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W. G. Ward and Liberal Catholicism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Victorian religious thinkers were peculiarly concerned with the problem of discovering the origins of religious knowledge and with analysing the correct relationship between that knowledge and contemporary scientific and philosophical developments. Among others, the small group of mid-nineteenth century English Roman Catholics was much given to discussion on the matter. Apart from Acton, the outstanding men concerned—Newman, Manning, Richard Simpson, and William George Ward—were converts from Anglicanism. Considerable attention has been devoted to those who, as Roman Catholics, adopted what is generally (if inaccurately) labelled a ‘liberal’ position.
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page 323 note 1 Apart from Wilfrid Ward's (his son's) excellent two-volume biography, William George Ward and the Oxford Movement, 2nd ed., London 1890Google Scholar and William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, London 1893, only Professor Owen Chadwick's From Bossuet to Newman, Cambridge 1957, 128–38 gives Ward more than passing attentionGoogle Scholar.
page 324 note 1 ‘Two Criticisms of the Dublin Review1, in Dublin Review, N.S., viii (1867), 171.
page 324 note 2 Stanley to C. J. Vaughan, July 1836: in Prothero, R. E., The Life and Correspondence of A. P. Stanley, London 1893, i. 169Google Scholar.
page 324 note 3 ‘Arnold's Sermons’, in British Critic, xxx (1841), 304.
page 324 note 4 Ibid., 335.
page 324 note 5 Ibid., 333.
page 324 note 6 See, Autobiography of Isaac Williams, ed. G. Prevost, London 1892, 85Google Scholar.
page 325 note 1 Ward to Pusey, 23 July 1841: Pusey House Oxford MSS., Chest B, Drawer 7. In 1843 Ward wrote of the Reformation, ‘For unspeakable fanaticism and infatuation, if any event since the Fall can be named in the same breath with it, we are ignorant or unmindful of that event’: ‘Mill's Logic’, in British Critic, xxxiv (1843), 406.
page 325 note 2 Ward to Clough, 23 July [1838]: The Correspondence of A. H. Clough, ed. F. L. Mulhauser, Oxford, 1957, i. 82.
page 325 note 3 ‘Arnold's Sermons’, in British Critic, xxx (1841), 327.
page 325 note 4 Ibid., 329. This is a slightly inaccurate quotation from Newman's Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, London 1837, 190Google Scholar.
page 326 note 1 ‘Goode's Divine Rule’, in British Critic, xxxii (1842), 63Google Scholar.
page 326 note 2 The Ideal of a Christian Church considered in comparison with existing Practice, London 1844, 230–1Google Scholar.
page 326 note 4 Ibid., 482 and 489–91. See also ‘Church Authority’, in British Critic, xxxiii (1842), 214Google Scholar.
page 326 note 5 Tracts for the Times, London 1834–41, v. 85. This is taken from Tract No. 85 published in September 1838. In this edition each tract is separately paginated.
page 327 note 1 Roberts, T. W., ‘Dr. Ward on Intellect’, in Rambler, N.S., vi (1862), 493Google Scholar.
page 327 note 2 Ideal, 497.
page 327 note 3 ‘Whately's Essays’, in British Critic, xxxi (1842), 292–3Google Scholar.
page 327 note 4 ‘Goode's Divine Rule’, in British Critic, xxxii (1842), 50–1. In the same article he asserts, ‘To believe … is the only way to judge’ (83). A similar outlook can be noted in Pusey's Parochial Sermons, London 1878, iii. 302–3; Newman's, University Sermons, London 1843, 176–80Google Scholar; and Froude's, R. H. sermon of 1830 ‘Knowledge of God attainable only by first acting on it’ in Remains, Pt. 1. ii, London 1838, 82–93Google Scholar.
page 327 note 5 ‘Mill's Logic’, in British Critic, xxxiv (1843), 400–401Google Scholar.
page 328 note 1 Ideal, 276–7 and 508.
