Appendices, Volume 1
[Notes in the appendices are placed at the end of the letters to which they refer.—NR] Appendix to Chapter 3{615} THE 'Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine' appeared in the event without theological revision. This was (as has been said in the text) Dr. Wiseman's decision. For a moment he recalled it, acting on the opinion of others, and asked to see the proof sheets. Newman sent them with the following letter: 'Littlemore: Nov. 7,
1845. 'With respect to the
recommendation of your Lordship's friends, perhaps your Lordship will
allow me to say that, since I put the work into your hands, a strong
representation has been made to me for which I was not prepared, by a
friend who heard of it. He is an influential man, whom no one would like
to alienate, who heard his name. He assured me with much emotion that it
would altogether destroy the effect of my book with himself and others,
if it was known to have undergone a revision. I have informed him in
confidence that your Lordship declined to interfere. The book did not at once have the effect he had anticipated on his friend, James Hope, in bringing him to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, we see from the following letter to Hope himself that its reception among Catholics was favourable: 'Littlemore: Dec.
23, 1845. 'I am curious to know, for my own instruction, what the new principles are which startle you. As to yourself, please to enquire whether your old principles will not carry you so far as mine. I have had many reasons, which it would be too long to put down, why I have written as I have—but people say I have gone further than the Council of Trent. Don't let any fancy of mine take you from the antique vić if they will do the thing. This you will say is good Jesuit morality. 'Everything I yet hear from my new friends about my book is favorable. Mr. Husenbeth of Norfolk was one of the most jealous persons beforehand, whom I have heard of. After reading it, he wrote to me complimenting me very highly, but saying there were dogmatic faults which were such as might be expected from a person in my situation. I wrote for them. He sent me about 6 (!) passages, most of them only erroneously worded so that he expressed my own meaning better or at least more clearly. At the same time he deprecated all appearance of criticism, and spoke of me as a "master in Israel" &c. &c. It really was a very kind as well as satisfactory letter. I suppose he is of the opposite party to Dr. Wiseman. Dr. Cox of St. Edmund's has written to say he had got through it, and found it more and more interesting every chapter. Another person writes me word that his friends at Maynooth send him a good account of it,—and, a prepossessed person, but a shrewd and a good and deep divine, Father Dominic, is very much pleased with it. 'Of course however I
only hear the favorable reports. I have heard nothing from Stonyhurst—nor
from Ushaw; from the latter place however I have the warmest messages.
And now I have been my own trumpeter long enough, in answer to your
question. In regard to Newman's feelings at the time of his conversion, he always disclaimed all consciousness of a supernatural call; and he therefore argued against the reluctance of old disciples to follow him on the ground that they themselves felt no supernatural call. This is most clearly set forth in the following letter of 1848 to Henry Wilberforce: 'I shall lower myself in the eyes of dear friends still Anglican, but duty to truth, duty to the sacred cause of Catholicism, which needs no miracles to those who hear Moses and the Prophets, obliges me to say that I had nothing at all like a supernatural call. The contrary—it was a mere conviction, however flickered with doubts, which were no parts of it, any more than motes are part of the sunbeam, but a simple conviction, growing through years, the more I read and thought, that the Roman Church was the Catholic Church, and that the Anglican Church was no Church. It came to me first in reading the Monophysite controversy, and then the Donatist. When the affair of No. 90 happened, Manning said: "Shut up your controversy, and go to the Fathers, which is your line." Well, they had been the beginning of my doubts, but I did so. I began to translate St. Athanasius. The truth kept pouring in upon me. I saw in the Semi-Arians the Via-medians; I saw in the Catholic Church of the day the {617} identical self of the Catholic Church now;—as you know a friend by his words and deeds, or see an author in his works. Well then I fled back to one's inward experiences—and said that after all I felt the Anglican Church had done me so much good, that, in spite of all outward forebodings, it must be God's minister. But in time this would not stand—it was no sure footing—and would lead to the veriest liberalism.' Newman did not forget those strangers who had been in the habit of seeking his advice. A letter from one of them—Mr. Melville Portal—shows that the bond thus created was too strong to be entirely severed even for those who could not follow him in his great step: 'Western circuit,
Exeter: March 19, 1846. 'You ask me if you can be of use to me. In one way at least you can benefit me, and that is by your prayers, for indeed I have need of Divine aid and guidance. No one can know better than you what are the difficulties and perplexities which are our lot at present, but for those difficulties I still find relief in the four sermons which you once kindly lent me, and I am yet content to believe that though the outward notes are some obscured and some withdrawn from us, which is indeed a sore judgment, yet for myself God has shown me so great mercy through the Sacraments of this communion that I cannot doubt His mysterious Presence with us. 'Pray do not suspect me, my dear Sir, of attempting to write in a controversial spirit; I would not if I could argue with you on such a subject, and it is with the greatest deference that I venture to say thus much; but as you ask me, I must tell you that my feeling still is, that if Christ is with us here, I dare not seek Him elsewhere lest I find Him not. Nevertheless most earnestly do I pray for the time when God may please to bring us again together into one fold, though for myself, it seems to me to be so plainly my duty now to remain in patience where He has cast my lot that I know my conscience would condemn in me a contrary course. You however are now in the enjoyment of high privileges, and of those aids which are denied to us,—oh, cease not to pray for those whom you have left behind in tribulation, and who now deeply and bitterly mourn over your departure from them. For myself I shall never cease to be grateful to you for the instruction and the comfort which I have from time to time received from your teaching, and as you have now so kindly interested yourself on my account, let me entreat you once more to remember me in your prayers. 'Again thanking you
for your kind letter and praying for every blessing upon you, Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Appendix to Chapter 4{618} THE following letters to Henry Wilberforce should be read as well as those cited in the text, as showing Newman's patient and earnest persistence in urging his friend to take the great step he had himself taken: 'Maryvale, Oscott:
March 10, 1846. 'All seems to show that we shall prosper, if only we are true to ourselves, that is, to our calling. I am not speaking of individuals, but of the undertaking. For myself, it is good to feel "He must increase, but I must decrease." 'O my dear Henry, this world is such a vanity, let us look at things as we should wish to have looked at them at the last. When I go into chapel, my prayer for you is that He would touch your conscience, Carissime, but everything in its own order—and I am not impatient.' 'Maryvale: March 16,
