Newman's Approach to the Church

Extract

The first of the Tracts for the Times, published in Sep tember, 1833, and entitled Thoughts on the Ministerial Commission respectfully addressed to the Clergy, was devoted to the proclamation of the chief of those truths which it was the special aim of the Tracts to enforce. ‘There are some,’ Newman therein wrote, ‘who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; 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 authority is built—our apostolic descent . . . [the many] have been deluded into a notion that present palpable usefulness, produceable 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.’

The leaders of the Tractarian Movement were not, as some seem to imagine, ardent Ritualists, if by that term we mean men enamoured of ritual for its own sake. They were on the whole distinguished by soberness in their use of ritual. What they were seeking primarily was to renew and to deepen the supernatural Christian life of the members of the Church of England. For this it was necessary to be sure of the possession of two things—the revealed truth and the ordinary means of grace, both committed to the Apostles.