Apologia Pro Vita Sua — 14 - Chapter 4, Part 1

§ 1. From the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees.

I introduce what I have to say with this remark, by way of accounting for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative.

A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for the reader, especially if he has a kind heart.

Moreover, it is a season when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither cares nor is able to record the stages of his malady.

I was in these circumstances, except so far as I was not allowed to die in peace,--except so far as friends, who had still a full right to come in upon me, and the public world which had not, have given a sort of history to those last four years.

But in consequence, my narrative must be in great measure documentary, as I cannot rely on my memory, except for definite particulars, positive or negative.

Letters of mine to friends since dead have come into my hands; others have been kindly lent me for the occasion; and I have some drafts of others, and some notes which I made, though I have no strictly personal or continuous memoranda to consult, and have unluckily mislaid some valuable papers.

And first as to my position in the view of duty; it was this:--1. I had given up my place in the Movement in my letter to the Bishop of Oxford in the spring of 1841; but 2. I could not give up my duties towards the many and various minds who had more or less been brought into it by me;

3. I expected or intended gradually to fall back into Lay Communion; 4. I never contemplated leaving the Church of England; 5. I could not hold office in its service, if I were not allowed to hold the Catholic sense of the Articles; 6. I could not go to Rome, while she suffered honours to be paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints which I thought in my conscience to be incompatible with the Supreme, Incommunicable Glory of the One Infinite and Eternal; 7. I desired a union with Rome under conditions, Church with Church; 8. I called Littlemore my Torres Vedras, and thought that some day we might advance again within the Anglican Church, as we had been forced to retire; 9. I kept back all persons who were disposed to go to Rome with all my might.

And I kept them back for three or four reasons; 1. because what I could not in conscience do myself, I could not suffer them to do; 2. because I thought that in various cases they were acting under excitement; 3. because I had duties to my Bishop and to the Anglican Church; and 4, in some cases, because I had received from their Anglican parents or superiors direct charge of them.

This was my view of my duty from the end of 1841, to my resignation of St. Mary's in the autumn of 1843. And now I shall relate my view, during that time, of the state of the controversy between the Churches.

* * * * * As soon as I saw the hitch in the Anglican argument, during my course of reading in the summer of 1839, I began to look about, as I have said, for some ground which might supply a controversial basis for my need.

The difficulty in question had affected my view both of Antiquity and Catholicity; for, while the history of St. Leo showed me that the deliberate and eventual consent of the great body of the Church ratified a doctrinal decision as a part of revealed truth, it also showed that the rule of Antiquity was not infringed, though a doctrine had not been publicly recognized as so revealed, till centuries after the time of the Apostles.

Thus, whereas the Creeds tell us that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, I could not prove that the Anglican communion was an integral part of the One Church, on the ground of its teaching being Apostolic or Catholic, without reasoning in favour of what are commonly called the Roman corruptions; and I could not defend our separation from Rome and her faith without using arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines concerning our Lord, which are the very foundation of the Christian religion.

The Via Media was an impossible idea; it was what I had called "standing on one leg;" and it was necessary, if my old issue of the controversy was to be retained, to go further either one way or the other.

Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took another.

I

deliberately quitted the old Anglican ground as untenable; though I did not do so all at once, but as I became more and more convinced of the state of the case.

The Jerusalem Bishopric was the ultimate condemnation of the old theory of the Via Media:--if its establishment did nothing else, at least it demolished the sacredness of diocesan rights.

If England could be in Palestine, Rome might be in England.

But its bearing upon the controversy, as I have shown in the foregoing chapter, was much more serious than this technical ground.

From that time the Anglican Church was, in my mind, either not a normal portion of that One Church to which the promises were made, or at least in an abnormal state; and from that time I said boldly (as I did in my Protest, and as indeed I had even intimated in my Letter to the Bishop of Oxford), that the Church in which I found myself had no claim on me, except on condition of its being a portion of the One Catholic Communion, and that that condition must ever be borne in mind as a practical matter, and had to be distinctly proved.

All this is not inconsistent with my saying above that, at this time, I had no thought of leaving the Church of England;

because I felt some of my old objections against Rome as strongly as ever.

I had no right, I had no leave, to act against my conscience.

That was a higher rule than any argument about the Notes of the Church.

Under these circumstances I turned for protection to the Note of Sanctity, with a view of showing that we had at least one of the necessary Notes, as fully as the Church of Rome; or, at least, without entering into comparisons, that we had it in such a sufficient sense as to reconcile us to our position, and to supply full evidence, and a clear direction, on the point of practical duty.

