The workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England : a letter to the Rev. E.B. Pusey, D.D.

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stripped you in their free speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their spokesman. There is no one any where, — among ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church, — who can affect so large a circle of men, so virtuous, so able, so learned, so zealous, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot pay them a greater compliment, than to tell them they ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to an act more pleasing, as I trust, to the Divine Lord of the Church, or more loyal and dutiful to His Vicar on earth, than to attempt, however feebly, to promote so great a consummation.

1 know the joy it would give those conscientious men, of whom I am speaking, to be one with ourselves. I know how their hearts spring up with a spontaneous transport at the very thought of union ; and what yearning is theirs after that great privilege, which they have not, communion with the see of Peter, and its present, past, and future. I conjecture it by what I used to feel myself, while yet in the Anglican Church. I recollect well what an outcast I seemed to myself, when I took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius or St. Basil, and set mvself to studv them ; and how, on the contrary, when at length I was brought into Catholic Communion, I kissed them

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with delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints, who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, “You are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake.” Such, I conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of, if they could wake up one morning, and find themselves rightfully possessed of Catholic traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty ; — and, certainly, I am the ' last man to say that such violence is in any case lawful, that the claims of conscience are not paramount, or that any one may overleap what he deliberately holds to be God’s command, in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter.

I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in consequence, for this reason, — because their case, as it at present stands, has, as you know, been my own. You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive Queen in the well-known passage ; who, “ baud ignara mali ” herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were the inheritors of her past wanderings. There were Priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would

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have been wiser, had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in communion. We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into print. One of them wrote thus in a Letter addressed to one of the Catholic Bishops : —

That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have all along considered a perfect delusion. ... I look upon Mr. Newman, Dr. Pusey, and their associates, as wily and crafty, though unskilful guides. . . . The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that would betray us. . . . But, — what is the most striking feature in the rancorous malignity of these men, — their calumnies are often lavished upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of their treatises closed every avenue against their vituperation. The three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of the Oxford Convention. ... If the Puseyites are to be the new Apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and gloom}^ ... I would never have consented to enter the lists against this strange confraternity. . . . if I did not feel that my own Prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men. ... I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our religion. . . . What, my Lord, would the Holy See think of the works of these Puseyites? ...”

Another priest, himself a convert, wrote : —

“ As we approach towards Catholicity, our love and respect increases, and our violence dies away ; but the bulk of these men become more rabid as they become like Borne, a plain proof of their designs. ... I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical preacher. . . . Such, Bev. Sir, is an outline of my views on the Oxford movement.”

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I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I readily confess, that I had used about the Church such language, that I had no claim on Catholics for any mercy. But, after all, and in fact, they were wrong in their anticipations, — nor did their brethren agree with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a larger and more generous view of us ; nor did the Holy See interfere, though the writer of one of these passages invoked its judgment. The event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more prudent; and one of the Bishops, who had taken part against us, with a supererogation of charity, sent me on his death-bed an expression of his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty conscience, faithfully obeyed, through God’s mercy, had in the long run brought me right.

Fully, then, do I recognize the rights of conscience in this matter. I find no fault with your stating, as clearly and completely as you can, the difficulties which stand in the way of your joining us. I cannot wonder that you begin with stipulating conditions of union, though I do not concur in them myself, and think that in the event you yourself would be content to let them drop. Such representations as yours are necessary to open the subject in debate; they ascertain how the land lies, and serve to clear the ground. Thus I begin: — but after allowing as much as this, I am obliged

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in honesty to say what I fear, my dear Pusey, will pain you. Yet I am confident, my very dear Friend, that at least you will not be angry with me if I say, what I must say, or say nothing at all, that there is much both in the matter and in the manner of your Volume, calculated to wound those who love you well, but love truth more. So it is; with the best motives and kindest intentions, — “ Csedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem.” We give you a sharp cut, and you return it. You complain of our being “ dry, hard, and unsympathizing;” and we answer that you are unfair and irritating. But we at least have not professed to he composing an Irenicon, when we treated you as foes. There was one of old time who wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me — you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult.

