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LIBRARIES



MR. NEWMAN'S AP OS TACY.

DOOUMENTS

BELA TIN G TO THE

OF THE

E V. O H N H E N R Y N E W M A N

TO THE

R O 1\1 I S H C HUR C H.

NEW-YORK:

BURGESS, STRINGER & cs., 222 BROADWA¥;.

1845



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9 Spruce Street.



8. 562

DOCUMENTS, &c.

Mr. NEWMAN'S SECESSION.

FROM A CORRESPONDENT.

We are constrained this week in the discharge of our duty as

journalists, to notice an event on which we would gladly have
been spared the pain of speaking. On the day on which our
last Number was published, the Rev. John Henry Newman was
received into the communion of the Church of Rome, by the
iteration of Baptism, at the hands of Dr. Gentili, having resigned
his Fellowship on the previous Friday. A blow of equal mag­
nitude, it must be allowed, has not befallen our Church, at least
in this our day. Indeed, we know not if any instance can be
adduced of a man of competent learning, and really conversant
with our system, working himself in this manner, out of it.
And when we add to this the remembrance of the important ser­
vices rendered by him, in times past, to our Church, and the
instruction we have ourselves derived from many of his writings,
not to mention the wonderful power which he possessed of at­
taching individuals to him, the task becomes even yet more
painfu1. In one sense it cannot be said that the event has corne
upon us by surprise. For the last eight or ten months, it has
been generally rumored that he would resign his Fellowship at
the annual meeting of Oriel College, (in the present week;) and



4

that this step would be speedily followed by the renunciation of
the English Church. What it was which hastened the move­
ment in the manner above relat.ed, is not likely to transpire upon
positive authority; and we do not care to repeat the report which
has reached us, which the readers of our Journal for the last
three or four weeks will have no difficulty in guessing. With
Mr. Newman of course goes that party of personal friends which
he had collected around him at Littlemore.

And now, having confessed the severity of the blow which
has befallen us, we may be allowed to suggest what occurs to us
in the way of consolation. The convulsion will have the effect
of placing many persons in their right position, w ho for a con­
siderable period have of necessity been in a false one. The
intention of quitting the English Church-subject of course to
any change which subsequent inquiry might iuduce-was formed
hy Mr. Newman four years ago. The opposition evoked by the
publication of Tract XC., it is well known, had a very great
effect upon his over-sensitive mind; and, indeed, led him to
despair altogether of the English Church. And i t was in that
state of mind that he preached those fatal Advent Sermons,
which have led astray so many persons. For those who shall
hereafter have to write the history of these times, and therein
specially to estimate the quality of Mr. Newman's intellectual
powers, the great difficulty, we apprehend, will consist in ac ..
counting for his acceptance of so miserable a theory, as that the
validity or non-validity of the English Church, was to be tested
by the continuance of some half dozen individuals, friends of the
writer, all of whom, by the way, we believe, unless Mr. Ward
was one of the number, still remain with us.

But to return-in this manner it has happened that in heart
and intention, Mr. Newman, while nominally with us, has dur..
ing the last four years been a member of the Roman Communion.
In saying this, we charge him with no dishonesty. His desire
was to gain time for himself. The wish was natural, but cir-'
cumstances having raised him into a public position, the danger
of misleading others could not be avoided, without committing
himself further than he felt it right at that time to do. In effect,



5

a gloom and an uncertainty was cast over those who had long
looked up to him for guidance. They had a head, and they had
not; and in the meantime, no one else presumed to put himself
forward. This spell may even be said to have continued till the
appearance of Dr. Pusey's letters in our columns. The position
assumed in these letters, we would fain hope, will afford a raIly­
ing point even for the most wavering. But though the English
Church does not require them positively to renounce every
Roman doctrine, she does expect that so. much of it as they
hold, they will hold to themselves, and that while they continue
with her, they will throw themselves into her system cordially,
faithfully work it out, and if they will, raise it higher.--English
Churchman, Oct. 16, 1845.

Dr. PUSEY'S LETTER ON THE SECESSION O}' Dr. NEWMAN.

My DEAR FRIEND,-Truly "His way is in the sea, and His
paths in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known." At
such moments, it seems almost best to "keep silence, yea, even
from good words." It is an exceeding mystery that such confi­
dence as he had once in our Church, should have gone. Even
amid our present sorrows, it goes to the heart to look at that
former self, and think how devotedly he di'd work for our Church;
how he strove to build her up. It looks as if some good purpose
for our Church had failed; that an instrument raised up for her
had not been employed as God willed, and so is withdrawn.
There is a jar somewhere. One cannot trust oneself to think,
whether his keen sensitiveness to ill was not- fitted for these
troubled times. What to such dulled minds as my own, seemed
as a matter of course, as something of necessi ty to be gone through
and endured, was to his, as you know, "like the piercings of a
sword." You know how it seemed to shoot through his whole
self. But this is with God; our business is with ourselves.
The first pang came to me years ago, when I had no other fear,



