Various - "Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873."

Frank R. Stockton - "The Captain's Toll Gate"

Anonymous - "Is Ulster Right?"

Hector Malot - "Cara"

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The Christian Life written by Thomas Arnold

T >> Thomas Arnold >> The Christian Life




I have not consciously misrepresented the system of Mr. Newman and his
friends in a single particular; I have not, to my knowledge, expressed
any one of their tenets invidiously. An attentive reader may deduce, I
think, all the Subordinate points in their teaching from some one or
more of the principles which I have given; but I have not wilfully
omitted any doctrine of importance. And, in every point, the opposition
to what I may be allowed to call the protestantism of the nineteenth
century is so manifest, that we cannot but feel that the peculiar
character of the system is to be traced to what I have before
noticed--the extreme antipathy of its founders to the spirit which they
felt to be predominant in their own age and country.

It is worth our while to observe this, because fear and passion are not
the surest guides to truth, and the rule of contraries is not the rule
of wisdom. Other men have been indignant against the peculiar evils of
their own time, and from their strong impression of these have seemed to
lose sight of its good points; but Mr. Newman and his friends appear to
hate the nineteenth century for its own sake, and to proscribe all
belonging to it, whether good or bad, simply because it does belong to
it.--This diseased state of mind is well shown by the immediate occasion
of the organization of their party. Mr. Perceval tells us that it was
the Act for the dissolution of some of the Irish bishoprics, passed in
1833, winch first made the authors of the Tracts resolve to commence
their publication. Mr. Perceval himself cannot even now speak of that
Act temperately; he calls it "a wanton act of sacrilege," "a monstrous
act," "an outrage upon the Church;" and his friends, it may be presumed,
spoke of it at the time in language at least equally vehement. Now, I am
not expressing any opinion upon the justice or expediency of that Act;
it was opposed by many good men, and its merits or demerits were fairly
open to discussion; but would any fair and sensible person speak of it
with such extreme abhorrence as it excited in the minds of Mr. Perceval
and his friends? The Act deprived the Church of no portion of its
property; it simply ordered a different distribution of it, with the
avowed object on the part of its framers of saving the Church from the
odium and the danger of exacting Church Rates from the Roman Catholics.
It did nothing more than what, according to the constitution of the
Churches of England and Ireland, was beyond all question within its
lawful authority to do. The King's supremacy and the sovereignty of
Parliament may be good or bad, but they are undoubted facts in the
constitution of the Church of England, and have been so for nearly three
hundred years. I repeat that I am stating no opinion as to the merits of
the Irish Church Act of 1833; I only contend, that no man of sound
judgment would regard it as "a monstrous act," or as "a wanton
sacrilege." It bore upon it no marks of flagrant tyranny: nor did it
restrain the worship of the Church, nor corrupt its faith, nor command
or encourage anything injurious to men's souls in practice. Luther was
indignant at the sale of indulgences; and his horror at the selling
Church pardons for money was, by God's blessing, the occasion of the
Reformation. The occasion of the new counter-reformation was the
abolition of a certain number of bishoprics, that their revenues might
be applied solely to church purposes; and that the Church might so be
saved from a scandal and a danger. The difference of the exciting cause
of the two movements gives the measure of the difference between the
Reformation of 1517, and the views and objects of Mr. Newman and
his friends.

There are states of nervous excitement, when the noise of a light
footstep is distracting. In such a condition were the authors of the
Tracts in 1833, and all their subsequent proceedings have shown that the
disorder was still upon them. Beset by their horror of the nineteenth
century, they sought for something most opposite to it, and therefore
they turned to what they called Christian antiquity. Had they judged of
their own times fairly, had they appreciated the good of the nineteenth
century as well as its evil, they would have looked for their remedy not
to the second or third or fourth centuries, but the first; they would
have tried to restore, not the Church of Cyprian, or Athanasius, or
Augustine, but the Church of St. Paul and of St. John. Now, this it is
most certain that they have not done. Their appeal has been not to
Scripture, but to the opinions and practices of the dominant party in
the ancient Church. They have endeavoured to set those opinions and
practices, under the name of apostolical tradition, on a level with the
authority of the Scriptures. But their unfortunate excitement has made
them fail of doing even what they intended to do. It may be true that
all their doctrines may be found in the writings of those whom they call
the Fathers; but the effect of their teaching is different because its
proportions are altered. Along with their doctrines, there are other
points and another spirit prominent in the writings of the earlier
Christians, which give to the whole a different complexion. The Tracts
for the Times do not appear to me to represent faithfully the language
of Christian antiquity; they are rather its caricature.

