B. The World of John Henry Newman
B. The World of John Henry Newman
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”494 at least in the Church of England. Dickens’s aphorism cogently describes the period of John Henry Newman’s life on which the current chapter will concentrate, from his birth to the writing of his Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification (1801 to 1838). The reasons for this tumult were legion. Social and political upheaval across Europe, the growth of rationalism, the evolution of applied science, and Evangelical renewal movements associated with Wesley and Whitfield had given rise to, and voice to, a climate of crisis and reform. As a result, nineteenth-century Great Britain manifested three distinct Christian movements: revivalism within Anglican and nonconformist churches; a deeper commitment to ritualism in the same Anglican church; and, thirdly, a Latitudinarian (or Broad Church) form of liberalism. The first movement, so-called Evangelicalism, both stimulated and took shape in a groundswell of missionary activity and social reform, while the second concentrated on a reviving of formal liturgy, whose sensational depth reached back to the early centuries of the church. The last was in some ways less of a movement than an intellectually respectable morality devoid of doctrinal substance, against which the other two more fervent strains could define themselves. Newman’s life intersected with each of these traditions, as we shall see.
John Henry Newman was born in London on Saturday, February 21, 1801, the first of, in the end, six children. His father, John Newman, was a banker and an easygoing member of the Church of England. John Henry’s mother, Jemina Foudrinier, was the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer who came from a French Huguenot background. The family lived at 80 Old Broad Street for two years before they moved to 17 Southampton Street (now Southampton Place), Bloomsbury. Decades later, Newman would recollect these childhood years as the starting point of his religious imagination.495
Newman’s religious background has been described as “a conventional, non-sacramental middle-class one.”496 Before long, however, he was awoken from his religious slumber by reading the deist Thomas Paine and the skeptic David Hume.497 Such reflection eventually led to his conversion to a sort of Evangelicalism that was “Calvinistic in character.”498 This occurred in the autumn of 1816 when Newman was fifteen.499 Before analyzing the details of his conversion, the following section will briefly consider the larger Evangelical movement of the time.
In the “Introductory Essay” of her work, The Evangelical and Oxford Movements, Elisabeth Jay explains why nineteenth-century Evangelicalism has resisted clean-cut definition. She suggests that it is largely due to this variety of Evangelicalism’s revivalist origins, in which elements of doctrine, piety, and organization were shaped by a wide array of personalities.500 Accordingly, Jay writes, “The nickname ‘Evangelical’ was acquired by these men because of the zeal they showed in spreading the Evangel or Gospel.”501 As David Bebbington,502 David Newsome,503 and Sheridan Gilley504 have demonstrated, the broad range of leaders and circumstances to which this label was attached broadened the semantic range of the Evangelical label.505 The following sampling of figures and contributions is simply intended to offer a sense of its general complexion and portray the contours of the tradition in which Newman’s doctrine of justification initially took shape. Such background will also help us to identify the factors that drove Newman’s reflection on justification into the via media and eventually into his via Romana.
According to Kenneth Latourette, “Taken as a whole, in 1815 [the year preceding Newman’s conversion] the Church of England was far from healthy. It was rich in its endowments and its revenues, but it was closely bound to the existing order and its leaders were fearful of any change that would jeopardize their position.”506 But not all Englishmen were so tentative. There was a variety of dynamic movements, which emerged and came under the label ‘Evangelical’, both within and beyond the established Churches of England and Scotland, including non-conformist denominations and organizations.
To recognize Evangelicalism’s aims and concerns requires one to consider the previous century, in which the Wesleyan revivals brought an increased emphasis on personal faith to both the rural population and the emerging working class of Britain. It was later, toward the end of the eighteenth century, when the upper class and segments of the established church were also affected by renewal. This was especially so between the years 1790 and 1830, when a “Calvinistic” brand of Evangelicalism acquired a significant following (often linked to Wesley’s former colleague, George Whitfield). As the years passed, it was common for High Churchmen to condescendingly blame Calvinist Evangelicals for what they perceived as excesses in religion.507
Over against the “high-and-dry” church (Newman’s favorite label for liberal clerics) and their followers,508 early Evangelicals distinguished themselves with terrific stories of conversion. One such example is John Newton (1725–1807), the slave trader turned minister and hymn writer who penned, “Amazing Grace” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.”509 Newton eventually became a spiritual leader who influenced many others, including William Cowper (1731–1800)510 and Thomas Scott (1747–1821).511 As Newton’s successor, Scott’s books were best-sellers among Evangelicals, particularly A Commentary on the Whole Bible and The Force of Truth (1779). As we shall see, he was also the figure to whom Newman attributed the greatest amount of credit for his conversion. In Newman’s words, “It was he who first planted deep in my mind the fundamental truth of religion,” and “who made a deeper impression on my mind than any other, and to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul.”512
Space will not permit a treatment of the many other individuals who contributed to Evangelicalism’s impact. Some were scholarly such as Isaac Milner (1750–1820) and Charles Simeon (1759–1836), whose work infused Cambridge University with an Evangelical awareness. The so-called Clapham Sect, consisting of wealthy individuals including John Venn (1759–1833), Henry Thornton (1760–1815), and William Wilberforce (1759–1833), engaged in the enterprise of social reform, eventually achieving the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. In a similar vein was the prison reformer, John H. Howard (1726–90), and sometime afterward, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801–85), who tirelessly served the poor and oppressed. Evangelicals created their own publications, such as the Christian Observer, The Christian Guardian, and the Record,513 while also launching a host of missionary societies, starting most notably with the Baptists in 1792.514 The famous Sunday school movement, initiated by Hannah More (1745–1833) and popularized by Robert Raikes (1735–1811), is also part of the Evangelical legacy. But while the list of Evangelical contributions is long515 and the movement was as varied as its participants, it drew men and women whose commonalities of thought shaped a common identity we can define.
According to the Evangelical Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, J. C. Ryle, it was “no written creed, no formal declaration of principles” that defined “Evangelical Religion.”516 With reference to Evangelical leaders who preceded him, particularly to those of the late eighteenth century,517 Ryle enumerates five values that properly identify the movement:518
1. Absolute supremacy of Holy Scripture
2. Appreciating the depth and prominence of human sinfulness
3. Paramount importance assigned to the work and office of the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. The inward work of God’s Spirit in the heart of man
5. Outward and visible work of the Holy Ghost
The English biographer, memoirist and Liberal politician, George W. E. Russell, offers a similar portrait. While he was a high churchman, Russell recollected his childhood experience of Evangelicalism, noting in particular how the religion of his youth generally divided humanity into two categories, the “converted” ones, who had “closed with the offer” (and were thus assured of their salvation), and those of “an unconverted character.”519 The distinguishing characteristic of the first category, the “real” Christian, according to Evangelical parlance, was one’s heartfelt response to the gospel message. In Russell’s words, “[I]f only we would accept the offer of salvation so made, we were forgiven, reconciled, and safe. The acceptance was ‘Conversion.’”520 This distinction between the converted and unconverted was part of what drew Newman into Evangelicalism, and, as we shall see, it eventually repelled him.