Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church
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TO
MARTIN JOSEPH ROUTH, D.D.,
PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE,
WHO HAS BEEN RESERVED
TO REPORT TO A FORGETFUL GENERATION
WHAT WAS THE THEOLOGY OF THEIR FATHERS,
THIS VOLUME
IS INSCRIBED,
WITH A RESPECTFUL SENSE
OF HIS EMINENT SERVICES TO THE CHURCH
AND WITH THE PRAYER
THAT WHAT HE WITNESSES TO OTHERS
MAY BE HIS OWN SUPPORT AND PROTECTION
IN THE DAY OF ACCOUNT.
Feb. 24, 1837.
{ix} IT stands to reason that these Volumes must contain various statements, which I am sorry to have made, and which I reproduce at the present time not without pain. Gladly would I obliterate them, but that cannot be; and I have only the alternative of publishing them afresh with what I consider a refutation, or leaving them unanswered to the chance of publication by others at some future time. I have chosen to republish them myself, and perhaps it would be some want of faith in the Truth, or some over-appreciation of my own controversial powers, if I had any dread lest my present explanations in behalf of the Catholic Religion could be inferior in cogency to the charges which I once brought against it.
I repeat here what I wrote in the Advertisement of the recent edition of my Essays:—
"The author cannot destroy what he has once put into print: 'Litera scripta manet.' He might suppress it for a time; but, sooner or later, his {x} power over it will cease. And then, if, either in its matter or its drift, it is adapted to benefit the cause which it was intended to support at the time when it was given to the world, it will be republished, in spite of his later disavowal of it.
"In order to anticipate the chance of its being thus used after his death, the only way open to him is, while living, without altering the original text, to accompany it with additions calculated to explain why it has ceased to approve itself to his own judgment. If he does as much as this, he may reasonably hope, that either no reprint of it will be made hereafter, or that the reprint of his first thoughts will in fairness be allowed to carry with it a reprint of his second. And he is sanguine that he has been able to reduce what is uncatholic in these volumes, whether in argument or statement, to the position of those 'Difficultates' which figure in dogmatic treatises of theology, and which are elaborately drawn out, and set forth to best advantage, in order that they may be the more carefully and satisfactorily answered."
THE ORATORY,
May 26, 1877.
{xi} THE following Volume has grown out of Parochial Lectures delivered on weekdays; and, had its limits admitted, would have embraced the Sacerdotal as well as the Prophetical office of the Church. Great portions of a correspondence which the writer commenced with a learned and zealous member of the Gallican Church are also incorporated in it.
To prevent misconception as to the meaning of the Title-page, he would observe, that by popular Protestantism he only wishes to designate that generalized idea of religion, now in repute, which merges all differences of faith and principle between Protestants as minor matters, as if the larger denominations among us agreed with us in essentials, and differed only in the accidents of form, ritual, government, or usage. Viewed politically, Protestantism is at this day the rallying-point of all that is loyal and high-minded in the nation; but political considerations do not enter into the scope of his work. {xii}
He has endeavoured in all important points of doctrine to guide himself by our standard divines, and, had space admitted, would have selected passages from their writings in evidence of it. Such a collection of Testimonies is almost a duty on the part of every author, who professes, not to strike out new theories, but to build up and fortify what has been committed to us. For specimens of what he here has in view he refers to the Catenę Patrum published in the Tracts for the Times. In the absence of such in this place, he hopes it will not look like presumption to desire to make his own the following noble professions of the great Bramhall.
"No man can justly blame me for honouring my spiritual Mother, the Church of England, in whose womb I was conceived, at whose breasts I was nourished, and in whose bosom I hope to die. Bees, by the instinct of nature, do love their hives, and birds their nests. But, God is my witness, that, according to my uttermost talent and poor understanding, I have endeavoured to set down the naked truth impartially, without either favour or prejudice, the two capital enemies of right judgment. The one of which, like a false mirror, doth represent things fairer and straighter than they are; the other like the tongue infected with choler makes the sweetest meats to taste bitter. My desire hath been to have Truth for {xiii} my chiefest friend, and no enemy but error. If I have had any bias, it hath been my desire of peace, which our common Saviour left as a legacy to His Church, that I might live to see the re-union of Christendom, for which I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not impossible but that this desire of unity may have produced some unwilling error of love, but certainly I am most free from the wilful love of error. In questions of an inferior nature, Christ regards a charitable intention much more than a right opinion.
"Howsoever it be, I submit myself and my poor endeavours, first to the judgment of the Catholic Ecumenical essential Church, which if some of late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the schools as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning it was not so. And if I should mistake the right Catholic Church out of human frailty or ignorance (which, for my part, I have no reason in the world to suspect, yet it is not impossible when the Romanists themselves are divided into five or six several opinions, what this Catholic Church, or what their infallible Judge is), I do implicitly and in the preparation of my mind submit myself to the true Catholic Church, the Spouse of Christ, the mother of the Saints, the Pillar of Truth. And seeing my adherence is firmer to the Infallible {xiv} Rule of Faith, that is, the Holy Scriptures interpreted by the Catholic Church, than to mine own private judgment or opinions, although I should unwittingly fall into an error, yet this cordial submission is an implicit retractation thereof, and I am confident will be so accepted by the Father of Mercies, both from me and all others who seriously and sincerely do seek after peace and truth.
"Likewise I submit myself to the Representative Church, that is, a free General Council, or so General as can be procured; and until then to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a National English Synod. To the determination of all which, and each of these respectively, according to the distinct degree of their authority, I yield a conformity and compliance, or at the least and to the lowest of them, an acquiescence."—Works, p. 141.
ORIEL COLLEGE,
The Feast of St. Matthias, 1837.
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THE VIA MEDIA OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH ILLUSTRATED IN LECTURES, LETTERS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1830 AND 1841 BY JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN IN TWO VOLUMES WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES VOL. I.
NEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1901 |
Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
Copyright © 2007 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. All rights reserved.