The Oxford Movement by R.W. Church

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"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is
condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the
reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the
prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection
against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the
existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by
the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid
emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers
in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in
order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the
palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city,
while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The
pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and
most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833.
"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that
whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is
immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could
stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_
Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs
had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house
in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in
the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the
Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject
in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of
Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such
distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the
day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in
diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the
Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply
offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was
reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had
gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of
the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt
affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her
prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that
if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in
the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue
her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still
I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the
Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic,
set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and
organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with
strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation."

"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I
should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could
secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of
Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they
were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they
were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions. He
had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to
trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time
to stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon
him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so
cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That
_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is
done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the
imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely
from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose.

"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was
obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these
general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that
suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have
been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence
Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for
some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford.
Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought
out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the
policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of
Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as
possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more
uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted.
"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated
to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest
uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown
power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an
establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in
most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted
with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts
made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to
alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which
include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal
statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and
assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious
criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely
remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and
discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been
ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things
more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a
reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of
the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for
the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the
paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade
them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their
affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes
of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who
is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of
separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came
to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude
objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had
a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And
thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of
influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But
the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the
country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy.
In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury
was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the
business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble
of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would
cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified
clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of
the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with
the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834.
It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master
of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr.
Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were
difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too
much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid
aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the
State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this
form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the
Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr.
Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide,
which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45]
There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external
position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It
rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and
more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of
the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these
addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted
in its favour.

Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on
in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of
things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and
confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober
institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular
mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder
tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished,
only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which
he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have
made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel
men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural
centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more
spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith
in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of
committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be
done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon
showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be
written.

For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel
men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning,
than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits;
they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the
times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they
thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and
half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence.
They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from
their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were
indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by
selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes
men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no
peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and
addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the
country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be
got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision
and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to
write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man
should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and
sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of
the Church.

And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr.
Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr.
Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was;
it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for,
or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford
Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which
all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in
the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been
begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in
daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an
institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of
habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence,
in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though
tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious
action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the
minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of
good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their
efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general
respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a
great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and
taking its character and name from them.

But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from
anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern
appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without
rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid
utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first
one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head
begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has
himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home
regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he
never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to
him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I
had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been
dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had
a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive
Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of
the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican
formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had
well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the
last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second
Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the
sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for
the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too
late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property
was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable
occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else
to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection
of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the
_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears
out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper
receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September
1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening
words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most
of the present generation.

TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST
AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.

FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and
therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by
speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very
evil, yet no one speaks against them.

Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform
nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is
come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and
seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to
draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our
blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and
prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all
may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the
state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it.

Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to
stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them?
Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped;
indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to
deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their
high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as
far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed
termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and
martyrdom.

To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high
privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the
SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet
surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence;
and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to
St. Paul.

Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address
you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as
to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and
substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention
which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your
birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these
secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is
not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the
state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the
Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their
Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of
the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a
greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided
by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound
words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our
influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very
office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_
it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of
life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes
by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be
so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority
when the State deserts us?

Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the
attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us
oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are
some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion;
others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success;
and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last
case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the
real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT.

We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to
His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should
succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has
been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as
their assistants, and in some sense representatives.

Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny
they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently,
practically impressed on their minds.

They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination
Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season
of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and
impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made
ministers of Christ's Church.

The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority
to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto
thee: In the name, etc."

And the Priesthood thus:

"Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the
Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.
Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou
dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of
the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc."

These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we
were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know
the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in
any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the
Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have
confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave
us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to
administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give
these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which
would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish
(which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather
indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean
nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he
any right, except as having received the power from those who
consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never
received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the
Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power
of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the
Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and
therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of
our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL
SUCCESSION.

And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be
_really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination
is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine
ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_,
must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments
are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in
the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_
means.

I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the
subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words
do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly
time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for
their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder
inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all
services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of
speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly?

Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not
be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of
the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift
of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep
it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that
secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or
rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your
gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be
still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by
the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high
source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both
as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from
your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your
power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it
lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically
the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a
notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results,
acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests
of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our
Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and
the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained
by them to take part in their Ministry.

But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to
you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE
YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part.
_Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other
party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is
decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find
themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove
themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in
troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT
GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.

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