Teacher of the faithful, disciple of the Church: quotations on development, education, conscience and other subjects

John Henry Newman is most quotable! Here are a few quotes on a few subjects; many more quotes on these and other subjects are given in the free eBook

A careless, a sensual, an unbelieving mind, a mind destitute of the love and fear of God, with narrow views and earthly aims, a low standard of duty, and a benighted conscience, a mind contented with itself, and unresigned to God's will, would feel as little pleasure, at the last day, at the words, 'Enter into the joy of thy Lord,' as it does now at the words, 'Let us pray.' Nay, much less, because, while we are in a church, we may turn our thoughts to other subjects, and contrive to forget that God is looking on us; but that will not be possible in heaven.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 1, Sermon 1. Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness, pp 6-7

… nothing without faith as its foundation [Heb. xi. 6; Eph. ii. 8]; faith implies an external message [Rom. x. 14;1 Thess. ii. 13]. Yet, … it is impossible to go into the world without seeing that the idea of taking one's doctrine from an external authority does not enter into their minds. It is always 'I think.'

Sermon Notes, 29 May 1859 [Faith III], p 326

[From letter to Mrs. Helbert, 28 September 1869]

And now let me add for your comfort that you are not bound to leave the Anglican Church till you clearly see your way to do it—You are, I repeat, in God's hands—He will help you, strengthen you, console you, and bring you into the light … But every soul stands by itself—and you are thrown on your private judgment as you never would have been, had not the so-called Reformers put everything into confusion. You are not to blame for this—it was their sin—but you are suffering for it—as I before now have suffered, but as God's mercy has brought me out of that miserable position, so will It bring you.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 24, Jan 1868 to Dec 1869, p 340 (Login)

And here we see what is meant when a person says that the Catholic system comes home to his mind, fulfils his ideas of religion, satisfies his sympathies, and the like; and thereupon becomes a Catholic. Such a person is often said to go by private judgment, to be choosing his religion by his own standard of what a religion ought to be. Now it need not be denied that those who are external to the Church must begin with private judgment; they use it in order ultimately to supersede it; as a man out of doors uses a lamp in a dark night, and puts it out when he gets home ... There is no absurdity, then, or inconsistency in a person first using his private judgment and then denouncing its use. Circumstances change duties.

Loss and Gain, Chapter 2-6, pp 203-204

Immediate, implicit submission of the mind was, in the lifetime of the Apostles, the only, the necessary token of faith; then there was no room whatever for what is now called private judgment. No one could say: 'I will choose my religion for myself, I will believe this, I will not believe that; I will pledge myself to nothing; I will believe just as long as I please, and no longer; what I believe to-day I will reject tomorrow, if I choose. I will believe what the Apostles have as yet said, but I will not believe what they shall say in time to come.' No; either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe.

Discourses to Mixed Congregations, Discourse 10. Faith and Private Judgment, p 197

… the present communion of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the members of any other creed.

Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 2, pp 97-98

[From letter to Mrs. William Robinson Clark, a prospective convert, 31 December 1875]

The chief point I should wish to impress upon you, and direct you to pray for, is a clear faith that the Church in communion with Rome is that Church which the Apostles began at Pentecost, that Church which St. Paul calls the Pillar and ground of the Truth, that Church of which St. Luke says 'The Lord added to the Church such as should be saved.' [1 Tim. 3:15. Acts 2:47 (KJV)]

Letters and Diaries, Volume 27, Jan 1874 to Dec 1875, p 397 (login)

[From letter to Mrs. Anstice, who had asked questions on behalf of her brother-in-law, Spencer Northcote, 18 December 1845]

In so very large a question as the Roman, he really cannot expect to see his way ever through every difficulty … as to particular questions such as Mr Northcote is perplexing himself with, they are endless—life is not long enough for them … to begin with particular cases is to begin at the wrong end … When we have lost our way, we mount up to some eminence to look about us, but he plunges into the nearest thicket to find out his bearings.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 11, Oct 1845 to Dec 1846, p 69 (login)

