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I. Introduction.

It was intolerable that the state legislature, the members of which were not even bound to express their belief in the Atonement, had virtually usurped the commission of the Church to make ecclesiastical laws in matters wholly or partly spiritual. It was likewise an affront that the state legislature had ratified the principle that the Apostolic Church was only to stand, in the eyes of the state, as one sect among many, depending for any pre-eminence she might still appear to retain merely upon the accident of having at the time a strong party in the country. ²

From this terminus a quo stems a movement which developed beyond the immediate political crisis that had inspired Keble's ecclesiology of a Church fundamentally discontinuous of the state to envelop a peculiar approach to theology, liturgy, and mission that has ever since left its indelible mark upon Anglicanism world-wide. The initial vehicle for their message to the 19^th century Church of England were the Tracts for the Times, a series published over eight years from September 1833. In time the Tracts would prove effective in communicating the ideals of the Oxford movement if only for the reason that they mimicked the traditional Evangelical method of producing short, and, at first, anonymous, treatises in inexpensive leaflet or pamphlet format. The format itself was prone to arrest attention for the sense of urgency it provoked. Among the most prominent leaders emerging from the movement were John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey, Henry Edward Manning, and Richard Hurrell Froude, all of whom were Oxford Dons and (except for Manning) sometime fellows of Oriel College - hence, the Oxford Movement. Newman had written the first of the Tracts entitled Thoughts on the Ministerial Commission, respectfully addressed to the Clergy, in which he spoke idealistically of a Church that preserved apostolic succession in its ministry, and upheld the primitive Christianity taught by the ancient fathers and attested to in the Anglican formularies and the great Anglican divines. ³

II. Early Tractarian Appeal to High Church Precedent.

Naturally the Tractarians would at first seek to establish continuity with the ancient church through their own identity as Anglicans, locating precedent for their distinctive approach to theology and worship in the history of English Church. However, as products of the age of Romanticism, their historiography tended to be rather selective. Characterizing the approach of the early Oxford movement, Peter Nockles comments that the Tractarians found the history of the Church of England to be 'something of a Noah's Ark, full of beasts clean and unclean'. ⁴ As such the Tractarians were in no way disinclined to separate the historical 'wheat' from the 'chaff' of English Church history, and so to identify themselves as contiguous with 'High Church' movements of bygone ages. Newman had mused in Tract 1 of the dawn of a second Reformation, characterized not by the ideals of the 16th century but by those of the 17th, in particular those of the Caroline Divines.

In fact the Tractarians were at first prone to identify the 'High Church' tradition almost exclusively with Caroline divinity, the vestiges of which persisted for a time in the eighteenth century Non-Jurors until their sad and ignoble extinction. Manning described the Caroline period as a 'golden age', and Hurrell Froude dated the rise and fall of what he termed the Church of England's 'genus of Apostolical divines' from the beginning of the reign of James I till the Revolution of 1688-9 and the separation of the first Non-Jurors'. ⁵ As late as 1867 William Bennett could still be found to assert that the Oxford movement had restored the heritage of the Caroline Divines which had previously been lost. ⁶ This is remarkable in light of the fact that by this time the 'Anglo-Catholics', as they were now calling themselves, had generally grown disillusioned with the writings of the Caroline Divines⁷

Politically speaking, the similarities between the early Tractarians and the eighteenth century Non-Jurors were readily apparent. It was only natural for the Tractarians to claim a spiritual connection (unfortunately with no corresponding lineal connection) to the Non-Jurors. The Non-Jurors had castigated the post-1690 Church of England for compromises and creeping secularity surrounding the fall of the Stuart king and the usurpation of the throne by William III. ⁸ Similarly, the Oxford movement 'represented an anti-Erastian, moral protest against the apparently popular notion that the Church of England was but a human establishment, subservient to the material and secular interests of the state'. ⁹

