Chapter 26: Newman’s Doubts about His Position in the English Church
CHAPTER 26
NEWMAN’S DOUBTS ABOUT HIS
POSITION IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH
1840 was another very busy year for Newman, given his responsibility as editor of the British Critic, though it was his last year in this position, but especially it was a year of soul-searching and transition. In his conversations and correspondence, he sought to dissuade friends against converting from the Anglican Church to the Roman Church. All the while, he was wresthng within himself over the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the obligation to remain in the Anglican Church, and his duty as an Anglican clergyman to refrain from giving people arguments that could dispose them in favor of Rome.
The previous year Newman had written to Rogers that: “[I]f at any future time, I have any view opened to me, I will try not to turn from it, but will pursue it, wherever it may lead.”1 In 1840, he was still unpersuaded that he must go over to Rome. One of the major points that Newman continued to debate in his mind was the justification for papal authority.
In the first few months of the year, Newman exchanged letters with Pusey and Keble, trying to establish what prayer and what day of the week could be used to pray for the intention of Christian unity. Although he had initially disliked Fr. George Spencer’s introducing this custom, he now agreed on Friday, the day suggested by Pusey. Newman, already in the habit of daily prayer at set times, now wished to pray more and also to fast. With these questions in mind, he decided to spend Lent in Littlemore.
In late February, Newman announced his intention of moving to Littlemore. He planned to live the season of Lent with increased religious observance. At Littlemore, he abstained from many items of food and fasted until 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. During Holy Week, his fasting was even more severe. Newman did this even though it caused him fatigue and headaches, as fasting often does. Newman sought the tranquility of a village, but there were other reasons for his move to Littlemore: Bloxam, his curate, was leaving to attend to his dying father, and the school was in disarray, due to lack of discipline and attention by the headmistress, who had a drinking problem.
Newman wrote Jemima for practical advice on the care of girls; he also asked what to do with the headmistress. In April, he told Jemima that he had given up the idea of dismissing the headmistress, but he had set himself the task of teaching hygiene and manners to the girls:
I have effected a great reform (for the time) in the girls’ hands and faces—lectured with unblushing effrontery on the necessity of their keeping their work clean, and set them to knit stockings with all their might. Also I am going to give them some neat white pinafores for Church use, and am going to contrive to make them make them.2
Newman asked friends for books on education and recommendations for the school. He began to teach the schoolchildren to sing and accompanied them with the violin. They improved, and he was able to write to Bloxam, “We learned three tunes last week—and I am ambitious of teaching them Gregorian Chant this week.”3 Newman also began to teach the Catechism to the children.
Despite the problems at Littlemore, Newman was grateful to Bloxam. He wrote to him, warmly thanking him for his services at Littlemore, “You have inspired a general reverence for religion and love of the Church, and I see it in more ways that I can name.”4 After the death of his father, Bloxam returned at times and continued to assist Newman at Littlemore.
While there, Newman conceived the idea of establishing a monastery or house of prayer at Littlemore to which he might move definitively. This house could be a place to train men for the big cities. The plan might enable him to continue as Vicar of St. Mary’s, taking the Sunday afternoon duty there, while living at Littlemore.5 Newman wondered what Oriel College would say about this arrangement and whether he would become a nonresident Fellow. Pusey encouraged Newman with his plans but advised him to retain the pulpit at St. Mary’s: “for your preaching there has certainly been made an instrument of great good.”6 Pusey also suggested that he divide his time in the terms between Oxford and Littlemore.
Newman lost no time in looking for land to buy, and with Bloxam’s help he began negotiations for nine or ten acres of land close to the church. In May, he was able to purchase the land for £800 borrowed from his friend Charles Marriot. He told Harriet his plans: “Our intention is, if we are prospered, here to build a retreat; and though while Fellows of Colleges, we are bound to Oxford, yet here we propose ultimately to pitch ourselves, so far as we can form plans in so changeable a world.”7 That same day he wrote to Tom, his brother-in-law, asking for advice for building on the property. He wished to begin building with a plan that would allow for later additions. The plans should include a library, an oratory or chapel, and cells; each cell would consist of three rooms: a sitting room, a bedroom and bathroom.
As with other projects, once Newman decided on a course of action, he thrust himself into the project, heart and mind. Reviewing plans for building, he suggested to Mozley that the cells be arranged around a cloister as at Magdalen College. Newman went over many artistic and financial considerations. For instance, he asked Mozley if they could avoid chimneys and fireplaces and replace them with hot water pipes. He also made plans for planting two acres with larch, firs, and elms, and in October and November, the college gardener planted several hundred trees on the property at Littlemore.