[From letter to Mrs. Christie, 5 November 1879]

I am not going to waste my and your time by discoursing on the Canons of Nicæa and Chalcedon. I can't conceive that that is the way we are to be led into the truth … There are large broad arguments, called 'Notes of the Church'. These are our evidences, not the issue of questions as to which each party has its own view … what Church but ours, in its principles, its structure, its large teachings, its consistency, its mode of acting, its vigour, its high courage, its grandeur in history, its saints, fulfils that idea of a 'pillar and ground of the truth' which the Apostle makes the definition of the Bride of the Lamb? These are what I mean by Notes of the true Church.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 29, Jan 1879 to Sep 1881, pp 193-194 (login)

I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the end.

Apologia, Chapter 2, p 49

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

    Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home—

    Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene—one step enough for me.

Verses on Various Occasions, XC. The Pillar of Cloud (Lead, Kindly Light), 1833, p 156

[From letter to A J Hanmer, 10 February 1848]

Most people know in a measure what I gave up to become a Catholic, and they can fancy that probably it was much more than they happen to know, yet were the loss a hundred fold, it would indeed have been a cheap bargain. It is coming out of shadows into truth ...

Letters and Diaries, Volume 12, Jan 1847 to Dec 1848, p 168 [Emphasis added. Compare this to Newman's epitaph: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.] (login)

What is the main guide of the soul, given to the whole race of Adam, outside the true fold of Christ as well as within it, given from the first dawn of reason, given to it in spite of that grievous penalty of ignorance, which is one of the chief miseries of our fallen state? It is the light of conscience, 'the true Light,' as the … Evangelist says, … 'which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.' [John 1:9]

Sermons Preached on Various Occasions, Sermon 5. Dispositions for Faith, p 64

Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas …

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, Section 5. Conscience, pp 248-249 [Quoted in §1778 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church]

Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will.

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, Section 5. Conscience, p 250

[From letter to John Keble, 4 May 1843]

In June and July 1839, near four years ago, I read the Monophysite Controversy, and it made a deep impression on me, which I was not able to shake off, that the Pope had a certain gift of infallibility, and that communion with the see of Rome was the divinely intended means of grace and illumination. I do not know how far I fully recognized this at the moment,—but towards the end of the same Long Vacation I considered attentively the Donatist history, and became quite excited. It broke upon me that we were in a state of schism. Since [then], all history, particularly that of Arianism, has appeared to me in a new light, confirmatory of the same doctrine ...

At present, I fear, as far as I can realize my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic Communion the Church of the Apostles, and that what grace is among us (which, through God's mercy, is not little,) is extraordinary, and from the overflowings of His Dispensation.

I am very far more sure that England is in schism, than that the Roman additions to the Primitive Creed may not be developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine Depositum of faith.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 9, May 1842 to Oct 1843, p 328 (login)

[From letter to Henry Wilberforce, 7 October 1845]

Father Dominic the Passionist is passing this way, on his way from Aston in Staffordshire to Belgium … He is to come to Littlemore for a night as a guest of one of us whom he has admitted at Aston. He does not know of my intentions, but I shall ask of him admission into the one true Fold of the Redeemer.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 11, Oct 1845 to Dec 1846, p 3 [Blessed Fr Dominic Barberi arrived late on 8 October and began Newman's reception by hearing his confession.] (login)

[From letter to George T Edwards, 24 February 1887]

I will not close our correspondence without testifying my simple love and adhesion to the Catholic Roman Church, not that I think you doubt this; and did I wish to give a reason for this full and absolute devotion, what should, what can, I say, but that those great and burning truths, which I learned when a boy from Evangelical teaching, I have found impressed upon my heart with fresh and ever increasing force by the Holy Roman Church? That Church has added to the simple evangelicalism of my first teachers, but it has obscured, diluted, enfeebled, nothing of it—on the contrary, I have found a power, a resource, a comfort, a consolation in our Lord's divinity and atonement, in His Real Presence, … which all good Catholics indeed have, but which Evangelical Christians have but faintly.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 31, Jan 1885 to Aug 1890, p 1 (login)

