Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/33

I] struggles of internal dissolution? could it live through the shipwreck of the whole outward fabric of its existence? could the planks of the vessel, scattered on the face of the raging flood, be so put together again as to form any shelter from the storm, any home on the waters? Did the history of the Church come to an end, as many thought it would, when its ancient organization came to an end, in the great change of the Reformation?

We know that it still lived on. That it survived at all, is the best proof which it has yet presented of its inherent vitality; that it survived, in a purified form, is the best pledge of its future success. To Ancient Christianity, to Byzantine Christianity, to Roman Christianity, was now added the fourth and equally unmistakeable form of Protestant Christianity: like the others, clothed in an outward shape of its own, and confining itself specially to distinct branches of the European family, yet also penetrating with its spirit institutions and nations outwardly most repugnant to it. Amidst many conflicts, therefore, Ecclesiastical History still continues in the general tracks that were opened for it in the sixteenth century. Whatever political troubles have agitated the world since that time, and whatever changes may be fermenting in the inner heart and mind of the Church, none has since altered its outward aspect and divisions. But there is one wide difference between the history of Christendom as it was before and as it has been since