E. “Shreds and Tatters” of Evangelicalism

In addition to Sumner’s Apostolical Preaching, Newman was also influenced by Joseph Butler’s The Analogy of Religion (1736).554 Above all, Butler’s work cast aspersions upon the chief tenets of Evangelicalism, portraying it as “an emotional religion,” with which Newman, as he later wrote, “could have little sympathy.”555 It was in the context of describing this book’s influence that Newman also explained that he “had taken the first step towards giving up the Evangelical form of Christianity; however, for a long while certain shreds and tatters of that doctrine hung about his preaching.”556

Recounting in his Apologia the factors most responsible for swaying him during this period, Newman highlights two. The first was his drift toward liberalism in which he preferred intellectual excellence to moral.557 This movement, however, was only short-lived on account of his emotional breakdown as an examiner of schools and the sudden death of his favorite sister, Mary. The other factor was John Keble’s Christian Year (1827), which brought to mind principles that he had previously learned from Butler. The first of these principles is especially relevant to the question of regeneration. “[It] was what may be called, in a larger sense of the word, the Sacramental system, that is, the doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and the instruments of things unseen.”558 Newman goes on to explain that sacraments are not simply a sign directing the faithful to the mysteries of faith; they are also the instrumental means by which one encounters them.559

As Newman rejected Evangelicalism’s subjective criterion for church membership in favor of a supposedly objective sacramental assessment, there was a definite turning point in the development of his thought.560 Velocity was added to this trajectory in 1831, when, having been relieved from his teaching duties, Newman accepted a commission to write a history of the church councils. It turned out that, instead, he wrote his first great work, The Arians of the Fourth Century (1833).561 Research for this volume strengthened Newman’s conviction with regard to the two aforementioned topics: regeneration understood in the context of sacramental objectivity and the authority of the church institution.562 Newman’s position on ecclesial authority after completing his study of the fourth century church, as Ker summarizes, was a firm embrace of traditional claims:

Nor did the early Church use the Bible to teach the faith; it was the Church that taught what had to be believed, and it only appealed to ‘Scripture in vindication of its own teaching’; heretics, on the other hand, like the Arians, relied on a ‘private study of Holy Scripture’ to elicit a ‘systematic doctrine from the scattered notices of the truth which Scripture contains.’ The parallel with the contemporary situation was obvious.563

Through this lens, Newman’s reflection on baptismal regeneration led him to a renewed and optimistic vision of the sacramental Church. But, on the ground, the realities of the split between liberal and Evangelical camps, both of which were seeming increasingly alien to Newman, were thoroughly disheartening. Frustration over this problem (and general fatigue from research and writing) ran so deep that Newman needed a holiday. Recognizing this, he decided to accompany the Froudes on a Mediterranean voyage, a trip that would become another pivotal turning point for Newman.

It was in December of 1832 that Newman set sail from Falmouth with Richard Hurrell Froude and his father on a trip intended to enrich Richard’s health. Visiting Corfu and then arriving in Rome by March 1833, Newman took great pleasure in the beautiful sites.564 When the Froudes returned to England in April, Newman decided to revisit Sicily. It was there, terribly ill with gastric or typhoid fever, that Newman’s thoughts went to the liberal threat facing the church in the wake of the Reform Bill of 1832.565 It was in light of these developments that he wrote in his journal, “God has still work for me to do.”566 After returning home by sea—during this voyage he wrote his famous poem “Lead Kindly Light”—he finally arrived in Oxford on July 9, 1833.567 This was five days before Keble preached his assize sermon, later published as National Apostasy, which, in retrospect, Newman considered to be the beginning of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement.568 The stage was now set for Newman to articulate his “middle way” or via media.

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