"The point on which I thus found myself opposed to the Church of England appears a trifling one; but here was enough to hinder all my prospects of advancement, and to put it in the power of the Bishop, if at any time he had chosen to do so, to call on me to give up my benefice. It is easy to conceive that under these circumstances my mind was set free, beyond what could be imagined in any other way, to follow without prejudice my researches after truth. I lost no opportunity of discoursing with ministers of all persuasions. I called upon them all to join with me in the inquiry where was the truth, which could be but one, and therefore could not be in any two contrary systems of religion, much less in all the variety of sects into which Christians are divided in England. I found little encouragement in any quarter to this way of proceeding, at least among Protestants. Those sectarians of a contrary persuasion to myself, to whom I proposed an inquiry with me after truth, I found generally ready to speak with me; but they did not even pretend to have any disposition to examine the grounds of their own principles, which they were determined to abide by without further hesitation. My brethren of the Established Church equally declined joining me in my discussions with persons of other persuasions, and disapproved of my pursuit, saying that I should never convert them to our side, and that I only ran the risk of being shaken myself. Their objections only incited me to greater diligence. I considered that if what I held were truth, charity required that I should never give over my attempts to bring others into the same way, though I were to labour all my life in vain. If, on the contrary, I was in any degree of error, the sooner I was shaken the better. I was convinced, by the numberless exhortations of St. Paul to his disciples, that they should be of one mind and have no divisions; that the object which I had before me, that is, the reunion of the differing bodies of Christians, was pleasing to God; and I had full confidence that I was in no danger of being led into error, or suffering any harm in following it up, as long as I studied nothing but to do the will of God in it, and trusted to His Holy Spirit to direct me.
"The result of all these discussions with different sects of Protestants was a conviction that no one of us had a correct view of Christianity. We all appeared right thus far, in acknowledging Christ as the Son of God, whose doctrines and commandments we were to follow as the way to happiness both in time and eternity; but it seemed as if the form of doctrine and discipline established by the Apostles had been lost sight of all through the Church. I wished, therefore, to see Christians in general united in the resolution to find the way of truth and peace, convinced that God would not fail to point it out to them. Whether or not others would seek His blessing with me, I had great confidence that, before long, God would clear up my doubts, and therefore my mind was not made uneasy by them. I must here notice a conversation I had with a Protestant minister about a year before I was a Catholic, by which my views of the use of the Scriptures were much enlightened, and by which, as it will be clearly seen, I was yet farther prepared to come to a right understanding of the true rule of Christian faith proposed by the Catholic Church. This gentleman was a zealous defender of the authority of the Church of England against the various sects of Protestant Dissenters, who have of late years gained so much advantage against her. He perceived that while men were allowed to claim a right of interpreting the Scriptures according to their own judgment there never could be an end of schism; and, therefore, he zealously insisted on the duty of our submitting to ecclesiastical authority in controversies of faith, maintaining that the Spirit of God spoke to us through the voice of the Church, as well as in the written word. Had I been convinced by this part of his argument, it would have led me to submit to the Catholic Church, and not to the Church of England; and, indeed, I am acquainted with one young man, who actually became a Catholic through the preaching of this gentleman—following these true principles, as he was bound to do, to their legitimate consequences. But I did not, at this time, perceive the truth of the position; I yet had no idea of the existence of Divine, unwritten Tradition in the Church. I could imagine no way for the discovery of the truth but persevering study of the Scriptures, which, as they were the only Divine rule of faith with which I was acquainted, I thought must of course be sufficient for our guidance, if used with an humble and tractable spirit; but the discourse of this clergyman led me at least to make an observation which had never struck my mind before as being of any importance,—namely, that the system of religion which Christ taught the Apostles, and which they delivered to the Church, was something distinct from our volume of Scriptures. The New Testament I perceived to be a collection of accidental writings, which, as coming from the pens of inspired men, I was assured must, in every point, be agreeable to the true faith; but they neither were, nor anywhere professed to be, a complete and systematic account of Christian faith and practice. I was, therefore, in want of some further guidance on which I could depend. I knew not that it was in the Catholic Church that I was at length to find what I was in search of; but every Catholic will see, if I have sufficiently explained my case, how well I was prepared to accept with joy the direction of the Catholic Church, when once I should be convinced that she still preserved unchanged and inviolate the very form of faith taught by the Apostles, the knowledge of which is, as it were, the key to the right and sure interpretation of the written word."
It was in April, 1829, that he wrote the letter to the Bishop which was not taken notice of. He next withdrew his name from some societies—such as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, &c. This act so displeased Dr. Blomfield, that he writes to say Mr. Spencer is no longer his chaplain. At the suggestion of some member of his family, he wrote an apology, and was restored again to favour and to his office. On May 22, 1829, the Journal suddenly breaks off, and he did not resume it again until the 1st of May, 1846. The events of the seventeen years intervening can be gathered from his correspondence, though, perhaps, not with the precision that would be desirable.
CHAPTER XI.
The Maid Of Lille.
