16 - Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman

Delve into the riveting religious autobiography of Apologia Pro Vita Sua. Experience the simple yet profound narrative that drastically shifted public perception of its author and solidified his deep convictions leading him to the Roman Catholic Church. Revered as one of the most widely read autobiographies in the English language, it holds a significant place in the 19th century, akin to Boswells Johnson in the 18th century.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four, Part three of Apology of pro Vita Sua
by John Henry Cardinal Nauman. This labor of Arts recording
is in the public domain recording by Bill mc gilvroy.
One calumny there was which the bishops did not believe,
and of which of course he had no idea of speaking.

(00:21):
It was that I was actually in the service of
the enemy. I had forsooth been already received into the
Catholic Church, and was rearing at littlemore a nest of
papist who like me, were to take the Anglican oath,
which they disbelieved by virtue of a dispensation from Rome,
and thus in due time, were to bring over to

(00:42):
that unprincipled church. Great numbers of the Anglican clergy and
laity bishops gave their countenance to this imputation against me.
The case was simply this. As I made a little
more a place of retirement for myself, so did I
offer it to others. There were young men in Oxford
whose testimonials for orders had been refused by their colleges.

(01:06):
They were young clergymen who had found themselves unable from
conscience to go on with their duties, and had thrown
up their parochial engagements. Such men were already going straight
to Rome, and I interposed. I interposed for the reasons
I have given in the beginning of this portion of
my narrative. I interposed from fidelity to my clerical engagements,

(01:28):
and from duty to my bishop, and from the interest
which I was bound to take in them, and from
belief that they were premature or excited. Their friends besought
me to quiet them if I could. Some of them
came to live with me at littlemore. They were laymen,
or in the place of laymen. I kept some of

(01:48):
them back for several years from being received into the
Catholic Church. Even when I had given up my living,
I was still bound by my duty to their parents
or friends, and I did not forget still to do
what I could for them. The immediate occasion of my
resigning Saint Mary's was the unexpected conversion of one of them.
After that, I felt it was impossible to keep my

(02:11):
posts there, for I had been unable to keep my
word with my bishop. The following letters refer more or
less to these men, whether they were actually with me
at a little more or not. One March sixth, eighteen
forty two, church doctrines are a powerful weapon. They were
not sent into the world for nothing. God's word does

(02:33):
not return unto him void. If I have said as
I have that the doctrines of the Tracts for the
Times would build up our church and destroy parties, I
meant if they were used, not if they were denounced.
Else they will be as powerful against us as they
might be powerful for us. If people who have a

(02:54):
liking for another hear him called a Roman Catholic, they
will say, then, after all, Romanism is no such bad thing.
All these persons who are making the cry are fulfilling
their own prophecy. If all the world agrees in telling
a man he has no business in our church, he
will at length begin to think he has none. How

(03:16):
easy is it to persuade a man of anything when
numbers affirm it, So great is the force of imagination.
Did every one who met you in the streets look
hard at you? You would think you were somehow in fault.
I do not know anything so irritating, so unsettling, especially
in the case of young persons, as when they are

(03:38):
going on calmly and unconsciously obeying their church in following
its divines. I am speaking from facts as suddenly, to
their surprise, to be conjured, not to make a leap
of which they have not a dream, and from which
they are far removed two eighteen forty three or eighteen

(03:58):
forty four. I did not explain to you sufficiently the
state of mind of those who were in danger. I
only spoke of those who were convinced that our church
was external to the Church Catholic, though they felt it
unsafe to trust their own private convictions. But there are
two other states of mind. One that of those who

(04:18):
are unconsciously near Rome, and whose despair about our Church
would at once develop into a state of conscious approximation
or a quasi resolution to go over. Two, those who
feel they can, with a safe conscience remain with us
while they are allowed to testify in behalf of Catholicism.

