty and love;--things so exalted, and so
inseparably united in the divine perfections, that to set either two
above the other were presumptuous and profane. Yet these most divine
things separated from each other, and defiled in their passage through
this lower world, do each assume a form in human nature of very great
evil: the exclusive and corrupted love of truth and justice becomes in
man selfish atheism; the exclusive and corrupted worship of beauty and
love becomes in man a bloody and a lying idolatry.
Such would be the general theory of the two great currents in which
human affairs may be said to have been successively drifting. But real
history, even the history of all mankind, and much more that of any
particular age or country, presents a picture far more complicated.
First, as to time: as the vessels in a harbour, and in the open sea
without it, may be seen swinging with the tide at the same moment in
opposite directions; the ebb has begun in the roadstead, while it is not
yet high water in the harbour; so one or more nations may be in advance
of or behind the general tendency of their age, and from either cause
may be moving in the opposite direction. Again, the tendency or movement
in itself is liable to frequent interruptions, and short
counter-movements: even when the tide is coming in upon the shore, every
wave retires after its advance; and he who follows incautiously the
retreating waters, may be caught by some stronger billow, overwhelming
again for an instant the spot which had just been left dry. A child
standing by the sea-shore for a few minutes, and watching this, as it
seems, irregular advance and retreat of the water, could not tell
whether it was ebb or flood; and we, standing for a few years on the
shore of time, can scarcely tell whether the particular movement which
we witness is according to or against the general tendency of the whole
period. Farther yet, as these great tendencies are often interrupted, so
are they continually mixed: that is, not only are their own good and bad
elements successively predominant, but they never have the world wholly
to themselves: the opposite tendency exists, in an under-current it may
be, and not lightly perceptible; but here and there it struggles to the
surface, and mingles its own good and evil with the predominant good and
evil of its antagonist. Wherefore he who would learn wisdom from the
complex experience of history, must question closely all its phenomena,
must notice that which is less obvious as well as that which is most
palpable; must judge not peremptorily or sweepingly, but with reserves
and exceptions; not as lightly overrunning a wide region of the truth,
but thankful if after much pains he has advanced his landmarks only a
little; if he has gained, as it were, but one or two frontier
fortresses, in which he can establish himself for ever.
Now, then, when Mr. Newman describes the movement of the present moment
as being directed towards "something better and deeper than satisfied
the last century," this description, although in some sense true, is yet
in practice delusive; and the delusion which lurks in it is at the root
of the errors of Mr. Newman and of his friends. They regard the
tendencies of the last century as wholly evil; and they appear to extend
this feeling to the whole period of which the last century was the
close, and which began nearly with the sixteenth century. Viewing in
this light the last three hundred years, they regard naturally with
excessive favour the preceding period, with which they are so strongly
contrasted; and not the less because this period has been an object of
scorn to the times which have followed it. They are drawn towards the
enemy of their enemy, and they fancy that it must be in all points their
enemy's opposite. And if the faults of its last decline are too palpable
to be denied, they ascend to its middle and its earlier course, and
finding that its evils are there less flagrant, they abandon themselves
wholly to the contemplation of its good points, and end with making it
an idol. There are few stranger and sadder sights than to see men
judging of whole periods of the history of mankind with the blindness of
party-spirit, never naming one century without expressions of contempt
or abhorrence, never mentioning another but with extravagant and
undistinguishing admiration.
But the worst was yet to come. The period which Mr. Newman and his
friends so disliked, had, in its religious character, been distinguished
by its professions of extreme veneration for the Scriptures; in its
quarrel with the system of the preceding period, it had rested all its
cause on the authority of the Scripture,--it had condemned the older
system because Scripture could give no warrant for it. On the other
hand, the partizans of the older system protested against the exclusive
appeal to Scripture; there was, as they maintained, another authority in
religious matters; if their system was not supported in all its points
by Scripture, it had at least the warrant of Christian antiquity. Thus
Mr. Newman and his friends found that the times which they disliked had
professed to rely on Scripture alone; the times which they loved had
invested the Church with equal authority. It was natural then to connect
the evils of the iron age, for so they regarded it, with this notion of
the sole supremacy of Scripture; and it was no less natural to associate
the blessings of their imagined golden age with its avowed reverence for
the Church. If they appealed only to Scripture, they echoed the language
of men whom they abhorred; if they exalted the Church and Christian
antiquity, they sympathised with a period which they were resolved to
love. Their theological writings from the very beginning have too
plainly shown in this respect the force both of their sympathies and
their antipathies.
