GENERAL rill NCI PL EB 15 



reforming its abuses. They had no 

 thought of destroying Catholic unity. 

 Luther distinguished between Popery and 

 that true ancient Roman Church of the 

 early fathers, from which he never con- 

 sidered himself separated. MelanchthoD 

 even injured his fame by his efforts to 

 retain Lutheranism under the papacy and 

 in harmony with Calvinism. Calvin not 

 only claimed agreement with the true 

 ancient Church of Cluysostom and Basil, 

 of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine ; but 

 formulated a consensus of the reformed 

 churches ; and when Archbishop Cranmer 

 proposed a general council for defining 

 the principles of Church unity, declared he 

 would have crossed ten seas rather than 

 miss that Lambeth Conference. Moreover, 

 during the first century after the Reforma- 

 tion all the reformed churches, including 

 the Church of England, sat together in the 

 same synods, interchanged pulpits and pro- 

 fessors' chairs, and recognized the validity 

 of each others' ministry and sacraments. 

 It would seem inconsistent with historic 

 truth and good scholarship for their Ameri- 

 can descendants now to call any of these 

 branches of the Catholic Church " sects " or 