1846. 'We are much concerned to hear of your news about George's child. A poor little nephew of my own, Jemima's second child, has nearly been burnt to death. 'This day I have
heard of the Pope's intention to send me a silver crucifix. It is the
anniversary (5 years since) of the Heads of Houses' Placard with pokers
against No. 90. 'P.S. by Father Ambrose St. John. What shall I say to you both and you especially charissima persecutrix, except that I am ever amborum amantissimus. 'I send you a relic, though you do not deserve it for never writing to me. I saved it from the flames amidst the ruins of Littlemore: also an anecdote: when Newman heard of the Pope's sending him the crucifix he shot out of the Bishop's room like an arrow.' 'Maryvale: March 22,
1846. 'St. Mary's Vale,
Perry Bar, Birmingham: May 29, 1846. 'My paper will not let me say more. I am expecting daily a letter from Propaganda, which will determine whether I leave for Rome at the end of next month (June) or not. Keep this secret. I meant to write to you on receipt of it. 'As to the reports
about me Decipi vult populus et decipiatur. If I put letters with
my name into the papers, and the people will not believe, what is to be
done? 'P.S.—Don't tell—but I receive Minor Orders on the day before Trinity Sunday.' 'St. Mary's Vale,
Perry Bar: June 8th, 1846. 'June 10. Your letter has just come. I received the Tonsure and Minor Orders on Saturday. I thought you had at some time had a promise from me that I would send you some of Richard's characters. The other day I came across some of them in putting my papers to rights, and have copied them out. . . . . . . . 'Well, when I admit that the English Church is in schism, I see a mass of facts confirmatory of it—its disorganized state of belief—its feebleness to resist heretics—its many changes—its freezing coldness—and on the other hand, I have the portentous, the awful, vitality of Rome. This is an overpowering confirmatory argument. Another is this—that according to the lawyers' phrase, the doctrines of the Catholic Church (e.g. the Mass) go back to a time such that the memory of man "knoweth not" anything different. It is the strongest ground in law.' 'June 25, 1846. 'Well then, what do you say to St. Augustine and St. Basil not being baptized in infancy? Could the "practice" of infant baptism, in Africa, in Asia Minor, have been, up to the fourth century, what it is now—and they have been left without the Sacrament by pious mothers? What would be said to you now, if you left your child unbaptized? Would you not have to encounter a cry of horror on all sides? The practice then of infant baptism was not established or received for some hundred years. Yet do you deny the doctrine that that sacrament is the one ordinary means of salvation? why not? for you say that "practical obedience to Rome is later than the doctrinal theory"—and is not the practical application of baptism to infants later than the theory of its necessity? 'I am far from denying that infant baptism was known from the first ages; I only say that it was not received in the sense it was afterwards. On the other hand I can only lift up my hands in astonishment at your statement that "the fact is, the Churches did not know or dream of any authority of Rome over them." Not the Alexandrian Church for instance—of whom Pope Julius, as St. Athanasius vouches, says, "Are you ignorant that the custom has been for word to be written first to us, and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place?" While St. Dionysius was actually appealed against to Rome, and responded to the appeal. 'Nor have you gone to the bottom of the case of the Immensus Filius. It is not that the early Fathers held it, but "did not express themselves uniformly," but with "inaccuracies." Not so—they denied the doctrine. Their denial, it being almost a consensus, is a far stronger fact than the fact of St. Cyprian, in a personal, or national matter, and on a point in which after all he was mistaken, opposing the Pope, while he elsewhere maintains his authority. 'The fact I believe to be this—the early Fathers made incorrect intellectual developments of portions or aspects of that whole Catholic doctrine which they held, and so far were inconsistent with themselves. Their opinions contradicted their implicit faith—and they said and held things which they would have shrunk from, had they seen, as heretics afterwards exhibited, that they were really destructive of the doctrine of Christ. Yet they really held them; I will not explain away the fact, nor must you. I really do not think you can deny, that the Fathers, not merely did not contemplate true propositions, "afterwards established" but actually contemplated false. In like manner from a view of the great benefits of baptism, they untruly developed and acted on the proposition "Therefore it is good to defer it." 'So far from agreeing with your general principle, I consider it quite as true to say that doctrine ever came first, and practice was its development. Bishop Butler implies it, when he speaks of the knowledge of relations imposing duties. And in matter of fact the whole ritual system is a later development of the original creed. I suspect you will find less of processions and vestments than of Papal supremacy in the ages of persecution. 'As to the George
Ryders. I am sorry to hear you do not like their mode of acting. Do not,
however, fear for her—noli timere. There is a grace in the
Catholic Church which is not lightly got rid of and it binds the soul
tight. Keble speaks somewhere of the weakness of things of earth to
tempt one "who once has tasted of immortal truth." That it may be your
blessed lot, Carissime, to receive the offer of that treasure and not to
reject it, is the constant prayer of '17 Grosvenor Place,
London: July 4, 1846. 'You do not seem to have apprehended, or rather I to have expressed, why I introduced what I said about "the Church." What I mean is this:—If we can get a tolerable notion which is the Church, and know (as we do) that it may be trusted because it is the Church, then comes the question why should not the Pope's supremacy be one of the points on which it may be trusted? For myself I have had so great experience of the correctness of the Roman view where once I thought otherwise, that I should be a beast if I were unwilling to take the rest on faith, from a confidence that what is still obscure to me (if there be anything such, I am not alluding to anything) is explainable. And it seems to me extravagant or unreasonable in you to demand proof of one certain particular tenet which it so naturally comes to the Church to decide. If the Roman Church be the Church, I take it whatever it is—and if I find that Papal Supremacy is a point of faith in it, this point of faith is not to my imagination so strange, to my reason so incredible, to my historical knowledge so utterly without evidence, as to warrant me in saying "I cannot take it on faith." 'I have not, I say,
your letter here, but I know you say something about sanctity as the
test of the Church. I should still, as far as I see, take it as such.
Day by day, am I more and more struck with this note in the Roman Church
as contrasted with the Anglican. The series of evidences depending on
the inward work of the Spirit, from miracle to personal graces, has been
most wonderfully unfolded to me since my conversion, in the natural
intercourse and conversation I have had with Catholics. As to personal
graces, as far as I have had experience, I have been extremely struck
with their rigid purity. Evidence of this has come before me in a way
not to be mistaken. How low the Anglican Church is here. Of course I am
speaking of religious (i.e. pious) persons in both communions. Again, I
have a passage in my first volume of Sermons, about the inconsistencies
of good men. And I have ever made consistency the mark of a saint. Now I
think the Anglican History presents very few patterns of this virtue.