[From letter to Sir John Acton, 8 July 1862]

The critical question is, whether there is development in the Christian Apostolic dogma … Then, what is meant by development? … Is it a more intimate apprehension, and a more lucid enunciation of the original dogma? For myself I think it is, and nothing more … I think it is what an Apostle would have said, when on earth, what any of his disciples would have said, according as occasion called for it ... to me the words 'development in dogma' are substantially nothing but the process by which, under the magisterium of the Church, implicit faith becomes explicit.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 20, Jul 1861 to Dec 1863, pp 223-224 (login)

[From letter to John Finlayson, 3 October 1874]

You will observe that my Essay assumes an Infallible Authority in the Church, and the argument is, that, supposing this, the growth and evolution of doctrine which actually has taken place in our Creed and worship, has nothing to startle or perplex us—since at the very least the developments are in themselves consistent with the doctrinal elements from which they are made—and, in the infallibility which has guided them they have a guarantee of their truth, though they have not the guarantee of logical demonstration.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 27, Jan 1874 to Dec 1875, p 126 (login)

... what the Catholic Church once has had, she never has lost ... Instead of passing from one stage of life to another, she has carried her youth and middle age along with her, on to her latest time. She has not changed possessions, but accumulated them, and has brought out of her treasure-house, according to the occasion, things new and old. She did not lose Benedict by finding Dominic; and she has still both Benedict and Dominic at home, though she has become the mother of Ignatius.

Historical Sketches, Volume 2, IV. The Mission of St. Benedict, pp 368-369

... all bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had never been stated in words before his time; that his phraseology and his positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was, in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones.

Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 2, p 58

As the Church uses Hospitals religiously, so she uses Universities … As in … Hospitals, she aims, not simply at … bodily health, but at the … bodily health of an immortal being, so in and by a University, she contemplates, not simply mental culture, which is the object of a University, as such, but the mental culture of an immortal being.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 15, Jan 1852 to Dec 1853, p 131 (login)

… taking human nature as it is, the thirst of knowledge and the opportunity of quenching it, though these be the real life of a great school of philosophy and science, will not be sufficient in fact for its establishment; … they will not work to their ultimate end, which is the attainment and propagation of truth, unless surrounded by influences of a different sort, which have no pretension indeed to be the essence of a University, but are conservative of that essence ... These may be called the three vital principles of the Christian student, faith, chastity, love; because their contraries, viz., unbelief or heresy, impurity, and enmity, are just the three great sins against God, ourselves, and our neighbour, which are the death of the soul ...

Historical Sketches, Volume 3, I. The Rise and Progress of Universities, Chapter 15, pp 188-189

Is the Vicar of Christ bound by office or by vow to be the preacher of the theory of gravitation, or a martyr for electro-magnetism? Would he be acquitting himself of the dispensation committed to him if he were smitten with an abstract love of these matters, however true, or beautiful, or ingenious, or useful? Or rather, does he not contemplate such achievements of the intellect, as far as he contemplates them, solely and simply in their relation to the interests of Revealed Truth? Surely, what he does he does for the sake of Religion … He rejoices in the widest and most philosophical systems of intellectual education, from an intimate conviction that Truth is his real ally, as it is his profession; and that Knowledge and Reason are sure ministers to Faith.