Thus previously disposed, and in their sense or apprehension of the evil
of their own times already flying as it were for refuge to the system of
times past, they were overtaken by the political storm of 1831, and the
two following years. That storm rattled loudly, and alarmed many who had
viewed the gathering of the clouds with hope and pleasure; no wonder,
then, if it produced a stormy effect upon those who viewed it as a mere
calamity, an evil monster bred out of an evil time, and fraught with
nothing but mischief. Farther, the government of the country was now,
for the first time for many years, in the hands of men who admired the
spirit of the age, nearly as much as Mr. Newman and his friends abhorred
it. Thus all things seemed combined against them: the spirit of the
period which they so hated was riding as it were upon the whirlwind;
they knew not where its violence might burst; and the government of the
country was, as they thought, driving wildly before it, without
attempting to moderate its fury. Already they were inclined to recognise
the signs of a national apostasy.
But from this point they have themselves written their own history.--Mr.
Percival's letter to the editor of the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal,
which was reprinted in the Oxford Herald of January 80, 1841, is really
a document of the highest value. It acquaints us, from the very best
authority, with the immediate occasion of the publication of the Tracts
for the Times, and with the objects of their writers. It tells us
whither their eyes were turned for deliverance; with what charm they
hoped to allay the troubled waters. Ecclesiastical history would be far
more valuable than it is, if we could thus learn the real character and
views of every church, or sect, or party, from itself, and not from its
opponents.
Mr. Percival informs us, that the Irish Church Act of 1833, which
abolished several of the Irish Bishoprics, was the immediate occasion of
the publication of the Tracts for the Times; and that the objects of
that publication were, to enforce the doctrine of the apostolical
succession, and to preserve the Prayer Book from "the Socinian leaven,
with which we had reason to fear it would be tainted by the
parliamentary alteration of it, which at that time was openly talked
of." But the second of these objects is not mentioned in the more formal
statements which Mr. Percival gives of them; and in what he calls the
"matured account" of the principles of the writers, it is only said,
"Whereas there seems great danger at present of attempts at unauthorized
and inconsiderate innovation as in other matters so especially in the
service of our Church, we pledge ourselves to resist any attempt that
may be made to alter the Liturgy on insufficient authority: i.e. without
the exercise of the free and deliberate judgment of the Church on the
alterations proposed." It would seem, therefore, that what was
particularly deprecated was "the alteration of the Liturgy on
insufficient authority," without reference to any suspected character of
the alteration in itself. But at any rate, as all probability of any
alteration in the Liturgy vanished very soon after the publication of
the tracts began, the other object, the maintaining the doctrine of the
apostolical succession, as it had been the principal one from the
beginning, became in a very short time the only one.
The great remedy, therefore, for the evils of the times, the "something
deeper and truer than satisfied the last century," or, at least, the
most effectual means of attaining to it, is declared to be the
maintenance of the doctrine of apostolical succession. Now let us hear,
for it is most important, the grounds on which this doctrine is to be
enforced, and the reason why so much stress is laid on it. I quote again
from Mr. Percival's letter.
"Considering, 1. That the only way of salvation is the partaking of the
body and blood of our sacrificed Redeemer;
"2. That the mean expressly authorized by him for that purpose is the
holy sacrament of his supper;
"3. That the security by him no less expressly authorized, for the
continuance and due application of that sacrament, is the apostolical
commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters of the church;
"4. That under the present circumstances of the church in England, there
is peculiar danger of these matters being slighted and practically
disavowed, and of numbers of Christians being left, or tempted to
precarious and unauthorized ways of communion, which must terminate
often in vital apostasy:--
"We desire to pledge ourselves one to another, reserving our canonical
obedience, as follows:--
"1. To be on the watch for all opportunities of inculcating, on all
committed to our charge, a due sense of the inestimable privilege of
communion with our Lord, through the successors of the apostles, and of
leading them to the resolution to transmit it, by his blessing,
unimpaired to their children."