Do not think I am not serious; if I spoke seriously, I should seem to speak harshly. Who will venture to assert, that the hundred pages which you have devoted to the Blessed Virgin give other than a one-sided view of our teaching about her, little suited to win us ? It may be a salutary castigation, if any of us have fairly provoked it, but it is not making the best of matters; it is not smoothing the way for an understanding or a compromise. It leads a writer in the most moderate and liberal Anglican newspaper of the day, the “Guardian,” to turn away from your repre-

INTRODUCTION, sentation of us with horror. “ It is language,” says your Eeviewer, “ which, after having often heard it, we still can only hear with hori’or. We had rather not quote any of it, or of the comments upon it,” What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy in the picture he drew of us ? You may he sure that what creates horror on one side, will be answered by indignation on the other, and these are not the most favourable dispositions for a peace conference. I had been accustomed to think, that you, who in times past were ever less declamatory in controversy than myself, now that years had gone on, and circumstances changed, had come to look on our old warfare against Rome as cruel and inexpedient. Indeed, I know that it was a chief objection urged against me only last year by persons who agreed with you in deprecating an Oratory at Oxford, which at that time was in prospect, that such an undertaking would he the signal for the rekindling of that fierce style of polemics which is now out of date. I had fancied you shared in that opinion ; but now, as if to show how imperative you deem its renewal, you actually bring to life one of my own strong sayings in 1841, which had long been in the grave, — that “ the Roman Church comes as near to idolatry as can be supposed in a Church, of which it is said, ‘ The idols He shall utterly abolish.’ ” — p. 111.

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I know, indeed, and feel deeply, that your frequent references, in your Volume, to what I have lately or formerly written, are caused by your strong desire to he still one with me as far as you can, and by that true affection, which takes pleasure in dwelling on such sayings of mine as you can still accept with the full approbation of your judgment. I trust I am not ungrateful or irresponsive to you in this respect; hut other considerations have an imperative claim to be taken into account. Pleasant as it is to agree with you, I am bound to explain myself in cases in which I have changed my mind, or have given a wrong impression of my meaning, or have been wrongly reported; and, while I trust that I have higher than such personal motives for addressing you in print, yet it will serve to introduce my main subject, and give me an opportunity for remarks which bear upon it indirectly, if I dwell for a page or two on such matters contained in your Volume as concern myself.

1. The mistake which I have principally in view is the belief which is widely spread, that I have publicly spoken of the Anglican Church as “the great bulwark against infidelity in this land.” In a pamphlet of yours a year old, you spoke of “ a very earnest body of Eoman Catholics,” who “ rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened by what weakens her who

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is, in God’s hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land.” The concluding words you were thought to quote from my Apologia. In consequence, Dr. Manning, now our Archbishop, replied to you, asserting, as you say, “ the contradictory of that statement.” In that counter-assertion, he was at the time generally considered (rightly or wrongly as it may be), though writing to you, to he really correcting statements in my Apologia., without introducing my name. Further, in the Volume, which you have now published, you recur to the saying; and you speak of its author in terms, which, did I not know your partial kindness for me, would hinder me from identifying him with myself. You say, “ The saying was not mine, but that of one of the deepest thinkers and observers in the Roman Communion,” p. 7. A friend has suggested to me that perhaps you mean De Maistre ; and, from an anonymous letter which I have received from Dublin, I find it is certain that the very words in question were once used by Archbishop Murray ; but you speak of the author of them as if now alive. At length, a reviewer of your Volume in the “ Weekly Register,” distinctly attributes them to me by name, and gives me the first opportunity I have had of disowning them ; and this I now do. What, ai some time or other, I may have said in conversation or private letter, of course, I cannot tell; but I have never, I am sure, used the word “ bulwark ” of the Anglican Church deliberately. What I said in my Apologia

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was this : — That that Church was “ a serviceahlo breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own.” A bulwark is an integral part of the thing it defends ; whereas the words “ serviceable ” and “breakwater” imply a kind of protection, which is accidental and de facto. Again, in saying that the Anglican Church is a defence against “ errors more fundamental than its own,” I imply that it has errors, and those fundamental.

