NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE Editor is not quite sure that he understands what authors L. de R. comprehends under the description of common books.

THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

APRIL 1, 1845.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

MODERN HAGIOLOGY.*

NO. VI.

Or those who have taken the trouble to consider with attention the preceding observations on the Lives of the English Saints, few unprejudiced persons will probably have much doubt of the tendency of Mr. Newman's system, not merely to Romanism, but to Neologianism. And yet its tendency to either or both of these particular forms of error, is not that which constitutes their chief danger in the view of the writer of these remarks. Nor is he at all sure, either that many of his readers have as yet perceived where that danger really lies, or are sufficiently alive to its magnitude if they have. There is no practical error more prevalent than the measurement of error or untruth by the mischief it seems likely to create. Few, very few persons indeed, have any love for truth for its own sake, or any abhorrence of falsehood or error, except for the mischief it is likely to do -or rather which they see it is likely to do; for, if the evil effect be not very apparent, or even if it do not threaten to result very speedily, there are not many who have so disinterested an attachment to truth, as to give themselves much concern or trouble in exposing error or contradicting falsehood. The worst error in the world is this-that so few persons love truth and detest falsehood on purely moral and religious grounds. Nor is it possible to preserve the church from error as long as this indifference to the existence of error prevails; for, every now and then, errors are introduced, not in solitary and repulsive deformity, but mixed up with truths-perhaps with truths which are calculated to promote valuable ends. And so it happens, that those who look at truth and error rather as a question of expediency than of morality, do but too readily suffer themselves to become patrons of errors, or if not patrons, at least to connive at it, until, under their auspices and connivance, it have gained strength, and access, and currency, and the time for crushing and extinguish

* Numbers I.-V. have been reprinted as tracts for distribution. VOL. XXVII.-April, 1845.

2 B

ing it is lost for ever. The Romish and the Neologian tendencies of Mr. Newman's system must be apparent to every one who will take the trouble to examine it in his own writings, or in those of his coadjutors. But this tendency is rather the operation of the system and its results in a particular direction-than the system itself. The real evil of the system is not that it tends to this particular error or the other-but, that it lays the foundation for error of every sort, by habituating those who embrace it to trifle with truth-and whether the fruits of this evil habit be found in explaining away of formularies and in non-natural subscriptions; or in figurative and mystic interpretations of Holy Scripture; or in the suppressing of facts that oppose their theory; or in the manufacture of catenas, and the garbling and misquoting of authorities; or in the retailing of absurd and preposterous fables as part of the history of the Almighty's dealing with the church; or in throwing the reins on a licentious imagination, and dressing up the facts of the gospel narrative as a mythic legend, and calling such irreverence and presumption, meditation, and an act of faith; in whichever of these ways this disregard of truth is manifested, it is the disregard of truth, and not any one or all of its results which constitutes the real evil. For truth is of God -and falsehood is of the wicked one. And he who teaches men to undervalue truth, and to tamper with it, and to play with falsehood, is, in whatever guise he may appear, or however he may delude himself, undermining the kingdom of God, and promoting the power and dominion of the kingdom of darkness. Nor is this evil at all diminished, but the contrary, by the absence of an intention to deceive. For in point of fact little mischief is done by wilful and designed falsehood, compared with the injury done by self-mystification-and by that confusion of truth and falsehood in the mind, which, unfortunately, is as contagious as disease or pestilence, and which spreads all the more rapidly and effectually, because men are not on their guard against it. Now, this is precisely what the writer of these pages is most anxious his readers should bear in mind. The Lives of the English Saints are no doubt very gross instances of folly and profaneness—but if a line of them had never been written, his estimation of the evil of Mr. Newman's system would have remained the same. And that, not because there is no error in them which cannot be traced to Mr. Newman's teaching and paralleled in his writings-but because Mr. Newman has, by the mode in which he has dealt with Holy Scripture, in his figurative and mystic interpretations, taught men to trifle and play with truth, and that in precisely the most mischievous way in which it can be trifled with. For the grammatical sense of the Holy Scripture is the foundation and only security of truth in religion. And he who by any methods of interpretation or accommodation, teaches men to explain away the grammatical meaning of the word of God, does not only lay the axe to the root of all sound theology, but does likewise sow the seeds of positive error and heresy, of every sort and kind, and of irreverence for the sacred name of the Almighty. These Lives of the Saints but too plainly prove such to be the legitimate consequences of such teaching. But they are only the consequences; and little benefit will be done by these pages, if the

