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John Henry Newman's Adoption of Baptismal Regeneration, and the Relative Importance of John Bird Sumner, Richard Mant and William Beveridge to his Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

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The commonly accepted opinion of Newman’s adoption of the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration and rejection of Calvinism follows his account in the Apologia that it was Hawkins’ gift, in 1824, of

the ‘Treatise on Apostolical Preaching,” by Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, from which I learned to give up my remaining Calvinism, and to receive the.doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration.

This statement in the Apologia is based upon a journal entry of August 1824:

Lately I have been thinking much on the subject of grace, regeneration &c. and reading Sumner’s Apostolical Preaching, which Hawkins has given me. Sumner’s book threatens to drive me either into Calvinism, or baptismal regeneration, and I wish to steer clear of both, at least in preaching.

Undoubtedly, the Apologia continues to be an invaluable insight into the religious development of its author, but yet we need to be aware of its tendency to pass over the details of what was a very complicated and lengthy development.

Newman divides his spiritual journey into four broad phases: Evangelical, Liberal, Apostolical, and lastly Roman Catholic. This has the great advantage that the broad sweep of his brush portrays the dynamic of his pilgrimage towards a definite goal, but this is at the expense of some of the background to significant changes in his life, for neither the Evangelical nor the Liberal stages of his progress were entirely unmixed with other strands of thought. In particular, the Apologia does not do justice to the whole spectrum of influences to which he was subject before he went up to Oxford.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Apologia pro Vita sua, London, 1864, p. 65Google Scholar.

2 Apostolical Preaching, London, 1826, pp. 165, 155f., 199, 185f., 313f.

3 Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, I, Oxford, p. 30. Hereafter referred to as LD/1.

4 Ibid.

5 Newman, John Henry: A Biography, Oxford, 1990Google Scholar.

6 Newman and his Age, London, 1990, p. 20Google Scholar.

7 The Theological Works of William Beveridge, Vol. I, Oxford, 1842, p. vii, ixGoogle Scholar.

We shall probably never know who wrote these words. The general editor of the series was W.J. Copeland, Newman's curate at Littlemore from 1840, but there is no record of who actually edited Beveridge's Works.

8 LD/2, p. 185.

9 Weidner, H. D., The Via Media of the Anglican Church, Oxford, 1990Google Scholar.

10 Private Thoughts, in Works, VIII, p. 303.

11 Works, IX, p.37, VIII, pp.21, 22, 111.

12 Lectures, Oxford, 1812, pp. 333, 69, 363, 339, 355.

13 Lectures, pp. 361, 354f.

14 Sermon 4, Works, I, p. 66.

15 Manuscript Sermon 213.

16 Lectures, pp. 334, 396, 372f., 128, 253, 144, 75, 92, 64.

17 Private Thoughts, p. 216, 322.

18 Autobiographical Writings, p. 172.

19 LD/I, p. 189.

20 Lectures. pp. 61, 106, 95, see also p. 87.

21 Churches of Rome and England, London, 1836, p. 14Google Scholar.

22 Sermon 74, Works, III, p. 415.

23 LD/I, pp.32f.

24 Autobiographical Writings, p. 197.

25 LD/I, p. 110.

26 Lectures, p. 204.

27 The History of the Reformation and other Ecclesiastical Transactions in and about the Low Countries, Brandt, Gerard, London, 1720, Vol II, p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

28 Institutes 3:22:3, 3:16: 1,2.

29 Lectures, p. 101. He specifically attacks Romaine again on p. 290.

30 Romaine, William, The Life, Talk and Triumph of Faith, Cambridge and London, 1970, p. 197Google Scholar.

31 Lectures, p. 121.

32 Autobiographical Writings, p. 77.