Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/90

82 essence of Christianity,—can we hesitate to say, that, if the Christian Church be drawing to its end, or if it continue to its end with no other objects than those which it has hitherto sought, it will end with its acknowledged resources confessedly undeveloped, its finest hopes of usefulness almost untried and unattempted. It will have been like an ungenial spring cut short in full view of the summer, a stately vessel wrecked within the very sight of the shore.

It may be that the age for creating new forms of the Christian faith is past and gone—that no new ecclesiastical boundaries will henceforth be laid down amongst men. It is certain that in the use of the old forms is our best chance for the present. Use them to the utmost—use them threadbare, if you will: long experience, the course of their history, their age and dignity, have made them far more elastic, far more available, than any that we can invent for ourselves. But do not give up the study of the history of the Church, either in disgust at what has been, or in despair at what may be. The history of the Christian Church, no less than of the Jewish, bears witness to its own incompleteness. The words which describe its thoughts constantly betray their deflection from the original ideas which they were meant to express,—"Church," "Gospel," "Catholic," "Evangelical,"—the very word "Ecclesiastical," as I noticed in first speaking of it, are now too often the mere shadows,