Yet ultimately it was not politics but theological affinity which attracted early Tractarians to the writings of these great High Church predecessors. On the surface at least, there seemed to be much in parallel between Tractarianism and these earlier groups. Like the earlier High Churchmen, especially the Non-Jurors, the Tractarians could appeal with confidence to the voice of antiquity, specifically that of the early fathers and councils of the Church, as giving the definitive and true sense and teaching of Holy Scripture. ¹⁰ Manning's catenae patrum, compiled for Tract 78, presented the Tractarian case for the Vincentian Canon as following in the footsteps of both the Carolines and the Non-Jurors. ¹¹ Tractarians could also appeal to these groups in support of their desire to restore certain practices and beliefs held in common. ¹²

Such parallels were not lost on the contemporary critics of the Oxford movement. Memories lingered of Non-Jurors such as Deacon, Cartwright, and Podmore, who perpetuated variance with mainstream Anglicanism over certain primitive practices considered by the former as de fide well into the eighteenth century. The Non-Juring movement had not the cohesiveness even to sustain itself, having rent asunder early in its history over the 'usages' controversy. ¹³ One nineteenth century critic remarked that, like the Non-Jurors, the Tractarians by 'taking up practices of which they found some precedent or recommendation in the Primitive Church, and enforcing them as essential...would come to prefer schism to charity...losing their wisdom and catholicity'. ¹⁴

III. Early Tractarianism and the Book of Common Prayer.

The initial excitement of the 're-discovery' of a catholic ethos eventually yielded to the thoughtful reflection of the catholic principles upon which the early Tractarians believed the English Church to be founded: namely the Prayer Book and Apostolic Succession. In fact, defending the fundamental catholic integrity of the Prayer Book was an important theme in the Tracts for the Times. Jasper notes that Newman and Keble had defended the Prayer Book against further revision in Tracts 3 and 4 respectively; Tracts 39 and 41 by Newman pleaded for loyalty to the Prayer Book; Tract 9 by Froude, Tract 43 by Thomas Keble, and Tract 75 by Newman opposed the shortening of services; and certain other Tracts defended the catholic character of the various services and pastoral offices found within, as well as upholding traditional Prayer Book doctrines deemed to be 'catholic' such as priestly absolution, baptismal regeneration, real presence, and eucharistic sacrifice. ¹⁵

In actuality the path of Tractarian liturgical reflection had been paved by earlier scholarly works, most notably William Palmer's Origines Liturgicae (1832) which itself was based on the fruits of previous scholarship, most importantly that of Bishop Charles Lloyd. Palmer's work had aimed at setting forth the catholic and primitive liturgical continuity of the Church of England. ¹⁶ In this respect Origines Liturgicae served the Tractarian cause well, supporting their contention of a catholic infrastructure not only in the liturgy but, by extension, in the Church of England as well.

Interestingly enough, Origines Liturgicae also provides one of the best insights into the differences between new High Churchmanship of the Tractarians and the 'old' High Church party that Palmer represented. In contrast to the Tractarians, the 'old' High Church party had long since come to terms with Cranmer's liturgy in the form that it assumed by 1662. Palmer himself was even of the opinion that the removal since 1549 of certain primitive doctrines had been for the best, in that they were bound to be misunderstood, and thus prone to abuse. ¹⁷ For Palmer, and pre-Tractarian High Churchman in general, continuity and reformation were by no means mutually exclusive. Continuity with the catholic Church of all ages was evidenced by a clear and demonstrable unity in the fundamentals of faith and practice - such as an adherence to the apostolical ministry and the ancient creedal definitions. All other doctrines, even those held by a great many, could only be held as matters of opinion and were thus of less importance.¹⁸ Palmer succinctly captures the spirit of this brand of High Churchmanship in his attitude towards the catholic liturgy of the Church of England. 'Although our liturgy and other offices were corrected and improved...the greater portion have been continually retained and used by the Church of England for more than twelve hundred years'.

