Walter Walsh's "The History of the Romeward Movement in the Church of England: 1833-1864," pp.48-52

Walter Walsh's "The History of the Romeward Movement in the Church of England: 1833-1864," pp.48-52. This will an overview of John Henry Newman, Tractarians, and Anglo-Catholics and their insinuation into Evangelical, Reformed and Confessional Christianity in the Anglican way. This well-researched expose of Tractarianism and Anglo-Romanizing won't get press at www.virtueonline.org, AMiA, CANA or the ACNA. The "so-called" evangelicals in the ACNA sit loose re: these anti-Confessional, anti-Reformational, and anti-Protestant squatters.

In these pages, we see the relationship of Tractarians to the Thirty-nine Articles, but also the Latitudinarianism of Dr. Hampden and incipient liberalism at Oxford.

Bishop Iker, ACNA, was open and public that he and his Texan ilk would read the Reformed Confession of the English Reformation as did Newman, Keble and Pusey. "I am no friend to the Article" said Newman (among many other things...it gets alot worse). The same holds for Ackerman of Quincy and Schofield of California. The neo-Tractarian REC, in essence, holds to Tract XC as one way to read the Reformed Confession. See their "wash" at the REC website with an article entitled, "True Unity." Double-speak and integrity-problems. Feel free to quote me.

http://www.archive.org/stream/a611877700walsuoft/a611877700walsuoft_djvu.txt

----------------------------
CHAPTER III

Chapter Summary: The first "outbreak of Tractism." Dr. Hampden's case Newman on Subscription to the Articles He was "not a great friend to them"- Hampden appointed Regius Professor of Divinity Agitation against his appointment. Lord Melbourne's letter to Pusey Newman's Elucidations. Stanley's opinion of them. Dr. Wilberforce and Hampden Lord Selborne and Dean Church's testimony as to Hampden's views The real cause of opposition was Hampden's Protestantism Proof of his Protestantism Extracts from his writings Vote of want of confidence by Convocation Hampden's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury Mr. Macmullen's case Hampden apppointed Bishop of Hereford Protest of thirteen Bishops Lord John Russell's reply Archdeacon Hare defends Hampden A Prosecution commenced Organised by Pusey, Keble, Marriott, and Mozley Wilberforce's eleven questions for Hampden His answer The Bishop withdraws his Letters of Request Pusey's bitter disappointment Tractarian anxiety to prosecute their opponents Bishop Phillpotts denounces the Episcopal Veto Protests by the Dean of Hereford Hampden elected Bishop by the Chapter of Hereford Protest in Bow Church An exciting scene Consecration of Dr. Hampden The new Bishop's sympathisers Addresses of confidence.

WHAT Archbishop Whately termed "the first outbreak of Tractism" was directed against the Rev. Dr. R. D. Hampden. In 1832 Dr. Hampden had been selected to preach the Bampton Lectures at Oxford, which were subsequently published under the title of The Scholastic Philosophy Considered in its Relation to Christian Theology. These lectures were delivered to large congregations ; but do not appear to have excited any remarkable attention after their publication, until their author was appointed, in 1836, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, when they became the centre round which a fierce contest raged, a contest which was renewed with even greater violence in 1847, when Dr. Hampden was appointed Bishop of Hereford. A pamphlet which he issued in 1834 added greatly to the flame of Tractarian wrath ; and was used against its author again and again during the succeeding thirteen years. It bore the title of Observations on Religious Dissent. With Particular Reference to the Use of Religious Tests in the University. It was, in brief, a plea for the admission of Dissenters into the University of Oxford, on certain conditions. He wished to abolish Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles on the part of those entering the University, as had already been done in the University of Cambridge, and therefore there was nothing new in his proposal in itself, though no doubt it seemed revolutionary to the authorities of the University of Oxford, and was particularly distasteful to those Tractarians who wished to keep Dissenters out of the University. Newman led the attack on Hampden's pamphlet, a copy of which the author had sent to him on its publication. In thank- ing him for his courtesy, Newman wrote : " While I re- spect the tone of piety in which the pamphlet is written, I feel an aversion to the principles it professes, as (in my opinion), legitimately tending to formal Socinianism." Newman's real opinion as to Subscription to the Thirty- Nine Articles was given on January n, 1836, in a letter which he addressed to Mr. Percival, in the course of which his hatred for the study of Christian Evidences, and his wish that young men should believe " prior to reason " ; and should, without reason, accept what their instructors taught them, is clearly manifested. " Shut your eyes, and open your mouths, and take what the priests may give you, without examination," is a policy which is ever dear to a proud Sacerdotal priesthood ; but is quite inconsistent with the Scriptural injunction : " Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God ; because many false prophets are gone out in the world " (i John iv. i). "The advantage of subscription (to my mind) is," Newman wrote, "its witnessing to the principle that religion is to be approached with a submission of the understanding. Nothing is so

