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Page 483

 

483 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Traotarianism

"the fanatical advocate of private judgment," until he followed Newman in 1845, led the extreme right, Keble and Williams the right center, and Perceval the left. The leadership of the Oxford Movement; as a whole, however, devolved, after 1841, on Pusey, partly in consequence of the need of giving a scientific and historical basis to the concepts of the Tractarians to remedy the weakness resulting from their loss of unity.

III. Puseyism: The second period of the Oxford Movement was characterized, 1840-60, by the scientific foundation of the system, and, 1860-70, by the struggle for the recognition of z. Doctrinal Anglo-Catholic doctrine and liturgy in Controversy. the Established Church. Under Pusey's guidance the movement assumed more moderate forms, and, gradually leaving dogmatics, zealously advocated the use of older rituals, closely akin to the Roman, and in the effect of which some rather precipitately with Carlyle foresaw the dissolution of the State Church. The rejection by Oxford of Ward's advocacy of the " non-natural sense " of the Articles upon individual conjecture was a decisive blow to the Tractarians; a result was that some retired, and others went over to the opposition, thus swelling the High-church nucleus. About 150 clerics, among them F. W. Faber (q.v.), and distinguished laymen followed into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845-46. On this turn of events follcwed energetic efforts to effect Romanizing consequences also in the matter of ritual; namely, to replace the wooden communion-table with the stone altar, and, against the spirit if not the letter of the English Prayer-Book, to introduce crucifixes, candles, the piscina, and the like; and as the AngloCatholic leaders stood by without protest, the old cry of " no popery " arose again. While on the one hand the Evangelicals were driven to closer union, the spread of this movement not only over England but into Wales and Scotland threatened the disorganization of the State Church. The doctrinal battles, beginning with 1847, turned upon the essential character of the Holy Church Catholic and its relation to the State, and whether the doctrines of the same are adequately reflected in creed and catechism to answer the necessity of the times. In Dec., 1847, the prime minister, Lord Russell, appointed Hampden to the diocese of Hereford. He was accused by his old opponents of holding unsound doctrines, was opposed by them and thirteen bishops, and rejected by the dean and the chapter, but was triumphantly sustained by the Court of Queen's Bench. The Gorham Case (q.v.), which, in contradiction of the Thirty-nine Articles, involved the denial of spiritual regeneration in connection with baptism, despite the remonstrance of Bishops Philpotts and Blomfield and of more than 1,500 distinguished clergy and laymen, representing the Tractarian trend, resulted in the assertion of the final authority of the crown (the lay instance of the privy council) in matters purely ecclesiastical. [Gorham and his Evangelical supporters maintained that his denial of baptismal regeneration was in accord with the letter and the spirit of the Thirtynine Articles, and in this contention they were sustained by the courts. e. a. rt.] Without the

approval of convocation, then in abeyance, an act of parliament in 1832 transferred the jurisdiction of the delegates to the privy council, and in the following year to a committee of the privy council, the judicial committee, a purely civil body whose members were not necessarily drawn from the clergy. Pusey, deeply incensed, threatened the separation of Church and State, and he and his followers, including Manning, Keble, and the bishops of Oxford, London, and Salisbury, showed their disapproval by the sensational dedication of the Church of St. $arnabas with the display of a considerable Roman pomp. Throughout the country associations were formed for the defense of the church, supported by Non-tractarians and Tractarians alike. A second exodus to Rome began, including H. E. Manning (q.v.), R. J. Wilberforce, H. Dodsworth (Pusey's assistant), and sixty members of a single London church (from 1833 to 1876, 385 clergy). In the latter part of August more than 600 Highchurchmen, many of them belonging to distinguished families, migrated to New Zealand, that they might realize their ideal in the Canterbury Settlement.

A deep sense of fear and hope seized the nation, like the presentiment of an impending fate, threatening, perhaps, a transformation of the religious and moral conditions of life, when, suddenly, in Oct., 1850, the news came to England that Pius IX., in private consistory, had created the Vicar Apostolic Wiseman cardinal and archbishop of Westminster, and had provided England with a Ro-

z. Papal man Catholic hierarchy of twelve dio-

Inter- ceses. The land echoed with agitation ference. and protests, demanding national interference and forcing the Tractarians to declare against the hierarchy, while Lord Russell, who could not but regard the reestablishment of Roman Catholicism in England as a result of his Roman Catholic emancipation, attempted to meet the papal advance by the futile Ecclesiastical Titles Act of Feb., 1851. A series of High-church bishops, like Pusey himself, opposed the Roman presumption sharply. The restoration of convocation, at first declined by the government, was granted in 1852, at least so far as the permission to receive petitions was concerned, which served as a first step toward its complete reestablishment. This was the first triumph for the Oxford movement, which subsequently, by the pure separation of the powers of Church and State, proved a great benefit to both. In the benison controversy, it did not fare so well. G. A. Denison (q.v.), archdeacon of Taunton, was accused of teaching the real presence by virtue of consecration. A decision against him by the archbishop's court was reversed by the Judicial Committee on a formal technicality. The verdict of the archbishop's commission, however, denied the Tractarian claim to read between the lines of the Thirty-nine Articles and appeal to the Fathers of the English Church. Thus, a second time, the contention nearest to the heart of Trams tarianism, the independent jurisdiction of the Church over its own affairs, was set at naught by the interference of the highest temporal court, a blow from which, on the dogmatic side, the Oxford