The irony here is that the Tractarians would owe such a great debt to a scholar outside their own camp, and one so committed to the principles of accommodating, justifying, and even commending various changes that had been made to the Prayer Book since 1549. In this we see yet another striking similarity between the Tractarians and the Non-Jurors, the latter having so revered the liturgical work of another scholar considered an 'outsider to the cause', the establishment churchman John Johnson. As time wore on, however, their innate hostility to the English Reformation would become more and more apparent, and would be reflected in their attitude to the Prayer Book. ¹⁹

At first sight it would seem that the Tractarians were content to be true to the peculiar High Church hallmark of liturgical conservatism. Yet even many of their earlier positive statements about the Prayer Book betray more of their deep-seated suspicion of change than an unqualified love for the English liturgy in its present form. As early as Tract 3 Newman expressed his reservations about further liturgical reform, fearing that such revision would likely produce a Protestant, or worse, Latitudinarian result. ²⁰ In many cases, particularly in Newman's, what appeared on the surface to be early Tractarian support for the Prayer Book was actually heavily disguised fear.

Again, early Anglo-Catholic affinity with the Non-Jurors is apparent: initial general support for the Prayer Book alongside a gradual tendency towards a more critical assessment of it. On the one hand they could commend that which was laudable within it - in Froude's terms - 'the crumbs from the Apostles' table'. ²¹ On the other hand they would subtly lament the loss of primitive elements deemed to be more and more essential to the eucharistic rite. Also there was a clear preference for (in concert with the Carolines and the Non-Jurors) the 1549 eucharistic rite. But at this point, the first stage of Tractarian history (1833-45), the Prayer Book fared amazingly well.

IV. Pusey's Tract 81.

Coming as it does towards the end of the Tracts series, yet still early in the movement itself (1836), Pusey's Tract 81 is an important testimony to the early Tractarian desire to defend the liturgical status quo (i.e. 1662). At the same time it stands as a clear admission that the 1662 Prayer Book was, in significant ways, deficient in form. In this regard a clear preference for the first liturgy of Edward VI (1549) is revealed, particularly Pusey's opinion that the 1549 rite serves as the key to understanding all subsequent editions.

For instance, there can be no question, based on the precedent set by the first Edwardian rite, that the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice is 'a doctrine...which our Church retains', albeit 'one of the most withdrawn from sight, lest it should at one time, perchance have been misapplied or profaned'. ²² Be that as it may, Pusey is still reluctant at this point to assign blame to the English reformers. So Pusey continues,

It is not here intended to speak despairingly of those of the revisers of our Liturgy, who furthered or consented to the suppression of doctrine visible in the 2nd book of Edward VI. They listened or yielded to foreign advisers, who had their minds fixed solely on the "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits," which the Church of Rome had connected with the true doctrine, and who had themselves abandoned it. Happy, if while guarding against the errors of Rome, they had escaped the opposite danger of fomenting profane indifference or unbelief, which have left their own homes desolate! ...And the revisers of our own Liturgy, in the latter part of the reign of Edward VI, would have acted with greater wisdom and a firmer faith, had they continued to retain the explicit statements of the Catholic doctrine, and sought other means of averting its abuse, or left the correction to Almighty God, who gave that doctrine. ²³

Not only is Pusey still willing to give the English Reformers the benefit of the doubt, (finding fault with the 'foreign advisers' instead), he is also, in Caroline fashion, content to live with the deficiencies of the current rite, resigned to reminisce on the glories of the original.

