Liberalism and Newman:
The Anglican Vision and Response
A Doctoral Dissertation by Father John McCloskey
Chapter 4: Acta (continued)
E. Lyra Apostolica
Already Newman was preparing an instrument against religious Liberalism, the instrument of literature in the form of poems directed against Liberalism that would be published to a large audience. As we have seen in earlier chapters Keble, Newman, and Froude along with others conceived poetry as a means of reforming the Anglican Church. In late 1832 Newman wrote regarding the Lyra that "our object is to bring out certain topics, truths, and facts, moral and religious, simply and forcibly with greater freedom and clearness than The Christian Year." 14 They viewed the Lyra as a first step in organizing in a unified way their personal influence, a theme of Newman's preaching. He writes to a friend, "We have hopes of making an effective quasi-political engine without every contribution being of that character... And may we not at least produce shadows of high things if not the things themselves." 15 Newman's reference to the Republic of Plato is well founded in that he always strove to act upon an ideal that he wanted to reveal to others that, perhaps, were enchained with sin or ignorance.
I mention the Lyra Apostolica in this chapter because they give us a clue of the program of action that Newman was to follow up to his conversion. Although their beginnings precedes the actual beginning of the Oxford Movement by some months, their writing expresses some of the most basic sentiments of the future Tractarians against the insurgent Liberalism of the day. Almost immediately embarked on his voyage with the Froudes, Newman began his conversation and collaboration with Hurrell Froude that resulted in the mutual conviction of the need for rapid action. As Newman was to say later "But one must run risks to do good, and fortune favours the bold." 16 His long conversations with Froude and his perceptions of the importance of dogma in the Roman system were to bear fruit upon his return in the Oxford Movement to which he dedicated the rest of his Anglican life. His eagerness for action was ever growing in the period immediately before the actual beginnings. His dream of a powerful hierarchical Church to drive the heretics out of the Anglican faith was expressed in the following, "The gift of excommunication will not forever remain unused. If I were a Bishop, the first thing that I would do would be to excommunicate Lord Grey and a half dozen more, whose names it is almost a shame and a pollution for a Christian to mention." 17
In June 1833 Newman returns from the long Mediterranean trip and near brush with death, convinced that he has a divinely inspired mission to fulfill. His finding of like minds such as Froude, Pusey, and Keble, his study of the Fathers, and the growth in his own interior life were to result in the Oxford Movement, a cause that was doomed to fail on account of the human nature of the Anglican Church.
Already during the meeting he had with the then Monsignor Wiseman, Rector of the English College, Newman expressed the conviction that they had work to do in England. Upon his return to the British Isles, he is heard to exclaim, "We will do them," 18 referring most probably to the Liberals in Oxford and London. Newman saw that the moment for action had arrived as he and his friends of Oxford were now sufficiently sure of their talents and position to take on the task of revitalization of the Anglican Church. At the same time they realized that the Liberal forces were moving so fast and with such momentum that if they did not engage the battle rapidly all would be lost.
Thus on July 14, 1833, John Keble fired the opening salvo by preaching his famous sermon on "National Apostasy" and the Movement officially began. Keble was referring specifically to the suppression of the bishoprics of Ireland that was to come to pass as a result of the Reform Bill. Newman, immediately upon his return from Europe in June and coinciding with the Oxford Sermon of Keble, begins to explore with his colleagues the most effective means of proceeding with the Movement. Only two days afterwards he writes to his former pupil Henry Wilberforce, "We have set up societies here for the defense of the Liturgy and the enforcement of the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. The country clergy must rouse in order to save themselves." 19 Newman therefore foresees a popular movement, albeit intellectually based, of clergy and educated laymen who would struggle for those parts of Church doctrine under most dangerous attack. The beginnings are followed up by furious action, visits to the width and breadth of England, with multitudinous correspondence in order to enlist membership for the cause.
Newman was approaching the zenith of his powers as a young clergyman, author and fellow of Oriel but this did not prevent him from taking this step that would almost certainly imperil his bright future in the Anglican Church. Nor did he hesitate to disturb others, pushing them on to action in defense of the rights of the Church and of the ancient truths. He writes, "But surely we have no leave to surrender the rights of the Church merely for the sake of a little good order and quiet in our own day." 20 He has clearly envisioned a crusade, divinely inspired that will finish with the driving out of this foreign element, the Heliodorus of Liberalism inside the Anglican Church. The Liberals were the direct descendants of the Reformers and had no place within an English apostolic Catholic Church. He assures the faithful, like Urban II at Clermont, that it is the will of God, Deus vult. In another letter several weeks afterwards he writes to a friend, "Have you taken your part in the great battle?." 21 We have already had occasion to remark on Newman's remarkable qualities of leadership and we see here that he did not hesitate to use them when the time was ripe.
