Four Years in France / or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith

by Henry Digby Beste

I had subsequent conversations with him: I indirectly consulted others: I still read my book; but a book of notes has not the effect of a dissertation, well followed up, and leading to a conclusion. I found some insurmountable difficulties, and for the rest I said, "Le roi s'avisera." I had no other catholic work, and no catholic adviser. I went back to my college, where other studies occupied me; yet I may say, I never lost sight of the subject.

Gibbon, who was a gentleman-commoner of Magdalen College, a few years before my time, declared himself a catholic before his twentieth year. He was still remembered in college as a young man who seldom or never associated with other young men, who always dressed in black, and always came into the hall or refectory too late at dinner time. He found catholics to help him in the work of his conversion. His father put him en pension with a Calvinist minister, to be re-made a protestant, no matter of what sort. He saw, and throughout his great work shows that he continued to see, that the truth of the Christian religion rests on the authority of the catholic church. "The predictions of the catholics are accomplished: the web of mystery has been unravelled by Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose numbers must be no longer counted from their separate congregations; and the pillars of revelation are shaken by men who profess the name without the substance of religion, who assume the licence without the temper of philosophy." Pity that such a man should have been led away by the spirit of the age, so as not to perceive that true philosophy is the good and natural ally of the catholic faith.

If any grave doctor of the Anglican church had, at this time, attempted to lay the foundations of my belief in his own form of religion, he would probably have failed in his work; partly, because the respect due to such a personage from a youth like me would have hindered that freedom of question, reply, and rejoinder, by which satisfactory conviction is at length produced; partly, because I should have considered him as bound in honour and interest to maintain his own opinions, and require implicit submission; and because also I should probably have found, as I have since found, the arguments, which such an one would have adduced, to proceed on misrepresentation, and to be logically absurd.

There are two methods of defending the reformed church of England; one is, by asserting the right of private judgment; but this method is inconsistent with the authority of Scripture, and with the truth of the promises of Christ;—with the authority of Scripture, because it is absurd to allow to any body of men the right or power to say, "this book is Scripture, and this book is not Scripture," and to refuse to the same body the right of deciding on its sense in case of dispute. Had this body the privilege of infallibility while deciding on the canon, and were they immediately deprived of it? Infallibility—I dispute not about words: were they providentially preserved from error during this important operation, and ever afterwards abandoned to error? Common sense and the rules of criticism may enable us to decide on the historical credit due to any work laid before us; but Scripture, the word of God,—something more is necessary to men who are thus to arbitrate between mankind and their faith; and it is absurd to suppose that this something more was taken from them when called on to determine matters of faith, by the help of this same Scripture, united to the tradition of the church. I might make my argument stronger, by remarking on the length of time which elapsed before the canon of Scripture was settled: was the church infallible during all that time, or only at intervals, by fits and starts? I will quote the words of St. Augustin, a Father often cited by the Anglican church: "Thou believest Scripture; thou doest well: ego vero Scripturæ non crederem nisi me ecclesiæ catholicæ urgeret auctoritas."

Indeed, so difficult is it to reconcile the more than human authority of the Bible with the right of private judgment, that I believe the historical Christians, as they may be called, to be very numerous, and daily increasing in number.

This right of private judgment is also inconsistent with the truth of the promises of Christ. He sent his apostles to teach all nations, promising to be with them,—it must be presumed, in their teaching,—to the consummation of the age. In the exercise then of that private judgment, which the reformers of the sixteenth century asserted, all the Christian world fell into error: yes, all of them; for Luther says, "in principio solus eram." The clergy, it may be said, pretended to authority, and even persecuted to the death those who differed from them. Persecution is no theological argument, though it is one which Calvin and Cranmer and other reformers did not object to resort to. But the clergy merely pretended to authority: by the supposed case, each man's particular opinion is his rule of faith, and therefore the Church of England is justified in its reformation. But, by following this rule, all the Christian world, according to the reformers, had fallen into error. Jesus Christ therefore, though he promised to be with his disciples to the end of the world, was unable or unwilling to keep his promise.

The other method of defending the reformation of the Church of England, is by admitting, that the Church of Rome, as the Anglicans call it, has been, and is, a true church, teaching with authority all doctrines necessary to salvation; that the Church of England, having purified itself from errors and abuses, is also a true church, an integral portion of the catholic or universal church, with all the authority to such a body ecclesiastical, of due right, appertaining.

This statement compels the Church of England to assert for itself something like infallibility; for, as Voltaire expresses it, "L'église catholique est infaillible, et l'église Anglicane n'a jamais tort." This must be so; for the authority of a church which may be in the wrong, must be always questioned.

This statement also deprives the Church of England of all advantage in arms (theological arms I mean,) against the dissenters and other reformers: they turn upon her, and ask how she is more infallible, or even more in the right, than the Church of Rome. The Kirk of Scotland will no more allow itself to be in the wrong than the Church of England. Thus disputes are endless; appeals to remote antiquity, instead of uninterrupted tradition, involve the matter in hopeless intricacy; and the private judgment of nations has no more weight than the private judgment of individuals.

Such are the two modes of defending England's reformation adopted by the low and the high church parties, which once declaredly and still insensibly divide its clergy. I have explained both methods, as they are better understood by being contrasted: I have noted the vice of each, that I may give in part my reasons for rejecting both in due time. Till this due time arrived, I was induced to embrace, and, for the time, conscientiously embraced, the opinions of a high churchman; and I was induced to this by the arguments and example of my friend Richard Paget.