(04:39):
That is, as if by such acts they were putting
our church, or at least that portion of it in
which they were included in the position of catechumens. Three
June twentieth, eighteen forty three. I return the very pleasing
letter you have permitted me to read. What a sad
thing it is that it should be a plain duty

(05:00):
to restrain one's sympathies and to keep them from boiling over.
But I suppose it is a matter of common prudence.
Things are very serious here, But I should not like
you to say so, as it might do no good.
The authorities find that by the statutes they have more
than military power, and the general impression seems to be

(05:21):
that they intend to exert it and put down Catholicism
at any risk. I believe that by the statutes they
can pretty nearly suspend a preacher as seditious or causing dissension,
without assigning their grounds in the particular case, nay, banishing
him or imprison him. If so, all holders of preferment

(05:41):
in the university should make as quiet an exit as
they can. There is more exasperation on both sides at
this moment, as I am told, than ever there was
four July sixteenth, eighteen forty three. I assure you that
I feel with only two my much sympathy what you say.

(06:02):
You need not be told that the whole subject of
our position is a subject of anxiety to others besides yourself.
It is no good attempting to offer advice, when perhaps
I might raise difficulties instead of removing them. It seems
to me quite a case in which you should, as
far as may be, make up your mind for yourself,

(06:24):
come to little more. By all means, we shall all
rejoice in your company. And if quiet and retirement are able,
as they very likely will be, to reconcile you to
things as they are, you shall have your fill of them.
How distressed poor Henry Wilberforce must be, knowing how he
values you, I feel for him. But alas he has

(06:47):
his own position, and every one else has his own,
and the misery is that no two of us have
exactly the same. It is very kind of you to
be so frank and open with me as you are.
But this is the time which throws together persons who
feel alike. May I, without taking a liberty, sign myself
yours affectionately, et cetera. Five August thirtieth, eighteen forty three.

(07:14):
A B. Has suddenly conformed to the Church of Rome.
He was away for three weeks. I suppose I must
say in my defense that he promised me distinctly to
remain in our church three years before I received him here.
Six June seventeenth, eighteen forty five. I am concerned to

(07:34):
find you speak of me in a tone of distrust.
If you knew me ever so little, instead of hearing
of me from persons who do not know me at all,
you would think differently of me, whatever you thought of
my opinions. Two years since I got your son to
tell you my intention of resigning Saint Mary's before I

(07:54):
made it public, thinking you ought to know it when
you express some painful fear fee upon it. I told
him I could not consent to his remaining here, painful
as it would be to me to part with him
without your written sanction, and this you did me the
favor to give. I believe you will find that it

(08:16):
has been merely a delicacy on your son's part, which
has delayed his speaking to you about me for two
months past a delicacy least he should say either too
much or too little about me. I have urged him
several times to speak to you. Nothing can be done
after your letter but to recommend him to go to

(08:36):
a b his home at once. I am very sorry
to part with him. Seven. The following letter is addressed
to Cardinal Wiseman, then Vicar Apostolic, who accused me of
coolness in my conduct towards him. April sixteenth, eighteen forty five.
I was at that time in charge of a ministerial

(08:57):
office in the English Church, with Perthon entrusted to me
and a bishop to obey. How could I possibly write
otherwise than I did, without violating sacred obligations and betraying
momentous interests which were upon me. I felt that my
immediate undeniable duty, clear if any was clear, was to

(09:18):
fulfill that trust. It might be right, indeed to give
it up, that was another thing, But it never could
be right to hold it and to act as if
I did not hold it. If you knew me, you
would acquit me. I think of having ever felt towards
your lordship in an unfriendly spirit, or ever having had

(09:38):
a shadow on my mind, as far as I dare
witness about myself, of what might be called controversial rivalry,
or desire of getting the better, or feel least the
world should think I had got the worst or irritation
of any kind. You are too kind, indeed to imply this,
and yet your words lead me to say it like manner.

