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THE
NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.
“ I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, com
plicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterise their articles of belief and con
fessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its alt^^as its sole qualification for
membership, the Saviour’s condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel,
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thvall thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself,’ that church will I join with all
my heart and all my soul.”—President Lincoln.
LONDON:
TEUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1867.
[price
sixpence.]
�London:
Printed by J. Kenny, 40 Parker Street, Little Queen Street, W.C.
�THE
NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.
“I have found difficulty in giving nay assent, without mental reservation, to the
long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterise their articles
of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as
its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour’s condensed statement of the
substance of both law and gospel, ‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and
thy neighbour as thyself,’ that church will I join with all my heart and all my
soul.”—President Lincoln.
A Church is not a mechanics’ institute, a philosophical
society, nor a political association. Its supreme purpose is the
public ancl associated worship of God. With this it may, and
should, connect instruction, and works of benevolence. Worship,
Doctrine, Work, are three forms in which man’s nature
expresses itself under the conditions of what we call Church
Fellowship. There are a thousand ways of useful activity in
the world, and in a certain wide sense, all men and women who
are working for the good of mankind (their own included), are
members of one great church and holy brotherhood, though
they may never have articulated the fact to themselves, and
may be unaware of each other’s existence. So, too, the Press
makes the whole ‘nation into a school, acts as a public censor
morum, sparing not the proudest delinquent, and uttering a voice
potential for justice to the humblest member of society—the
press, that out-preaches the bishops, erects a sort of common
pulpit for all who have anything worth communicating to
the people. But neither the press, with its myriad voices, nor
benevolent societies, in then’ thousand modes of activity, include
all that man needs and desires under the idea of a church.
The primary want is some common centre where men may
meet to worship the great Invisible, feel those spiritual ties
that bind them in a common brotherhood, and receive impulse
and inspiration to the practice of a pure and elevated
morality. Men feel—at least, the nobler minds among them
feel—that they need to be led to those fountains of spiritual
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light and strength, which are requisite to prepare them for every
needed work, brace them for all trial, give them tranquillity amid
turmoil, and sustain them to do their duty as under the eye of
the Great Work-master. Now, all this is not to be obtained in
philosophical disquisitions, however correct and profound; much
less in clamorous appeals to the feelings, or in pictures addressed
to the imagination, or in the exciting machinery of public
meetings, nor is it found even in “ the enthusiasm of humanity,”
however wide and earnest, if it does not arise from a Arise and
holy love of man as a child of God, with great powers to be
cultivated, and a great career to run. Mechanics’ institutes,
halls of science, “ churches of justice,” and other well-meant
institutions, have gone but a very little way in supplying this
deep-felt want of the human heart.
2. A feeling is growing in many quarters that the existing
religious organisations do not completely supply what is needed.
The feeling is that they are mostly miserable failures, and that
something far superior should be devised to quietly take their
place. Taking the largest religious body in this country, who can
doubt that the formularies and services of the Church, as by law
established, fail to meet the intellectual and moral wants of its
most cultivated and devout members? Probably the same thing
may be said of the leading Nonconformist denominations. And,
if our information is reliable, a like state of things exists outside,
as well as within, the pale of professing Christendom. Moham
medanism and modern Judaism are passing through a similar
phase. Apparently, too, the Brahminism of India has not escaped
the wide-spread influence which seems to be taking possession
of many foremost minds all the world over. We can report
nothing respecting the Confucianism of the countless millions
of China—a system which has never risen to the dignity of a
religion, but has always reposed on the lower level of a mere
ethical preceptory,—many of its principles, however, reaching a
high order of excellence. Taking an extended survey of the
held of the world, and noting its great religious systems, we
should be disposed to say that ancient traditions are losing their
hold, old repetitions grow stale upon the ear, and men in many
lands, and of many creeds, are dimly groping after something
better. Doubtless in due time this grand aspiration will, as
heretofore, seek to realise itself in some new embodiment.