6

but heard that he was prayed for by name in 80 many churches
and religious houses on the continent. The fear

was suggested
to me, "If they pray so earnestly for this object, that he may

be

"von to be an instrument of God's glory among them, while,

among us, there is so much indifference,
and in part dislike, may

it not be that their prayers may be heard, that God will give them

whom they pray for,-we forfeit whom we desire not to
retain 1"

And now, must they not think that their prayers, which they
have offered so long-at times, I think, night and day, or at the·

Holy Eucharist-have been heard ?-and may
we not have for­

feited him, because there was, comparatively, so little love
and

prayer? And so now, then, in this critical state
of our Church,

the most perilous crisis through which it has ever passed, must

not our first lesson be increase of prayer? I may now say that

one
_

set of those "prayers for unity and guidance into the truth," cir­

culated some years past, came from him. Had they, or such

prayers, been used more constantly,
should we be as we are

now? Would all this confusion and distress have come upon

us?

Yet, since God is with us still, He can bring us even through
this loss. We ought not, indeed, to disguise the greatness of it.

It is the intensest loss we could have had. They who have won
him know his value. It may be a comfort to us that they do.
In my deepest sorrow at the distant anticipation

of our loss, I was

told of the saying of one of their most eminent historians, who

owned that they were entirely unequal to meet the evils with

which they were beset, that nothing could meet them but
some

movement which should infuse new life into their Church, and

that for this he looked to one man, and that one was N. I cannot

say what a ray of
comfort this speech darted into my mind. It

made me at once realize more, hoth that what I dreaded might
be, and its end. With us, he was laid aside. Engaged in great
works, especially with that bul wark against heresy and misbelief,
S. Athanasius, he was yet scarcely doing more for us than he

could if he were not with us. Our Church has not known how

to empìoy him. And since this was 80, it seemed as
if a sharp

sword were lying in its scabbard, or hung up in the sanctuary,



7

because there was no one to wield it: Here was one, marked
out as a great instrument of God, fitted, through his whole train­
ing, of which through a friendship of twenty-two years, I have
seen, at least, some glimpses, to carry out some great design for
the restoration 'of the Church; and now, after he had begun that
work among ourselves, in retirement-his work taken out of his
hands, and not directly acting upon our Church. I do not mean,
of course, that he felt this, or that it influenced him. I speak of
it only as a fact. He is gone, unconscious, (as all great instru­
ments of God are) what he himself is. He has gone, as a sim­
ple act of duty, with no view for himself, placing himself entirely
in God's Hands. And such are they whom God employs. He
seems, then, to me, not so much gone from us, as transplanted
into another part of the Vineyard, w here the full energies of his
powerful mind can be employed, which here they were not.
And who knows what, in the mysterious purpose of God's good
Providence, may be the effect of such a person among them?
You, too, have felt that it is what is unholy on both sides whicÌl
keeps us apart. It is not what is true in the. Roman system,
against which the strong feeling of ordinary religious persons
among us is directed, but against what is unholy in her practice.,
It is not anything in our Church which keeps Rome from
acknowledging us, but heresy existing more or less within us.
As each, by God's grace, grows in holiness, the Churches will
recognize, more and more, the presence of God's Holy Spirit in
the other; and w hat now hinders the union of the Western
Church will fall off. As the contest with unbelief increases, the
Churches which have eceived and transmitted the substance of
the Faith, as deposited in our common Creeds, must be on the
same side. If one member suffers, the other members suffer
with it; and so, in the increasing health of one, others, too, will
benefit. It is not as we would have had it, but God's Will be
done! He brings about His own Ends, as, in His Sovereign
Wisdom, He sees to be best. One can see great ends to be
brought about by this present sorrow ; and the more so, because
he, the chosen instrument of them, sees them not for himself, It
is, perhaps, the greatest event which has happened since the



8

Communion of the Churches has been interrupted, that such an

one, so formed in our Church, and the work of
God's Spirit as

dwelling within her, should be transplanted to theirs.
If anything

could open their eyes to what is good in us, or soften in
us any

wrong prejudices against them, one should think it
would be the

presence of such an one,
nurtured and grown to such ripeness in

our Church, and now removed to theirs. If we have, by our mis
..

deeds, (personal or other,) "sold our brother," God, we may trust,
willeth thereby to "preserve life."

It is, of course, a heavy thing to us who remain, heavy to
us

individually, in proportion as any of us may have reason to
fear

lest, by w hat has been amiss in oneself, one has
contributed to

bring down this heavy chastisement upon our
Church. But

while we go on, humbled, and the humbler, surely neither
need

we be dejected. God's chastisements are in mercy too. Yall,

too, will have seen, within these last few years,
God's work with

the souls in our Church. For myself, I am, even now, far more

hopeful as to our Church, than at any former period,-far
more

than when, outwardly, things seemed most prosperous. It would

seem as if God, in His mercy, let us now see more of His in­

ward workings, in order that in the tokens of His presence
with

us, we may take courage. He has not
forsaken us, Who, in

fruits of holiness, in supernatural workings of His grace, in the

deepening of devotion, in the awakening of consciences,
in His

own manifest acknowledgment of the "power of the keys," as

vested in our Church, shows Himself more than ever present with

us. These are not simply individual workings. They are too

wide spread, too manifold.' It is not to i mediate results
that we

ought to look; "the times are in His Hands;" but
this one cannot

doubt? that that good Hand of our God, which has been over us,
in the manifold trials of the last three centuries, checking, with

