Apologia Pro Vita Sua — 11 - Chapter 3, Part 2

Of course those controversialists had their own mode of answering him, with which I am not concerned in this place; here I am only concerned with the issue itself, between the one party and the other--Antiquity _versus_ Catholicity.

Now I will proceed to illustrate what I have been saying of the _status_ of the controversy, as it presented itself to my mind, by extracts from my writings of the dates of 1836, 1840, and 1841. And I introduce them with a remark, which especially applies to the paper, from which I shall quote first, of the date of 1836. That paper appeared in the March and April numbers of the British Magazine of that year, and was entitled "Home Thoughts Abroad."

Now it will be found, that, in the discussion which it contains, as in various other writings of mine, when I was in the Anglican Church, the argument in behalf of Rome is stated with considerable perspicuity and force.

And at the time my friends and supporters cried out, "How imprudent!"

and, both at the time, and especially at a later date, my enemies have cried out, "How insidious!"

Friends and foes virtually agreed in their criticism; I had set out the cause which I was combating to the best advantage: this was an offence;

it might be from imprudence, it might be with a traitorous design.

It was from neither the one nor the other; but for the following reasons.

First, I had a great impatience, whatever was the subject, of not bringing out the whole of it, as clearly as I could; next I wished to be as fair to my adversaries as possible; and thirdly I thought that there was a great deal of shallowness among our own friends, and that they undervalued the strength of the argument in behalf of Rome, and that they ought to be roused to a more exact apprehension of the position of the controversy.

At a later date, (1841,) when I really felt the force of the Roman side of the question myself, as a difficulty which had to be met, I had a fourth reason for such frankness in argument, and that was, because a number of persons were unsettled far more than I was, as to the Catholicity of the Anglican Church.

It was quite plain that, unless I was perfectly candid in stating what could be said against it, there was no chance that any representations, which I felt to be in its favour, or at least to be adverse to Rome, would have had any success with the persons in question.

At all times I had a deep conviction, to put the matter on the lowest ground, that "honesty was the best policy."

Accordingly, in July 1841, I expressed myself thus on the Anglican difficulty: "This is an objection which we must honestly say is deeply felt by many people, and not inconsiderable ones; and the more it is openly avowed to be a difficulty, the better; for there is then the chance of its being acknowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as far as may be, by those who have the power.

Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant; and we are sanguine that the time is come when so great an evil as this is, cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and common sense of religious persons.

It is the very strength of Romanism against us; and, unless the proper persons take it into their serious consideration, they may look for certain to undergo the loss, as time goes on, of some whom they would least like to be lost to our Church."

The measure which I had especially in view in this passage, was the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, which the then Archbishop of Canterbury was at that time concocting with M. Bunsen, and of which I shall speak more in the sequel.

And now to return to the Home Thoughts Abroad of the spring of 1836:-- The discussion contained in this composition runs in the form of a dialogue.

One of the disputants says: "You say to me that the Church of Rome is corrupt.

What then?

to cut off a limb is a strange way of saving it from the influence of some constitutional ailment.

Indigestion may cause cramp in the extremities; yet we spare our poor feet notwithstanding.

Surely there is such a religious _fact_ as the existence of a great Catholic body, union with which is a Christian privilege and duty.

Now, we English are separate from it."

The other answers: "The present is an unsatisfactory, miserable state of things, yet I can grant no more.

The Church is founded on a doctrine,--on the gospel of Truth; it is a means to an end.

Perish the Church, (though, blessed be the promise!

this cannot be,) yet let it perish _rather_ than the Truth should fail.

Purity of faith is more precious to the Christian than unity itself.

If Rome has erred grievously in doctrine, then it is a duty to separate even from Rome."

His friend, who takes the Roman side of the argument, refers to the image of the Vine and its branches, which is found, I think, in St. Cyprian, as if a branch cut from the Catholic Vine must necessarily die.