In his correspondence he places great emphasis on daring of action while at the same time searching for allies. To J.W. Bowden, the first of his Oxford friends from University days he writes, "If we had one Athanasius or Basil we could bear with twenty Eusebius." 22 He had seen how in the course of three-quarters of a century these two saints had beaten back not only the Arians but also the Semi-Arians of Eusebius, much more subtle in their heresy.
We must also realize that by no means was this action natural or easy to Newman. He was of a retiring character and as we have commented before, he believed strongly in the virtue of patience, letting events develop and take their proper course. Therefore starting a mass movement of reform flying in the face of the trends inside the Church and government was no easy task. As he writes, "Yet I confess, Tory as I am still, theoretically and historically, I begin to be a Radical practically." 23
As he started organizing the Movement and began the writing and editorship of the Tracts, the opposition also began to form. His former friend and mentor Richard Whately refers to him as "a genuine descendant of the Roman emperors who dressed up the early Christians in the skins of beasts, and then set dogs to worry them to death." 24 The cries of outraged pain from the traditional comfortable Anglicans and from the liberals were just beginning.
His dealings with the deep faith of the Catholics of the Mediterranean and his own pastoral experience began to convince him that the union of Church and State was not absolutely necessary for the wellbeing of the Church. "Of late months the idea has broke upon me, as it did a little before on yourself, that the Church is essentially a popular institution and the past English union of it with the State has been a happy anomaly." 25
The Oxford Movement was well planned and thought out and by early fall of 1833 Newman had set forth its objectives
1. To maintain pure and inviolate the doctrine, the service, and the discipline of the Church, that is, to withstand all change which involves the denial and suppression of doctrine, a departure from primitive practice in religious offices or innovation upon the apostolical prerogatives, orders, and commission of bishops priests, and deacons.
2. To afford Churchmen an opportunity of exchanging their sentiments, and cooperating together on a large scale. 26
It is important to stress, as noted earlier, that Newman was faithful to the Anglican hierarchy and the Oxford Movement was conceived, in part, to help them in their pastoral ministry. "Recollect that we are supporting the Bishops. Enlarge on the unfairness of leaving them to bear the brunt of the battle." 27
The problem, as Newman was to discover to his chagrin, was that the Bishops by no means saw the need of any movement to restore Catholic orthodoxy to the Anglican Church.
Although Newman conceived the movement as religious it was inevitable that it have an impact on many spheres of the life of the nation. Newman, a keen student of history, foresaw the possible effects in the political realm. "We wish to have nothing to do with politics-but it would be a very curious fact (considering the political effects of the Bishop's conduct since 1688) if our ecclesiastical movement now stopped the tide of innovation." 28
The deep faith with which Newman acted, above all in the foundation of the Oxford Movement is shown quite markedly in a letter to the British Critic, a magazine that he was later to edit, on the future of the Movement.
What is it to those who wish to follow the truth whether their cause succeeds in their actual lifetime or not? We are labouring for that which is eternal, for that which must succeed at length. We are exerting ourselves for our posterity of the 5th or 10th generation, for 500 years hence, not for the year 1834. Let this be our deliberate sentiment; we are fighting the battle of 2334; what is a century to that Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. It existed long before the oldest dynasty or kingdom now in existence around it. Empires and families civil powers, the powers of a State secular institutions, and human doctrines are things of a day, they come up in a night and perish in a night and can no more interfere with our proceeding in the cause of religion. 29
Newman's idea of the Church was not at all similar to the great majority of his fellow faithful. With this elevated view of the goals of the Movement disappointment was inevitable.
He continued with his active participation in the affairs of the University life, always searching to better his personal influence for the Catholic cause. He investigated the possibility of presenting himself for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy. "Yet it might be the means of giving me influence with the Undergraduates; and there is no situation which combines respectability with lightness of responsibility and labour so happily as the office of Professor." 30 He was not destined to receive the position largely due to his controversial views on the Church.
In July, 1834, Newman declined to officiate the marriage of a certain Miss Jubber on the grounds that she was unbaptized and indeed had no thought of being received into the Church. For this action he received much criticism and personal abuse.
As to refusing marriage to unbaptized persons we must make a stand somewhere. Things are rolling downhill so gradually that wherever we make a stand, it will be said a harsh measure but I am determined (please God) that, as far as I am concerned, the Church shall not crumble away without my doing in my place what I can do to hinder it. 31
Stands on principle were not at all popular in an increasingly Broad Church and Newman became identified as a recalcitrant, a man without true Christian compassion.