Still more is this the case, when we compare the language of Mr. Newman
and his friends with that of the great divines of the Church of England.
Granting that many of these believed firmly in apostolical succession;
that one or two may have held general councils to be infallible; that
some, provoked by the extravagances of the puritans, have spoken
over-strongly about the authority of tradition; yet the whole works even
of those who agree with. Mr. Newman in these points, give a view of
Christianity different from that of the Tracts, because these points,
which in the Tracts stand forward without relief, are in our old divines
tempered by the admixture of other doctrines, which, without
contradicting them, do in fact alter their effect. This applies most
strongly, perhaps, to Hooker and Taylor; but it holds good also of Bull
and Pearson. Pearson's exposition of the article in the Creed relating
to the Holy Catholic Church is very different from the language of Mr.
Newman: it is such as, with perhaps one single exception, might be
subscribed by a man who did not believe in apostolical succession[2].
Again, Pearson is so far from making the creeds an independent
authority, co-ordinate with Scripture, that he declares, contrary, I
suppose, to all probability, that the Apostles' Creed itself was but a
deduction from our present Scriptures of the New Testament[3].
Undoubtedly the divines of the seventeenth century are more in agreement
with the Tracts than the Reformers are; but it is by no means true that
this agreement is universal. There is but one set of writers whose minds
are exactly represented by Mr. Newman and his friends, and these are the
nonjurors.

[Footnote 2: The sixth and last mark which he gives of the unity of the
Church is, "the unity of discipline and government." "All the Churches
of God have the same pastoral guides appointed, authorized, sanctified,
and set apart by the appointment of God, by the direction of the Spirit,
to direct and lead the people of God in the same way of eternal
salvation; as, therefore, there is no Church where there is no order, no
ministry, so where the same order and ministry is, there is the same
Church. And this is the unity of regiment and discipline." Pearson on
the Creed, Art. IX. p. 341, seventh edit. fol. 1701. It would be easy to
put a construction upon this paragraph which I could agree with; but I
suppose that Pearson meant what I hold to be an error. Yet how gently
and generally is it expressed; and this doubtful paragraph stands alone
amidst seventeen folio pages on the article of the Holy Catholic Church.
And in his conclusion, where he delivers what "every one ought to intend
when they profess to believe the Holy Catholic Church," there is not a
word about its government; nor is Pearson one of those interpreters who
pervert the perfectly certain meaning of the word "Catholic" to favour
their own notions about episcopacy. I could cordially subscribe to every
word of this conclusion.]

[Footnote 3: "To believe, therefore, as the word stands in the front of
the Creed, ... is to assent to the whole and every part of it as to a
certain and infallible truth revealed by God, ... and delivered unto us
in the writings of the blessed apostles and prophets immediately
inspired, moved, and acted by God, out of whose writings this brief sum
of necessary points of faith was first collected." (P. 12.) And in the
paragraph immediately preceding, Pearson had said, "The household of God
is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, who are
continued unto us only in their writings, and by them alone convoy unto
us the truths which they received from God, upon whose testimony we
believe." It appears, therefore, that Pearson not only subscribed the
6th Article of the Church of England, but also believed it.]