page 328 note 2 ‘Mill's Logic’, in British Critic, xxxiv (1843), 395 and 411Google Scholar. See also, Ibid., 410: ‘We must claim plainly for moral and religious truth its undoubted privilege of being wholly independent, for its direct evidence, of any experimental or any intellectual support’.
page 328 note 3 Ideal, 262 and 208.
page 328 note 4 Ward to Pusey, 23 July 1841: Pusey House MSS., Chest B, Drawer 7.
page 329 note 1 ‘Athanasius against the Arians’, in British Critic, xxxii (1842), 401Google Scholar; my italics.
page 329 note 2 Ideal, 260 and 333–5.
page 329 note 3 A Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection, considered in two Essays read before the English Academy of the Catholic Religion, London 1862, 4. The following passage from the Ideal (65) is of some interest. Conscience, Ward is saying, must be man's ultimate guide, ‘but when conscience has at its command a minister so active, comprehensive, powerful, and versatile as the intellect, the range of its judgements is infinitely enlarged and the external volume of its dictates infinitely increased’.
page 329 note 4 ‘The Synagogue and the Church’, in British Critic, xxxiv (1843), 38–9Google Scholar.
page 330 note 1 On Nature and Grace, London 1860, xxviGoogle Scholar.
page 330 note 2 The Anglican Establishment… A Second Letter, London 1850, 79.
page 330 note 3 Ideal, 281 and note.
page 330 note 4 Manning to Pusey, March 1845: Pusey House MSS., ‘Manning to Pusey Copies’ No. 19.
page 330 note 5 Ideal, 35.
page 330 note 6 On Nature and Grace, xxii-xxiii.
page 330 note 7 Ward to Newman, [September/October 1845] : Newman MSS. at the Birmingham Oratory, Personal Correspondence ‘Ward’.
page 331 note 1 See Fifteen Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, London 1900, 18–19Google Scholar; An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent, London 1909, 107Google Scholar; and A Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on occasion of Mr. Gladstone's recent Expostulation, London 1875, 6a and 65Google Scholar.
page 331 note 2 Ideal, 509–13.
page 331 note 3 For the history of the Rambler, see Altholz, J. L., The Liberal Catholic Movement in England: the ‘Rambler’ and its Contributors 1848–1864, London 1962Google Scholar.
page 332 note 1 See Ward to Newman, 1 May 1854: Newman MSS., Personal Correspondence ‘Ward’; and ‘Father Newman and the Idea of a University’, in Dublin Review, N.S., xxi (1873), 424.
page 332 note 2 Inaugural Discourse pronounced at the first Meeting of the Academy of the Christian Religion, London 1861Google Scholar, reprinted in Essays on Religion and Literature, ed. H. E. Manning, first series, London 1865, 7–30. The quotation is at 30. Wiseman had long been interested in the task of ‘reconciling’ science and religion. A passage in his Twelve Lectures on the Connection between Science and Religion, London 1836, ii. 285Google Scholar. foreshadows Ward's view on the maintenance of personal faith: ‘When we have once embraced true religion, its motives or evidences need no longer be sought in the reasonings of books; they become incorporated with our holiest affections’.
page 332 note 3 The circular, dated Easter 1861, is reprinted in Essays on Religion and Literature, v-viii.
page 332 note 4 Acton to Simpson, 20 November 1861: Simpson MSS. at Downside Abbey, Somerset.
page 333 note 1 Simpson to Acton, 21 November [1861]: Acton MSS. in the possession of Mr. Douglas Woodruff.
page 333 note 2 Acton to Döllinger, 6 December 1861, in Ignaz von Döllinger —Lord Acton Briefwechsel 1850–1890, ed. V. Conzemius, Munich 1963–71, i. 231; translated from the German.
page 334 note 1 A Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection, 39, 46–7, 10–11.
