it would
one day be fulfilled. Even if the _Via Media_ were ever so positive a
religious system, it was not as yet objective and real; it had no
original anywhere of which it was the representative. It was at
present a paper religion. This I confess in my Introduction; I say,
"Protestantism and Popery are real religions ... but the _Via Media_,
viewed as an integral system, has scarcely had existence except on
paper." I grant the objection and proceed to lessen it. There I
say, "It still remains to be tried, whether what is called
Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler,
and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained
on a large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere modification or
transition-state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism." I
trusted that some day it would prove to be a substantive religion.

Lest I should be misunderstood, let me observe that this hesitation
about the validity of the theory of the _Via Media_ implied no doubt
of the three fundamental points on which it was based, as I have
described above, dogma, the sacramental system, and opposition to the
Church of Rome.

Other investigations which followed gave a still more tentative
character to what I wrote or got written. The basis of the _Via
Media_, consisting of the three elementary points, which I have just
mentioned, was clear enough; but, not only had the house to be built
upon them, but it had also to be furnished, and it is not wonderful
if both I and others erred in detail in determining what that
furniture should be, what was consistent with the style of building,
and what was in itself desirable. I will explain what I mean.

I had brought out in the "Prophetical Office" in what the Roman and
the Anglican systems differed from each other, but less distinctly in
what they agreed. I had indeed enumerated the Fundamentals, common to
both, in the following passage:--"In both systems the same Creeds are
acknowledged. Besides other points in common we both hold, that
certain doctrines are necessary to be believed for salvation; we both
believe in the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement;
in original sin; in the necessity of regeneration; in the
supernatural grace of the Sacraments; in the apostolical succession;
in the obligation of faith and obedience, and in the eternity of
future punishment" (Pp. 55, 56). So much I had said, but I had not
said enough. This enumerati