(10:00):
Pray believe, though I cannot explain it to you, that
I am encompassed with responsibilities so great and so various
as utterly to overcome me unless I have mercy from
him who all through my life has sustained and guided me,
and to whom I can now submit myself. Though men
of all parties are thinking evil of me. Such fidelity, however,

(10:23):
was taken in Malumpatum by the high Anglican authorities. They
thought it insidious. I happened still to have a correspondence,
which took place in eighteen forty three, in which the
chief place is filled by one of the most eminent
bishops of the day, a theologian and reader of the Fathers,
a moderate man who at one time was talked of

(10:46):
as likely, on a vacancy to succeed to the primacy.
A young clergyman in his diocese became a Catholic. The
papers at once reported on authority from a very high
quarter that after his reception, the Oxford men had been
recommending him to retain his living. I had reasons for

(11:06):
thinking that the allusion was made to me, and I
authorized the editor of a paper who had inquired of
me on the point, to give it, as far as
I was concerned, an unqualified contradiction when from a motive
of delicacy he hesitated, I added, my direct and indignant contradiction.
Whoever is the author of it, I continued to the editor,

(11:29):
No correspondence or intercourse of any kind, direct or indirect,
has passed between mister s and myself since his conforming
to the Church of Rome, except my formerly and merely
acknowledging the receipt of his letter in which he informed
me of the fact. Without as far as I recollect
my expressing any opinion upon it, you may state this

(11:52):
as broadly as I have set it down. My denial
was told to the Bishop. What took place upon it
is given in a letter from which I copy. My
father showed the letter to the Bishop, who, as he
laid it down, said, Ah, those Oxford men are not ingenuous.
How do you mean, asked my father. Why, said the bishop?

(12:13):
They advised mister b. S To retain his living after
he turned Catholic. I know that to be a fact,
because A b told me so. The Bishop continues the letter,
who was perhaps the most influential man in reality on
the bench, evidently believes it to be the truth. Upon this,
doctor Pusey wrote in my behalf to the Bishop, and

(12:36):
the Bishop instantly beat a retreat. I have the honor,
he said in the autograph which I transcribe, to acknowledge
the receipt of your note, and to say in reply
that it has not been stated by me, though such
a statement has I believe appeared in some of the
public prints, that mister Newman had advised mister b. S
To retain his living after he had forsaken our church.

(13:00):
But it has been stated to me that mister Newman
was in close correspondence with mister b. S and, being
fully aware of his state of opinions and feelings, yet
advised him to continue in our communion. Allow me to add,
he says to doctor Pucy that neither your name nor
that of mister Keebley was mentioned to me in connection

(13:22):
with that of mister b. S. I was not going
to let the Bishop off on this evasion, so I
wrote to him myself. After quoting his letter to Doctor Peucy,
I continued, I beg to trouble your lordship with my
own account of the two allegations close correspondence and fully aware,
et cetera, which are contained in your statement, and which

(13:44):
have led to your speaking to me in terms which
I hope never to deserve. One. Since mister b. S.
Has been in your Lordship's diocese, I have seen him
in common rooms or private parties in Oxford two or
three times, when I never, as far as I can recollect,
had any conversation with him. During the same time, I have,

(14:07):
to the best of my memory, written to him three letters.
One was lately an acknowledgment of his informing me of
his change of religion. Another was last summer, when I
asked him to no purpose to come and stay with
me in this place. The earliest of the three letters
was written just a year since, as far as I

(14:27):
can recollect, and it certainly was on the subject of
his joining the Church of Rome. I wrote this letter
at the earnest wish of a friend of his. I
cannot be sure that, on his replying I did not
send him a brief note in explanation of points in
my letter which he had misapprehended. I cannot recollect any

(14:48):
other correspondence between us two as to my knowledge of
his opinions and feelings, as far as I remember, the
only point of perplexity which I knew, the only point
which to this hour I know as pressing upon him
was that of the pope's supremacy. He professed to be
searching antiquity whether the See of Rome had formerly that

(15:10):
relation to the whole Church which Roman Catholics now assigned
to it. My letter was directed to the point that
it was his duty not to perplex himself with arguments
on such a question, and to put it all together aside.
It is hard that I am put upon my memory
without knowing the details of the statement made against me,

(15:31):
considering the various correspondents in which I am from time
to time unavoidably engaged. BE assured, my lord, that there
are very definite limits beyond which persons like me would
never urge another to retain preferment in the English Church,
nor would retain it themselves, and that the censure which
has been directed against them by so many of its

(15:53):
rulers has a very grave bearing upon those limits. The
bishop replied in a civil letter. In sent my own
letter to his original informant, who wrote to me the
letter of a gentleman. It seems that an anxious lady
had said something or other which had been misinterpreted against
her real meaning into the calumny which was circulated, and

(16:16):
so the report vanished into thin ear. I close the
correspondence with the following letter to the Bishop. I hope
your Lordship will believe me when I say that statements
about me equally incorrect with that which has come to
your Lordship's ears, are from time to time reported to me,
as credited and repeated by the highest authorities in our church.