Incidents overlapped each other so thickly, and were of such different tendencies during the last two years of Mr. Spencer's life as a minister, that we have judged it better to give them singly, even at the expense of a little sacrifice of the order of time. One of these, and an important one, is selected for the subject of this chapter. On the 23rd of November, 1827, just before his Athanasian scruples had risen to their height, as he returned from his pastoral visitation, he found a letter, purporting to be from a gentleman in Lille, "who was grievously troubled about the arguments for Popery." This letter contains little more than a statement of tendencies towards Catholicity in the writer, with extracts from Papin, De la Tolérance des Protestants, to account for them. The extracts draw a parallel between the Church and a well-regulated kingdom, in many of her doctrines and chief points of her discipline. It was anonymous, and reasons were assigned for withholding the writer's name. Mr. Spencer, ever anxious to counsel the doubtful, lost no time in answering, and sent off a long letter to his unknown friend by that evening's post. It was shortly after this that he wrote the letters to his father and Dr. Blomfield about the resignation of his preferment, and whether the Lille letter had anything to do with increasing his doubts, or not, is a question. It had, however, one effect: it made him anxious to find out what kind of people Catholics were; and an incident that occurred about the same time aided this curiosity. There were some soldiers quartered in Northampton, and, as Mr. Spencer was talking to some of the officers in the court-yard of the barracks, the Catholic priest entered, to look after such of the soldiers as might require his spiritual care. He saw the priest, and spoke to him; and, finding out the object of his mission, kindly introduced him to one of the officers, who, in consideration of Mr. Spencer, got all due attention paid to the priest; and the good parson was assured that he succeeded to his satisfaction before he left the place. A few days afterwards he met the priest, who thanked him for his charity, and said it was Providence sent him there at such a time, and arranged that his duty could be discharged among the soldiers with ease and honour, which had often-times to be done amid insults, or at least coldness on the part of the military authorities. Mr. Spencer began to think, "Really these Papists believe in Providence!" This wonderful discovery made him think they believed a little more also, and that they were not quite such idolaters as he had been taught to suppose. Another letter from the Lille correspondent confirmed him in this, and shook him in many of his older notions. He dines, in a few days after this despatch, with the celebrated Dr. Fletcher and a Miss Armytage, at Lady Throckmorton's. He has a long conversation with the last of the Douay controversialists after dinner; but the only effect produced is this: "I am thankful for the kindness of both those Papists. The Lord reward them by showing them His truth." He invites Dr. Fletcher to dinner at Brington—a favour the Doctor avails himself of on the 27th March, 1828. Another letter from his friend at Lille makes him acknowledge that he has not had proper notions of Catholicity; in his own words: "I expected easily to convince him that the Catholic Church was full of errors; but he answered my arguments. .... I discovered by means of this correspondence that I had never duly considered the principles of our Reformation; that my objections to the Catholic Church were prejudices adopted from the sayings of others, not the result of my own observation. Instead of gaming the advantage in this controversy, I saw, and I owned to my correspondent, that a great change had been produced in myself. I no longer desired to persuade him to keep in the communion of the Protestant Church, but rather determined and promised to follow up the same inquiries with him, if he would make his name known to me, and only pause awhile before he joined the Catholics. But I heard no more of him till after my conversion and arrival at Rome, when I discovered that my correspondent was a lady, who had herself been converted a short time before she wrote to me. I never heard her name before, [Footnote 7] nor am I aware that she had ever seen my person; but God moved her to desire and pray for my salvation, which she also undertook to bring about in the way I have related. I cannot say that I entirely approve of the stratagem to which she had recourse, but her motive was good, and God gave success to her attempt: for it was this which first directed my attention particularly to inquire about the Catholic religion, though she lived not to know the accomplishment of her wishes and prayers. She died at Paris, a year before my conversion, when about to take the veil as a nun of the Sacred Heart; and I trust I have in her an intercessor in Heaven, as she prayed for me so fervently on earth."
[Footnote 7: The lady's name was Miss Dolling.]
This was the last of F. Ignatius's romances, and a beautiful one it was. As it may be interesting to see what was in those famous letters, we think it well to give a few extracts:—
The line of the lady's argument is this. That Scripture without Tradition is quite insufficient for salvation. We cannot know anything about the Scriptures themselves, their composition, inspiration, interpretation, without Tradition. Besides the New Testament was not the text-book of the Apostles—it is a collection of some things they were inspired to write for the edification of the first Christians and others who had not seen our Lord; and the Epistles are a number of letters from inspired men bound up together in one volume. The body of doctrine, with its bearings, symmetry, extent, and obligation, was delivered orally by the Apostles, and the Epistles must be consonant to that system as well as explanatory of portions of it. Only by the unbroken succession of pastors from the Apostles to the present time, can we have any safeguard as to what we are to believe, and how we are to believe. The Apostles and their successors were "to teach all nations," and Christ promised them and them alone the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit. She then assigns to tradition the office of bearing testimony to what the doctrines of the Church have been, and are at present. The definitions of Councils are simple declarations that such and such is the belief then and from the beginning of the Catholic Church. They state what is, not invent what is to be. Now history, or written tradition, as contra-distinguished from Scripture, testifies to every single tenet of the Catholic Church—her creeds, liturgy, sacraments, jurisdiction. It testifies unerringly, too, even from the objections of heretics, to the fact that this Church has been always believed divine in her origin, divine in her teaching, infallible and unerring in her solemn pronouncements. This is fact, and who can gainsay it?
This peculiar way of arguing, by making tradition or history bear witness to the existence of the Church, as well as to what she always declared to be her doctrine, is a very felicitous shape to cast her arguments into. It draws the line between faith and the evidence of faith. Evidence, human evidence of the first grade of moral certainty, says: The Church believed this, and that, and the other, at such and such times, and not as a new, but as an old doctrine, that came down from age to age since the Apostles. The same evidence says: that she believed them as revealed by God, and that she could not be mistaken on account of His promise. That she never swerved, and never will swerve, from one single article which she has once believed. If this Church be not The Church of Christ, I ask you where is it to be found?