Many reasons, therefore, concur to make it doubtful whether the authors
of the Tracts have discovered the true remedy for the evils of their
age; whether they have really inculcated "something better and deeper
than satisfied the last century." The violent prejudice which previously
possessed them, and the strong feelings of passion and fear which led
immediately to their first systematic publications, must in the first
instance awaken a suspicion as to their wisdom; and this suspicion
becomes stronger when we find their writings different from the best of
those which they profess to admire, and bearing a close resemblance only
to those of the nonjurors. A third consideration is also of much
weight--that their doctrines do not enforce any great points of moral or
spiritual perfection which other Christians had neglected; nor do they,
in any especial manner, "preach Christ." In this they offer a striking
contrast to the religious movement, if I may so call it, which began
some years since in the University at Cambridge. That movement, whatever
human alloy might have mingled with it, bore on it most clear evidence
that it was in the main God's work. It called upon men to turn from sin
and be reconciled to God; it emphatically preached Christ crucified. But
Mr. Newman and his friends have preached as their peculiar doctrine, not
Christ but the Church; we must go even farther and say, not the Church,
but themselves. What they teach has no moral or spiritual excellence in
itself; but it tends greatly to their own exaltation. They exalt the
sacraments highly, but all that they say of their virtue, all their
admiration of them as so setting forth the excellence of faith, inasmuch
as in them the whole work is of God, and man has only to receive and
believe, would be quite as true, and quite as well-grounded, if they
were to abandon altogether that doctrine which it is their avowed object
especially to enforce--the doctrine of apostolical succession.
Referring again to the preamble of their original resolutions, already
quoted, we see that the two first articles alone relate to our Lord and
to his Sacraments; the third, which is the great basis of their system,
relates only to the Clergy. Doubtless, if apostolical succession be
God's will, it is our duty to receive it and to teach it; but a number
of clergymen, claiming themselves to have this succession, and insisting
that, without it, neither Christ nor Christ's Sacraments will save us,
do, beyond all contradiction, preach themselves, and magnify their own
importance. They are quite right in doing so, if God has commanded it;
but such preaching has no manifest warrant of God in it; if it be
according to God, it stands alone amongst his dispensations; his
prophets and his apostles had a different commission. "We preach," said
St. Paul, "not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake." It is certain that the enforcing apostolical
succession as the great object of our teaching is precisely to do that
very thing which St. Paul was commissioned not to do.

This, to my mind, affords a very great presumption that the peculiar
doctrines of Mr. Newman and his friends, those which they make it their
professed business to inculcate, are not of God. I am anxious not to be
misunderstood in saying this. Mr. Newman and his friends preach many
doctrines which are entirely of God; as Christians, as ministers of
Christ's Church, they preach God's word; and thus, a very large portion
of their teaching is of God, blessed both to their hearers and to
themselves. Nay, even amongst the particular objects to which their own
"Resolutions" pledge them, one is indeed most excellent--"the revival of
daily common prayer, and more frequent participation of the Lord's
Supper." This is their merit, not as Christians generally, but as a
party, (I use the word in no offensive sense;) in this respect their
efforts have done, and are doing great good. But they have themselves
declared that they will especially set themselves to preach apostolical
succession; and it is with reference to this, that I charge them with
"preaching themselves;" it was of this I spoke, when I said that there
was a very great presumption that their peculiar doctrines were not
of God.

Again, the system which they hold up as "better and deeper than
satisfied the last century" is a remedy which has been tried once
already: and its failure was so palpable, that all the evil of the
eighteenth century was but the reaction from that enormous evil which
this remedy, if it be one, had at any rate been powerless to cure.
Apostolical succession, the dignity of the Clergy, the authority of the
Church, were triumphantly maintained for several centuries; and their
full development was coincident, to say the least, with the corruption
alike of Christ's religion and Christ's Church. So far were they from
tending to realize the promises of prophecy, to perfect Christ's body up
to the measure of the stature of Christ's own fulness, that Christ's
Church declined during their ascendancy more and more;--she fell alike
from truth and from holiness; and these doctrines, if they did not cause
the evil, were at least quite unable to restrain it. For, in whatever
points the fifteenth century differed from the fourth, it cannot be said
that it upheld the apostolical succession less peremptorily, or attached
a less value to Church tradition, and Church authority. I am greatly
understating the case, but I am content for the present to do so: I will
not say that Mr. Newman's favourite doctrines were the very Antichrist
which corrupted Christianity; I will only say that they did not prevent
its corruption,--that when they were most exalted Christian truth and
Christian goodness were most depressed.