Pusey goes on to explicate a rather 'Laudian' view of eucharistic sacrifice. According to Pusey, the eucharistic action was to be considered as two essential parts: (1) the 'commemorative sacrifice' and (2) the 'communion' or 'Communication'; 'the former obtaining remission of sins for the Church'; and the Communion for 'the strengthening and refreshing of the soul'. So Pusey states,

They first offered to God His gifts, in commemoration of that His inestimable gift, and placed them upon His altar here, to be received and presented on the Heavenly Altar by Him, our High-Priest; and then, trusted to receive them back, conveying to them the life-giving Body and Blood. ²⁴

Added to this is the concept (reminiscent of Cosin) that the Eucharist was a sacrifice offered by one particular local Church on behalf of the whole Church, and thus the oblation of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church with benefits for each member regardless of individual communication. States Pusey:

As being, moreover, appointed by their Lord, they believed that the continual oblation of this sacrifice (like the daily sacrifice appointed in the elder Church) was a benefit to the whole Church, independently and over and above the benefit to the individual communicants -- that the sacrifices in each branch of the Christian Church were mutually of benefit to every other branch, each to all and all to each: and so also this common interest in the sacrifice of the memorials of their Saviour's Passion was one visible, yea, and (since God for its sake diffused unseen and inestimable blessings through the whole mystical body of His Son) and invisible spiritual bond of the Communion of Saints through the whole Body. ²⁵

Moreover, like every High Church movement to date, Pusey clearly argues against the 'Romish errors' of transubstantiation and purgatory:

The Romish Church corrupted and marred the Apostolic doctrine in two ways. 1st. By the error of transubstantiation. 2nd. By that of purgatory. And in both there occurs that peculiar corruption of the administrators of the Romish Church, that they countenance so much more of profitable error, than in their abstract system they acknowledge. ²⁶

This is not merely a case of duplicitous argumentation designed to facilitate the introduction of the very teaching that he was seemingly renouncing. Pusey goes on to renounce the dangerous conception of eucharistic sacrifice that the doctrine of transubstantiation had inspired and sustained in the Roman Church (indeed even as Cranmer had argued.)

...by combining the doctrine of Transubstantiation with that of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, the laity were persuaded that not only a commemorative sacrifice, but that Christ Himself was offered...These false notions in themselves aggrandized the character of the priesthood, and as such, it was part of the unhappy policy of Rome to countenance them; and while (to take the mildest view) she narrowly observed the erroneous tendencies which were almost unavoidably mixed up in the minds of individuals with the reformed doctrine, she had no sense for her own; she thought no deeds cruel which would remove the motes that threatened to darken her sister's eye, but perceived not the beam in her own....Joined, however, with the doctrine of purgatory, the sacrifice of the Mass gained for them another accession of power, the extent whereof, and of the abuses therewith connected, is not now easily appreciated. For the souls of almost all, if not all, who passed out of this life, were supposed to go into purgatory; its pains were regarded as intolerable, equal, except in duration, to those of Hell. From these torments the sacrifice of the Mass came to be practically regarded as the only means of deliverance. ²⁷

Clearly Pusey's theology as expressed in this Tract is still well within the mainstream of Anglican thinking. Yet his criticism of Roman theological errors does not lead him to embrace the old High Church party opinion, expressed by Palmer, that liturgical revision in the 16th century was necessary or even desirable. It was not that the old Sarum rite was corrupt in and of itself, only that erroneous theology had tended to corrupt its true interpretation. Hinting that even the 1549 rite might have been a step too far away from antiquity, Pusey laments the pressure placed on the English Reformers of the 16th century to go even further:

...one should rather question whether the revisers had not already gone further than they need, and if so, further than they ought, in altering the ancient liturgy of the Church. For, of course, it would be a maxim that, especially in high doctrines, which we do but dimly see, as little change should be made as possible, lest we inadvertently part with that, whose value we do not at the time appreciate. ²⁸

But pressure had come to bear on the Reformers nonetheless, particularly in the insidious influence that the Züricher party had in Council. The result was a liturgy which could accommodate both 'ancient doctrine' and Zwinglian error. ²⁹