(16:38):
Though it is very seldom that I have the opportunity
of denying them. I am obliged by your Lordship's letter
to Doctor Pusey as giving me such an opportunity. Then,
I added, with a purpose, Your Lordship will observe that
in my letter I had no occasion to proceed to
the question whether a person holding Roman Catholic opinions can

(16:59):
an honesty remain in our church. Least then any misconception
should arise from my silence, I here take the liberty
of adding that I see nothing wrong in such persons
continuing in communion with us, provided he holds no preferment
or office, abstains from the management of ecclesiastical matters, and

(17:20):
is bound by no subscription or oath to our doctrines.
This was written on March eighth, eighteen forty three, and
was in anticipation of my own retirement into Lake Communion.
This again leads me to a remark. For two years
I was in Lay Communion, not indeed being a Catholic
in my convictions, but in a state of serious doubt,

(17:43):
and with the probable prospect of becoming some day what
as yet I was not. Under these circumstances, I thought
the best thing I could do was to give up
duty and to throw myself into Lake Communion, remaining an Anglican.
I could not go to Rome. While I thought what
I did of the devotions she sanctioned to the Blessed

(18:03):
Virgin and the Saints. I did not give up my fellowship,
for I could not be sure that my doubts would
not be reduced or overcome. However unlikely I might consider
such an event. But I gave up my living, and
for two years before my conversion, I took no clerical duty.
My last sermon was in September eighteen forty three. Then

(18:25):
I remained at littlemore inquired for two years. But it
was made a subject of reproach to me at the time,
and is at this day that I did not leave
the Anglican Church sooner. To me. This seems a wonderful charge. Why,
even had I been quite sure that Rome was the
true Church, the Anglican bishops would have had no just

(18:48):
subject of complaint against me, provided I took no Anglican oath,
no clerical duty, no ecclesiastical administration. Do they force all
men who go to their churches to believe in the
thirty nine Articles or to join in the Athenatian Creed. However,
I was to have other measures dealt to me. Great

(19:09):
authorities ruled it so, and a great controversialist, mister Stanley Faber,
thought it a shame that I did not leave the
Church of England as much as ten years sooner than
I did. He said this in print between the years
eighteen forty seven and eighteen forty nine. His nephew and
Anglican clergyman kindly wished to undeceive him on this point.

(19:31):
So in the later years, after some correspondence, I wrote
the following letter, which will be of service to this
narrative from its chronological notes. December sixth, eighteen forty nine.
Your uncle says, if he, mister n will declare sans
phrase as the French say that I have labored under

(19:52):
an entire mistake, and that he was not a concealed
Romanist during the ten years in question, I suppose the
last ten years of my membership with the Anglican Church,
or during any part of the time, my controversial antipathy
will be at an end, and I will readily express
to him that I am truly sorry that I have
made such a mistake. So candid and avowal is what

(20:15):
I should have expected from a mind like your uncle's.
I am extremely glad he has brought it to this issue.
By a concealed Romanist, I understand him to mean one
who professing to belong to the Church of England in
his heart and will intends to benefit the Church of
Rome at the expense of the Church of England. He

(20:36):
cannot mean by the expression merely a person who in
fact is benefiting the Church of Rome while he is
intending to benefit the Church of England, for that is
no discredit to him morally, and he your uncle evidently
means to impute blame in the sense in which I
have explained the words, I can simply and honestly say

(20:57):
that I was not a concealed Romanist in the whole
or any part of the years in question. For the
first four years of the ten up to Michaelmass eighteen
thirty nine, I honestly wished to benefit the Church of
England at the expense of the Church of Rome. For
the second four years I wished to benefit the Church

(21:18):
of England without prejudice to the Church of Rome. At
the beginning of the ninth year Michaelmass eighteen forty three,
I began to despair of the Church of England and
gave up all clerical duty. And then what I wrote
and did was influenced by a mere wish not to
injure it and not by the wish to benefit it.

