John Henry Newman’s Sermons, Bearing on Subjects of the Day gathers twenty-six sermons preached in his parish and published with an eye on the controversies of their moment. Longmans, Green, and Co. issued a new edition in 1891, with a preface by W. Copeland dated 1869 explaining the republication; the sermons themselves belong to Newman’s Anglican years, and several were revised from the manuscripts he actually preached. They follow the Church’s year—Septuagesima, Whitsuntide, saints’ days—while carrying an argumentative edge, since Newman intended them to be read against the circumstances that first called them forth.
The book’s controlling conviction is that the visible world and the revealed word routinely contradict each other, and that the Christian is bound to trust the word. God has hidden Himself beneath a servant’s form and sent the Holy Ghost as an invisible guide; until the shadows pass, the Church’s profession is to walk by faith, not by sight. From this root Newman draws nearly everything else in the volume: his reading of Scripture, his account of the sacraments, his defense of the Church’s order, and his warnings against judging religion by what experience seems to show.
How the Argument Moves Through the Christian Year
The Publisher’s Catalogue and the Preface
A publisher’s catalogue of Cardinal Newman’s works opens the volume, followed by the title page of Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day, dated 1891. The Preface, signed by W. Copeland at Kelham Rectory in November 1869, explains the republication. The Author had doubted whether “Plain” was well chosen for the Parochial and Plain Sermons, since the epithet did not fit some sermons contributed by him and others. The title Sermons on Subjects of the Day signals that these sermons should be read with reference to the occasion and circumstances of their first publication: they have an historical and controversial aspect, though they treat matters of deep and unfailing interest. The Advertisement and Notes are retained, as explained in Note C of the Author’s History of His Religious Opinions. Two indexes of dates follow, one in volume order and one chronological. Some sermons were re-written from the manuscript preached—Volume III, Sermon I was printed as preached on 19 July 1829, while Sermon II was not printed in 1836 as preached on 9 May 1830 but re-written. Up to 1845 the Author corrected editions carefully, and the variations recorded do not detract from but enhance the document’s value. In Volume II, Sermon II (St. Thomas’ Day) there is an addition, and in Sermon XXXI (St. Simon and St. Jude) an alteration. In Volume II, page 142, “miraculous” was substituted for “immaculate,” a mistake also found in a note on the Treatises of St. Athanasius. In this volume, page 28, “in His own words” was inserted to meet a criticism of Mr. Keble’s. The text Psalm civ. 23 stands at the head of both the first and last sermons—the text of the Author’s first sermon in 1841 and his last in 1843.
A dedication follows to William John Copeland, B.D., Fellow of Trinity, thanking him for his kindness. The Advertisement states that the sermons were all preached in the Author’s late Parish, with a few words added expressing private opinion. The Contents lists twenty-six sermons with texts and occasions, beginning with “The Work of the Christian” for Septuagesima on Psalm civ. 23.
The Work of the Christian
Sermon I argues that though God created in six days and rested, He rested only to begin another work. Christ says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” and “I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” Man goes forth to his work until evening, when he returns to God and his works follow him. The day’s Service presents this truth: Genesis shows God’s work as archetype; Adam, placed in Eden to dress and keep it, fell and became subject to heavier toil; God in mercy did not desert him; the Gospel’s householder hires labourers from morning till the eleventh hour, and in the last days sent His Son. St. Paul is the pattern of Gospel labourers—warfare, planting, ploughing, threshing—with woe if he preached not the Gospel, keeping under his body lest he become a castaway. The Service carries us from creation to judgment with the one thought of work. The lesson contrasts with Epiphany: having ended the season of grace, we come to work-days. Epiphany reminds of worship, Septuagesima of good works, Lent of self-denial. The lesson needs insisting on because men have arisen denying that the Gospel enjoins a work as well as confers a blessing; Christmas comes first, Septuagesima afterwards—grace before work, but work enjoined. The Law commanded but gave no power; the Gospel bestows power, fulfilling not destroying. All dispensations are one in the duty of work: Adam, Noah, Abraham, the chosen people, Christians. St. Paul establishes the law through faith; grace reigns through righteousness; we are God’s workmanship created unto good works; work out salvation with fear and trembling. An objection from the parable—the labourers