Also he quotes a passage from St. Augustine in controversy with the Donatists to the same effect; viz.

that, as being separated from the body of the Church, they were _ipso facto_ cut off from the heritage of Christ.

And he quotes St. Cyril's argument drawn from the very title Catholic, which no body or communion of men has ever dared or been able to appropriate, besides one.

He adds, "Now I am only contending for the fact, that the communion of Rome constitutes the main body of the Church Catholic, and that we are split off from it, and in the condition of the Donatists."

The other replies by denying the fact that the present Roman communion is like St. Augustine's Catholic Church, inasmuch as there must be taken into account the large Anglican and Greek communions.

Presently he takes the offensive, naming distinctly the points, in which Rome has departed from Primitive Christianity, viz.

"the practical idolatry, the virtual worship of the Virgin and Saints, which are the offence of the Latin Church, and the degradation of moral truth and duty, which follows from these."

And again: "We cannot join a Church, did we wish it ever so much, which does not acknowledge our orders, refuses us the Cup, demands our acquiescence in image-worship, and excommunicates us, if we do not receive it and all other decisions of the Tridentine Council."

His opponent answers these objections by referring to the doctrine of "developments of gospel truth."

Besides, "The Anglican system itself is not found complete in those early centuries; so that the [Anglican] principle [of Antiquity] is self-destructive."

"When a man takes up this _Via Media_, he is a mere _doctrinaire_;" he is like those, "who, in some matter of business, start up to suggest their own little crotchet, and are ever measuring mountains with a pocket ruler, or improving the planetary courses."

"The _Via Media_ has slept in libraries; it is a substitute of infancy for manhood."

It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835 or beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision between the Churches depended.

It is observable that the question of the position of the Pope, whether as the centre of unity, or as the source of jurisdiction, did not come into my thoughts at all; nor did it, I think I may say, to the end.

I doubt whether I ever distinctly held any of his powers to be _de jure divino_, while I was in the Anglican Church;--not that I saw any difficulty in the doctrine; not that in connexion with the history of St. Leo, of which I shall speak by and by, the idea of his infallibility did not cross my mind, for it did,--but after all, in my view the controversy did not turn upon it; it turned upon the Faith and the Church.

This was my issue of the controversy from the beginning to the end.

There was a contrariety of claims between the Roman and Anglican religions, and the history of my conversion is simply the process of working it out to a solution.

In 1838 I illustrated it by the contrast presented to us between the Madonna and Child, and a Calvary.

The peculiarity of the Anglican theology was this,--that it "supposed the Truth to be entirely objective and detached, not" (as in the theology of Rome) "lying hid in the bosom of the Church as if one with her, clinging to and (as it were) lost in her embrace, but as being sole and unapproachable, as on the Cross or at the Resurrection, with the Church close by, but in the background."

As I viewed the controversy in 1836 and 1838, so I viewed it in 1840 and 1841. In the British Critic of January 1840, after gradually investigating how the matter lies between the Churches by means of a dialogue, I end thus: "It would seem, that, in the above discussion, each disputant has a strong point: our strong point is the argument from Primitiveness, that of Romanists from Universality.

It is a fact, however it is to be accounted for, that Rome has added to the Creed; and it is a fact, however we justify ourselves, that we are estranged from the great body of Christians over the world.

And each of these two facts is at first sight a grave difficulty in the respective systems to which they belong."

Again, "While Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers, recognizes them, and England, not deferring to the large body of the Church, recognizes it, both Rome and England have a point to clear up."

And still more strongly, in July, 1841: "If the Note of schism, on the one hand, lies against England, an antagonist disgrace lies upon Rome, the Note of idolatry.

Let us not be mistaken here; we are neither accusing Rome of idolatry nor ourselves of schism; we think neither charge tenable; but still the Roman Church practises what is so like idolatry, and the English Church makes much of what is so very like schism, that without deciding what is the duty of a Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in her present state, we do seriously think that members of the English Church have a providential direction given them, how to comport themselves towards the Church of Rome, while she is what she is."

One remark more about Antiquity and the _Via Media_.