page 334 note 2 Ward to Simpson, 15 February 1858: Simpson MSS. at Downside Abbey.
page 334 note 3 Ward to Newman, Mid-Lent 1859: Ward MSS. in the possession of Rev. Damian McElrath O.F.M. Printed in Ward, W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival, 451–2.
page 334 note 4 Simpson to Acton, 22 January 1862: Acton MSS.
page 334 note 5 ‘Dr. Ward on Intellect’, in Rambler, vi (1862), 487, 493Google Scholar.
page 335 note 1 The Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection further considered, London 1862, 3, 43, 46Google Scholar.
page 335 note 2 Correspondence between the Rev. Fr. Roberts and Dr. Ward on the Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection, London 1862, 10, 15Google Scholar.
page 335 note 3 Newman to Ward, 15 March 1862: Ward, W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival, 197–9.
page 335 note 4 Newman to Ward, 16 March 1862: Newman MSS., Personal Correspondence ‘Ward’.
page 335 note 5 The Idea of a University, London 1929, 184–5Google Scholar.
page 336 note 1 On Nature and Grace, 294.
page 336 note 2 University Sermons, London 1900, 257Google Scholar.
page 336 note 3 From a MS. volume entitled ‘Historical Sketch’ among the Simpson MSS., 283.
page 336 note 4 Acton to Simpson, [23 January 1861]: Simpson MSS.
page 337 note 1 ‘Goode's Divine Rule’, in British Critic, xxxii (184.2), 46.
page 337 note 2 ‘The Synagogue and the Church’, in British Critic, xxxiv (1843), 3–4. Even bishop Bull (1634–1710), so much admired by many Tractarians, was, for Ward, too historical and insufficiently didactic in his theology. See ‘Athanasius against the Arians’, in British Critic, xxxii (1842), 401–2.
page 337 note 3 Ideal, 92–3, and ‘Athanasius against the Arians’, op. cit., 407.
page 337 note 4 Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 5527, fol. 70 and MS. 5528, fols. 49–50. (These form part of a large collection of notes and jottings made by Acton.) It is not possible here to provide a detailed account of the (often changing and not always consistent) views of Acton and Newman on the matter in hand. The literature is considerable. See especially Culler, A. D., The Imperial Intellect, New Haven 1955, chaps. 11—13Google Scholar; Bokenkotter, T. S., Cardinal Newman as an Historian, Louvain 1959Google Scholar; MacDougall, H. A., The Acton-Newman Relations, New York 1962Google Scholar, especially chap. 8; Kochan, L., Acton on History, London 1954Google Scholar; Altholz, J. L., The Liberal Catholic Movement in England, London 1962Google Scholar; Altholz, J. L., ‘Newman and History’, in Victorian Studies, vii (1964), 285–94Google Scholar, with a criticism by J. D. Holmes in Ibid., viii (1965), 271–7; and [J]. D. Holmes, ‘Cardinal Newman and the Study of History’, in Dublin Review, No. 239 (1965), 17–31.
page 338 note 1 Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 5528 (loose papers).
page 338 note 2 Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 4969, 298 and The History of Freedom and other Essays by J. E. E. D. Acton, ed. J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, London 1907, 380.
page 338 note 3 The Idea of a University, 95.
page 338 note 4 A Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, 104–5. Newman continues, ‘He who believes the dogmas of the church only because he has reasoned them out of history is scarcely a Catholic’. The reference to Dollinger, who is not mentioned by name, is implicit. Note however Newman's remark of 1864 concerning the possible foundation of a Catholic historical journal—’Unless one doctored all one's facts one would be thought a bad Catholic’: Ward, Life of Newman, i. 572.
page 338 note 5 ‘Archbishop Manning on the Centenary’, in Dublin Review, N.S., x (1868), 57Google Scholar.
page 338 note 6 Anton Günther (1783–1863) held that the human reason can prove scientifically the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation and that there is no real cleavage between supernatural and natural truth. By a form of ontological argument he maintained that the existence of God can be deduced from an analysis of self-consciousness.