called at the eleventh hour murmured—might suggest Christians have slight toil. But “the burden and heat of the day” means religion pressed heavily on the Jews because they were unequal to it, having a perfect law and an unregenerate heart. Christ redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse; we press toward the mark. The Christian is saved from toil not by removal of labour but by gift of strength; the original paradise is not restored; our duties are those of Adam fallen. Adam had no duties toward brutes, but St. Paul makes himself servant to all, becoming all things to all men; Adam had a helpmeet, but Paul reversed this ordinance, having power to lead about a sister, a wife, yet not using it. Adam’s task was light; Paul’s culture was severe—he kept under his body. Nor is our work shorter: we are called in the world’s evening, not our own—from infancy. The eleventh hour means the time is short, the last time, a present distress; the night cometh; the Lord is at hand. The Jews had a grant of this world; we may not set our hearts on things present. The evening is long and the day…
Feasts as the Turning Points of Christ’s Ministry
Christ deliberately chose festive occasions to mark the turning points of His ministry, and this is fitting because feasts are natural to human beings. The Last Supper offers the clearest case: Christ sent His disciples to prepare a large furnished upper room, then sat down with the twelve and said He had desired to eat this passover with them before He suffered, and would not eat of it again until it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God. At that feast He washed the disciples’ feet, gave the precept of humility, laid down brotherly love as the Church’s great note, and instituted His Sacrament. He closed His earthly ministry, parted from His disciples, and entered on His trial at a feast; having come “eating and drinking,” He kept this peculiarity to the end. Since similar observances have widely prevailed and He took human nature in its perfection, there must be deep principles at work: God’s gifts of wine, oil, and bread strengthen life, send the soul out of itself toward sympathy and fellowship, cannot be enjoyed in solitude, and are “of a sacramental nature,” intended to open hearts in love; hence abuse in riot or sensuality is a profanation, a sacrilege.
Farewells at feasts recur throughout Scripture. Laban expostulated with Jacob for stealing away secretly, wishing he might have sent him away with mirth, songs, tabret, and harp, and not been suffered to kiss his sons and daughters; Jacob sacrificed on the mount and called his brethren to eat bread, then Laban kissed his sons and daughters, blessed them, and departed. The Passover itself was instituted at a time of departure, eaten with loins girded, shoes on feet, staff in hand, in haste.
The Hidden Life of Prayer and the World’s Renewal
Newman begins with a claim that sounds almost too simple: raise the level of religion in your own heart, and you raise it in the world. Whoever sets up God’s kingdom within himself furthers it everywhere. He gathers his evidence from Scripture—the man whose prayers come before God as a memorial, the one who climbs the mountain with Christ to pray, Peter on the housetop, Mary the mother of Mark praying in company, Paul and Silas singing praises at midnight. All of them, by that hidden commerce with heaven, overcome the world. Elijah on Carmel is the great instance: he casts himself down, puts his face between his knees, sends his servant to look toward the sea seven times, and at his prayer a little cloud rises like a man’s hand, then covers the whole heaven and brings abundance of rain. Such examples are meant as encouragement. Serve God more strictly, pray for the influence that once converted the world, and He will answer beyond all hope—raising up saints and guides in a dreary age when sanctity and wisdom seem well nigh to have failed, drawing the scattered parts of the Church together, restoring peace and unity as at the first, and giving back the true and perfect faith once delivered to the saints.
The reward, though, is personal. It consists not in external privileges but in the water of life taken freely, and the Psalms and Isaiah are cited to show it. Newman sets the foreigner’s boast—the high mountain, the awful solitude, the sun-bright clime—against what Scripture singles out as choicest: the green meadow, the calm full stream, the bounteous rain, thick foliage, fruit in season; enough to dwell in peaceable habitations and quiet resting-places, fed in green pasture. Others may taste the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense; but who shall find, except at home, the rivers of water in a dry place? Be content with what supports life, take no thought for food or clothing, seek God’s kingdom, be without covetousness, content with such things as we have, nourished in words of faith and good doctrine, filled with the fruits of righteousness—not doubting that if we are otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto us.
