John Henry Newman - Anglican Priest

Anglican Priest

On 13 June 1824, Newman was ordained as an Anglican deacon in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Ten days later he preached his first sermon in Holy Trinity at Over Worton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire when on a visit to his former teacher, the Reverend Walter Mayers, who had been curate there since 1823. On Trinity Sunday, 29 May 1825, he was ordained a priest in Christ Church. He became, at Pusey's suggestion, curate of St Clement's Church, Oxford. Here, for two years, he was engaged in parochial work, and wrote articles on Apollonius of Tyana, Cicero and Miracles for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.

Richard Whately and Edward Copleston, Provost of Oriel, were leaders in the group of Oriel Noetics, a group of independently thinking dons with a strong belief in free debate. In 1825, at Whately's request, Newman became vice-principal of St Alban Hall, but he only held this post for one year. He attributed much of his "mental improvement" and partial conquest of his shyness at this time to Whately. He assisted Whately in his popular work Elements of Logic (1826, initially for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana), and from him he gained a definite idea of the Christian Church as institution: "... a Divine appointment, and as a substantive body, independent of the State, and endowed with rights, prerogatives and powers of its own".

He broke with Whately in 1827 on the occasion of the re-election of Robert Peel as Member of Parliament for the university: Newman opposed Peel on personal grounds. In 1826 he returned as tutor of Oriel, and the same year Richard Hurrell Froude, described by Newman as "one of the acutest, cleverest and deepest men" he ever met, was elected fellow there. The two formed a high ideal of the tutorial office as clerical and pastoral rather than secular, which led to tensions in the college. In 1827 he was a preacher at Whitehall.