As time went on, without doubting the strength of the Anglican argument from Antiquity, I felt also that it was not merely our special plea, but our only one.

Also I felt that the _Via Media_, which was to represent it, was to be a sort of remodelled and adapted Antiquity.

This I advanced both in Home Thoughts Abroad and in the Article of the British Critic which I have analyzed above.

But this circumstance, that after all we must use private judgment upon Antiquity, created a sort of distrust of my theory altogether, which in the conclusion of my Volume on the Prophetical Office (1836-7) I express thus: "Now that our discussions draw to a close, the thought, with which we entered on the subject, is apt to recur, when the excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton exercise, rather than the practical conclusions of the intellect."

And I conclude the paragraph by anticipating a line of thought into which I was, in the event, almost obliged to take refuge: "After all," I say, "the Church is ever invisible in its day, and faith only apprehends it."

What was this, but to give up the Notes of a visible Church altogether, whether the Catholic Note or the Apostolic?

* * * * * The Long Vacation of 1839 began early.

There had been a great many visitors to Oxford from Easter to Commemoration; and Dr. Pusey's party had attracted attention, more, I think, than in any former year.

I had put away from me the controversy with Rome for more than two years.

In my Parochial Sermons the subject had at no time been introduced: there had been nothing for two years, either in my Tracts or in the British Critic, of a polemical character.

I was returning, for the Vacation, to the course of reading which I had many years before chosen as especially my own.

I have no reason to suppose that the thoughts of Rome came across my mind at all.

About the middle of June I began to study and master the history of the Monophysites.

I was absorbed in the doctrinal question.

This was from about June 13th to August 30th.

It was during this course of reading that for the first time a doubt came upon me of the tenableness of Anglicanism.

I recollect on the 30th of July mentioning to a friend, whom I had accidentally met, how remarkable the history was; but by the end of August I was seriously alarmed.

I have described in a former work, how the history affected me.

My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected.

I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite.

The Church of the _Via Media_ was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was, where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians.

Of all passages of history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that _delirus senex_, as (I think) Petavius calls him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order to be converted to Rome!

Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing controversially, but with the one object of relating things as they happened to me in the course of my conversion.

With this view I will quote a passage from the account, which I gave in 1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839: "It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth.

The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same.

The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now.

I found it so,--almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present.

The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth.

It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new.

The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid;

and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith.

What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo?

Be my soul with the Saints!

and shall I lift up my hand against them?

Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God!

anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels!

perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do ought but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue!"

Hardly had I brought my course of reading to a close, when the Dublin Review of that same August was put into my hands, by friends who were more favourable to the cause of Rome than I was myself.

There was an article in it on the "Anglican Claim" by Dr. Wiseman.

This was about the middle of September.

It was on the Donatists, with an application to Anglicanism.

I read it, and did not see much in it.

The Donatist controversy was known to me for some years, as has appeared already.

The case was not parallel to that of the Anglican Church.

St. Augustine in Africa wrote against the Donatists in Africa.

They were a furious party who made a schism within the African Church, and not beyond its limits.

It was a case of Altar against Altar, of two occupants of the same See, as that between the Non-jurors in England and the Established Church;

not the case of one Church against another, as of Rome against the Oriental Monophysites.

But my friend, an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant still, pointed out the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in one of the extracts made in the 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.

"Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that of the Monophysites.

They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at first.

They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself.

What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church!

not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment,--not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,--not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the deliberate judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible prescription and a final sentence against such portions of it as protest and secede.

Who can account for the impressions which are made on him?

For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with 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 were like the "Tolle, lege,--Tolle, lege," of the child, which converted St. Augustine himself.

"Securus judicat orbis terrarum!"

By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the _Via Media_ was absolutely pulverized.

I became excited at the view thus opened upon me.

I was just starting on a round of visits; and I mentioned my state of mind to two most intimate friends: I think to no others.

After a while, I got calm, and at length the vivid impression upon my imagination faded away.