2. There is another passage in your Volume, at p. 337, which it may be right to observe upon. You have made a collection of passages from the Fathers, as witnesses in behalf of your doctrine that the whole Christian faith is contained in Scripture, as if, in your sense of the words. Catholics contradicted you here. And you refer to my Notes on St. Athanasius as contributing passages to your list; but, after all, neither do you, nor do I in my Notes, affirm any doctrine which Rome denies. Those Notes also make frequent reference to a traditional teaching, which (be the faith ever so certainly contained in Scripture), still is necessary as a Eegula Fidei, for showing us that it is contained there; vid. pp. 283, 344; and this tradition, I know, you uphold as fully as I do in the Notes in question. In consequence, you allow that there is a twofold rule. Scripture and Tradition; and this is all that Catholics say. How, then, do Anglicans differ from Rome here ? I believe the difference is merely one of words; and I shall he doing, so far, the work

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of an Irenicon, if I make clear what this verbal difference is. Catholics and Anglicans (I do not say Protestants), attach different meanings to the word “ proof,” in the controversy whether the whole faith is, or is not, contained in Scripture. We mean that not every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be logically proved, independently of the teaching and authority of the Tradition ; hut Anglicans mean that every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence he proved, provided there be added the illustrations and compensations supplied by the Tradition. And it is in this latter sense that the Fathers also speak in the passages which you quote from them. I am sure at least that St, Athanasius frequently adduces passages in proof of points in controversy, which no one would see to be proofs, unless Apostolical Tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as authoritatively ruling their meaning. Thus, you do not deny, that the whole is not in Scripture in such sense that pure unaided logic can draw it from the sacred text ; nor do we deny, that the faith is in Scripture, in an improper sense, in the sense that Tradition is able to recognize and determine it there. You do not profess to dispense with Tradition ; nor do we forbid the idea of probable, secondary, symbolical, connotative, senses of Scriptui'e, over and above those which properly belong to the wording and context. I hope you will agree with me in this.

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3. Nor is it only in isolated passages that you give me a place in your Volume. A considerable portion of it is written with a reference to two publications of mine, one of which you name and defend, the other you implicitly protest against; Tract 90, and the Essay on Doctrinal Development. As to Tract 90, you have from the first, as all the world knows, boldly stood up for it, in spite of the obloquy which it brought upon you, and have done me a great service. You are now republishing it with my cordial concurrence ; hut I take this opportunity of noticing, lest there should be any mistake on the part of the public, that you do so with a different object from that which I had when I wrote it. Its original purpose was simply that of justifying myself and others in subscribing to the 39 Articles, while professing many tenets which had popularly been considered distinctive of the Roman faith. I considered that my interpretation of the Articles, as I gave it in that Tract, would stand, provided the parties imposing them allowed it; otherwise, I thought it could not stand : and, when in the event the Bishops and public opinion did not allow it, I gave up my Living, as having no right to retain it. My feeling about the interpretation is expressed in a passage in Loss and Gain, which runs thus : —

“‘Is it,’ asked Eeding, ‘a received view?’ ‘No view is received,’ said the other ; ‘ the Articles themselves are re-

ceived, but there is no authoritative interpretation of them at all.’ ‘Well,’ said Eeding, ‘is it a tolerated view?’ ‘It

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certainly has been strongly opposed/ answered Bateman ; ^ but it has never been condemned.’ ‘ That is no answer,’ said Charles. ‘ Does any one Bishop hold it ? Did any one Bishop ever hold it ? Has it ever been formally admitted as tenable by any one Bishop ? Is it a view got up to meet existing difficulties, or has it an historical existence?’ Bateman could give only one answer to these questions, as they were successively put to him. ‘I thought so,’ said Charles; Hhe view is specious certainly. I don’t see why it might not have done, had it been tolerably sanctioned; but you have no sanction to show me. As it stands, it is a mere theory struck out by individuals. Our Church might have adopted this mode of interpreting the Articles ; but, from what you tell me, it certainly has not done so.’ ” — Ch. 15.

