And on this principle the line of argument in The Prophetical Office of the Church was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do without the whole case. The argument from the claim of infallibility said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case—the practical working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it and its rulers have played in the history of the world. Rome has not such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean account of what is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches. And if the claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal.
But this task was never adequately undertaken. It was one of no easy execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, intervened. There was no question for the present of perfect and unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman defects, and unfairly hard on English faults. How mischievously this told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a later stage.
4. Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things.
The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was Froude's Remains. It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not merely boldness. Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the shallow and thoughtless for merely "strong talk," it may fairly be said that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude's Remains did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else could have done. And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so refined, so heroic. So again, Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism was a bold book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on the party. In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on Post-baptismal Sin. But it was written to redress the balance against the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his future teaching was to supply so amply. But it was a blow struck, not before it was necessary, by a strong hand; and it may safely be said that it settled the place of the sacrament of baptism in the living system of the English Church, which the negations and vagueness of the Evangelical party had gravely endangered. But two other essays appeared in the Tracts, most innocent in themselves, which ten or twenty years later would have been judged simply on their merits, but which at the time became potent weapons against Tractarianism. They were the productions of two poets—of two of the most beautiful and religious minds of their time; but in that stage of the movement it is hardly too much to say that they were out of place. The cause of the movement needed clear explanations; definite statements of doctrines which were popularly misunderstood; plain, convincing reasoning on the issues which were raised by it; a careful laying out of the ground on which English theology was to be strengthened and enriched. Such were Mr. Newman's Lectures on Justification, a work which made its lasting mark on English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English theology, the so-called laborious Catenas. These were the real tasks of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, and it took away men's thoughts from them; the prospect was hopeless that in that state of men's minds it should be understood, except by a very few; it merely helped to add another charge, the vague but mischievous charge of mysticism, to the list of accusations against the Tracts. The other, to the astonishment of every one, was like the explosion of a mine. That it should be criticised and objected to was natural; but the extraordinary irritation caused by it could hardly have been anticipated. Written in the most devout and reverent spirit by one of the gentlest and most refined of scholars, and full of deep Scriptural knowledge, it furnished for some years the material for the most savage attacks and the bitterest sneers to the opponents of the movement. It was called "On Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge"; and it was a protest against the coarseness and shallowness which threw the most sacred words about at random in loud and declamatory appeals, and which especially dragged in the awful mystery of the Atonement, under the crudest and most vulgar conception of it, as a ready topic of excitement in otherwise commonplace and helpless preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, its disciplina arcani, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an unfortunate use. The suspiciousness which so innocently it helped to awaken and confirm was never again allayed.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Fifty years ago there was much greater contrast than now between old and young. There was more outward respect for the authorities, and among the younger men, graduates and undergraduates, more inward amusement at foibles and eccentricities. There still lingered the survivals of a more old-fashioned type of University life and character, which, quite apart from the movements of religious opinion, provoked those νεανιεύματα ἰδιωτῶν εἰς τοὐς ἄρχοντας,[75] impertinences of irresponsible juniors towards superiors, which Wordsworth, speaking of a yet earlier time, remembered at Cambridge—
"In serious mood, but oftener, I confess,
With playful zest of fancy, did we note
(How could we less?) the manners and the ways
Of those who lived distinguished by the badge
Of good or ill report; or those with whom
By frame of Academic discipline
We were perforce connected, men whose sway
And known authority of office served
To set our minds on edge, and did no more.
Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind,
Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring
Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque
In character, tricked out like aged trees
Which through the lapse of their infirmity
Give ready place to any random seed
That chooses to be reared upon their trunks."
Prelude, bk. iii.
[75] Plat. R.P. iii. 390.
[76] Tracts for the Times, No. 1, 9th September 1833.