777 £ SIX OF SCHISM 73 



tionalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists. 



We liave a sharp sense of denomination, 

 but almost no sense of church. 



The ordinary denominationalist now has 

 no feeling for the old Catholic Church. 

 Usually he hates and despises it. He re- 

 members that it bred Leo X., but forgets 

 that it raised up Luther, Calvin, and Knox. 

 I know of no sadder mistaking of history 

 than that involved in current Protestant 

 notions of what the Church was and was 

 doing in the years before Luther. Doubt- 

 less very grave evils prevailed then, more 

 in church administration than in the lives 

 of Christian people, and far more in con- 

 nection with the Papal See than in church 

 administration at large. Yet, with all its 

 errors, that old Church was God's Church, 

 and the net influence of it was not evil, 

 but gloriously good. Its doctrines were 

 in the main biblical and reasonable. It 

 taught the unity of God, the person and 

 work of Christ, the power of the atone- 

 ment, man's guilt and man's hope. These 

 truths were not only held creedwise ; they 

 were preached, by earnest men and with 

 saving effect. The Reformation brought 

 to the parts of Christendom which it 



