Chapter 21: A Leader at Oxford
CHAPTER 21
A LEADER AT OXFORD
IN the year 1834, the government discussed bills concerning two controversial subjects: university degrees and marriages of Dissenters. The events that took place led to heated debates in a society that was still a confessional state. In both cases, Newman voiced his opinions firmly and became a leading figure in the debates at Oxford University.
Religious pluralism had been a cause of social and political tension and violence since the sixteenth-century breakdown of religious cohesion in England. A rise in the numbers of Christians belonging to churches other than the Anglican Church now presented a growing problem in admission to higher education and a serious problem for the marriage of Nonconformists and Catholics. Persons who were not Anglicans were deprived of obtaining university degrees and were obliged to marry before an Anglican clergyman.
In a state in which the Establishment involved a strong alliance between State and Church, higher education had been the domain of the religious and political institutions. Oxford and Cambridge had originated as schools of Roman Catholic theology, dating back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Nevertheless, since the English Reformation, they had become the realm of the Anglican Church and the locus of the religious and intellectual formation of its clergy.
Members of religious bodies other than the Anglican Church were not admitted for studies at Oxford. At Cambridge, they were allowed to study, but the university did not confer degrees on them unless they subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church. These injustices led to the formulation of the Dissenters University Relief Bill. This proposed legislation came on the heels of the 1828 repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, laws that had excluded Dissenters from municipal offices, and of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
Religious tests or Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles for matriculation at Oxford would constitute reprehensible religious discrimination today. It is important, however, to note the historical context in which these religious tests were administered and the reason for their existence. Newman opposed a change in the statutes that would allow admission to Nonconformists and Catholics to Oxford because he considered that this change would harm an Anglican institution with legitimate rights.
Newman argued that non-Anglican students would not participate in prescribed chapel worship and would therefore give a bad example to others. In addition, he thought that Dissenting students would demand Dissenting Tutors to fill the ranks of the university and thus alter the composition of the faculty. The university and its Tutors would not be able to fulfill their role in the religious formation of their students.
Newman’s position seems unjust in today’s pluralist society that all too readily sacrifices religion to other goals or that seeks religious ecumenism by accepting the least common denominator. Newman contended that Oxford had the prerogative of a private religious institution, which seeks the intellectual and religious training of its members, and even more, its future leaders. Newman conceived the role of the Tutor as both a religious and an intellectual one. Thus, admission of religious pluralism would mean the abrogation of one of the university’s primary missions.
Agitation over the admission of Dissenters to Oxford became strong in March of 1834. In April, Newman prepared and circulated a declaration against the admission of Dissenters. By May 2, the number of supporters had risen to 1800, and Heads of Houses and Proctors also added their names. Newman wrote to Bowden that recusants among the Tutors came around to their side, and all but two signed, increasing the number of Tutors to 90 or 92.
Newman first took a legal approach to the debate. In a letter to the editor of The Standard, he argued that the Vice-Chancellor, the Heads, and each Tutor had an oath to keep the university statutes, which forbade Dissenters. The repeal of the oath would be a violation of the university statutes. Only Convocation could alter the statutes, but Convocation would not alter it because the Masters of Arts would not agree to such a change; if they did, the university would lose its moral influence over the students. To repeal its statutes would be to abrogate its corporate privileges and its power of self-legislation. Alternatively, the government might try to repeal its charter, but the country would not stand for this. In a second letter to The Standard, dated May 1, Newman inquired: “Does Parliament have the power to legislate over this university?”1 He continued that, even if the statutes were repealed, the officers of the university had received a trust from its members. Parliament could not absolve the oath that they had made. The declaration objected to the separation of religion from the university and the relinquishing of the idea of Christian education. Newman asserted that religion should not be reduced to the vague acceptance of many religious creeds. In effect, the declaration reaffirmed the belief that the faculty of the University of Oxford had the duty of providing Christian education, and this was only possible by holding uniformity of faith. Newman realized the injustice caused to other Christians outside of the Anglican Church who were excluded from the universities, yet he did not see how Oxford University could yield in this matter to the detriment of the Anglican Church. Mandatory Subscription seemed safe until August of 1834 when Renn Dickson Hampden, Principal of St. Mary’s Hall at Oxford, came out with a pamphlet titled “Observations on Religious Dissent,” advocating the removal of religious tests at the university.
