FATHER NEWMAN'S LECTURES ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF CATHOLICS IN
ENGLAND.*
POSITIVE judgment cannot be passed upon a work till it is com- pleted ; but the three lectures before us are inferior to those which Father Newman addressed to Tractarians on the propriety of quitting the English Church. There is always the author's clear and flowing style, occasionally his vivid feeling, his poetical rich- nets, his keen observation, and his judicious thought upon what ' he observes. But the matter is loose and light, the logic incon- clusive, the array of instances insufficient and partial, the effect poor for the lecturer's purpose.
His object is to account for the odium of Romanism in England. The first lecture is devoted to giving Father Newman's idea of " the Protestant view of the Catholic Church" ; the second ascribes this view to " tradition " ; the third asserts that " fable " is the " basis of this Protestant view." In the first. lecture, the author paints with some literary cleverness, but with much exaggeration, the self-satisfied ignorance of the vulgar Exeter Hall idea of Popery; expands, at a length that would be tedious were it not for the chaste richness of the composition, the fable of the man and the lion' (where the positions would have been represented differently "had a lion been the artist,") and of course represents the Papists as the ill-used king of beasts : the lecture concludes with an absurd parody on the meetings against Papal aggression, in the form of a Russian's speech against the British nation and constitution, wherein he distorts and misquotes after the alleged fashion of Protestant orators. The second and third lectures are on the same subjects. According to Dr. Newman Protestantism cannot stand alone ; as is shown in the cases of Lutheranism and Calvinism. It can only be upheld when connected with the state. This the authors of the Reformation well knew ; so they contrived an establishment which united with itself the most influential classes of English society and the best feelings and prejudices of the English people, making loyalty and nationality consist in the Protestant religion represented by the Sovereign. They also founded what Dr. Newman terms the " tra- ditiont but by which he means a national prejudice against Popery. There is, of course, much absurdity and assumption in this notion of a few men, not really very clear in their own theology, attempt- ing and accomplishing an undertaking like this. Newman, how- ever, allows that the "sagacious intellects which were the ruling spirits of the English Reformation" were very fortunate in one point : they began their projects about the time of the revival of learning, and Protestantism has had all the power of English lite- rature with it ever since.
"It was surely a most lucky accident for the young religion, that, while the English language was coming to the birth with its special attributes of nerve, simplicity, and vigour, at its very first breathings Protestantssui was at hand to form it upon its own theological patois, and to educate it as the mouthpiece of its tradition. So, however, it was to be; and soon,
'As in this bad world below Noblest things find vilest using,'
the new religion employed the new language for its purposes, in a great un- dertaking, the translation of its own Bible; a work which, by the purity of its diction and the strength and harmony of its style, has deservedly become the very model of good English, and the standard of the language to all fu- ture times. 'The same age which saw this great literary achievement, gave birth to some of the greatest masters of thought and composition in the most various departments of authorship. Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Bacon, and Hooker, are its own ; and they were, withal, more or less the panegyrists of Elizabeth and her religion, and moreover, at least the ma- jority of them, adherents of her creed, because already clients of her throne. The mother of the Reformation is, in the verses of Shakspeare, a fair vestal throned by the West ' ; in the poem of Spenser, she is the Easy Queen, Gloriana, and the fair huntress, Belphebe, while the militant Chris- tian is rescued from the seductions of Popery, Duessa, by Una, the True Church, or Protestant religion. The works of these celebrated men have been but the beginning of a long series of creations of the highest order of literary merit, of which Protestantism is the intellectual basis, and Pro- testant institutions the informing object. What was wanting to lead the national mind a willing captive to the pretensions of Protestantism, beyond the fascination of genius so manifold and so various ? What need of con- troversy to refute the claims of Catholicism ? what need of closeness of rea- soning or research into facts, when under a Queen's smile this vast and con- tinuous tradition had been unrolled before the eyes of men, illuminate with the most dazzling colours, and musical with the most subduing strains? Certainly the lions' artists, even had they had the fairest play, could have set up no rival exhibition as original and as exuberant as this. "Nor was it court poets alone, as time went on, who swelled the torrent of the Protestant tradition. Milton from the middle class, and Bunyan from among the populace, exerted an influence superior to Shakapeare himself, whose great mind did not condescend to the direct inculcation of a private or a sectarian creed. Their phrases, their sentiments, are the household words of the nation ; they have become its interpreters of Scripture, and I may say its prophets—such is the magical eloquence of their compositions ; so much so that I really shall not be far from the mark in saying of them, nay of Shalispeare too, that the ordinary run of men find it very difficult to deter- mine, in respect to the proverbs, instances, maxims, and half-sentenees which are in the nation's mouth, which and how much is from the Bible, and how much from the authors I have mentioned. There is a saying,
Give me the framing of a nation's proverbs and I Shall 'have my own way
• Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England. Addressed to the Brothers of the Oratory. By John Henry Newman, D.D., Priest of the Congrega- tion of St. Philip Ne.i Lecturest II. III. Published by Burns and Lambert. with it' : this has been strikingly fulfilled in the Protestantism of England. What, indeed, could possibly stand against the rush and vehemence of such a tradition, which has grown fuller and fuller and more and more impetuous with every successive quarter of a century ? Clarendon and the statesmen, Locke and philosophy, Addison and the essayists, Hume, Robertson, and the historians, Cowper and the minor poets, the reviews and magazines of the present ism, all proceed upon the hypothesis, which they think tooself-evi- aent for proof, that Protestantism is synonymous with good sense, and Ca- tholicism with weakness of mind, fanaticism, or some unaccountable persua- sion or fancy. Verse and prose, grave and gay, the scientific and the prac- tical, history and fable, all is animated spontaneously or imperiously sub- dued by the spirit of Henry and Elizabeth. I say ' imperiously subdued,' because the tradition of Protestantism is strong enough not only to recom- mend but to force its reception on each successive generation of authors. It compels when it cannot persuade. There is Alexander Pope, a Catholic, and who would discover it from the run of his poems? There is Samuel John- son, born a Protestant, yearning for the Catholic Church, and bursting out into _fitful defences of portions of her doctrine and discipline, yet professing to the last that very Protestantism which could neither command his affec- tions nor cure his infirmities. And in our own time there was Walter Scott, ashamed of his own Catholic tendencies, and cowerins.' before the jealous frown of the tyrant tradition. There was Wordsworth, obliged to do pe- nance for Catholic sonnets by Anti-Catholic complements to them. Scott must plead antiquarianism in extenuation of his prevarication ; Wordsworth must plead Pantheism; and Burke, again, political necessity. Liberalism, scepticism, infidelity, these must be the venial errors, under plea of which a writer escapes reprobation for the enormity of feeline.' tenderly to- ward the religion of his fathers and of his neighbours around him. It la- bours under a proscription of three centuries, and it is outlawed by imme- morial custom.'
A few more passages of power equal to the above will be found in the lectures, with several observations displaying that sym- pathy with living affairs which distinguishes Newman from the mass of theologians. There is much cleverness, too, in the quiet showing-up of some weak points in the -vulgar opponents of the Romanists ; but as a whole, the lectures are weak, and will answer no other purpose, we fancy, than salving the sores of his own party.
The controversial eharacteristic of the lectures is plausible and priestly assurance. Originally intended for delivery where the orator could meet with no contradiction, the lectures display that happy confidence which distinguishes princes and parsons. Father Newman ignores everything that might be advanced against him ; in his own logic he substitutes the particular for the universal, in a manner which one might have thought too gross even for the "Brothers of the Oratory." In England a bad opinion is enter- tained of the J-esuits. Dr. Newman deems this sufficiently over- thrown by a quotation from Blanco White, speaking well of them in Spain ; as if a witness could disprove more than fell within his own observation, which must be very limited even in one age and nation, and which is no evidence of other countries and other times. The popular Protestant notion is very harsh in its estimate of the monks of past ages, and its censure is perhaps absurdly ex- aggerated; but this is not the question. Dr. Newman has brought his mind to believe that he can refute this notion by applying to conduct of more than a thousand years a quotation from the Ger- man Protestant Neander, which it turns out refers to a particular period in primitive Christianity, and some of -which applies not to the conduct of the monks but the rules of an or- der. We think, too, he assumes more ignorance among the people of England in reference to Popery than would really be found. Of course the populace could render no reason of their own for their dislike of Popery, and not much reason of any kind. Phi- losophers and scholars who should have gone over the history and theology of the subjects for themselves, have apportioned exactly the uselessness and the utility, the merit and the demerit, of the Romish Church, are of necessity rare ; but we think that many per- sons would give more apt answers than Dr. Newman assumes. They -could point to the crusades against the Albigenses and the Waldenses with their brutal and bloody atrocities ; they could mention the Inquisition with its tortures and its religious mur- ders; they could point to the fires of Constance and of Smithfield, to the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the Gunpowder Plot, to the assassination conspiracies against Elizabeth and the instigation of the Armada ; nay, we are not even sure but they might quote as a blasphemy something identical with this passage from Father Newman's third lecture.
"It is true the Church has the power of forgiving sins also, [i. e. as well as granting indulgences,] which I shall speak of directly, but this is by a different instrument, and by a totally different process, as every Catholic knows.
"I repeat, the Catholic who perpetrates any serious sin offends his Maker and offends his ecclesiastical society ; the injury against his Maker is pun- ished by an ipso facto separation from His favour ; the injury against his society, when it is visited at all, is 'visited by excommunication or other spiritual infliction. The successor of St. Peter has the power committed to him of pardoning both offences, the oft-ace against God and the opnee against the church; he is the ultimate source of all jurisdiction, whether external or internal."
We do not here affirm that the instances of the Protestant would be conclusive • we do not enter into the theological dispute at all. We only say these facts influence the minds of many, instead of the inane phrases the lecturer puts into their mouths.
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