The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Religion
The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845
Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Oxford movement
[64] _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_, from 1834 to 1836, published
March 1837; _Justification_, after Easter 1837, published March 1838;
_Canon of Scripture_, published May 1838; _Antichrist_, published June
1838.
[65] Cf. _Lyra Apostolica_, No. 65:
_Thou_ to wax fierce
In the cause of the Lord!
* * * * *
Anger and zeal,
And the joy of the brave,
Who bade _thee_ to feel,
Sin's slave?
[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by
Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church--_Loss and Gain_.
[67] _Apologia_, p. 156.
CHAPTER XI
THE ROMAN QUESTION
The Hampden controversy had contributed to bring to the front a
question, which from the first starting of the Tracts had made itself
felt, but which now became a pressing one. If the Church of England
claimed to be part of the Catholic Church, what was the answer of the
Church of England to the claims and charges of the Church of Rome? What
were the true distinctions between the doctrines of the two Churches on
the great points on which they were supposed to be at issue? The vague
outcry of Popery had of course been raised both against the general
doctrine of the Church, enforced in the Tracts, and against special
doctrines and modes of speaking, popularly identified with Romanism; and
the answer had been an appeal to the authority of the most learned and
authoritative of our writers. But, of course, to the general public this
learning was new; and the cry went on with a dreary and stupid monotony.
But the charges against Dr. Hampden led his defenders to adopt as their
best weapon an aggressive policy. To the attack on his orthodoxy, the
counter buffet was the charge against his chief opponents of secret or
open Romanising. In its keenest and most popular form it was put forth
in a mocking pamphlet written probably under Whately's inspiration by
his most trusted confidant, Dr. Dickinson, in which, in the form of a
"Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope to some Members of the
University of Oxford," the Tract-writers are made to appear as the
emissaries and secret tools of Rome, as in a _jeu d'esprit_ of Whately's
they are made to appear as the veiled prophets of infidelity.[68] It was
clever, but not clever enough to stand, at least in Oxford, against Dr.
Pusey's dignified and gravely earnest _Remonstrance_ against its
injustice and trifling. But the fire of all Dr. Hampden's friends had
been drawn on the leaders of the movement. With them, and almost alone
with them, the opposition to him was made a personal matter. As time
went on, those who had been as hot as they against Dr. Hampden managed
to get their part in the business forgotten. Old scores between
Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Liberals were wiped out, and the Tractarians
were left to bear alone the odium of the "persecution" of Dr. Hampden.
It must be said that they showed no signs of caring for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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