[31] The Times, 31st March 1866.
Dr. Pusey's Appeal has received more than one answer. These answers, from the Roman Catholic side, are—what it was plain that they would be—assurances to him that he looks at the question from an entirely1 mistaken point of view; that it is, of course, very right and good of him to wish for peace and union, but that there is only one way of peace and union—unconditional2 submission3. He may have peace and union for himself at any moment, if he will; so may the English Church, or the Greek Church, or any other religious body, organised or unorganised.
The way is always open; there is no need to write long books or make elaborate proposals about union. union means becoming Catholic; becoming Catholic means acknowledging the exclusive claims of the Pope or the Roman Church. In the long controversy5 one party has never for an instant wavered in the assertion that it could not, and never would, be in the wrong. The way to close the controversy, and the only one, is to admit that Dr. Pusey shall have any amount of assurance and proof that the Roman position and Roman doctrine6 and practice are the right ones.
His misapprehensions shall be corrected; his ignorance of what is Roman theology fully7, and at any length, enlightened. There is no desire to shrink from the fullest and most patient argument in its favour, and he may call it, if he likes, explanation. But there is only one practical issue to what he has proposed—not to stand bargaining for impossible conditions, but thankfully and humbly8 to join himself to the true Church while he may. It is only the way in which the answer is given that varies. Here characteristic differences appear. The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church swell9 out to increased magnificence, and nothing can exceed the suavity10 and the compassionate11 scorn with which they point out the transparent12 absurdity13 and the audacity14 of such proposals. The Holy Office at Rome has not, it may be, yet heard of Dr. Pusey; it may regret, perhaps, that it did not wait for so distinguished15 a mark for its censure16; but its attention has been drawn17 to some smaller offenders18 of the same way of thinking, and it has been induced to open all the floodgates of its sonorous19 and antiquated20 verbiage21 to sweep away and annihilate22 a poor little London periodical—"ephemeridem cui titulus, 'The union Review.'" The Archbishop of Westminster, not deigning25 to name Dr. Pusey, has seized the opportunity to reiterate26 emphatically, in stately periods and with a polished sarcasm27, his boundless28 contempt for the foolish people who dare to come "with swords wreathed in myrtle" between the Catholic Church and "her mission to the great people of England." On the other hand, there have been not a few Roman Catholics who have listened with interest and sympathy to what Dr. Pusey had to say, and, though obviously they had but one answer to give, have given it with a sense of the real condition and history of the Christian29 world, and with the respect due to a serious attempt to look evils in the face. But there is only one person on the Roman Catholic side whose reflections on the subject English readers in general would much care to know. Anybody could tell beforehand what Archbishop Manning would say; but people could not feel so certain what Dr. Newman might say.
Dr. Newman has given his answer; and his answer is, of course, in effect the same as that of the rest of his co-religionists. He offers not the faintest encouragement to Dr. Pusey's sanguine30 hopes. If it is possible to conceive that one side could move in the matter, it is absolutely certain that the other would be inflexible31. Any such dealing32 on equal terms with the heresy33 and schism34 of centuries is not to be thought of; no one need affect surprise at the refusal. What Dr. Pusey asks is, in fact, to pull the foundation out from under the whole structure of Roman Catholic pretensions35. Dr. Newman does not waste words to show that the plan of the Eirenicon is impossible. He evidently assumes that it is so, and we agree with him. But there are different ways of dispelling36 a generous dream, and telling a serious man who is in earnest that he is mistaken. Dr. Newman does justice, as he ought to do, to feelings and views which none can enter into better than he, whatever he may think of them now. He does justice to the understanding and honesty, as well as the high aims, of an old friend, once his comrade in difficult and trying times, though now long parted from him by profound differences, and to the motives37 which prompted so venturous an attempt as the Eirenicon to provoke public discussion on the reunion of Christendom. He is capable of measuring the real state of the facts, and the mischiefs38 and evils for which a remedy is wanted, by a more living rule than the suppositions and consequences of a cut-and-dried theory. Rightly or wrongly he argues—at least, he gives us something to think of. Perhaps not the least of his merit is that he writes simply and easily in choice and varied40 English, instead of pompously41 ringing the changes on a set of formulae which beg the question, and dinning42 into our ears the most extravagant43 assertions of foreign ecclesiastical arrogance44. We may not always think him fair, or a sound reasoner, but he is conciliatory, temperate45, and often fearlessly candid46. He addresses readers who will challenge and examine what he says, not those whose minds are cowed and beaten down before audacity in proportion to its coolness, and whom paradox47, the more extreme the better, fascinates and drags captive. To his old friend he is courteous48, respectful, sympathetic; where the occasion makes it fitting, affectionate, even playful, as men are who can afford to let their real feelings come out, and have not to keep up appearances. Unflinching he is in maintaining his present position as the upholder of the exclusive claims of the Roman Church to represent the Catholic Church of the Creeds49; but he has the good sense and good feeling to remember that he once shared the views of those whom he now controverts51, and that their present feelings about the divisions of Christendom were once his own. Such language as the following is plain, intelligible52, and manly53. Of course, he has his own position, and must see things according to it. But he recognises the right of conscience in those who, having gone a long way with him, find that they can go no further, and he pays a compliment, becoming as from himself, and not without foundation in fact, to the singular influence which, from whatever cause, Dr. Pusey's position gives him, and which, we may add, imposes on him, in more ways than one, very grave responsibilities:—
You, more than any one else alive, have been the present and untiring agent by whom a great work has been effected in it; and, far more than is usual, you have received in your lifetime, as well as merited, the confidence of your brethren. You cannot speak merely for yourself; your antecedents, your existing influence, are a pledge to us that what you may determine will be the determination of a multitude. Numbers, too, for whom you cannot properly be said to speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments; and numbers, again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only not your followers55 because they have outstripped56 you in their free speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their spokesman. There is no one anywhere—among ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church—who can affect so vast a circle of men, so virtuous58, so able, so learned, so zealous60, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot pay them all a greater compliment than to tell them they ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray that they may one day become such….
I recollect61 well what an outcast I seemed to myself when I took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius or St. Basil, and set myself to study them; and how, on the contrary, when at length I was brought into Catholicism, I kissed them with delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, "You are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake." Such, I conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of if they could wake up one morning and find themselves possessed62 by right of Catholic traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty; and certainly I am the last man to say that such violence is in any case lawful63, that the claims of conscience are not paramount64, or that any one may overleap what he deliberately65 holds to be God's command, in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter66.
I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference68 to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment69 others may form of us in consequence, for this reason, because their case, as it at present stands, has as you know been my own. You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive70 Queen in the well-known passage, who, "haud ignara mali" herself, had learned to sympathise with those who were inheritors of her past wanderings.