3. The religious condition of our own country is anything but
�5
encouraging. The Church of England is not what its name
imports—the religious home of the people. Great public move
ments advance without much reference to the teachings of the
pulpit. A considerable proportion of the intelligent working
people in large towns attend no place of Ayor ship; and many of
our most profound thinkers and ablest philosophical writers, our
Carpenters, Darwins, Faradays, Huxleys, Lyells, Mills, Owens,
Spencers, Tyndals, &c., are connected with none of the popular
churches. The Dissenting denominations have no greater reasons
to boast than the Establishment. Confessions and bewailments of
inefficiency are rife among all the sects. They no longer hold the
common mind, as in days of yore. Ideas and usages, we know,
may be quite suitable to one age of the world, oi' one condition
of society, which are found totally unfitted for another. Hoav
shall we account for the decline of clerical influence ? Is it that
in the march of improvement, the Church has fallen behind the
world? Why, for instance, should the chief shepherds of the
flock be distinguished by odd dresses, shovel hats, and knee
breeches, that may have been the mode in the days of our great
grandfathers ? The laying-on of hands has lost much of its
mystic significance to us. Ordinary people will feel that robes,
and ruffles, and gowns, “black, white, and grey, with all their
trumpery,” are not vital parts of religionjwhatever the Ritualists
may say to the contrary. An unhealthy sewrance, for six days
of the week, of a certain order of men from the free air that
visits then' fellow-citizens, is not favourable to genuineness or
strength of character. Neither is there any reason that when
they address us, their discourses should contrast but poorly
with the “ leaders ” of the daily and weekly press, or the
articles in our Quarterlies, and be set off by an unnatural sing
song, which has been somewhat irreverently termed the “ Bible
twang.” If we had a really free and national Church, what should
hinder our calling in the aid of the sister arts—music, architec
ture, eloquence, poetry, sculpture, and painting ? Our devotional
feelings are fostered as we listen to the solemn tones of the
organ, pealing through the arches of the magnificent Cathedral,
and join in those sublime harmonies, in the production of which
genius has spent its highest energies! There seems, neither
justice nor wisdom in restricting a National Church to certain
prescriptive creeds, mutually conflicting, and to a few types of
mind, which are not a full and fair representation of the
�6
nation’s many-sidedness. In a Church meant for the whole
people, and to include the whole nation, all forms of free, earnest,
and devout thought should find their representatives. Lord
Amberley, in a highly suggestive and original article that
recently appeared in the Fortnightly Review, writes :—•“ A body
of educated men, not bound to one special cast of religious
faith, nor each insisting upon his own creed as the one thing
needful; a clergy not purely sectarian, but containing men
of opposite modes of thought, yet all contributing to the
grand object of instructing, improving, civilising the people;
diversity, rather than unity, recognised as the true ideal;
above all, individual speculation not forbidden, but sanctioned
by the laws. All this is so contrary to ordinary notions of a
church, that it is not surprising if many are unwilling to
regard it as either possible or desirable...............................................
That venerable dogmas and old supernatural beliefs are every
where examined, shaken, and overthrown, appears to be generally
admitted. . . . The articles remain as they were in the
time of Elizabeth, but men’s minds are not such as they were
then. Thus it happens that the clergy, the representatives
among us of the Elizabethan stage in our intellectual progress,
are becoming more and more alienated from, and opposed to,
the educated opinion of the country.
.... No National
Church could thoroughly fulfil the duties entrusted to it, if
such men as Theodore Parker, Emerson, or Francis (William)
Newman were excluded from its Ministry.
Such a Church,
though it might contain many excellent and distinguished
ministers, would still remain partial and defective.”
But, without attempting to forestall the future or fix the
progressive, we ask ourselves whether the principles of a
religious organisation may not be indicated, with sufficient breadth
and clearness to form a nucleus for many earnest and devout
men ?
4. It is clear that a long creed, made up of obscure and
disputed points of theology, could never form the basis of a
grand comprehensive spiritual community.
The experiment
has been tried in a hundred forms, and has failed in all—ending
only in little sectarian bigotry, disunion, and denunciation, and
when opportunity served, not stopping short of persecution.
The entire notion of dictating a creed as the exposition of all
possible truth, the summary of all attainable religious know
�7
ledge, the ne plus ultra beyond which we must not advance, has
now become obsolete. It is needless thrice to slay the slain.
A Church must be based on something better and broader than
any mere string of theological articles, however correct. We
must try to find some basis that shall be certain enough, broad
enough, and important enough, to unite a vast majority of
religious men. If there is to be any union and co-operation at
all, there must be some principles held in common; similar
views, purposes, and aspirations, are needed to fuse men into a
Church. But evidently this fusion is not to be sought through
the obscure, the trivial, the controverted, the mystical, the un
determinable. Principles held in common, and felt to be grand,
true, and important, must lie at the foundation of a Church.
