AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED
by
Benjamin Wilkinson PhD
CHAPTER VIII
How the Jesuits Captured Oxford University
BEFORE the English people could go the way of the Continent
and be brought to question their great English Bible, the course
of their thinking must be changed. Much had to be done to
discredit, in their eyes, the Reformation - its history,
doctrines, and documents - which they looked upon as a great work
of God. This task was accomplished by those who, while working
under cover, passed as friends. In what numbers the Jesuits were
at hand to bring this about, the following words, from one
qualified to know, will reveal:
"Despite all the persecution they (the Jesuits) have met with,
they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number
of Jesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in all classes of
society; in Parliament; among the English clergy; among the
Protestant laity, even in the higher stations. I could not
comprehend how a Jesuit could be a Protestant priest, or how a
Protestant priest could be a Jesuit; but my Confessor silenced my
scruples by telling me, omnia munda mundis, and that St.Paul
became as a Jew that he might save the Jews; it was no wonder,
therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant, for the
conversion of Protestants. But pay attention, I entreat you, to
my discoveries concerning the nature of the religious movement in
England termed Puseyism.
"The English clergy were formerly too much attached to their
Articles of Faith to be shaken from them. You might have employed
in vain all the machines set in motion by Bossuet and the
Jansenists of France to reunite them to the Romish Church; and so
the Jesuits of England tried another plan. This was to
demonstrate from history and ecclesiastical antiquity the
legitimacy of the usages of the English Church, whence, through
the exertion; of the Jesuits concealed among its clergy, might
arise a studious attention to Christian antiquity. This was
designed to occupy the clergy in long, laborious, and abstruse
investigation, and to alienate them from their Bibles."
(Desanctis, "Popery and Jesuitism in Rome" p.128,134, quoted in
Walsh, "Secret History of Oxford Movement," p.33).
So reported Dr.Desanctis, who for many years was a priest at
Rome, Professor of Theology, Official Theological Censor of the
Inquisition, and who later became a Protestant, as he told of his
interview with the Secretary of the French Father Assistant of
the Jesuit Order.
Why is it that in 1833, England believed that the
Reformation was the work of God, but in 1883 it believed that the
Reformation was a rebellion? In 1833, England believed that the
Pope was Antichrist; in 1883, that the Pope was the successor of
the apostles. And further, in 1833, any clergyman who would have
used Mass, confession, holy water, etc., in the Church of
England, would have been immediately dismissed, if he would not
have undergone violent treatment at the hands of the people. In
1883, thousands of Masses, confessions, and other ritualistic
practices of Romanism were carried on in services held in the
Church of England. The historian Froude says:
"In my first term at the University (Oxford), the controversial
fires were beginning to blaze ... I had learnt, like other
Protestant children, that the Pope was Antichrist, and that
Gregory VII had been a special revelation of that being. I was
now taught that Gregory VII was a saint. I had been told to honor
the Reformers. The Reformation became a great schism, Cranmer a
traitor and Latimer a vulgar ranter. Milton was a name of horror"
(J.A.Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, pp.101,107).
The beginning and center of this work was at Oxford
University. The movement is known as the Oxford Movement. The
movement also involved the revision of the Authorized Version.
Kempson indicates the deep background and far-reaching effects of
the movement in the following words:
"Whoever, therefore, desires to get really to the bottom of what
is commonly called the Catholic Revival in England is involved in
a deep and far-reaching study of events: a study which includes
not merely events of ecclesiastical history - some of which must
be traced back to sources in the dawn of the Middle Ages or even
in Apostolic times - but also the movements of secular politics."
In order rightly to understand the immensity of what was
done, the position at this time of the Church of England and of
the University of Oxford must be understood. By the victory in
1588 of England over the Spanish Armada, England became the
champion and defender of Protestantism. She became the impassable
wall of defense which confined Catholicism to Europe, and by her
possessions committed the continent of North America to a
Protestant future. Whatever may be the defects in the doctrines
and organization of the Church of England in the eyes of the
large dissenting Protestant Churches, nevertheless, at the time
when the Oxford Movement began, she was without question the
strongest Protestant organization in the world. It was the Church
of England, assisted by many Puritan divines, which gave us the
Protestant Bible. The center of the Church of England was Oxford
University. Mr.Palmer claims that half the rising clergymen of
England were instructed in this seat of education. This same
writer speaks of Oxford as, "The great intellectual center of
England, famed for its intellectual ascendency among all the
churches of the world." Catholics on the continent of Europe also
recognized that Oxford was the heart of the Anglican Church!
At the time the Oxford Movement began, a growing tide of
Catholic reaction was running in Germany and France. Every turn
of events in these two nations profited for the Church of Rome.
The strong influence in Germany of the Catholic writer, Mohler,
and of Windhorst was carrying that erstwhile Protestant people
toward the papal throne. The theories of Mohler on the
Development of Doctrine became the basis on which the leaders of
the movement toward Rome, in England, built.
At this same time in France, Lamennais, Lacordaire, and
Montalembert were electrifying the youth of France with their
brilliant and stirring leadership. The voice of Lacordaire was
heard by enraptured audiences in the national Cathedral of Notre
Dame. Montalembert, in his seat among the lawmakers of the French
Legislature, was exercising an influence in favor of Catholic
legislation. At the same time, Lamennais, with his pen, was
idealizing the doctrines and plans of Rome, in the minds of
fervent youth. The Jesuits had been restored in 1814. Was it
possible that England could withstand this flood of Catholic
advance which was devitalizing Protestantism on the Continent?
