4 - Tractarianism as Constructive Assault

Summary

‘No Catholic desires to see the Church of England swept away by an infidel revolution, such as that of 1789 in France. But every Catholic must wish to see it give way year by year, and day by day, under the intellectual and spiritual action of the Catholic Church; and must watch with satisfaction every change, social and political, which weakens its hold on the country.’

Rev. H. E. Manning The Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England: A Letter to the Reverend E. B. Pusey (1864) in England and Christendom 1867 p. 113.

‘It is not the mission of the Church in England to conform itself to the varying currents of intellectual activity, philosophical and religious, which have passed and are still passing over the intelligence of the English people. For three hundred years what was thought to be the liberation of the English intelligence from the bondage of Catholic tradition has issued in what is called the progress of Modern Thought. I have no desire to wound or to offend, but truth must be spoken. There never was a time in the last three centuries when the religious diversities of the English people were so manifold, and the intellectual deviations in the higher education of England from the traditional philosophy of the Christian world so wide or so extreme.’

Rev. H. E. Manning The Office of the Church in Higher Catholic Education: A Pastoral Letter 1885 p. 21.