You have, as a parallel in the Roman Church, great Popes, great
divines,—why are these not saints? I have asked myself. Why I see, on
looking closer, they perhaps had some one failing—wanted a certain
elevation of mind—or were peevish or petulant—or had something or
other about them which an "Advocatus Diaboli" would discover, which
deprives them of the title. Now the Anglican worthies very seldom indeed
rise above this sort of excellence. Moreover I have been exceedingly
struck with the abiding [phantasia] of religion which Catholics
have. The articles of faith are external facts taken for
granted—worship is an offering really made to a real Presence,
&c., &c. But I have not time to go on. My best love to my dear
H. W. Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Appendix to Chapter 8{622} THE following two letters add to the information given in the text concerning Newman's relations with William Froude in these years. The first was written in 1850 [Note 1], the second was addressed to Mr. Henry Wilberforce after he had joined the Catholic Church in the same year: 'As to dear William Froude's letter of April, 1847, it contains two arguments against inquiry in religious matters, and for acquiescence in doubt. 'He speaks of a state of mind "certainly different from a long and anxious condition of change"—one in which one is "taking no steps for oneself or apparently getting nearer to a change." And he thinks there is "no intelligible reason for following it." 'One of his two grounds is, that, whereas I once said "that, if I were right in my doubts, what had happened to me might happen to others also," till then the least unsatisfactory course seems to be to stand still. He refers particularly to Keble and Pusey. He says too that perhaps "some happy reunion may be yet in store." 'Now as to Keble and Pusey, perhaps it is more wonderful that a person of my age (when I left them) should have embraced a new religion, than that they should not have done the same. But valeant quantum; I will not touch the argument, as derived from them, here. Yet my anticipation, as William has recorded it, has been remarkably fulfilled. One after another, moving not as a party, but one by one, unwittingly, because they could not help it, men of mature age, from 40 to past 50, in all professions and states, numbers have done what I have done since the date of W. F.'s letter, ... I cannot help thinking it was dangerous for W. F. to have recourse to this argument. It is surely much easier to account for Keble and Pusey not moving, Catholicism being true, than for all these persons moving, Catholicism being not true. And, whereas it was the fashion at first to use this argument, as W. F. does in 1847, against us, I think it ought to have its weight now for us. It was the fashion then to say "O, Newman is by himself. We don't deny his weight—but no one else of any name has gone—and are we to go by one man?" Times are altered now. 'Alas, this was not W. F.'s real reason, this which solvitur ambulando. I did not get his letter at Rome—I had not the opportunity of answering it; but, so far, Time has answered it for me in a way which solves all doubt, by bringing Truth, his glorious daughter, out. 'The second ground is his real reason, which Time will also solve too—though not so soon. Alas, that he will not anticipate its unsoundness, as he has not anticipated the unsoundness of the former. 'The second argument which W. F. uses with himself is that he has got less and less to see his way in any such question; and there is least private judgment in making no judgment at all. 'This means, when brought out, this:—that, without denying there is a truth, which would be absurd, (for either Catholicism, as we hold it, is from God or it is not,) we have not been vouchsafed means sufficient for getting at the truth; and therefore if we attempt it, it is like attempting to fly, or to sail on the Atlantic {623} in a pleasure boat without compass—we shall be lost,—or we shall go wrong—or we shall be ever at sea—or, if we attain anything better than what we start from, it will be by accident. 'I do not undervalue at all the speciousness of this argument. But I would remark at once that almost all truth "lies in a well." 'Does not this saying imply two things (1) that it is hard to find, yet (2) that it may be found. 'If it is so in other subject matters, may it not be so in religion too? 'Is it not likely to be so, inasmuch as the difficulty of arriving at truth seems to vary with the preciousness and refinement of its kind? I have observed on this at length in one of my University Sermons. 'Is it not a coincidence, (not to speak of the authority of Scripture declaration), that so much is said of crying after wisdom, "asking and knocking," &c. in Scripture? 'When then a certain portion of our race are certain they have found religious truth, should we not feel as we might do, if, while ignorant of mathematics, we found a number of educated persons simply confident of Newton's conclusions? I mean, admit that truth was attainable in religion, though we had not attained it. 'Nor do I think it matters that many men are "certain" of what is opposite to Catholic truth—or "certain" that Catholicism is false—for men have been "certain" that Newton was false—yet that would not move us against Newton, because, though we are no judge of Newton's reasonings, we may be judges of the persons who use and embrace them—and all the Dominicans in the world might not move us in favour of any theory but Newton's—though we understood the argument on neither side. In like manner there are men rationally certain in religion—and irrationally certain—and we may be judges of this, though not as yet judges of their reasons. 'And here, recurring to what I said before, I do really think the character and variety of the converts to Catholicism of late in England form a most powerful argument, that there is such a thing as ascertainable truth in religion—and I am willing that a man should set against them, Luther, Cranmer, and Co., if he wishes. 'Next, it must be considered that, though there is a profession of certainty among Protestants, and pious earnest people among them, yet their certainty commonly relates to, and their religious life is seated in, doctrines which are included in Catholicism—so that their certainty cannot be considered to contradict and invalidate the certainty of Catholics. 'I do not think then, that any prima facie incompleteness or unsatisfactoriness of the arguments for Catholicity are sufficient to lead us to acquiesce in the notion that truth cannot be attained about it. For whatever probability there is, from the persons professing certainty about Catholicity, that they are rationally certain, such degree of probability is there that those arguments are only prima facie and not (substantially) of this incomplete and unsatisfactory character [Note 2]. 'On the other hand, taking the two instances to which W. F. refers. Keble is not certain of anything—and if I put him on one side, and men like R. Wilberforce, Hope Scott, or Allies on the other, he does not pretend to collide with them; he only has not what they have. 'Again, as to Pusey, he indeed is most "certain"—but the greater part of things, far, of which he is certain, are those of which Catholics are certain—and as to other points, in which he differs from Catholics, how he can be said to be {624} certain of them I cannot tell, for, if his words are fairly quoted, he contradicts himself continually, or affirms to one person what he denies to another. 'Then, when, quitting this view of the subject—we fall back to the consideration of the arguments themselves, it must be recollected that in all departments cuique in arte sua credendum. By which I mean that, as I have said above, a man cannot suddenly get up a subject, and see the drift and bearings of it, the relative importance of its parts, and the value of its arguments. 'Men who have lived in the dark, see things with a clearness unintelligible to those who enter it from the broad day. That religious truth is an obscure subject granted; but that does not prove that we cannot find out its roads and their termination. 'We are told by Bishop Butler, that this difficulty of finding is the very trial of our earnestness, and the medium of our reward. 'Every science requires a preparation, that we may feel and appreciate its principles and views. Is it unnatural that the subject of religion needs a preparation too? 'Is it wonderful, if, considering religion is a special subject, this process should be peculiar? Is it wonderful, considering that its scope and its subject are supernatural, its preparation should be supernatural also? 'Perhaps then what divines call grace, the supernatural assistance of the Father of Lights, may be the necessary preparation for our understanding the force of arguments in the subject matter of religion; and perhaps prayer may be the human means, in the way of cause and effect, of gaining that supernatural assistance. 