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
All are agreed that the year 1833 marked the beginning of
the Oxford Movement. The outstanding leader is generally
recognized to have been J.H.Newman, who later went over to the
Church of Rome, and who was the writer of the famous hymn, "Lead
Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom."
Until the year 1833 there was no outward evidence other than
that Newman belonged to the Evangelical party of the Church of
England. We are told how he read those serious books which led
him to make a profession of conversion and to look upon the Pope
as Anti-christ. He became a diligent student of the prophecies,
and even participated, in some measure, in the current preaching
and belief of the time in the soon return of Christ. From the
moment, however, that he entered Oxford University, his earlier
Evangelical beliefs passed under adverse influences. Hawkins, the
Provost of Oriel College, taught him that the Bible must be
interpreted in the light of tradition. Whately led him to
understand that the church, as an institution, was of God's
appointment, independent of the State, and having rights which
were the direct gift of heaven. Newman was led to investigate the
creed of the Church of England, which was the Thirty-nine
Articles. Of these Cadman says:
"They constituted an authoritative standard against the inroads
of the Jesuit controversialists, and instilled those religious
and political convictions which protected the integrity of the
nation and of the Church against the intrigues of the Papacy."
Shortly after Newman had taken his A.B. degree at Oxford, he
was elected, in 1823, to a fellowship in Oriel College. This
threw him into intimate touch with those eminent men of the day
who were drinking in, and being molded by the intellectual
influences coming from Germany.
As an illustration to show how agents from Germany and
France were instrumental in changing thoughts and tastes of
Oxford students, Mozley, the brother-in-law of Newman, tells us:
"In 1829 German agents, one of them with a special introduction
to Robert Wilberforce, filled Oxford with very beautiful and
interesting tinted lithographs of medieval paintings." And,
"about the same time - that is, in 1829--there came an agent from
Cologne with very large and beautiful reproductions of the
original design for the cathedral, which it was proposed to set
work on, with a faint hope of completing it before the end of the
century. Froude gave thirty guineas for a set of drawings, went
over them, and infected not a few of his friends with medieval
architecture."
The following year Newman became curate of a nearby church.
It was while in the exercise of his duties there, he tells us,
that he became convinced that the Evangelical principles would
not work. By far the greatest influence of the moment, however,
in his life was the acguaintanceship which he formed in 1826 with
Herrell Froude. Froude was the son of a High Churchman, "who
loathed Protestantism, denounced the Evangelicals, and brought up
his sons to do the same." His attachment to Froude was so great
that following the early death of this friend, he wrote endearing
verses to his memory.
Another friendship formed in these Oxford days which equaled
Froude's in its influence on Newman, was that of the gifted
Keble, the author of the "Christian Year." In this book of
beautiful poetry, according to Mr.Lock, will be found all the
truths and tone, which came to the front in the movement. Keble's
parentage, like Froude's, was of the High Church party, strongly
anti-Protestant, anti-Evangelical, which early turned the
thoughts of Keble to those ideas and principles later to become
outstanding features of the Oxford Movement. These three, Froude,
Keble, and Newman, shared one another's isolation amid the
dominant Protestantism of the hour, and encouraged one another in
their longings for the sacraments and ritualism of the Papacy.
Newman, himself, early chose the celibate life, and no doubt
Froude's passionate tendency toward Romanism answered in Newman's
breast those social yearnings which men usually satisfy in
married life. Thus, step by step, in a way most strange and
mysterious, Newman, whom Cadman calls "the most brilliant and
gifted son of the Church of England" was carried fast and early
into that tide of Catholic enthusiasm which was running
throughout the Continent.
Under these circumstances and in this frame of mind, he and
Froude set out for a tour of the European countries in 1833, the
principal point of their visit being the city of Rome. His mind
had been prepared for sympathetic participation in the scenes of
Rome by the years he previously had spent in reading the writings
of the Fathers. From them he had derived a philosophy which would
invest him with feelings of rapture as he viewed the historical
spots and ancient ruins of the Catholic metropolis.
"Eventually," said Dr.Cadman, "the place of celestial
traditions subdued his questionings; the superstitions of his
youth that Rome was the 'Beast' which stamped its image on
mankind, the 'Great Harlot' who made drunk the kings of the
earth, were dispelled."
Twice he and Froude sought an interview with Nicholas
Wiseman, who later as Cardinal Wiseman, was to exercise such a
telling influence upon the revision of the Bible, and the
Romarizing of the English Church. We are not informed of every
thing which passed between them, but the question was submitted
to the Papacy by these two Oxford professors, to learn upon what
terms the Church of Rome would receive back into her bosom the
Church of England. The answer came straight, clear, without any
equivocation, the Church of England must accept the Council of
Trent. The future now lay plain before Newman. He left the city
of Rome hastily, saying, "I have a work to do in England."
The man who was destined to bring forward successfully the
greatest religio-political movement among the children of men,
since the Reformation, stood on the deck of the vessel as it
plowed its way through the Mediterranean waters toward the shores
of England, and wrote the hymn which more than any other thing in
his life has made him famous:
"Lead Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on!
The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene;
One step's enough for me."
Or, as the scholarly secretary of the French Academy says
"Newman landed in England, July 9, 1833. Some days afterwards
what is called 'The Oxford Movement' began."
TRACTARIANISM (1833-1841)
What the Movement meant the following will show: "Romanism
is known to have recently entered the Church of England in the
disguise of Oxford Tractarianism; to have drawn off no
inconsiderable number of her clergy and members; and to have
gained a footing on British soil, from which the government and
public opinion together are unable to eject her" (New Brunswick
Review, Aug.1854).
