Liberalism and Newman:
The Anglican Vision and Response
A Doctoral Dissertation by Father John McCloskey
Chapter 4: Acta (continued)
The first fruits of the Movement were not encouraging. The reactions from the establishment, both religious and political, were largely negative and Newman himself was a constant target of vituperation.
And it is the misfortune of the Church to be asleep, to betray its charge (I must say so in private, I cannot help it) and so to be about to suffer for it. Everything in the political world seems to show that we are going to be bullied. Well, let it be our endeavor to say non me indicente though it is very difficult eagerly to make a noise and stir matters and yet from the first expect and be content to be defeated. O that we had one Bishop for us! What a net we are in - this is what Satan has been toiling at these 300 years, gradually bringing it about, and now his day is coming. 32
He now realized that the task was not to be easy and his attitude transformed from a young crusader to that of a martyr and confessor in an increasingly Dark Age. However, his own faith did not lessen as the difficulties grew. It was planted upon unshakeable truth and no matter who his adversaries might be, he was confident of the victory in the end. "Truth indeed will always support itself in the world by its native vigor: it will never die while heaven and earth last but be handed on from saint to saint until the end of things." 33
The opposition increasingly began to label Newman as a "party" man, a disruptive personality that was seeking its own ends while pretending to act disinterestedly. Newman answered, "Now I make bold to say, that confessorship in the Catholic faith is one part of the duty of Christian ministers, nay, and Christian laymen, too... But our practical men forget there may be remedies worse than the disease, that latent heresy may be worse than a contest of party." 34
The average Anglican bishop or clergyman was little concerned with doctrinal exactness; they had lost the sense of a supernatural revelation handed down through the ages by the Church. Newman, on the other hand, says, "On the whole then, I see nothing very strange either in orthodoxy lying in what at first sight appears like subtle and minute exactness of doctrine, or it being our duty to contend even to confessorship for such exactness." 35 Newman gradually found himself labeled as a Papist for such extreme statements, or even called a hidden Jesuit.
He continued his investigation of the ancient history of the Church to show the state of corruption, or even heresy, into which the English Church had fallen.
Who now in England, except for very high Churchmen would dream of putting a man out of the Church for what would be called a mere speculative or metaphysical opinion? Why, could not Appolinarius be a "spiritual man" have a "justifying faith," "apprehend our Lord's merits," have a "personal interest in redemption," be in possession of "experimental religion," and be able to recount his "experience" though he had some vagaries of his own about the nature of our Lord's soul. 36
Newman implies that, at this point in time, almost any ancient heretic would find a safe refuge in the maternal embrace of the Anglican Church.
Newman's examination of the Church of antiquity led him to the unwelcome conclusion that the Anglican Church was, de facto, Protestant. "If Protestantism is another name for Christianity, then the martyrs and bishops of the Early Church, the men who taught the nations, the men who converted the Roman Empire, had themselves to be taught, themselves to be converted. Shall we side with the first age of Christianity or the last?." 37
Newman has already rejected Protestantism; his mission was to Catholicize the Anglican Church, a mission that he found increasingly difficult. The harder he pushed Catholic principles, the more rapidly it appeared that the Anglican Church opened the floodgates for liberal principles.
High Church principles in his beloved Oxford were gradually crumbling before the onslaught of rationalism. The next step proposed was to allow non-Anglicans into the University, a bill that was to be narrowly defeated in the House of Lords. Newman reacted violently to this possibility and recommended solutions that most certainly would never find favor in the English Church.
The abandonment of State persecutors for blasphemy and the disordered state of the Christian Knowledge Society where books are taken cognizance of and condemned render it desirable that there should be some (really working) court of heresy and false doctrine. The whole Church would be kept in order. Further, it would give rise to a school of theology - the source of divinity, Councils, etc. The theological law of the Church must be revived, and ecclesiastical law moreover... At present you hear Nestorianism preached in every other pulpit etc. etc. (and the more I think of those questions the more I feel that they are questions of things, not words. 38
Newman always returns to personal holiness and the sacramental system of the Church as the true remedies for the ills that afflict the Anglican Church. He writes, "It is as a priest that I should have influence i.e. in the Sacraments, ordinaries, etc. of the Church, and since this divinely ordered system is (alas) but poorly developed among us, no wonder, I seem cold... We want rousing... we want the claims of duty and the details of obedience set before us strongly." 39 Newman was doing precisely this but the response, apart from a small portion of the clergy and laity, was not gratifying. Newman perhaps now began to suspect that his priesthood seemed unfruitful because it was not valid and the Church did not respond to the rousing because it was a corpse.