The change in doctrine was now actually introduced, and recommended by the authority of Bishop Hooper, who had unhappily, during Henry VIII.'s reign, taken refuge in Zurich, and become acquainted with Bullinger a friend of Zuingli. Of the change itself, the less be said, since the whole doctrine of the Eucharist was then altered. The service indeed was rendered inconsistent; for some of the ancient doctrine was retained, although the alterations went one way, to introduce the Zuinglian view of a simple commemoration for the Catholic doctrine of actual communion. ³⁰

In retrospect we are now able to see in Pusey's 1836 Tract 81 reflections of a movement on the verge of a crossroad. There is, on the one hand, still a perceived need to defend that which is true and catholic within the establishment, most notably the liturgy. But on the other hand there is a clear admission of doubt as to the wisdom of the 16th century Reformation and of regret over that which was lost by it. The direction of Anglo-Catholic liturgical innovation in the subsequent period would greatly depend on which side was emphasized. Yet the inherent ecclesiological conflict developing within movement itself would dash any hope for unified course of action, or a unified movement for that matter.

V. Newman and the Crisis of Ecclesiology.

It is in the theological struggles of John Henry Newman that we gain the clearest insight into the ecclesiological crisis that would bring the formative period of the Anglo-Catholic movement to a close with his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. In the 1830s, Newman had for the most part been arguing for the literal identity of Anglicanism with the church of antiquity. Newman's stronghold had been antiquity. ³¹ In the Tracts for the Times Newman vigorously set forth to prove the apostolicity of the English Church, and thus its fundamental integrity as a particular portion of Christ's Church.

But while the Church's apostolicity might easily be defended from polemical attacks, Newman's 'Achilles heel' lay in establishing the right of the Church of England to call itself 'catholic' in light of its insularity in an age of separation. As Nockles notes, Newman could expound the grounds for the separation between the Church of England and Rome but, as time wore on, he 'found it increasingly hard to accommodate the fact of separation'. ³² Imberg further notes that Newman never accorded to catholicity the same weight he gave to apostolicity; and that as early as 1836 he gave indications of an 'emotional inclination towards Rome'. ³³

In Tract 71 (1835) Newman would begin to reveal his increasing discomfort with the 'branch theory'. This theory afforded the Church of England co-equal status with the great churches of Christendom (i.e., the Roman and Greek) and thus a corresponding understanding of Christian unity based upon that premise. However, for Newman the reality of separation in the face of so noble a theory betrayed the reality of the sin of schism in one or more of those 'branches'. Catholicity assumed communion between Christians, and, consequently, inter-communion between member churches of the universal Church.

However, it was Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman's 1836 charge of 'Donatism' against the Anglican Church that induced Newman's self-described 'stomach-ache'. ³⁴ Wiseman had likened the Anglican notion of a fundamental unity which did not depend on external communion with the fifth century Donatists who were content to exist without any direct connection with the rest of the Church, particularly the Churches of Asia with whom there was no particular controversy. This charge would haunt Newman for the rest of his Anglican days, and it is safe to say that Wiseman's attack marked the beginning of the end of the Oxford period of the Anglo-Catholic movement. ³⁵

Concurrent with his own struggles with catholicity was the formation of a strong Romanizing section within Tractarianism, not surprisingly from among ranks of Newman's own students and disciples. As Nockles notes Wiseman's effect not only unsettled Newman but proved 'dangerously effective' with Newman's younger followers, such as F.W. Faber, J.D. Dalgairns, W.G. Ward, and F. Oakeley. ³⁶ In the meantime Newman's discomfort with resolving the catholicity issue only served to fuel his resolve to prove Anglicanism's continuity with antiquity, and thus its identity with the apostolic church. This quest culminated in the infamous Tract 90, which marked not only Newman's recession from the forefront of the movement but the final contribution to the Tracts for the Times.

