l give them up to the
Roman Church or claim them for ourselves.... But if we do give them
up, we must give up the men who cherish them. We must consent either
to give up the men, or to admit their principles." With these
feelings I frankly admit, that, while I was working simply for the
sake of the Anglican Church, I did not at all mind, though I found
myself laying down principles in its defence, which went beyond that
particular defence which high-and-dry men thought perfection, and
though I ended in framing a sort of defence, which they might call a
revolution, while I thought it a restoration. Thus, for illustration,
I might discourse upon the "Communion of Saints" in such a manner,
(though I do not recollect doing so) as might lead the way towards
devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the saints on the one hand, and
towards prayers for the dead on the other. In a memorandum of the
year 1844 or 1845, I thus speak on this subject: "If the Church be
not defended on establishment grounds, it must be upon principles,
which go far beyond their immediate object. Sometimes I saw these
further results, sometimes not. Though I saw them, I sometimes did
not say that I saw them; so long as I thought they were inconsistent,
_not_ with our Church, but only with the existing opinions, I was not
unwilling to insinuate truths into our Church, which I thought had a
right to be there."

To so much I confess; but I do not confess, I simply deny that I ever
said anything which secretly bore against the Church of England,
knowing it myself, in order that others might unwarily accept it. It
was indeed one of my great difficulties and causes of reserve, as
time went on, that I at length recognised in principles which I had
honestly preached as if Anglican, conclusions favourable to the Roman
Church. Of course I did not like to confess this; and, when
interrogated, was in consequence in perplexity. The prime instance of
this was the appeal to Antiquity; St. Leo had overset, in my own
judgment, its force in the special argument for Anglicanism; yet I
was committed to Antiquity, together with the whole Anglican school;
what then was I to say, when acute minds urged this or that
application of it against the _Via Media_? it was impossible that, in
such circumstances, any answer could be given which was not
unsatisfactory, or any behaviour adopted which was not mysterious.
Again, sometimes in what I wrote I went just as far as I saw, and
could