turn out on trial, that the _Via Media_
was an idea without substance, a dialectical fiction, a mere theological
expedient for getting out of difficulties, unrecognised, and when put
forward, disowned? Would it turn out that the line of thought and
teaching which connected the modern with the ancient Church was but the
private and accidental opinion of Hooker and Andrewes and Bull and
Wilson, unauthorised in the English Church, uncongenial to its spirit,
if not contradictory to its formularies? It is only just to Mr. Newman
to say, that even after some of his friends were frightened, he long
continued to hope for the best; but undoubtedly, more and more, his
belief in the reality of the English Church was undergoing a very
severe, and as time went on, discouraging testing.

In this state of things he published the Tract No. 90. It was occasioned
by the common allegation, on the side of some of the advanced section of
the Tractarians, as well as on the side of their opponents, that the
Thirty-nine Articles were hopelessly irreconcilable with that Catholic
teaching which Mr. Newman had defended on the authority of our great
divines, but which both the parties above mentioned were ready to
identify with the teaching of the Roman Church. The Tract was intended,
by a rigorous examination of the language of the Articles, to traverse
this allegation. It sought to show that all that was clearly and
undoubtedly Catholic, this language left untouched:[92] that it was
doubtful whether even the formal definitions of the Council of Trent
were directly and intentionally contradicted; and that what were really
aimed at were the abuses and perversions of a great popular and
authorised system, tyrannical by the force of custom and the obstinate
refusal of any real reformation.

It is often urged (says the writer), and sometimes felt and granted,
that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with
the Catholic faith; or, at least, if persons do not go so far as to
feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to answer
it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to
rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how
groundless the objection is, and further, of approximating towards the
argumentative answer to it, of which most men have an implicit
apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real
difficulties to a Catholic Chri