PERVERSION OF DR. NEWMAN TO THE CHURCH OF ROME IN THE LIGHT OF HIS OWN
EXPLANATIONS, COMMON SENSE AND THE WORD OF GOD.
The year 1843 will be long remembered in the Church of Rome for the
submission of Dr. Newman to her authority. This was considered by many
Roman Catholics as one of the greatest triumphs ever gained by their
church against Protestantism. But some of us, more acquainted with the
daily contradictions and tergiversations of the Oxford divine, could not
associate ourselves in the public rejoicings of our church.
From almost the very beginning of his public life, Dr. Newman, as well
as Dr. Pusey, appeared to many of us as cowards and traitors in the
Protestant camp, whose object was to betray the church which was feeding
them, and which they were sworn to defend. They both seemed to us to be
skillful but dishonest conspirators.
Dr. Newman, caught in the very act of that conspiracy, has boldly denied
it. Brought before the tribunal of public opinion as a traitor who,
though enrolled under the banners of the Church of England, was giving
help and comfort to its foe, the Church of Rome, he has published a
remarkable book under the title of “Apologia pro vita sua,” to exculpate
himself. I hold in my hands the New York edition of 1865. Few men will
read that book from beginning to end; and still fewer will understand it
at its first reading. The art of throwing dust in the eyes of the public
is brought to perfection in that work. I have read many books in my long
life, but I have never met with anything like the Jesuit ability shown
by Dr. Newman in giving a color of truth to the most palpable errors and
falsehoods. I have had to read it at least four times, with the utmost
attention, before being sure of having unlocked all its dark corners and
sophistries.
That we may be perfectly fair towards Dr. Newman, let us forget what his
adversaries have written against him, and let us hear only what he says
in his own defence. Here it is. I dare say that his most bitter enemies
could never have been able to write a book so damaging against him as
this one which he has given us for his apology.
Let me tell the reader at once that I, with many other priests of Rome,
felt at first an unspeakable joy at the reading of many of the “Tracts
for the Times.” It is true that we keenly felt the blows Dr. Newman was
giving us now and then; but we were soon consoled by the more deadly
blows which he was striking at his own Church—the Church of England.
Besides that, it soon became evident that the more he was advancing in
his controversial work, the nearer he was coming to us. We were not long
without saying to each other: “Dr. Newman is evidently, though secretly,
for us; he is a Roman Catholic at heart, and will soon join us. It is
only from want of moral courage and honesty that he remains a
Protestant.”
But from the very beginning there was a cloud in my mind, and in the
minds of many other of my co-priests, about him. His contradictions were
so numerous, his sudden transitions from one side to the other extreme,
when speaking of Romanism and Anglicanism; his eulogiums of our Church
to-day, and his abuses of it the very next day; his expressions of love
and respect for his own Church in one tract, so suddenly followed by the
condemnation of her dearest doctrines and practices in the next, caused
many others as well as myself to suspect that he had no settled
principles, or faith in any religion.
What was my surprise, when reading this strange book, I found that my
suspicions were too well founded; that Dr. Newman was nothing else than
one of those free-thinkers who had no real faith in any of the sacred
dogmas he was preaching, and on which he was writing so eloquently! What
was my astonishment when, in 1865, I read in his own book, the
confession made by that unfortunate man that he was nothing else but a
giant weathercock, when the whole people of England were looking upon
him as one of the most sincere and learned ministers of the Gospel! Here
is his own confession, pages 111, 112. Speaking of the years he had
spent in the Episcopal Church as a minister, he says: “Alas! It was my
portion, for whole years, to remain without any satisfactory basis for
my religious profession; in a state of moral sickness, neither able to
acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to Rome!” This is Cardinal
Newman, painted by himself! He tells us how _miserable_ he was when an
Episcopalian minister, by feeling that his religion had no basis, no
foundation!
What is a preacher of religion who feels that he has no basis, no
foundation, no reason to believe in that religion? Is he not that blind
man of whom Christ speaks, “who leads other blind men into the ditch?”
Note it is not Rev. Charles Kingsley; it is not any of the able
Protestant controversialists: it is not even the old Chiniquy, who says
that Dr. Newman was nothing else but an unbeliever, when the Protestant
people were looking upon him as one of their most pious and sincere
Christian theologians. It is Dr. Newman himself who, without suspecting
it, is forced by the marvellous Providence of God, to reveal that
deplorable fact in his “Apologia pro vita sua.”
Now what was the opinion entertained by him of the high and low sections
of his church? Here are his very words, page 91: “As to the High Church
and the Low Church, I thought that the one had not much more of a
logical basis than the other; while I had a thorough contempt for the
Evangelical!” But please observe that when this minister of the Church
of England had found, with the help of Dr. Pusey, that this church had
no logical basis, and that he had a “thorough contempt for the
Evangelical,” he kept a firm and continuous hold upon the living which
he was enjoying from day to day. Nay, it is when paid by his church to
preach her doctrines and fight her battles that he set at work to raise
another church! Of course the new church was to have a firm basis on
logic, history and the Gospel; the new church was to be worthy of the
British people, it was to be the modern ark to save the perishing world!
The reader will perhaps think I am joking, and that I am caricaturing
Dr. Newman. No! the hour in which we live is too solemn to be spent in
jokes—it is rather with tears and sobs that we must approach the
subject. Here are the very words of Dr. Newman about the new church he
wished to build after demolishing the Church of England as established
by law. He says (page 116): “I have said enough on what I consider to
have been the general objects of the various works which I wrote,
edited, or prompted in the years which I am reviewing. _I wanted to
bring out in a substantive form a living Church of England, in a
position proper to herself, and founded on distinct principles; as far
as paper could do it_, and as earnestly preaching it and influencing
others toward it, could tend to make it in fact;—a living church, made
of flesh and blood, with voice, complexion, motion and action, and a
will of its own.” (The italics are mine.) If I had not said that these
words were written by Dr. Newman, would the reader have suspected it?
