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Roman Catholicism. The later English Church had

fallen from the faith of the sixteenth century, had

disregarded the Prayer-Book, neg

3. John lected the sacraments, and forsaken

Henry the church discipline. The teaching of

Newman. the apostles and the early Church was

the rule of faith, not the Thirty-nine

Articles, which were no more than protests against

gross errors. As the first Reformation retained the

principles of the ancient Church shorn of their un

sound accretions, so now the Thirty-nine Articles

were not to be revolutionized, but interpreted,

amended, and amplified, and the fundamental

primitive ideas at their basis were to be revived

and further unfolded, as an effective protest

against the amalgamation of Church and State

and the modern latitudinarianism. Alas, how

ever, the via media was nothing else than the old

road to Rome and proved repugnant specially to

the religious sensibility of the nation. The first

blow was dealt by Hampden in 1834, demanding

that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles by

members of the university be dispensed 'with.

Newman, supported by High-churchmen and

Evangelicals alike, violently opposed the recom

mendation, which the university declined. When

two years later Hampden was appointed regius

professor of divinity, the Tractarians again assailed

him, charging that he was a freethinker. He was,

accordingly, condemned by the heads of the col

leges with a vote of no confidence, but the two

proctors of the university vetoed the condemna

tion. At the same time Thomas Arnold, the leader

of the liberal theology at Oxford, sided with Hamp

den, and brought the menace to freedom of con

science to the attention of the lay public, with the

result that in press and pamphlet the dissimulated

aims of the " Malignants " and " Oxford Conspira

tors," were held up to public opprobrium. A tre

mendous gain was made when, in the latter part of

1834, Pusey, one of the most distinguished profes

sors of the university, finally gave the weight and

influence of his name to the party composed hither

to of young men. A power in high ecclesiastical

circles, a scholar of renown, and descendant of a

noble house with wide social connections, he was

eminently fitted for leadership by character, serv

ices, and position. The effort became an organ

ized movement and the adherents were from this

time styled Puseyites. Moderated zeal, dignity, and

discreetness in scientific presentation took the place

of the extravagances and vagaries of the earlier

tracts. His Scriptural Views on Holy Baptism

(Tracts 67-69; 1835) was a solid doctrinal treatise

instead of a series of flighty appeals; and the

Catence patrum (nos. 71, 76, 78, 81) was designed to

prove the historic continuity and the authority of

the early Church. The Roman Catholic Church was

not to be declined as such, since its doctrines were

Scriptural and not contrary to the Thirty-nine

Articles, but because it had violated the spirit of

the Gospel, and had been materialized by the lust

for power. On the other side the matter in hand

was not Romanism, nor even reformulation, but

simply the recognition and securing of the Anglican

doctrine and cult, in their pristine purity, as repre-

senting the native national faith. Meanwhile the Tracts pursued this tendency, leaving behind the via media. Tract 75 recommended the Roman Breviary as a book of devotion, and in Tracts 80, 87 Isaac Williams advocated the doctrine of reservation, holding that the holiest subjects should not be discussed before every one and on every occasion. Such reserve had been observed by Christ and the apostles; and the indiscriminating revelation of all truths of doctrine before the indifferent and unbelieving, like the general distribution of Bibles and tracts, was to be rejected as contrary to esoteric Christianity. Religious ttuth was revealed only to obedient faith, not to speculative investigation; and religious character was formed by the discipline of the Church, not by preaching, study, or piety of life. In Tract 89 Keble defended the mystical exegesis of Scripture employed by patristic allegory, and in Tract 90 Newman, with a subtle sophistication and legal dialectic, advanced the view that Roman Catholic convictions did not preclude subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. The problem was not what the Articles teach, but what they do not reject. What the authors had in mind is immaterial, for they are no authorities. Thus the Articles were neither refuted, attacked, nor was their binding authority denied; but the meaning of their accessories was skilfully changed, and they were supplemented from what they did not state. The supplements were strained to prove that the Articles were directed purely against doctrinal opinions and not against the essential import, and under this view subscription was to be permissive. This tract marked Newman's inner break with his Church.

All Oxford was in commotion, the friends of the movement rejoicing that Roman tenets could find place in the Anglican Church, and its foes filled with indignation that the Thirty-nine Articles, the chief bulwark of the English Church against Rome, were broken down. The terror spread over the whole country, and the old cry of malignancy or moral

depravity was again raised. Both

4. Repres- sides urged that the matter be decided, sion. and finally, in the middle of March, 1841, the vice-chancellor, heads of colleges, and proctors declared their condemnation of the Tracts. Bishop Bagot, of Oxford, hitherto well disposed toward the Tractarians, likewise wrote Newman that Tract 90 was offensive and perilous to the peace of the Church, and that the series could not be continued. To the authority of his bishop Newmann yielded. The unity of the Oxford school was broken by the stern consequences of Tract 90, and in the summer of 1841 Newman, feeling that the Tractarian cause was defeated, and convinced that he must seek peace and truth elsewhere, retired to Littlemore. The proposed Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem brought the struggle within him to an end, and in 1845 he entered the Church of Rome. Individual conversions to the Roman Catholic Church had begun in 1840, and in 1842 the real exodus commenced. The more moderate drew back, others modified their views by excluding Romanizing ideas, and others still sought peace in labors in country parishes. W. G. Ward,