istian Church, to which I gave my mind at the end of 1842. I had made
mention of it in the passage, which I quoted many pages back (vide p.
111), in "Home Thoughts Abroad," published in 1836; and even at an
earlier date I had introduced it into my History of the Arians in 1832;
nor had I ever lost sight of it in my speculations. And it is certainly
recognized in the Treatise of Vincent of Lerins, which has so often been
taken as the basis of Anglicanism. In 1843 I began to consider it
attentively; I made it the subject of my last University Sermon on
February 2; and the general view to which I came is stated thus in a
letter to a friend of the date of July 14, 1844;--it will be observed
that, now as before, my _issue_ is still Creed _versus_ Church:--

"The kind of considerations which weighs with me are such as the
following:--1. I am far more certain (according to the Fathers) that we
_are_ in a state of culpable separation, _than_ that developments do
_not_ exist under the Gospel, and that the Roman developments are not
the true ones. 2. I am far more certain, that _our_ (modern) doctrines
are wrong, _than_ that the _Roman_ (modern) doctrines are wrong. 3.
Granting that the Roman (special) doctrines are not found drawn out in
the early Church, yet I think there is sufficient trace of them in it,
to recommend and prove them, _on the hypothesis_ of the Church having a
divine guidance, though not sufficient to prove them by itself. So that
the question simply turns on the nature of the promise of the Spirit,
made to the Church. 4. The proof of the Roman (modern) doctrine is as
strong (or stronger) in Antiquity, as that of certain doctrines which
both we and Romans hold: e.g. there is more of evidence in Antiquity for
the necessity of Unity, than for the Apostolical Succession; for the
Supremacy of the See of Rome, than for the Presence in the Eucharist;
for the practice of Invocation, than for certain books in the present
Canon of Scripture, &c. &c. 5. The analogy of the Old Testament, and
also of the New, leads to the acknowledgment of doctrinal developments."

4. And thus I was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the
principle of development not only accounted for certain facts, but was
in itself a remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to
the whole course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first
years of the Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that
teaching a