...

holding, guiding, chastening, leading, and now 80 wonderfully
-extending us, is with us still. It is not thus that He

ever pur­

posed to leave a Church. Gifts of grace are His
own blessed

Presence. He does not vouchsafe His Presence in order to

withdraw it. In nature, some strong rallying of life sometimes

precedes its extinction. It is not so in grace. Gifts of grace
are



9 -

His love; and, "whom He loveth, He loveth unto the end."
The growth of life in our Church has not been the mere stirringof individuals. If anyone thing has impressed itself upon me
during these last ten years, or looking back .lo the orderings ofHis Providence for a yet longer period, it has been, that the
work, which He has been carrying on, is not with individuals,
but with the Church as a whole. The life has sprung up in
our Church, and through it. Thoughtful persons, in Churches
abroad, have been amazed and impressed with this. It was
not through their agency, nor through their writings, but throughGod's Holy Spirit dwelling in our Church, vouchsafed throughHis Ordinances, teaching us to value them more deeply, to seekthem more habitually, to draw fresh life from them, that this
life has sprung up, enlarged, deepened.

And now, as you too know, that life shows itself in deeperforms, in more marked drawings of souls, in more diligent care
to conform itself to its Divine Pattern, and to purify itself, byGod's grace, from all which is displeasing to Him, than ever
heretofore. Never was it so with any body whom He purposed
to leave. And so, amid whatever mysterious dispensations of
His Providence, we may surely commit ourselves and our work,in good hope, to Him who hath loved us hitherto. He who
loved us amid negligence, so as to- give us the earnest desire to
please Him, will surely not forsake us now He has given us
that desire; and we, amid whatever infirmities individnally, or
remaining defects, as a body, do still more earnestly desire His
glory.

May He ever comfort and strengthen you,

Ever your very affectionate friend,

---e



10

DR. PUSEY ON THE DUTY OF
REMAINING IN THE

ENGI..lSH CHURCH.

[The following letter, written by Dr. Pusey to a friend,
will more fully express

the views of this justly eminent and most devout and godly man,
on the obliga­

tion oj remaining stea�fast in the communion of the English
Church:-

My DEAR SlR,-I was unable to open your letter yesterday
until after the post was gone,-I need not say that I should

be

very glad to be of any use to you. You do not say
what are the

defini te sources of your doubts whether you
can remain in our

Church, or if you have any. If you have any, I
would do any­

thing I could, by God's blessing, to remove
them. As far as I

see, you seem to me more
drawn by sympathy towards the Ro­

man church than by any feeling of duty. But love for the Ro­

man Church should not make us forget all the blessings which

God has given us in our own, and our duties to her. We
should

love the Roman Church, her saints, holy teachers; prize, if we

know it, every thing which is of the Spirit of God in her; yet
her having had very holy men, and having had high gifts,

is no

reason why we should leave that Church in which
God has

placed us. The question is not, whether she
have high gifts,

but whether we have the Presence of Christ. Since we have,

(which cannot be doubted,) then we are safe
where we are, and

we should labour, in whatever way we are called, in that part of

the vineyard where we have been called.
There is absolutely no doubt that our succession is valid, that

our Bishops are the successors of those through
whom God

planted the Gospel here: and so our
Church is the appointed

channel of God's gifts, and the instrument of salvation for us.

This is the first question to us, antecedent to anything else

without us; no gifts, no helps to devotion, no holiness, no sym­
pathies, no beauty of system, no truths abroad,