In 1840, Newman stayed at Littlemore only during Lent, but this stay had opened a new spiritual and pastoral panorama for him. For the first time in twelve years, except for the Mediterranean trip, he had been away for an extended period from St. Mary’s Church and Oriel College. While considering God’s will, he had worked closely with educating children, fasted, prayed, and given free rein to his romantic imagination. In June, he wrote to his friend Henry Arthur Woodgate:
We have bought a field of 10 acres at Littlemore close to the Church—there I intend to erect a coenobitium, and to end my days. And when parsons are turned out of their livings, and rail roads have superseded turnpikes, and you and yours are mounted on horses with one or two poneys for the luggage, I will give you bread and beer at the House of the Blessed Mary of Littlemore.8
At about this time, Walter Hook, an Anglican clergyman who was starting a community of nuns, wrote asking Newman for a prioress. Maria Giberne also inquired if Newman would be starting a monastery for nuns. Men such as Newman, Hook, and Pusey realized that monastic communities for women and for men would strengthen the life of the Anglican Church through their practices of piety and penance. Newman also thought that this monasticism would serve to dissuade possible converts to Roman Catholicism.9
Early in the year, Newman admitted to Bowden that Dr. Wiseman’s article in the Dublin Review had unsettled some Tractarians and upset him personally because of its claims. According to Wiseman, if St. Augustine or St. Basil took a look at Christendom in the nineteenth century, they would say that Rome was the Catholic Church and that Anglican England was heretical. Newman wrote in order to counter the article, even though he thought there was a great deal in favor of its claim.
In the same letter, Newman mentioned that Pusey wished to set up a community of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy; he commented that this type of institution would be “the only means of saving some of our best members turning Roman Catholics, and yet I despair of such societies being made externally. They must be the expansion of an inward principle.”10 As on other occasions in the previous year, Newman was concerned with secessions to Rome; he would continue to dissuade friends as well as correspondents who wrote asking for his advice. However, as he had written Bowden, he did not see how the Established Church could maintain its members without the “inward principle” of dogma and apostolicity.
During 1840, Newman exchanged letters with two persons whom he tried to dissuade from conversion to Rome: Robert Williams and William Cowper Maclaurin. Newman knew Williams well and thought that his desire to become Roman Catholic was motivated by spiritual doubts and reliance on private judgment. Newman counseled him to pray and to be patient in wishing to resolve his doubts.
In a draft of an unsent letter to Williams, Newman argued that Williams had been born into the Anglican Church, and if it were in error, then he had been born into a state of error, and was not to blame. On the other hand, Williams should admit the possibility of Rome being in error, and if this were the case, then he was “choosing and changing into error.”11 In acting in this way he would be acting on his own private judgment against the judgment of friends who were sincerely religious. A few days later, upon the suggestion of Wood, their common friend, Newman sent Williams a shorter and less passionate letter asking him to follow his judgment and remain in the Anglican Church.
William Maclaurin was a Scot who had become an Anglican clergyman. He eventually considered the Anglican Church schismatic—that is, outside of the legitimate communion with the Church of Rome. He wrote Newman that he remained Anglican with the hope that the Oxford Divines would propose a communion of the Anglican and Roman churches. Maclaurin preferred to seek unity with the See of Rome together with others, rather than individually. A few weeks later, he wrote to Newman, offering what was almost a reply to Newman’s objection to Williams about private judgment in determining the true Church. Maclaurin said that “to go over with a body would be a very different step from doing it singly.”12
Even so, Newman countered that Maclaurin was acting on his private judgment and very likely in a perplexed state of mind. He argued that for a person to feel the duty to change his present state, God would usually give “over-powering evidence.”13 Newman wrote to Maclaurin that it would be better for him to remain in error than to change into error.
Lastly Newman added that the Anglican Church’s foundation and internal consistency were being severely tested at Oxford; he did not think that God would leave the men there to remain in error. Newman advised his interlocutor to watch the steps of the body of deeply religious, gifted, and committed men at Oxford and to see where God was leading them. “They are Church to you—If Rome be true, they are her Messengers guiding you to her. If England be true, they again are hers.”14 This was a prophetic statement, since many men, including Maclaurin, would be led to communion with Rome by the example of the Tractarians at Oxford.
When Maclaurin replied, he argued that he had not been brought up an Anglican, and that it was through arguments that he had changed from being a Dissenting Independent to adopting the Reformed Episcopacy. Now his question was whether he should not go further and embrace Roman Catholicism, since the arguments in favor of papal succession were stronger than those for Apostolic Succession claimed by Catholics and Anglicans alike.
