Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, vol 2 | Page 4

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 document, 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 'constitutional.' 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 embarrass 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