1 Newman's Letters, vol. ii. p. 77.

common, as you must know, as for young men to approach serious subjects as judges, to study them as mere sciences. Aristotle and Butler are treated as teachers of a system, not as if there was more truth in them than in Jeremy Bentham. The study of the 1 Evidences,' now popular (such as Paley's), encourages this evil frame of mind. The learner is supposed external to the system . . . and to have to choose it by an act of reason before he submits to it ; whereas, the great lesson of the Gospel is faith, an obeying prior to reasoning, and proving its reasonableness by making experiment of it a casting of heart and mind into the system and investigating the truth by practice. I should say the same of a person in a Mahometan country or under any system which was not plainly and purely diabolical . In an age, then, when this great principle is scouted, Subscription to the Articles is a memento and a protest, and again actually does, I believe, impress upon the minds of young men the teachable and subdued temper expected of them. THEY ARE NOT TO REASON, BUT TO OBEY, and this quite independently of the degree of accuracy, the wisdom, &c., of the Articles themselves. I am no great friend of them, and should rejoice to substitute the Creeds for them, were it not for the Romanists, who might be excluded by the plan you suggest of demanding certificates of baptism and confirmation." 2 This is, I think, the first recorded instance in which Tractarian dislike to the Thirty-Nine Articles was clearly expressed. In later years members of the party spoke out more emphatically. A collection of extracts from their utterances on this subject will be found in the Appendix to my Secret History of the Oxford Movement. Newman's exhortation to young men "NOT TO REASON, BUT TO OBEY," reminds me of the advice of a priestly member of the English Church Union. " It was not," said the Rev. Luke Rivington, at a meeting of the Union, January 14, 1868, "that he undervalued the office of the laity, whose high and noble prerogative it was to listen and obey; but it was for the ministers of the Church to magnify their office." 3 A Ritualistic newspaper recently put the matter thus : " In the Catholic Church it is for the clergy 1 In other words, this is equivalent to advising a young man to swallow any spiritual poison offered to him first, and after it has done its deadly work he will be able to refuse to take any more of it. Such advice would justify a belief in any lying legend taught by a Roman Catholic priest.

2 Life of Dr. Pusey, vol. i. p. 301.
3 English Church Union Monthly Circular ; vol. for 1868, p. 65.

HAMPDEN'S LATITUDINARIANISM 49 to teach and govern, for the people to obey." This kind of teaching tends to make slaves of the laity, and enables the clergy to assume the position of " being lords over God's heritage" (i Peter v. 3). There was a Latitudinarian spirit throughout Dr. Hampden's pamphlet which I, for one, deeply regret, especially in his remarks on Unitarians. He avowed himself as "favourable to a removal of all tests, so far as they are employed as securities of orthodoxy among our members at large." ' As to the Unitarians, he specially applied to them the following statement : " In religion, properly so called, few Christians, if any (I speak, of course, of pious minds) really differ " ; and he further declared, "When I look at the reception by the Unitarians, both of the Old and New Testament, I cannot, for my part, strongly as I dislike their theology, deny to those, who acknowledge this basis of divine facts, the name of Christians." 8 He was no great friend to articles of faith : "Articles of religious communion," he declared, " from their reference to the fixed objects of our faith, assume an immovable character fatally adverse to all theological improvement." 4 Though in favour of admitting Dissenters to the University without subscribing to the Articles, Dr. Hampden insisted that when they entered they should receive religious instruction from clergymen of the Church of England. " I see," he wrote, "no objection at the same time to the admission of Dissenters into the University, because they are Dissenters. I should be glad indeed to see them appearing among us, as on a neutral ground, on which we may forget war, and learn together the arts of peace and charity. If persons of different communions are willing to conform to our discipline, and receive instruction from us, knowing that we are members of the Church of England, and sincere teachers of its theological system, where can be the real objection in such a case?"