page 338 note 7 The Anglican Establishment, London 1850, 9Google Scholar.
page 339 note 1 On Nature and Grace, xviii-xix.
page 339 note 2 Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 4969, fol. 213 and Acton to Simpson, 8 March 1859: Simpson MSS., printed in Butterfield, H. and Watkin, A., ‘Gasquet and the Acton-Simpson Correspondence’, in Cambridge Historical Journal, x (1950), 82Google Scholar.
page 339 note 3 A Letter on the ‘Rambler’ and the ‘Home and Foreign Review’, London 1862, 27Google Scholar. Simpson's articles can be found in Rambler, v (1861), 166–90 and 326–46.
page 339 note 4 Rome and the Catholic Episcopate, London 1862, 26–7Google Scholar.
page 339 note 5 ‘Cardinal Wiseman and the Home and Foreign Review’, in Home and Foreign Review, i (1862), 512. Ullatthorne (A Letter on the ‘Rambler’, 8) called this ‘a moral theory that is utterly unknown in the teaching of the church’.
page 339 note 6 Ward to Newman, 24 November 1862: Newman MSS., ‘Rambler’ File.
page 340 note 1 Apologia pro Vita Sua, ed. M. J. Svaglic, Oxford 1967, 233.
page 340 note 2 In a letter to the Athenaeum, 28 May 1864, 744.
page 340 note 3 Verhandlungen der Versammlung katholischer Gelehrter in München, Regensburg 1863, 58Google Scholar; translated from the German.
page 341 note 1 ‘Rome and the Munich Congress’, in Dublin Review, N.S., iii (1864), 96 and 87–8.
page 341 note 2 Quoted by Ward, Ibid., 90.
page 341 note 3 ‘The Encyclical and the Syllabus’, in Dublin Review, N.S., iv (1865), 458Google Scholar.
page 342 note 1 Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 5609.
page 342 note 2 ‘Archbishop Manning on the Centenary’, in Dublin Review, N.S., x (1868), 50Google Scholar.
page 342 note 3 ‘The Coming Council’, in Dublin Review, N.S., xi (1868), 514Google Scholar.
page 342 note 4 Acton to Döllinger, [10 July 1868]: Döllinger-Acton Briefwechsel, ed. Conzemius, i. 506; translated from the German.
page 342 note 5 Acton to Gladstone, 1 January 1870: British Museum Add. MS. 44093, 103v-104. He continues, ‘We have to meet an organized conspiracy to establish a power which would be the most formidable enemy of liberty as well as of science throughout the world’. This letter is printed in Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, ed. J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, London 1917, 89–97.
page 342 note 6 Quirinus, , Letters from Rome on the Council, London 1870, 443Google Scholar; letter of 15 April 1870. This is an authorised English translation of letters, some of them by Acton, written to Dollinger during the council; my italics.
page 343 note 1 The decrees of the third session are printed in MacGregor, G., The Vatican Revolution, London 1958, 146–79Google Scholar.
page 343 note 2 ‘The Definition of Papal Infallibility’, in Dublin Review, N.S., xvi (1871), 171Google Scholar.
page 343 note 3 ‘Tradition and Papal Infallibility’, in Dublin Review, N.S., xxxvi (1876), 278Google Scholar.
page 344 note 1 Ryder to Newman, 17 July 1866: Newman MSS., ‘Pusey's Eirenicon’ File.
page 344 note 2 Manning, H. E., The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, 3rd ed. London 1877, 238Google Scholar (The preface is dated July 1865). Acton noted this remark in Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 5463, 14.
page 344 note 3 This is a remark of Acton's about Newman. Professor Owen Chadwick in From Bossuet to Newman, Cambridge, 1957, 129 and 138Google Scholar, argues that it is not applicable to Newman. It is however certainly applicable to Ward.