In early 1834, Newman received the news of the defection from the Church of an old friend, Blanco White. It was a telling blow as Newman by now had seen many of his early associates at Oxford drift off in the same Liberal direction. He was determined to stem this tide. "The defection of poor Blanco White is quite appalling. We must not be shuffled out of our faith; we have a duty to perform, lest others be seduced also... Who can doubt, with these facts before him that the movement (referring to the Liberals) at Oxford, is but the advance guard of a black host, and that it desires to achieve the first of a series of changes." 40
As Blanco White sailed out of the Church, at the same time Newman was doing his best to keep members in, and in the majority of the cases succeeded. A friend writes to him: "For I assure you I do feel most deeply thankful to you, as for other reasons, so more especially for having been the means of guiding me (with many others I hope) into the cheering doctrine of the Catholic faith." 41 Thus we see that Newman's personal influence continued to exert a considerable attraction on his friends as did his sermons on the Oxford community.
By the middle of 1835 Newman's opposition to the Liberalizing trends in Oxford and England was notorious. He chose to challenge some of the best known religious and political figures of the times, almost all of them former fellow students and friends. "I have protested openly and plainly to Arnold, Hampden, Whately, and Blanco White - so I have no feelings on the score of publicly opposing them. But, I do not like to do a thing anonymously." 42 Unless the Oxford Movement were to triumph, a prospect increasingly unlikely, Newman had basically thrown away a promising career as an Anglican clergyman destined to high preferment.
The issue of the admission of Dissenters to the University continued to be the subject of discussion. Newman continued to argue in favor of the retention of the 39 Articles although he had increasing doubt over their validity. "We find the Church deprived of its powers at excluding heretical members and accidentally possessed of this aid from the University. As to the 39 articles I believe them to be entirely Scriptural. They are not such favourites of mine, that if I consulted my own wishes, I should make an effort to retain them. I think accidentally countenance a vile Protestantism. I do not tell people this lest I should encourage a scoffing at authority. I submit and obey. I tell it to you to show you that I am making a sacrifice." 43 Although to some Newman might have appeared rebellious, his complete obedience was one of his constant virtues. Here it is exemplified in his support for the 39 Articles over which he had serious difficulties.
The Movement continued to follow its course and Newman became increasingly convinced that the movement was both divinely inspired and assisted. "I do verily believe a spirit is abroad at present, and we are but blind tools, not knowing where we are going. I mean a flame seems arising in so many places, as to show that no one moral incendiary is at work, though this man or that may have more influence in shaping the course or modifying the nature of the flame." 44
Newman always sought to fulfill the will of God although he well realized that his own enormous talents had a large part in "shaping the course" of the flame of the Oxford Movement.
As time went on Newman began to prepare his followers and colleagues for a protracted struggle. "As to our own prospects. I expect nothing favourable for fifteen or twenty years." 45 These are hardly the words of the young enthusiastic Newman of 1833 with his "mission." His consolation was that he was doing the divine will in his role as Catholic educator of the clergy and laity of England.
In my present line of reading then I am doing what I can to remedy the defect in my self (ignorance) and (if so be) in some others. And it is a very joyful thought which comes to me with great force of confidence to believe that I am one of the instruments which our gracious Lord is employing with a purpose of good towards us... God would be pleased for his Dear Son's sake to make us useful in our day, that we may not lose or abuse our opportunities or gifts, but may do the Work which He means us to do and that manfully; that we may have a single aim, a clear eye, and a strong arm, and a courageous heart, and may be blessed inwardly in our own souls, as well as prosper in the edification of the Church. 46
As the New Year 1836 begins, we find Newman commenting on the lack of courage being exhibited in defense of the truth. "We are in a peculiar situation in Oxford. We have long enjoyed the blessings of a profound peace. We have had neither error nor schism among us - and we are in consequence quite unequal to the emergency. We are morbidly tender - afraid to stand up for the Truth - willing rather to offend against it than to offend man." 47