Newman wrote Tract 90 not only with such students in mind, but also to reassure himself that it was still possible to hold all Catholic doctrine while assenting to the Articles of Religion. Tract 90 represented Newman's last attempt to check the Rome-ward drift of his younger students, who at this point seemed to be at least one step ahead of their master. For himself Tract 90 was indicative of an intense personal struggle to come to terms with the implications of his teaching, if not an attempt to 'salvage his own flagging Anglican allegiance'.³⁷

The arguments of antiquity taken up by the earlier Tracts were no longer of any satisfaction to many of his students. Nockles notes that 'the gap between theory and reality seemed too great'. As Faber observed, 'Catholicity cannot be realized without considerable approach to Catholic communion; and the nearest approach we have made is to communion with Catholic antiquity. We make neither head nor tail of the present church'. ³⁸ Ward had already come to regard the living, modern Church of Rome as the ultimate repository of doctrinal truth, so that arguments from antiquity were almost irrelevant. ³⁹

The main thesis of Tract 90, entitled Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles, is that the Articles are 'the offspring of an uncatholic age'. Nevertheless 'through God's good providence', they are 'at least not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being Catholic in heart and doctrine'. ⁴⁰ His first premise, that the Articles were the products of an uncatholic age, had been apparent to friends in personal correspondence since the mid-thirties. In 1835 he had confessed to Froude that he was 'no friend' to the Articles. ⁴¹ However, that these products of an 'uncatholic age' could be reconciled to catholic doctrine remained to be demonstrated. For this he employed a 'literal' hermeneutic where the plain, face value sense of each article was taken without any regard to opinion or beliefs of those who drew them up. Hence, while Article XXII condemned the 'Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adoration as well of images and relics and also invocation of saints, as a fond thing, vainly invented', it did not 'necessarily condemn either the primitive doctrine concerning purgatory, or that maintained by the Greeks at the Council of Florence'. ⁴²

Cries of treachery raged within and without the University. The tract was deeply offensive to a multitude of churchmen and scholars, who produced memorial after memorial in protest to the teaching of the tract. Newman subsequently withdrew from the public scene and in deference to the Bishop of Oxford agreed to stop the series of Tracts provided the bishops would not condemn Tract 90 . When one bishop after another then began to attack both the tract and its author Newman understandably felt betrayed. ⁴³ In February 1843 Newman preached his last sermon before the University, and by October of the same year he had celebrated his last Eucharist at the University Church of St. Mary. Retiring to Littlemore, he was finally received into the Roman Catholic Church on 8 October 1845.

VI. A Bifurcated Movement.

What brought Newman and his tract under greatest suspicion was the fact that, unlike earlier Tractarian apologetic, Newman failed to condemn forthrightly the Council of Trent, the decrees of which the Articles immediately addressed. Indeed nowhere in Tract 90 did Newman even insist on a future Roman retraction of the decrees of the Council of Trent as a condition for reunion of Western Christendom. Risking charges of duplicity, Newman maintained that the Articles of Religion merely condemned 'Romish' doctrines, that is to say dominant errors and popular abuses of the period. Newman distinguished these from the 'doctrines of the Old Church' with which he sought to render the Articles compatible. ⁴⁴ Moreover, a high level of ambiguity surrounded Newman's use of such terms as 'Catholic', 'Papal', and 'Roman'. His use of these terms only served to fuel suspicions, not unfounded, that Newman meant to embrace or accommodate within the parameters of the Articles not only the Catholic doctrines of antiquity, but the 'official' teaching of the Church of Rome in his day 'corrected' of abuse as by the Council of Trent.

