Untitled - Electric Scotland

1841] TRACT XC 79
neither liked the via media nor my strong judgment against Rome.
I had been enjoined, I think by my Bishop, to keep these men
straight, and I wished so to do. But their tangible difficulty was
subscription to the Articles, and thus the question of the Articles
came before me." ]
The tract was dated
version of St. Paul, 2
"
Oxford, The Feast of the Con
1841." Though anonymous, there
was no real doubt as to its authorship, and hence, in large
measure, the importance attaching
to it.
"The Tract," said Dr. Newman a few days later, "is grounded
on the belief that the Articles need not be so closed as the received
method of teaching closes them, and ought not to be, for the
sake of many persons. If we so close them we run the risk of
subjecting persons whom we should least like to lose or distress
to the temptation of joining the Church of Rome, or to the
necessity of withdrawing from the Church as established, or to
the misery of subscribing with doubt and hesitation." 3
Accordingly, in the pages of this voluminous tract, he
examined in detail those Articles which, in their ordinary
acceptation, are directed against the distinctive teaching
of the Church of Rome ; and by an ingenious manipulation
of what had seemed to most people plain and straight
forward words, maintained them to be capable of quite
another interpretation. A single example will show the
style of reasoning adopted. The Reformers are commonly
supposed to have protested against the doctrine of infall
ible Church Councils, and to have given expression to that
view in Article XXI. The following, however, is Dr. New
4
man s treatment of the : subject
1
Apologia, p. 158.
2
Although so dated, it was not published till Feb. 2;th.
3
Letter to Dr. Jelf, pp. 28, 29.
4 This example is chosen because it is possible in small compass to give
the substance of Dr. Newman s argument. In none of the five cases speci
fically referred to by the "Four Tutors" would this be possible without an
unfair compressidn of the author s words. (N.B. The italics in the extract
given are Dr. Newman s own.)