What is to be the name of the new church? Dr. Newman himself has called
it “Via Media.” As the phrase indicates, it was to stand between the
rival Churches of England and Rome, and it was to be built with the
materials taken, as much as possible, from the ruins of both.
The first thing to be done, then, was to demolish that huge, illogical,
unscriptural, unchristian church, restored by the English reformers. Dr.
Newman bravely set to work, under the eye and direction of Dr. Pusey.
His merciless hammer was heard almost day and night from 1833 to 1834,
striking alternately, with hard blows, now against the church of the
Pope, whom he railed Antichrist, and then against his own church, which
he was, very soon, to find still more corrupted and defiled than its
anti-Christian rival. For, as he was proceeding in his work of
demolition, he tells us that he found more clearly, every day, that the
materials and the foundations of the Church of Rome were exceedingly
better than those of his own. He then determined to give a _coup de
grace_ to the Church of England, and strike such a blow that her walls
would be forever pulverized. His perfidious tract XC. aims at this
object.
Nothing can surpass the ability and the pious cunning with which Dr.
Newman tries to conceal his shameful conspiracy in his “Apologia.”
Hear the un-British and unmanly excuses which he gives for having
deceived his readers, when he was looked upon as the most reliable
theologian of the day, in defence of the doctrine of the Church of
England. In pages 236-37 he says: “How could I ever hope to make them
believe in a second theology, when I had cheated them in the first? With
what face could I publish a new edition of a dogmatic creed, and ask
them to receive it as gospel? Would it not be plain to them that no
certainty was to be found anywhere? Well, in my defence, I could make
but a lame apology; however, it was the true one—viz: that I had not
read the Fathers critically enough; that in such nice points as those
which determine the angle of divergence between the two churches, I had
made considerable miscalculations; and how came this about? Why, the
fact was, unpleasant as it was to avow, that I had leaned too much upon
the assertions of Usher, Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow, and had been deceived
by them.”
Here is a specimen of the learning and honesty of the great Oxford
divine! Dr. Newman confesses that when he was telling his people “St.
Augustine says this, St. Jerome says that”—when he assured them that St.
Gregory supported this doctrine, and Origen that, it was all false.
Those holy fathers had never taught such doctrines. It was Usher, Taylor
and Barrow who were citing them, and they had deceived him!
Is it not a strange thing that such a shrewd man as Dr. Newman should
have so completely destroyed his own good name in the very book he
wrote, with so much care and ingenuity, to defend himself? One remains
confounded—he can hardly believe his own eyes at such want of honesty in
such a man. It is evident that his mind was troubled at the souvenir of
such a course of procedure. But he wanted to excuse himself by saying it
was the fault of Usher, Taylor and Barrow!
Are we not forcibly brought to the solemn and terrible drama in the
Garden of Eden? Adam hoped to be excused by saying, “The woman whom thou
gavest to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I did eat.”
The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” But what was
the result of those excuses? We read: “Therefore the Lord God sent him
forth from the Garden of Eden.” Dr. Newman has lost the precious
inheritance God has given him. He has lost the lamp he had received to
guide his steps, and he is now in the dark dungeon of Popery,
worshipping as a poor slave, the wafer god of Rome.
But what has become of that new church or religion, the _Via Media_,
which has just come out from the sickly brain of the Oxford professor?
Let us hear its sad and premature end from Dr. Newman himself. Let me,
however, premise, that when Dr. Newman began his attacks against his
church, he at first so skillfully mixed the most eloquent eulogiums with
his criticisms, that, though many sincere Christians were grieved, few
dared to complain. The names of Pusey and Newman commanded such respect
that few raised their voices against the conspiracy. This emboldened
them. Month after month they became unguarded in their denunciations of
the Church of England, and more explicit in their support of Romanism.
In the meantime, the Church of Rome was reaping a rich harvest of
perverts; for many Protestants were unsettled in their faith, and were
going the whole length of the road to Rome, so cunningly indicated by
the conspirators. At last, the 90th tract appeared in 1843. It fell as a
thunderbolt on the church. A loud cry of indignation was raised all over
England against those who had so mercilessly struck at the heart of that
church which they had sworn to defend. The bishops almost unanimously
denounced Dr. Newman and his Romish tendencies, and showed the absurdity
of his _Via Media_.
Now, let us hear him telling himself this episode of his life. For I
want to be perfectly fair to Dr. Newman. It is only from his own words
and public acts that I want the reader to judge him.
Here is what he says of himself, after being publicly condemned: “I saw
indeed clearly that my place in the movement was lost. Public confidence
was at an end. My occupation was gone. It was simply an impossibility
that I could say anything henceforth to good effect, when I had been
posted up by the Marshal on the buttery hatch of every college of my
University after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks, and when, in
every part of the country, and every class of society, through every
organ and occasion of opinion, in newspapers, in periodicals, at
meetings, in pulpits, at dinner-tables in coffee-rooms, in railway
carriages, I was denounced as a traitor who had laid his train, and was
detected in the very act of firing it against the time-honored
establishment.”... “Confidence in me was lost. But I had already lost
full confidence in myself.” (p. 132.)
Let the reader hear these words from the very lips of Dr.
Newman—“_Confidence in me was lost! But I had already lost full
confidence in myself!_” (p. 132.) Are these words the indications of a
brave, innocent man? Or are they not the cry of despair of a cowardly
and guilty conscience?
Was it not when Wishart heard that the Pope and his millions of slaves
had condemned him to death, that he raised his head as a giant, and
showed that he was more above his accusers and his judges than the
heavens are above the earth? Had he lost his confidence in himself and
in his God when he said: “I am happy to suffer and die in the cause of
Truth?” Did Luther lose confidence in himself and in his God, when
condemned by the Pope and all his Bishops, and ordered to go before the
Emperor to be condemned to death, if he would not retract? No! It is in
those hours of trial that he made the world to re-echo the sublime words
of David: “God is our refuge and our strength, a present help in
trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. Though the
waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the
swelling thereof.” But Luther had a good cause. He knew, he felt, that
the God of Heaven was on his side, when Dr. Newman knew well that he was
deceiving the world, after having deceived himself. Luther was strong
and fearless: for the voice of Jesus had come through the fifteen
centuries to tell him: “Fear not, I am with thee.” Dr. Newman was weak,
trembling before the storm, for his conscience was reproaching him for
his treachery and his unbelief.