'I do not see then that I am bound to believe W. F.'s statement of the unsatisfactoriness of religious inquiry, and the necessity of an everlasting suspense, until I am sure that he contemplates the probability of that being true, which is not improbable in itself, and which all those who have attained certainty say is true—that a preparation of mind of a particular kind is indispensable for successful inquiry and till he makes it clear to me that he duly appreciates that probability. 'I should like an inquirer to say continually "O my God, I confess that thou canst enlighten my darkness—I confess that Thou only canst. I wish my darkness to be enlightened. I do not know whether Thou wilt; but that Thou canst, and that I wish, are sufficient reasons for me to ask, what Thou, at least has[t] not forbidden my asking. I hereby promise Thee that, by Thy grace which I am seeking, I will embrace whatever I at length feel certain is the truth if ever I come to be certain. And by Thy grace I will guard against all self deceit which may lead me to take what nature would have, rather than what reason approves." 'If a man tells me he has thus heroically cast himself upon God, and persisted in such a prayer, and yet is in the dark, of course my argument with him is at an end. I retire from the discussion, and leave the matter to God.' Note 1. This letter is among the collection left by Mrs. Froude. But from its terms it can hardly have been written to her. The beginning is missing. Note 2. [Marginal note.] My argument is that against the probability adverse to Catholicism, arising from the prima facie incompleteness of its proof, must be put the prima facie probability in its behalf arising from the 'certainty' of Catholics. TO HENRY WILBERFORCE 'Oratory,
Birmingham: December 28th, 1850. 'As to the argument from the promise, it is but one part of a large question. Take his "inexorable logic"—now how unreal this term is, when you come to particularize. Supposing a man tells me that for certain he will call on me today or tomorrow, and does not come today, is it inexorable logic which makes me expect him tomorrow? (Who was the father of Zebedee's children? is it inexorable logic which makes me say Zebedee?) I mean, there are certain things inevitable, certain principles being granted. On the other hand it is doubtless quite possible to fall into the extravagance of dealing with moral proofs as if they were mathematical—which is really "inexorable logic." But the question is to which does our Catholic argument belong? the former kind of logic falsely called inexorable, or the latter? If to the former, it is a mere name fastened on a good argument. 'People love to reason till they are beaten; then they talk of inexorable logic—as others talk of sophistry, jesuitry, &c. I don't think the Puseyistic and Transcendentalist "inexorable logic" (for strangely enough Pusey and my brother Frank, Isaac Williams and Thackeray, agree here) a whit more respectable than the "sophistry" of Luther on the Galatians, and the "Jesuitism" of the Record or Christian Observer. 'Give a dog an ill name and hang him—our Anglo-Catholic friends enjoyed my logic while it attacked the Evangelicals, Hampden, etc., etc., but when it went too far, then it was inexorable, and I deteriorated. 'As to the articles in the Guardian, it astonishes me they are by Rogers—how so clever a man can argue so weakly! But besides they are but negative. W. F. should be asked what he believes—what he has positive in his religion—to say that the Roman Church is wrong does not make the Anglican right. And this is what I think so unfair in his argument—that they dare not, won't, say, what they believe and why—they fence off. I said to dear W. F. about two years ago "What do you believe? and why?" and I have got, and believe he can give, no answer. The unfairness of this, unfairness, I mean, to himself, trifling with awful matters, is to me incomprehensible. The inexorable logic topos may parry my attack, but how can it satisfy himself? his "remaining where he is" does not ipso facto give him a creed. 'For instance, let me say, as Rogers and others, I suppose, will say—"I need not hold Scripture inspired or more than a human document—but I see contained, brought out, in it, a superhuman character. Did I find that character in Hume's England, or in Livy, n'importe—here is a fact and a supernatural one—a real person, more than man—bearing on Him the tokens of coming from God—Him I believe, without an implicit submission to Scripture as proved infallible." 'Well—I admit this is a view—but I want to see what you mean by it—or how far you carry it—so I must ask you some questions, not to puzzle you, not to confute you, but really to get at what you mean fully, and thus to see what your view is worth. 'You mean, that our Lord's words and works, and history, as making up His character, are intrinsically supernatural, and recommend themselves as such to our moral instincts. Well then do you believe those words and works and history? i.e. do you accept them as true? Our friend looks suspicious, and begins in his heart to suspect I am one of the inexorable logicians. He wants to know more what I am driving at, before he answers. 'I proceed—of course there must be something practical in your recognition of our Lord—He is not a mere beautiful picture—but a master, a teacher—else He is nothing. When then you say "Our Lord is enough for us," you mean that {626} you have a Teacher from Heaven, and His teaching, revealed to you through the medium of Scripture. Well then, my question is, do you make His words and works and history, therein contained, a rule to you, a rule of faith and conduct? Our friend at last is obliged to assent. '(1) Then I want to know, do you submit yourself to all His words and works and His whole history, or do you admit some things and not others, and if so, why? '(2) Is His history with His words and works, as a whole, clear enough to teach you definitely what to believe and what to do? 'Here at length I shall be sure to be accused of inexorable logic—yet surely these two considerations are the necessary and immediate result of turning my mind to the subject. Is there no such fault as what the Provost used to call "inaccuracy of mind"? W. F. is an engineer—would he ever dream of assenting to any speculator who offered him a Patent, without applying his mind to see how the machinery worked? Theories are looked hard at by a clear headed man, and the flaw is then seen at once. To use general terms and glowing words is only fit for women and for Sewell of Exeter. It is to Sewellise, or to Mauricise. 'Now I would say that the greater part of our Lord's teaching is not clear—and where it is clearest, it is most startling to the imagination. Perhaps the clearest doctrine of all laid down is that of Eternal Punishment. (Is this doctrine to be received as a sole dogmatic truth, like some promontory coming clear out of a thick sea fog?) 'On the other hand, can anyone without trifling call the Sermon on the Mount, the institution and doctrine of the two Sacraments, the Discourse before the Passion, the institution of the Church, Matt. xvi.—intelligible without a comment? I do not mean that they have not our sense—but could we be sure of it? Why do we not take the precepts about turning the face to the smiter, etc., literally? &c., &c. Are we, or are we not, to take "This is My Body"—John vi., literally? In corroboration, does He not expressly refer us to a further teaching, that of the Paraclete? 'Well then on the whole, what is our creed? does anyone mean to say he finds the Anglican creed, and nothing more or less in our Saviour's teaching? Does our friend, thus taught, believe in the Athanasian creed, in the Atonement, in Original Sin, in the Real Presence, in Sacramental influence, in &c., &c.? Surely I have a right to ask him what he believes. 'He won't tell; I know he won't—but he will talk of my inexorable logic. But he has to answer God, not me—it is not a question of polemics, but of personal duty. 'I have brought out what I mean, not at all to my own satisfaction—but I have set it down to illustrate what I meant by saying "take him off generals—bring him down to particulars—bring him to book." 'All I can say is, (not alluding to dear W. F.) I have no sympathy in such a state of mind—nor ever have had—it is to me simply incomprehensible. I could not feed on words, without ideas. It is sheer Sewellism. 'As to Mr. B. [Note 3] he is so unreal as to be simply ludicrous. 'As to both of them, I should say to them, Pray for grace and light—pray to view things really. I have very great doubts, if either of them prays unreservedly to be led into the truth; if they say, "O my God, I am in darkness—but I wish to be led into the truth—deny me not the truth at any sacrifice—I will go through all things for it." E.g. you were anxious and miserable—if they are so too. I am hopeful about them. As to dear W. F. he is continually in my prayers, but I wish he seemed to take things less easily. 'Ambrose and I
