Untitled - Electric Scotland

1860-64] DEBATE IN CONVOCATION 303
estimation, it is totally different in character from other passages
which occur in this volume ; and I cannot conceive by what
motive the author could be restrained if it should prove that he
is restrained from publicly declaring that he does not approve
of various things which are to be found in this unfortunate book.
... I think myself bound to say that if my right rev. brother
would enter into a full examination of the passages he has
quoted, he will find that the extracts which he has read do not really
imply what to his mind they appear to imply. This is only an
exemplification of what the history of the Church in every age
confirms, that if you give isolated extracts from the book of any
writer you are almost certain to give a false impression of what
his opinion is. I am unwilling to rake up old stories or go back
to the history of the University of Oxford at the time when 1
resided in it, but there were books of extracts then published
which were regarded as very unfair indeed. 1 With the utmost
fairness of intention it is almost impossible to give by extracts a real
statement of what a man s opinion is when he has the misfortune
to be writing on the dangerous confines between what is truth
and what is error. . . . With regard to the two essays to which I
allude, if any man would make up his mind upon them, he must
read them from beginning to end. ... I must say that I regret
very much the tone of what the Bishop of Oxford has said ; I
regret it deeply and I also regret what the Bishop of St. David s
has said, because it seems to me that those two speeches will
make it very difficult for these writers to do what I believe it is
their bounden duty to do. . . . Let it be distinctly understood
that we, the Bishops of the Church of England, looking at the
book as a whole, believe that it is likely to do great and grievous
harm ; but separating, as I trust I shall ever be able to do
throughout my whole life, the individuals from their opinions,
hoping even against hope that these individuals may return, how
ever far they may have gone astray, I shall be indeed rejoiced if
an opportunity is afforded to all these writers to make a public
declaration of their belief in the great truths of Christianity.
I shall be truly pleased if they can make such a declaration.
I for one shall not permit myself to doubt of their honesty, and
I shall not trouble myself about their consistency." 2
The reference is, of course, to the series of isolated extracts from Dr.
Newman s writings which were constantly quoted against him by some of his
opponents.
a Chronicle of Conv. Feb. 28, 1861, pp. 461, 467.