Dr. Newman's hopes, and what most of his countrymen consider the hopes of truth and religion, are not the same. His wish is, of course, that his friend should follow him; a wish in which there is not the slightest reason to think that he will be gratified. But differently as we must feel as to the result, we cannot help sharing the evident amusement with which Dr. Newman recalls a few of the compliments which were lavished71 on him by some of his present co-religionists when he was trying to do them justice, and was even on the way to join them. He reprints with sly and mischievous72 exactness a string of those glib73 phrases of controversial dislike and suspicion which are common to all parties, and which were applied74 to him by "priests, good men, whose zeal59 outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke57 confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse75 judgment of those whom they were soon to welcome as brothers in communion." It is a trifle, but it strikes us as characteristic. Dr. Newman is one of the very few who have carried into his present communion, to a certain degree at least, an English habit of not letting off the blunders and follies76 of his own side, and of daring to think that a cause is better served by outspoken77 independence of judgment than by fulsome78, unmitigated puffing79. It might be well if even in him there were a little more of this habit. But, so far as it goes, it is the difference between him and most of those who are leaders on his side. Indirectly80 he warns eager controversialists that they are not always the wisest and the most judicious81 and far-seeing of men; and we cannot quarrel with him, however little we may like the occasion, for the entertainment which he feels in inflicting82 on his present brethren what they once judged and said of him, and in reminding them that their proficiency83 in polemical rhetoric84 did not save them from betraying the shallowness of their estimate and the shortness of their foresight85.
When he comes to discuss the Eirenicon, Dr. Newman begins with a complaint which seems to us altogether unreasonable86. He seems to think it hard that Dr. Pusey should talk of peace and reunion, and yet speak so strongly of what he considers the great corruptions88 of the Roman Church. In ordinary controversy, says Dr. Newman, we know what we are about and what to expect; "'Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem.' We give you a sharp cut and you return it…. But we at least have not professed90 to be composing an Eirenicon, when we treated you as foes92." Like Archbishop Manning, Dr. Newman is reminded "of the sword wreathed in myrtle;" but Dr. Pusey, he says, has improved on the ancient device,—"Excuse me, you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult."
This is, no doubt, exactly what Dr. Pusey has done. Going much further than the great majority of his countrymen will go with him in admissions in favour of the Roman Catholic Church, he has pointed93 out with a distinctness and force, never, perhaps, exceeded, what is the impassable barrier which, as long as it lasts, makes every hope of union idle. The practical argument against Rome is stated by him in a shape which comes home to the consciences of all, whatever their theological training and leanings, who have been brought up in English ways and ideas of religion. But why should he not? He is desirous of union—the reunion of the whole of Christendom. He gives full credit to the Roman communion—much more credit than most of his brethren think him justified94 in giving—for what is either defensible or excellent in it. Dr. Newman must be perfectly95 aware that Dr. Pusey has gone to the very outside of what our public feeling in England will bear in favour of efforts for reconciliation96, and he nowhere shows any sign that he is thinking of unconditional submission. How, then, can he be expected to mince97 matters and speak smoothly98 when he comes to what he regards as the real knot of the difficulty, the real and fatal bar to all possibility of a mutual99 understanding? If his charges are untrue or exaggerated in detail or colouring, that is another matter; but the whole of his pleading for peace presupposes that there are great and serious obstacles to it in what is practically taught and authorised in the Roman Church; and it is rather hard to blame him for "not making the best of things," and raising difficulties in the way of the very object which he seeks, because he states the truth about these obstacles. We are afraid that we must be of Dr. Newman's opinion that the Eirenicon is not calculated to lead, in our time at least, to what it aims at—the reunion of Christendom; but this arises from the real obstacles themselves, not from Dr. Pusey's way of stating them. There may be no way to peace, but surely if there is, though it implies giving full weight to your sympathies, and to the points on which you may give way, it also involves the possibility of speaking out plainly, and also of being listened to, on the points on which you really disagree. Does Dr. Newman think that all Dr. Pusey felt he had to do was to conciliate Roman Catholics? Does it follow, because objections are intemperately100 and unfairly urged on the Protestant side, that therefore they are not felt quite as much in earnest by sober and tolerant people, and that they may not be stated in their real force without giving occasion for the remark that this is reviving the old cruel war against Rome, and rekindling101 a fierce style of polemics102 which is now out of date? And how is Dr. Pusey to state these objections if, when he goes into them, not in a vague declamatory way, but showing his respect and seriousness by his guarded and full and definite manner of proof, he is to be met by the charge that he does not show sufficient consideration? All this may be a reason for thinking it vain to write an Eirenicon at all. But if one is to be attempted, it certainly will not do to make it a book of compliments. Its first condition is that if it makes light of lesser103 difficulties it should speak plainly about greater ones.
But this is, after all, a matter of feeling. No doubt, as Dr. Newman says, people are not pleased or conciliated by elaborate proofs that they are guilty of something very wrong or foolish. What is of more interest is to know the effect on a man like Dr. Newman of such a display of the prevailing104 tendency of religious thought and devotion in his communion as Dr. Pusey has given from Roman Catholic writers. And it is plain that, whoever else is satisfied with them, these tendencies are not entirely satisfactory to Dr. Newman. That rage for foreign ideas and foreign usages which has come over a section of his friends, the loudest and perhaps the ablest section of them, has no charms for him. He asserts resolutely105 and rather sternly his right to have an opinion of his own, and declines to commit himself, or to allow that his cause is committed, to a school of teaching which happens for the moment to have the talk to itself; and he endeavours at great length to present a view of the teaching of his Church which shall be free, if not from all Dr. Pusey's objections, yet from a certain number of them, which to Dr. Newman himself appear grave. After disclaiming106 or correcting certain alleged107 admissions of his own, on which Dr. Pusey had placed a construction too favourable108 to the Anglican Church, Dr. Newman comes to a passage which seems to rouse him. A convert, says Dr. Pusey, must take things as he finds them in his new communion, and it would be unbecoming in him to criticise109. This statement gives Dr. Newman the opportunity of saying that, except with large qualifications, he does not accept it for himself. Of course, he says, there are considerations of modesty110, of becomingness, of regard to the feelings of others with equal or greater claims than himself, which bind111 a convert as they bind any one who has just gained admission into a society of his fellow men. He has no business "to pick and choose," and to set himself up as a judge of everything in his new position. But though every man of sense who thought he had reason for so great a change would be generous and loyal in accepting his new religion as a whole, in time he comes "to have a right to speak as well as to hear;" and for this right, both generally and in his own case, he stands up very resolutely:—
Also, in course of time a new generation rises round him, and there is no reason why he should not know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those who perhaps number fewer years than he does Easter communions. He has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era. He knows that there is much of what may be called fashion in opinions and practices, according to the circumstances of time and place, according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day, or the chief Prelates of a particular country; and that fashions change. His experience tells him that sometimes what is denounced in one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense, or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought before public opinion; and that loud talkers, in the Church as elsewhere, are apt to carry all before them, while quiet and conscientious112 persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own judgment on a point is to be disloyal to his superiors.