laughed heartily at your Preacher. He said "Sarved him {627} right"—and
I smiled grimly. Carissime, you have from time immemorial loved me, and
distrusted me, especially during the last year. You have gone to bad
Preachers—enjoy them. Note 3: Who Mr. B. is I have been unable to discover. 'Dec. 29. I have been dreaming last night of Rogers, through sheer amazement. Wonderful, that to say "What and why" should be inexorable logic! Why, the Anglo-Catholicism of fifteen years back professed to answer them at once. My Prophetical office is taken up in the What and the Why. No one called that rationalism or inexorable logic. Well, that theory, that answer to the questions, broke down under facts, historical facts. The question then returns, What do you believe, and why? and now, since it involves an action, it is voted rationalism. While the question was to defend a position, and to justify doing nothing, it was not rationalism. Wonderful indeed! when the treasurer of Candace said "How can I, unless some one teach me?" this too, I suppose, was rationalism. Now is it not a most wonderful trial to one's faith in individuals, to be obliged to believe that they are sincere in thus speaking, and that there is not some deeper and truer mode of accounting for it. In Rogers I think it is a deep scepticism, i.e., a shrinking from receiving absolutely what another tells him—an utter suspiciousness of what does not approve itself to his moral feeling.—i.e., in substance the very principle which rules my brother, though not so boldly expressed. Of course I don't say all this to anyone but you, and can't bring out my meaning of what I feel, satisfactorily to myself. 'After coming from before the Tabernacle, after hearing Mass or attending Benediction, what a mere dream and absurdity and talk do these objections seem! Here is the reality—Why don't you force me to argue in proof of my having two legs, you declaring I have only a cork one. 'As to Catholic
preaching, the Confessional makes it bad. I mean, all
seriousness, practicalness, reality, is put there, and the sermon
is thought to be a display. (It need not be so—it is not so in
Italy—though it is there in a number of cases.) Ad to this, the
utter want of taste, arising from an absence of education, and you have
your dish smoking hot. (Theology, as mathematics or metaphysics, does
not give taste.) Dr. A. B. is an able man—at the opening of Cheadle
Church he preached a sermon half screaming, half bellowing, half
whining—and Lady D. and other ladies of quality were in raptures with
it. '2 P.S. Of course I have not meant to urge above that if a man discovers the above "Christ's character" view to be unreal, as not giving the What and Why, therefore he must at once go to Rome. It is very fair to urge that Rome has not the What and Why, and to try to maintain it. 'As to the Promise, I think there is a great difference, and harmony, between the Jewish and the Christian. The Christian is for a time as well as the Jewish—the Jewish as well as the Christian is called "for ever." But each is expressly fixed till an event. The Jewish is to be for ever "till Shiloh come." The Christian for ever "till the end of time," till the second coming.' Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Appendix to Chapter 12{628} ONE difficulty with which Newman had to deal in the conduct of the University is expressed in a letter to Mr. John Walls, the Editor of the Tablet: 'The Oratory,
Birmingham: Sept. 23, 1856. 'Now, I really do think this a fact. A gentleman is an evil. See its immediate application to the University. The University is for gentlemen. It is then but a provision for perpetuating and aggravating a recognised evil and nuisance. 'I fear that every word of this statement is true. If so, it is impossible that the clergy of Ireland should take up the University; they will only do just what the Holy See compels them to do. 'It seems to me that friends of the University, such as Dr. Moriarty, confess this virtually, for they are ever looking about for poor scholars, cheap lodging houses, and schools for affiliations. 'I am coming then to feel strongly, that, whatever the kindness of Bishops and priests to me personally, they never can be supporters of the University, unless the age of poor scholars revived, which, I assume, is not to be. 'The consequence is, (though I make it without any reference to anything I know, or dream of advocating) that the University must look out elsewhere for its friends, its real friends, and must form alliances, other than that with the country and popular Irish party. It has nothing to hope from priests and people, unless indeed it leaves its present position and scope, and takes up some new work and new office, which is hardly Universitarian.' Newman's view as to the necessity of some form of State recognition for the University in order to make it successful is expressed in the following letter to Mr. Ornsby: 'January 19, 1859. 'The only fear on this plan is that the Heads and Professors of the University will not keep up the phantasia and claim of a University, which Louvain does successfully; should allow themselves to be triumphed over as if defeated, and should tamely submit to be a College. 'Suppose they preserved themselves from this pusillanimity, they would in the course of another five years agitate for the power of granting degrees, as they have now been agitating for a Charter. 'There is just one thing which ought to and must be got, viz. a place on the Board of Examiners of the Queen's University, as they have at Louvain, and this I trust would be granted. 'Well, this is one plan, and a safe one, if it could be done. But if, as soon as it was adopted, the Nation, Irishman, &c., cried "It has become a Government Institution, stop your subscriptions," and no collections could be raised though the country, then we should fail, though not from within, but from without. 'Whether Sullivan would come into the above, I don't know. Hennessy, I suppose would; Lyons, Curry, Pigott would not. The extreme young Irish would not. Well, what is their plan? Why, it is the other, as follows, and as the articles in the Irishman develop it. 'It is, in the spirit of the Inaugural Lecture of Dr. Lyons in November 1856—to throw ourselves upon the country, and to call up poor scholars in shoals, as in Scotland, whose coming will be the pledge that it is a national benefit, and the sure stimulus of national subscriptions. Another part of this plan would be to give degrees boldly, not caring what the State said, or for the terror of prosecution. A third part would be simply to get rid of Englishmen, bearing them for the present as a necessary evil. 'Well, I think this good too—but it is far too young-Irelandish for Dr. Cullen, and I think would fail on this precise ground, if on no other. I don't think it would ultimately hurt the English Professors. When they were not needed in Dublin (it would be a long time first) the time might arrive for setting up a branch of the University, the Faculty of Arts, in England. 'Either plan is good—I prefer the former—but neither I fear, will succeed, from the discordance of Irish opinion. 'I don't wish you to
repeat anything of what I have said—but it may enable you, as time
goes on, to feel your way. I trust you get on with Sullivan—he is a
man of great good sense—all I fear is, that, having no one to agree
with, or to grumble to, he may get disgusted. Note: After his visit to Rome in 1856 Newman wrote to Mgr. Ram of Louvain that Propaganda 'much approves the anxiety I have ever felt to conform our University to that of Louvain.' The following is the text of the letter from the Irish Archbishops to the Fathers of the Oratory (referred to at p. 379), asking their consent for the continuance of Newman's presence in Dublin as Rector of the University: 'July 20, 1857. 'We are also very sensible, Reverend Fathers, of the sacrifice your Congregation has been making now for some years by consenting to his absence for the sake of our University, and we are not at all surprised to learn how anxious you are that your Father Superior should be relieved from his duties here and given back to his Oratory. Yet we are not without a hope, and a strong hope, that the same disinterested regard for the welfare of our Catholic University which first induced you to consent for a time to be separated from him will reconcile you to the sacrifice, great as it is, for some time longer; for, in its present infant state, the connection of Dr. Newman with the University is undeniably a very great gain, as his separation from it would be a loss, the magnitude of which it would not be easy to estimate. 'We hope, therefore,
Reverend Fathers, that you will forego for a time the happiness of
having your Father Superior at home in the midst of his Congregation,
leaving him to pursue the high vocation, to which, not only does he