However, the Tract did not carry its object and conditions on its face, and necessarily lay open to interpretations very far from the true one. Dr. Wiseman (as he then was), in particular, with the keen apprehension which was his characteristic, at once saw in it a basis of accommodation between Anglicanism and Rome. He suggested broadly that the decrees of the Council of Trent should he made the rule of interpretation for the 39 Articles, a proceeding, of which Sancta Clara, I think, had set the example ; and, as you have observed, published a letter to Lord Shrewsbury on the subject, of which the following are extracts : —

“ We Catholics must necessarily deplore [England’s] separation as a deep moral evil, — as a state of schism, of which nothing can justify the continuance. Many members of the Anglican Church view it in the same light as to the first point — its sad evil; though they excuse their individual position in it as an unavoidable misfortune. ... We may depend upon a willing, an able, and a most zealous co-operation with any

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effort which we may make, towards bringing her into her rightful position, in Catholic unity with the Holy See and the Churches of its obedience, — in other words, with the Church Catholic. Is this a visionary idea ? Is it merely the expression of a strong desire? I know that many will so judge it; and, perhaps, were I to consult my own quiet, I would not venture to express it. But I will, in simplicity of heart, cling to hopefulness, cheered, as I feel it, by so many promising appearances. . . .

“ A natural question here presents itself ; — what facilities appear in the present state of things for bringing about so happy a consummation, as the reunion of England to the Catholic Church, beyond what have before existed, and particularly under Archbishops Laud or Wake. It strikes me, many. Eirst, &c. ... A still more promising circumstance I think your Lordship will with me consider the jplan w^hich the eventful Tract No. 90 has pursued, and in which Mr. Ward, Mr. Oakeley, and even Dr. Pusey have agreed. I allude to the method of bringing their doctrines into accordance with ours by explanation, A foreign priest has pointed out to us a valuable document for our consideration, — ^ Bossuet’s Eeply to the Pope,’ — when consulted on the best method of reconciling the followers of the Augsburg Confession with the Holy See. The learned Bishop observes, that Providence had allowed so much Catholic truth to be preserved in that Confession, that full advantage should be taken of the circumstance; that no retractations should be demanded, but an explanation of the Confession in accordance with Catholic doctrines. Now, for such a method as this, the way is in part prepared by the demonstration that such interpretation may be given of the most difficult Articles, as will strip them of all contradiction to the decrees of the Tridentine Synod. The same method may be pursued on other points ; and much pain may thus be spared to individuals, and much difficulty to the Church.” — Pp. 11. 35. 38.

This use of my Tract, so different from my own, but sanctioned by the great name of our Cardinal, you are now reviving ; and I gather from your doing so, that your Bishops and the opinion of the public

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are likely now, or in prospect, to admit wliat twenty- five years ago they refused. On this point, much as it rejoices me to know your anticipation, of course, I cannot have an opinion,

4. So much for Tract 90. On the other hand, as to my hypothesis of Doctrinal Development, I am sorry to find you do not look upon it with friendly eyes; though how, without its aid, you can maintain the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation, and others which you hold, I cannot understand. You consider my principle may be the means, in time to come, of introducing into our Creed, as portions of the necessary Catholic faith, the Infallibility of the Pope, and various opinions, pious or profane, as it may be, about our Blessed Lady. I hope to remove your anxiety as to these consequences, before I bring my observations to an end ; at present I notice it as my apology for interfering in a controversy which at first sight is no business of mine.

