Apologia Pro Vita Sua, John Henry Newman [ebook reader that looks like a book TXT] 📗

I was erroneous,—if I have misled you, or any one else, into 'the pride of reason,' or any other kind of pride,—or if I have entertained, or led others into, any wrong opinions, I can only say I sincerely regret it. And again I rejoice if I have been the means of contributing to form in any one that 'high religious temper and unclouded faith' of which I not only believe, with you, that they are able to withstand tendencies towards infidelity, but also, that without them, no correctness of abstract opinions is worth much. But what I meant to point out, is, that there was plainly nothing to preclude you from offering friendly admonition (when your view of my principles changed), with a full confidence of being at least patiently and kindly listened to.

"I for my part could not bring myself to find relief in escaping the society of an old friend,—with whom I had been accustomed to frank discussion,—on account of my differing from him as to certain principles, whether through a change of his views, or (much more) of my own,—till at least I had made full trial of private and affectionate remonstrance and free discussion. Even a 'man that is a heretic,' we are told, even a ruler of a Church is not to reject, till after repeated admonitions.

"But though your regard for me does not show itself such as I think mine would have been under similar circumstances, I will not therefore reject what remains of it. Let us pray for each other that it may please God to enlighten whichever of us is, on any point, in error, and recall him to the truth; and that at any rate we may hold fast that charity, without which all knowledge, and all faith, that could remove mountains, will profit us nothing.

"I fear you will read with a jaundiced eye,—if you venture to read it at all—any publication of mine; but 'for auld lang syne' I take advantage of a frank to enclose you my last two addresses to my clergy.

"Very sincerely yours,

"RD. WHATELY."

4.

"Oriel, November 11, 1834.

"My dear Lord,

"The remarks contained in your last letter do not come upon me by surprise, and I can only wish that I may be as able to explain myself to you, as I do with a clear and honest conscience to myself. Your Grace will observe that the letter of mine from which you make an extract, was written when I was in habits of intimacy with you, in which I have not been of late years. It does not at all follow, because I could then speak freely to you, that I might at another time. Opportunity is the chief thing in such an office as delivering to a superior an opinion about himself. Though I never concealed my opinion from you, I have never been forward. I have spoken when place and time admitted, when my opinion was asked, when I was called to your side and was made your counsellor. No such favourable circumstances have befallen me of late years,—if I must now state in explanation what in truth has never occurred to me in this fulness, till now I am called to reflect upon my own conduct and to account for an apparent omission. I have spoken the first opportunity you have given me; and I am persuaded good very seldom comes of volunteering a remonstrance.

"Again, I cannot doubt for an instant that you have long been aware in a measure that my opinions differed from your Grace's. You knew it when at Oxford, for you often found me differing from you. You must have felt it, at the time you left Oxford for Dublin. You must have known it from hearsay in consequence of the book I have published. What indeed can account for my want of opportunities to speak to you freely my mind, but the feeling on your part, (which, if existing, is nothing but a fair reason,) that my views are different from yours?

"And that difference is certainly of no recent date. I tacitly allude to it in the very letter you quote—in which, I recollect well that the words 'strange office for an instructor,—to rely upon myself,' were intended to convey to you that, much as I valued (and still value) your great kindness and the advantage of your countenance to me at that time, yet even then I did not fall in with the line of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesced. Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I should not now use; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of 'Liberal,' (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,) are those which may be briefly described as the Anti-superstition notions; and to these I do not recollect ever assenting. Connected with these I would instance the undervaluing of Antiquity, and resting on one's own reasonings, judgments, definitions, &c., rather than authority and precedent; and I think I gave very little in to this;—for a very short time too (if at all), in to the notion that the State, as such, had nothing to do with religion. On the other hand, whatever I held then deliberately, I believe I hold now; though perhaps I may not consider them as points of such prominent importance, or with precisely the same bearing as I did then:—as the abolition of the Jewish Sabbath, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of imputed righteousness (i.e. our Lord's active obedience)—the mistakes of the so-called Evangelical system, the independence of the Church; the genius of the Gospel as a Law of Liberty, and the impropriety of forming geological theories from Scripture. Of course every one changes in opinion between twenty and thirty; doubtless, I have changed; yet I am not conscious that I have so much changed, as made up my mind on points on which I had no opinion. E.g. I had no opinion about the Catholic Question till 1829. No one can truly say I was ever for the Catholics; but I was not against them. In fact I did not enter into the state of the question at all.