In his response, Newman admitted that if Maclaurin had arrived to the Anglican Church by private judgment, it would also be just to advance to Rome in the same manner. He counseled Maclaurin to be patient and to refrain from acting in a state of perplexity:
If I might venture to suggest, I would say that, were I in your present most painful state of mind, I think I should give over the direct inquiry for several years and give myself to fasting and prayer and practical duties. At the end of this time I trust that God would enlighten my judgment—at all events I should be in a better state of mind to judge how my duty lay.15
Newman was beginning to entertain doubts about Anglicanism, and he was doing exactly what he advised Maclaurin to do: fasting more, praying for Christian unity, and patiently waiting. In 1840, there were still Roman doctrines and practices that Newman could not accept. The principal doctrine with which he wrestled was the one concerning the office of the Pope.
NEWMAN’S POSITION IN THE
ANGLICAN CHURCH
Newman realized that the office of the Bishop of Rome was important historically. However, when he preached a sermon titled “The Unity of the Church,” he acknowledged the Apostolic origin of Baptism, but not of the papacy. Although an ingrained prejudice against the papacy remained firm in his subconscious, he was no longer equating the Antichrist with the Bishop, or the See of Rome. In 1840, Newman reviewed “Discourses on the Prophecies Relating to Antichrist in the Writings of Daniel and St. Paul,” by James H. Todd, published that same year. Todd argued that despite corruptions in the Catholic Church, it was wrong to name Catholics apostates and their bishops Antichrists. Newman agreed with Todd, and like him, asserted that Roman Catholics hold the essential truths of the faith.
Todd had adduced many arguments to show the errors of those who interpret the Prophet Daniel or St. Paul as indications that Rome or the Pope is the Antichrist. He had also traced the origin of the accusation of the Pope as the Antichrist to heretical groups, namely the Albigensians and the Spiritual Franciscans in the twelfth century. Calling Rome the Antichrist was an attempt to counter its doctrines by discrediting it. Newman agreed with Todd and argued that a mark of the true Church was its accusation of being the Antichrist by those who disagreed with certain doctrines. Newman went on at length to question the credibility of Bishop Thomas Newton, who in a book on prophecies had charged the greater part of Christianity with falling into a satanical error. Newman compared Newton, a worldly and mediocre bishop, with St. John Chrysostom, a holy and very generous bishop, who died persecuted for the faith, and asked, “Is this the man to sit in judgment on Chrysostom? is he the man to be trusted rather than Chrysostom?”16
In the review, Newman also described the holy lives of the sixteenth-century Bishop of Milan, St. Charles Borromeo, and the seventeenth-century Bishop of Annecy, St. Francis de Sales. Both of these men had lived exceptional lives and had loved the Pope. Newman argued, “How can someone love the Antichrist and live in such a manner as these men?” After this, Newman put his finger on the crux of the matter:
The only question then is this, “Has Christ, or has He not, appointed a body representative of Him on earth during His absence?” If He has, the Pope is not Antichrist;—if He has not, every bishop in England, Bishop Newton, Bishop Warburton, Bishop Hurd, is Antichrist; every priest is Antichrist, Mr. McNeile, Dr. Jortin, and Dr. Faussett inclusive.17
Newman also put forth various other arguments in favor of the Catholic Church; one was a historical one and the other a biblical one. The first one was a description of the Church’s unequaled service to society. She has fulfilled her high mission. Newman offered examples from the lives of three bishops who were also saints: Ambrose, Basil, and Athanasius. The biblical argument was that wealth is not a mark of the Antichrist. What is evil and associated with the Antichrist is idolatry and attachment to material goods.
Writing to his close friend, Rogers, who was traveling in Europe, Newman admitted that the separation of the English Church was wrong, yet he would still not accept the authority of the Roman See: “It is quite consistent to say that I think Rome the centre of unity, and yet not to say that she is infallible, when she is by herself.”18 Looking back years later, however, Newman noted that upon reading quotes from St. Augustine regarding the catholicity of the Church, he had seen the writing upon the wall, namely God’s hand:
It was clear that I had a good deal to learn on the question of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was coming upon me. He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again. The thought for a moment had been, “the Church of Rome will be found right after all” and then it had vanished. My old convictions remained as before.19
For Newman, the Catholic Church had three branches: the Anglican, the Roman, and the Orthodox. For a moment in 1839, he had seen that the center of the Church lay in Rome, but it would not be until 1841 that his confidence in Anglicanism was altogether shaken. Newman continued to tone down his way of speaking of Rome and to ask others to do the same. He had been doing this since the summer of the previous year.
Newman thought that the Anglican Church had Apostolic Succession, a sacramental system and the Primitive Creed, but he realized that in the Anglican system, the dogma and the ritual were much less strict than in the Roman system. He realized that for a long time he had accepted the statements of Anglican Divines without weighing them for himself. Now he concluded that while the Lutherans and Calvinists had a sort of theology, the Anglicans had none distinctively theirs.