Coming to his defense was his old friend, Pusey, who Liddon later admits was either ignorant of or mistaken about Newman's real position in 1841. ⁴⁵ In his conservative defense of Newman's Tract 90 Pusey refused to accept any other interpretation of Newman's use of the term 'Catholic' than those doctrines or practices which could be proven to be 'ancient' and thus not addressed by the Articles. Definitely ruled out by Pusey was the idea that Newman had applied the term in reference to the 'Tridentine decrees'. States Pusey,

The Author had, apparently, two objects in view; one, to vindicate the Catholic interpretation of the Articles against a modern popular system of interpreting them, and to shew that our Articles, fairly construed, were in no case opposed to any teaching of the Church Catholic; secondly, to shew, that certain opinions or practices, which, though not Catholic, are to found more or less prevalent in the early centuries, may yet be held as private opinions by individuals, without hindering any from signing the Articles with a safe conscience. In few words, that our Articles neither contradict anything in early Christianity, even though not Catholic, but only later definite system in the Church of Rome. ⁴⁶

While Pusey himself argued for the accommodating of things 'not Catholic', but more or less 'prevalent in the early centuries', it was extremely naive at this point to believe that Newman and his followers were content to relegate what they felt were crucial points of 'Catholic' belief and practice to the category of adiaphora. In fact, Newman's young disciples would end up taking the implications of Tract 90 much further. In 1844, W.G. Ward expanded Newman's thesis by asserting that it was possible to keep one's place in the Church of England while embracing 'the whole cycle of Roman Catholic doctrine'. ⁴⁷ This, not Pusey's attempt at vindication, was the natural fruition of Newman's hermeneutic.

Pusey, on the other hand, was reluctant even to admit of a Rome-ward drift in the Tractarian movement. Commenting on 'the acknowledged tendency of certain individuals in our Church to Romanism' Pusey states,

Of the extent of the tendency to Romanism, which our friend acknowledges to exist in detached cases, I have no means of forming any estimate; but, whatever it be, it is surely a very short-sighted view to make the Tracts or their authors responsible for it...Were there no secessions to Romanism before the Tracts began? none, and not rather in large numbers, and those wholly persons whose Church-views were most opposed to ours? In Edinburgh alone, the annual converts to Romanism were calculated at 100; but from the Kirk, not from our Church. No! Rome has many sympathies whereby to draw persons to herself. ⁴⁸

However much Pusey might have desired to argue to the contrary, it was apparent that Newman had been the cause of the bifurcation of the Anglo-Catholic movement. On the one hand were Newman and the Romanizers; on the other were the Tractarian loyalists who along with Pusey and Keble were left to realign the movement in the wake of secessions to Rome. Moreover, for better or for worse, Newman had shifted the center of gravity of the movement away from its earlier commitment to a Caroline or classic Anglican apologetic. Focus was no longer placed on the virtues of a particular church in the context of the universal Church. Catholicity would now be judged on one's allegiance to the universal church rather than construed on the basis of one's membership in the particular Church of England.

Furthermore, like Newman, or perhaps, in large part, because of Newman, Pusey and the later Anglo-Catholics eventually lost their faith in the English Reformation. They began to entertain serious doubts that a particular branch of Christ's Church could actually reform itself by itself, 'still more with such allies as the Lutherans and Zwinglians'. ⁴⁹ As he explained to Isaac Williams earlier in the decade, there was 'a great difference...between what are called Anglicans, and such as myself...[the Anglicans] are contented that things should remain as they are...I can only look upon this as a provisional state, that we are as we are, because we cannot help ourselves, but that we ought really to desire to be otherwise, i.e. not thus insulated'. ⁵⁰

VII. Waking from the Dream.

Newman, Pusey, and Keble had begun the same journey together in 1833. By 1845 they had parted company but not before Newman had left his lasting mark upon the movement. Newman somewhat ahead of the others could not help but steer the course of the movement, his influence being felt long after his departure. By the time the first stage of the movement had come to a close Anglo-Catholics had for all intents and purposes evolved and settled into Newman's mature Anglican position. For the most part, those Anglo-Catholics who remained in the Church of England would continue in this precarious stasis for the duration of the century and well into the next. ⁵¹ Like Newman before them, they would eventually come to see the Church as being in partial eclipse because 'the Church only is, where it is one'. ⁵² As Newman's disciple Dalgairns put it, 'we can only consider ourselves to be a portion of the Church Catholic by looking upon our separation as an accident, a temporary state of things for which we mourn as a sin'. ⁵³ When the Oxford phase of the movement came to a close the other leaders would be echoing these same sentiments.

