Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/412

 OXFORD

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OXFORD

tfiat was Roman with all that was Cathohc; and pro- ceeded to apply this test to the Church of I'ji^laiid, which coukl ill bear it. Rome satisfied the coiiditidiis of what a Church ought to be; the EstaMishnieut shamefully neglected its duties as a "guardian of mo- rality" and a "teacher of orthodoxy". It ignored the supernatural ; it allowed ethics to be thrown over- board by it.i doctrine of justification without works; it had no real Saints because it neither commended nor practised the counsels of perfection; it was a schis- matic body which ought humbly to sue for pardon at the feet of the true Bride of Christ. To evade the spirit of the Articles while subscribing them, where necessary, in a "non-natural" sense, was the only alternative Ward could allow to breaking with Anghcanism alto- gether. Unlike Newman, who aimed at reconciling differences, and to whom the Lutheran formula was but "a paradox or a truism", Ward repudiated the "solifidian" view as an outrageon the Divine sanctity; it was "a type of .-Vntichrist", and in sound reason no better than Atheism. So his "relentless and dissolv- ing logic" made any Via Media between Cathohcs and Protestants impossible. The very heart of the Eliza- bethan compromise he phicked out. His language was diffuse, his st3'le hea\'j', his manner to the last degree provoking. But whereas "Tract 90" did not really state, and made no attempt to resolve, the question at issue, Ward's "Ideal" swept away ambiguous terms and hollow reconcilements; it contrasted, however clumsily, the types of saintliness which were in dis- pute; it claimed for the Catholic standard not tolera- tion but supremacy; and it put the Church of England on its knees before Rome.

How could Oxford or the clergy endure such a les- son? So complete a change of attitude on the part, of Englishmen, haughtily erect on the ruins of the old religion, was not to be dreamt of. This, then, was what "Tract 90" had in view with its subtleties and subterfuges — a second Cardinal Pole absolving the nation as it lay in the dust, penitent. The result, says Dean Stanley, was "the greatest explosion of theologi- cal apprehension and animosity" known to his time. Not even the tract had excited a more immediate or a more powerful sensation. Ward's challenge must be taken up. He claimed, as a priest in the Church of England, to hold (though not as yet to teach) the "whole cycle of Roman doctrine". Newman had never done so; even in 1S44 he was not fully acquies- cent on all the points he had once controverted. He would never have written the "Ideal"; much of it to him read like a theory. But in Oxford the authorities, who were acting as if with synodical powers, submitted to Convocation in Dec, 1844, three measures: (1) to condemn Ward's book; (2) to degrade the author by taking away his university degrees; and (3) to compel under pain of ex-pulsion, everj* one who subscribed the Articles to declare that he held them in the sense in which "they were both first published and were now imposed by the university".

Had the penalty on Ward, vindictive and childish as it now appears, stood alone, few would have minded it. Even Newman wrote in Jan., 1845, to J. B. Moz- ley, "Before the Test was sure of rejection, Ward had no claims on anyone". But over that "Test" a wild shriek arose. Liberals would be affected by it as surely as Tractarians. Tait, one of the "Four Tu- tors', Maurice, the broadest of Broad Churchmen, Professor Donkin, most intellectual of writers belong- ing to the same school, came forward to resist the im- position and to .shield "Tract 90", on the principle of "Latitude." Stanley and another obtained counsel's opinion from a future lord chancellor that the Test was illegal. On 2.3 Jan., they i)ubli.«hed his conclusion, and that very day the proposal wa,s withdrawn. But on 25 Jan., the date in 1841 of "Tract 00" it.self, a for- mal censure on the tract, to be brought up in the ap- proaching Convocation, was recommended to voters

by a circular emanating from Faussett and Ellerton. This anathema received between four and live hundred signatures in private, but was kcpl behind the scenes mitil 4 Feb. The hebdomadal board, in u frenzy of excitement, ado]5ted it amid i)rotests from the Pusey- ites and from Liberals of Stanley's tyi)e. Stanley's words during the ttmmlt made a famous hit. In a broadside he exclaimed, " The wheel is come full circle. The victors of 1836 are the victims of 1845. The vic- tims of 1845 are the victors of 1836. The assailants are the assailed. The assailed are the assailants. The condemned are the condemnors. The condemners are the condemned. The wheel is come full circle. How soon may it come round again? " A comment on this "fugitive prophecy" was to be afforded in the Gorham case, in that of "Essays and Reviews", in the dispute over Colenso, and in the long and vexatious lawsuits arising out of Ritualism. The endeavour was made to break every school of doctrine in succes- sion on this wheel, but always at length in vain.

Convocation met in a snowstorm on 13 Feb., 1845. It was the last day of the Oxford Movement. Ward asked to defend himself in English before the vast assembly which crowded into the Sheldonian Theatre. He spoke with vigour and ability, declaring "twenty times over" that he held all the articles of the Roman Church. Amid cries and counter-cries the votes were taken. The first, which condemned his "Ideal", was carried by 777 to 386. The second, which deprived him of university standing, by 569 to 511. When the vice-chancellor put the third, which was to annihilate Newman and "Tract 90", the proctors rose, and in a voice that rang like a trumpet Mr. Guillemard of Trinity, the senior, uttered their "Non placet". This was fatal to the decree, and in the event to that oligarchy which had long ruled over O.xford. New- man gave no sign. But his reticence boded nothing good to the Anglican cause. The University repu- diated his followers and they broke into detachments, the many lingering behind with Keble or Pusey ; others, and among them Mark Pattison, a tragic instance, lapsing into various forms of modern unbelief; while the genuine Roman group, Faber, Dalgairns, Oakeley, Northcote, Seager, Morris, and a long stream of suc- cessors, became Catholics. They left the Liberal party to triumph in Oxford and to remould the Univer- sity. If 13 Feb., 1845, was the "Dies Ira;" of Tracta- rian hopes, it saw the final discomfiture of the Evangeli- cals. Henceforth, all parties in the National Church were compelled to "revise the very foundations of their religion". Dogma had taken refuge in Rome.

In April, 1845, the country was excited by Sir R. Peel's proposals for the larger endowment of May- nooth (see Macaulay's admirable speech on the oc- casion). In June, Sir H. Jenner Fust, Dean of Arches, condemned Oakeley of Margaret Street chapel for holding the like doctrines with Ward, who was already married and early in September was received into the Church. Newman resigned his Oriel fellowship, held since 1822, at the beginning of October. He did not wait to finish the "Development"; but on the feast of St. Denys, 9 Oct., made his profession of the Catholic Faith to Father Dominic at Littlemore. The Church of England "reeled under the shock". Deep silence, as of stupor, followed the clamours and long agonies of the past twelve years. The Via Media swerved aside, becoming less theoretical and less learned, always wa- vering between the old Anglican and the new Roman road, but gradually drawing nearer to the Roman. Its headquarters were in London, Leeds, and Brighton, no longer in Oxford.

But an "aftermath" of disputes, and of conver.sions in the year 1851, remains to be noticed. On 15 Nov., 1847, the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, nomi- nated to the See of Hereford the "stormy petrel" of those controversies. Dr. Hampden. He did so "to strengthen the Protestant character of our