Then follow two other resolutions: one to provide and circulate books
and tracts, to familiarize men's minds with this doctrine; and the
other, "to do what lies in us towards reviving among churchmen, the
practice of daily common prayer, and more frequent participation of the
Lord's Supper."
The fourth resolution, "to resist unauthorized alterations of the
Liturgy," I have already quoted: the fifth and last engages generally to
place within the reach of all men, accounts of such points in our
discipline and worship as may appear most likely to be misunderstood or
undervalued.
These resolutions were drawn up more than seven years ago, and their
practical results have not been contemptible. The Tracts for the Times
amount to no fewer than ninety; while the sermons, articles in reviews,
stories, essays, poems, and writings of all sorts which have enforced
the same doctrines, have been also extremely numerous. Nor have all
these labours been without fruit: for it is known that a large
proportion of the clergy have adopted, either wholly or in great part,
the opinions and spirit of the Tracts for the Times; and many of the
laity have embraced them also.
It seems also, that in the various publications of their school, the
object originally marked out in the resolutions quoted above, has been
followed with great steadiness. The system has been uniform, and its
several parts have held well together. It has, perhaps, been carried on
of late more boldly, which is the natural consequence of success. It has
in all points been the direct opposite of what may be called the spirit
of English protestantism of the nineteenth century: upholding whatever
that spirit would depreciate; decrying whatever it would admire. A
short statement of the principal views held by Mr. Newman and his
friends, will show this sufficiently.
"The sacraments, and not preaching, are the sources of divine grace." So
it is said in the Advertisement prefixed to the first volume of the
Tracts for the Times, in exact conformity with the preamble to the
resolutions, which I have already quoted. But the only security for the
efficacy of the sacraments, is the apostolical commission of the
bishops, and under them, of the presbyters of the Church. So it is said
in the preamble to the resolutions. These two doctrines are the
foundation of the whole system. God's grace, and our salvation, come to
us principally through the virtue of the sacraments; the virtue of the
sacraments depends on the apostolical succession of those who administer
them. The clergy, therefore, thus holding in their hands the most
precious gifts of the Church, acquire naturally the title of the Church
itself; the Church, as possessed of so mysterious a virtue as to
communicate to the only means of salvation their saving efficacy,
becomes at once an object of the deepest reverence. What wonder if to a
body endowed with so transcendant a gift, there should be given also the
spirit of wisdom to discern all truth; so that the solemn voice of the
Church in its creeds, and in the decrees of its general councils, must
be received as the voice of God himself. Nor can such a body be supposed
to have commended any practices or states of life winch are not really
excellent; and the duty either of all Christians, or of those at least
who would follow the most excellent way. Fasting, therefore, and the
state of celibacy, are the one a christian obligation, the other a
christian perfection. Again, being members of a body so exalted, and
receiving our very salvation in a way altogether above reason, we must
be cautious how we either trust to our individual conscience rather
than to the command of the Church, or how we venture to exercise our
reason at all in judging of what the Church teaches; childlike faith and
childlike obedience are the dispositions which God most loves. What,
then, are they who are not of the Church, who do not receive the
Sacraments from those who can alone give them their virtue? Surely they
are aliens from God, they cannot claim his covenanted mercies; and the
goodness which may be apparent in them, may not be real goodness; God
may see that it is false, though to us it appears sincere; but it is
certain that they do not possess the only appointed means of salvation;
and therefore, we must consider their state as dangerous, although, we
may not venture to condemn them.
I have not consciously misrepresented the system of Mr. Newman and his
friends in a single particular; I have not, to my knowledge, expressed
any one of their tenets invidiously. An attentive reader may deduce, I
think, all the Subordinate points in their teaching from some one or
more of the principles which I have given; but I have not wilfully
omitted any doctrine of importance. And, in every point, the opposition
to what I may be allowed to call the protestantism of the nineteenth
century is so manifest, that we cannot but feel that the peculiar
character of the system is to be traced to what I have before
noticed--the extreme antipathy of its founders to the spirit which they
felt to be predominant in their own age and country.