Such points as are debated between Calvinists and Arminians
could not enter into the creed of a Universal Church. We say
the same of controversies touching sacraments and forms of
church government. A Catholic Church can make no declara
tion of preference for Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, or Congre
gationalism. Men, equally good and sincere, espouse opposite
views on such questions as these, which, therefore, do not belong
to the essence of religion; nor are theylintimately connected
with the formation of human character: they are properly left
open questions. The whole Ritual controversy, which at this
moment so agitates the Church of England, would be untouched
by our contemplated new Catholic Church; that is, in so far
as this is a mere dispute about forms and dresses, and the charmed
efficacy of sacraments, it remains a shred of antiquarianism, and
cannot prove its title to link itself with spiritual religion.
The acceptance of two simple, practical, but most compre
hensive, principles would seem to be enough. All who accept
with loving heart the worship of God and the service of man,
may be members of one church. They are of one Church, even
if they own it not—know it not. This is enough to constitute
them of one spiritual brotherhood, how much so ever they may
differ in all other matters, important and unimportant. This
exactly coincides with the teaching of Jesus, wherein he makes
the love of God and of our neighbour the sum of all the com
mandments, the fountain-head and centre of all religion. The
teaching of Jesus seems conclusive here. Every one holding
and acting on these principles he would have recognised as
a disciple, and admitted to his Church. We have his express
�8
authority for saying, “ By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye love one another.”
By what authority then,
have the sects prescribed more than Jesus himself has made
essential?
We adhere to the Master.
Our new Catholic
Church shall be co-extensivd with Christ’s description of re
ligion ; its creed shall be simply the love of God and the love of
man. Simple, but surely sufficient; practical, as leading directly
to worship and work; spiritual, because detached from all ritual
and doctrinal matter of disputed theology. Here would be a
Chiu’ch open to all religious minds of. every degree of culture.
Theists of every clime and name, who accept a benevolent God
and a pure morality, might worship together, if not in the same
temples, yet with like spirit, One who is the Maker and Bene
factor of them all. There is reason to believe that many of the
best spirits of all denominations, are verging toward the stand
point we are indicating. Would not this be the very euthanasia
of sectarianism ?—a consummation to be devoutly wished for.
5. Other truths, principles, and doctrines might be held, and
would be held, in connexion with the grand and simple basis oil
which the Church is founded, but this alone would be funda
mental and essential. And if thoroughly and heartily accepted
and acted on, this would bind men together into a spiritual
organisation, such as no mere dogmas or traditional opinions
could ever achieve. Instead of being zealous for some excluding
creed or ism, which is at best but a fragment broken off from
the great sphere of truth, men thus minded would cherish the
love of truth itself, and in due course would come to prize God’s
truth, more than their own petty version of it.
The study of
all God’s laws and will, whether written or unwritten, would
constitute the delightful and inspiring pursuit of the Church
Universal. And a mind aspiring after unison with the Great
Mind that animates the universe, would find worship in work,
and would be constantly advancing to grander views of
creation and of God; and self-culture, and service to man, our
brother, would be the embodiment of our love to God, our
Father. Does any one fear that these principles would be too
vague and too feeble ?
We believe on the contrary, that when
duly nurtured and unfolded they would become the most power
ful influences that sway the human heart; for they have the
whole universe for their sphere, and for them inspiration the
two grandest objects that can be presented to the mind of man
�9
—God, the mysterious and uncomprehended life of the universe,
and man himself, with all the high capacious powers that lie
folded up within him.
6. We wish to combat the idea, that by leaving open ques
tions we detract anything from Truth, or oppose any obstacle to
its progress. Truth claims only an open field and no favour.
But, in this our Catholic Church, men might aim at definite
convictions, and the clearest and fullest attainable knowledge
on all subjects of human thought.
No arrest would be
attempted upon the fullest and the freest thought, because
(even were this desirable, which we hold it is not) no effectual
arrest ’is ultimately possible. But all those other beliefs and
doctrines would be distinct from the creed and practice of
the Church Universal.
A man might believe in plenary
inspiration of Scripture, in miracles, prophecies, water-baptism,
original sin, a personal devil, and endless tortures; and he
might declare, defend, and diffuse them, if he felt them to be
important; but he would hold these opinions as his individual con
victions only, and not as the faith of the Universal Church. In
point of fact, there is no general agreement on such matters as
these, but all are agreed on the love of God .and our neighbour.