"Then as to my change of judgment as to the character of your Grace's opinions, it is natural that, when two persons pursue different lines from the same point, they should not discover their divergence for a long while; especially if there be any kind feeling in the one towards the other. It was not for a very long time that I discovered that your opinions were (as I now think them) but part of intellectual views, so different from your own inward mind and character, so peculiar in themselves, and (if you will let me add) so dangerous. For a long time I thought them to be but different; for a longer, to be but in parts dangerous; but their full character in this respect came on me almost on a sudden. I heard at Naples the project of destroying the Irish Sees, and at first indignantly rejected the notion, which some one suggested, that your Grace had acquiesced in it. I thought I recollected correctly your Grace's opinion of the inherent rights of the Christian Church, and I thought you never would allow men of this world so to insult it. When I returned to England, all was over. I was silent on the same principle that you are silent about it in your letter; that it was not the time for speaking; and I only felt, what I hinted at when I wrote last, a bitter grief, which prompted me, when the act was irretrievable, to hide myself from you. However, I have spoken, with whatever pain to myself, the first opportunity you have given me.

"I might appeal to my conscience without fear in proof of the delight it would give me at this time to associate my name with yours, and to stand forward as your friend and defender, however humble. I should hope you know me enough to be sure, that, however great my faults are, I have no fear of man such as to restrain me, if I could feel I had a call that way. But may God help me, as I will ever strive to fulfil my first duty, the defence of His Church, and of the doctrine of the old Fathers, in opposition to all the innovations and profanities which are rising round us.

"My dear Lord,

"Ever yours most sincerely and gratefully,

"J. H. NEWMAN.

"P.S. I feel much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Addresses to your clergy, which I value highly for your Grace's sake."

NOTE ON PAGE 90. EXTRACT OF A LETTER PROM THE REV. E. SMEDLEY, EDITOR OF THE "ENCYCLOPÆDIA METROPOLITANA."

When I urged on one occasion an "understanding" I had had with the publishers of the "Encyclopædia," he answered, June 5, 1828, "I greatly dislike the word 'understanding,' which is always misunderstood, and which occasions more mischief than any other in our language, unless it be its cousin-german 'delicacy.'"

NOTE ON PAGE 185. EXTRACT OF A LETTER OF THE LATE REV. FRANCIS A. FABER, OF SAUNDERTON.

A letter of Mr. F. Faber's to a friend has just now (March, 1878) come into my hands, in which he says, "I have had a long correspondence with Newman on the subject of my uncle's saying he was 'a concealed Roman Catholic' long before he left us. It ends in my uncle making an amende."

NOTE ON PAGES 194-196.

I have said above, "Dr. Russell had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion than any one else. He called on me in passing through Oxford in the summer of 1843; and I think I took him over some of the buildings of the University. He called again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion. He sent me at different times several letters.... He also gave me one or two books; Veron's Rule of Faith and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of St. Alfonso Liguori's sermons was another.... At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or halfpenny books of devotion," &c.

On this passage I observe first that he told me, on one occasion of my seeing him since the publication of the "Apologia," that I was so far in error, that he had called on me at Oxford once only, not twice. He was quite positive on the point; it was when he was, I believe, on his way to Rome to escape a bishopric.

Secondly, my own mistake has led to some vagueness or inaccuracy in the statements made by others. In a friendly notice of Dr. Russell upon his death, it is said, in the "Times":—

"Personally he was unknown to the leaders of the movement, but his reputation stood high in Oxford. He was often applied to for information and suggestion on the points arising in the Tractarian controversy. Through a formal call made by him on Dr. Newman a correspondence arose, which resulted in the final determination of the latter to join the Roman Catholic Church."

On this I remark—(1) that in 1841-5, Dr. Russell was not well known in Oxford, and it cannot be said that then "his reputation stood high" there; (2) that he never was "applied to for information" by any one of us, as far as my knowledge