It is worth our while to observe this, because fear and passion are not
the surest guides to truth, and the rule of contraries is not the rule
of wisdom. Other men have been indignant against the peculiar evils of
their own time, and from their strong impression of these have seemed to
lose sight of its good points; but Mr. Newman and his friends appear to
hate the nineteenth century for its own sake, and to proscribe all
belonging to it, whether good or bad, simply because it does belong to
it.--This diseased state of mind is well shown by the immediate occasion
of the organization of their party. Mr. Perceval tells us that it was
the Act for the dissolution of some of the Irish bishoprics, passed in
1833, winch first made the authors of the Tracts resolve to commence
their publication. Mr. Perceval himself cannot even now speak of that
Act temperately; he calls it "a wanton act of sacrilege," "a monstrous
act," "an outrage upon the Church;" and his friends, it may be presumed,
spoke of it at the time in language at least equally vehement. Now, I am
not expressing any opinion upon the justice or expediency of that Act;
it was opposed by many good men, and its merits or demerits were fairly
open to discussion; but would any fair and sensible person speak of it
with such extreme abhorrence as it excited in the minds of Mr. Perceval
and his friends? The Act deprived the Church of no portion of its
property; it simply ordered a different distribution of it, with the
avowed object on the part of its framers of saving the Church from the
odium and the danger of exacting Church Rates from the Roman Catholics.
It did nothing more than what, according to the constitution of the
Churches of England and Ireland, was beyond all question within its
lawful authority to do. The King's supremacy and the sovereignty of
Parliament may be good or bad, but they are undoubted facts in the
constitution of the Church of England, and have been so for nearly three
hundred years. I repeat that I am stating no opinion as to the merits of
the Irish Church Act of 1833; I only contend, that no man of sound
judgment would regard it as "a monstrous act," or as "a wanton
sacrilege." It bore upon it no marks of flagrant tyranny: nor did it
restrain the worship of the Church, nor corrupt its faith, nor command
or encourage anything injurious to men's souls in practice. Luther was
indignant at the sale of indulgences; and his horror at the selling
Church pardons for money was, by God's blessing, the occasion of the
Reformation. The occasion of the new counter-reformation was the
abolition of a certain number of bishoprics, that their revenues might
be applied solely to church purposes; and that the Church might so be
saved from a scandal and a danger. The difference of the exciting cause
of the two movements gives the measure of the difference between the
Reformation of 1517, and the views and objects of Mr. Newman and
his friends.
There are states of nervous excitement, when the noise of a light
footstep is distracting. In such a condition were the authors of the
Tracts in 1833, and all their subsequent proceedings have shown that the
disorder was still upon them. Beset by their horror of the nineteenth
century, they sought for something most opposite to it, and therefore
they turned to what they called Christian antiquity. Had they judged of
their own times fairly, had they appreciated the good of the nineteenth
century as well as its evil, they would have looked for their remedy not
to the second or third or fourth centuries, but the first; they would
have tried to restore, not the Church of Cyprian, or Athanasius, or
Augustine, but the Church of St. Paul and of St. John. Now, this it is
most certain that they have not done. Their appeal has been not to
Scripture, but to the opinions and practices of the dominant party in
the ancient Church. They have endeavoured to set those opinions and
practices, under the name of apostolical tradition, on a level with the
authority of the Scriptures. But their unfortunate excitement has made
them fail of doing even what they intended to do. It may be true that
all their doctrines may be found in the writings of those whom they call
the Fathers; but the effect of their teaching is different because its
proportions are altered. Along with their doctrines, there are other
points and another spirit prominent in the writings of the earlier
Christians, which give to the whole a different complexion. The Tracts
for the Times do not appear to me to represent faithfully the language
of Christian antiquity; they are rather its caricature.
Still more is this the case, when we compare the language of Mr. Newman
and his friends with that of the great divines of the Church of England.
Granting that many of these believed firmly in apostolical succession;
that one or two may have held general councils to be infallible; that
some, provoked by the extravagances of the puritans, have spoken
over-strongly about the authority of tradition; yet the whole works even
of those who agree with. Mr. Newman in these points, give a view of
Christianity different from that of the Tracts, because these points,
which in the Tracts stand forward without relief, are in our old divines
tempered by the admixture of other doctrines, which, without
contradicting them, do in fact alter their effect. This applies most
strongly, perhaps, to Hooker and Taylor; but it holds good also of Bull
and Pearson. Pearson's exposition of the article in the Creed relating
to the Holy Catholic Church is very different from the language of Mr.
