Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/73

papal than the Pope, more Roman than Rome,—on the other hand, more Lutheran than Luther, more Genevan than Calvin.

II. Importance of a general view of Ecclesiastical History.If this be the effect of the study of even isolated facts of Christian history, much more will it result from the study of the general phenomena which mark its course. There may be a tendency in special subjects of ecclesiastical study to cramp and narrow the mind, but there is none such in the more general view, which embraces its relations to the world at large, and which compels us to view the lay as well as the clerical element of the Church, the broad secular framework in which the whole Church itself is set.

It is always useful to see, as must be seen in any extensive survey, how large a portion of our ecclesiastical diversities is to be traced, not to religious causes, but to the more innocent, and in one sense irresistible, influences of nation, of climate, of race, of the general course of human affairs. The bitterness of English partizanship will be greatly diminished in proportion as we recognise the fact, that the divergence between the Church of England and Nonconformists springs from differences not so much of theological principle or opinion, as of social and hereditary position. The greater divisions of Christendom can be regarded 'calmly and kindly,' in proportion as we are able to take in, as from a summit, the whole view of which they form the intersecting lines. What seemed, near at hand, to