Idea of a University, Preface, p xi [Quoted in part by Pope Saint John Paul II in Ex Corde Ecclesiae (August 15, 1990), §4]

I say that a cultivated intellect, because it is a good in itself, brings with it a power and a grace to every work and occupation which it undertakes, and enables us to be more useful, and to a greater number. There is a duty we owe to human society as such, to the state to which we belong, to the sphere in which we move, to the individuals towards whom we are variously related, and whom we successively encounter in life; and that philosophical or liberal education, as I have called it, which is the proper function of a University, if it refuses the foremost place to professional interests, does but postpone them to the formation of the citizen, and, while it subserves the larger interests of philanthropy, prepares also for the successful prosecution of those merely personal objects, which at first sight it seems to disparage.

Idea of a University, Part 1. University Teaching, Discourse 7. Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Professional Skill, p 167

… a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living system, with a living teaching, and not to a mere collection of decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the framework, not the body and substance of the Church. And this is a truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other religion, not only the convert.

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to Pusey, p 18

[From letter to William Bernard Ullathorne, Bishop of Birmingham, 30 December 1862]

I felt and feel that no good ever came of resisting the appointed Pastors of the flock. It is they who are the guardians of doctrine; they who have to give an account of souls; they who are answerable, if the Church suffers. I will never be so rash as not to leave them their responsibility, pure and simple, having this duty only in regard to it, viz to help them with my prayers.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 20, Jul 1861 to Dec 1863, pp 378-379 (login)

'If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' Matt. xix. 17.

Let a plain man read the Gospels with a serious and humble mind, and as in God's presence, and I suppose he would be in no perplexity at all about the meaning of these words. They are clear as the day at first reading, and the rest of our Saviour's teaching does but corroborate their obvious meaning. I conceive that if such a man, after reading them and the other similar passages which occur in the Gospels, were told that he had not mastered the sense of them, and that in matter of fact to attempt to enter into life by keeping the commandments, to attempt to keep the commandments in order to enter into life, were suspicious and dangerous modes of expression, and that the use of them showed an ignorance of the real spirit of Christ's doctrine, he would in despair say, 'Then truly Scripture is not a book for the multitude, but for those only who have educated and refined understandings, so as to see things in a sense different from their obvious meaning.'

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 3, Sermon 6. Faith and Obedience, p 93

A man says, 'I have a right to do this or that; I have a right to give my vote here or there; I have a right to further this or that measure.' Doubtless, you have a right—you have the right of freewill—you have from your birth the birthright of being a free agent, of doing right or wrong, of saving yourself or ruining yourself; you have the right, that is, you have the power—(to speak plainly) the power to damn yourself; but (alas!) a poor consolation will it be to you in the next world, to know that your ruin was all your own fault, as brought upon you by yourself—for what you have said comes to nothing more than this; and be quite sure, men do not lose their souls by some one extraordinary act, but by a course of acts; and the careless, or rather, the self-sufficient and haughty-minded use of your political power, this way or that, at your pleasure, which is now so common, is among those acts by which men save or lose them.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 3, Sermon 15. Contest between Truth and Falsehood in the Church, p 217

In truth, the Church was framed for the express purpose of interfering, or (as irreligious men will say) meddling with the world. It is the plain duty of its members, not only to associate internally, but also to develop that internal union in an external warfare with the spirit of evil, whether in Kings' courts or among the mixed multitude; and, if they can do nothing else, at least they can suffer for the truth, and remind men of it, by inflicting on them the task of persecution.

Arians of the 4th Century, Chapter 3, Section 2. Consequences of the Nicene Council, pp 258-259

This is our real and true bliss, not to know, or to affect, or to pursue; but to love, to hope, to joy, to admire, to revere, to adore. Our real and true bliss lies in the possession of those objects on which our hearts may rest and be satisfied.