Newman felt “very nearly a pure Protestant,”20 but in addition to Baptism, he recognized the Holy Eucharist as a sacrament and used the word “Sacrament” to refer to the Communion Service on Sundays. He continued to believe that Christ’s Presence was a Real Presence and of a spiritual type rather than a “local” or physical presence. He acknowledged the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist, but misrepresented Catholic belief about the manner of Christ’s Presence in the Holy Eucharist, which would lead to a friendly exchange in the following year with Fr. Charles Russell, an Irish priest.
In 1840, Mary Holmes, a young woman who was a musician and a writer and who had begun a religious life, introduced herself to Newman and began to correspond with him. In reply to a question about absolution, the sacramental forgiveness of sins, Newman explained that the Anglican Church accepted, as the Roman Catholic Church does, that absolution restores the soul to God’s favor. Then he added without explanation that unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church “does not pronounce itself on the punishment incurred by sin.”21
Newman had heard confession only once at Oxford, and it had been with some trepidation. Confession of sins and sacramental absolution had fallen out of use in the Anglican Church. Newman wrote Maria Giberne, his other frequent female correspondent, “I feel sure that we should be all in a much better state, were it practiced—but I see very great obstacles to reviving it. I think it should always be sacramental—performed in Church and face to face.”22 He commented that one of the obstacles to the practice of confession was the lack of belief as a Church in this sacrament and concluded, “But I am sure that we are not a real genuine Church, a Church all glorious within, till we return to this primitive and Scriptural practice.”23
Confession was not the only Catholic sacrament not considered so in the Anglican Church; Matrimony was, and still is, considered a sacred rite in the Anglican Church, yet it was not treated as a sacrament like Baptism. Newman held Matrimony in high esteem as a means, or path, of Christian sanctification that had a specific rite and a holy place in the Church. However, he did not speak of it in terms of a sacrament.
Since his initial reaction to the marriage plans of Henry William Wilberforce and other friends, Newman’s acceptance of marriage for Oxford clergymen had changed. He was more accepting of it and did not discourage Frederick William Faber from a future marriage. Newman told Faber that celibacy could be considered “as a penance for past sin,” but he added, “I consider it also a more holy state”24—one that could not be strongly urged upon another. Newman advised Faber to wait for God’s grace to show him the path that he was to follow.
Newman was at a crossroads between the Church of England and the Church of Rome; this made him unsure of his role as Vicar of St. Mary’s, an Anglican Church. He thought of resigning from St. Mary’s because he feared that he was misleading undergraduates toward Rome, but when he consulted Pusey about resigning from St. Mary’s, the reply was that he would cause more harm by leaving. At this time, Newman read at St. Mary’s his sermon “Divine Calls.” In it, he spoke of seeking to please God alone and of the shallowness of seeking human praise. He urged his parishioners: “Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully, to quicken our senses, to give us sight and learning, and touch of the world to come …”25
NEWMAN AT OXFORD
Despite Newman’s doubts about his role at St. Mary’s and at Oriel College, he was actively involved in the intellectual and religious life of the University. In 1840, he preached a few University Sermons upon the request of Heads of Houses.
In addition to his pastoral duties and Sunday sermons at St. Mary’s Church, he met every month for theological meetings with his friends and took his turn presenting theological papers at these meetings. During this year he was involved with a few controversies, which were, however, less disturbing than those of earlier years. Newman summarized these to his sister Jemima: “I am in a lot of controversies—from Ward of T [Trinity] who was set on me for the article in the B.C. and from Mr. Hornby for the attacks on Knox in Froude’s third volume. Also the egregious Goly has written 100 pages, but this requires no answer.”26
George Robert Ward, a contemporary of Newman at Trinity College, published the statutes of Magdalen College and had a plan to publish the statutes of other colleges. Newman’s friend James Hope wrote an article for the British Critic in which he criticized Ward. Newman asked Hope not to be severe with Ward, who had kind words to say about Newman, but the final article annoyed Ward.
As mentioned in his letter to Jemima, another controversy was with James Hornby, who voiced an objection to Newman on Hurrell Froude’s Remains. Froude had denied that Knox held the doctrine of Apostolic Succession to which Hornby disagreed and for which he asked for an explanatory note in the British Critic. After the exchange of a few letters between Hornby and Newman, the latter declined to acquiesce to Hornby’s demands.27
The third controversy was almost a one-sided attack upon Pusey and the Tractarians. Newman shrugged this one off as unimportant. It involved Golightly, who wrote the Bishop of Oxford a very long letter criticizing Pusey’s “Letter to the Bishop” occasioned by the Oxford Memorial to the Reformers. Golightly, the leader for the memorial, actually sent the pamphlet to Newman, who replied with a simple thank-you note. To some friends, Newman referred to Golightly with humorous disdain, calling him “Golius.” All these controversies were the inevitable consequence of Newman’s publishing projects, especially as editor of the British Critic.