So far generally; now in particular as to myself. After twenty years of Catholic life, I feel no delicacy113 in giving my opinion on any point when there is a call for me,—and the only reason why I have not done so sooner or more often than I have, is that there has been no call. I have now reluctantly come to the conclusion that your Volume is a call. Certainly, in many instances in which theologian differs from theologian, and country from country, I have a definite judgment of my own; I can say so without offence to any one, for the very reason that from the nature of the case it is impossible to agree with all of them. I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which justifies114 foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity, and create less disturbance115 than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on becoming a Catholic; and it is a pleasure to me to think that what I hold now, and would transmit after me if I could, is only what I received then.
He observes that when he first joined the Roman Catholic Church the utmost delicacy was observed in giving him advice; and the only warning which he can recollect was from the Vicar-General of the London district, who cautioned him against books of devotion of the Italian school, which were then just coming into England, and recommended him to get, as safe guides, the works of Bishop24 Hay. Bishop Hay's name is thus, probably for the first time, introduced to the general English public. It is difficult to forbear a smile at the great Oxford116 teacher, the master of religious thought and feeling to thousands, being gravely set to learn his lesson of a more perfect devotion, how to meditate117 and how to pray, from "the works of Bishop Hay"; it is hardly more easy to forbear a smile at his recording118 it. But Bishop Hay was a sort of symbol, and represents, he says, English as opposed to foreign habits of thought; and to these English habits he not only gives his preference, but he maintains that they are more truly those of the whole Roman Catholic body in England than the more showy and extreme doctrines119 of a newer school. Dr. Pusey does wrong, he says, in taking this new school as the true exponent120 of Roman Catholic ideas. That it is popular he admits, but its popularity is to be accounted for by personal qualifications in its leaders for gaining the ear of the world, without supposing that they speak for their body.
Though I am a convert, then, I think I have a right to speak out; and that the more because other converts have spoken for a long time, while I have not spoken; and with still more reason may I speak without offence in the case of your present criticisms of us, considering that in the charges you bring the only two English writers you quote in evidence are both of them converts, younger in age than myself. I put aside the Archbishop of course, because of his office. These two authors are worthy121 of all consideration, at once from their character and from their ability. In their respective lines they are perhaps without equals at this particular time; and they deserve the influence they possess. One is still in the vigour122 of his powers; the other has departed amid the tears of hundreds. It is pleasant to praise them for their real qualifications; but why do you rest on them as authorities? Because the one was "a popular writer"; but is there not sufficient reason for this in the fact of his remarkable123 gifts, of his poetical124 fancy, his engaging frankness, his playful wit, his affectionateness, his sensitive piety125, without supposing that the wide diffusion126 of his works arises out of his particular sentiments about the Blessed Virgin127? And as to our other friend, do not his energy, acuteness, and theological reading, displayed on the vantage ground of the historic Dublin Review, fully account for the sensation he has produced, without supposing that any great number of our body go his lengths in their view of the Pope's infallibility? Our silence as regards their writings is very intelligible; it is not agreeable to protest, in the sight of the world, against the writings of men in our own communion whom we love and respect. But the plain fact is this—they came to the Church, and have thereby128 saved their souls; but they are in no sense spokesmen for English Catholics, and they must not stand in the place of those who have a real title to such an office.
And he appeals from them, as authorities, to a list of much more sober and modest writers, though, it may be, the names of all of them are not familiar to the public. He enumerates129 as the "chief authors of the passing generation," "Cardinal130 Wiseman, Dr. Ullathorne, Dr. Lingard, Mr. Tierney, Dr. Oliver, Dr. Rock, Dr. Waterworth, Dr. Husenbeth, Mr. Flanagan." If these well-practised and circumspect131 veterans in the ancient controversy are not original and brilliant, at least they are safe; and Dr. Newman will not allow the flighty intellectualism which takes more hold of modern readers to usurp132 their place, and for himself he sturdily and bluffly133 declines to give up his old standing-ground for any one:—
I cannot, then, without remonstrance134, allow you to identify the doctrine of our Oxford friends in question, on the two subjects I have mentioned, with the present spirit or the prospective135 creed50 of Catholics; or to assume, as you do, that because they are thoroughgoing and relentless136 in their statements, therefore they are the harbingers of a new age, when to show a deference for Antiquity137 will be thought little else than a mistake. For myself, hopeless as you consider it, I am not ashamed still to take my stand upon the Fathers, and do not mean to budge138. The history of their time is not yet an old almanac to me. Of course I maintain the value and authority of the "Schola," as one of the loci theologici; still I sympathise with Petavius in preferring to its "contentious139 and subtle theology" that "more elegant and fruitful teaching which is moulded after the image of erudite antiquity." The Fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended140 into the Church. It is a ladder quite as serviceable for that purpose now as it was twenty years ago. Though I hold, as you remark, a process of development in Apostolic truth as time goes on, such development does not supersede141 the Fathers, but explains and completes them.
Is he right in saying that he is not responsible as a Roman Catholic for the extravagances that Dr. Pusey dwells upon? He is, it seems to us, and he is not. No doubt the Roman Catholic system is in practice a wide one, and he has a right, which we are glad to see that he is disposed to exercise, to maintain the claims of moderation and soberness, and to decline to submit his judgment to the fashionable theories of the hour. A stand made for independence and good sense against the pressure of an exacting142 and overbearing dogmatism is a good thing for everybody, though made in a camp with which we have nothing to do. He goes far enough, indeed, as it is. Still, it is something that a great writer, of whose genius and religious feeling Englishmen will one day be even prouder than they are now, should disconnect himself from the extreme follies of his party, and attempt to represent what is the nobler and more elevated side of the system to which he has attached himself. But it seems to us much more difficult for him to release his cause from complicity with the doctrines which he dislikes and fears. We have no doubt that he is not alone, and that there are numbers of his English brethren who are provoked and ashamed at the self-complacent arrogance and childish folly143 shown in exaggerating and caricaturing doctrines which are, in the eyes of most Englishmen, extravagant enough in themselves. But the question is whether he or the innovators represent the true character and tendencies of their religious system. It must be remembered that with a jealous and touchy144 Government, like that of the Roman Church, which professes145 the duty and boasts of the power to put down all dangerous ideas and language, mere54 tolerance146 means much. Dr. Newman speaks as an Englishman when he writes thus:—
This is specially147 the case with great ideas. You may stifle148 them; or you may refuse them elbow-room; or you may torment149 them with your continual meddling150; or you may let them have free course and range, and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to expose and restrain those excesses after they have occurred. But you have only this alternative; and for myself, I prefer much, wherever it is possible, to be first generous and then just; to grant full liberty of thought, and to call it to account when abused.
