Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott Part 1

Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott.

by Robert Ornsby.

VOL 2.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1841-1842.

Mr. Hope's Pamphlet on the Jerusalem Bishopric--His Value for the Canon Law--Continued Correspondence of Mr. Hope and Mr. Newman on the Jerusalem Bishopric--Mr. Newman's Idea of a Monastery--Mr. Newman writes from Littlemore, April 22, 1842--Dr. Pusey consults Mr. Hope on his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury--Dr. Pusey and the Jerusalem Bishopric-- Letters of Archdeacon Manning, Mr. W. Palmer, Sir John T. Coleridge, Sir F.

Palgrave, Bishop Philpotts, and Count Senfft, on Mr. Hope's Pamphlet.

Two days after the date of the letter to Lady Henry Kerr, given in the preceding chapter (Dec. 20, 1841), took place the publication of Mr. Hope's pamphlet on the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem. It may be described as a learned and very closely reasoned argument against the measure; and a dry (even if correct) a.n.a.lysis of it would be of little biographical interest, especially as Mr. Hope's views on the question have already been abundantly ill.u.s.trated from unpublished materials. I therefore refer those of my readers who wish for more extended information to the pamphlet itself, but shall quote from the Postscript to the second edition [Footnote: _The Bishopric of the United Church of England and Ireland at Jerusalem_, considered in a Letter to a Friend, by James R. Hope, B.C.L., Scholar of Merton, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury.

Second edition, revised, with a Postscript. London: C.J. Stewart. 1842.] an eloquent pa.s.sage on Canon Law, which is as characteristic of the writer as anything I have yet been able to produce, and exhibits, I think, in a striking manner how singularly this austere subject const.i.tuted at the time the poetry of his life, and how largely the conflict between the principles of Catholic jurisprudence and Anglicanism must have influenced the reflections which ended in his conversion. Mr. Hope here refers to some remarks on his pamphlet which had appeared in one by the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, ent.i.tled 'Three Letters to the Rev. W. Palmer, &c.'

(Rivington: 1842).

_Value of the Science of Canon Law._

[Mr. Maurice] sets all lawyers at nought, and canonists he utterly despises. Hastily, indeed, I think, and for the purpose of the moment only, can he have given way to such feelings, for he needs not that I should tell him that the Church of Christ rests not upon speculative truth alone, but upon the positive inst.i.tutions of our Lord and His Apostles. Surely, then, to trace those inst.i.tutions from the lowest point at which they come into contact with human existence, up to the highest to which our eye can follow them, the point of union with the unseen world in which they take their rise, and from which they are the channels of grace and truth and authority to the souls of men--to trace, I say, the outward and the visible signs of sacraments, of polity, of discipline, up to the inward spiritual realities upon which they depend, which they impart and represent to faith, or shelter from profanation; to study the workings of the hidden life of the Church by those developments which, in all ages and countries, have been its necessary modes of access to human feeling and apprehension; to systematise the end gained; to learn what is universal, what partial, what temporary, what eternal, what presently obligatory, and wherefore; surely a science such as this, so n.o.ble in its object, so important in its practical bearings upon the unity and purity of the Church, and upon her relations to the temporal power, is not one of which Mr. Maurice would deliberately speak evil. Yet this is the science of the canonist. [Footnote: Mr. Hope's pamphlet on the _Jerusalem Bishopric_, 2nd ed., p. 55.]

There are still portions of his correspondence with Mr. Newman, belonging to the same period and subject, which must not be withheld:--

_J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Rev. J. H. Newman._

6 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn: December 21, 1841.

Dear Newman,--Your speedy reply and return of my proofs was very kind. The _hard_ pa.s.sages I did not know how to make easy, as they are pure law, so have left them.... I hear that the Bishop of London refused a man orders last week on three points--Eucharistic sacrifice in _any sense_, real presence in elements, grace in orders. The second point (being also the Bishop of Winchester's) I have ill.u.s.trated in a note to my pamphlet (very briefly) by reference to Augsburg Confession.

You see the young Prince is to have a R. Catholic sponsor on one hand, and the King of Prussia on the other. This is a good balance, though the Canon tolerates neither....

Ever yours,

J. K. HOPE.

_The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq._

My dear Hope,--... You take the canons of 1603 as _legal authority_, I see. This has been a bone in my throat. I _wish_ them to show the animus of our Church, but directly you make them authority, the unhappy Ward is _ipso facto_ excommunicate for having been to Oscott, until he repent of his wicked error. But there is no resisting law.

Palmer's 'Aids to Reflection' contain some very valuable doc.u.ments.

What the Bishops are doing is most serious, as well as unjustifiable, as I think. Really one does not know but they may meet in council and bring out some tests which will have the effect forthwith of precipitating us, and leaving the Church clean Protestant. Pray, does a _majority_ bind in such a council? I mean in the way of canons. Can a majority determine the doctrine of the Church? If so, we had need look out for cheap lodgings....

Ever yours,

John H. Newman.

Oriel College: December 23, 1841.

