hurches of Italy, France,
and Spain, and reverenced those ceremonies and particular points which
were Apostolic. Excepting then such exceptional matters, as are implied
in this avowal, whether they were many or few, all these Churches were
evidently to be considered as one with the Anglican. The Catholic Church
in all lands had been one from the first for many centuries; then,
various portions had followed their own way to the injury, but not to
the destruction, whether of truth or of charity. These portions or
branches were mainly three:--the Greek, Latin, and Anglican. Each of
these inherited the early undivided Church _in solido_ as its own
possession. Each branch was identical with that early undivided Church,
and in the unity of that Church it had unity with the other branches.
The three branches agreed together in _all but_ their later accidental
errors. Some branches had retained in detail portions of Apostolical
truth and usage, which the others had not; and these portions might be
and should be appropriated again by the others which had let them slip.
Thus, the middle age belonged to the Anglican Church, and much more did
the middle age of England. The Church of the 12th century was the Church
of the 19th. Dr. Howley sat in the seat of St. Thomas the Martyr; Oxford
was a medieval University. Saving our engagements to Prayer Book and
Articles, we might breathe and live and act and speak, as in the
atmosphere and climate of Henry III.'s day, or the Confessor's, or of
Alfred's. And we ought to be indulgent to all that Rome taught now, as
to what Rome taught then, saving our protest. We might boldly welcome,
even what we did not ourselves think right to adopt. And, when we were
obliged on the contrary boldly to denounce, we should do so with pain,
not with exultation. By very reason of our protest, which we had made,
and made _ex animo_, we could agree to differ. What the members of the
Bible Society did on the basis of Scripture, we could do on the basis of
the Church; Trinitarian and Unitarian were further apart than Roman and
Anglican. Thus we had a real wish to co-operate with Rome in all lawful
things, if she would let us, and if the rules of our own Church let us;
and we thought there was no better way towards the restoration of
doctrinal purity and unity. And we thought that Rome was not committed
by her formal decrees to all that she actually taught: and again, if her
disputants had been unfair to us, or her