But that has never been the principle of his Church. At least, the liberty which it has allowed has been a most one-sided liberty. It has been the liberty to go any length in developing the favourite opinions about the power of the Pope, or some popular form of devotion; but as to other ideas, not so congenial, "great" ones and little ones too, the lists of the Roman Index bear witness to the sensitive vigilance which took alarm even at remote danger. And those whose pride it is that they are ever ready and able to stop all going astray must be held responsible for the going astray which they do not stop, especially when it coincides with what they wish and like.
But these extreme writers do not dream of tolerance. They stoutly151 and boldly maintain that they but interpret in the only natural and consistent manner the mind of their Church; and no public or official contradiction meets them. There may be a disapproving152 opinion in their own body, but it does not show itself. The disclaimer of even such a man as Dr. Newman is in the highest degree guarded and qualified153. They are the people who can excite attention and gain a hearing, though it be an adverse one. They have the power to make themselves the most prominent and accredited154 representatives of their creed, and, if thoroughgoing boldness and ability are apt to attract the growth of thought and conviction, they are those who are likely to mould its future form. Sober prudent155 people may prefer the caution of Dr. Newman's "chief authors," but to the world outside most of these will be little more than names, and the advanced party, which talks most strongly about the Pope's infallibility and devotion to St. Mary, has this to say for itself. Popular feeling everywhere in the Roman communion appears to go with it, and authority both in Rome and in England shelters and sanctions it. Nothing can be more clearly and forcibly stated than the following assertions of the unimpeachable156 claim of "dominant157 opinions" in the Roman Catholic system by the highest Roman Catholic authority in England. "It is an ill-advised overture158 of peace," writes Archbishop Manning,
to assail159 the popular, prevalent, and dominant opinions, devotions, and doctrines of the Catholic Church with hostile criticism…. The presence and assistance of the Holy Ghost, which secures the Church within the sphere of faith and morals, invests it also with instincts and a discernment which preside over its worship and doctrines, its practices and customs. We may be sure that whatever is prevalent in the Church, under the eye of its public authority, practised by the people, and not censured160 by its pastors161, is at least conformable to faith and innocent as to morals. Whosoever rises up to condemn162 such practices and opinions thereby convicts himself of the private spirit which is the root of heresy. But if it be ill-advised to assail the mind of the Church, it is still more so to oppose its visible Head. There can be no doubt that the Sovereign Pontiff has declared the same opinion as to the temporal power as that which is censured in others, and that he defined the Immaculate Conception, and that he believes in his own infallibility. If these things be our reproach, we share it with the Vicar of Jesus Christ. They are not our private opinions, nor the tenets of a school, but the mind of the Pontiff, as they were of his predecessors163, as they will be of those who come after him.—Archbishop Manning's Pastoral, pp. 64-66, 1866.
To maintain his liberty against extreme opinions generally is one of Dr. Newman's objects in writing his letter; the other is to state distinctly what he holds and what he does not hold, as regards the subject on which Dr. Pusey's appeal has naturally made so deep an impression:—
I do so, because you say, as I myself have said in former years, that "That vast system as to the Blessed Virgin … to all of us has been the special crux164 of the Roman system" (p. 101). Here, I say, as on other points, the Fathers are enough for me. I do not wish to say more than they, and will not say less. You, I know, will profess91 the same; and thus we can join issue on a clear and broad principle, and may hope to come to some intelligible result. We are to have a treatise165 on the subject of Our Lady soon from the pen of the Most Rev23. Prelate; but that cannot interfere166 with such a mere argument from the Fathers as that to which I shall confine myself here. Nor, indeed, as regards that argument itself, do I profess to be offering you any new matter, any facts which have not been used by others,—by great divines, as Petavius, by living writers, nay167, by myself on other occasions. I write afresh, nevertheless, and that for three reasons—first, because I wish to contribute to the accurate statement and the full exposition of the argument in question; next, because I may gain a more patient hearing than has sometimes been granted to better men than myself; lastly, because there just now seems a call on me, under my circumstances, to avow168 plainly what I do and what I do not hold about the Blessed Virgin, that others may know, did they come to stand where I stand, what they would and what they would not be bound to hold concerning her.
If this "vast system" is a crux to any one, we cannot think that even Dr. Newman's explanation will make it easier. He himself recoils169, as any Englishman of sense and common feeling must, at the wild extravagances into which this devotion has run. But he accepts and defends, on the most precarious170 grounds, the whole system of thought out of which they have sprung by no very violent process of growth. He cannot, of course, stop short of accepting the definition of the Immaculate Conception as an article of faith, and, though he emphatically condemns171, with a warmth and energy of which no one can doubt the sincerity172, a number of revolting consequences drawn from the theology of which that dogma is the expression, he is obliged to defend everything up to that. For a professed disciple173 of the Fathers this is not easy. If anything is certain, it is that the place which the Blessed Virgin occupies in the Roman Catholic system—popular or authoritative174, if it is possible fairly to urge such a distinction in a system which boasts of all-embracing authority—is something perfectly different from anything known in the first four centuries. In all the voluminous writings on theology which remain from them we may look in vain for any traces of that feeling which finds words in the common hymn175, "Ave, marls Stella" and which makes her fill so large a space in the teaching and devotion of the Roman Church. Dr. Newman attempts to meet this difficulty by a distinction. The doctrine, he says, was there, the same then as now; it is only the feelings, behaviour, and usages, the practical consequences naturally springing from the doctrine, which have varied or grown:—
I fully grant that the devotion towards the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics with the progress of centuries. I do not allow that the doctrine concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning.
There is, doubtless, such a distinction, though whether available for Dr. Newman's purpose is another matter. But when we recollect that modern "doctrine," besides defining the Immaculate Conception, places her next in glory to the Throne of God, and makes her the Queen of Heaven, and the all-prevailing intercessor with her Son, the assertion as to "doctrine" is a bold one. It rests, as it seems to us, simply on Dr. Newman identifying his own inferences from the language of the ancient writers whom he quotes with the language itself. They say a certain thing—that Mary is the "second Eve." Dr. Newman, with all the theology and all the controversies177 of eighteen centuries in his mind, deduces from this statement a number of refined consequences as to her sinlessness, and greatness, and reward, which seem to him to flow from it, and says that it means all these consequences. Mr. Ruskin somewhere quotes the language of an "eminent178 Academician," who remarks, in answer to some criticism on a picture, "that if you look for curves, you will see curves; and if you look for angles, you will see angles." So it is here. The very dogma of the Immaculate Conception itself Dr. Newman sees indissolubly involved in the "rudimentary teaching" which insists on the parallelism between Eve and Mary:—
Was not Mary as fully endowed as Eve?… If Eve was (as Bishop Bull and others maintain) raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had a greater grace?… And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary, too, had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference:—well, this is simply and literally179 the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I say the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace), and it really does seem to me bound up in that doctrine of the Fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.