What I thought about it on reflection, I will attempt to describe presently.

I had to determine its logical value, and its bearing upon my duty.

Meanwhile, so far as this was certain,--I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall.

It was clear that I had a good deal to learn on the question of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was coming upon me.

He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it.

The heavens had opened and closed again.

The thought for the moment had been, "The Church of Rome will be found right after all;" and then it had vanished.

My old convictions remained as before.

At this time, I wrote my Sermon on Divine Calls, which I published in my volume of Plain Sermons.

It ends thus:-- "O that we could take that simple view of things, as to feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God!

What gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay even to please those whom we love, compared with this?

What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed,--compared with this one aim, of not being disobedient to a heavenly vision?

What can this world offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have, who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?

Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully, to quicken our senses, to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come; so to work within us, that we may sincerely say, 'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me with glory.

Whom have I in heaven but Thee?

and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee.

My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.'

" * * * * * Now to trace the succession of thoughts, and the conclusions, and the consequent innovations on my previous belief, and the general conduct, to which I was led, upon this sudden visitation.

And first, I will say, whatever comes of saying it, for I leave inferences to others, that for years I must have had something of an habitual notion, though it was latent, and had never led me to distrust my own convictions, that my mind had not found its ultimate rest, and that in some sense or other I was on journey.

During the same passage across the Mediterranean in which I wrote "Lead kindly light," I also wrote the verses, which are found in the Lyra under the head of "Providences," beginning, "When I look back."

This was in 1833; and, since I have begun this narrative, I have found a memorandum under the date of September 7, 1829, in which I speak of myself, as "now in my rooms in Oriel College, slowly advancing &c. and led on by God's hand blindly, not knowing whither He is taking me."

But, whatever this presentiment be worth, it was no protection against the dismay and disgust, which I felt, in consequence of the dreadful misgiving, of which I have been relating the history.

The one question was, what was I to do?

I had to make up my mind for myself, and others could not help me.

I determined to be guided, not by my imagination, but by my reason.

And this I said over and over again in the years which followed, both in conversation and in private letters.

Had it not been for this severe resolve, I should have been a Catholic sooner than I was.

Moreover, I felt on consideration a positive doubt, on the other hand, whether the suggestion did not come from below.

Then I said to myself, Time alone can solve that question.

It was my business to go on as usual, to obey those convictions to which I had so long surrendered myself, which still had possession of me, and on which my new thoughts had no direct bearing.

That new conception of things should only so far influence me, as it had a logical claim to do so.

If it came from above, it would come again;--so I trusted,--and with more definite outlines and greater cogency and consistency of proof.

I thought of Samuel, before "he knew the word of the Lord;" and therefore I went, and lay down to sleep again.

This was my broad view of the matter, and my _primâ facie_ conclusion.

However, my new historical fact had already to a certain point a logical force.

Down had come the _Via Media_ as a definite theory or scheme, under the blows of St. Leo.

My "Prophetical Office" had come to pieces;

not indeed as an argument against "Roman errors," nor as against Protestantism, but as in behalf of England.

I had no longer a distinctive plea for Anglicanism, unless I would be a Monophysite.

I

had, most painfully, to fall back upon my three original points of belief, which I have spoken so much of in a former passage,--the principle of dogma, the sacramental system, and anti-Romanism.

Of these three, the first two were better secured in Rome than in the Anglican Church.

The Apostolical Succession, the two prominent sacraments, and the primitive Creeds, belonged, indeed, to the latter; but there had been and was far less strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the Anglican system than in the Roman: in consequence, my main argument for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and special charges, which I could bring against Rome.

I had no positive Anglican theory.

I was very nearly a pure Protestant.

Lutherans had a sort of theology, so had Calvinists; I had none.

However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was gradually left, was really a practical principle.

It was a strong, though it was only a negative ground, and it still had great hold on me.