Now, if this be so, here is at once a reason for saying that the thought of God, and nothing short of it, is the happiness of man; for though there is much besides to serve as subject of knowledge, or motive for action, or means of excitement, yet the affections require a something more vast and more enduring than anything created. What is novel and sudden excites, but does not influence; what is pleasurable or useful raises no awe; self moves no reverence, and mere knowledge kindles no love. He alone is sufficient for the heart who made it.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 5, Sermon 22. The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul, p 316

[From letter to Georges Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, end of 1870]

The doctrine of infallibility has now been more than sufficiently promulgated. Personally I have never had a shadow of a doubt that the very essence of religion is protection from error, for a revelation that could stultify itself would be no revelation at all … When Rome spoke on this subject every misgiving vanished; for, if by some fiction those who love me will have it that I am a teacher of the faithful, I am above all a disciple of the Church, doctor fidelium, discipulus ecclesiae.

Letters and Diaries, Volume 25, Jan 1870 to Dec 1871, p 259 (Login)

[From letter to Arthur Arnold, 20 Sep 1872]

… the subject matter of the Pope's infallibility is a truth, and truth in the province of religion and morals. The Pope is not infallible in his acts or his commands … Revelation, in its very idea, is a revelation of truth—and it is a revelation not for the first century alone, but for all times. Who is its keeper and interpreter, or oracle, in centuries 2, 3, 4 as the Apostles were in the first? We do not want, nor do we recognise in St. Peter, an impeccable man, but a sure teacher of the truth. The Popes take his place … We can blame a Pope's actions, while we believe in his formal enunciations of Christian doctrine.

Letters and Diaries, volume 26, Jan 1872 to Dec 1873, p 173 (login)

I say then, when once we have mastered the idea, that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal in the form of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts which such a doctrine involves? What awe and surprise must attend upon the knowledge, that a creature has been brought so close to the Divine Essence? It was the creation of a new idea and of a new sympathy, of a new faith and worship, when the holy Apostles announced that God had become incarnate; then a supreme love and devotion to Him became possible, which seemed hopeless before that revelation ... But, besides this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that Incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former, and does not interfere with it. He is God made low, she is a woman made high.

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to Pusey, Part 4, pp 82-83

I ask you, have you any intention to deny that Mary was as fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference, that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a help-mate to her husband, did in the event but cooperate with him for its ruin? If Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had even a greater grace? And this consideration gives significance to the Angel's salutation of her as 'full of grace,' … And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the first moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference:—well, this is simply and literally the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I say the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is in its substance this, … and it really does seem to me bound up in the doctrine of the Fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to Pusey, Part 3, pp 45-46

May that bright and gentle Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for their conversion!

Anglican Difficulties, Volume 2, Letter to Pusey, p 118

Our happiness consists in loving God. And we cannot love Him without knowing about Him. And we cannot know about Him, ever so little, without seeing that He is beyond our understanding, i.e. mysterious ... to be religious at all, to know and believe anything of God, we must believe what we cannot understand, i.e. mysteries.

Sermon Notes, June, 1871 (Trinity Sunday), p 208

There have been at all times men so ignorant of the object of Christ's coming, as to consider mysteries inconsistent with the light of the Gospel. They have thought … Christianity to be, what they term, a 'rational religion.' And hence they have argued, that no doctrine which was mysterious, i.e. too deep for human reason, or inconsistent with their self-devised notions, could be contained in Scripture; as if it were honouring Christ to maintain that when He said a thing, He could not have meant what He said, because they would not have said it. Nicodemus, though a sincere inquirer, and (as the event shows) a true follower of Christ, yet at first was startled at the mysteries of the Gospel. He said to Christ, 'How can these things be?' He felt the temptation, and overcame it. But there are others who are altogether offended and fall away on being exposed to it; as those mentioned in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, who went back and walked no more with Him.

The Feast of Trinity succeeds Pentecost; the light of the Gospel does not remove mysteries in religion.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 1, Sermon 16. The Christian Mysteries, pp 204-205

Mysteries in religion are measured by the proud according to their own comprehension, by the humble, according to the power of God; the humble glorify God for them, the proud exalt themselves against them.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 4, Sermon 19. The Mysteriousness of our Present Being, p 283

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