It seems obvious to remark that the Fathers are not even alleged to have themselves drawn this irresistible180 inference; and next, that even if it be drawn, there is a long interval181 between it and the elevation182 of the Mother of Jesus Christ to the place to which modern Roman doctrine raises her. Possibly, the Fathers might have said, as many people will say now, that, in a matter of this kind, it is idle to draw inferences when we are, in reality, utterly183 without the knowledge to make them worth anything. At any rate, if they had drawn them, we should have found some traces of it in their writings, and we find none. We find abundance of poetical addresses and rhetorical amplification184, which makes it all the more remarkable that the plain dogmatic view of her position, which is accepted by the Roman Church, does not appear in them. We only find a "rudimentary doctrine," which, naturally enough, gives the Blessed Virgin a very high and sacred place in the economy of the Incarnation. But how does the doctrine, as it is found in even their rhetorical passages, go a step beyond what would be accepted by any sober reader of the New Testament185? They speak of what she was; they do not presume to say what she is. What Protestant could have the slightest difficulty in saying not only what Justin says, and Tertullian copies from him, and Irenaeus enlarges upon, but what Dr. Newman himself says of her awful and solitary186 dignity, always excepting the groundless assumption which, from her office in this world takes for granted, first her sinlessness, and then a still higher office in the next? We do not think that, as a matter of literary criticism, Dr. Newman is fair in his argument from the Fathers. He lays great stress on Justin Martyr187, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, as three independent witnesses from different parts of the world; whereas it is obvious that Tertullian at any rate copies almost literally from Justin Martyr, and it is impossible to compare a mere incidental point of rhetorical, or, if it be so, argumentative illustration, occurring once or twice in a long treatise, with a doctrine, such as that of the Incarnation itself, on which the whole treatise is built, and of which it is full. The wonder is, indeed, that the Fathers, considering how much they wrote, said so little of her; scarcely less is it a wonder, then, that the New Testament says so little, but from this little the only reason which would prevent a Protestant reader of the New Testament from accepting the highest statement of her historical dignity is the reaction from the development of them into the consequences which have been notorious for centuries in the unreformed Churches. Protestants, left to themselves, are certainly not prone188 to undervalue the saints of Scripture189; it has been the presence of the great system of popular worship confronting them which has tied their tongues in this matter. Yet Anglican theologians like Mr. Keble, popular poets like Wordsworth, broad Churchmen like Mr. Robertson, have said things which even Roman Catholics might quote as expressions of their feeling. But Dr. Newman must know that many things may be put, and put most truly, into the form of poetical expression which will not bear hardening into a dogma. A Protestant may accept and even amplify190 the ideas suggested by Scripture about the Blessed Virgin; but he may feel that he cannot tell how the Redeemer was preserved from sinful taint191; what was the grace bestowed192 on His mother; or what was the reward and prerogative193 which ensued to her. But it is just these questions which the Roman doctrine undertakes to answer without a shadow of doubt, and which Dr. Newman implies that the theology of the Fathers answered as unambiguously.
But from what has happened in the history of religion, we do not think that Protestants in general who do not shrink from high language about Abraham, Moses, or David, would find anything unnatural194 or objectionable in the language of the early Christian writers about the Mother of our Lord, though possibly it might not be their own; but the interval from this language to that certain knowledge of her present office in the economy of grace which is implied in what Dr. Newman considers the "doctrine" about her is a very long one. The step to the modern "devotion" in its most chastened form is longer still. We cannot follow the subtle train of argument which says that because the "doctrine" of the second century called her the "second Eve," therefore the devotion which sets her upon the altars of Christendom in the nineteenth is a right development of the doctrine. What is wanted is not the internal thread of the process, but the proof and confirmation195 from without that it was the right process; and this link is just what is wanting, except on a supposition which begs the question. It is conceivable that this step from "doctrine" to "devotion" may have been a mistake. It is conceivable that the "doctrine" may have been held in the highest form without leading to the devotion; for Dr. Newman, of course, thinks that Athanasius and Augustine held "the doctrine," yet, as he says, "we have no proof that Athanasius himself had any special devotion to the Blessed Virgin," and in another place he repeats his doubts whether St. Chrysostom or St. Athanasius invoked196 her; "nay," he adds, "I should like to know whether St. Augustine, in all his voluminous writings, invokes197 her once." What has to be shown is, that this step was not a mistake; that it was inevitable198 and legitimate199.
"This being the faith of the Fathers about the Blessed Virgin," says Dr. Newman, "we need not wonder that it should in no long time be transmuted200 into devotion." The Fathers expressed a historical fact about her in the term [Greek: Theotokos]; therefore, argues the later view, she is the source of our present grace now. It is the rationale of this inference, which is not an immediate201 or obvious one, which is wanted. And Dr. Newman gives it us in the words of Bishop Butler:—
Christianity is eminently202 an objective religion. For the most part it tells us of persons and facts in simple words, and leaves the announcement to produce its effect on such hearts as are prepared to receive it. This, at least, is its general character; and Butler recognises it as such in his Analogy, when speaking of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity:—"The internal worship," he says, "to the Son and Holy Ghost is no farther matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they stand in to us are matters of pure revelation; but the relations being known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of reason arising out of those relations themselves."
We acknowledge the pertinency203 of the quotation204. So true is it that "the relations being known," the obligations of worship arise of themselves from these relations, that if the present relation of the Blessed Virgin to mankind has always been considered to be what modern Roman theology considers it, it is simply inconceivable that devotion to her should not have been universal long before St. Athanasius and St. Augustine; and equally inconceivable, to take Dr. Newman's remarkable illustration, that if the real position of St. Joseph is next to her, it should have been reserved for the nineteenth century, if not, indeed, to find it out, at least to acknowledge it; but the whole question is about the fact of the "relations" themselves. If we believe that the Second and Third Persons are God, we do not want to be told to worship them. But such a relation as Dr. Newman supposes in the case of the Blessed Virgin does not flow of itself from the idea contained, for instance, in the word [Greek: Theotokos], and even if it did, we should still want to be told, in the case of a creature, and remembering the known jealousy205 of religion of even the semblance206 of creature worship, what are the "religious regards," which, not flowing from the nature of the case, but needing to be distinctly authorised, are right and binding207.