Newman wrote in 1841 to a Roman Catholic, "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, for its sake, and your sake, and for the sake
of unity." He and his associates believed that Protestantism was
Antichrist. Faber, one of the associates of Newman in the Oxford
Movement, himself a brilliant writer, said:
"Protestantism is perishing: what is good in it is by God's mercy
being gathered into the garners of Rome ... My whole life, God
willing, shall be one crusade against the detestable and
diabolical heresy of Protestantism."
Pusey, the well-known author of "Minor Prophets" and of
"Daniel the Prophet," another member of the movement, and a
fervent Romanizing apostle within the Protestant fold, said:
"I believe Antichrist will be infidel, and arise out of what
calls itself Protestantism, and then Rome and England will be
united in one to oppose it."
Of the movement, Pusey was the moral, as Keble was the
poetic, and Newman the intellectual leader. Like the Methodist
movement, it sprang from the University of Oxford, with this
difference, that Wesleyanism strengthened the cause of
Protestantism, while Tractarianism undermined it.
Newman ever gave the date of July 14, 1833, five days after
he returned from Rome, as the beginning of the movement. From the
very first, secrecy veiled a large measure of its activities. Its
promoters at the beginning grouped themselves into a society
called, "The Association of the Friends of the Church." All that
went on under cover will never be known until the judgment day.
The immense transformation, which was wrought in the Church of
England, enables us to single out certain prominent activities as
its cause. The leaders banded themselves together with aggressive
determination to attack weak points wherever they could make
their presence felt, by precipitating crises in the control of
the University, and by challenging fundamental relationships
between church and state. Further, they grouped around them the
students of the University and changed the course of Oxford
thinking. They published a series of tracts which threw a flood
of fermenting thought upon the English mentality. Amid all their
varied and powerful engines of attack, possibly no one thing
exercised a greater influence than the sermons Newman himself
delivered weekly in the church of St.Mary's at Oxford.
By voice and pen, the teaching of Newman changed in the
minds of many their attitude toward the Bible. Stanley shows us
that the allegorizing of German theology, under whose influence
Newman and the leaders of the movement were, was Origen's method
of allegorizing. Newman contended that God never intended the
Bible to teach doctrines. Much of the church history read, was on
the Waldenses and how they had, through the centuries from the
days of the apostles, transmitted to us the true faith. The
Tractarians determined that the credit of handing down truth
through the centuries, should be turned from the Waldenses to the
Papacy.
Answering the general stir upon the question of Antichrist,
Newman declared that the city of Rome must fall before Antichrist
rises, that which saved Rome from falling, he averred, was the
saving grace of the Catholic Church, the salt of the earth.
Those who were promoting the movement seemed at times
uncontrolled in their love for Romanism. Dr.Pusey, whose standing
has given the name of "Puseyism" to this Tractarian Movement,
scandalized some of the less ardent spirits by visiting the
Catholic monasteries in Ireland to study monastic life, with a
view to introducing it into England. Whenever any of the
Tractarians went abroad, they revelled in the scenes of Catholic
ritualism as if they were starved. Dr.Faber, a talented and
outstanding leader among them, gives a lengthy description of his
experiences in Rome, in 1843. His visit to the church of St.John
Lateran on Holy Thursday, he describes as follows:
"I got close to the altar, inside the Swiss Guards, and when Pope
Gregory descended from his throne, and knelt at the foot of the
altar, and we all knelt with him, it was a scene more touching
than I had ever seen before.... That old man in white, prostrate
before the uplifted Body of the Lord, and the dead, dead silence
- Oh, what a sight it was! ... On leaving St.John's by the great
western door, the immense piazza was full of people ... and in
spite of the noonday sun, I bared my head and knelt with the
poople, and received with joy the Holy Father's blessing, until
he fell back on his throne and was borne away."
Two of the Tracts especially created a public stir, Tract 80
and Tract 90. Tract 80, written by Isaac Williams on "Reserve in
Communicating Knowledge," developed Newman's ideas of mental
reservation, which he took from Clement of Alexandria. To Newman,
the Fathers were everything; he studied them day and night; he
translated them into English, lived with them, and in this
Gnostic atmosphere of the early Christian centuries, he viewed
all questions. Clement (about 200 A.D.), speaking of the rules
which should guide the Christian, says, "He (the Christian) both
thinks and speaks the truth; except when consideration is
necessary, and then, as a physician for the good of his patient,
he will be false, or utter a falsehood ... He gives himself up
for the church." On this point Mr.Ward, another prominent leader
in the movement, is represented by his son as saying, "Make
yourself clear that you are justified in deception and then lie
like a trooper." Newman himself put this principle into
practice, and was guilty of deception when he wrote against
Popery, saying things as bitter against the Roman system as
Protestants ever said, for the sole purpose of warding off
suspicion that he was turning to Rome.
"If you ask me," he says, "how an individual could venture, not
simply to hold, but to publish such views of a communion (i.e.
the Church of Rome) so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in
Saints, I answer that I said to myself, 'I am not speaking my own
words, I am but following almost a consensus of the divines of my
own church.' ... Yet I have reason to fear still, that such
language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous
temper, a hope of approving myself to persons I respect, and a
wish to repel the charge of Romanism."