(21:38):
After the beginning of the tenth year, I distinctly contemplated
leaving it, but I also distinctly told my friends that
it was in my contemplation. Lastly, during the last half
of the tenth year, I was engaged in writing a
book essay on development in favor of the Roman Church
and indirectly against the English. But even then, till it

(22:01):
was finished, I had not absolutely intended to publish it,
wishing to reserve to myself the chance of changing my mind.
When the argumentative views which were actuating me had been
distinctly brought out before me in writing. I wish this statement,
which I make from memory and without consulting any documents,
severely tested by my writing and doings, as I am

(22:24):
confident it will on the whole be borne out, whatever
real or apparent exceptions I suspect none have to be
allowed by me. In detail, your uncle is at liberty
to make what use he pleases of this explanation. I
have now reached an important date in my narrative, the
year eighteen forty three. But before proceeding to the matters

(22:46):
which it contains, I will insert portions of my letters
from eighteen forty one to eighteen forty three, addressed to
Catholic acquaintances one April eighth, eighteen forty one. The Union
City of the Church Catholic is very near my heart.
Only I do not see any prospect of it in
our time, and I despear of its being effected without

(23:10):
great sacrifice on all hands. As to resisting the Bishop's will,
I observe that no point of doctrine or principle was
in dispute, but a course of action, the publication of
certain works. I do not think you sufficiently understood our position.
I suppose you would obey the Holy See in such
a case. Now, when we are separated from the Pope,

(23:33):
his authority reverted to our diocesans. Our bishop is our pope.
It is our theory that each diocese is an integral church,
intercommunion being a duty and the breach of it a sin,
but not essential to Catholicity. To have resisted my bishop
would have been to place myself in an utterly false position,

(23:56):
which I never could have recovered. Depend on it. The
strength of any party lies in its being true to
its theory. Consistency is the life of a movement. I
have no misgivings whatever that the line I have taken
can be other than a prosperous one that is in itself.
For of course, Providence may refuse to us its legitimate

(24:19):
issue for our sins. I am afraid that in one
respect you may be disappointed. It is my trust, though
I must not be too sanguine, that we shall not
have individual members of our communion going over to yours.
What one's duty would be under other circumstances, What our
duty would have been ten or twenty years ago, I

(24:40):
cannot say, But I do think that there is less
of a private judgment in going with one's church than
in leaving it. I can earnestly desire reunion between my
church and yours. I cannot listen to the thought of
your being joined by individuals among us. Two April twenty sixth,
eighteen forty. My only anxiety is least your branch of

(25:04):
the church should not meet us by those reforms which
surely are necessary. It never could be that so large
a portion of Christendom should have split off from the
Communion of Rome and kept up a protest for three
hundred years for nothing. I think I never shall believe
that so much piety and earnestness would be found among

(25:25):
Protestants if there were not some very grave areas on
the side of Rome. To suppose the contrary is most
unreal and violates all one's notion of moral probabilities. All
aberrations are founded on and have their life in some
truth or other, And Protestantism, so widely spread and so

(25:45):
long enduring, must have in it, and must be witnessed
for a great truth or much truth, that I am
an advocate for Protestantism. You cannot suppose, but I am
forced into the via media short of Rome as it
is at present, three May fifth, eighteen forty one. While

(26:06):
I most sincerely hold that there is in Roman Church
a traditionary system which is not necessarily connected with her
essential formularies. Yet were I ever so much to change
my mind on this point, this would not tend to
bring me from my present position, providentially appointed in the
English Church. That your communion was unassailable, would not prove

(26:28):
that mine was indefensible, nor would it at all affect
the sense in which I received our articles. They would
still speak against certain definite errors, though you had reformed them.
I say this least any lurking suspicions should be left
in the mind of your friends that persons who think
with me are likely, by the growth of their present views,