We had the Note of Life,--not any sort of life, not such only as can come of nature, but a supernatural Christian life, which could only come directly from above.

Thus, in my Article in the British Critic, to which I have so often referred, in January, 1840 (before the time of Tract 90), I said of the Anglican Church that "she has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party titles, the note of life,--a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the Ancient Church."

Presently I go on to speak of sanctity: "Much as Roman Catholics may denounce us at present as schismatical, they could not resist us if the Anglican communion had but that one note of the Church upon it,--sanctity.

The Church of the day [4th century] could not resist Meletius; his enemies were fairly overcome by him, by his meekness and holiness, which melted the most jealous of them."

And I continue, "We are almost content to say to Romanists, account us not yet as a branch of the Catholic Church, though we be a branch, till we are like a branch, provided that when we do become like a branch, then you consent to acknowledge us," &c. And so I was led on in the Article to that sharp attack on English Catholics, for their shortcomings as regards this Note, a good portion of which I have already quoted in another place.

It is there that I speak of the great scandal which I took at their political, social, and controversial bearing; and this was a second reason why I fell back upon the Note of Sanctity, because it took me away from the necessity of making any attack upon the doctrines of the Roman Church, nay, from the consideration of her popular beliefs, and brought me upon a ground on which I felt I could not make a mistake; for what is a higher guide for us in speculation and in practice, than that conscience of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, those sentiments of what is decorous, consistent, and noble, which our Creator has made a part of our original nature?

Therefore I felt I could not be wrong in attacking what I fancied was a fact,--the unscrupulousness, the deceit, and the intriguing spirit of the agents and representatives of Rome.

This reference to Holiness as the true test of a Church was steadily kept in view in what I wrote in connexion with Tract 90. I say in its Introduction, "The writer can never be party to forcing the opinions or projects of one school upon another; religious changes should be the act of the whole body.

No good can come of a change which is not a development of feelings springing up freely and calmly within the bosom of the whole body itself; every change in religion" must be "attended by deep repentance; changes" must be "nurtured in mutual love; we cannot agree without a supernatural influence;" we must come "together to God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves."

In my Letter to the Bishop I said, "I have set myself against suggestions for considering the differences between ourselves and the foreign Churches with a view to their adjustment."

(I meant in the way of negotiation, conference, agitation, or the like.

) "Our business is with ourselves,--to make ourselves more holy, more self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our high calling.

To be anxious for a composition of differences is to begin at the end.

Political reconciliations are but outward and hollow, and fallacious.

And till Roman Catholics renounce political efforts, and manifest in their public measures the light of holiness and truth, perpetual war is our only prospect."

According to this theory, a religious body is part of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, if it has the succession and the creed of the Apostles, with the note of holiness of life; and there is much in such a view to approve itself to the direct common sense and practical habits of an Englishman.

However, with the events consequent upon Tract 90, I sunk my theory to a lower level.

For what could be said in apology, when the Bishops and the people of my Church, not only did not suffer, but actually rejected primitive Catholic doctrine, and tried to eject from their communion all who held it?

after the Bishops' charges?

after the Jerusalem "abomination[8]?"

Well, this could be said; still we were not nothing: we could not be as if we never had been a Church; we were "Samaria."

This then was that lower level on which I placed myself, and all who felt with me, at the end of 1841. [8] Matt.

xxiv.

15. To bring out this view was the purpose of Four Sermons preached at St. Mary's in December of that year.

Hitherto I had not introduced the exciting topics of the day into the Pulpit[9]; on this occasion I did.

I

did so, for the moment was urgent; there was great unsettlement of mind among us, in consequence of those same events which had unsettled me.

One special anxiety, very obvious, which was coming on me now, was, that what was "one man's meat was another man's poison."

I had said even of Tract 90, "It was addressed to one set of persons, and has been used and commented on by another;" still more was it true now, that whatever I wrote for the service of those whom I knew to be in trouble of mind, would become on the one hand matter of suspicion and slander in the mouths of my opponents, and of distress and surprise to those on the other hand, who had no difficulties of faith at all.

Accordingly, when I published these Four Sermons at the end of 1843, I introduced them with a recommendation that none should read them who did not need them.

But in truth the virtual condemnation of Tract 90, after that the whole difficulty seemed to have been weathered, was an enormous disappointment and trial.

My Protest also against the Jerusalem Bishopric was an unavoidable cause of excitement in the case of many; but it calmed them too, for the very fact of a Protest was a relief to their impatience.