reader suffers himself to be so occupied with the consequences as to forget their cause. On the contrary, the writer would feel that he had done real injury to the cause of truth, if he should find that his readers were led to regard these legends as something wholly new. New they are, in one sense, as being a development, in a particular direction, of a false principle and an erroneous system, and, in some respects, a disclosure of objects, and intentions, and ulterior views, of which the world had not previously been so distinctly informed. But they are no more than a development and a disclosure of what already existed; just as Mr. Ward has, in his Ideal, spoken a little more plainly than his more cautious leader. But, as the non-natural subscription of Mr. Ward is, in point of fact, the identical theory of No. 90, in a more homely and matter-of-fact fashion than it had assumed in Mr. Newman's hands, so the Romanism and Neologianism of the Lives of the Saints are nothing whatever beyond the theology and ethics inculcated in Mr. Newman's own writings, and in those of which he has avowed himself the patron, only they are thrown into a legendary form. Any one who doubts the justice of this observation, can satisfy himself by reading Mr. Newman's University Sermons, his Sermons on the Subjects of the Day, and those articles in the British Critic which he has recommended to the public. The writer thinks it infinitely important to keep this fact steadily and constantly before his readers. Greater mischief, he conceives, could not be done to truth, than to lead people to imagine that an erroneous system is less injurious, when presented in a calm and moderate form. It is plainly the reverse. Error is never so little likely to do mischief, as when it makes itself ridiculous and disgusting. If the Lives of the English Saints had appeared a few years ago, they might have been safely left in that obscurity to which the good sense, and good feeling, and piety of a Christian community would have consigned them. It is because things are altered, that such books require to be exposed now. It is because an erroneous and false system has already predisposed (it is to be feared) too many to read such books with pleasure-because it has already, and to a very fearful amount, blunted men's moral and spiritual perceptions, and prepared them for admiring that from which, a few years ago, they would have turned with abhorrence. And further, it is because these legends do serve so clearly and plainly to make manifest the real spirit and the legitimate effects of that system, and so to put those on their guard who required to be forewarned against errors which make their first advances in a less repulsive form; and to awaken those who are still incredulous, and still willing to suppose (if there be any such remaining) that the movement is harmless in its original principle and design, and only dangerous in the extravagancies of its younger and more undisciplined admirers. Here is a series of books, containing doctrines, not only contrary to what the Church of England receives as the teaching of Holy Scripture and the primitive church, but plainly subversive of truth, of reverence for sacred things, of purity. It is difficult even to expose their pernicious character, without transcribing matter offensive to piety, and unfit to be placed before the eyes of modesty.

Who is the originator of these books?-who is the editor? And has Mr. Newman, even by one single line, come forward to renounce his connexion with their authors, much less to express even a shadow of regret at his having originated and edited a work, which, from its very first number, displayed a spirit so utterly irreconcilable with the good faith of an English clergyman. The world has not forgotten, and it never can, how promptly Mr. Newman responded, on another and very different occasion, even to a private remonstrance, and how readily he came forward to retract publicly the language in which he had spoken with severity of Rome and Romanism; the very language to which his friends had so frequently appealed, whenever his system was charged with a leaning towards the errors of Rome. With regard to the propriety of Mr. Newman's conduct, either then or now, no opinion whatever is offered. It is not to the writer of these pages he is responsible. Nor can anything but confusion and misconception arise from making this in any way a personal question, or allowing feelings either of partiality or dislike to be mixed up with it. Again and again has this been impressed on the reader's mind. The facts of this case are simply these: Mr. Newman did publicly announce himself as the originator and editor of this series of lives; he has never since come forward to disclaim his connexion with it, or in any way whatever to free himself from the guilt and responsibility which attaches to every one engaged in the publication. These are the facts, which no one pretends to be able to deny. And then the question arises, Would any man act in this manner, if he believed that the authors of these books were giving the public a false view of the nature of his system, and the object of the movements of which he is the head and leader, and were thus defeating and counteracting that design, to the accomplishment of which his whole existence is devoted. This is the point really deserving of consideration; for, however thankful one would be to awaken any of the persons connected with this movement to the true character and the lamentable consequences of their unhappy projects, the immediate object is to make the nature of these projects known, and to put the public fully on their guard against the system and the teaching by which these projects are attempted to be accomplished.

If, then, one is asked, what is the principal evil of the system inculcated by Mr. Newman and his friends? the answer must bedisregard of truth, and a disregard the more dangerous because it certainly appears to originate in their having, in the first instance, confused their own notions of truth and falsehood, both as to their nature and their importance. It is difficult, from such a mass of writing, to select examples. One or two from the lives of the Hermit Saints will be sufficient to explain one's meaning. The first shall be taken from the legend of St. Gundleus, of whom nothing certain appears to be known. Indeed the author very freely confesses the fictitious nature of the tale, brief as it is:

"Whether St. Gundleus led this very life, and wrought these very miracles, I do not know; but I do know that they are Saints whom the Church so accounts, and I believe that, though this account of him cannot be proved, it is a symbol of what he did and what he was, a picture of his saintliness, and a specimen of his power.”— p. 8.