After all, however, what has failed once may doubtless be successful on
a second trial: it is within possibility, perhaps, that a doctrine,
although destitute of all internal evidence showing it to come from God,
may be divine notwithstanding;--revealed for some purposes which we
cannot fathom, or simply as an exercise of our obedience. All this may
be so; and if it can be shown to be so, there remains no other course
than to believe God's word, and obey his commandments; only the strength
of the external evidence must be in proportion to the weakness of the
internal. A good man would ask for no sign from heaven to assure him
that God commands judgment, mercy, and truth; whatsoever things are
pure, and lovely, and of good report, bear in themselves the seal of
their origin; a seal which to doubt were blasphemy. But the cloud and
the lightnings and thunders, and all the signs and wonders wrought in
Egypt and in the Red Sea, were justly required to give divine authority
to mere positive ordinances, in which, without such external warrant,
none could have recognised the voice of God. We ask of Mr. Newman and
his friends to bring some warrant of Scripture for that which they
declare to be God's will. They speak very positively and say, that "the
security by our Lord no less expressly authorized for the continuance
and due application of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is the
apostolical commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters of
the Church." They say that our Lord has authorized this "no less
expressly" than he has authorized the Holy Supper as the mean of
partaking in his body and blood. What our Lord has said concerning the
communion is not truly represented: he instituted it as one mean of
grace among many; not as_the_ mean; neither the sole mean, nor the
principal. But allow, for an instant, that it was instituted as_the_
mean; and give this sense to those well-known and ever-memorable words
in which our Lord commanded his disciples to eat the bread and drink of
the cup, in remembrance of him. His words commanding us to do this are
express; "not less express," we are told, is his "sanction of the
apostolical commission of the bishops, as the security for the
continuance and due application of the Sacrament." Surely these writers
allow themselves to pervert language so habitually, that they do not
consider when, and with regard to whom, they are doing it. They say that
our Lord has sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession, in
order to secure the continuance and efficacy of the sacrament, "no less
expressly" than he instituted the sacrament itself. If they had merely
asserted that he had sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession,
we might have supposed that, by some interpretation of their own, they
implied his sanction of it, from words which, to other men, bore no such
meaning. But in saying that he has "expressly sanctioned it," they have,
most unconsciously, I trust, ascribed their own words to our Lord; they
make Mm to say what he has not said, unless they can produce[4] some
other credible record of his words besides the books of the four
evangelists and the apostolical epistles.

[Footnote 4: "Scripture alone contains what remains to us of our Lord's
teaching. If there be a portion of revelation sacred beyond other
portions, distinct and remote in its nature from the rest, it must be
the words and works of the eternal Son Incarnate. He is the one Prophet
of the Church, as he is our one Priest and King. His history is as far
above any other possible revelation, as heaven is above earth: for in it
we have literally the sight of Almighty God in his judgments, thoughts,
attributes, and deeds, and his mode of dealing with us his creatures.
Now, this special revelation is in Scripture, and in Scripture only:
tradition has no part in it."--_Newman's Lectures on the Prophetical
Office of the Church_. 1837. Pp. 347, 348.]

That their statement was untrue, and being untrue, that it is a most
grave matter to speak untruly of our Lord's commands, are points
absolutely certain. But if they recall the assertion, as to the
expressness of our Lord's sanction, and mean to say, that his sanction
is implied, and may be reasonably deduced from what he has said, then I
answer, that the deduction ought to be clear, because the doctrine in
itself bears on it no marks of having had Christ for its author. Yet so
far is it from true, that the necessity of apostolical succession, in
order to give efficacy to the sacrament, may be clearly deduced from any
recorded words of our Lord, that there are no words[5] of his from which
it can be deduced, either probably or plausibly; none with which it has
any, the faintest, connexion; none from which it could be even
conjectured that such a tenet had ever been in existence. I am not
speaking, it will be observed, of apostolical succession simply; but of
the necessity of apostolical succession, as a security for the efficacy
of the sacrament. That this doctrine comes from God, is a position
altogether without evidence, probability, or presumption, either
internal or external.

