man
corruptions; and I could not defend our separation from Rome without
using arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines concerning our
Lord, which are the very foundation of the Christian religion. The
_Via Media_ was an impossible idea; it was what I had called
"standing on one leg;" and it was necessary, if my old issue of the
controversy was to be retained, to go further either one way or the
other.

Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took another. I
deliberately quitted the old Anglican ground as untenable; but I did
not do so all at once, but as I became more and more convinced of
the state of the case. The Jerusalem bishopric was the ultimate
condemnation of the old theory of the _Via Media_; from that time the
Anglican Church was, in my mind, either not a normal portion of that
One Church to which the promises were made, or at least in an
abnormal state, and from that time I said boldly, as I did in my
Protest, and as indeed I had even intimated in my letter to the
Bishop of Oxford, that the Church in which I found myself had no
claim on me, except on condition of its being a portion of the One
Catholic Communion, and that that condition must ever be borne in
mind as a practical matter, and had to be distinctly proved. All
this was not inconsistent with my saying that, at this time, I had
no thought of leaving that Church because I felt some of my old
objections against Rome as strongly as ever. I had no right, I had no
leave, to act against my conscience. That was a higher rule than any
argument about the notes of the Church.

Under these circumstances I turned for protection to the note of
sanctity, with a view of showing that we had at least one of the
necessary notes, as fully as the Church of Rome; or, at least,
without entering into comparisons, that we had it in such a
sufficient sense as to reconcile us to our position, and to supply
full evidence, and a clear direction, on the point of practical duty.
We had the note of life,--not any sort of life, not such only as can
come of nature, but a supernatural Christian life, which could only
come directly from above. In my article in the _British Critic_, to
which I have so often referred, in January, 1840 (before the time of
Tract 90), I said of the Anglican Church that "she has the note of
possession, the note of freedom from party titles, the note of
life,--a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient descent, unbroken
continuance, agree