appear to have been specially called the day he was named Rector of the
Catholic University, but for which, as it seems to us, Providence had
been preparing him long years before he became a child of the Catholic
Church. The following is the text of Dr. Newman's letters of resignation to the Irish Bishops, carefully graduated in cordiality of expression: 'To the Archbishop of Armagh (Dr. Dixon).—Your Grace has ever treated me with such singular kindness that I have great pain in communicating to you a resolution, which may look like ingratitude, but which the lapse of time imperatively imposes on me. 'In truth I have no choice but to resign into the hands of the Bishops the high office in the Catholic University with which their Lordships have honoured me. My strength, I lament to say, is not equal to the frequent journeys to and fro between Dublin and Birmingham which the Rectorship exacts of me; and, even were I quit of the fatigue, as I am not, there is a growing call on one who holds that office to show himself personally in all parts of Ireland, as the representative of the University; and to that duty neither my years nor my habits enable me to respond. 'Were other reasons required besides the above, I should add that, having, when the Session ends, devoted as much as six years to the University at a time of life when time is precious because it is scarce, I feel that, great as is that object, I have no right to subtract what remains to me from the service of my own Congregation, and from those special duties which, when no existing engagements interfere, are the natural and fit termination of life. Nor have I any reason to suppose that my Congregation will dispense with my presence at Birmingham for a longer period than that which I originally contemplated, and they granted me. 'I wish respectfully
to name the next St. Lawrence's Day, November 14th {631} as the day of my resignation; and, begging you to believe that I shall
retain to the end of my life a most grateful recollection of your
uniform kindness to me, From Dr. Newman to the Bishops of Limerick, Ossory, Waterford, and the Coadjutor-Bishop of Dromore: 'March 1857. 'I propose to resign next November; more than six years will then have elapsed during which my thoughts and exertions have been given to the University; and, though this space of time is not much for so great a work as its commencement, yet I am thankful to have been allowed to give it so much. 'I shall ever
entertain a grateful sense of the kindness to me of yourself and other
Irish Prelates, and, begging your Lordship's blessing, TO THE BISHOP OF MEATH (DR. CANTWELL) 'March 1857. 'It is to say that my strength will not allow me to continue much longer in the charge of duties which involve so frequent a passage to and fro between this place and Birmingham. I am, therefore, obliged to place the Rectorship of the University into the hands of the Bishops of Ireland, who have so condescendingly honoured me with it, and to assign November next as the date of my actual resignation, when I shall have more than completed six years since the University has occupied my time and thoughts.' TO
EACH OF
THE BISHOPS
OF CLONFERT,
CORK, 'March 1857. 'I propose to resign in November, when I shall have had the satisfaction of completing six years since I was first called on to give myself to the service of the University.' {632} TO
EACH OF
THE BISHOPS
OF FERNS,
GALWAY, ARDAGH,
ACHONRY, 'March 1857. 'Independent of this, my strength will not allow me to undergo those frequent journeys to and fro, without which I cannot satisfy that partial observance of our Rule from which my Congregation cannot release me. 'I, therefore, propose to place my resignation in the hands of the Bishops in November next. 'I cannot withdraw from this great undertaking without expressing my grateful sense of the confidence which has been shewn me by the Bishops of Ireland, in placing me at the head of it, and of the kindness with which, according to their opportunities, so many of your Lordships have supported me in it.' TO
EACH OF
THE BISHOPS
OF ELPHIN,
KILMORE, ROSS,
DROMORE, 'March 1857. 'Believe me to say sincerely, that I could not take the initiative in such a step unless I felt I could no longer fulfil the arduous duties which the office involves. It is enough to say that my Congregation at Birmingham has growing claims upon me considering the few years which possibly may remain to me of active work, and that I shall have been taken from its service for six years when November comes; nor does my strength any longer suffice for such frequent journeys between Dublin and England as my double duties render necessary. 'I shall always
entertain a most grateful sense of the honour you have done me in making
me your first Rector, and begging you to pardon my shortcomings in that
responsible position. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN (DR. CULLEN) 'March 1857. 'I will name St. Lawrence's day, November 14th, when the six years will be more than completed since I began to devote my thoughts and exertions to the service of the University, and when the term of absence from my Congregation will be completed for which I asked permission. 'My most urgent reasons for this step are the fatigue which I experience in my frequent passages between Dublin and England, the duty incumbent on the {633} Rector to show himself in public (more than my strength will allow) for the good of the University, and the need of my Congregation for the services which I have so long intermitted.' TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM (DR. MCHALE) 'March 1857. Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Appendix to Chapter 16THE following letters should be read in connection with Newman's acceptance of the editorship of the Rambler and subsequent connection with that Review: MR. WALLIS TO DR. NEWMAN 'May 23rd, 1859. 'There are people who will be looking out when each new Rambler appears for something that they dislike, and crying out: "Here it is again." … 'Of course under you it will overlive this and live it down; but I complain that you should have to go through it. 'For what a rally, what an acclaim, might we not have had if it had been announced that a "new periodical" was out, called so and so, and that you had consented to be its Editor. 'I am sure there will be all sorts of instincts and opinions struggling for utterance in the Catholic body, which must have vent, and which, if bottled up, would do more harm than if set loose; and then being caught up in pincers and hammered and molten and smelted, the dross (would) be rejected and the pure metal forged to useful purposes. But for this there will need to be controversy and sharp fighting; and why should you have any share in this except as the mediator of any discussion, when you might with a weighty sentence dismiss the combatants?' Note: 'N.B.—As if the Bishops would allow this! As if they would allow a "rally" of Catholic writers and readers under me! As if they ever would have!—J. H. N.' MR. SIMPSON TO DR. NEWMAN 'June 1st, 1859. 'You may imagine what I feel in this second attack. I will not write about it because you would not approve of the strong things I should say.' SIR JOHN ACTON TO DR. NEWMAN '16, Bruton Street:
July 1st, 1859. 'I think that in order to obtain as large a circulation as possible it will be best to give particular prominence to historical and political articles, without confining ourselves to Catholic subjects. Hope and Simpson advise a complete secularisation of the Rambler, putting religion out of sight as much as possible. But this is an opinion in which I cannot concur. We must not destroy so important and convenient an organ of Catholic thought, and I would rather enlarge than change the range and scope of the Review. 'It will be more easy, however, for me to obtain contributions of a purely secular character than those which approach the domain of theology ... In particular I think it will be well to encourage Simpson to devote himself to subjects where there is less danger, or rather less opportunity, of giving offence either rightly or wrongly; and I have advised him to take up Mill's writings with which he is well qualified to deal. 'My greatest wish is to be allowed to leave the religious department as much as possible in your hands. I should wish to refer such matters to you, and to trust chiefly to you for contributions of that kind. I do not understand by this more than you so kindly expressed yourself willing to consent to. In both respects I conceive you would have the co-operation of the foreign divines whom you mentioned. I will write to Father Gratry, asking him to be the fourth in order that France may be represented, if you do not suggest some other person, or some reason why he would not do. 'It would be very
kind of you if you would tell us something about the method by which the
account of current events is made so complete and so interesting. It is
a very valuable innovation which I should not like to give up. DR. NEWMAN TO SIR JOHN ACTON 'Rednal: July 5th,