[Footnote 5: Since this was written, I have found out, what certainly it
was impossible to anticipate beforehand, that our Lord's words, "Do this
in remembrance of me," are supposed to teach the doctrine of the
priest's consecrating power. But the passage to which I refer is so
remarkable that I must quote it in its author's own words. Mr. Newman,
for the tract is apparently one of his, observes, that three out of the
four Gospels make no mention of the raising of Lazarus. He then goes on,
"As the raising of Lazarus is true, though not contained at all in the
first three Gospels; so the gift of consecrating the Eucharist may have
been committed by Christ to the priesthood, though only indirectly
taught in any of the four. Will you say I am arguing against our own
Church, which says the Scripture 'contains all things necessary to be
believed to salvation?' Doubtless, Scripture _contains_ all things
necessary to be _believed_; but there may be things _contained_ which
are not _on the surface_, and things which belong to the _ritual_, and
not to _belief_. Points of faith may lie _under_ the surface: points of
observance need not be in Scripture _at all_. The consecrating power is
a point of ritual, yet it _is_ indirectly taught in Scripture, though
not brought out, when Christ said, 'Do this,' for he spake to the
apostles, who were priests, not to his disciples generally."--_Tracts
for the Times_. Tract 85, p. 46.

This passage is indeed characteristic of the moral and intellectual
faults which I have alluded to as marking the writings of the supporters
of Mr. Newman's system. But what is become of the assertion, that this
security of the apostolical commission was "expressly authorized" by our
Lord, when it is admitted that it is only indirectly taught in
Scripture? And what becomes of the notion, that what our Lord did or
instituted may be learned from another source than Scripture, when Mr.
Newman has most truly stated, in the passage quoted in the preceding
note, that our Lord's history, the history of his words and works, "is
in Scripture, and Scripture only: tradition has no part in it?" I pass
over the surprising state of mind which could imagine a distinction
between things necessary to be believed, and necessary to be done; and
could conceive such a distinction to be according to the meaning of our
article. It would appear that this shift has been since abandoned, and
others, no way less extraordinary, have been attempted in its place; for
an extraordinary process it must be which tries to reconcile Mr.
Newman's opinions with the declaration of the sixth article. But now for
Mr. Newman's scriptural proof, that our Lord "committed to the
priesthood the gift of consecrating the Eucharist." "When Christ said,
'Do this,' he spake to the apostles, who were priests, not to his
disciples generally." This would prove too much, for it would prove that
none but the clergy were ordered to receive the communion at all: the
words, "Do this," referring, not to any consecration, of which there had
been no word said, but to the eating the bread, and drinking of the cup.
Again, when St. Paul says, "the cup which we bless,'--the bread which we
break," it is certain that the word "we," does not refer to himself and
Sosthenes, or to himself and Barnabas, but to himself and the whole
Corinthian church; for he immediately goes on, "for we, the whole number
of us," ([Greek: oi polloi] compare Romans xii. 5,) "are one body, for
we all are partakers of the one bread." Thirdly, Tertullian expressly
contrasts the original institution of our Lord with the church practice
of his own day, in this very point. "Eucharistiae sacramentum et in
tempore victus, et omnibus mandatum a Domino, etiam antelucanis coetibus
nee de aliorum manu quam praeridentium sumimus." (_De Corona Mililis_,
3.) I know that Tertullian believes the alteration to have been founded
upon an apostolical tradition; but he no less names it as a change from
the original institution of our Lord; nor does he appear to consider it
as more than a point of order. Lastly, what shadow of probability is
there, and is it not begging the whole question, to assume that our Lord
spoke to his apostles as priests, and not as representatives of the
whole Christian church? His language makes no distinction between his
disciples and those who were without; it repels it as dividing his
disciples from each other. His twelve disciples were the apostles of the
church, but they were not priests. In such matters our Lord's words
apply exactly, "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren."]

On the whole, then, the movement in the church, excited by Mr. Newman
and his friends, appears to be made in a false direction, and to be
incapable of satisfying the feeling which prompted it. I have not
noticed other presumptions against it, arising from the consequences to
which the original doctrines of the party have since led, or from
certain moral and intellectual faults which have marked the writings of
its supporters. It is enough to say, that the movement originated in
minds highly prejudiced beforehand, and under the immediate influence of
passion and fear; that its doctrines, as a whole, resemble the teaching
of no set of writers entitled to respect, either in the early church, or
in our own; that they tend, not to Christ's glory, or to the advancement
of holiness, but simply to the exaltation of the clergy; and that they
are totally unsupported by the authority of Scripture. They are a plant,
therefore, which our heavenly Father has not planted; a speaking in the
name of the Lord what the Lord has not commanded; hay and stubble,
built upon the foundation of Christ, which are good for nothing but to
be burned.