Gladstone’s Via Media Theory of Development

Abstract

This essay examines an unpublished manuscript in which William Glad-stone mounts a rebuttal to John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Develop-ment of Christian Doctrine. Contrary to either the pure Protestant theory of development, which claims an invisible church whose membership (known only to God) is based upon an internal, individual, spiritual feel-ing, or the Roman Catholic theory (as promulgated by Newman), which claims a visible, apostolic, sacramental authority, Gladstone puts forth a solidly Anglican via media that attempts to moderate between these two theories.