no contradictions

at home, are any grounds whatever for abandoning the Church in

which God has placed us. Nothing can be adequate ground for

anyone except a conviction,
on adequate grounds, patiently tested,

and overpowering, apart from any cause of exci ternent,
that she

is not the Church, and that to stay in her, being rent from the

body of Christ, is peril to his soul. I own I do not myself
see



11

how anyone is to come to this conviction. For myself, I am
accustomed to dwell upon two tests which are given in the An­
cient Church. It is to be assumed as an undoubted fact, that we
have the succession: that if there is any descendant of the An­
cient British Church, it is our own; for no other has the line of
descent. The only question that will be raised is, have we lost
the gifts of the Church in consequence of our loss of inter-com­
munion with the rest of the Western Church? Where this has
been so, it is manifest by the loss of life and th e Sacraments.
It has from St. Cyprian's time been universally noted that a
branch really severed from the trunk, i. e. from the body of
Christ, carries with it for a time the freshness from the parent
stock, and then gradually t.he life dies out. This has been so
remarkably verified ever since, that the absence of it in any case
is the very strongest proof that a branch of the Church is not
severed. For life is the presence of God the Holy Ghost,
through whom Christ dwelleth in it. Abroad among Protes­
tants, life dried up almost at once. Lutheranism and Calvinism
both stiffened; then the one decayed into Rationalism, and the
other into Socinianism. There is, I suppose. hardly any Protest­
ant teacher in Germany altogether sound in essential articIes of
Faith. In England our course has been upward. The life of
our Church has been tried in every way that it can be tried; and
now, after three centuries, it has a more vigorous life than ever.
Still more remarkable are the tokens of God's Providence over
her, as shewing his care for her: how He held her back at first
when she would have injured herself; saved her e. g., by the
sudden death of Edward VI. which was then thought so great a
loss, and so has purified her by a succession of trials, and given
her a succession of teachers such as He has bestowed upon no
body except the Church. What a token of His Presenee are
such as. Hooker, Andrewes, Laud, Taylor, Ken, Butler; each
sent at his appointed time, and for his appointed office! Butler,
e·g. could 110t have rendered his office in Hooker's day, nor
Hooker in Butler's. What a phenomenon is either! Hooker,
prepared secretly, and unknowingly, through his early life, for
the great work for which he was formed, out of the adverse cir-



J2

cumstances of his birth led back to a deeper theology, and the
instructor of every thoughtful mind since: Butler, standing (if
one may reverently so speak) like a type of Melchisedek, having
none before him or after him, in the sad century in which he

lived, insulated and little influencing his own day, yet laid up
with God as His instrument for his own times, speaking now he

is dead, and acting upon numberless minds, so that we, probably,
as yet see but some slight portion of the fruits

of a mind, which

seemed wasted on its own day, but which God stored up for His.

And so of many others. God raised
his instruments each in his

own fitting place, and through them worked for her in
each day

what He saw good, and brought her through all. And now,

again, He hath wonderfully predisposed things, so
that the pre­

sent movement could take place, and is most marvellously and

most deeply working upon people's minds, and leavening
invisi­

bly the whole Church. For you, who are a younger
man and

did not know the former days, it is almost impossible to conceive

the change which God has wrought. Those who have
seen the

whole could only say step by step, "This is the Lord's doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes: and so you ;may naturally be

tempted to impatience, because you see the remaining evils,
not

the mighty change which God has already wrought. And
this

life He called forth out of herself: it was not by aid of Roman

Catholics, (they were asleep around,) nor by their holier books:
these were known later only. It was entirely in the line of the

English Church. First it came through her own more
Catholic

writers, then through those to whom in His Providence she had

ever guided her sons, the Fathers of the undivided Church, who
are authorities with the R oman Church also. And so, f trust

we may in the end unite with
Rome in the doctrines of the com­

mon Fathers of us both.

The fact that I have mentioned, that the renewed life of the

English Church has been entirely from within, that is, through
the good Spirit of God residing in her, has much struck Roman
Catholics-much more may it us! They have been amazed,
from their way of looking upon us, that the life should be of us

-that it came not from them; that they could not understand



13

how a life, more vigorous perhaps than is in many places put
forth among themselves, should spring up, not in their own com­
munion, and with no help from them, for: their prayers began at
a later period. Well may we give thanks in glad amazement,

.

among whom these tokens of God's presence are! Well may
we be content to remain where He is working! we are safe
where He is.

And, for ourselves individually, there are many tokens of His
Presence. I do not rest upon these alone, but in connexion with
the fact, that having the succession and the legitimate consecra­
tion by. those to whom the commission is given, we have un­
doubtedly the body and blood of Christ upon our altars: we
receive it, if we have faith. Its presence has been known very
blessedly by those who are His. Sacramental grace has been
SO marked, that even to such as had previously doubted, it has
seemed sight, not faith. There have been very awful instances
in which its profanation has been suddenly punished like that of
the Donatists. But since we have the sacraments, we have the
presence of Christ individually ; we have that precious gift,
which whoso has? he himself, our own gracious Lord, says, " hath
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." How,
then, are we not safe? By this again we are separated from
Schismatics, in that we have the sacraments.

Again, "the Power of the Keys" is the especial gift of the
church. You know that it is in the most solemn way given us
at our ordination-" Receive the Holy Ghost: whosoever sins
thou forgivest, they are forgiven." Our church, you know well,
gives us the most absolute form to use in the Service of the Sick:
" By His authority committed to me." This, if we had not His
authority, would be blasphemy. Yet, in the last years more es­
pecially, since people have felt more the weight of post-baptismal
sin, they have sought confession. It has been frequent for per­
sons to make confession for the sins of a whole life, and thereon
to receive absolution; and God has given them grace propor­
tionate to the contrition of those who came to it: and in some
cases such large and wonderful increase of grace, as to sh�w



14

how manifestly that He Himself owned the commission He had

given to His servants.
As I said, what impresses me so much in the History of our

Church is this coincidence between God's Providence without,

and His grace within, and both with the fact that we
have the or­

ganization of a Church. Our's is a case quite per se. In
all

the ancient schismatic bodies, there was formal heresy also.

Then, too, they set themselves against the whole Church. We
have neither rejected any formal decisions of the Church; nor

been rejected by her. We have no
" terrarum orbis" against us.