Christian Nobleness
The sermon for Whitsuntide takes up Christ’s promise in John xiv: He is leaving, yet they shall see Him though the world sees Him not, because the Third Person of the Eternal Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, will come. His going and His coming again are both true, for the Spirit’s coming is really Christ’s coming; the interval is short—ten days. He goes on Holy Thursday and returns at Pentecost. Yet the Spirit’s office differs from Christ’s own gracious dealings in the days of His flesh, because the disciples’ wants were not the same. While He was with them there was no occasion to console them under affliction or stand by them in trial as their Paraclete, since trial and affliction did not visit them while He was present; the Holy Spirit especially came to give them joy in tribulation. He came, too, to teach fully what the Lord had but partly revealed. The Spirit’s consolation differs from Christ’s as encouragements given to children differ from those which soothe and stimulate grown men in arduous duties.
Other circumstances altered the Apostles’ feelings after their Lord had died and risen. There is no reason to suppose that while He was with them they grasped the awful truth that He is very God in our nature—”I am among you,” He said, “as He that serveth.” But at the resurrection He revealed the mystery; Thomas adored Him as “My Lord and my God,” and He forthwith withdrew Himself, not living in their sight as before, and soon ascending into heaven. After such a revelation the Apostles could not have returned to their easy converse with Him even had He offered it; what had been could not be again—their state of childhood, ere their eyes were opened and they knew Him. Of necessity, since they could not endure to see God and live, did He vanish out of their sight; and if according to His promise He was to come again, it must be after a new manner and with a higher consolation.
When the Spirit of Christ descended at the promised season, He bowed the heavens and came down, and it was dark under His feet. He came invisibly, and invisibly has He dwelt in the Church ever since. He does not manifest His glory to mortal sense; we do not hear the whisperings of His still small voice, nor do our hearts burn within us in token of His presence. We Christians know too much concerning Him to endure the open manifestation of His greatness; it is in mercy that He hides Himself from those who would be overcome by the sensible touch of the Almighty Hand. Still His visitation cannot but be awful to creatures who know what we know and are what we are. The very secrecy of His coming has its solemnity—fearful to wait for Him, appalling to receive Him, a burden to have held communion with Him. Though we rejoice, we cannot rejoice with the light hearts of children who live by sight, but with the thoughtful gladness of grown men who are anxious, feel difficulties, look out for dangers, who know both that the whole world lieth in wickedness and that the Son of God has come.
Elisha as a Figure of the Church
The next sermon reads Elisha as a type of Christ and of the Christian Church. Elisha enjoyed a special communion with the unseen world. Elijah felt solitary though he was not; the invisible world was hidden from him, as it was from John the Baptist asking, “Art Thou He that should come?” Elisha knew he was one of a great host fighting the Lord’s battles, and had the Communion of Saints revealed to him. His eyes were purged to see what the world cannot. When his servant cried out in fear at the Syrian host, Elisha answered, “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them,” and prayed God to open the young man’s eyes; he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. This corresponds to the Christian privilege of coming to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of Angels, the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator—greater than Elisha’s, but of the same kind.
Elisha and the Church received the gift of discerning spirits. Christ knew what was in man; Peter detected Ananias; Paul was in spirit at Corinth while absent in the flesh; the Catholic Church has an instinctive perception detecting heresy at a distance, according to St. John’s “anointing.” Elisha knew Gehazi had taken Naaman’s silver and raiment, revealed the king of Syria’s plans to the king of Israel, knew the messenger sent to kill him, wept seeing Hazael’s future evil to Israel, and said of the Shunammite, “the Lord hath hid it from me.”
The Christian Character Set Apart
Newman turns to the New Testament to show that it presents a definite and distinctive Christian character, unlike that of Jew or Pharisee, Sadducee or Herodian, Greek, Roman, or Samaritan—a likeness to Christ alone. He carefully distinguishes Christ, who ate and drank and lived in the world, from John the Baptist in his camel’s hair and locusts, from the Apostles as teachers of grace rather than repentance, and from ordinary Christians who are mostly hearers, many of them women. His method is historical: first to consider what primitive Christians were actually like, and only then to apply the pattern to the present.