In affirming that the obscure and the dubious ought not to enter
into the creed of the Universal Church, we are but stating the
fact as it is. Religious men do not agree, never have agreed,
on creeds of thirty-nine or more articles1^ on dogmas implying
hundreds of propositions, which may be viewed differently by
minds differently educated, and at differing stages of culture.
We must not then look in this direction for abasis of union.
Even if there were agreement on these points,, such agreement
could minister no spiritual power, could supply no moral strength
that is, not contained in the feeling, the consciousness, of a
living and loving God and Father, a Holy Spirit nigh to all
devout hearts that are open to that holy influence. The faith,
the trust, in one pure and benevolent God, is the alpha and
omega of religion. Special religious doctrines are but deduc
tions from k this. A Divine Government of the world,
divine forgiveness, the inspirations of conscience, the future
life,
and every other noble, elevating, and comforting
hope of religion, are all deductions from this one principle,
amplifications of this one truth, streams from this one
fountain,—the heart’s repose on the moral character of God.
�10
Let this be our trust, and what need we more, in the way of
doctrine, creed, theology ? The theological field is cleared of
the lumber of a thousand years, and with open eye and un
quailing heart we set out on our great quest after the truth of
God, to apply it for healing the woes of human kind.
7. In treating all other questions as open ones, we make no
attempt to ignore or shelve them; we merely assign to them a
subordinate place. But we must lay the rock foundation of our
Church Catholic on the love of God and man. This is the
force that binds us to God and to each other. Shall we exclude
from our Church a virtuous and devout man, who may have
historical or critical doubts of the recorded miracles*of the
past, or who may not have attained to an unquestioning
belief in a future life ? This would be to repeat the errors of
the old manufacturers of creeds. In truth, there are tender
and beautiful natures that would not desire a future fife for
themselves, under the dread condition that millions of the
human race, or even that one human being, should personally
experience the endless and aimless tortures of the Calvinistic hell.
Our Free Church must be dwarfed by no little final and authori
tative creed, but shall be open to all loving and devout hearts,
though they may be in different stages of intellectual and spiritual
development, and have as yet taken in unequal portions of the truth
of God. We see but in part, and we prophecy but in part. Our
Church then shall include men of full-grown faith like St. Paul,
who appears to have had no doubts of the immortal fife ; and it
shall also comprehend babes in Christ, who cannot see afar off, and
cannot walk alone. Men, indeed, are not to be admitted, because
of their doubts on these matters of high and disputed doctrine ;
but they are to be recognised as members of the New Catholic
Church, because they have accepted the grand principles that
constitute the Catholic faith, the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. But on all other points their doubts shall
not exclude them. If in any there be darkness and blankness, this
is rather a reason for admission into the Church, that, like the
ancient catechumens, they may be instructed, not anathematised;
that if there is any fight within, they may have the benefit of it;
and, if there is no light, that they may at least learn where their
knowledge ends and their ignorance begins. It must be frankly
and completely understood and acknowledged, that our Church
is not an agreement in some stereotyped creed, which has been
�11
embalmed and bequeathed to us from the past, but an
association of free and earnest souls, who have banded them
selves together to listen to the voice of God, to study the order
of His universe, thence to collect His will, and proclaim
it, and apply it for the service and blessing of man.
Some earnest enquirer of blameless life presents himself for
admission to the Church, but he has not been able to form to
himself any satisfactory ideas respecting the authority of the
Bible, inspiration, miracles, and a future life. He does not
utter himself confidently, as do the ignorant and the presump
tuous : he is at least aware of the depth and difficulty of the
themes, and he is trying to keep his mind open to the light of
heaven, from whatever quarter it may stream upon him. Shall
this man be excluded, because he has become aware of the per
plexities that have beset the greatest minds that have searched
into these high topics? or shall he not rather be welcomed,
because he has accepted the grand Catholic faith (grander,
nobler, and truer than all disputed theological creeds), the faith
which makes us all one in the love of God and our neighbour ?
8. The New Catholic Church, the basis of which we have
sketched, could never be at war with science, as many of our churches
are ; would never dread the advance of knowledge, as most of our
churches do ; but it would foster everything that conduces to
the world’s improvement,—the most extended good of the human
race. For no advance of science could ever render doubtful or
secondary, the two primal duties of loving God and loving man.