Roman Catholics have been fond of paralleling us with' the Do­

natists. For myself, although I have, for many years, so to say,
lived in St. Augustine more than any other father, I see, more

vividly, the difference of the cases, not the resemblance. They
had the Church Universal against them: we have not, since the

East and West are themselves divided. They rejected the rest
of the Church; claimed to be themselves, alone, the Church;

re-baptized those who fell away to them; interpreted Holy
Scripture, as though it had been foretold that the Church

was to

be in Africa only. Their course throughout was one of decay.
Contrast with this temper Bishop Andrewes' Prayer, (which has
so formed the minds of our Church,) when he habitually prays
for" the Church Universal, Eastern, Western, our own." Such

a mind, so universal, is not an insulated fact; it is the type of a

temper, at least extensive in our
Church. Or to take, again, our

Liturgy: here, at all the most solemn times, we pray not for
our­

selves only, but for that whole
" Catholic Church," which in our

Creeds we confess, and for all its Bishops. In the daily service

alone, we pray for" our" own" Bishops, Curates, and Congrega­
tions," especially; in our Litany, for Christ's

Io' Holy Church
Universal," and for" all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ;" at the

Holy Communion, we intercede for" the Universal Church,"
and therein for" all Bishops and Curates ;" in the Ember-weeks,
we pray daily to Him" Who has purchased Himself an

Univer­

sal Church by the precious blood of His dear Son, mercifully
to look upon the same, and at this time

so to guide and govern



15

the minds of His servants, the Bishops and Pastors of His
flock,' &c.:-so that we are praying for the ordinations in the
Greek and Roman Church, as well as for our own. This is no
Donatist temper.

Again, how miserably all such bodies, as the heretical bodies
of the East, have hardened in their heresy! What dreadful sub­
tlety, one hears, there is in the Monophysite bodies! They
have petrified, as it were, not to speak of their actual losses,
(awful as it is to write,) in apostacies to Mahommedanism. With
us, as I said, there has been one long even tfu] history; we have
not been cast into one mould, as it were, and so stiffened. It has
been a long probation, as it were, through fire and water, trying
and purifying us, letting us feel the effect of what was evil in us,
yet bringing out thereby what is good; chastening us, not des­
troying us ; God's good Providence accompanying us throughout·
And now the token of barrenness is being taken away. What
a stirring of minds there has been within to remove the reproach
of our Church, the religious neglect of her poor members at
home! what drawing to a more devoted life, in order to relieve
them! and then, too, the anxiety, however inadequate both yet
are, for those abroad. God seems now, especially, to be putting
into man's hearts to conceive large plans to His glory, and grace
to execute them. Ours is the very reverse of the history of
bodies really rent from the Church. They flourish for a time,
and decay. Ours seems like a tree, sorely shaken) which yet,
after a time, takes deep root downwards, and bears fruit upwards,
and then putteth forth fresh branches and filleth the land. Of
us, it seems to be said, "They bring forth more fruit in their
age, that they may show how true the Lord our strength is."
After 300 years, we have a more vigorous life than ever. God
is giving us a more Catholic spirit within, and extending us with­
out, all at once enlarging our Episcopate by His Providence, and
giving us devoted persons, secretly trained, to occupy the Sees
He permits to be founded. And so, again the more, He seems
to be preparing our Church for some great office in His Provi­
dence, since He is spreading it everywhere, and acting by His
grace, simultaneously upon it.



16

I hope that this statement will be some comfort and re-assur­
ance to you. I could not cunvey to you, even in a long letter, the
hundredth part of the ground of my conviction, which has been
growing for many years, that God has been and is working with
and in our Church as a whole, and training her for some purpose
of His Providence; and I am thankful to be permitted to
labor for her, and to exhort others to labor with a gooà courage.

For myself, so far from being dejected by any tokens \V hich
'people point out, some time desponding1y, sometimes rather im­
patiently, of past evil, even though reaching on to the present,
they may be a token the more of God's great mercy to our
Church. It is certain that we have life. The greater, then, our

past sickness, the greater the present mercy of God that He is
restoring us. His mercy and our amazement at His love had
been less, had we fallen less. We may, then, in humility, con­
fess to the utmost, "our own sins and the sins of our fore­

fathers," the lifeless, torpid state from which we have been
aroused; but, so far from being discouraged by it, take courage
the more, trusting that His mercy, who loved us while we for­
got Him, will not leave us now that He has awakened us to re­
member ourselves and Him. Negligences, from which God has
aroused us, should but animate individuals, or the Church to
more devoted service-not lead them to despond, when He, by
rousing them, has given us the earnest of His forgiving love.

For yourself, as you ask my advice individually, I should say
the first thing is to prepare yourself by prayingfor God's gracious
hel p for such a general confession as I have spoken of. If you
know of no other to receive it, I am sure that the Rev.-- -­
would. You could say that I commended you to him. He
would be a very good adviser as to the ru1es of life.