EDITORSHIP OF THE BRITISH CRITIC
This was the third year that Newman edited the British Critic, and again it was very demanding work. As editor, he suggested topics of articles and sources to his writers, corrected their submissions, and wrote articles. To Hope he explained: “If you can enter into a reviewer’s [an editor’s] feelings, you might divine that he first, on receiving an article, looks through it negatively, to see there is nothing which offends him …”28 He was careful not to offend friends and bishops out of respect and prudence, not out of fear. He likewise sought the right timing to publish any critical review. For instance, when H. H. Milman published History of Christianity, Newman delayed publishing his review of it.
Even though Newman worked long hours as editor, he counted on the help of his friends, especially Tom Mozley, Henry Wilberforce, and John William Bowden. All of the writers were anonymous, yet they invested a great amount of time and energy in writing the articles. Soon after Newman took up the editorship, the sales increased steadily. Newman’s position as editor obliged him to fill up the pages with spirited essays from his own pen, but one day toward the end of the year, he decided to give up the editorship. The decision may have been part of his desire to have more time to pray and to think about his position in the Church. He informed the publishers of his plans, and suggested that Mozley become the new editor. The publishers replied, thanking Newman for his excellent work and showing interest in Mozley as Newman’s successor.
Tom Mozley was not only Newman’s brother-in-law, he was also a close collaborator and friend to Newman. Often, Newman asked him to send articles sooner or to make corrections quickly for the sake of filling in the gaps in the review. Newman was grateful to him and opened one letter to him: “My dear Tom, You are what the Americans call a ‘prime chap’; I only hope that I have not put you to great inconvenience.”29
This year, James Mozley presented himself to a Fellowship at Magdalen College, and he was elected. Newman was delighted with the news of his former pupil and now brother-in-law. Newman wrote about the good news to his friends. He told Pusey, “Mozley passed a very good examination, and that told decidedly. It was a very near run thing.”30 A few of his opponents had not been present to vote. Newman was also very happy because the three residents at the house of writers at St. Aldate’s Street: Pattison, Christie, and Mozley, had all been elected Fellows.
By midyear, Bowden returned to London from a long stay in Malta. When Newman went to London for the dentist, or other meetings, he paid Bowden at least two short visits. Bowden’s health had improved, again he was able to write articles for the British Critic, and he managed to finish his book on Pope Gregory VII. Before publishing his book, Bowden asked Newman to allow him to dedicate it to him, but Newman declined, explaining that this was his principle to avoid the appearance of mutual praise among Tractarians.31 He had declined a previous dedication by Pusey. Newman was touched by his friend’s wish and wrote to him: “The loss of your Dedication is one of the most trying things I have had for some time. But Rogers to whom I mentioned it agreed with me. And then I had declined Pusey; how could I undo this?”32
Rogers was, in addition to Pusey and Keble, close to Newman. Although Rogers only wrote one article for the British Critic, he often ate meals with Newman at Oxford and also often went up to Littlemore with Newman. From April to December, William Copeland filled in as curate at Littlemore. Then, in December, Newman asked Arthur Haddan, a Trinity graduate and a newly ordained clergyman, to be his curate at Littlemore.
Friends often asked Newman for advice on books to read, or on books in which to find the answer to various questions. The advice that he gave to Miss Holmes, the young governess under his spiritual guidance, reveals the Church historians that Newman liked and his favorite books on the religious services of the Church. He recommended a Church history by E. Churton and another by Palmer. The book he found most useful for the services was A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, by Anthony Sparrow; Newman had written the preface to the second edition.
In his letters, we also find the spiritual advice that Newman gave to his friends. He encouraged them to strive for Christian holiness without leaving their present occupations and social surroundings. When Miss Holmes asked him about a newly converted Christian who wished to write books, Newman gave the following advice: “Let her turn her activity and energy upon herself; let her consider how much must be done by every one of us to enter life; how much is open to every one to do both to the glory of God and toward personal improvement; how high and wonderful a thing Christian Sanctity is; and what capabilities the regenerate soul has for improvement.”33 Next Newman advised her to study classical books of spirituality, namely, The Imitation of Christ by Kempis, Pensées by Pascal, and the devotional books of Bishop Taylor, Bishop Cosin, and Bishop Andrew. Newman continued with advice that he had been putting into practice for many years:
Should she not give herself to the contemplation of obedience and holiness, and the reading of the lives of the Saints; and set herself deliberately to the business of self-government, of changing herself where she most requires it, of gaining perfect resignation to God’s will, of unlearning worldly opinions, motives and principles, and of living as if in the sight of things invisible,—and that without impatience at apparent failure or apparent slow advance?34
More frequent than advice of an ascetical nature, Newman’s letters contain comments and advice on church architecture and ecclesiastical matters of the day. Both subjects were of concern for the Oxford Movement.