Holding communion with a living and loving God now and here,
we could afford to keep the peace upon the records of the past,
whose interpretation is often difficult, hardly ever certain, and
which, at the best, must be interpreted through our own experi
ence. We can know other hearts and consciences only through
our own. Even our conception of the Divine Being is formed
by analogy with our own minds ; and kindred minds understand
each other best. But if we have the living and present experi
ence of the holy conscience, what boots it to wrangle respecting
the phenomena of the past, which for us can have no reality and
value except in so far as they are repeated or illustrated in our
own consciousness. The Church of the Future will not waste its
time and temper in disputes about the past manifestations of
God, ordinary or extraordinary, natural or miraculous, but
standing upon the present realised truth, drinking in the present
�12
actual and efficient inspiration of God, it will go on from truth,
to truth, and from glory to glory. Accepting religion at first
hand, it will generously construe the past; and affirming all
truth to he divine, it will be strenuous to take truth itself for
authority, rather than, childishly, be running hither and thither to
seek authority for its truth. Whatever of true or good exists in
any of the sacred books, or sacred literature of the world, could
be appropriated and assimilated. We need not ignore any
truths that have been reached by the sages of India or Egypt,
of Greece or Rome, any more than the grand lessons and prin
ciples that come to us through Hebrew bards or Christian
apostles. In honouring the Bible, we need not dishonour the
Koran. We may generalise the idea of inspiration, and receive
the true and divine, if even it visit us from outside the circle of
Hebrew prophets, or beyond the limits of the Christian con
sciousness. In ancient times, the tenets of those called heretics
were not always the least elevated or the least Christian. But,
it would be the glory of our Catholic Church to recognise
the freedom of conscience and the inspiration of God, wherever
we find the noble and the true. Each member of our broad
Church would freely appropriate, according to his capacity,
the spiritual nourishment fitted to his own special wants
wherever found.
As there would be no authoritative
hierarchy, no act of uniformity, no vain attempts to plane
all minds down to the same dead level, each section, congrega
tion, or cluster of congregations, would be able to make rules
and articles for its own particular guidance; and all would be
growing into a grand community, a glorious fellowship of free
minds, gladly accepting the accumulating facts of science, which
are the permanent revelation of God by which he is ever speak
ing to all people.
9. An inevitable outcome of oui' principles is the right, nay,
the duty of free thought and the sacredness of the indi
vidual conscience. Yet this is a duty which is seldom volun
tarily undertaken. Uncultured minds are averse to the labour
of thinking, and the weak and superstitious dread the very idea
of thinking for themselves in matters of religion. They call it
heresy, pride of intellect, carnal reason, while all the time they
are themselves employing this same carnal weapon to recommend
and defend their own favourite dogmas. In the last result,
every man that thinks must depend on his own individual reason,
�13
for guidance toward the true light, just as he follows his own
eyes in walking the streets. If he cannot or does not think for
himself, at the very least it is by by his own judgment that he
selects the authorities he shall trust. To talk of carnal ears and
pride of eyesight would be just as logical as the talk about pride of
reason. It is inevitable that we should see by our own eyes, hear
by our own ears, think through our own brain, judge by our
own reason, worship according to our own conscience. When
we call in the helping counsel of those we deem wiser than
ourselves, reason must still decide: we cannot shift the
responsibility upon others. Individual reason is the universal
starting point, and it is the terminus.
10. Those who understand the principles we are endeavouring
to set forth will see that our proposed Church cannot, as a church,
descend to regulate and pronounce upon many details that inert
and feeble minds might desire to have settled for them without
trouble, in order that they might possess them as they take pos
session of their paternal estates J Whether we are to have prayers
written or printed, prepared or extemporised, what are to be the
vestments of the clergy, whether our places of meeting shall be in
style Grecian or Gothic;—such questions as these, and a whole
host besides, must be left for arrangement according to the
discretion, taste, convenience, and conscience, of the members
in each locality. The Church, as a community, has no judgment
to pronounce upon them, because it keeps itself to higher
concerns.
11. Work, not less than worship and instruction, will hold a
first place in the Church of the Future. Its mission will be to
do good, its prayer will be work.
Kind and good hearts
will find their mission in bringing comfort to the afflicted,
health to the sick, relief to the oppressed, food to the hungry,
freedom to the captive, knowledge to the ignorant, and
reformation to the sinner. For a long time to come the best
spirits of the Church may find ample employment in training
the young, especially the most neglected, and inducing the habits
that lead toindustry, order, cleanliness, and economy. The existing
condition of the dwellings of the poor of London, and of all our
great towns, could not endure in presence of a church animated
by the genuine enthusiasm of humanity. Their continuance is a
standing reproach to our wealth, our intelligence, and our Christi
anity. To promote public health and education, to forward every
�14
thing that conduces to the peace and prosperity of nations; perhaps
to send out to foreign lands its trained missionaries, not to spread
a doubtful theology, but to convey the arts of peace and civilisa
tion to tribes less civilised; and exemplify, by deeds of kindness,
the goodwill that man owes to man all the world over: these,
and such services as these, will be the chosen work of the Church
of the Future. Nor will the great vital questions of the time be
deemed too secular for the spirituality of religion. Pure religion
and undefiled, established in men’s hearts and lives, and not on
Acts of Parliament, would be felt as a moral power in the state,
—promoting peace, justice, and goodwill to all, rendering legisla
tion wise and humane, and sending the sweet waters of concord
over all the earth for the healing of the nations.
12. There is nothing revolutionary or subversive in the idea
of the Church which we present in outline. All noble
institutions might be linked with it; all earnest workers for
human improvement might be included in it, and draw their
inspiration from it, and it could never be outgrown by any
advance of society.
Those whose thoughts run in the old
grooves, will take exception mainly to the shortness of its creed,
and the breadth of its platform. “ It does not affirm enough,”
it will be said, “ it does not dogmatise enough-; its materials
would be too heterogeneous; there is needed a common and
binding creed.”
And is not the love of God and of our
neighbour, a common and binding creed ? We challenge the pro
duction of any better, broader, or higher.
Surely if there were
a community animated by such principles, it would be a
blessing in the earth! Let the two grand principles—the
Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man—take
root in the mind, and all other truths might follow; only those
other truths would not be prescribed by Church enactment, but
would prevail by their own evidence, weight, and authority.
Whatever is true in them would be taught not less effectually, but
more effectually, than if it were set forth in an authoritative creed
or symbol. Such attempts have proved the failiu'e, the weakness,
and the ignominy of the old sects and creedmakers. The Church
of the Future will adopt no such retrograde policy. The whole
range of truth must be left open to the searching, advancing,
aspiring mind of man; as the whole starry heavens are open to
the sweep of his telescopes. The fear to leave the soul of man
face to face with the facts of the universe, betrays a scepticism
�15
respecting truth itself, respecting its reality and safety, which is
far worse than any critical doubts regarding ancient documents.
Holding absolute faith in Truth and God, the new Catholic
Church would close no avenue of knowledge, and bar no
approach to God. We have entire confidence that faith, good
ness, and right, will gain the final victory over all forms of error,
evil, and wrong.
13. Finally, this Church would harmonise with the spirit
of pure Christianity. It would worship the Father that Jesus
worshipped; it would recognise the human brotherhood which
He preached and practised.
The principles that supported
the virtue of Christ himself would be the pillars of
the New Catholic Church.
On the disputed points which
have divided the Christian world, our Church would
leave opinion, criticism, and advancing knowledge, free;
the religion which all accept, it would regard as alone
essential.
This is a doctrine of charity, a ground of
liberality, and a condition of progress.
While men lay
the foundation of their churches in disputable and secondary
matters of mere speculative opinion, they find no agree
ment, no repose, no orderly progress—but suspicion, ill-will,*
secessions, and an indefinite dread of the advance of new ideas.
Taught by past mistakes, let us lay the foundation broad and
deep, on principles which all religious men acknowledge to be
true, important, and catholics and we shall, however feebly,
be building on a foundation which future ages will not desert,
but will continue to honour and to crown with new and evergrowing evidences and monuments of man’s restless aspiring
spirit; amid all his errors, ever seeking the true; and even amid
his vices and crimes never falsifying the ancient testimony that
man was made in the image of God, and that of one blood are
all nations of men.
Amicus.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The new Catholic Church
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Crawford, J.G.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author given as Amicus. Attribution by the Dr Williams Library. Printed by J. Kenny, Parker Street, Little Queen Street, W.C.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Trubner & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1867
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5254
Subject
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Catholic Church
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The new Catholic Church), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Catholic Church
Conway Tracts