1859. 'On second thoughts I should not like, at least at present, to go on with the Ancient Saints, for this reason, because it makes enemies, and thus does more harm than at the moment it can do good. 'I do not see that the articles on the Rheims and Douai and the Isles of the North are objectionable—or any such as they. I am not objecting to such articles as Döllinger's {635} on the Historical knowledge of Scholastic writers—or a Review of Broglie's work. But these would not be the staple, according to my idea. You speak of "not destroying so important and convenient an organ of Catholic thought"; but, supposing the Cardinal to come down on only one article of a theological character, however unjustifiably, a great scandal would be the consequence, and it would probably end in the "destruction of the organ" altogether. ‘Simpson has so much talent and knowledge, he would be sure to handle Mill well,—at the same time he could not write off an answer to him, I am sure, and would have logically to prove every one of his points. I say this, because I think he under-values the force and cogency of Mill's argumentation, and again, because in that clever metaphysical paper which he let me see, he seemed to me to begin with assumptions which he could not expect an opponent to grant him. 'Another thing I will say. I fear very much your having him for sub-editor; he will certainly compromise the work. I really do not think he can help it. He will be cutting at the Univers or the Dublin or be cruel towards some harmless writer in a Notice,—or he will give some ironical praise to the Cardinal or even fling at the Holy See. In an article on the Wiseman and Tierney controversy, which is in type, he goes out of his way to throw out insinuations against the proceedings of Leo XII. as regards La Mennais and Lingard; so, at least, I read the passage. He would say, indeed, that he was following almost the words of one of my letters to you, but I spoke, not against the proceedings of the Holy See, but of people round about it. There will necessarily always be round about the Pope second-rate people who are not subjects of that supernatural guidance which is his prerogative. For myself, certainly, I have found myself in a different atmosphere when I have left the Curia for the Pope himself ... 'As to the
Contemporary Events (Current is a better word) I am pleased to find you
like the attempt. I fear I have had no other method than a troublesome
diligence in reading the daily papers. DR. NEWMAN TO MR. SIMPSON 'Rednal: July 6th,
1859. 'I don't think you
should be sub-editor for the success of the Rambler. DR. NEWMAN TO SIR JOHN ACTON 'July 31, 1859. ‘By all means get Maret's assistance, whose name stands very high. All my fear is that he should rely on my name in giving his; but perhaps he is so far of Montalembert's party as to be drawn to you and the Rambler on your own account. 'On the whole I am glad that Professor Döllinger is not going at present to write on the Scholastic treatment of history. It will be better to let people calm down. 'How do you mean to treat the new Trust Bill in your September number? I don't see how it is possible to find fault with Ministers for it, but you are on the spot. 'I have not been quite well lately—the weather has been too much for me—and I really doubt whether I shall be able to finish my Isles of the North in time. I shall send two or three reviews which you may do what you will with.' DR. NEWMAN TO SIR JOHN ACTON 'Private.
Rednal: June 20th, 1860. 'Considering both my responsibilities at the Oratory and the circumstance of my being a convert, I could not act otherwise. As it was I had got into trouble by taking on myself the Rambler as I found it, without retracting anything that it had said. I took up and defended (in my own way) its cause on the Education Question. I wrote an Article on the right of the Laity to be consulted; and, as you know, I thereby incurred a good deal of odium. It was this defence of the rights of the Laity, even in my May number, which was the chief cause of the Bishop's dissatisfaction with me. So much did my July Article increase this feeling that, when I saw you about February last, I told you that, quite independent of anything in the recent numbers of the Rambler, I feared I should not be able to contribute anything more. 'Another chief condition was that there should be a responsible editor, which it was quite plain you could not be. I have the greatest opinion of Simpson as an able and honest man, and sincere gratitude for the way in which he has spoken of myself; but I deliberately thought him unfitted for the office of conductor of a work which was necessarily exposed to such jealous criticism ... 'I am exceedingly desirous for the success of the Rambler, and to contribute to it as far as I can; but I cannot undertake (on personal grounds) to be theological censor; nor can I give my name to it, (though from its talent and information it would do credit to anyone to be connected with it), unless it has a responsible editor, and the countenance of such theologians as I have mentioned above. 'You are vastly too much worked. I trust your journey to Spain will recruit you. {637} 'P.S.—I do not know how to promise you an article in September. I will try, but I can say nothing more. I should add that, not having had leisure or reading to be able to form, much less to defend, such politico-ecclesiastical opinions as the times require, I have some difficulty in so connecting myself with any publication as to seem to take the views of writers, who, from the thought they have given to the subject, have a full right to entertain them, such as the foreign Toryism and the English anti-Toryism of the Rambler.' Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Appendix to Chapter 18THE following are the notes of two important letters belonging to the period covered by Chapter XVIII. and connected with the points at issue between Mr. W. G. Ward and Lord Acton, argued for the most part in the pages of the Dublin Review and the Home and Foreign Review. The first refers to Ward's attack on intellectualism in his pamphlet called 'On the Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection.' The second is to Sir John Acton, and deals with the subject of Persecution. The earlier letter was not sent in its entirety, but the notes present a view of great interest: DR. NEWMAN TO MR. W. G. WARD 'March 15, 1862. 'I suspect your psychological facts, e.g. you speak at p. 26 of the "keen and constant pleasure which intellectual processes afford." I am far from denying there is a pleasure, and one providentially assigned, as pleasant flavour to food; but, if you mean that "keen and constant pleasure" attends ordinarily on intellectual processes, well, let them say so, who feel it. My own personal experience is the other way. It is one of my sayings, (so continually do I feel it) that the composition of a volume is like gestation and child-birth. I do not think that I ever thought out a question, or wrote my thoughts, without great pain, pain reaching to the body as well as to the mind. It has made me feel practically, that labour "in sudore vultus sui," is the lot of man, and that ignorance is truly one of his four wounds. It has been emphatically a penance; and in consequence I have hardly written anything, unless I was called to do it, e.g. I had to provide a sermon weekly for the pulpit &c. I recollect a friend asked me, soon after writing my volume on Justification, whether it was not interesting to write, and my answer was to the effect that "it was the painful relieving of an irritation," as a man might go to a dentist, not for "keen and constant pleasure," but with the mingled satisfaction and distress of being rid of pain by pain. When I wrote the Arians six years earlier, I was so exhausted at length, that for some days as it approached finishing, I could scarce keep from fainting. The exercise which most nearly has approached to {638} pleasure, has been the finding parallel passages to passages in St. Athanasius, or writing verses, processes which have not much of active intellect in them. I might say a great deal more on this subject; but I have said enough as giving the testimony of at least one person. 'What I feel, others may feel. Others again may feel neither your pleasure nor my pain. At all events, I think you must not take for granted, what all men do not recognise to be true. 'What has been my own motive cause in writing may be that of others,—the sight of a truth, and the desire to show it to others. Juvenal says, "Facit indignatio versus." I do not feel this in the case of verse; I do, in the case of prose. 'I am far from denying of course, that, if one thinks one has done a thing well, one may be tempted to be pleased at it. But here it is the work effected not the process that pleases. "When the shore is won at last, Who will count the billows passed?" Our Lord says, "When she is delivered of the child, she remembereth not the anguish, because &c." Of course she may idolize her child, for the very reason that it has cost her pain, but pain never can be "keen and constant pleasure"; and she never would bear a child for the sake of the childbirth. 