Value of the Science of Canon Law.
[Mr. Maurice] sets all lawyers at nought, and canonists he utterly despises. Hastily, indeed, I think, and for the purpose of the moment only, can he have given way to such feelings, for he needs not that I should tell him that the Church of Christ rests not upon speculative truth alone, but upon the positive institutions of our Lord and His Apostles. Surely, then, to trace those institutions from the lowest point at which they come into contact with human existence, up to the highest to which our eye can follow them, the point of union with the unseen world in which they take their rise, and from which they are the channels of grace and truth and authority to the souls of men—to trace, I say, the outward and the visible signs of sacraments, of polity, of discipline, up to the inward spiritual realities upon which they depend, which they impart and represent to faith, or shelter from profanation; to study the workings of the hidden life of the Church by those developments which, in all ages and countries, have been its necessary modes of access to human feeling and apprehension; to systematise the end gained; to learn what is universal, what partial, what temporary, what eternal, what presently obligatory, and wherefore; surely a science such as this, so noble in its object, so important in its practical bearings upon the unity and purity of the Church, and upon her relations to the temporal power, is not one of which Mr. Maurice would deliberately speak evil. Yet this is the science of the canonist. [Footnote: Mr. Hope's pamphlet on the Jerusalem Bishopric, 2nd ed., p. 55.]
There are still portions of his correspondence with Mr. Newman, belonging to the same period and subject, which must not be withheld:—
J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Rev. J. H. Newman.
6 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn: December 21, 1841.
Dear Newman,—Your speedy reply and return of my proofs was very kind. The hard passages I did not know how to make easy, as they are pure law, so have left them…. I hear that the Bishop of London refused a man orders last week on three points—Eucharistic sacrifice in any sense, real presence in elements, grace in orders. The second point (being also the Bishop of Winchester's) I have illustrated in a note to my pamphlet (very briefly) by reference to Augsburg Confession.
You see the young Prince is to have a R. Catholic sponsor on one hand, and the King of Prussia on the other. This is a good balance, though the Canon tolerates neither….
Ever yours,
J. K. HOPE.
The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq.