Newman: The Mainspring of the Oxford Movement

Abstract

The great Oxford Movement, the history of which is ever a subject of keenest interest and deepest study, resulted from a number of causes. According to the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, 1906, this famous Movement was the outgrowth of the conception that the "Holy Catholic Church is a visible body upon earth, bound together by a spiritual but absolute unity, though divided...into national and other sections. This conception drew with it the sense of ecclesiastical continuity, of the intimate and unbroken connection between the primitive Church and the Church of England, and of the importance of the Fathers as guides and teachers...It also tended to emphasize points of communion between those different branches of the Church, which recognizes the doctrine or fact of Apostolic Succession."