The first mark of that character is being without worldly ties—living in the world but not for it. Paul’s “our conversation is in heaven” means heaven is the Christian’s city, with its own interests, rights, privileges, and duties; “we have no continuing city.” The Christian looks for the Saviour, not for gain, distinction, power, pleasure, or comfort. Hence watching becomes a special mark, urged in Matthew and Mark and repeated by Peter, and prayer another: Christians were continually in the temple, continued in prayer with the women, prayed at the third, sixth, and ninth hours. Cornelius, Peter on the house-top, Paul and Silas at midnight, and the kneeling prayer on the shore all testify to recurrent prayer morning, noon, and night as a discriminating point. No barrier stood between the primitive Christian’s soul and its Saviour; religion begins with the heart but does not end there.
Simplicity, Joy, and the Prayer of the Pilgrim
Christians were simple, innocent, grave, humble, patient, meek, and loving, without earthly advantages—of one heart and soul, holding all things common. Newman gathers Christ’s warnings about the days of Noah and Lot, the excuses of invited guests, the rich man in purple, the rich fool, “sell that ye have,” “how hardly shall they that have riches enter,” and Paul’s “the time is short.” Separation from the world appears in John’s “love not the world,” in Paul’s “be not conformed,” in crucifixion to the world, in forsaking houses and lands, in being hated of all men. Joy, too, belonged to them in all its forms—cheerful countenance, forgiveness, munificence, peace, thankfulness, hope. They rejoiced to be taken at their word, blessed with evil things now and consolation hereafter; Paul glories in tribulations, and the Beatitudes, the refusal to resist evil, the love of enemies, and Christ washing the disciples’ feet all belong to this picture. The Lord’s Prayer, with its seven petitions—three for God and four for the petitioners—is the Prayer of the Pilgrim.
Many are impatient of such subjects, saying times have changed. Newman grants the change but urges contemplation of the picture first, and acceptance of the pattern before asking about obligation. Has this model been fulfilled in every age? The humble monk, the holy nun, and the “regulars” perpetuate Biblical Christianity: they give up home, friends, wealth, ease, good name, and liberty of will; they meet insult, slander, suspicion, and cruelty, yet meet Christ everywhere as their portion. Such precepts do not directly apply to everyone—Ananias and Sapphira show this, their sin being a profession of voluntary renunciation they did not execute, keeping back part of the price. Peter’s “was it not thine own?” warns against affecting greater sanctity than one attempts, and proves that great surrenders are not incumbent on all; they could not be voluntary if duties, nor meritorious if not voluntary. Yet they may be duties to some, and one cannot learn until the mind is surrendered to contemplation; it may prove one’s duty to remain in secular life. Private judgment is urged in personal matters of choosing a life.
Wisdom and Innocence
The next sermon, “Wisdom and Innocence,” opens on the text of Matthew: sheep are defenceless, wolves strong and fierce. Christ was the great Exemplar—a sheep among wolves, dumb before shearers—and Paul applies “accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” The Church in its beginnings, and in every age in proportion to its purity, has been defenceless; the less worldly, the more exposed; peace and rest are future. Since pain is pleasant to no man, avoidance is sanctioned when possible without sin; Christians may use the arts of the defenceless—as weak animals have fleetness and colour and cunning, as unwarlike nations use negotiation and procrastination, as slaves and oppressed children grow wary. Christ forbade not self-defence but certain modes: not force, not returning blow for blow, not the second mile refused. Direct means are disallowed; foresight (“beware of men”), avoidance (“flee ye into another city”), and prudence (“wise as serpents”) are commanded. The serpent, more subtle than any beast, was chosen by the Enemy as tempter in Paradise, yet Christ chooses it as the pattern of wisdom—appealing to the bad arts by which the feeble gain advantages; the unjust steward was commended for doing wisely, and the children of this world are wiser in their generation.
The Inward Triumph of the Early Church
The spread of the early Church is described as a sudden, inward triumph: upon the preacher’s first voice or even a whisper, a deep harmony of many voices proclaimed Christ, for the Spirit of the Lord had filled the earth. It was a time of visitation when the weak became strong and the last first—the triumph of faith, which says the word is nigh, in the mouth and heart. As Nineveh and Babylon were surprised by the enemy’s army, so the world was surprised by Him who rode a white horse, called Faithful and True; as Egypt had a dead one in every house, this gracious visitation left not a house without one alive. God had come down and was everywhere, diffusing His Presence and multiplying His Image; thus “a man’s foes were those of his own household.” The despised influence insinuated itself everywhere; the leaven spread and none could stay it. In the most unfavourable places—the family of the haughty senator and fierce soldier, amid idolatry and slavery—the noblest and fairest, as well as the brutish and ignorant, became by a secret charm the prey of the Church and bondsmen of Christ, and a wide kingdom arose all at once, like spring after winter, from within.