Did Latimer falter and lose his confidence in himself and in his God,
when condemned by his judges and tied to the stake to be burnt? No! It
is then that he uttered those immortal and sublime words: “Master
Ridley: Be of good comfort and play the man; we shall, this day, light a
candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!”
This is the language of men who are fighting for Christ and His Gospel.
Dr. Newman could not use such noble language when he was betraying
Christ and His Gospel.
Now, let us hear from himself when, after having lost the confidence of
his Church and his country, and having also lost his confidence in
himself, he saw a ghost, and found that the Church of Rome was right. At
page 157, he says: “My friend, an anxiously religious man, pointed out
the palmary words of St. Augustine which were contained in one of the
extracts made in the (Dublin) _Review_, and which had escaped my
observation, ‘Securus judicat orbis terrarum.’ He repeated these words
again and again; and when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears....
The words of St. Augustine struck me with such a power which I never had
felt from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like
the ‘Turn again, Whittington,’ of the chime; or, to take a more serious
one, they are like the ‘tolle lege’ of the child which converted St.
Augustine himself. ‘Securus judicat orbis terrarum!’ By those great
words of the ancient father, the theory of the _Via Media_ was
absolutely pulverized. I became excited at the view thus opened upon
me.... I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall.... He who has seen
a ghost cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heaven had opened and
closed again. The thought, for the moment, had been: ‘The Church of Rome
will be found right, after all.’” (158).
It would be amusing, indeed, if it were not so humiliating, to see the
_naivete_ with which Dr. Newman confesses his own aberration, want of
judgment and honesty in reference to the pet scheme of his whole
theological existence at Oxford. “By these words,” he says, “the _Via
Media_ was absolutely pulverized!”
We all know the history of the mountain in travail, which gave birth to
a mouse. Dr. Newman tells us frankly that, after ten years of hard and
painful travail, he produced something less than a mouse. His _Via
Media_ was pulverized; it turned to be only a handful of dust.
Remember the high-sounding of his trumpet about his plan of a new
church, that New Jerusalem on earth, the church of the future which was
to take the place of his rotten Church of England. Let me repeat to you
his very words about that new ark of salvation with which the professor
of Oxford was to save the world. (Page 116): “I wanted to bring out, in
a substantive form, a living Church of England, in a position proper to
herself and founded on distinct principles, as far as paper could do it,
and as earnestly preaching it and influencing others towards it could
tend to make it a fact: a living church, made of flesh and blood, with
voice, complexion, and motion, and action, and a will of its own.”
Now, what was the end of that masterpiece of theological architecture of
Dr. Newman? Here is its history, given by the great architect himself:
“I read the palmary words of St. Augustine, ‘_Securus judicat orbis
terrarum!_’ By those great words of the ancient father, the theory of
the _Via Media_ was pulverized! I became excited at the view thus opened
before me. I had seen the shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen
a ghost can never be as if he had not seen it; the heavens had opened
and closed again. The thought, for a moment, was ‘The Church of Rome
will be found right, after all.’” (158). Have we ever seen a man
destroying himself more completely at the very moment that he tries to
defend himself? Here he does ingeniously confess what every one knew
before, that his whole work, for the last ten years, was not only a
self-deception, but a supreme effort to deceive the world—his _Via
Media_ was a perfect string of infidelity, sophism, and folly. The whole
fabric had fallen to the ground at the sight of a ghost! To build a
grand structure, in the place of his Church which he wanted to demolish,
he had thought it was sufficient to throw a great deal of glittering
sand, with some blue, white, and red dust, in the air! He tells us that
one sad hour came when he heard five Latin words from St. Augustine, saw
a ghost—and his great structure fell to the ground!!
What does this all mean? It simply means that God Almighty has dealt
with Dr. Newman as He did with the impious Pharaoh in the Red Sea, when
he was marching at the head of his army against the church of old, his
chosen people, to destroy them.
Dr. Newman was not only marching with Dr. Pusey at the head of an army
of theologians to destroy the Church of God, but he was employing all
the resources of his intellect, all his false and delusive science, to
raise an idolatrous church in its place; and when Pharaoh and Dr. Newman
thought themselves sure of success, the God of Heaven confounded them
both. The first went down with his army to the bottom of the sea as a
piece of lead. The second lost, not his life, but something infinitely
more precious—he lost his reputation for intelligence, science and
integrity; he lost the light of the Gospel, and became perfectly blind,
after having lost his place in the kingdom of Christ!
I have never judged a man by the hearsay of anyone, and I would prefer
to have my tongue cut out than to repeat a word of what the adversaries
of Dr. Newman have said against him. But we have the right, and I think
it is our duty, to hear and consider what he says of himself, and to
judge him on his own confession.
At page 174 we read these words from his own pen to a friend: “I cannot
disguise from myself that my preaching is not calculated to defend that
system of religion which has been received for three hundred years, and
of which the Heads of Houses are the legitimate maintainers in this
place.... I fear I must allow that, whether I will or no, I am disposing
them (the young men) towards Rome.” Here Dr. Newman declares, in plain
English, that he was disposing his hearers and students at Oxford to
join the Church of Rome! I ask it: what can we think of a man who is
paid and sworn to do a thing, who not only does it not, but who does the
very contrary? Who would hesitate to call such a man dishonest? Who
would hesitate to say that such a one has no respect for those who
employ him, and no respect for himself?