Tract 80 created a widespread stir. The term "Jesuitical"
might have been heard on the lips of Protestant England
everywhere to express what they considered to be the source of
such arguments. But that stir was insignificant compared with
what was produced when Newman wrote Tract 90. In fact, if we were
to single out any one outstanding event in the history of this
Romanizing Movement prior to the Revision of the Bible in 1870,
we would point to Tract 90 as that event. The three great
obstacles which stood in the way of Catholicism's crumpling up
the mental defenses of English Protestantism, were: the King
James Bible, the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles. The
Thirty-nine Articles stood for the Creed of the Church of
England. These Articles were born in the days when English
scholars were being burned at the stake for their adherence to
Protestantism. They represented the questions which might be put
to an adult before he received baptism or to a candidate for
ministerial ordination. With Tract 90, Newman leveled his blow at
the Thirty-nine Articles. With a surpassing skill which the
Church of England never satisfactorily met, he, point by point,
contended that Roman Catholicism could be taught in the Church of
England under the Thirty-nine Articles.
The hostility aroused by the appearance of this Tract forced
the Puseyites to a period of silence. The writing of tracts
ceased. From 1841, the year in which Newman wrote Tract 90, until
1845, when he left the Church of England for Rome, his public
activities were greatly lessened. Newman was exultant: "No
stopping of, the tracts," he said, "can, humanly speaking, stop
the spread of, the opinions which they have inculcated." Even
Pusey, besides praising Newman's "touching simplicity and
humility," writes hopefully on the general prospects
"You will be glad to hear that the immediate excitement about
Tract 90 seems subsiding, although I fear (in the minds of many)
into a lasting impression of our Jesuitism."
The effect, however, upon the world, through Oxford was
tremendous. Newman, from the beginning, saw the value of Oxford
as a base. Some of his associates wanted to make London the
center of the movement. Newman opposed the plan. He wished the
tracts known as the "Oxford Tracts."
THE GORHAM CASE
Previous to this, Dr.Wiseman, who subsequently became
Cardinal, had left Rome for England and had founded the Dublin
Review in 1836, for the express purpose of influencing the
Tractarians of Oxford and leading them on to Rome. He said in
his Essays:
"I have already alluded, in the preface of the first volume, as
well as in the body of this, to the first circumstance which
turned my attention to the wonderful movement then commenced in
England - the visit which is recorded in Froude's 'Remains.' From
that moment it took the uppermost place in my thoughts, and
became the object of their intensest interest."
Dr.Wiseman, when studying at Rome, had devoted himself to
Oriental studies and investigations of the manuscripts. His books
brought him into prominence, and in 1828, when he was only
twenty-six years of age, he was elected Rector of the College in
Rome for Catholic youth of the English language. His appearance
in England in the midst of the violent excitement occasioned by
Tract 90, is described thus by Palm:
"Wiseman saw that there was an opening for the circulation of
that false and plausible reasoning of Jesuitism in which he was
an adept; skillful to put a plausible face upon the worst
corruptions, and to instill doubt where there was no real doubt.
He was instantly dispatched to England as Vicar Apostolic, to
follow up the clue thus presented to him. He forthwith set on
foot the Dublin Review as a means for reaching the class of minds
at Oxford with which he had come in contact."
Dr.Wiseman found on his hands the task of welding together
the Catholics of England, the Catholics of Ireland, so unlike
them, influential Protestants of Catholic sympathies like
Macaulay, Stanley, etc., as well as the Romanizing Movement in
Oxford University. He was a textual critic of the first rank, and
assisted by the information seemingly passed to him from Jesuits,
he was able to furnish the facts well calculated to combat
confidence in the Protestant Bible. Skillfully step by step, we
are told, he led the Tractarian Movement toward Rome.
By this time, Stanley informs us, the Tractarians had become
dominant at Oxford. Hort is thankful that the High Church
movement is gaining ground in both Universities - Oxford and
Cambridge. Stopping the Tracts seemed like a blow, but
authorities recognize that it was a contribution to success.
Oxford still retains her Romanizing tendencies, and many bishops
of the Church of England have wholly surrendered to most of the
Catholic positions which gained ground, and some of the bishops
without leaving the Church of England, mentally have gone the
whole way of Rome. Even the Privy Council, the highest court of
appeal in the British Empire, did not pronounce upon a very
important case in a way that would run directly counter to the
Council of Trent.
Public sentiment was again aroused to intensity in 1845 when
Ward, an outstanding Tractarian, published his book which taught
the most offensive Roman views - Mariolatry, and mental
reservation in subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles. When
Oxford degraded him from his university rights, he went over, in
September, to the Church of Rome. It became very evident that
Newman soon would follow. On the night of October 8, Father
Dominic of the Italian Passionists, arrived at Newman's quarters
in a downpouring rain. After being received, he was standing
before the fire drying his wet garments. He turned around to see
Newman prostrate at his feet, begging his blessing, and asking
him to hear his confession. Thus the author of "Lead Kindly
Light" passed over to Rome, and within one year, 150 clergymen
and eminent laymen also had joined the Catholic Church.
It might be wondered why Newman went over to Rome, if by
remaining at Oxford he would have more greatly advanced his
Catholic project. There is, however, another phase to the
situation.
Cardinal Wiseman found great difficulties in developing
Roman Catholicism in England. He lacked leaders, so he urged
Newman to take his stand publicly that the Oxonian might be made
available for the training of clergymen.
After the passing from Oxford of Newman, the leadership of
the Tractarians devolved upon Dr.Pusey. A change came over the
movement. Oxford ceased to be its home and center. Nevertheless,
Jesuitism had captured it long enough to change fundamentally the
character of the Church of England. In its larger proportions,
Tractarianism passed from the study to the street. The passion to
introduce the Mass, the confession, the burning of candles, holy
water, the blessing of oils, and all the other gorgeous
accompaniments of Catholic ritualism went forward so strongly
that the movement since 1845 is known rather under the name of
Ritualism. It is now more an appeal to the eye, than, as it was
formerly, an appeal to the ear.