For a few weeks, there was growing tension in expectation of the examination of this question by the Heads of Houses. In November, the Heads decided, by a majority of one vote, to send a measure to Convocation of Masters of Arts at Oxford regarding the removal of Mandatory Subscription to the Articles at matriculation. Then, at Hampden’s prompting, the idea of replacing the oath with a declaration of conformity began to circulate at Oxford. By this declaration, students would manifest their conformity with the worship and discipline of Oxford. Keble and Pusey, in part stirred by their friend, strongly opposed this proposal and wrote against it. William Sewell of Exeter College was another adamant opponent. On Saturday, November 15, 1834, Pusey printed an essay, “Twenty-three questions, without title, addressed to Members of Convocation,” signed “A Bachelor of Divinity,” in which he argued against Hampden’s proposal. Only two days later, upon further consideration, the Board of Heads gave up the proposed measure.
The controversy raged on with pamphlets from both sides. Edward Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, published anonymously a pamphlet in support of Hampden while Henry Wilberforce, coached by Newman, wrote a pamphlet which was a stinging attack on Hampden. Wilberforce’s pamphlet was also published anonymously, but Hampden, who was greatly annoyed by its claims, discovered the identity of the intellectual author. When Newman edited a collection of the pamphlets against Hampden, the latter wrote an enraged letter to Newman accusing him of “dissimulation, falsehood and dark malignity.”2 Newman wrote to his friend Rickards that Hampden was “like a red hot iron” and asked Rickards’s help in showing that Hampden was one of the main troublemakers.
Given the overtly secularized present-day universities, it is hard for the modern mind to make sense of this struggle at Oxford. Nevertheless, Oxford was not the equivalent of a contemporary State university; it was a private corporation with a religious origin and a strong religious affiliation (first Roman Catholic, then Anglican). As with other institutions, it was under the Crown, which appointed the chancellor and some of its professors. At that time, the English Church and State were still closely intertwined, as was evident by the appointment of bishops by the Cabinet and by the standing membership of some bishops in the House of Lords. In sum, the university was a confessional university belonging to the Established State-Church. In this context, the religious tests were not an injustice, but a prerogative or right of a religious institution that wished to ensure adherence to a creed and moral code.
During this period of time, those in favor of the bill sought to secularize the university by an act of law, but the secularization was a process that would happen over a period of many years before a law would actually sanction it.3 In fact, the conservatives at the university did not wish to admit Dissenters, precisely in order to avoid the secularization of the university. If passed, the bill would disestablish the Anglican Church from the center where its leaders were formed, thus endorsing the conclusion that doctrinal truths could not be known with certainty among Christians. Sewell summarized the goal of the bill: “Education without Religion; and Religion without distinction. In plain and simple words, No Christianity.”4 Newman could not tolerate this liberal view of truth.
In May of 1835, Convocation of the Masters in Arts at Oxford heavily defeated Hampden’s proposition by a vote of 459 to 57. From Oriel, of the 38 nonresidents to come, 37 sided with the Tractarians. Despite this opposition at Oxford University, in July 1835 the House of Commons passed a bill removing the religious tests by a vote of 164 to 75. However, later that same month, the House of Lords threw out the new bill. Students continued to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles for matriculation and a Bachelor of Arts degree until the Oxford University Bill of 1854. Nonetheless, even then Subscription to the Articles continued to be a requirement for obtaining a Master of Arts degree, voting in Convocation, and being admitted to Fellowships, until the 1871 University Tests Acts.
Newman’s role in the Oxford controversy revealed his capacity for leadership and commitment to the mission of the university, and it exemplified his position on the proper relationship of the Church and State. The English State had severed ties with the Roman papacy and established a national Church. Newman thought that the State’s role should be the protection of this Church, not its domination. The Church was not subservient to the State in doctrinal, liturgical, or disciplinary matters, which were received through Apostolic Succession. However, a large part of both medieval and modern English history records the same usurpation of Church rights and property by the State.
In the first year of the Movement, its members engaged in a second major battle: opposition to a Dissenter’s Marriage Bill proposed by Lord John Russell in the House of Commons in March 1834. Lord Russell, a champion against many social injustices, was one of the men responsible for the repeal of the Tests and Corporation Act, and for the Reform Act of 1832. The Marriage Bill sought to redress domestic and religious grievances against Roman Catholics and Protestants outside the Anglican Church. For everyone, Anglican and non-Anglican alike, marriage required the publication of banns to be posted outside of an Anglican church. The non-Anglicans had to agree to a religious ritual that they did not accept.
