Cranmer and the "via media"."Standing as he did in the developing Reformed tradition of Europe on the 1550's, Cranmer's conception of a 'middle way' or via media in religion was quite different from that of later Anglicanism. In the nineteenth century, when the word 'Anglicanism' first came into common use, John Henry Newman said of a middle way (before his departure for the Church of Rome) that 'a number of distinct notions are included in the notion of Protestantism; and as to all these all our Church has taken via media between it and Popery. Cranmer would violently have rejected such a notion: how: could one have a middle way between truth and Antichrist? The middle ground which he sought was the as Bucer's: an agreement between Winttenburg and Zurich which would provide a united vision of Christian doctrine against the counterfeit being refurbished at the Council of Trent. For him, Catholicism was to b found in the scattered church of the Reformation, and is was his aim to show forth their unity to prove their Catholicity."
Thomas Cranmer, Diarmaid MacCulloch, p. 617.
