unhesitatingly accept the doctrine which has been decided, and make it known to their people in its true and proper bearings, without reserve, and in such a manner that the injurious effects which they themselves apprehended may be as much as possible obviated and removed; for it is not permitted to the Bishop, as the divinely-appointed teacher of the clergy and people, to be silent about or to withhold a doctrine of the Faith revealed by God, because he apprehends or thinks that some may take offence at it. Nay, rather it is his business so prudently to bring it about in the declaration of that doctrine, that its true sense and import may hereafter be clearly represented, all erroneous misrepresentations of it be excluded, the reasons for the decision of the doctrine brought out plainly, and all objections to it zealously met and answered."[1]
No one gave greater weight to the obvious difficulties which the methods employed at Rome had created for the Decree, no one formulated them with more simplicity and frankness than Dr Newman. His letters showed how he laboured to suggest plausible grounds for assent to the new Decree, while leaving the ecumenical character of the Council for future solution. And, remembering that these letters were addressed to the believers and not to the outer world, nothing can show more strikingly than the arguments which Dr Newman employs, the profound perplexity into which many Romanists were thrown.
In a letter[2] written six days after the Decree was passed he says:—