The question is of a dogmatic and a popular system. We most fully admit that, with Dr. Newman or any other of the numberless well-trained and excellent men in the Roman Church, the homage208 to the Mother does not interfere with the absolutely different honour rendered to the Son. We readily acknowledge the elevating and refining beauty of that character, of which the Virgin Mother is the type, and the services which that ideal has rendered to mankind, though we must emphatically say that a man need not be a Roman Catholic to feel and to express the charm of that moral beauty. But here we have a doctrine as definite and precise as any doctrine can be, and a great system of popular devotion, giving a character to a great religious communion. Dr. Newman is not merely developing and illustrating209 an idea: he is asserting a definite revealed fact about the unseen world, and defending its consequences in a very concrete and practical shape. And the real point is what proof has he given us that this is a revealed fact; that it is so, and that we have the means of knowing it? He has given us certain language of the early writers, which he says is a tradition, though it is only what any Protestant might have been led to by reading his Bible. But between that language, taken at its highest, and the belief and practice which his Church maintains, there is a great gap. The "Second Eve," the [Greek: Theotokos], are names of high dignity; but enlarge upon them as we may, there is between them and the modern "Regina Coeli" an interval which nothing but direct divine revelation can possibly fill; and of this divine revelation the only evidence is the fact that there is the doctrine. So awful and central an article of belief needs corresponding proof. In Dr. Newman's eloquent210 pages we have much collateral211 thought on the subject—sometimes instinct with his delicacy of perception and depth of feeling, sometimes strangely over-refined and irrelevant212, but always fresh and instructive, whether to teach or to warn. The one thing which is missing in them is direct proof.
He does not satisfy us, but he does greatly interest us in his way of dealing with the practical consequences of his doctrine, in the manifold development of devotion in his communion. What he tells us reveals two things. By this devotion he is at once greatly attracted, and he is deeply shocked. No one can doubt the enthusiasm with which he has thrown himself into that devotion, an enthusiasm which, if it was at one time more vehement213 and defiant214 than it is now, is still a most intense element in his religious convictions. Nor do we feel entitled to say that in him it interferes215 with religious ideas and feelings of a higher order, which we are accustomed to suppose imperilled by it. It leads him, indeed, to say things which astonish us, not so much by their extreme language as by the absence, as it seems to us, of any ground to say them at all. It forces him into a championship for statements, in defending which the utmost that can be done is to frame ingenious pleas, or to send back a vigorous retort. It tempts176 him at times to depart from his generally broad and fair way of viewing things, as when he meets the charge that the Son is forgotten for the Mother, not merely by a denial, but by the rejoinder that when the Mother is not honoured as the Roman Church honours her the honour of the Son fails. It would have been better not to have reprinted the following extract from a former work, even though it were singled out for approval by the late Cardinal. The italics are his own:—
I have spoken more on this subject in my Essay on Development, p. 438, "Nor does it avail to object that, in this contrast of devotional exercises, the human is sure to supplant216 the Divine, from the infirmity of our nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done so. And next, it must be asked, whether the character of Protestant devotion towards Our Lord has been that of worship at all; and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being…. Carnal minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves, and to forbid them the service of the saints will have no tendency to teach them the worship of God. Moreover, … great and constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to St. Mary, it has a special province, and has far more connection with the public services and the festive217 aspect of Christianity, and with certain extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly218 personal and primary in religion". Our late Cardinal, on my reception, singled out to me this last sentence, for the expression of his especial approbation219.
Can Dr. Newman defend the first of these two assertions, when he remembers such books of popular Protestant devotion as Wesley's Hymns220, or the German hymn-books of which we have examples in the well-known Lyra Germanica? Can he deny the second when he remembers the exercises of the "Mois de Marie" in French churches, or if he has heard a fervid221 and earnest preacher at the end of them urge on a church full of young people, fresh from Confirmation and first Communion, a special and personal self-dedication to the great patroness for protection amid the daily trials of life, in much the same terms as in an English Church they might be exhorted222 to commit themselves to the Redeemer of mankind? Right or wrong, such devotion is not a matter of the "festive aspect" of religion, but most eminently of what is "personal and primary" in it; and surely of such a character is a vast proportion of the popular devotion here spoken of.
But for himself, no doubt, he has accepted this cultus on its most elevated and refined side. He himself makes the distinction, and says that there is "a healthy" and an "artificial" form of it; a devotion which does not shock "solid piety and Christian good sense; I cannot help calling this the English style." And when other sides are presented to him, he feels what any educated Englishman who allows his English feelings play is apt to feel about them. What is more, he has the boldness to say so. He makes all kinds of reserves to save the credit of those with whom he cannot sympathise. He speaks of the privileges of Saints; the peculiarities223 of national temperament224; the distinctions between popular language and that used by scholastic225 writers, or otherwise marked by circumstances; the special characters of some of the writers quoted, their "ruthless logic," or their obscurity; the inculpated226 passages are but few and scattered227 in proportion to their context; they are harsh, but sound worse than they mean; they are hardly interpreted and pressed. He reminds Dr. Pusey that there is not much to choose between the Oriental Churches and Rome on this point, and that of the two the language of the Eastern is the most florid; luxuriant, and unguarded. But, after all, the true feeling comes out at last, "And now, at length," he says, "coming to the statements, not English, but foreign, which offend you, I will frankly228 say that I read some of those which you quote with grief and almost anger." They are "perverse229 sayings," which he hates. He fills a page and a half with a number of them, and then deliberately pronounces his rejection230 of them.
After such explanations, and with such authorities to clear my path, I put away from me as you would wish, without any hesitation231, as matters in which my heart and reason have no part (when taken in their literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them), such sentences and phrases as these:—that the mercy of Mary is infinite, that God has resigned into her hands His omnipotence232, that (unconditionally) it is safer to seek her than her Son, that the Blessed Virgin is superior to God, that He is (simply) subject to her command, that our Lord is now of the same disposition233 as His Father towards sinners—viz. a disposition to reject them, while Mary takes His place as an Advocate with the Father and Son; that the Saints are more ready to intercede234 with Jesus than Jesus with the Father, that Mary is the only refuge of those with whom God is angry; that Mary alone can obtain a Protestant's conversion235; that it would have sufficed for the salvation236 of men if our Lord had died, not to obey His Father, but to defer67 to the decree of His Mother, that she rivals our Lord in being God's daughter, not by adoption237, but by a kind of nature; that Christ fulfilled the office of Saviour238 by imitating her virtues239; that, as the Incarnate240 God bore the image of His Father, so He bore the image of His Mother; that redemption derived241 from Christ indeed its sufficiency, but from Mary its beauty and loveliness; that as we are clothed with the merits of Christ so we are clothed with the merits of Mary; that, as He is Priest, in like manner is she Priestess; that His body and blood in the Eucharist are truly hers, and appertain to her; that as He is present and received therein, so is she present and received therein; that Priests are ministers as of Christ, so of Mary; that elect souls are, born of God and Mary; that the Holy Ghost brings into fruitfulness His action by her, producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members; that the kingdom of God in our souls, as our Lord speaks, is really the kingdom of Mary in the soul—and she and the Holy Ghost produce in the soul extraordinary things—and when the Holy Ghost finds Mary in a soul He flies there.