(26:50):
to find it imperative on them to pass over to
your communion. Allow me to state strongly that if you
have any such thoughts and proceed to act upon them,
your friends will be committing a fatal mistake. We have,
I trust, the principle and temperance of obedience too intimately
wrought into us to allow of our separating ourselves from

(27:13):
our ecclesiastical superiors, because in many points we have sympathized
with others. We have too great a horror of the
principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense
a manner as that of changing from one communion to another.
We may be cast out of our communion, or it
may decree heresy to be truth. You shall say whither

(27:35):
such contingencies are likely. But I do not see other
conceivable causes of our leaving the church in which we
were baptized. For myself, persons must be well acquainted with
what I have written before they venture to say whether
I have much changed my main opinions and cardinal views
in the course of the last eight years, that my

(27:57):
sympathies have grown towards the religion of Rome. I do
not deny that my reasons for shunning her communion have
lessened or altered. It would be difficult, perhaps to prove,
and I wish to go by reason, not by feeling.
For June eighteenth, eighteen forty one, you word to persons
whose views agree with mine to commence a movement in

(28:18):
behalf of a union between the churches. Now in the
letters I have written, I have uniformly said, I do
not expect that union in our time, and have discouraged
the notion of all sudden proceedings with a view to it.
I must ask your leave to repeat on this occasion
most distinctly, that I cannot be party to any agitation,

(28:41):
but mean to remain quiet in my own place, and
to do all I can to make others take the
same course. This I conceived to be my simple duty.
But over and above this I will not set my
teeth on edge with sour grapes. I know it is
quite within the range of possibilities that one or another
of our people should go over to your communion. However,

(29:04):
it would be a greater misfortune to you than grief
to us if your friends wished to put a gulf
between themselves and us. Let them make converts, but not else.
Some months ago I ventured to say that I felt
it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman
Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations for

(29:25):
the union of the churches. When you now urge us
to petition our bishops for a union, this I conceive
is very like an act of negotiation. Five. I have
the first sketch or draft of a letter which I
wrote to a zealous Catholic layman. It runs as follows,
as far as I have preserved it, but I think

(29:46):
there were various changes in additions. September twelfth, eighteen forty one.
It would rejoice all Catholic minds among us more than
words can say, if you could persuade members of the
Church of Rome to take the line in politics which
you so earnestly advocate. Suspicion and distrust are the main
causes at present of the separation between us. In the

(30:10):
nearest approaches in doctrine will but increase the hostility which
alas our people feel towards yours. While these causes continue.
Depend on it, you must not rely upon our Catholic
tendencies till they are removed. I am not speaking of
myself or of any friends of mine, but of our

(30:30):
church generally. Whatever our personal feelings may be, we shall
but tend to raise and spread a rival church to
yours in the four quarters of the world, unless you
do what none but you can do. Sympathies which would
flow over the Church of Rome as a matter of course,
did she admit them, will but be developed in the

(30:51):
consolidation of our own system if she continues to be
the object of our suspicions and fears. I wish, of course,
I do, that our own own church may be built
up and extended, but still not to the cost of
the Church of Rome, not in opposition to it. I
am sure that while you suffer, we suffer too from

(31:11):
the separation. But we cannot remove the obstacles. It is
with you to do so. You do not fear us.
We fear you till we cease to fear you. We
cannot love you while you are in the present position.
The friends of Catholic unity in our church are but
fulfilling the prediction of those of your body who are
adverse to them, namely that they will be merely strengthening

(31:35):
a rival communion to yours. Many of you say that
we are your greatest enemies. We have said so ourselves,
so we are, so we shall be. As things stand
at present, we are keeping people from you by supplying
their wants in our own church. We are keeping persons
from you. Do you wish to keep them from you

(31:55):
for a time or forever? It rests with you to determine.
I do not fear that you will succeed among us.
You will not supplant our church in the affections of
the English nation. Only through the English Church can you
act upon the English nation. I wish, of course, our
Church should be consolidated with and through and in your communion,