Man is not sufficient for his own happiness without God’s Presence. God breathed into him supernatural life at creation; when he fell he lost the divine gift and his happiness, leaving a void he knows not how to fill. He scarcely realizes his need—only his actions show it, being restless unless dull and insensible, seeking the lost blessing. Multitudes never had their minds opened; multitudes stupify themselves till they lose natural hunger; but all men have the need, and the Gospel supplies it—even if they did not recognize the want by nature, they learn it by its supply. This is the secret of Christ’s Kingdom’s triumph.
The World as God’s Instrument, Not His Rival
Running beneath the sermons is a single distinction Newman returns to from several angles: the things of this world are valuable only insofar as God’s presence dwells in them, and otherwise they are dust. He grants the unbeliever’s point that Judaism borrowed circumcision from Egypt and that the Jewish monarchy can be described in wholly secular terms—but this, he says, misses the inward principle, the invisible agency that made Israel a polity aimed at God. The same holds for Christianity, which is a divine treasure in earthen vessels. The Law of Moses, once Christ came with recovered grace, became “weak and beggarly elements,” and St. Paul’s warning to the Galatians applies to every dead thing that tempts us now. The world is not directly sinful, but it “comes of evil,” holds of evil, and is infected by Adam’s fall; Satan is its god until men and institutions are brought into Christ’s kingdom and made subservient to it. This is why Newman can be so severe about the Church courting power and wealth: what she seeks she loses, and what she refuses comes to her unbidden.
The Character of the Church and the Christian
Newman reads Elisha as a figure of the Church—a man with citizenship in the unseen world, whose servant’s eyes were opened to the horses and chariots of fire, who discerned spirits, whose relics raised the dead, and who dealt with kings while claiming no earthly power. The type matters because Newman thinks his own age treats the Church as a merely worldly institution. The Christian Church, he argues, is a literal continuation of the Jewish: the New Testament gives no separate code because the Old Testament’s precepts remain, fulfilled rather than abolished—circumcision in baptism (hence infant baptism), the Passover in Communion, the threefold ministry of high priest, priest, and Levite in bishops, priests, and deacons. Against those who would reduce Christianity to philosophy or sentiment, he insists that religion as a social institution admits little variety, and that likeness to Jewish ordinances is no more an argument against Christian altars than likeness to pagan ones was against the Law of David’s time.
The Christian character itself is equally definite. Newman sketches it from the New Testament: a people without worldly ties whose conversation is in heaven, given to prayer at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, simple and grave and meek, holding all things common, and joyful—rejoicing to be taken at their word, blessed with evil things now and consolation hereafter. He knows the objection that times have changed, and answers that the pattern stands whether or not it is universally obligatory; the monk and the nun perpetuate it, and Ananias and Sapphira are his proof that the great surrenders are voluntary, not incumbent on all. The Church’s conquest, he adds, is by patience and suffering, not by force: Christ told Peter to put up his sword, and the kingdom rises by self-abasement, since “before honour is humility.”
Why the Sermons Still Press on the Reader
The volume closes with Newman’s most personal move. Asked for a reason for the hope within him, he answers that the evidence of religion is internal before it is external: a man’s real reason for clinging to his communion is what it has done for him, the conviction of a Divine Presence that has changed him over years, which he would count it almost blasphemy to attribute to natural causes. He cites Polycarp—”eighty and six years have I served Him, and He hath never wronged me”—and the Samaritans who believed because they had heard Christ themselves. The final sermons turn this inward test outward again: the Prophet on Carmel, content with his altar of twelve stones though the world scoffed, is the model for a Church in bondage, and the question of whether one may feast in captivity is answered by faith in the Church as God’s gift, a mantle from Him gone up on high. What Newman leaves the reader with is not a program but a posture—waiting, watching, and trusting the unseen word over the visible world—and it is this that gives the collection its continuing force for anyone who feels the gap between what the Church professes and what the world shows.