Dr. Newman writes this whole book to refute the public accusation that
he was a traitor, that he was preparing the people to leave the Church
of England and to submit to the Pope. But, strange to say, it is in that
very book we find the irrefutable proof of his shameful and ignominious
treachery! In a letter to Dr. Russell, President of the Roman Catholic
College of Maynooth, he wrote, page 227: “Roman Catholics will find this
to be the state of things in time to come, whatever promise they may
fancy there is of a large secession to their church. This man or that
may leave us, but there will be no general movement. There is, indeed,
an incipient movement of our church towards yours, and this your leading
men are doing all they can to frustrate by their unwearied efforts, at
all risks to carry off individuals. When will they know their position,
and embrace a larger and wiser policy?” Is it not evident here that God
was blinding Dr. Newman, and that He was making him confess his
treachery in the very moment that he was trying to conceal it? Do we not
see clearly that he was complaining of the unwise policy of the leaders
of the Church of Rome who were retarding _that incipient movement_ of
his church towards Romanism, for which he was working day and night with
Dr. Pusey?
But had not Dr. Newman confessed his own treachery, we have, to-day, its
undeniable proof in the letter of Dr. Pusey to the English Church Union,
written in 1879. Speaking of Dr. Newman and the other Tractarians, he
says: “An acute man, Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, said of the
‘Tracts,’ on their first appearance, ‘I know they have a forced
circulation.’ We put the leaven into the meal, and waited to see what
would come of it. Our object was to Catholicise England.”
And this confession of Dr. Pusey, that he wanted to Catholicise England,
is fully confirmed by Dr. Newman (page 108, 109) where he says: “I
suspect it was Dr. Pusey’s influence and example which set me and made
me set others on the larger and more careful works in defense of the
principles of the movement which followed” (towards Rome) “in a course
of years.”
Nothing is more curious than to hear from Dr. Newman himself with what
skill he was trying to conceal his perfidious efforts in preparing that
movement towards Rome. He says on that subject, page 124: “I was
embarrassed in consequence of my wish to go as far as possible in
interpreting the articles in the direction of Roman dogma, without
disclosing what I was doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting,
who might be, thereby, encouraged to go still farther than, at present,
they found in themselves any call to do.”
A straw fallen on the water indicates the way the tide goes. Here we
have the straw, taken by Dr. Newman himself, and thrown by him on the
water. A thousand volumes written by the ex-Professor of Oxford to deny
that he was a conspirator at work to lead his people to Rome, when in
the service of the Church of England, could not destroy the evident
proof of his guilt given by himself in this strange book.
If we want to have a proof of the supreme contempt Dr. Newman had for
his readers, and his daily habit of deceiving them by sophistries and
incorrect assertions, we have it in the remarkable lines which I find at
page 123 of his _Apologia_. Speaking of his “doctrinal development,” he
says: “I wanted to ascertain what was the limit of that elasticity in
the direction of Roman dogma. But, next, I had a way of inquiry of my
own which I state without defending. I instanced it afterward in my
essay on ‘Doctrinal Development.’ That work, I believe, I have not read
since I published it, and I doubt not at all that I have made many
mistakes in it, partly from my ignorance of the details of doctrine as
the Church of Rome holds them, but partly from my impatience to clear as
large a range for the _Principles_ of doctrinal development (waiving the
question of historical _fact_) as was consistent with the strict
apostolicity and identity of the Catholic creed. In like manner, as
regards the Thirty-nine Articles, my method of inquiry was to leap ‘_in
medias res_’” (123-124).
Dr. Newman is the author of two new systems of theology; and, from his
own confession, the two systems are a compendium of error, absurdities,
and folly. His _Via Media_ was “pulverized” by the vision of a ghost,
when he heard the four words of St. Augustine: “_Securus judicat orbis
terrarum._” The second, known under the name of “Doctrinal Development,”
is, from his own confession, full of errors on account of his ignorance
of the subject on which he was writing, and his own impatience to
support his sophisms.
Dr. Newman is really unfortunate in his paternity. He is the father of
two children. The first-born was called _Via Media_. But it had neither
head nor feet, it was suffocated on the day of its birth by a “ghost.”
The second, called “Doctrinal Development,” was not _viable_. The father
is so shocked with the sight of the monster, that he publicly confessed
its deformities and cries out, “Mistake! mistake! mistake!” (pages
123-124 _Apologia pro vita sua_).
The troubled conscience of Dr. Newman has forced him to confess (page
111) that he was miserable, from his want of faith, when a minister of
the Church of England and a Professor of Theology of Oxford: “Alas! it
was my portion for whole years to remain without any satisfactory basis
for my religious profession!” At page 174 and 175 he tells us how
miserable and anxious he was when the voice of his conscience reproached
him in the position he held in the Church of England, while leading her
people to Rome. At page 158 he confesses his unspeakable confusion when
he saw his supreme folly in building up the _Via Media_, and heard it
crash at the appearance of a ghost. At page 123 he acknowledges how he
deceived his readers, and deceived himself, in his “Doctrinal
Development.” At page 132 he tells us how he had not only completely
lost the confidence of his country, but lost confidence in himself. And
it is after this humiliating and shameful course of life that he finds
out “that the Church of Rome is right!”
Must we not thank God for having forced Dr. Newman to tell us through
what dark and tortuous ways a Protestant, a disciple of the Gospel, a
minister of Christ, a Professor of Oxford, fell into that sea of Sodom
called Romanism or Papism! A great lesson is given us here. We see the
fulfillment of Christ’s word about those who have received great talents
and have not used them for the “Good Master’s honor and glory.”
Dr. Newman, without suspecting it, tells us that it was his course of
action towards that branch of the Church of Christ of which he was a
minister, that caused him to lose the confidence of his country, and
troubled him so much that it caused him to lose that self-confidence
which is founded on our faith and our union with Christ, who is our
rock, our only strength in the hour of trial. Having lost her sails, her
anchor, and her helm, the poor ship was evidently doomed to become a
wreck. Nothing could prevent her from drifting into the engulfing abyss
of Popery.