* * � * But

'THE BOOK is the book of conscience. Pray God to enlighten
it, and to reveal you to yourself. Then it is best to divide your
life into stated periods, and examine yourself in each of them by
the Ten Commandments, including the seven deadly sins, in
thought, word, and deed, in commission and omission, recalling to
yourself every thing ,that can help memory, as scenes, places,
companions of any part of life, individuals to whom duty was



17

owing, &c.; but above all, as I said, praying to GOD to enlighten
all the dark corners of conscience. You should thus try to form
to yourself some estimate of the frequency of any sin, if unhappily
it lasted any time, so to bring, as well as you can, all you know
of yourself before GOD, and then praying Him to cleanse you
from your secret faults. Then receive the absolution as His
pardoning sentence. Pray beforehand that His grace, against the
power of sin, may accompany it, as well as His pardon for the
guilt of it, that the chains of sin may fall off from you; and then
go on cheerfully, Joving Him who has so loved you, and fighting
against the re mains of evil.

And in this it is advised to set yourself to conquer some spe­
cial sin at a time, the most besetting-directing all your attention
to pluck out every root of it, examining yourself twice a da
as to any trace of it, noting down its occurrence-praying
especially for the oppo site grace when you receive the Holy
Communion, and making some definite offering to give up this or
that way in which it shews itself. You should use all the means
of grace within your reach, as the daily service which you have
near you. Then negatively beware of speaking discontentedly
against any persons or things amongst us, e. g. (if so tempted,)
against authorities and their acts, or against any expressions, if so
be, in the Articles, or any deficiences; knowing as you do that
we have all so much more than we have used, and what we have,
formed such holy men as Bishops Andrewes, Ken, &c., and, even
in very bad times, such as Bishop Wilson.

Intercede daily for our Church, as (if you have no more time)
by the use of the Lord's Prayer three times daily in honor of the
Holy Trinity, and with this intention: and turn aU feeling of
discontent and dissatisfaction into prayer. I mean, instead of
complaining to men, complain to God, i. e. pray_

Do not allow pourself in any comparisons between ours and
other churches, whose evils you know not; but, as I said, turn
all into prayer.

Avoid whatever you think tends to alienate your affections
from your Church. Do not attend services not of hers.

And now, go on as cheerfully as you can, doing your daily



18

duties to God, carrying on the warfare against your sins, and I

hope you will find rest.
For such theological study as yon have leisure, I should

recommend you absolutely to avoid all books of controversy, (as
also in conversation all disputing.) and to give yourself to the
study of Holy Scripture with t.he help of some one Father, e .. g.
the Psalms with S. Augustine, or in part with S, Ambrose; s.
Matthew with S. Chrysostom; S. Luke with S. Ambrose; S.
John with S. Augustine, or S. Chrysostom; or S. Paul with
S. Chrysostom. This study rightly pursued, must be a great
blessing to you. And now God bless you and guide you
always. In Him, yours very faithfully,

Ilfracombe. Aug. 1845. E. B. PUSEY.

Mr. NEWMAN'S SECESSION.

(From the London Morning Post.)

When announcing to the public the secession of Mr. Newman
and other members of the University of Oxford from the Church
of England, and their admission to the Church of Rome, we
thought it most becoming and discreet to refrain from any remark
of our own beyond an expression of regret. In now proceeding
to offer a very few observations upon the subject, it is chiefly to
guard against the supposition which some might possibly enter­
tain, that we are careless regarding an event so serious, or, on the
other hand, that we were so stunned by the calamity to the Eng­
lish Church, that we could find nothing to say.

The fact is, that with regard to Mr. Newman we have been
for some time prepared for the event, and, therefore, though we
are struck with the fact now that it has happened, we have not
been affected as we should have been were we taken by surprise.

Thoroughly convinced as we are that Mr. Newman and his
friends have gone from a purer to a less pure Church, we yet be­
lieve that they have acted with the 1110st perfect conscientious­
ness. We believe that no other consideration than a sincere

conviction, exactly the opposite to that which we have described
as our own, could have induced them to act as they have done.



19

We do not feel any great depth of alarm at what has hap ..
pened, but we own that it affects us with considerable anxiety.
Upon the whole, however, we entertain the hope that it, will
operate more as a warning than as an example, and especially
among those who are actively engaged in the ministry of the
Church of England. We think it may operate as a warning
even to those who think, and perhaps with good reason think,
that there is much in the discipline and government and Catholic
feeÙng of the Church of Rome w hich is preferable to our own
system. In our judgment, men of sober piety, of sense and
firmness, should rather regard these circumstances in favor of
Rome as temptations to be resisted: It is very reasonable that
men of earnest feeling and sound judgment should labor to bring
back to our Church that efficacy and influence as a Church
which it had lost through the carelessness and almost deadness
of her sons during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nine­
teenth century; but it is certainly as reasonable to stand firm by
the sober, dignified, intelligible principles and practices of our
own English Church, and to keep far from us the subtle logic of
Rome, which entangles the understanding, and the superstitious
ceremonies, which bewilder and overcome the heart. We write
of these things as members of the Church of England, asking
pardon of those sincere men who think differently, and to whom
our words may give offence. Most earnestly, however, do we
exhort all w ho will listen to us, to watch against the temptationof example, and to hold fast by the truths in which they have
been brought up, unless they find an absolute conviction on their
minds that those errors against which they have protested are
not errors, but truths. Let them remember how awful a thing it
is to desert the mother in whose lap they have been nursed, and
at whose knees they have for so long addressed their prayers.