5. I have another reason for writing; and that is, unless it is rude in me to say so, because you seem to think writing does not become me, as being a convert. I do not like silently io acquiesce in such a judgment. You say at p, 98: —

‘‘ Nothing can be more unpractical than for an individual to throw himself into the Eoman Church, because he could accept the letter of the Council of Trent. Those who were born Eoman Catholics, have a liberty, which, in the nature of things, a person could not have, who left another system, to embrace that of Eome, I cannot imagine how any faith could

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stand the shock of leaving one system, criticizing and cast himself into another system, criticizing it. Eor myself, I have always felt that had (which God of His mercy avert hereafter also) the English Church, by accepting heresy, driven me out of it, I could have gone in no other way than that of closing my eyes, and accepting whatever was put before me. But a liberty which individuals could not use, and explanations, wdiich, so long as they remain individual, must be unauthoritative, might be formally made by the Church of Borne to the Church of England as the basis of re-union.”

And again, p. 210: —

It seems to me to be a psychological impossibility for one who has already exchanged one system for another to make those distinctions. One who, by his own act, places himself under authority, cannot make conditions about his submission. But definite explanations of our Articles have, before now, been at least tentatively offered to us, on the Boman and Greek side, as sufficient to restore communion; and the Boman explanations too w^ere, in most cases, mere supplements to our Articles, on points upon which our Church had not spoken.”

Now passages such as these seem almost a challenge to me to speak; and to keep silence would be to assent to the justice of them. At the cost, then, of speaking about myself, of which I feel there has been too much of late, I observe upon them as follows : — Of course, as you say, a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living system, with a living teaching,

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and not to a mere collection of decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the framew'ork, not the body and substance of the Church. And this is a truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other religion, not only the convert. By the Catholic system, I mean that rule of life, and those practices of devotion, for which we shall look in vain in the Creed of Pope Pius. The convert comes, not only to believe the Church, but also to trust and obey her priests, and to conform himself in charity to her people. It would never do for him to resolve that he never would say a Hail Mary, never avail himself of an indulgence, never kiss a crucifix, never accept the Lent dispensations, never mention a venial sin in confession. All this would not only he unreal, hut dangerous too, as ai'guing a wrong state of mind, which could not look to receive the divine blessing. Moreover, he comes to the ceremonial, and the moral theology, and the ecclesiastical regulations, which he finds on the spot where his lot is cast. And again, as regards matters of politics, of education, of general expedience, of taste, he does not criticize or controvert. And thus surrendering himself to the influences of his new religion, and not risking the loss of revealed truth altogether by attempting by a private rule to discriminate every moment its substance from its accidents, he is gradually so indoctrinated in Catholicism, as at length to have a right to speak as well as to

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hear. Also in course of time a new generation rises round him; and there is no reason why he should not know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those who perhaps number fewer years than he does Easter communions. He has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era. He knows that there is much of what may he called fashion in opinions and practices, according to the circumstances of time and place, according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day, or the chief Prelates of a particular country ; — and that fashions change. Plis experience tells him, that sometimes what is denounced in one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense, or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought before public opinion ; and that loud talkers, in the Church as elsewhere, are apt to carry all before them, while quiet and conscientious persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own judgment on a point, is to be disloyal to his superiors.

So far generally ; now in particular as to myself. After twenty years of Catholic life, I feel no deli-

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cacy in giving my opinion on any point when there is a call for me, — and the only reason why I have not done so sooner or more often than I have, is that there has been no call. I have now reluctantly come to the conclusion that your Volume is a call. Certainly, in many instances in which theologian differs from theologian, and country from country, I have a definite judgment of my own; I can say so without offence to any one, for the very reason that from the nature of the case it is impossible to agree with all of them. I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which justifies foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity, and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on becoming a Catholic ; and. it is a pleasure to me to think that what I hold now, and would transmit after me if I could, is only what I received then. The utmost delicacy was observed on all hands in giving me advice: only one warning remains on my mind, and it came from Dr. Griffiths, the late Vicar- Apostolic of the London district. He warned me against books of devotion of the Italian school, which were just at that time coming into England; and when I asked him what hooks he recommended as safe guides, he hade me get the works of Bishop Hay. By this I did not understand that he was