Dr. Newman confesses that it is only when his guilty conscience was
uniting its thundering voice with that of his whole country to condemn
him, that he said, “After all, the Church of Rome is right!”
These are the arguments, the motives, the light which have led Dr.
Newman to Rome! And it is from himself that we have it! It is a just,
and avenging God who forces his adversary to glorify Him and say the
truth in spite of himself in this “_Apologia pro vita sua_.”
No one can read that book, written with almost a superhuman skill,
ability, and fineness, without a feeling of unspeakable sadness at the
sight of such bright talents, such eloquence, such extensive studies,
employed by the author to deceive himself and deceive his readers; for
it is evident, on every page, that Dr. Newman has deceived himself
before deceiving his readers. But no one can read that book without
feeling a sense of terror also. For he will hear, at every page, the
thundering voice of the God of the Gospel, “Because they received not
the love of the Truth that they might be saved, God shall send them
strong delusions, that they should believe a lie.” (2 Thess. ii:10-11).
What, at first, most painfully puzzles the mind of the Christian reader
of this book is the horror which Dr. Newman has for the Holy Scriptures.
The unfortunate man who is perishing from hydrophobia does not keep
himself more at a distance from water than he does from the word of God.
It seems incredible, but it is a fact, that from the first page of the
history of his “Religious Opinions” to page 261, where he joins the
Church of Rome, we have not a single line to tell us that he has gone to
the Word of God for light and comfort in his search after truth. We see
Dr. Newman at the feet of Daniel Wilson, Scott, Milner, Whately,
Hawkins, Blanco White, William James, Butler, Keble, Froude, Pusey, &c.,
asking them what to believe, what to do to be saved: but you do not see
him a single minute, no! not a single minute, at the feet of the
Saviour, asking him, “Master, what must I do to have ‘Eternal Life?’”
The sublime words of Peter to Christ, which are filling all the echoes
of heaven and earth, these eighteen hundred years, “Lord! To whom shall
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life!” have never reached his
ears! In the long and gloomy hours, when his soul was chilled and
trembling in the dark night of infidelity; when his uncertain feet were
tired by vainly going here and there, to find the true way, he has never
heard Christ telling him: “Come unto Me. I am the Way; I am the Door; I
am the Life!” In those terrible hours of distress of which he speaks so
eloquently, when he cries (page 111) “Alas! I was without any basis for
my religious profession, in a state of moral sickness: neither able to
acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to Rome:” when his lips were
parched with thirst after truth, he never, no never, went to the
fountain from which flow the waters of eternal life!
One day, he goes to the Holy Fathers. But what will he find there? Will
he see how St. Cyprien sternly rebuked the impudence of Stephen, Bishop
of Rome, who pretended to have some jurisdiction over the See of
Carthage? Will he find how Gregory positively says that the Bishop who
will pretend to be the “Universal Bishop” is the forerunner of
Anti-Christ? Will he hear St. Augustine declaring that when Christ said
to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,”
He was speaking of Himself as the rock upon which the Church would
stand? No. The only thing which Dr. Newman brings us from the Holy
Fathers is so ridiculous and so unbecoming that I am ashamed to have to
repeat it. He tells us (page 78), “I have an idea. The mass of the
Fathers (Justin, Anthenagoras, Irenæus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen,
Ambrose), hold that, though Satan fell from the beginning, the angels
fell before the deluge, falling in love with the daughters of men. This
has lately come across me as a remarkable solution of a notion I cannot
help holding.”
Allow me here to remind the reader that, though the Fathers have written
many beautiful evangelical pages, some of them have written the greatest
nonsense and the most absurd things which human folly can imagine. Many
of them were born and educated as pagans. They had learned and believed
the history and immorality of their demi-gods; they had brought those
notions with them into the Church; and they had attributed to the angels
of God, the passions and love for women which was one of the most
conspicuous characters of Jupiter, Mars, Cupid, Bacchus, etc. And Dr.
Newman, whose want of accuracy and judgment is so often revealed and
confessed by him in this book, has not been able to see that those
sayings of the Fathers were nothing but human aberrations. He has
accepted that as Gospel truth, and he has been silly enough to boast of
it.
The bees go to the flowers to make their precious honey. They wisely
choose what is more perfect, pure and wholesome in the flowers to feed
themselves. Dr. Newman does the very contrary: he goes to those flowers
of past ages, the Holy Fathers, and takes from them what is impure for
his food. After this, is it a wonder that he has so easily put his lips
to the cup of the great enchantress who is poisoning the world with the
wine of her prostitution?
When the reader has followed with attention the history of the religious
opinions of Dr. Newman in his “_Apologia pro vita sua_,” and he sees him
approaching, day after day, the bottomless abyss of folly, corruption,
slavery and idolatry of Rome, into which he suddenly falls (page 261),
he is forcibly reminded of the strange spectacle recorded in the
eloquent pages of Chateaubriand, about the Niagara Falls.
More than once, travelers standing at the foot of that marvel of the
marvels of the works of God, looking up toward heaven, have been struck
by the sight of a small, dark spot, moving in large circles, at a great
distance above the fall. Gazing at that strange object, they soon
remarked that in its circular march in the sky, the small, dark spot was
rapidly growing larger, as it was coming down towards the thundering
fall. They soon discovered the majestic form of one of the giant eagles
of America! And the eagle, balancing himself in the air, seemed to look
down on the marvellous fall, as if absolutely taken with admiration at
its grandeur and magnificence! For some time, the giant of the air
remained above the majestic cataract, describing his large circles. But
when coming down nearer and nearer the terrific abyss, he was suddenly
dragged by an irresistible power into the bottomless abyss, to
disappear. Some time later the body, bruised and lifeless, is seen
floating on the rapid and dark waters, to be forever lost in the bitter
waters of the sea, a long distance below.
