so much restricted that Bremond, a sincere admirer, says that his
imagination lived on 'une poignee de souvenirs d'enfant.' How tragic was
the fate which caught this loyal Englishman and more than loyal Oxonian
in the meshes of a cosmopolitan institution in which England counted for
little and Oxford for nothing at all!
The Reform of 1832 seemed to threaten the English Church with
destruction. Arnold in this year wrote 'The Church, as it now stands, no
human power can save.' The bishops were stunned and bewildered by the
unexpected outbreak of popular hostility. Old methods of defence were
plainly useless; some new plan of campaign must be devised against the
double assault of political radicalism and theological liberalism. To
Newman both alike were of the devil; theological liberalism especially
was only specious infidelity. He never had the slightest inkling that a
deep religious earnestness and love of truth underlay the revolt against
orthodox tradition. His fighting instincts were aroused. When Keble
attributed the scheme for suppressing some Irish bishopries to 'national
apostasy,' he rushed to arms in defence of Church privileges and
property. In the first Tract (1833) he says:
'A notion has gone abroad that the people can take away your
power. They think they have given it and can take it away.
They have been deluded into a notion that present palpable
usefulness, produceable results, acceptableness to your
flocks--that these and such-like are the tests of your
Divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our
holy fathers the Bishops, as the representatives of the
Apostles, and the Angels of the Churches, and magnify your
office, as being ordained by them to take part in their
ministry.'
That was the keynote of the whole Tractarian movement. A weapon was
needed to smite liberalism. Nothing but a compact and powerful
organisation could repel the foe. God must have provided such an
organisation: a Divine society, certain of ultimate victory, must exist
somewhere. Newman and his friends hoped to find it in the Anglican
Church; and such was the power of their contagious zeal and confident
enthusiasm, that the immediate danger was actually staved off, and the
Establishment was allowed a new lease of life. But the national Church
of England was not constituted to resist the national will, and the
attempt to reorganise it on Catholic lines was fore-doomed to failure.
And so, since the assumption that a great institutional fighting Church
_must_ exist was never even questioned, when Anglicanism failed him
there was no other refuge but Rome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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