Ironically what kept Pusey, Keble and their followers within the Church of England had been the same factor that compelled Newman and his disciples to finally leave her: antiquity. For Pusey and Keble the ancient and undivided Church, not any one modern branch of the Church, and certainly not the Roman Branch, was the only basis of unity. Those who remained in the Church of England were content to define catholicity as continuity with antiquity. Newman on the other hand could no longer bring himself to acquiesce to what amounted in his eyes to patristic fundamentalism, steeped though it be in optimistic ecumenical hopes of a future united Church. Antiquity that becomes antiquarian is no guarantee against heresy. Neither is patristic fundamentalism, unleavened by engagement with a 'living' church, any touchstone of right belief. ⁵⁴ In the meantime Newman's articulation of the theory of the 'development of Christian doctrine' had enabled him to find in the Roman System, or more so to expect in the Roman System, the culmination and true depository of all Christian faith, virtue, and practice up to that point in history. This of course enabled him, at least in his mind, to realize at one and the same time full Christian communion and full and certain assurance of the one holy Catholic Church of God. ⁵⁵

In a century characterized as the 'Age of Romanticism', it was, for the battle-weary Newman, a much needed retreat into a truly romantic ideal. However, the irony of Newman's journey lay in the fact that by shifting the center of gravity away from a selective embrace of past High Churchmanship Newman had successfully forced Anglo-Catholics away from an opposing romantic ideal. For Newman and his followers, it was merely the transition from one romantic dream to another, with an unfortunate nightmare in the interlude. But for Pusey, Keble, and company it was as if the movement had awakened from its pleasant slumber replete with visions of a Catholic renaissance, only to find the universal Church still divided and still in dire need of illumination from the past. If there was any hope at all to be found in the present state of separation, it was that the Church of England was not alone. Rome and the East were equally culpable. In essence, those who chose to stay in the Church of England correctly saw that the solution lay in facing this dim reality head-on, while ever maintaining their vital continuity with the undivided Church of the past, i.e., with antiquity. Indeed, this was the only way forward for Anglo-Catholics in the 19^th century, if not for Anglicanism as a whole. ⁵⁶

VIII. Conclusion: The Inevitable Fallout of Romanticism.

Depending on one's perspective, the Oxford Movement has either been credited with or accused of introducing many trends, fads, or re-discoveries with respect to the theological and liturgical development of nineteenth and twentieth century Anglicanism, not the least of which has been its being a major impetus behind the modern liturgical movement. ⁵⁷ Its prevailing influence on modern Anglicanism, both past and present, however, has come at a great price: the fallout caused by its hasty development from a high church pamphleteering movement into a full-fledged wing or party of the Church in continuity with, yet distinct from, the old high church party of past eras, with all of the pastoral, political, and theological liabilities which this involves. The truly remarkable thing is that this had all taken place within the span of a little over a decade. Moreover, there is no question that this was due in large part to the intellectual and practical geniuses of its original leaders - particularly John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, and John Keble - and in the enduring ideals on which they focused. Nevertheless, in a romantic age, the focus on such ideals must inevitably lead to one of two results. Either one retreats into Romanticism with its consequent suppression of the reality of one's mission; or one is forced to deal with the realm of disillusion and its consequent obligation not only to face the reality of one's mission, but to embark on that mission according to the very principles one holds dear, or else to abandon hope altogether. At the risk of generalization, this study leads us to draw the conclusion that Newman had chosen the former course, (a common enough tendency amongst the most elite minds), and Pusey and Keble the latter. One could then easily justify the suggestion that such rapid maturation of the movement called for so major a fallout early in its history; rendering the parting of ways, if not the parting of friends, a necessary result.

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