Rome is a fall. It is the name which God himself has given her: “There
come a falling away” (2 Thess. ii., 3). As the giant eagle of America,
when imprudently coming too near the mighty Fall of Niagara, is often
caught in the irresistible vortex which attracts it from a long
distance, so that eagle of Oxford, Dr. Newman, whom God had created for
better things, has imprudently come too near the terrific papal fall. He
has been enchanted by its beauty, its thousand bright rainbows; he has
taken for real suns the fantastic jets of light which encircles its
misty head, and conceals its dark and bottomless abyss. Bewildered by
the bewitching voice of the enchantress, he has been unable to save
himself from her perfidious and almost irresistible attractions. The
eagle of Oxford has been caught in the whirlpool of the engulphing
powers of Rome, and you see him to-day, bruised, lifeless, dragged on
the dark waters of Popery towards the shore of a still darker eternity.
Dr. Newman could not make his submission to Rome without perjuring
himself. He swore that he would never interpret the Holy Scriptures
except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers. Well, I
challenge him here, to meet me and show me that the Holy Fathers are
unanimous on the supremacy of the power of the Pope over the other
Bishops; that he is infallible; that the Priest has the power to make
his God with a wafer; that the Virgin Mary is the only hope for sinners.
I challenge him to show us that auricular confession is an ordinance of
Christ. Dr. Newman knows well that those things are impostures. He has
never believed, he never will believe them.
The fact is that Dr. Newman confesses that he never had any faith when
he was a minister of the Church of England; and it is clear that he is
the same since he became a Roman Catholic. In page 282 we read this
strange exposition of his faith: “We are called upon not to profess
anything, but to submit and be silent,” which is just the faith of the
mute animal which obeys the motion of the bridle, without any resistance
or thought of its own. This is—I cannot deny it—the true, the only faith
in the Church of Rome; it is the faith which leads directly to Atheism
or idiotism. But Christ gave us a very different idea of the faith he
asks from his disciples when he said: “The time has come when the
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” (John vi.,
23.)
That degraded and brutal religion of Dr. Newman, surely was not the
religion of Paul, when he wrote, “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what
I say.” (1 Cor. x., 15.) Dr. Newman honestly tells us (page 228), when
speaking of the worship of the Virgin Mary: “Such devotional
manifestations in honor of our Lady had been my great _Crux_ as regards
Catholicism. I say, frankly that I do not fully enter into them now ...
they are suitable for Italy, but are not suitable for England.” He has
only changed his appearance—his heart is what it was formerly, when a
minister of the Church of England. He wanted then another creed, another
Church for England. So now, he finds that this and that practice of Rome
may do for the Italians, but not for the English people!
Was he pleased with the promulgation of Papal infallibility? No. It is a
public fact that one of his most solemn actions, a few years since his
connection with the Church of Rome, was to protest against the
promulgation of that dogma. More than that, he expressed his doubts
about the wisdom and the right of the Council to proclaim it.
Let us read his interesting letter to Bishop Ullathorne—“Rome ought to
be a name to lighten the heart at all times; and a council’s proper
office is, when some great heresy or other evil impends, to inspire hope
and confidence in the faithful. But now we have the greatest meeting
which ever has been, and that at Rome, infusing into us by the
accredited organs of Rome and of its partisans (such as the _Civilta_,
the _Armonia_, the _Univers_ and the _Tablet_) little else than fear and
dismay! When we are all at rest and have no doubts, and—at least
practically, not to say doctrinally—hold the Holy Father to be
infallible, suddenly there is thunder in the clear sky, and we are told
to prepare for something, we know not what, to try our faith, we know
not how—no impending danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is
to be created. Is this the proper work of an [OE]cumenical Council? As
to myself, personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at all; but
I cannot help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I
look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which
may not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most
difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts.
“What have we done to be treated as the faithful never were treated
before? When has a definition _de fide_ been a luxury of devotion, and
not a stern, painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent
faction be allowed to ‘make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord
hath not made sorrowful?’ Why cannot we be let alone, when we have
pursued peace, and thought no evil!
“I assure you, my Lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and
another, and do not know where to rest their feet—one day determining
‘to give up all theology as a bad job,’ and recklessly to believe
henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable; at another, tempted to
‘believe all the worst that a book like _Janus_ says;’ others doubting
about ‘the capacity possessed by Bishops drawn from corners of the
earth, to judge what is fitting for European society;’ and then, again,
angry with the Holy See for listening to ‘the flattery of a clique of
Jesuits, redemptorists, and converts.’
“Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history
of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth, and partly
are still to come. What Murphy inflicted upon us in one way, M. Veuillot
is indirectly bringing on us in another. And then, again, the blight
which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican Ritualists, etc., who,
themselves, perhaps—at least their leaders—may never become Catholics,
but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties (far
beyond their own range), with principles and sentiments towards their
ultimate absorption into the Catholic Church.
“With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself
whether I ought not to make my feelings public? But all I do is to pray
those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the
matter (Augustine, Ambrose and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom and
Basil), to avert this great calamity.
“If it is God’s will that the Pope’s infallibility be defined, then it
is God’s will to throw back ‘the times and movements’ of that triumph
which He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to
bow my head to His adorable, inscrutable providence.
“You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will
allow me to express to you feeling which, for the most part, I keep to
myself.”[C]
-----
Footnote C:
“_The Pope, the Kings, and the People._” (Mullan & Son, Paternoster
Square, pp. 269-70.) Also see (London) _Standard_, 7th April, 1870.
-----
These eloquent complaints of the new convert exceedingly irritated Pius
IX. and the Jesuits at Rome; they entirely destroyed their confidence in
him. They were too shrewd to ignore that he had never been anything else
but a kind of free-thinker, whose Christian faith was without any basis,
as he himself confessed. They had received him, of course, with
pleasure, for he was the very best man in England to unsettle the minds
of the young ministers of the Church, but they had left him alone in his
oratory of Birmingham, where they seemed to ignore him.