Sentiments such as these I never knew of till I read your book, nor, as I think, do the vast majority of English Catholics know them. They seem to me like a bad dream. I could not have conceived them to be said. I know not to what authority to go for them, to Scripture, or to the Fathers, or to the decrees of Councils, or to the consent of schools, or to the tradition of the faithful, or to the Holy See, or to Reason. They defy all the loci theologici. There is nothing of them in the Missal, in the Roman Catechism, in the Roman Raccolta, in the Imitation of Christ, in Gother, Challoner, Milner, or Wiseman, so far as I am aware. They do but scare and confuse me. I should not be holier, more spiritual, more sure of perseverance242, if I twisted my moral being into the reception of them; I should but be guilty of fulsome frigid243 flattery towards the most upright and noble of God's creatures if I professed them—and of stupid flattery too; for it would be like the compliment of painting up a young and beautiful princess with the brow of a Plato and the muscle of an Achilles. And I should expect her to tell one of her people in waiting to turn me off her service without warning. Whether thus to feel be the scandalum parvulorum in my case, or the scandalum Pharisaeorum, I leave others to decide; but I will say plainly that I had rather believe (which is impossible) that there is no God at all, than that Mary is greater than God. I will have nothing to do with statements, which can only be explained by being explained away. I do not, however, speak of these statements, as they are found in their authors, for I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say; but I take them as they lie in your pages. Were any of them, the sayings of Saints in ecstasy244, I should know they had a good meaning; still I should not repeat them myself; but I am looking at them, not as spoken by the tongues of Angels, but according to that literal sense which they bear in the mouths of English men and English women. And, as spoken by man to man in England in the nineteenth century, I consider them calculated to prejudice inquirers, to frighten the unlearned, to unsettle consciences, to provoke blasphemy245, and to work the loss of souls.
Of course; it is what might be expected of him. But Dr. Newman has often told us that we must take the consequences of our principles and theories, and here are some of the consequences which meet him; and, as he says, they "scare and confuse him." He boldly disavows them with no doubtful indignation. But what other voice but his, of equal authority and weight, has been lifted up to speak the plain truth about them? Why, if they are wrong, extravagant, dangerous, is his protest solitary? His communion has never been wanting in jealousy of dangerous doctrines, and it is vain to urge that these things and things like them have been said in a corner. The Holy Office is apt to detect mischief39 in small writers as well as great, even if these teachers were as insignificant246 as Dr. Newman would gladly make them. Taken as a whole, and in connection with notorious facts, these statements are fair examples of manifest tendencies, which certainly are not on the decline. And if a great and spreading popular cultus, encouraged and urged on beyond all former precedent247, is in danger of being developed by its warmest and most confident advocates into something of which unreason is the lightest fault, is there not ground for interfering248? Doubtless Roman writers maybe quoted by Dr. Newman, who felt that there was a danger, and we are vaguely249 told about some checks given to one or two isolated250 extravagances, which, however, in spite of the checks, do not seem to be yet extinct. But Allocutions and Encyclicals are not for errors of this kind. Dr. Newman says that "it is wiser for the most part to leave these excesses to the gradual operation of public opinion,—that is, to the opinion of educated and sober Catholics; and this seems to me the healthiest way of putting them down." We quite agree with him; but his own Church does not think so; and we want to see some evidence of a public opinion in it capable of putting them down. As it is, he is reduced to say that "the line cannot be logically drawn between the teaching of the Fathers on the subject and our own;" an assertion which, if it were true, would be more likely to drag down one teaching than to prop4 up the other; he has to find reasons, and doubtless they are to be found thick as blackberries, for accounting251 for one extravagance, softening252 down another, declining to judge a third. But in the meantime the "devotion" in its extreme form, far beyond what he would call the teaching of his Church, has its way; it maintains its ground; it becomes the mark of the bold, the advanced, the refined, as well as of the submissive and the crowd; it roots itself under the shelter of an authority which would stop it if it was wrong; it becomes "dominant"; it becomes at length part of that "mind of the living Church" which, we are told, it is heresy to impugn253, treason to appeal from, and the extravagance of impertinent folly to talk of reforming.
It is very little use, then, for Dr. Newman to tell Dr. Pusey or any one else, "You may safely trust us English Catholics as to this devotion." "English Catholics," as such,—it is the strength and the weakness of their system,—have really the least to say in the matter. The question is not about trusting "us English Catholics," but the Pope, and the Roman Congregation, and those to whom the Roman authorities delegate their sanction and give their countenance254. If Dr. Newman is able, as we doubt not he is desirous, to elevate the tone of his own communion and put to shame some of its fashionable excesses, he will do a great work, in which we wish him every success, though the result of it might not really be to bring the body of his countrymen nearer to it. But the substance of Dr. Pusey's charges remain after all unanswered, and there is no getting over them while they remain. They are of that broad, palpable kind against which the refinements255 of argumentative apology play in vain. They can only be met by those who feel their force, on some principle equally broad. Dr. Newman suggests such a ground in the following remarks, which, much as they want qualification and precision, have a basis of reality in them:—
It is impossible, I say, in a doctrine like this, to draw the line cleanly between truth and error, right and wrong. This is ever the case in concrete matters which have life. Life in this world is motion, and involves a continual process of change. Living things grow into their perfection, into their decline, into their death. No rule of art will suffice to stop the operation of this natural law, whether in the material world or in the human mind…. What has power to stir holy and refined souls is potent256 also with the multitude, and the religion of the multitude is ever vulgar and abnormal; it ever will be tinctured with fanaticism257 and superstition258 while men are what they are. A people's religion is ever a corrupt87 religion. If you are to have a Catholic Church you must put up with fish of every kind, guests good and bad, vessels259 of gold, vessels of earth. You may beat religion out of men, if you will, and then their excesses will take a different direction; but if you make use of religion to improve them, they will make use of religion to corrupt it. And then you will have effected that compromise of which our countrymen report so unfavourably from abroad,—a high grand faith and worship which compels their admiration260, and puerile261 absurdities262 among the people which excite their contempt.