Newman: it is such as, with perhaps one single exception, might be
subscribed by a man who did not believe in apostolical succession[2].
Again, Pearson is so far from making the creeds an independent
authority, co-ordinate with Scripture, that he declares, contrary, I
suppose, to all probability, that the Apostles' Creed itself was but a
deduction from our present Scriptures of the New Testament[3].
Undoubtedly the divines of the seventeenth century are more in agreement
with the Tracts than the Reformers are; but it is by no means true that
this agreement is universal. There is but one set of writers whose minds
are exactly represented by Mr. Newman and his friends, and these are the
nonjurors.
[Footnote 2: The sixth and last mark which he gives of the unity of the
Church is, "the unity of discipline and government." "All the Churches
of God have the same pastoral guides appointed, authorized, sanctified,
and set apart by the appointment of God, by the direction of the Spirit,
to direct and lead the people of God in the same way of eternal
salvation; as, therefore, there is no Church where there is no order, no
ministry, so where the same order and ministry is, there is the same
Church. And this is the unity of regiment and discipline." Pearson on
the Creed, Art. IX. p. 341, seventh edit. fol. 1701. It would be easy to
put a construction upon this paragraph which I could agree with; but I
suppose that Pearson meant what I hold to be an error. Yet how gently
and generally is it expressed; and this doubtful paragraph stands alone
amidst seventeen folio pages on the article of the Holy Catholic Church.
And in his conclusion, where he delivers what "every one ought to intend
when they profess to believe the Holy Catholic Church," there is not a
word about its government; nor is Pearson one of those interpreters who
pervert the perfectly certain meaning of the word "Catholic" to favour
their own notions about episcopacy. I could cordially subscribe to every
word of this conclusion.]
[Footnote 3: "To believe, therefore, as the word stands in the front of
the Creed, ... is to assent to the whole and every part of it as to a
certain and infallible truth revealed by God, ... and delivered unto us
in the writings of the blessed apostles and prophets immediately
inspired, moved, and acted by God, out of whose writings this brief sum
of necessary points of faith was first collected." (P. 12.) And in the
paragraph immediately preceding, Pearson had said, "The household of God
is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, who are
continued unto us only in their writings, and by them alone convoy unto
us the truths which they received from God, upon whose testimony we
believe." It appears, therefore, that Pearson not only subscribed the
6th Article of the Church of England, but also believed it.]
Many reasons, therefore, concur to make it doubtful whether the authors
of the Tracts have discovered the true remedy for the evils of their
age; whether they have really inculcated "something better and deeper
than satisfied the last century." The violent prejudice which previously
possessed them, and the strong feelings of passion and fear which led
immediately to their first systematic publications, must in the first
instance awaken a suspicion as to their wisdom; and this suspicion
becomes stronger when we find their writings different from the best of
those which they profess to admire, and bearing a close resemblance only
to those of the nonjurors. A third consideration is also of much
weight--that their doctrines do not enforce any great points of moral or
spiritual perfection which other Christians had neglected; nor do they,
in any especial manner, "preach Christ." In this they offer a striking
contrast to the religious movement, if I may so call it, which began
some years since in the University at Cambridge. That movement, whatever
human alloy might have mingled with it, bore on it most clear evidence
that it was in the main God's work. It called upon men to turn from sin
and be reconciled to God; it emphatically preached Christ crucified. But
Mr. Newman and his friends have preached as their peculiar doctrine, not
Christ but the Church; we must go even farther and say, not the Church,
but themselves. What they teach has no moral or spiritual excellence in
itself; but it tends greatly to their own exaltation. They exalt the
sacraments highly, but all that they say of their virtue, all their
admiration of them as so setting forth the excellence of faith, inasmuch
as in them the whole work is of God, and man has only to receive and
believe, would be quite as true, and quite as well-grounded, if they
were to abandon altogether that doctrine which it is their avowed object
especially to enforce--the doctrine of apostolical succession.
