Series of theological writings by the English Oxford Movement
The Tracts for the Times were a series of 90 theological publications, varying in length from a few pages to book-length, produced by members of the English Oxford Movement, an Anglo-Catholic revival group, from 1833 to 1841. There were about a dozen authors, including Oxford Movement leaders John Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey, with Newman taking the initiative in the series, and making the largest contribution. With the wide distribution associated with the tract form, and a price in pennies, the Tracts succeeded in drawing attention to the views of the Oxford Movement on points of doctrine, but also to its overall approach, to the extent that Tractarian became a synonym for supporter of the movement.
Background
On 14 July 1833, Keble preached at St Mary's an assize sermon on "National Apostasy", which Newman afterwards regarded as the inauguration of the Oxford Movement. In the words of Richard William Church, it was "Keble who inspired, Froude who gave the impetus, and Newman who took up the work"; but the first organisation of it was due to Hugh James Rose, editor of the British Magazine, who has been styled "the Cambridge originator of the Oxford Movement". Rose met Oxford Movement figures on a visit to Oxford looking for magazine contributors, and it was in his rectory house at Hadleigh, Suffolk, that a meeting of High Church clergy was held over 25–26 July (Newman was not present, but Hurrell Froude, Arthur Philip Perceval, and William Palmer had gone to visit Rose),[1] at which it was resolved to fight for "the apostolical succession and the integrity of the Prayer Book."
Publication
Many of the tracts were labelled, indicating their intended audience: Ad Clerum (to the clergy), Ad Populum (to the people), or Ad Scholas (to scholars). The first 20 tracts appeared in 1833, with 30 more in 1834. After that the pace slowed, but the later contributions were more substantive on doctrinal matters. Initially these publications were anonymous, pseudonymous, or reprints from theologians of previous centuries. The authorship details of the tracts were recovered by later scholars of the Oxford Movement, with some tentative accounts of drafting. Through Francis Rivington, the tracts were published by the Rivington house in London, and were simultaneously published by J H Parker in Oxford.[2]
Opposition
The Tracts also provoked a secondary literature from opponents. Significant replies came from evangelicals, including that of William Goode in Tract XC Historically Refuted (1845) and Isaac Taylor.[3] The term "Tractarian" applied to followers of Keble, Pusey and Newman (the Oxford Movement) was used by 1839, in sermons by Christopher Benson.[4]
William Palmer in 1843 published A Narrative of Events Connected with the Publication of the Tracts for the Times, dedicated to Bagot.[6] In the Preface he is concerned with arguing against the point of view that the Tracts were an attempt to introduce Roman Catholic beliefs; to place the Tracts in the context set up by the 1833 formation of the Association of Friends of the Church (set up by Hugh James Rose, Hurrell Froude and Palmer himself) that was the initial step in the Oxford Movement; and to distance his views from the editorial line of the British Critic. This work then provoked a major statement of his position by William George Ward.[7]
Ad Populum. Menzies was a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.[15] Graduating B.A. in 1832, he was ordained deacon and appointed Curate of Godalming in 1834, and ordained as priest in 1835.[16][17] He died in Torquay, aged 26, on 24 February 1836.[18]
Ad Scholas. Later as a Catholic, in his 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (the Retractation of Anti-Catholic Statements), Newman recalled his language in this tract: In 1834 I also used, of certain doctrines of the Church of Rome, the epithets 'unscriptural,' 'profane,' 'impious,' 'bold,' 'unwarranted,' 'blasphemous,' 'gross,' 'monstrous,' 'cruel,' 'administering deceitful comfort,' and 'unauthorised,' in Tract 38. I do not mean to say that I had not a definite meaning in every one of those epithets, or that I did not weigh them before I used them.[20]
Ad Clerum. "In these [67, 68, 69] Pusey maintained that regeneration is connected with baptism both in scripture and in the writings of the early church. A second edition of the first of the three tracts appeared in 1839; in it the argument was entirely confined to scripture, but was expanded from forty-nine to four hundred pages."[21]
On the Roman Breviary as embodying the substance of the Devotional Services of the Church Catholic.
Newman
Ad Clerum. Draft by Hurrell Froude. This Tract influenced Robert Williams and Samuel Francis Wood, both laymen, to attempt a translation of the Roman Breviary. Newman put an end to this project.[25]
Catena Patrum. No. III. Testimony of Writers in the later English Church to the duty of maintaining, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est.
Ad Populum. The authors cited are: Jewell; Convocation of 1571; The Queen's Council of 1582; Bilson; Hooker; Convocation of 1603; John Overall; Morton; Field; White; Hall; Laud; Richard Montagu; Jackson; Mede; James Ussher; Bramhall; Sanderson; John Cosin; Hammond; Thorndike; Taylor; Heylin; Commissioners of 1662; Pearson; Barrow; Bull; Edward Stillingfleet; Ken; Beveridge; Patrick; Sharp; Potter; John Ernest Grabe; Thomas Brett; Hickes; Jeremy Collier; Leslie; Waterland; Bingham; Jebb; Van Mildert.
79
25 March 1837
On Purgatory (Against Romanism, No. III).
Newman
Ad Clerum.
80
[Undated]
On Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge, Parts I-III.
This tract was criticised by James Henry Monk.[30] Williams replied, taking the criticism to be hasty.[31]
81
1 November 1837
Catena Patrum. No. IV. Testimony of Writers in the later English Church to the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. with an historical account of the changes in the Liturgy as to the expression of that doctrine.
"...an attempted exposition of the “principles” governing patristic figurative exegesis of the Scriptures"[34] It was attacked by Samuel Roffey Maitland in A letter to a friend, on the Tract for the times, no. 89 (1841).[35]
Two other ambitious projects of the Oxford Movement as a whole were conceived and launched in the same period: the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology that gave extensive republication to the works of the Caroline Divines and others who were cited in the Tracts; and the Library of the Fathers. Isaac Williams with William John Copeland edited Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts for the Times, in ten volumes, appearing from 1839 to 1848.[31]
^The ideal of a Christian Church considered in comparison with existing practice, containing A defence of certain articles in the British critic, in reply to remarks on them in Mr. Palmer's Narrative (1844); online at archive.org.