In 1818, Parliament passed the Church Building Act to provide money for building more churches and to settle problems, such as property rights and the division of tithes, derived from the creation of new parishes. Pusey and Newman pledged their support to the Bethnal Green churches, a project by the Bishop of London to build ten churches in the impoverished East End of London.
Some articles for the British Critic were on the subject of church architecture. Tom Mozley wrote one in 1839, and another in 1840, titled “New Churches.” The Tractarians gave a lot of significance to church architecture because they realized that exterior beauty in sacred art is an expression of the holiness and beauty of God. The iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation had gone hand in hand with a decreasing value given to doctrine, for the sake of greater inclusiveness of Dissenting bodies, and a focus on moral and social concerns. The doctrinal and spiritual renewal of the Church of England called also for a renewal in architecture and other sacred art. An important figure in this renewal was Augustus Welby Pugin, an English architect responsible for the revival of Gothic architecture in England. He became Catholic in 1834, and together with another convert and very wealthy patron, John Talbot, sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, built many beautiful Gothic churches in Staffordshire.
Various Tractarians and their friends were building or rebuilding churches with these ideals in mind. Newman wrote to Maria Giberne, “Iffley Church is going to be set to rights—and Sandford Church has had a tower built and inside reformed in a very Catholic way.”35 The Sandford Church was St. Andrew’s Church at Sandford-on-Thames. Besides the addition of a tower, the arch of the chancel was rebuilt and new windows were added. At Ampfield in Keble’s parish, a church dedicated to St. Mark was being built; Newman attended the consecration in April of 1841. In 1840, Newman had attended the consecrations of two other churches and congratulated others for their architectural labors.
Newman advised and encouraged Tom Mozley in his plans for a parish church at Cholderton. Mozley’s church was small and in need of renovation. He drew up some architectural plans for it, but found resistance from the Provost at Oriel. Newman managed to obtain the college’s approval, but told his brother-in-law not to send the Provost the elaborate plans nor mention Newman’s financial support. Newman told Harriet, “You see I fear the Provost is bent on your not having a handsome Church—If Tom kicks, the said P. will write to the Bishop—so let Tom quietly go to building, now that he has got leave, saying nothing to nobody. The Provost cannot pull down. The P. does things so slowly, he will never guess what is going on till it is done.”36 Thus, in a stealthy manner, Mozley was able to begin construction of a beautiful church in keeping with his Tractarian ideals.
Newman also cared for the details within his church at Littlemore. In 1840, he added two more stained glass windows to the church and made plans to add a small memorial to his friend, Hurrell Froude. The most significant addition was, however, an ornamental one made by his sister Jemima. He had asked her to make an altar cloth and had given her some instructions. She produced a very beautiful altar cloth, which exceeded all expectations and thrilled the women of the parish. Newman told his sister the reaction of the women and of Bloxam:
It looks beautiful, and B is quite in ecstasies about it. As to Mrs. Barnes she dreamed of it of a night [sic] at first from astonishment at its elaborateness—and Eliza B. and several others, who are work women, look at it with amazement. Rogers, taking another view of it, is equally full of admiration. Indeed we are all so happy that one is afraid of being too happy.37
Even more urgent than proper care for the beauty of church architecture and liturgical rites was doctrinal clarity and faithfulness to the Creed and other apostolic traditions. The Church’s bishops, who were entrusted with the mission to safeguard these truths, were failing in their responsibility.
ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY
Newman had always acted with great respect and obedience for his bishop and the bishops in general, but he had also begun to lose his confidence in them. He was saddened by their general weakness in defending doctrines, as well as their apathy in responding to initiatives such as the prayer for the union of Christians.
When in 1840 Philip Shuttleworth was appointed Bishop of Chichester, Newman wrote to his friend Benjamin Harrison, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, expressing his fear that the consecration of this bishop would push some toward the Church of Rome. Newman also confided to Maria Giberne, “The new Bishop, Dr. Shuttleworth, will, I suppose, level some Episcopal Charges at us, but I don’t suppose he will do much harm, which is the utmost one has a right to expect, sad to say, from appointments in these evil days.”38 Given the reigning religious liberalism, Newman noted with surprise two good appointments to lesser diocesan posts. Shuttleworth appointed Manning as Archdeacon of Chichester, and Hope was appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury.