At this time in England, there was no civil registry for marriages or a system of civil magistrates to act as witnesses. Neither was there a civil registry for recording births. People were bound to the Anglican Church’s registry for wedding and baptismal records. Since there was no civil registry for births, the recognition of a birth required Baptism by Anglican clergymen, to which some parents objected. The Anglican Church also regulated Christian burial in cemeteries. The situation presented anomalies and imposed difficulties for Dissenters and Anglicans. For Nonconformists and Catholics, it was a religious imposition and a denial of religious freedom. For Anglican clergymen, it meant turning religious ceremonies into a sort of legal transaction. It also obliged clergymen to act against their conscience by sometimes administering sacraments to unbelievers.
Nonetheless, Newman drafted a declaration against the bill in which he argued that such a bill would oblige clergymen to become mere instruments for the State to prevent clandestine marriages. Clergymen would be forced to degrade their office by going against the Church’s discipline. Upon request, Dissenters would have the right to be married by any clergyman. Bishops would therefore have to approve Dissenting clergymen. The declaration petitioned the House of Commons that Anglican clergy not be required to sanction directly or indirectly the union of Dissenters.
Newman held that the bill would force a clergyman to act against his own conscience. He confided to his friend Henry Wilberforce:
To my mind it is not a point for the Bishop to determine, but of conscience. The Bishop cannot give me license to derogate from his authority—he has not self-destructive power—to uphold him and the Church is a plain and Christian duty. Again I will not call that Holy Matrimony which may be but a licensed concubinage.5
In the midst of this debate, Newman was providentially drawn into a difficult and unexpected pastoral situation that would turn out to be a sort of test case for the Marriage Relief Bill. Miss Jubber, a young unbaptized woman, asked Newman to officiate at her marriage. Because she was not baptized, Newman refused to officiate at her wedding. All the same, another clergyman married the young woman that very day. The Jubber Affair soon made it to the newspapers, and based on accounts by Miss Jubber’s father, Newman was criticized for rudeness and condescension. In a characteristic manner, he wrote to the papers in his own defense.
A long time before this event, both Isaac Williams, Newman’s curate, and Newman himself had spoken with the Jubber family about the children’s Baptism. Nothing came of it because they were Baptists who defer Baptism to a later age. A year later, when Miss Jubber appeared asking to be married, the issue resurfaced. After Newman’s refusal to officiate for doctrinal reasons, Mr. Copley, her Baptist minister, complained to the Bishop of Oxford, who sent a message to Newman reprimanding him for not having “solemnized” the marriage of the unbaptized woman and instructing him to do so in any future case.
Although Newman had not done anything to bring the question of marriage of Dissenters by Anglican clergymen to a crisis, this case epitomized his concern. The Marriage Bill forced men’s consciences to act against the formularies of the Church. Many, including his mother, Keble, and Pusey supported Newman. He wrote to his sister Harriet that he was happy to have acted as he did. He hoped that the Jubber Affair would underscore the necessity of Baptism, showing that a clergyman could act against the law for a proper reason. To Henry Wilberforce, he put it in other terms; the case was a reminder of two principles: Baptism is essential, and the Church is above unjust civil laws.
In the same letter to Wilberforce, he tried to defend his actions from another point of view by appealing to English law. From his perspective of a moderate theocracy he argued that only those who were baptized members of the Established Anglican Church were British subjects, and therefore Miss Jubber was not truly a British subject. Despite Newman’s reasoning and faithfulness to religious principles, he was out of touch with the de facto religious plurality of England. His theory of Church and State was no longer practical without producing significant injustice to Dissenters and Roman Catholics. He was justified in not acting against conscience in the Jubber case, but he was wrong in opposing measures to ensure equal freedom of conscience for others.
The opposition to the Marriage Bill by Newman and the Tractarians was unable to stop the civil recognition of marriages by non-Anglicans. In 1836, Lord Russell proposed two bills: one establishing a general registry for all births, marriages, and deaths, and another advancing comprehensive legislation on marriage. The Marriage Bill was passed into act. It did not alter the marriage ceremony for a member of the Anglican Church except for the addition of civil registry. The practice of marriage banns would continue unless a party wished to notify a registrar instead of the parish clerk. For Dissenters, after the proper notification of the marriage to a registrar, marriage would be “solemnized” in the chapel of the couple’s choice. The few Dissenters who did not want a religious ceremony would be allowed to enter into a civil marriage contract before a registrar. This comprehensive act thus met the varied needs of the population, while still respecting the religious nature and rights of various Christian denominations.
Newman’s defense of ecclesiastical practice and sacramental life was not in vain. Although the legislation that he opposed passed into law, the defense that he had led encouraged Anglicans to consider the sacramental nature of marriage and the Church’s sacramental discipline. In addition to this political activity, he was occupied with pastoral work and writing. The young Oxford vicar also supported societies that worked in mission countries to spread the Christian faith by providing for the endowment of clergy, publication of Bibles, and religious instruction.