In 1850, two events of outstanding importance occurred which
hastened the change of English sentiment. The Bishop of Exeter,
on the point of ordaining a clergyman by the name of Gorham,
demanded that he subscribe to the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration. He refused. The Bishop declined to admit him to the
ministry. Mr.Gorham carried his case to the highest court in the
Church of England, which decided against him. He then appealed to
the Privy Council, which reversed the decision of the
Ecclesiastical Court and virtually decided that no man could be
excluded from the Anglican ministry because he did not believe in
baptismal regeneration. The effect on the country was tremendous.
Even Gladstone, who had been drawn into the Oxford Movement, to
whose thoughts and feelings it gave a new direction, wrote to his
wife that it (the Gorham case) "may impose duties upon me which
will separate forever between my path of life, public or private,
and that of all political parties. The issue is one going to the
very root of all teaching and all life in the Church of England."
Gladstone felt that the bishops were to blame in not
exercising a public influence strong enough to have secured a
different decision. The bishops favored the Romanizing
tendencies, but in order to make them prevalent, they were
unwilling to pay the price, that is, to suffer a separation of
church and state. There were still too many Protestant and
non-religious influences to suffer the civil courts to be
dictated to by the religious. The Privy Council would have been
perfectly willing for the Church of England to have what it
wished, even if it were Catholic ritualism, but was not willing
to endorse such a change as long as the church received its
salaries from the state. Stanley calls the Gorham decision the
"Magna Charta" of the liberties of the English Church.
THE CATHOLIC AGGRESSION
While the mind of England was still being agitated by the
Gorham case, it sustained another shock from an unsuspected
quarter. In October, 1850, the Pope had advanced Dr.Wiseman to
the princely position of Cardinal, at the same time creating him
Archbishop of Westminster, and dividing England into twelve
bishoprics. Cardinal Wiseman stood for hours in Rome receiving
the congratulations of the ambassadors and representatives of
other governments. After the round of ceremonies was over, he
issued a letter to be published in the English newspapers
announcing the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in Great
Britain. This is known as the famous letter of the Flaminian
Gate. Not even Cardinal Wiseman was prepared to witness the
explosion of wrath which shook the cities of England. Everywhere
was heard the cry, "No Popery!" Press, Anglican clergymen, and
leading statesmen raised indignant protest in terms of
ever-increasing violence. Item by item the papal brief was
analyzed by the press, each topic explained as a fresh insult to
the English people. Some of the scenes in the different cities
are described thus:
"The Church bells rang, the band played the 'Rose March,' and the
procession, lighted by numerous torches, paraded the town.
Placards were carried, inscribed, 'The brutal Haynau,' and 'Down
with tyranny!' 'Down with Popery!' 'No Puseyites!' 'No
Tractarians !' etc. There were several masked characters, and all
made up such a sight as was never witnessed in this ancient
borough before."
The scene in Salisbury is thus described:
"The effigies of his Holiness, the Pope, Cardinal Wiseman, and
the twelve Bishops were completed. Friday evening, about five
p.m., Castle Street was so densely crowded that no one could pass
to the upper part of it. Shortly after, some hundreds of torches
were lighted, which then exhibited a forest of heads.... The
procession having paraded the city, the effigies were taken to
the Green Croft, where, over a large number of fagots and barrels
of tar, a huge platform was erected of timber; the effigies were
placed thereon, and a volley of rockets sent up."
In spite of public opposition, the object of the Catholic
Church was gained. The creation of this hierarchy, with its
titles and magnificent dwellings, pleased the aristocracy, and
brought over to the Church of Rome, many of the wealthy and
cultured, and of the nobility. Simple evangelical Christianity,
as Jesus lived it, is not acceptable to the proud and worldly
heart. The papal aggression of 1850 was another blow in favor of
Rome. As Stanley says of it, "The general reaction of a large
part of the religious sentiment of England and of Europe towards
Rome was undoubted."
THE CASE OF "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS"
Of the problems raised by the famous case, known as "Essays
and Reviews," Westcott wrote: "Of all cares, almost the greatest
which I have had, has been 'Essays and Reviews,' and its
opponents. The controversy is fairly turning me grey. I look on
the assailants of the Essayists, from bishops downwards, as
likely to do far more harm to the Church and the Truth than the
Essayists."
The period from 1850 to 1860 had seen a great forward
movement among the Ritualists, and also considerable growth for
the Catholics. In Cardinal Wiseman's address to the Congress of
Malines in 1863, he reported that in 1830 the number of priests
in England was 434; in 1863 they numbered 1242. The convents in
1830 amounted to only 16; in 1863 there were 162. Parallel with
this, the movement was going forward to introduce into England,
German Biblical criticism. Something occurred in 1860 to test the
inroads which had been made upon the English mind in its belief
in the infallibility and inspiration of the Bible.
An enterprising publishing house put forth a volume
containing seven essays and reviews written by prominent
clergymen of the Church of England, some of whom were university
professors. Dr.Hort was invited to be a contributor, but
declined, fearing that the attempt was premature. These essays
successively attacked such prominent Protestant doctrines as its
position on the "inspiration of the Bible," "justification by
faith," and "purgatory." A cry arose to demand the degradation of
these writers from their positions as clergymen in the Church of
England. A test case was carried before the highest court in the
Church. The accused appealed from the judgment to a higher body.