Newman believed that the bishops were responsible for maintaining communion in the Church, but he began to realize that many were unable to do so and others were afraid. Earlier in the year, Hope had mentioned to Newman that it would be fitting for the Chancellor of Oxford University to be a bishop, for there were precedents. Newman pointed out the risk of having a bishop appointed for life, because the choice of a bad one would favor Dissenters and unorthodox men such as Arnold and Hampden. Newman and the other Tractarians suffered from the failure of the bishops to uphold orthodox doctrine. By way of contrast, Newman portrayed in his writings the lives of holy bishops who had been champions of the faith during the early centuries of the Church. Newman’s own sermons spoke of the same Church tradition of prayer, penance, and sacramental life.
CHURCH OF THE FATHERS AND
PAROCHIAL SERMONS
In 1840, Newman continued to collect and organize his essays and sermons for publication. At the start of the year, he published Church of the Fathers, a collection of letters published in the British Magazine between 1833 and 1837. He continued to preach regularly at the University Church of St. Mary’s and at St. Mary’s in Littlemore. When traveling outside of Oxford, he was asked by friends to preach. On one occasion, while preaching at All Saints on Margaret Street where his friend Frederick Oakeley was the rector, a dangerous and at the same time humorous incident took place. He wrote to Harriet describing the event: “While I was sitting in my surplice at the altar in Margaret Chapel on Sunday, during the first lesson a large cat fell from the ceiling, down close to my feet, narrowly missing my head.”39 His friend, Mrs. Bowden, compared the story to her recollection of seeing a large cat at St. Mary Maggiore in Rome and with good humor remarked how closely the Chapel on Margaret Street resembled a Roman Catholic Church.40
The same year Newman arranged sermons that he preached in connection with the liturgical year, preparing them for publication as Volume V of his Parochial and Plain Sermons. These were published in November in a larger printing than the previous volume. Most of the new sermons that Newman preached in 1840 would be part of the following volume of the Parochial and Plain Sermons. Some of the subjects were basic spiritual topics on which Newman insisted, such as sincerity in religious practice, repentance from sin, and resistance to worldliness. He also preached sermons written in previous years; one of these was on the practice of fasting. Although Newman was fasting regularly, a practice which he found difficult, he advised those who asked him about fasting to make instead small acts of self-denial. He wrote to Miss Holmes, “I would not abstain from food in a way to attract attention—but there are ways of denying oneself, where no one would suspect it.”41
In another sermon, The World Our Enemy, Newman pointed out the mistake of thinking of a vague presence of evil in the world. Sinfulness, he explained, is due to man’s corruption of the world and to man’s disordered attraction to the good things of the world. Men live by sight instead of by faith; they wish the hundredfold promised in the Gospel without sacrifice and without looking toward the full reward in Heaven. The answer to temptations, wrote Newman, does not lie in fleeing from the world. With regard to a woman who frequented the Court, he wrote: “I do not think advisable you should break off your usual visits to the Court—particularly as your stay is limited. Nothing in the course of engagements in which you find yourself, is actually objectionable, and therefore you should continue in them.”42 Newman wished to stress that virtues could be lived in all settings.
Newman realized that the way to holiness is a prayerful life with the practice of self-examination and self-control. He explained further, “Though temptations present themselves to you in society, you would soon find temptations in solitude, were you to indulge your love of it. We cannot escape from ourselves, wherever we are—and we are the sinners, not the places in which we find ourselves.” Other sermons were on circumstantial subjects such as the anniversary of the dedication of a temple or the unity of the Church. A few of the sermons would be published under two different collections, University Sermons and Sermons on Subjects of the Day.
Despite some shared religious beliefs, Newman’s beliefs and practices had diverged from those of his family. Still, he tried to maintain the family ties, and in the midst of his consuming pastoral work he kept up correspondence with his siblings and occasionally saw them, except for Charles.
NEWMAN’S FAMILY
John Henry and Jemima corresponded often, and among his siblings, she was the one in whom John Henry confided most. In 1840, a new train line that went as far as Derby opened up, and Newman visited Jemima and John Mozley twice. John Rickards Mozley, Jemima’s second son, was born in May. Years later, John Rickards would become a close correspondent with his uncle.