Various societies for the promotion of the Christian faith were founded in England at the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century. Among these were the Society for the Promotion of the Gospel (SPG) and the Christian Missionary Society (CMS) for Africa and the East. John Venn, rector of Clapham, and a number of laymen founded the CMS in 1779. Almost a century earlier, in 1698, four Anglican laymen and one clergyman founded the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) to combat religious ignorance, especially through the publication and distribution of Christian literature.
In the 1830s, the SPCK lost its orthodox religious identity and leadership. Newman was worried by the disregard of many of its members for Episcopal authority and Creeds, in particular the belief in baptismal regeneration. Newman did not like the views of the Society’s chairman, Christopher Bethell, Bishop of Bangor, and he disagreed with another of its influential figures, Charles J. Blomfield, Bishop of London. During the years 1834 and 1835, Newman voiced concern to his friends about the eclectic doctrinal positions held by the SPCK. He wrote to his friend R. F. Wilson that the SPCK is “the most miserable of our miseries … the Evangelicals have taken advantage of the difficulties of the Church to push; but we do not mean to be beaten.”6 At an April 1834 meeting in London, he and his friends in vain tried to replace some board members, including Bishop Blomfield and James E. Tyler, Rector of St. Giles and once Dean of Oriel College.
Newman also belonged to another society, The British and Foreign Bible Society, commonly known as the Bible Society, which was founded in 1804. He had subscribed to it in May 1824, and attended its meetings, but he withdrew from it in June of 1830. He explained to Simeon Lloyd Pope:
The Society recognizes no Church principles on which the friends of the Church who join can fall back … On the contrary, as a fact, I do believe it MAKES CHURCHMEN LIBERALS—it makes them undervalue the guilt of schism—it makes them feel a wish to conciliate Dissenters at the expense of truth.7
Newman thought that, by joining the Society, he would act against its tendency and evils, but he later concluded that men were instead drawn to them.
During the summer months, Newman maintained a significant amount of activity. In August of 1835, he spent a week of his vacation visiting various friends: the Kebles at Bisley, the Bowdens in London, and Rogers in Blackheath. During this time, he read a great deal about the history of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury and wrote three articles on the subject for the British Magazine. Convocation was the meeting of all the bishops and representatives from the clergy with the purpose of discussing religious matters or presenting grievances to the king or Parliament. At the time Newman wrote, Convocation had not convened for about one hundred and twenty years.
On vacation, Newman included a visit to the home of his youth at Alton in Hampshire. He recalled family incidents and remembered his father’s pride when he gained a scholarship at Trinity. He also read various books, including Charles Butler’s The Book of the Roman Catholic Church, Herbert Marsh’s A Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, and George S. Faber’s Difficulties of Romanism. After reading these books, Newman thought that it would be impossible to unite with Rome, but he confided to Jemima that he was willing to go a long way with Catholics and Evangelicals. Newman told his sister that he was developing a comprehensive system. During July and August, at the suggestion of Bowden that he forestall the accusation of “popery,” he published two Tracts on the Anglican Via Media.
After almost a year and half since the start of the Movement, a great deal had been accomplished to delineate its purpose and to influence clergymen and others throughout the country. The defeat of the University Dissenter’s Bill was, in part, a reflection of the Movement’s capacity to unite and rally the university community at Oxford in defense of the Anglican Church and its mission. Newman had united a core group of Tutors and Fellows at Oxford, who, together with friends in various cities, were fully committed to continue the work begun in July 1833. Newman had gained admiration for his preaching and exercised moral leadership in university life and politics. Although his religious views and prejudices toward Roman Catholicism remained overall the same during this period, he finally began to study the doctrinal claims of the Roman Church. Newman believed that the Anglican Church was a Via Media between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but he continued to search for religious truth concerning the nature of the Church and its relation with the State.
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1LD, Vol. IV, JHN to the Editor of The Standard (May 1, 1834), 245-47; 246.
2LD, Vol. V, Renn Dickson Hampden to JHN (June 23, 1835), 83-85; 84.
3The Imperial Intellect: A Study of Newman’s Educational Ideal, Dwight Culler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 101-15.
4Ibid., 108.
5LD, Vol. IV, JHN to H. Wilberforce (March 29, 1834), 221-22.
6LD, Vol. IV, JHN to R. F. Wilson (March 31, 1834), 257.
7LD, Vol. II, JHN to Simeon Lloyd Pope (August 15, 1830), 264-65, 265.