As a boy of fifteen, I had so fully imbibed it, that I had actually erased in my _Gradus ad Parnassum_, such titles, under the word "Papa," as "Christi Vicarius," "sacer interpres," and "sceptra gerens," and substituted epithets so vile that I cannot bring myself to write them down here.

The effect of this early persuasion remained as, what I have already called it, a "stain upon my imagination."

As regards my reason, I began in 1833 to form theories on the subject, which tended to obliterate it; yet by 1838 I had got no further than to consider Antichrist, as not the Church of Rome, but the spirit of the old pagan city, the fourth monster of Daniel, which was still alive, and which had corrupted the Church which was planted there.

Soon after this indeed, and before my attention was directed to the Monophysite controversy, I underwent a great change of opinion.

I saw that, from the nature of the case, the true Vicar of Christ must ever to the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized as such, because a resemblance must ever exist between an original and a forgery; and thus the fact of such a calumny was almost one of the notes of the Church.

But we cannot unmake ourselves or change our habits in a moment.

Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for some time after,--I could not have thrown off,--the unreasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished about her at least by fits and starts, in spite of this conviction of my reason.

I cannot prove this, but I believe it to have been the case from what I recollect of myself.

Nor was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and the Monophysites to undo the firm belief I had in the existence of what I called the practical abuses and excesses of Rome.

To her inconsistencies then, to her ambition and intrigue, to her sophistries (as I considered them to be) I now had recourse in my opposition to her, both public and personal.

I did so by way of a relief.

I had a great and growing dislike, after the summer of 1839, to speak against the Roman Church herself or her formal doctrines.

I was very averse to speaking against doctrines, which might possibly turn out to be true, though at the time I had no reason for thinking they were;

or against the Church, which had preserved them.

I began to have misgivings, that, strong as my own feelings had been against her, yet in some things which I had said, I had taken the statements of Anglican divines for granted without weighing them for myself.

I said to a friend in 1840, in a letter, which I shall use presently, "I am troubled by doubts whether as it is, I have not, in what I have published, spoken too strongly against Rome, though I think I did it in a kind of faith, being determined to put myself into the English system, and say all that our divines said, whether I had fully weighed it or not."

I was sore about the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say strong things, which facts did not justify.

Yet I _did_ still hold in substance all that I had said against the Church of Rome in my Prophetical Office.

I felt the force of the usual Protestant objections against her; I believed that we had the Apostolical succession in the Anglican Church, and the grace of the sacraments; I was not sure that the difficulty of its isolation might not be overcome, though I was far from sure that it could.

I did not see any clear proof that it had committed itself to any heresy, or had taken part against the truth; and I was not sure that it would not revive into full Apostolic purity and strength, and grow into union with Rome herself (Rome explaining her doctrines and guarding against their abuse), that is, if we were but patient and hopeful.

I began to wish for union between the Anglican Church and Rome, if, and when, it was possible; and I did what I could to gain weekly prayers for that object.

The ground which I felt to be good against her was the moral ground: I felt I could not be wrong in striking at her political and social line of action.

The alliance of a dogmatic religion with liberals, high or low, seemed to me a providential direction against moving towards Rome, and a better "Preservative against Popery," than the three volumes in folio, in which, I think, that prophylactic is to be found.

However, on occasions which demanded it, I felt it a duty to give out plainly all that I thought, though I did not like to do so.

One such instance occurred, when I had to publish a Letter about Tract 90. In that Letter, I said, "Instead of setting before the soul the Holy Trinity, and heaven and hell, the Church of Rome does seem to me, as a popular system, to preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and purgatory."

On this occasion I recollect expressing to a friend the distress it gave me thus to speak;

but, I said, "How can I help saying it, if I think it?

and I _do_ think it; my Bishop calls on me to say out what I think; and that is the long and the short of it."

But I recollected Hurrell Froude's words to me, almost his dying words, "I must enter another protest against your cursing and swearing.

What good can it do?

and I call it uncharitable to an excess.

How mistaken we may ourselves be, on many points that are only gradually opening on us!"