_J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Rev. J. H. Newman._

Palace, Salisbury: December 31, 1841.

Dear Newman,--I am again settled here for ten days or so.... As to the Bishops meeting and making tests, they can _in law_ do nothing, except in Convocation, with the Presbyters and under licence of the Crown. They may, however, as heads of dioceses, agree to enforce particular things, but there is not, I think, sufficient unity amongst them at present to allow of this. The Jerusalem business I hope is yet to be of good service to us, by rallying men of various shades against it, and by making the Bishops stand up against what cannot be called otherwise than usurpation of their rights by the Archbishop and the Bishop of London. The Bishop of Exeter, in acknowledging (to Badeley) the receipt of my pamphlet, says:--

'Would that those who direct proceedings of this hazardous and most questionable character may take warning from the effects of their inconsiderateness on this occasion! I doubt whether any three Bishops were consulted, or even informed, before the measure was completed.' This looks, I think, like action....

When I publish again, I should like to bring out more fully the bearing of the Augsburg Confession on the Thirty-nine Articles. I perhaps overrate the importance of this point, but it seems to me to put Tract 90 in great measure under the sanction of the Archbishop and Bishop of London. If you think of doing anything more about Tract 90, perhaps (which would be far better) you would take this up. If not, do you think you could get any one to collect for me the sense of Luther, Melanchthon, &c., as to the meaning of the chief articles of the Aug. Conf. I have always understood consubstantiation to be properly held under that doc.u.ment, and, if so, the admission of it with our Articles will appear to many people very awkward.

You must not think me unreasonable for thinking that you can get this done for me (as you did the search about canons) at Oxford. Were our colleges what they ought to be, there would be in each a concurrence of labour whenever required, and I believe that you have men about you who have the feeling from which this (if ever it does) must spring.

I am not without hope that some public move may be made about the bishopric. What say you to an address to the Crown, praying it to license the discussion of it in Convocation? I think some Bishops and many clergy would join in this, and it would, I suppose, be very 'const.i.tutional.' I have not, however, looked up the formal part yet. Tell me what you think of the thing, and I will consider it further....

(Signed) J. R. Hope.

_The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq._

January 3, 1842.

My dear Hope,--A happy new year to you and all of us--and, what is even more needed, to the English Church. I am afraid of moving about Convocation. Not that we should not be in safer hands than in those of the Bishops, but, though it restrained their acts, it would abridge our liberty. Or it might formally recognise our Protestantism. What can we hope from a body, the best members of which, as Hook and Palmer [of Worcester Coll.], defend and subscribe to the Jerusalem Fund...? Therefore I do not like to be _responsible_ for helping to call into existence a body which may embarra.s.s us more than we are at present.

I think your [Greek: topos] about the Augsburg Confession a very important one, and directly more men come back will set a friend to work upon it.

I am almost in despair of keeping men together. The only possible way is a monastery. Men want an outlet for their devotional and penitential feelings, and if we do not grant it, to a dead certainty they will go where they can find it. This is the beginning and the end of the matter. Yet the clamour is so great, and will be so much greater, that if I persist, I expect (though I am not speaking from anything that has _occurred_) that I shall be stopped. Not that I have any intention of doing more at present than laying the foundation of what may be.

... Are we really to be beaten in this election [for the Poetry Professorship]? I will tell you a secret (if you care to know it) which not above three or four persons know. We have 480 promises. Is it then hopeless? ... I don't think our enemies would beat 600; at least, it would be no triumph....

The Bishop of Exeter has for these eight years, ever since the commencement of the Ecclesiastical Commission, been biding his time, and the Duke of Wellington last spring disgusted him much. This both makes it likely that he will now move, and also diminishes the force of the very words you quote, for peradventure they are ordinary with him. I have good hopes that he will.

Ever yours,

John H. Newman.

The experiment of offering to minds which had lost all sympathy with Protestantism, yet were unable to close with Rome, an imitation of the monastic life by way of shelter from the rude checks which their aspirations sustained in the world without, seems to have answered for a time, and possibly r.e.t.a.r.ded for about three years that rush of conversion which made 1845 such an epoch in the history even of the Church. This may be inferred from the next letter, written shortly after Mr. Newman and his disciples were regularly settled at Littlemore. I am not aware what the report was which he so emphatically denies.

_The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq._

April 22, 1842. _Dabam e Domo S. M. V. apud Littlemore._

My dear Hope,--Does not this portentous date promise to outweigh any negative I can give to your question in the mind of the inquirer? for any one who could ask such a question would think such a dating equivalent to the answer. However, if I must answer in form, I believe it to be one great absurdity and untruth from beginning to end, though it is hard I must answer for _every_ hundred men in the _whole_ kingdom. Negatives are dangerous: all I can say, however, is that I don't believe, or suspect, or fear any such occurrence, and look upon it as neither probable nor improbable, but simply untrue.

We are all much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory is tenable, or rather, the English state of things. If the Bishops let us alone, the fever will subside.

[After a few words on business] I wish you would say how you are.