Referring again to the preamble of their original resolutions, already
quoted, we see that the two first articles alone relate to our Lord and
to his Sacraments; the third, which is the great basis of their system,
relates only to the Clergy. Doubtless, if apostolical succession be
God's will, it is our duty to receive it and to teach it; but a number
of clergymen, claiming themselves to have this succession, and insisting
that, without it, neither Christ nor Christ's Sacraments will save us,
do, beyond all contradiction, preach themselves, and magnify their own
importance. They are quite right in doing so, if God has commanded it;
but such preaching has no manifest warrant of God in it; if it be
according to God, it stands alone amongst his dispensations; his
prophets and his apostles had a different commission. "We preach," said
St. Paul, "not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake." It is certain that the enforcing apostolical
succession as the great object of our teaching is precisely to do that
very thing which St. Paul was commissioned not to do.
This, to my mind, affords a very great presumption that the peculiar
doctrines of Mr. Newman and his friends, those which they make it their
professed business to inculcate, are not of God. I am anxious not to be
misunderstood in saying this. Mr. Newman and his friends preach many
doctrines which are entirely of God; as Christians, as ministers of
Christ's Church, they preach God's word; and thus, a very large portion
of their teaching is of God, blessed both to their hearers and to
themselves. Nay, even amongst the particular objects to which their own
"Resolutions" pledge them, one is indeed most excellent--"the revival of
daily common prayer, and more frequent participation of the Lord's
Supper." This is their merit, not as Christians generally, but as a
party, (I use the word in no offensive sense;) in this respect their
efforts have done, and are doing great good. But they have themselves
declared that they will especially set themselves to preach apostolical
succession; and it is with reference to this, that I charge them with
"preaching themselves;" it was of this I spoke, when I said that there
was a very great presumption that their peculiar doctrines were not
of God.
Again, the system which they hold up as "better and deeper than
satisfied the last century" is a remedy which has been tried once
already: and its failure was so palpable, that all the evil of the
eighteenth century was but the reaction from that enormous evil which
this remedy, if it be one, had at any rate been powerless to cure.
Apostolical succession, the dignity of the Clergy, the authority of the
Church, were triumphantly maintained for several centuries; and their
full development was coincident, to say the least, with the corruption
alike of Christ's religion and Christ's Church. So far were they from
tending to realize the promises of prophecy, to perfect Christ's body up
to the measure of the stature of Christ's own fulness, that Christ's
Church declined during their ascendancy more and more;--she fell alike
from truth and from holiness; and these doctrines, if they did not cause
the evil, were at least quite unable to restrain it. For, in whatever
points the fifteenth century differed from the fourth, it cannot be said
that it upheld the apostolical succession less peremptorily, or attached
a less value to Church tradition, and Church authority. I am greatly
understating the case, but I am content for the present to do so: I will
not say that Mr. Newman's favourite doctrines were the very Antichrist
which corrupted Christianity; I will only say that they did not prevent
its corruption,--that when they were most exalted Christian truth and
Christian goodness were most depressed.