Although the indignation throughout the country was great, and a
petition so voluminous as to be signed by eleven thousand
clergymen was circulated, nevertheless the public mind was
compelled to submit to this assault upon the beliefs held by
Protestant England for three hundred years. One of these essays
was written by Professor H.B.Wilson, who earlier had denounced
Tract 90 for its views on the Thirty-nine Articles. Twenty years
later, however, he argued in favor of the very views which he had
denounced previously.
The case was carried still higher, to the secular court, the
last court of appeal in the nation, the Privy Council. Here again
the decision let the authors of these advanced views on higher
criticism, go free. Such hostile attacks on inspiration were
detaching the English mentality from its Protestant love of, and
loyalty to, the Holy Scriptures. Now, campaigns favorable to the
other side were needed to attach the English mind to the
doctrines and practices of Rome. An event of this nature soon
occurred.
NEWMAN'S MASTERPIECE
While Ritualism marched forward in the Church of England
through the leadership of Dr.Pusey, Newman was aiding Cardinal
Wiseman to increase the numbers and influence of Catholicism. For
twenty years, apparently to the public, there had been little
contact between him and his former associates. They retained for
Newman, however, their old love and affection. In 1864 occurred
an event which broke down this public distance between them and
restored Newman to aristocratic favor. Charles Kingsley felt
impelled to write upon the growing Catholic mentality throughout
England, and lay the blame of it upon Newman. Newman took the
pen; and master of the English language as he was, wrote the
"Apologia." An able controversialist, he handled Kingsley with a
cruel invective that few can condone. With that subtlety of
argument in which not many were his equal, he further advanced
the cause of Catholic doctrine; while at the same time he placed
himself so ably before the public as a martyr of honest
convictions, that he threw open the door which admitted him, if
it did not restore him, to a large place in public esteem. The
publication of the "Apologia" added one more excitement to the
many which, for a third of a century, had been stirring the
Protestant mind of England.
Of the effect produced by this book in making acceptable the
advance of Romanizing doctrines, Stanley says:
"The Hampdon controversy, the Gorham controversy, the 'Essays and
Reviews' controversy, and the Colenso controversy - all have had
their turn; but none excited such violent passions, and of none
would the ultimate extinction have appeared so strange whilst the
storm was raging, as the extinction of the controversy of Tract
90 ... What has produced the calm? Many causes have
contributed;--the recrudescence of the High Church party; the
charm thrown over the history of that time by the 'Apologia.'"
RITUALISM
By 1864, at the time of the "Apologia," the High Church
party believed the divine authority of tradition, the inspiration
of the Apocrypha, and escape from eternal punishment through
purgatory.
The decision of the Privy Council in 1864, in the case of
"Essays and Reviews," legally declared to all intents and
purposes that these views could be the doctrines of the Church of
England. At the same time, the Protestant doctrine of Imputed
Righteousness was condemned as it had been condemned by the
Council of Trent. With public opinion placated by the "Apologia,"
with the voice of protest in the Church silenced by the judgment
of the Privy Council, ritualism sprung forth with a suddenness
that took the nation and church by surprise.
"At once in a hundred or more churches (so we are told) appeared
colored vestments; candles lighted during the Communion in the
morning. and during the Magnificat in the afternoon; a new
liturgy interpolated into that established by law; prostrations,
genuflections elevations, never before seen; the transformation
of the worship of the Church of England into a likeness of that
of the Church of Rome, so exact as to deceive Roman Catholics
themselves into the momentary belief that they were in their own
places of worship."
In other words, the Tractarianism of Oxford simply changed
its character, and instead of being centered in the hands of
notable scholars, it spread in the form of ritualism to the
country parishes. As another author says:
"In fact, there appeared now a type of clergyman hitherto almost
unknown in the Established Church--one who was less a man of the
world, and less a scholar, but more clerical, more ascetic, more
apostolic, one who came nearer to our ideal of a Catholic priest.
Though seeming to contend about questions of candles and
chasubles, they really began to revive in the Anglican Church the
Sacramental life which had become almost extinct. In many ways
they were truly the successors of the Tractarians, continuing and
completing their work."
Very early in the Tractarian movement, the ritualistic
activities connected with purgatory, pardons, images, relics, and
prayers for the dead; had manifested them selves. But they were
carried on secretly. Self-punishment by a scourge of five lashes
having five knots on the lash was practiced by the most pa-
ssionate Romanists; some had worn the haircloth girdle.
Sisterhoods, embracing girls who had vowed their life to the
Church, as Catholic nuns do, were formed in the Church of
England.
Throughout the years that ritualism had been advancing,
different organizations were formed for attaining the different
objectives sought by the Romanizers. The "Confraternity of the
Blessed Sacrament" was formed for the purpose of influencing
others to celebrate the Mass; the "Association for the Promotion
of the Union of Christendom" was organized with the intent to
bring all Christian churches under the leadership of the Pope;
the "Order of Corporate Reunion" was an association created to
bring about the joining of the Church of England with the Papacy;
the "Society of the Sacred Cross" offered an organization into
which clergymen of the Church of England might be enrolled, whose
practices were the fervent performance of Catholic rituals; and
the "English Church Union" was brought into existence to further
the interests of Roman Catholicism in England.
The Movement has also affected other Protestant churches,
and "there are many today who, though themselves rejecting
Catholic belief, recognize that St.Paul's sacramental teaching is
far more like that traditional among Catholics than like that of
the 16th-century Reformers.
