The Oxford Movement | Page 3

CHRISTIAN CHURCH

CHAPTER XIX
THE CATASTROPHE

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

CHAPTER I
THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS
What is called the Oxford or Tractarian movement began, without
doubt, in a vigorous effort for the immediate defence of the Church
against serious dangers, arising from the violent and threatening temper
of the days of the Reform Bill. It was one of several and widely
differing efforts. Viewed superficially it had its origin in the accident of
an urgent necessity.[2] The Church was really at the moment imperilled
amid the crude revolutionary projects of the Reform epoch;[3] and
something bolder and more effective than the ordinary apologies for the
Church was the call of the hour. The official leaders of the Church were
almost stunned and bewildered by the fierce outbreak of popular
hostility. The answers put forth on its behalf to the clamour for
extensive and even destructive change were the work of men surprised
in a moment of security. They scarcely recognised the difference
between what was indefensible and what must be fought for to the
death; they mistook subordinate or unimportant points for the key of
their position: in their compromises or in their resistance they wanted
the guidance of clear and adequate principles, and they were vacillating
and ineffective. But stronger and far-seeing minds perceived the need
of a broad and intelligible basis on which to maintain the cause of the
Church. For the air was full of new ideas; the temper of the time was
bold and enterprising. It was felt by men who looked forward, that to

hold their own they must have something more to show than custom or
alleged expediency--they must sound the depths of their own
convictions, and not be afraid to assert the claims of these convictions
on men's reason and imagination as well as on their associations and
feelings. The same dangers and necessities acted differently on
different minds; but among those who were awakened by them to the
presence of a great crisis were the first movers in what came to be
known as the Tractarian movement. The stir around them, the perils
which seemed to threaten, were a call to them to examine afresh the
meaning of their familiar words and professions.
For the Church, as it had been in the quiet days of the eighteenth
century, was scarcely adapted to the needs of more stirring times. The
idea of clerical life had certainly sunk, both in fact and in the popular
estimate of it. The disproportion between the purposes for which the
Church with its ministry was founded and the actual tone of feeling
among those responsible for its service had become too great. Men
were afraid of principles; the one thing they most shrank from was the
suspicion of enthusiasm. Bishop Lavington wrote a book to hold up to
scorn the enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists; and what would have
seemed reasonable and natural in matters of religion and worship in the
age of Cranmer, in the age of Hooker, in the age of Andrewes, or in the
age of Ken, seemed extravagant in the age which reflected the spirit of
Tillotson and Secker, and even Porteus. The typical clergyman in
English pictures of the manners of the day, in the _Vicar of
Wakefield,_ in Miss Austen's novels, in Crabbe's _Parish Register,_ is
represented, often quite unsuspiciously, as a kindly and respectable
person, but certainly not alive to the greatness of his calling. He was
often much, very much, to the society round him. When
communication was so difficult and infrequent, he filled a place in the
country life of England which no one else could fill. He was often the
patriarch of his parish, its ruler, its doctor, its lawyer, its magistrate, as
well as its teacher, before whom vice trembled and rebellion dared not
show itself. The idea of the priest was not quite forgotten; but there was
much--much even of what was good and useful--to obscure it. The
beauty of the English Church in this time was its family life of purity
and simplicity; its blot was quiet worldliness. It has sometimes been the

fashion in later days of strife and disquiet to regret that unpretending
estimate of clerical duty and those easy-going days; as it has sometimes
been the fashion to regret the pomp and dignity with which well-born
or scholarly bishops, furnished with ample leisure and splendid
revenues, presided in unapproachable state over their clergy and held
their own among the great county families. Most things have a side for
which something can be said; and we may truthfully and thankfully
recall that among the clergy of those days there were not a few but
many instances, not only of gentle manners, and warm benevolence,
and cultivated intelligence, but of simple