In October, John Henry and Frank met once at Cheltenham on John’s way to visit Jemima in Derby. They had been estranged for a few years, following a letter by John Henry to Frank’s wife, which had caused Frank jealousy. More importantly, both brothers could not agree on religious matters. Before their brief meeting, they exchanged some long letters explaining some of their religious beliefs. Frank told his brother that he would preach in any church when asked to do so, and that he considered the Baptist or Independent meeting “as true a church as yours, and yours as much a sect as those.”43
There are no letters of correspondence with Charles that year, but occasionally John Henry had news about this brother from Frank. After one of these he told Jemima, “I have just heard from F.—C. [Charles Newman] is going on in his old way—writing him abusive letters. He seems to have written a whole book about him, which may dribble thro’ the penny post. He is Honorary Secretary of the Bristol Statistical Society!”44
John Henry and Harriet corresponded a few times, and they were on good terms. She had written The Fairy Bower, or History of a Month, A Tale for Young People, a novel about their family that John Henry was reading. It was published the following year.
As the year came to a close, Newman wished to remain Anglican and to fight the religious liberalism that vied for the soul of the Anglican Church and its bishops. Earlier, when discussing with Pusey the possibility of resigning from St. Mary’s, he explained his state of mind in three points: the English Church was being tested, and although it had the risk of bursting, it might bear “infused Catholic truth;” all English Divines had created sympathy toward Rome, and; the real foe at the door was Liberalism and Rationalism; to leave St. Mary’s would be to give the pulpit to the enemy.45 For these reasons throughout 1840, Newman sincerely dissuaded friends and acquaintances from moving closer to Roman Catholicism, advising them to be patient and to pray for God’s grace. While doing this, however, Newman himself felt more unsure about the claims of the Anglican Church and his own position in this church. With the publication of Volume V of the Parochial and Plain Sermons and his resignation as editor of the British Critic, Newman cleared his desk for some important change, as yet unknown to him. It would be an attempt to reconcile the Thirty-Nine Articles to true Catholic principles. In December of 1840, he began a draft of what would be the famous Tract 90, the last of the Oxford Tracts.
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1LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Robert Williams (November 10, 1839), 180-81; 180.
2LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (April 1, 1840), 284-85; 285.
3LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. R. Bloxam (March 29, 1840), 282.
4LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. R. Bloxam (March 15, 1840), 261-62; 261.
5LD, Vol. VII, Memorandum, Reasons for Living at Littlemore (March 17, 1840), 263.
6LD, Vol. VII, E. B. Pusey to JHN (March 17, 1840), 266.
7LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. Thomas Mozley (May 20, 1840), 328.
8LD, Vol. VII, JHN to H. A. Woodgate (June 11, 1840), 343-45; 343-44.
9LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. W. Bowden (February 21, 1840), 240-42, 240-41.
10Ibid., 241.
11LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Robert Williams (July 11, 1840), 354-55, 354.
12LD, Vol. VII, W.C.A. Maclaurin to JHN ( (July 18, 1840), 357.
13LD, Vol. VII, JHN to W.C.A. Maclaurin (July 26, 1840), 368-70; 368.
14Ibid., 370.
15Ibid., 404.
16John Henry Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, II, “The Protestant Idea of Antichrist,” 139, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume2/index.html. After this it will be cited Ess. II.
17Ibid., 173.
18LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Frederic Rogers (November 25, 1840), 448-52; 448.
19Apo., 118.
20Apo., 120.
21LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss Holmes (July 19, 1840), 360-62; 360.
22LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss M. R. Giberne (December 22, 1840), 465-67; 466.
23Ibid., 466.
24LD, Vol. VII, JHN to F. W. Faber (October 24, 1840) 421-22; 422.
25PPS, Vol. VIII, “Divine Calls,” 32.
26LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (May 28, 1840), 334.
27LD, Vol. VII, JHN to James J. Hornby (May 8, 1840), 320.
28LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. R. Hope (March 18, 1840), 268.
29LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Thomas Mozley (September 6, 1840), 388.
30LD, Vol. VII, JHN to E. B. Pusey (July 28, 1840), 371-72; 372.
31LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. W. Bowden (October 13, 1840), 405-06; 405.
32LD, Vol. VII, JHN to J. W. Bowden (November 6, 1840), 430-31; 430.
33LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss Holmes (May 29, 1840), 335-36.
34Ibid.
35LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss M. R. Giberne (July 17, 1840), 360.
36LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. Thomas Mozley (November 23, 1840), 247.
37LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (April 18, 1840), 312.
38LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss M. R. Giberne (September 6, 1840), 387-88; 388.
39LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. Thomas Mozley (July 8, 1840), 352-53.
40Ibid.
41LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss Holmes (June 10, 1840), 341-42; 342.
42LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Miss Holmes (July 19, 1840), 360-62; 361.
43LD, Vol. VII, F. W. Newman to JHN (April 15, 1840), 307-09; 308.
44LD, Vol. VII, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (November 30, 1840), 453-54; 454.
45Ibid., 450.