Dr.Wylie indicates that these great changes were effected,
not by a stirring message from God, but by indirection, little by
little, as the Jesuits operate:
"Tract 90, where the doctrine of reserves is broached, bears
strong marks of a Jesuit origin. Could we know all the secret
instructions given to the leaders in the Puseyite movement,--the
mental reservations prescribed to them, we might well be
astonished. 'Go gently,' we think we hear the great Roothan say
to them. 'Remember the motto of our dear son, the cidevant Bishop
of Autun, -- "surtout, pas trop de zele," (above all, not too
much zeal). Bring into view, little by little, the authority of
the church. If you can succeed in rendering it equal to that of
the Bible, you have done much. Change the table of the Lord into
an altar; elevate that altar a few inches above the level of the
floor; gradually turn around to it when you read the Liturgy;
place lighted taper upon it: teach the people the virtues of
stained glass, and cause them to feel the majesty of Gothic
basilisques. Introduce first the dogmas, beginning with that of
baptismal regeneration; next the ceremonies and sacraments, as
penance and the confessional; and, lastly, the images of the
Virgin and the saints.'"
It must not be supposed that this advance of ritualism went
forward without opposition. There were riotous disturbances at
Exeter and other places, chiefly directed against the use of the
priestly robe in the pulpit, after a direction for its use had
been given in a charge by the Bishop. The details of furniture
and of Catholic garments worn by the priest, which had long since
been discarded, and now were being used again by ritualistic
priests, aroused great antagonism among the people. On one
occasion in the church of St.Georges-in-the-East, the vast
building was crowded with a furious congregation, trying to shout
down the chanting of the liturgy. Policemen surrounded the clergy
and choristers in their endeavor to carry on the ritualist
services. Anything in the recitation which appeared as a
condemnation of idolatry was met with sounds of approval from the
congregation. Congregations otherwise amiable, sociable, and
friendly, were changed into bodies of wrath and resentment at
Romanizing clergymen who persisted in services of ritualism
repugnant to the worshhipers.
A vast array of arguments, historical, legal, and
ritualistic, were carried on between the clergy and their
congregations. Who was to decide the question? This situation
gave rise to a series of cases which were brought before the
courts, both ecclesiastical and civil, amid tremendous excitement
on part of the people. Aided by the English Church Union, by
eminent scholars of ritualistic sympathies, and by the strong
Romanizing tendency among the bishops, the principal judgments
went against the Protestants. Doctors Westcott and Hort, who come
prominently before us later as leaders in connection with Bible
revision, lent their influence on the side of the ritualists.
"When consulted by a lady, as to the latitude admitted by the
Church of Engiand, which she thought tended towards Catholicism,
Hort did not deny the divergencies, but thought they need not
cause uneasiness."
Dr.King, Bishop of Lincoln, whose influence multiplied
converts to Catholicism, was cited by the Church Association (a
society formed to support congregations imposed upon by the use
of ritualism), before the Archbishop of Canterbury for his
ritualistic enthusiasm. The Archbishop realized that if he
decided in favor of the ritualists, and the case should be
appealed, he risked the opposition of the Privy Council. He
consulted with one of his most intimate friends, his former
teacher, Bishop Westcott, and determined to take the risk. When,
on November 21, 1890, before a numerous and excited throng, he
left ritualism uncondemned and the door wide open for candles,
absolution, eastward position, and other ritualistic activities,
Protestants were greatly disturbed.
"They said that the Lincoln decision was the severest blow
received by the Church of England since the Reformation."
Or to sum the matter up in the words cf another author:
"And so at present the ritualists have pretty nearly all the
liberty of action they could desire."
We are informed that so great was the increase of ritualism
that it had spread from 2054 churches in 1844, to 5964 in 1896,
and to 7044 in 1898.
RELATION OF THE MOVEMENT TO BIBLE REVISION
In the first place, had it not been for Jesuitism, Modernism
might never have been a force in the Protestant Church. As the
historian Froude says: "But for the Oxford Movement, skepticism
might have continued a harmless speculation of a few
philosophers."
The attitude of Roman Catholics to the King James Version
has ever been one of bitter hostility. The Catholic Bishop of
Erie, Pa., calls it that "vile" Protestant Version. This attitude
is further evinced through the feelings expressed by two eminent
characters connected with the Oxford Movement; one who critically
described the Authorized Version before revision was
accomplished; the other, after revision was well under way. Dr.
Faber, the brilliant associate of Newman, and a passionate
Romanizer, called the King James Version, "that stronghold of
heresy in England;" and when revision began to appear as almost
certain, Cardinal Wiseman expressed himself in these words
"When we consider the scorn cast by the Reformers upon the
Vulgate, and their recurrence, in consequence, to the Greek, as
the only accurate standard, we cannot but rejoice at the silent
triumph which truth has at length gained over clamorous error.
For, in fact, the principal writers who have avenged the Vulgate,
and obtained for it its critical preeminence are Protestants."
The famous Tract 90 did not leave this question untouched.
Though Cardinal Newman argued strongly for the orthodox Catholic
position, that tradition is of equal, if not of superior
authority to the Bible, nevertheless, he put a divine stamp on
the Vulgate and a human stamp upon the Authorized Version. These
are his words:
"A further question may be asked, concerning our Received Version
of the Scriptures, whether it is in any sense imposed on us as a
true comment on the original text; as the Vulgate is upon the
Roman Catholics. It would appear not. It was made and authorized
by royal commands, which cannot be supposed to have any claim
upon our interior consent."
Furthermore, in the Dublin Review (June 1883), Newman says
that the Authorized Version "is notoriously unfair where
doctrinal questions are at stake," and speaks of its "dishonest
renderings." This shows the Catholic attitude of mind toward the
King James Version.