After all, however, what has failed once may doubtless be successful on
a second trial: it is within possibility, perhaps, that a doctrine,
although destitute of all internal evidence showing it to come from God,
may be divine notwithstanding;--revealed for some purposes which we
cannot fathom, or simply as an exercise of our obedience. All this may
be so; and if it can be shown to be so, there remains no other course
than to believe God's word, and obey his commandments; only the strength
of the external evidence must be in proportion to the weakness of the
internal. A good man would ask for no sign from heaven to assure him
that God commands judgment, mercy, and truth; whatsoever things are
pure, and lovely, and of good report, bear in themselves the seal of
their origin; a seal which to doubt were blasphemy. But the cloud and
the lightnings and thunders, and all the signs and wonders wrought in
Egypt and in the Red Sea, were justly required to give divine authority
to mere positive ordinances, in which, without such external warrant,
none could have recognised the voice of God. We ask of Mr. Newman and
his friends to bring some warrant of Scripture for that which they
declare to be God's will. They speak very positively and say, that "the
security by our Lord no less expressly authorized for the continuance
and due application of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is the
apostolical commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters of
the Church." They say that our Lord has authorized this "no less
expressly" than he has authorized the Holy Supper as the mean of
partaking in his body and blood. What our Lord has said concerning the
communion is not truly represented: he instituted it as one mean of
grace among many; not as_the_ mean; neither the sole mean, nor the
principal. But allow, for an instant, that it was instituted as_the_
mean; and give this sense to those well-known and ever-memorable words
in which our Lord commanded his disciples to eat the bread and drink of
the cup, in remembrance of him. His words commanding us to do this are
express; "not less express," we are told, is his "sanction of the
apostolical commission of the bishops, as the security for the
continuance and due application of the Sacrament." Surely these writers
allow themselves to pervert language so habitually, that they do not
consider when, and with regard to whom, they are doing it. They say that
our Lord has sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession, in
order to secure the continuance and efficacy of the sacrament, "no less
expressly" than he instituted the sacrament itself. If they had merely
asserted that he had sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession,
we might have supposed that, by some interpretation of their own, they
implied his sanction of it, from words which, to other men, bore no such
meaning. But in saying that he has "expressly sanctioned it," they have,
most unconsciously, I trust, ascribed their own words to our Lord; they
make Mm to say what he has not said, unless they can produce[4] some
other credible record of his words besides the books of the four
evangelists and the apostolical epistles.
[Footnote 4: "Scripture alone contains what remains to us of our Lord's
teaching. If there be a portion of revelation sacred beyond other
portions, distinct and remote in its nature from the rest, it must be
the words and works of the eternal Son Incarnate. He is the one Prophet
of the Church, as he is our one Priest and King. His history is as far
above any other possible revelation, as heaven is above earth: for in it
we have literally the sight of Almighty God in his judgments, thoughts,
attributes, and deeds, and his mode of dealing with us his creatures.
Now, this special revelation is in Scripture, and in Scripture only:
tradition has no part in it."--_Newman's Lectures on the Prophetical
Office of the Church_. 1837. Pp. 347, 348.]
That their statement was untrue, and being untrue, that it is a most
grave matter to speak untruly of our Lord's commands, are points
absolutely certain. But if they recall the assertion, as to the
expressness of our Lord's sanction, and mean to say, that his sanction
is implied, and may be reasonably deduced from what he has said, then I
answer, that the deduction ought to be clear, because the doctrine in
itself bears on it no marks of having had Christ for its author. Yet so
far is it from true, that the necessity of apostolical succession, in
order to give efficacy to the sacrament, may be clearly deduced from any
recorded words of our Lord, that there are no words[5] of his from which
it can be deduced, either probably or plausibly; none with which it has
any, the faintest, connexion; none from which it could be even
conjectured that such a tenet had ever been in existence. I am not
speaking, it will be observed, of apostolical succession simply; but of
the necessity of apostolical succession, as a security for the efficacy
of the sacrament. That this doctrine comes from God, is a position
altogether without evidence, probability, or presumption, either
internal or external.
[Footnote 5: Since this was written, I have found out, what certainly it
was impossible to anticipate beforehand, that our Lord's words, "Do this
in remembrance of me," are supposed to teach the doctrine of the
priest's consecrating power. But the passage to which I refer is so
remarkable that I must quote it in its author's own words. Mr. Newman,
for the tract is apparently one of his, observes, that three out of the
four Gospels make no mention of the raising of Lazarus. He then goes on,
"As the raising of Lazarus is true, though not contained at all in the
first three Gospels; so the gift of consecrating the Eucharist may have
been committed by Christ to the priesthood, though only indirectly
taught in any of the four. Will you say I am arguing against our own
Church, which says the Scripture 'contains all things necessary to be
believed to salvation?' Doubtless, Scripture _contains_ all things
necessary to be _believed_; but there may be things _contained_ which
are not _on the surface_, and things which belong to the _ritual_, and
not to _belief_. Points of faith may lie _under_ the surface: points of
observance need not be in Scripture _at all_. The consecrating power is
a point of ritual, yet it _is_ indirectly taught in Scripture, though
not brought out, when Christ said, 'Do this,' for he spake to the
apostles, who were priests, not to his disciples generally."--_Tracts
for the Times_. Tract 85, p. 46.