Newman himself called the Oxford University Sermons, first published in 1843, the best, not the most perfect, book I have done'. He added, I mean there is more to develop in it'. Indeed, the book is a precursor of all his major later works, including especially the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent. Dealing with the relationship of faith and reason, the fifteen sermons represent Newman's resolution of the conflict between heart and head that so troubled believers, non-believers, and agnostics of the nineteenth century, Their controversial nature also...

Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, volume VII in the Birmingham Oratory Millenium Edition, is a collection of six articles, which were written between 1835, after the publication of The Arians of the Fourth Century, and 1866, when, as a Roman Catholic, Newman contributed a review to the Jesuit periodical The Month. Two of these articles appeared as Tracts for the Times; two are a series of letters to a newspaper. The letters discuss the nature of scientific knowledge as a quasi-substitute for faith, and the nature of the balance between executive power and democratic constraints....