And so, in like manner, as regards the Four Sermons, of which I speak, though they acknowledged freely the great scandal which was involved in the recent episcopal doings, yet at the same time they might be said to bestow upon the multiplied disorders and shortcomings of the Anglican Church a sort of place in the Revealed Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the controversy, and the dignity of a great principle, for unsettled minds to take and use,--a principle which might teach them to recognize their own consistency, and to be reconciled to themselves, and which might absorb and dry up a multitude of their grudgings, discontents, misgivings, and questionings, and lead the way to humble, thankful, and tranquil thoughts;--and this was the effect which certainly it produced on myself.

[9] Vide Note C. _Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence.

_ The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than schism, of the Ten Tribes, yet in fact they were still recognized as a people by the Divine Mercy; that the great prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them; and not only so, but were sent to preach to them and reclaim them, without any intimation that they must be reconciled to the line of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship.

They were not in the Church, yet they had the means of grace and the hope of acceptance with their Maker.

The application of all this to the Anglican Church was immediate;--whether, under the circumstances, a man could assume or exercise ministerial functions, or not, might not clearly appear (though it must be remembered that England had the Apostolic Priesthood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all), but so far was clear, that there was no call at all for an Anglican to leave his Church for Rome, though he did not believe his own to be part of the One Church:--and for this reason, because it was a fact that the kingdom of Israel was cut off from the Temple; and yet its subjects, neither in a mass, nor as individuals, neither the multitudes on Mount Carmel, nor the Shunammite and her household, had any command given them, though miracles were displayed before them, to break off from their own people, and to submit themselves to Judah[10].

[10] As I am not writing controversially, I will only here remark upon this argument, that there is a great difference between a command, which presupposes physical, material, and political conditions, and one which is moral.

To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the body, not of the soul.

It is plain, that a theory such as this,--whether the marks of a divine presence and life in the Anglican Church were sufficient to prove that she was actually within the covenant, or only sufficient to prove that she was at least enjoying extraordinary and uncovenanted mercies,--not only lowered her level in a religious point of view, but weakened her controversial basis.

Its very novelty made it suspicious; and there was no guarantee that the process of subsidence might not continue, and that it might not end in a submersion.

Indeed, to many minds, to say that England was wrong was even to say that Rome was right; and no ethical or casuistic reasoning whatever could overcome in their case the argument from prescription and authority.

To this objection, as made to my new teaching, I could only answer that I did not make my circumstances.

I

fully acknowledged the force and effectiveness of the genuine Anglican theory, and that it was all but proof against the disputants of Rome;

but still like Achilles, it had a vulnerable point, and that St. Leo had found it out for me, and that I could not help it;--that, were it not for matter of fact, the theory would be great indeed; it would be irresistible, if it were only true.

When I became a Catholic, the Editor of the Christian Observer, Mr. Wilkes, who had in former days accused me, to my indignation, of tending towards Rome, wrote to me to ask, which of the two was now right, he or I?

I answered him in a letter, part of which I here insert, as it will serve as a sort of leave-taking of the great theory, which is so specious to look upon, so difficult to prove, and so hopeless to work.

"Nov.

8, 1845. I do not think, at all more than I did, that the Anglican principles which I advocated at the date you mention, lead men to the Church of Rome.

If I must specify what I mean by 'Anglican principles,' I should say, e. g. taking _Antiquity_, not the _existing Church_, as the oracle of truth; and holding that the _Apostolical Succession_ is a sufficient guarantee of Sacramental Grace, _without union with the Christian Church throughout the world_.

I think these still the firmest, strongest ground against Rome--that is, _if they can be held_" [as truths or facts.

] "They _have_ been held by many, and are far more difficult to refute in the Roman controversy, than those of any other religious body.

"For myself, I found _I could not_ hold them.

I left them.

From the time I began to suspect their unsoundness, I ceased to put them forward.

When I was fairly sure of their unsoundness, I gave up my Living.

When I was fully confident that the Church of Rome was the only true Church, I joined her.

"I have felt all along that Bp.

Bull's theology was the only theology on which the English Church could stand.

I have felt, that opposition to the Church of Rome was _part_ of that theology; and that he who could not protest against the Church of Rome was no true divine in the English Church.

I have never said, nor attempted to say, that any one in office in the English Church, whether Bishop or incumbent, could be otherwise than in hostility to the Church of Rome."

* * * * * The _Via Media_ then disappeared for ever, and a Theory, made expressly for the occasion, took its place.

I was pleased with my new view.

I

wrote to an intimate friend, Samuel F. Wood, Dec.

13, 1841: "I think you will give me the credit, Carissime, of not undervaluing the strength of the feelings which draw one [to Rome], and yet I am (I trust) quite clear about my duty to remain where I am; indeed, much clearer than I was some time since.