However, when the protest of the new so-called convert showed that his
submission was but a sham, and that he was more Protestant than ever,
they lashed him without mercy. But before we hear the stern answers of
the Roman Catholics to their new recruit, let us remember the fact that
when that letter appeared, Dr. Newman had lost the memory of it; he
boldly denied its paternity at first; it was only when the proofs were
publicly given that he had written it, that he acknowledged it, saying
for his excuse that he had forgotten his writing it!!
Now let us hear the answer of the _Civilta_, the organ of the Pope, to
Dr. Newman. “Do you not see that it is only temptation that makes you
see everything black? If the Holy Doctors whom you invoke, Ambrose,
Jerome, etc., do not decide the controversy in your way, it is not as
the Protestant _Pall Mall Gazette_ fancies, because they will not or
cannot interpose, but because they agree with St. Peter, and with the
petition of the majority. Would you have us make a procession in
sackcloth and ashes to avert this scourge of the definition of a
verity?” _Ibid_, p. 281.
The clergy of France, through their organ, _L’Univers_ (Vol. 11, p.
31-34), was still more severe and sarcastic. They had just collected
£4,000 to help Dr. Newman to pay the enormous expenses of the suit for
his slanders against Father Achille, which he had lost.
Dr. Newman, as it appears by the article from the pen of the celebrated
editor of the _Univers_, had not even had the courtesy to acknowledge
the gift, nor the exertions of those who had collected that large sum of
money. Now let us see what they thought and said in France about the
ex-Professor of Oxford whom they called the “Respectable Convict.”
Speaking of the £4,000 sent from France, Veuillot says: “The respectable
convict received it, and was pleased; but he gave no thanks and showed
no mercy. Father Newman ought to be more careful in what he says;
everything that is comely demands it of him. But, at any rate, if his
Liberal passion carries him away, till he forgets what he owes to us and
to himself, what answer must one give him, but that he had better go on
as he set out, silently ungrateful?—_L’Univers_, Vol. 11. p. 32-34.
_Ibid_, p. 272.
These public rebukes, addressed from Paris and Rome by the two most
popular organs of the Church of Rome, tell us the old story; the
services of traitors may be accepted, but they are never trusted. Father
Newman had not the confidence of the Roman Catholics.
But some one will say: Has not the dignity of Cardinal, to which he has
lately been raised, proved that the present Pope has the greatest
confidence in Dr. Newman?
Had I not been 25 years a priest of Rome, I would say “Yes!” But I know
too much of their tactics for that. The dignity of Cardinal has been
given to Drs. Manning and Newman as the baits which the fisherman of
Prince Edward Island throw into the sea to attract the mackerels. The
Pope, with those long scarlet robes thrown over the shoulders of the two
renegades from the Church of England, hopes to catch more English
mackerels.
Besides that, we all know the remarkable words of St. Paul: “And those
members of the body which we think to be less honourable, upon them we
bestow more abundant honours, and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness.” (1 Cor. xii., 23.)
It is on that principle that the Pope has acted. He knew well that Dr.
Newman had played the act of a traitor at Oxford; that he had been
caught in the very act of conspiracy by his Bishops; that he had
entirely lost the confidence of the English people. These public facts
paralyzed the usefulness of the new convert. He was really a member of
the Church of Rome, but he was one of the most uncomely ones; so much
so, that the last Pope, Pius IX., had left him alone, in a dark corner,
for nearly eighteen years. Leo XIII. was more shrewd. He felt that
Newman might become one of the most powerful agents of Romanism in
England, if he were only covering his uncomeliness with the rich red
Cardinal robe.
But will the scarlet colors which now clothe Dr. Newman make us forget
that, to-day, he belongs to the most absurd, immoral, abject and
degrading form of idolatry, the world has ever seen? Will we forget that
Romanism, these last six centuries, is nothing else than old paganism in
its most degrading forms, coming back under a Christian name? What is
the divinity which is adored in those splendid temples of modern Rome?
Is it anything else but the old Jupiter Tonans? Yes, the Pope has stolen
the old gods of paganism, and he has sacrilegiously written the adorable
name of Jesus in their faces, that the more deluded modern nations may
have less objection to accept the worship of their pagan ancestors. They
adore a Christ in the Church of Rome; they sing beautiful hymns to His
honor; they build him magnificent temples; they are exceedingly devoted
to Him—they make daily enormous sacrifices to extend His power and glory
all over the world. But what is that Christ? It is simply an idol of
bread, baked every day by the servant girl of the priest, or the
neighboring nuns.
I have been 25 years one of the most sincere and zealous priests of that
Christ. I have made Him with mine own hands, and the help of my servants
for a quarter of a century; I have a right to say that I know Him
perfectly well. It is that I may tell what I know of that Christ that
the God of the Gospel has taken me by the hand, and granted me to give
my testimony before the world. Hundreds of times, I have said to my
servant girl what Dr. Newman and all the priests of Rome say, every day,
to their own servants or their nuns: “Please make me some wafers, that I
may say mass, and give the communion to those who want to receive it.”
And the dutiful girl took some wheat flour, mixed it with water, and put
the dough between these two well-polished and engraven irons, which she
had well heated before. In less time than I can write it, the dough was
baked into wafers. Handing them to me, I brought them to the altar, and
performed a ceremony which is called “the mass.” In the very midst of
that mass, I pronounced on the wafer five magic words, “_Hoc est enim
corpus meum_,” and had to believe, what Dr. Newman and all the priests
of Rome profess to believe, that there were no more wafers, no more
bread before me, but that what were wafers, had been turned into the
great Eternal God who had created the world. I had to prostrate myself,
and ask my people to prostrate themselves before the God I had just made
with five words from my lips; and the people, on their knees, bowing
their heads, and bringing their faces to the dust, adored God whom I had
just made, with the help of these heated irons and my servant girl.