It were injustice to close these brief remarks without recording
our testimony against the insolent bigotry and vulgar ignoranceof t.hose whose self-adoring, persecuting spirit has been, humanly
speaking, the cause of the defection which we so much regret.We do not hesitate to avow our opinion, that had the chief di­
rectors of the Church of England acted as they ought to have
done, with respect to the movement of the last three years, that



20

Church would not have lost so eminent a member as Mr. New­

man. J nstead, however, of a Catholic spirit having been en
...

couraged in the Church, a sectarian spirit has been
allowed to be

triumphant. Let us not be misunderstood: we
are as far as

anyone from supposing that it would have been
wise to persist

in forcing upon an unprepared people mere ceremonies
which

they did not like, or that any formal stand should
have been

made in the matter of ecclesiastical dresses and decorations.

But we do very deferentially maintain, that the
ecclesiastical

heads of the Church of England ought more distinctly, and with

such boldness as became their calling and their stat.ion, to have

avowed the true principles of the Church of England, and to have

saved those who adhered to those true principles from being
abused and persecuted by notorious schismatics holding offices in

the Church. It is a natural infirmity of the human mind to mis­

take the reverse of wrong for right; and to this infirmity Mr.

Newman and his friends-beholding what was permitted to the

Low Church party in the Anglican communion-have
doubtless

fallen victims.

(From the same.)

The recent defections from our Church of men eminent for

their learning and piety may probably be traced to a variety
of

causes, which apply rather to the dispositions of the men who

have gone out from us, than to any hing more general
which is

inherent in the condition of the Church itself. It is indeed not

difficult to see how very hard may be the trial of our
Church to

men whose piety is unquestionably earnest and active, but
who

wish ·to be at rest in regard to matters of faith and doctrine, and

to have no more struggle respecting such matters. Such a dis­

position is closely connected with a deep
sense of reverence.

There are very well-intentioned men
who desire to be continu­

ally doing battle for the faith-continually proving points
of

doctrine; but such men, however useful in certain situations,

where enemies of the true faith have to be met and overcome,

ought not to suppose that they monopolize all true piety, or
that

others who would rather employ themselves in continual de­
votion than in continual argumentation, may not be at least



21

equally good Christians, and perhaps equally sound Divines ..
There are men in all the walks of life, who have "felt the
weight of too much liberty," and who fly to some positively
settled system as a refuge from doubts and disputations which
have become to them intolerable. Far be it from us to say that
such men are always right; but it may be claimed for them that
they are not altogether wrong. It may also be suggested, that
in so far as our Church system fai1s to afford reasonable
shelter to such men (which we fear is a practical truth), its
amendment is desirable. That such amendment would be easily
accomplished, we are not so presumptuous as to maintain.

If we look to the earlier controversial writings of Mr. New­
man, we shall find palpable traces of that distaste for doubtful
disputation upon important points, and that disposition towards
positive acquiescence in regard to such points, which probably
have been very instrumental in at last leading him to a Church
w hich will not admit of such dist.urbance as continual1y exhibits
itself within our communion, to our no small discredit.

"Unhappy is it," exclaimed Mr. Newman years ago-" un­
happy is it that we should be obliged to discuss and defend what
a Christian people were intended to enjoy; to appeal to their.
intellects instead of 'stirring up their pure minds by way of
rememberance ;' to direct them towards articles of Faith which
should be their place of starting, and to treat as mere conclusions
what in other ages have been assumed as first principles." "Sure­
ly," he continues, "life is not Ion g enough to prove every thing
which may be made the subject of proof; and though inquiry is
left partly open, in order to try our earnestness, yet it is in great
measure, and in the most important points, superseded by reve­
lation-which discloses things that reason could not reach, saves
us the labor of using it when it might avail, and sanctions thereby
the principle of dispensing with it in other cases. Yet in spite
of the joint testimony of Nature and Grace, so it is, we seem at
this day to consider discussion and cont.roversy to be in them­
selves chief goods. We exult in what we think our indefeasible
right and glorious privilege to choose and settle our religion for
ourselves, and we stigmatize it as a bondage to be bid take for
granted what the wise, good, and many, have gone over and de-



22

termined long before, or to submit to what the Almight.y has
revealed."

When we consider the disposition of mind thus disclosed­
when we reflect that .he, the man who contended in this spirit,
was silenced, w hile persons who took opposite views, encou­
raging and extolling that very restlessness, and duty of private
judgment upon matters of faith and doctrine which he con ..
dernned, were allowed to go on, and to turn the Church of Eng­
land, if they liked, into one vast debating society-when we con­
sider all this, we need not be much surprised, however we may
regret it, that Mr. Newman has gone where the system affords
more peace and less liberty.