If it is not presumptuous to say, I have ...

a much more definite view of the promised inward Presence of Christ with us in the Sacraments now that the outward notes of it are being removed.

And I am content to be with Moses in the desert, or with Elijah excommunicated from the Temple.

I say this, putting things at the strongest."

However, my friends of the moderate Apostolical party, who were my friends for the very reason of my having been so moderate and Anglican myself in general tone in times past, who had stood up for Tract 90 partly from faith in me, and certainly from generous and kind feeling, and had thereby shared an obloquy which was none of theirs, were naturally surprised and offended at a line of argument, novel, and, as it appeared to them, wanton, which threw the whole controversy into confusion, stultified my former principles, and substituted, as they would consider, a sort of methodistic self-contemplation, especially abhorrent both to my nature and to my past professions, for the plain and honest tokens, as they were commonly received, of a divine mission in the Anglican Church.

They could not tell whither I was going; and were still further annoyed when I persisted in viewing the condemnation of Tract 90 by the public and the Bishops as so grave a matter, and when I threw about what they considered mysterious hints of "eventualities," and would not simply say, "An Anglican I was born, and an Anglican I will die."

One of my familiar friends, Mr. Church, who was in the country at Christmas, 1841-2, reported to me the feeling that prevailed about me; and how I felt towards it will appear in the following letter of mine, written in answer:-- "Oriel, Dec.

24, 1841. Carissime, you cannot tell how sad your account of Moberly has made me.

His view of the sinfulness of the decrees of Trent is as much against union of Churches as against individual conversions.

To tell the truth, I never have examined those decrees with this object, and have no view; but that is very different from having a deliberate view against them.

Could not he say _which_ they are?

I

suppose Transubstantiation is one.

Charles Marriott, though of course he would not like to have it repeated[11], does not scruple at that.

I have not my mind clear.

Moberly must recollect that Palmer [of Worcester] thinks they all bear a Catholic interpretation.

For myself, this only I see, that there is indefinitely more in the Fathers against our own state of alienation from Christendom than against the Tridentine Decrees.

"The only thing I can think of," [that I can have said of a startling character,] "is this, that there were persons who, if our Church committed herself to heresy, _sooner_ than think that there was no Church any where, would believe the Roman to be the Church; and therefore would on faith accept what they could not otherwise acquiesce in.

I suppose, it would be no relief to him to insist upon the circumstance that there is no immediate danger.

Individuals can never be answered for of course; but I should think lightly of that man, who, for some act of the Bishops, should all at once leave the Church.

Now, considering how the Clergy really are improving, considering that this row is even making them read the Tracts, is it not possible we may all be in a better state of mind seven years hence to consider these matters?

and may we not leave them meanwhile to the will of Providence?

I _cannot_ believe this work has been of man; God has a right to His own work, to do what He will with it.

May we not try to leave it in His hands, and be content?

"If you learn any thing about Barter, which leads you to think that I can relieve him by a letter, let me know.

The truth is this,--our good friends do not read the Fathers; they assent to us from the common sense of the case: then, when the Fathers, and we, say _more_ than their common sense, they are dreadfully shocked.

"The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For holding _any_ Sacrifice in the Eucharist.

2. The Real Presence.

3. That there is a grace in Ordination[12].

"Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be drawing up some stringent declarations of faith?

Is this what Moberly fears?

Would the Bishop of Oxford accept them?

If so, I should be driven into the Refuge for the Destitute [Littlemore].

But I promise Moberly, I would do my utmost to catch all dangerous persons and clap them into confinement there."

[11] As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his opinion being generally known.

[12] I cannot prove this at this distance of time; but I do not think it wrong to introduce here the passage containing it, as I am imputing to the Bishop nothing which the world would think disgraceful, but, on the contrary, what a large religious body would approve.

Christmas Bay, 1841. "I have been dreaming of Moberly all night.

Should not he and the like see, that it is unwise, unfair, and impatient to ask others, What will you do under circumstances, which have not, which may never come?

Why bring fear, suspicion, and disunion into the camp about things which are merely _in posse_?

Natural, and exceedingly kind as Barter's and another friend's letters were, I think they have done great harm.

I speak most sincerely when I say, that there are things which I neither contemplate, nor wish to contemplate; but, when I am asked about them ten times, at length I begin to contemplate them.

"He surely does not mean to say, that _nothing_ could separate a man from the English Church, e. g. its avowing Socinianism; its holding the Holy Eucharist in a Socinian sense.

Yet, he would say, it was not _right_ to contemplate such things.

"Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken's. To say nothing of the last miserable century, which has given us to _start_ from a much lower level and with much less to _spare_ than a Churchman in the 17th century, questions of _doctrine_ are now coming in; with him, it was a question of discipline.

"If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot help thinking we should all be vastly more agreed than we think now.

Indeed, is it possible (humanly speaking) that those, who have so much the same heart, should widely differ?

But let this be considered, as to alternatives.

_What_ communion could we join?

Could the Scotch or American sanction the presence of its Bishops and congregations in England, without incurring the imputation of schism, unless indeed (and is that likely?

) they denounced the English as heretical?

"Is not this a time of strange providences?

is it not our safest course, without looking to consequences, to do simply _what we think right_ day by day?

shall we not be sure to go wrong, if we attempt to trace by anticipation the course of divine Providence?

"Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from people being afraid to look difficulties in the face?

They have palliated acts, when they should have denounced them.

There is that good fellow, Worcester Palmer, can whitewash the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Jerusalem Bishopric.

And what is the consequence?

that our Church has, through centuries, ever been sinking lower and lower, till good part of its pretensions and professions is a mere sham, though it be a duty to make the best of what we have received.

Yet, though bound to make the best of other men's shams, let us not incur any of our own.

The truest friends of our Church are they, who say boldly when her rulers are going wrong, and the consequences; and (to speak catachrestically) _they_ are most likely to die in the Church, who are, under these black circumstances, most prepared to leave it.

"And I will add, that, considering the traces of God's grace which surround us, I am very sanguine, or rather confident, (if it is right so to speak,) that our prayers and our alms will come up as a memorial before God, and that all this miserable confusion tends to good.

"Let us not then be anxious, and anticipate differences in prospect, when we agree in the present.

"P. S.

I think when friends" [i. e. the extreme party] "get over their first unsettlement of mind and consequent vague apprehensions, which the new attitude of the Bishops, and our feelings upon it, have brought about, they will get contented and satisfied.

They will see that they exaggerated things....

Of course it would have been wrong to anticipate what one's feelings would be under such a painful contingency as the Bishops' charging as they have done,--so it seems to me nobody's fault.

Nor is it wonderful that others" [moderate men] "are startled" [i. e. at my Protest, &c. &c. ]; "yet they should recollect that the more implicit the reverence one pays to a Bishop, the more keen will be one's perception of heresy in him.

The cord is binding and compelling, till it snaps.

"Men of reflection would have seen this, if they had looked that way.

Last spring, a very high churchman talked to me of resisting my Bishop, of asking him for the Canons under which he acted, and so forth; but those, who have cultivated a loyal feeling towards their superiors, are the most loving servants, or the most zealous protestors.

If others became so too, if the clergy of Chester denounced the heresy of their diocesan, they would be doing their duty, and relieving themselves of the share which they otherwise have in any possible defection of their brethren.

"St. Stephen's [Day, December 26].

How I fidget!

I now fear that the note I wrote yesterday only makes matters worse by _disclosing_ too much.

This is always my great difficulty.

"In the present state of excitement on both sides, I think of leaving out altogether my reassertion of No. 90 in my Preface to Volume 6 [of Parochial Sermons], and merely saying, 'As many false reports are at this time in circulation about him, he hopes his well-wishers will take this Volume as an indication of his real thoughts and feelings: those who are not, he leaves in God's hand to bring them to a better mind in His own time.'

What do you say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety of this?"

An old friend, at a distance from Oxford, Archdeacon Robert I. Wilberforce, must have said something to me at this time, I do not know what, which challenged a frank reply; for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two persons, viz.

his brother Henry and Mr. Frederic Rogers,[13] that, as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break down in the event,--that perhaps we were both out of the Church.

I think I recollect expressing my difficulty, as derived from the Arian and Monophysite history, in a form in which it would be most intelligible to him, as being in fact an admission of Bishop Bull's; viz.

that in the controversies of the early centuries the Roman Church was ever on the right side, which was of course a _primâ facie_ argument in favour of Rome and against Anglicanism now.

He answered me thus, under date of Jan.

29, 1842: "I

don't think that I ever was so shocked by any communication, which was ever made to me, as by your letter of this morning.

It has quite unnerved me....

I cannot but write to you, though I am at a loss where to begin....

I know of no act by which we have dissevered ourselves from the communion of the Church Universal....

The more I study Scripture, the more am I impressed with the resemblance between the Romish principle in the Church and the Babylon of St. John....

I am ready to grieve that I ever directed my thoughts to theology, if it is indeed so uncertain, as your doubts seem to indicate."