Now, is this not a form of idolatry more degrading, more insulting to
the infinite Majesty of God than the worship of the golden calf? Where
is the difference between the idolatry of Aaron and the Israelites
adoring the golden calf in the wilderness and the idolatry of Dr. Newman
adoring the wafer in his temple? The only difference is, that Aaron
worshipped a god infinitely more respectable and powerful, in melted
gold, than Dr. Newman worshipping his baked dough.
The idolatry of Dr. Newman is more degrading than the idolatry of the
worshippers of the sun.
When the Persians adore the sun, they give their homage to the greatest,
the most glorious being which is before us. That magnificent fiery orb,
millions of miles in circumference, which rises as a giant, every
morning, from behind the horizon, to march over the world and pour
everywhere its floods of heat, light and life, cannot be contemplated
without feelings of respect, admiration and awe. Man must raise his eyes
up to see that glorious sun—he must take the eagle’s wings to follow his
giant strides throughout the myriads of worlds which are there, to speak
to us of the wisdom, the power, and love of our God. It is easy to
understand that poor, fallen, blind men may take that great being for
their god. Would not every one perish and die, if the sun would forget
to come every day, that we may bathe and swim in his ocean of light and
life?
Then, when I see the Persian priests of the sun, in their magnificent
temple, with censers in their hands, waiting for the appearance of its
first rays, to intone their melodious hymns and sing their sublime
canticles, I know their error and I understand it; I was about to say, I
almost excuse it. I feel an immense compassion for these deluded
idolaters. However, I feel they are raised above the dust of the earth:
their intelligence, their souls cannot but receive some sparks of light
and life from the contemplation of that inexhaustible focus of light and
life. But is not Dr. Newman with his Roman Catholic people a thousand
times more worthy of our compassion and our tears, when they are
abjectly prostrated before this ignoble wafer—to adore it as their
Saviour, their Creator, their God? Is it possible to imagine a spectacle
more humiliating, blasphemous and sacrilegious, than a multitude of men
and women prostrating their faces to the dust to adore a god whom the
rats and mice have, thousands of times, dragged and eaten in their dark
holes? Where are the rays of light and life coming from that wafer?
Instead of being enlarged and elevated at the approach of this
ridiculous modern divinity, is not the human intelligence contracted,
diminished paralyzed, chilled and struck with idiocy and death at its
feet?
Can we be surprised that the Roman Catholic nations are so fast falling
into the abyss of infidelity and atheism, when they hear their priests
telling them that more than 200,000 times, every day, this contemptible
wafer is changed by them into the great God who has created heaven and
earth at the beginning, and who has saved this perishing world by
sacrificing the body and the blood which He has taken as His tabernacle
to show us His eternal love!
Come with me and see those multitudes of people with their faces
prostrated in the dust, adoring their white elephant of Siam.
Oh! what ignorance and superstition! what blindness and folly! you will
exclaim. To adore a white elephant as God!
But there is a spectacle more humiliating and more deplorable: There is
a superstition, an idolatry below that of the Siamese. It is the
idolatry practiced by Dr. Newman and his millions of co-religionists
to-day. Yes! The elephant-god of the Asiatic people, is infinitely more
respectable than the wafer-god of Dr. Newman. That elephant may be taken
as the symbol of strength, magnanimity, patience, etc. There is life,
motion in that noble animal—he sees with his eyes, he walks with his
feet. Let some one attack him, he will protect himself—with his mighty
trunk he will throw his enemy high in the air—he will crush him under
his feet.
But look at this modern divinity of Rome. It has eyes, but does not see;
feet, but does not move; a mouth, but does not speak. There is neither
life nor strength in the wafer god of Rome.
But if the fall of Dr. Newman into the bottomless abyss of the idolatry
of Rome is a deplorable fact, there is another fact still more
deplorable.
How many fervent Christians, how many venerable ministers of Christ
everywhere, are, just now, prostrated at the dear Saviour’s feet,
telling Him with tears: “Didst thou not sow the good Gospel seed all
over our dear country, through the hands of our heroic and martyred
fathers? From whence, then, hath it these Popish and idolatrous tares?”
And the “Good Master” answers, to-day, what he answered eighteen hundred
years ago. “While men slept, the enemy came during the night; he has
sowed those tares among the wheat, and he went away.”—(Matthew xiii:
25.)
And if you want to know the name of the enemy who has sowed tares, in
the night, amongst the wheat, and went away, you have only to read this
“_Apologia pro vita sua_.” You will find this confession of Dr. Newman
at page 174:—
“I cannot disguise from myself that my preaching is not calculated to
defend that system of religion which has been received for three hundred
years, and of which the Heads of Houses are the legitimate maintainers
in this place.... I must allow that I was disposing the minds of young
men towards Rome!”
Now, having obtained from the very enemy’s lips how he has sowed tares
during the night (secretly), read page 262, and you will see how he went
away and prostrated himself at the feet of the most implacable enemy of
all the rights and liberties of men, to call him “Most Holy Father.”
Read how he fell at the knees of the very power which prepared and
blessed the Armada destined to cover his native land, England, with
desolation, ruins, tears and blood, and enchain those of her people who
would not have been slaughtered on the battle-field! See how the enemy,
after having sown the tares, went away to the feet of a Sergius III.,
the public lover of Maroria—and to the feet of his bastard, John XI.,
who was still more debauched than his father—and to the feet of Leo VI.,
killed by an outraged citizen of Rome, in the act of such an infamous
crime that I cannot name it here—to the feet of an Alexander, who
seduced his own daughter, and surpassed in cruelty and debauchery Nero
and Caligula. Let us see Dr. Newman falling at the feet of all those
monsters of depravity, to call them, “Most Holy Fathers,” “Most Holy
Heads of the Church.” “Most Holy and Infallible Vicars of Jesus Christ!”
At the sight of such a fall, what can we do, but say with Isaiah:
“The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, and the scepter of the
ruler.... How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, Son of the morning! how art
thou cut down to the ground?” Is. xiv.