It is like Dr. Newman to put his case in this broad way, making large admissions, allowing for much inevitable failure. That is, he defends his Church as he would defend Christianity generally, taking it as a great practical system must be in this world, working with human nature as it is. His reflection is, no doubt, one suggested by a survey of the cause of all religion. The coming short of the greatest promisee, the debasement of the noblest ideals, are among the commonplaces of history. Christianity cannot be maintained without ample admissions of failure and perversion263. But it is one thing to make this admission for Christianity generally, an admission which the New Testament in foretelling264 its fortunes gives us abundant ground for making; and quite another for those who maintain the superiority of one form of Christianity above all others, to claim that they may leave out of the account its characteristic faults. It is quite true that all sides abundantly need to appeal for considerate judgment to the known infirmity of human nature; but amid the conflicting pretensions which divide Christendom no one side can ask to have for itself the exclusive advantage of this plea. All may claim the benefit of it, but if it is denied to any it must be denied to all. In this confused and imperfect world other great popular systems of religion besides the Roman may use it in behalf of shortcomings, which, though perhaps very different, are yet not worse. It is obvious that the theory of great and living ideas, working with a double edge, and working for mischief at last, holds good for other things besides the special instance on which Dr. Newman comments. It is to be further observed that to claim the benefit of this plea is to make the admission that you come under the common law of human nature as to mistake, perversion, and miscarriage265, and this in the matter of religious guidance the Roman theory refuses to do. It claims for its communion as its special privilege an exemption266 from those causes of corruption89 of which history is the inexorable witness, and to which others admit themselves to be liable; an immunity267 from going wrong, a supernatural exception from the common tendency of mankind to be led astray, from the common necessity to correct and reform themselves when they are proved wrong. How far this is realised, not on paper and in argument, but in fact, is indeed one of the most important questions for the world, and it is one to which the world will pay more heed268 than to the best writing about it There are not wanting signs, among others of a very different character, of an honest and philosophical269 recognition of this by some of the ablest writers of the Roman communion. The day on which the Roman Church ceases to maintain that what it holds must be truth because it holds it, and admits itself subject to the common condition by which God has given truth to men, will be the first hopeful day for the reunion of Christendom.
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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unconditional
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submission
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prop
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controversy
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doctrine
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fully
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humbly
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swell
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suavity
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compassionate
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transparent
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absurdity
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audacity
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distinguished
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censure
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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offenders
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| n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物） | |
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19
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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20
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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21
verbiage
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| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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22
annihilate
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| v.使无效；毁灭；取消 | |
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23
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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24
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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25
deigning
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| v.屈尊，俯就( deign的现在分词 ) | |
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26
reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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27
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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28
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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29
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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30
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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31
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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32
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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33
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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34
schism
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| n.分派，派系，分裂 | |
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35
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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36
dispelling
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的现在分词 ) | |
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37
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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38
mischiefs
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| 损害( mischief的名词复数 )； 危害； 胡闹； 调皮捣蛋的人 | |
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39
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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40
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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41
pompously
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| adv.傲慢地，盛大壮观地；大模大样 | |
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42
dinning
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| vt.喧闹（din的现在分词形式） | |
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43
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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44
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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45
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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46
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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47
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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48
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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49
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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50
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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51
controverts
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| v.争论，反驳，否定( controvert的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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53
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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54
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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55
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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56
outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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58
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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59
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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60
zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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61
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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62
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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63
lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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64
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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65
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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66
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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67
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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68
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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69
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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70
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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71
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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73
glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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74
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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75
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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76
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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77
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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78
fulsome
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| adj.可恶的，虚伪的，过分恭维的 | |
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79
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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80
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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81
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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82
inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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83
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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84
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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85
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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86
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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87
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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88
corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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89
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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90
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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91
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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92
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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93
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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94
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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95
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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96
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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97
mince
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| n.切碎物；v.切碎，矫揉做作地说 | |
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98
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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99
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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100
intemperately
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| adv.过度地，无节制地，放纵地 | |
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101
rekindling
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| v.使再燃( rekindle的现在分词 ) | |
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102
polemics
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| n.辩论术，辩论法；争论( polemic的名词复数 )；辩论；辩论术；辩论法 | |
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103
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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104
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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105
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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106
disclaiming
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| v.否认( disclaim的现在分词 ) | |
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107
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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108
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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109
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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110
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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111
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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112
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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113
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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114
justifies
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| 证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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115
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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116
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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117
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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118
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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119
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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120
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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121
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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122
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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123
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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124
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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125
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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126
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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127
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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128
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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129
enumerates
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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130
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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131
circumspect
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| adj.慎重的，谨慎的 | |
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132
usurp
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| vt.篡夺，霸占；vi.篡位 | |
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133
bluffly
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| 率直地，粗率地 | |
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134
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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135
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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136
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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137
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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138
budge
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| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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139
contentious
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| adj.好辩的，善争吵的 | |
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140
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141
supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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142
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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143
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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144
touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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145
professes
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| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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146
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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147
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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148
stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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149
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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150
meddling
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 ) | |
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151
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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152
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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153
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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154
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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155
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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156
unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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157
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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158
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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159
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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160
censured
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
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161
pastors
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| n.（基督教的）牧师( pastor的名词复数 ) | |
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162
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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163
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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164
crux
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| adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点 | |
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165
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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166
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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167
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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168
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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169
recoils
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| n.（尤指枪炮的）反冲，后坐力( recoil的名词复数 )v.畏缩( recoil的第三人称单数 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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170
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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171
condemns
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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172
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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173
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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174
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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175
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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176
tempts
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| v.引诱或怂恿（某人）干不正当的事( tempt的第三人称单数 )；使想要 | |
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177
controversies
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| 争论 | |
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178
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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179
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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180
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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181
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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182
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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183
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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184
amplification
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| n.扩大，发挥 | |
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185
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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186
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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187
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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188
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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189
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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190
amplify
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| vt.放大，增强；详述，详加解说 | |
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191
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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192
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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194
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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195
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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196
invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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197
invokes
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| v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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198
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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199
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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200
transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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201
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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202
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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203
pertinency
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| 有关性，相关性，针对性； 切合性 | |
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204
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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205
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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206
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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207
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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208
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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209
illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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210
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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211
collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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212
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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213
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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214
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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215
interferes
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| vi. 妨碍，冲突，干涉 | |
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216
supplant
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| vt.排挤；取代 | |
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217
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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218
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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219
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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220
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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221
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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222
exhorted
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| v.劝告，劝说( exhort的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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223
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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224
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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225
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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226
inculpated
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| v.显示（某人）有罪，使负罪( inculpate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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227
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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228
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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229
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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230
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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231
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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232
omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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233
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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234
intercede
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| vi.仲裁，说情 | |
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235
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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236
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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237
adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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238
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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239
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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240
incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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241
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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242
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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243
frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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244
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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245
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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246
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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247
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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248
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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249
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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250
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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251
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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252
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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253
impugn
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| v.指责，对…表示怀疑 | |
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254
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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255
refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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256
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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257
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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258
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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259
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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260
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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261
puerile
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| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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262
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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263
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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264
foretelling
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的现在分词 ) | |
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265
miscarriage
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| n.失败，未达到预期的结果；流产 | |
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266
exemption
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| n.豁免，免税额，免除 | |
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267
immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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268
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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269
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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