The Tractarian party took the lead in resisting every attempt to admit Dissenters into the University of Oxford, and with such success that it was not until 1854 that Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles was made no longer compulsory as a condition of matriculation. Towards the end of 1835, the Rev. Dr. Burton, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, died. At that time Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley), whose sympathies were to a considerable extent with the new Oxford Movement, sent to his lordship a list of persons whom he conceived to be best qualified to succeed Dr. Burton. Eight names were mentioned by his Grace, the first being Dr. Pusey ; the fourth, the Rev. J. H. Newman; and the fifth, the Rev. John Keble. Lord Melbourne consulted Archbishop Whately as to the merits of these gentlemen. "It will be observed," writes Canon Liddon, " that each of the three leaders of the Movement, as they subsequently became, was named by the Archbishop for the vacant Chair of Divinity. What might not have been the result on the future of the English Church had any one of them been chosen! " Whatever may be said against the gentleman who succeeded Dr. Burton, there can be no doubt that his appointment was a serious blow to the hopes of the sacerdotalists. A rumour of Dr. Hampden's appointment reached Oxford on February 8, 1836. No time was lost in getting up an agitation against it. That very evening Pusey brought his friends together at a dinner party, at which the case was fully discussed. There was still a hope that an agitation would prevent the dreaded appointment being made. Two days later another meeting was held in Corpus Common Room, at which a petition to the King was agreed to, and by the next evening it was sent off to the Archbishop of Canterbury for presentation to his Majesty, signed by seventy-three resident Masters. It seems to have produced a considerable effect upon the King, who at once communicated with Lord Melbourne.

1 Life of Dr. Pusey, vol. i. p. 370.

The Prime Minister, however, remained firm, and on February 15th, wrote to William IV.: "To what do the charges against Dr. Hampden amount? That Dr. Hampden is known to have expressed himself in printed publications in such a manner as to produce on the minds of many an impression that he maintains doctrines and principles fundamentally opposed to the integrity of the Christian faith. Is this sufficient ? Is his faith to be denied on such grounds as these 'an impression on the minds of many/ without even stating whether in the opinion of those who signed the paper the impression is just ? There are innumerable impressions upon the minds of many, but who ever considered such impressions as any proof against the person whom they affected ? " Archbishop Whately lost no time in informing the Prime Minister what was, in his opinion, the real secret of the opposition to Hampden's appointment. " Hampden," he wrote, " is not a Tory. And he was for the relaxation of the subscription to the Articles at Matriculation. Hence it is that men now bring a charge of heresy against him which, if they had been sincere and honest, they would have brought before the regular tribunal three or four years ago, when he was delivering before the University of Oxford and printing at the University Press the sermons which they charge with Socinianism." No stone was left unturned to prevent the appoint- ment. Pusey hoped that he could reach the heart or move the will of Lord Melbourne, and therefore he lost no time in writing to him what Newman has termed " one of his most earnest, weightiest, crushing letters " ; but all in vain, for Newman adds that Lord Melbourne " answered him cleverly and sharply, and did not conceal the great antipathy he felt in consequence towards Pusey." 3 The answer is printed in full in Lord Melbourne s Papers. It was dated February 24, and contains a hint that Pusey 1 Lord Melbourne 's Papers, p. 499. 8 Ibid. p. 501. 8 Newman's Letters, vol. ii. p. 158. 52 HISTORY OF THE HOMEWARD MOVEMENT would do well to clean out his own stables before he attempted to clean those of other persons : " Your principle," he wrote, " would make the opinions of the present Professors the standard of every future appointment. Before persons are chosen on account of the consonance of their tenets with those of the individuals who at present fill the theological chairs, you must admit that we must a little consider what are the tenets of those gentlemen ; and you are very well aware that great alarm has been excited in the minds of many whose authority I respect by certain tenets, which have, I believe, been published anonymously, but with which you are supposed to have had some connection, and which are represented to me to be of a novel character and inconsistent with the hitherto received doctrines of the Church of England. I have not seen the Tracts I refer to, and I should be glad to obtain them ; I only speak from what I hear. I therefore mean to pronounce no opinion upon them." 1 Meanwhile the Committee for resisting Dr. Hampden continued its sittings in Corpus Christi College. They brought before the Heads of Houses a petition asking them to bring before Convocation a censure of the alleged errors of Dr. Hampden. This gentleman, however, heard of the proposal in time, went to the special meeting of the Heads of Houses, and defeated, for the time being, the plot against himself. Writing to his friend, Archbishop Whately, on February 17th, he tells him what occurred." To be continued.