(32:17):
for each sake, in your sake, and for the sake
of unity. Are you aware that the most serious thinkers
among us are used, as far as they dear form
an opinion to regard the spirit of liberalism as the
characteristic of the destined Antichrist? In vain? Does anyone clear
the Church of Rome from the badges of Antichrist in

(32:39):
which Protestants would invest her if she deliberately takes up
her position in the very quarter whither we have cast
them when we took them off from her. Antichrist is
described as the anamogsta, as exalting himself above the yoke
of religion and law. The spirit of lawlessness came in

(32:59):
with the rough Roma, and liberalism is its offspring. And
now I fear I am going to pain you by
telling you that you consider the approaches and doctrine on
our part towards you closer than they really are. I
cannot help repeating what I have many times said in print,
that your services and devotion to Saint Mary, in matter

(33:20):
of fact, do most deeply pain me. I am only
stating it as a fact. Again. I have nowhere said
that I can accept the decree of Trent throughout, nor
implied it. The doctrine of transubstantiation is a great difficulty
with me, as being as I think, not primitive. Nor
have I said that our articles in all respect admit

(33:42):
to a Roman interpretation. The very word transubstantiation is disowned
in them. Thus you see it is not merely on
grounds of expedients that we do not join you. There
are positive difficulties in the way of it, and even
if there were not, we shall have no divine warrant
for doing so. Well, we think that the Church of

(34:04):
England is a branch of the True Church, and that
intercommunion with the rest of Christendom is necessary not for
the life of a particular church, but for its health only.
I have never disguised that there are actual circumstances in
the Church of Rome which pain me much. Of the
removal of these, I see no chance while we join

(34:24):
you one by one. But if our church were prepared
for a union. She might make her terms. She might
gain the cup. She might protest against the extreme honors
paid to Saint Mary. She might make some explanation of
the doctrine of transubstantiation. I am not prepared to say
that a reform in other branches of the Roman Church

(34:45):
would be necessary for our uniting with them, however desirable
in itself, so that we were allowed to make a
reform in our own country. We do not look towards
Rome as believing that its communion is in fello, but
that union is a duty. Six. The following letter was
occasioned by the present made to me of a book

(35:08):
by the friend to whom it is written. More will
be said on the subject of it presently November twenty second,
eighteen forty two. I only wish that your church were
more known among us. By such writings. You will not
interest us in her till we see her, not in politics,
but in her true functions of exhorting, teaching, and guiding.

(35:30):
I wish there were a chance of making the leading
men among you understand what I believe is no novel
thought to yourself. It is not by learned discussions or
acute arguments or reports of miracles. That the heart of
England can be gained, it is by men approving themselves,
like the apostle ministers of Christ. As to your question

(35:53):
whether the volume you have sent is not calculated to
remove my apprehensions that another gospel is substituted for the
true one in your practical instructions, before I can answer
it in any way, I ought to know how far
the sermons which it comprises are selected from a number,
or whether they are the whole, or such as the

(36:14):
whole which have been published of the authors. I assure you,
or at least I trust that if it ever clearly
brought home to me that I have been wrong in
what I have said on this subject, my public avowal
of that conviction will only be a question of time
with me. If, however, you saw our church as we
see it, you would easily understand that such a change

(36:37):
of feeling, did it take place, would have no necessary
tendency which you seem to expect to draw a person
from the Church of England to that of Rome. There
is a divine life among us, clearly manifested in spite
of all our disorders, which is the great note of
the church as any can be. Why should we seek

(36:58):
our Lord's presence elsewhere? When he Vos aches it to
us where we are, What call have we to change
our communion? Roman Catholics will find this to be the
state of things in time to come. Whatever promises they
may fancy, there is of a large secession to their church.
This man or that may leave us, but there will

(37:19):
be no general movement. There is indeed an incipient movement
of our church towards yours. And this your leading men
are doing all they can to frustrate by their unworried
efforts at all risks to carry off individuals. When will
they know their position and embrace a larger and wiser policy.

(37:40):
End of Chapter four, Part three