John Henry Cardinal Newman

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, reprinted from the 1878 edition, "is rightly regarded as one of the most seminal theological works ever to be written," states Ian Ker in his foreword to this sixth edition. "It remains," Ker continues, "the classic text for the theology of the development of doctrine, a branch of theology which has become especially important in the ecumenical era." John Henry Cardinal Newman begins the Essay by defining how true developments in doctrine occur. He then delivers a sweeping consideration of the growth of doctrine in the Catholic Church from the time of the Apostles to his own era. He demonstrates that the basic "rule" under which Christianity proceeded through the centuries is to be found in the principle of development, and he emphasizes that throughout the entire life of the Church this principle has been in effect and safeguards the faith from any corruption.

The Idea of a University illuminates St. John Henry Newman's timeless and accessible defense of a Catholic liberal education. St. John Henry Newman and his influence on theology, religion, and education continues to benefit us today. The Idea of a University, one of his pinnacle works, collects his lectures about the intertwined strength of the Catholic Church and the liberal university. Within these discourses, Newman lays out arguments for the essence of a Catholic University and the benefit to students and the world as a whole. He writes not for only Catholics but for all readers, appealing to truth and fact before expounding upon reason and examples. The Idea of a University is a vital part of the history of liberal education and offers a roadmap for the future as academia continues to change and develop.

These remarkable sermons by John Henry Newman (1801-1890) were first published at Oxford in 1843, two years before he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Published here in its entirety is the third edition of 1872 for which Newman added an additional sermon, bracketed notes, and, importantly, a comprehensive, condensed Preface. In her introduction, noted Newman scholar Mary Katherine Tillman considers the volume as an integral whole, showing how all of the sermons systematically relate to the central theme of the faith-reason relationship.

This classic of Christian apologetics seeks to persuade the skeptic that there are good reasons to believe in God even though it is impossible to understand the deity fully. First written over a century ago, the Grammar of Assent speaks as powerfully to us today as it did to its first readers. Because of the informal, non-technical character of Newman's work, it still retains its immediacy as an invaluable guide to the nature of religious belief. A new introduction by Nicholas Lash reviews the background of the Grammar, highlights its principal themes, and evaluates its philosophical originality.

This book has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Reproduction of the original: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman

Reproduction of the original: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman

A Defense of One's Own Life: Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry (Cardinal) Newman. Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Latin: A defence of one's own life) is John Henry Newman's defence of his religious opinions, published in 1864 in response to Charles Kingsley of the Church of England after Newman quit his position as the Anglican vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. Newman was already a recognised spiritual leader of over thirty year's standing, but not yet a Cardinal, when in 1864 he wrote the Apologia. He was London born, and he had, as many Londoners have had, a foreign strain in him. His father came of Dutch stock; his mother was a Fourdrinier, daughter of an old French Huguenot family settled in this country. The date of his birth, 21st of February 1801, relates him to many famous contemporaries, from Heine to Renan, from Carlyle to Pusey. Sent to school at Ealing-an imaginative seven-year-old schoolboy, he was described even then as being fond of books and seriously minded. It is certain he was deeply read in the English Bible, thanks to his mother's care, before he began Latin and Greek. Another lifelong influence-as we may be prepared to find by a signal reference in the following autobiography, was Sir Walter Scott; and in a later page he speaks of reading in bed Waverley and Guy Mannering when they first came out-"in the early summer mornings," and of his delight in hearing The Lay of the Last Minstrel read aloud. Like Ruskin, another nineteenth-century master of English prose, he was finely affected by these two powerful inductors. They worked alike upon his piety and his imagination which was its true servant, and they helped to foster his seemingly instinctive style and his feeling for the English tongue.

It may seem surprising to discover that a Catholic cardinal was a novelist, and Newman advanced this as an obstacle to his own canonization: "Saints are not literary men," he wrote, "they do not love the classics, they do not write Tales." He was only fit "to black the saints' shoes—if Saint Philip uses blacking, in heaven." The background to Loss and Gain was a controversial one. Newman wrote the book in part to provide a title for publication by James Burns, of the later celebrated firm of Burns and Oates, who had lost his stable of Anglican authors by converting in 1847 to Catholicism. An understanding of the novel requires some knowledge of its Oxford background, of the university setting, which was compared in the fierceness of its loyalties by Newman's friend Richard Church to a Renaissance Italian city, implying an assassin with a stiletto round every corner. In short, there is a sense in which, in spite of its fictional character, Loss and Gain is a work of controversy, full of echoes of old battles over whether the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer should be interpreted in a "Catholic" or a "Protestant" sense. It is a response, like Newman's other works, to a challenge, and so its hero, Charles Reding, as a student in Oxford, passes through the hands of the representatives of a number of Anglican parties and schools of theology before resolving his doubts in Rome.