"The grounds which Waterland lays down": the native High Church tradition against Newman and 'development'
To make a candid confession to you ... I did not open it without some uncomfortable apprehensions as to the formidable assault which a writer of such high repute would make upon the towers and bulwarks of the Jerusalem from which he had fallen away. You may believe my assurance that I have really studied the book, reading it piece by piece with attention many times over; striving to make myself master as well of the general argument as of the several details. And now what shall I say? .... considered as a justification of a man's desertion of the Church of England for the purpose of joining the Church of Rome, it is the most inconclusive and unsatisfactory performance that it ever fell to my lot to examine.
The sum and substance of his argument appears to be, that the dictum of Vincentius, if it admit the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, cannot exclude the doctrine of transubstantiation and the like; it cannot condemn Aquinas and protect St. Athanasius. It is on this point that I would come to issue with them. My consolation is in thinking, after a very careful and, I trust, impartial scrutiny, that upon the grounds of Scripture, reason, and antiquity, the grounds which Waterland lays down as his basis, we may embrace and hold fast those blessed truths which our venerated mother, the Church of England, has given us to confide in; and yet may upon the same principle reject the errors which a pseudo-catholic system strives to obtrude upon us, as really satisfying the criterion of Vincentius. For myself, I feel much more composure since reading Mr. Newman's book. It allays all my apprehension of his ability to say anything which can seriously embarrass the advocates of the Church; it awakens in me a strong hope that it will rectify the views of many who have allowed themselves to be warped by his influence and example.
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