Cardinal Newman was invited to sit with the English New
Testament Revision Committee. He refused. Nevertheless, with his
reputation for Biblical knowledge, with the profound admiration
Dr.Hort never failed to express for him, and with his Napoleonic
leadership in breaking down Protestantism, the fact that he was
invited is indicative of the influence which the Oxford Movement
had on Revision.
How anxious Roman Catholicism was to do something to break
the spell which the King James Version held over English speaking
people, and through them over the world, was revealed in what
happened as soon as Cardinal Newman had quit the Church of
England for the Church of Rome. At that time he had been invited
to Rome - which invitation he accepted - to imbibe the atmosphere
of his new affiliations and relate himself to the Papacy in ways
which might be deemed best for future service. How he was
requested at that time to revise the King James, may be seen in a
letter written from Rome to Wiseman by Newman, January 17, 1847.
He says:
"The Superior of the Franciscans, Father Benigno, in the
Trastevere, wishes us out of his own head to engage in an English
Authorized Translation of the Bible. He is a learned man, and on
the Congregation of the Index. What he wished was, that we would
take the Protestant translation, correct it by the Vulgate ...
and get it sanctioned here. This might be our first work if your
Lordship approved of it. If we undertook it, I should try to get
a number of persons at work (not merely our own party). First, it
should be overseen and corrected by ourselves, then it should go
to a few select revisers, e.g., Dr.Tait of Ushaw, Dr.Whitty of
St.Edmunds," (a Jesuit).
It is a remarkabie fact that Newman, now a Catholic once a
Protestant, is seeking for a revision of the King James Bible,
for England, that will conform to the Vulgate, and is suggesting
a well-defined plan to Cardinal Wiseman who rejoices that
Protestant revisers are vindicating the Vulgate, as previously
noted.
We have already spoken of the influence of the movement on
certain Revisers, when we brought forward Doctors Hort and
Westcott, as in sympathy with, and assisting the movement of
ritualism. One need only to scan the list of the men who sat on
the English New Testament Revision Committee, review certain acts
in their history and read their writings, to know all too well
that the majority were actually of the Oxford Movement,
(Tractarians and Ritualists), or in sympathy with the same. Dr.
Thirlwall, who has been pointed out as the leader in introducing
German textual criticism into England, and who has been described
by two authors as a man of princely intellect, came out strongly
in defense of the Tractarians when they were assailed.
When Newman and Froude, in 1833, were in Rome and had
presented their inquiry to the Papacy to learn upon what terms
the Church of England would be received back into the Roman fold,
they had the direct answer, only by accepting the Council of
Trent. Previously, we have shown that the first four resolutions
passed by that Council, settled, first, that no one should say it
is wicked to put tradition on a level with Scripture; second,
that the Apocryphal books were equal to the Canonical; third,
that there were no errors in the Vulgate; and finally, that the
right of interpretation of Holy Writ belonged to the clergy.
Newman left Rome saying, "I have a work to do for England." He
could not bring the Church of England to accept the Council of
Trept without establishing those books of the Catholic Bible
which are rejected by Protestants and without securing
endorsement for those Catholic readings of the accepted books
which had been rejected by the Reformers. Revision became the
inevitable outcome of the Oxford Movement.
That this was so understood by the participants in
Tractarianism, I will now quote from Mozley, the brother-in-law
of Cardinal Newman:
"The Oxford Movement, unforeseen by the chief movers, and to some
extent in spite of them, has produced a generation of
ecclesiologists, ritualists, and religious poets. Whatever may be
said of its priestcraft, it has filled the land with churchcrafts
of all kinds. Has it not had some share in the restoration of
Biblical criticism and in the revision of the Authorized
Version?"
It ought to be further noticed that Dr.Pusey, who succeeded
to the leadership of the Oxford Movement upon the defection of
Newman to Rome, he who pushed forward ritualism, established
nunneries and monasteries, and was passionate in Romanizing, was
also invited to sit on the English New Testament Revision
Committee. The fact that he refused, does not in any way lessen
the mental attitude of sympathy with Tractarianism which
possessed the dominant majority of that committee. And we are
told that so strong were the efforts on the Revision Committee to
revise different passages of the New Testament in favor of Rome,
that on one occasion the Dean of Rochester remarked that it was
time they raised a cry of "No Popery."
The Oxford Movement had created great discontent with
existing theology and had emphasized the apparent contradictions
and inconsistencies of the Bible. At the same time textual
criticism had cast discredit upon the Received Text and the King
James Version translated from it. There had been enough agitation
to arouse an expectancy that some kind of revision would be
attempted. But even then, revision of such a revolutionary
nature, as happened, could never have been brought about, unless
men who long had policies of a nature little suspected, were at
hand to do the deed. These men were Westcott and Hort. Let us now
throw some sidelights upon their surprising beliefs and purposes.
.....................
To be continued
NOTE:
I was raised in a "Church of England" school from grade one to
grade twelve. We opened and read the Bible each school day for
the first half hour. It was only a few times a year that the
whole school was marched away to the actual "church" for services
i.e. Easter and Christmas. I always found the rituals, fancy
dress of the priests, the mumbo-jumbo language (it was Latin),
movements behind the altar to do this and do that, lighting of
candles, prossesions up and down isles, STANGE if not out-and-out
rediculous. It was only years later that reading books like this
one by Wilkinson, I realized the Church of England is very
similar to the Church of Rome, in many ways. Hence today we still
have a movement to bring the Church of England back into the
Church of Rome. We have just read, to a large part, how the
Church of England got all its rituals from, and some of the guys
that helped bring it all to pass, despite the protests from the
public in those early years.
Keith Hunt
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