'Not at all denying, then, that there is a class of minds such as your own, Sir W. Hamilton's, Lord Brougham's, and the Academics, to whom exercises of intellect are simply "keen and constant pleasure," I cannot think it is more than one class. 'I am not sure that this assumption, that all feel as some feel, has not exerted an influence on your whole view of the subjects you discuss and has coloured it. 'I think certainly it has had an antecedent influence on your whole view of the subject you discuss. And in consequence I cannot help thinking that in your quotation from me at p. 36 you fulfil in some degree the anticipation I have expressed above, of your drawing conclusions from my words which are not contained in them. When I speak, as you quote me, of Intellect being Philosophy, I do not mean Philosophy as opposed to the Supernatural, mind, but as opposed to acquirement, as formal knowledge contrasted with material. There may be a supernatural philosophy, or perfection of the intellect; and that I have drawn out in the foregoing discourse p. 185, under the name of wisdom. There is a natural love, and a supernatural; a natural exercise of the intellect, and a supernatural. Human faith is at least analogous to Divine faith, though the former comes of pure intellectual exercises, and the latter from above. Human faith lies in the intellect as well as Divine faith; but the former is created there by previous acts of mere human reason, the latter is the creation of supernatural grace. Why then may there not be a "Divine philosophy" or largeness and comprehensiveness of mind on all objects Divine and human, proceeding from grace and begotten of a spiritual taste or connaturality with their true worth and real place in God's sight, as well as a Divine faith? And how will it not be analogous or parallel to intellectual philosophy, as Divine faith is parallel to human faith? and how will it fail to react upon sanctity and charity, and exalt them, as you yourself have allowed at p. 53? And, if all this may be answered in the affirmative, why should not this be the donum sapientiae? 'With these questionings in my mind, I cannot follow what you say in p. 53, paragraph 2, "you will ask, etc." By "not following" I mean, I do not see the middle terms towards a conclusion, which, in that paragraph, you think so clear that a doubt about it is "monstrous" though, to be sure, it is monstrous if you confine St. Antoninus's use of the Intellect, as you seem to do at p. 52, to "reasoning from premisses and solving casuistical cases"; but such exercises of intellect come far short of what I have spoken of as philosophical enlargement in the human order, and of wisdom in the Divine order. {639} 'Now as to perfection. As supernatural acts of Love enter into the idea of human perfection, so may, and I think do, supernatural acts of what I call Philosophy (which, when supernatural, takes the name of Wisdom) enter into the idea of human perfection. I am not proving this, but bringing out my own meaning. In other words, I do not see that Intellectus, in what you consider its theological sense, does really differ from "Intellect" as a word of the day. I do not see why it is not the same faculty exercised on different objects. 'But, before saying more of perfection, I want you to give me a definition of it, or we shall be disputing about words. (N.B. He does profess a definition at p. 49.) There are various senses of the word. e.g. is a Saint more perfect than a priest who lives up to his calling? I suppose, heroic acts, which are a saint's characteristics, are more meritorious, and in this sense of the word Perfection a Saint is more perfect than a holy man who is not a Saint. But surely this is not the sense of the word as it is used in ascetic and devotional treatises. I thought certainly that in that sense it ignored or omitted the idea of heroic actions altogether. As then there is a sense of the word perfection which excludes heroism, so there is a sense (and it is the same sense) which excludes intellectualism; and as there is nevertheless another sense according to which heroism is the standard, so there may be a sense in which the intellectual gifts may be the standard; and, as a Saint according to this sense is more perfect than a holy religious, so in a parallel sense a Doctor is more perfect than a holy religious also. Thomas ŕ Kempis is perfect, but he might be perfect, yet not a hero as St. Gregory VII., or a Doctor like St. Gregory I. 'I am not ruling
this, for it is a subject which requires thought—but I wish to show
you have not said all you ought to have said in your Essay on the
Definition of Perfection, since on it everything turns. DR. NEWMAN TO SIR JOHN ACTON 'The Oratory,
Birmingham: July 19, 1862. 'As to development of doctrine and action in the Church I should hold to Vincentius's account of it, who compares it to bodily growth, "ut nihil novum postea proferatur in senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit," and says it is a false development "si humana species in aliquam deinceps non sui generis vertatur effigiem." 'Canon Law, of which you speak, is not a development in "materia fidei"—still, it is a development—viz., in doctrine, as involved in action and conduct. I am not a Canonist; but I consider, and think I should be able to show it, if I were, that the enactment and decisions of ecclesiastical law are made on principles and by {640} virtue of prerogatives, which "jam antea latitavere" in the Church of the Apostles and Fathers. 'To take the instance of the "physical punishment of heretics," which you refer to, and to confine myself to Scripture. Is not the miraculous infliction of judgments upon blasphemy, lying, profaneness &c. in the Apostles' day a sanction of infliction upon the same by a human hand in the times of the Inquisition? I think it is. Yet on the other hand such infliction is not enjoined, and, in our Lord's words about Elias's bringing fire from heaven, is discouraged. That is, ecclesiastical rulers may punish with the sword, if they can, and if it is expedient, or necessary to do so. 'The proposition, thus implied (as I think) in Scripture, is all that the modern Church asserts. For I do not know anything more determinate on the subject (as far as my memory goes) than the condemnation (among the Propositiones damnatć) of Luther's assertion, "Hereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus." Pius the VI. has condemned the general denial of ecclesiastical punishments in the "auctorem fidei." 'This is the view which I should take of the whole canon law—that it is a system of government which the Church has a right to carry out, if she can, and if it is desirable. 'Whether in thus carrying it out, in judging when it is to be carried out, and in what way, whether in her judgments, acts, and policy, she is infallible, are further questions altogether, and parallel (I suppose) to the question, whether she is infallible in the canonization of Saints. 'Of this latter question, St. Thomas says "Pie credendum est, quod nec etiam" in his "judicium Ecclesiae errare possit." Of another, which is more to the point, the approbation "hic et nunc" of a given Religious Order, Billuart says, "De hoc judicio non ita constat esse infallibile; quia non e scientia solum sed e prudentia pendet. At saltem temeritatis notam non effugeret, qui, contra communem Ecclesiae sensum, erroneum asseveret." 'As far as I see
them, I should be unable to say with Mr. Lisle Phillipps that it is "heretical
to assert that the Church approved of the physical punishment of
heretics," or that "the Canon Law was not the legislation of the Church."
I hold, till better instructed, that the Church has a right to make laws
and to enforce them with temporal punishments; for so I understand Pius
the VI.'s contradiction of "Ecclesiam non habere potestatem
salubribus poenis contumaces coercendi atque cogendi." But
whether such exercise of her powers is suitable to all times and places,
is surely answered in the negative by the fact of her concordats, which
involve an engagement not to use her full powers in particular states. 'P.S.—The French pamphlet spoke of "le droit canon," as "inflexible comme le dogme," but I don't suppose we need take our theology from such an author. 'As to Döllinger's book, I am surprised to find I mentioned the Bishop of Birmingham's name. The true version is that the Pope said to some one that he thought the book would do good, though there were things in it to which exception could be taken.' The following is the text of Dr. Newman's analysis of the Munich Brief, referred to at p. 567: {641} 'VENERABILI FRATRI
GREGORIO ARCHIEP.
MONACENSI ET
FRISINGENSI 'The Pope refers to his letter through the |