In another passage, speaking of those whom he considered as
disturbers of the Church, the peculiar disposition of Mr. New­
man, to which we have alluded, appears in a yet more decisive
manner. "It would be well," he says, "if these men could
keep their restless humors to themselves; but they unsettle aU
around them. They rob those of their birthright who would have
hailed the privilege of being told the truth without their own
personal risk in finding it; they force them against their nature
upon relying on their reason, when they are content to be saved
by Faith. Such troubles of the Christian community would, in a
healthy state of things, be silenced or put out of it, as disturbers
of the King's peace are restrained in civil matters; but our times,
from whatever cause, being times of confusion, we are reduced
to the use of argument and disputation, just as we think it lawful
to carry arms and barricade our houses during national dis­
orders."

When Mr. Newman wrote in this strain, his zeal was inflamed

against what was then "popular Protestantism," which he con­
sidered to be driving men to embrace the errors of Romanism;
because popular Protestantism shut out from their view that
shelter, guidance, and support, which the Church of England
(rightly understood and appreciated) was capable of affording,
and would afford. Into this very pitfall, however, from which it
was Mr. Newman's pnrpose to save others, he has himself fallen.
The storm grew too strong for him. He lost his confidence in
that shelter to which he formerly directed others, and he has



23

gone to abide in the midst of those errors which he himself ex...
posed.

Would that, while his sense of reverence had been no less, his
sense of the duty ef allegiance had been greater. Would that he
had been able to feel as the good Bishop Bramhall, who, declaring
that his desire ever was to have Truth for his chiefest friend, and
acknowledging that if he had any bias, it was a desire of peace,
yet clung with fervent filial affection to the Church in which he
was born and nurtured. " No man," he says, "can justly
blame me for honoring my spiritual mother the Church of Eng­
land, in whose womb I was conceived, at whose breasts I was
.nourished, and in whose bosom I hope to die. Bees by the in­
stinct of nature do love their hives, and birds their nests. But
God is my witness that I, according to my uttermost talent and

poor understanding, have endeavored to set down the naked
truth impartially, without either favor or prejudice, the two capi­
tal enemies of light judgment. The one of which, like a false
mirror, doth represent things fairer and straighter than they are;
the other, like the tongue infected with choler, makes the sweet­
est meats to taste bitter."

This is a spirit far more suited to be an example to the earn­
est members of the Church of England, than the spirit which
has milled Mr. Newman and his friends into the Church of
Rome. To set down t.he naked truth impartially, and to follow
it with reverence and modesty, is no doubt every man's duty;
but let every man well consider how truth is to be ascertained,
and also what is due to fidelity, as well as to other things which
may justly claim his respect. That the Church of England
wants the power, or the exercise of the power, to stop divisions
and hurtful disputations, is indeed evident enough; but let us
bear in mind, that though divisions and disturbances be bad, the
absolutism of error is worse.

EFFECTS OF MR. NEWltIAN'S S.fi�C.ESSIONIII.IIISPIRIT
DISPLAYED.

Recent events, distressing and subduing as they arc, and
ought to be, to us all, have this additional sting, that they have
given occasion in certain quarters to the Jisplay of character



and feeling, which is the concentrated gall of the odium theolo:

gicum. Here is a party, and, of course, a large
and influential

one among us, which holds that Rome
is Antichrist, and its

doctrine idolatrous. N ow, to practise idolatry is an .awful sin;
to be of the army of Antichrist is an uns peakable judgment ..

What, then, should be the conduct of any Christian, when
he

sees his brother fall into what he, conscientiously, of course,
deems a frightful sin 1-for communion with the Church

of

Rome-Ì's such a sin, according to the extreme views of Protest­

ants among us. Such a sin, that is, that numerous
Protestant

inquiries exist, whether even ante-Reformation Romanists,
so to

say, could by any possibility be saved. Even Hooker entertains
the question.

If, then, to "go over to Rome" be seriously considered

"apostacy," what shan be said of religious journals
and reli..

gious people actually exulting over the commission
of such

apostasy? Rome is Babylon-it com mits dam
nab Ie idolatry­

it is guilty of every conceivable erim e; so we are told.
There-

fore, it is Christian to goad people to commit
it--'-to twit them

with their scruples against such sin is evang elical and Protestant.
To clap the hands and laugh with fiendish glee,

when we see
,

our brethren taking a plunge into w h at we are constantly pro-
o claiming to be the very pit of all in iq ti ity, is the height

of cha­

rity and gospel love. Nothing seems so
vexatious and disap­

pointing to certain parties, as that people
will not be hurried out

of the Church quite so fast, and in quite so large a crowd,
as

will satisfy their appetite for seeing the commission
of sin. A

good sturdy mass of crime-a large
batch of schism-an army

of "apostates ,,-to use their own language,
is quite a trans­

porting sight. Nothing less than "idolatry" on
the largest

scale will satiate the cruel piety of your true modern Protestant.
" Five hnndred brethren at once" are taunted to take refuge in

,

a communion which, with the same breath, is pronounced to be
the tremendous mystery of antiquity. It asks a holocaust

of

hecatombs to appease the malignant Moloch of inventive gossip·



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